Good movement and mobility add to the quality of life and are worthwhile lifelong pursuits.

Do you ever picture yourself, and your life, well into the future?

Because at age 70 and 80, your fitness goals will probably change — a lot.

Like putting on pants or bending over to tie shoes without falling over or needing to sit down. Or stepping off the curb and onto an icy street, confident that a gust of wind won’t knock you over.

“Those things are huge for our elderly clients,” said Michelle Bauer, a personal trainer at Fitness Together in Mequon, Wis.

“They are the small things in life that we take for granted now,” said Ben Long, another personal trainer at the gym.

Good movement and mobility add to the quality of life and are worthwhile lifelong pursuits.

“We have a client who came here and said her goal was to get up off the floor,” said Holly Tamm, the owner of Fitness Together in Mequon and Whitefish Bay, Wis. “She said if she falls, she won’t be able to get up, and she didn’t want that because she lived alone. We literally started with exercises with the goal to get her off the ground.

“Decline is going to be inevitable for all of us. As we get older, we lose muscle. We just try to say, let’s change the rate of that decline as best we can, by working at it and working the muscles.”

That’s Lucy Martin’s philosophy. The 71-year-old had spinal cord surgery last October, but even now she cannot raise her arm above her shoulders. She also had a hip replacement in 2012, and has plantar fasciitis and arthritis and joint pain.

After trying other gyms for years, she has been coming to Fitness Together three times a week since 2004.

The gym offers only one-on-one personal training, or group exercises of no more than four in private training suites.

“I like working with a personal trainer, they make it work for you,” said Martin, “as opposed to you having to fit into a class. I find it very embarrassing to go into a class and everyone is doing jumping jacks and I’ve got joint issues. I can’t jump.

“I like the one-on-one. And unless I cancel my session 24 hours ahead, I’ve already paid for it. So I’m going to go.”

She was done with physical therapy one week after her hip surgery and back on the treadmill three weeks after that. Her doctor told her the quick recovery was because she was still active.

“He said most people put the surgery off for too long, and their muscles have atrophied. Mine had not atrophied,” Martin said.

Martin doesn’t sugarcoat the effects of aging, but working out really does make her body feel better.

“I have arthritis in practically every joint in my body. I walked in today and said, ‘My knees are just killing me,’ ” Martin said. “I walked my mile and a half on the treadmill and said, ‘My God, this is killing me!’

“By the time I finished my workout, my knees don’t hurt. They’re warm and limber. It is literally night and day. Now, are they going to continue to feel good for 24 hours? No. They’re going to start aching again. But, like my grandmother used to say — if I don’t keep getting up, I won’t be able to get up.

“I don’t want to be laying in a bed at 90. I want to be up, walking!”

That’s exactly how 80-year-old retired lawyer Gerry Miller feels. He loves traveling. Name any part of the world, he’s been there, most recently Croatia, Tahiti and Peru.

“I wanted to build up my endurance,” Miller said. “Traveling means a lot of walking. There were times I would get tired sooner than others, and that bothered me.”

Trainer Ben Long works with Miller on balance exercises and treadmill work in order to improve his endurance.

But neither Miller nor Martin wanted their pictures or videos taken for this story — which, by the way, is not at all uncommon.

Going to a gym can make us feel self-conscious. Working out in front of an audience can feel uncomfortable and some exercises are really awkward.

That’s OK. At some point, and maybe from the beginning, going to the gym isn’t about trying to attain a certain look.

It’s a fight for our health and strength and well-being.

“The balance exercises and some of the things we make them do, it sometimes looks goofy,” Tamm said. “They might stumble. But we can get them to do it, because nobody is paying attention. The private atmosphere is huge.”