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Doctors are Clueless about Advising Seasoned Athletes

fit-older-man-pushups

http://time.com/3765835/american-medical-schools-exercise-curriculum/

As an older man, you’d be better of consulting a Shaman than a medical doctor about physical fitness.

There are certain “go-to” physicians for older men in every big city.

I suggest you get their names before bothering to ask anyone else for advice on your fitness regimen.

…………

I dare you to tell your family physician that you are a competitive power-lifter, or Crossfit enthusiast and not treated to the all-too-familiar refrain: Everything in moderation.

Newsflash: Moderation is not living, it’s just enduring.

I’d rather be dead than sedentary.

The ONLY physicians who “get it” are either athletes themselves, or testosterone pushers, who will go along with pretty much anything a patient says as long as they leave with an Rx.

The rest are usually couch junkies who let go a long time ago; usually when their first wives left them out of sheer boredom.

Understand that such physicians are merely projecting their own insecurities and/or laziness onto their patients to keep ’em coming back for more treatments, which they know they will require at 10 times the frequency of those who take care of themselves.

Did you know that most guys who don’t make healthy lifestyle choices have back problems?

In order to avoid these types of injuries, I train my back. Hard. With a trainer who knows what he’s doing. It’s a slow, systematic process that, in time, enables me to win state competitions in power-lifting without steroids.

But yet I still have to listen to physicians in my gym making demoralizing comments about my workouts.

“I’m surprised you don’t hurt your back.” “You’re going to suffer a brain aneurism lifting that much weight.” “Why do you do that to yourself?”

Believe me, I could go on. These are the same resigned individuals who walk stoop-shouldered, knees twisted in three different directions, butts as sheer as flat irons, like phantasms from an existential nightmare.

Shoot me the day I look like that without a damn good excuse, like getting hit by a bus or something.

I have a responsibility to myself to get enough sleep at night, to eat right, to nurture my personal life and professional life, and to train as hard as I possibly can so that I can build as much lean mass as possible, while I still can.

That’s my mantra.

To the guys my age who don’t work out, and still bitch and moan about poor health, they should take their sob stories elsewhere.

Aging is not for the faint of heart, and neither is this blog.

I liked this article on the subject:

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/olderathletes/a/082404.htm

By the way, if you do happen to require the services of a Shaman, I happen to have a reference:

HamatsaShaman1

On Longevity: The Married vs Single Debate

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http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/married-vs-single-what-science-says-is-better-for-your-health/ar-AAalrTb

Most middle-aged single men I know want to be in relationships, which may come as a shock to women who assume that these guys are merely womanizing frat boys in grown up bodies.

As it turns out, running the streets like packs of wolves gets old fast [literally and figuratively].

Back in the day [not long ago], I ran the streets 6 nights a week, every night another opportunity to meet THE ONE, even if the woman I happened to wake up with the next morning was everything but.

I was lost in the labyrinth of what if, which fueled those familiar brain chemicals I couldn’t live without.

It’s a funny little game men play with themselves when they reach a certain age and their empty homes feels like Purgatory.

Men like me hate going to bars, and the only reason we do is because the alternative [staying home alone] is far worse.

It’s hard on the soul to cast a line night after night no matter what the pretense happens to be. After a while it becomes a preoccupation that settles in like a virus that bleeds us of relevance and meaning.

Men tend to drink more, pay less attention to things that might otherwise be important to them, and generally speaking, burn the candle at both ends for months or years without payback.

Once a man finds himself in a healthy relationship, he discovers emotional support, physical and emotional intimacy, and deeper social ties to family. These factors alone drop blood pressure and relieve the low level anxiety that burns like a brush fire from deep inside the soul.

Robin Simon, a professor of sociology at Wakefield University, writes in Psychiatry Weekly that positive interpersonal relationships are better for men on many levels. “…Marriage provides social support — including emotional, financial, and instrumental support. Also, married people have greater psychosocial (or coping) resources than the non-married — higher self-esteem and greater mastery.”  

Of course, the relationship or marriage in question must be a healthy one or he’s better off back at the bars.

The one downside of good relationships appears to be a greater propensity for obesity. After all, when you’re no longer spending 5 hours a day in the gym followed by a tanning appointment, that tends to happen.

One study found that married men were 25% more likely to be overweight or obese compared to single men or those in committed relationships.

Personally, I find this angle tough to swallow because committed relationships and marriage are kind of the same thing. I guess that piece of paper means more than most of us realize…or want to realize as the case may be.

Nonetheless, “the emphasis on looks and waistline may not matter as much,” it was postulated.

No kidding. When you’re “off the market” it means less, but it can also mean a hell of a lot more if you let it get away with you.

The findings concluded that in “healthy” relationships, greater longevity is the net result.

With this as a backdrop, it bears noting that older women are far better at establishing relationships and bonding with other women, making single-hood an easier ride.

This is in stark contrast to men who continue to act out like lone wolves in search of themselves.

SUMMARY

For all of this to play out the way it’s supposed to, the relationship in question must be a healthy one.

So the real question is whether men think the price of putting in the work to keep them running smoothly is worth a few extra years of life.