How long before feeling the benefits?

[littleblackcat27]

I realise this is a somewhat subjective question, but I have just started excercising again after a longish period of not doing anything, because of knee problems. (osteo and rheumatoid arthritis)

So I'm still walking the dog daily (not a longish distance, as backfires with swelling etc in knees) and going to the gym every other day and doing arm weights, and mostly non weight bearing for legs. Then going swimming.

Really enjoying it so far, but wondering if benefits, ie getting stronger, sleeping better etc take a while to kick in.... I'm 59 - and muscles don't seem to work the same way as when I was exercising in my 30s/40s

I think it takes a long time physically but mental benefits are quicker. I'm 57 and was weightlifting twice a week for 4 months before I started to see a difference in my body.

If I exercise hard I usually sleep better that same night. But I don't know of any studies (offhand) that measured this in healthy 50-somethings. Will look later if you remind me (school run in 5).

Being stronger: seems like all the studies based on promoting weights were done on frail 70+ yr olds who are completely sedentary. They see benefits in 3-6 weeks, no one measures their strength changes any earlier.

There are NO STUDIES on healthy 50-something yr olds who already do some physical activity, to see how quickly they can find benefits from additional weights or cardio PA, but presumably takes longer to find a measureable change than observed in sedentary frail 70 yr olds. I'd think 2 months maybe to tell you're stronger? Minimum.

You didn't list any other benefits you want to get.

Thanks for replying. I really want to feel fitter and stronger 😬. I was ‘laid up’ for several weeks at the beginning of the year as one knee swelled to twice it’s normal size. Very painful and couldn’t move around much ie walking/hobbling to the loo was painful .

It scared me - so I want to build muscle. Ideally to walk longer distances. I could do 3 miles but it could bugger things up and I can’t afford to be off sick

@MedSchoolRat i guess I’m not exactly a fit 50 something 🥴but neither a sedentary 70

I wasn't thinking "fit 50yo" just not "completely sedentary 50yo". Being sedentary at start, is often required in these studies. I assume the dog-walking is your long term habit, not totally new.

Keep in mind there are potential harms avoided, hard to measure. Nobody can say your health wouldn't decline without you adding in exercise now. The more active you are hitting age 60+ the better your health is likely to be for longer, and a lot of that benefit is measured in the health problems you don't develop or develop later than you would have otherwise. Plus the bigger variety of PA things you do, the more likely you are to keep them up for longer, because if one thing changes (say you stop having a dog to walk) you still have the other PA habits.

fwiw, there's scant proof that exercise improves sleep in anyone.
Bit shocked to discover that, myself!
It might be a highly personal thing, you'll soon find out if you're one of those who respond well.
I'm basing that statement on 2 systematic reviews.

There's a trend towards improvement in observational studies, but you'd expect that from the study design + publication bias. It's not convincing evidence summary that one thing (PA) led to another (better quality sleep).

This other syst review was better at finding trials and was much more cautious in saying exercise helped people improve quality of their sleep.

These studies tend to look for the improvements after around 12 weeks, but the observation point could be anything between same day and many months later.

Wow - thank you for very informative reply. I’ve got the gym membership until end of November- so will hopefully see some tangible results by then. No doubt it’s personal/subjective on a lot of factors.