What's stopping us from exercising in older age?

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Exercise in older age is high on the agenda, but the idea that with age comes bags of time and a desire to ‘get out there’ isn’t true for a lot of us. How do you juggle exercise around caring for partners, grandchildren or staying in work? What if you haven’t exercised for years? What can your body take, and how has it changed with age? James Gallagher hears how octogenarian athlete ‘Irongran’ keeps going, he explores the mental and physical barriers that stop us exercising and he finds out what he might feel like in 40 years as he pulls on an ageing suit.

(Photo: Elderly man going for a run. Credit: Charday Penn / Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Does talking to strangers make you happier?
0:04.4	Could aging disgracefully help you live longer?
0:07.8	I'm Dr. Michael Mosley and in my Just One Long Thing podcast series I'll be chatting to doctors and scientists
0:15.1	we'll be covering topics like sleep exercise happiness and staying young with each
0:20.6	of our experts choosing a health hack they claim is the single most effective way you can improve your life.
0:27.0	Just one long thing. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:32.0	This is Discovery from the BBC with me James Galahar.
0:35.0	Now you know how we always talk about there are two inevitabilities in life, death and taxes.
0:40.0	Well what about another one aging?
0:42.0	And that's what we're going to talk about today so later I'm going to go to a lab and they're going to
0:47.2	gear me up give me a suit that makes me feel like I'm 70 so I'm going to know what future James is going to feel like. But first I've come to Hyde Park and I want you to meet someone who's actually quite incredible and she's called Iron Grand because she does Iron Man Triathons, didn't start exercise until her 50s and is running
1:07.2	marathons into her 80s. Nice to meet you. How many marathons are we up to? You've done London marathon? Yes, I'd have to add my ironman which is sort of seven or eight to about 10 marathons I think probably in total. So you're obviously in incredible shape to be able to do that.
1:25.2	But you didn't even start exercising until you were in your 50s. So what was the light
1:31.2	switch moment where you were like, no no something's got to change.
1:35.0	I went up to Nottingham University where my husband and I had both been to watch another friend doing a marathon.
1:42.0	And I came back to my husband and said I want to do a half marathon.
1:46.3	You couldn't even go one kilometer and said he and that was the challenge.
1:51.5	He was probably right at the time. So I spent three months partly with a friend and partly on my own
1:58.7	sort of walking a bit more jogging a little bit and then slowly running. So I did that half marathon.
2:05.0	You did the half marathon in three months? You went from nothing to a half marathon in three months?
2:09.0	I would like to look at my time.
2:12.0	But probably the slowest half marathon ever, but I did it.
	...

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