How To Know If You Are Too Old

Age and mojo

How old can you be to start an activity? You have probably heard all of these:

• Age is just a number
• You are never too old 
• Youth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
• There is no age limit to anything

On the other hand, proverbial wisdom says:

• Youth must be served
• You need to do something for 10,000 hours before you can be good at it,
• If you fail early, you can learn from the experience before others even get started.
• It is easier to adopt good habits when you are young.

These statements conflict with other. What is the truth? I will discuss four different ways of looking at age.

1. Average “best” age
2. Inspiration from outstanding performances at advanced ages
3. Age limiting factors
4. Age preventative measure

People speak of a peak age for any given event. The best way to look at age is as a probability. For example, the probable peak age for a female gymnast is in the early teens. The probable peak age for a sprinter is in the late twenties and for a distance runner is even later.

You can also look at significant achievements that people have made at advanced ages for inspiration. For example, Gladys Burril ran a marathon, at age 92. At 89, Arthur Rubinstein gave one of his greatest recitals in New York's Carnegie Hall. At 82, Winston Churchill wrote a History of English Speaking People. John Glenn went to space, at Age 77. Charles Darwin was 50 years old before he published On the Origin of Species in 1859, the book that espoused the theory for which he is best known today. Julia Child’s first cookbook was published when she was 39; she made her television debut in The French Chef at age 51.

As for the youngsters, tennis player Tracy Austin became the youngest person to win the U.S. Open. At age 14, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first athlete in Olympic history to achieve a perfect 10. She went on to do it six more times. Warren Buffett started buying stocks when he was just 11 years old.


The best age is just the peak of the probability curve for the given activity, whereas outstanding achievements at young and old ages are in the tails of the probability curve. However, statisticians know that the odds favor performing well closer to the peak of your age for any given activity.

Eventually, aging brings memory decline, as well as weakening of the circulatory, respiratory, endocrine, musculo, and immune

systems. As we age, we get worse at every activity unless we work to maintain these systems. One reason for a decline is that genetic mutations that result in weakness or sickness have more time to occur as we age. There is a concept of the “mutation rate” which says that mutations should increase with age. Populations are aging worldwide. However, they are not as economically dependent as first thought. As measured, the mutation rate doesn’t strictly increase linearly with time. Biological limitation due to mutation seems to be mitigated by repair processes.

There are ways that you can slow aging.

1. Resistance training
2. Eat well
3. Sleep well

Biological limitation due to mutation seems to be mitigated by repair processes. Some people believe that these systems can be strengthened to at least delay the decline. For example, Jack LaLanne and Gary Player are examples of people whose exercise regimens are thought to have slowed their aging processes. The regimens that these men followed included resistance training, proper nutrition, and proper rest. I highly recommend them to everyone.


In addition, there are processes that may damage the replication of DNA. Damage can be from natural metabolic activities, radiation, and the environment (think chemicals). Fortunately, there are natural genetic repair methods. Your body uses these mechanisms to repair mutations. This prevents the mutation rate from getting to high as we age.  Click to tweet.