Exercise classes at Arbor Terrace Peachtree City don’t stay in one place for very long, which seems fitting.
The community’s pop-up classes might take place in the parking lot one day, the community garden another day and the pool on yet another day.
Engagement Director Mary Byrd says the idea was sparked by the changes brought on by COVID-19. With quarantine restrictions, the usual locations were not available to all residents, so team members had to be creative in finding places for residents to exercise.
The new locations and the variety of classes offered have been a hit with residents. The two morning classes typically draw seven to 10 residents each, Byrd said.
“They’ll meet at the front entrance, and we’ll walk up and say, ‘Where are we going?’ We’ll block off the parking lot, we go into the community garden, we go out by the pool. We just have it all over the community,” she said. “I think out of curiosity, that’s why a lot of them come. We’ll walk out with a load of chairs and say, ‘Follow us.’”
Classes include yoga, beach ball toss (in which participants wear gloves), strength training and water exercises using pool noodles.
“We are promoting health and wellness here. It’s kind of like our engagement theme for the past couple of months,” she said.
Residents who take part in video calls with Executive Director Steven Sanders are given an opportunity to compete for a Kroger gift card if they share a health-and-wellness activity they’ve engaged in throughout the week.
The pandemic has kept residents more sedentary than usual, so the Engagement team decided to put an extra emphasis on fitness.
“We’ve got to slowly increase their activity level,” Byrd said. “That is why we decided [to] promote health and wellness for the next 90 days and see how we can get residents to participate more.”
