ZOE Science & Nutrition - Most replayed moment: Keeping mobility as you age | Gabby Reece & Federica Amati

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Today we’re talking about mobility well as you age. As we get older, staying mobile becomes even more important. But often, it also becomes more difficult too.  So today, we’re going to break down some barriers, take the slog out of staying active, and make movement fun. I’m joined by Gabby Reece and Dr Federica Amati to explore simple ways to stay agile as we age. From the surprising benefits of walking backwards, jumping in a swimming pool, and not wearing shoes. 📚Books by our ZOE Scientists The Food For Life Cookbook Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector Free resources from ZOE How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks  Better Breakfast Guide Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know hereListen to the full episode here

Hello and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. Today, we're talking about the importance of mobility. As we get older, staying mobile becomes even more important, but often it also becomes more difficult. So today, we're going to break down some barriers, take the slog out of staying active, and make movement fun. I'm joined by Gabby Reese and Dr. Federica Amati to explore simple ways to explore simple ways to save. stay agile as we age from the surprising benefits of walking backwards, jumping into a swimming pool, and not wearing any shoes. Describe to me now, like what your workout across a week looks like. Could you? Sure, I can line it out for you. So Monday, Wednesday and Friday, like this morning,

I did a form of hit training. So there's some weightlifting because muscle is a priority, period, end of story. And as we age, if you want to talk about, you know, the important thing. things, and I don't want to say especially for women, but I will say especially for women, because I think men have a relationship with that, and women sort of don't realize how supportive it is for them to have muscle, especially as they get older. So I make lifting a part of the priority, but I make functional patterns and movements. So can I be strong also in a functional way? So proprioception and balance, working on one leg, I do cardiovascular exercise, but less than you would think. I would rather do a long walk and I do a lot of backwards walking because of my

knees and my hips. And Gabby can ask, sorry, it's not obvious to me. Why are you doing a lot of backward walking? Well, everything we do is so forward and shortening. And this is an opportunity. And you'll feel it right away. If people have sore, there's a guy named Ben Patrick, knees over toes, if people want to look him up, I think he does an excellent job. If people's knees and their backs and their hips are feeling like a little off, which most of us do because we're sitting way too much. This is a really easy and beautiful and strange way to kind of work that out. And if you want to make it harder, well, my husband and I will take giant kettlebells, his or giant mine aren't. You could take a little vest if you don't want to deal with that and just go walking backwards. And you know,

you turn. So there's some really good, interesting things for your eye patterns and movements. And you will feel so good. So I'll try to incorporate those long. backwards walks. And Gabby, I just want to make sure I'm painting the picture. Are you like out in the street walking backwards trying not to fall over the things behind you? I want to say I have a good good fortune of living near a wide beach, but if someone goes to the park and they can find just a strip backwards and they're not embarrassed, don't be embarrassed because then people, it's a conversation started. People come up to you and

go, what are you doing? You go, I'm walking backwards and you can talk all about that. And you will feel it is literally one of the things that could make you feel better instantly is walking backwards. So I prioritize muscle and functional patterns. And then I'll add walking backwards, maybe two, if I can get it in, two times a week. And then I do a very weird pool water training that I wouldn't oversell to anyone. Deepwater training when I can, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday when I can get in there. And it's a lot of ballistic movement. So you still want to be explosive as you get older. You don't want to not try to find ways to work that, but normally those things are hard on us and hard on our joints. So my husband is a surfer,

and years ago we sort of developed this training where you can go into very deep water and train with dumbbells and do these really explosive jumps, but land like a feather on the bottom of the pool. It forces your breath. So now you've got breathwork in there because you have to regulate your breath. And so there's a lot of win-wins. And then you're outside. And it's kind of playful. This goes back to being a kid because you're in the pool, right? And you're with your friends and you're not feeling self-conscious. You're just doing it and trying something different and new, which also does support your health and performance. Amazing. I want to clarify one thing. Because you talked about functional patterns and I don't know what a functional pattern is. Well, you know, most of us are working on one plane and we're not kind of working in all these other multidimensional planes that we live on and working on one leg and stepping off to the side and doing

all kinds of things with an arm and an opposite leg extended and things like that where you'll hear people talk about core. Well, that's in a way almost ridiculous, right? A sit-up is almost ridiculous. A core is like literally from right underneath your chin to right above your knee. So how do you stabilize in every pattern when you work. And the minute I get a weight away from me, can I ask my whole body to support that weight? Let's say you're picking up a child or a dog or, you know, some heavy object. And so I train in this way that, again, I'm not great at. Sometimes you're off and you feel silly and goofy and not great. But these are the things that will make me avoid injury, but also, you know, work well until I'm not here.

And so you're thinking about, like, there's a lot more that's like sort of might be, you might be more unstable and all of these things rather than just like a very fixed pattern that you might do in a gym or in a squat or something like that? Yes, all the planes of motion. And I think something really important is machines are, okay, if someone's sitting on the couch and they haven't done anything, great. Go to the gym and use machines because they're a really nice way to have a controlled kind of introduction into movement.

But once you feel good and maybe you have someone who can teach you, you want to move in these independent patterns. So Federica, how does this fit with the science and like what's the role of movement in midlife? And I'd love to talk a little bit about nutrition as well. Yeah. So, I mean, what you've just said is brilliant because the planes of motion is so important when we look at injury. So there's a huge increase in injuries in midlife.

People doing things like suddenly going to the garden and using their trowel and they're suddenly moving diagonally for the first time in months, and they pull that back up. Wow. Because when you're running, it's this way. And even swimming and walking, we're all doing everything this way. And as soon as people start to, like, reach across or say you stumble backwards that way, like catching yourself on a diagonal is not something we normally do. And what's really interesting about the foot strength is that in old rates, this is

really fascinating trial where they put people in care homes in like bare foot shoes. and then compared their falls and trips compared to like normal shoes. And like ever since I've known this, I really notice when you see older people walking in the street, they often have these ridiculously high-souled shoes. And we have to remember that as we age our peripheral nervous systems, so the nerves that help us sense our environment in our hands and feet, especially if you have any metabolic disease, they actually get much worse at giving you that feedback, that pro-preception.

And so having bare feet and having to be able to. strong foot muscles, which does come from spending as much time barefoot as possible, is even more critical later in life. So in this trial, Jonathan, the people that had the barefoot shoes reduced their risk of falling by 80% just because they could actually feel the floor. And so when we think about, so we know that falls and older people are one of the primary drivers for basically death eventually. So frailty means that if you, If you are somebody who's frail in older age, and frailty doesn't have an age limit as such, but it tends to be in older people. If there's a fall, the ability to bounce back from that fall and to be resilient is impacted.

So preventing falls in older people is extremely important, not only at the higher risk of actually breaking your bone, but as I said, like recovering from that fall is harder as we get more frail. So functional movement across different planes, maintaining the muscular skeletal mass to actually get up from your chair and sit back down safely. And being able to sense your environment and simple things like removing rugs, removing side tables in the home, can have a massive impact on reducing this risk and allowing people to live independently for longer. So there's fascinating science around this. And yeah, I think especially as women, we've mistreated our feet for so long. Like, you know, do you remember when I was in my 20s, the shoes I wore, I wouldn't even touch them now. high heels, like high, not just the heel, but the front of it was high, like teetering around, I used to run in those things. That is not good for your feet or your joints or anything or your posture.

I'd love to start talking about sort of how we can translate some of this to advice that's really helpful for our listeners. And I think, you know, your commitment to fitness is amazing. I think the number one question we had actually about this episode is like, how do I break out of this cycle of sort of start and stop with, you know, with doing exercise. I think you have to come into it with a strategy. I think it's impossible for any of us to go on a road trip and arrive somewhere if we don't have a plan. And it's the same with fitness. So what does that look like? Okay, the best I have is three days a week. I know I can get

this hour in here. So what is that going to look like? What do you want to prioritize? If it means one of those days is you're walking backwards day and I'm going to lift something. And see, the thing is people here at lift heavy weights. It's whatever's heavy for you. It doesn't mean these massive weights. It just means time under tension. I'm going to keep my mind open. And if I don't know how to do that, I'm going to have somebody that teaches me. So have a strategy and plan it like you plan everything else, but also create an environment meaning have a friend. No one can do this alone.

There's those few outliers, runners, or people that this is their time, and that's a very small percentage. So I would say you've got to recruit somebody that's like, hey, so on the day you're going to flake, you don't because you have an appointment with them. So I would get a little bit of education if you don't have some. That's the great thing about on some way, the internet. But also customize it to who you are, because you could find an expert, and I put that in quotes, and they'll say, this is what you need to do. You hate every minute of it.

You hate to be inside, whatever it is. So you've got to also be involved enough to go, well, who am I, and what will I show up for? Doesn't mean I'm going to love every second of it, but it means this practice reflects who I am. And so I think if you have some of those variables, and understand consistency. If you only have 15 minutes that day, don't poo-poo that. Be like, this is what I got. This is good enough today. And so it doesn't have to be really long, but you do have to have a nice strategy. And look at it like a story. Look at it like, what are these little buckets that I'm trying to check off? Okay, I'm trying to move in this way. I'm trying to walk enough or run a little or lift a little bit of weights or stretch. And have that story. Don't just be doing one thing

because you'll hammer yourself down. So for my cardio monsters out there that just go, go, go, that in the long run is not going to serve you. It's not even going to serve the way your skin looks. Like, however, whichever language, like, oh, you want less wrinkles, lift weights, whatever it takes. But you need a friend too. That's all for this week's recap episode.

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