Aging Well Through Exercise

[abc]

Not sure it's a good study.

By examining old elite athlets, it may be biased by a special gene pool of people who age well, with or without exercise.

I'm know I "maybe" in that gene pool. My Mom pride herself for ever only fail one subject in high school: PE! But all the relatives in that side of the family lives long and healthy, regardless of exercise or nutricient. My father side of the family, on the other hand, have quite a few athlets. Still, most on that side didn't live as long as on my maternal side.

They must also test the sibling of that group to rule out any genetic bias. Not clear that's been done.

 

[altagirl]

Not sure it's a good study.

By examining old elite athlets, it may be biased by a special gene pool of people who age well, with or without exercise.

I'm know I "maybe" in that gene pool. My Mom pride herself for ever only fail one subject in high school: PE! But all the relatives in that side of the family lives long and healthy, regardless of exercise or nutricient. My father side of the family, on the other hand, have quite a few athlets. Still, most on that side didn't live as long as on my maternal side.

They must also test the sibling of that group to rule out any genetic bias. Not clear that's been done.

I don't think longevity was actually the point of the study though - it was how much muscle mass you retain into old age. So they weren't saying exercise will make you live longer, just that exercising into old age helps you maintain muscle mass longer than previously thought.

 

[abc]

But it could be that selected group of athlets are predisposed to have less fat in their muscle to begin with. That's why they have less trouble staying active?

There's correlation, then there's causality. The latter always leads to the former, but the former is not always the equivalent of the latter.

 

[altagirl]

Absolutely ... and it really is important to know the difference. I am so used to having pain that I was sort of the opposite, and ended up injuring myself needlessly. When I turned 40, I really made an effort to be VERY careful about it.

I was working with a young athletic trainer a few years ago, and he obviously was working under the assumption that all women need to be pushed past their "pain" levels. So when I was having issues with some of the exercises, he kept pushing me. I ended up a mess, because I wanted to fight and show him I could do it, but the fact is, I know where my threshhold is, I am very familiar with my body and my injuries and with playing through pain. It took me a little while to reconcile all this, but I finally realized why I kept getting hurt. He still didn't quite get it and I ended up switching to someone who "got" me -- I don't scream and swear and turn red when I'm pushing it or feeling pain, I get very very quiet and focused ... so when I say I've had enough, a lot of people (the screamers) don't get it.

So, that's a long way of saying ... know thyself. It is more and more important as we get older, and don't recover as well, and frankly if we are used to being jocks and sucking it up. Sometimes it's not good to suck it up.

Totally agree. I've done that too, and there are definitely types of trainers/coaches/etc. that I avoid working with, or at least get really obstinate about not doing things that I know aren't good for my joints.

And sometimes it's being stubborn with my husband and friends too. I love that my husband believes in me, but yeesh, he will push for "just one more run", etc. If I know I'm done, it takes being really decisive and sticking up for myself to stay safe.

I have a friend who is in the same situation with previous knee injuries and she's been trying this crossfit ski season prep class and has hurt herself twice now due to caving in to the pressure. Both times were things she knew she shouldn't do, but the instructor convinced her that sprints on the concrete or deep squats with weights or whatever wouldn't really be bad for her knees and now she's back at the physical therapist. It's funny, but it took me a long time to realize that sometimes it takes more "courage" to say no. I think that's part of getting older - just like learning to recognize good and bad pain, you have to learn to recognize when you're being hesitant due to unwarranted/irrational fear vs. knowing when you need to listen to yourself and stop.

One of my favorite yoga experiences this year was "punk rock yoga". The idea was that we were going to try crazy, fun things, BUT - "you're punk rock". Meaning, you don't have to listen to anyone else or feel pressured to do anything you don't want to do. I loved the idea that the "punk rock" thing to do was to sit in childs pose and not try things you weren't feeling were good for you right now. It's a concept that I needed. (Otherwise, just like you, I have the tendency to want to impress my instructor/PT/etc. with my ability to push myself, and that's not necessarily what I need!)

 

[vickie]

I think you can really see this in certain parts of the country, too -- not trying to step on any toes, so please forgive me if I do, but I'm always amazed when I travel to (some) other places how different people my age look.

Interesting that you noted that. I had decided that the next place I live needs to be more health-conscious. Not that I can't make healthy choices wherever I am, but I can use all the help I can get.

 

[geargrrl]

I have a friend who is in the same situation with previous knee injuries and she's been trying this crossfit ski season prep class and has hurt herself twice now due to caving in to the pressure. Both times were things she knew she shouldn't do, but the instructor convinced her that sprints on the concrete or deep squats with weights or whatever wouldn't really be bad for her knees and now she's back at the physical therapist.

I know some people loooovee their crossfit, but I hear stuff like this all the time. This just makes me really grateful for the folks I work out with... keniesology and or exercise science degrees, nationally certified CSCS or NSCA, and tied in with a PT facility IE, if they know you have an injury, they will help you work around it/with it, to rehab the injury and build it back up to full strength if possible, with guidance all the way. If anything, if Nick or Katy knows of an injury, they will make sure you don't do things that might promote reinjury, and help us modify so that we can get back to 100%. There's a lot of room in most exercise programs to really push and build up fitness and strenth without getting to the point where you are pushing so hard you hurt yourself.

Now, I don't do crossfit, never have, probably never will. A lot of people ask me if that's what we do - it is not. Maybe I have a bad impression, but the injury thing is pretty well associated with it in my mind.

 

[Delawhere]

I'm not surprised that there physical benefits from exercising with increasing age. I'm only 51 but I can clearly feel them. I also think that there other advantages and disadvantages about exercising "later" in life.

Throughout my youth, until grad school, I was very active. I hurt my back in grad school and allowed it to drastically diminish my activity due to fear of re-injuring it. Stupidest thing I have ever done.

I started getting back into shape after shape after the birth of my kids, plateaued when I was in ok shape and then a few years ago, when I was about 45 years old, started going to Curves/Ladies Workout Express to add easy strength training. That rapidly escalated; I ramped up my in line skating (sometimes 50 miles per week), added hiking and biking, added karate. Now that I am 51 I am exercising, hard, about 8-10 hours a week. It was much easier once I figured that I can skate, hike and bike year around.

What I have noticed is that I am the strongest I have been since high school. Due to karate I can feel muscles that were never really developed before. My stamina is better as well as long as I am not walking up a hill when my excess weight really becomes noticeable. I can hike at a fast pace or skate for several hours. Well, due to poor technique I'm like the Janis Joplin song, "I don't go too fast but I go pretty far" but it is still an excellent workout. In karate I have more stamina than most of the other black belt women that are 15 years younger than I am.

Endorphins are my friend. I almost always get a runner's high when I exercise hard. If something is hurting then I get an even more intense euphoric feeling and the pain usually magically subsides. Freaking awesome. I think this is the reason why I exercise so much (addicted?)-I'm rewarded for my efforts.

Any post exercise soreness now shows up about 48 hours after exercise and it lasts for a longer period of time. In my younger days it showed up the next day. Recovery from minor injuries take longer than they used to but I can usually just switch to another activity.

The bad news is that I flexibility is now much more of a problem. A huge problem. My ankles (achilles) are so stiff in the morning that I take shortened steps for the first few steps. This is in spite of stretching them out almost daily. My flexibility is much better than before I started karate. I'd hate to think what it would be like if I didn't work at it. Yoga would probably be ideal but it's not dynamic enough for me to keep interested.

Two years ago, at my first "black belt camp" several of us, both men and women, all about my age and all whom had started karate in their late 40's talked about what we notice about exercise and aging. Every single one of said "fear." We were all active in other sports but we just don't take the risks that we used to. It's not to say that we don't take any risks but I used to push the limits much more in my youth. As a corollary, we now compete against ourselves; we spend much less time comparing ourselves to others.

Life is so much better with physical activity but as SkiDiva said I'm preaching to the choir!"

 

[Downunder Diva]

I'm with you Delawhere, at 51 y.o. I work out 5 days a week for 12 hours, cardio and weights. It's really important to lift slow and steady so that the muscles rather than the joints do the work. I lift to the point of muscular exhaustion and then hold for 10 seconds. I used to have DOMS but this has diminished over the years. It is rather extreme to hold to the point of complete fatigue but such a buzz afterwards and I can honestly say that I have never injured myself lifting weights like this (you need to use machines so that the weight does not drop on you). I also do pilates, core classes and standard cardio. I think I'm in the best shape of my life in terms of resilience and endurance (albeit carrying a few extra pounds and muscle ) I have much better stamina and recovery however I do take much much longer to warm up than I used to. I have a low reps - high weight day with 2 days recovery and then high reps - low weight program on the other days. Recently my DH and I restored a cottage (for our skiing accommodation in NZ) which involved 10 hours/day carpentry, scraping weatherboards and painting for 4 days and I was able to do it! I had ACL reconstruction 6 months ago and my surgeon has put down my rapid recovery to pre-op weight training strength. It's really hard to motivate yourself for the gym but I just image the feeling from carving it up on the ski runs and it gets me to the gym everytime...