I’m 63, male, and healthy for my age. I do cardio 4 times a week, I walk a lot (probably 20 miles a week) and have a resting heart rate around 60. Under normal circumstances, I feel great most of the time, even though I work a full-time desk job and therefore sit a lot.
But recently I have been working on a home remodeling project, which involves a lot of moving around in ways I am not used to (kneeling, getting up, crouching down, twisting, reaching) until some of my muscles are screaming for relief and rest. Right now I feel like I would never want to tackle this kind of project again; but I don’t want to give up as easily as that. I can’t afford to hire everything done, and anyway I like doing this kind of work.
So I would love to hear your short-term and long-term strategies to keep your body going, relatively comfortably, under physical stress, as your age increases. I’m especially interested in things that you already do that work for you.
Roddy
hey Roddy - I recently read “Younger Next Year” which is about this very thing. according to the authors (one’s a doctor and the other his patient) you have to do cardio AND weight training.
it’s a fun book, even so.
my suggestion is treat yourself to a massage and maybe a hot tub.
and one thing that helps me is hanging out with really old people - 90s, for example - so I feel young by comparison. (honest, this helps)
Thanks, I will check out that book. I don’t much like weight training, but I was afraid that was going to turn out to be the thing.
As for your 2nd suggestion, no thanks. Nothing against the super seniors, but my experience along those lines does not lead me to do more of that.
Roddy
I’m in a situation very similar to yours (male, 64, go to the gym 5 days/week on average, keeping active as much as I can) and I have to admit that aggressive denial only goes so far. Your body just isn’t 30 anymore and recovering after beating it up in new and innovative ways is just going to take longer than it used to.
I’m happy as long as I can recover from this sort of abuse faster than the buddies my age I hang around with.
Thanks for the perspective. I am curious, though, whether in your case the likely prospect of aches and pains ever keeps you from doing an activity that you wanted to do? If not yet, do you think it will?
Stupid question, I know; of course it will some day. I guess what I really want is some kind of crystal ball to tell me “No, not this time, you’ll regret it too much afterwards.” But not before I really would regret it too much afterwards, that is, I don’t want to give up on something before I need to.
Roddy
I love to walk rather than ride when I’m playing golf, but I’ve given up doing so on some of the hillier courses we play. That’s about it so far. Beyond that, the prospect of aches and pains mostly keeps me from doing stuff that I didn’t want to do in the first place.
Having said that, however, yes of course this is going to happen. That’s the penalty of living to a ripe old age. My mother lived to the age of 95, and had to give up her beloved house and move into assisted living at the age of 90. My mother-in-law had to do the same at the age of 85. That’s just the way it goes.
I find that chugging a six pack of beer makes me think I can still do all sorts of wonderful things.
Of course, the next day I am immobile, but hot damn - I really did fix that dripping sink (other than the fact I now have no hot water…)
Wish there were an easier way to fight off feeling your age.
My great uncle used to babysit for us and I can still hear him say things like, “I bet you aren’t big enough to go into the fridge and get me a beer…” and off I would scurry to do so, proving him wrong.
Then he would say, “I bet you can’t reach that TV guide over there on top of the cabinet…” and boy would I prove him wrong again when I got it and gave it to him in a matter of seconds.
I used to think my great uncle was stupid, thinking I couldn’t do any of those things.
Now I am starting wonder if there were ulterior motives in play…
Well, my dad’s on a dating site now, as at 73 and single he wants someone to travel around with. It’s keeping him busy, for sure. He’s always been the ‘gentleman’ in any bar, and always had ladies of every age at least laughing and talking with him when they aren’t dragging him out to the dance floor. I can’t decide if he’s bragging or bitching, though, when he talks about keeping up with all the online stuff as being a full-time job. I suspect he’ll get bored with it soon, but it’s sure woke him up a bit, lol. He’s never slowed down. Ever. He’s never been active as in ‘work out’ active, always been a lanky string-bean. But he’s always, always loved and gone hiking, gold-panning, whatever. Golfing until bursitis took that away, same for guitar. And he’s still tearing down boats, cars, houses, whatever, to fix them back up again. Alone, sometimes with the help of his brother, but he thinks nothing of hauling a 500 pound engine out of something and swinging it over to somewhere else with a hoist. Still making furniture, too, though his hands are finally starting to fail him, there. He can rig up a lot of get-arounds to make up for physical weaknesses, but you can’t replace arthritic fingers, unfortunately. I will ask him what his secret is but his answer will surely be either humorous, sarcastic, or negative. Probably all 3, lol. I’d say he’s too stubborn and distracted to notice the time passing, except he’s well aware. By the time he’s telling ME about it, he’s already worried about it a while.
(honest, this helps)
