S prains and strains are painful, but avid exercisers often see them as little more than a nuisance. Dr. Robert Klapper calls them something else: a blessing.
“It’s a wake-up call,” says Klapper, director of the Cedars-Sinai Joint Replacement Program. “It’s your body whispering rather than shouting at you.” These injuries are warnings that if you keep doing what you’re doing, you could do major damage.
“We need to listen to our bodies,” Klapper says, “especially as we get older.” “Aging is a lot like what happens to a bungee cord,” he says. “You get the cord from the store and it’s new, elastic and stretchy.
Leave it out in the sun or the rain, or take it to the beach — over time, it won’t behave in the same fashion. Our bodies are the same way: The collagen that gives us our elasticity dries out over time.” When our bodies lose elasticity and can no longer accommodate a movement through stretching, sprains, strains and other injuries are the result.
But that’s not an excuse to give up working out. Your body still needs exercise — it just needs different types of exercise from the ones it used to. According to Klapper, the solution is “agercise.
” Klapper encourages physical activity but urges people to be smart about it. The sport you loved playing in college might not be the best option as you age. Water aerobics and other pool activities are excellent for adults, especially as they get into their 40s and 50s.
These workouts allow .
