When we think about preparing for old age, we tend to think about finances, not fitness.
Former lawyer turned personal trainer Elizabeth Davies thinks we need to consider our bodies more: how we will want them to move, what level of mobility and flexibility we want to retain, and how we can prepare our bodies now for this important work later.
What’s it about?
As above! Fed up of the typical messaging around women and fitness (e.g. ‘get your body beach ready!’), Davies is keen to reinforce some key messages around the value of exercise for bone health, cardiac fitness and longevity, while dispelling unhelpful myths and narratives (e.g. ‘walking isn’t exercise’).
What’s it like?
Science based and full of practical tips, this isn’t a ‘how-to’ as much as a ‘how-might’. How might you fit in more movement? What types of movement might you want to incorporate into a training programme? Aimed more at the gym novice than the gym bunny, Davies encourages us all to take a longer term view of our exercise and fitness goals, framing our commitments as being less about building muscle mass or achieving a particular aesthetic now and more about staving off osteoarthritis later.
Davies explicitly recognises that different stages of life bring different challenges and may require different approaches, and – although she does repeat the basics – that advice like ‘park further from the supermarket doors’ may not be as simple to execute as the orator assumes. I particularly liked her chapter early on that outlined exactly what she wanted her body to be able to do for her when she is older. It’s so easy just to hope that everything will be ok; instead, Davies gives us explicit motivation to visualise and protect our future selves (though I also enjoyed her point about not relying on motivation).
Final thoughts
I found Davies’ informal spoken style engaging and her regular f-bombs made me smile. I agree wholeheartedly with her point that any commitment to exercise should be scheduled to ensure it isn’t sacrificed to accommodate other priorities – and appreciate her understanding that, actually, sometimes it will need to be sacrificed, and that’s ok, and does not mean that the whole exercise programme should be scrapped.
Chapters on pelvic floor health and improving mobility were particularly interesting and I liked the summaries at the end of each chapter, which briefly recapped the key points. This book has inspired me to think more about how I can ensure that my Old Lady Body continues to work well, with minimal creaks and maximum flexibility, though I still think her idea of ‘minimum’ training is significantly more extensive than mine!
