Rikli, R: Senior Fitness Test Manual

Senior Fitness Test Manual, Second Edition, offers the most comprehensive and reliable test battery for assessing physical fitness in adults ages 60 and older. The tests in this resource assist health practitioners and fitness and rehabilitation specialists in identifying weaknesses that cause mobility problems, developing exercise programs that improve functional fitness, preventing future mobility issues, and evaluating progress.

The Senior Fitness Test (SFT) is a simple, economical method of assessing the physical attributes that older adults need in order to perform daily activities. It consists of seven tests—covering lower- and upper-body strength, aerobic endurance, lower- and upper-body flexibility, agility, and balance—that can be conducted with minimal space, equipment, and technical requirements, making it easy to administer in most clinical and community settings or in the home environment. The manual presents clear instructions on preparing and administering the tests and interpreting and using the test results. Readers will find guidelines on creating senior fitness programs as well as exercises to recommend for improving functional fitness scores.

The second edition of the Senior Fitness Test Manual offers new tools to help facilitate the Senior Fitness Test. It includes expanded information on ways to modify test protocols for older adults with limiting conditions such as osteoporosis, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, stroke, fibromyalgia, heart conditions, multiple sclerosis, hip and knee replacements, chronic renal failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis, and blindness or low vision. Ready-to-use materials such as reproducible forms, large-print instructions (complete with photos) to post at testing stations, and large versions of performance charts make the testing process more effective, and an expanded chapter on improving test scores includes illustrated instructions for exercises that can be prescribed to seniors to help them improve their fitness.

In addition, the manual retains national normative data based on age and sex for over 7,000 adults ages 60 to 94, but it now includes criterion-referenced, clinically relevant fitness standards. Based on the authors' continued groundbreaking research on aging and functional fitness, these new criterion-referenced standards allow practitioners and older adults to identify the test scores at a specific age that are correlated with maintaining adequate functional mobility into the 90s, providing a new and deeper understanding of the test scores. This allows practitioners and their clients to focus on maintaining or improving functional fitness with customized goals meant to preserve and improve individual abilities.

The second edition of the Senior Fitness Test Manual is now packaged with a DVD that contains visual demonstrations of the tests, including setup, execution, evaluation, and modification of testing protocols to accommodate clients’ limitations. Throughout the text, DVD icons indicate when to view the DVD for live demonstrations.

Maintaining strength, endurance, flexibility, agility, and balance is critical to seniors whether their later-life interests are playing golf, running marathons, or performing daily tasks such as climbing stairs or getting out of a chair without assistance. The Senior Fitness Test Manual, Second Edition, offers a user--friendly means of evaluating physical capacity in the growing population of older adults and helping them to maintain and improve their functional fitness.

Roberta E. Rikli, PhD, is professor of kinesiology and dean emeritus of the college of health and human development at California State University in Fullerton and was cofounder of the LifeSpan Wellness Program at Fullerton. For the past two decades she has done extensive work in physical performance assessment with a particular focus on senior fitness. She has published numerous scientific papers on her work and has made over 100 presentations at conferences and workshops in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Finland, Scotland, Brazil, China, Korea, and Japan.

Dr. Rikli has served on the editorial boards of three scientific journals and is a regular reviewer for several others. She has held leadership positions in professional organizations, including the International Society for Aging and Physical Activity; the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD); the American Kinesiology Association; and the National Academy of Kinesiology.

Dr. Rikli lives in Orange, California, and enjoys playing golf, hiking, and playing tennis.

C. Jessie Jones, PhD, is professor and chair of the department of health science at California State University in Fullerton. She is director of the Fibromyalgia and Pain Management Center at Fullerton and cofounder of the Center for Successful Aging.

Dr. Jones is internationally known for her research, program design, curriculum development, and instructor training in the field of exercise science and aging. She has taught senior fitness classes and conducted training workshops for senior fitness instructors for over 25 years. Her work has been covered in numerous publications and presented at conferences worldwide. Her professional memberships include the Gerontological Society of America, the American Public Health Association, and the American Academy for Pain Management.

Dr. Jones lives in Fullerton, California, where she enjoys dancing, drumming, hiking, playing golf, and jogging with her dog.