BALTIMORE COUNTY — At 83, Carol Anne Cassady is the oldest member of the Baltimore Kettlebell Club in Nottingham. Twice a week, she takes the Strength for Seniors class.
Kettlebells help build strength and stamina. That’s important for seniors like Cassady.
“Oh, it helps,” Cassady says, “because the weights that you lift build muscle, and the muscle helps to build all that circulation around and gets your bone density moving and grooving.”
A retired nurse, Cassady has been coming to the club for over a year. She heard about the gym from her physical therapist after her bone density scan came back a little low, which could lead to osteoporosis. That makes seniors like Cassady more prone to fractures. So, she’s found her own prescription for it – kettlebell lifting.
“Oh, I have a lot more energy. I feel good,” she said. “I felt so much better. I felt limber and agile, and I was able to do things that I wanted to do.”
And that’s the goal, says Baltimore Kettlebell Club owner Dan Cenidoza. The 45-minute class begins with a yoga-like warmup. Then, they start swinging the kettlebells.
“It addresses your muscular strength, your endurance, cardiorespiratory, flexibility, and then provided the diet is in check, body composition as well,” he said.
Cenidoza was a bodybuilder when he was introduced to strength training. He won Maryland Strongest Man in 2007 and then started training others.
“I just really kinda fell in love with that,” he said. “The idea that you could just continue to get stronger.”
And he shares that love with club members like Cassady. She says she has no plans of stopping anytime soon.
“Oh no,” she laughs. “We can’t do that. We can’t stop.”
The Baltimore Kettlebell Club offers kettlebell, strength training and mobility classes for ages eight and up. They also offer one-on-one training. The club recently moved to a new two-story gym at 8019 Belair Road in Nottingham.
It’s a family affair for the Cenidozas. All five of Cenidoza’s children do kettlebell training. His 16-year-old daughter, Andrea, competed this month in the Charm City Strongwoman competition. His wife, Jessica, has written a book about kettlebell training after doing it for all her pregnancies.
“We meet people where they’re at,” Cenidoza said.
