8 ways to keep fit and healthy over 40

Words: Peta Bee Producer: Gavin Fernando

Fitness can be achieved at any age, and it’s never too late to improve your mind and body. From lifting weights to taking up a sport, here is a list of ways to stay fit and healthy as you get older.

Get active

As a minimum, health experts recommend being active every day and building up to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity - fast walking, jogging, cycling, stair-climbing - each week. Start yourself off with ten-minute sessions and slowly increase them.

Pick up the weights

There are no hard and fast rules for this one other than to find a weight that you can comfortably lift for 12 to 15 repetitions of an exercise, with the last two reps posing more of a challenge.

Build your endurance

If you always run or cycle long and slow, you will get fitter but not faster. To improve your speed you need to pick up your pace in some sessions, and sprint interval sessions are among the best ways to make improvements.

Take up a sport

A BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine review found that football should be considered “for untrained, healthy or unhealthy middle-aged and older adults of both sexes” and that playing weekly helped to boost fitness levels and reduce weight.

Focus on your posture

All-over strength training is the best way to improve your posture, and something like a TRX suspension trainer that uses your own body weight as resistance is an excellent investment, particularly if you spend a lot of time sitting at a desk or in a car.

Remember to stretch

Everyone thinks of yoga as the best route to better flexibility, but it’s not the only way to become more bendy. Stretching for five to ten minutes every day will bring improvements, but so will moving more in any way you can.

Improve your balance

Our balance deteriorates significantly from middle age and contributes heavily to falls in the home. Research suggests simply standing on one leg every day helps to maintain and improve balance.

Mix it up

Consuming plenty of the bone-friendly nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D, magnesium and phosphorus is important, but so is exercise. Mix up your fitness activities so your body can adapt and strengthen.