Part of Strength training for older adults
Exercises seniors should avoid: what to change, and what nobody should stop
Warning signs, and when to get help
What exercises should seniors avoid?
Very few, if age is the only thing you are going on. In an average week in clinic, the number of movements we take away from an older adult for good is close to none.
What we change is another matter, and we do that constantly. A different seat height, a hand on the counter, a hinge at the hips instead of a curl through the spine, a lighter weight held in close. Sometimes a wait of a few months while a bone knits.
That is not a way of dodging the question. Five things make a movement conditional, and not one of them is a birthday:
- Low bone density (osteoporosis), or a fracture in a bone of your spine, now or in the past.
- An operation in the past months, particularly on a hip, knee, spine, shoulder, chest or tummy.
- A bone that is still healing.
- A fall in the past year, or feeling unsteady on your feet.
- Blood pressure that is not under control, or a heart condition nobody has looked at.
Each of those points at different movements. A woman with thin bones and a man six weeks after a hip replacement have almost nothing in common on this page, which is exactly why one list of forbidden exercises for everybody over 65 is no use to either of them.
Why a list of forbidden exercises is the wrong answer
Two national consensus statements have asked this question directly, for the group most often warned off exercise, and both came down against blanket restrictions.
The UK consensus on physical activity for osteoporosis tells professionals not to restrict activity or exercise unnecessarily on the basis of a bone density reading or a fracture threshold, because doing that puts people off the exercise that is good for their bones and for the rest of their health. It looked for harm and found little evidence that physical activity causes significant harm, including vertebral fracture, and although a small number of fractures during exercise have been reported, it concluded that the benefits in general outweigh the risks. The activities it encourages by name include stair climbing, sit to stands and heavy housework or gardening, which are three of the things older readers are most often told to stop (Brooke-Wavell 2022).
The Too Fit To Fracture expert panel got to the same place by another route. Instead of handing out generic restrictions, it recommends teaching each person a way of moving that spares the spine, and it recommends balance training every day for everyone with osteoporosis rather than only for people who already wobble (Giangregorio 2015).
Supervision gets caught up in the same muddle. The World Falls Guidelines do recommend supervised exercise in some situations, such as for adults living in long-term care, and they attach that to circumstances and conditions rather than to a bone density number or an age (Montero-Odasso 2022). The WHO guidelines make the general point for everyone else: activity is considered safe for adults living with the chronic conditions they reviewed where nothing specific rules it out, and the benefits generally outweigh the risks (Bull 2020).
So the cost of getting this wrong runs in both directions, and only one direction gets talked about. Tell an older reader to stop squatting, stop carrying the shopping and stop using the stairs, and you have removed the training that keeps them out of a chair, in exchange for a risk that the people who went looking for it could barely find.
The movements that genuinely need changing, and who they apply to
Here is the short list, with the condition attached to each entry and what goes in its place. Read only the ones that are yours.
Loaded bending and twisting taken to the end of the range, if you have thin bones or have had a fracture in your spine. This is not an instruction to stop bending, which is a normal part of getting dressed and emptying the dishwasher. What changes is the long held forward curl, the bend repeated over and over, and the bend or twist taken as far as it will go with a weight in your hands, which is why sit ups and toe touches come out as well. The osteoporosis program has the whole of this, including the hip hinge that replaces it and how to lift. If you have had a fracture in a bone of your spine, or think you might have, check with your doctor or physio before you start a new strength or impact program.
One other change belongs to that same group, and it is about impact rather than bending. After a fracture in the spine, or more than one broken bone from a minor fall or knock, the same consensus keeps impact to the level of brisk walking rather than jogging, skipping or jumping (Brooke-Wavell 2022), and the osteoporosis program sets out how to build that up.
The next four entries are all about surgery, and they are four separate gates rather than one. Each names the operations it covers, so read every one whose list includes yours: the sit to stand entry covers hips and knees, the floor entry adds the shoulder, the arm, the spine, the chest and the heart, and the last two cover any bone that is still healing and any repair that has been stitched back together, wherever it was done.
Deep hip bending and the sit to stand family, after a hip or knee replacement or a broken hip, until your surgeon or physio says otherwise. If you have had a hip or knee replacement, or a broken hip fixed with screws, a nail or a plate, or with part or all of the hip replaced, get the go-ahead from your surgeon or physio before you try the sit to stand exercises, the chair squat, standing hip abduction, stair climbing, step ups, the supported lunge or getting up from the floor. Some operations limit this kind of work for the first months, so the timing depends on your surgery.
Floor work after any recent operation, not only a hip or a knee one. Getting up from the floor puts your weight through your arms as well as your legs, and it bends and loads the back, so if you have had a hip or knee replacement, a broken hip fixed with screws, a nail or a plate, an operation on your shoulder or arm, spine surgery in recent months, or recent heart or chest surgery, check with your surgeon or physio before you try it.
Load through a bone that has not finished healing. If you have had an operation recently, or have broken a bone that is still healing, follow the program from your surgeon, fracture clinic or physio rather than this one. A healing bone has its own timetable for how much weight and load it can take, and that timetable comes from the team looking after it rather than from how the arm or leg feels.
A repair runs to its own clock in the same way. Where a tendon, a ligament or a muscle has been stitched back together, it can feel comfortable long before it can take load, so the limits your surgical team set on lifting, pushing, reaching and leaning on the arm hold until that team lifts them, whatever the limb feels able to do.
Narrow stance and single leg balance work done on your own, if you have fallen in the past year. The fix is company and something to hold on to, not giving the balance work up, and the section below on a fall in the past year sets out why.
Hard effort with your breath held, if your blood pressure is not under control. With a heart condition or high blood pressure, check with your doctor before you start. This matters most if your blood pressure is not under control. If you have high blood pressure, breathe steadily through every repetition and never hold your breath.
Are squats safe for seniors?
For most older adults, yes, and the squat is a strange thing to be frightened of, because you already do it several times a day. Standing up off a chair is a squat. Getting off a toilet is a squat. Coming up off the edge of the bed is most of one.
What varies is the depth and the support, not whether you do it. The chair squat is the same movement with a dial on it: a firm cushion on the seat raises the seat and makes it easier, taking the cushion out lowers it and makes it harder, and a hand on a kitchen counter takes care of the balance while you learn it. Sit to stand using armrests sits a step below that, with the chair arms taking some of your weight. Our staged strength program for older adults puts them in order and says when to move on.
Two groups need a conversation first, not just a lower seat. Anyone in the months after a hip or knee replacement or a broken hip, for the reason in the section above, with hip replacement rehab, knee replacement rehab and hip fracture rehab covering what each operation allows and when. And anyone whose knee or hip is the limit, not their strength, where knee osteoarthritis and hip osteoarthritis are the better starting points, and the gentler seated and standing exercises for older adults set is written for a painful hip.
Should seniors do sit ups, and what to do instead
Sit ups are one of the few exercises this site deliberately leaves out of its older adult programs, and the reason is bone rather than age. The osteoporosis guidance asks people with thin bones or a past spinal fracture to keep away from the repeated end-range forward curl, and a sit up is that movement with your own body weight on the end of it. Toe touches go out with them.
If your bones are fine, nobody has shown that sit ups will hurt you. In the months after an operation on your spine, chest or tummy it is a question for your surgical team rather than for this page, because a curl up loads the healing wound and the muscle wall. Sit ups are simply a poor use of a limited number of sessions, because they train curling up off the floor from flat on your back, which is not how anybody gets off a floor. The movement you want is the one in getting up from the floor, and what carries you up off the floor is your legs and arms, not your abdominals.
For back and trunk strength there is a better route than either. The osteoporosis program covers back strengthening and posture work, and the Too Fit To Fracture panel recommends endurance training for the muscles that hold the spine upright for everyone in that group (Giangregorio 2015).
What changes after an operation or a fracture, and for how long
This is the part of the question with a real answer, and the answer has a date on it. After an operation or a fracture, some movements wait. Most of them wait weeks or months rather than forever, and the length of the wait is set by the team that did the work. A few limits are meant to last, and which of yours those are depends on the operation and on your surgeon, so ask them which ones come off and which stay.
We do not give post-operative rules on this page, and you should be wary of any page that does. Protocols differ between surgeons for the same operation, they differ by how the joint was reached, and they differ by what was found once the operation started. A repair, a reconstruction and a replacement are three different pieces of work, and they come with three different timetables even when the scar looks much the same. Nothing on this page replaces your post-operative review, and what your own team handed you beats anything written for a general reader.
Ask them three things: what you may not do yet, how much load may go through the part they operated on, which means how much of your weight through the leg or how much the arm may lift, push and lean on, and when that gets looked at again.
What we can do is point you at the right program. Hip replacement rehab, knee replacement rehab and hip fracture rehab each set out life after that operation stage by stage, and each explains why the restrictions differ. If the operation was on your shoulder, rotator cuff repair rehab and shoulder replacement rehab do the same job, and after heart or chest surgery, cardiac rehab is the place to start. For surgery on the spine we have no program, so there the sheet your surgical team gave you is the whole answer until they review you. Come back to the general strength work when your team releases you to it, which they usually will.
What changes if you have fallen in the past year
A fall changes the setup and the company, and it is not a reason to stop the balance work. Giangregorio 2015 recommends daily balance training for everyone with osteoporosis rather than only for people with a known balance problem. The World Falls Guidelines recommend balance-challenging and functional exercise for older adults living at home, with standing up from a chair and stepping given as the examples, and strength and balance exercises for seniors carries how often and for how long they ask for it (Montero-Odasso 2022). The order matters as well as the content: if you have fallen in the past year or feel unsteady on your feet, start with the strength and balance work and build up to brisk walking from there, which is what the UK osteoporosis consensus recommends for the frailer older adult, to prevent an increase in falls risk (Brooke-Wavell 2022).
If you have fallen in the past year, feel unsteady on your feet, or take medicines that make you dizzy, keep a hand on a kitchen counter or the back of a sturdy chair for the whole of the standing exercises, practice only when someone else is at home, and ask your doctor or physio about a falls check.
If you live alone, that rule still stands, so plan around it rather than ignoring it. Do the exercises that ask for someone to be at home at your physio appointments or in a class instead, keep to the seated and supported work when you are on your own, and ask your physio which of the standing exercises you may do alone. Keep your phone in a pocket rather than in another room, so you can reach it from the floor, and ask about an alarm you wear.
The balance holds have their own stop sign. You feel dizzy, lightheaded, faint or sick, or the room seems to spin. Hold your support, sit down and get medical advice the same day before you practice again. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, your vision suddenly blurs or goes double, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
If you do fall and cannot get up, or you think you may have hurt your head, neck, back or hip, stay where you are, keep warm and call emergency services, or get someone to call for you. Do not let anyone haul you up first. That line and the rest of the fall routes, including what to do if you got up fine and only hurt later, are in the warning signs below.
For the balance side itself, the balance and falls prevention program holds the stages and the stance work, and balance tests for seniors explains what a test result does and does not mean.
The things readers are told to stop that the evidence does not support
These are the ones patients bring up most often, usually after they have already given the thing up.
Lifting weights. Nothing in the guidance we have read supports stopping strength work because of age, and the UK osteoporosis consensus actively recommends muscle strengthening for the group with the most reason to be careful (Brooke-Wavell 2022). The question is how much and how it is taught, which is what a physio is for.
The stairs. Stair climbing is on the list of activities the same consensus encourages. A handrail and a slower pace change the stairs. An age does not.
Bending at all. Covered above, and worth repeating because it is the restriction that spreads fastest between neighbors.
Getting down to the floor. People give this up without deciding to, and then cannot get back up when they end up down there by accident. Unless your surgical team has ruled it out, it is a skill worth keeping, and getting up from the floor is how it is practiced. If getting down to the floor and back up is not something you can rely on, have somebody with you for it rather than doing it alone.
Named sports and activities. A great deal of what is published on this phrase names particular sports as unsafe for older adults, with no condition attached and no source behind it. We are not going to repeat a restriction nobody has evidenced. If a particular activity worries you because of something you have, that is a question with your own answer in it, and it is worth one appointment.
How an exercise is set up matters more than which exercise it is
The same exercise is safe or unsafe depending on how it is set up, which is why a list of names was never going to work. A sit to stand from a wheeled office chair is a different proposition from the same movement off a heavy dining chair with its back against a wall. Bare feet on a wooden floor are a different proposition from flat shoes that grip. The setup section of our strength program for older adults carries the house rules on the chair, the shoes, the floor and the phone, and they come before any exercise on this site.
Progression is the other half of it. Most of what goes wrong at home is not the wrong exercise. It is the right exercise jumped too far, too fast, and our guide to how a physical therapist progresses an exercise explains the order that avoids that. The first step up at home is usually a hand coming off the counter, long before anything heavier gets picked up.
Rising out of a chair has one stop sign that belongs with it, because a brief wooze on standing is common and the threshold for worrying about it is specific. You feel dizzy, lightheaded or faint as you get up. Sit back down and wait for it to pass. If it does not pass within a minute or two, or it keeps happening, get medical advice the same day before you practice again. If you faint, or it does not settle within a few minutes of keeping still, call emergency services.
While you exercise, stop straight away if you have any of these: chest pain or pressure, dizziness or feeling faint, a racing or irregular heartbeat, or being far more out of breath than the effort should cause. What to do next is in the warning signs below.
If chest pain, pressure or tightness does not ease quickly when you rest, spreads to your arm, neck, jaw, stomach or back, or comes with sweating, feeling sick, feeling light-headed or being short of breath, call emergency services straight away, as this can be a heart attack. If it eases quickly and none of these happen, get medical advice the same day, and do not exercise again until you have been checked.
When should you ask a physio or doctor first?
Ask first if any of the five conditions at the top of this page is yours, and ask whichever professional owns it: the surgical team for anything to do with an operation or a healing bone, your doctor for blood pressure and the heart, a physio for the movement itself. The NHS asks anyone who has not exercised for a while, or who has medical conditions or concerns, to speak to a GP before they start.
What that does not mean is that everyone over a certain age needs permission before they move. The WHO guidelines say in as many words that medical clearance before starting is generally unnecessary for people with no contraindications, as long as the activity is light or moderate and does not go beyond the demands of brisk walking or everyday living (Bull 2020). So if none of the five things above is yours and you want to start walking further or standing up out of a chair more often, that is not a waiting-room question.
The UK guidelines suggest that for people with frailty, moderate to severe dementia, past fractures of the spine or regular falls, new exercises may be better supervised by a trained professional at first. A physio or a falls service can help with this. That advice comes from the UK Chief Medical Officers, who in the same passage say there is enough known about what activity does for older adults to state categorically that the benefits outweigh the risks (UK Chief Medical Officers 2019). Supervision, in other words, is how the exercise gets done, not a reason to drop it.
The reason worth ending on is the one this page exists for. If you stopped doing something because you turned 70, because somebody said squats are bad for knees, or because a list on the internet told you to, that is the thing to take to an appointment. Bring the list with you. A physio can usually tell you in ten minutes which items are yours, which are somebody else's, and which should go back into your week. If you want the whole picture rather than this one question, strength and balance exercises for seniors sorts out which half to start with, and strength training for seniors over 70 covers what the seventies and eighties change.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: if chest pain, pressure or tightness does not ease quickly when you rest, spreads to your arm, neck, jaw, stomach or back, or comes with sweating, feeling sick, feeling light-headed or being short of breath, call emergency services straight away, as this can be a heart attack. If it eases quickly and none of these happen, get medical advice the same day, and do not exercise again until you have been checked.
- Emergency: any sign of a stroke, even if it goes away. That means a face that droops on one side, an arm you cannot lift or keep up, slurred or muddled speech, weakness or numbness on one side of your body or face, sudden blurred vision, double vision or loss of sight, trouble swallowing, sudden dizziness with unsteadiness or falling over, a sudden severe headache, or a sudden fall where your legs give way but you do not black out (a drop attack). Call emergency services straight away.
- Emergency: a racing, pounding, fluttering or irregular heartbeat that does not settle when you rest, or that comes with dizziness, feeling faint or fainting, chest pain or shortness of breath. Call emergency services straight away. If it has already stopped, get medical advice the same day.
- Emergency: you have just fallen and cannot get up, or you think you may have hurt your head, neck, back or hip. Stay where you are, keep warm and call emergency services, or get someone to call for you. If you got up and walked without trouble and only notice pain later, use the same-day lines in this list instead.
- Emergency: you fell and cannot remember the fall or how it happened. Go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. You may have blacked out or hit your head without knowing it.
- Emergency: you have had a fall or an injury and now have severe hip pain, or you cannot walk or put weight on the leg. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department. This can be a sign of a broken hip (hip fracture).
- Emergency: you have had a hip replacement and have sudden severe pain in your hip or groin, sometimes with a clunk or pop, and you cannot move the leg or put weight on it, or the leg suddenly looks shorter or turned in or out. Do not try to walk on it or push it back into place. Keep still and call emergency services or go to an emergency department, and do not drive yourself. Your new hip may have come out of its socket (dislocated), and a medical team needs to put it back.
Get help today
- Same day: you blacked out or fainted, even for a moment. Get medical advice the same day. Call emergency services instead if the person is not breathing, cannot be woken within 1 minute, has not fully recovered or has trouble speaking or moving, has chest pain or a pounding, fluttering or irregular heartbeat, fainted while exercising or lying down, is shaking or jerking, or was badly hurt.
- Same day: dizziness, lightheadedness, blurred vision or feeling faint when you stand up that is new for you, does not pass within a minute or two, keeps happening, or has made you fall. Sit or lie down, and get medical advice the same day. This can be a drop in blood pressure on standing (postural hypotension), a type of low blood pressure, which the NHS lists among the causes of falls, and your doctor can check it. Tell them about your medicines, because some can cause it. If it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting or lying still, call emergency services. If you faint, use the fainting line above.
- Same day: dizziness or feeling faint during or after exercise, other than the brief lightheadedness as you stand up covered in the line above, without any of the emergency signs above. Stop the exercises and get medical advice the same day. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
- Same day: after a fall, you are in pain, have hurt yourself or feel unwell, or you were on the floor for an hour or more, without any of the emergency signs above. Get medical advice the same day, even if you managed to get up.
- Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen or getting more swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Same day: new hip or groin pain after a fall, even a small one, if you are older, have low bone density (osteoporosis) or have taken steroid tablets for a long time, even if you can still walk. Get medical advice the same day. A broken hip is not always obvious at first.
- Same day: since an operation, the wound is red, hot, swollen, leaking fluid or opening up, you have a fever or feel hot and shivery, or the pain in that area is new or getting worse quickly. Contact your surgical team or the ward you went home from the same day rather than waiting for your physio appointment, and if you cannot reach them, go to an emergency department the same day. This can be an infection in the wound or deeper, around a repair or a new joint.
- Same day: you have had a hip replacement and, after a fall or a knock, even a small one, your hip, groin or thigh is newly painful, bruised or swollen, even if you can still walk and your leg looks normal. Stop the exercises, go back to your crutches or frame and keep your full weight off that leg, and contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. A break in the bone around a new hip is not always obvious at first, and walking normally on one can move the broken ends apart.
- Same day: you have had a hip replacement and your hip clunks and feels as if it partly slipped out of place and went back, even if it settles straight away and your leg looks normal. Stop the exercises, avoid the movement that brought it on, go back to your crutches or frame, and keep away from deep bending, crossing your legs and twisting on that leg until you have been seen. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. If the leg then looks shorter or turned, or you cannot move it or put weight on it, call emergency services.
- Same day: back pain after a minor fall or strain if you are older, have low bone density (osteoporosis) or have taken steroid tablets for a long time. Get medical advice the same day. Until it has been checked, stop the exercises and keep away from lifting, bending forward and twisting, because those load a bone in the spine that may be broken.
Book an appointment
- A new fall, even if you were not hurt. If none of the lines above apply, book an appointment with your doctor within a few days and tell your physio before your next session. A doctor can check for causes such as muscle weakness, weak bones or eyesight problems, and may refer you to a falls service.
Common questions
What exercises should elderly avoid?
Very few, and the word elderly does not change that answer. Age on its own takes nothing off your list. What does, or at least changes how a movement is done, is a condition: thin bones or a spinal fracture, an operation in the past months, a bone still knitting, a fall in the past year, or blood pressure nobody has got under control. Those are the five to work through, and each one points at a different movement and a different fix. The UK osteoporosis consensus went looking for harm from exercise in the group most often warned off it, found very little, and said the benefits in general outweigh the risks (Brooke-Wavell 2022). If someone has handed you a list with no conditions attached to it, ask them which of your own problems each item is for.
Are there bad knee exercises for seniors?
There are badly set up ones, and there is too much load too soon, which is not the same as a bad exercise. An arthritic knee usually tolerates more than its owner expects once the depth, the seat height and the weight are set to it, and the test is not how the knee feels during the movement but how it feels the next day. Our knee osteoarthritis program sets that out properly, including what to do when a knee flares. The one thing worth saying plainly here: a knee that is more painful or more swollen the day after is telling you the load was too much for now, so do less of it next time rather than dropping the exercise for good. A physio or physical therapist can usually find the setting that works in a single appointment.
What exercises should seniors avoid to prevent lower back pain?
This question is nearly always about bending and lifting rather than about exercise, and the honest answer disappoints people: you do not need to stop bending. Our osteoporosis program has the full version, including the hip hinge and the lifting advice, because the group for whom spine position genuinely matters is the group with thin bones or a past spinal fracture. If back pain is the problem itself rather than something you are trying to head off, start with the low back pain program, which is built for that. What we would not do is take out the strength work. A back that is never loaded does not become safer.
What is a good alternative to sit ups?
Something that trains what you actually use. Sit ups train a movement almost nobody needs, which is curling up off the floor from flat on your back, and they load the spine in the one direction the osteoporosis guidance asks people with thin bones to keep away from. One check before the replacements: if you have had a hip or knee replacement, a broken hip, or an operation on your shoulder or arm, your spine, your chest or your tummy in recent months, get the go-ahead from your surgeon or physio before you try the chair work or the floor transfer, because the floor one loads your arms and back as well as your legs. Otherwise the replacements worth your time are the ones that get you off a chair and off the floor: the chair squat, sit to stand using armrests and the practice of getting up from the floor. If getting down to the floor and back up is not something you can rely on, have somebody with you for it rather than doing it alone. If it is the trunk you want to work, our strength program for older adults and the osteoporosis program between them cover back strengthening without the long forward curl.
Should seniors do squats?
Most older adults should, in the version that suits them, because a squat is how you get out of a chair and off a toilet. The UK osteoporosis consensus lists sit to stands among the activities it encourages, alongside stair climbing and heavy housework (Brooke-Wavell 2022). The depth is the dial, not whether you do it at all: a cushion on the seat raises it, taking a cushion out lowers it, and a hand on a counter covers the balance. The exceptions are specific rather than general. If you have had a hip or knee replacement, or a broken hip fixed with screws, a nail or a plate, or with part or all of the hip replaced, get the go-ahead from your surgeon or physio first, because some operations limit this kind of work for the first months and the timing depends on your surgery.
References
- Brooke-Wavell K, Skelton DA, Barker KL, et al. Strong, steady and straight: UK consensus statement on physical activity and exercise for osteoporosis. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2022;56(15):837-846. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-104634
- Giangregorio LM, McGill S, Wark JD, et al. Too Fit To Fracture: outcomes of a Delphi consensus process on physical activity and exercise recommendations for adults with osteoporosis with or without vertebral fractures. Osteoporosis International. 2015;26(3):891-910. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00198-014-2881-4
- Montero-Odasso M, van der Velde N, Martin FC, et al. World guidelines for falls prevention and management for older adults: a global initiative. Age and Ageing. 2022;51(9):afac205. doi:10.1093/ageing/afac205
- Bull FC, Al-Ansari SS, Biddle S, et al. World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2020;54(24):1451-1462. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2020-102955
- World Health Organization. WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. 2020. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240015128
- UK Chief Medical Officers. UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines. Department of Health and Social Care. 2019. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/physical-activity-guidelines-uk-chief-medical-officers-report
- NHS. Physical activity guidelines for older adults. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/physical-activity-guidelines-older-adults/
- NHS. Falls. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/falls/
- NHS. Symptoms of a stroke. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stroke/symptoms/
- NHS. Fainting. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/fainting/
- NHS. Low blood pressure (hypotension). Page last reviewed 11 July 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/low-blood-pressure-hypotension/
- NHS. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT). https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/deep-vein-thrombosis-dvt/
- NHS. Complications of a hip replacement. Page last reviewed 6 March 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/hip-replacement/complications-of-a-hip-replacement/
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-18.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.