Muscle and Joint Pain after walking

Question
I am 58 and weigh 110kg. I have started going for a morning walk on a beach nearby for about 1 hour covering approx 6km of not-so-brisk walk. Despite 3 months of this routine, my calf muscles and hip/knee joints pain. I am told to do some yoga stretching exercise to disperse lactic acid formation. No improvement.

Please advice.

Answer
Slow down and give your body time to adjust! 6 km/hr may not seem too brisk, but it is a lot to ask of yourself starting out, especially at your weight and age. That kind of speed at your weight puts a lot of stress on your ligaments and tendons, which take much longer to adapt to exercise than your muscles do. The ligaments and tendons of your knees and hips react to overstress by developing inflammation, thus your pain.

Sore calf muscles might be from walking in too soft sand. That is great for burning calories, but can really overstress the calves. The firmer sand might be better for you, and make sure you are using high-quality running shoes fitted to your needs at a specialty running store.

You did not mention what your goals are. If you are trying to lose weight, you can scale back the speed of your walking and maybe some distance. Combine that with some modest cutbacks in your eating and plan on losing no more than .7 kg per week. If your goal is to become stronger through exercise, dropping your weight gradually as described is a good way to reduce stresses on your joints while you are building muscle.