The Best Low-Impact Sports and Exercises for Senior Citizens

Everybody knows that maintaining an active lifestyle is essential for long-term health. While each body is different, practically every person benefits from a combination of aerobic activity, cardio exercise and strength training. While this regimen can be relatively easy to maintain in younger years, age slowly makes some activities more difficult than others.

Senior citizens in particular may face big obstacles in the fight to remain active. From physical injuries to a variety of health-related ailments, finding activities that provide value yet are within the bounds of ability can be challenging.

Today, we’ll look at the best low-impact sports activities for senior citizens and explain how each can help keep seniors in shape and loving life.

Golf

Countless thousands have found their love of golf in their golden years – and there’s a good reason why. Golf is one of the most athletic low-impact sports that senior citizens can enjoy, combining multiple aspects of exercise into one game.

From walking from hole to hole, to driving with putter discs, there are plenty of relatively low-impact and easy-to-do exercise elements in every round. Take a look at At the Tee, which showcases just how friendly golf is to seniors: unlike many other sports that require extreme exertion, the most active golf poses involve no jumping, no running, no diving and no major risk of injuries.

Badminton

Anybody who loves tennis knows that as you age, playing can become more difficult. Thankfully, seniors who love tennis – or who just want to try a new sport – have an option in the form of badminton.

Not only can this be a fun sport for seniors, but it’s a great form of exercise in terms of burning calories: expect to shed anywhere from 300-400 calories per hour of play time. This sport can help hone your reflexes and ultimately improve both balance and movement for those with limited mobility at present.

Powerwalking

There’s a reason you might see hordes of older people walking frantically around malls and parks: it’s a good form of exercise! Power-walking is a great form of cardio for those 65 and older, helping seniors to remain active in ways that don’t involve expensive equipment, gym memberships or the best physical conditions.

Power-walking will help keep joints limber and burns plenty of calories at the same time. As such, those who want to find reasons to be physically active while enjoying the sights and sounds of their local surroundings naturally gravitate to power-walking.

Swimming

Arguably the most low-impact sport of all, swimming can be a godsend for those with difficult mobility issues such as arthritis, obesity and other ailments that come with age. Without the full effects of gravity pushing on every joint of the body, swimmers can exert themselves without fear of falling, breaking or otherwise damaging their bodies.

It should come as no surprise that swimming often features prominently in various forms of physical therapy, due to its low-impact nature.

These four sports and/or physical activities present minimal risk to senior citizens in terms of injury, but plenty of benefits. Being active and mobile in your later years is essential to longevity: these activities will not only help with that, but will also provide an outlet for fun at the same time.