I started reading a book this weekend called "What Makes Olga Run" (what a 90 something track star can teach us about living longer and happier) Written by Bruce Grierson. According to my Kindle app, I'm 42% into this book. I can tell you it's been a fairly easy read, but very enjoyable. It's just interesting to me to learn about the daily habits of a world champion sprinter. Let alone one that is 95 years old.
Interesting habit, she goes to bed at around 9pm. Wakes up around 2. Stretches and foam rolls with a wine bottle for and hour and a half, then goes back to bed for 4 hours. Interesting polyphasic sleeping!
She took up track at 77. She didn't have long living siblings or parents.
Coincidentally I had a new patient that was 95 as well. She came in with knee pain and was looking to hopefully walk with less pain. It was about 3-4 months of knee pain and there was already an avoidance limp. Because of this there was significant atrophy of the quadricep on this leg.
It struck me as quite the difference. Same age, two completely different individuals. One is sprinting. Working out sometimes 2-4 hours per day. One is barely walking. Neither had fought disease.
At what age do we stop moving? Where do we say I don't need to get up off the floor without help anymore. When do we stop walking? When do we stop saying I no longer need to do a chin up? Why is this acceptable to us as a society?
The striking difference in a matter of 24 hours of what I read and what I saw between the possible in Olga the sprinter and what I saw and is considered more normal in my patient, is strikingly glaring.
I would recommend the book by the way.
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