On considering when to decrease my daily exercises started over a decade ago, now in my 50s
I’ve meant to write this post for years. It may be the longest past due. Why? Because it relates to many parts of my life and involves decisions that will affect me the rest of my life. I’ll stick with the basics to put the main thoughts on paper, so to speak.
When I started doing burpees daily, it was ten a day for thirty days with a friend in 2011. I didn’t expect to continue them daily for an indefinite period. Within those thirty days, the value of an exercise needing no equipment, spotter, etc that exercised much of my body became clear.
I knew two conflicting things: practice would enable me to increase but aging would lead me to decrease. In the years since, I’ve only increased the number of burpees to over fifty per day, plus added other calisthenics, weight lifting, and stretching. I’ve never decreased my daily workout.
I’ve learned the value of a self-imposed daily challenging healthy activity (a sidcha). I agree that discipline equals freedom. I love being healthy and fit.
Over the past few years, I’ve added little, though some, to this sidcha. I’ve viewed keeping at one level as my body’s potential strength decreases and recovery times increase as nearing my potential more.
An odd net result: I’m stronger than ever but I feel weak all the time. I think all the time of one major aging transition. Up to a certain age, I could walk as much as I wanted and I’d never feel it the next day. Running might leave me sore. Playing ultimate did. But no matter how much I walked, the activity never made me sore or less able the next day.
One day I remember feeling sore or weak and wondered what caused it, then realized it was walking the day before. I realized walking counted. I still didn’t walk for exercise for years. Now I do: on cardio days, I might count walking a few miles as a cardio workout.
Another realization: how long healing takes. I could go on about how much longer my body takes to recover from injuries, but you either know from experience or will find out.
The above reinforces what I knew from when I started considering doing a minimum set of exercises for the rest of my life: at some point I’d have to decrease. I couldn’t expect at 60 to do what I did at 40. Or if I could still then, at some point I’d have to decrease.
When will I decrease? In not many other places in my life, if any, do I consider questions for over a decade. I’m trying to decide when to decrease any part of my burpee-based calisthenics sidcha. Should I decrease soon? Maybe in my late 50s. Maybe in my 60s. I’m not sure. When I’m not doing them, I feel that even as my body’s potential strength and endurance decreases, I can still keep up the numbers, meaning I’ll reach close to my potential.
But reaching that potential tires me out every day. Maybe I should decrease the number sooner. I haven’t figured it out. You might imagine many related thoughts have come and gone for years.
For now, I’ll leave this post as stating the situation. Maybe I’ll decrease soon. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll increase the number because I can.
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