A plain-English look at six healthy-ageing exercises, their relevance to golfers over 40 and the limits of the golf-specific evidence.
Verywell Health’s “6 Exercises Physical Therapists Recommend for Healthy Aging” brings together movements aimed at everyday strength, mobility and balance. The article connects exercise with familiar tasks such as rising from a chair, climbing stairs and staying steady on your feet.
Its six choices cover lower-body strength, balance, hip control and shoulder function. That everyday-function focus is the starting point for understanding the list before drawing connections to golf.
Verywell Health organises its recommendations around physical function rather than sporting technique. Each movement has a particular role within that framework. Understanding those roles is more useful than treating six exercise names as a complete training plan.
The article describes sit-to-stands as a way to work the quadriceps and glutes. Rising from a chair gives this movement a clear connection to daily life.
It also describes a 30-second sit-to-stand test that physical therapists use to assess functional lower-body strength and endurance. That is an assessment mentioned in the article, not a suggested exercise dose for readers.
Heel raises target calf strength. Verywell Health connects that strength with walking and stair climbing.
The rationale is straightforward: this item addresses muscles used when getting around on foot. Its place in the list comes from everyday movement demands rather than a claim about swing mechanics.
Single-leg balance is the list’s direct balance exercise. It places staying steady at the centre of the task.
The article includes specific guidance about support and working both sides. Those practical details matter when translating the exercise name into a discussion about suitable activity.
Verywell Health describes standing hip abduction as a way to activate the gluteus medius. This hip muscle helps steady the pelvis during weight shifts and single-leg balance.
The useful distinction here is between moving the hip and controlling the pelvis. The article’s explanation gives this exercise a stability role within the wider menu.
Bridges target the glutes and other hip muscles. The article notes that the lying-down position may suit people with pain or limits on weight-bearing activity.
This introduces a different exercise position into the list. Any personal decision about using that option belongs within the healthcare guidance discussed below.
The upper-body exercise is lateral arm raises. Verywell Health identifies the supraspinatus as a target and describes it as one of the rotator-cuff muscles.
The exercise name is worth keeping precise. The recommendation is for lateral arm raises, rather than an unspecified collection of shoulder exercises.
For golf-specific context, Sports Medicine Weekly reports on a 2004 study in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity. In that randomized trial, an eight-week strength-and-flexibility program improved strength, range of motion and clubhead speed in golfers aged 55 to 79.
This was a broader exercise programme. Its reported results provide context for the discussion about physical conditioning in older golfers.
Sports Medicine Weekly also describes a 2023 comparison of recreational golfers aged 65 to 79 with sedentary peers. The golfers had higher grip strength and better static and dynamic balance. The comparison was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that golf caused those differences.
These findings concern different questions: the trial examined a training programme, while the comparison described differences between groups. Keeping those questions separate makes the golf context easier to interpret.
At Golfergy, our focus is translating physical guidance for experienced recreational golfers. Here, the useful connection is a group of capacities: lower-body strength, balance, hip control and shoulder function. These may matter to an active life that includes golf.
The evidence boundary is specific. The reported research does not test this six-movement menu as a golf programme or establish benefits for swing performance, golf-injury prevention or playing longevity. Results from the broader strength-and-flexibility programme cannot be transferred to these six exercises.
The sit-to-stand assessment also comes without performance norms in the Verywell Health article. It therefore supplies no pass-or-fail score for judging a reader’s golf readiness.
For the recreational player, the sensible interpretation is to view the list as a general off-course menu for everyday function. It is not a ranking of the best exercises for golf. That framing fits our wider focus on staying active and capable with age without turning an educational article into a performance promise.
A useful discussion can stay focused on one movement at a time. The starting questions are simple: what does the exercise target, and which everyday task does the article connect it with? That keeps the conversation grounded in the reasons offered by the source.
Verywell Health advises people with pain, a new injury, recent surgery or another medical condition to check with a healthcare provider before exercising. Personal decisions about exercise suitability belong with qualified care rather than a general list.
For single-leg balance, the article gives clear practical guidance: use a nearby wall or sturdy support and practise both sides. That support advice is part of the recommendation, not an optional detail to leave out when describing it.
The menu can also help organise a conversation about broader conditioning. Our coverage of off-course strength work for recreational golfers provides related reading, while this article remains focused on the six movements and their stated roles.
The practical value is clarity. A named movement with a defined purpose is easier to discuss than a broad instruction to “work on fitness.” The next personal decision is about suitability, not copying a routine simply because it appears on a healthy-ageing list.
Verywell Health’s list offers a framework for discussing everyday strength, balance, hip control and shoulder function. For an experienced golfer, that is a reason to pay attention to physical capability away from the course.
Open questions include which movements contribute most to golfers’ everyday function and whether this exact menu changes on-course outcomes. Those questions need direct testing. The documented starting point remains everyday function, with golf relevance treated as a practical interpretation rather than a proven result.
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