When did everyone start accepting the fact that when you turn 30, your body “goes to shit?” I’m very confused about where this notion came from. I saw some funny videos and jokes made about it on social media but I am also hearing it in real life from friends and coworkers. They say things like, “as soon as I turned 30 my body began to break down.” “My knees hurt, I have a bad back, my feet hurt all the time.” I had no idea that a switch went off when you turned 30 and you just start breaking down at an alarmingly rapid pace.
Now I will say, I am probably on an extreme end of the spectrum. I work out at least five times a week and I do a mix of cardio, strength, pilates, and yoga. I can recognize and appreciate that not everyone has that kind of drive but of course I can only speak from my own experience. Honestly, I haven’t noticed a single thing that is different about my body. I haven’t noticed that my metabolism is slower or it’s harder to recover from workouts.
Of course I have aches and pains, if you saw what I put my body through you would understand. Just this past weekend my left knee was bothering me a little bit. Nothing crazy but a little achy. But I have always had those aches and pains, literally for as long as I can remember. At the very least since puberty. At that time people chalked it up to “growing pains” then in my 20s I thought, “I don’t think I’m growing much anymore so that can’t be it.” I have had sore ankles, knees, hips, back, elbow, neck, everything. But I never attributed it to age, ever. I just do a lot with my body, I am on my feet constantly and also sit down a lot of the day for work. I never even correlated it with my age until everyone else around me started talking about it. It actually made me very nervous and stressed to turn 30 (there were also a dozen other reasons but that is a conversation for another time). Then I turned 30 and felt literally no difference. This year I’ll be 32 and still haven’t noticed anything crazy. I have trouble sleeping…I have always had trouble sleeping, I’m not a good sleeper. My back hurts sometimes…I remember being 12 and having horrible back aches and no one said it was my age. My knees or ankles ache sometimes…I run at least three times a week, never mind the strength or HIIT workouts I do. Of course my knees are going to ache.
It also blows my mind when people say that because often times, they say it as if they have given up already. Like, “My knees ache because I’m 30, my body is just going to shit and there’s nothing I can do about it.” No no no. If you are in your 30s, you are still in the first half of your life (barring any tragedy of course). You are way too young to just be accepting that your body is breaking down and these aches and pains are just normal aging. We aren’t that aged yet. Stop it. Go for a walk. Go on Youtube and put on a pilates video. I mean just do some stretches for heaven’s sake. You think you’re that old? Join your local pool’s aquacise program. It’s a popular class amongst older adults and I guarantee they complain less than you do. Grow up.
