Source: LOHAS Weekly Newsletter
Published: Thursday, December 07, 2006

Willie Wortham finishes up her set of chest presses and easily glides off the weight machine, ready to tackle another. Told she looks in great shape, with perfect posture and a steady gait, Wortham replies, "Yes, for a 91-year-old lady."

At this gym, she doesn't stand out so much as fit in. Nifty After Fifty is a small, independent gym in Whittier, Calif., specifically for middle-agers and beyond. It offers easy-to-operate pneumatic weight machines; comfortable, low-impact cardio equipment; yoga and tai chi classes; licensed physical therapy; balance training and even nonexercise programs such as a driving simulation course, dances and movie nights.

To the growing list of niche gyms -- for women, children, men - - comes gyms for the older set. The market is vast and largely untapped. Many older people who want to stay fit have little interest in rubbing spandex with a younger, iPod-toting crowd at large gyms. They've mostly been relegated to senior center programs, adult school classes or the odd session at a gym or YMCA.

"People walk into bigger gyms and see a younger clientele doing intense exercise, and that's sort of an intimidation factor," says Michael Rogers, exercise physiologist and research director of the Center for Physical Activity and Aging, Wichita State University.

The new niche gyms and specialized programs in larger clubs offer mostly moderate-intensity exercise in a comfortable, low-pressure environment, often with a specially trained staff. Employees at these gyms and programs, says Rogers, are more likely to understand that some conditions, such as arthritis, call for specific types of workouts.

Among the gyms and programs wooing an older clientele is Club 50 Fitness, a new franchise of Curves-like circuit-training gyms based in Reno, Nev., and begun in 2003. The chain boasts about 50 clubs across the country, with more to come.

Silver Sneakers fitness classes, a for-seniors program started in 1992 (free through some Medicare health plans), are in more than 1,200 gyms and YMCAs nationwide. Bally Total Fitness has them in 45 clubs nationwide and will add 22 soon. About 50 of the 600 or so Gold's Gyms offer the program. Even some larger independent gyms have special senior programming.

"We've seen (niche gyms for seniors) grow from one or two facilities 10 years ago to probably a few hundred now," with a big push in the last three years or so, says Colin Milner, executive of the Vancouver, Canada-based International Council on Active Aging.

Barbara Anon would probably rather skip exercise altogether than set foot in a warehouse-size building filled with complicated machines and loud dance music. The 76-year-old Nifty After Fifty member says of mainstream clubs: "I don't want to change clothes and run around in one of those suits."

In fact, it's not unusual to see gym members here wearing comfortable street clothes. Such informality fits in with founder Dr. Sheldon Zinberg's philosophy that a gym should be welcoming and comfortable.

The retired gastroenterologist, a fit 73 himself, discovered the significance of regular exercise when former patients enrolled in senior-friendly strength training classes -- and subsequently reported fewer hospitalizations, greater muscle strength, more ease in climbing stairs and walking faster, he says. It persuaded him to open gyms specifically for seniors. He plans to open two more by January.

This attention to senior fitness will only grow, says Arthur Weltman, director of the exercise physiology program at University of Virginia who also sits on the American College of Sports Medicine's Strategic Health Initiative on Aging.

"We're going to have a bigger proliferation of healthier older individuals relative to any time in our history."