The problem with exercise...

[Lebenz]

Many years ago a friend of mine who was then a 3 time Olympian was off to Los Angeles for training purposes. Upon his return he told me that a doc trainer said to him that running for an hour in LA was the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes. I said, then why not give up running and take up cigarettes?

Baby Boomers Stay Active, and So Do Their Doctors

For America's baby boomers, a generation weaned on Jack LaLanne, shaped by Jane Fonda videos and sculpted in the modern-day gym, too much of a good thing has consequences.

Encouraged by doctors to continue to exercise three to five times a week for their health, a legion of running, swimming and biking boomers are flouting the conventional limits of the middle-aged body's abilities, and filling the nation's operating rooms and orthopedists' offices in the process.

They need knee and hip replacements, surgery for cartilage and ligament damage, and treatment for tendinitis, arthritis, bursitis and stress fractures. The phenomenon even has a name in medical circles: boomeritis.

"Boomers are the first generation that grew up exercising, and the first that expects, indeed demands, that they be able to exercise into their 70's," said Dr. Nicholas A. DiNubile, a Philadelphia-area orthopedic surgeon, who coined and trademarked the term boomeritis.

"But evolution doesn't work that quick. Physically, you can't necessarily do at 50 what you did at 25. We've worn out the warranty on some body parts. That's why so many boomers are breaking down. It ought to be called Generation Ouch."

Led by baby boomers, loosely defined as the 78 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964, sports injuries have become the No. 2 reason for visits to a doctor's office nationwide, behind the common cold, according to a 2003 survey by National Ambulatory Medical Care.

A Bureau of Labor Statistics study said infirmities associated with the athletic activities of middle-aged adults were the source of 488 million days of restricted work in 2002. When the Consumer Product Safety Commission examined emergency-room visits in 1998, it discovered that sports-related injuries to baby boomers had risen by 33 percent since 1991 and amounted to $18.7 billion in medical costs.

"Knees, shoulders, hips and the lower back, we all have vulnerabilities that surface over time," DiNubile said. "It's a painful lesson to learn."

But for many baby boomers, regular exercise has become a quality-of-life issue.

Physical activity, even if it is of the weekend-warrior variety, is built into most boomers' schedules. So are visits to a cultural fixture that boomers helped create, the fitness gym.

Now more than ever, a lean, athletic shape is the prized look, and doctors and patients alike concede that vanity and a certain fountain-of-youth pursuit is driving baby boomers to exercise, sometimes to excess.

"The high divorce rate in this generation keeps people in the gym, too," said Andrea Evian, 54, of Narberth, Pa., who works out regularly and is separated from her husband. "That's not my reason for going there, but I see the divorced women working out with the other divorced women. They're all trying to get another man. And the divorced men are trying to meet a younger woman.

"There's a lot of competition out there."

A generation accustomed to using ingenuity, initiative or scientific gains to break through or overcome communal barriers, baby boomers have adopted a familiar approach to their injury predicament: Let's fix it.

"The baby-boomer patient faced with a problem, even a sore knee, does not go silently into the good night," said Dr. Riley Williams, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. "That patient's mind-set is that there must be something that can be done. And thanks to improved diagnostics and surgical advancements, often there is."

It was rare 15 years ago for doctors to perform complex reconstruction of the knee's anterior cruciate ligament in patients older than 50; now it is common. The same is true for surgical repairs to the shoulder's rotator cuff and operations to mend intricate ankle and elbow ailments. Elaborate knee and hip replacements have become routine. Williams said about half his sports-medicine practice is made up of baby boomers.

"But it is also true that I have people coming in who have already seen 10 doctors, had eight M.R.I.'s and want a third rotator cuff surgery so they can serve during their regular weekend tennis games," Williams said. "And then, the answer is, 'No, you are done.'

"This is a highly motivated group of people. And sometimes, you just have to inject a sense of realism."

The can-do generation does not always react well to being told no.

continued: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/sports/16boomers.html?hp&ex=1145246400&en=4ccc0f7521fedf5a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Mistress]

No one ever had to have anything replaced (i.e. knees, hips) from doing Yoga. It's inexpensive, don't have to leave your house if you don't want to and it's great for people who have blown out shoulders, knees or backs from years of lifting weights.

[oasis100]

I rather have a sports injury that can be rehabilitated than be the average overweight american.

[blackmercedes]

Originally Posted by oasis100

I rather have a sports injury that can be rehabilitated than be the average overweight american.

Yeah, I'd rather have knee surgery at 60 than die of an MI at 55. This "don't exercise, you'll wreck your joints" is an excuse to be lazy...

[Wes Bender]

I gave up jogging because it caused my beer to foam up.

I'm a bit older than the baby boomers, but I use a Bowflex 3-4 times per week. Not trying to build muscle so much as to keep the flexibility I've got.

My wife has been a distance runner, jogger, etc most of her life and her joints are holding up well. She does try not to run on asphalt or concrete though.

Walking is a great exercise.

just my $.02,
Wes

[suginami]

I've read that what we call the effects of aging are not the effects of aging at all. Rather, a sedentary life-style is the cause of nearly everything that we blame on age.

[Nate]

how about...

Stop going to the Gym, sell the riding lawn mower, and loose the remotes?
Take the bike if its only a few miles.

I laugh at people who go to gyms to exercise, just do some productive WORK, and you're good to go.

I got some exercise done this weekend... I picked ROCK.
Ok, not all the little ones... but the medium-larg size ones, from the ground, to the back of a pickup...
Fun

Quit going to McDonalds
~Nate