I am not promoting any of the following as a way for any older athlete to train. It's just a report regarding how my current cycle of training is coming along. First, I am just about to hit my middle sixties. Second, I have been training in a variety of martial arts -- on and off again -- since 1975. Third, I had to stop training in a very rough form of martial arts when I hit thirty because an old neck injury damn near put me into a wheel chair. Anyway back when the covid-19 stuff resulted in 'stay at home' orders from the state, I dusted off my old training manuels and DVDs and began relearning and learning new martial arts forms. I didn't hit the heavy bag nor spar nor grapple nor do any of the stuff that -- arguably -- actually matters and so don't get the idea that I am promoting myself as any sort of martial arts master. All I've done for the past months is practice different forms on a daily basis. Still . . . practice seems to make a difference in that gradually my aging body has begun to transform into something resembling that of my youth. Now comes the weird parts. I have never broken a sweat, never had to halt to pant for breath, never had to take a break because I got exhausted; never trained for longer than ten minutes at a time and nor without taking about five minutes of break between sessions. In other words, my training results are in defiance of common training practices. I don't warm up nor stretch before begining my training and I don't cool down or stretch afterwards. The nearest I come to a warm-up is to practice a form slowly and without power or speed at first; but by the second or third rendition I am using real power and executing with genuine speed. I find it all to be a bit puzzling, to tell you the truth. I should not be getting the results I am getting at my age by using these methods and yet physically I am improving on a steady basis. So to the experienced athletes among us . . . what the hell and I doing right by essentially doing everything wrong?
Ah-ha! I was wondering if the training bill would eventually come due. Yesterday my knees said, "Nope, not going to keep doing it like this." Although there was no real pain, they both made it obvious that they were ready to collapse. So yesterday I spent much of the day performing squats -- both with and without a weight load -- this morning the knees feel much tighter. Problem solved? Maybe. Anyway it was back to forms training again . . . only cautiously. By the way, the training culprit seemed to have been the introduction of chest high snapping front kicks in the latest form that I have been learning. It seems that what the body would happily put up with in my twenties through early fifties, doesn't really like doing the same in my middle sixties. Who'd ah thunk it?
First point is that fitness has nothing whatsoever to do with age. There is a centenarian still running marathons at the age of 108 and FTR he only STARTED running when he was 89. Dr Miriam Nelson is an expert on this topic so you might want to read up what she has to say and take a look at a few of her videos too. http://www.endlesslope.com/Aging Dr Nelson Research.html I am slightly older than you now but I began fitness exercises at 62 and swam 64 laps in a competition pool before turning 64. I focus on core, balance, breathing and stamina exercises and can stand on my toes for 2 minutes. My heart rate is in the low 60's. You mentioned your knees and that is one of the reasons why so many stop exercising is because of aches and pains in aging joints. There is an alternative to stressing those joints and that is called zero impact exercise. In some respects you are already doing that which is why you are gaining fitness without a lot of the usual pain. The short time frames that you are using together with hydration can avoid a lot of what is experienced with workouts that PUSH the body hard. If you switched over to zero impact you could exercise for an hour and not do any damage while building endurance and stamina. What do I mean by zero impact? Those chest high kicks are straining you knees when you impact the ground. If you did the same chest high kick in the deep end of a swimming pool it would be more difficult because of the water resistance but there would be less impact on your knees because your weight on them is offset by the water keeping you afloat. Lunges, jumps, kicks and leg swings all take more effort in the water than out of it but landing on your feet is always lighter. With a tether you can run a marathon without your feet touching the bottom of the pool. Runners with injuries use this technique to stay fit while rehabilitating. In essence there is probably little that you doing that cannot be replicated as a zero impact exercise while you still keep fit and healthy.
Good information, and thanks. But as to the kicks, my core training was from a branch of Korean martial arts, and the one thing they are expert at is how to kick without hurting yourself. After a moment or two of thought yesterday, I realized that all I need to do is slow down the execution of the kicks in order to remove both power and speed; thus there will be no transmission of 'force' from the extended kicking leg to the opposite and stationary supporting leg. Actually that adheres to your advice in regards to training in water. The idea is to relieve as much stress on the joints as possible. It's the cross transferrence of torque that causes the problem. Once I stressed the legs by putting too much power and speed into the front snap kicks -- as if I were still a much younger man -- the temporary harm was done. By performing leg squats and tightening the knee tendons and ligaments and muscle groups and then performing slower kicks instead, I eliminated the stress. It was all vanity on my part anyway; wanting to return to a time during which I could thoughtlessly put as much speed and power into a kick as I wanted and do so without causing my knees any harm. The older the althlete becomes the more imperative it is to train smarter. Fortunately I seem to have caught myself in time. What's interesting, however, is that even super slow motion movements -- such as training in the Tai Chi Chuan (tijiquan) form eventually causes me leg pain -- as I discovered over the years. That's because from the beginning to the end of the particular form that I learned, one is executing several hundred movements and techniques without halting from beginning to end -- for about forty minutes. Even doing so in slow motion, the body is undergoing nonstop training stress. Aside from the sheer boredom of endlessly doing the taijuquan long form, that was what finally convinced me to stop training in it. I got tired of wearing compression type knee sleeves.
Yes, you are correct that we need to train smarter as we age. Maintaining fitness is essential to aging gracefully. My daughter put it best when she said to me that although I am old I am not frail and that is the key. Everything is better when you are fit.
