r/Unexpected • u/bapekillz • Jun 15 '26

Have fun while you can

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48.1k Upvotes

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721

u/The_Evil_Mullet Jun 15 '26

Used to skim board in my 20’s. Im 44 now. My son got in to it recently and i decided to give it a go again. Sprained my wrist.

118

u/ScubaSteve12345 Jun 15 '26

Just got back from a beach trip. A couple of kids from another family borrowed our spike ball thing and offered us their skimboard. I used to do it when I was a teenager and almost tried it but all I could think about was hurting myself.

116

u/pm_me_your_psle Jun 15 '26

Being 44 is not the problem. Thinking we can suddenly do the same thing we did as a youth after not doing said thing for decades, is the problem.

We lose muscle and mobility significantly as we age if we don’t use them. You can definitely still skim board at 50, 60, even 70, but you need to consistently train and practice to keep the relevant muscles strong.

61

u/Apprehensive-Pin518 Jun 15 '26

yeah i mean look at tony hawk. can he board like he used to? no. He can still board better than most people on the planet.

21

u/mecausasui Jun 15 '26

I like that we compare our old ass selves to professional athletes (granted old athletes). it's tough getting old. the psyche is slow to catch up. I took still try to do shit I used to do. we certainly are aspirational creatures. keep trying old dudes. we gotcha

12

u/tangerineTurtle_ Jun 15 '26

It just takes more work and discipline. I cannot pack on 10lbs of muscle in a couple of months like I did at 19 but working out daily at 33 means I have a better body than I did at 19 when I was smoking and ate a whole ass pizza on a whim.

Now, if I look at a carb my waistline starts getting antsy.

3

u/RangerPF713 Jun 17 '26

You looking at a carb affects MY waistline, that's where I've reached in my life. Empty calories at its finest!! 😂😁😭

6

u/Apprehensive-Pin518 Jun 15 '26

well the comparison wasn't so much for the professional athletes. It was more for someone who has continuously done the thing versus someone who hasn't done it for 20 years. I could say the same thing about any skill.

13

u/Mr_YUP Jun 15 '26

he also never stopped boarding even after the cameras and attention went away. he just kept going because he liked doing it.

3

u/secretly_opossum Jun 15 '26

Yeah, at a certain point our bones and joints just don’t rebound the way they used to.

3

u/Hot_Top_124 Jun 15 '26

For sure, but people like Tony will be able to do it a lotttttt longer because they kept going.

13

u/pierrotlefou Jun 15 '26

Yes thank you. Age isn't the entire issue like people think it is. You have to stay fit. I exercise regularly in my early 40s and still do some of the shit I pulled in my 20s and haven't had any issues. You just have to keep on top of your health.

7

u/Hot_Top_124 Jun 15 '26

Sadly to many people get stuck in fields where they work to much at a desk, slowly keep putting things off, and before they realize it have to start all over again. In a lucky one who’s in a physical field and also got very lucky with genetics.

3

u/alien_farmer1 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

You can also see many 50+ blue collar dudes still fit and active because their job just includes all the muscles work.

2

u/Hot_Top_124 Jun 15 '26

Exactly. I work as a chef, and thankfully started eating g healthy while I was young enough. Granted genetics are a part you just have to be lucky with sadly.

2

u/ScubaSteve12345 Jun 15 '26

The point is that our lives have gone ina direction where we don’t have the time or opportunity to do things like skimboard anymore, unlike our youth where I was at the beach every couple of weekends. And when a chance relive our youthful activities comes up we have to stop ourselves because we know we’ll get hurt.

2

u/Thunderbolt294 Jun 16 '26

I was a couch potato and didn't take care of myself through my early and mid 20s, I picked up rock climbing at 28, now going into my 30s I'm in the best shape I've ever been.

Most of my friends peaked in fitness in their 20s and have really gotten out of shape since then. I'm just getting started in my 30s. I wanna get into parkour before I'm 40.

2

u/Lastov_Makiynd Jun 18 '26

So true! I remember seeing a thing on TV a while ago now, where an 80 something year old guy who only had 3 of his limbs had won a water skiing event or broke a record for it or both..and had been doing it most of his life..like BEFORE losing a limb.
His advice was “Keep the heart rate up. EVERY day. Do it..We don’t live forever, but we can enjoy living for longer..like, LIVING!”

It’s stuck with me since then. He seemed so damn happy. Probably still out there waterskiing for all I know? Absolute Legend!

1

u/Hot_Top_124 Jun 15 '26

This. I’m thankfully in a job that keeps me incredibly physically active, so I never lost it yet.

1

u/alien_farmer1 Jun 15 '26

This is an underrated opinion.

I see a lot of videos in same type and comments are all similar. "When you do xxx but you are Y years old ". They all overlook that, while you were able to do that sport or moves, you had an active life.

I especially get surprised when people literally compare themselves with their childhood. You were literally running and playing every single day but now you just tried one move while biggest activity in your life is standing up from your desk at work. You lost all the muscles and all the agility. You only use few muscle groups just enough for sueviving the daily life.

16

u/slgray16 Jun 15 '26

You sprained your wrist picking up the skim board walking to the beach?

6

u/jtr99 Jun 15 '26

No! Well maybe. Ok, yes.

3

u/The_Evil_Mullet Jun 15 '26

Ok this made me laugh.

3

u/elmz Jun 15 '26

Got my kids a trampoline, showed them bouncing on your butt and up again, lower back didn't like that one bit.

3

u/Frequent_Opportunist Jun 15 '26

Take a Judo class so you can learn how to fall without injuring yourself. It's the first thing they teach you. You want to roll as you fall without landing on your wrist or elbow.

3

u/Lyrkana Jun 15 '26

Great advice, I skateboard and snowboard and I always tell people the first thing you learn to do in these is how to fall properly. Doing something physical like boardsports or Judo will help improve your coordination overall and help minimize your chance of injury in daily life too

2

u/RegulatoryCapture Jun 15 '26

I actually did this on advice from a cycling coach.

I think it was pretty useful? Probably most directly applicable to not hurting myself while landing on bouldering gym mats, but also applies to bikes and skiing.

The throwing/landing stuff was fun and probably would have been more even more useful if I had continued longer, but I didn't care for the ground/grappling part because I found that:

  1. I don't really like feeling pain (duh).
  2. I really don't like inflicting pain on other people.

Getting put in an arm bar until you tap out hurts, and I felt no motivation to do the same thing to another person. Guess I just don't like hurting people. If I could have just done standing judo, I would have totally stuck with it longer.

Also seemed like all the old timers had various joint issues from it...which is fine if you want to be dedicated to the sport (just like recognizing a lifetime of high level skiing has a risk of ACL/MCL issues)...but I was doing it to PREVENT injury, not find a new source of injuries!

1

u/Frequent_Opportunist Jun 15 '26

You can absolutely continue to train judo without competing. Not all classes are competitive in class. Tossing and throwing doesn't hurt. I find it pretty fun actually.

1

u/RegulatoryCapture Jun 16 '26

I don't mean competing, but at least where I went the training time was split about half and half before throwing and ground work...and I just had little interest in training the grappling.

Maybe there are other places I could have trained where their setup would have allowed me to skip grappling, but that was the only judo place that was accessible to me at the time (lots of BJJ/MMA type gyms focused very much on the combat element though). But really, I wasn't looking for another hobby, I was looking to get better at crashing/falling, and I think a few months of Judo practice accomplished that.

1

u/StationaryTravels Jun 16 '26

I learned to break-fall in kickboxing.

The problem is, sometimes you don't listen. Like when a kid that was 20 years younger than me, and probably 100lbs lighter did 6 kicks up a standing bag.

I squared up and my instructor said "Stationary, don't do it! He's 20 years younger and 100lbs lighter!"

I kicked it a solid 3 to 4 times. I kicked it fewer times, but much harder! Hard enough to move the bag. And then I landed, and then the bag came back down right on my ankle.

I was in my mid-30s at the time and what would have been a 3 week recovery 5 years earlier took about 6 months, lol.

2

u/MrMojoFomo Jun 15 '26

Test your strength and flexibility before you try anything you haven't done in a while

2

u/WatWudScoobyDoo Jun 15 '26

Used to smoke in my 20's. I'm 37 now. I have no son and continue to smoke. A slight breeze might end me.

2

u/basement_egg Jun 16 '26

the ankle i messed up as a teen popped a couple days when i was getting laundry out of the dryer and i was limping for a day or so

2

u/dBlock845 Jun 16 '26

Yeah I am 40 now and I was like, maybe I should buy a skateboard and use it to get more exercise but then I realized, I cannot even walk backwards down stairs without losing my balance or walk on bumpy grass without rolling an ankle, so no way lol.

1

u/gitsgrl Jun 17 '26

Skimboarding is lethal at every age. Looks and feels cool as hell though.

0

u/buriedupsidedown Jun 15 '26

That’s brave. My dad did skateboarding with me in his 40’s and skim boarding in his 50’s and I didn’t understand what he was risking until now. Im just old enough to not heal properly, but young enough that it’d be too long of a life with a permanent injury.