17/12/2025
Group Fitness Is Not Automatically Senior-Friendly
As more senior fitness classes emerge across Zimbabwe, it’s important to pause and ask a critical question:
Are large group classes really safe and effective for aging bodies?
Many programs label their sessions as Zumba, weights, or mobility classes. Seniors lift tyres, run, sit on the floor, stand up, stretch, and move together. On the surface, this looks impressive- active, energetic, motivating.
But senior wellness is far more delicate than that.
Most seniors- if not all - live with at least one underlying condition: joint degeneration, balance issues, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, reduced mobility, past injuries, or neurological decline. These are not always visible, but they are always present.
This is why traditional large group training is not ideal for seniors.
Group classes move at one pace, one load, one cue - yet seniors are never at the same place physically, neurologically, or medically. What is safe for one person may be dangerous for another. One fall, one wrong load, one rushed movement can lead to fractures, loss of independence, long hospital stays, or even mortality.
At Simuka Wellness, we understood this early.
That’s why in 2021, we launched Simuka Senior Living Wellness - not as mass group fitness, but as small-number group personal training.
Our model is intentional:
✔ Every senior starts with an assessment
✔ We understand where the individual is coming from
✔ We define where they are going
✔ Training is personalized within a small group
✔ Progressions are controlled, supervised, and safe
This is not about avoiding effort - it’s about applying the right effort at the right time for the right person.
Most seniors don’t need intensity.
They need stability, strength, balance, confidence, and dignity.
Senior wellness is not entertainment.
It is preventive healthcare.
This is not about competition with sports clubs or trendy classes.
It is about responsibility.
When we work with seniors, we are not training bodies-
we are safeguarding lives, independence, and the integrity of families and communities.
That is why at Simuka Senior Living Wellness, we choose quality over quantity, assessment over assumption, and care over hype.
