Stupid Stupid

I just had a debate with a coworker about how as you get older you’re just gonna be broken.

He said “that’s a fact. There’s proof. I’ve been in the medical field for a long time and I’ve worked in elderly homes.” I’ve learned with Tee that he doesn’t actually want to debate, though he is interested in expressing his opinions and doesn’t take anything to heart when you disagree with him so if it’s entertaining you might as well engage.

But it’s so fucking wrong lol!

I have an uncle who was a physiotherapist for his whole damn life or at least 20+ years of it. When I took FRC I was only a year or less in when I saw him and had this debate about whether our spines were supposed to bend.

Yep.

He said no.

I, panicking and wishing to defer to his experience and authority over my 2-day seminar I just took in Colorado, still managed to blurt out, “If they weren’t supposed to bend then why do our spines have so many joints in them?”

And to his credit, he actually conceded that that was a good question. I didn’t press further.

As long as you are alive, you are changing, which means you have agency over directing the change.

At its least possible, while avoiding death, it’s your choice to adopt an attitude about the situation. (Praphrasing Viktor Frankl from the legendary book Man’s Search for Meaning, about his time in Auschwitz - definitely recommend).

Most of us have a bit more freedom than he did in the camps.

And when it comes to physical adaptations I wanna point out it’s an issue of inputs and stimulus. Fuel and what you do with the fuel. They sure were working out at labor camps, weren’t they? (How many subscribers did I lose…)

But they didn’t have nourishment, nor rest. The body atrophies. Let’s get away from this analysis because I can’t steer enough away from speaking about the souls and the horrors and this would deserve to go WAY off track from my intentions.

You and I, in the modern world, are taught that our physical lot is fixed. When we get old, we become brittle.

Yet as we are alive, we have the capacity to become stronger and more able. The body has not given up on us. It will adapt, given stimulus and fuel and rest.

For most people this means eating more protein than they are eating.

For most people that means doing something physically harder than they are currently because that’s the only way to get stronger aka capable of harnessing and expressing more power than they are now.

For other people it means more rest in order for the adaptations to take root in a body that is able to experience relaxation (and all the psycho-spiritual layers that can easily get into).

It may be more difficult as we age and as the years of whatever we were doing have piled up on us.

But for Christ’s sake, you can get stronger at any age.

My work friend had heard of Wolff’s Law and said he didn’t….believe it? That tissue adapts under stress? Very strange conversation.

He said that I didn’t understand how people worked so hard in their lives in previous generations using hard labor and that’s why it’s a fact they can’t adapt when they’re older.

Dude…

And then he said my problem was focusing on the positives too much and I needed to focus on the cons.

Look, guys. You can focus on whatever you want. But lemme tell you, it’s possible to change your physical body in like seconds. You do some breathwork and your chemical makeup changes. You increase your movement for a few minutes and you’ll feel better. You do it for a few weeks and you’ll see the changes.

This goes for eye exercises, movement, increasing range of motion, heart function, liver function, anything. Anything can be trained to be better than it is now. It just depends on whether you care to do it enough to put in the effort to do so. And no it doesn’t mean you’ll end up a pro athlete. But you. can. change. from. where. you. are. now.

In fact, you are changing already. Your cells are turning over. They’re responding to what you do, say, feel, and think as they are replaced by new cells. Those are facts.