Today is one of those days I feel mentally ready for a big workout. My mind is in a good place. I feel motivated, eager, wanting to get after it.
But physically…
After several days of challenging, intense workouts (including starting the week with several hours of shoveling), my body is beat up. I have soreness in my legs from sprints, soreness in my shoulders and upper body from lots of pullups, bench presses, and other work.
I have to tell myself to take it easy today. That makes me feel old. And I definitely do not like that.
These judgement calls are always difficult. There’s massive self-doubt. I ask myself, “Am I just being a wuss? Is this taking the easy way out today?”
There were times in the past when I would just push through and seemed to get better for it.
But that was many years ago.
I cringe when people say “It’s just a part of getting old. You can’t do stuff anymore.” That seems like an easy way out. A comfortable death.
And I’ve always maintained that it’s wrong. That how we view aging in our society is a modern manifestation of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. That we see everyone else around us stop moving when they hit a certain age (usually 30s; definitely 40s), and then descend into a poor physical state we chaulk up to old age, and because that’s all we see, we assume that’s reality.
I don’t believe that. And I think an open-minded look at the evidence – from studies on hunter-gatherer societies to an examination of people who continue moving throughout their lives – rejects that notion of aging and losing physical ability by middle age.
But aging does in fact present certain realities. And days like today I feel confronted by them.
In the last few years, it has become clear I need to give my body more time to recover than I needed to years ago. I am getting older, whether I want to admit it or not, and the truth is it becomes progressively harder to recover from strenuous activity. So I need to listen to my body today, and give it the time and space to recover, regardless of how motivated my mind feels.
However, this by no means is a sign that a person needs to stop doing activities as they age just because they need time to recover. And this is where so many people get it wrong. As I said, they see people stop around them, so they stop. But also, physical activity is hard. That lizard brain in our head seeks the easy, comfortable path, even when we’re not aware of it. That’s what makes the “getting old” excuse so appealing. The fact is, so often when we’re faced with physical activity, we’d much rather sit on the couch. The “getting old and need to stop” excuse is a hall pass. It’s a get-out-of-jail free card that let’s you escape the prospect of physical exertion. And chaulking it up to old age let’s you do it without shame.
But it’s a lie.
Getting older doesn’t mean you need to stop. It just means you can’t be the same brainless idiot you once were. You have to be smart. You have to know when to push, and when to dial it back and recover. That takes exercising judgement and balance just as much as your body.
So today will be a recovery day. That doesn’t mean sitting on the couch eating potato chips. That means a different type of workout: stretching, movement, PT-style exercises, and some foam rolling. And an extra emphasis on getting nutrition right today. All designed to get me ready for more strenuous work coming up.
Getting older doesn’t mean you need to stop moving. It means you need to adjust your strategy. Tweak your game plan. Be more strategic about rest and recovery. Do that, and you’ll be able to maintain physical ability well past the age most people beginning growing roots in their couch.