See obstacles as opportunities

Tuesday, September 17th, 2019

The PK Silver program sounds ludicrous at first, but parkour for seniors makes perfect sense, if your goal is to train up balance to prevent falls:

Mejia helps break down traditional Parkour moves into versions that are safe and manageable for the older crowd, and also challenge their balance, strength, and flexibility.

Nancy Lorentz, 56, who can effortlessly swing off a tree branch and go right into a somersault, created the program, called PK Silver, in 2016, hoping to share her love of Parkour while helping other people over 50 stay safe.

“We’re a fitness-and-falls prevention program that is Parkour-based,” she said, noting that 27,000 people die from falls every year and that using modified Parkour moves could help address that problem. Plus, she likes the Parkour philosophy.

“You just see obstacles as being opportunities,” she said. “Yes, there is an element of risk in it, but you can’t improve someone’s balance by keeping them on the couch all the time.”

Watch the video.

Comments

  1. Graham says:

    Not for the first time, I’m alarmed by the trend toward referring to the elderly/seniors as the “over fifty”.

    On one hand, never too early to start preparing for anything, that’s fair and I agree.

    On the other, a surprising amount of programming and television advertising, and admission policies of seniors homes, start the clock at 50 now. I am in my late 40s with some issues, but I had never thought of 50 as the start of needing special interventions for basic stuff.

    Perhaps I need to rethink.

  2. Faze says:

    Graham, companies and organizations that serve old people deliberately set the lower bound at 50, not because they think 50 year olds need what they offer, but to establish a mental buffer for the 65-and-ups who actually do need those services, so they won’t feel so abruptly “old” when the time comes, and be less likely to take them up.

    Parkour for oldies is shown in this video to have a positive effect – but any damn exercise is going to improve your life at that age. All the little parkour challenges probably make it more interesting for the participants. God bless ‘em.

  3. Christopher says:

    There’s also benefit in a whole-body exercise heavy on balance, and the mental acuity exercised in parkour or a sport. Parkour in particular means becoming an expert on getting from here to there, or recovering from a bad move, when it could mean life or death.

  4. Graham says:

    Faze:

    OK, that makes sense to me. So much of life is about shaping the reactions of oneself and others to ideas, I may have started to not notice.

    Perhaps industry has come to that realization relatively recently, as well, causing what I have perceived as a sudden radical downward shift in the age level being identified. Maybe only in the last decade or two of marketing.

    I notice they also advertise adult diapers using actors who, barring injury or specific disease, really don’t look old enough to use them. It’s quite disconcerting.

    Christopher: Solid, and striking summation.

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