Die Nachhaltigkeit eines Bewegungskonzepts für gesunde und körperlich inaktive Senior*innen zum Neu- oder Wiedereinstieg in den Breitensport

According to the WHO, Germany, with 42.4% people of insufficient physical activity (PA), is one of the countries in the world where physical inactivity has increased the most in recent years [8]. PA programs to date either reach people who are already active in sports or are not designed to be sustainable, so that a transition to regular sports is not successful [16]. Men in particular feel less attracted to health sports programs [13].

This study presents a novel exercise concept for healthy and previously physically inactive senior citizens and examines the sustainability of whether participants remain active after the project by taking up the popular sports programs offered by local clubs. It also aims to find out which sports programs are preferred and to what extent there are gender-specific differences.

In all, 107 participating seniors (60–82 years; 70 women), recruited by newspaper advertisement, were asked using quantitative questionnaires about their sporting inactivity, sporting motives and their continuing sporting activity in sporting offers. The concept includes a 24-week program with two training sessions (90 min each) per week. In addition to one fitness session per week, trial courses on special popular sporting activities are presented by local sports clubs in week 2.

All participants transitioned to regular sports after the end of the PA program: 93 seniors joined local sports clubs through membership, the remaining 14 senior citizens exercise individually and independently. In addition to the typical sports for older persons, popular sports were also chosen. Especially in bowling, badminton and bosseln, men (accounting for 20–30% of participants) are more often represented in the sports courses than women.

The positive response to the presented PA concept shows that the sustainable retention of healthy but inactive seniors in sports through a target group-specific adaptation of the sports offers in the clubs in terms of their variety and intensity is promising.