Aging My Way
I think I've done it. After literally years of tinkering and trying different workouts, this week is the first time since I've turned forty that I've managed to work out five days in the same week, and not ended up with aching joints.
My workout of choice had always been weightlifting. I love lifting so much. Change is dramatic, and you get out of it what you put in. There's nothing easy, and you have to push past your notions of what you can do. It's absolutely a mental challenge as well as a physical one, and I reveled in it. But I got to the point where a single upper body session meant three days to recover before I could do it again. Then four. Then a week. I was literally only able to work my upper body once a week due to all the pain in my shoulders.
I turned to yoga and that helped. I faithfully did yoga for a year, and my shoulder pain evaporated to nothing. I also noticed great gains in flexibility and balance, yet I deeply missed lifting. Yoga, while good, wasn't enough.
I tried sprinkling lifting back into the mix, just a day a week. As soon as I did, the day after the pain had returned, centered in the joint. So ... that's it. No more bench-press. No more shoulder press. No more upward rows. All those basic "push" and shoulder-heavy motions were non-starters.
I thought about asking my doc for surgical options, but with a dismal success rate of shoulder repairs, I didn't bother. I kept looking for other solutions. I tried various bodyweight routines and some of those got close to the feeling lifting gave me. In the process of designing a bodyweight routine, I stumbled onto TRX.
TRX leverages body weight to give me a workout that's core-focused, and extremely challenging. Most important? No shoulder pain. So long as I carefully stick to good form, I can actually go, and go HARD, as I had with lifting.
I was still a little gun-shy after multiple injuries that each took months to heal. So I started with twice a week. After a month with no pain, I added another day. After another three months of that, I added one more. I spent half a year at four days a week, and slowly increased the session length to fifty-three minutes a session.
This week I added a fifth session. Today was my fifth and last workout of the week, and I feel great. Tomorrow will tell the real story, but I think I've finally done it.
TRX and Yoga. That's the answer for this 47-year-old. I've got a long way to go, but now that I know the path I'm on is sustainable, I know I'll get there.
Getting older is an adjustment, and I've had to learn to be patient with my changing capacities. But I like where I'm headed now. I know I'll have to adjust again as time goes on, and as my body feels the effects of accumulating years, but I'm confident I can manage it now. Yeah. I can do this.
Anybody out there who is struggling with this sort of thing, I feel for you. Almost everyone can be active in some way, shape or form. It may not take the shape of what you want or expect, but there's something that'll probably work. Start with reasonable goals. Be patient. Be consistent. And if you want help getting started, you can ask me for basic ideas/tips. I have experimented on my own body for literally decades, and I've a good idea of what to do and what will work.
Good luck on your journey, wherever it may lead.
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