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WILKES-BARRE TWP. — Bryant Carter’s voice boomed as he welcomed his protegees to exercise class.
“Say it with me!” he thundered. “We are warriors and we never quit!”
If that sounds like the encouragement a sergeant might give his recruits, maybe it’s because the tall, athletic Carter, now 53, spent 10 years in the military before he came to Northeastern Pennsylvania and started spreading a gospel of fitness.
On a recent Monday afternoon, his “warriors” were a dozen senior citizens who came to the breakfast room at the Quality Inn & Suites on Kidder Street for a weekly balance and flexibility class sponsored by the Geisinger Health System’s Silver Circle program.
For these fighters, enemies include not only potential problems with balance and flexibility but high blood pressure, bad backs, fatigue and arthritis. They said the exercises help with all those challenges.
“I had back problems and I don’t anymore,” said Romaine Stout, 63, of Plains Township. “I used to go to a chiropractor; now I got to a masseuse and come here. “
“He’s an amazing man,” Stout continued, with a nod toward Carter. “He gets you going.”
The exercises started with head rolls and shoulder rolls, working each side of the body, and soon progressed to lunges, squats and leg raises.
“Like a ballerina!” Carter said, demonstrating how the group should point their toes.
The class doesn’t use recorded music, but listens to Carter count a 1-to-10 cadence for each set of repetitions. “I’m the music,” he said. “Play that song again.”
Reminding the group that his idol Jack LaLanne lived into his 90s, Carter said, “I want to go further than 92. I’ll go to 192.”
Carter’s personal daily exercise routine includes 1,500 pushups and a 4-mile run, which he pursues with almost religious dedication.
“If I had to meet my Maker today, I want to be able to say, ‘Lord, I did my exercise,” he said.
At any time during the session, participants who needed support were welcome to hold onto a chair. At one point, they all sat on chairs to do sitting exercises. Legs extended in front of them, they flutter-kicked like a swimmer, then spread their legs out to the sides like a cheerleader doing a split, then stretched their arms up as if they were “picking cherries.”
“I want to hear those chairs squeaking,” Carter said, urging the group to be vigorous. “You should be doing this at home. Every day.”
“You’re killing us,” Ruthie O’Dell, 75, of Plains, called out. But she was only joking.
The class has helped ease shoulder pain she experienced as the result of a rotator cuff injury, she said, and she’s pleased to have lost a few pounds.
“This is a great program,” 80-year-old Jean Panzitta of Hughestown said. “I feel invigorated.”
“Geisinger is to be commended,” she added.
Bryant, who also teaches exercise classes to mostly younger people at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Wilkes-Barre and at the Sherman Hills Housing Complex, enjoys his work with the seniors in Geisinger’s Silver Circle.
“We have a strong crew here,” he said before leading the group through a quiet meditation and flowing tai chi movements.
Getting older is no reason to stop investing in yourself, Michele Falchek of Kingston said, explaining she considers the classes an investment.
In fact, getting older is all the more reason to work on balance and flexibility, Geisinger spokeswoman Therese Pramick said, because that can help a person avoid falls and fractures. In 2015, Pramick said, Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center admitted 772 trauma patients due to falls. In that group, 55 percent were 65 and older; 21 percent were ages 46 to 64.
According to the National Council on Aging, falls are the leading cause of injury death for older Americans, and they threaten seniors’ safety and independence.
