What Really Happens When We Become Less Active
By Brian Kracyla, PT DPT
There’s a familiar moment that can happen as we get older: something that used to feel easy suddenly doesn’t. A flight of stairs leaves us a little more winded. Carrying groceries feels heavier. Getting up from a low chair takes more effort. A long walk that once seemed routine starts to feel ambitious. It’s easy to chalk these changes up to getting older. And certainly, aging brings real changes to our bodies. But age may not be the whole story. Sometimes what we’re experiencing is also deconditioning—a gradual loss of physical capacity that occurs when we simply aren’t asking our bodies to do as much as we once did.
Aging or deconditioning?
Our bodies adapt to the demands we place on them. When we regularly walk, climb, lift, reach, carry, and move in different ways, we give our bodies a reason to maintain those abilities. When those demands decrease, our bodies adapt to that, too. Over time, less activity can mean less strength, lower endurance, and fewer opportunities to challenge our balance. These changes may happen gradually enough that we don’t notice them until an everyday activity becomes noticeably more difficult.
The encouraging part is that this process can work in both directions. Research involving older adults has shown meaningful improvements in strength with resistance exercise, with one large analysis finding average strength gains of about 18%. Even studies of adults over 75—and into their 80s—show that strength can still improve with training.
The cycle we don’t always notice
There’s another piece of the equation that is just as important: confidence.
Imagine that climbing stairs starts to feel more difficult, so you begin taking the elevator more often. Longer walks leave you tired, so you gradually shorten them. Getting down onto the floor feels uncertain, so you stop doing it altogether. Each decision makes sense in the moment. But over time, doing less can further reduce the capacity those activities require. Something feels harder, so we do it less. We do it less, so our capacity decreases. And with less capacity, the activity feels even harder. Breaking that cycle doesn’t mean suddenly pushing yourself through strenuous workouts. Often, it means finding appropriate ways to ask a little more of your body again.
Give your body a reason to adapt
That might mean walking farther or at a quicker pace, carrying groceries, practicing standing from a chair without your hands, taking the stairs when appropriate, or incorporating resistance exercise.
Activities that safely challenge balance and coordination can be valuable as well. For perspective, current guidelines for adults 65 and older recommend 150 minutes of moderate activity each week, muscle-strengthening activity at least twice a week, plus activities that challenge balance. But you don’t have to get there all at once—some activity is better than none. The key is gradual, consistent challenge. Exercise doesn’t need to be extreme, but our bodies need enough of a challenge to have a reason to adapt.
If weakness, fatigue, balance concerns, pain, or uncertainty are making it difficult to stay active, a physical therapist can help identify what is limiting you and develop an appropriate plan. Getting older brings real physical changes, and not every limitation is caused by inactivity. But we shouldn’t assume that becoming weaker, less steady, or less capable is simply an unavoidable consequence of another birthday. Our bodies continue to adapt throughout our lives. Sometimes maintaining—or rebuilding—our abilities starts by continuing to give our bodies a reason to keep them.
Penn’s Village helps older adults stay active, age in place in their own homes, and engage, connect, and thrive with others in our Village community. If you enjoy what you are reading, you can help ensure our continued viability and visibility by sharing our website and this post with others.
Brian Kracyla earned a Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Drexel University in 2013. He co-founded Cloudline Physical Therapy in 2020, with a vision of redefining the patient-clinician dynamic by establishing a truly collaborative approach to care. With four Philadelphia locations, Cloudline Physical Therapy are experts in treating various musculoskeletal conditions and disorders in patients of all ages. Cloudline Physical Therapy is a long-standing business member of Penn’s Village and provides yearly free workshops to members. Their main office is 239 S. 10th Street, Philadelphia