How to become flexible at 60

I'm 78 and I do a SitFit class at my local village hall. It combines chair yoga with standing stretches and balance work and we also do sitting-down dance routines with a lot of arm work. It's great fun and a real work-out. At home I continue with stretches and balancing and I dance round the kitchen (but only when no-one can see!)

I’m coming up to 66, very overweight and need to do something.

I have widespread arthritis, fibromyalgia and ME, among other things and find exercise so hard.

If you can find a good teacher and a class you like, tai chi is excellent for overall suppleness, balance and relaxation, bodily awareness and help with painful conditions. Qigong classes are similar, like tai chi but without the sequence called 'form'.

I asked my osteopath what was the best simple exercise for older people and she said stretching.

I don’t know, I feel like stretching is dangerous for older people because their joints aren’t at full health, and stretching them may cause them to loosen too fast. But that’s just my uneducated guess

I go to a sit fit class age range 66-92 we always do stretching as part of our warm up exercises so no pulled muscles during the main exercises and do stretching as part of cool down routine. We exercise sitting down and behind the chair and some walking exercises which can involve walking on our toes. Sit fit is not a soft option form of exercise but full on and every bit of our bodies get a workout. We use weights on our legs ,long resistance bands and circular. Every 4-5 weeks we do circuit training in pairs using different equipment and it fun . Our group meets in a local church. Monday there where 15 of us. We all have health and mobility problems but turn up every week no matter how we feel because it's does are bodies good but also our minds as you have to concentrate on some of the exercises to do them correctly plus it's a social thing.

I do 7 warm up exercises once dressed every morning which involves some stretching and gets my body ready for the day . Then do 400 rotations on my static pedals .

The key our instructor tells us you need to feel the stretch but if you feel pain stop.

Tai chi? Gentle and very good for “bendiness” without being too energetic. It is excellent for balance.

Please find a good yoga teacher .
Mine is fantastic - far better than the one that I used to go to .
She was just intent on showing off . Some of her pupils were competitive .
It was also a fashion show .
I do chair yoga and the other people in my class have mobility issues as well .
I'm hoping that one day I'll be able to do normal yoga again .

I spent a fair bit of time in lockdown looking for good online exercise videos, until I found Fabulous Fifties, which I still use regularly despite being a couple of months off my fabulous seventies now. There’s a paid subscription angle to their videos these days, but I’ve never gone down that route, just using the wide range of the free ones on YouTube, some of which are aimed specifically at flexibility.

fabulous50s.com/top-5-mobility-exercises-for-women-over-50/

I used to do regular yogalates, but was warned by my doctor that some yoga moves are not suitable for people like me with osteopenia. Even with FF, I avoid moves that call for too much stretching.

I do remedial Pilates (online now as she has relocated ) which has kept my bouts of painful sciatica away for many years. Also good for balance although I still find it difficult standing on one leg with my eyes closed 😬My instructor is a physio and really knows her stuff.