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Seated Exercise Sessions

What is seated exercise?

It is gentle movement to music which gives stimulation. This allows the body to maintain a level of fitness by repeating movement patterns whilst giving a slight increase in body temperature.

Why is it important?

To maintain fitness: All the coordination that we take for granted slowly declines as we age. The memory factor is vital to hold the system together giving movement patterns. Repeating movement patterns gives maintenance of fitness. Walking, running, bending, stretching, lifting, carrying, all help maintenance of fitness.

As we age the muscles of our body generally are not asked to work as hard or as often. Manual labour is no longer part of household work and the labour saving machines that we all take for granted have replaced the strength building exercises of the past.

Our descendants had coal to carry, carpets to beat and washing to mangle. They also walked to work and ate healthy home grown vegetables.

What do we do to maintain and build up muscles?

By attending a seated exercise session the body’s fitness can be maintained through:

• Flexibility - how to maintain the range of movement in the joints of the body, mobility of joints
• Muscular endurance - means the number of repetitions of a movement can increase endurance on a muscle so that you can increase the length of time spent on an activity i.e. walking
• Strength - how to build up a muscle giving more lifting power

Important factors that assist fitness are:

• Balance-bone loading
• Memory-reinforcing memory pattern
• Core strength- keep strength in trunk
• Mobility-exercises in a circular motion

Tools

Clients have found increased mobility resulting in increased confidence with other activities with every day activities. This can range from brushing hair to carrying shopping.

It takes about 6 weeks to gain muscle tone and 3 weeks to lose it so it is very important to maintain the exercises.

As people progress and are familiar with the exercise patterns then the introduction of tools can help increase the difficulty of muscular action. The introduction of small foam and spiky spheres can help strengthen muscle tone and help with circulation to extremities. Certain health conditions which have a problem maintaining circulation such as diabetes can benefit from exercises with spiky spheres for the upper and lower extremities. Regular patterns accompanied with instruction to music will help increase blood flow to tissue of hands and feet and strengthen muscular action.

Relaxation and cool down

At the end of every session it is important to have a cool down after working out the muscles. One way to do this is through relaxation.

A relaxation session aims:

• As a preventative measure: to protect the body from unnecessary wear and tear and in particular the organs involved in stress related disease.
• As a treatment to help relieve stress in conditions such as hypertension, tension headache, insomnia, asthma, immune deficiency+ panic. Relaxation strategies may help to make the bodies innate healing mechanisms more available.
• As a coping skill: to calm the mind and allow thinking to become clearer and more effective. Stress can impair people mentally. Relaxation can help to restore clarity of thought. It has been found that positive information in memory becomes more accessible when a person is relaxed.

How relaxation works

The basis of relaxation techniques is that they encourage the Benson "relaxation response."

This is the state of relaxation that occurs when you are at rest. It is a learned skill to counteract muscle tension and control your breathing. This will enable you to automatically switch on a relaxation response.

Progressive muscle relaxation

Teaching the muscles to relax has effects on subtler systems of the body. By taking control and by switching on the relaxation response it allows:

• Breathing to become slower and deeper
• Encouraging oxygen into our bodies to nourish cells and tissues
• Heart rate to slow down
• Activity in Stomach to speed up allowing food to be properly digested and absorbed
• Flow of blood to the skeletal muscles is reduced allowing release of tension

Turning on the bodily symptoms of relaxation can enable you to switch off the symptoms of stress.

Relaxation is beneficial to people with a wide range of needs, most obviously with people suffering stress and tension.

Relaxation works by enabling people to remain physically and mentally detached in stressful circumstances. For some people this is not enough and needs to be combined with other skills or treatment: Homeopathic treatment can be helpful for stress and anxiety.

Discover more on our stress, anxiety and depression information page.

Physical tension often shows itself in the way that we breathe:

Physical tension often shows itself in the way that we breathe:

• Shallow breathing
• Panting
• Gasping
• Rigid chest
• Raising shoulders
• Uneven breath
• Hyperventilation

Principles of relaxed breathing

Slow-deep-even-easy inhaling through the nose and exhaling from the mouth.

This utilises the whole of the lungs whilst taking a complete breath.

This technique of breathing deeply when used in stressful situations can prevent the activation of fight or flight.

Duration of Session

Each session including relaxation lasts between 30 to 45 minutes. Sessions can be for groups or individuals. Prices are available on request.

Qualification

I gained a Certificate in Seated Exercises from West Lothian College and hold exercise and relaxation sessions for people with all kinds of health conditions.

Location of Sessions

South side of Edinburgh or within Midlothian

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