How big is your world?

The trouble with taking a summer break from writing a six-weekly newsletter is that six weeks became twelve. I appreciate the restraint you’ve all shown in not demanding its return.

Still, it’s never too late to get going again. Which happens to be the theme of this one.

Last summer, Bob Becker finished the Badwater 135, a 217km foot race through Death Valley. Temperatures hit 48°C. It took him 45 hours. He’s 80.

He didn’t take up ultrarunning until he was 60.

Most of us don’t want to jog 217km through a desert. But we do want to walk up the stairs without thinking about it, take a ski trip, hike for a few hours, swim in the surf, play tennis, or play with the kids or grandkids. To keep doing those things as you get older, you need to keep your body capable.

That’s as relevant at 30 as it is at 80: what you can do later is largely decided by what you do now.

How big is your world?

There’s a questionnaire used in medicine that, in effect, measures the size of a person’s physical world. Called the Life-Space Assessment, it asks how far someone moves through their environment. Do you get out of your bedroom? Out of the house? Into the garden, the local café or supermarket? Out of your neighbourhood? Out of town? How often? Do you need help to do it?

The answers give a score from 0 to 120. At one end is someone whose world has become very small. At the other is someone who still moves freely through it.

The consequences of losing physical capacity are not simply that exercise becomes harder. Your world gradually gets smaller.

The price of doing things

Physical capacity naturally declines with age. You don’t see 50-year-olds winning Wimbledon singles titles. But the difference between people who remain active and those who don’t can be enormous.

Our aerobic capacity – the ability to take in and use oxygen – peaks in early adulthood and gradually declines with age. Strength and muscle mass decline too.

But how much we retain is heavily influenced by what we do. People who continue exercising can preserve remarkably high levels of fitness well into later life. A fit 70-year-old can have a greater aerobic capacity than a sedentary person decades younger.

It matters because the activities we want to do have a fixed physical price. Climbing a flight of stairs requires the same amount of work at 80 as it does at 30. A day skiing still demands a certain level of balance, strength and endurance, regardless of age.

At 30, our physical capacity is usually so far above what ordinary life demands that we barely notice the cost. At 80, the margin is smaller. If your maximum comfortable walking distance is two miles, a café one mile from home can feel a long way. Eventually, you may just decide not to go.

The lower your capacity, the fewer things you can enjoyably do.

Where did the fun go?

This rarely happens overnight. Things simply become a little harder. Carrying a suitcase up the stairs becomes difficult. Then, often without really noticing it, we start reducing the activities in our lives.

The ski holiday stops. Swimming in the surf becomes too hard, so instead you stand at the edge watching the kids. Long walks get replaced by shorter ones.

Watching others have fun becomes more common than having fun yourself.

Keeping it going

Thankfully, our bodies are remarkably adaptable. Strength and aerobic training in people in their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond can still produce substantial improvements in physical capacity – not merely slowing decline, but increasing what you can do.

That might mean lifting heavier weights, walking further, getting off the floor more easily, returning to tennis or spending a whole day exploring a city. The point is to stay fit enough to keep doing the things you enjoy.

Why else are we here?

If pain or injury is standing between you and the things you’d rather be doing, or you’d simply like some help working out how to improve your strength and physical capacity, we’re here.

Book in with one of the team online, by email at info@westlondonphysio.co.uk, or on 020 7937 1628.

Keep moving,
Cameron