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Fitness
I exercise less than ever but I'm still fit at 68 – here's how
Exercise has never been a chore for me. It’s how I start my day and I look forward to it, which I know some people will find hard to believe.
Just a few short years ago I had quite a weekly routine that saw me do two yoga classes, at least one long hike and between four to six gym sessions a week. These sessions would alternate between cardio and weights, each session an hour or more long.
But then came the pandemic. I was the last person left in my gym before we locked down. I vividly remember my last workout because I looked around and there was no one else there. Just me and all the machines. I thought to myself, “What if they close the gyms, what will I do?”
The next day we were in lockdown and my exercise regime has never been the same since. Even now, more than two years after the pandemic, I hardly ever go to the gym. And I feel great and just as fit as before.
How is this possible I hear you ask?
To begin with, there was no choice. We were in lockdown and that was that. I did what many people did and discovered the many workout videos available on YouTube.
I invested in some weights and tried to keep up with my previous regime. Yoga classes were by Zoom and walks in the park were still possible.
But inevitably things began to shift. I found I was using slightly lighter weights as the YouTube workouts tended to have more repetitions and therefore a lighter weight was needed. And I found most of the sessions I was doing were just thirty minutes long, half the length I was used to.
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This suited me because the pandemic turned out to be a very busy time for me. While most actors were completely unable to work, I found myself doing a lot of voiceovers, mostly narrating documentaries. I was able to do this from home and did forty documentaries in the first lockdown period alone. I also expanded my Ageless by Glynis Barber website
I had founded the website ten years previously to share my health, beauty and pro-ageing tips, after being asked constantly about what my secret was on social media. The pandemic gave me time to create an Ageless YouTube channel as well and to put Ageless on Instagram.
At the tail end of the pandemic, I got cast in Hollyoaks and so began a weekly commute to Liverpool.
I was filming five days a week most weeks with early starts and a late finish. Working out became almost impossible. And so, my already somewhat reduced routine, became almost non-existent.
I would work out on the weekends and if ever I had a morning off during the week, I would try and squeeze one in. But I was also tired. What with commuting, filming, writing Ageless articles, making YouTube videos as well as doing my voiceovers, I was run ragged. I felt like I had three full-time jobs, and something had to give.
Pushing myself too far
I’ve always been a person who pushes herself, who tries to do everything thrown at her, but it was all too much.
I felt a real shift in my thinking at this point. I decided I was going to cut myself some slack. For the first time in my adult life, I was going to give myself permission not to work out and not to feel bad about it.
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I would do it whenever I could and when I felt up to it. I got into the routine of getting up ten minutes earlier on filming days and would do a ten-minute yoga routine. This gave my body a wonderful stretch and it was amazing how this short routine set me up for the day.
Listening to my body
There were also days off when I just felt so exhausted from my gruelling schedule that I felt a workout was not the right thing for me. Instead, I would take my dog for a walk. This felt good and I started really listening to my body and what it needed.
My workouts now depend on the time I have available and how I feel. I’ve found the YouTube videos at home so wonderfully convenient and wonder where I used to find the time to drive to the gym and do those long workouts.
I now go to the gym occasionally but have been too busy for it to become a regular thing. Now that I’ve finished with Hollyoaks filming, I will make more of an effort and will probably go at least once a week. But I’ve found that the thirty-minute sessions at home suit me. I no longer feel the need for longer sessions.
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The proof
Research shows that I may be onto something here. Make no mistake, we need exercise, but the latest research shows that we don’t need to do long or intense sessions. In fact, the research shows that many people, in their quest for health, are, in fact, overdoing it.
Dr. James O’Keefe, a cardiologist with the Mid-America Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, published a meta-analysis with three co-authors on the subject. Dr. O’Keefe says that the first twenty minutes of exercise give you the most benefit.
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His systematic review showed that if you move from a sedentary lifestyle to gently starting to exercise, you will have a decrease in many chronic diseases as well as mortality.
In other words, the benefits of exercising are immense. But he also found that people at the other end of the spectrum, doing a high volume of vigorous exercise, start to lose those benefits.
He goes on to say, however, that you can’t overdo moderate exercise, loosely defined as still being able to have a conversation while working out.
He classes many regular everyday activities as moderate exercise eg. gardening, walking, swimming or housework. There are more health benefits to these moderate activities than vigorous exercise.
Exercise for over 45s
He stresses that over the age of 45, exercise should be fun and more about stress reduction and less about competitiveness. And whilst strength training is important for improving muscle mass, which declines as we age, we only need 20-40 minutes of it, twice, and no more than three times, a week. He calls this the sweet spot for longevity.
The takeaway from all of this is, too much exercise can backfire, being sedentary is bad and gentle or moderate exercise is good for us.
My reduced regime
This explains why my reduced regime and thirty-minute sessions are working well for me. It also explains why, over the last couple of years when I’ve been so busy, walking was often more beneficial for me than a workout.
In fact, Dr O’Keefe talks about the many benefits of spending time in nature, something I’ve often talked about on Ageless. Being surrounded by greenery can reduce blood pressure and improves our mood. It helps alleviate anxiety, supports our immune system and can even help improve sleep.
Walking in a park, or even a tree-lined street, is a wonderful exercise in every way. And walking is one of the best exercises there is.
This new gentle way of exercising feels right for me at this moment in time. I look back on my old routine with awe. It was impressive for sure, but that was then, and this is now. The important thing is that I’m still very active, I exercise in some way whenever I can, but I’ve taken the pressure off myself and feel good for it.
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It never feels like there’s enough time in the day – after prioritising your kids, work and other commitments, simply finding an opportunity to get in the gym can prove tricky. But instead of obsessing over gym sessions, Lawrence Price – former professional rugby player, coach and recent guest on MH’s Built for Life podcast – says busy dads should instead prioritise three weekly pillars.
These pillars are less about creating a perfect environment and more about building consistency that works with your life. The idea is that if life gets hectic and one pillar drops off temporarily, the other two pillars keep progress moving.
‘If pillar one is out the window because we can’t train for a couple of weeks, we can still manipulate things by making sure we’re hit hitting pillar one and three by getting those things on point,’ Price tells MH.
The 3 Pillars Every Busy Dad Should Follow
1. Increase Your Daily Movement
Price is a big proponent of increasing your NEAT – non-exercise activity thermogenesis – which is the energy your body uses for daily, non-structured exercises. These include things like walking more, taking the stairs instead of the lift or escalators, and moving during phone calls.
‘If your training window for the day has gone, then the reality is you can still take phone calls on your feet, you can take the stairs. It’s just boring to talk about – it’s unsexy, it’s uncool. But if you get people into that mindset where, whatever your life looks like, you’re prioritising that need. It’s 15% of your total daily expenditure or more,’ Price says.
‘Even even when your training window is put on the back burner, because the hierarchy of needs outside of your own health needs is obviously undulating and sometimes it pulls us away, whatever circumstance you have during the week, just moving more is something you can go towards.’
2. Strength Training
There’s no such thing as training too little – if you’ve only got time for one gym session a week, then make the most of that time and incorporate some strength training. Compound movements help to stimulate muscle growth efficiently.
‘Resistance training is the second pillar. Even if you only get one or two sessions in a week and it’s a really targeted, simple, basic functional hypertrophy routine, you know that when you’re sitting at your desk or when you’re doing the school run, your body is trying to adapt to that stimulus.’
‘If pillars one and two are the energy output pillars, pillar three is the energy input pillar,’ Price concludes.
‘If we have a rough idea of eating in alignment with our energetic needs and body composition goals, even if the environment changes we can still embody the habits and actions that align with our goals and and our visions.’
This is crucial for when you might not have time to train as much as you’d like – adapting your nutrition will still keep you on track with your goals, even if you’re expending less daily energy.
If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.
Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.
Ryan is a Senior Writer at Men’s Health UK with a passion for storytelling, health and fitness. Having graduated from Cardiff University in 2020, and later obtaining his NCTJ qualification, Ryan started his career as a Trainee News Writer for sports titles Golf Monthly, Cycling Weekly and Rugby World before progressing to Staff Writer and subsequently Senior Writer with football magazine FourFourTwo.
During his two-and-a-half years there he wrote news stories for the website and features for the magazine, while he also interviewed names such as Les Ferdinand, Ally McCoist, Jamie Redknapp and Antonio Rudiger, among many others. His standout memory, though, came when getting the opportunity to speak to then-Plymouth Argyle manager Steven Schumacher as the club won League One in 2023.
Having grown up a keen footballer and playing for his boyhood side until the age of 16, Ryan got the opportunity to represent Northern Ireland national futsal team eight times, scoring three goals against England, Scotland and Gibraltar. Now past his peak, Ryan prefers to mix weightlifting with running – he achieved a marathon PB of 3:31:49 at Manchester in April 2025, but credits the heat for failing to get below the coveted 3:30 mark…
You can follow Ryan on Instagram or on X
Fitness
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The latest NHS exercise guidance reinforces what we’ve been preaching for years: hitting that 150-minute weekly movement target isn’t necessarily a get-out-of-jail-free card. It states that prolonged sedentary time is independently harmful, even for those of us who diligently carve out time for the gym. Verbatim, it says ‘prolonged sitting is harmful, even in people who achieve the recommended levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity’.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty has been especially vocal about how detrimental it could be, highlighting hybrid working as a potential health hazard. ‘Without wanting to exaggerate, I think it’s important people think through, for example, hybrid working means quite a lot of people could very easily do very little other than leave their homes, where previously people would be routinely going to work, and that often meant at least some physical [activity],’ he said at a briefing.
I understand his logic, but it’s pretty reductive. Working from home isn’t the villain here – working from one chair is.
When we label remote work as “bad for your health”, we risk throwing the baby out with the bath water. In reality, for many – certainly the whole of the Women’s Health office, but also my less-fitness-conscious sister and stepdad, plus my entire friendship group – working from home often means being more active. It means more time to fit in a lunchtime run, to get some steps in before work, or to run some errands on a quick break.
On the other hand, plenty of office workers are more sedentary than they are at home. They sit at a desk for nine hours straight before driving home, whether to be seen to work tirelessly in front of their manager, or simply because they’re pulled from pillar to post in an office setting. For those who do have an office commute, eliminating that often stressful period of the day allows for better sleep, and more time for the movement breaks we need to break up the dreaded sedentary time. Not to mention that many commutes are almost entirely sedentary on a train/tube/bus.
The potential problem, the advice suggests, is the lack of incidental movement – the walk to the train, the stroll to a meeting room, or heading out for lunch – that’s naturally baked into your day when you’re in the “official” office. Without a commute or a day in the office, the onus is on you to manufacture movement in.
Regular stretching counts as a movement break
Without sounding evangelical, I’ve made this a non-negotiable part of my day. On WFH days, I work out or walk every single morning before I log on, and walk again every evening, even if just a lap around the block. During the day, I have a personal rule: if I’m downstairs, I use the upstairs toilet (and vice versa). Sounds excessive, but it forces me to activate my muscles and add to my step count every few hours.
Beyond that, the options are endless if you’re intentional. Use a standing desk or put your laptop on a kitchen worktop during calls. Take every phone meeting on foot, pacing your hallway if necessary. Set a timer to stand up every 30 mins to stretch, grab a glass of water, or do a quick load of laundry.
We don’t need to return to the office to be healthy; we need to bring movement back into our homes. The goal: to stop being professional sitters.
As Women’s Health UK’s fitness director and a qualified Pilates and yoga instructor, Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism.
After earning a first-class degree in journalism and NCTJ accreditation, she secured her first role at Look Magazine, where she launched the magazine’s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!
Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner’s World and Red. Today, she oversees all fitness content across Women’s Health online and in print, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as ‘Fit At Any Age’, which showcases the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise.
She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks – all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how. Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram.
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