Exercise habits in your 60s & 70s are best approached with a view to keeping activity fun and engaging whilst not overly taxing your muscles and central nervous system. By the time we reach our 60s we really have to begin to make a shift away from the aesthetic side of fitness and consider current (and future) health maintenance as a priority. Not because you can’t maintain an aesthetic body in your 60s, you can. But because if sheer training force and volume or restrictive dieting have served you in previous years, keeping that going through this decade could be a big mistake.
This is the time in life when we have to go head-to-head with the law of entropy, i.e. that which we don’t use, will be taken away. What I mean by that, is that many health issues are exacerbated or even invited by a lack of activity or a poor diet.
If you lead an inactive lifestyle, you are sending signals to your body that you are not interested in keeping your fitness levels, your muscle mass, your suppleness and indeed your health. Remember moss doesn’t grow on a rolling stone.
This doesn’t mean you have to be in a full-on training program, but I would highly suggest that throughout your 60s & 70s you try to build activity into your daily routine and establish it as a non-negotiable, just like brushing your teeth.
Don’t wait too long to start
One of the unfortunate ironies I have observed about how our bodies work is that some of the most effective ways to get results and improve health in the long term actually involve periods of stress. It’s how our bodies adapt to these stresses that actually force the adaptation, it’s a process known as hormesis, making these stressors hormetic stressors. Periods of fasting, intensive exercise, heat and cold exposure all fall within the category. The problem is if you allow your body to decline you may find yourself in a position where you would be best advised not to experience the hormetic stress, even though in previous years it would have been good for you. The problem is that there is a point at which the body is too frail to experience the hormetic stress. A good example would be that of high blood pressure. If you go to a gym or spa you’ll see medical warnings about not using it if you have high blood pressure. Curiously suana use has been shown to lower blood pressure. The problem is that it does so by temporarily raising blood pressure, forcing the body to adapt and lead to improved vascular health. The trouble is if you already have high blood pressure you would be advised not to risk this spiked blood pressure as it could cause a negative health event. Cold exposure and intensive exercise have also been shown to promote lower baseline levels but again, will raise blood pressure during the practice itself.
Or course you could still make lower-impact interventions like managing stress, eating well and choosing lighter activity, but the point is that you can find yourself in a position where very effective options are being taken off the table because you cannot handle their risk profile. So it’s in our best interest to never allow us to get into that position, and taking our eye off the ball for too long can get us there due to the law of entropy. We simply must protect a position of wellness as vehemently as we would try to treat a position of disease or ill health.
Health benefits of exercise after age 60
To highlight my point let’s explore how exercise can impact some of the most common health ailments we might experience with advancing age:
Brain health
Studies show that people who are physically active are less likely to experience a decline in their mental function and have a lowered risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Certain forms of exercise like balance training can help you improve your coordination and proprioception and can help make slips and falls far less likely. Important because a slip or fall can unfortunately be the trigger event that leads to a downward health spiral for myriad reasons.
Osteoporosis
Resistance training benefits those suffering from osteoporosis by reducing bone loss and making bones denser. Incidentally alongside resistance training, the use of a mini trampoline has been shown to be particularly beneficial for those with osteoporosis.
High Blood Pressure
Consistent exercise whether aerobic or anaerobic has been shown to be beneficial for high blood pressure, lowering both diastolic and systolic levels. and of course, alongside a healthy nutrition plan, this is one of the more easily demonstrable benefits of exercise. Incidentally, while your blood pressure is still high, avoid extreme short bursts of cardio such as sprints and very heavy lifting until your blood pressure is back under control. And of course, consult a doctor before starting out a new exercise regime with high blood pressure. Interestingly there was once caution against
Diabetes
Exercise encourages your body to be more sensitive to insulin which helps improve diabetic symptoms. Regular activity is also going to lower your blood sugar and decrease your risk factors for health issues often encountered downstream of diabetes such as heart disease and nerve damage. Be assured diabetes can be managed and reversed if lifestyle measures are taken early enough. I can personally attest to this because, at the time of writing, my father has reversed his. What might be helpful as a way of looking at diabetes is that it’s a snapshot of your current level of health, rather than a destiny and can respond very well to lifestyle intervention which is supported by this study in the Lancet of Diabetes and Endocrinology.
Arthritis
Exercise is useful for those suffering from arthritis, as it strengthens muscles that surround and support joints and can lower joint pain. Light exercise can be used as a way to generate energy, which we might term a ‘work-in’ (as opposed to a workout), this additional energy can help offset the fatigue commonly experienced with inflammation.
Exercise strategy for 60+ year olds
I would recommend that you approach your health & fitness efforts in your 60s & 70s along the 4-step plan I outline below:
1. Get a base level of fitness
Firstly I recommend cultivating a baseline level of fitness via light aerobic training. This is going to make multiple systems in your body more efficient. Wihich in turn will give you greater energy levels and kickstart a positive cycle where you’ll be more likely to make healthy choices. Aim for 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at a moderate level 3 times per week and gradually increase the intensity and duration over time.
2. Develop Mobility & Balance
Once you have your base level of fitness, I suggest that the next thing you approach is to develop your balance and mobility. This helps enhance your functional movement. Making everyday activities a little easier and significantly reduces your risk of injury. You can start this in a formal way via a mobility practice or adopting movement-based disciplines like yoga, dance or Pilates alongside taking everyday opportunities to work on your balance, for example brushing your teeth on one leg or practising walking heel to toe.
3. Introduce resistance training
The next step is to introduce resistance training. This will help you gain strength and muscle tone, whilst drawing on your base level of fitness and improved coordination to make things safe and easy to perform. Short total body workouts performed a couple of times per week with increasing weight, but moderate volume will provide an excellent framework. Consider switching up your workouts every 4-6 weeks to sustain your body’s need to adapt and keep getting stronger.
4. Be active every day
Now that you have all of the core facets of fitness in place the goal is to stay active every day, a great idea would be to rotate the three types of exercise, don’t double up on training sessions back to back, and allow plenty of active downtime by way of activity pursuits like walking, cycling and swimming etc. Get accustomed to using activity as a frequent alternative to actually working out.
Healthy eating after 60
Focus on inflammation
I think sometimes in life it’s useful to think of developing a concerted focus on certain concepts and develop what we might consider a ‘consciousness’, for example, if you want to improve your finances, you might develop a ‘money consciousness’ you would then strategise and see opportunities to both save and make money to improve your situation, i.e you’d see things you weren’t previously attuned to noticing.
Using this mental model, I suggest that you adopt an ‘inflammation consciousness’. I think this should be a priority because almost all of our most prominent diseases in the modern world are diseases of inflammation, unchecked inflammation is essentially an open invitation to illness and disease and we can gain some control of our level of inflammation by monitoring various potential sources of inflammation, including the food we eat.
Below are some of the frequent causes of inflammation:
- Work pressure
- Medication
- Environmental stressors
- Temperature stressors
- Relationship troubles
- Poor digestion
- Inflammatory foods
- Bad posture
- Lack of sleep
- Emotional stress
Of course, to truly know your current level of inflammation in your body you would need to do your bloodwork, which is something you could consider to be an excellent health initiative every 6 months to a year, if you do perhaps seek out a local practitioner who can offer you a C-reactive protein (CRP) test.
In the absence of bloodwork, this simple mental model of an ‘inflammation consciousness’ may help you take steps to keep your level of inflammation at a point below the threshold at which you might start to see common symptoms, i.e. frequent illness, rashes, digestive issues, fatigue, stiff joints etc.
One of the most influential factors listed above and also one of the easiest to control is avoiding an inflammatory diet.
As I advise my online personal training clients of all ages, you’ll want to ensure that you are on an anti-inflammatory diet, and this is particularly important as we get older. This contributes to a reduction in systemic inflammation mentioned above and from an aesthetic standpoint, helps reduce your body’s tendency to retain water or store body fat..
Inflammatory foods to avoid may include:
- Refined sugars
- Processed meats
- Fizzy drinks
- Processed milk
- Gluten
- Dairy
- Alcohol
Another important point here is to keep your protein intake adequate to preserve your existing muscle mass (and, along with resistance training, fight off the nefarious though overestimated villain of sarcopenia). This doesn’t mean going overboard and eating like a bodybuilder; just make sure you have adequate amounts of quality high-protein foods such as lean meat, eggs, nuts, and seeds.
Healthy macronutrient profile
You may also want to start thinking about your ratios of fat to carbs. Many of us vastly overeat carbohydrates, especially in the evening, which gives our body a surplus of energy that we may fail to burn off.
As a result, the body converts the carbs into fat and stores it away for a rainy day (when you don’t have access to food) a great evolutionary function but unlikely to ever happen in the modern day.
Eat for joint health
Both fish oil and Turmeric have been shown to possess impressive anti-inflammatory properties and are worthy considerations as supplements. Foods like nuts and seeds, cold-water fish, olive oil and certain root vegetables can also contribute to overall joint health.
Medicinal foods
Keep an eye out for the addition of certain herbs and spices that might be good for your overall health, either to address a specific problem or to generally just make incremental improvements. These small enhancements to your culinary repertoire may yield big benefits when it comes to your health.
Let’s take a look at a few examples:
- Thyme – A powerful antioxidant, which can support immune health
- Oregano – Contains Anti-bacterial properties which could help fight infections
- Ginger – May help lower blood sugars and may be useful in the battle against osteoporosis
- Garlic – Antifungal, Antibacterial and anti-viral properties make this popular flavour enhancer a powerful ally for all-round immune function.
And there are many, many more…. Remember nutrition is more than just making your macros work, sourcing quality ingredients and foods with medicinal or adaptogenic properties could really change what cooking and meal preparation means to you and your loved ones.
Your relationship to health and fitness in your 60s & 70s should be one of ease and enjoyment. Many of the pressures of earlier life to show up a certain way are likely not so pressing anymore.
I suggest the greatest priority should be cultivating an active lifestyle that naturally lends itself to mitigating your health risks and helping you enjoy good health and unrestricted movement well into the second half of your life.