I have exercised, off and on, for many years. For nearly seven years, however, I have been a walker.

I began my permanent commitment to walking in December 2019, initially with a goal of 10,000 steps a day. Walking gradually became more than exercise. It became part of my daily routine and, eventually, simply part of the way I live.

I walk at home, when we travel, through airports, around office buildings, on tracks, on beaches, through neighborhoods and on treadmills when necessary. When I am playing regularly, pickleball adds another form of movement and exercise several times a week.

Walking has been very good to me. But I have known for years that walking isn’t everything.

I Knew It

I’ve read plenty about maintaining muscle as we age – about strength training, stretching, flexibility, balance and the ability to keep moving well. I’ve even talked about doing more of those things.

But talking about something isn’t doing it.

Walking was different. I established a habit, and the habit stuck. Strength training never really did. Neither did a regular program for balance, mobility or flexibility.

Perhaps part of the reason was that walking seemed to be working so well. I could walk five miles, play pickleball, travel and climb stairs. I was active. Why mess with success?

There is a pretty good answer to that question: because I am getting older.

I Kept Reading It

The research has not exactly been whispering.

A large 2025 systematic review examined 151 randomized trials involving more than 6,300 older adults. The researchers found that resistance training improved physical function, lean body mass, muscle size and strength. Perhaps more importantly for someone who doesn’t aspire to become a weightlifter, even relatively low volumes of resistance training produced meaningful improvements in physical function. (PubMed)

Balance deserves attention of its own. A newer systematic review examined 423 randomized trials involving almost 34,000 adults aged 60 and older. Eighteen of the 19 exercise approaches studied improved overall balance compared with control groups. Interestingly, stretching by itself showed no clear balance benefit. The evidence increasingly points toward actively training for balance, agility and our responses to instability rather than simply trying to remain limber. (PubMed)

Then there are some intriguing newer findings that go beyond muscles and balance. A study published this month in GeroScience put adults ages 64 to 81 through 12 weeks of explosive lower-body resistance training. The resistance-training group improved objective sleep efficiency and total sleep time and showed a reduction in a marker associated with altered brain energy metabolism.

It was a small study with only 36 participants, so we can’t make too much of it. But it adds to a growing body of research suggesting that resistance exercise may have benefits extending beyond stronger muscles. (Springer Nature)

Other research has reported associations or improvements involving cognition and brain health. A recent meta-analysis of 17 randomized trials found improvements in several measures of cognitive function following resistance exercise, although not every cognitive measure improved. That is encouraging, but it certainly doesn’t mean that lifting weights will prevent dementia. (Frontiers in Psychiatry)

I’ve been reading variations of these findings for years. My mind got the message, but apparently that wasn’t enough.

Then My Body Joined the Conversation

At 78, I’m still active. I walk, play pickleball, and travel frequently. I generally do the things I want to do.

But lately my body has been sending some messages of its own. There are little reminders about strength, flexibility and mobility, along with reminders that balance deserves more attention. Pickleball probably helps maintain leg strength and certainly requires movement that ordinary walking doesn’t provide. But I could use more upper-body strength there as well.

None of this is particularly dramatic. That’s the point. We don’t have to wait for something dramatic to happen before paying attention.

For years, my mind has been reading that strength, power, balance and mobility become increasingly important as we age. I understood the message intellectually. Now my body is telling my mind:

It’s time to listen.

Walking Hasn’t Failed Me

There is an important distinction here. I don’t look back at nearly seven years of walking and conclude that I chose the wrong exercise. Quite the opposite.

Walking may be one of the best decisions I’ve made for my physical stewardship. It has kept me moving and helped me establish an exercise habit that survived work, travel, weather and the inevitable interruptions of life. It has also helped me control my weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and more.  In addition, I think regular walking frees up time for my brain to think.

But walking trains primarily the things required for walking.

Aging asks more of us. We need enough leg strength to rise easily from a chair, enough power to react quickly when we stumble and enough balance to recover when a foot lands somewhere we didn’t expect. We need enough upper-body strength to lift and carry things, and enough mobility to reach, bend and turn comfortably.

YouTube is hardly a peer-reviewed journal, but it is full of physicians, trainers and others extolling the need to be able to get up from the floor unaided, balance on one foot and perform similar tests of strength, balance and mobility.

We want to preserve these capabilities not merely so that we can pass fitness tests. We want them so that we can keep living our lives.

Knowing Isn’t Doing

There may be a broader lesson here than exercise.

Sometimes we know something long before we are ready to act on it. We know we should change a habit, make a phone call, visit a friend or take better care of something—or someone. We can read the evidence, understand it and even agree with it, and still do nothing. Then experience catches up with knowledge.

That seems to be where I am now.

I don’t intend to abandon walking or replace it with some elaborate training regimen. Walking is too deeply embedded in my life, and I enjoy it too much. The goal is simpler: add a little more.

That means some regular strength work, some balance work and some attention to power, mobility and flexibility. Nothing heroic. Just enough to begin training some of the physical capabilities that walking alone doesn’t address.  But I do need to be intentional about these changes.

The challenge, of course, is the same one I faced with walking nearly seven years ago. For at least two years before December 2019, I knew I needed to walk regularly. Making it part of my life was something else entirely. And so it will be with the coming additions to my routine. Like with walking initially. I do need to be intentional about these changes.

I’ve spent nearly seven years teaching my body to keep moving. Maybe it’s time to let my body teach me something in return.

Walking and working on strength, balance, coordination and more are all part of living well and aging gratefully.

As always, be well and age gratefully,

Chris

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