Too Old-Too Female-Too Late: Busting Fitness Myths after 60

Over the past month or so, I've been spreading mulch in my flower and garden beds. It is heavy, messy work and I love it because at the end everything looks so good. And it also makes me feel strong.

But this work has really bothered my mother. She thinks I'm working too hard. She thinks the bags are too heavy for me to manage at my age.

She thinks I should be getting more help from my boyfriend. The truth is, when I ask him for help, he's happy to help.

And as you know, I am a fairly independent person and I have done this type of work by myself for years. And I like that I can still do it. And somehow working in the yard feels different than working out.

I try to, I probably should say, squeeze in 15 to 20 minutes of yoga or Pilates several days a week here at home. But since mom has moved in, my walks almost disappeared and I struggle to prioritize dedicated fitness time. The truth is, I've never been an athlete.

I have never been good at running.

Even as a kid, I couldn't catch my breath when we try and do the, what was it, the 600 yard run walk kind of thing, or I would fall, I would fall off my bike. I always had skin knees. So my beliefs in myself as someone who exercises, not always been great.

But is my belief in my lack of physical ability really what holds me back? Or is there more to it? Welcome to Boomer Banter, where we have real talk about aging. Well, my name is Wendy Greene and I am your host.

Today I'm talking with Laura Dow, a fitness professional who spent over 20 years helping older adults, especially women, reclaim their strength and independence.

Laura entered the fitness industry at age 44, became a first time fitness manager at 58 and she created a fitness business at 60 and published her first book at 64. She's our type of person, right? She's acutely aware of how society views older adults, but particularly older females.

And Laura has some really strong opinions about the ageist and sexist beliefs that keep us from taking care of ourselves physically. So let's welcome Laura to Boomer Banter. Hello, Laura.

Hi, Wendy. Thanks so much for having me on your show.

Well, I am looking forward to this conversation because I think it's going to help me and it's going to help a lot of the listeners. So I want to just dive right in.

And what I want to start with is when you heard my mom's reaction to me doing the yard work, did that surprise you at all, given that.

Your mom is a different generation than we are. No, it didn't surprise me, although it was. It saddens me. It actually puts my heart a little bit.

I don't want to make any assumptions about your mom and the. What she grew up with and how women were handled in her time, although we can, we can make some, we can make some assumptions about that.

Sure.

Individual. So we'll just stick with that. I enjoyed your vignette.

I think it's pretty typical of how women look at, especially as we're aging, look at the things that give us place pleasure physically and that other people say, oh, you shouldn't be doing that at your age.

Right.

At your age is already an ageist comment.

And it makes sense if your mom was never encouraged to do physical things, that she would be concerned about her daughter hurting herself doing physical things. I mean, so there's a care and a kindness that's involved in that comment, even though it's. It's kind of hitting me a little sideways.

I love that you enjoy physical activity outside.

There's so many benefits to that, not just the physical aspect of it, but the mental health aspect of it, of being outside, creating something that gives you pleasure after the fact, enjoying the journey of creating that as you're doing it.

And it's okay that Pilates and the other parts of your fitness program get fit, fitted in to something that gives you more pleasure, which is being outside gardening.

Oh, good. Which works great during this time of year, you know, and then in the winter time, it's not so bright because there's not so much outside work.

But, but, you know, we.

You mentioned the ageism from the older generation and that, you know, they were taught that women were to be taken care of or women are more frail or whatever it is that they were taught. But women in our generation also internalize ageism.

You know, they tell themselves, and I hear it all the time when I'm coaching people, well, you know, I'm too old to try that or, you know, I don't think I could do that. So where do you think the ageism, the internalized ageism came from for our generation?

Well, I think it's in society, just in general.

And I also think in our country, older adults are not viewed as kindly in terms of what they have to offer to society. If you look at other societies, particularly Asian societies, where, you know, the elders are viewed as someone who.

They're people that still have wisdom and experience and ideas to give younger generations, that's not quite as true in our country. So I Do think it's quite a complex issue issue, But I think that we all need to look and identify where the ageism happens.

I happen to be in the fitness industry, so I'm dealing with ageism in fitness, but it happens everywhere. And I think it's sexism and ageism combined and there racism combined with that. There's all kinds of isms that get, you know, lumped in together.

And the intersectionality of all those isms is particularly potent and very difficult.

Difficult when you're living your life and trying to survive and trying to provide for family or trying to be healthy, whatever you're trying, how you're trying to live your life, those isms are very, very difficult.

They are. And I think for older women, you know, we typically, of course, I can't speak for everybody, but typically we put ourselves last, right?

We were raising the kids. We probably also were working.

We had a husband or a partner to take care of, and our time for exercise or working out was probably not at the top of the list. And now we reach this age of 65 or 70 and we probably have the time. But now there's this, oh, gosh, I wouldn't even know where to start, right?

And that's one reason why I think it's good to start with common sense kinds of things like walking. Walking is something that most of us can do, not always in the right time of year.

Like you talked about the seasons and how it's going to be more difficult as we get into, you know, fall and winter to keep up with the physical. Gardening is acutely physical.

I've had several clients who are avid gardeners, and they'll easily spend two to four to five hours in the garden when the weather is good and when the, you know, when they have things that they want to accomplish, right?

So there's a plan and a structure and there's goals and there's a whole bunch of really positive things that happen when you are using your physicality, as I said earlier, to give you pleasure.

So I do think that women have a lot to contend with, especially older women who have gone through this, these decades of caretaking, providing for family in maybe a way that's different than maybe the males in their family provided for the family. And so now figuring out where to start and is it too late to start and why should I bother to start?

I mean, these are good questions and questions that we need to answer to help people to be in touch more with their physicality and what having a strong, healthy body means and how positive that can be.

I do want to get into those, but I remember you mentioned something in our first conversation about Title 9 that I found fascinating. So can you explain how an entire generation of women basically missed out on athletic training?

Oh, I would say yes, Absolutely. Several generations of women missed out.

That there's no discrimination in sports activity in schools that receive federal funding.

The Bill itself, Title 9, is much larger than that. So I encourage you that if you're interested to know more about the history of it, it's quite fascinating, actually, to.

Go ahead and do a little bit of research.

But I'm going to confine my comments to the part where women prior to.

Title IX did not have the same.

Opportunities for team sports in schools. Public schools, including colleges. So public schools, secondary schools, middle schools, and colleges that receive federal funding as mended.

So what that meant, for all intents.

And purposes, is that there were no team sports, sanctioned team sports, sports for women, maybe intramural, maybe church leagues, maybe.

Pick up games, maybe you go play tennis with a friend on the tennis courts. Yeah, but there wasn't like, you know.

How we have Division 1 and Division 2 and Division 3 that didn't exist prior to Title IX.

So what does that mean? Well, we focus more or less today.

We don't understand, or I don't think.

We understand the void that it didn't give women prior to 72. So I'm 65, about to be 66. So I was right in the middle. I was 12 years old and 72.

And somebody might say, oh, well, Laura, you had an opportunity to do team sports.

Title IX was passed. And I said, no, I didn't have the opportunity because there were legal challenges.

One of the issues was is that the schools were now going to have.

To provide team sports to women, to either girls middle school, high school, or to young women in college.

And that meant that the schools had to come up with money.

I mean, it was a big deal, a very big deal.

At that point, it's all about the money, isn't it? Yeah.

And there were a lot of court challenges. So when I was in public middle school in 72, there were no team sports for women.

When I got into high school in 74, 75, the cross country team had just opened up spots for women on the cross country team because that's a little bit easier to integrate.

So the schools are grappling with can.

We integrate women into some existing, you know, team sports? Do we have to have separate team sports?

You know, they're dealing with budgets, they're.

Dealing with the money. So it didn't really all get worked out, I would say.

And there were, as I said, legal.

Challenges that went all the way up.

To, I believe, the Supreme Court didn't.

Get straightened out until 78, 79, and by then I was out of school. So no, I didn't have the opportunity.

To be involved in team sports in middle school and high school.

So what does that mean? Actually, it means that everybody that's older than I am didn't have the opportunities to be involved.

Right.

It's a very large group of folks, it's millions of women didn't have the opportunity, number one, to be involved in organized team sports. Therefore they didn't learn.

I mean, there's a lot of benefit to athletics and one of the big benefits is learning how to function in a team atmosphere. So being a leader, being not necessarily a follower, but you know, somebody that is part of the team, but not in a leadership role.

Right.

Collaborating, learning how to be coached, like learning how to be coached and take that information in so you can be better working towards common held goals. You want to win, you want to want the league championship, whatever the goal may be. You represent your school, you represent your community.

I mean, there's a lot that goes into athletics in terms of team sports and women didn't have that opportunity. So there's this interesting statistic and I'm not going to get the actual statistic right.

There's something along the lines of in today's C suites that the women that are in C suites in United States, so they're executives, vice presidents, presidents, whatever they may be. That's their title. I think it's something as high as three quarters of those women have been athletes.

Is that right? Because they learned to work as a team, they learned to have leadership responsibilities. That's really interesting. I need to look into that study.

Yeah, I wish I had the information right at the tips of my fingertips. It's a very high statistic. So again, what does that mean for the women that didn't have those opportunities?

Well, just from a fitness and health standpoint, they never learned.

Okay, never is a strong word. They didn't have the same opportunities as.

Males that were the same age as.

They were, in terms of learning what,.

Physically, that they could be strong, that they could run, they could jump, that they could, you know, hit a tennis ball or that they could, whatever the.

Sport may be,.

And they may never have gotten that.

So by the time they hit 70 or 80, they may not understand, you know, how to make themselves stronger or that strength is something that they can have, and that that's a good thing.

Well, and you know what else I'm thinking as you're saying this? So I graduated in 71, so it hadn't even passed by then.

And, you know, dressing out for PE So that we could get out there and get all sweaty and then come back and try and look pretty again. Because it was about, you know, when I was growing up, there was this whole image of how a girl should look and a woman should look.

And it wasn't sweaty. Right. It wasn't, like being all muscular. It wasn't showing that you could run fast.

It was more this stupid stuff that you saw on tv, you know, that said, oh, would you help me? I just dropped this and that kind of stupid stuff. Right. And that's what we bought into. We could be cheerleaders maybe, or Batgirls, something cute.

But we couldn't be athletes. They're just. That wasn't a part of our reality. And so I'm thinking, well, of course I wouldn't think it was part of my reality today.

And that may be where your mother was coming from when she sees you lifting heavy mulch bags or, you know, squatting and weeding and, you know, wheeling the wheelbarrow around. I don't know, because, again, I don't want to assume what she's thinking.

Right, Right.

There's probably many thoughts about, you know,.

Her daughter doing all this kind of.

Manual labor that is not in her reality or wasn't in her reality growing up. So, yeah, I agree with you.

Some of my most horrific memories are.

Of the horrible gym uniforms that we had to wear. They were horrible. Very unattractive. And then being led out to the track and said, okay, now you have.

To run around the track. Right.

I'm not a runner.

That.

That didn't work for me.

And it was mortifying.

Russ, I am 100% with you. It was horrible. Yeah. And then come in and try and shower and get dressed for your next class. So you don't.

You don't look like, you know, you've been swimming in a mound of mud and sweat. Oh, dear. All right, so let's talk about now. Now we are here where we are and we hear new news all the time.

You know, you've got to move, you got to get, build up your muscles because they start to wear out as you get older. And nobody, not nobody, many people are uncomfortable with joining a gym.

Oh, for sure.

And they find them unfriendly. And there's some discussion about.

I saw in one of your blog posts age based titles for classes which seem to again, reinforce the lack of ability that we have as we get older. So talk to me about some of the problems with the gyms.

Oh my. Oh, this is a long conversation. All right, let's shorten it up.

So just for background for your listeners, I've worked in commercial big box gyms.

For out of the 21 plus years that I've been in fitness for, probably about 15 or 16 of those years. So I have a long, long history with commercial big box gyms as an employee, but also as a member. I no longer work in those kinds.

Of gyms, but I'm still a member of those gyms.

Yeah.

And I would say that by and large, all of my clients really detested the gym atmosphere. And so I work with older women. I work with women all the way up to 85. Yeah. Mid 80s, low mid 80s, and then the whole range down to about 60.

So.

And they didn't like, they felt intimidated. They felt like they didn't understand how the machines work. They didn't understand the etiquette of the gym.

All they saw were lots of men, you know, throwing weights around, grunting and clanging weights and you know, being, you know, we call that the bro, the bro culture. And they didn't feel like they fit in. They felt like they were going to hurt themselves.

I mean, all the issues that one has when you're in an unfamiliar environment.

Now let's also remember that if you are our age, you didn't grow up, you know, at 14 years old lifting weights in the garage of your best friend's, you know, family.

Absolutely no way.

And that does happen.

You know, there, there are many boys that are now 70 year old men or 75 year old men who did grow up either playing a team sport and therefore getting into strength and conditioning or just simply had a bunch of friends that they'd get together and they'd lift weights together. Women that would be viewed as very.

Unusual for a 70 year old or.

A 65 year old or an 80 year old woman to have had that experience. They may have been athletic and done individual sports like tennis, like figure skating. Like swimming, I mean, individual sports.

I mean, it did exist.

I don't want to say that there was a complete dearth of anything available for women because we have many fine women athletes that came out of earlier eras. But it would have been very unusual, I think, for women to have had the same exposure to weight training.

So now here we are at 65, 75, however old we are. And we may have dabbled in some gyms. Maybe we dabbled in a women's only gym, like a Curves or like another type of women only gym.

Maybe we did boutique things like Pilates or yoga or.

I mean, there's a lot of choices now, which is really wonderful, but they're still rather intimidating for somebody who maybe has not had that exposure. So my issue with, you know, it would seem like a senior class would be a good idea.

Right? Because.

Right.

It's going to be all seniors and, you know, they're going to. I don't know what, what is the senior class? The issue that I have with a label like senior or, you know, you.

Know, golden or silver.

Is that it worries me that it's going to be dumbed down for. Because of age, solely based on age. And that's not really the way the human body operates. It can be.

When I say dumbed down, I mean, you know, sort of the lowest common denominator. Like, you know, three pound weights for dumbbells for bicep curls. And somebody out there might say, well,.

That's what I do.

And I say, okay, great, you're doing some weight training. That's awesome. However, have you been lifting 3 pound dumbbells for bicep curls for a year?

And if they say yes, that's an issue because the way that the body gets stronger is stress on the body, which is exercise. Like your gardening, that's exercise. You're walking, your Pilates, all exercise, but appropriate challenge. And that's where we run into some trouble.

Women have not been excited, exposed to what? Either to team sports or to weight training and strength conditioning or to the principles of how the body gets stronger.

And so one of the principles is you have to stress the body to get stronger, but it has to be intelligently designed and appropriate and appropriate challenge. And there you go. People get really stuck.

Yes. Because you go to the gym and you're like, okay, five pounds, I got this. And you do this and you do this and.

And you come home and you are so sore because you haven't done 10 years. So then you're like, well, I'm not Going back. So how do you know how to do it appropriately?

Yeah, well, this is where I think if it's affordable and it works for people where having some professional guidance is useful. So I do, I do like small group classes.

I don't want them labeled by age,.

But if you, if you're someone that's new to exercising, you want an introductory class or a beginner class.

So I'd really like for these classes rather than have these cutesy, you know, what is it, Suns Out, Guns out, you know, kind of cutesy types of titles. I'd like them to say introductory weight training.

That would be reasonable.

Introductory beginning strength training, whatever it is.

That they're going to do, or beginning Zumba, whatever it is that they want to offer so that people know going in that this is going to be.

A class that maybe is a little.

Bit slower paced so that they can.

Teach you the moves.

Or maybe it's going to be some.

Talking and some education about, okay, when.

You get started, this is what you.

Want to look for.

I mean, a lot of these classes are choreographed to music and there's literally.

No time to explain anything to anybody or to give them education about, well, this is what you should feel. This is where you should feel it. This is how much you should feel this.

There are some really fantastic group fitness instructors out there in the world and.

I've been fortunate enough to have taken.

Classes with them because I took my own group fitness classes when I was in these commercial big box gyms and.

They tried to do that. But when you've got, when you're trying.

To manage a class of 30 or.

40 People and you can't have your eyes on them every single one, all the time.

And it's choreographed to music, like a.

Step class, for instance.

And you just, you start at the.

Beginning and you go to the end and okay, you're done.

That's really difficult for somebody who maybe is brand new. I remember one of my first step classes that I ever took and I had never. I'm not a dancer at all. So I took the step class based.

On the reputation of the instructor who I was told was fantastic, and he was fantastic.

And I made the mistake of being in the front row because.

Oh no.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. It was a big mistake.

So probably not only did I take one of the front row diva spots,.

Which is, you know, horrible etiquette, but.

Also I was front and center with all of my stumbles and misses and didn't understand a word he was saying. So it's those kinds of things that'll set you.

I got mad. I didn't. I wasn't like, okay, I'm out of here. I'm so embarrassed. I got mad, like, I couldn't.

I couldn't understand his instructions.

He was a great instructor. That's on me, not on him.

And I was embarrassing myself in front.

Of everybody, but I didn't really care about that. But I wanted to conquer.

That is stuff people would care about.

That is stuff that people would care about.

Absolutely. So unless somebody said, look, if you.

If you're new to a class, you know, you might want to be in the back.

I always told my yoga members that,.

You know, listen, if you're going to take a class, be by the door.

You're not going to offend me. If you need to take a break,.

If you need to leave class, if you. Whatever it is that you need, take care of yourself. Because it's important to me that you enjoy whatever it is that you're doing.

And that you establish some relationship with.

Yourself physically through taking this class.

So it's not about whether or not.

I feel bad that you left. It's about if that's what you needed to do. I'm fine with that. Please take care of yourself. I would hate for someone to suffer through a class.

Yeah. And. And what you just said about enjoy. Right. There's going to be people that don't enjoy the gym no matter what. Right.

And so, you know, it's fine finding what you enjoy. So sometimes it's changing that message in our head too.

You know, it's like, oh, I have to go for a walk, or, oh, I should be doing more weight training, or I should play pickleball, which I don't. You know, like, we have to somehow change that message in our head to say, you know, oh, good, now's a good time to go do it.

But you're not going to do that if you don't find something you enjoy. Is that.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's really critical that people feel like they can give themselves permission to find their thing.

So if your thing is gardening, that's wonderful. So garden, garden for your hours. Also understand that if there was some small amount of weight training, it might help the gardening.

So if you can find something you enjoy and then someone can show you that there's a connection between certain exercises and making the physical thing that you enjoy even more enjoyable, you might be more inclined to do it. So, for instance, with my clients, I still work with individual Clients for personal training. I will tell them the reason we do squats.

Squats is a really critical exercise. And the reason that we do it is so that you can be more independent.

It builds leg strength.

It helps you get up and down from restaurant. You know, you can't always depend on the chair is going to be a certain height.

Maybe it's higher, maybe it's slower.

Or how about the car getting in and out of a car, Maybe the.

Taxi is lower, maybe it's an SUV and it's higher.

And now you've got to deal with some uncertain and some unforeseen situations. And I want you to be safe and I want you to feel like you're not going to hurt yourself if.

You have to deal with this stuff.

So if you know that doing squats.

Is going to help you out in.

Life and to stay independent and able to deal with unknown things, you might be more inclined to indulge me in doing squats when we work together.

Yeah.

You know, so that's part of the education about tying daily activities or daily.

Things that you do that give you.

Some pleasure, like gardening, into an exercise routine that's going to help support that.

Okay. Okay. I'm going to try and do more squats. I hate squats.

But, you know, I see my mom, she part of her physical therapy is the stand up, sit down from a chair. And I can't even believe the improvement she's made. She could do one when she started. Now she's up to like 8 or 10.

That's fantastic. I know.

At 96.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

So, you know, you may want also look at your mindset just a little bit. I'm gonna poke the bear. Just a little.

Poke me, poke me.

And say that you squat multiple times throughout the day already.

Okay. When I sit down. Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right.

Multiple times. And I don't know what your form is. Maybe it's fantastic, maybe it's not.

But if you use good form and you remember that every time you sit in a chair or on the toilet or getting in and out of a car, or, you know, there's just so many times that we use squatting and you think about the form, about what you're supposed to be doing, you may find that your legs get a little bit stronger and that squatting is something that you hate maybe a little bit less.

I think that's a good point. When we see how we actually use it. Yeah. So you had a quote on your website, Laura, that said movement Is life.

Moving your body consistently is a great gift to your physical and mental health.

Health.

What type and frequency of movement are you talking about?

Well, I think that there's movement that's already hardwired into our bodies. So if you think about your breathing,.

I think about movement as being, you.

Know, not really stop, go, but, you know, slower, faster, slower, faster, and then maybe rest. So it's waves. So I would like people to think of exercises. Waves. Sometimes you go a little faster, sometimes you stop completely.

Sometimes you do something a little bit more intensely. So those waves are already inside the body. Your breath is a wave. Your brain has waves. Your heart and respiratory system have waves.

Your digestion has waves. The blood circulating, which is part of the heart is waves. You can see this pattern in the body. Moving the body helps all those waves.

The things that doesn't help the body is what we're doing right now is being stationary and sedentary.

So the greatest gift that you can do is to recognize that these waves are already in your body and that when you move in a way that pleases you, that you can do. So start where you're at. That's a, you know, primary coaching tenant. Start where you're at and then see what's possible for you.

Because you can improve at any age. You can improve your physical abilities at any age. It's never too late. And the human body will respond to intelligently designed stress.

Challenging enough, but not too challenging stress.

So the nuts and bolts of this.

Are, when I work with a client is finding out, where are they at? We do some assessments, like a squat assessment. We do some other assessments.

How are they moving?

Where do they feel their aches and pains? What are their goals? What is it that they want? Just having kind of a coaching conversation and just sitting down with them and seeing what's what.

What's their exercise experience and background? What do they hate? Like, the vast majority of my clients hate burpees.

So I. Oh, yes, those are awful.

I'm not programming burpees. What's the point? There's many other. I mean, it's a great exercise, don't get me wrong.

But if they torture them and make them do burpees.

Thank you.

No, And a lot of my clients don't like running either. So that's not in their program. It doesn't mean that we don't do some kind of cardio.

It just. It's not running.

Right.

So. Right.

So we have to find out. We have to look at the person.

And this is part of to get back to the ageism.

When you have ageism in any category,.

You're lumping everyone together by a number or numbers, like a range like 65.

To 100 plus, whatever.

However you want to define, you know,.

Older adult, you lump them in as one monolithic group.

And we've heard this. We know that this exists as an idea. It's wrong, but we know it exists as an idea. We don't see the individuals.

And it's really critical to see the.

Individuals because I had a client that.

Was 103 in a retirement community who.

Had macular degeneration, which is legally blind. She came to an exercise class every day. Every day, Every day, five days a week, including balance standing, balance class.

And she's really 103 now. Wow. Did I have to modify things for her a little bit?

Did I have to cue her differently? Because she couldn't see me. She couldn't always tell, especially if I went too fast.

Yes. You know, did she use a cane to come to class? Yes. But 103, and she was that dead. And I still. Ten years later, I still remember her.

Right.

She was a feisty lady that I just. She was inspirational to the other members because the other members looked at her and said, well, so what are my complaints?

Right, Exactly. Like, if she can do it, I can do it.

And the truth probably is I don't know her, but that she probably passed away without terrible longevity of illness and pain.

I. I would assume that at 103, when I knew her, she was doing fine, more or less, from what I understood from her and her family. And I believe she passed away at 105.

So, I mean, so we can't just assume that because somebody is over 100 or somebody is 80 or somebody is 65 that they can't do things that. That's just so wrong on so many levels.

And it gets me really hot when I hear, you know, a phrase like at your age, like, even at your age, you're doing great. Like, why did you have to add at your age, why can't you say you're doing? Because age is just. I mean, I like to say that age is a number.

There's been pushback on that idea because there are some physiological things that happen as you age that we do have to deal with, like sarcopenia, which is the loss of muscle mass. As we age, we also have to deal with loss of power and speed, and that's a big one, too, that we don't.

That's getting more traction now in the fitness industry, but as you can tell, I'm up on my soapbox a little bit, so.

Well, we get our right. I mean, there are things that we have to adjust and we talk about that.

You know, we've talked about that over the years on boomer banter that, like, you don't stop, you just adjust. So there's another thing I want to look at, Laura, and that is the social aspect of fitness.

And so I recently did an episode on purpose and connection and how it's really hard to have one without the other. And you had mentioned to me a client who lost her husband, and you're one of the only people she sees.

So can you talk about how you can gain more social connection through fitness? That doesn't get talked about enough?

Absolutely.

I mean, this is one of the benefits of a group fitness class is that you're in a group of people who hopefully are there, you know, for some common goals, which is to be healthier. But also you develop friendships with those. You see the same people, you see the same instructor. You get to know people.

And you might not be best friends outside of the room, but you're a.

Community in the room.

You belong in the room. You're part of that group in the room.

And sometimes it spills outside of the room where you decide that you're going to go for a walk with somebody that you met in the class or you heard that, you know, your friend that was on the other side of the room that you always say hi to, she's now in the hospital. And so you might think about, you know, calling her up and, you know, seeing what's what.

I mean, these connections are super important because to be seen, to be heard, to be understood are basic human requirements for, you know, connection and community in life. And exercise can give that to you under the best circumstances, like a group fitness class that you really enjoy.

And so in being part of that community, there's also an element of that you continue to show up because you like the people in the class or you like the teacher or you don't want to let your team down, which is another benefit of team sports. You know, if half the team doesn't show up for practice, that's a problem.

Yeah. And it gives you a little bit more opportunity maybe for intergenerational friendships.

If you haven't named it as a senior class, you know, if you've named it as a beginning pickleball class or beginning swimming or something, you might have other people in there of different ages.

That's a great point. So I want to share that.

When I was teaching yoga regularly, I named my class Yoga for the Stiff and Terrified because I had clients, mostly older clients, who wanted to take yoga but didn't want to be in a class of 20 year olds or that was taught by somebody who was younger. They were in their 50s and 60s. Number one, they thought they were going to get hurt.

Number two, they thought they were going to be ridiculous, they were going to look ridiculous. And number three, they didn't think they could keep up in the class or they didn't understand the class.

So I kind of got tired of them, you know, not doing yoga for reasonable ideas. But I wanted them to have a class where they'd feel comfortable. So I created this class and interestingly enough, it was intergenerational.

We had people that were in their early 20s, we had people that were in their 70s. They, for the most part, I think, all got along and liked each other. It wasn't a 30 or 40 person class, it was more like an 8 to 12 person class.

And they got used to each other.

And I did make a joke about a year or so after we had this class and I said, you know, we're going to have to retitle this class because you're not stiff and terrified, but you can recovering strictly well.

The reason I did that is because I wanted to kind of allay these fears about yoga's not for me because I'm too, blah, blah, blah, I'm too old, I'm too, I'm too tight, I'm afraid I'm going to hurt myself.

And they all knew me, they all knew, they all trained with me, so they knew that I wasn't going to hurt them and that I would explain things and that we could go at a slower pace and we could try some things out. I could give them modifications so that this goes back to creating community, this goes back to creating connection.

I would say when I was in a pose that was difficult for me, I'd say, you know something, this isn't my favorite pose either. So if it's not your favorite one, it's totally fine. You know, I've got stuff going on in my body, just like you have stuff going on on your body.

And it's still a great pose, but it's just not something that I particularly enjoy. Although I will, I will do this with you.

And I think that's a really important point, right, because we all have different bodies, you know, we can't all reach the Floor and touch our toes and get our legs up to our head. And, you know, we all are different and that's okay. We do what we can do. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your book.

You wrote it at 64, is that right?

I did, I did. So the book is called Mind, you'd Movement. It's six essential physical and emotional tools to mental tools to stay active as you age.

And it kind of goes back to.

The common sense idea. Like, it's.

It's a compilation of all the pieces of advice that I've given my older adult clients over the 20 years that I've been a personal trainer and in the fitness industry.

And I've had a lot of different roles in the fitness industry, direct services, but also administration and also program development in retirement communities. So it's a lot of different aspects of how do you get started? How do you pay attention to your body?

It's the physical part of, okay, where are you at today That I was talking about a few minutes ago. What do you want? Where are you at? What are you hoping for?

And then giving them things like walking, things like, okay, we've got so many choices now for exercise and physical activity in life. So do you have a senior center that you might want to take a look at? Do you have a small like a ymca, which is a great place to.

Get started as well.

It doesn't have to be a commercial big box gym. I mean, there's so many choices online.

I have a couple of clients that follow some folks online and they're very happy with the videos that they follow online. Terrific. You know, hurting themselves.

So it's called Mind you'd Movement.

Yeah, I have right here.

And you can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or.

It's on Amazon.

The other part of this that I.

Think that I really wanted to bring in was the mental part, which is.

How to get your mind and your body to work together.

Because I've seen so many times where people have beliefs about what they should be doing or shouldn't be doing, much like your mom said, oh, my goodness. That your age, it shouldn't be doing.

Ask the boys. Right.

Well, the boyfriend's.

I don't know if he is. He's older than me. I was gonna say he's probably, you know, I mean, why does she think that he's going to be more capable than you?

Just because he's male, because he's a man?

I don't know.

But.

All right, that's.

That's fine.

But I wanted the mental part of.

It because I have seen clients and.

I've done this to a certain extent, not necessarily in the physical aspect, but in other areas of my life where.

We self sabotage, where we have a.

Brain that says, well, on the one hand you want this, but on another.

Hand you've got all these negative beliefs.

About how you're not going to get it, and then now you're at war. And that almost never works when you're.

Trying to reach a goal.

You just make your life so much more difficult.

Difficult than it needs to be. So what?

I. I was a social worker once upon a time.

So back in a lot of stuff.

Yeah, yeah. I've had a really, I've had a.

Great life, to be quite honest with you.

I've had three major careers and I've loved.

Wow.

So I was a medical social worker in my early 20s and I. I.

Went to social work school.

And so that was a great gift because I did learn an awful lot about, you know, how the human mind operates. And then I was also a coach.

And that was another great gift because the life coaching program that I went through, cti, taught us how to work with people. So I've had this kind of medical, social work coaching threads that have gone through my life.

And I wrote the book because I wanted people who were not my personal training clients to be able to have access to my philosophy of how you work with people. I happen to be in physical activity prior to being in fitness. I was a musician, a classical musician,.

And I taught kids.

And anybody who's taught kids know you have to learn how their brain works in order to get them to understand.

Or to learn something. And if I don't say the right.

Cue to them teaching them flute, that's on me. That's not, that's. They're not wrong.

I'm not wrong.

But I haven't learned their language, I.

Haven't learned their brain.

And that was a direct transfer to.

Working with adults because you have to learn their brains too.

So, yes, getting someone to be kind of their own best cheerleader for themselves, which is something that I enjoy. It's a lot of work because there are all these internalized ageist ideas that we have or sexist ideas that we.

I mean, everything that's in the culture that we're exposed to to some degree or another, unless we've really sifted through them, they're there inside us.

Plus the messages our parents gave us, our teachers gave us, maybe our religious leaders gave us, if we were Brought up that way, maybe bosses gave us.

I mean, when you think about authority figures in our, our life, they can have some pretty strong messages, negative or positive, and it's still there. So I think that the.

Having people understand the way their brain operates so that they can get their brain in service of their bodies is super important. And so there's a lot of that.

In the book as well.

So I want everybody to look for that book. Movement. What is it? Movement. Mind your movement. Mind your movement S by Laura Dow.

And you can find it on her website, which is stiftofit.com there's all kinds of articles on there.

There's also a workbook on there that you can download for free and that can help you get started and, you know, learn more about how to get started without being scary. Right. I think that's a big part, Laura.

And, and one of the reasons I really was excited about talking to you is because we've had people on that talk about, you know, okay, well, do these kinds of exercises or walk this many steps or, you know, this is good for your heart and you're very holistic about it as well as addressing the social impacts of our society's beliefs about older people, particularly older women and our own beliefs about it. So I appreciate that you are taking that on and giving us a new lens to look through.

Thank you, Wendy.

Yeah, I think that's really important.

I also want to invite people to be part of a conversation about aging well, staying connected, living with purpose and health, and join me in the Boomer Banter Circle. We meet once a month. It's a wonderful group. We, we enjoy each other, we learn from each other, we share with each other.

We have really built friendships, people all around the country. We start at 5:30 on the second Tuesday of the month. 5:30 In the evening Eastern time, lasts about an hour.

And I hope to see you in one of the circle groups. So go check it out and let's see. Yes.

So Laura Dow, as I said, she has stiftofit.com and if this conversation resonated with you, I would really love to hear about it. So what beliefs are you ready to challenge?

That's a great question.

What small step are you ready to take? And we didn't even get into small steps. But like in coaching, any change has to take a small step. You can't do it all at once.

Yeah. Don't have the expectation that tomorrow you're going to walk five miles if you haven't been walking for the last couple of weeks.

I mean, go out, you know, grab your neighbor and walk around the cul de sac or walk down to the mailbox and back a couple of times. I mean, any movement you do is better than no movement at all.

Absolutely. Laura, thank you for, for all that you're doing and for all that you brought to us today.

I appreciate that and I'm looking forward to staying in touch and continuing to learn from you.

So thank you so much for having me on your show.

Yeah. And I'm Wendy Green. This has been Boomer Banter, where we talk about aging well and all that that involves.

Thank you.