- The sports scientist Lorcan Daly studies champion rowers over the age of 50 — including one who is 92.
- He found that rowers who took up the sport later in life could still reach elite performance levels.
- His tips for getting fit at any age include making exercise part of your routine.
A sports scientist who researches athletes who are 50 and over shared his tips for getting fit at any age.
Lorcan Daly, a lecturer in sports science at the Technological University of the Shannon, Ireland, studies how aging affects the athletic performance, physical strength, and endurance of older indoor rowers. He has found that rowers appear able to become champions in their age category no matter when they take up the sport, as long as they build up enough muscle mass and endurance.
For example, Daly's grandad, Richard Morgan, took up rowing at 73, and won four rowing world championships by the age of 92.
"In ideal circumstances, you'd be rowing all your life and just see a little decline in performance with age. But you can still massively increase your performance even at very advanced ages," Daly said.
"The clear message is that it's never too late to start exercising," he added.
Daly shared four tips on how to get fit at any age, inspired by the later-life rowers he has studied.
Do strength and endurance training
"The key thing is to have an endurance component and a strength component to your training," he said. "That's the perfect recipe for what you should be doing to be fit and healthy."
This is widely seen in research. For example, a 2022 study by researchers from the National Cancer Institute examined the exercise habits of almost 100,000 adults aged between 66 and 76. It found that participants who did 150-300 minutes of aerobic exercise as well as resistance training once or twice a week had a 41% lower chance of dying from any cause than participants who did neither.
If you're sedentary, Daly recommended alternating between going for a walk one day and doing as many sit-to-stands (where you sit down on a chair, stand up, and repeat) as you can the next. You can work up from there, making walks longer and brisker and graduating to simple bodyweight exercises at home, he said.
Every little helps
Even adding the smallest amount of movement into your routine will have an "enormous impact on your life quality," Daly said.
"People see professional athletes and think, 'I'm nowhere near that level, so what's the point?'" he said. "But even if you do a tiny bit more, you get a huge benefit to your health."
A 2023 study of almost 12,000 participants, all aged over 50, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that doing just 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (such as brisk walking, cycling, or housework) each day appeared to reduce the risks of dying of any cause by 28—55% — even if they were sedentary for 10.5 hours a day.
Build exercise into your routine
"People say they don't have time to exercise, but that's like saying, 'I don't have time to brush my teeth.' If someone said that, you'd look at them like they're crazy — and you could argue that exercise is more important than brushing your teeth." Daly said.
"You just have to build it into your routine so that you just do it without even thinking, without relying on your motivation, just like brushing your teeth," he added.
Supatra Tovar, a pilates instructor, psychologist, and dietitian, previously told BI that she "anchors" habits she wants to solidify to existing ones so that they become routine, such as associating her morning coffee with 20 minutes of exercise.
You can also use tech to help build habits, by gamifying new routines and creating rewards.
Make it social
The best way to motivate yourself to exercise is to do it with loved ones, a Harvard paleoanthropologist previously told BI, because they will hold you accountable and can make it more enjoyable.
The rowers that Daly studied are all part of a rowing club. But you don't have to belong to a club to get the same benefits, he said — exercising with friends can work, too.
