Old Man Fitness: Tailoring your workout to your injuries

As we get older, we tend to collect things. Piles of artifacts representing memories both lost and treasured, old receipts we think we may need, and that shirt you know you can’t pull off anymore but just can’t find it in yourself to part with all take their places in our lives and homes like a physical manifestation of our own cluttered minds.

These collections start as a byproduct of the lives we lead, but over time, they come to define us. The tools in my garage and guns in my safe are more than an extension of my interests, in many ways, they’re an extension of me.

Of course, as the years go by, there’s also another kind of collection we tend to assemble, though not one that’s as easy to tuck away into a junk drawer: injuries also have a way of piling up on us. For some of us, they can be a point of pride — my list of injuries represents a long list of great accomplishments and bad decisions, but most importantly, none of them have managed to kill me yet. I’m not proud of every broken bone or torn ligament, but I’m proud that I’m still in the fight, dragging my aching ass into the gym despite all the ways life (and my own choices) have conspired against me.