Editor's Note
Confessions of an Aging Athlete
For decades, it’s been me against my musculoskeletal system. Shortly after graduating from college, I entered the ranks of the weekend warriors, grabbing squash, tennis, or racquetball games with ever-dwindling frequency as my schedule and that of my opponents became increasingly incompatible. I finally moved on to more solitary-but-reliable forms of exercise—running and biking. I braved subzero temperatures, slogged through new-fallen snow, got lost in foreign cities, and peddled my ancient Schwinn Varsity on country roads all in the name of fitness. Each year, it seemed I had to stretch a little bit more or ice another area of my body. But regardless of what regimen I adopted, my joints, tendons, muscles, and ligaments let me know that I was no longer a wannabe jock of 18 and that maybe I should consider channel-surfing as an alternative activity.
Looking at this month’s Minnesota Medicine, my joints and I are happy to find that there is help out there for aging, aching exercisers. As medical science has expanded the list of exercise’s benefits, the trickle of 40-plus-year-olds donning Nikes and heading to Lifetime Fitness has exploded into a torrent, and the raft of medical professionals available to treat their exercise-related maladies has burgeoned (p. 26).
Indeed, the whole specialty of sports medicine has blossomed. It now services athletes ranging from peewees to professionals. Whether they’re on the sidelines during a high school soccer game or watching Brett Favre on the field, sports medicine physicians who serve as team physicians frequently see injuries happen in front of their eyes (or on replays), injuries ripe for diagnosing and treating (p. 8).
Yet prevention is as important as treatment. Adequate strength training and stretching, and helmets even in noncontact sports are part of the purview of sports medicine docs.
Sports are not what they used to be. They are high-tech, high-pressure, and, sometimes, high-risk. I started playing Little League when I was 8 years old. Kids in Minnesota start hockey soon after they learn to walk. When I played high school tennis, scheduled practices were confined to the tennis season and any additional practice during the year was done on your own. High school tennis players now play year round and take lessons from seasoned pros. College football is big business, with high school players hoping for lucrative scholarships and later Wall Street-sized salaries. And professional athletes are bigger, stronger, and faster. A 300-pound NFL linemen, once an oddity, is now the norm. Not surprising, the pressure to perform leads some to engage in outlawed activities to enhance their performance (p. 14). So sports medicine has challenges in 2010 never imagined 40 years ago.
I ran one marathon in 1979, and I’m not sure my body has recovered yet. I abandoned any dreams of a repeat shortly after limping across the finish line. Obviously, some older athletes such as Rob Johnson, M.D., who is featured in our End Notes, have better staying power. Hopefully, sports medicine will keep him, me, and all exercisers, older and otherwise, pumping and peddling for years to come.
Charles R. Meyer, M.D., can be reached at cmeyer1@fairview.org.