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I had almost the opposite experience.
I used to do a lot of community folk dance (the median age was at least 70), and I dated a guy who was somewhat cocky about inviting me to his kickboxing class. I was down, but a little concerned about embarrassing myself, especially because it was at a very intimidating boxing gym.
I didn’t even break a sweat until 20 minutes in. It turns out, jumping up and down in place for ninety minutes several times a week is really good conditioning for basically any cardio.
I got super into biking recently, having gotten back on my bike at the beginning of last season, starting out struggling to make it the quarter mile around the block (about half of which is uphill of course) and ended my first season with an 8 mile record. This season I’m already up to 12 miles as my furthest ride without a break (just yesterday I did 10 miles which included climbing over 250 feet of elevation)
Anyways point is, I decided last second to do a 5k on the 4 of July and upon returning home I told my neighbor who was outside about it. And he’s fucking ripped with a 6 pack and he gave an awkward smile and said “I don’t think I could even finish that” and it was really crazy reminder of how much some folks focus on strength and entirely ignore cardio
For 7 years after left my parents place my only form of transportation was a bike. I rode all through college and my first job.
Toward the end I could do 40-50 miles a day and not even think about it. I think my record was 75 miles in a day.
After a 20 year break I pulled my old bike out to ride 2 miles mostly downhill one evening. Holy shit I was sore. I could hardly move the pedals in my old cruising gear.
It’s really incredible how biking works an entirely different set of muscles from walking or running.
Struggling to make it even a quarter of a mile was really disheartening, but now that I’m going 10 miles at a time I’m really starting to get into the fun stuff. There’s a bike ride fundraiser on a few weeks that I’m planning on signing up for. 18 miles over a 5 hour period. I couldn’t consider something like that last season but this season that’s looking extremely doable
Even the kinds of cardio you can do vary considerably. I bike 50 miles a day (in summer, at least) and a few years ago I signed up for a spin class (stationary bikes) at my gym thinking I would have an easy time of it. Nope, that shit kicked my ass. I don’t think I lasted even 10 minutes.
Everytime I have to lift something heavy I get the opposite of this. Like some six five guys will say it’s super heavy meanwhile I am five five and just threw a fucking 75 lbs piece of furniture over my shoulder like it was a particularly large cat. I don’t know if it’s my height, muscle density, or just the autism but it’s rather amusing watching folks universally balk at the situation.
75 libras is… about 40 kilograms. That’s one hell of a well-fed cat
Tell people you’re a natural sprinter. Very deadly over short distances.
It’s partially your height. Naturally lower center of gravity means naturally better stability, plus the less you have to lower yourself to get a lifting grip on something the less effort int takes to get the thing and yourself back up.
Lmao gospel tshirts to fool people
SAID. Specific adaptation to imposed demand. If you box 3 days per week, you will adapt to boxing. If you do group fitness 3 days per week, you will adapt to group fitness.
Yup, that’s a huge factor people don’t tend to think about when it comes to fitness. It’s the reason they tell you not to do a lot of cardio if you’re trying to do hardcore strength training. Your body only has so much adaptive “bandwidth”, and trying to do to many things at once will massively reduce your progress in all of them.
Fun fact - retired Americans are the second most active and consistent gym goers among all age groups, behind early 20s
Well, hopefully he made some new friends during the endeavor too. ^~^
EDIT: Too used to Discord markdown, where
^doesn’t have semantic value.Friends with benefits.
When they slip the dentures out you know it’s getting real.
careful with that, nursing homes have massively high STD rates
Yeah why do you think that’s the case?
Can’t be arsed to use protection if you’ll kick the bucket next year anyway
Geez, how old do you guys think middle-aged is? Most of us still have our teeth.
Best username I’ve seen on Lemmy so far, btw.
What is an L ? or a Y ?
L stands for loss, Y is short hand for YMCA, which is a cheap(free?) place to work out
Lol the YMCA ain’t free - or even especially cheap as gyms go. It can be free for seniors, if their insurance covers it.
cheers ! preciate it
L loss Y ymca i assume
ok ! thanks
I feel this. There’s a spin class at my local gym populated almost entirely of older women. Aside from the seat leaving me feeling like I got pegged by the end, I absolutely could not keep up with these ladies.
Spin is fucking brutal. I ride a (real) bicycle 50 miles a day but I can’t make it to the end of a beginner’s spin class.
50 miles? Wtf. That’s 80km. Is that over an entire day or to work and back? I can do 40km on my spinning bike in a bit under 90 minutes, but then I can’t do it again the next day. Let alone on the same day.
The 50 miles is in one shot, takes me about 3 hours with a couple of breaks for a few minutes here and there. In summer I generally do four 50 mile rides in four days and then take a day off. I’m a school bus driver so I have the luxury of summers off and even during the school year I have enough time between the morning and afternoon runs to ride 25 miles at least, so I can stay in shape year-round.
I’m sure you could work up to 50 mile rides if you got there gradually. I’m 58 so age is no excuse! Hell, I have older guys blowing past me all the time, although I like to tell myself they have hidden e-motors in their bikes. FWIW I started riding regularly almost 20 years ago and at the time I could barely do 2 miles.
I’m sure I could, given time. I’m already so much fitter than when I started. But time is the actual problem. I don’t have time for three hour workouts plus cooldown. I’m happy if I can do an hour.
