Age Discrimination?
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My brother is 61. He had knee surgery last year because of a torn meniscus. He was back in the gym within 4 weeks with the blessing of the orthopedic surgeon and the physical therapist. He did reduce his squat from 520 to 400 and his deadlift from 450 to 350, but he was able towork back up. (yes, he's intimidating and no, he doesn't look 61)
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Age is just a number. I've always accepted the fact that, well, we have young women on my triathlon team that can run five minute miles and keep that pace up for 2 hours. I work hard and they respect that.
In the area of combat sports, which is my main thing, we have people who train all their lives. Nobody is trying to put crutches under my *kitten*. (Skilled heavyweights, even older ones, are not people you generally want to get hit by.) I get inspired by the older people because they have really mastered the technique and still have the timing from their younger fighting days. I had a teacher that passed away last year that was sparring up until a few months before his death at 96 from complications surrounding pneumonia. He always smiled and laughed as he was mopping the floor with me and always had a good-natured joke afterwards. But I marveled at him because he was so efficient and natural in his movement it almost looked like magic. This weekend I will train with another master teacher who isn't resting on his laurels, he is training six days a week.
As you age, training becomes more important to your well being, not less.3 -
I went to the clinic for severe knee pain after running, I have run over 10 marathons and 10 halves. I was told that I was too old and should stop running. I was 46 at the time. I think its all a matter of perspective of the doctor. My solution was to find a doctor who runs.3
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MelissaPhippsFeagins wrote: »My brother is 61. He had knee surgery last year because of a torn meniscus. He was back in the gym within 4 weeks with the blessing of the orthopedic surgeon and the physical therapist. He did reduce his squat from 520 to 400 and his deadlift from 450 to 350, but he was able towork back up. (yes, he's intimidating and no, he doesn't look 61)
Your brother sounds amazing and just might be a bit of an outlier......LOL1 -
ttippie2000 wrote: »Age is just a number. I've always accepted the fact that, well, we have young women on my triathlon team that can run five minute miles and keep that pace up for 2 hours. I work hard and they respect that.
In the area of combat sports, which is my main thing, we have people who train all their lives. Nobody is trying to put crutches under my *kitten*. (Skilled heavyweights, even older ones, are not people you generally want to get hit by.) I get inspired by the older people because they have really mastered the technique and still have the timing from their younger fighting days. I had a teacher that passed away last year that was sparring up until a few months before his death at 96 from complications surrounding pneumonia. He always smiled and laughed as he was mopping the floor with me and always had a good-natured joke afterwards. But I marveled at him because he was so efficient and natural in his movement it almost looked like magic. This weekend I will train with another master teacher who isn't resting on his laurels, he is training six days a week.
As you age, training becomes more important to your well being, not less.
I loved following Ernestine Shepherd and her body building success. It's just so wonderful to see men and women in those age brackets still putting in the effort and making it look easy to the rest of us.
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cforsyth617 wrote: »I went to the clinic for severe knee pain after running, I have run over 10 marathons and 10 halves. I was told that I was too old and should stop running. I was 46 at the time. I think its all a matter of perspective of the doctor. My solution was to find a doctor who runs.
I had a similar experience with my frozen shoulder. My doctor was urging me to stop lifting weights for upper body strength but I ignored him and found a great physical therapist who was able to bring me 100% back to full strength in my shoulder. It was a lot of work, and I still do the rehab exercises as a warmup, but it paid off. Luckily my personal physician supports my efforts.
Glad you found someone who encouraged you instead.2 -
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I'm 55 and I want to get in shape, so at 65 I can look back and say, "man I was an outta shape youngster back then and now I'm buff. Lift, lift like your life depends on it! Just do it with good form and don't look back. I say 65 is the new 45, Git-R-Done!4
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cforsyth617 wrote: »I went to the clinic for severe knee pain after running, I have run over 10 marathons and 10 halves. I was told that I was too old and should stop running. I was 46 at the time. I think its all a matter of perspective of the doctor. My solution was to find a doctor who runs.
Yes ^^^^ this! Find a doctor who runs, or lifts, or bikes or all of these and understands what it means to be to active and the desire to continue to be active. The last time I was injured my orthopedist sent me to PT saying 'we will assign you a PT who runs and who understands that the goal is not just for the injury to heal but to get you out running again!'2 -
This kind of started out with ageism by doctors, so I will comment on that first.
Doctors see a wide variety of people and are often on a tight schedule. Like we learn to be effective with meal planning and fitting in exercise into our daily routine, they had to learn to be effective in figuring out their patient's problems by first admitting the most common problems and average person of their general stats would have. It is not their fault that quite a lot of older people do NOT do a lot to stay healthy before it is too late. Congratulations to the others, but you are just not the average.
If they are not willing to listen to your explanations, then they are generally not good doctors. But if they listen and adapt, first going from what would have been correct in an average situation, forgive them. It is not ageism. The same thing happens to everyone else who in some way is "not average". It could be worse.
I am 30 years old, normal weight, non-smoker, no genetic predisposition in my family and I happen to have high blood pressure. I am not being treated. There was one test done to find a cause which turned out negative. The doctor just told me to "check it once a month", as if a random once a month measurement would give me a reasonable idea if my blood pressure is consistently high (like it is). Because their typical risk factors don't apply to me. He couldn't tell me to lose weight, stop smoking or just live with medication because my genetics are like that. He was lost and he was unwilling to go deeper into it after his standards failed. Here I am, with nothing. And I could say, because high blood pressure is more common in older people, this is ageism. They don't want to care because I am too uncommon for my age. Maybe they would care if it was even higher, but it is high enough to damage my health in the long run. And I seem to be in it for the long run unless my own efforts to be even healthier can solve the problem (so far they do not).
A similar thing happened to my boyfriend who was not diagnosed with something (that I, not being a doctor at all, suspected based on his symptoms from the beginning) for a long time because "he was too young for that" and that was why the necessary tests for it were the last thing to be done, after everything else came back negative. He asked for this to be checked at the first visit to the doctor and it was refused. Ageism? No. Bad doctors with bad judgment. Bad systems that discourage them from straying away from any standard diagnostics and treatments, even if they actually would have better judgment. Treating the masses instead of treating the individuals.
I am also actually one of the youngest people in my gym. No signs of ageism against the regulars which have an average of definitely being over 50.0 -
Ageism is a thing. Often I go to casual group fitness and I am pointed to light weights, exercises modifications..... then I beast it! I notice in these classes too that the youngsters are always with varied injuries, more than I ever get. I do love that I am fitter and stronger than our students in their 20s, although at the gym the other week I saw an instructor in her 70's doing a cardio step workout; my she was totally smashing it, everyone in class looked stuffed and she would totally beast me! That's what I inspire to be. Outliers? Maybe, ppl didn't have disposable money or access to such things or easy information generations ago, but maybe now we'll see a rise in "old" people embracing more aggressive fitness. For now I'll choose my own weights and variations thanks!0
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@skymningen, you make some valid points. I think finding a good doctor who understands us as individuals is so important but I'm not sure how many of them are out there to be honest. Like you say, their time is limited and perhaps their education is such that they follow a standardized diagnosis and treatment plan that fits the average person rather than the individual.
I do think that people respond to average expectations by average performance so perhaps part of the problem is with us as patients.
Recently I received an email from Silver Sneakers, a program for seniors which encourages us to remain active, and I was somewhat shaken by even their expectations for exercise. The recommendations were quite minimal and really didn't include any weight lifting of anything other than 5 lb weights. It was basically things like getting up out of a chair unassisted 20 times. So, considering that a program designed to keep seniors mobile has such low expectations of my abilities it's not surprising to me that other women like me may not expect much of themselves.
We all have different experiences with our connections to the medical field but I think my hope is that we as patients will begin to demand more interest and better suggestions about how to survive the aging process by being stronger and more mobile. I certainly don't want to be confined to a scooter because some doctor somewhere suggested I was a bit too old to be doing the things I'm doing.
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My oncologist on the subject of exercise recommended that I should walk occasionally haaaaa! I told him I do that every day just getting to work, then showed him my Garmin! I reckon we know our bodies best. I think if we do our own thing we'll still be walking upright and opening our own jars1
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When I took a course on gerontology, one of the key aspects that was stressed is that the older a population gets, the more diverse the experience.
This is extremely true for physical fitness. At 65, it is very common for seniors to have very weak bodies from decades of sitting on the couch or behind a desk. But if a person has been physically active and healthy, at age 65 they may well be going on quite well, thank you very much. I've noticed most marathons have a senior division, for example.
Setting the bar low in the medical community is probably trying to just get older people off the La-Z-boy and walk to the mailbox rather than end up in a scooter--which is important. But what is often overlooked is the fact older people can do much better.2 -
Agreed! Tough mudda and spartan for me! My next challenge1
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I just look at other examples. My in-laws neighbours, in their seventies, are still running. No longer the marathons they used to do but still half marathons He's had a quintuple bypass 10-years ago She's had a few injuries too. They are healthy as. My FIL has had an aneurysm (11 years ago) walks and cycles everywhere and looks and does great. As he takes care of MIL his time is limited.
My own dad at 73 goes to the gym 2-3 times a eek doing weights and cardio and walk everywhere (has dog - needs to walk a lot) To be honest compare him to the 65-year old he once was (just a dog then) and this version He is healthier now Looks loads better and stands up straighter and his neck is back. His dad (my granddad) cycled regularly 40km well into his eighties. He lived until 89.
When I was doing aqua jogging there were ladies in their seventies giving me (48 at the time) a run for my money At my gym we have some older ladies too and they work as hard if not harder than some of the young things.
I tend to think that doctors are not up to speed with what keeps people healthy and what can be achieved. In the past a 65-year old was worn, but times have changed
Luluinca is totally right about feeling that things are changing for older generations They are healthier and more active than ever before yet society at large still tends to see 65 and older as more or less finished physically speaking. She is an inspiration and example to many - I fully hope to be as active as she is when I reach her age.1 -
Thanks for all the great insight and stories everyone. It's so gratifying to see so many of us either doing some great exercise or knowing others who are doing it as we age.
I wish I saw more of us at the gym in the morning but maybe they're sleeping in a little and show up later in the day. I do see quite a few women, and men too, who are somewhat advanced in years taking a water aerobics class in the morning, but otherwise I'm quite certain I'm the oldest woman lifting weights in the morning at my gym.
That's okay though, maybe I'm setting a good example for the younger women to keep it up throughout their lives.
Anyway, thanks everyone for participating in this thread from 2 years ago. Looks like it's still a relevant topic!
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laurenmjenkin wrote: »Ageism is a thing. Often I go to casual group fitness and I am pointed to light weights, exercises modifications..... then I beast it! I notice in these classes too that the youngsters are always with varied injuries, more than I ever get. I do love that I am fitter and stronger than our students in their 20s, although at the gym the other week I saw an instructor in her 70's doing a cardio step workout; my she was totally smashing it, everyone in class looked stuffed and she would totally beast me! That's what I inspire to be. Outliers? Maybe, ppl didn't have disposable money or access to such things or easy information generations ago, but maybe now we'll see a rise in "old" people embracing more aggressive fitness. For now I'll choose my own weights and variations thanks!
Based on my experience, I see this (the bolded) quite differently. To a certain extent, I see the "age = disability" equivalency as a newer (maybe 20th century, post-WW2) idea. I come from a working class background.
My dad, born in 1917, came from a farming family, starting to work for pay for other farms at around age 5, picking vegetables, and basically never stopped working (in factories, for county parks, literally built his own house at age 38 with his brother in a year (and no crew, except for times like laying cement when the cousins would come for the day) while working full time at manual labor; building included cutting trees from the property for some of the lumber)). Even in retirement, he was working: When I called him one day, when he was in his early 80s, he'd been digging up the entire roots of a tree he'd cut down - didn't seem unusual.
My mom, born in 1912, was single until age 42 (43 when I was born), and worked as a housekeeper/live-in invalid caretaker, then a nurse. When she died at 81 from breast cancer, she'd remained vital and able to do whatever she chose until just the last few months, despite moderate obesity. Both grandmothers lived into their 80s, vital and not institutionalized, one a wiry, hard-working farm woman, the other an active blue collar worker into her 70s despite rather severe obesity.
The idea that older people just sit around and decline - the whole idea of "retirement" for the masses, in fact - is pretty new, and typical only in the 1st world. In other places and times, people worked. Even sedentary employment for masses, or heavily machine-augmented manual labor, grew to be common over the period from the mid 19th century to the late 20th centuries.
One of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon stories involved Uncle Ed going down to the Twin Cities to visit his niece. Seeing people running around a lake "for exercise", in genuine puzzlement, he asked "Can't they find work?".
Strong and active as long as possible is the traditional aspiration; it was enforced by economics. The consequences of disability were dire. We modern first-worlders need to find reasons and means to reclaim strength and vitality in age, absent that degree of economic necessity for most.
Edited: omitted word3 -
Was thinking more about this thread and I remembered this picture. It was taken by a friend at the start of an Olympic Distance Triathlon in 2015. The Olympic distance race consists of a 1500 yard swim, 25ish mile bike and a 6.2mile run. Each competitor is marked with their age on their leg for tracking, as well as the chip that provides timing. Thought I'd share with the group of "outliers" in this thread.
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Was thinking more about this thread and I remembered this picture. It was taken by a friend at the start of an Olympic Distance Triathlon in 2015. The Olympic distance race consists of a 1500 yard swim, 25ish mile bike and a 6.2mile run. Each competitor is marked with their age on their leg for tracking, as well as the chip that provides timing. Thought I'd share with the group of "outliers" in this thread.
Love it!
You might also enjoy photographer Rick Rickman's book "The Wonder Years", about senior athletes.
Many photos from it on his site, at http://www.rickrickman.com/gallery.html?gallery=The+Wonder+Years&folio=Portfolio&vimeoUserID=&vimeoAlbumID=3 -
Awesome photos, all of them!1
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All too often, in my experience, doctors do not take seriously the health issues a person goes to them with. I had my serious issues dismissed for a very long time, it resulted in major surgery 17 years ago and I'm only now getting my health back at the age of 67 with alternative advice and treatment for Hashimoto's, I was symptomatic for more years than I care to remember.
I'm more healthy now than I was in my late 30's when I was told, the symptoms I was consulting about were, "what I should expect at my age". Now I just need to increase my stamina. I can't see me rowing for miles like yourself, luluinca but walking above 10 miles or may be more in one outing can happen now I'm able to work at it.
Ill health is not obligatory as one ages. It is a direct consequence of systems developing issues, which when addressed appropriately for the vast majority of people they will resolve, particularly as science is teaching us so much more.
I remember one, now passed doctor saying in a broadcast, with the correct advice and/or treatment there is no reason what so ever for older people to have ill health.0 -
I am 65 this yr and I try to exercise every day unless I get an injury or don't sleep well. 90 mins of hard exercise.
At one pt I couldn't walk and weighed 283 lbs - tues I got down to 199 after 3 yrs of hard work.
There are things I can't do because of injuries but I modify when I have to and keep going.
I feel like I'm 40 yrs old
Melissa in Tx5
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