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by m463 34 days ago
proprioception degrades with age, strength training is the counter.

(from "younger next year")

2 comments

Rollerblading has solved any issues I have, I cross train with about 30 mins of cycling 3-4 days a week too.

When you start skating older you have to pad up, I combined that with a slackboard and just standing on one leg with my eyes closed.

I went from feeling like an old man to now when I am basically impossible to knock over, my nervous system can catch me before I even realize it, at 15mph, when one foot strikes a rock, walking is now no problem, and sometimes I even sit on the floor without any old man groaning when I stand up.

Also, tall box step ups (like 2ft), which is very tall, no back risk like weighted bar workouts.

You have to pad up and go easy, it's a multi year process to get enough low impact reps up to build joint health, when you're older injuries are a real setback.

Rollerblading is like bouldering for your legs and feet at speed, very fun, with an infinite progression curve that you can train at your own pace.

Why strength training, instead of, say, ultimate frisbee or pickleball?
I'm a big fan of strength training, but think it too often gets suggested as the solution to every problem, when really, we need some mix of strength training, cardio (anything from walking, to martial arts or team sports, whatever you'll actually do), mobility, and balance training. Your cardio/activity, depending on your choice could, account for a lot of this.
The greatest leap is from not doing anything to doing something.

So just any activity will do, as long as you like it enough to do it regularly.

The rest is refinement.

I chose aerial gymnastics because that seems to be a combination of ALL you mentioned.
the book goes into that. Decent book about getting old, and not having to.
Strength training can be done carefully with correct motions. Team sports with unpredictable dynamic movement not so much. Not to say you shouldn't engage in these, at any age, and that they have positive health benefits. They just aren't as safe as strength training for folks at the age where this is all relevant.
Pickleball has a disproportionately high injury rate for people over 40. You'd be far better off taking up the gym or yoga.
Sports are much more likely to result in injury, and as you get old, staying in the game (of life) is more important. It can take a long time to recover, if ever, from an injury as you age. I loved playing soccer, and did so until I was almost 50, but many of my issues, physically speaking, are from soccer. I loved doing it, and it is far more fun than strength training, but too many injuries result.

Strength training and controlled cardio is much better for continuous health.

made me wonder too, found: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4477923/

> Key Points

> - Improvements in joint position sense can be attained via standard strength-training exercises.

> - Performing resistance exercises at consistent intensity rather than varying intensity resulted in better proprioception performance.

Resistance training. A thing even professional frisbee or pickleball player usually still supplement with, as well…

Systemic and muscular vitality is optimized when you get cardio, resistance, and bounding/dynamic movement. Heart, slow twitch, and fast twitch.

I always at least skim every fitness article in the ny times, and there seems to be a consensus that at least for old farts (like me), strength training at some level brings a variety of health benefits.
One can be done in old age, with some care (or bodyweight variant), ultimate frisbee... I can't imagine, unless you mean just frisbee. More like recipe for injured joint.
I play regularly. I'm 64. I've had hamstring pulls, nothing else. One still nags me.

But I'm the oldest one there, and I always cover the slowest person on the other team. I don't do collisions or jousts. I often just kind of hover behind the play on offense because I need to catch my breath.

Now, can I still do that at 80? Probably not. At 90? Almost certainly no. At some point, I'm going to have to hang it up. But today is not that day...

I am convinced that ultimate frisbee and pickleball also work. Another one is running or walking in nature, for example a beach - basically moving through an environment where the ground isn't flat.
Frisbee and pickleball both have the nice property of being a mix of aerobic and anaerobic. They both reward bursts of power in addition to endurance.

Ordinary running doesn't do that, though there is a practice called "fartlek" (literally, speed-play) where you do random bursts of speed. It used to be considered excellent cross training, though I haven't heard the term in a while. (Perhaps because the name is unintentionally hilarious.)