Seniors Exercise Group benefits mind and spirit and bodies of members

January 25, 2007
By Greta Sproul

 Chances are, if you’ve ever visited the Old Town-Orono YMCA on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, you’ve seen one or more of the local seniors who are regular members of the bi-weekly group known officially as “Senior Chair Exercises.” But, as group leader Coral – will tell you, there’s a lot more to the group than just exercising.

“This is a very close and supportive group,” --- said. “They really care about one another. If one of them doesn’t show up on a particular day, the others will call to see if that person is sick.”

A visitor to one of the group’s sessions can’t help but pick up on the supportive, caring quality of the interaction among the members. Most of the members have been taking part in the group for years and credit their good health and spirits to the fact that they are regular participants. One 86 year-old member recalled a visit she made to her doctor after she started exercising regularly with the group.

“After he finished my check-up, he asked me if I wanted to come back in three months or six months,” she said. “In the past, he told me when he thought I need to come back. I know that it was because of the exercising that I‘ve been doing.”

For a visitor to the group, the name “Senior Chair Exercises” will seem like a misnomer. Although the members do spend time doing chair-based exercises and stretching, they also work with weights as well as walk in the field house. Many, like 89 year-old Artis Abbot, are avid swimmers and have been for years. Abbot comes to the YMCA for her 7:30 a.m. swim six days a week, a formidable schedule that even some younger people might find daunting. When she’s not swimming or exercising, Abbot spends her free time quilting with her quilters group, which also meets a t the YMCA.

On most days that the exercise group meets, the Old Town police department sends someone to take the members’ blood pressure after the end of the work-out session. Then the newly-toned seniors spend some time relaxing and talking while sipping coffee or nibbling on snacks that they take turns bringing into the meeting. However, there is one thing that the group lacks---men.

“We need some men,” one of the members joked. “We don’t have any right now.”

But even though there are no men currently taking part in the group’s exercise session, fellow senior exercise enthusiast Dick Eustis stops in regularly after his own walk around the field house to drink coffee and talk with the group members. Eustice, who had a quadruple bypass several years ago, likes to tell the story of a conversation he had with the doctor who performed the operation, which happened to be scheduled on the day following the AFC and NFC championship games to decide the teams that would play in that year’s Super Bowl.

“I asked the doctor which team he was rooting for, and he said that he didn’t watch football. I said, ‘Good, because I don’t want a doctor operating on me who just lost a lot of money in the Super Bowl,” he said.