Life in a care home
our care homes to life. Each of them offer a warm welcome to anyone coming to stay.
Make yourself at home
We tailor our care around our residents, everything from the meals they like, activities they enjoy and their preferred bedtime.
A warm welcome
When a new resident arrives they’ll be met by their key carer, who’ll give them a guided tour of their new home. They’ll also tell them about meal times, activities and introduce them to some of the other residents and members of staff.
Personalised care plan
We make getting to know a new resident and their relatives a top priority. This helps us to build a picture of how they’d like to be supported day-to-day, so we can create a personalised care plan and cater for their specific needs.
Your own routine
All residents enjoy the comfort and privacy of their own room, with plenty of opportunity to socialise too. We arrange a calendar full of exciting activities that residents can join as they wish, helping them find the right balance between socialising with others and having time to themselves.
We’ll do whatever we can to make you feel at home
Stay connected with friends and family
We understand how important visits are, which is why family and friends are welcome in our care homes any time. We also help our residents use video technology to stay connected, making it easier to keep in touch at a time that suits their schedule.
Fresh, healthy food and home comforts
Our chefs prepare a selection of dishes for each meal, as well as fresh bakes to enjoy with your tea or coffee. We also provide light bites and a night menu. You can choose to dine socially or in your own space, and family and friends are welcome to join for a meal too.
An active, fulfilling lifestyle
Our homes plan an active social calendar around what their residents need and enjoy. Take part in everything from quizzes and crafts to darts and boccia to stay active and social. With clubs, special events and trips out, residents can choose to join in when they want - and so can their friends and family.
We look after your physical and mental health
Bailey Greetham-Clark explains how building a sense of community through exercise and social interaction
can also boost mental health in care homes.
Transcript
Who are you?
My name is Bailey Greetham-Clark.
I guess who am I? I'm a founder. I'm a northern lad.
I like to exercise. I used to box.
For me, it's about creating change,
and I think that plays a huge role in my life.
So me in a nutshell, I'm somebody that wants
to have an impact and make a difference.
What is Be Great fitness?
So, Be Great
Fitness is a community health
and wellbeing company that I started at 17.
It's a mission. It's a movement.
It's something that I want
to have a positive impact on the world.
Essentially, we're a team of fitness instructors that work
so prominently within the health and social care sector,
ensuring exercise
and wellness is accessible for everybody,
making sure relationships are being built
and communities are being worked with to empower those
that might not feel as good about themselves
and ensure that they have quality exercise provisions.
It's a mission. It's change.
What inspired you to partner with Bupa?
At the minute, our company is changing.
We are growing rapidly
and having a massive impact on the healthcare sector.
When we looked at Bupa as an organisation
and considered a partnership, we had
to consider their values.
We had to consider what they stood for as a company,
and we had to consider whether they were right fit
for not only our company's brand, but my personal brand too.
And when we looked at Bupa,
we looked at their pure commitment
to the health of their residents.
For me, it's about the impact we can have, right?
Ultimate impact on the people that we work with.
So the organisations that we partner with have to
directly reflect that. Bupa did that.
Bupa showed us that they care.
They care about their residents, they care about their team.
They care about the health
and wellbeing of everybody in their organisation.
That's something that we felt so strongly about ourselves,
and we managed to align it.
We realised that Bupa's commitment to longer, healthier,
and happier lives was something that we did day to day,
and the connection there was just incredible.
It was a no-brainer. So the inspiration
for the Bupa partnership is
it's about values.
It's about sitting across from each other
and discussing why we actually do this.
What do our organisations have in common,
and how can we better the lives of those that we serve?
What made you want to work in care homes?
I started my company at 17 in the middle
of a global pandemic.
And for me, exercise was a priority.
It took me out of a really, really dark space.
It gave me a second chance even.
I remember my first run, I was wearing plimsolls
and a pair of skinny jeans, a lot of chafing,
and it wasn't very comfortable.
But I remember wanting to run just to that next lamppost,
30 seconds of running, two minutes of walking.
And once I'd finished that, I felt this sense
of achievement, accomplishment
for the first time maybe in my life.
And I understood the power of exercise.
Fast forwarding to the global pandemic,
everybody did their bit.
And I wondered what I could do for my community.
And I thought with my background
and knowledge of how powerful exercise is,
I could really have an impact.
I started working with a group of adults with autism
and learning disabilities and fell in love.
We worked on Zoom week in
and week out, doing online classes to ensure they stayed fit
and healthy throughout the pandemic.
And when we met in person, once the lockdown had lifted,
I realised vulnerable groups don't have quality access
to exercise and sporting provisions,
and I wanted to do something more about it.
And even more so, I realised how
significant the impact was on the care sector when the
pandemic had occurred, it was troubling.
It was quite detrimental, and residents struggled.
So not only did I realise
that we could have a positive impact on the health
of residents, but we could have a positive impact on the
communities in these homes,
on the mental health of residents.
And that's what we did.
We set about this mission
of ensuring exercise was accessible to everyone,
and care homes were in that group of everyone.
So now we work
so prominently throughout the social care sector,
just bringing quality exercise conversations
and trying to make as much positive change as possible.
Why are you so passionate about the elderly community?
My grandparents took me in a time of
need, in a time where life for me
at a very young age fell upside down.
I was struggling in school. I actually left school.
We were at a point where I was
told I could either be excluded if I carried on
with the behaviour that I was showing,
or I could take myself out of school
and go into a voluntary homeschool situation.
My mum, she raised us in council houses, single mother
surviving from the benefits system,
and we faced a lot of challenges.
So when my grandparents took me in,
it felt like a saving grace.
They gave me a new lease of life.
They gave me a second chance when
the future looked very scary.
Yeah. Sorry. It gets me a little bit emotional.
My grandparents are my everything.
They mean a lot to me. They really do.
They brought me back.
They've given me what I have now,
and now I can give what I have to others.
I can really make a difference, especially
amongst the older population.
And actually my job gives me access to millions
of grandparents across the world.
It gives me a chance to connect on so many new levels
and build those relationships up.
So for me, it's personal.
It's about two people
that brought me in when they didn't have to,
and gave me another opportunity at trying
to turn my life around.
So if I can really help anybody when it comes
to giving them an opportunity
and improving their life, then mission complete,
right.
Can you share stories from going into care homes and the impact it had on you?
I think for me it's the individual
residents that we work with.
I didn't realise how lonely our older generation
can be until I really sat down on a frontline
basis with the care sector
and worked in the homes delivering to those residents.
There's a few names that pop to mind, but it's not until
after you've done the work that you realise the
impact that you had.
I've walked away from care homes
and staff have told me this is the one time of their week
they get genuinely excited.
It may be the one visitor they have,
they maybe don't have family members that come in
or nobody's around them to support them.
And for that hour that we're in their home,
we're their visitor, we're their therapist, we're their PT,
we're their somebody to talk to, a new face.
So to pinpoint one story would be so difficult,
but to bring together everything I've been told about
how we have a huge impact.
It's just, it changed everything for me.
We realise we're not just fitness instructors,
we're not just here to do one job.
We are sometimes somebody's everything,
even if it's just for an hour.
And that was the difference.
That's when we realised it was a mission
and not just a business.
What impacts have you seen in men's mental health in care homes?
We know as men grow older,
their friendship circles decline.
They almost retreat into themselves
and stop socialising as much.
So what we've seen in Care Homes is brilliant.
The ability to create hobby focus groups for men to connect
with each other, the ability to create safe spaces for men
to converse with one another,
and just having a real focus on ensuring those things I just
mentioned don't happen.
What challenges have you experienced with your mental health?
For me, mental health, I have to go back to
a very young Bailey.
I have to go back to a version of me where
life felt like it was coming to an end.
I struggled at a very, very young age.
My childhood was not as easy as others,
and I absolutely don't blame my poor mental health on that.
We did as well as we could, and we got by
and we stuck together as a family.
And my mum, she did a brilliant job,
but my behaviour in school wasn't great.
I often expressed emotions
as a young lad in negative ways.
I kicked off in school, I was angry.
I had a chip on my shoulder.
And that took me to a point where my schools
were mentioning the threat of exclusion, not being able
to go to the same schools
and possibly even voluntary homeschooling.
We didn't want to be excluded.
That was not something that we wanted
to be on our school records.
So my family took the choice to take me out of school,
and although it might've seemed like the best choice,
then it might have been possibly the worst
choice we could have made.
We took me out of social environments
and almost felt like I was in
my own little lockdown
before the global pandemic was even spoken about.
I was very young, and
because we made those decisions, I spent every day
isolated at home talking to the very few friends that I had
through my phone, my Xbox, my games that I used
to play, instead of having any form
of real social interaction,
and it had such a negative impact on me.
I closed the outside world away. I locked it away.
I decided that this was me
now and again,
we're talking about a very young lad just coming into
secondary school at an age where I don't understand life,
but all I knew about it was that it was not for me,
and that was a really tough space to be within.
I felt like I'd been given up on even
so, I got to a point where I really
didn't know what else to do.
My family were really trying.
They were, and it just felt like there was no help.
My grandparents took me in
and offered me that second chance.
They gave me a new space, a new place to live and be
and play and breathe and be a young boy for once.
And at the same time I started exercising.
I wasn't always happy with how I looked as a young lad,
I'm not sure why, but I had a focus on
my body.
I had a focus on my image
and how much weight I had on, I suppose,
because I was always inside.
I was eating and I was playing video games
and I didn't do any movement.
I guess I was putting on a little bit weight.
I was conscious about that.
So the buildup of that poor mental health, that lack
of social interaction and the potential
of putting on weight was just becoming heavy.
I walked around and I dunno why I laugh,
but I remember my mum used to tell me
to stop looking at the floor
and I walked around anywhere we'd go, I wouldn't look up.
I'd looked down and I'd wear my hair.
My hair was much longer.
I'd wear it down to my shoulders and over my face
and I put my hood up and I just had no confidence
and that's where I really needed to change.
And that's where I found exercise.
I remember my first run being in jeans,
skinny jeans, and a pair of plimsolls from year six PE.
But that was the first time I felt alive.
It was the first time I felt free, like I'd achieved something,
like I'd accomplished something.
Getting home after that run was the first time I felt great
in a very, very long time.
So I suppose that's exercise for me.
I suppose that's my battle with mental health and
whenever I'm struggling day to day,
I go back to those routes.
I get my running trainers on and I run from to lamppost.
Thankfully not in plimsolls anymore,
but yeah, that is exercise and that's its power for me,
anyway.
What motivates you to stay active and how does that motivation affect your mental health?
I guess just personal experience.
The struggles that I've had with my mental health
and how exercise took me out of a really, really dark space
is what motivates me when I feel
like the world's closing in.
I remember the time where I went
for my run, the very first run that I'd done,
and it was so impactful on me.
It felt like I had the opportunity to achieve something
for the first time in a while.
So when life gets a little bit challenging now,
I always remember that exercise is something
that's helped me in the past, and surely it'll help me now
and I try it and I do it, and I go on my run
and I'm reminded of, yeah, how it impactful it is
and how actually it did help me.
So it's really quite simple.
Motivation is about the ability to
remind myself that it's going to benefit me so much more.
Maybe not today, but tomorrow instead.
Have you seen a correlation between your physical and mental health?
I have for myself, absolutely.
The physical health stuff that I do.
For me, the running, the exercise, the boxing,
it gives me a chance to step away, to step
outside of my mind.
A space where my thoughts aren't racing at
a thousand miles per hour.
It gives me the opportunity to just
think a little bit more clearly
and ultimately, sorry.
That feels like the best chance we have
to improve our mental health,
away from therapy. I've accessed therapy
on multiple occasions when I feel like I've needed it.
It's been there and I've used it and it's been so helpful.
But in that initial panicky stage
where we might be struggling and things might not be great,
and our head might not be as clear,
exercise can be a real great relief for anxiety, stress,
pain, whatever it might be when it comes to our mental health.
And for me, like I said, it's a chance to step back,
clear my mind, and focus on one thing just for half an hour.
It's a reset button.
It's an opportunity to
think from a different angle.
Yeah, exercise has been my everything,
especially in times of need.
What I tend to do when I'm struggling,
because I go through these periods where
life gets a little bit crazy and I struggle.
I really do struggle.
I have such high hopes for myself
and my team and what we can achieve.
It puts me sometimes in these negative places.
I go back to my roots. Boxing, running
saved me when I was 17, sorry.
No, when I was younger even.
It took me out of a really, really dark place.
So I think back to my younger self
and what helped me then in a time
where life felt like it was
in a really, really weird way to say,
it felt like it was over.
It was a strange place to be.
So I go back to my younger self
and I have a think about what I did.
And what I did was exercise. What I did was move my body.
So now I go back to my roots.
I do tend to try and progressively exercise
and routinely exercise,
but I go back to that boxing club that I started in
and I go back to those people
that helped me in the very beginning,
and I just try to strip it all back
and find me a little bit better,
and that tends to help massively.
So exercise is a tool.
It's so much more powerful and it's natural
and it's accessible and it can be done on any level.
From walking to swimming, to running to seated,
exercise is for everyone.
How important is the social aspect of physical activity for your mental health?
I think I can probably only speak personally on this one.
It would be difficult to try
and sum up the whole of society's
impact when it comes to exercise,
benefiting our mental health.
But for me, my job can get very busy.
It can sometimes mean 16 hour days.
It can sometimes mean high levels of stress,
and what an exercise class
or even just a run can do for me is phenomenal.
It's the ability to escape for a few minutes,
even if it's 20 minutes of movement.
It's taking my head into a different space.
It's given me a chance to process everything,
but it's also sending so many incredible positive
endorphins around my body.
I come away after exercising, feeling refreshed,
even though I might have just gone absolutely
crazy in the class, and I'm so tired.
I also feel revived. It's my therapy.
It's my way of escaping everyday life.
Do you notice any changes on days when you're less active?
Oh, absolutely.
Even just like this week, to put it into example,
this week I've been in London a lot.
I've been getting up so early and getting back home so late.
I definitely probably could have scheduled my work week
better, but I haven't, right?
We get busy, we get caught up in life
and straight away I've neglected my fitness
and that just puts me in a whole different frame of mind.
Things I got excited about maybe two weeks ago when my
routine was good, my eating was good, I was on track,
and I felt like I was in some sort of
positive routine. This week,
those same things that excited me just become chores.
They become things that I don't necessarily get excited for.
They become things that seem like effort.
So yeah, when we talk about exercise, for me,
it is something I have to do.
It keeps me on track, it keeps me going,
and it gives me that time to get away from all the stress of
outside life.
Why is social interaction important to you?
Social interaction is everything, isn't it?
I know for me, I'm such a people person
and I think that's why I do what I do.
Just the chance to go into care homes all over the place
and have genuine, powerful conversations with people
that have so much to say
and unfortunately may not always get the chance to say it.
It's mental health improvement.
When we talk about mental health campaigns these days,
everything is focused around speaking, speaking out,
speaking to, speaking with others around us,
and it's really, really important.
Social interaction for me is as simple
as coming into the office and seeing my team catching up.
It just breaks down those barriers
and creates much more positive environments to work within.
It has so, so many benefits
and is so important not only amongst workplaces,
amongst schools, colleges, just day to day with friends.
From the minute we enter school, we're talking,
we're learning, we're meeting new people,
and unfortunately as we age, we have less
and less social interactions.
Loneliness is such a big issue right now,
especially within the care sector,
and if we can change that by just having one conversation,
then social interaction could change the world.
How do you promote social interaction in care homes?
For us, it's about trying to use fitness as a tool, right?
I suppose our main objective is to go in there
and improve the physical health of the residents,
but actually it's almost a byproduct.
The physical health is so important,
but what we're really doing is encouraging conversations,
building up community, speaking with people
that might not often speak with others.
We're going in there and being their friends for an hour.
So when we talk about the older generation,
it's struggled a lot with mental health.
Some of the generation have just got on with it,
and they're not always used to talking about their feelings.
So what we do is we use exercise as a tool.
We'll go in our sports gear and we'll get the music on
and do a lot of activities to distract us almost.
And through that we end up having these
powerful conversations.
Because I suppose if you try
and have a normal conversation with somebody face to face,
no music around, no other activities going on,
it can be quite intimidating, quite scary,
and you might not get the best conversation there possible.
But if you do an exercise with a little bit
of background noise and other people around, all
of a sudden we accidentally sometimes have these deep rooted
conversations with these people.
And we're talking about mental health without
focusing on mental health.
So what we do is we use exercise as a tool
to build up conversations, to build up community,
to build up people.
How do group activities or social events improve your connection with others?
So we use exercise as a tool
to build up relationships with people.
It's almost a byproduct of the work that we do.
Naturally, we're going in
to do something quite serious. When we talk about exercise,
it can often fall into fall prevention,
giving somebody's independence back
and has a lot of serious tones.
But the way we do it differently,
the way we bring it in more lightheartedly
encourages those relationships to build up.
It encourages those conversations to be had,
and it creates real connections.
Not only are we there to help them
with their physical health,
but that byproduct of the mental health stimulation
just creates the most positive environments.
I genuinely mean it when we say community.
We go into each individual care home
and we have a new community
because not only are we
creating these positive environments, I want to take it back
to actually a story.
We had a resident who moved in to a care home and struggled.
They had been set some exercises by their physio
and they wouldn't come down to socialise at all.
They'd do their exercises as well
as they can do in their rooms.
And then our coaches came along
and we encouraged them to come down.
We said, look, you need to do your physio stuff either way.
Do you want to do it in a fun,
lighthearted environment where we can help
and there's a qualified exercise instructor there
to encourage you and make sure you don't feel scared about
any of the movements that you're doing, or do you want
to do it sort of locked away and struggle
and not quite achieve as much as you might need to?
So we got them down into the room,
and it was at a point
where residents were saying, who's this?
Is this a new resident? Is this somebody new?
They hadn't seen them before.
And we got them down and we got them laughing,
and we got them having conversations
and working not only with our coach,
but with other residents.
And actually we heard that that resident now goes down
for everything else and has engaged
and become part of that community.
So our work is built on building up those relationships.
It's built on encouraging people to connect, again, using
exercise as a tool, as a facilitator.
How has your perspective on loneliness and social interaction changed since working with care homes?
I didn't know we had that much of an issue within society.
I didn't realise how detrimental
loneliness can be.
I didn't realise how many people were lonely
until working in care homes.
I think some of the residents that we work with,
whether it's on a weekly
or monthly basis, we might be their only visitor.
Now, that is a shock, that scares me
even that we might go into a care home
and be the one person that comes
to see them away from giving them their medication,
giving them their baths, their essential needs,
their very bare minimum
that should be associated in healthcare anyway.
Away from that, we're the one person that comes in
to see them, and that sums it up.
Loneliness is a real issue.
It's almost an epidemic level issue.
It's spread throughout the world
and it's just getting worse.
And I think those conversations are really, really powerful
because we can learn actually how lonely people might be
and we can learn that we are their only visitor.
One of my coaches went to a care home recently,
and there was a lady there who hadn't had many visitors.
There was a bakery that this lady used to go to
and she hadn't been able to go to it in such a long time.
So my coach went to the bakery, got her favourite cakes
and brought them in
because again, we might be the only person who might do that
for the next however many years of their life.
So loneliness is an issue
that we're hoping we can have even just the slightest impact
on the slightest change because it's genuine, it's real.
And more people than ever are lonely,
not just in the social care sector.
Everywhere. People are feeling more alone than ever
and something needs to change.
What positive effects have you seen in residents you've supported?
Physical health is our everything, right?
It's our company's mission.
But actually the most important ones are probably
the mental health effects that we have,
the actual conversations that we have with residents,
the benefits, the smiles, the laughter.
I think when we talk about dementia, our ability
to feel emotions is, correct me if I'm wrong, one
of the last thing that sticks around.
If we can impact somebody
and have a positive effect on their emotional
ability, their emotional stay, if we can make them feel
happy just for a little bit, then that is incredible.
So yeah, mentally we have such a huge impact,
but actually going back to physically,
we talk about fall prevention being one
of the biggest things we're focusing on right now.
The ability to build up a resident's strength
so they don't need a two to one staff ratio just to get out
of their chair so we can take a beer or a juice
or whatever it might be and drink it ourselves without a
beaker, a sippy cup even.
There are so many benefits mentally, physically, that
it'd be hard to track
what the biggest benefit of our work is.
But what we do know is
that these benefits can change the lives
of the residents we can work with.
They have the chance to give somebody
their independence back,
and independence has to be the most crucial word, right?
We are independent for most of our life,
and then unfortunately, our latter years start to lose it.
So if we can just give somebody a little bit more,
maybe do some arm exercises with somebody
so they can drink their own tea,
that's pretty powerful stuff.
I am thinking about putting my loved one in a home, what are the benefits from being in care homes?
When we talk about the benefits of being in a care home,
I think we have to talk about the worries of being
alone at your own home.
Falls are a massive worry, right?
We're concerned that as our relatives grow older,
they become less independent
and also more worried themselves about falling over,
breaking something, getting to a point
where they physically have to go into a care home.
So when we talk about maybe our parents
and we talk about the point where, for example,
they've fallen, they've dislocated our shoulder.
It's a scary situation. They go straight to hospital.
They don't have any say usually in what happens at home.
They don't what's going on. Their purse is at
home, their clothes are at home.
They're in a panicked situation,
and then from hospital, they have to go into a care home,
most of the time.
For them that might feel like being shipped around,
it might feel like something where they've got no control
and just encourages fear
and strips them from their independence.
So to have those conversations with our elderly relatives
to say, actually, how happy
are you at home alone
and how safe do you feel is a really, really good place
to start opening up those conversations with your
family members, your relatives, even to say,
what does a home look like for you?
Going around and showing,
actually a home is a new set of friends. It's state of the art,
full prevention work with monitors, with nurses on hand,
with accessibility and help and assistance constantly.
But also it's an environment
where you can live again happily, comfortably.
You can almost take away a lot of the worries
around living at home
and a lot of worries for the family as well.
I think when we talk about care homes,
we talk about a second life.
We talk about a new chance to live with new relationships,
with new safety, with new people.
It's a no brainer really.
When we talk about good care,
why would we not want our family members looked
after safe, secure, happy,
and enjoying their latter years of their life?
I think care is positive
and we should open up more conversations about whether the
care homes are the right opportunities
and the right place for our elderly family members.
Why is exercise so important, especially at an older age?
It goes back to this really, really common saying
of if you don't move it, you lose it.
And when we say that, it might sound a little bit strange,
but actually as we grow older, we move less,
of course we move less, we retire, we stop working,
we stop going out as much, we get more tired.
And with that we end up almost speeding
up the ageing process.
We put ourselves maybe into be quite
brutally an early grave.
So I know that sounds quite intense, but it's true.
If we don't carry on moving, if we don't stay active,
we lose the ability to do it.
And eventually we find things that were once really easy
mountains challenges that affect us day to day.
Just bending down to get something off the ground can become
a marathon in comparison to maybe how it used to feel.
So movement is not necessarily about how fit we are, how
great our cardiovascular health is.
It's actually more just about being able to do the things
that we used to do with the same ease
that we always have had
and not having a simple task become a challenge.
It feels like movement is about functional fitness.
That's the key word, right?
How functional is it and how functional can we be?
So it's taking every day, everyday
challenges, not challenges, everyday tasks,
and ensuring they don't become challenges.
What is different about the exercises you deliver in care homes?
I think, or at least I know,
we come in in a different capacity.
When we go into a care home, we do chair based exercise,
and the reason we stick to chair based is purely down to
accessibility and inclusion.
We may have a gentleman who is mobile and walks around
and free and really quite independent,
and then a lady who might not be
as mobile, as independent.
And what I want to achieve with that is
everybody sitting down takes away any pressure
of I can't do this.
Those that are maybe a little bit more independent
and confident, we can make that exercise just as difficult
as if they were stood up.
Those that are sat down and don't feel as independent
and a little bit less mobile, well,
we can make that a little bit easier.
But then in reality,
they look like they're doing the same stuff.
So we take away that exclusion immediately.
We also focus prominently on giving them
their independence back.
So simple exercises where we taking a ball, for example,
we're bringing it into our chest, they're straightaway.
We're using shoulder movements, we're using arm movements,
we're bringing it out, we're squeezing it.
That enables us to do everyday activities, pick up objects,
pick up pillows, pick up our clothes, et cetera.
And then maybe we're putting it above our head
and we're including that range of motion exercises
that, again, go straight back to independence.
We've had residents in care homes where we've started
with them and they can barely get their arms up as if
you look at 'em and you think,
have you had some kind of breakage?
But that's just deterioration over time,
it's just not moving it.
But we've managed to get them back to a point
where their range of motion is all of a sudden
after a few months up there,
and now they can grab that picture
of their loved one from the shelf
and look at it better on their own without having
to ask a staff member.
But what we also do is we break down the barriers
of social interaction using exercise as a tool.
The beautiful thing about our work is we're able
to come in from that health point of view, from
that encouragement point of view, do an activity that all
of a sudden breaks down any kind of barrier
and encourages the most beautiful conversations,
the most powerful conversations.
So ultimately, I think we're different
because we care about building up communities,
but we also care about building up independence.
What are the benefits of group exercise?
Group exercise is not for everybody,
but it is really quite essential.
When we talk about coming into the exercise space, I think
what we see is community is in everyday life.
It is in our workspaces, it is in our schools,
it is in our neighbourhoods.
Community is something we thrive off of.
We love to speak and have conversations
and empower each other.
So when we talk about group exercise,
we talk about the ability to encourage each other.
We talk about the ability to be each other as cheerleaders,
even just to advise each other.
It's really a great way
to feel more confident about exercising.
It's a brilliant way to meet new people,
and it's a brilliant way to create
just a much better experience.
When we talk about exercising, it's not for everybody,
but the effects
and the impacts that group exercising have can
be life-changing.
They can take somebody who isn't very confident at all
and doesn't exercise much
and turn them into somebody that is at this
exercise class every day.
They know Jeanette's there, and Jeanette's a hoot.
She's great, right? We have a great conversation
and we do a little bit of talking before,
and then we do our class and maybe we grab coffee after and
before we know it Mark's there and Steve's there
and we've got this beautiful sense of community,
but we're also exercising, moving and keeping ourselves fit.
So group exercise has so many hidden benefits.
How can older adults include more exercise in their daily routine?
Start out easy.
If you haven't exercised for a long time,
maybe life just got in the way
and it's been on the back burner.
Try not to presume you're going
to go straight back into doing 10k's.
There are some brilliant initiatives out there
that really build up your strength.
I guess don't
overestimate what you can do.
That sounds a little bit degrading, but try
and figure out what your body can do first.
Start with fast walks.
Then move to a slow jog or go to a gentle fitness class
and really figure yourself out first, what your capacity is,
what your capability is, and then build on that.
Definitely seek some professional advice around that,
but just check yourself first.
Make sure that you feel comfortable,
confident you are strong enough
to engage in activities and build that up.
Start with something really easy,
but also exercise needs to be fun, right?
If we don't enjoy physical movement, if we don't enjoy going
to the gym and sitting there in front
of the mirror lifting weights because it's not for everybody.
I personally am not a big fan of the traditional gym.
I'm much more engaged in a fitness class.
I like something where a coach is shouting at me from the
front of the room and there's loud music on,
and there's other people moving with me.
So I know if I'm given two scenarios, a cold gym room,
which I'm personally not a big fan of, left
to my own devices to do whatever workout I'll try
and think of, or a class
where I've got a coach encouraging me
and an environment and a buzz.
If I go into that first one in the gym, I'm probably going
to spend 10 minutes in there, not do a lot,
and then not really feel too good about myself,
because that's my personal preference.
You've got to find what's good for you.
But for me, if I went into that class
because it suits me much more, I'm going to feel great.
I'm going to have a fantastic time.
I'm going to achieve so much more,
and I'm going to want to do it again tomorrow as opposed
to doing something you don't quite like where it's so easy
to give up on it.
What exercises would you advise for those that are unable to walk or stand for long periods of time?
So straight away we think about chair based exercise.
We think about strength building, not being able to walk
for long periods of time, not being able to stand.
It's,
I mean, to put yourself into that perspective,
it must be such a challenge.
So we have to look at what it is exactly
that is affecting the resident in front of us,
and we have to look at what they can do.
That's really what we focus on.
We tend not to look at what they can't do and try
and focus on what they can do.
So let's say we've got a resident who can't stand
for long periods of time.
Let's build up their strength, their balance.
For example, we could get a blowup ball, put it
between their feet.
Not only work their legs,
but work their core to start with bending on our knee joints
there, which is really helping building up
those muscles around our legs.
But then we can step it up once they feel confident
and realise that they can do that.
Not that they can't do something else.
We can lift and squeeze, engaging more muscle groups,
and again, slowly encouraging that level of
levelling up, if you will.
Eventually we'll be able to build up that core
and go directly up,
and we might even do a direct and a squeeze.
So it's about breaking it down, focusing what we can do,
focusing on how we can really build up to the point
of being able to stand for a little bit longer.
We have to look at it and be as safe as possible,
while also being as positive and encouraging as possible.
This is a sensitive subject for them as well.
They might have ran marathons in the past
or even just walked everywhere.
Chose not to drive.
So again, we're not only focusing on their physical health,
but we're being careful around their mental health,
making sure that they don't feel like this is it for them.
What does one of your exercise classes in a care home look like?
I guess our exercise classes can be different
by the class, but if we were to try
and sum it up, essentially myself
or one of my coaches would come in, again,
relationships are very important,
especially within care homes.
So one thing we really try to keep aware of,
something we stay conscious about is
that sometimes we might be working
with those who have dementia.
Now, one thing we don't want to do is upset somebody
with dementia by coming in
and saying, hey, Marlene, it's nice to see you again.
And all of a sudden Marlene thinking,
have I seen this person getting worried, concerned, panicky?
Because she's then second guessing
her own ability to remember things.
So we treat every home as if it's the first time there.
We come in, we shake hands with everyone.
We individually meet and introduce ourselves
to every single resident sat in that lounge.
So to set the scene, we're usually in the lounge.
There's a load of armchairs.
We are with them all in there,
but we come in and introduce ourselves.
We learn their names again, we try
to stay away from words like, it's nice to see you again,
more just it's nice to see you, it's nice to meet you,
to make sure they feel okay
especially again, back to that dementia thing.
We start with a warmup.
Once we've introduced ourselves, we get some song requests.
We ask what they want to listen to
because we go back to the fact of it's individual.
One home might be very youthful
and they might have been very much into rock.
Another home might be a little bit older
and into a little bit less frantic music.
So again, it's getting a vibe and a feel for it.
The music's on, the introductions have happened.
We'll get into a warmup.
We'll do a full body warmup from head to toe,
rolling out our joints, actively stretching,
making sure we have got the blood flowing.
Once we're safe and ready to exercise,
we might pick a main component.
So today's work might be on strength training,
more specifically our core.
So we'll do a load of exercises built around our core, built
around movement, whatever it might be,
and then we'll finish off with a little bit of a game.
We'll also try and hide a component in that,
because sometimes exercise is about disguising it
to make sure we're still doing something quite effective,
but in a fun and lighthearted manner.
And then obviously we'll finish
with a nice static stretch. In between that session,
although it's a group session, there's
so much independent work.
We might be going around. We're never usually sat down,
so we might be going around assisting residents
with resistance band work one by one,
making sure everyone feels capable, confident,
safe, and happy.
Our sessions are an hour of entertainment.
We almost feel that we have to be show people.
We have to put on this big show with music
and excitement and fun.
But then at the same time, we have to be understanding and
ensure that we are working appropriately
with all levels of residents.
So classes are hard to define in how they are
session by session, but usually stick to a rough guide.
Staying active, healthy and mobile
Six tips to keep your body healthy as you age
Learn how you can make small changes to help keep your mind and body healthy as you get older.
What are the best exercises to do as we age?
Knowing how and when to exercise can help you get the most out of physical activity as you get older.
Why is exercise important?
Find out how exercise can help strengthen your body, lead to better sleep and improve your mental health.
Get in touch if you have questions or need help
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