Trilogy’s Vistancia in Arizona

• Cafe Solaz, a concept influenced by Starbuck’s, Paradise Bakery, and your favorite Manhattan newsstand,
• Alvea Spa & Athletic Club, a full-service spa offering manicures, massage, treatments,
• An indoor lap pool and outdoor resort pool,
• Hopi Billiards Den,
• Fitness Studio,
• Center for Higher Learning, and 
• Creative Expression Rooms.

In addition to the great amenities offered at the Kiva Club, there is also a full-service restaurant on-site at the golf clubhouse, Verde Grill, and 18 holes of nationally-recognized championship golf within the community itself. Furthermore, there’s Blackstone Country Club, one of Arizona’s finest private golf courses.

Golf Course Communities

Crafted by renowned golf course architect Gary Panks, the championship design at Trilogy golf club draws upon distinctive land features and a backdrop of stunning Arizona scenery to result in a truly extraordinary setting.  With more than 70 pronounced and transitional bunkers that feed gently into the golf course’s fairways and native areas, Trilogy Golf Club at Vistancia highly rewards careful planning and precise execution by the golfer. There are five different tee boxes from which to choose on this unique 18-hole, par 72-championship golf course. Tees range from 5,573 yards to 7,259 yards, allowing players of every skill level to enjoy this exceptional test of golf.

Consider Trilogy’s Vistancia – An Active Adult Retirement Community- for your next new home.

 

 

 

 

Off-Season Golf Exercises For Baby Boomers

Adult Golf Course Communitites

With the cooler seasons upon us, it’s almost time to clean the past season off those mighty golf clubs and put them away.

But wait!  There is one piece of golf equipment that shouldn’t be tucked away in the closet – you! 

Don’t put yourself in storage like those beloved clubs; offseason training might be exactly what you need to improve your game.

So let’s take a look at some exercises for baby boomers that just might improve your score.

Balance:
All sports performance is based on balance and stability.  The mid-course correction muscles keep the body stabilized throughout the swing. They compensate as the weight shifts from the swing phase into the follow through. What keeps your body from falling forward or the direction of the swing? Balance! If you improve your balance you will be far more stable during your swing.

One simple way to improve balance during your swing is to stand on a two-by-four (I recommend getting a better grade board for straightness) with your feet across and centered on the board.  Assume the stance you use when teeing off.  First, work on balancing on the board without falling. 

Once you can perform that successfully, practice your swing while balancing on the board. If you can swing and follow through without wobbling or falling off, just think how stable you’ll be with your feet planted on terra firma.

Core:
The core is made up of the abdominal muscle groups and the muscles of the lower back. These muscles are pretty much what hold us together. The stronger your midsection is, the more powerful your swing will be resulting in longer drives without over swinging.

Try two sets of crunches three times per week. Lie on your back with your feet up on a chair or bench so your knees are over your belt line. Tuck your chin and place your arms across your chest. Slowly raise your shoulders toward your knees as you press down lightly on the bench with your heels, then return to the starting position. Do as many repetitions as you can. Work up to fifteen repetitions per set.

When you can perform two sets of fifteen reps, try holding the crunch at the top of the movement rotating your upper torso as if trying to touch your left shoulder to your right knee. Return to the start position and repeat, this time rotating in the opposite direction. This will start to burn quickly so just do as many as you can—again working up to fifteen repetitions. Remember, golf is a sport of rotations: torso, shoulders and hips.

Retirement Communities

Joints:
Now let’s work on your rotational joints. When the body performs a function, like playing golf, the hips and shoulders move in a series of rotations and diagonal angles. Frankly, most equipment at your health club probably won’t help you accomplish this. Don’t give up your membership at the Y just yet.

Take a look around the workout area; my guess is that there are free weights, pulley machines or exercise tubes. Many health clubs now have free motion equipment. These machines can be invaluable in training for golf (they allow you to work your joints through all planes of movement unlike standard plate loaded machines). 

Some great exercises for shoulder and hip stabilization are: external shoulder rotations, horizontal shoulder abduction (reverse fly), shoulder extensions, hip extensions, light squats, hip abductions and hip adductions. Ask one of the attendants or trainers for assistance. They should be able to show you how to perform these movements on the type of equipment mentioned above.

Weights:
When lifting weights, always start light, it only takes a small increase in strength to improve your game. Make sure when performing upper body exercises to stabilize your shoulder girdle by pulling your shoulders back and down before performing each exercise.

When working the hips, make sure your hips are stable. Keep your back nice and straight and your core tight. Try two sets of each exercise two to three times per week. Finally, don’t get frustrated, especially with the balance training. Be patient, it will come, and when it does, I think you’ll see a noticeable improvement in your game.  Fore!

Be the one to beat in your new home at an amazing Adult Golf Course Community.

Robert Bresloff is a Certified Personal Trainer, Fitness Therapist, Adaptive Fitness Specialist, a Specialist in Fitness for Older Adults and Endurance Trainer with The International Sports Sciences Association. He owned and operated, Total Fitness Concepts Inc for 10 years. He has written for Masters Athlete Magazine, The Waukegan News Sun and trade e magazines and recently released his first fitness book,  ‘The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Fitness”.

History of the Golf Cart

Did you know….?

The first golf cart was introduced in the 1940’s and was originally made for golfers with disabilities.  By the early 50’s they had caught on with the entire golf community as well as a few retirement communities.

In 1951, the first mass-produced golf carts were made available. These early electric golf cars made history by being the first electric vehicles that private consumers could purchase. This allowed for whole communities, schools, and towns alike to embrace the efficiency of the golf cart as a whole.

Some small-town communities really embraced the golf cart. One of the first was a town called The Villages in Florida, which was a large retirement community with a very extensive golf cart trail system. The golf cart was especially useful in retirement communities, because it was a safe and effective way for active adults 50+ to gain independence and get around. Another golf cart enthused town is Peach Tree City in Florida, where golf carts are a major form of transit for the old and young. The local high school even has a student golf cart parking lot.

While most people prefer the electric golf cart over gas, these vehicles do certain advantages. Electric golf carts are perfect for the golf course or cruising close to your new home, but when they run out of power you may not be near a place to re-charge. When going further from home, a gas powered golf cart makes much more sense, as you can bring additional gasoline along with you and refuel anytime you want.

The golf cart is thought to have led on to other types of small transport devices, such as indoor power scooters and NEVs (neighborhood electric vehicles). The low speed capacity, affordability, and easy maintenance of golf carts make them very popular, and who wouldn’t want to play off of that idea?

Over the years, new technology and interest in design have offered newer and more advanced golf cart models every year. Branching out to include golf carts with 4-wheel drive and utility tires, new golf cart utility vehicles were created. They were made to drive on all sorts of terrain, from movie sets to warehouses to gardening stores.

If you are a golf enthusiast and are looking for a new home in a retirement community, visit www.trilogylife.com for golf resort-style living choices.

Interesting facts for this post provided by Electric Vehicles News.

Retiring to a New Home in Florida Can Be a Good Deal

Everyone has an idea of how they will probably be spending their retirement years. Some retirees want to tour around the countryside in their RV while many others want to buy a new home on a lake and park themselves on the porch in a rocking chair. However, many people still think of Florida to be the state to retire to because they like the warm average temperature and huge amount of retirement communities.

Florida is a place that makes great sense for retirees, even more now than ever. Because Florida was affected by the awful economy and housing marketplace pretty badly, retirees can come across some deals on all kinds of retirement homes there. More and more retirees possibly will have lost a substantial amount of retirement investments in the stock market, for that reason they almost certainly will have a lesser amount of money to invest into a estate. This is why the Florida property market makes even more sense at the moment. Though they will have a smaller amount to invest, the properties have spectacularly dropped in price allowing for potentially bigger purchases than they could have otherwise made.

Aside from just property considerations, Florida is a place full of nice weather and enjoyment. Retirees can take pleasure in beach front living or find a golf course community. There are many options open to retirees which allows for any personality to discover a great place to live.

Florida has an abundant amount of retirement communities and condo complexes where seniors can get together with other like minded retirees and enjoy the comraderie of the retirement lifestyle. In addition, there are even RV communities with free standing sunrooms that will affix to the side of just about any RV. When you depart in your RV, you just lock up your sunroom and depart.

Buying a estate in Florida makes perfect sense right now for retirees. There are more and more options open to retirees with regards to the type of community as well as the costs. Carry out your due diligence, as always, and be sure that you know a lot about the region, the amenities and the last market sales.

Information for this article was provided by a post in Mortgage Info by Kevin Forcey.

RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES

The ULTIMATE RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES

The door is wide open. A lot like our minds.

Our philosophy is that every day is an adventure and anything is possible. It’s based on the core tenets that inform how we do everything we do:

Wellness. Actually, that’s kind of an understatement. We believe in promoting phenomenalness.

Exploration. That sentence that starts with “I’ve always wanted to . . .” can finally be realized at Trilogy.

Freedom. Trilogy gives you the opportunities and inspiration to make “it” happen. However you define “it”.

Connection. Here you’ll be connected to family, friends, and the you you’re still getting to know.

In order to facilitate all of this adventure, we’ve created a complete online magazine and community intranet -MyTrilogyLife.com. Think of it as the homepage of Life at Trilogy.

Retirement Community New Homes

Now is the Time to Buy – Learn about the Trilogy Life Lifestyle and Retirement Communities directly from Trilogy Life’s Active Adult Community President Rick Andreen.

‘Bridge’ job is good for Baby Boomer health

A lot of research these days focuses on the health — physical and mental — of the vast Baby Boomer generation. The healthier we are as a group, given the size of about 78 million, the less of a financial strain we’ll be when it comes to future health care.

New research cited in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology recommends that Baby Boomers who are retiring take a so-called “bridge” job to help the transition from full-time work to possibly no work at all.

Learn about Baby Boomer Retirement

The article, “Bridge Employment and Retirees’ Health: A Longitudinal Investigation,” advised that research related to retirees is becoming increasingly important as Baby Boomers reach retirement eligible ages.

It noted:

“…compared with full retirement, engaging in bridge employment either in a career field or in a different field was associated with fewer major diseases and functional limitations, whereas engaging in career bridge employment was associated with better mental health.”

Other studies, according to the authors, have shown that working before so-called “full retirement” made people feel better about themselves, especially if there was a financial consideration.

But these researchers wanted to measure the physical and mental benefits of continued work and what type of work was best.

As for the mental benefit, they said that working in field related to their original careers — what they called “career bridge employment” — provided better mental health than working in an unrelated field. For example, an auditor at a company would want to engage in similar “career bridge employment” — a tax adviser perhaps — upon retiring from the company.

As for the physical health, the authors said their research showed the benefits of continued work … of any kind.

They said: “if retirees fully retire after their career jobs, it may be difficult for them to achieve continuity in their lifestyles. Full retirement might lead to significantly less social contact and fewer daily activities for many retirees. In turn, they may be less able to resist the major diseases and the decline in daily functions accompanied with aging.”

They also advised employers and policymakers to “encourage bridge employment to address the projected growing labor shortages due to the pending retirement of the baby boomers.”

The article was written by Yujie Zhan, Mo Wang and Songqi Liu of the University of Maryland, and Kenneth S. Shultz of California State University, San Bernardino.

Learn More About Retirement Communities

Retirement Community adults propel home sales

Oct 11, 2009 (The Business Press – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — — Trying to time the bottom of the housing market had no part in Kelsey and Katherine McCullough’s decision last April to sell their house near Long Beach and buy a two-bedroom house with a den.

The couple wanted to flex the new freedom that was theirs after the kids were raised and their working days ended. It was no longer important for them to live in a particular school district or freeway close to a job. “We wanted a totally different lifestyle,” said Katherine McCullough, 61.

The former cruise ship agent and movie extra said nowadays she and her husband, a retired health and safety engineer for a pharmaceutical company, play bocce ball and billiards and are taking up golf. Sometimes, Katherine said, “we just like going on the country roads playing our bluegrass music.”

The McCulloughs belong to an older segment of homebuyers with more resources and options than their younger counterparts. Their generation has buoyed home sales throughout the recession in communities restricted to residents age 55 and older in Inland Southern California, say housing experts.

Since 2005, sales in Inland age-restricted communities have plunged by half but they are still stronger than in other new home developments, according to Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, a real estate research firm based in Costa Mesa.

The biggest drawback, say the experts, is the difficulty that prospective buyers face in selling homes they have owned during their working years to buy another where they want to retire.

Still, so far this year new homes in the 14 active adult communities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties have sold about two and a half times faster than those built in other developments in the same region, according to Hanley Wood.

Consistent sales have saved age-restricted communities from folding. Catherine La Femina, regional sales director for Hanley Wood in Southern California, said by contrast 143 conventional new home developments in the area have been totally or partly mothballed since the beginning of 2008.

“Since it is a niche product and the buyers have fewer choices, (age-restricted communities) have more of a consistent success rate,” La Femina said.

In other cases, he said, those buyers not wanting to sell in a depressed market are renting out their former homes. Also he said some are buying retirement houses earlier than they intended to get in on a deal.

The impact of the recession, including shrinking 401(k)s and diminished home equity, is still taking a toll on the retirement dreams of many seniors. “I think our buyer is more tied emotionally to the stock market than any other buyer,” said Rick Andreen, president of the Shea Homes Active Lifestyle Communities division.

Andreen said sales in Shea’s Trilogy active adult communities, including one in La Quinta and another in south Corona, tanked with the stock market last fall, then began to rebound as the market has recovered. Also he said the inability of seniors to sell their houses for an acceptable price once caused half of pending sales to be canceled at Trilogy communities, leading the builder to stop taking orders from prospective buyers contingent on selling their existing homes.

Among those struggling to sell their house are Linda and Jim Medill. The couple lives in a 2,400-square-foot ranch-style house on a half acre with a pool in a Nuevo neighborhood that is filling up with young families. They want to give up mowing the lawn and home maintenance to hang out with other retirees.

Linda Medill, 64, said three years ago the couple selected the house they wanted in Del Webb’s Solera community in Hemet, sold much of their furniture in preparation to downsize and found someone to buy their home.

But four months later their house fell out of escrow, Medill recalled, and by then foreclosures had popped up around them, depressing real estate values. They still have a for-sale sign outside their house and have lowered the price from $550,000 to $350,000. They can’t cut the price further, Medill said, and fulfill their plans to buy a retirement house for $250,000 and lower their monthly mortgage payments.

While they wait for a buyer, they have stored most of their remaining furniture in their garage, ready for a moving van. “I get depressed,” Medill said. “You feel like you are stuck.”

Learn more about Retirement Communities

Active Adult Communities

What is an Active Adult Community?

Retirement Communities are not what they were in the past.  They have grown into luxurious amenity laden resorts offering resort style lifestyles which allow retirees to enjoy the best years of their lives.  Simply put, Baby Boomers and the 55+ crowd is far more active with their lifestyle than in the past.  Golf, Kayaking, Camping, Hiking and hobbies that have given us far more range and flexibility.

Active Adult Communities today offer world class golf courses designed by world renowned golf pros, full service restaurants, home plans designed specifically to fit your lifestyle and more.

Trilogy Life offers Award Winning Active Adult Communities in four states including: California, Arizona, Washington and Florida.  Each offers a new experience that until you visit you will not be able to understand.  From the second you drive onto the secure gated golf community premises, you will realize that you are far from a “retirement community”.  You have come to a retirement resort offering amenities we could only dream of in the past.  You are immersed in an experience that will change your outlook on “retirement” and you will undoubtedly be excited for the future now that ACTIVE ADULT COMMUNITIES bring more than ever before.

 

We invite you to visit for yourself!  There are 2 communities in Arizona (Vistancia & Encanterra), 1 in Washington (Redmond Ridge), 1 in Florida (Victorian Gardens) and 4 in California (Rio Vista, The Vineyards, Central Coast and La Quinta).

 

You can find Trilogy Life’s Active Adult Communities online at http://www.trilogylife.com.

- Enjoy.

Now is the Time to Buy!

The current recession has opened up plenty of opportunities for the 50+ market to begin searching for bargains across the country in the housing market. Previous markets which became out of reach due to double digit appreciation have now fallen to pre-2003 pricing – with interest rate, tax benefit, and more making a new homes purchase affordable.

A recent article by HGTV Pro (Read Article Here: Affluent Baby Boomers the ‘Sweet Spot’ in 50+ Housing Market).

There are a variety of communities throughout the country which provide active adults a great place to buy and get moving!  One of the nations leading active adult community developers is Trilogy Life by Shea Homes.  Their new homes communities feature amenities and features which are designed for the active adult retirees.  World class golf courses, community restaurants and clubhouses have become a luxury standard in the new active adult community concept.