This is one of the big psychological benefits of being physically active. If you're fairly physically active, e.g. doing 60+ min of high heart rate cardio or intense anaerobic exercise a day, you'll always be sore somewhere. Maybe it's your thighs from yesterday's squats. Your lower back from a long run. Your elbow when you tried that dynamic move on a climb you've been projecting. And once you accept and embrace that minor pain you become a lot better at psychologically dealing with the small constant pain that comes with aging.

Also if you ever compete in a physical activity at more than just a "with your friends" level, you'll quickly find that whether you're 15 or 50 warming up makes a huge difference.

A lot of the problems of aging that I suspect folks today are facing are the problems of leading a fairly sedentary lifestyle.

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munificent 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

There is a profound psychological difference between:

"My legs are sore from running yesterday but it means the muscles are getting stronger and I'll be healthy."

And:

"There is this weird twinge in my back. Did I sleep weird and it will be fine tomorrow? Or do I have to start doing more stretches and if I keep up with that forever, I can keep this pain at bay? Or does it mean that one of the vertebrae is starting to crack and if I don't go to the doctor soon enough and get surgery I'm going to end up paralyzed for life?"

Pain is easy. It's not knowing what the pain means that's hard.

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Karrot_Kream 5 days ago | parent [-]

You can have the same feelings toward pain from physical activity. "Did I strain my shoulder in my workout or did I tear a ligament??" or "Are the ligaments in my foot sore from snowboarding or did I tear my ACL??" I used to be afraid of this kind of thing all the time when I first started being active. My general point is that regular physical activity gives you psychological faith in the resilience of the human body. Having done loads of activities and sports for over a decade now I am much more confident in my body's ability to bounce back from injury than I did when I was more sedentary and every ache and pain filled me with fear.

I think folks are really focusing on the "psychological" part of my comment in isolation and not the "problems of leading a fairly sedentary lifestyle" which is probably my fault because I don't think I structured my post well.

I think a lot of the problems that are associated with aging, such as minor aches and pains, are consequences of leading mostly sedentary lifestyles. Part of being fairly active (meaning well above most state-recommended guidelines) is the psychological resilience to pain that I mentioned. But also part of it is that because you are constantly pushing your physical abilities, the strain that comes from occasional bad movement as part of everyday life (sleeping badly, holding the faucet tap the wrong way, hitting your wrist on the corner of a table, etc) is usually well within the envelope of pushing yourself compared to your actual sport.

My greater point is that leading a sedentary lifestyle is a whole package of things. This includes the physiological consequences of not developing strength, flexibility, and joint elasticity; this also includes the psychological resistance to risk and pain that comes from being sedentary.

	▲	munificent 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree with you totally that being physically active is important for being healthy. And I think there's something to be said for your point that experiencing pain and seeing yourself recover from it can be helpful for processing pain psychologically. You could look at it as sort of exposure therapy for pain. But I also think that the kinds of pains you get from exercise are quite different from the psychological experience of pain from a serious injury and the former doesn't really prepare you for the latter. It's hard to explain unless you've been there. Most of the time, pain is a signal from your past telling you about something you did. It's your body's way of saying "don't do that again". But when a severe injury happens, it can also be an omen for your future. Your body saying "no, you don't get to do that anymore". Processing that is difficult, especially given how uncertain the signal actually is.

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AngryData 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That is an interesting idea and it follows some patterns I previously noticed with friends. The ones who are not or never were physically active are all complaining about aches and pains and acting like they are old men twice their age just doing basic household things. I kind of just chalked that up to them not being in shape, but it never really fully explained the extent of their complaints. However I grew up with a very physical life working on the farm and doing trade work since forever. By every measure I should be the one complaining about aches and pains and old injuries and such, but perhaps because im so accustomed to pains just from work and more intense physical activity the age related stuff just hasn't hit me hard enough to really notice like they do.

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antisthenes 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you do it regularly, you won't be sore.

Soreness only comes initially once you are getting into the routine, or if you push yourself way beyond limits.

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0xffff2 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> doing 60+ min of high heart rate cardio or intense anaerobic exercise a day,

Per day?? Does anyone really do that? I aim for a bit more than 60 minutes a week.

	▲	Karrot_Kream 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> If you're fairly physically active > (meaning well above most state-recommended guidelines) So yeah some people do. High level amateur and pro athletes put in much, much more. I view it as a cheat code to lead a longer, healthier life. While my less active friends are complaining about lower back pain shuffling into their cars, I'm able to carry large boxes up many flights of stairs with minimal issue. FWIW I used to have awful digestion issues before I started working out regularly and now have gone back to my teenage baseline of guzzling peppers and chili oil.

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Noumenon72 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't accept and embrace the minor pain, I treat exercise as a way to fix what I did wrong that led to the pain so I'm more resilient and don't develop it chronically. There are many aches I used to get (elbows while washing hands, hip socket, sleeping with my neck to the side) that are years in the past because I figured them out. I just realized right now that I haven't woken up with sore collarbones this year, which I can probably attribute to incline bench.

Cracks and pops are another case where constant introspection and following tips on TikTok has made many of them go away. The received wisdom is they're not proven harmful, but in my case they at least represent using muscles in wrong patterns that pull things off center.

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5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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