As Long As You Can
As I write this, we are six days away from the first day of my favorite season of the year: archery deer season in New York. This is my 18th season bowhunting and it’s my all-time favorite pastime. You may not have any interest in hunting at all and so I’ll spare you most of the details, and only give you the relevant ones: it’s physical. It involves hiking in and out of the woods, climbing trees, carrying equipment, and sometimes hauling large amounts of meat.
My first hunting trip was when I was 25 and I’m 43 now. I’ve almost been hunting for two decades, and my plan A is to be hunting for at least four decades more.
Like I said, you might not care at all about hunting. Your thing might be golf. Or horseback riding. Of softball. Or hiking. Or playing with your kids. Or knitting. But whatever it is, I promise you that that thing will be more enjoyable with more fitness than with less fitness.
Now when you’re in your 20s, you don’t need to regularly exercise to play golf on the weekend. You probably don’t need to regularly exercise to do anything on that list. That’s probably true for most of your 30s too. But in your 40s? Or 50s? Or beyond? All those things become exceptionally more difficult if you don’t exercise.
Knees hurt, backs are stiff, shoulders ache; lungs burn, muscles get tired, one morning with the nieces and nephews demands a 2 hour nap just to recover. And don’t get me wrong: I’m not naïve enough to think that a regular gym routine means you won’t fatigue faster in your 60s than in your 30s. But if there’s a fountain of youth, it’s exercise. You don’t need me to list all the common benefits here.
But a benefit that gets overlooked is that when you say, “I want to still be hiking/camping/swimming/riding/golfing for as long as I can,” exercise makes “as long as you can” a whole lot longer.
