day 21

Last week!

After running exercise classes for 4 weeks now i have really learnt and improved my communication skills and group leading skills i believe. For example today during house 3 group exercises I paid attention to how the residents were feeling that day. One resident (who suffers from Parkinsons) had just taken her meds so i knew i had to keep an eye out on her progress during the session. I always gave two options when doing the exercises. The initial one (easy) and a progression for the residents who were more abled. (Eg bouncing the ball in front and catching it or if you want to, try clapping before catching the ball!) Also another client (Mr A) was looking very tired and kept nodding off during the warm up. He also has shoulder pains past 90 degrees flexion. I made sure when i did arm exercises to say "take it as far as YOU can without any pain". This made him give the exercises a go whereas a couple of weeks ago when I last took this group, he just sat and watched all the upper arm exercises. I also accomodated with different size/weight/colour balls depending on the groups capability that day. I've also learnt that this group doesn't respond well to making team games to compete against ewach other while house 2 (which i do on fridays) really enjoy. I cater for this by just keeping the exercises to whole group exercises in a circle. This includes individual (bouncing own ball) and group (bouncing ball to each other) but NOT splitting the groups (lederball).