The Baby Boomers start turning 65 beginning in 2010. It's been said that's the year a Boomer will turn 65 every seven seconds.

By 2030, 20 percent of the population will be older than 65.

With those statistics comes an intensified quest for longevity and quality of life in the golden years, especially among strong-willed Boomers who have a reputation for demanding their obstacles be overcome, the latest challenge of course, being the need to feel younger, and better, for longer.

Those who have come of age ahead of them say they've found a fountain of youth.

It's hidden at the gym, along the bike path, nestled among the weight machines.

At least that's where these 60-plus folks say they've found it.

As one expert on aging and fitness points out, physical health is only part of the picture. True fitness includes intellectual, emotional and social strength as well.

Get off your rocker

Active seniors say exercise is secret to adding life to your years

When Pat Kish left a fish fry in February toting two boxes of food, she slipped and fell, crashing down on both knees as she struggled to keep the next day's lunch intact.

For a 75-year-old with osteoporosis, the expected outcome would most certainly have been bleak. At her age, the co-owner of Burns-Kish Funeral Home fully expected broken bones and a long, taxing recovery. Instead, she stood up, brushed herself off and went home to tend to her bruises and sore muscles. Only weeks later, she was back to her normal, busy, active life.

Kish credits her ability to bounce back to her twice-weekly strength training sessions at Performance and Achievement, a one-on-one fitness facility in Dyer, where she decided to take her doctor's advice five years ago and pump iron to strengthen her muscles and bones.

Martin Prisby, owner of P&A, is naturally a strong advocate of strength training to fight aging. He says loss of muscle tissue is the "lead domino" in aging, and that strength is vital to enable a senior to participate in other types of exercise, minimize injury and aches and pains and enjoy a higher quality of life.

For Daniel Green, 67, of Hobart, it's his bicycle that keeps him young.

In fact, he says, "there's not too many other 67-year-old people who can keep up with Joe and I," he says, referring to his 72-year-old cycling partner.

"We usually get between five and six thousand miles every year," Green says.

"We did 200 miles in one day last year, Joe and I did. It took 13 hours and 10 minutes to do that."

Green says he chose the bicycle as his preferred exercise because of its non-impact quality. The bike doesn't bother his back, which he injured in a fall in 1976. Without it, he says he'd surely have higher blood pressure and a lot of extra weight.

"I think exercising is good for aches and pains," he adds, "especially arthritis ... I really believe in exercising for arthritis."

Gerald Lesinski, 64, of Dyer, agrees in exercise, particularly strength training, as a prescription for pain. Since he began working out on weight machines at Performance and Achievement almost four years ago, the avid golfer says his back doesn't bother him nearly as much as it once did.

"I think most people when they get to be in their late 50s or early 60s, they start to realize something's wrong," Lesinski says. "They're not as strong and they can't do the things they could do before and this may be an answer for them with just a moderate amount of time and a moderate amount of energy." What all of these seniors have in common is that none of them discovered exercise until at least their 50s, a testimony to the notion that it's never too late.

Except for Bill Ferguson, 64, who works out at Omni 41 in Schererville at least five days a week, plus bicycling outdoors, and has been athletic all of his life. He says he is probably in the one or two percent minority of seniors who maintain a high level of intensity.

However, he admits his fitness priorities have shifted a bit.

"The biggest fear anybody my age has is injury because it's so hard to come back. That's why when you get older, people say, 'well, you don't have that competitive spirit.' It's not so much the competitive spirit, it's that you don't want to get hurt."

Dr. Thomas Sattler, a former college educator, Chicago sports team trainer and an active senior himself, helps seniors get moving through the programs he designs for Alliance Rehab, which deals mainly with nonprofit retirement communities across 10 states. Senior-living communities like St. Anthony Home in Crown Point adopt his SeniorFIT program and invite him to deliver motivational talks.

"My job for the most part," laughs Sattler, "is to get seniors off their butt."

His personal exercise routine includes six days a week on an elliptical trainer, followed either by a swim or weight training. On the weekends, he rides his bike outdoors, sometimes followed by 18 holes of golf.

"I want to see how far I can push a senior," says the recent National Fitness Hall of Fame inductee, who is 68, and prides himself on being in tune with the unique fitness needs of the senior population.

In terms of physical fitness, Sattler notes key differences between a senior citizen's workout and that of a younger person. Building bigger and stronger muscles and gaining speed and distance take a back seat, while flexibility and core balance take precedence.

"As opposed to overloading the muscle with a lot of strength, you are more concerned with overloading the muscle with more time. It's a safer approach to doing it," Sattler says. "That same thing applies in terms of cardiovascular training. Rather than increasing resistance on a treadmill or going to a higher incline, why not just go a further distance."

Sattler takes his coaching to a higher level, focusing on what he calls "multidimensional wellness."

"If you are really fit," Sattler says, "you are fit from a multidimensional standpoint, meaning, how strong are you from an intellectual standpoint? Are you keeping your brain as sharp as possible? From an intellectual standpoint, it's something that we have to keep up with because if we can keep our mind sharp, there's a direct connection between the mind and body."

In addition, Sattler also wants to make sure seniors are socially fit by maintaining interactions with other people. He wants to make sure they are emotionally fit by avoiding self-pity. He wants to make sure they are spiritually healthy by having somewhere to go when they are hurting. He wants to ensure their intellectual and vocational health by challenging the brain and helping others.

"Now we are talking about a senior who is living a very well-balanced life," Sattler says.