Creating Personalized Exercise Programs for The Becoming Center Members and Artman Community Residents

Don Betterly is an Exercise Physiologist at The Becoming Center at the Artman Retirement Community in Ambler, PA who has been helping residents and Becoming Center members become more fit during the last eight years through personalized exercise programs. Before that, Don was a private trainer in the area, but he gradually moved away from doing that business to helping others build strength, tone and balance on a full-time basis at The Becoming Center. Don originally studied Economics at The University of Pittsburgh but transferred to Temple University where he earned an undergraduate degree in Physical Education and went on to study Exercise Physiology in graduate school. He also coaches track locally and lives nearby in Ambler.

“One of the greatest aspects of working here is having the opportunity to build ongoing relationships with The Becoming Center members and the Artman residents,” Don shares. “It is rewarding to see the Artman residents getting out of their apartments and The Becoming Center members leaving their homes and coming here to work out regularly to build better conditioning and strength.” 

“There is such a caring and supportive environment here,” Don adds. “We take the residents and members where they are physically at the time and start gradually to build up strength. We proceed with caution, beginning with relatively easy exercises at first. We work on developing very personalized plans for exercise because no two people are alike in their conditioning or exercise needs. Some may be recovering from an injury, or they may have had a hip or shoulder replacement. Others may just not have exercised for a long time, or they may be dealing with mobility issues. We don’t do anything too strenuous that could cause an injury-it’s a process of building up tone and endurance over time and practice.”

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Don elaborates, “We are so fortunate at The Becoming Center to have such wonderful equipment to use to help the Artman residents and The Becoming Center members get fit. A donor contributed funds so that we have been able to purchase new exercise machines and we can offer state-of-the-art, low impact equipment here which is fantastic for strength training; instead of the old weight system, for example, these machines use elastic bands that can be tightened, after starting out with low intensity and building as the individual grows stronger and is more comfortable. We focus on each person’s specific goals, developing individual programs to ensure safety.”

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