Walking has become the great reassurance of later life. Get your steps in, and you are taking care of yourself. It is true, as far as it goes: walking is one of the best things you can do for your heart, your mood and your sleep. But a message is spreading among the coaches and doctors who work with people over 60, and it is simple. Walking is not enough to keep your muscles. Fitness coach José Ruiz, whose advice has been widely shared in the French press, put it in a sentence that has stopped many readers in their tracks: to maintain muscle mass after 60, you need strength training, and specifically, exercises for the deep muscles.
Why muscle disappears faster after 60
The decline starts much earlier than most people think. According to research cited by Parade, the body begins losing muscle in our thirties, at a gradual rate of roughly 3 to 8 percent per decade. In our sixties, the loss speeds up, to an estimated 3 percent per year. Strength falls even faster than size. “As we get older, not only do we accumulate more fat within our muscles, but our muscles are made up of more slow-contracting muscle fibers and fewer fast-contracting muscle fibers,” explains Dr. Tracy Ellen Lippard, an internal medicine doctor with Kaiser Permanente.
The consequence shows up in everyday life long before it shows up in the mirror. Carrying groceries, climbing stairs or getting up from a low chair start to feel harder. And inactivity makes it worse, quickly. “A sedentary lifestyle absolutely accelerates muscle loss,” Lippard says, adding that she sees patients lose a lot of function after even a short hospital stay or a period spent sitting at home. Research on older adults confirms that periods of reduced activity temporarily accelerate the loss of both muscle and strength.
Why walking alone falls short
This is where Ruiz’s point lands. Walking is wonderful for the heart, and we have written about the daily distance cardiologists recommend and about the Japanese interval method that makes it work harder. But muscles only grow, or hold their ground, when they are asked to do something slightly harder than they are used to. A steady walk, however long, rarely provides that challenge for the muscles of the legs, back and core once the body is used to it. That is why Parade’s experts agree that “use it or lose it” applies above all to strength, and why the most effective strategy, in their words, is resistance training combined with enough protein. One of the coaches they spoke to summed it up in five words: “Aging doesn’t steal muscle — inactivity does.”
What “deep muscles” means, and why they matter
The deep muscles are the ones you cannot see: the stabilizing muscles of the core, around the spine, the pelvis and the hips. They hold you upright, steady you when you turn or reach, and catch you when you stumble. They are central to balance, which is why strengthening them is one of the best defenses against falls, the single biggest threat to independence later in life. Walking uses them, but rarely challenges them.
Where to start
You do not need a gym. Two or three short sessions a week of simple, controlled exercises are enough to begin. For the legs, chair squats: sit down and stand up from a sturdy chair slowly, without using your hands. For the back, rows with a resistance band looped around a door handle. For the deep core, a plank against a wall or a counter, and the “bird dog,” lifting the opposite arm and leg from a kneeling position while keeping the back still. Start with a few repetitions, move slowly and add a little each week.
Food matters too. Experts quoted by Parade recommend that people over 60 eat enough protein, around 1 to 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight per day, spread across meals rather than saved for dinner. And keep walking: the goal is not to replace it, but to add the one thing it cannot do. As researchers have found about the moments when the body ages fastest, the years around 60 are exactly the time to invest in it.
The takeaway
After 60, muscle loss speeds up, and inactivity accelerates it further. Walking protects the heart, but on its own it does not protect the muscles. As coach José Ruiz puts it, keeping muscle mass takes strength training, with particular attention to the deep muscles that keep us steady. A chair, a resistance band and a few minutes, two or three times a week, are enough to start.
If you have a heart condition, joint problems or have not exercised in a long time, check with your doctor before starting a new strength program.
