BALTIMORE — On a recent weekday morning, weightlifter Mona Noyes walks up to a platform and positions herself to deadlift, with the help of a trainer. At just over 5 feet tall with curled white hair, this 86-year-old knows what she's doing at the gym.
For most of her adult life, Noyes was active and worked as a school administrator. She loved her job. Still, when Noyes retired at 77, she felt embarrassed to be "the oldest person anywhere." And once she stopped working, she also stopped moving. She pulled back from travel and meeting new people, wondering, "Is it safe? Can I really do that?"
Strength training can help people stay healthy as they age. It can slow age-related muscle mass and strength loss, help maintain bone density and improve stability.
But getting started can be intimidating.
Noyes said her confidence dropped when she stopped moving her body. Then her daughter suggested she try working out with a trainer at her gym.
"I thought, well, you know what? I'll try it. And then I can say, 'OK, I tried it. That's it. We're done.' But I never went away," she said.
And that's how Noyes ended up at Fivex3 Training, a strength and conditioning gym in Baltimore, where she works with coach and trainer Emily Socolinsky. NPR's Juana Summers was briefly a Fivex3 Training member in 2018.
At first, Noyes started small — stepping up on a box to better handle the stairs. As she continued working with Socolinsky, Noyes got stronger. She says strength training made daily activities easier: from carrying grocery bags to standing up from a low toilet seat.
"Who wants to go to a strange place and you can't get off the john, you know, and things like that?"
Noyes had tried other gyms, with lots of machines, where she says she saw "sexy workout clothes and lithe bodies." Her experience at this gym is different. The gym equipment is simple. Several mornings a week are reserved for more senior athletes. And everyone we met at the gym mentioned one critical element: individual attention from a coach who knows you.
A gym with a mission
Socolinsky, 50, never planned to open a gym. But after years of professional dancing, her back was in tatters: slipped discs, arthritis and degenerative disease. Socolinsky remembers one morning as she was brushing her teeth her whole back seized up and she fell to the floor. She was 35.
Strength training, Socolinsky says, gave her freedom from pain and gave her her mobility back. She had imagined she might someday open a dance studio, but after a weekend seminar on coaching strength training, she was hooked. And her dreams changed.
"I knew immediately … that I wanted to open a gym," says Socolinsky. "I wanted to work with adults, and I wanted to do what it did for me. I want to help them and make them better."
So that's what she did. When Socolinsky first opened her gym, she didn't target a particular age group. But over time, that changed.
"By 2016, it was quite clear I was really enjoying my older clients and I was seeing a bigger push for older people to train," she said.
Current clients brought their friends and adult children referred their parents.
72-year-old Jack LeDonne has been training here for more than 3 years. As a retired surgeon, LeDonne says he knew what the literature said about the benefits of weight training, but it wasn't a part of his routine until his son introduced him to Socolinsky.
"And then, you know, strange thing happens," LeDonne says. "You get into it, you know, it becomes part of your discipline."
Socolinsky's mom, Joanne Giza, who is 75, also works out at this gym. Giza has been focusing on squats and presses to help with her posture. Giza says she used to hate exercise and hate sweating. But like so many people we met at Fivex3 Training, her daughter — in this case, the gym owner — persuaded her to start lifting, and Giza began to see the benefits.
"It's just easier to do everything that you need to do on a daily basis," Giza says. Like lifting a bag of dog food. "The aches and pains are still there, but I can do it more easily."
69-year-old Esther Rechthand works out nearby. She joined about 4 years ago. Rechthand has osteopenia. She credits strength training for improving her bone density score.
"I'm still going to come because it's just, it feels good," Rechthand says. "It just feels really good."
Becca Jordre, a professor of physical therapy at the University of South Dakota, studies active older adults. She says the benefits of regular exercise are profound at every age, and at every age, bodies need to be pushed through exercise.
"If the signal is: I'm going to sit in my chair and I'm not going to walk very far, our body will adjust — we'll lose muscle mass and bone density," Jordre says.
That can leave people unprepared for occasional movements, like a jump or pushing something heavy. But with regular exercise, the body can adapt.
"It is just as possible with older adults as it is with younger individuals," says Jordre.
And that's what we found at Fivex3 Training, where older adults talk about doing things like moving furniture, getting easily in and out of vehicles, and carrying groceries.
"This is the best thing you [can] do for yourself, and then all the people around you," says Noyes. "Because you keep functioning."
And not only that, her world has expanded. She now feels confident in her body. And that speaks to Socolinsky's number one goal for her clients — quality of life.
"The worst thing that you can do is stop [moving]," Socolinsky says. "When they start a program like this … they stand taller. They walk with more purpose … because in the back of their mind, they know what they're capable of doing in the gym."
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