Living an active lifestyle

An active lifestyle is important through your life to maximise your health and quality of life.

Staying active over 65

Staying active over 65 is really important, not just because it helps protect against a number of health problems including heart disease and diabetes but because staying active and strong means you are more likely to have a better quality of life as you age and will be able to stay independent for longer.

The NHS has published activity guidelines for the over 65's here.

The recommendations are 150 minutes of aerobic exercise a week

and 

Strength exercises for 2 or more days a week.

You may be wondering why strength exercises are important over the age of 65.

As we get older our ability to develop new muscle in response to training naturally reduces. If we don't maintain what we have we will begin to loose our muscle mass and it will be very hard to recover this.

Having a reduced muscle mass and strength in the big muscles of our bodies can predispose us to a risk of falls as we get older and therefore can be a threat to our independence in later life.

So what should I do?

You could join a gym and partcipate in classes or use the weight machines to build/maintain strength.

You could follow the NHS studio leg strengthening program by clicking on the image below:

You could join a Tai Chi class. To get a taste of Tai Chi and learn some basics moves watch the video below.