Tuesday 8 July 2014

If You're Young(er)

If you're young(er) and exercising, enjoy it.

No, seriously.  Because I'm not old, but I'm not super young anymore and exercising is trickier.

Things hurt a lot easier.  Get hurt a lot easier.  Take longer to feel better, tweak and twinge at the smallest of provocations.

That time you slammed your foot into the shopping cart two summers ago means you can't run without pain.  Sometimes can't walk without pain, and I know these things happen to young(er) people too but more and more I hear my friends and I recovering from injuries that didn't used to happen.

C-Dawg keeps popping her rib out.  Doesn't know if it's the weeding that did it, or the running, or just sleeping on it weird.

Because, yeah, all of a sudden you can sleep weird and be in pain the next day, next week it's ridiculous.

So if you're younger and you feel stiff and sore but you've got no aches and pains or popped ribs or broken toe fragments or tweaked backs or S.I. injuries, frigging enjoy that.

Trust me, enjoy being able to throw yourself about with abandon.

Oh, and drink more water.

It won't do anything but good.

6 comments:

Jason Langlois said...

I think we carry a personal version of ourselves in our head, one that is our 20-something self. Unfortunately, our older self cannot live up to the 20-something version, so we end up reaching too far, going to hard, or pushing past what our joints can take. And our body goes "WHAT THE HELL" and we end up laying on the couch the next day groaning and wondering what happened.

Hope you don't feel too sore for too long.

Also, when can I come over and take pics of your incredibly clean place, because you've been cleaning it in preparation for company?

Victoria said...

Uh...

Uh...

(slinks off to maybe...possibly consider... dusting or something)

Anonymous said...

Amen!

(Says this 44 year old body!)

Victoria said...

High fives you! ;)

Dominic said...

By the same token, though: Don't resign yourself to pain just because you're getting older.

As we get older, bad habits of movement tend to get ingrained ever-deeper, which can result in ever-more strain on joints that are getting ever-slower at recovering. That's the cause of a lot of aches & pains.

It's not fast or easy, but you can *can* reverse a lot of the damage. I'd suffered from chronic pain from bad posture for over a decade, which got worse after a major car crash. A year after I started working seriously on fixing myself, I can honestly say I'm no longer in any pain.

I still have a long way to go before I have "good" posture, and I still get aches & pains when I mess up. It took a lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of paying attention and a *lot* of studying. But don't just accept "I'm older so I'm in pain" - there *are* still things you can do

Victoria said...

Awesome, inspirational point D! :D