This article explores the multifaceted aspects of ageing, emphasizing that while it's an inevitable process, its experience is not fixed. It highlights the importance of maintaining fitness and healthspan, addressing common concerns associated with ageing, and dispelling myths surrounding inevitable deterioration.
Whether we like it or not, ageing is inevitable. But that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a source of both fascination and fear. Many younger Australians particularly connect ageing with a loss of health, hearing, mental capacity and income. Then there are fluctuations in hormones like testosterone, which trigger hair growth in some niggly places, like the chin and nose.
Yet, the experience of ageing is not fixed and, for older adults, the boundaries of age shift according to how they feel and how well their body and mind functions. And though there are inevitable changes that happen in our body and mind as we grow older, deterioration and loss are not inevitable. Being fit for our lives, so we can enjoy the fun stuff – like sex, dancing, hiking in nature, exploring new places on foot, cycling, picking up grandkids – as well as the basic stuff – like standing up from a chair, taking the stairs, carrying groceries – are important. These are primarily driven by a drop in cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle mass and strength, factors which affect mobility and our risk of falls as we age, and can predict lifespan and health span. Cardiorespiratory fitness – the maximum amount of oxygen we can take in during exercise, as measured by Vo2max – is reflected in how much we huff and puff when we exert ourselves and how long we can engage in an activity. It declines by about 5 per cent in our 30s, 10 per cent in our 40s, 15 per cent in our 50s and 20 per cent in our 60s. “The primary contributor is decreased physical activity,” explains Dr Angelo Sabag, an accredited exercise physiologist for the University of Sydney’s Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass and function, is also the result of decreased activity, as well as hormonal changes, like from their 50s, people begin to lose between 1.5 per cent and 5 per cent of muscle strength a year
AGEING HEALTH FITNESS Cardiorespiratory FITNESS MUSCLE MASS
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