Move More Month at Rock Creek Senior Living

“In January 2020, the Board of Directors of the AVA: America’s Walking Club, declared the first seven days of April to be “National Walking Week” which would include the traditional “National Walking Day” sponsored by the American Heart Association from 2007 to 2019.”

At Rock Creek Senior Living in Ankeny, IA, we strive to make sure that our residents stay active and healthy to ensure they enjoy their golden years in the best ways possible! Each of our residents has unique interests when it comes to fitness – some enjoy walking outdoors at local parks while others get their workout in at our cardio drumming classes. With that in mind, we adapt our fitness programs according to the tastes of our residents, utilizing both in-house fitness classes and our vendor partnerships to provide a variety of choices for our residents to stay active. Due to our unique resident group, the classes we provide may vary from those of our sister communities so that we are all meeting the needs of our individual residents.

As the Resident Services Director, I motivate my residents to stay active by starting off every morning together with group exercise and stretching. My biggest reminder to my residents every day is an object in motion, stays in motion. The more you stay active, the better you’ll feel!

Aside from our daily morning fitness group, we have a walking club that meets on the weekends to be sure to stay active even when I’m not in the community. We have a very nice, well-equipped fitness center as well, available to our residents whenever they want to use it. Our fitness center also has Northern Iowa Therapy come in daily to provide one-on-one physical therapy sessions. We’ve recently introduced a very fun fitness event called cardio drumming!   

When we think of celebrating National Walking Week, we don’t just see a way to stay active. We see an opportunity to interact with those in our communities and meet new friends along the way. In celebration of this week, walkers are encouraged to find the motivation to get active.

Our community is blessed with beautiful grounds that include an awesome walking trail, which will see a lot of activity as we celebrate National Walking Week. We will be utilizing the trail as much as possible, whether it be our walking club, getting our residents out and about from the neighborhood or doing a full community walk! We will be setting personal as well as group step goals! Our friends that are not as mobile will be getting on our NuStep machine so that they can still fully participate, get their steps in, and add to our step goal! 

As we continue a walking effort throughout the year, we can continue to offer events that promote walking, encouraging residents to join walking clubs and make it enjoyable. Outings are being planned to places that are walking-friendly with events where we can get our steps in without even noticing!

If you would like to participate in National Walking Week efforts in your area, visit https://ava.org/national-walking-week/ to find out more!

Sources:

https://ava.org/national-walking-week/

www.walkvirginia.org