To hope that the exercise I do now will help mobility when I'm older

Both my parents were physically fit. My dad is in his 90s. His mindset is very positive and rather self serving. Think that helps. Mum had lots of ailments was dying for years

I was fit and healthy and very flexible up until 3/4 years ago. Spent years doing ballet, horse riding, martial arts and other sports, very active with a physical job etc. I'm on my first knee replacement at 54 after a poorly managed sports injury when I was 42. There's no guarantees op. My joints are riddled with arthritis and it's nothing to do with my earlier activity (or lack of it). Menopause has definitely had the effect of making everything seize up and I'm doing my utmost to halt the decline.

This is why I run. My mum used to say 'what do you want to be running all the time for, you're not young any more?' and the answer was 'because I want to be able to tie my own shoelaces past the age of 60, mother.' My mum did zero unnecessary exercise, couldn't bend down or walk up stairs without being breathless.

I'm 63 and can still tie my own shoelaces (and put my foot up on the table, but that's another story).

General life is going to have you in a very low zone cardio wise though.

It's the quality of the steps not the quantity though.

You need to be properly out of breath doing cardio 3 times a week for a good half hour. Looking after young children really won't get you to that level but it's better than nothing.

Likewise,10,000 steps ambling around Lakeside is nothing like as beneficial as 5,000 steps with purpose.

Yes this is true about the number being set for the olympics - why do we fall for this stuff?

face steps isn't really cardio though. Unless you are having a jog. Maybe carrying heavy shopping briskly too. But not walking with young kids. I suppose it would keep your heart high if they're in a double buggy and you're power walking, that might do it.

I'm 47 and always been very active, tennis, running, weights etc.

I'm booked in for surgery on both knees in a few weeks time. Likely to have knee issues for the rest of my life now.

I am the opposite of you, OP. I walk and swim but do almost no weights. Though I keep planning to. It's so boring and I don't like gyms.

However I am 52 and I feel better than most of my sedentary friends in their 30s or 40s. I put this down to walking everywhere. No back ache and indeed no aches. I am sure genetics helps too.

The 10,000 steps a day recommendation is a complete myth. It was just an arbitrary number picked out decades ago by a Japanese company to market their pedometers - purely because it's a nice neat number and looked good on the screens, I think.

There is no evidence to back up the idea that 10,000 steps is a good target to aim for.

In fact, research from proper studies shows that the optimum number for reducing the risk of mortality is actually around 6,000 - 8,000 steps. By all means do more if you want, but doing 10,000 steps a day doesn't make you any healthier than doing 8,000.

I think there's a balance. Friends of mine who were super active in their youth - semi-pro and pro sportswomen and dancers, are now very compromised, needing steroid injections in knees to function, spine problems etc. Gentle regular exercise seems to be the best. Daily walks, with swimming, gardening, dancing, cycling, definitely some weight training as you move towards and into menopause.

Oh God yes! The evidence on the benefits of exercise are absolutely clear.

Even amongst friends in their mid 50s I am already seeing the difference between those who have never been active and those who have.

I tell all younger women to try to get themselves in a good state of fitness before they go into perimenopause. It will really help and its harder to build it up at that age than maintain it.

It should do.

I'm 60, have been running and practicing karate since I was mid-40s.

At 60 I can still run 5k in 30 mins on a good day and can still complete all the karate moves. I'm about to move up a belt. The only difference now is if I am out of action for a couple of weeks - flu etc - it takes longer to back in condition.

I think 'use it or lose it' is true.

If you keep it up all your life, then certainly it's likely to help. Weight training can reduce your risk of osteoporosis, as it's good for boosting your bone density. So in that sense, yes, it could be good for mobility long term. It doesn't tend to do that much for flexibility, though, so something like yoga or pilates or just some really good stretching exercises might be good for maintaining a really good range of movement.

As others have said, some of it is down to luck and genetics, but you can make the best of that by looking after yourself.

It might help in the sense that if you’re lucky and live illness free you will retain fairly good mobility. However there are many many conditions and illnesses which do not care about how many weights you’ve lifted eg Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, MND, neuropathy to name a few. I speak from sad experiences of seeing fit and healthy family members and friends who have prided themselves on their Spritley levels of fitness. This type of illness stops you in your tracks. It helps of course to lessen some effects perhaps but by and large, if you get sick there’s no amount of weight lifting that will change these conditions and their inevitable journey

I would be aiming for more than that, personally. The recommended minimum is 10k per day.

I'm a massive believer in this. Genetics and frankly just good or bad darn luck do of course play a huge role, but we might as well do all the things which actually are in our control for as healthy and active long life as possible.

My DF was always fit and active but sadly died at 69 from motor neurone disease. That was just hideous horrible shitty bad luck. My DM has recently had a hip operation after having got more and more immobile (and whilst DF was alive but ill caring for him took all her time and energy). She's on an up and down recovery path and the hip replacement won't fix everything as she has had a very long term bad back (which she's never really done anything about trying to see if it's possible to improve) and using crutches is now causing pain in her wrists and hands and arthritis flare up, but she's slowly making progress and moving in the right direction. I nag her (her words - my words would be 'encourage'!) to invest in private physio and to look into a gym membership for gentle movement and rehabilitation and consider getting back into swimming which she did competitively as a young woman. I want her to be able to enjoy as full and active a life as possible, with as little pain as possible, notwithstanding it breaks my heart that she 'should' be enjoying her retirement with my DF by her side.

I also realise that at 42 I had become complacent, unfit and overweight, blaming long hours at work for not prioritising exercise, which I'm slowly doing something about, and prioritising my health and wellbeing. I've recently been looking more and more at things to do with longevity- ie strength training, the right supplements for a woman my age, hormone balancing, and mobility, as well as reducing stress in particular.

I have to say that my motivation is to feel healthier and better now, regardless of what happens when I'm older. I lost a stone which makes everything much easier and I enjoy feeling fit and strong.

It's good to do some cardio that really raises your heart rate. I used to just rely on yoga and walking the dog but have more energy since I've been back in the gym and doing stuff that gets my heart rate up to 140-150 bpm like rowing, mountain climber etc.

I hope so, I'm ten years older than you. Yoga has made the biggest difference in terms of flexibility and strength (also to my peace of mind), even a once a week class. I also do cardio and weights - that has helped keep body fat down and with strength and fitness. Before I did yoga regularly I used to go "Ooph" when I got up and sat down.

My dad did a lot of exercise - physical job, cycled to work, ran marathons. He was the one with poor mobility in the end, hip operations and died of heart failure. I think he overdid it though and overtrained a lot, particularly with running. I do a bit of running but mostly low impact- cross trainer, mountain climber etc. My mum is still going at 84 though is overweight and diabetic- she never did much exercise. Her mobility was pretty good until 2020 though.

Hope I will avoid both - slimmer and fitter than my mum but don't go as mad with exercise as my dad did and do different things.

Exercise will always be good for you OP as opposed to no exercise. but in some cases it won't stop the unexpected. I have osteoarthritis (have already had one hip replaced when I was 48) Its in my knees, back, and digits as well. I did a fair amount of exercise up until the point the pain started, and still try to do some now to strengthen the muscles around my joints. Unfortunately though its just the (bad) luck of the draw for me.

Who knows? I exercised a lot when younger and have painful dodgy knees and hips now in early 60s. A lot is genetics I think.

The older people who I know who are still active have always been 'doers'. My in laws in their late 70s still clean their own large house, do all their own gardening (the heavy stuff too), walk miles with the dog on rocky paths in forests or hills...

I was reasonably active until a load of stuff happened in my early 50s and I'm trying to pick it up again. A few months doing weights in the gym, some cardio and more walking has really helped. And I'm more flexible than many at the gym through years of pilates.

I think if you added something like pilates in you'd find you are using different muscles.

Also while there's no guarantees, I reckon if I'm a bit slimmer and generally fitter that will help if something did happen to me - and I'm hoping it'll keep my blood pressure down.