Dear LPG,

I have to admit that, even though age is just a number as they say, I am getting to the stage where I need to admit that I am really not as young as I used to be.   Even before we were all locked up for a year, I had begun to notice a few more of those little occurrences that help you to realise that you are getting older cropping up just a little more often as I went through my daily life.

 I think it all starts when you realise that you are finding it a little harder to keep up with your son or daughter when you are taking a leisurely walk in the great outdoors. You realise that they are either having to slow down a lot to accommodate your walking speed or you are working that much harder to keep up with theirs.

Then there is the harsh reality that you are not quite as tall as you were when you were last measured by your GP or a clinician during one of those sessions when you are officially put through the medical health-check routine.

We have all had a whole year to do a lot more sitting than our bodies have been used to.  Even the young ones who sit all day at work have been robbed of the opportunity to take a daily walk to the station or stand at the bus stop, while we oldies have had even less of an opportunity or reason to exercise our spines in the same way that we would normally do when out and about.

It is guaranteed that most readers of LPG are considerably shorter than they once were and, while there is not much we can do about it, there are a few preparatory measures that can be taken if you are a bit younger.  I took a look online and found some relatively radical exercises and suggestions that, many readers of LPG will be more than likely to be far too long in the tooth to start now, but a chat with our children, and the sharing of a link to some of the suggestions that YouTube has to offer, might help reduce the lack of inch or centimetre loss when those kids of ours get to our age.

RS, Beckenham

LPG reminds readers of the advantage of getting advice before attempting any exercise…

RS offers some related information…

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… and some related exercise suggestions for the young and old…

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