EMMAUS, Pa. – Every Tuesday and Thursday at Free Will CrossFit in Emmaus seniors take over the gym.<\/p>\n
“A lot of the focus here is strength and balance. How can we do things in here that are going to make stuff they want to do outside of here easier,” said Free Will CrossFit Owner Alex Hilderbrandt.<\/p>\n
The average age in this master\u2019s class is early 70’s.<\/p>\n
John and Carolyn Baittenger are the oldest at 84 and 85 years of age.<\/p>\n
“It is fun, but you get sweaty,” said John.<\/p>\n
While CrossFit is not the kind of thing you might associate with seniors, the Baittengers say this 45-minute workout session has definitely improved their physical fitness.<\/p>\n
“I feel more confident, more secure in my balance since I’ve been coming,” said Carolyn.<\/p>\n
“I have a bad left shoulder, so he modifies everything for me for that side of the body,” said John.<\/p>\n
But it’s not just pumping iron.<\/p>\n
“If I let them go, these they’ll stand here and talk for 30 minutes,” said Hilderbrandt.<\/p>\n
The class is also expanding their social circle.<\/p>\n
“We look forward to coming and seeing them and catching up on what their grandkids are doing,” said Carolyn.<\/p>\n
“Alex has a young son so he has some questions about child raising, and the whole class all has opinions on what to do,” said John.<\/p>\n
It’s said that exercise adds years to life…and life to years.<\/p>\n
The Baittengers say that’s exactly why they come.<\/p>\n
“We think it’s life changing,” said the couple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EMMAUS, Pa. – Every Tuesday and Thursday at Free Will CrossFit in Emmaus seniors take over the gym.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1009759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[38],"tags":[45574,29183,404342,1728,1198,210,4270,404343,12230,6358,294214,1732,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1009758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-balance","tag-crossfit","tag-emmaus","tag-exercise","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-longevity","tag-masters-class","tag-physical-fitness","tag-seniors","tag-social-connection","tag-strength","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117119456918225108","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1009758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1009758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1009759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1009758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1009758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1009758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}