How much exercise? – a tricky question; how little can one get away with?; normal is not useful; driving speed analogy: my septuagenarian boy racer; less is more? – yeah, nah; Born to Walk; living to 180; sultry Sally striding the hills; expectations of rotundity; stereotypically running to fat – the couch potato; over-achieving sexy-generians like Kelly, Sue, Clint and Charleen; downhill over the decades – a matter of mindset?; dem bones, and what Roy and I do

What is the right amount of exercise? How frequently should we be breaking a sweat? Also, exactly what counts as exercise?

These are tricky questions, with answers that are different for everyone. They’re always going to be subjective and influenced by personal factors: age, health status, current fitness goals… and, let’s face it, whether or not you can be arsed.

For a lot of people, the real question may be: how little exercise can I get away with?

Or even: what’s normal, or average? … but that’s no longer a useful concept. Who would aim to be normal in a world full of sedentary, unfit and sick people?

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Driving Speed Analogy

It also reminds me of many drivers’ – but especially Roy’s – attitude to driving speed. Viz., someone driving even fractionally slower than yourself is a dithering idiot, especially if their speed is less than 3km/h above the speed limit; and anyone with the temerity to pass you is a reckless boy-racer.

That’s why Roy thinks I exercise too much, while I sometimes wish he would exercise a bit more. In the end, no amount of wishful thinking, nagging or finger-wagging is going to make me do less or Roy do more. (For how much we actually do, you’ll have to scroll down to the end.)

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Born to Walk?

Guess you better slow your Mustang down” – Mustang Sally, Wilson Pickett (1966)

If you still think that more and preferably arduous exercise is necessarily better, I recommend Mark Sisson’s highly readable new book, Born to Walk. (Its title is a riposte to the best-selling 2009 book by American author and journalist Christopher McDougall – Born to Run.)

The full title is Born to Walk: The Broken Promises of the Running Boom, and How to Slow Down and Get Healthy – One Step at a Time.

I love Mark Sisson’s writing. (Though I don’t like the chirpy narration style of his co-author, Brad Kearns, who recorded the Audible audio-version.)

Mark’s main thesis is that walking is the quintessential human movement pattern. He argues that we should prioritise extensive daily walking for optimal health, regardless of our fitness level. According to him, for the vast majority of people, running – even slow jogging – is too physically, metabolically and hormonally stressful to promote health, weight loss or longevity.

Fun fact: Mark was an elite endurance athlete in the 1970s and 1980s (with a marathon PB of 2:18), and later an elite triathlon coach. So, not your average couch-potato journo.

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Less is more? Yeah, nah*

(* “Yeah, nah” – an Australian expression that essentially means “no”.)

So, can it be beneficial to do less rather than more exercise?

Only to a point. It’s true that any exercise is better than none. Less can be more – only to the point, however, where you’re simply doing too little for it to be effective.

But some health writers who should know better, maybe trying to be super-inclusive, have given the impression that really minimal amounts of exercise – short walks, or a bit of gardening – are enough to confer major health benefits.

Studies like the Women’s Health Initiative showed that sedentary people who started a modest activity like walking decreased their risk of cardiovascular disease by 30%. But sedentary isn’t me, and it may not be you, either.

For example, the 1995 CDC guideline was 30 minutes of moderate activity, like a brisk walk, most days.  Then I heard that if you couldn’t find a whole 30 minutes, three 10-minute walks were just as good. And it sounded as if you could sit on your arse the rest of the time.

If you actually read the various guidelines, like this one from the UK government, you’ll see that they do warn against long periods of sitting – but that seldom comes across in the catchy sound-bites and headlines in daily rags and monthly mags. And that’s all many people tend to hear and take away.

What’s the problem with this? If there is one, it’s that it lulls people who barely move at all into a false sense of security. That’s especially true from middle age onwards … whatever that means to you*. While they’re strolling to the corner caff, dead-heading the rhododendrons or just generally pottering for 3 x 10 minutes a day, muscles are weakening and bones are thinning. They’re literally heading for a fall.

*For the Father of Biohacking, Dave Asprey – who says he plans to live to at least 180 – middle age would be around 90 years old. Failing the 180-year lifespan, he wants to die at the time and means of his own choosing, or something like that.

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How Much Exercise? Why it Matters

Globally, physical inactivity is a major cause of death from diseases such heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer, says reachmovement.com.*

*This article gives some useful guidelines for variety and frequency of exercising – if you can get past the misspelling of vigorous as “vigourous”. 

And if you are active, it seems that you’re in the minority.

Nearly 70% of Australian adults don’t move enough.   In this country, the top seven diseases most closely linked to sedentary lifestyle are: diabetes, bowel and uterine cancer, dementia, breast cancer, coronary heart diseases and stroke. It’s pretty much the same in other Western nations.

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Over-achieving Sexy-generians

That said, as a member of Craigie Leisure Centre in Joondalup, WA, I’m surrounded by over-achieving sexy-generians in their 60s and 70s. Many of them do a lot more than I do.

Could this be the fittest woman at Craigie Leisure Centre?

Beautiful Kelly, a regular at my Les Mills BodyPump class, is one of several uber-fit women who generally slip out early – not to be first in the line for coffee at the on-site cafeteria, but to join another Les Mills class that’s about to start. Three classes in a row – including Les Mills ABT (Abs, Butts & Thighs), Les Mills Combat and Les Mills BodyPump – is not unusual for Kelly. In total, she does 16 classes per week.

And it shows! Apart from a gorgeous glow and an energetic spring in her step, Kelly is lean, lithe, muscular and upright. (She’s recovering from a recent injury; nice to have you back, Kelly.)

Then there’s my friend Charleen, recently turned 60, who just last weekend completed her first Half Iron Man 70.3 challenge. Here she is after seven gruelling hours swimming, cycling and running: a 1.9 km swim, a 56-mile (90 km) bike ride and a 13.1 mile (21.1 km) run.

Even closer to home, there’s our charming and unimaginably fit neighbour, Clint. This 60-year-old competitive cyclist will go for a solo 120km ride one day, then join a group the next day for a 60km speed session.

Just by the way, both Charleen and Clint are South African, and we bask in their reflected glory. Go, Saffers!

(Check out my thoughts on ageing disgracefully, here: Ageing Disgracefully Part One.)

Could Anyone Do This?

Apart from the sheer amount of time the training takes up, is the average person physically capable of this kind of achievement?

Gym-wise, a regime like Kelly’s would be too much for most people.  I assume that goes for me, too – though the only time I’ve done even two gym classes in a row, the second one was a gentle hatha yoga session.  I’ll also sometimes follow BodyPump with a sauna and steam session, which – apart from its sweating-related detox benefits and more – is mildly cardiovascular because it raises your heart rate.

Apparently, it’s perfectly normal to find that one exercise class a day is enough. While everyone can improve fitness with consistent training, we don’t all have the same physiological capacity or recovery ability as Kelly does, particularly as we age. This makes me laugh … in my twenties, I was so busy partying that even one exercise class per week would have been a vast improvement.

The Bad News: Ageing

Research shows that ageing muscle develops delayed, prolonged and less efficient recovery because of anabolic resistance, mitochrondrial dysfunction and chronic low-grade inflammation. Depressing stuff.

These changes mean it takes longer to repair muscle tissue, replenish glycogen stores and adapt to stress after each session. So, having low glycogen reserves in my muscles might explain why I can no longer contemplate the longer runs I used to do when I was younger – up to half-marathon distance; and why I no longer even aspire to more than 6 to 8 kilometres.

I’m also highly risk-averse. The slightest elbow twinge reminds me of the tendinitis that plagued both me and Roy (weirdly enough) in Singapore… and I really don’t want to go there again. (Meaning the tendinitis, of course. As for Singapore, we’re going there for New Year’s in a few weeks’ time.)

The Good News

Good news is that older people can still make significant endurance and strength gains with the right training. Even in our 70s and 80s, we can increase strength, aerobic capacity and functional ability within just a few months. However, as the AI app Perplexity points out, we will make progress within our individual limits – genetics, history of lifelong activity, sleep, nutrition and recovery habits all affect what is possible to achieve.

Why some of us might be able to handle more:

• a long history of exercise, which enhances cardiovascular efficiency and muscular endurance

• better nutrition and hydration strategies for recovery

*  gradual adaptation – a body that has built tolerance over years of consistent effort.

So, while genetics plays a role, attitude and lifestyle are probably at least equally important.

If exercise is good, why is more not always better?

For one thing, the risk of injury. Every gym-goer knows – or should know – that form (technique) is all-important. Every squat, every lunge, every power press, must be performed with proper technique. As you tire, it become more difficult to maintain form. Once you lose form, you’re opening yourself to injury. And the older we get, the more challenging it may be to recover from injury.

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How Much Exercise: Importance of Recovery

Rest days are crucial for building fitness, growing muscle and avoiding injury. Think of it this way: While you’re holding plank position or lifting a weight, you’re actually breaking down muscle. It’s only after the effort that muscles are repaired and rebuilt.

BodyPump instructor Sue is a friendly Kiwi with a great sense of humour… she joins us for coffee on a Wednesday morning after our 7.45am BodyPump class, if she doesn’t have to take an RPM (indoor cycling) class straight afterwards.

How Much Exercise: Mix it Up

Clearly, it was a mistake for me to ask Sue about safe limits of training and the importance of recovery… she achieved those powerful shoulders through countless gruelling workouts with a personal trainer and years of pushing herself: not through fretting about overdoing things. (And she’s probably tired of seeing me in the front row of her Pump class, week after week, lifting the same weights I was using two years ago.)

Her main message? Mix it up by doing different types of workouts during your exercise week, and by working different muscles of the body, thereby giving the stressed ones time to recover on their days off.

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Downhill over the Decades? – a matter of mindset

Henry Ford has been quoted as saying: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

Attitude matters, and so do expectations. Think about it – do you, or did you, expect to be really physically active into middle age, let alone into your sixties and beyond? That drinking, smoking, partying 20-something-year-old me most certainly didn’t! If I made it past 50, I expected to be flabby, sporting Crimplene slack-suits and short, permed hair, something like my grandparents. Most of all, I thought I’d feel old.

I also thought I would be rotund. Possibly rotund with long, thin arms and legs, but nevertheless rotund.

Stereotypically running to fat

There’s the stereotype of the athletic young man or woman who plays first team at school, college or uni, but in their twenties gets caught up in the demands of a job or parenthood, or both. Lacking time for regular exercise, they inevitably lose muscle, run to fat, grow a paunch and decline into a pre-middle-aged couch potato.

Not that I was ever that athletic young person. Far from it! Apart from having to walk quite a lot – parental chauffeuring was distinctly lacking in the Maree milieu – I was a day-dreaming, unfit and increasingly myopic bookworm.

By choice, I was more-or-less bone idle as a child, as an adolescent and into my twenties… apart from school mandates for hateful hockey, traumatic tennis, painful PE sessions and school swim sessions that never succeeded in teaching me to swim properly. (Unlike today, swimming lessons weren’t the norm; neither were private maths tutors. Both literally and figuratively, most of us would either sink or swim. I sank.)

Eventually, I turned 30 and discovered running, better late than never.

Dem Bones

Did you know that we reach maximal bone density between the ages of 25 and 30? Around 35, bone mineral density starts a gradual decline that for women accelerates after 50 as a result of menopause-related oestrogen loss. That’s why it’s so important: (a) to achieve the best possible level of bone mineral density (BMD) while we’re young; and (b) work to hold on to it for as long as possible.

Anyway. I knew nothing about age-related osteopaenia (bone loss) or sarcopaenia (muscle loss)… until I was diagnosed with osteoporosis in my 40s. Since then, I’ve fought to retain what bone mineral density (BMD) I have, and even slightly improved my BMD score – against the odds. Though it’s not solely down to physical activity – light exposure, nutrition, supplementation and sleep are also hugely important for BMD – but this particular post is about exercise, so I’ll try to stick to the subject.

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How Much Exercise: My Weekly Schedule

I generally get to do something energetic most days. For me, mornings work best. Not only are cortisol levels at their highest, but I’m often up and about well before the beloved Roy has risen and shone. Even better, first-thing exercise leaves the rest of the day free for whatever may or may not come up.

Fortunately, at my stage of life I don’t have to waste that early energy peak on earning a living. As a freelancer, my writing, editing and blogging can be fitted in whenever.

Here’s my weekly schedule:

• A 50-minute Les Mills Pump class at Craigie Leisure Centre on Monday and Wednesday mornings;

• A Les Mills Shapes class at Craigie on Friday mornings, followed by an hour in Craigie’s Spa Lounge (spa bath, sauna and steam-room) – but only if I feel strong enough to deal with the preponderance of semi-naked, fantastically tattooed and mostly unappealing male flesh;

• A yoga class with my fabulous friend Nickie (Fleetwood Yoga International) on Thursday and Saturday mornings at Currambine Community Centre;

• a 6-8 km run or walk on our Burns Beach coastal path or even along the beach itself, on Tuesdays, Sundays and possibly on one or more other days, especially if six-foot-plus Nannette wants to stretch her long legs. Most Sundays, I’ll run from home to Sista’s Restaurant at Mindarie Marina (6km), where Roy will meet me, buy me a coffee and then kindly drive me home.

I love to be outdoors. In summer, I often can’t resist going for a beach walk after my gym class… That doesn’t even feel like exercise – it feels like a treat.

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What Roy Does

• Three times a week, a 14km ride from our home to Mullaloo Beach and back. At Mullaloo, he parks his bike outside Grafton Street Café and refuels with a well-earned long black coffee.

• Home from his ride, he does a few minutes of planking, followed by 10-20 minutes of red- and infrared-light therapy in front of my PlatinumLED body panel. Weather permitting, he’ll also do 30 minutes of shirt-less sunshine exposure in the back garden. (Sorry, being such a private soul – as far as he can be, married to me – he wouldn’t let me take his photo.)

So, I’ll sign off with this rather nice pic of him, fully dressed and relaxed.

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Up Next?

Maybe some light-hearted thoughts on the benefits of chewing your food properly – something I suspect most people of not doing. And, of course, the perils of not doing this.