At your age

Is 50 too late to start exercising?

By GyroscopeUpdated November 14, 20264 sources

No. In a study of 315,059 Americans, people who were inactive most of their adult lives but got active in their 40s and 50s had the same drop in risk as people who’d been active all along. Start with brisk walking and two strength sessions a week.

Why 50 feels too late

By 50 you’ve had decades of habits, and some changes in your body feel permanent, like a stiff knee or slower stairs. It’s easy to assume the damage is done and the benefit of exercise belongs to people who started young. The studies keep finding the opposite.

The late starters

Researchers in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study asked 315,059 AARP members, aged 50 to 71 when they joined in the mid-1990s, how active they’d been in their free time at four stages of life (15 to 18, 19 to 29, 35 to 39 and 40 to 61). Then they followed them to the end of 2011, a span in which 71,377 of them died.

People who had stayed active through every stage had 36% lower risk of dying than people who were inactive throughout (a hazard ratio of 0.64). People who’d been inactive most of their adult lives but became active between 40 and 61 had 35% lower risk (0.65). The late starters did as well as the lifelong exercisers, and the authors concluded that “midlife is not too late to start physical activity.”

The simple version

Fitness behaves more like a phone battery than a savings account. It runs down when you stop and charges when you start. The charge you missed at 25 doesn’t decide what you can store now.

What the biggest US habits study found

Harvard’s study of 123,219 US adults measured its results from age 50. Compared with people who did no exercise, people who moved 3.5 to 6 hours a week had half the death rate. In our calculator, which applies those numbers to the 2024 life table, a 50-year-old who does no exercise and starts moving 30 minutes a day gets back about 7 years on average, for women and men alike.

Lifting adds to it. In 147,374 adults in the same Harvard cohorts, followed up to 30 years, 90 to 119 minutes of strength training a week went with 13% lower risk on top of any aerobic exercise.

How much to aim for

The US guidelines (second edition) say adults need at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity a week, like brisk walking, plus muscle-strengthening at least 2 days a week. Those are typical targets. The Gyroscope app personalizes yours.

If you have heart disease, chest pain when you exert yourself, or you get dizzy or very short of breath, talk to your doctor before starting hard exercise. Walking is a safe place to start for most people.