Age Simulation Suit

One thing you have to experience to really get it, that cannot be simulated with a mechanical suit or transmitted through words, is all the f-ing little aches you get past a certain point. I´m now convinced it is this that makes older people cranky. Some days, my body is just constantly in a low but annoying pain somewhere, and it seems in increasingly weird, obscure places you never even thought about. I dont even remember when or how it started but although I would be considered fit by most people, now I have to watch my running, otherwise ITBS, I have to watch my pull exercises, otherwise shoulder impingement syndrome, I have to watch my dips, otherwise elbows, hell even after just _sleeping_ I have to roll and stretch my neck out because it hurts just from lying apparently. I used to scoff about warmup, now I take it really, really seriously. "Going with the flow" of the moment, instead of sticking to a carefully dosed plan? That´s for young bodies! Thankfully I can still use my full range of motion everywhere but Im acutely aware now how quickly it can all go away and how long any overuse or even minor injury now costs me in recovery.

Getting older has its benefits too but mostly mental, in physical terms I cannot think of a single benefit.

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.

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.

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.