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

[facelace]

My mum is 60, bad knee, bad back etc etc. I don't want to be like that.

I'm 38 and weight lift 2/3 times a week. Aibu in thinking this will help me when I'm her age?

My mum has never done any exercise past childhood.

As others have said, nothing is a given. In my experience though I would say that people who were active when young definitely have a better chance of retaining fitness as they age. I take the ‘use it or loose it’ approach and with this in mind I do 20-30 mins yoga every morning and I walk quite a bit - I’m 69 and, fingers crossed, am pretty fit for my age.

It will help and support your joints yes.
I'd also add some functional fitness/ balance type stuff - body weight squats, Turkish get ups, tricep dips, downward dog stretches. All will help massively as you age.

Body's and how we can use and abuse them are really very complicated indeed. It's very easy to overuse some parts and underuse other parts. Just because someone looks to be doing the right things doesn't necessarily mean they actually are using the right muscle in the right way. Our larger muscles are programmed to take over if a smaller muscle is fatigued. Doing something using the wrong muscles is worse than useless.

Yoga taught properly 121 with a teacher who knows what they are doing has been a game changer for me. Started in order to Finally sort out my back and have found it useful for all sorts.

Anytime I present with a problem pain or even a twinge she can give me movements to do, first gentle then working up to quite strong which to me don't immediately address the issue but I have come to trust will address whatever the really problem in.

The place a pain appears is for example very often the 'other end' of muscle for which something is going wrong.

We work to the rate of my breathing. If I'm not a little out of breath, I can be worked harder. If I can't catch my breath, we slow it down.

Absolutely, strength, cardio and balance are all important, it's also important to work with correct use within your extensible capacity to avoid all the set backs that injury bring.

It's good to establish a mindset of exercise, so that you are more inclined to keep exercising when older. But as others have shown, age can bring unforeseen issues that limit what you can do, but your mindset will ensure that you at least try to do what you can within your ability.

I have been sporty off and throughout the years and now in my 60s have osteoarthritis in most of my joints, but try to ensure I swim twice a week, do pilates and walk everywhere on good arthritis days. Would love to take up kick-boxing but I think that dream is fading somewhat.😥

I suspect it's a good start, but you can't predict injuries which can have a massive difference to your mobility.
I'm late 40s, and until about 10 years ago, I was really sporty and active. Played hockey three times a week, gym, cycling. I hurt my back badly, and I've been left with mobility challenges. I can't run, I can't do impact classes, etc. I've moved to doing yoga, adding to the pilates I was already doing, and a lot of swimming. It doesn't mean I'm not super frustrated - and I've piled on the weight since then too. I suspect that my mobility won't get much (if any) better than it is now.
I never saw this as my future.

I've had RA for some years now and feel that my daily half hour walk really does help. I feel dreadful if I miss it, it's so much harder to get going in the morning. Exercise, to me, can help you deal with existing conditions as well as staving new ones off.

I have two young children, I get cardio from general life!

Very rarely do less than 8000 steps a day

You cannot predict the future and life has a habit of throwing a spanner in the works. But I do think that you can improve your chances by doing things you enjoy and just keep moving. That might be gardening/walking/housework and general pottering about or going to the gym and working out. Like most things things it’s probably better to do little and often and in moderation.

Being active makes a huge difference but it's no guarantee of a healthy old age.

Anyone can fall, get injured or end up with a degenerative illness and I think lots of people don't realise how little it takes to turn your world upside down in terms of your activity levels and your fitness.

personally, I don't worry about flexibility, as I have seen this type of training cause a lot of issues later on down the line

You are not really doing any cardio though. The strength exercise is very good

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.