aging
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Training for Balance
Balance depends on three sensory systems: vision, the vestibular system of the inner ear, and proprioceptors throughout the body (especially in the feet and legs) that sense position and movement. Your brain takes in these signals and chooses a strategy to keep you upright.
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Attitude and Age
Featured photo: Fall riding in Baker Park It is a beautiful October day for a bike ride in Minnesota. The afternoon sun sets off brilliant autumn colors lining the bike path. Cool, dry air, and light wind make for easy riding. My right knee, which has bothered me since my ski accident last winter, feels…
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Adventure and Serenity: Off-Trail in the Northern Wind River Range
Featured Image: Somewhere high in the Northern Wind River Range, two days from the nearest maintained trail. August 2026 Standing alone on a 12,000 foot pass above Baker Lake it is decision time. Clouds shroud the high peaks of the Northern Wind River Range in Wyoming. It’s August 2026 and the air is heavy with…
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Progress Not Perfection: Recovering from Injury
Each pedal stroke brings a shot of pain¬—behind the kneecap, medial side and back of my knee. It is March 2026 in Minnesota, a cruel month for cycling made worse by a February skiing injury.
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Best Practices for Healthy Nutrition
Steve Markusen Featured Photo: First ride of the season and four months until the 2026 state championships. March 25, 2026. Credit: Charlie Markusen Foreword The starting judge lines us up for the first event of the 2017 Minnesota State Senior Cycling Championships: the 10K time trial. It is a miserable spring day: the air temp…
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Getting Back to Strength Training — or Making What You’re Doing Actually Work
STRENGTH TRAINING — AGES 40 TO 80 What the research supports, what changes after 40, and how to build a program that fits where you are right now. Steven Markusen CPT Featured Photo: Buck Mountain and Avalanche Canyon from the Ullr Ridge, GTNP, February 2026 FOREWORD The sun makes a fleeting appearance between waves of…
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Stretching Muscles: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Photo: The author all stretched out between a rock and a hard place 3000 feet above the floor of Yosemite valley. Lost Arrow Spire, Yosemite, CA. May 2001. Credit Paul Gardner. The pain between my left shoulder blade and spine comes and goes. The last several weeks it is back with vengeance. I press on…
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This is Not Normal: The 2025 National Senior Games
Featured Photo: cyclist waiting to start the 10K time trial in the women’s 90+ age group. Waiting my turn, I size up my competitors: the 70 to 74 year olds. This is July 30 and the first day of the 2025 National Senior Games Cycling Championships in Des Moines, Iowa. We are competing in the…
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Tapering for Nationals: a Metaphor for Life
Photo: An easy recovery hike during my ten day taper for the 2025 National Senior Games cycling championships. Hyland Park, Minnesota, July 2025 It is Sunday morning 7:30 am. The sun is partially obscured by mist, the morning air cool—thick with the smell of lush growth and humidity—Minnesota late July. No one is on the…
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Valhalla: Hall of Heroes
I walk the dirt road leading to the Diamond Acre ranch which sits in a verdant meadow in Grand Teton National Park with the Grand Teton towering 7000 vertical feet above. The Sunday afternoon air is warm and scented with late spring flowers. Light shoots forth from the snowfields high on the Grand Teton and…