@KLizotte 29102 wrote:
Certifried,
If it makes you feel any better, last year I threw out my back and was couch-ridden for three days because I got up from a chair incorrectly. I’d never done that before and finally understood why old people walk funny. I walked like a turtle for about 2+ weeks.
It sucks getting old.
I may have that one beat. Many years ago, I was eating dinner at home by myself and stood up after finishing. I partially tore a trapezius muscle, just above the shoulder. Probably the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. The entire trap went into severe spasms. It wasn’t a garden-variety spasm either. I didn’t know intense muscle spasms could be so painful. I literally couldn’t even sit back down because of the pain. Every time I moved a centimeter, the entire muscle (which covers much of the upper back on each side) went back into powerful spasms.
I believe I had to stand there for 30 or 60 minutes, unable to sit back down or walk anywhere because of the spasms. I started to get exhausted from the muscle going through all of those intense spasms while I got mentally exhausted from dealing with the pain. I wasn’t very active at the time, which helps to explain why the muscle tear occurred. I had very poor muscle tone in those days. I had started playing piano again recently, for a community theater group. Because it was an acoustic piano, I had to pound on it very hard to be heard above the singers during rehearsals. While I had played electronic keyboards recently, it had been a few years since I had played an acoustic piano frequently. Those practices caused my traps to get extremely tight. At the same time, the lack of any physical training left my lats very weak. It was the extreme imbalance between the traps and the lats that set me up for a muscle tear just from the mere act of standing up from a chair. (This is partly why I harp on muscle imbalances on this and other forums. Extreme muscle imbalances almost guarantee injuries.)
I finally decided that I had to lie down. It took me almost an hour to walk down one flight of stairs, again because of the intense muscle spasms that were set off with even the slightest movement. I clenched my teeth and moved very slowly. I made it to my room and fell asleep. When I woke up, the trap was still sore but at least it wasn’t going into spasm.
I didn’t treat the injury properly. Instead of gently stretching it to stop the muscle spasm and then trying to establish a range of motion for the shoulder and back, I started using an arm sling. That was when I wasn’t still going to other practices and playing the piano. I made it through the practice schedule and the performances. I had to lean back in a chair while I played, to support my back. When I finally got it looked at, the doctor recommended physical therapy. The first sessions were in a room where every other patient had to have been at least 75 or 80. No exaggeration. They looked extremely frail and old, barely able to stand. I felt pretty pathetic. I was a young adult but at that moment, I was just as frail and hobbled as an inactive senior citizen. Not good.
I did the exercise band rehab moves for a few weeks on my own, along with some stretches. But I felt like I wasn’t making much progress. I also wanted to not be so pathetic with my physical fitness. So that’s when I got into strength training for the first time as an adult. (Not bodybuilding, though.) I made decent progress and finally regained decent muscle tone. After a year or two, I became more sporadic with the strength workouts, starting up for a few months each year before tailing off. I do remember that I still had almost zero aerobic endurance. When I would do squats at a fitness center, I would get so out of breath that it would take me 5 or 10 minutes to catch my breath after just one set. (A couple years later, when I started swimming for the first time as an adult, a single lap of breaststroke at a 25-yd. pool wiped me out for 10 minutes too! Sad.)
When I started running and training for triathlons in 2008, I was in another phase where I hadn’t done much strength training for a while. That’s why my legs were not toughened up enough for running when I ramped up the miles too quickly. The result was a runner’s knee injury.
***
The good news is that after a few years of steady and consistent aerobic training (swim, bike, run) and functional strength training, my physical age is better than at any other point in my adult life. I even have better aerobic endurance now than when I was in grade school, and we used to play running games almost every day back then. I’m also in the best strength shape of my entire life. Not that I’m a hulking bodybuilder or anything, but I have solid core strength and I no longer get injured from run workouts, even very tough ones.
While our physical potential peaks in the 20s and maybe into our early 30s, if we didn’t train much in that period, then it’s certainly possible to be in the best shape of our lives after that age. Age-related physical decline is inevitable, but most of what you see among the general population is caused by inactivity and poor diet, not age. I remember reading triathlon coach Joe Friel pointing out that a sedentary person loses something like 7 to 10% of his muscle mass every decade in his 30s, 40s and beyond. But an active adult will lose only a minimal amount of muscle mass in that same phase. Or if that person was previously inactive, he can have more muscle mass as a 40 or 50-yr-old than as a 20-yr-old. This is why it’s important to stay active and also why every adult should include at least some strength training, whether they are athletes or not. While not everyone wants to compete in marathons or triathlons, I think most people would enjoy not experiencing constant back pain and shoulder soreness from everyday activities like carrying grocery bags (or children). Most back pain is caused by weak core muscles, not injury and not age. For those who are a little more hardcore, there are examples like Sister Madonna Buder, who finished the Kona Ironman at the age of 76, and I believe finished a different Ironman at the age of 81. 89-yr-old Bill Bell plans to compete in this year’s Malibu Triathlon (which I believe has sprint and Olympic distances).
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151026329273723&set=a.422099788722.197825.100190598722&type=1&theater
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