Exercises Bias

[Ron162]

Why are exercises and workout routines biased towards younger people but ignore older peoples?

[shipo]

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@Ron162 wrote:

Why are exercises and workout routines biased towards younger people but ignore older peoples?

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I'm not sure I understand that question; can you elaborate on why you think there is a bias?

FWIW, I'm in my mid-60s and have never noticed any such bias; what am I missing?

[Ron162]

Can you show me a routine based on Yogi/Chi Gong/Tai Chi or other low impact systems  specifically designed for older people?.  I am 74.

[shipo]

While I cannot personally point you to such routines, I can say my mother did standard Tai Chi well into her 80s, and my wife is 64 and teaches yoga with routines made up specifically for the participants of her classes, virtually all of whom are older than us.  My advice to you is to shop around for studios or teachers (virtual or in person) to find one which caters to what you're looking for.

[Heybales]

There are many like this, for all sorts of types of workouts - even strength training.

https://youtu.be/g0ZEpT__ZQ8

Yes - most other videos are targeted at younger ones. Perhaps while they know the older might have more disposable income, there could easily be a smaller % wanting to exercise in the first place.

[Ron162]

I have been doing Tai Chi for over 25 years. My problem is not that I do not know how to do the routines but while Fit Bit lists the activity it does not count them under Active Minutes. 

[Heybales]

Ohhhhh, I feel like a moving goal moved on the question.

Active Minutes is 3 x your base BMR level burn rate. That's the designation. Purely definition.

It merely means you aren't burning enough calories doing the activity to reach that level. Or at least what Fitbit estimates the calorie burn to be.

I don't do Tai Chi - but I'd frankly be surprised if it could burn 3 x BMR rate anyway - that's a 2.6 mph walking rate of burn, I see Tai Chi as slower and more controlled movements - nothing that's going to pump your HR up enough to be counted as a high calorie burn.

In fact from a METS database (which is where Fitbit and many others get their data), studies show the burn is from 2.3 to 4.2, avg of 3 on the dot.

So what you personally are given could be below that, so not at the level of being considered "Active Minutes".

Even that used to be so many minutes in a row, any drop below 3x and the block of time didn't count.

https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/sports

You can manually log Tai Chi from the Fitbit database, and it should be given that 3 METS calorie burn from default calculations.

I don't recall though if manually entered workouts count towards those goals.

How high does your HR get during a session, I'm guessing not high enough with enough steps for Fitbit to do HR-based calorie burn.

How high does your HR get walking 2.6 mph?

[cathm]

Hi @Ron162 

I agree, there seem to be many workout programs that are geared towards the younger population.  However, there are some that are geared towards the not-so-young. Some examples are:

https://livati.com/  https://www.amazon.com/Yoga-Seniors-Jane-Adams-2nd/dp/B00PR2IC8I/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Tai-Chi-Fit-OVER-David-Dorian/dp/B081QQ2MCS/ref=asc_df_B081QQ2MCS/?tag=hyprod...

I hope this helps 🙂