Brain Health

The Vintage Fitness in home personal training team specializes in energizing the lives of people over 50 understand and empathize with clients who are scared or unmotivated to start to exercise. We work slowly focusing on a goal that is important to the client. Vintage Fitness is a team of personal trainers who work across the GTA including Mississauga, Oakville, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, Ajax, Oshawa, Pickering and Downtown.

This is the fifth week of a ten-week blog series filled with exercise pictures and videos. The focus this week is on brain health. According to a study done by the Department of Exercise Science at the University of Georgia, even briefly exercising for 20 minutes facilitates information processing and memory functions. (brainhq.com). Cardiovascular exercise, doing exercises that move opposite sides of the body (eg left leg and right arm) as well as cross lateral movements are especially good f

Three Vintage Fitness personal trainers, myself (Erin), Wendy and Dee spent the day last Tuesday at the Sheridan Elder Research Centre in Oakville taking pictures of the top 45 exercises that we use with our personal training clients everyday. We had a lot of fun and learned many new exercises and tips from each other. I will share many of the photos and videos in the next couple of months in this blog. One exercise that was new to me is called Dead Bug.

I would like to thank Home Instead Senior Care in Oakville for sponsoring me to give a workshop this afternoon all about keeping your brain healthy as you age. Recent scientific research studies show the strong link between exercise and preventing cognitive decline as well as the importance of having strong social connections and experiences.

Yoga has endless benefits as described by Kristy Manuel of YogaFit including increasing your feeling of wellness, positive attitude, energy levels, memory attention, concentration, self-acceptance, flexibility and strength.

Not only can keeping fit give you a longer life expectancy, reduce your chances of heart disease and help make you look better, it can also help ease the symptoms of mental disorders, such as depression, and can even help prevent it happening in the first place.

I recently attended a fitness conference in Toronto called Can Fit Pro. One of the lectures that I attended with a professor, Terry Eckmann, called Brain Boosters. She gave lots of great practical information about ways to keep our brains healthy and active as we age. I imagine that for many of you understand the importance of staying active, doing cardiovascular activity and starting your day with a healthy breakfast but did you know that:

In the McMaster University alumni magazine, network, they have a good summary about a scientific conference held at the University called Use it or Lose it- Secrets of a Healthy Brain. The tips offered by their experts are:

We never think of relaxation and exercise as linked but new research from the Harvard Medical School proves that they are. Experience with our Toronto based personal training clients shows that increasing exercise levels makes people feel more energized, less stressed and sleep better. Harvard Medical School explains there are several explanations for these benefits, some chemical, others behavioural.

The latest research suggests that improvements in cognitive function could be as or more important than the physical benefits you get from exercise. Harvard Medical School showed that moderate intensity aerobic exercise improves reaction time, planning skills, scheduling, working memory and focus.

The experts at the Franklin Institute suggest that the best way to keep your brain healthy us by interacting with your environment in new and interesting ways and physical exercise. The brain has an amazing ability to adapt and rewire itself growing neurons even in older people.