Fitness For The Over 50’s

Many men over 50 and women over 50 stop exercising as they get to many aches and pains in their joints, especially from heavy weight training or to much road running, the trouble with this is that you quickly lose muscle tissue (atrophy), bone density and aerobic capacity.

This doesn’t bode well for this age group and beyond as osteoporosis (bone degeneration), muscle depletion (muscular atrophy) and losing your aerobic capacity can be severely debilitating.

Losing bone density can be dangerous making it easy to brake bones when falling, hospitalising you for weeks. Muscular atrophy can leave you weak and unable to do normal day to day activities like gardening, sport, playing with grand children and losing your aerobic capacity can leave you short breathed doing simple things like climbing stairs, leave you more vulnerable to heart and lung disease.

The good thing is that you can keep these three vital components of your health in later life by doing exercise which is not as taxing on the body and joints like heavy weights and road running.

Using fitness accessories like resistance bands, tubes, loops, swiss balls and other accessories are fr more robust than they used to be and can help you keep your muscles toned, strong and even build them with out the strain on your joints. These types of exercise will also help keep your bone density up and keeping bone disease like osteoporosis at bay.

For your aerobic capacity, heart and lung health, walks in the countryside and hill walks for a minimum of 30 minutes per day ( 1 hour would be good) why not wear a rucksack to increase the workload or play golf which over 18 holes can be a lovely relaxing walk, the good thing about doing these is the low impact on your knees, ankles and lower back.

Remember, exercising when you are getting older does not have to be over strenuous, make it fun and enjoyable without the need to sweat buckets and cause yourself unnecessary pain and anguish, but keeping yourself strong, fit and healthy.

Remember also to keep your protein intake up when you engage in physical activity, as maintaining your muscle is even more important when you are older, if your protein intake is to low you will lose muscle and this is one of the main things we are trying to prevent by exercising, I would generally suggest plant based proteins are better when we get older as it is less taxing on the digestive system.