Now you are approaching or passing the magic number of 50 years old your mind may be thinking of the future.

Thinking about the future.

Throughout life we are always planning for the future, looking ahead. However, our visions are now a bit shorter just like the telomeres in our DNA-a sign of ageing.

Although many of us are looking forward to fun in retirement many of us are already hobbling along, swallowing handfuls of medications and self-help pills.

Don't Walk Towards Knee Replacements?

So here's some of my suggestions and easy ways to back away from those unpredictable and somewhat painful knee and hip replacements. Do you really want that in your future vision?

1. Get the Bicycle Out Of the Garage-knee exercise without weight.

Maybe, many of us have an old bicycle in the garage, probably going rusty and has flat tyres.

However there are concerns and worries about cycling;

• that ugly weather, cold, rain and the worst on a bike the wind.

• Gets dark too early

• the seat on my bike is so painful.

• My balance is really bad-probably fall off.

Here's your answer

• get a gel seat for more comfort

• fixing the bike is a great problem solver and good practice for hand eye coordination.

2. Walk Up and down the Stairs.

This is a particular favourite, as the memory goes so does this increase this great repetitive exercise.

Luckily this movement of constantly going to get something up stairs, and

getting there and forgetting what you went there for, is good for all parts of the knee. The action of stepping is needed everywhere and every day.

So let’s talk about the difference between doing an exercise fast or slow.

Slow training is an effective method for middle-aged and older adults to increase strength. This is because training at a slow tempo puts the muscle under tension longer.

If you have a two-storey house set yourself some targets to exercise your knee and hip joints.

Options are:

• choose a time for stair training, ensure you're already warmed up

• either set up the number of times that you can go up and down or choose a time say five minutes.

HINT - don't start this exercise to quickly or too enthusiastically you may pay the price.

One way that I particularly like or should I say my wife likes because occasionally she'll be going up and down the stairs seemingly for no reason. But every time throughout the day that she needs to go upstairs for something, to do a doubletake that means go up and down stairs twice. Just to get in the exercise.

Got no stairs in your house?

• No problem find a doorstep or even a block of wood will do.

• And you can make this block of wood as small as possible, start with a way to protect your knee.

3. Get up off the Floor without Using Your Hands.

(we'll be great to have a video of Charlie trying this just to show it actually isn't that easy) perhaps offer a challenge for anyone to send in their video to Charlie if they can stand up without using their hands.

This is perhaps easier idea let's start with the dining room chair.

Standing up and down again without using your hands to help you.

Again two choices either

• decide on a number of repetitions that you're going to do-perhaps increasing them each day.

• Or stand up and down for the amount of time, say for instance the duration of adverts on the TV.

Beware again starting to quickly on this last exercise.

Remember the paragraph above that said slower can be more challenging but at the same time it's more effective at strengthening your muscles.

Now here's a suggestion for the family - perhaps a Mexican wave or two, around the family table?

With a personal trainer, I can guide you through your fitness journey, to get you on track to be a healthier you. Imagine what your life would be like if you could go from:

· Feeling tired and low on energy, to knowing how to move and enjoy the benefits of daily physical activity

· Aching muscles and joints, to stronger muscles and flexible joints

· Being sedentary and having a bad posture, to standing upright and moving better

· Limited movement due to inactivity to regaining the freedom to move