Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” At least, that’s how Bette Davis felt — and anyone who is facing a decline in functionality of formerly functional body parts would be inclined to agree. But that decline is not inevitable, according to local experts in strength, endurance and physical rehabilitation. 

“If we buy into the societal norm of getting old, then you’re going to be old,” said Jesseca Cross, former Olympic athlete and head staff trainer for the Senior Strength and Balance program in Powell and Cody. “I personally don’t like the term ‘senior.’ We are all humans, and we were made to move.”

Strength and balance

Deb White is co-owner of Wyoming Sport and Fitness (WSAF) in Cody. Several years ago, she noticed that there were an increasing number of senior citizens working out at her gym. At the same time, she was watching her then nearly 90-year-old mother become more and more frail.

So she collaborated with one of the personal trainers at WSAF, Aaron Nichols, and a new program, “Senior Strength and Balance,” was born.

“We ran it in Cody as just volunteers for a year,” said White. “And then while we were doing that, we applied for this Wyoming Department Health grant. And we’re now almost done with year two out of three years.”

The program already boasts two sessions in Cody, with each session lasting one hour, twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. The Powell session at the Johnson Fitness Center at Northwest College is also twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“We have almost 60 seniors in Cody, about 25 in Powell and about 25 in Laramie,” said White.

Cross runs the Senior Strength and Balance program at Northwest College. With her expertise in strength training, Cross designed the programs that are in use by the seniors, and which the other staff members implement.

“When we came to Powell, most of our people could not get off the floor,” said Cross. “We would put them down on a mat, and they could literally not get up. So we would suspend them between two bars so that they could actually stand up and sit down.”

But after a few months in the program, Cross said, there’s been a dramatic difference in the abilities of the participants.

“Now they can get off the ground,” she said. “And we have a 73-year-old lady in our class in Cody who leg presses 500 pounds.”

When the program began in Powell, White said there was a very visible sign of success that many of the members were able to attain.

“The first day, these people with walkers and oxygen tanks on their backs came in,” she said. “But we have people who come in now and take their oxygen tanks off and set them on the floor and go work out.”

“These people are doing the things that they were able to do as a 20-year-old, but there’s some 20-year-olds that don’t do what they do,” said Cross.

Assessments

At WSAF, White and her team put their seniors through what’s known as a Dynamic Gait Assessment, which generates a subjective balance score between zero and 24, depending on how mobile a person is.

“They walk and look over their shoulder, they step over something, they walk upstairs,” said White. “If they score above a 22 out of 24, their odds of falling are really pretty low. We’ve had seniors that were at 11 or 12 when they started, and they’re not to 22 yet, but they’re all up at, say, 19 or 20.”

Jennifer Chanley is a physical therapist at Advantage Rehab, which has offices in Cody and Powell. She said that when a new patient comes to them, they ask a number of questions to assess the patient’s goals.

“We ask people, how are you sleeping at night? What are still some things that you’re having trouble doing? What are your goals? What do you want to get back to doing?” said Chanley. “And so we really customize our treatment plan around what that what the patient wants to be able to do.”

Chanley said that they put their patients through several assessments when they come in for physical therapy.

“We look at how well they can stand up and sit down out of a chair,” she said. “We take a look at how far they can walk for a period of six minutes, and we also look at their balance. Then we’ll customize their treatment program to address any balance issues, strength issues and endurance issues.”

Flexibility matters

Lifting weights isn’t the only way that seniors can improve their strength and balance. Amy Jones discovered yoga when she was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 40. 

“This 88-year-old yoga teacher taught us our first class, and it was just so fun and interesting, and I learned how to breathe that first time,” said Jones. “But yoga also helped me to walk better, and get stronger.”

Jones, who had previously spent her career working with adults on the autism spectrum, found such benefit in the movements that she eventually became a certified instructor, and now teaches two levels of classes for seniors in Cody — chair yoga for people who are less steady, and a class she calls “Junior Seniors.”

“The seniors in Cody (that are in the Junior Seniors class) are not your typical seniors,” said Jones. “The senior citizens in Cody who are in their 60s are like people in their 30s in most areas. So I have the two groups that I teach.” 

Jones said the members of her classes see improvements in nearly every aspect of their physical fitness.

“Their muscles get stronger and they improve their balance, their coordination, their confidence, their posture, just everything,” she said. “I just work on all the avenues of yoga.” 

Less than the cost of a broken hip

White pointed out that while the concept is simple, many don’t grasp the practical — and financial — benefits to staying strong as you age. 

“We can run this program in a community for less than a year, for less than the cost of one broken hip,” she said. “Once they break their hips, like, 50% are dead within a year. They end up in long term care and lose their social connection, and they just can’t ever return to their pre-injury lifestyle.”

However, once a person starts exercising, particularly after being properly trained to do weight-bearing exercises, Chanley says improvements are seen throughout a person’s daily life.

‘They’re on a regular exercise program to maintain their range of motion, their strength and their endurance,” she said. “They can walk through Albertsons. They can go to Walmart. Some people really love that they can walk up and down Costco now and spend an hour pushing the cart. That’s really important.”

White relayed a number of other successes that can’t be measured at the gym.

“We had this 94-year-old gal who was super excited that she could lift the edge of her queen size mattress now,” she said. Another one of her members, who was in her 70s at the time, said she was “all excited to be able to go waterskiing again.”

“They’re outside, they’re gardening, they’re doing their own yardwork, they’re doing their own housework,” said White. “All those things that they feel well enough to do, that lets them continue to live independently.”

The social angle

White pointed out that, especially for residents who have ranched or farmed for much of their lives, the Senior Strength and Balance program provides more than just physical activity — it is an antidote to social isolation.

“What do they have to get them up and get them going? They come in to exercise,” said White. “It is super social. The Cody group a lot of times all sit around afterwards and visit, they make plans to go to lunch.”

“But what I’ve seen, more than just the social aspect, is the encouragement,” said Cross. “Somebody stopping and saying, ‘Oh, you know what, your feet are wrong on the leg press,’ or, ‘You need to go a little deeper in your lunge.’ It is the most fantastic, truly, to watch a group of people come together and not only learn how to lift, but to take the confidence and start to train each other.” 

Referrals

White said that there are a few doctors in Cody and Powell who have been referring their patients to the Senior Strength and Balance program.

“A problem that we’ve had, especially in Cody and Laramie, the people who self-select to come are the people who run out of the gym to go play pickleball, but there are people who really need it,” she said. “And so we have given out brochures to a lot of the primary care doctors in town and the orthopedic doctors in both Cody and Powell, and we visit the senior centers in Powell and Cody pretty regularly to try and encourage more people to participate.”

At Advantage Rehab and other similar facilities in the area, a doctor’s referral isn’t necessary to get started working with a physical therapist to improve strength and stability, but a doctor does need to approve in order for Medicare to cover the cost.

“They don’t have to have the doctor’s order first,” said Chanley. “They can come and make an appointment and be seen by a physical therapist, and then we will write up the evaluation. We’ll send it to their doctor for signature, and then that’s taken care of. But it does need to be signed by the doctor, and then Medicare covers the therapy.”

Confidence Outside the Gym

Cross and others on staff with the Senior Strength and Balance program have designed booklets so participants can go to any gym and continue to exercise safely, as well as include other healthy habits into their daily lives.

“We give them recipes, we give them advice, like, walk this far, do these stretches,” said Cross. “We provide as much balance work as we possibly can. And coming up in January, the plan is to actually create a seven day a week program so they have no excuses.”

White said that the training the members receive is especially helpful to people who live elsewhere part of the year. 

“A lot of these people now, they go be a snowbird somewhere, and they walk into the gym and they’re like, ‘Here’s my workout. I’m all set,’” she said.

Many of Chanley’s patients who graduate from physical therapy continue on their own at some of the local fitness facilities, or working with personal trainers. 

“The difference with their gait, their speed of walking and their confidence, it’s just so amazing to watch the change and the improvement over time and their ability to do the things that they want to do,” said Chanley. “Getting back to gardening, getting back to their favorite hobbies. They can play with their grandchildren again, and go up and down the stairs more easily.”

Strength To Be Human

“My hope for this whole community, which I call Powell/Cody/Lovell, is for us to finally decide that doing life together is better than to be separate, and to make the most amazing humans possible,” said Cross. “We need people out building gardens. We need people out doing the activities that are going to hold these small communities together.”

Jones said she gets such joy out of the photos that her students send her of them doing everyday things that they previously were unable to do.  

“Nothing makes me happier than seeing them lifting up groceries because they can now,” she said.

The Department of Health grant for the Senior Strength and Balance program expires Dec. 31, 2026, but White said she is looking for more funding.

“I’m going to find a way to make it work,” she said.

Cross pointed out that healthy, strong individuals are necessary in order to grow as a society.

“My end goal is for everybody to be thriving and doing the things they never thought possible, no matter what age they are,” said Cross. “Let’s get back to doing the things that humans were made to do, so we can grow.”