Do You Have a Fitness Retirement Plan?

We understand the importance of having a plan for our finances for when we retire, but what about your future body?

Money is only one part of being comfortable, you also need to be fit enough to make the most of later life.

For this plan, you need to look at what you have now, where you want to be and what you need to do to get there so that you can make regular investments into your future self’s well being.

Let’s just pick an age like 78. Now think ahead to what you still want to be doing at that age. Do you still want to be able to jog, cycle, play tennis or hike with your grandkids?

It doesn’t have to be an athletic feat, in fact, it is often something quite mundane, or something that we take for granted. Going shopping unassisted, living in a house with stairs or reaching high shelves may not require any effort now but could be too much when you’re older if you don’t invest in your fitness.

There is a natural decline in strength with age. If we don’t maintain it we risk being unable to perform the things that make life worth living when we’re older. Therefore, exercise is the ultimate anti-ageing remedy. In a lot of instances,we find aging people shuffling as they walk, their posture is slouched forward, they struggle to sit and stand, they just aren’t strong.

Good news, you can minimize functional aging by training your strength and balance.

The reason people shuffle is because they no longer have the balance or strength to be on one leg for too long, so they shorten their stride length. At the extreme they don’t stride at all; they shuffle. They typically slouch because their back muscles have weakened and can no longer support their spine. Slouching could also result from osteoporosis or some other conditions. Standing and sitting is laborious because their leg muscles have weakened.

Improving your strength and balance won’t just prevent the most obvious symptoms of aging, it also staves off many of the side effects that can be just as damaging to your quality of life.

Saving money will help you retire, but saving your body will help you enjoy retirement.

Nicola Robertson

Registered Physiotherapist