01:27 PM PDT on Friday, May 5, 2006

By JEAN ENERSEN / KING 5 News

We often hear that it's never too late to start exercising. But now, a study from the University of Washington finds that the benefits for senior citizens may be even greater than previously thought, especially for those who haven't been active in years.

Even at age 96, George Sperline says he can't always find time to exercise. Still, he recently took up weight-training, figuring better late than never.

“I just thought that exercise would be good for me, no matter what,” he said.

George was onto something when researchers Dr. Wayne Levy and Dr. Susie Woo at the University of Washington pitted sedentary young people against sedentary older adults in their 60's and 70's.

They came up with some surprising results. Not so surprising was that the younger subjects started out with a distinct advantage.

The older people consumed more oxygen during recovery, so it took longer to recover from a bout of exercise than the young people. But when it came to improving efficiency, the research took an unexpected turn. After six months of exercise, the younger subjects improved by only 2 percent but the older ones improved by 30 percent.

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Daily aerobic exercise is recommended for seniors.

"That they were able to improve their efficiency so much greater than the younger people actually was surprising,” Woo said.

That’s good news for the residents of Merrill Gardens in West Seattle, who recently started an exercise program of their own last fall. Dr. Chris Fordyce of Group Health, who designed the workout, says it's not always easy to motivate older adults to exercise.

“The older we are, the more chronic disease that we have, the more challenges and problems we face, or physical disabilities we have, the more we worry we're going to cause ourselves more problems than benefit we may get from exercise,” she said.

The program focuses on aerobic activity, muscle strengthening, flexibility and balance exercises. Muscle strengthening should be done every other day and the other three -- stretching, walking or swimming -- daily, Fordyce suggests.

For strengthening, bands and balls are safer to use than weights for those who are frailer, she said.

Merrill Gardens is proof the benefits are measurable. A similar program at its Northgate site found that the incidence of falls decreased by 88 percent.

Now there's more encouraging research from the University of Washington.

“Our study shows that a lot of the specific changes that are associated with aging are reversible to a great extent,” Woo said.

That has implications for all of us. The average person should get out and exercise,” Woo said. “We need to walk.”

As Roberta Zimmerman found out, it doesn't take much to make a difference. Even for someone, like her, who's on oxygen.

“More strength, more surety on my feet and it's just a lot of fun,” she said.

In the study, participants exercised for 90 minutes three times a week. That included walking, jogging, bicycling and stretching.

The UW study is published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.