Physical declines begin earlier than thought, often while people are still in their fifties, and so taking action before then can help combat it, a new study suggests.

Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine drew their findings from a group of 775 participants enrolled in a longitudinal research study of more than 12,000 participants they conduct at their research campus in Kannapolis, N.C.

For the study, which is known as the MURDOCK Physical Performance Lifespan Study, the researchers led team enrolled participants ranging in age from their 30s through their 100s, with broad representation across gender and races.

All participants performed the same simple tasks to demonstrate strength, endurance or balance: rising from a chair repeatedly for 30 seconds; standing on one leg for a minute; and walking for six minutes. Additionally, their walking speed was measured over a distance of about 10 yards.

Men generally performed better than women on the tasks, and younger people outperformed older participants. But the age at which declines in physical ability began to appear – in the decade of the 50s – were consistent regardless of gender or other demographic features.

The study provides physical ability benchmarks that could be easily performed and measured in clinical exams, providing a way to detect problems earlier.

“Our research reinforces a life-span approach to maintaining physical ability – don’t wait until you are 80 years old and cannot get out of a chair,” says lead author Katherine S. Hall, assistant professor of medicine at Duke.

“People often misinterpret ‘aging’ to mean ‘aged’, and that issues of functional independence aren’t important until later in life. This bias can exist among researchers and healthcare providers, too. The good news is, with proper attention and effort, the ability to function independently can often be preserved with regular exercise, Hall says of the study, which appears in the Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.