Personal Trainer, Feb 05

The Comeback Kid at Middle Age
When returning to a sport, former athletes must set realistic goals.

By Stephen Hanks

   The irony about the state of fitness in this country is that while more Americans than ever are obese and out of shape, there are also more of us—including untold thousands 30 and older—who belong to health clubs and participate in organized sports programs.
   Who is most likely to get the competitive itch again? Someone who was a serious athlete when young. But if you’re in your 30s to 50s, making a comeback in a competitive, high-skill, high-energy sport—for example, baseball, basketball, tennis or distance running—after years of inactivity in that endeavor requires a greater physical and mental commitment than just deciding to hit the gym a few times a week.
   While beginning a training program in February may be too late to condition your body and sharpen your skills for a spring baseball or softball season, you have plenty of time to shape up for basketball or to run a fall marathon. According to New York-based physical therapist Dr. Carol DeCosta, who has also served as a woman’s professional football team doctor, you need at least six months to prepare for competition.
   “Before anybody over 30 returns to a high-stress sport,” says Dr. DeCosta, “they should get a body fat analysis, a check of their blood pressure and cholesterol counts, and determine their risk for cardiac disease.”

Commitments and Goals
   Even before getting into nutritional and physical shape and sharpening your sport-specific skills, you have to make the commitment and set realistic goals—in other words, getting into mental shape.
   Forty-nine-year-old Sam Hanes of Park Ridge, New Jersey has made two baseball comebacks, one in his early 30s and another in his mid-40s. He visited a sports doctor before the first comeback and the advice he received still rings in his ears today.
   “He told me to let everyone know my plan,” Hanes remembers. “That way, I’d look like an idiot if I didn’t go through with it. He wanted me to get a mental momentum going. My ultimate goal was to pitch at a high level again. But to stay motivated I had to set small goals that I could actually achieve.”
   Hanes also had to avoid the trap of rationalizing if the comeback seemed doomed. “You can’t start out with a ready-made cop-out like ‘At least I’ll get into shape,’” he says. “It’s self-defeating and sabotages your goals.”
   While in high school in McLean, Virginia, Beatrice Jones played field hockey, softball and basketball. In college, she continued with field hockey and did a lot of mountain climbing and caving. After moving to New York in the 70s, she started a demanding career, leaving little time for any athletic activities other than jogging and pickup softball. But 10 years ago, on New Year’s Day, she decided she would run the 26+-mile New York City Marathon. She was 45 and only three years removed from having her first child.
   “I felt my ultimate goal was very achievable,” says Jones. “All I wanted to do was finish the race. I wasn’t thinking about making a great time, let alone winning. When training for a marathon, the subgoals are easy—you just want to build up your miles each time and not give in to the temptation to quit if you don’t make progress immediately. Experienced runners told me ‘If you can run 13 miles, you can run 26.’”

Training Body and Mind
   Once your primary care physician clears you for advanced athletics, the next steps are following a nutritious diet with gradual weight loss (a low-carb, low-calorie plan is the best way to go), working on your aerobic conditioning and incorporating a weight training regimen that tones the whole body. Dr. DeCosta strongly recommends strengthening your core muscles, which includes the abdominals, glutes and hamstrings.
   “And stretching is very important,” says Dr. DeCosta. “I’ve seen so many returning athletes get hurt because they engaged in high-impact activities without being flexible. Since your tendons are not as pliable or elastic as they used to be, they’re prone to sprains and tears which will put you right into a rehabilitation program and further delay your comeback.”
   Even if older athletes stay injury-free, they are still more susceptible to aches and pains than their younger counterparts. “I was definitely more sore after running when I was 45 than I was at 25,” recalls Jones. “I was always worried about whether my knees and ankles were strong enough to withstand the pounding and the wear and tear.” Adds Hanes: “As a baseball pitcher, I always felt soreness in my back and shoulder from inflammation. You just tell yourself, ‘You gotta play with the small hurts.’”
   Both Jones and Hanes regularly took ibuprofen to ease their aches until graduating to glucosamine when that supplement was found to be a good anti-inflammatory pain reliever. “I take a glucosamine supplement every day,” says Hanes, “and I’m still pitching.”
   The middle-age comeback can also be sabatoged by trying to do too much, too soon. When awakening muscles that have been hibernating for years, don’t jolt them out of their slumber too abruptly or they’ll manifest grouchiness by popping or tearing, which will delay your comeback by weeks, if not months.
   “Some former athletes have an ego problem when they start working out again,” says Dr. DeCosta. “They believe they’re supermen, but they don’t always know their bodies as well as they think. They’ll ignore initial soreness, keep pushing and that’s when they’re susceptible to injury.”
   Former athletes making a comeback may burn with a competitive fire that motivates them, but they can be overwhelmed by competing against a vision of what they used to be. Lack of mental shape can end the comeback right there.
   “When I was in my 30s,” says Hanes, “I remember becoming frustrated when my skills didn’t return immediately. I thought about what I used to be able to do when I was a college ballplayer and I wanted to equal that level. But, as I found out, that vision of what I once did wasn’t very objective. I was using a distorted past image of myself as a model of what I was trying to attain and that was destructive to my comeback.”
   But for some returning athletes age and maturity has its advantages. Bea Jones says experience made her more patient with herself and realistic about her marathon goals. “I knew I wasn’t that fast,” she says, “and I didn’t want to hurt myself by doing anything crazy. Because I was older when I started, I wasn’t tempted to skip training thinking I could turn it on and off like I could have done when I was younger.” The result? Jones has completed two New York Marathons, one in her 50s.
   Hanes feels his years of experience—in life as well as baseball—give him a competitive edge, especially against younger players. “I understand my ability and limitations and feel I can compensate with savvy what I may lack in skill,” he says. “As I pitcher, I can outthink hitters and I don’t get as easily rattled by little mistakes as I did when I was younger. In sports, there is a definite advantage to being the ‘old guy’...if you can still run, that is.”

Back To Top