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Comment by embwbam | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been athletic most of my life. At 42 I feel much older than at 32. Chronic injuries add up! Be careful out there everybody

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Have you happened upon Keith Barr’s work on tendon repair? Up to a few years ago tendon injuries were thought to be mostly unfixable (you could strengthen what was left of an injured tendon at best) but Barr’s work is proving otherwise. And using a very low risk isometric exercise protocol.

It won’t make you feel 32 again but it might help you get rid of a lot of lingering aches and pains.

I combined vitamin C with a daily dose of collagen and it did wonders for my tendons when combined with stretching exercises. My Achilles went from constant pain and at least a couple hours every morning of hobble walking to no pain and just feeling like normal. The doctor recommended surgery and even then made no promises. I still can't run for any real distance but the quality of life difference of just being able to walk without pain and do heavy calf lifts in the gym is immense.

Note: I also aggressively supplemented with BPC-157, GHK-cu and TB-500 to get to where I am.

How good! Have you tried isometrics at ~30-50% of maximum exhertion instead of stretching? Seems to be about the right dose to promote tendon repair. 3 months to a year will do ya.

(Full protocol if you haven’t seen it is a ~30 second isometric repeated 4 to 5 times, twice per day)

Edit: I’ve not seen any other treatment published w/ peer review etc etc that demonstrates actual tendon repair. If anyone has seen others I’d love to read through the literature.

Glad you found some relief. But take note everyone! Running is probably not that good for you if you plan to live longer than average-lifespan-in-the-past! Cycling, swimming, walking are all low on joint damage. Running isn't.

That's Keith Baar; I looked it up.

Keith Barr focused on musical technology at MXR, Alesis and eventually Spin Semiconductor. His legacy is MXR pedal effects like the Phase-90, the MidiVerb digital reverb series and the Spin FV-1 digital reverb chip.

Thank you for the correction

Had a series of injuries from about 25-35, then changed things up due to concerns about aging. Lighter weights, actually following proper training plans/shoes for running, etc. No injuries since and I'm about to hit 50. Aside from raw strength, don't think I feel any different now than at my athletic peak in my early 20s.

Having lived in San Diego most of my life, I've routinely met people in their 60s doing Ironmans. When you're around that enough, it's clear the difference is training smart than simply training hard.

The loss of twitch/fast muscle makes it feel much different for me. Even if I work out and have strength, it's not to same kind of strength I had at 30 even if it's the same/higher weight amounts.

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