Healthy Ageing and Exercise

‘Our findings suggest a positive impact of physical activity on healthy ageing, attenuating declines in health and functioning. Physical activity promotion should be a key focus of healthy ageing policies to prevent disability and fast deterioration in health.’ (International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity)

It’s pretty much a scientific given that the movement and exercise as we age helps to prevent to onset of medical and even hereditary diseases- it’s not a silver bullet, but it helps.

We also know that as we age exercise will look different and even mobility may look different depending on your personal circumstances. For this reason I cannot advise what you should do I can leave generic ideas which in the main people find helpful and you can pick and choose and adapt them as suits you and your needs.

• Walking, Hiking, Speed walking, Long or short distance running, all of which can be done outdoors or simulated indoors in a gym or at home with a treadmill.

• Cycling, Climbing, Bouldering, all of which can be done outdoors or simulated indoors in a gym, climbing centre, or at home with a bike.

• Swimming, short, log, distance, cold water, pool, sea, river, lake all sorts of options here, accessible to most people, should be facilitated events or accompanied for safety reasons.

• Resistance training, Kettlebells, TRX, Bodyweight, Powerlifting, Olympic lifting, Body Building- can be accessed by most people depending on budget and local facilities, if doing alone let somebody know for safety reasons, ideally work with a friend or get to know what you’re doing before doing it alone.

• Class and group exercise from Yoga to Body Combat accessible to most people, there may be more difficulty in rural areas, online classes can usually be found.

• Specialist Sports such as Karate, Cross-fit, MMA, Wrestling, Ju-Jitsu, there may be more difficulty in rural areas, online classes can usually be found.

Whatever your choice as Exercise and Movement specialists we can advise you if you are going to make a regular habit and commitment to any area to condition your body for your activity to reduce risk of injury to increase confidence and if you are competitive to up your performance metric and speed progress.

Exercise and Cognitive Benefits

According to a systematic review and meta-analysis (the comparative data results of a number of relevant clinical tests) the findings of the long term benefits of exercise on cognitive health as we age is inconclusive. This is quite shocking when we see that there are many well-ness influencers with all kind of status and qualifications touting that movement and exercise are definitive in supporting cognitive health as we age. What does look like if we take a deeper look into the findings.

First of all what is defined as cognitive?

• Memory, language, visual space, execution, calculation, understanding, and judgment

‘Some studies showed that exercise intervention could improve the cognitive function of the older adults, providing strong evidence for exercise as an effective non-drug intervention. Still, the method of exercise needs to be designed according to the differences between different individuals,’ (https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1088)

Physical activity promotion has been suggested to reduce the risk of developing non-communicable diseases and the healthcare expenditure, and to increase the satisfaction with one’s life and with the ageing process.

To put this in easier language the benefits of exercise for the promotion of healthy cognitive function as we age is dependent on the individual. A personal needs a tailored approach to exercise, one that takes into account lifestyle, current health, medical trajectories etc… making it a multi-disciplinary approach, not a this is your goal and desire approach, but what is the best way to get you there and to what extent at what risk, which of course is the choice of the individual.

Samantha

We hope you enjoyed this article and took some useable knowledge from it to help you understand your biology and meet your needs in relation to your goals. Please leave a comment, press the heart button and share it to help more people take control of their health, well-being and fitness.

References:

• https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-020-00995-8

• https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1088

In Part 1 of this article we introduced you to the area of Biomechanics and Alignment as a way to understand how we look at the body to assess movement.

In Part 3 of this article we will look at Muscles and Movement notes for Amateur and Professional athletes

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