Animal Flex can help knock some rust off, so to speak.
Your 30th birthday just hits different. I felt that firsthand this past March.
But let’s get one thing straight: age ain’t nothing but a number.
When it comes to nagging aches and pains, people love to point their fingers at getting older. They throw up their hands and say something cushy like, “Welp, guess that’s what happens when you turn ___!” when they’re no longer able to train as hard as they used to.
I’ve heard it countless times as a trainer, physical therapist, coach, etc. But I don’t buy it.
Are there some structural changes that occur to the body as we get older? Absolutely. Just like we get wrinkles in our skin with age, I like to think of them as “wrinkles on the inside.” But if you want to point the finger at something for the presence of injury or pain and the resulting decline in function, it isn’t your age… it’s your behavior.
The best part about the human body is that it is adaptable. It takes whatever demands you’re placing on it, and as long as those demands are applied in the appropriate dosage, the body changes to keep up. Muscles get bigger and stronger. Tendons get stiffer and more springy. Cartilage becomes more resilient to impact.
In the words of my good friend Craig Liebenson, the human body isn’t the victim of wear and tear. It is the epitome of wear and repair.
There is a lot that goes into that repair process. The optimal dosage of stress from training. An inflammatory response that isn’t too much or not enough. Having the right nutrients available to rebuild the tissues we break down day after day. Getting enough rest and downtime to make sure our sympathetic “fight or flight” system cranks up only when it’s needed. The list goes on.
I’ll be the first to admit that accomplishing all of those tasks simultaneously is easier said than done. When you’re pushing your athletic limits and striving to be the best in the game, you’re really able to achieve that Goldilocks level of “not too much, not too little” for only a fraction of the time. As a result, the demands you place on your body can exceed its capacity and tolerance. Cumulative fatigue starts to set in, and the nagging aches and pains begin to add up.
This is exactly when people default to the blame-your-age phenomenon. As a way out, we attribute these setbacks to a variable that is completely out of our hands.
As an athlete who has dealt with a slew of musculoskeletal injuries (hell, I even wrote a book on it), I firmly believe that the best thing we can do is control the controllables. That means focusing on the modifiable variables and attacking them from all angles, from training to nutrition to sleep to mindset and beyond.
If you’re going to leave no stone unturned on your journey through strength sports, you need the right supplementation regimen in place. Sound nutrition habits play an invaluable role in maximizing athletic performance and recovery. But again, making sure you’re getting the right doses of research-backed compounds like glucosamine, methylsulfonylmethane (a.k.a. MSM), turmeric, and various micronutrients is nearly impossible through a whole-foods-only diet.
If you’re looking to optimize your joint health and maximize your training longevity with the help of an all-in-one convenient joint support complex, a pack of Animal Flex should be a staple in your daily routine.
Flex checks all of the boxes from a supplementation standpoint. In one handful, you’ll get a comprehensive spread of the compounds I mentioned above, plus chondroitin, hyaluronic acid, flaxseed oil, along with several other herbal extracts like Boswellia and ginger root– things that the toughest athletes have been using and reaping benefits from for years.
If you know me, you know I don’t believe in Band-Aid solutions. Flex is an incredible compliment to healthy habits, but you still gotta put in the work. All that unsexy stuff we discussed above, like smart training, smart nutrition, and smart sleep? Do your best to get all of your ducks in a row in those realms, and you’ll be able to unlock your full potential with Flex.
All this nocebic talk of tissue degeneration and taking your foot off the gas solely because of age needs to stop. More and more research is coming out demonstrating the power the human body has to build itself back up in the presence of stress. Yes, that is true even of our joints.
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to keep putting miles on this dope machine of a body until the day it dies. But that doesn’t happen by accident. You can be sure that I’ll have Animal Flex to help keep the rust at bay.
