Episode Details

Whether you’re a lifelong athlete or a newbie gym rat, adventure racer or alternative exercise aficionado, how we think about, prevent and deal with injuries makes a big difference in life satisfaction.

Because, there’s no two ways about it: athletic injuries after 50 are harder to overcome. Sometimes they don’t go away; we just manage them. There’s a reason physically active people over 50 refer to Ibuprofen “Vitamin I.”

Wendy & Paul: Different athletic experiences & injuries

My conversation with Gwendolyn Bounds, recorded live Friday, June 5, presents two complementary case studies in preventing, managing and recovering from athletic injuries after 50.

In one corner, there’s Wendy, 54, a helluva Spartan racer, nationally ranked in her age group. But by her own description, before 2018, she was a certified non-athlete. As you’ll hear in our conversation, she made some significant newbie mistakes as she began tuning up her body and mind to compete in timed ass-kicking adventure races after leading a life in which the hardest sprint was usually to the elevator or train platform. She’s negotiated several significant injuries, none needing surgery, thankfully.

In the other corner, there’s me, a 59-year-old lifelong, multisport athlete (soccer, squash, surfing, cycling, triathlon, tennis, track, wrestling and, yes, rollerblading when it was cool in the early 90s) and 40-year gym rat. The two decades I spent lifting heavy produced large muscles back in the day but also set in motion the consequences: a broken collarbone, a torn biceps tendon and 7 orthopedic surgeries, the last four of which all occurred in the past 9 years—since turning 50.

caveat athleta senior

In summary, my advice is caveat athleta senior—"let the older athlete beware." By all means, start or continue your physical fitness journey, in whatever form it may take, for all the inarguable reasons you’re taking it. Travel ambitiously but aware that your body is in a different place than that 32-year-old who’s loudly stacking the pulldown machine next to you.

I hope you’ll find this recorded conversation with Wendy useful and supportive. We enjoy making fun of one another in between offering our respective lessons learned from what is, collectively, more than 50 years of high-level athletic training and performance.

If you just can’t stand listening to us, though, here’s a summary of takeaways.

Paul’s takeaways

* Avoid ego loading. Overriding your body’s little yellow flags to match the high-schooler deadlifting next to you is different from progressive overload, where you’re actually listening to your body and know it.

* Stop the lifts that put you in a disadvantaged position. Eliminated barbell back squats and bench press—bar squats in particular cause damage that accrues invisibly until a back spasm puts you on the floor.

* Train unilaterally. I switched from bilateral to single-leg work (Bulgarian split squats, single-leg RDLs, lunges) so weak muscles can’t hide behind strong ones. It’s not as fun or attention-grabbing as heavy barbell squats, but very effective.

* Build from the ground up. Feet and ankles first—balance boards, retraining old injuries—because the ability to walk at speed later in life starts there.

* Warm up—you can’t keep doing your 35-year-old’s cold open. Foam roll before (to get warm) and after. Best $24 you’ll spend; 80% of your body is fascia.

* Move like it’s 1899. Multi-plane, multi-compound, asymm