London 2012 looks as though it will be the most successful Olympics of all time for Britain. Jessica Ennis, Bradley Wiggins, Ben Ainslie, Mo Farah, Andy Murray... the medals kept coming. But the Olympics are for youngsters – few will still be competitive beyond the age of 32.
Even the brilliant opening ceremony by Danny Boyle was a celebration of the young. The oldest participants (excluding the Royals) were Paul McCartney and the NHS, and Sir Paul looks in better shape.
Next year though is the World Masters Athletics (WMA) to be held in Brazil – 50,000 athletes are expected to take part. That's a lot more than the London Olympics. Although some will be older elite athletes, including some past Olympians, many of them will be newcomers to sport and exercise.
The WMA was founded to encourage sport in women over the age of 35 and men older than 40, but the message may be“You’re never too old”. Charlie Booth the Australian sprinter won gold at the age of 99 (maybe because he was the only entrant in the 95+ age category). Another Australian, Vic Younger, aged 90, took 8 gold medals and 2 silver in weightlifting and athletics. He only took up exercise at the age of 60 when he retired from work.
Grow old disgracefully – down with ‘normal’ aging!
It’s easy to dismiss these as exceptional examples, as not normal. We may think that there are two separate races of humans; those that can and those that can’t. Perhaps this is nowhere more obvious than in the US where the country that has the highest rates of obesity in the world is top of the Olympic medal table. We seem to believe that getting older has to be accompanied by illness, infirmity, suffering and increasing reliance on medication. This is accepted as ‘normal’ aging.
But the research evidence of hundreds of studies on older adults and physical activity show that regular and moderate exercise can
cut age declines in half and reduce disease risk by 50%. Studies show that people feel better right away (less aches and pains, improved mood, better sleep, alertness, more energy, improved flexibility) and in time do better (get stronger, less breathlessness, lose weight, improve their memory, avoid diseases and reduce the risk of stroke, diabetes, cancer, premature heart
disease and early death). They are getting older but they are staying fitter and enjoying those extra years.
There are several reasons why older people choose not to exercise – fear of injuring themselves, fear of embarrassing themselves and looking foolish, the belief that older people just don’t run or jump or swim or whatever. But in developing countries and more primitive cultures physical exertion does not stop at age 60 or 65. Exercise is a necessary part of life and these societies do not suffer from the Diseases of Western Civilisation (cardiovascular disease, obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes type 2, some dementias).
Sitting still will kill you
Sedentary living (not exercising) leads to the same risks as those experienced by a 20 per day smoker. For thousands of generations humans needed to expend large amounts of energy simply to get their food (either hunting wild animals or scavenging and gathering nuts and berries). We still carry those genes within us. But modern lifestyles mean that we hardly exercise by comparison with our ancestors, and this lack of exercise is what leads to obvious disease.
Well-derly or ill-derly?
Fortunately we now know enough about the effects of exercise in the body to reverse much of the damage that inactivity brings. We
don’t actually need to do a great deal but what we do need to do should be brief, high intensity, and include resistance training (usually weight training). One study encouraged a group of 90 years olds (the oldest was 98!) to follow an 8 week programme of high-intensity resistance training. They registered an astonishing 174% increase in leg muscle strength, with an improvement in walking speed of 48%.
Because exercise has such a huge influence on whether or not we suffer from chronic disease, you can largely choose whether you will be well or ill in old age;" well-derly" or" ill-derly".
“Just do it”