The fun (and lessons) of Aging

I am sitting here with an ice pack wrapped around my knee as I write this ..... I've had a couple of injuries over the last couple of years. A muscle pull in my hip, a sprained ankle and now a torn meniscus in my knee. None of them have been fun and all have grounded me for a period of time. I've seen many therapists for treatment of all three injuries. Along the way I have also learned quite a bit about injuries and their rehabilitation.

There was an article in The National Post today which was quite interesting and talks about the type of injuries that 'boomers' are likely to experience and why. Read it here.

It confirms what I have been thinking about. I am now looking at my latest injury as a wake-up call. I think my knee problem was caused by muscle imbalances that resulted from a lot of running and not enough strengthening of the opposing muscles - in this case - my quads. In the past I balanced this out - by accident - by doing a lot of cycling and taking spinning classes. The fact that I did a lot of stretching also helped. In the last year, I had not been doing as much gym work and when I did go to the gym, I concentrated on doing upper body muscle groups. And I was doing a lot of running earlier in the year when the injury occurred.

As a result of this wake-up call (and scare) I am going to be more faithful about balancing out my gym workouts. I have found a good physiotherapist with sport specific training and will be getting him to help me balance out my workouts. I know my quads are weak and will be concentrating on this area but still want the advise of the physiotherapist.

Stretching - I am back to stretching every time I go to the gym - which is 7 days a week right now. I've been putting a lot of emphasis on stretching for the last few weeks and I do really notice the difference.

My expectation for retirement and beyond is that I want to keep doing my activities and sports until the end of my life. If I don't get smarter about how I train now, that will not happen. That is my big lesson and take-away from these injuries. I think we all have our weak spots and mine is going to be my physical health. It is definitely worth investing the gym time to maintain muscle health and flexibility.

Comments

[Margaret]

We don't build our muscles the way we should. Some get strong, but others stay weak and at risk. My daughter is a gymnast, and they mostly pull their back muscles like hamstrings, butt, etc... Their front muscles like quads are TOO strong. I need to diversify my workouts; I am just running now, and that's not good.

[susan]

Oh goodness me, I do hope it heals itself quickly to allow you to get back to your very active self. The one thing I've learned from aging is to just go a little bit slower and stop (and pant!) if necessary for a few seconds.