SEABURY'S CERTIFIED FITNESS & WELLNESS INSTRUCTORS MAKE A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF OLDER ADULTS

Seabury’s instructors are nationally certified and hold specialty credentials in a variety of disciplines such as corrective exercise, Pilates and Yoga, aquatics, and integrated balance.  Additionally, their background and experience working with older adults has further strengthened the success of the program.  Seabury’s fitness instructors are required to stay up to date on the latest in research by attending conferences and workshops.  They use the latest technology for evidence-based tracking that enables them to provide a thorough analysis of resident needs and desires.  This analysis allows our instructors to develop a custom-made, personalized fitness and wellness program for each participant, as well as each class that they teach.

“After looking at several other retirement communities, both in Connecticut and beyond, I found that Seabury was the only community that offered not just a fitness center but also a complete fitness program. Members of the expert fitness staff analyze your needs and interests so that they are able to prescribe a program designed specifically for you.”  -Daphne Wilcox

Seabury has a comprehensive group fitness program, offering classes that address resident needs such as strength, agility, endurance, flexibility, and balance.  Some of the current class offerings include strength classes such as Mat Pilates, Core Essentials (a mat class that targets the abdominal, lower back, pelvic floor and hip muscles) and Yogalates (Yoga and Pilates combined).  For agility and balance, our fitness instructors offer Dancercise, Step (these participants step up, over, and around a four-inch bench while keeping in time with the music), and Equilibrium (a balance class that focuses on five critical areas of balance:  postural strategies, gait enhancement, multisensory control, center of gravity control, and basic fitness).  They also offer aquatic programming:  Yoqua (Yoga in the water) and Aqualibrium, which has the same goals as the aforementioned Equilibrium, but in the forgiving medium of the water.

It is evident in the variety of classes developed for older adults that Seabury’s Fitness & Wellness Center has taken instruction to a completely new level.  The fitness instructors take great care and time in developing their fitness plan for the group/class curriculum. Reports are developed based on each participant’s individual assessments. These reports use graphs and pie charts to show areas of fitness that the group/class have in common for being at-risk or below average in losing functional mobility.  The fitness instructors then take that data and develop concrete goals and plans of action for each class.  An example would be:

Dancercise Class

Held:  M-W-F, 9:15-10 AM

1. Lower Body Strength -18.18% are at risk, but 27.27% are below average for a total of 45.45% of participants needing to improve in this area.

Action:  Concentrate on power moves during choreography and significant lower body exercises during strength portion of class

Goal:  to bring 10% of the class out of at risk/below average category

     2.  Lower Body Flexibility - 25% are at risk

Action:  include dynamic stretching in the choreography and static stretching in both the warm-up and cool-down

Goal:  to bring 5% of the class out of at risk category

     3.  Upper Body Flexibility-18.18% are at risk, and 18.18% are below average for a total of 

          36.36% needing improvement.

Action:  include upper body movement during choreography to warm upper body muscles for more intensive stretching during cool-down

Goal: To bring 10% of the class out of at risk/below average category.

Furthermore, they discuss these goals with each class, and then re-evaluate the program at the end of each quarter by comparing and contrasting the assessment data.

“I have always been interested in physical education, going back to my days at the University of Maine and later as the director of a senior citizen’s center.  When at the Center I had to hire (and fire!) a lot of exercise instructors, so I feel that I know what I’m talking about when I say that the program here at Seabury is exceptional.”  – Jane Doble

Seabury takes exceptional pride in its quality of fitness and wellness program development.  Our staff is completely vested in the well-being of its participants and committed to providing the best the field has to offer.  The proof of this dedication is seen in the results from our tracking software.  In fact, the Fitness and Wellness Center is seeing such a success in keeping participants healthy that everyone is living a more healthy lifestyle than they were when they were younger!