Sherri Lachowsky stays in shape by leading senior citizens in fitness classes, a job she said is the best she’s ever had.
Lachowsky, 54, is the health-and-wellness coordinator and personal trainer at the Ola and John Hawks Senior Wellness and Activity Center in Conway.
She has a front-row seat — albeit on an exercise ball with weights in her hands — to the new attitude about aging and exercise.
“People think of a senior center as someone sitting there drooling in a corner, and that’s not what this is. They want more intense classes. I’m like, ‘Y’all are killing me,’” she said, laughing.
Lachowsky didn’t start out to work with senior citizens, or be a fitness instructor, for that matter.
The Texas native moved to Conway after she graduated from Lubbock Christian University with a degree in psychology.
“About all you can do is say, ‘Do you want fries to go with that burger?’” she said, jokingly, about her degree.
She worked at Youth Home in Little Rock, but she felt frustrated that she couldn’t make more of a difference. She also worked at a bank in Conway, where she met her husband, Ralph, through a co-worker.
Lachowsky later got a part-time job at the Conway Regional Health and Fitness Center, and she also worked at the wellness center at Acxiom Corp. After going full time at Acxiom, she went back to Conway Regional’s facility, where she was a full-time personal trainer and fitness floor supervisor for several years.
“I loved it, and I loved the seniors who came up there; that was my passion,” she said. “They have such interesting lives and want to have a relationship with you. I want them to better themselves so they can live longer and not be in a nursing home.”
Even though she loved her fitness-center job, she jumped at the chance to work solely with senior citizens in Faulkner County when the Ola and John Hawks Senior Wellness and Activity Center opened in the former Agora Conference and Events Center in 2014, moving out of a cramped, older building in Conway.
“I have never had a dream job, but this … is … it,” she said. “When I see all these seniors, I get an adrenaline rush that is out of this world.”
She teaches five different classes several times a week: Drums Alive has been modified for seniors.
“What we do, we don’t do near all what it entails, but we do different routines to different songs. We use the big exercise balls … and real drum sticks; it’s basically a fun cardio workout, is what it is. “[We also have] tai chi, strength-training, boot camp, Silver Sneakers and Move With Balance.
“All the programs I teach are evidence-based.”
Exercise has been shown to keep the mind and body sharp, she said.
“It’s good for emotions; it helps with depression because it gets those endorphins going in your brain,” she said, adding that social interaction boosts brain power. “It’s not Sudoku; it’s not crossword puzzles. It’s regular social interaction.”
People exercise in walkers and wheelchairs, too.
“We help anybody at any level,” she said.
Lachowsky said it’s “a big misnomer” that people with osteoarthritis can’t exercise, even rheumatoid arthritis, “if they’re not having a flare-up.”
Strength training helps with just getting in and out of a chair, and the balance class is important to reduce the risk of falling, she said.
The Move With Balance class includes brain teasers and visual balance, which includes eye exercises — yes, eye exercises.
“We work on depth perception — look at two dots. … Let your eyes relax, and those dots are supposed to merge together,” Lachowsky said. “We work on those muscles.”
One woman contended that she didn’t need her reading glasses for Bible study after taking the class, Lachowsky said.
When the seniors wanted more intense training, Lachowsky added a boot camp.
“It kicks my butt — we do lunges, squats,” she said. “They could run circles around me at some of their ages.”
Lachowsky points to a 94-year-old who drives to the center every day to play beanbag baseball.
“He’s sharp,” she said. “These people are like we were in our 40s.”
She also said Bernadine Dean, 80, of Conway is her right-hand woman.
“She helps me set up for classes. She comes to every single class,” Lachowsky said. “She’s phenomenal and works out in the gym.”
Dean said Lachowsky’s classes have changed her life.
“She is wonderful; we love her. She relates to old people. She doesn’t look down on anybody; she doesn’t judge anybody. She just loves everybody,” Dean said.
“It’s helped me because I was just sitting at home kind of wandering through the days not knowing what to do with myself,” Dean said, adding that she also was a little overweight when she started.
“It’s getting to be a habit now, something I look forward to every day. It gives me a reason to get up,” she said.
Lachowsky said another woman, who was using a walker, joined the Silver Sneakers class.
“When she went back to the doctor, he said, ‘You have improved so much. What are you doing? Whatever it is, keep doing it,’” Lachowsky said.
“Drums Alive helps a lot with people who have dementia or who have had strokes because it works with both sides of the brain,” she said. Lachowsky had to become certified to teach the trademarked class.
Debra Robinson, executive director of the Faulkner County Senior Citizens Program, said the center is lucky to have someone of Lachowsky’s caliber.
“I just tell everybody how fortunate our program is to even be able to have a certified personal trainer. Her specialty is senior fitness — that’s a plus,” Robinson said. “There are a lot of senior centers that don’t have a trainer that can teach all the classes. Move With Balance, tai chi, Silver Sneakers — she’s gotten all this training so we can truly offer the seniors in our community so many options because of her.
“Seniors these days, they don’t want to sit home and baby-sit and crochet and quilt. They want to be working out, staying fit. This exercise enhances their lives so much. It gives them a reason to get up and get going.”
Lachowsky’s personality is the key, Robinson said.
“She’s the type of person you want to be around; people just flock to that. I look out here, and this room is completely full. I just can’t say how lucky we are to have her. It has improved the quality of our program 100 percent because of what she brings to our program.”
Lachowsky said three of the five exercise classes have 40 to 50 people in them each time. The chairs are moved out of the main room to conduct the classes. The center has a dedicated gym with treadmills, elliptical machines, free weights and more. One one wall contains Lachowsky’s collection of St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia, as well as notes, cards, inspirational messages and cartoons.
“After every class, I do something different at the end, an inspirational quote or a joke,” she said. “I like to see them laugh. I have no filter, and they think it’s funny that I’ll say anything.”
One of Lachowsky’s goals is to have a separate building dedicated to the fitness classes and gym. Her ultimate goal, though, is to teach seniors to be fit for life.
“I want to give them a passion. … I want them to have fun,” she said. “It’s a big social thing. They’ve formed friendships and been a big support for each other.
“You have to have the passion to get them motivated to do it.”
She has that in spades, “and I use psychology every day in what I do,” she said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.