Are we ever too old?

Science has proven that as we age there are certain chemicals in our body that are not regenerating as fast. Science has been proven that our reaction time gets slower and slower every year from age 30 on. It has been proven that our recovery time increases with age. I have found that my son and I can do the same workout and a day later he is ready to hit it hard again and I need an extra day or two to recover. It has been proven that our muscles begin to deplete at a quicker rate after age 65. Men reach their physical peak at age 26-28 and women at about age 16. So the question still remains, after age 40 are we too old to get in the best physical condition that we have ever been in? How about ages 50 or 60 is it too late?

The reality is that I will never be able to run 10 flat in the 100 meters nor jump 7 feet in the high jump ever again. Those days are over, however the real question should be can we slow the aging process down so that we don’t decline at an already rapid rate? A wise man once told me, “You’re not old until your cold.” This man plays competitive softball in the senior league and is 85 years of age. If you saw him you would not think he was of that age. Another man, who just broke the world record in the 400 meters for men 90 plus years of age told me, “Once you stop, then it ends… so don’t ever stop. Keep challenging yourself and take care of your body and it will take care of you.” Then my dad told me one day while walking with him to the Penn Relays, “Kevin never stop running. Never stop running because once you do, trying to get back to where you finished is almost impossible.”

All of these men are well past 70 years of age and are very much respected in my eyes and the wisdom they have imparted to me is priceless. Here it is in a nut shell. We are all aging, but the question is how quickly do you want to go down this slippery slope? By constantly challenging your body to improve, you are slowing down our already declining process. We will get weaker. But at what rate do you want that to happen? We will get slower. But at what rate do you want that to happen? We will get injured. But will we allow those injuries to totally stop us?

If you look at professional athletes, especially those in their 30’s and even 40’s, you may say to yourself that they are just super human. I disagree with people who say that. My response to them is that those people just get it. They challenge their bodies to maintain a specific level of fitness. Yes, each year it gets harder and harder, but never the less they try and maintain it. Whereas, at younger ages you could take days off at a time and still bounce back pretty quickly, now maybe you have to do something everyday just to maintain. By doing this, we would be slowing down our aging process and the best thing is this… we would be doing it without taking pills.

No, we are never too old to still achieve heights we thought we could never, in our wildest dreams, achieve. Let’s get active and stay active and enjoy life the way it was suppose to be.