The Executive Health Plan: striding out for a long life

For sure, we know we have spread around the middle, that we can't run as fast or as far as we used to and that we are stiffer than we used to be when we get out of our chairs: that "huh" noise we make as we straighten up.

But aside from aches, pains and fat, there may be indications that we are banking problems that might, ultimately, reduce our lifespan, especially into retirement.

We know that people who work in high-stress environments fare badly at retirement. Professor Sid Watkins, the man who brought first class medical care to Formula One, has said that the biggest challenge for a top-flight racing driver is not how to manage his health while racing, but how to handle life after racing.

First, there is the fact that there is no need to maintain the same training regime. Jenson Button spends more time training for and taking part in triathlon competitions than he does in Formula One itself. He eschews the gym and squash games preferred by some of his competitors in favour of an all-over fitness regime that is both physically and mentally punishing. While few notice, this Formula One world champion is steadily climbing up the world rankings in a sport he does as a sideline. Indeed, the primary reason he does not feature in the upper reaches of the world ranking is that his F1 commitments take priority and he cannot compete in sufficient events that qualify him for triathlon world championship points. When he stops racing, Button will still be able to continue his alternate regime – many successful tri-athletes are older than Button.

But historically, it was not so: in the 1970s, when the chances of being killed on track were high, fitness and focus were not as core to F1 drivers. In the dying days of the playboy drivers, many of them died racing. Long life after retirement was not on their minds. But those who did survive soon found that the end of a racing career was like being a bathtub where someone pulled out the plug. What was a full and hectic life was suddenly empty. They had no idea what to do with themselves. All manner of ailments afflicted them. Many simply faded away. The only ones that did not were those that kept themselves ultra-busy, such as Sir Jackie Stewart who took on a variety of consulting and other roles that kept him flying around the world as much as F1 had done.

So, what will we do after work: weed the garden and play the occasional round of golf?

We may not get the chance.

Recent research by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh in the USA indicates that there is a correlation between long life and the speed that the elderly walk at and the length of their stride.

The researchers looked at almost 35,000 people over 65. Their findings were stark: the range of walking speeds varied from 1.3 feet per second when measured over 13 feet (3.96 metres) to more than 4.6 feet per second over the same distance.

To clarify: the slowest walkers took ten seconds to walk the length of a BMW Mini Clubman. According to the research, they will die as much as ten years earlier than those who walked fastest. The fastest took about two seconds.

But it was not just to do with speed of movement, it was also length of gait.

No clear conclusions were drawn and no account appears (from the short version of the article available to us) to have been taken of pre-existing medical conditions that might have created short steps, such as arthritis or Parkinson's Disease. Nor are any conclusions drawn as to whether those might, in some way, have been mitigated by taking earlier steps (literally) but elsewhere medical opinion suggests that, largely, you either suffer from those things or you don't and there's not much you can do about them except, in the case of arthritis, to delay its onset or slow its development.

So, the question is whether we can prepare now to improve our chances of a long and healthy life after retirement while not doing anything to compromise the present-day objectives we set ourselves. The answer to that is, as the first article in this series says, "yes."

First, let's do a little self-test. Clear a straight-line path from one side of your office to the other. Stand with your back to one wall and walk, completely normally, from one side of the office to the other, counting the paces. Now, invest five minutes in some very basic stretching motions for your legs.

Sit on a hard chair and lift your right leg, slowly, to horizontal, taking the pressure off the chair where the back of your leg touches it. Hold it up for ten seconds. Let it down slowly. Repeat for the left leg, then the right, then the left, etc. until each leg has been lifted five times. Now, slowly, lift both legs together as far as you can. It won't be as high as with one leg! Hold the position for ten seconds or as long as you can. Do that five times.

Stand.

Holding your body upright, putting your right leg forward, step as far forward as you can, leaving your left leg behind you, up on your toes. Your body shape should be like an upside down letter Y.

Leaving your right leg forward, bring your left leg forward, moving through a fully vertical position, and push your left leg as far forward as you can, again moving your body into the upside down Y position.

Hold each position for 10 seconds. It's like you are walking with very, very long strides.

Do five of each step.

OK, your exercise has taken less than five minutes.

Go back to the wall and walk across your office again. Again, walk entirely naturally, do not try to stretch your stride and don't try to walk like you walked the first time. Count the paces.

Did they reduce?

The first time I tried this exercise, there were 13 paces from side to side of the area I chose. After five minutes' exercise, it was down to ten paces. Now, even before exercise, it's nine. And using the stretching-walking exercise described above, it's six, showing that, with a tiny amount of work, my natural stride has increased to a high proportion of a full leg-stretch stride.

And as for that "length of a Mini" test? It's well over one car length per second and improving.