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Better bones, stronger muscles and a happier heart — the benefits of exercising into old age are big

Better bones, stronger muscles and a happier heart — the benefits of exercising into old age are big

Aging. It’s something many Australians dread.

Things that used to be easy may not be anymore, appearances change and the body functions differently – but it’s not all bad.

The aging process can’t be stopped, but physical activity can bring a host of benefits as people get older.

According to Pazit Levinger, principal researcher at the National Aging Research Institute, overall wellbeing and health are better for those who exercise into old age.

“Physical activity is one way you can preserve efficient systems in the body that help you overcome diseases, function better and live a good quality of life,” she said.

‘Running has kept me healthy’

While not all older Australians can expect instant health improvements from exercise, 84-year-old Abdon Ulloa swears by his regular running routine.

Abdon Ulloa gives two thumbs up while at parkrun.
Abdon Ulloa has been running for the last 40 years.(Supplied: Abdon Ulloa)

Abdon took up the hobby in his mid-40s. He’s now done 75 marathons (his last one of him was at 77 years old) and he estimates his half-marathons of him are now into the thousands.

He goes to park run weekly. He’s been turning up on Saturday mornings for the last three years and has clocked up 184 runs.

All that exercise, he believes, has paid off.

“To keep running, to keep moving, you have very much kept me healthy,” he said.

Abdon Ulloa runs along the water at Port Macquarie parkrun.
Abdon believes the exercise he’s done, and is doing, is keeping him healthy.(Supplied: Abdon Ulloa)

“I don’t take any medicines and I visit the doctor once a year. I have no problems at all.”

Abdon is in a league of his own at his local parkrun in Menai in Sydney, where he’s the only runner over 80.

About an hour south, 82-year-old Ron Perry can be found making his way around the North Wollongong track.

“A lot of us still shuffle along up the back of the field,” he said.

Like Abdon, Ron took up running in his 40s and believes it’s kept him in good health.

Ronald Perry walks on red dirt in Broken Hill as part of parkrun.
Ron Perry was at North Wollongong’s first ever parkrun and has been there most Saturdays since.(Supplied: Ronald Perry)

“I started running around the block and then along the beach and just took it on from there,” he said.

In the nine years since starting parkrun, he’s done 215 runs.

‘Use it or lose it’

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Australian Department of Health and Aged Care recommend people aged 65 and older do about 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week. But data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows half of this cohort isn’t that active.

“It’s one of those things, we know it’s working [exercise]we just need to encourage people to do it more,” Professor Levinger said.

A portrait of Professor Pazit Levinger
Professor Levinger says overall health and wellbeing is better for those who exercise into old age.(Supplied: Pazit Levinger)

She also explained that ideally, exercise in older age should target the heart and lungs, with a bit of strength and resistance training too.

There should also be a focus on balance exercises.

“The heart has less capacity to function efficiently like it used to when we were younger,” Professor Levinger said.

“And the same with the respiratory system. We often might feel a bit breathless when we get older.”

Then there’s the issue of muscles getting weaker.

“If we don’t use them and preserve the strength we have, we lose muscle mass and strength and that will have a direct impact on how we function,” Professor Levinger said.

“When you exercise, you can improve how those systems function.”

When it comes to running in particular, Professor Levinger said the benefits were large, particularly for the cardiorespiratory system and bones.

A shot of an older woman running from behind.
Running into older age brings about benefits for the heart, lungs and bones.(Supplied: park run)

“Your blood pressure is in the healthy/normal range, your resting heart rate is reduced and pretty much your heart works more efficiently,” Professor Levinger said.

“Those who, for example, have run for a long time, and they keep running, it’s great for the bones, great for the muscles.

“We often use the phrase ‘use it or lose it’, which is actually correct.”

Someone using it is 98-year-old Colin Thorne, who in New Zealand has become the oldest person to join the 100-club at parkrun.

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“I’m not going to give up until I have to,” he said.

It’s never too late

Bill Lamont is Australia’s oldest active parkrunner. He signed up a couple of months ago and broke the record for his age group at Jells parkrun, on his first walk around the track.

“In June, on my 93rd birthday, I decided to give it a try and I’m very pleased that I did so, I’m thoroughly enjoying it,” Bill said.

93-year-old Bill Lamont holds a parkrun cut-out frame and smiles.
Australia’s oldest active parkrunner, 93-year-old Bill Lamont, has done nine parkruns so far.(Supplied: Bill Lamont)

Bill has always been active, and even now he does exercise classes, orienteering walks and plays table tennis.

“All those activities, I’m quite sure, are what is keeping me as healthy as I am. I don’t have any medical problems at this age,” Bill said.

Professor Levinger says the bottom line is, do what you can manage, and do what you enjoy.

“Do whatever you can and build up. You don’t have to be fit, you can exercise and start at any age.”

Lenore Rutley with 80th-birthday balloons.
Lenore Rutley took up running at 72.(Supplied: Lenore Rutley)

Just like Lenore Rutley, who’s always done her morning walk, but took up running at 72.

“I wanted to do something a little different,” she said.

Since that decision was made, Lenore has amassed 332 parkruns.

“I just run down hills now. Every so often I’ll get a spurt up and do a little bit of a run and then I’ll do a little bit of walking,” she said.

Professor Levinger said the key thing was that people aim to do something they enjoy.

“You want to do things that you feel comfortable with and find fun, because then you are likely to stick with it,” she said.

And as Lenore puts it – “what else would you do on a Saturday morning?”

ABC Sport is partnering with park run to promote the benefits of physical activity and community participation.

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Categories
Australia

WA infrastructure advisory body floats per-kilometre charge to ease traffic pressure

WA infrastructure advisory body floats per-kilometre charge to ease traffic pressure

Infrastructure WA, the body charged with advising the Premier’s Department on the state’s medium and long-term infrastructure needs, has proposed overhauling road funding by eventually replacing the fuel excise with a road-user charge that also creates incentives to reduce congestion.

The wide-ranging 20-year plan, Foundations for a Stronger Tomorrow, was tabled in State Parliament on Wednesday.

One of the 93 recommendations involves planning for the eventual transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles and how road infrastructure will be funded with the decrease of the fuel excise.

Nicole Lockwood, chair of Infrastructure WA, told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth that while the switch to electric vehicles would be “fantastic for the environment and climate change,” it also posed challenges.

“It does mean that the revenue source that comes from our fuel at the moment, that goes towards paying for our roads, will diminish over time,” she said.

“SW [the recommendation] is trying to find a mechanism where the government still has the ability to fund that infrastructure in a way that doesn’t disincentivize people from moving towards electric vehicles.”

EV tax coming in 2027

While the state government has already announced it will introduce a 2.5 cent per kilometer charge for EV’s from mid-2027, Infrastructure WA’s recommendation 58 goes further, proposing that WA work with other states to develop a nationally consistent road user charge that could influence driver behaviour. .

“The scheme has the potential to include vehicle mass, distance, location and time-of-day pricing elements,” the recommendation says.

Such a scheme could potentially charge different rates for road usage in peak hours, or differential rates for different roads.

A mix of cars and trucks fill four lanes of peak hour traffic on the freeway.
Ms Lockwood says the report recommends looking at ways to influence congestion and road use.(ABC News: Andrew O’Connor)

“What we’ve said is, let’s design a mechanism that has flexibility, so that in time if we wanted to use those levers we could,” Ms Lockwood said.

“We saw it very starkly during COVID, when people were not using the roads during the day, at certain times suddenly we had huge amounts of capacity.

“In the future, when we can’t continue to build more lanes, we will need other mechanisms to be able to manage demand on the system.”

The proposal met with a mixed response from ABC Radio Perth listeners:

Mike: “Again lower socio-economic people who cannot afford to live close to work will pay the most, the system working to keep the gap between the haves and the have nots.”

Greg: “The state government is not incentivizing enough the use of electric vehicles. The proposed road tax is a major disincentive. The benefit to the environment is the major issue and there won’t be the gains there should be. We pay for our roads Mainly via our local government rates so EV drivers will be paying double if we get this bad policy.”

Cynthia: “Surely a toll on cars with only one occupant would make sense? Or a fast lane for cars with two occupants.”

An artist's impression of people walking on Hay Street Mall with light rail lines in the background and a train in the background.
While Max Light Rail was shelved in 2016, Infrastructure WA recommended future planning around light rail and rapid bus networks.(Supplied: PTA)

Planning for light rail mooted

The report also recommends the state government look again at the role of light rail and rapid bus transit in Perth’s public transport mix.

A previous plan to link Perth suburbs through the Max Light Rail network was shelved by the Barnett government in 2016, and the McGowan government has been focused on delivering its expansion of the heavy rail network, Metronet.

Ms Lockwood said a plan to link people across suburbs and between stations was still needed.

“We very much back the government’s commitments to Metronet and the heavy rail system, but what we see in the future is a need to look at the next tier of connection for the city,” she said.

“That mid-tier public transport system that links buses and other parts of the network into the Metronet network is really important.

“Part of that is about making sure that the [already identified transport] corridors are protected.

“We really have to think about the spaces we’ve got and how we use them… then the state government needs to then pull a plan together to map that out for the whole of the metro area,” she said.

The infrastructure report also recommended a new desalination plant at Alkimos, a whole-of-government emissions reduction target and a package to reform hospital emergency departments.

The WA Government has six months to respond to the report and is obliged by legislation to respond to each recommendation as well as provide an implementation plan for the ideas that it accepts.

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Categories
Australia

As an adult, parkour helped Amy Han rediscover the joy of play and her surroundings

Amy Han balances between a doorway

Most adults wouldn’t even think of “playing” outside, but with parkour, Amy Han does just that.

Amy is not jumping off any buildings though. She’s there for the softer side of parkour, that almost anyone can do.

“I can’t think of a better way to incorporate movement and exercise and play into life,” she said.

“I don’t really think about it as training, I just think about it as going outside. I’m just going outside to move.”

The discipline was founded in Paris in the 1990s.

“Parkour is based on functional movements like running, climbing, jumping, etc., and in play and curiosity,” Women of Parkour Melbourne coach Kel Glaister said.

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“It’s all about using the capacity of your own body to explore and play in your environment.”

‘It felt like being on a playground’

Amy’s introduction to parkour was in a gym room in London, about 10 years ago. A friend invited her to a class because he thought she’d like it. Curious, Amy went along with her friend of hers.

They entered a room full of gymnastics equipment and watched as the instructor moved across the obstacles to get to the other side. Amy had never been sporty, but for the next two hours she moved, people helped her and they helped each other.

“Although it was hard, it didn’t feel like exercise — it felt like being on a playground,” she said.

Amy Han does parkour on some wooden poles in a park
Amy Han does parkour on some wooden poles in a park. (Supplied: Amy Han)

The parkour class came at a pivotal time in Amy’s life when things were heavy and disheartening. She said she connected with parkour in a metaphorical sense.

“I came to this class and [said to myself]: ‘Here are all the obstacles, it doesn’t matter how you go over them, just find your way. It doesn’t matter if you scramble over them, if it takes you a long time, if you have to try a few times, just get through to the end’,” she said.

The power of visibility

After that first class, Amy moved rapidly from participant to instructor, working with Melbourne Parkour for several years.

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She said people were often surprised to see her as an instructor because they weren’t expecting a woman. But Amy believes a lot of women stayed because of her.

The taller and stronger male instructors would be able to step up and pop themselves over a wall, but Amy would have to take a big run-up and use a rail as a step before hopping up onto the wall.

“I’d say: ‘This is the way that this person would move over the obstacle because that’s the most-efficient way for them, but for me, I’m going to have to find another way because I’m not 6- foot tall, and I don’t have the same level of upper body strength’,” she explained.

“If you have a female instructor, more girls will join because it shows it’s for them too. And I think that applies for all kinds of diversity.”

Women of Melbourne Parkour is an organization working to diversify the sport.

“It’s a discipline that remains dominated by young men,” Glaister said.

“But there are loads of people and organizations worldwide working to change that, to make space for more people — of all genders, ages, abilities and backgrounds — within parkour.

“Women of Melbourne Parkour is one of those organisations, and we have regular training sessions that [cater for] women and other genders.”

Growing up, Amy said she was told not to do the types of jumping and climbing inherent in parkour because they were dangerous, and she would hurt herself.

However, her brother was never given the same caution.

“For me, it was a huge ‘unlearning’ and almost like a new childhood when I discovered parkour,” she said.

Amy Han coaches a younger girl to do parkour on some concrete steps
Amy Han coaches a younger girl to do parkour on some concrete steps.(Supplied: Amy Han)

For Amy, parkour is more about play and movement than rigid training.

“As adults, we don’t give ourselves permission to play enough,” she said.

“It’s always, ‘I’m going out to train’ or ‘I’m going to the gym’, for a specific purpose. But how many adults just go out to play?”

‘Possible but scary’ — learning how to dance

Amy said she believed in the maxim “find your own way”, not just in parkour, but in life.

There’s a common misconception that parkour is just big jumps and jumping off rooftops.

However, Amy said, parkour was different for each person. It doesn’t have to be about the big jumps. It can also be about smaller movements.

“It can be just walking around on a rail,” she said..

“It can be just going to a playground and finding a challenge for yourself, it can be a park bench. It can be just looking at a park bench and thinking, ‘How many ways can I move over this park bench’?”

Black and white photo of Amy Han doing a handstand against a park bench with the sun and a tree in the background
Amy Han does a handstand against a park bench. (Supplied: Mel Lyons Photography)

Amy’s favorite technique, she said, was balancing. She walks on rails a lot and, often, if she’s on her own de ella, she’ll go to a local oval and set herself the challenge of walking on the fence around the oval without falling off.

“You need to be strong, but you need to have fun with it. It’s just a balance of all different things,” she said.

Amy said it was also about gaining the confidence to approach things that might look uncomfortable, with the knowledge that they were still possible.

“Every training session I try to find that point where it looks possible but scary,” she said.

Parkour is also about learning how to dance.

If Amy slightly misses a jump, she knows how to fall in a way that doesn’t end in hurting herself.

This means reminding herself that the worst thing that can happen is landing on her bum.

“In parkour, you will fall sometimes, but we learn very early how to fall,” she said.

Existing fitness base isn’t necessary

While many people believe they need to get fit before they start parkour, Amy said that was not the case.

“You get stronger by starting,” she said. “Just start. Everybody in the parkour community is super friendly. If you feel drawn to it, just give it a try.”

She recommended finding your local community or classes, like Women of Parkour Melbourne.

Amy Han smiles and stretches in front of the Melbourne museum as a woman looks on
Amy Han stretches in front of the Melbourne museum as a woman looks on. (Supplied: Scott Bickle)

These days, there’s an increasing variety of male and female instructors who come from all different backgrounds.

Amy said it would be fantastic to see more girls and women involved in the sport.

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