Seniors Should Focus On These 5 Muscle Groups.

As Seniors age, you lose bone density, strength and balance (mainly because you lose strength and power in your feet and ankles), but you can increase bone density, strength and balance with the right exercises.

The 5 main areas Seniors should focus on are back, hips, thighs, arms and feet/ankles. Strengthening these areas will lower your risk of fractures and osteoporosis, plus strengthen your overall health, cardiovascular system and improve posture, balance and mobility.

The back is especially important since this is where your spine is. Keeping the muscles around your spine strong will help improve posture and better support your spine. Exercises that especially focus on the traps and lats such as close grip seated rows and lat pulldowns are good go to exercises plus many others.

Keeping your hips and core strong also help with posture, balance and mobility. Usually when Seniors fall, they break a hip or femur and if they do, there is a 27% mortality rate the first year, and of those remaining, half never regain full functionality. Hip abduction/adduction and kettlebell swings are good exercises, plus any exercise where you raise the knee equal to or above the hips, such as knee raises, rope step overs and step ups are good fundamental exercises for the hips to name just a few. An additional exercise to help strengthen the hips are small foot stomps....just a couple of inches off the ground one leg at a time and land flat footed but with a slight emphasis on the heel.

Working out the thighs is also very important as you need strength here for basic daily tasks, like getting up from a chair or out of your car. When you work out thighs, many of the exercises also work your hips, hamstrings and glutes. The most fundamental exercise is the squat, which you can perform a seated squat or a dumbbell squat. There are many different squat versions to perform, so if you have never done squats start out with a seated squat for 12 reps and keep your back straight and go straight up and back down. Don't lean over as you go up. Other great thigh exercises include lunges, step ups and leg extensions, and for the outdoor enthusiasts, hiking is a great exercise, which also works your feet and ankles.

Speaking of feet and ankles, this is the foundation of your stability and balance. It is important to have power in your feet to help prevent the risk of falling. Exercises like the single leg balance, tightrope walking, squat to balance, lunge to balance and many, many more. For your feet and ankles, try ankle rotations, calf and toe raises, ankle wipers, tip toe walking and one of the most important is the vertical jump. You don't need to jump high, even a couple of inches will work. But keep the feet and ankles strong for strength and balance.

And finally, arms are important to work out, so if you do fall, you have strength in your arms to help brace yourself. Strength in the arms also helps with daily tasks like opening jars and lifting. Work your forearms, biceps and triceps. For forearms a simple exercise is the reverse grip cable curl, for biceps the seated or standing dumbbell curl and for triceps the triceps cable pushdown or dumbbell kickbacks.

You don't have to use a heavy weight on these exercises. Shoot for 12-15 reps and always use correct form. Pick 2-3 exercises for each muscle group and perform these exercises twice a week and you will start to see some gains in your strength and balance.