Athletes Show How to Age Slowly
This article argues that people shouldn’t be focused on increasing “life span” but on increasing “health span.” The health span is the period of time a person lives without the chronic conditions and diseases generally associated with aging. Research with masters, or senior, athletes finds that they age at a slower rate than others. The recommendation is to increase physical activity at any age if you want to maintain both mental and physical levels of activity.
If you’re younger than 35, there is still time to maximise ‘peak’ health and fitness. Ideally, you should aim to start from as high a point as possible, before the influence of ‘decay’ becomes more pronounced. However, if you’re older than 35, significant improvements are still possible.
It’s never too late to change your trajectory for the better. Studies have demonstrated that even 90 year-olds can improve their strength and power, with the appropriate training regimen and significant benefits are possible from relatively small ‘doses’ of physical activity.
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Movement is medicine. The benefits of physical activity far outweigh the possibility of adverse outcomes in almost every population, and increasing your levels of physical activity is one of the few interventions that has been demonstrated as beneficial across age-ranges, ethnic groups, and spectrums of physical ability.
