Exercise Guide for Aging Boomers

While their minds may be telling them they can slam-dunk like Shaquille or hit a baseball like Barry Bonds, the fact is baby boomers' bodies are a lot more prone to sports injuries than they care to realize.

Ignoring their aging bodies seems to be the guiding goal for baby boomers. But like it or not, Americans ages 35 to 54 find themselves heading to the emergency room in record numbers. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), baby-boomer sports injuries jumped 33 percent during the 1990s, with injury costs totaling more than $18.7 billion by the end of 1998.

Blame bicycling and basketball for the largest number of trips to hospital emergency rooms, the CPSC says. The largest increase in injuries, by far, is among boomers doing general exercise and running.

"It's a huge problem of epidemic proportions," says David Janda, an orthopaedic surgeon, director of the nonprofit Institute for Preventative Sports Medicine in Michigan and author of a book on preventing sports injuries, The Awakening of a Surgeon.

Janda says baby boomers have dived headlong into contact and team sports in numbers that stun statisticians. "We have more baby boomers participating in sports than ever before, and there's also a significant increase in baby boomers who are participating in all kinds of recreational and organized team sports - from hockey to baseball, from basketball to golf."

Aging makes you more prone to injury

While Janda applauds the interest in sports and activity, he warns the aging process calls for a careful and calculated approach to exercise.

"As we age, our bones lose some of their strength and mass, and that's true in both men and women," Janda explains. "And with soft tissues, like muscles and tendons and ligaments, the building blocks of those cells - collagen - becomes altered. These soft tissues become less elastic, become more vulnerable to tearing." Muscles lose mass and fiber, tendons lose water, the heart loses its ability to pump blood as efficiently, and the body's metabolism slows.

"But in our minds we are still young, and we tend to want to relive our days of teenage prowess," Janda says. "But there's a disconnect between the brain and the physical machine here, and that's what ultimately leads to injury."

What kind of injury?

"They vary from tears to soft tissues to broken bones, dislocated joints and severe head injuries," Janda warns. "Even death - from getting hit in the chest with a basketball or a hockey puck or hit in the head from any kind of projectile. We even know of cases of death from dehydration. And once we baby boomers do sustain an injury, it takes us a while to get back to where we were. We just don't heal as quickly."

Get in training

So what's an aging boomer to do?

Well, don't be a weekend warrior, Janda says. "Being in shape, being in condition has a big role in minimizing the risk of injury. What I tell baby boomers before they begin participating in a sports team or exercise program is to get a pre-participation physical from a physician - get your heart, your lungs, your soft tissues and your joints examined to find out if you have any underlying problems."

And train and condition "at an age-appropriate level", he says. "Ask for a one-time visit with a trainer to help you devise a year-round training and conditioning program. Because all too often, folks in our age group say: 'Oops, my softball league starts next week, I'd better start training and conditioning now.'" You need at least three months of advance training and conditioning before getting involved in sports activities, Janda advises.

Here are suggestions from The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons to help baby boomers prevent sports injuries:

• Be sure to warm up and stretch before physical activity. Warm up aerobically for three to five minutes and then gently stretch, especially focus on the muscles about to be used.

• Don't be a "weekend warrior." Rather than thinking you can get all your exercise on the weekend, try and get 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day.

• Get the right equipment and take lessons. Both are a worthwhile investment in preventing injury.

• Listen to your body. If it hurts too much, don't do it. Adjust your physical activity to your age and fitness level.

• Use the 10 percent rule. When changing your activity level, increase it in increments of no more than 10 percent a week.

• Develop a balanced fitness program that incorporates cardiovascular exercise, strength training and flexibility.

• Add activities and new exercises cautiously. It's best to add no more than one or two new activities a workout.

Related Articles Toning: the Finishing Touch Stretching Working Out the Wrong Way? Going the Extra Mile

External Sources U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons

This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.

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