
Originally Posted by
I've seen black diamonds!
I have arthritis in my foot, hands and lower back from a series of wrestling and football injuries. I'm 45. It all started getting worse in my mid 30's, years after the worst injuries originally occurred. My back, especially, could be debilitating at times. It's much better now. The trick for me has been refocusing my exercise around keeping my body feeling good, instead of training to be stronger/ faster. I'm no less fit than I was 10 years ago because I aggravate the old injuries so much less. I've done a ton of work with multiple physical therapists. Most of them were helpful. A few were pretty clueless. But even with the good ones, not all their suggestions are going to be good for you. I learned to listen to my body and selectively adopt and ignore their suggestions after trying them out. It took about 5 years of trial and error to figure what helps, what doesn't, what to avoid entirely, and eventually develop a general approach to keeping my body functioning.
This might seem sort of like a non-answer, but it's what you need to do. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to keeping a fucked up, aging body working fairly well.
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