Workouts for your age

Age: 45-55

Your exercise task: Schedule in some sort of exercise or physical activity most days before noon. Studies have shown that individuals who take some form of physical exercise in the morning are 75% more likely to still be exercising after 12 months, compared to individuals who plan to take their physical exercise in the evening.

Why: In your 40's your body is exposed to a clustering of health concerns, which will be exacerbated by weight gain. 'Metabolic Syndrome' is the term for a cluster of disorders that place you at increased risk of chronic disease. These disorders include excess levels of blood fats called triglycerides, decreased values of high density lipoproteins (these are the good ones), high blood pressure, a high fasting blood glucose value and increased insulin resistance. Your waist measurement is one of the strongest indicators of this risk. For men the risk increases when their waist measurement is greater than 94 cms (37 inches) and for women the warning risk threshold is 80 cms (32 inches)

Women may also start to experience peri-menopause, defined as the time leading up to menopause and marked by an erratic fluctuation of hormones. For men testosterone, which helps the use of protein to build muscle, decreases with 20% of men after the age of 50 experiencing abnormally low levels.

A good age to start: Getting hot and sweaty with your aerobic exercise, find your exercise pace whether it is walking, jogging, cycling, swimming; you want to be breaking into a light sweat, ideally for 30 minutes on 5 days of the week.

A good age to stop: Swimming - it gives you great cardiovascular benefits, but, as it is non-weight bearing, it does little to halt the loss of bone density, specifically important at this age.

Age:55 onwards

Your exercise task: Commit to daily physical activity with weight bearing exercise.

Why: For women their biggest physical changes evolve around menopause both directly and indirectly. After menopause, (the average age is 52) women lose about 66% of oestrogen and 50 - 60 per cent of testosterone, contributing to as much as 1 - 2 per cent decrease in bone mass per year.

The oestrogen tends to decline at a faster rate than the testosterone, which in most cases encourages body fat to be redistributed from the hips to the mid-section encouraging blood pressure and cholesterol levels to rise. All these changes can put post-menopausal women at a higher risk for cardiovascular risk.

Osteoporosis is a degenerative bone disease that is characterised by low bone mass effecting both men and women. In people with osteoporosis the bones become brittle and more prone to fracture especially at the wrist and hip. One in 2 women who are 50 or older will experience an osteoporosis related fracture in their lifetime, but men are effected too. With on average 15 - 20 per cent of hip fracture patients 50 and older dying in the year following their fractures. Exercise, specifically weight bearing, can play a vital role in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.