So, I’m fifty, and my wife was doing knee bends and lunges…so of course being the ex-athlete I am, I jump in with bravado and after about five lunges or knee bends, my thigh muscles start to hurt.
except it’s not a ‘burn hurt’, it’s a ‘man these hurt. These are hurting more and more. I don’t think I can do anymore cause these hurt.’
And now a couple of days later both thighs are sore to the touch all along the muscles if you press fairly hard. Also, a knee bend? When I stand up and even just start to think about doing one, my brain says, “Nope. I checked, you CANNOT do a knee bend right now. It hurts all over both thighs to try.”
TL;DR…when you get old, do your muscles tear like wet paper towels? Little tears in several places as opposed to a normal sports injury?
Yes. I’m 60 YO and have learnt to not jump into anything too quickly. You need to work into things a bit more slowly. I can do about anything now that I did when I was 30; however, it takes twice as long to do plus at least twice as long to recover.
Last year I rode my bicycle about 4,000 miles. I hadn’t ridden since mid-December until I did 84 miles over the course of the last 3 days. My legs hurt. That was with only a month-long layoff! By mid-summer I should be able to do 86 or more miles in one day and not hurt this much the next day.
I’ll be 61 tomorrow. I agree with JerrySTL and would add that warmups become more crucial the older I get. I think most of the pain you experienced was probably the result of exercising cold, unprepared, and old (sorry!) muscles.
Another unfortunate fact of life: you will heal slower as you age. A few years ago I hurt my thumb in a fall. The joint where it joins the wrist was very painful. After about a week of no improvement, I figured I must have broken something in there and went to an urgent care clinic to get it checked out. The doctor looked at my xray and told me that there was nothing he could do, to just give it time. I was getting a “why are you here wasting my time” vibe from him, so I explained my concern about there having been no change in the pain for over a week. He said “You are 58 years old, Mr. Crotalus.” Thanks, Doc. :o
And yes, age-related sarcopenia is a bitch. You heal slower, you recover slower, and you can’t train hard enough to maintain the muscle mass you had at 25.
“Eat right, avoid stress, exercise regularly, die anyway.”
I think it’s what you’re used to, and how you prepare to exercise. I’m 52 and I work a physically active job that involves a lot of lifting, so doing a knee bend is no problem because I do them all the time at work.
Also, if you’re going to work out, you should be stretching beforehand to loosen up your muscles and get some blood flowing there. You don’t have to turn yourself into a pretzel, just stretch as smoothly as you can and don’t try to go to far into the motions. If you feel pulling or pain, don’t stretch any further. Gradually you’ll get more flexible, but don’t do more than your muscles tell you you’re ready for.
If you don’t get better and you really feel that this is more than “I’m getting old” stuff, see a doctor. It might indeed be something else.
When my mom was in her mid-60s, she started to have some significant pain in one knee. She went to the doctor, and he blew it off as just the aches and pains of aging. She felt that it was more than that, so she went to another doctor. Turns out she had a torn ACL! It wasn’t too bad so she opted not to have surgery, and physical therapy worked well enough. I’m really glad she didn’t just assume it was normal or take that first doctor’s word for it.
Do a light warm-up first, then stretch. Warm muscles are easier to stretch and are more flexible than cold. Less injury prone as well if you push too far.
If you feel pain while stretching, BACK OFF!!!
@Dale Sams: You’re sore, not injured. Injuries are almost always one sided and have a focal point.
I’m 69, and have experienced everything mentioned in this thread. Believe me, it gets to the point where the warm-up is the actual exercise. And squatting? Kneeling? Those have become as impossible as flying. Last winter I fell in the back yard, and could not get up. I had to crawl through snow two feet deep to pull myself up on the A/C unit. And I know better than to take a bath . . . knowing how difficult it is to get into the tub, and virtually impossible to get out. My muscles have atrophied, and to strengthen them would be hours of torture every day.
Later this year I’ll be turning 70. I hope I’ll continue to have things to celebrate, and things to look forward to. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Hell, yes. Every time I try exercise, I either injure myself to the point of never being able to do THAT again (shoulder), or very tiny amounts of THAT again (stationary bike), or “remember the distance you started with last time? Work up to half that distance.”
Another response I’ve gotten from a doctor, “What ever made you think you could do yoga?”
After 5 properly taken and slow knee bends? No…I’ve had enough muscle pulls to know the difference.
It’s two days later and I can’t even start to take a knee bend because of pain throughout both thighs. I also pretty much have to use my arms and settle myself in my desk chair.
Not that I’m complaining or crying. not being able to squat properly or sit down in my chair properly are my only real complaints. I suppose I couldn’t run properly if I needed to. I could still ride a bike and can walk.
But the really thing I can think that happened is my wet paper towel analogy. Lots of little tears instead of a catastrophic one you might see at a younger age. Just all IMHO.
i’ve had the feeling you describe. it does feel like you shredded your muscles. it took about a week before i could move up and down somewhat comfortably. ( i did considerably more that what you did, and expected to be sore for a bit, but not a week!)
What concerns me is the experiences of a couple of (younger) peers.
One tore his achilles tendon during a pick-up football game (accelerating). I thought, “Okay, he wasn’t properly warmed up.”
A second was testing in martial arts. He was way warmed up and in the middle of his routine. He tore his achilles while placing his foot on the florr after a kick.
So I figure, I must be at risk for this, but I also feel that cutting back on activity will just make things worse down the road.
The real answer, I think, is proper warm-up and stretching, as mentioned upthread, then trusting to luck.
Any of you (fellow) old farts taking statins to lower cholesterol? That can predispose a person to more muscle tissue inflammation and pain after exercise.
By the way, another stupid symptom of being old: Remember when you were a kid and you could play outside in 100 degree weather for hours? Or have barehanded snowball fights? And you’d say, “heatstroke? Frostbite? What’s that?”
My hands go numb now just from wiping the snow off my windshield. I’m not going to test my susceptibility to heatstroke.
I’m not an old fart, but I’m fast-approaching middle-age, and yeah, I’ve definitely lost half a step, both in innate power, recovery, and susceptibility to injury.
Way, way TMI: I pulled a shoulder muscle masturbating in the shower this morning. =(
I used to have lightning fast reflexes. If I dropped something, I could always catch it midair. Now I find my hands closing in just above the object. My nerves think my body is 15 years younger.