correctly and not to be trying to do something we can't do and then get into trouble so this will teach you how to do it correctly and be talking to elaine bigler and she will be telling us some of the things about the class so elaine what do you what are some of your qualifications for this program well actually i've been in the fitness industry teaching group exercise programs for seventeen years and i actually started out in corporate fitness and did programs for a lot of the corporations downtown in pittsburgh but then i branched also became involved in the communities developing various programs  t i am an ace or american council on exercise certified fitness instructor and i'm also an ace certified personal trainer we actually started the senior group exercise program this past spring two thousand and we're looking to start it up again here in the fall and run it continuously as long as there's interest in the program here and peter's talent ship well i'm sure there probably will be nothing so what type of exercise program is fit to listen fifty rabbit basically the title of the program will tell you a little bit about it but the program is really designed specifically with individuals male and female who are ages fifty five and up and i would like to stress the fact that even if you're younger than fifty five you can  program and when i say fifty five and up in the first program that we actually ran here peters we had an age span from fifty five to eighty five years old so it really in compass is quite a large age span but it's it's really designed for individuals who are looking to maintain an act of independent lifestyle and as i said it is for both men and women because a lot of times men sometimes will hesitate to get involved in the class but it's not just for women running them it's the only way to really keep your feet absolutely you know not only diet is always you know you should exercise also absolutely and that's one of the things that we sort of stress in the program that it's a combination of different factors as we are age that are going to help maintain a healthy active lifestyle sometimes we don't always have control over it but these are some of the things that you can control and actually in the program that we try to address in the classes one of those is improving cardiovascular health and to just put that in simple terms sometimes if we're not involved in being active on a regular basis all the sudden we notice things like we're climbing stairs and we're out of breath so rocking with the cardiovascular system and keeping that healthy helps us to be able to do those type of activities in everyday life without becoming winded that's one area that we address the other areas that are important we work on muscular strength and muscular endurance and that old saying if you don't use it you lose very true you know and that particularly with the ma soles if we're not using them awful as we age you begin to lose that muscle mass and i often times i hear people saying to me you know i eat the same as i did when i was younger but i have a son i'm starting to gain weight i like to try to tell people your muscles are like the engine of your body they are very important in broadening the the calories the fat in your body ok and if you don't have as much muscle mass as you grow older you're going to burn those calories less effectively how can you don't have the engines there are only so you can eat the same and all of a sudden you have one that you're gaining weight so it's very important not only for weight maintenance to work on the strength that we do with the the muscles and but it's also important for everyday activities if you think about it whether that the go grocery store l it's very invigorating and at the end of each class i just got great had more energy and it's just ranks and that you bring up a very good point too because i think a lot of people are concerned about the fact that they may have some limitations because whether they be you know something possibly situations like diabetes or high blood pressure they're very common unfortunately today and the thing about this program is even if you have those types of of limitations possibly i don't even like to look at them as a limitation but they do affect how you're going to exercise that you can start participate in this kind of program in fact what we try to do is on each person that actually comes into the program each person  gets a clearance from their personal physician you know i know to stand on your resume here that you do have to have from your physician which i think is very good because everybody is not the same and you can always gear yourself as to what the program rience them right in my correct you're very correct and it also allows us to be able then to see what specific things that person has marked down if they have arthritis or whatever and then we're able then to communicate if necessary with their personal physician or possibly they may be coming out of even physical therapy and we're able to form a relationship there that they will be able to exercise in this class safely and effectively and each person if you come into the class you'll notice will be doing something possibly a little different a modification because it's going to be better for them maybe if they have arthritis in the they're not comfortable doing something so we work with each person as an individual even though it's a group exercise program i think that's wrong porton because a lot of times people come in and they're afraid that they're going to be not able to keep up with things like you saying is the group i mean does everybody do the same thing or do you do your own exercises do you work that well  regular and like i say there are certain instances where it may not be specifically the best exercise for an individual based on you know we've we've given a lot of cations in the classes for a different way to maybe work the same muscle write right it's about progressing slowly you know if this is a good program for a novice exercise or you know it's one of your questions here who have been exercising regularly i mean this good for somebody with just starting or is it a continuance or well actually it's for either and i know that sounds like how can that be but it is actually for either  somebody coming new into the program as i said in the classes and i am actually instructing this class obviously i always give modifications so there will be different ways to do it exercise for maybe a specific muscle group that we're trying to strengthen and you can choose which one is going to feel the best for you and if you're not sure then we'll have that communication to gather so i can say ok let's see what's going to work best for you so that's what's really sort of nice about the class because it's not about everybody really doing the same thing i mean we act with certain extent but yet we have all these different if you degree levels of being gun to my head right she wanted me to go and i thought it would be good for me well actually i had to tell you to i would just add this because this is my grandmother and she is actually the person who got me into the fitness professional i have to give her credit for that this woman has exercised every day of her life i can see and hear and see is the reason that i actually got into the fitness profession seventeen years ago she dragged me to see the truth doesn't we talked a little bit about arthritis and what if you have arthritis or did we cover that already that might affect your ability to participate i mean what if you have these well think different things like that lack of times in those knees and hips even in the thing there's one of the things that's important when you do have something like arthritis is to keep moving and to be able to keep movement through what we call range of motion so that your what that means is you're able to move the joint through a motion that it's supposed to go through and with arthritis we sort of base it on sometimes it will be a little uncomfortable for an individual to work through some of that if there are a point where it's really flared up of course they're going to want to ease but again movement is extremely important if you do have arthritis if you're just sitting was worse right and if you've had like cheney while and then i would like to say to just on that note with the therapy and one of the things that i didn't mention is a lot of the things that i put into the programs actually do come from physical therapy  because i'm still a certified i do maintain continuing education and most of my continuing continuing education comes from directly from the physical therapy field i think that's very important because we do things a little bit differently than maybe individuals has seen in some of the traditional classes if they've participated in the past and i think that's very important  probably the biggest thing that i would say to you i know who's using it or that may be mentioned to me that some people that you know possibly were fearful to come to the class some friends and that because they were afraid that it might be either too difficult that they would be able to keep up or that they had been in classes before and had maybe been injured in class before and it was sort of like i think in your case maybe you were out the testing it out for me then i found that you survived actually the sport and i know obviously i'm not sure i know you've told me that you felt that you really benefited from the program you were given enough hopefully modifications that you were able to still feel successful in doing what you were doing there oh absolutely i mean you just have to put in your mind this is something i want to do and it's good for me so then you go ahead and do might as i said i guess for you i mean you've been doing this you're the one that sort of got me involved in all of this and it's sort of strange asking her how she's been offended because i think she's really bad but  guess you know the activity i know you came in so and you were a bit skeptical too because she really never taken a class that i had actually instructed but he kept coming back and i think probably one of the best things and and tell me if you're not back i had one at one of the ladies in the class and she's not here today but she said to me she said don't you think we work harder than other people and i'm thinking what does that mean when i looked and i said you know you're right i said she said because we're always here and one of the things that i notice is really nice about you guys is the fact that if they're not going to be there they call me and tell me and i'd they don't want me to be worried or concerned that they're not there and they're very dedicated you guys were always there thank you and and the one lady there was tell you about that i think we're more dedicated because we know we have to do this or we're not going to be moving  how big are your classes i mean do you have a limit on your class well we haven't got to the point where we've had to put any sort of limit on the class because it's very new and we had run the program in the spring and we had a very small group but like i say oh really great group of participants and right now like i say we're looking to hopefully get some more individuals out there to participate in the program we have a lot of fun and i think that's an important thing again it is not only like i say is it working on the areas of the cardiovascular and muscular strength but we also touch on some coordination type thing which we had quite a bit of fun with some battles that we were working with them because and we're actually looking here in the fall to start utilizing a tool that's called a stability ball and that actually comes directly from physical therapy and there are these enormous balls which i know to passing vina you have not seen them yet and i actually had tip on one of the stability balls and he was laughing quite a bit to do really  that little hole and that helps with the master balance and again as we age those things those are things that we begin to lose a bit of as we get older and i know myself i my balance is not quite the same as it was when i wouldn't want to eight or ten or whatever so we work on those areas also you know funny how takes us longer to get some to get to go where we're going right right even several things i think what we try to do are functional exercises in these classes and that is a time that means we teach factor sizes and do exercises in a way that you will be utilising your body when you do  everyday activities it's not just about sitting there listening awake it's about how what am i going to need if i need to pick up a couple grocery bags were if i'm going to pick up a grandchild or great grandchild or if i'm involved maybe i play tennis for an activity we work on things that are about everyday life not just about you know a lot of people think well we're going to the gym and we're going to pump some weight but the actions of the causes are actually designed to help individuals in everyday activities even for some people it's very difficult to get from a seated position to a standing position that's most of going to ask you something about this do you have your exercises sitting down or the standing or use a combination in the in the classically handspring everybody was able to be standing but if there are individuals that cannot do some of this in standing motion they can still working with individuals at whatever fitness level we're wherever they may be no and keeping that activity in keeping i think basically quality of life i know myself i hope to follow in her had says you need to also be concerned about diet and other factors too that you have to control for right is when you and since i was a girl scout leader for quite a few years and i had taken a group camping and it was in wintertime we were going to to we've played tennis together for years and to be able to do that was my own grandmother because she has stayed active has really been special to me personally i mean and i know v a handful of grandchildren at her house yes and they're young you know i mean i've got a grandma i can play with me that's right you know it really is being being a challenge which i'm not any longer that's really a pretty neat thing to have y and i feel very blessed to be able to have that and i'm so glad that she's the way that she is most of the time that we need to each other a lot and i'm sure your grandchildren appreciate the fact that you are as activ and go to use your different parts more effectively like then there's something right now and the correct way and just that is ition all energy can the really one of the first benefits that a lot of people notice is that a lot of people come to exercise particularly you know well you know my my pants are getting a little tired or whatever but there are some any other benefits that come along with this from the energy to actually even sleeping better this fall session right that's that's i'm glad you brought that up because i also teach fitness walking and i know there's a lot of people out there that walk on a regular basis fitness walking is that different than regular walking it actually is a little bit and we may be incorporating that into some of what we do in this program but we probably won't start out with it but we are going to be going into that possibly too in it is different fitness walking a lot of people go out there and walk and they sometimes wonder why they're not getting some of the benefits that they would really like to get from it a lot of times if it's because they're not want walking at a pace that intense enough to give them some of the benefits that they would like fitness walking is it's taking a few little techniques and some of these techniques not to frighten anybody but they do come from race walking some of them and it's taking some of these techniques and teaching them the very simple because there's not an incorrect way to walk but it's taking that and showing people how to get more out of what they're walking programs currently may be so that's good thing and i think we could have some fun with that  well let me see perhaps you better tell us we've talked all about this and everything but where is it going to be that question we're actually going to be holding the program at of the old peter's township library but it's been newly remodeled we have a beautiful room that i just saw before we came here that we're going to be and and the program is actually going to be starting on september eighteenth we're going to be running the programs mondays and wednesdays twice a week twice a week and we're going to run a six week session to start it's going to run from nine am to ten am and then we will start another six week session right after that that will begin on october thirtieth and the one thing that i would like to tell people if they don't feel that they can comes all the classes they are going to have flexibility of signing up for different numbers of classes so maybe they're going on vacation if they can't find up for twelve classes that are offered in a six week to number one four to five sauce and that's the number for me and i fear that for if you know me and if you need additional information is that your office number that is my office number and anybody can feel free to call me if they have any specific questions about the wonderful meeting you all and and hoping that you do well on your program thank you very much never had a there because it is something that we do need and it isn't a frivolous when come out the right  call me when you can tell it it is it is from your heart that you're doing this i live in the very law that you're doing it to benefit people in that so let's hope that people pick that up and i hope we get some new ones to join us is and you know it isn't just a plaything it is something for your health and this is i'm greg from senior perspective thank you