Expert guide to improving flexibility in midlife: Avoid feeling stiff

As we age we lose flexibility. Here is the expert guide to improving yours.

Midlife gives rise to many behavioural quirks, the most audible being the middle-aged grunt. If you groan when you bend or huff when you stand up because you feel your joints need oiling and your muscles are as tight as guitar strings, you are experiencing the kind of stiffness and inflexibility that is partly down to a natural decline in function as we age.

“A lot of people feel they are just more stiff and that movements take more effort when they reach their fifties,” says Lucy Macdonald, a physiotherapist and spokeswoman for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. “The muscles, joints and bones do undergo changes and it’s extremely common to grunt as the perceived effort of getting off a low sofa or picking up something off the floor increases.”

Sound familiar? Then you will probably appreciate that this worsens after prolonged periods of sitting or lying. “Getting out of bed in the morning or standing after being at a desk or in a car is when it is initially most noticeable,” Macdonald says. “This is because there’s a decrease in the lubricating synovial fluid that sloshes around our joints.”

As we move around and our bodies warm up, the fluid returns to help us move more freely and the stiffness eases off.

But, says Lexie Williamson, a yoga instructor and the author of Move, chronic stiffness is compounded by a gradual reduction in activity as we age: we move less and our muscles and joints respond by becoming taut and tightening.

“Muscles, joints and tendons all become weaker and stiffer as years go by and friction of joints increases as levels of synovial fluid drop,” Williamson says. “It’s a vicious cycle because we become even stiffer if we move less, so daily activity is essential for keeping us mobile.”

Other factors contribute to ironing-board level immobility. A natural drop in muscle mass (called sarcopenia) can result in a loss of strength that “can affect the way we move and our range of motion”, says the sports physiotherapist Paul Hobrough, author of The Runner’s Expert Guide to Stretching.

Research published in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatology confirms that cartilage, the smooth layer of tissue that acts as a cushioning for joints and plays a crucial role in them moving freely, becomes thinner and more brittle with age. “Stiffness is exacerbated by cartilage thinning a bit,” Macdonald says. “But cartilage is a living tissue that is regenerated when it is compressed through physical activity, so it is very important to keep things moving.”

If you are stiff now, you are certainly not doomed to deteriorate to a shuffle. Here’s what you need to know.

Prepare to move before you get up in the morning

If you struggle to get moving first thing, any gentle movement or stretch is helpful. Williamson says we shouldn’t overcomplicate things by setting ourselves a lengthy yoga sequence. “Before you even get up, try throwing off the duvet and doing a series of movements such as lying on your back with legs bent and feet together, and with arms outstretched, palms up,” she says. “Then just swaying your knees side to side is a good starter.”

Try doing some movement before you even get out of bed.

When you get up, put your hands on the back of a dining chair and try folding forwards, keeping your legs straight, as close as you can get to 90 degrees. “Move your hips around with hands on the back of a chair to unstick the hips. Then do some simple shoulder circles backwards and forwards. Simple is best first thing.”

Is 5-10 minutes a day of stretching really enough?

Hobrough says that daily movement is the most important method for relieving age-related stiffness, but dedicating 5-10 minutes to stretching will also pay off.

“Ideally you want to build up to 20 minutes daily, but if you don’t have time for that, anything is better than nothing,” he says.

Stretching is also important.

“If you prefer a couple of stretch-focused classes a week, that is a good option too.” Daily stretches should target the larger muscles such as the quads and the hamstrings, the hip flexors that are notorious for becoming stiff with sitting, the back and shoulders, but also smaller muscles in the shins and feet. “Stretch where you feel tightness, but try to do a variety of stretches each day,” he says.

Should I use a foam roller?

Foam rollers are the hard, brightly coloured cylindrical massage tools ubiquitous in gyms. Regular users claim they reduce muscle stiffness, increase range of motion and leave your body more supple. They are believed to work by releasing the tightness of myofascia, the thin connective tissue that surrounds the muscles.

In reality, there is little evidence to support these anecdotal claims and a review of 38 studies published last year in the Journal of Sport and Health Science reports that there were “no apparent superior effects” of foam rolling to reduce stiffness when compared with other types of warm-up.

Only use a foam roller if you think it helps – there’s no evidence to show it makes a difference.

The researchers, from Canada, Switzerland and Germany, concluded that there is “no need to emphasise [foam rolling]” in workouts. Despite this, Macdonald says, you should carry on using a roller if you feel it helps. “Massage and massage guns do help a bit with muscle recovery,” she says. “And with a roller you are compressing and releasing tissues in a similar way, so on that basis they may offer a bit of relief from stiffness.”

Will weight training make me feel even stiffer?

Far from it, Macdonald says. “Stretching feels good and is a form of mindful movement that helps your body to relax,” she says. “But there is no conclusive evidence that just stretching alone specifically reduces stiffness or wards off injuries in the long term – ideally you need to incorporate resistance training too.”

By loading our muscles, joints and connective tissue – the tendons and fascia that hold our bodies together – we strengthen them and enable them to keep moving freely. A 2023 study in the journal Sports Medicine is one of many to show that resistance training improves rather than hinders flexibility and range of movement.

That doesn’t mean you should give up yoga or pilates. “Both have a strength component and the lean, defined muscles you see on people who practise them are a result of the high-repetition body weight exercises they do, not a result of the gentle stretching element,” Macdonald says. “They are both good choices for muscle health if you enjoy them.”

Do any gadgets help?

It’s tempting to think that spending money on gadgets that promise relief from joint and muscle stiffness will help with the inconvenience of it, but do they work? Researchers in the Department of Rehabilitation at the First People’s Hospital of Neijiang, China, recently reviewed products designed to improve knee function and stiffness for a study in the journal PLOS One.

Their list, derived from 139 studies involving almost 10,000 people, included wedged insoles, kinesiology tape and TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machines.

Results showed that a simple knee brace was the “top therapeutic option” because it had the best scores for relieving pain, stiffness and joint function. It helps by altering the loading of the knee, they said.

Hydrotherapy was also beneficial, with the water buoyancy reducing pressure on the joints and improving flexibility. Ultrasound pulse therapy was among the least effective interventions and “remains contentious”, wrote the researchers, while wedged insoles did not “outperform neutral devices in pain reduction”.

Should I switch to low-impact exercise to save my joints?

Not necessarily – in fact, your joints may miss out on valuable benefits that can come from such activities. In 2021 a review of 43 studies that used MRI scans to check for knee damage found no evidence that even running, widely considered an enemy of joints, caused long or short-term damage to cartilage in the knees.

It flies in the face of popular opinion that high-impact exercise is a fast route to joint dysfunction, but supports the now-accepted theory that cartilage responds to regular use by regenerating and repairing itself.

There’s no evidence that running will cause damage to the cartilage in the knees.

With each step or stride as you run or power walk, you are effectively feeding nutrients and oxygen-rich fluid into the cartilage. “Running can be excellent for cartilage as it provides compression forces that simulate cartilage growth and not the shear forces that damage it,” Macdonald says. “When you run you are also strengthening muscles such as the quadriceps and calves, which support joints, and the lateral glutes and core, which aid stability.”

That doesn’t mean you should dive into long-distance running. Your hips and knees can handle only as much as they are ready for, so build up slowly – and seek advice if you have existing joint pain. If joint stiffness or pain persists for more than an hour after any exercise, or seems to get worse over time, then you probably need to mix things up or try shorter workouts.

Is swimming a good option?

Water acts like a giant cushion for the joints and being partly submerged reduces loading on the knees by 36-55 per cent and hips by 36-46 per cent, according to researchers from Berlin reporting in PLOS One.

This, says the charity Versus Arthritis, is why swimming and aquatic exercise are such good options for those with chronic joint stiffness or pain, the “buoyancy of water reducing impact and helping to make joints more flexible” over time. You will need to swim or use the pool regularly for greatest effect.

When researchers at the University of Texas asked 48 sedentary midlifers with osteoarthritis (OA) joint pain to take up swimming or indoor cycling – often prescribed for knee and hip pain – for 45 minutes three times a week, they concluded that “regular swimming exercise reduced joint pain and stiffness associated with OA” after three months as effectively as sessions on the bike.

This article originally appeared on The Times.

Originally published as Expert guide to improving flexibility in midlife: Avoid feeling stiff