Redesigning your athletic identity after 50

You acquire new athletic skills in midlife. Do you have the discipline to alter your training?

On Tuesday, I gave a short talk at the University Club, a 160-year-old private social club in Manhattan, headlining its annual fitness awards. (Gratitude to Gwendolyn Bounds, last year’s speaker and my favorite non-drinking buddy, for recommending me to the organizers.) Below is an edited version of my talk, about the need many of us have to redesign our athletic identity after 50.

I chose those specific words for a reason:

• a redesign is needed when something that once worked well — a wardrobe; a career; a fitness routine — no longer serves your purposes

• athletic identity is what many people use to find meaning and belonging

• after 50 requires no further explanation

I’ve edited my remarks slightly to make them more specifically tailored to you, the more than 17,000 subscribers to AGING with STRENGTH.

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Redesigning your athletic identity after 50

How many of you have had surgery to repair an athletic injury? How many have had three such surgeries? Four? How many have had five?

The consequences of athletic ambition

Two years ago, at 56, I resolved to win a master’s tennis tournament by the time I was 60. The only problem I foresaw was that I’d been playing tennis for only about two months. But I’ve always been athletic — lifelong soccer player; rode a bicycle through Vietnam in the 1990s; picked up squash in my thirties and won the B-level of a tournament — so this goal, though aggressive, wasn’t completely unrealistic to me.

As far as I could tell I was on track, until earlier this year. What happened was, I continued playing the way I’ve always played anything: hard and to the max, no compromises and reliant on athletic tenacity to outwill my opponent.

And this is what I want to talk with you about tonight: the idea — the need — that we all eventually confront to redesign our athletic identities, to avoid finding ourselves 80 years old and barely able to walk without help.

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What I mean when I say redesign your athletic identity

Redesigning your athletic identity isn’t about doing less or lowering your standards toward “I’m just happy I can still play.” That not what I mean here. Rather, it begins by asking yourself a creative and additive (not subtractive) question:

Given the body I have, what’s possible now that wasn’t possible before?

And I know what some of you are thinking: “What’s possible now? Less! Less is what’s possible, Paul. Thanks for asking.”

To which I respectfully say: you’re wrong.

There’s a deeply engrained belief that many of us carry over from our twenties and thirties that athletic ability is primarily about speed, power, strength and recovery. And many of us are still in the psychic habit, however deeply buried in our subconsciouses, of measuring our performance against our 35-year-old selves.

But what if I told you that your 50- or 60-year-old body, with all its limitations and accumulated damage, also comes with capabilities your younger self didn’t have?

I’m not talking about wisdom or patience — though those always help. I’m talking about actual, measurable athletic capabilities that can be grown and built through neuromuscular training.

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Your athletic skill now that you didn’t have 25 years ago

Your 60-year-old brain has pattern recognition skills your 35-year-old brain didn’t have. You’ve played thousands more games, won or lost thousands more points, learned a thousand more lessons about how to improvise, adapt and overcome on the field, track, court or road. You’ve banked years or decades of athletic experience. You know how to win smart, as they say. This is not a new concept to many of you.

Neuromuscular training

Your 50- or 60-year-old body, if you’ve trained it, also has movement efficiency your 35-year-old body didn’t need as much. Leverage, timing, positioning are core elements of neuromuscular training, which focuses on refining movement patterns and increasing body control in ways that are proven to improve athletic technique.

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NOTE TO READERS: In a previous audio post, on athletic pain and performance, I spoke and wrote about the power of neuromuscular fitness, and about the benefit of understanding your daily “pain score.”

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This is critical training to keep up, because your 60- or 70-year-old nervous system, believe it or not, can be more precise than your younger one. You may be slower, but you can be more accurate. You can still hit a target.

Maybe you can even hit that target more often now than in your relative youth.

Neuromuscular training, also known as agility body control training, develops muscle memory that optimizes athletic movement. Single-leg exercises like lateral lunges, or star squats, and even learning a beginner martial arts routine are examples. But so are landmine exercises (lifting the weighted end of a barbell).

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Here’s another good neuromuscular training workout in < 3 minutes:

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There’s a mobile app developed by the Hospital for Special Surgery here in New York called RIIP Reps — RIIP stands for Reduce Injuries Improve Performance — that is available to organizations. Unfortunately, as AGING with STRENGTH readers pointed out after I first published this post today, the app isn’t available to individuals. If you’re able to joint as a member of an organized group, the app could be helpful in your transition from traditional, muscle-optimized athlete to agile, intellectually optimized athlete.

Discipline matters

I know first-hand how hard it is to be disciplined enough to stop training the way we’ve grown accustomed to training, and to adjust your expectations to what your body can reasonably handle in weight, stress and repetition. Otherwise, you’re basically queuing up for a surgical intervention.

Or in my case, seven of them.

Relying on surgeries to repair you isn’t a winning strategy

When I asked earlier how many of you have had athletic-induced surgeries, many folks raised their hands. One or two of you indicated you were up to four. I’m glad none of you have gotten to five.

Here’s how I got to seven, over the course of 39 years: I’ve had three on my left knee (a soccer injury repaired in 1986, 2003 and 2009); a left shoulder supraspinatus tendon repair (2017); a left biceps reattachment (2022); right shoulder supraspinatus and labrum repairs (in May); and a right knee meniscus cleanup job (two weeks ago).

The unaccounted stress of being broken a lot

I’m proof that simply continuing to play hard, with the same athletic tenacity you’ve always exhibited (because it’s your athletic identity!) is not a winning strategy. Not only because surgery can involve a long recovery and introduce other complications. But, rather — and this is what I didn’t realize — because of the enormous non-athletic price you pay for being unable to move your body, raise your heart rate or break a sweat for weeks or (in the case of shoulder repairs) months at a time.

Often these costs are elevated levels of stress, from your suddenly sedentary post-op recovery, that may be invisible to you but are glaring and obvious to those who love and care about you. I posted a short audio note several weeks ago about how to manage stress you don't notice.

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How to design your future athletic self

So here’s my challenge to you: Stop trying to be the athlete you were. Start designing the athlete you are now becoming.

Ask yourself:

• What’s my current athletic identity costing me? Or those around me?

• What would I do differently if I weren’t trying to prove I’m still young or compete with that 28 year old (solely in my own mind)?

• What’s possible now that I’ve been resistant or too proud to try?

Change your training, redesign your athletic identity

And then — this is the important part — actually redesign. Change your training. Lower your daily pain score. Slash the cost of whatever you’re currently calling victory.

The only thing standing between you and twenty more years of athletic life is your willingness to let go of the force of nature you were 15, 20, 25 years ago and get curious about the 60-, 65-, or 70-year-old athlete you’re going to become.

If that’s something you want to do but don’t know where to start, email me at agingwithstrength (at) gmail (dot) com. I might be able to help you.