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Musings Report 2022-32 8-6-22 A Personal Report on Aging
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they're a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
A Personal Report on Aging
The first thing the new athlete learns is to stretch and warm up before practice or competition. Every practice starts with warm-up to prepare the body for strenuous effort.
This stretching and warm-up become even more critical when the athlete is nursing an injury, which is the normal state of affairs when the body is being pushed to its limits and physical contact is the order of the day.
No athlete would get up from the sofa and run 100 meters flat-out. Going from a cold start violates the core fundamentals of warm-up that we've been taught from our first day of practice.
Yet the average person thinks nothing about getting up from the sofa and lifting an ice chest and carrying it to the car, or other activities that aren't deemed strenuous.
From a cold start, every activity is strenuous, though we don't feel this when we're young because we have natural reserves of suppleness and energy to draw upon.
But once we get older, this reserve vanishes and activity from a cold start results in injuries, the ubiquitous aches and pains of old age.
In my experience, aging is like an athlete nursing an injury: it's more important than ever to stretch and warm up before becoming active, and more important to listen to your body and reinforce its natural healing by maintaining flexibility and strength.
This seems self-evident to me, but very few if any of the older people I know stretch and warm-up, even when they're nursing aches and pains.
What I notice is the default response as we age is to seek a pain-killer rather than seek to nurse the injury as an athlete would, avoiding undue stress but working to maintain flexibility and strength and being careful with diet and rest to help the body's natural repair processes.
I began my athletic training at 13 when I joined the basketball team. I am a mediocre athlete but I was blessed to attend small schools where virtually anyone who was willing to show up for practice and make an effort could join a team. By the time I transferred to a super-competitive high school, I was just advanced enough to make the team as a benchwarmer.
I was on a basketball team for five years and on the football team for a season. (As an untalented, undersized lightweight, my football experience was mostly being knocked about by bigger, stronger boys.)
In 1974 bought a small photobook guide to the eight basic movements of Tai Chi. This became my morning warm-up as I worked my way through college in construction.
When I've burned out, the discipline to stretch/warm-up dissipated along with everything else. It takes time and effort to re-establish good habits, and I've struggled to do so the past few years.
In my mid-fifties, I began martial arts training in Kook Sool Won, a Korean mixed-martial art. Since I was taking the daughter of a friend to class after school, the class was a mix of kids of all ages and a few adults.
Our instructor had a rigorous stretching-warm-up routine, followed by strength and endurance exercises. Some version of this is integral to all the martial arts training I've seen.
Before we got to the fun stuff of kicking, punching, grappling and learning how to break attacker's arms, we repeated a vow to only use what we learned defensively and then went through a lengthy warm-up followed by push-ups, running, tumbling, etc., before engaging in any martial arts training.
This experience prompted me to design a second stretching routine which I do before the eight Tai Chi movements. I also added isometric strengthening exercises to the routine.
I'm now 68 years old. This sounds ancient but there are many people in the neighborhood who are approaching 100 years of age. There are two World War II veterans who are 98 or 99, another gent who is 98 and a woman who is 99. Most take daily walks.
(We're taking care of my 91-year old Mom-in-Law here at home.)
Those of you who know about The Blue Zones--places where people routinely live long, healthy lives--will not be surprised that these people are Asian-Americans who grew up eating a Blue-Zone diet of real food, mostly plant-based, with more fish than red meat, and living in tight-knit communities where being active and having purpose were normal.
I recently reviewed the second edition of The Blue Zones book, and was struck anew by the remarkable health of the people over 90 years of age who remained active in their gardens and community.
This is such a striking contrast to the average elderly American who appears feeble and fragile, complaining of ailments often attributed to genetics rather than lifestyle (high blood pressure, high blood sugar, gout, joint pain, etc.) and debilitating aches and pains.
This is not to discount the many illnesses and sources of chronic pain that come with aging.
But if we think of how an athlete is trained to respond to injury and compare it to the average person's response, we're struck by the average person's belief that they should be able to get up and start activity without having to do any stretching or warm-up, and they shouldn't have to listen to their bodies and nurse the usual aches and pains with some sort of disciplined effort.
Pain and injury are part and parcel of being an athlete. This is true regardless of talent. Rest, diet and fitness are all key to healing, as is the awareness that the "cure" is often to become stronger.
I'm prone to bouts of severe lower back pain, usually from sitting too much, stress and inactivity. The "cure" that works for me is strengthening my core so my muscles are strong enough to keep my back in good shape. In my experience, stretching before any activity makes a big difference.
What I've learned is that we have to re-train ourselves as we age to adjust our routines to the realities of aging.
This doesn't mean doing less to stay flexible and fit, it means doing more.
American culture glorifies extremes, including extreme sports, and the superficialities of appearance.
None of these are conducive to maintaining the core of fitness, which is: flexibility, agility, strength and endurance.
Many people focus on strength or endurance but overlook flexibility and agility. For me, the value of Tai Chi, Chi Gung, yoga, etc. is these routines maintain balance, flexibility and agility as well as maintaining strength. In my experience, they are healing when performed with moderation while listening to our bodies.
What I'm trying to explain here is that being an athlete isn't about extremes, it's about learning how to self-heal because injury and healing are, along with training, the core experiences of athletics.
One of our friends was a well-known Chinese acrobat and instructor. Many of his students went on to work in the Cirque De Soleil.
He was already an old man when we knew him. Those of you who have seen Chinese films about the rigors of martial arts, acrobatics and Chinese Opera training know how extreme the training was in the old days.
When I shared my desire to increase my fitness, he explained that the process was to push oneself to a point but not beyond; in other words, don't injure yourself. The point isn't to feel pain, it's to learn about our bodies' limits and work our way slowly to higher levels of flexibility, agility, strength and endurance.
What's the point to all this? The point is to be as pain-free and active as possible as we age by stretching, warm-ups and maintaining our core fitness, along with a healthy diet, plenty of rest, a purposeful life and strong connections to others.
My goal is to re-train myself as I age to be able to keep doing everything I like doing, from shooting baskets to working in my yard to swimming and walking.
I've been injured a number of times in the course of my life, including several instances that could have proven fatal (falling off roofs and ladders, safety lines broke, etc.). I've had close calls on motorcycles and equipment (small tractor). I've witnessed others cut themselves with power saws and hurt themselves lifting heavy beams. I've carried stupid amounts of construction materials, often uphill because there was no way for a forklift to reach the construction site. I know what pain is. I've been lucky.
Despite my lack of athletic talent, I think my athletic and martial arts experience has helped me deal productively with pain and healing.
Regardless of your views of him as a person, quarterback Tom Brady's routine of re-training as he ages is instructive. I'm reprinting some key paragraphs of this article that I found insightful.
I suspect basketball superstar Steph Curry maintains a similar routine to stay in the top ranks of a sport that favors the young.
With 'pathological' approach to his craft, Tom Brady remains elite entering NFC championship
"We have ways to chart it. They're called windows of trainability. Your first window is neurological. Your second window is muscle. Your third window is skill acquisition. And your fourth window is skill retention. When these aging athletes get into that fourth stage, they literally go back and retrain their bodies like they were 8 or 9 years old again.
So as they get a little older, they’ve got plenty of strength. They’ve got flexibility and mobility. But what happens is their nervous system starts to slow down a bit. So you work on speed in movement rather than strength in movement."
"If you follow the right process, there's no reason you can’t do at 45 what you were doing at 25. But you have to pay the price. To have longevity, you have to have a commitment to excellence.
And that’s the last thing I’ll say about these guys that are superstars, Hall of Famers. Their commitment to getting better, to excellence, is pathological. Now, they still have fun doing it, but every day they try to get better at something."
In the TB12 Method, Brady practices clean eating and unique strength training programs that focus on muscle pliability rather than bulk. The training with House focuses on executing pristine fundamentals along with the 'speed in movement' aspect that House referenced.
"The idea is quick feet equals quick release and you never want to be out of balance. You want to make sure that even when you’re being chased by four tons of human beings that are trying to tear your head off, you want to make sure that you get your target line and make sure you’re throwing the receiver open. Get your body into position, throw the ball to the right place at the right moment."
But much of Brady’s ability to maintain top physical form and effectiveness stems from his mindset and the way he embraces going through the process and learning from it as much as he does winning.
I now understand why people retire from demanding fulltime work around 65 or 70. I understand why people do less. Everything takes more effort. I'm more tired and often flat-out exhausted.
I also understand many people have health issues that cannot be resolved with diet, rest and fitness.
There are no miracle cures to aging. But our bodies are designed via natural selection to be active and self-healing. How else can we explain the Blue Zone elderly's active lifestyles far into advanced age?
It's evident that we pay a steep price for inactivity. "Moderation in all things" is a useful guideline.
Please note this is not medical advice. This is my experience and my observations only.
Highlights of the Blog
Rather Than Focus on What You Don't Control ("The News"), Focus on What You Do Control: What You Grow, Eat and Own 8/5/22
China at the Crossroads 8/3/22
Can We "Export Inflation?" Yes We Can, Yes We Are 8/1/22
Podcasts:
Save Money On Food, Get Free Gold & Silver, Beat Price Inflation (1:08 hrs)
It's Time To End The Fed & Return To A Decentralized Currency (X22 Report, 38 min)
On Inequalities And The Distortions Caused By Central Bank Policies (FRA Roundtable, 30 min)
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
I got to enthuse about one of my favorite topics, gardening / growing food, in a podcast with Paul of the Silver Doctors, who shares my enthusiasm.
Here's a small taro patch I replanted six weeks ago and the growth to date.
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
The Great Attrition is making hiring harder. Are you searching the right talent pools? (mckinsey.com)
Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide--investment-wise...
There's Gonna be a War in Montana: An analysis of visible propaganda in Bozeman, Big Sky, and Three Forks (via Tom D.)
He Built a Home to Survive a Civil War. Tragedy Found Him Anyway.
10 Free Websites That Are So Valuable They Feel Illegal To Know
10 insanely useful free websites you needed but didn't know existed
The End of Liberalism and the rise of Network States?
China’s Economy Tested by Strained City Finances: Land sales, which make up about 40% of local government revenues in China, have dried up.
A Town’s Housing Crisis Exposes a 'House of Cards': In the Idaho resort area of Sun Valley, there are so few housing options that many workers are resorting to garages, campers and tents.
What Orwell Believed (15 min, via Patrick S.)
"Dying is easy. Living is a pain in the butt. It's like an athletic event. You've got to train for it. You've got to eat right. You've got to exercise. Your health account, your bank account, they're the same thing. The more you put in, the more you can take out. Exercise is king and nutrition is queen: together, you have a kingdom." Jack LaLanne
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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