"Last year, I had to give up running. It was, as my sports medicine doctor counseled, time. Since I was a teen, it had been my primary form of exercise and stress relief. But for months, I had been ignoring small signs of encroaching decrepitude: the popping and grinding in my right knee and hip joints whenever I stood up, bent down or took the stairs. The medical term for this is crepitus,"
"I had imbibed the common positive ageing message: 50 is the new 30. Yet as far as the cells that make up my knee and hip tendons and cartilage are concerned, 50 is still very much 50. So much for the popular idea that our overall biological age can be far younger than our chronological age. For decades, I had done everything experts recommend eat well, sleep well, exercise and yet my doctor was still telling me it was time to adapt to my changing body."
"For instance, a 2020 study found that nearly 91% of people showing up to the emergency room with injuries related to playing pickleball were over 50. Many people approach their physical fitness as if they were a decade or two younger. My GP told me that patients over 50 are often frustrated by any suggestion that their routines might have to change. I started to see this denial of physical realities everywhere."
A runner in their fifties stopped running after progressive joint crepitus and medical advice to adapt activities. Lifelong healthy habits did not prevent age-related tendon and cartilage degeneration. Many people in their late 40s and 50s reject changing routines, believing chronological age does not constrain exercise choices. High participation in new trendy sports leads to increased injuries among over-50s, evidenced by a study showing nearly 91% of pickleball ER patients were over 50. Examples include recurrent CrossFit shoulder injuries and a long-term yogi fracturing a chin in crow pose, with resistance to modifying routines.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]