There has been quite a movement towards getting the older adults out of their sitting rooms and doing some exercise. Any kind of exercise, so long as it is mobilising the party concerned. When we were at school, there were fixed PE sessions and as we got older, these increased in length and intensity. They were also a favourite session amongst my group of pals and we used to enjoy netball and rounders, sometimes a relief sports mistress would change things up and bit and introduce hockey – not a long lived exercise in our case. Hockey is one iof those close contact sports that requires thorough observance of the rules in order not to end up cracking the shins of the opposing player – it is played with ‘sticks’ that are just under a metre long with a curve base like a big hook. These days they are no longer made out of wood, but are often carbon fibre or kevlar aramid, both of which are much lighter to manoeuvre with but also last much longer and will not rot as quickly if left somewhere unfortunately damp. We have lots of articles in lifestyle magazines about walking football and walking netball. These have been specifically designed to capture the interest of an older group and it encourages 14 adults, usually women in the case of walking netball, to come together, seven on each side, for a gentle game along the same rules as regular netball. There is a goal keeper, goal defence, wing defence and centre, then wing attack, goal attack and shooter. The walking aspect is easier on the limbs of course as older folk are going to be much heavier than a teenager. This means the limbs will be straining anyway. but some very experienced team netball players have struggled to adjust to not being able to sprint up and down the court. They report that the spontaneous thrust is lost because they had to keep checking themselves and deliberately slowing down.
I do know several folk who do partake of the walking netball programme down at our local sports centre and they go along more for the social group aspect and although they play for about 25 minutes, their main focus is the comradeship that comes with team games, whatever pace or age group.