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Other/Mixed What is your Centenarian Decathlon?

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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bluejeff said:
We just bent over and picked it up. With age however, it seems like some of us might say something like “I can’t bend my back that way without pain.” I would call that something like a “reduction of movement options.”
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Several different movement disciplines blame this on a loss of control of the pelvic floor and how to reflexively use it, mostly caused by sitting we start learning when we enter school, and also modern toilets.

But it's also possible to re-learn.
 
North Coast Miller said:
- be able to drive a car and manage to refill- plug or fill without help
- prepare food without burning house down
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I think both of these would depend more on your cognitive ability which, unfortunately, we can't control to a significant degree. Sure, keeping mentally active will help slow down cognitive decline but it will not stop it completely. Driving will also depend on your vision. Macular degeneration is not reversible. Sorry to be a bummer but I deal with these issues in my line of work.

North Coast Miller said:
- understand how to use TV remote, including upgraded hardware
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Heck I can't even figure out the remote now. :p What I'm hoping for is that television will eventually have an app for a smartphone and/or a laptop so that you can use a mouse and just pick want you want to do. Now it's like you press this, then this, to get to such-and-such streaming service. I can never remember the sequence.
 
MikeTheBear said:
Heck I can't even figure out the remote now. :p What I'm hoping for is that television will eventually have an app for a smartphone and/or a laptop so that you can use a mouse and just pick want you want to do. Now it's like you press this, then this, to get to such-and-such streaming service. I can never remember the sequence.
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You don't use voice control for your smart tv?
 
@MikeTheBear made a good point about our cognitive function. We can't control a lot of it but this leads to another idea that I've thought about, I would love some constructive conversation about it :

I work in the customer service industry and seeing how many older people refuse to adapt makes me heartbroken. They get extremely frustrated because I think they feel left behind or forgotten. I'm always there to help them but sometimes it just isn't enough and they don't even bother. I understand that sometimes things are better from the past or that your flip phone 'works just fine' but there comes a point where you will be left behind because of stubbornness and failure to adapt. I think this ties into cognitive decline and is getting stuck in a routine without ever challenging your brain with learning new things.

My own parents are getting up there in age : 71 and 73. It's hard because they've earned the right to live a life of predictability and routine but at the same time doesn't this lead to stagnation and premature death both figuratively and literally? We are what we do repeatedly and if that is watching pawn stars, going to the local diner and gossiping about the town, what can we really expect from our 'golden years'?
 
Adam R Mundorf said:
We are what we do repeatedly and if that is watching pawn stars, going to the local diner and gossiping about the town, what can we really expect from our 'golden years'?
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After 30 years in high pressure high technology corporate ladder climbing, that sounds totally awesome to me.

I'm looking forward to chilling at the diner and gossiping.

Social connections are part of good health and longevity.
 
bluejeff said:
The idea I was getting at with earlier post was that “odd object lifting” is not always improved as much as we might think by say, doing barbell work. I think there’s improvement; I just don’t think there’s as much as we might expect.
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I cannot cite any science, but moving furniture seems to be the "odd object" kind of lifting that comes into my life, and it's hugely better because I lift a barbell in training. The most recent 'incident' was a few weeks ago when someone at my church had a wooden dining room table in their van that needed to be brought inside. Apparently this is a two-person job for most but I just picked it up and carried it in. It was awkward, but its particular combination of awkward and heavy wasn't a show-stopper and I did just fine.

If one wants to lift heavy, odd objects ... If I wanted to do that, I'd practice lifting heavy, odd objects. I guess, @bluejeff, what I'm not understanding in this conversation is how being able to lift heavy, odd objects might be important as one ages. I can see that one might _want_ to do that but, well, I'm back to the idea of practicing what you want to be able to perform.

-S-
 
There are some pretty cool things out there in the world of 'bents. One of my favorites is the semi-recumbent tandem (really a "half" recumbent would be a more accurate name), the Viewpoint, shown here:

Viewpoint Semi-Recumbent Tandem

www.bilenky.com www.bilenky.com

NB: I was a pretty serious bikie back when my kids were young, and own three bicycles built by Stephen Bilenky (he's in Philadelphia): a custom single road bike for me, a production tandem that I rode with my oldest son using a child stoker kit when he was young, and later with my wife, and a custom triplet that I rode with both my kids. If you're looking for a bicycle maker, you need look no further than here.

There's a nice minute-and-a-half video here: About Bilenky Cycle Works, direct link to the video:

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Adam R Mundorf said:
work in the customer service industry and seeing how many older people refuse to adapt makes me heartbroken. They get extremely frustrated because I think they feel left behind or forgotten. I'm always there to help them but sometimes it just isn't enough and they don't even bother. I understand that sometimes things are better from the past or that your flip phone 'works just fine' but there comes a point where you will be left behind because of stubbornness and failure to adapt.
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Alternative point of view: why should they adapt? A lot of new tech consists of artificial barriers that offer no real advantage for a significant cognitive cost.

My 80-year old uncle wanted to get a larger TV. Turns out you can no longer buy a new one without something calling Google TV. Is he really a stubborn failure for refusing to learn a completely new and pointless (since all he needs it for is to watch sportsball) set of skills?

I'm not even 40 and I too often feel overwhelmed by things like these. Modern tech environment is such a minefield of traps and scams I can't blame anyone older, cognitively impaired, mentally unwell, or just less intelligent for giving up.

To have a constructive conversation about this, I'd introduce a concept of cognitive cost: that is, that making decisions has a distinct, if not precisely measurable cost. For example, if I closely tracked the changing prices of several brands of butter available to me in a local store, I might save several dollars a month. Yet the effort needed to make all these calculations every time I do shopping is worth more to me than the $7 or so that I could gain. Same with my uncle - he wants a larger TV, but he doesn't want to "pay" the "fee" of learning to navigate Google crapware; "fee" that he could otherwise "spend" on e.g. reading more books.

So my first argument would be: many of these older people are, in fact, performing a perfectly rational calculation: whatever they could gain by "adapting" just isn't worth that much effort to them.

My second argument would be about catastrophic risk. Recall the concept of insurance: you accept a certain, small cost in exchange for protection from potential of a very large one. My car probably won't get stolen, and I'd rather keep the money instead of paying an insurance premium, but if I do pay, I can be sure I won't incur a large financial loss if my vehicle does in fact get taken. Maybe my uncle wouldn't accidentally send all his money to Nigerian scammers, but only way to be sure is to not use the internet at all - and he has easily made this decision a long time ago.

So, to sum up the second argument: adapting to new technology carries large, almost incomprehensible risk for older people. You may consider whatever disadvantage they incur as a result of not doing so as an "insurance premium" paid against the risk of a financial or a psychological/social (like being publicly humiliated due to accidentally posting something intended for search engine/private message) catastrophe.
 
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TimothyGander said:
My 80-year old uncle wanted to get a larger TV. Turns out you can no longer buy a new one without something calling Google TV.
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Is this really true? Tough to imagine that every manufacturer has bought into Google in this way. NB: I haven't bought a TV in a long time. I think the last one we bought was about 10 years ago.

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Steve Freides said:
Is this really true? Tough to imagine that every manufacturer has bought into Google in this way. NB: I haven't bought a TV in a long time. I think the last one we bought was about 10 years ago.

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approximately all new TV's available come with some built-in "Over-The-Top" service built in.

Google
Roku
AppleTV
SlingTV

there are others, but it's currently very difficult to avoid such built-in services unless you're in the market for a monitor for conference calls in a commercial office setting; like a teleconferencing room application.
 
Adachi said:
approximately all new TV's available come with some built-in "Over-The-Top" service built in.

Google
Roku
AppleTV
SlingTV

there are others, but it's currently very difficult to avoid such built-in services unless you're in the market for a monitor for conference calls in a commercial office setting; like a teleconferencing room application.
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But you don't have to _use_ those new services, do you? We have our TV plugged into a "cable box" from Verizon and that's all.

-S-
 
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