Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    Well, in the last three or four years I had to stop playing volleyball
    because my fingers had developed arthritis, I had to stop jogging
    because it was damaging my knees (I had knee surgery too), I have to
    be very careful about getting too much sun because I've started 
    developing skin cancers on my head and face, I have to be very careful
    doing the weight machines in the gym because I had a disk removed from
    my neck which I crushed trying to lift too much weight and if I'm not
    careful on the machines I reinjure myself in damaged areas that were
    not fixed by the surgery.  I do a lot of walking and can still play
    tennis (though theoretically that should be worse on my knees than
    jogging).  I'm 44.  I've gotten pretty used to the idea that I'm on
    a slow downhill ride.  At first I felt a little panicky, but I'm coming
    to realize that if I'm careful the decline will now be quite slow.
    It happens to all of us.  Keep fighting and keep your spirits high,
    smile at the creaks and growns.  I no longer feel defensive when I 
    have to say "I'm getting too old for that."
    
    							- Vick
    

    I exercise regularly, but smartly.  I listen to the pain messages,
    I don't push myself unreasonably, I never risk life or limb for
    the sake of exercise, and I expect that my body will be injury-free
    and last me for another 70 years or so (I'm in my early 30s).

    Why exercise so that you lose quality of life?  I'd rather use it
    to improve the quality of my life (and my longevity).

    On occasion, I run with a guy who's 58 years old, who started running
    in his late 40s and who blows me away over any distance greater than
    2 miles.  He ran the Boston marathon last year in a tad over 3 hours.

    There's no reason that exercise has to cause damage, if you do it
    properly, you can use it to retard damage and to lengthen your active
    life.

    I'm in my mid 30s and a couple of years ago I had some knee pain.  Went
    to the doctor, found nothing wrong, I just have a condition that gets
    irritated by lots of exercise.  It could be operated on, but that
    generally isn't necessary.  I now do some physical therapy (specific
    exercises) to reduce the occurance of the pain.
    
    I exercise very regularly, and in the warmer months quite heavily.  All
    of the exercises could be considered low-impact, so my joints don't
    suffer from it.  The muscles respond quite well to it.
    
    Rich

    You can ride a bicycle, even competitvely, as long as you can breathe
    as long as you start out right.
    
    ed

    Mike,  
    	I want an update on your 45th birthday.  :^)  When you are
    thirty you can afford to be cocky.  
    
    				- Vick
    
    P.S.  I was not exercising when I injured myself lifting too much
    weight.  I was lifting something at home that I had lifted many times
    before (but with a younger body).  My take on it is that it is very 
    hard to be on your guard all the time for circumstances that might
    cause injury, and it makes little difference what shape you are in.

Thanks for the replies.  As for quality of life, the things that I do
are the things that make life worth living.  Not everyone loves to
dive out of an airplane at 14,000' with 20 friends, but that's what does
it for me.  Or flying down a mountain in fresh snow, crisp cold air,
blue sky, and the morning sun.  But the mileage is accumulating, and
its a little harder each year to crank up and go show the young bucks
how its done.  Not to mention not being able to dance all night anymore.
I'm starting to wonder when time in the jacuzzi will exceed time on the
slope.  Anyway, as someone who views couch potato-dom as slow death,
its interesting to hear other how other folks adjust.

	 This string proves what I've said all along....that men
	 age faster than women. Which is why I like younger men.  ;-)



	kits

    
    	they do fall apart at the edges, don't they?
    
    	darn shame.

    Not us non-jock men.  We're ageless.
    
    The mistake most guys make is replacing that sproingable 100% elastic
    skin-flab-and-connective-tissue with icky unmaintainable stuff like
    muscle. 
    
    Ray

Funny, I prefer older "adult" women.  My 44 year old friend was commenting
on being uncomfortable with the changes in her appearance.  My reply
was basically that her face and eyes reflected that she had spent her years
accomplishing things.  She has medals and memories that the fresh faced
kids can only dream about.  And that's one of the reasons that I like her.
Interestingly enough, her husband is my age (younger than her), and is
dealing with knee surgery and all of the other issues that I am.  Known 'em
both for years, so we compare creaks when we get together.

I guess that everyone finds different things attractive in others.  Any
creaky aging female jocks out there?

    	I'm at the point where I recognize that non-exercise has been as
    damaging as some of the other 'stuff' I did in my previous lives. When
    I was 20, I was immortal until my first helo crash. I took my first 
    bullet at 21 and decided that I didn't want to 'not hear the one that
    gets you'. At 22 my father died and it was then I realized that
    everything has an end.........
    
    	It's 20 years later and 35 pounds extra, 3 kids, a wife, a dog and
    a cat. I'm walking to get to the point so I can walk without effort.
    I'm 42, have arthritis in both knees, feet, and hands. Walking is
    helping me to keep supple and is reducing my weight, which is helping
    my knees and feet. I'd like to live long enough to read all of the
    files on the JFK assaaination that have been sealed until 2029 and
    2038. I figure at 79 it'll take me until I'm 88 to read the first
    volumes and then reading the remainder of it will take me 'til I'm 100.
    Maybe I can be a historian.......
    
    	My father in law always believed that keeping one's mental
    capabilities is as important as one's physical capabilities.
    
    Ken

    Re .10: Well, I'm getting pretty creaky, but I never was a jock so I
    don't know what conclusions one can draw. Things start to hurt for no
    apparent reason, and anything that gets hurt stays hurt longer than
    when I was a youngster. Can't stay up all night without drooping badly
    the next afternoon, can't sit on the floor for hours without my knees
    stiffening past the point of usability...
    
    Sometimes I start feeling that I should get some exercise, but whenever
    that happens I pick up a book and read until the feeling goes away. (My
    parents, in their 60's now, are in better shape than I am; my goal is
    to have them take care of me in my old age.)
    
    -b

    
    I turn 40 this month. 
    
    Every other day I either run 7 miles or ride a mt bike 8 miles
    from sea level to 2500'. 
    
    I'm buying new running shoes about every 6 months (Nike Air),
    and try to keep the weight under 200. My feet do hurt after
    running, which is why I don't do it every day.
    

    RE: .13: "from sea level to 2500'." Do you ever come back down?
    
    ed

    This string needs Little Feet playing 'Old Folks Boogie' in the back
    ground.:)

    Oh, and up until a few years ago, one of the tricks I could do was 
    doing that Russian type dance where you squat down and kick one leg
    out at a time.  I won a samovar in Leningrad doing that dance in a
    contest.  It was something I figured out at age 14 that I could teach
    myself how to do.  Well, I can't do it anymore without needing surgery
    afterward.  :^(  That was harder to take then having to give up
    jogging.  It was something about me that defined me, made me different.
    
    					- Vick

    Well, I'm not a jock, but I'm definitely creaky.  My knees are in poor
    shape due to a skiing accident when I was 14.  I'm not allowed to run,
    do aerobics, ski, kneel or squat down.  I have scoliosis (curvature of
    the spine) and rotated lumbar vertebrae and both of these prevent me
    from standing and walking for long periods of time.  I'm only 33, but
    some days I feel like I'm 103! :-)  My exercising consists of walking a
    couple of miles a day and occasionally stretching exercises.  I use a
    Jane Fonda tape that is pretty easy to follow and doesn't stress out my
    knees.
    
    Karen

    There are many aging jocks out here who are not age-ing as you all
    might give to the typical sterio type. They are found in muscle mags,
    they are found in local gyms across the US. Their age is something
    that if you even tried to guess at you will guess wrong, 90% of the
    time. Body build is perhaps the only sport if you injure yourself in
    the game; to recover. You keep playing. Drop your weight levels, go
    for strenght, strech. Etc. I have had many a muscle pull, bruse, even
    a serious 10 speed accident where because I used a leg curl/leg
    extension machine I recovered without use of a cane. Slowly building
    muscles around damaged areas of the knee. 
    
    Funny part about this game, is people that you would never expect
    playing are now doing. Even pit crews of the Indy Cars are doing weight
    training. Best advice, go the local gym, get a membership. Have lots of
    fun and dump tons of stress. 
    
    George

    I had a great uncle who died at age 88 on the tennis court.
    
    He played three SETS of tennis everyday. In Florida. And, would
    use a can of balls just once; they just weren't fast enough after
    that.
    
    I'm 39, run three and a half miles three times a week, work out with
    weights when I can find the time, ride my bike when I can find the
    time, keep my weight down, and I didn't use up my $100 deductable at
    the doctors last year. The only physical problems I get are muscle
    spasms in my upper back, and arch problems, when I DON'T work out.
    
    I wasn't considered particularly athletic when I was younger, but now
    that most of my contemporaries have stopped, I am now athletic.
    
    There is another 50-mile bike race in Baja in April......
    
    -roger
    

    Roger,  Warning, I could have written .19 when I was 39.  :^)
    
    	- Vick (did somebody get the licence plate of that truck?) Bennison
    
    P.S. except for the bicycling, everything else you said including the
    muscle spasms, fit me to a tee.

    advice for the aging crazy.
    
    swimming

    
    I'm usually RO in this file, but couldn't hold back on this note.
    
    I am by no stretch of the imagination an athlete, but am serious
    about my waterskiing. In the winter months it must be replaced by
    aerobics or I just "feel" lousy.
    
    Enough about me... I must side with the
    "if-you-exercise-using-common-sense" camp as one of my favorite
    BAREFOOT waterskiers is currently in his mid-70s! "Banana" George
    Blair glides across the water like he was 22 years old and for anyone
    that might think that barefoot waterskiing isn't strenuous, give it
    a try!
    
    Rick

    
    So, basically, Vick, I'm going to hell in a handbasket?
    
    Reminds of the old Allan King joke: You lead a good life, take good
    care of yourself, and what happens in the end? You get sick and die.
    
    -roger
    

    re:  .23
    
    That's the ticket.  Life's a bitch and then you die.  :^)
    
    Just be careful.  Do those warm-up stretches.  Don't overdo it.
    And good sex is the best exercise.  :^)
                                        
    - Vick 

    re.0
    If I had known when I was young that I'd live as long as I have
    I'd have treated myself better.
    
    -j

    FWIW- Jack La Lane is still in great shape inspite of being 70+!
    I think the trick is not to over do it and workout lighter and more
    frequently.
    I'm 32 have wasted knees from skiing wasted hands from volleyball and
    wasted days and nights from too much beer. 8^)
    
    -j

    .26 So you lift weights and look good from the waist up!:)

    
    	....but the ticket is also keeping below the waist in shape as
    	well....
    	life's not always sitting behind a desk, table...what have you.
    	;-)

  	the right exercise program was given in a reply back a 
	few.  sex ! twice a day ! or more ! 

    
    ...yeah, with dancing a close second.
    

    >So anyone got any favorite advice for the aging crazy?
    
    Get a big screen TV with a good remote, a cooler filled with your
    favorite suds, a vcr and a movie club memebership, (one that delivers
    is nice), the number of the local pizza house that also delivers, and 
    quit your worrying!  You'll never get out of this world alive!
    

               <<< Note 748.32 by IMTDEV::BERRY "Dwight Berry" >>>
                            -< watch Homer Simpson >-

>    >So anyone got any favorite advice for the aging crazy?
    
>    Get a big screen TV with a good remote, a cooler filled with your
>    favorite suds, a vcr and a movie club memebership, (one that delivers
>    is nice), the number of the local pizza house that also delivers, and 
>    quit your worrying!  You'll never get out of this world alive!
    
C'mon, Dwight.  There are those of us here that know you better than that.  
;')

Ron (whose lower back is still sore from bobbing and weaving against 
fighters half his age)

    
    The thing that I noticed most about "aging" is the time it takes
    to heal up.  I hurt my back about a year ago and it's just now
    getting to where it don't bother me.  Ten years ago it would have
    taken about 5 days.
    
    My meter will turn 39 in less than a month, but my latest "hobby"
    keeps me at 6'0" and 230 pounds of more linebacker than not.  
    For the last three years I've been "remodeling" my house and putting
    in a full basement with a pick and shovel.  I am currently working 
    on pouring the floor.  Can't wait to the the six man hot tub (or
    is that one man and five woman) installed.
    
    The arthritis in my neck and upper back, however, put a stop to
    my doing things that require I get bumped around.
    
    fred();

    re.34
    I dug my basement out pick and shovel 8 years ago serious manual
    labor it will be a long time before I attempt than again.
                                           
    -j