Age Discrimination?

I know this is an old thread (2015), but it's a good one to revive

I think most of us who become active later, rather than having been continuously active since youth, have a pretty clear idea - or develop said idea rapidly - of what considerations and limitations apply to us. That may be even more true for people who've been vigorously active for decades: They know whether and how they've changed.

We've lived in these bodies for a while now! If anything, we may be over-cautious. To suggest that we need to be protected from ourselves, coddled and cautioned, counseled to wind down our activity is, to my mind, patronizing and insulting . . . to our intelligence even more than to our bodies.

Yes, we may need technical information that applies, about changes in tissues with aging and that sort of thing. But all beginners need tailored technical information to achieve their best results in the safest & most effective manner.

But if, as older beginners, we have normal mobility, strength, flexibility, etc., the basic approaches that apply to other non-impaired beginners of other ages also apply to us. Everyone needs to start low & slow, and build up from there as our individual capabilities allow, with the usual constraints of keeping good form, paying attention to how we feel, and getting adequate rest.

A bunch of people need to get over the idea that age is a disability. It isn't. Age may increase the odds that some of us have developed certain kinds of physical challenges, but age in and of itself is not a synonym for decrepitude.

To insist that OP is "an outlier" is, to my thinking, also insulting. Is she non-average, atypical, in her current level of effort and accomplishment? Sure. But "outlier" implies being a data point out there in isolation, far from other data points. Much as I respect @luluinca, she isn't this. There are bunches of athletes in their (our? ) 60s and beyond.

I rowed a double shell this morning with a 71-year-old woman, doing power intervals for around half of our 7k+ morning row. (I'm 61. Both of us could go longer, but the two newer - and younger, 26 & 50-something - women we rowed with were heading back to the dock after 5-6k in recreational single shells, so we went back, too, to help carry their boats.)

My 71 year old friend lifts heavy multiple times a week, rows 4 days a week with us in season, and goes to Pilates twice a week, not a "for seniors" class (but taught by her 71-year-old husband . . . I've done his class - it's Serious).

Also out on the water this morning in single racing shells were an 80-something-year-old guy (skinny, wiry math professor emeritus with washboard abs who also rides his recumbent trike regularly for dozens of miles per outing), and another woman in her late 60s or early 70s (don't know her as well, but she's also active in other ways with her same-age husband). Another 70-year old rows with us routinely, too, but she's out of town right now.

This is just a tiny sample - one random morning's rowers. My daytime spin classes are similar: Multiple folks in 50s through 70s, including a couple of active triathletes, one of whom also runs marathons. (Regular spin classes, BTW, not "for seniors" easy versions - heh).

So, @luluinca is doing great things, and is above average for sure, very disciplined and accomplished - I have great respect for her - but she's not an outlier. There are a bunch of nearby data points.

I sort of sympathize with doctors. They see a lot of people who are not average, either . . . but in the unhealthy/inactive direction. Who would you suppose is disproportionately patronizing doctors? So, no surprise that they develop bias. Ideally, they'd recognize more quickly when they're dealing with active people. I know various verbal tactics for helping them out with that.

Most of the things I hear 30-somethings say they expect about exercise as they get toward my age are, IMO and IME, silly. I detrain a little faster if inactive than i did when younger; I have to be a little more conscientious about recovery strategies; and it's more important to avoid injury (because of the slower recovery and faster detraining. I can still do what I once could, improve at what I do, push myself, etc.

BTW, when folks say things to me like "you don't look 61", I usually say something like "Yes I do: This is how 61 is supposed to look."