Live Longer Better
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  • Understand better
    • Ageing is a normal biological process
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    • Strength and Power can always be increased
    • Skill and co-ordination can be improved at any age
    • Stamina can be improved by brisk walking
    • Suppleness can always be improved and stiffness always reduced
    • Activity Therapy is of vital importance

As well as 30 minutes brisk walking to improve stamina you need at least 12  minutes or more a day to regain and  improve strength, suppleness and skill

You should also aim to get back to the weight you were when you were 30

THE DAILY DOZEN + 30 
There are 4 dimensions to physical fitness
  • Stamina
  • Strength
  • Suppleness 
  • Skill 
Remember improving physical fitness also improves the two other dimensions of wellbeing
  • Cognitive, improving your brainability and reducing your risk of dementia 
  • Emotional, how you feel reducing feelings of depression
It is also clear that this level of activity has a beneficial effect in reducing inflammation

Stamina, the ability to keep going, is improved  by any exercise that makes you feel a little breathless but still able to talk. Brisk walking either outside or on the spot if you can’t go out, for 30 minutes is ideal. It does not need to be done in one 30 minute spell. We now know that three 10 minute spells is fine or even six 5 minute spells and that even 2 minutes makes a difference. If you can do this in a green environment the benefit is even greater. The One You app which you can get on your phone at www.nhs.uk/oneyou measures how much brisk walking you have done, including walking on the spot holding onto the back of a chair.
 
Strength, skill and suppleness are increased by twelve minutes of exercise, your daily dozen, although people in their 80s should do 14 minutes, and people in their 90s 15 minutes because the longer you live the more exercise you need because one of the effects of ageing is that you lose fitness more quickly with each year that passes. You will probably find that you are a little breathless while doing you Daily Dozen so the minutes will count towards the 30 minutes of what is called moderate intensity exercise you need to maintain and improve your stamina
 
You need to put together a programme and do it obsessively, either to the eight o’clock news or to favourite music You might want to change it from time to time to prevent boredom but you will soon start to feel uneasy if you have not done your Daily Dozen, or 14 or 15. Many people find it helpful to have someone to motivate them, either at home or in a group or online, either a Trainer or a teacher of Yoga or Tai Chi or  Pilates or dance or the Alexander Technique. Membership of a group either in a gym or fitness centre or in a class for tai chi, yoga, alexander technique or pilates is an important means of improving all three of these aspects of fitness.  However not everyone can get out to a class and even if you go to a class once a week you should regard that as a motivating time and be prepared to do something daily as well.  Once a week is not enough.  Once a day is what is needed and our recommendation is three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year, and three-hundred-and-sixty-six days in a leap year (Daley Thomson always trained on Christmas day partly because he knew that his rivals would not be training!)

HOW COULD YOU USE THIS KNOWLEDGE TO ACHIEVE YOUR OBJECTIVES?

So what should you do in those ten minutes?  Well you need to complete the checklist that will
  • Increase the strength of 
    • lower legs,
    • thighs,
    • abdominal muscles and the spine
    • the upper limbs
  • Improve your Skill or coordination for example the ability to stand on one leg while doing one’s teeth or while circulating arms slowly to stretch the shoulder joints 
  • Increase the suppleness of knees, hips, shoulders and the neck and spine
RESOURCES

For Strength, Skill and  Suppleness look at the NHS set of 10 minute work out programmes or the easier exercise programmes if you are getting back to daily exercise after a few years or decades without  daily activity of this sort. If you are over 70 look at the inspirational Green Goddess

Ask for some equipment for your next birthday , or an early Christmas present, for example , weights, resistance bands and a grip strengthener. If your  present givers are bit more flush ask for an exercise bike or a Wizdish treadmill and the type of computing and internet kit you need to enable you to exercise with other people in real time 

You will find our book Sod Sitting, Get Moving helpful, The famous Green Goddess is one of the authors

THE SECOND 30

As well as 30 minutes brisk walking a second 30 is the weight you were when you were 30 , aim to get back therewith the help of the Mediterranean Diet or Weight watchers !
 
 HOW COULD YOU USE THIS KNOWLEDGE IF YOU ARE SUPPORTING SOMEONE ELSE?

It is often difficult to motivate someone you know well and better motivation may come for them joining a group for exercise or having a personal trainer to visit them or get grandchildren who are often more influential than children
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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