YMCA programs help seniors get moving again

Sixty gray folding chairs fill the Mayflower retirement community’s ballroom, an elastic rubberized workout band at the foot of each one.

Residents file in one-by-one, parking their walkers in a perfect row down one wall, differing size pill bottles, accompanying canes or decorative beads lining the baskets differentiating each one.

They walk, no longer hunched over their wheeled walkers, to take their seats in the ever-crowding room. Spines straight up in the chairs, they wait as Crosby YMCA’s trainer, Bethany Mikesell, takes the stage. Everyone in place, with the press of play on the CD boom box, Thursday’s 10 a.m. chair exercise is underway.

“Hit the Road Jack” begins as the class of seniors, participants on any day ranging in from age 80 to 101, stomp their feet rhythmically to the beat. Bethany has carefully crafted the choreography to match the music and the needs of those in the class.

“Make sure you’re moving from your hips, not your knees,” she instructs mid-song.

“Left foot out and in, out and in,” she continues as her audience mimes along in movements, and mouths echo the lyrics as the song “Que Sera Sera” fills the room.

Learn more about the Mayflower at themayflower.com. For more information about fitness programs offered by the Crosby YMCA, visit ymcacentralflorida.com/y-locations/crosby-center

“What will be, will be,” they sing together on cue.

It’s a well-oiled program designed to work the group’s well-worn joints designed by Mikesell through the Crosby YMCA’s partnership with the Mayflower to bring daily fitness programming to keep residents up and active. In the seven months since she started, the program has changed, but subtly.

“I’m always teaching them new things, but I keep the old things around to help them with that long-term memory,” Mikesell said. “… I’m working your body and your mind.”

From chair classes to water aerobics and abs classes, she provides different programming each day at the Mayflower – a service that Mayflower activities coordinator Betty Nelson says has been invaluable to her residents.

“That is such an important part of their lives, the exercise,” Nelson said. “… The Y has helped us to bring up the quality of life for our residents.”

From class-goers no longer needing walkers, to shedding inches from their waists, Mikesell said she loves bonding and sharing success stories amongst the residents.

“It’s gotten to where you’ll know when someone has a new boyfriend or girlfriend because they’ll start coming to the abs class,” Mikesell said with a smile, lowering her voice so lingering class-goers can’t hear.

Resident Mary Varty said she’s seen improvement in both her waistline and the attitudes of her neighbors since the classes began.

“[The classes] are really wonderful, because in a retirement home there’s a lot of people here that just sit,” Varty said. “This gets us up and moving.”

Marion McKay, a 15-year Mayflower resident, attends a different one of the 18 classes Bethany teaches at the Mayflower everyday.

“I look forward to coming every day,” McKay said. “We’re not always doing the same thing … We get to use our brains along with our limbs.”

A favorite class of McKay’s to take, and Mikesell to teach, happens just outside the Mayflower’s ballroom in the community pool. In the water, Mikesell said, years of aching joints and poor posture melt away.

“They have that freedom of motion that they don’t have on land because of gravity,” she said. “They can even jog in the water, and we work on balance and flexibility … For those 20 minutes they’re able to be totally free of that walker.”

As her Thursday chair fitness class continues, on the floor beside the ballroom’s stage is a blue and white cooler, closed with electrical cords coming out the sides.

“We know she’s here when the cooler’s here,” says a resident in the class, spurring nods and laugher from about the room.

It’s filled with towels wrapped around electric-charged heating pads, a special touch Mikesell has concocted for chilly days when her students get out of the heated pool after water workouts.

“She makes us feel special,” Varty said. “I love that, I hate the word elderly. I don’t feel that way.”

“Seasoned” Mikesell suggests as a replacement adjective for “elderly” to describe her students. Varty approves, laughing as she leans over her walker after class.

Nelson said those special touches, and the fitness benefits provided through Mikesell and the Mayflower’s partnership has been a win-win for both sides since the beginning.

“All these little things add to it, it show’s ‘Hey, you guys are special,’ and that’s how we want out residents to feel,” she said. “And that’s what Bethany helps us do.”