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Use them or lose them
Bend them or end them
Your body adapts to the stresses you put on it, folks.
To a degree. It will adapt only so far. If you give it more than it can handle on a regular basis you’re doing more harm than good.
I’m talking consistent effort over years or decades though. Thinking about how your bones are constantly renewing themselves and you have a completely new set every 5-10 years is the kind of consistency I mean. Of course this would be hindered by injury or over use before can adaptations occur. You need to give yourself recovery time no matter the fitness routine or athletic level.
I’m way past 30 now. I’m no gym rat but do go a few times a month. This year is when I noticed that my ability to lift a heavy weight isn’t lack of muscle but instead strain on knees (and other joints). Its such an odd notion that I can feel my muscles extra unused capacity to lift, but I feel the risk of injury to the joint if I were to use that strength. I had never experienced that before this year. Before it was always the limits of my muscles. Not anymore.
Nobody told me this is how it goes when you get old. They say things like “my knees ‘gave out’ when I got old” but didn’t explain what that meant.
It’ll happen to you…
I absolutely love this reference, and I use it all the time. Hell, I’m a walking simpsons encyclopedia.
I’m 40 next year… So far, I’m lucky. I’ve gone from a extremely physically demanding job (hike through back country bush, dig to 120 cm when you get there) to sitting at a desk. Where I used to not even think about the gym, I now find myself in one 5 days a week, just for preventive measures. I’m never gonna be a freakbeast muscle man, but I’ll settle for not having a stroke at 60, like my dad did.
What in the world is the job?
Competetive outland digger
I felt that about many joints when I slacked off on working out for a few months in my 20s. I was still lifting enough to keep my muscles from too much atrophy, but my joints got… lazy? Dynamic motion and heavier weights suddenly felt (as suddenly as me taking exercise more serious again) like my joints were the limiting factor.
and then I overworked my arms and got something like tennis elbow and basically had to rehab myself back to being able to exercise, all without my muscles being the limiting factor!
Take care of your body, folks. You can go over 100% when you’re young, but your body makes you pay when you’re older!
Reminds me of the stories of the people who do crazy stuff on adrenalin rushes, like lift a car off their dying child, and then end up potentially hospitalized or otherwise extremely sore for months. I think I get it now…
I did the same thing recently with my elbow. I lifted in my 20s but I got busy with work and family in my 30s and tried to start lifting again at 39 and managed to injure my forearm/elbow. It’s damn near impossible to do upper body exercises when you can’t grip the bar or dumbell without elbow pain!
It’s been like 6 months and it’s finally starting to feel better. My cardio is pretty damn good though because while I couldn’t lift I threw myself at cardio extra hard.
Can’t let the old creep in! Exercise keeps the old out!
What are you all doing to your knees?
Idk but my knees are doing crack. I can hear them doing it every time I squat down to pick something up
Rad tech here: most people who have this phenomenon have arthritic knees from being fat. Internet disclaimer: I DIDN’T SAY ALL. But a huge number of people get to 30s or 40s and are overweight or have been for a significant part of their life and have worn out their knees at an early age. Then they come to get xrays with “idiopathic” knee pain.
From a technical perspective, what part gets “worn out” when you see the scans? Is it cartilage, ligaments, tendons, or something else?
All of the above plus muscle atrophy that makes stuff like IT band issues feel like knee pain. I’m in phenomenal shape for a 40+ year old and I have to spend a significant amount of gym time doing yoga and correctional lifting instead of body building style lifting.
As other people have said it’s somewhat all of the above, though the biggest and most visible on xray is the narrowing of the joint space from deterioration of the cartilage. This causes arthritis, and also calcification of the joint which is also all worsened with age and varying bone density which can change based on things like ancestry, gender, habits (drug use/smoking) or medical conditions.
Edit: I also forgot to mention that occupation can make a big difference here. Being overweight AND having a job that is strenuous on the knees (construction/manual labor/heavy lifting) is a bad combo which can lead to joint deterioration and premature joint replacement as well.
I’m big into woodworking and routinely stress my joints (it’s all handtools). How bad is this?
Not bending, that’s for sure!
Living on them
Years of wakeboarding. I should’ve known, seeing all the knee braces on the older guys.
At 60 years old I’d get it but at 30? That’s worrisome.
A 20 year old wrote this
A 30 year old who took terrible care of themselves wrote this.
I hope you can see a doctor because that doesn’t sound good at all
Stop making me feel bad.
I spent my 30s feeling like a retiree, but then I bought a bicycle at age 39 and started riding 25-50 miles a day. Now I’m approaching my 60s and I’m in the best shape of my life. Barring catastrophic and permanent injuries, I think the main problem with aging is that being sedentary causes your body to decay and the older you are the more time you’ve had to be sedentary. Get up off your dead asses, people, and don’t tell me you don’t have the time for exercise. You have plenty of time to watch TV and scroll through your phones, turn some of that time into something useful.
And for those wondering, yeah it sucks a first getting into a routine of physical training. Find your drive, keep it up, and eventually you may find you can’t do without it. It gets so much easier after a while.
Good on you dude. I have some friends who sit around all day, gulping down 40oz sodas, wondering why they puff going up one set of stairs.
Put the liquid candy down, unglued yourself from the couch and get out into the world.
Life goes by too fast to be vegetating at home all day.
Fucking hell this is true.
So is the two day hangovers, you just don’t get better. You wake up with a hangover where you think if I eat and nap it will be gone. 10pm rolls around and you feel exactly the same as you did at 10am. Then you feel tired and run down on the second day. People tell me it gets even worse and I believe them now. Can’t drink hazy IPA without living to regret it, but I do that all the time.
I have never been overweight and largely been in shape but on and off. Now I feel it so bad getting back into it. It isn’t about pushing yourself as hard as you can without pulling a muscle. It is about carefully listening to your body and when your joints start feeling weird it’s time to stop.
Don’t fuck about with your knees people. Wish I didn’t jump off shit as a kid, also wish I ate more for recovery.
Where the fuck is my stem cell injections we were promised 10 years ago!
You sound like you’re either in your late 50’s and/or haven’t made your health a priority.
This isn’t my experience and I’m almost 40.
Not the case.
Use to do a lot of sport had knee surgery at 21. As mentioned probably didn’t eat enough, done a lot of on, off stop start stuff. Travelled the world. Switched activities. Was never overweight.
While I could have done more to improve my knees some people are just born with better knees than others and I’ve come to accept that. I don’t have issues with my back or shoulders or neck or hands. I know people my age that do. It’s just how it goes.
Lately I’ve been feeling my bones rattle around in my body like dice. Just a skeleton in a bag.
Yeah, but at 50 you become an antique, which means people want you just as beat up and scarred as you happen to be, but they’ll pay less for you depending on how much scarring and beating you have.
I haven’t noticed any of this yet. The only thing I notice so far about getting older is that there is no chance in hell I’m jumping down a flight of stairs.
A few weeks ago, I was going down some stairs at a train station. I’m one of those people who always climbs stairs two at a time, just can’t help myself. I saw this one fella going downstairs two at a time. I gaped at him like he was the master of my craft.
Omg this flooded me with memories of my brother and I competing for who could jump the most stairs. Simpler times
My back got so messed up after I turned 30.
But then I just bought a new bed and mattress and I’m good as new 😂 apparently my box spring and bed rails were just broken.
This resolution was such a copout
you think so? a little cheesy but i thought it went well with the theme. n was cool to reveal that ability
Honestly I thought it was appropriate. Aang, a freaking teenager, has an entire mini arc about the moral canundrum of having to kill someone while the fate of the entire world rests upon his shoulders. They also established how strongly it was against his religion to kill anything, and that he’s a vegetarian.
Obviously it was a copout in that they can’t show a character being directly killed in a spectacular enough fashion for a series finale on a children’s show, but ultimately weakening the big bad evil guy and taking away all of his power, politically, physically and emotionally. That’s a great place to end it and so very in character for Aang
It’s funny because it’s true! And also, my knees hurt =(
heh. and i didnt get a warranty on my artificial hip implant either.
I can’t remember a time anymore where my knees would have pain out of no where.
I get sharp knee pain from time to time and it’s from a tight IT band. Stretching with a roller (the pain) makes it go away immediately. I’ve had it since I was a young person.
seems to just be age for me. I have been biking my whole life bit it was in my 30’s where when I do it especially a lot I would start to feel it. And yes I make sure my ride geometry does not allow for a deep knee bend. Anything really can set it off now and sometimes it just comes on its one. same with other aches and pains that have shown up over time. im not on the good side of 50 at this point though but it was in the thirties where the first things started showing up.
