Senior fitness instructor Lois Schenker (Photo by Cynthia Robertson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAbout a year later, she became fully certified with the American Council on Exercise as both a group fitness instructor and personal trainer.<\/p>\n
When Schenker and her husband moved to San Diego in the mid-90s, she looked for work teaching exercise classes. The insurance company Secure Horizons hired Schenker to teach \u201cSeniorfit\u201d at various 24Hour Fitness facilities throughout San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey figured their members would spend less time in the doctors’ office if they got involved with a regular exercise program,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Schenker and her 24Hour Fitness class in Mission Valley have been going strong ever since. The class has about 40 members, ranging in age from mid-50s to 90s. Just this past year, the name of the class changed to Silver Sneakers, a new program under the Healthways Insurance plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think many people would be shocked to see some of the seniors in my class who are in their 80s and 90s and are in better physical shape than those in their 20s who don’t exercise,\u201d Schenker said. \u201cThey are also young at heart, dating, going to parties and traveling all over the world. They act as role models to the younger ones who come to class and see that age is just a number.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her Silver Sneakers class, one of the regular members is Grace, who is 91 years of age.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call her \u2018Amazing Grace.\u2019 She gets to the gym at 9 a.m. to work out on the machines. After three hours of that, she takes a little lunch break and then attends my 1 p.m. class,\u201d Schenker said.<\/p>\n
The popular notion just a decade or two ago was that seniors could not attempt an exercise class unless they had been a jock or a dancer. They thought if they had any aches and pains, they were better off resting as much as they could, Schenker explained.<\/p>\n
Research and scientific studies have repeatedly proven the benefit of exercise for older adults. Some of the benefits include lowered blood pressure and resting heart rate, increased muscles mass, stronger bones, more flexibility, better balance, relief from depression and better cognitive skills, Schenker said.<\/p>\n
Bonnie Bekken, 72, joined 24Hour Fitness after retiring. She wanted to maintain an exercise program, one that her husband would join in with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood fortune led us to Lois’s class,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Diagnosed with an arthritic condition, so-called “trigger finger,” her doctor had said either surgery or cortisone would help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI rejected both. Coincidentally, Lois [Schenker] began including new hand exercises that completely cleared the condition,\u201d Bekken said.<\/p>\n
Her husband Larry Bekken, 78, was a high school track star in his Wisconsin hometown, but he had not exercised for many years before finding Lois’s class about seven years ago.<\/p>\n
“What I most appreciate about Lois’s class is the aerobics, her uninterrupted and steady pace, the good cardiovascular exercise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One more benefit that Bekken pointed out was a given in Schenker\u2019s Silver Sneakers class. \u201cWe have made forever friends,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Breathe in, breathe out, Schenker reminds her students in class. She takes her own advice. At the end of a long day teaching, she likes to take a walk at sunset, watching the way the clouds and light change.<\/p>\n
\u201cExercise is good for the mind, too. It relieves stress,\u201d she said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Cynthia Robertson | SDUN Reporter When Lois Schenker, a Hillcrest resident, used to teach dance to young children and teens in Palm Springs, the only example she had of an elderly person keeping in shape was TV fitness guru Jack LaLanne.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":749,"featured_media":246907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Exercise teacher going strong with senior fitness","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/749"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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