accumulating injuries

L

luisHK

Bit of a rant.
But it seems there are a bunch of posters in their early forties and over posting here, how is your body holding up ?
I see you guys writing about squatts and deadlifts, and I sure used to love doing low reps of those, but a slipped disk later according to the surgeon if I go back to squatts I'm at high risk of emergency surgery. Which doesn't sound fun. Slipped disk linked pains showed up about 5 years after I quit recreative powerlifting btw, didn't do sports and had put on weight in the meantime.
After a few years without sports got pretty serious about tennis, training about 10 hours a week with a coach, back issues mandated periods of rests and irregular visits to orthopedic doctors, but overall the back could manage tennis.
Other parts of the body not that much, tore a calf, than a few months back got a tennis elbow than on top of it a shoulder injury.
Some xrays revealed old fractures from a time I didn't care much to visit the doctor, a broken bone in the hand from over 15 years back, during thai boxing training, which healed by itself (If I remember properly the self prescribed treatment back then consisted of wrapping the hand bandages tighter), and a broken collar bone, this one by itself didn't heal properly in the over 20 years that have gone by, which might explain why my shoulders were always noticeably weaker than my back and legs.
Anyway it sucks, especially lately the combined left shoulder and elbow injury.
Moved to golf, which doesn't hurt the tennis related injuries although neither prevents one much from getting fat, and it's really tough on the back. After blasting through the first cards at the driving range, bought today their diamond card (nothing too fancy actually, but need to play quite regulary to go through it), and about 20 minutes later fucked up my left knee. Not sure how bad yet, I did finish the practice but it hurts more now.
That's about it.
How do you guys handle the chronic and accumulating injuries ?
They sure take their toll here, also mentally, and I'm afraid later chronic joint pain will kick in.
 
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I don't know. I hope Fred Foresight will weigh in on this. He's a font of knowledge on all things health related. I've noticed that it's incredibly difficult to find a subject in this forum that he doesn't exhibit a high level of expertise in. He usually comments on every topic, so I'm sure it won't be long before you have some very valuable advice.
 
I don't know how old you are but you'll inevitably be slowed down by cumulative injuries as you age. I'm pushing 60 and still able to run regularly, backpack etc. but I'm definitely feeling it now. I was lucky to be a 90 lb weakling when I was young since it prevented me from destroying my body early on in sports.

I've had to lay off from running in the past due to plantar fasciitis, sometimes for a few weeks, once for 6 months. I chose to not go down the surgery path that other runners I knew did. I just laid off and allowed natural healing to do its thing.

I had a shoulder injury last year that really caused a lot of chronic pain. It's not like me to have pains like this so I chalk it up to age. Again, rather than going to an ortho surgeon I went to PT and the injury is almost completely resolved.

Bottom line for me is:
  • I run slower. I like running and plan on doing it for as long as I can. I'm not into being a hero and running as fast as I can.
  • I do light duty strength training for upper body and core. I enjoy doing outdoor work but I won't help my kids move any more. They have strong young friends that can do heavy lifting.
  • I take 1 ibuprofen for occasional aches. But if pain becomes chronic I lay off or do PT.
    I'll never take opioids for pain management unless I'm in hospice. Lots of people are becoming dependent on opioids unnecessarily especially in the US.
  • Yes, getting old sucks.
 
Old injuries that were not properly dealt with lead to other parts of the body compensating for the weakness caused by the inquiry. This leads to additional strain on those areas and they begin to fail. Keep at it and you'll end up with a walker. I would suggest a complete and thorough physical at a sports clinic followed by the recommended physical therapy.
 
Don't try "powering" through it, and don't do stuff that causes you anything other than muscle pain/discomfort. You never want to exacerbate joint pain. Avoid higher risk exercises and activities that can potentially worsen your condition. And of the stuff you do, if your range of motion is limited, then limit your range of motion to what is comfortable until you the range comfortably expands.

Do exercises in strict and deliberate form, minimizing momentum.

One researcher suggested that explosive lifts would likely recruit fewer muscle fibres due to momentum and that the diminished recruitment through most of the range of motion would be less effective for enhancing muscle function. (Johnston BD. Moving too rapidly in strength training will unload muscles and limit full range strength development adaptation: a case study. J Exerc Physiol 2005; 8: 36-45.)

Another study suggests that "persons should maintain steady force production throughout a range of motion and reduce external forces such as momentum; movements should be of a pace that maintains muscular tension, not explosive or ballistic in nature. Faster movements cause greater peaks in both muscular and ground reaction forces which likely transfer through joints and connective tissue, potentially causing injury."

http://ssudl.solent.ac.uk/3127/1/Evidence Based Resistance Training Recommendations.pdf
 
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Brother Fred is right, powering through pain is not the way to go. It took me some time to realize that there is a world of difference between joint stiffness and actual pain. Pain means stop.
 
I am 59 and have recently started competing internationaly in masters level sports.
But I keep my running training on the treadmill to avoid injuries. Most work is in the pool.
 
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