Why Your Legs Get Weaker After 50 (Do This Before It’s Too Late) 

It doesn’t have to go this way! Instead, you can…

Maintain a good foundation

With age, the body naturally tends towards losing muscle (sarcopenia), but the bigger issue is that people stop challenging their legs in meaningful ways. This is because your body adapts to the demands you place on it, so if you stop using your legs with intention, your strength and balance decline.

In other words: sarcopenia isn’t a guaranteed fate—you maintain much more muscle and stability if you keep training your legs!

So, what does “training” mean here? Four things: strength, balance, mobility, and coordination.

And as for ways to train each of these:

• Strength can be trained using chair squats, split squats, step-ups: use slow lowering and strong standing, use support if needed, and choose step height that matches your ability
• Balance can be trained using single-leg balance, heel-to-toe walk, tightrope walk: hold (or better, just lightly touch) support if needed at first, move slowly, and challenge yourself gradually with vision changes or narrower base
• Mobility can be trained using deep squat holds, hip flexor stretch, 90/90 hip rotation: use support as needed, focus on keeping your pelvis tucked during stretches, and rotate your hips slowly for control
• Coordination can be trained using floor getups and bear crawls: use your hands if needed at first, reduce support over time, and crawl in multiple directions to build full-body control

As with most things when it comes to exercise, consistency of practice does matter a lot, of course. Just doing “little and often” can go a long way.

For more on all of this, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

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Take care!