You’re Not Too Old For Sports, You’re Just Not Preparing Correctly (Part 1)
From a consultation with a client of mine.
I just got off a call with a client where we discussed how he wants to be able to do the things he’s doing now at 34 into his older age. He’s talking about snowboarding, playing basketball, and being athletic into his 50’s, 60’s, and (if possible) 70’s.
But he’s realizing now in his mid 30’s he’s becoming more and more afraid of getting hurt. He feels that currently he’s still in his prime years of physical performance and is still capable of doing what he could in his early 20’s. But when he goes hard, he can’t recover as well and feels beat up the next day. He still wants to play hard, indulge in sports, or do athletic things intensely. But the risk of getting hurt today is much higher than when he was “young.”
He went on to say that if it was an option of either this or that, he’d rather be old and beat up in his 60s due to playing sports hard when he was young rather than feeling good in his 60s because of not playing sports when he was young (hypothetically).
He is referring to older men that he knows with beat up bodies from playing intense sports when they were young, going hard, and getting injured.
You know what I said to him? “Fortunately life doesn’t have to be that way. You have so many more choices than just those two. And, you absolutely have the ability to influence the outcome of your future.”
So what is the plan for this client who was practicing far-sighted goal setting for himself? We have to build a life that prioritizes athleticism.
Participate in it. He needs to continually involve himself in activities that he wants to do. Or at least things that resemble or have a high transfer to those things. If he wants to play basketball and snowboard in 20+ years, then he has to continually do those things now and up until then as consistently as he can. He can also participate in activities that resemble or can carry over to those things. Like playing other sports such as volleyball, soccer, or pickleball. Or get into some fitness-based activities like running, biking, or swimming.
The premise here is, move it or lose it!
Train for those functions. Participating in those activities is only one side of the coin. What they won’t do is work on the supportive mechanisms to those activities nearly as much as we can parse them out and focus on them in training. It’s why strength and conditioning programs have become so important to athletes' success. We can compartmentalize certain components of sports to help accentuate those physical qualities, improve them, and keep them active.
This will help decrease the risk of injury in playing sports or doing athletic activities. Not only that, but you can assist in the exposure of those demands. For example, most people can’t participate in something like skiing or snowboarding all year round. So we can expose ourselves to similar demands in our training to prepare for when we go on that snow trip one, two, or three times over a winter season.
Prioritize it. You need to build a life that prioritizes athletic activities and gym training. The biggest resources that will go into these are time and energy. So you want to protect these at all costs. Even if life starts throwing new things at you, you need to keep these resources on the table (if they are still a priority for you). Inevitably, life will change. Our priorities do shift. But we have to live our lives in the way we see it today and think we’ll want it in the future.
We can’t have the mindset of, “Oh, well if I have a family in the future, I’ll never be able to do this anymore. So what’s the point?” That’s the worst mindset you can have here. Our lives are filled with more things than you probably could think to put on a list. But that’s exactly what you should do anyway. So if you think you have to give up something that means so much to you because your life incorporated another thing that’s important to you like building a family, then you aren’t looking hard enough.
Things like getting rid of social media doom scrolling late at night and middle of the day (guarantee that’s like 1-2 hours for most people), not being efficient with your schedule, or not being upfront with your expectations to the people you spend most time with. Those are three of the bigger things I see people doing that restrict them from pursuing their goals. Build a life that allows you the opportunity to do the things that are most important to you. Trust me, this way of life exists and you can make it happen.
Bonus: In addition to those three tips, another focus point for him is to improve on the basic lifestyle components that will make him the most resilient and robust he can be. These are consistent, quality sleep routines, healthy nutrition, stress management, and recovery protocols.
Maximizing these factors of health and prioritizing them along with an appropriate physical preparation plan will set him up nicely to enjoy the physical activities he loves well into the future!
There’s a lot more in this conversation we talked about that I’ve also had with many other clients and friends before. Such as people who grew up playing sports, stopped for 10-20 years, started again, got hurt, and gave it up for good because “they’re too old for this.” Nope, you just approached it the wrong way.
Trust me when I say that I’ve heard it all before. Just because the older generation didn’t prepare well enough doesn’t mean you can’t. If it’s meaningful enough to you, you need to prioritize it.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”