I love tennis… but my 72-year-old knees really don’t

DESPITE being quite fit – I play tennis all year round and do spinning classes – I’m having slight trouble with knee pain. Could you advise me on appropriate warm-ups that might help? I am 72. STAYING fit and healthy can help us avoid some of the problems that age presents, but not all of them.

There are some common areas of wear and tear that cause trouble: shoulders, ankles, hips and of course knees.

What is certain is that a longer period of warm-up is needed before intense exercise or sport.

As we lose elasticity in our tendons and have shorter, stiffer muscles, the need to gradually warm them up increases.

Tennis is of such dynamism and intensity that the whole body will need to be prepared.

Leg swings, in which you stand on one leg, supported against a wall, and swing your leg side to side, or forwards and backwards, will mobilise the hips and stretch hamstrings and hip flexors. Do 15 to 20 swings for each leg.

Walking lunges, and adding a rotation of your upper body to that movement, will engage the muscles around your hips, knees and back and will increase the release of the fluids that lubricate the joints, while also increasing your blood flow and temperature.

Stretching the quads, calves, Achilles and hamstrings will all increase the range of motion around each joint and reduce your risk of injury reduce, as will cat-cow stretches for your spine.

Choose two to three mobility exercises for the upper body, lower body and spine, and spend ten minutes on your routine. I’M IN my 50s, female, and haven’t done much exercise in the past five years due to illness, deaths in the family, losing my job, depression, the menopause: it sounds like I’m making excuses but life has thrown a lot of the unexpected my way. But I am now ready to get back into the real world and start looking after myself. I need to lose weight but my main focus is on getting to a level of fitness. What do you recommend? SOMETIMES in life we have to put ourselves last – we just need to exist and focus on the other things that require our attention.

But at some point we need to start to put ourselves first again, and doing so will boost selfconfidence and energy. There needs to be a mindset that you will be vigorously active every other day, so three to four days per week. On the other days, focus on being mildly active – say, going for a reasonable walk.

On the four days you exercise, use two of them to do one sustained pace, moderate- to highintensity cardio exercise for 30 minutes, such as a fast walk, jog, swim, cycle or row.

On the other two days you need to do interval training, in which you work at a higher intensity for 30 to 60 seconds and then recover for 60 to 90 seconds, at least three times.

Think of running and walking, or using a hill to jog or walk up and down, or using hills on your bike.

This approach will increase the fitness of your heart rapidly and raise metabolism significantly.

On each of these four days, you could also do two upper-body and two lower-body exercises, alternating between, say, squats, lunges, press-ups and chair dips.

Aim for 15 to 20 reps for each exercise, with 20 seconds’ rest between sets, and two minutes’ rest between each circuit. Repeat three to five times. This should be done following the cardio exercise, so that your body is fully warmed up.

AS WE AGE WE NEED LONGER PERIODS OF WARMING UP