Emphasis on GOOD FORM in doing the exercises. Get professional trainer review. Especially if you have been weight lifting for several years already. Over time you've probably developed some bad habits that need correcting. Worse and more likely with advanced age, creeping arthritis is probably inducing slight and unconscious adjustments to reduce pain. Those adjustments away from good form can lead to soft tissue injury or compound the natural discomforts that come with joint pain. Muscle tears that heal sloooooly. Loss of will because it hurts longer and more often than the reward seems worth.

I began weight training following a series of surgeries after a crippling event. I no longer could do a 30 year adult lap swimming habit so bought gym shoes and shorts and focused advice from physical therapists. After release from many rounds of therapy joined a gym and set to work. Two years later asked the gym trainer to review my form. He corrected some bad habits that had developed and restored me to the form designed by the therapists. Over the decades since then I have occasionally asked trainers to review my form again. There is always some little thing they can restore to better style.

On top of which I am now aware of how my various arthritic conditions continue to require monitoring and adjustment. Fortunately my medical insurance is top rate so I can go back to physical therapists for recalculation if a gym trainer can't spot the perfect adjustment.

Bottom line = Good form! Reverify it! Because your body changes with age.

I am 79 and have a long history of high-level athleticism and regular exercise. What this article leaves out, however, is the impact of arthritis, which can make it increasingly difficult to maintain an intense exercise program later in life.

I have had both knees replaced, my right ankle replaced, and my left ankle replaced four times. I also have severe arthritis in both shoulders and my lower back. Before each joint replacement, I held off surgery as long as I possibly could, continuing to exercise right up until the operation.

My most recent ankle replacement was a two-stage procedure performed six weeks apart earlier this year, following a progressive inability to walk over the preceding two years. Before those surgeries, when I could barely walk, I swam every day. Unfortunately, the swimming aggravated my shoulder arthritis, so I eventually backed off and substituted 4,000 underwater kicks each day.

Now that I am walking again, my lower back and shoulders continue to severely limit me. I still get on my elliptical and treadmill and walk two miles outside every day. Resistance training, however, is limited by my shoulders and back.

My point is that slowing the aging process involves more than simply having the willingness to exercise and maintain one's physical conditioning. There are real physical limitations that come with aging, as much as I hate to admit it. I continue to push myself, hoping that my back and shoulders will improve enough to allow me to increase my exercise program.

I know, however, that I will never be 55 again. At some point, I will have to accept that I may need to give up some of the activities and pleasures that have been among the greatest joys of my life, those associated with living a vigorous, physically active lifestyle.