A 20-minute workout to keep you nimble as you age

Training yourself to pivot and weave can help you feel more stable. These six exercises can help. Dr Howard Luks didn’t think much about agility – the ability to move quickly while changing speed and direction – until movements that used to come easily became more challenging.

Luks, 61, works as an orthopaedic surgeon and is an avid trail runner and climber. During his outdoor workouts , he began to struggle with side-to-side motion on a rock wall and had lost confidence in his footing on rocky trails. He also noticed he was tripping more on things like the edge of a rug.



Luks regularly treats injuries from trips and falls, like broken or sprained wrists, rotator cuff tears and Achilles tears. Those patients might have avoided their visit to his clinic, he said, if they had trained to maintain their agility. He didn’t want to end up in the same place.

“My strength training used to involve the usual moves, like squats and curls,” Luks said, “but I started to work on agility so that I could peel back age-related changes.”.