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Weekend exercise warriors

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Fit in my 40s
Fit in my 40s: sedentary day job + stupid attitude = weekend warrior injuries


I’m struggling to bounce back from my first ever sporting injury – and learning that I’m not alone





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Zoe Williams


@zoesqwilliams
Saturday 4 November 2017 07.00 GMT

It’s the first sporting injury of my life, sustained while I was training for a longer out-of-town cycle with BellaVelo. Another cyclist wearing tracksuit bottoms (this is relevant) undertook me, and his pocket hooked on to my drop handlebars. I didn’t realise – I just thought, well that’s bad luck, to lose control of your steering at the exact same time as the guy in front pulls his trousers down – and wham, the next thing I knew, my shoulder hit the pavement. The thing after that, I had one useless arm.

Guardian Weekend Live

A week later, I couldn’t lift a pint. I want to say something bolstering about recovery in your 40s, something that makes the human body sound mysterious and adaptive, but the phrase I’m looking for is “not as good”. Everything that goes wrong is wronger, and righting it is slower. “Around your late 30s, you’ve peaked, and recovery will get slower,” osteopath Hashim Saifuddinexplains. “Your heart and lung capacity are decreasing, very slowly, which reduces your output.” Plus your inter-vertebral discs don’t rehydrate so well, so all the shock they would have absorbed goes into your bones instead.


The sports injury specialist Paul Argent is a bit more brutal. “Past 28, we’re in a battle. People always think, if you smash yourself, you’ll adapt; the harder you go, the better the outcome. That is not the case. The harder you go, the worse the outcome. It’s not sexy, but it’s the truth.”

They’re called “weekend warrior injuries”. You don’t need a bike – all you need is a sedentary day job and a stupid attitude. The injuries Rachael, a physio, sees are from cross fit, running and rowing, but it’s not the activity so much as the intensity. “Injuries in this age group are all about people training too quickly, doing things their bodies aren’t ready for.”

Fit in my 40s: ‘Give up this fitness tracker? I’ll die first’

People think training for a marathon means doing something that’s a bit like a marathon, but Paul says, “that’s like, instead of working on a car to get it ready for a race, you’re just driving it”. You have to build your strength, and that is a slower and deeper job than just pushing yourself. And warm-ups are of limited use. “Sitting at a computer, that’s a very cold state,” Hashim says. “High-intensity exercise is a very hot state. A warm-up isn’t really going to take you from one place to another.” You have to consider the contrast between your regular day and your exercise, and not make it too great.


Surely people who do too much are healthier than people who do nothing? “Yes and no,” Hashim says. “People who do nothing will have cardiovascular problems. People who do too much will have muscular-skeletal problems. But internally, their bodily systems will be healthier.” But what does “healthy” mean? According to Paul, “it’s being able to do what you need to do painlessly, sleep well and feel good when you wake up.”

This week I learned
Six weeks is the catch-all healing time for muscle tears and sprains and suchlike. But there’s no guarantee you’ll actually be better then.

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This is why I've made a very conscious decision to keep walking - and not move onto running. I had rubbish knees when I was a teenager - they are far less trouble these days (I'm 46) and I don't want to damage them again. I've seen too many friends who are runners get an injury - and then they can't do anything for weeks on end - some have needed an op and more recovery time after that. I'd rather just keep going every day.
 
I was asked through the week if I am a all or nothing kind of person.
I guess I am.
Still frustrated with immobility, always will be.
 
ickihun said:
I was asked through the week if I am a all or nothing kind of person.
I guess I am.
Still frustrated with immobility, always will be.
Click to expand...

The frustration remains but it does get easier to accept as time goes on. One of the things I most miss is just being able to put my coat on and leave the house at a moments notice. That choice has been taken away and when choices are curtailed that really does impact on quality of life. Hope your condition/s ease, fingers crossed.
 
I get told all the time that back problems can just fix themselves. After nearly 3yrs of it, my patience is running out.
And I've lost 4stones but only a tiny help. I'm lighter now than when child bearing and before I started on insulin.
Weight loss doesn't seem to be the whole solution.

Nor heavy unprepared exercise eh?
 
I have a great friend who is exactly 5 years younger than me.
We joke about our various aches and pains working to a schedule - and his schedule is 5 yrs behind mine.

When i was a kid, post exercise muscle 'stiffness' turned up after around 20 hours, and stayed for about a day.
Now i get pain the same day, worse over days 2-3 and then it starts to ease.
Tendons take 2-3 months now.

It is all rather tiresome.
I see young people zipping about with disturbing enthusiasm, injuring themselves with a belief in their own indestructability (runner's knees, tennis elbows, pushing through the pain, ignoring back twinges, training before adequate recovery...) and i flinch. Been there, done that. And now all those injuries have come back to haunt me. Permanently. I can trace my calf twinges to that terrible pulled muscle I had in my 20s, and my shoulder to the competitive swimming in my teens, and my back to the lifting I did during my first ever Saturday job.

Sorry if that is depressing, but don't worry - if someone had warned me all those years ago, i would have ignored them too. we all think we are immortal when we are young.
 
Not depressing but this thread may help someone. You never know.
We can let them make their own minds up.

Many told me jogging not right exercise for my weight but swimming just relaxed my spine so much it went bang, I feel.
I don't think swimming helped my core, for sure.
I used to do a lot of stretching in the pool but temperature was too cold, still is, for me.
 
It is not only excercise, though. I tore my rotator cuff ligament just by reaching behind me to get something. As we age our bodies just can't compensate like they used to. I beleive athletes such as tennis players and golfers suffer rotator cuff injuries all the time but because they are usually fit and young they recover quickly. An injury of the same like after the age of fifty is said to never heal. Sigh...

Arn't we a cheery bunch this morning?
 
I had my inaugural ride on a new bike yesterday, and yes, had much cause, and pause, on said new bike, to ponder the differences of moi age 20 something and moi aged 50 something, and riding. (Not a weekend warrior, but physical exertion using a large amount of muscles not usually used nonetheless.) Remembering the big hills I used to bike up, and shaking my head at the fact I had to get off and push the bike the last not-very-steep incline .

But, saying that. I have gone on walks with very un-diabetic friends of similar middle-age who do not 'have to exercise' the way I do to try and offset the hyperglycemia and too-early death etc etc, and they came off very poorly in comparison indeed. (My poor friends! I was shocked!) So if we are doing that 150 minutes minimum a week (the 'about 30 minutes of activity 5 times a week'probably random recommendation), we probably still clock up quite well comparatively speaking, to peers who are not doing so.

The bike ride did humble me though, for sure. Never a bad thing. And yes, muse on lost youth and physical ability.

But getting back on the saddle today - onwards and upwards! No time for feeling sorry for ourselves! (Accompanied by much panting and post HIIT deep breaths.)
 
Just got a free fitbit with new phone in black friday half price deal.
Walking it is.
 
ickihun said:
Just got a free fitbit with new phone in black friday half price deal.
Walking it is.
Click to expand...
Introduced slowly, of course?
Then build up gradually. Those fitbit things are addictive you know. Mine increaes target for steps every time I meet a target. Sort of like my old boss. Never a 'well done, relax now' always 'work harder, do more'!
 
Pipp said:
Introduced slowly, of course?
Then build up gradually. Those fitbit things are addictive you know. Mine increaes target for steps every time I meet a target. Sort of like my old boss. Never a 'well done, relax now' always 'work harder, do more'!
Click to expand...
Oh no! Slave driver attached to my wrist.

Physio saying do stretches to reduce numbness and dietician saying get running machine out!

I might have to wrap it up for a xmas or birthday present?
 
I have to say though, this is where what build you have comes in. I had a problem the first bike ride on new bike (see above). But the next ride, and the ones after, were not a problem and did not get off my bike till the garage at home. I have a muscular build and muscle can build quickly (in such) - so it only took that one time back on the bike again (just saying @Pipp - that not everyone has to build up slowly - it's all about the build).

Seeing @ickihun also had PCOS, like I did (past tense as I am post menopausal now, so no eggs or cysts popping out in insulin resistance environment) - means more free-ranging testosterone? Great for quick muscle building. Might not need a slow build up. Good for weekend warriors (or diabetes warriors, or Xena like creatures hohoho), to bear in mind?
 

Perhaps I ought to have made it clear that my mention of building up slowly was specific reference to @ickihun's situation of back pain and walking or step counting with a fitbit device.
I am not sure rushing into exercise is good for anyone who has been sedentary for some time. Especially those who have a lot of weight to lose, and are of a certain age. (Which was the focus of the article in the original post).

Brilliant that you have found cycling is your thing, @AloeSvea . I quite envy you, as due to my own disabling health conditions, that is never going to be an option for me anymore, and I used to love it so. Though I do believe we can all find some way of exercising, have done so myself from wheelchair in the past. We need to find what suits us. Mine is water based exercise. Always with a slow warm up, followed by some fast cardio work, then a gentle cool down.

I would be cautious about too much to soon, and cringe when I see or hear of previously unfit sedentary middle aged people rushing into HIIT as a solution. I think of broadcaster Andrew Marr, and what happened to him.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cel...-Marrs-stroke-caused-by-intense-exercise.html
 

All good points of course Pipp! . Absolutely right and I see what you mean about rushing into HIIT. Not a good idea indeed for those previously sedentary etc folk.

I just meant that for some folk, re the warrior bit, muscle use and build up is relatively easy. Hey! With my body type I suffer hugely, and I mean suffer, and HUGELY, lol, doing both intermittent fasting, and fasting, and VLCDs aka the ND. I suffer so much I even had a very nice regular poster in here tell me maybe I shouldn't IF for health purposes as I clearly suffer so much. So I am one of many of us folks with a certain hormonal balance or level, in my case, and in ickihun's case perhaps, those women who get PCOS have more testosterone, and are often athletic body types, so therefore eat heartily perhaps and exercise comes easily. Warrior women! (As semi-starving and intermittently going hungry is easy for some, like I think it is for you Pipp? If my memory serves me correctly. Not so for me with my amounts of ghrelin - the hunger hormone I think, which I think is what it boils down to? In individual differences - it's all about hormones in metabolism isn't it?)

I don't love cycling - it is not "my thing"! I cycle to get my 'exercise' dose in the 'diet and exercise' bit, and to get from point A to point B and back again . I figure it is time effective to kill two birds with one stone. Or one bicycle. I only care about the exercise because of the big risk of strokes and CVDs I have with diabetes, and as it gets excess glucose into my muscles. I don't do it cos I love it. (I actually love eating though!)

Very short bursts of running, HIIT wise is actually something I enjoyed, but as a post menopausal woman whose had a couple of kids back in the day I don't think it wise to put pressure like that on my poor old beleaguered bladder. It is a risk at any rate, apparently, so a wonderful physiotherapist said to me at a clinic. What a sad day that was. I think what I liked about the HIIT running was how incredibly SHORT it was! And a hoot while doing it.

Walking is lovely and gentle, but it gets boring going on the same terrain, I find. Hence me getting a bike - just to get the exercise dose over and done with quickly! Not for love, no. Warrior woman or nae. .
 
Considering how much exercise helps diabetes and bgs I'm having to accept my bad back may actually may have saved my life or immobility permenantly.
I understand bulging discs can be operated on if severe and disabiling longterm. I think thou I'd wait for the new technique to be readily available, which is using electrical waves to jigger disc back into place. Its a far cheaper and a 10min procedure.
Thank you all for helping me ..... and hopefully others 'see the light'.

Moderation is the only key for me, currently. I must resist forgetting I'm nearly 50yrs old once my back is fixed and slowly slowly catch the monkey.
If I do get my running machine up and running again I will be only able to walk a short time on it. Maybe a blessing, in disguise??
 
@AloeSvea

Muscle building is one thing - which may or may not come easily, depending on diet, type of exercise, genetic disposition and inclination. But joint, tendon, muscle balance and so on all need to be considered.

No point running for heart health and endurance, if you are destroying your knees.

No point doing HIIT if you are damaging back or shoulders in the process.

My partner was a keen bodybuilder in his 20s. The lasting legacy of that is a frozen shoulder that has niggled for 15 years, wrist and hand pain (from the free weights) and knees that will never be the same again. His muscles are great. It is just everything else that got damaged.

I fully support people in exercising. I just think that weekend warrioring is a bad way to do it.
 
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