Work Around Your Body’s Design Limitations With A Weight Vest
I’ve got bad knees, and I m not getting any younger, but my cardio’s better than guys half my age AND I m largely injury free.
Too many high-impact sports when I was young and too many injuries have left them a little messed up and tender in my middle-age . I can t run on anything except treadmills, and even then my knees still ache after a three mile run. I’ve tried everything, acupuncture, massage you name it, well everything except surgery, but the damage has already been done. They re never going to be perfect again and that ache s not going to go away even if I’m wearing a pair of $200 running shoes.
Yeah, I know, I could go swimming but I love being outdoors. Treadmills are dull, and I’ve never been a fan of the pool. I want the fresh air! I want to run but I can’t run fast enough to work my cardio without hurting my knees and I can’t make those treadmi that ache s not going to go away lls steep enough for walking to be a worthwhile cardio exercise. I’d hit a design limitation of my body. I couldn t do any more without hurting myself.
Giving up wasn’t really something I wanted to do. I like doing beep tests. Not good for the knees so I don t do them too often but I like doing them anyway. For kicks. Leaving those guys half my age behind is my own personal ego trip . I wasn t going to let all this good cardio go to waste.
Then it occurred to me..
Why not make walking, an easy thing as hard as possible to do?
You don t get much more low-impact than walking, and walking up hills can be quite a challenge. So, I bought a weight vest and tackled those hills near my town. No knee aches and pains, and it was surprisingly hard work.
All it took was about 20% of my body weight to give me a good workout.
With a weight vest, my heart rate can hit 160 walking up some of the steep hills here pretty easily. It’ll stay there for as long as I’m walking, so I get a low-impact, injury free workout that can be as intense as I like. If I want to work harder, I just go find a bigger hill to climb.
Thinking about it, you could use a weight vest to make any easy exercise harder, if you can t do something, find some other drill that’s easier to do, that doesn’t injure or stress your body and make it harder.
Fitness and health exercises, especially designed for the middle-aged and senior citizens
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