Bungalow legs, anyone?

I have lived in a bungalow all my life except for 5 years when we first got married. I do get out of breath if I have to go up stairs or up a hill. We turned our house into a chalet bungalow to start a family but we have always slept downstairs.

Don’t look at the problem without finding the solution!

The article in my OP does suggest some solutions Pantglas2.
I think it's useful to realise it may not be 'just age' and there can be more life in the old dogs yet.

Posted too soon, meant to say that we all age differently and some have more muscle strength than others.

annodomini

After living for 22 years in a house where the only bathroom was at the top of a stairway which seemed to get narrower and steeper each year, I was relieved to find myself a ground floor flat with a lift available for visiting friends upstairs. At 83, I can't say I'm too concerned about whether or not I have 'bungalow' legs!

Seems a sensible move.
I think I have bungalow legs and I don’t even live in one😂
It isn’t the house/ bungalow it’s about how much you move about and where you go, most places have steps after all.
All in all I think it’s a fallacy much put about.

@ Elusivebutterfly. I second you as whenever we go on holiday and there is a deep stylish bath which I can’t use I find that my arms are weak when I try to get out of my easy bath at home. DH is away and said the very deep bath where he is staying is causing him a struggle and he is pretty fit.

It was toe rises while cleaning the teeth I latched onto in this thread. I have a slight incontinence problem so thought yippee I'll try it. Perhaps this is not for those with an electric toothbrush loaded with toothpaste and wearing glasses...?

I’ve never heard that term, but I have known that using stairs as often as you can is a great vascular exercise. I have two flights of stairs in my condo. I always took stairs at work too in the hospital which kept me in shape.

I’m 79 years old and I can still manage to haul myself out of the bath thank goodness as dislike showers.

I also have a spiral staircase to climb, so have no choice as bathroom upstairs.

It’s a good job I’m still able to do my yoga classes.
I think it helps a lot with general mobility.
Any similar exercise will strengthen legs etc.

I feel we have the best of both worlds.
I am 75 and have osteoporosis and a narrowed spinal canal with compression on nerves causing back, neck and leg pain.
We found a bungalow with the attic converted to 3 bedrooms and a cloakroom. Downstairs bathroom. What were the original bungalow 2 bedrooms are now the dining room and a work/ironing room. So we are still using the stairs with the option of downstairs bedrooms of ever needed.
It means we go downstairs to shower but it is of no inconvenience.
We moved 2 years ago having spent many months looking for an ordinary one level bungalow without success, within our budget. It was a blessing. What we have is ideal in every way.

Primrose53 Certainly your former neighbours were asking for trouble if they went from nothing to climbing three stories every day at age 84 years! Start young, start small!

I’ve witnessed it time and time again working in rehab, it’s a fact. Also to see an apparently weak and frail elderly person tackle stairs and fly up and down compared to a younger more able looking person struggling simply because of what they are used to doing.

My parents mistakenly thought that living on the ground floor of their two storey flat in their old age would make things easier.

They were 65 and 60 when they retired and eighteen months of the no-stairs regime and both had serious problems with steps and stairs when they went out.

So if you don't have stairs - do take regular daily exercise on stairs. My mother didn¨t and by the age of 70 it took her about ten minutes to walk up a flight of 20 steps and she was seriously overweight from having been a slyph-like lady all my life!

This is the reason I will never ever move into a bungalow. My parents retired into one and as they got older they found it very difficult to manage stairs even when they didn’t have any other relevant health problems. Fair dos they’d never been into any kind of exercise which can’t have helped but I firmly believe in that principle of use it or lose it and those muscles etc just gradually gave up!

After living for 22 years in a house where the only bathroom was at the top of a stairway which seemed to get narrower and steeper each year, I was relieved to find myself a ground floor flat with a lift available for visiting friends upstairs. At 83, I can't say I'm too concerned about whether or not I have 'bungalow' legs!

All this talk of bungalow legs …of course if you stop all exercise when you move into one level living then you will develop mobility problems.

My solution is 15 Squats, lunges and worktop press-ups while the kettle boils then daily walks and garden steps add to the strengthening of leg muscles.

The same applies if you have a downstairs loo in a 2 storey house though. I have one friend who trots down of a morning and only uses stairs again when she goes to bed so has to use the handrail whereas I can run up and down her stairs no hands!

Don’t look at the problem without finding the solution!

A retired cardiologist friend of my late father's said that no one should move into a bungalow or ground floor flat until they couldn't manage stairs any more - not before.

NittWitt, thank you for this post and the link to the newspaper article; very interesting and informative.

A former neighbour and her partner, 72 and 84 moved to Kent and bought a beautiful 3 storey house. I asked her why they chose that as did many others and she said the exercise would do them good.

After just a few weeks her partner had a massive stroke and was taken into hospital. She had a shower room installed on the ground floor as he was in hospital for a couple of months. She also had a stair lift installed for him to get to the bedroom.
His daughter flew down from Scotland and saw how very ill and immobile he was and took him back with her. His partner agreed as she was on her knees from caring for him. Sadly, he died soon after.

Cripes! I've lived in a bungalow since 1985! I visit my daughter about once every six weeks and the stairs in her terraced house aren't a problem! I've never even thought about it.

I'm 72 and I take the stairs at the leisure centre, at a run, two at a time, twice a week, just because I can! There are plenty of ways to keep your legs strong. Squats and lunges are great. We do both in our karate training. Brisk walking will help. I also carry heavy shopping bags with the handles at shoulder level rather than down at knee level. If I only have one heavy bag I count to twenty then swap hands. Try it, why not? Start small and increase slowly. Walk a little faster for a count of twenty and alternate with a slower pace.

Unfortunately, the secret to staying fit and strong in your older years is to start, and keep going, while you're younger! I took up karate when I was 44 years old and have never stopped. Complacent? Moi? 😎

However, you're younger today than you will be tomorrow so why not start, today! Never give up!

A close friend of mine is a theatre/recovery nurse in a local hospital, working alongside the Orthopaedic surgeons for a whole manner of repairs and replacements etc.
Every one of these orthopods during the chatter during the ops say the same.....'NEVER, move to a bungalow'.
Beginning of the end for your joints.

My folks in their 60s certainly found they had ‘bungalow legs’ after 3 years in one, when they’d always had stairs before. But they moved again, to a 2 storey, and their fitness did eventually return.
I should add that they were never great ones for any sort of exercise though, which I’m sure didn’t help.

But my mother was still well able to manage stairs when she moved to a care home at 89 - and went on to 97.

We've got "stair legs" so we're moving into a true bungalow having sold our chalet bungalow

Lived in our present bungalow since I was 46 and now 64 think it’s just a matter of time and age that my legs ache. I still work again on the same level think it’s just an age thing. I love my bungalow and the benefits wouldn’t give it up.

... that was to Petra

Thank you.