I’m half joking. But as a 30-something who used to be very active, I recognize I’m over the hill and my joints sound like pop rocks
As a 54 year old who has just had two weeks of agony because he forgot his age and tried to deadlift a 225kg motorbike by himself, I’m going to skip this one because I clearly haven’t learned anything.
Mustn’t’ve groaned enough.
I’m 62 and had to be advised to get a few fit young people to assist with moving a piano.
A for effort though
Nothing. It takes like five times longer for bruises and cuts to heal, but it’s not bad enough for me to change my behavior to avoid them.
Make sure your iron levels are ok, my wife has this issue and had super low iron after pregnancy, but she’s in her late 40s now and still dealing with it.
Good advice I can use! I’ll switch to a multivitamin that includes iron and see if that helps.
I’ve had to come to terms with taking things slower than I used to. I learned the hard way that I can’t just train for a 10k in a few weekends.
The rule of increasing distance/duration by 10% per week is to protect our joints/bones/etc when they ain’t what they used to be.
I was in a terrible youtube rabbithole of knee replacement surgeries the other day and I’ve been hating our fragile corporeal vessels lately
Ah, yes. The Scared Straight, Couch Potato Edition. A classic at my house.
I find a variety of activities help distribute the loads
I often push my older body when it’s not used to work. This means I pull a muscle once every few weeks, often in my upper body; or demand too much in my knees.
Fortunately I can heal in a week or two, but I definitely am slow to heal compared to before.
Spoiler alert, it doesn’t get any better. I need to do more yoga and cross training
I’m still trying to reach my potential two hours of workout daily, only doing one hour of things that makes me sweat.
I have alarms on my phone set every three hours to remind me to stop and do something
The alarm is a great idea. I should do that. Even just sitting for long periods hurts now!
Sometimes I only walk around, other times I do more like run
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I road bike, try to do yoga regularly, and incorporate strength training when I have time (never). Don’t try to ramp up too fast with activity because not getting injured is the biggest priority. The more mindful activity you do, you’ll become more resilient and less likely to get injured.
Trying to eat healthy (really just avoiding ultra processed foods and not drinking too much) also helps. I normally check to see where stuff falls on the NOVA scale. If it’s higher than a 3, I try to avoid it all together.
as someone over forty: Have a hearty FUCK YOU, and buckle up snowflake.
As someone over 60: you ain’t seen nothing yet.
there aint no way gramps
Not gramps yet. My kid is just 16.
Healthy Hobbies instead of Gym - stuff that’s actually fun for me instead of just a chore
In my case, Sport Climbing and Yoga
Go for a walk (outside) every day. I used to try different posture exercises, running, sprinting interval training, but as you get older, nothing is healthier and easier on your body than just daily walks.
We kinda are walking machines anyway:
Bonus points for mental health if you walk in nature, without any headphones or entertainments.
Also do strength training (you can get hand barbells very cheap if you don’t have a gym close by), starting very light at first, and working up to whatever feels comfortable.
My 94yo friend is still going strong. His advice is to keep moving. Even just going for a short walk does more than you realise.
Look after your eyes, ears, and back, and always wear the recommended protective gear. People who say you look stupid using the correct technique or wearing protective gear will either die first, or regret their decision after it’s too late to do anything about it.
Most of all, learn from other peoples mistakes. You don’t have enough time or luck to make them all yourself.
Cycling is great. Not hard impact. Can really push yourself if you want to. Cardio and strength training. You get to be outside feeling the wind against your face. And you can cover a lot more distance than walking or running so you can make a trip out of it.
I was ignoring bicycles for the most of my life, and only recently re-discovered them for myself.
Even a daily ride to the train station feels good
- Evening random trips are priceless for body and soul.
I totally agree!
And don’t feel bad for getting an e-bike. Riding that is still a good workout if you get into the habit of going fast. E-bikes usually have a hard speed cutoff (25 km/h by law where I live); if you want to go faster it’s all you and the motor is just there to give you better acceleration and take the pain out of things like hills or opposing wind.
If you don’t want to go fast, the bike still expects you to put in a certain amount of work. Low-intensity training is still training. Most crucially, getting that bit of assistance might get you to use the bike when you otherwise wouldn’t, turning no exercise into some exercise.
People underestimate the benefits of light exercise. Even brisk walks or relatively leisurely motor-assisted bike rides can absolutely be beneficial if done regularly.
Any recommendations for an affordable e-bike? Cost can be a limiting a factor as well.
Not really; mine was eventually too expensive and I only got that model because a) I could get it for cheaper through a leasing arrangement and b) I don’t need to pay for a car.
I must admit, though, that having a belt drive is extremely nice and worth the money. 10/10, top tier bike component.
For sure. I know some places have incentives to buy an e-bike for certain income levels.
ITT: One half providing helpful insight into healthy physical activities, the other half total assholes ripping into this person for not being a jock.
Some people have been living sedantary life styles, the reasons for such can range from lack of interest to mental illness. Some people get a good dopamine hit from exercise. For others, exercise is a pretty miserable experience.
If someone is reaching out to seek advice on how to improve their lives, lend a helping hand. Please don’t be an asshole.
Strength exercise keeps your joints working well long-term
As a Lemming, I walk over cliffs.
Rowing and swimming (in a pool, not because the boat capsized). Both are non weight bearing, easy on the joints. Rowing is excellent for your core.
I cannot stress to people how much rowing is actually enjoyable as someone who doesn’t want to “make time” for working out. It’s so relaxing.
Dance dance revolution and weight training
DDR, Stepmania X, and Pump It Up are awesome and I very highly recommend! If you don’t have easy access to an arcade near you, you can download Stepmania and play on the PC. If you don’t have a pad to hook up to the PC, you can turn on Autoplay and just pretend that there’s a pad under you. You can also just pretend there’s a pad under you while you watch a youtube video (or whatever other platform if they’re there).
Highly agree, I play all of those games and they’re all quite fun. I have stepmaniax pads setup for home play with stepmania/outfox/itgmamia.
That is a dream for me. Thowe pads are the best from what I hear, but they’re so expensive! I haven’t tried itgmania, just mainly stepmania. Tried outfox a long time ago, though it might be different now and I should probably give that another shot.
Do you have any customization on your StepManiaX pads? You can do stuff with the patterns it shows when pressing a panel, yeah?
Oh absolutely true about smx pads being expensive. I got mine both 2nd hand from fb marketplace at a bit of a discount.
Outfox just released a new major update that fixes a lot of things but I would say they still have a good amount of work to do. They’re trying really hard to modernize stepmania and so far they have some impressive results. For me I like that they support much higher frame rates than stepmania which pairs well with my 144hz monitor.
For my smx pads I did make custom arrows that change when pressed. I didn’t do any of the fancy gif ones but they’re not hard to make/use. They have software that you can use to edit the pad’s LEDs and the underglow.
Probably the best feature of the smx pads is being able to set custom ranges for sensor sensitivity. I can basically control the definition of an arrow press which is pretty handy
