Comment by stevesimmons
11 hours ago
Agree. There's lots you can do to slow the affects of aging. Most of us just don't try.
I'm 55 and found - much to my surprise - that 12 months of carefully progressively and intense running training has improved me from a slow plodder (jogging 5km a couple of times a week) to on track for a 3 hour marathon later this year. Along the way, I'm back to the weight I had in my early 20s, but now also am a lot faster and with way more endurance.
Of course, at 55, I now need to be more careful now about not getting injured. Which means being disciplined about stretching, strength training and recovery. Things I never needed to worry about when I was younger.
So absolutely:
> Use it (with proper care and feeding) or lose it.
It's so wild that in your 50s you can be more fit and in better health than you were in your 30s. No one ever told me this. My sedentary family bitched and moaned about how they were getting old and their bodies were falling apart every day. I'm so glad I discovered that exercise works in my early 40s. I hear you about injury though. When I get injured now it takes ages to recover. Something that would have gone away in 2 days in my 20s, can take weeks to heal. We're not immortal, but there's so much we can do.
I got a bad of case of tennis elbow recently from over-exerting during a light set of pushups!
The joint stuff you have to think about, where it was barely a consideration when I was younger.