We’re all getting old, Afterworders quicker than most others. Even young Afterworders are old. If we don’t use it, we lose it. We need to keep our muscles strong, to maintain good bone health, balance, mental and physical wellbeing and circulation. We should be going to the gym and working out with weights.
There are simple things we can do at home: arm rolls holding tins of beans, chair squats (sitting and standing slowly, without using your arms), wall presses (like a press up but leaning against a wall), marching in place (like marching but without going anywhere), toe lifts (no, not picking up your toes from the floor but standing on tippy-toes whilst holding the back of a chair), walking heel to toe (it helps if there is a grandchild who can join in), and, my personal favourite, standing on one leg (actually standing on two legs but each in turn).
I find the best time to stand on one leg is when brushing teeth, which I do twice a day. I use an electric brush angled into the gum to help combat bone loss. I’m supposed to brush for two minutes, one minute per leg.
I work in a three story building, never use the lift and run up and downstairs as often as I can. I also have a dog who is walked three times a day and needs an area the size of Wales to properly wear him out.
What’s your regime to keep you fighting fit and capable of dancing to all those bangers on HP’s thread?
Walking, lots of it.
Started during Covid, and it’s a habit that’s stuck. Most weekends , weather dependant, will involve a lengthy wander somewhere (often with a pub at the end of it).
We live about 6 miles from the Town Centre and walk it when we can. London visits have now been stacked with the realisation that most places we want to go are close enough to negate the tube, and it’s almost as quick to walk it
(Note: this wandering may also include Pubs).
I have an atrocious diet, drink and smoke. So in my head, this walking lark is keeping stuff in balance
I swim 2.5 km and cycle 50 km per week, live 66 steps (three-four floors) up from the ground floor without a lift – so carry everything upstairs by hand. I probably could be more flexible – those hamstrings could do with some stretching for example, but I try to do what I can to keep up with my young family and their ceaseless energy.
It’s like that Hovis advert. The old lady struggles up the steep hill, having bought her loaf of bread. Keeps her fit. And, of course, the bread is worth the effort. She looks knackered, though.
Good sleep. Keep reading books. Exercise my brain. Walks up the hill behind me if it is not too muddy or cold. I lost enthusiasm for the pool as there were too many smirking turds laughing at the fat bloke trying to make an effort. (This is why I hate sports centres.)
I drink less than I did (typically 3 pints in a sesh or less now, and no more than 2 seshs a week). I try to eat like my wife (vege-vegan, but I succumb to a sausage or fish sometimes). Avoid processed food if I can. No bifters in years, no cigs even longer. She is very slim, I am two separate gorillas. She does parkour, circus skills, and goes to the gym. I needed two of these explained to me (and have panic attacks in gym settings). She is pre-diabetes, I am not. She still loves me.
I know it’s right to keep fit, and don’t mind activity if I find it interesting (e.g., a long walk around somewhere fun), but I have no desire to have a good heart and end my years in psychogeriatric care, as some of the older academics I know have; being taken in about 15 years time would be perfect. Frankly, the way the world is, I’d rather have my fun and die younger, than have to put up with indignities until I finally succumb.
The indignities come in the last three years of life. That could be 50-53 or 80-83.
I reckon the love will keep you going more than anything.
Having had a total knee replacement in early December, the resulting physio (which I have done religiously) has had the unexpected bonus of making me feel less out of breath than I have done in some years. The knee is doing fine apart from stiffness if I sit still for too long. All in all, (given that the first few weeks were bloody painful) a fairly positive experience, and I put a lot of that down to the physio exercises.
Keep up the good work, Nick. Soon, you’ll be able to trip the light fantastic.
Two dogs walk me daily, a choice of several circuits. Once a week they take me to one of the 3 bars that give them a biscuit. Cold water swimming 3x a week, more if away somewhere with a supply of lakes, llyns or lochs. I am not a natural merman; I can only manage about 400m, conveniently the diameter of a local swimming venue, a quarry that has filled through an underground stream. Love it, even as the pros lap me twice, on their swifter way round. All getting a bit hot now, mind, as Spring comes in, a 9.5 degree simmer today. Good diet, increasingly pescatarian, even if my family history has finally seen my QRISK enter statin needing territory, despite my cholesterol being the lowest for decades.
Stand on one leg? Only during flute practice.
Before wfh became my norm my office was a pretty much ideal 2 mile brisk walk from home. Now my commute takes me from one corner of the living room to another I have to make walks part of my daily routine, and there are only a few options from here, or at least options that take in any greenery. They get dull but I need to keep moving.
On top of the walks I do some stretching routines to stay flexible and, going very old school here, use a Bullworker to maintain muscle mass. There’s a chap called Christian Eich who has lots of YouTube tutorials for people like me who just want to avoid losing muscle rather than bulking up for cosmetic reasons.
This all seems to do me some good. Just last week I’ve had a huge clear out of books, DVDs, vinyl and so on. When a bloke from Oxfam came to pick them up I took 10 loads downstairs to his van. As I’m in a second floor flat that’s 20 flights down with heavy loads and back up 20 flights again, all without breaking sweat or feeling the strain.
A BullWorker, you say? Have you considered Dynamic Tension©?
@fitterstoke
Surely those wishing to stand on one leg would be better served by a TullWorker?
Zinger!
Jaygee shoots, scores, with what may be the quintessential Afterjoke.
Well, Jaygee wins the white carnation (although Dynamic Tension© will stop jocks kicking sand in your face)…
Very good!
Standing on one leg – with your eyes closed – can be used as a signifier of life expectancy, I read. The longer you can do it the better, obvs.
I’ve incorporated it into my yoga routine which I do religiously when I can be arsed.
After some practice it’s surprisingly easy.
I will live to around 150 at this rate.
Unfortunately with a crocked right leg my days of impersonating flamingoes are over.
I go to the pool three times a week, swim and exercise in there, I hope to return to the gym and some more weights.
According to my step tracker I’ve walked over 5K today which to me is a great achievement, originally I thought when I’d retire I’d do walks in the Dales, it takes great effort to walk into the centre of town.
since I had my stroke eighteen months ago i have been trying to keep up at home exercises and physio to improve strength, it seems to be working as i am getting better at using stairs without holding a rail and the frozen shoulder i had has improved enough to hopefully allow me to bowl a bit better when cricketing this year.
the one thing i struggle with is doing anything low to the ground and getting up without having something to act as leverage. this may well be a confidence thig as well but my garden is not getting the care it deserves.
I bought my mother, aged 86, a piece of garden kit. It’s a bit like a zimmer frame with a platform to kneel on and side pockets for trowels etc. She was delighted.
Problem with standing on one leg with my eyes closed is , however hard I try, I always spill my glass of wine.
You should switch to malt whisky, obviously.
Obviously helps if somebody’s there to help you up again.
Older readers will remember Lodey as Dippy Dipso in ATV’s “Bottoms Up!”
Why nothold two glasses of wine which should balance you up.
I turned 60 earlier in the year, and have entered the Lightweight Male 60-64 UK indoor rowing championships, which are in December. Yes, it’s a thing, racing 2000 metres on the Concept2 machines; I did the world championships in 2004 and came 5th in the 40-49 category, so it feels right/nice to be doing this.
I’ve done a hell of a lot of exercise, a hell of a lot, since discovering Kung Fu in 1973, the year Bruce Lee died. Various martial arts, marathon running, the indoor rowing, all manner of gym stuff, they’ve all brought their joys, and some have taken their toll, and with the wisdom of this 7th decade I can safely say that much of the appeal has been as a way of dealing with my ADHD.
These days, I do Chi Gung every morning (I prefer it to Yoga), which includes a few minutes of standing on one leg, I have cold showers, and I go to the gym six days a week, alternating days of strength work and days of high intensity interval training on the rower and cross trainer. My gym sends monthly summaries, and my average time per session is a piffling 14 minutes. Quality over quantity, a hard lesson learned. I was a Personal Trainer for many years, and training smart and mindfully soon became the watchword. Oh, and I walk loads. My fitbit tells me I average about 21 000 steps per day. I’d love to be able to run again, especially those long distance efforts off road, at one with nature, but that ‘smart and mindfully’ awareness came too late for my knee ligaments.
@Barry-Blue , that’s very impressive.
Hats off for the rowing – 5th in the world championships in any age bracket must be some achievement.
Started Pilates about 10 years ago, found this the best exercise for stretching and strengthening parts of the body I didn’t know existed. A class once a week supplemented by various bits of stretching (including standing on one leg), small weights and as much walking as possible. Online meetings where I don’t have to contribute much are great, as long as I know stray to far from the mic.
The avoidance of exercise, and work of any sort, has always been the cornerstone of my life. I am a lazy bastard – what used to be called an idler in more elegant days. I did me knee in yonks ago, and since then whenever I try to be all exercisey it flares up (you know how knees flare up), and I think it’s the Good Lord’s way of telling me to find somewhere to sit in the shade and stop making a fool of myself. Giving my desktop speaker a reacharound to turn it on, which requires leaning forward out of my chair, is an extreme sport for me. Having said that, I’m just off for my morning constitutional along the river, where I will exchange happy greets with all the other old codgers doing the same thing. Then it’s back to sitting in the shade. It’s a great life, and I’ll die of whatever I die of regardless of what I do, and I’m fine with that.
Right, I’m back, and stoked for a nice sit down. The monks were out on their appointed rounds, many small processions through the town as they collect offerings of food from devout residents waiting for them to pass. Do we see monks at the gym? Jogging earnestly with earbuds and blue sunglasses? Exerting themselves on the exercise machines at the park? Joining in the public dancersize on the riverfront? We do not. Take the monk as your guide and relax into a natural fitness.
Do the monks drink vast quantities of alcohol or sit in front of computers for hours on end? Possibly not.
When I go anywhere, the assumption is that I will get there by bike, aided by putting my bike on the train for distances. Only if this proves totally impractical e.g very early shifts, do I use the motorbike/four wheels. Building exercise into the habits of your life is what keeps you fit, and in my sixties, I can still eat what I like.
Then there’s the dancing. It’s hardly high-energy jitterbugging, but it’s still a good workout and the need for co-ordination keeps the brain healthy too.
Dancing is one of the very best things you can do: it’s social, it’s energetic, it requires good balance, you need an agile mind and it’s a good laugh. See also tennis.
Also, sex surely?
Well as GBS is said to have said “Dancing Is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire”
Tougher than standing on one leg, I would suggest
I go for a morning swim of 20 lengths (50m open air pool) at least three days a week along with plenty of walking. At this level I enjoy going and so never have an issue with motivation.
I am aware that as we get older it is recommended to do weights to reduce muscle loss, but I’m not inclined to do that (and argue, probably wrongly, that swimming is resistance training anyway as its in water).
I have been moving house. Such is the excess of possessions I have that items have to be moved multiple times to make space to sort and provide some semblance of order. The music room required removal of all the cd boxes and hi fi so it could be … err put back in again. Only after evacuation of the room have I discovered that the cd shelves are not in that room or anywhere else that I can see. In this to and froing I managed 13000 steps loaded with weights of varying amounts ….. between adjoining rooms.
And this is before 3000 records come out of storage.
That’s my exercise routine for the time being.
I feel your pain…er, that is, I share your fitness regime.
I always loved the Day in the Life feature where Peter Cook described a vigorous early morning workout which consisted of three cigarettes and a cup of strong coffee
I run at least 20km a week (mainly on trails, do my best to avoid concrete). Weight sessions twice a week. HIIT sessions twice a week . Play football at least one hour a week, usually two.
As I get older, it’s less about creating new PBs (I’ve probably lifted as heavy and run as fast as I’m ever going to ), more about longevity and enjoying the moment.
I’ve found exercise to be one of the great and abiding joys of my life. I’ll certainly be playing football and running as long as my legs will carry me.
The latter, in particular, offers mental benefits I can’t seem to find anywhere else; my inner monologue is never more positive than at the tail end of a long run spent surrounded by nature, and I do most of my best thinking on my feet.
Every paragraph a beauty, @Bingo-Little! It’s the aspect of running that I miss the most. Incidentally, Francine Shapiro, the inventor of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) therapy came up with the idea after going for a walk through a wooded area, with sun dappling through the trees. The REM like effect of the light was what she took away and turned into the therapy model. I believe that the movement, the walking, was also a significant element, and running can enhance it further: there’s that feedback loop of the body functioning well, signalling to the brain that we’re okay, everything’s working, we’re not under threat etc.
So good. I do a lot of my running these days in a wooded area much as you describe above and it’s pretty magical, particularly if you remind yourself to look around and take it all in.
I’ve gone through periods alternating between outdoor and treadmill, and found that if I don’t do the former it noticeably impacts my mood. There’s definitely something going on there, and it certainly feels a lot like the feedback loop you mention above.
I’m conscious that as I get older I shouldn’t take any of it for granted. I’ve seen enough people of similar vintage tweak a knee (it’s always the knee) at football and never come back.
So I try to enjoy each run, each game, each gym session, all the more. And when I’m inevitably not able to do one or other of them any more I’ll find some other exercise to replace them. Just want to keep moving about the place as much as possible.
Sadly most of my running is on the streets of Moseley or Kings Heath, or on the paths around Cannon Hill Park (slightly softer as tarmac). I definitely don’t take anything for granted. My entirely spurious rule is not to do the same exercise, particularly running, two days in a row. So cycling (to and from New Street) and tennis once a week. I’ve had a knee go slightly a few years ago, and the ITB side of leg stuff, but all transitory. Fingers crossed as now I monitor my blood pressure a good run can knock 25 points of my score so I have some data it’s doing me good!
In my case it was ankle ligaments. God I really miss playing football. Enjoy every game.
I joined a gym recently and recaptured some of that exercise high. That and sea swimming will have to do.
I’ve been managing a herniated disc for the last 6 years or so. Lots of periods of being absolutely fine interspersed with being incapacitated. 2 years ago during a particularly bad spell I was given an epidural. There followed 2 years pain free. This perdiod included pilates 2 days a week, an hour walking minimum every day, time on the exercise bike. Felt better than I probably ever have, having given up all sport once I left school, and spending most of the intervening years drinking and smoking too much.
Then 3 months or so ago I got up one morning and within seconds I was on the floor due to the sudden pain in my back and sciatica in my left leg. Here we go again I thought, but it got worse. Within days I’d joined Phil Collins and Annie Lennox in developing drop foot due to nerve damage (I googled it and they came up as famous sufferers). So I was in major pain and walking weird. Luckily I got on the fast track for an operation.
So about 6 weeks ago they finally removed the pesky disc and added the bolts needed to fuse the vertebrae. All went well and I’m now one disc less and suffering just mild discomfort instead of pain, though my left foot is still like a dead fish on the end of my leg (thanks Annie Lennox for the simile).
So now it’s several walks a day around the barrio with a brace on the foot and a walking stick to keep things moving and improving. (I’m 51 not 81). But never have I put on so much weight and lost so much flexibility and stength in so short a time. Feel ten years older.
Keep it while you have it is my conclusion. If and when I’m back to normal I’ll be doing everything possible to keep myself fit (without damaging further discs obvs.) I won’t be running though, always hated that.
That sounds pretty awful. I hope you have a good recovery.
I have a colleague who thinks walking sticks are sexy. It takes all sorts, of course, but she means Dr House. All you have to do is become addicted to opiates and she’ll be fainting at your feet.
There’s hope yet then!
I adore swimming. Love everything about it. Kinda obsessed with it, to be honest. It’s just magical. Stretching every sinew, using every muscle. Been doing it 5/6 mornings a week for about 20 years now. I love everything about it, every stroke (front for speed, back for looking up at the sky and seeing the droplets of water fall from my arm, breast for exercise) and literally every stroke I take. There’s no better way to start the day, a morning swim leaves me feeling great for the rest of it.
I also do weights. For ten years I went to a gym/pool all-in-one and spent all morning there. Now I have a home gym and try and use it a little every day.
About ten years ago I also went through a period of running, which lasted only a few months as I found it really fucked with my knees and I was having difficulty just going down the stairs the next morning. I gave up the running and the pain completely stopped.
At 62, I realise that if I don’t do some moderate exercise at least 4 times a week my body and bones ache a bit and the feeling of wellbeing I get from going to the gym is really missed. I wish I could make more time to do more (How do you guys do it?!) but work/family seem to take up more and more time each year. I have all but given up running as the knees complain, so generally it’s cross trainer, cycling, rowing. I know I should do more weights !
Tips for standing on one leg:
Take your shoes off
Move your pelvis to put your weight over the leg you are going to stand on (bending the knee on the other leg will achieve this)
Draw your tummy in
Lift your chest and stand tall
Squeeze the glute on the side of the leg you are standing on
Lift foot
If you start to wobble, one or more of the three points of your foot – the base of the little toe, the base of the big toe and the heel – will have lost contact with the floor. Press down to regain your balance (it is hard to think of this when it is happening) and do all the other things on the above list.
👍
Great advice. Thank you.
The dog gets about 2 miles a day. I go to the gym 3 or 4 times a week. When we’re in season, I referee at least one rugby game on Saturday. That’ll be about 8 – 9kn depending on who’s playing. Sunday is then spent groaning and swearing as my legs refuse to cooperate.
I have knee replacements in my future, but I’m doing all I can to delay that day. Mostly via Ibuprofen and stubbornness.
Bar a solitary shout for ankles, its knees, always bloody knees that go. Mechanically speaking, they are so ill designed, it’s a wonder they work at all. Yet, somehow we keep ‘em going, in the way you can’t with a hip, knees being, generally, put up with longer than equivalently end of days hip joints. Injections of steroid can work: after doling out literally thousands over my career, I eventually trusted someone enough to jab mine, about 11 months ago. I could barely walk on return from 5 25k step days getting between stages at Glastonbury, my R knee the size of a melon, the L a grapefruit. They creak and click, varying between large Jaffa and small grapefruit, but, painwise, no need for top up yet, and ibuprofen reserved for indiscretions (or other festivals)
Lo and behold, from todays Graun:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/29/dont-push-into-pain-how-to-rescue-your-knees-from-everything-from-torn-ligaments-to-injured-tendons?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
(To be fair, I suspect there is little a physio can offer end stage bone on bone arthritis…. And, paradoxically, swimming has helped mine, despite the comments. Probably says more about my breast stroke, mind, I suspecting my legs action is far from medal winning….)
So many sports seem to think the knee is a ball and socket rather than hinge joint. My recurring ailment is a Bakers Cyst, which, as I’m sure you know, can’t be removed on account of having no lining. There’s almost a perverse pleasure when it bursts internally (maybe once every 18 months after being relatively dormant).
My knee consultant said knees are far harder to replace than hips, and the recovery path is correspondingly tougher, given the range of motion and articulation required.
He also said that he might whip out one of the ligaments (poss. cruciate? I can’t remember) during the op as “you don’t really need it”
For my low grade knee pain I find that a daily turmeric with circumin tablet has helped. My knee went from a constant slight ache with occasional spells when I could barely walk, to no pain with occasional grumbles. Of course it could be placebo, but at worst the supplements are harmless.
You probably should take four teaspoons a day and it is best when mixed with oil and black pepper. That’s an awful lot of Turmeric in your meals.
I did my knee in (medical term) in my twenties, flailing down a Lake District Scree slope. Very embarrassingly had to be “helped” back to the car. Since then, it’s served mostly as an agonising “don’t exercise!” alarm. Movement is good, any attempts to build up the supporting muscle are not. Swimming, universally believed to be a cure-all for anything from ingrown toenails to cancer, made no appreciable improvement, not did any number of pool physio exercises, nor massage, nor nothing. I occasionally rock an elastic knee sock (or “brace”), sleep with a knee pillow, and if I maintain a rigorously sedentary life, it’s no trouble.
In an alternate universe, “Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty” by Felt was actually titled “Rocking The Elastic Kneesock”.
I walk a lot and get the bike out when it’s nice weather, do a stretching routine every morning (well… most mornings) and I’ve started the wall press ups. Other than some aches and pains I feel ok. I just learned my oesophagus/stomach is in a bit of a 2&8 and I’m on omeprazole after 2 gastroscopies and a third at the end of May so I’m modifying my diet to be more stomach friendly – apparently the lining is a bit knackered. Worrying but fingers crossed.
Fingers crossed for you, Twang. Hope the scope is improving at the end of the month.
I run 5k a couple of times a week, plus my job keeps me on my feet all day – it’s a rare day when I don’t do 15,000 steps. I do need to think about starting some weights. At my age muscle mass is going to start dwindling soonish, and it’s not like I had loads of it in the first place. Any recs for getting started?
I thought that (weights). We’ve actually got some (Twang Jr got a basic set), but I don’t know what to do with them and I don’t like gyms. Ideas welcome.
Don’t go swimming with them. Does that help?
As I discovered the other day, YouTube is the answer.
Examples? I know from guitar world, it’s also a repository of horse merde for the uninitiated…
Joe Wicks. His YouTube channel is called The Body Coach TV.
As I mention above, I use a Bullworker. It doesn’t take much space, it’s easy to use (and hard to injure yourself with) and I see and feel results. There are endless instruction videos on YouTube of course. I like a chap called Christian Eich. He’s not a muscle bound young bloke, but a wiry middle aged one, and his vids are short, varied and rewarding.
I wfh so I take a screen break mid morning to do one, following a circuit of abs, arms, chest, back and legs through the week. I really don’t care that it’s the same every week and I hate exercise and the less I have to think about it the better.
You can get a used Bullworker on eBay and so on from about £20.
I never go to the beach, so a bull worker would be superfluous.
Unless the reason you don’t go to the beach is for fear of a bully kicking sand in your face.
Beaches are, I can reveal, second only in throatslashing boringness to gyms.
Nonsense. Beaches are delightful. Swim, read, swim, sleep, swim, kick sand in some puny guy’s face, swim again. A great way to pass some hours. Airplanes are number one for boringness.
You’re right. Airplanes are totally numero uno for boringness. Gyms second, beaches third.
Now I am two separate gorillas
Klaxon! And @gary is Alan Davies.
I don’t get the reference. (I know who he is, but don’t know anything about him.)
He’s a football commentator.
Ah, right. Never heard of him. I assumed Retro meant the comedian guy.
My brother met the comedian guy once. Said he was nice and friendly. (Whereas my nephew, who is a waiter in a London restaurant, recently served the very brilliant actor Stephen Graham and said he was incredibly rude and obnoxious.)
Q1 klaxon and comedian Alan Davies, forever falling into open goals, carefully lured in by Stephen Fry.
Beach reference wrt bullworker not random.
Every time I put on or take off my trousers, I stand on one leg and then the other one. Can’t say I’ve noticed any health benefit from it.
It’s kept you fit all this time without you noticing it!
Standing up trouser removal? That’s courting behaviour in my book. I take them off as I sit for my final wee of the day, the socks also removed in the same procedure. Multi-tasking!
I stand on one leg for my final wee of the day.* Definitely sit down to take my strides off though. With lungs like mine, getting dressed and undressed counts as exercise these days.
*This is a lie.
I stand on one leg for putting on/removing my socks too, but in that case the other foot is up on the back of the sofa, so I’m cheating really, aren’t I.