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| Don't Ignore Time
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| Time to come ouch of the closet. You’re not as young as you used to be. Baby boomers ignore the physiological realities of aging and the results are often devastating. It doesn’t need to be that way.
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Two men are out for a day of downhill skiing in the mountains of Northern Michigan. One wears a helmet, the other doesn’t. The helmeted skier finishes his run and looks around for the friend who’s vanished. The ski patrol later finds him dead on the slope, the victim of a tree and a reckless, if entirely typical disregard for his own safety.
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The newly expired is 49 years of age, which comes as no surprise to his personal physician, Dr. David Janda, Michigan-based orthopedic surgeon, author of The Making of a Surgeon (available at Amazon.com) and founder of the Institute for Preventative Sports Medicine, (www.ipsm.org).
According to Dr. Janda, there is a huge mind-body disconnect among members of the aging baby boom generation.
“The vast majority of these folks are going down in the prime of their life…and it’s completely preventable. Those of us who are baby boomers tend to think of ourselves as 18 even though our bodies are 50. We don’t need a pre-participation physical before we start a sport or activity. We don’t need to warm up and we don’t need to condition off-season and we don’t need to stretch beforehand and we don’t need to cool down afterwards. We don’t need to hydrate—if you add all those things up that’s where the vast majority of baby boomer injuries occur.”
In the last 15 years there has been a dramatic increase in injuries sustained by boomers during sports and recreational activities. So prevalent is the phenomenon that health professionals have given it a name, Boomeritis.
“When you look at baby boomers in particular, you are looking at folks for the most part who are not as conditioned and aren’t as technically versed in the nuances of sport as they were when they were younger. Plus their soft tissue structures and their bone structures are several decades older than they were when they were 17 and 18. And they demonstrate this mindset that says you don’t need to gradually increase your activity level—you should just go all out right away. They’ll get involved in a softball league, for example, meanwhile they haven’t picked their glove up in 25 years…” says Dr. Janda, a passionate proponent of prevention.
For the most part, boomers, who may feel the pressure to remain competitive by appearing youthful, are inclined to disregard the inevitable physiological effects of aging, preferring to ignore:
- shrinking, less responsive muscles
- stiffer tendons and declining handgrip strength
- slower metabolism and propensity to become fatigued
- loss of bone tissue and degenerating cartilage
- loss of elasticity and flexibility
- restricted joint motion
Regular moderate exercise can slow down or help mitigate the onward progression of many of these symptoms—but that’s where proper judgment comes in.
“It’s good mentally and physically to be active. Obviously, it’s very positive on the obesity side. The key thing is the foundation. All too often I see lots of baby boomers in my clinic. Here’s a typical conversation: ‘I went cross country skiing.’ ‘Oh, when was the last time you did that?’ ‘About five years ago.’ ‘Okay, very good and have you been conditioning?’ ‘Nah, I just went out there and did it, but you know, my knees are killing me, look how swollen they are.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Okay, here we go…’ reports Dr. Janda.
It’s important for boomers to acknowledge the changes in their bodies and adapt accordingly otherwise they are more likely than younger people to incur injury or make themselves more vulnerable to health problems, which can occur as a result of extreme exercise or the sudden abandonment of a sedentary lifestyle.
Losing weight is an excellent first step to mid-life fitness and can be achieved through regular thoughtful exercise and by modifying your diet.
Boom and Bust:
Dr. Janda warns boomers to take the following precautions before undertaking any new sport or activity:
- Have a pre-participation physical. “You want to avoid the sudden cardiac death issue—it’s absolutely mandatory.”
- Do adequate preparatory work. Prioritize conditioning begun months in advance.
- Re-acquaint yourself with the fundamentals of technique and rules. Chances are you’ve forgotten more about a sport than you ever knew.
- Start out slowly. “Do it on a graduated basis. If you’re swimming you don’t want to jump in and say ‘I’m going to swim 100 laps today.’ Build up.”
- Always warm-up and stretch.
- Hydrate before, during and after. “When tissues become dehydrated they become more vulnerable to injury. Something most people are not even considering.”
- Always cool-down. “After your activity period is over you should cool down and do a little bit of stretching because that’s when the muscles are more flexible. They’ve had the blood flow going to them. And by stretching after activity you’re setting yourself up better for the next time you participate.”
- Be consistent in your approach. Maintain a regular schedule.
- Cross train. Do several different types of activities over a period of time. Walk, run, swim, mix it up.
- Use safety equipment. If you play baseball or softball, for instance, make sure the bases are breakaway rather than stationary. “Seventy-one per cent of all softball and baseball injuries are from sliding. We could prevent 96 per cent of those injuries by switching from stationary to breakaway bases. Most boomers haven’t done any sliding for 30 years. They slide in late and their ankle breaks or they dislocate their hips—if you slide in late, with the breakaway base, you don’t break, but the base does. That particular item is a huge thing for baby boomers. No field in the US or Canada or worldwide should be without breakaway bases.”
- Wear a helmet. “Helmets are critical. You’re driving and you see a kid on the back of a bike and he’s wearing a helmet but his dad isn’t. That two-year-old’s head might be okay, but how good is that two-year-old’s life going to be if dad is in a coma because he didn’t put a helmet on because he didn’t think it looked cool enough?”
- Be realistic about the potential for injury and don’t accept the notion that injuries are inherent to sport—most injuries are preventable.
- Be proactive, rather than reactive. Think ahead, use foresight and make your safety a priority.
“Many people will say that sports injuries are little bumps and bruises,” comments Dr. Janda.
“Supposedly they don’t carry with them any long-term ramifications—well, many of these injuries are devastating. They give you long-term impairment, long-term disability, long-term health care costs, long-term economic cost, long-term pain and suffering and at times can even cause your death.”
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