Age is an interesting concept, isn’t it? When I was training as a physiotherapist, I considered my parent’s age (47 and 49) as old. My grandparents were very old (late 70’s).

Now at the grand age of 57, I wouldn’t put myself in the old age group yet however, I recognise I am heading towards it, whatever old is!

As we get older, age is generally irrelevant to what we can and can’t do. Age is relevant to youngsters. It denotes when they are old enough to move on to adult activities. It gives us a line which decides when they can see films, vote, have sex legally, drink in a pub. It helps us enforce laws that protect youngsters from society and society from youngsters!

We continue to measure our way through life by age -dreading 30, 40, ignoring 50 altogether, celebrating 60, tolerating 70 and allowing the family to celebrate 80 and 90!

How different life might be if we used ability as the measure.

Imagine how it would be if there was a challenge set before we could reach any of those targets?

Not an exam but a physical challenge.

Have you walked 10,000 steps every day for the last 2 years? Yes? Great, you can now apply for your driving licence but remember if your average score falls below 10,000 you will get points on it and may lose it…..

Voting would have to be an easy challenge or no one would bother to apply. Did you get out of bed every day last week? Yes? Ok, you can vote.

Enough about the youngsters, this blog is about how far we should walk when we are 70 and beyond!

All I can say is that I hope when I’m 70 I can still walk as far as I can today. I can easily walk 4 miles in one go and in a day I will walk up to 11 miles providing there is a good pub, a hot meal, and a nice hot shower or bath at the end.

Of course, it can’t be raining and I’m not so good in the cold or the very hot…

Will I still be able to walk that distance at 70 and is it a good thing for me to do?

Nothing is certain of course, anything can happen but it’s not your age that’s relevant but the state of your body.

Our body is not a machine.

We can’t switch it on in the morning and expect it to work as well as it did 50 years ago if it hasn’t done anything for those 50 years. Our body needs to keep its strength and its fitness by being active day after day, year after year. So if you walk 3 miles every day now, why wouldn’t you still be able to walk 3 miles every day. If you walk 10 miles every weekend why wouldn’t you still be able to walk 10 miles every weekend? If you only walk from your house to your car every day then why wouldn’t you still be able to do this at 70.

The simple answer is there is no reason.

The reality is that it will probably take you a bit longer and make you a bit more tired than it did when you were 50. Why? The natural ageing process means we lose muscle bulk as we get older, our cartilage and other soft tissue are not as thick and resilient as they used to be and our recovery time -our ability to heal is slower. On top of that are other health conditions that involve the heart, the lungs, the digestive system, joints with arthritis, parkinsons, diabetes……which mean our body isn’t working as well as it did and needs a little bit more tlc.

My recommendations are

1. Practice i.e. keep walking as far as is comfortable and if something hurts regularly get it looked at sooner rather than later!

2. Allow yourself lots of rest days for your body to heal from minor aches and pains.

3. Eat extra protein or drink protein shakes to help rebuild damaged muscle when you’ve worked a bit harder than normal.

4. Listen to your body and when its tired stop. Most injuries happen when you are tired or distracted or both!