Florence Brown works out at the Cecil Senior Center.

If you’ve noticed a decrease in the number of men of a certain age hanging out at the local Krispy Kreme, there’s a good reason. More and more senior citizens are becoming health-conscious - watching their diet, getting regular medical checkups and exercising more often and more vigorously.

The national YMCA reports that people 65 years and older are the organization’s fastest-growing membership category. In response, the Y, no doubt trying to prove that those letters represent more than just a weird wedding dance, has almost doubled the number of facilities offering its Older Adult Sports programs, featuring activities like arthritis aquatics classes, a swimming program designed to relieve some of the symptoms of the joint disease.

Personal trainer and massage therapist Joe Scandale of Washington says that in the 11 years he has been working in the health and fitness industry, his senior citizen clientele has grown tenfold. But unlike the Y, Scandale doesn’t view the needs of his older clients only in terms of low-impact and light activity.

“I have a 60-year-old female client who is squatting 150 pounds,” Scandale said.

While not everyone over 55 years of age can boast that kind of strength, more seniors than ever are doing what they can to keep their weight down, gain or retain muscle tone, and keep the heart and lungs in good working order by adopting (and sticking with) a fitness regimen. Older residents, for instance, can join a group of like-minded individuals every Tuesday at Peters Township recreation center on Meredith Drive for a one- to two-mile walk. Sponsored by the Parks and Recreation Department, the program is organized by the newly-hired recreation supervisor, Angela Giacchino, who hopes to expand it beyond its current one-day-a-week format. “If there is interest, we would like to meet more frequently.”

Currently, the program which requires a sign-up but has no registration fee, is drawing 10 to 15 walkers per week and a recent luncheon for participants was attended by more than 30 senior citizens.

Another senior citizen fitness program offered by Peters Parks and Recreation is the Swim-Fit water aerobics classes that meet three times a week at the high school pool. Parks and Recreation director Michelle Harmel noted that while the classes are not limited to seniors, older adults make up the vast majority of participants.

While swimming and walking are considered excellent fitness activities, Scandale contends that a healthy senior lifestyle should not be limited to purely cardiovascular exercise He says that as long as a person is in reasonably good health and his or her doctor has no objection, more vigorous forms of exercise can be included in a seniors’ weekly regimen, including strength training, such as weightlifting. “If you don’t have medical or joint or leg problems, why shouldn’t you lift like a 30-year-old?”

The benefits of regular exercise, Scandale says, include helping to strengthen the heart and lungs, lowering cholesterol, preventing high blood pressure and easing symptoms of depression and anxiety by working out daily stress and frustration instead of internalizing setbacks.

The National Institute on Aging agrees. On its website, the group says that older citizens should engage in any combination of four types of exercise for maximum overall benefit - strength, such as weight lifting or elliptical machine training, balance, stretching and endurance exercises such as swimming, brisk walking, and gardening or cycling. Experts strongly advise warm-ups before and cool-downs after exercise to build gradually to the most vigorous activity and prevent muscle and joint injury.

Both the trainer and the Institute caution that senior age category participants should check with a physician before starting a workout program. Then a qualified personal trainer can customize a fitness schedule. “We usually start out with a cardiovascular thing to get the heart pumping,” Scandale observes, “then we add weights.”

The strength conditioning is more important for older women, because of the high risk of osteoporosis after menopause.

“The majority of my ladies are post-menopausal,” Scandale noted of his personal clientele. “Strength training helps them to maintain bone density and muscle tone,” which assists women to stave off or minimize the effects of bone disease, causing bones to become porous, break more easily, and heal more slowly.

Also important to a safe exercise program are regular blood pressure and heart-rate checks to determine the frequency, number of repetitions and amount of weight to be lifted. But what if those factors don’t accurately reflect a person’s tolerance for pumping iron?

“Your body will tell you when to back off,” Scandale assures timid would-be lifters. “If you don’t have the desire to do your program anymore, if your joints and muscles ache, you’re just not going to do it any more.”

All health industry experts who weighed in (pun intended) agree that a proper diet - minimizing or eliminating most of the good stuff we all crave such as sweets and red meat, cheeses and other fatty foods - is an essential complement to any exercise regimen.

With average life expectancy in America at an all-time high of almost 78 years, why not spend the extra time happy and active and in good health?