Originally Posted by
AlanK
It seems to me there are two possibilities:
1) Like someone such as Nolan Ryan, you are a genetic freak (in a good way
). There are some persons who age remarkably well and remain remarkably vital and healthy well later in life. If you are such a person, congrats.
2) You're highly delusional. No matter how well you take care of yourself, for most of us, physical ability declines steadily after our mid-30s. This isn't to say we can't remain healthy as we age, only that we can't do the same things in our 60s that we could in our 30s.
I'm 42, and now take far better care of myself than when I was 25. I eat healthy, exercise regularly, and usually get adaquate sleep. That said, physically I am
not the same person I was at age 25: I don't have the energy, stamina, motivation, or ambition I did back then.
As I said, some people age remarkably well, but for most of us, our verve gradually declines as we age.
I don't think I'm delusional, and I'm certainly not a genetic freak - though I am probably more fortunate than most, in that all my relations on both sides of my family have lived into their late eighties or nineties in reasonable health.
Of course physical potential declines with age. I'm not as fast now as I could have been at thirty. But I am faster than I actually
was at thirty, because I train more, and more systematically, than I did then. I'm not as explosive or elastic as I was then, but aerobically I am fitter.
Most of the estimates of how fast people decline physically are based on studies of the general population. And the general population tend to get more sedentary, and more overweight, as they age. They don't expect to be able to do the things they could do when they were younger, and those low expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who decide to stay as active as they were, tend to age more slowly. There are studies showing that people who regularly take strenuous exercise both live longer, and retain more of their full function into old age, than those who are less active. To an extent, in choosing to slow down, we are choosing to get older faster than we need to.