Life With Ferris: Fitness At The MACC

Not many folks have the option of taking regular fitness classes from a physical therapist. And how many can just zip down the street for that class?

Liz Moore is a physical therapist who moved to Signal Mountain during the pandemic. Instead of returning to the clinical setting after the quarantine, she decided to switch gears … somewhat.

“I still wanted to use my abilities to help the community and reached out to the MACC for space to hold my own classes with the purpose of helping people in Signal Mountain, but primarily seniors, to maintain or improve their daily function to stay independent and continue to enjoy participating in extracurricular activities,” Liz explained.

One of her classes is an hour of low impact standing exercises with an emphasis on strength, balance, posture and flexibility. She modifies all exercises so that a range of abilities are able to participate.

She also offers a seated one-hour class for those who cannot tolerate standing for an hour or have more balance issues. All exercises are performed seated in a chair except for the last 10 minutes of a few standing exercises while holding onto the chair.

“All the exercises in these two classes come from my physical therapy background where I have taken the issues I have most commonly seen in the clinic and made a class that focuses on combating or preventing those issues. I have also held a fall prevention seminar for seniors and caregivers to educate and hopefully prevent future falls,” Liz said.

She teaches several classes for all ages and abilities, but she offers special classes for seniors, including a free fall prevention seminar. Falls are the leading cause of death from injury for people over age 65, and she says that the good news is the majority of falls are preventable. This class is open to anyone, including caregivers and family.

Clearly Liz gives special attention to folks over age 65, but she also offers a sports performance class to the younger set, age 8-18. In these classes, she focuses on correct running, jumping, cutting and body movement along with strength and flexibility with a variety of activities that will challenge all levels of athletic ability to improve speed, quickness, agility and correct form to prevent future injuries. These activities transfer to any sport for more success and confidence in competition or recreational play.

Liz just finished teaching a fall prevention class at the MACC on Signal, but she teaches other classes there each week, including Fit For Life, a low impact strength and balance class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 a.m. She also leads a class called Renew, seated exercises to improve motion, strength, flexibility and posture. Renew follows Fit For Life classes at 11:15.

For more information, go to www.signalmacc.org.

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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. Her website is ferrisrobinson.com and you can download a free pollinator poster there. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.