Injury Interruptus!

The road back to fitness has many lessons.

Well, hello again peeps. It's been a while. It's been a year of injury, not all mine, but injuries that rocked my world.

Just after I spoke to you last, my nearly 90-year-old Dad had a fall in the middle of the night. While not wearing his fall detector, this independent living person had to crawl to the phone to call for help. Unfortunately, the closest family to him mistook his 2 am call for a mistake and slept on. Fortunately, Dad was able to call an ambulance who were able to access his place with a key from a coded key safe external to his property.

Safely in hospital, he called me early the following day. I am a five-hour drive away, so I jumped to attention, threw some clothes together and headed off.

True to form, the golf-obsessed 89-year-old's first question to the doctor was 'When can I play golf again?' He replied, 'Give it about four weeks.’

Multiple fractured ribs, four weeks, really? - was my first thought?

But I know attitude counts, so I kept quiet. True to form, despite the huge black and purple bruise on his torso, he was on his golf cart, on the course in around 4 weeks. 'I didn't play very well, but I went around' he quietly told me. He was fine; I could go home and leave him to it.

Six months later, he is still driving to the course at the end of his street to play golf with his mates, a high point of his week. He and his golfing buddy even had a win recently, so all good.

Back home to catch up on my missed Peloton rides. I'd had my bike for 6 months and was getting into a fitness routine, feeling fantastic, determined to look after myself as I aged, following the example set by my dear Dad over the years. A program of riding, strength, yoga and meditation made me feel fantastic. Endorphins flowed. My morning fitness routine set me up for a great day, every day.

I started following some 70+ women on Peloton and was amazed at what they were accomplishing and what rides they were doing so I thought to myself: If they can do it, at 66 I can certainly do it so I ramped up my schedule. After all, I was Aging with ATTITUDE!

And then it started - a tiny prickle in my right kneecap. Oops, what's that?

Diagnosed as patellar tendinopathy, my physiotherapist explained that it's an overuse injury. Noooo! She followed up with: 'Stop riding, no kneeling, no steps, no sand walking.' Nooo! I am just getting into my stride.

I left her office with a set of glute and quad strengthening exercises and a determination to be back on my bike pronto. Who'd have thought riding didn't strengthen those muscles already?

I had a lot to learn.

In true researcher style, I was off to dig deep to learn everything about this new annoyance that had crept into my life.

What is Tendinopathy?

Tendinopathy, as I discovered, is different to tendonitis.

• It is a result of a breakdown of collagen in the tendons.

• It is relatively common.

• Older people are more commonly affected.

• About 80% of patients recover completely within six months.

Oh dear! This will require more than rest.

I religiously did my exercises, morning and night like a good patient and was given a new set each visit.

I bought a trigger massage gun to massage quads which cannot be stretched in the standard way with a knee injury. Tight muscles cause tight joints.

Each time I would ask my physio 'When can I get back on my bike?' I sound like a chip of the old block, don’t I?

She commented that she wished she had more patients like me instead of most who wanted her to fix them. However, I am responsible for my body and consider these experts my consultants. The buck stops with me. It's actually a whole lot less expensive in the long run.

Rehab exercise plan progressing. What about nutrition?

There is limited research on how nutrition can support rehabilitation so health professionals do not offer much, if any, supplement advice.

• However, I found promising Research by Dr Baar of UC Davis who is at the forefront of nutritional supplementation and the role of collagen in preventing and rehabilitating injured tendons.

• Collagen is preferred over whey protein because is high in the specific amino acids of lysine, glycine, arginine and proline. Whey protein is high in amino acids that are more useful for building muscle such as leucine.

• Vitamin C is also required as part of one of the main enzymatic processes involved in collagen production. Therefore, if you don’t have vitamin C in your system, the collagen supplement won’t work.

• The article outlines promising outcomes obtained with elite basketballers. So, I reckon a little old recreational athlete like me could use his protocol.

My Attitude to Aging was sorely tested during the first weeks. No amount of seeing athletes with injuries and being grateful that I wasn't in the middle of a sporting career, prevented me from sliding into depression. Fitness had become a keystone habit for me, the foundation of my identity on which daily productivity and mental state rode.

A few weeks in and we finally had a plan to return to very light recovery rides, 10 minutes 3 times per week. Daily riding was a no-go. Rest days need to be a part of the schedule. That's no fun!

I had to turn off the Peloton Leaderboard so I couldn't see what others were doing and try to outdo them. I was embarrassed to be doing light rides when I had been doing powerful endurance and HiiT rides like the 70+ women. Even my strength workouts suffered which further affected my mental state.

It's been a couple of months and I am now doing 30 minute low-impact rides 3 days a week and pilates another 3 days with one rest day. No shocks to the body says the physiotherapist so it's slow, steady (and boring!)

I am reminded by Dr Peter Attia that in preparation for the Centenarian Olympics, longevity is built on endurance and you probably can't do too much of the 'boring' Zone 2 exercise.

What have I learned?

Do you know how many activities require knees? Apart from the obvious, praying, so much yoga and pilates require us to be on our knees, something I can't do yet. I can't do standard quad lunges, squats or stretches; I can't sit for long periods without a 'prickle' to remind me that I am nursing an injury.

There are numerous YouTube videos for 'Pilates - No Knees'. So, clearly, I am not the only one out there with knee injuries.

My joints are the potential failure point of my body and they will need extra nurturing as I age.

The days of pounding out a workout might be over for me. Ego has been pushed back into its box. Gentle nurturing me has taken over.

Aging is about playing a long game.

Aging with ATTITUDE! has become just aging with a newfound attitude and respect for my body.

Consider me suitably humbled by the experience.