Brain overrides jump down
 

Curious thing I noticed about getting older... Not sure when it happened - mid 40s maybe ? If I stand on anything over 3ft tall, I cannot jump down. Some process in my brain (probably named "self_preservation.exe") flat overrides my impulse and denies it completely. it's amazing, I CANNOT do the jump down...I want to, and I freeze. I forced myself to do it the other day and kinda Forrest Gumped it frozen mid air, and of course it hurt more than if I had been normal about it... My brain was like, nope, bad idea, don't do that, I insist... It's like my body made a deal with the brain, suspects I should no longer do this or everything will shatter- which is really should not from barely 3ft... I find that amusing, more than saddening - because it's really a subconscious process that superseeds my direct orders - any other over 40 geezer notice this ?

At 63, I’m still jumping down from 3 foot heights, but the landing is getting harder.

Hmmm. Crazy fear of heights cranked up in my 30s-40s. Didn’t help my ski days.

I am in my 50's. In my line of work I have to hop fences of all sorts, from 4' chain link to 6' wood to barbed wire farm fences, actually those I dipped down low between the wires.

I can still hop over a 6' wood fence as good as a 20 year old.

So that is a nope from me, still the same, still hopping fences and jumping back down as I clear the six footers.

My brain block is turning a bicycle away from an edge when I'm close to it.
I can try and try, I'll eventually wobble over the edge.
Doesn't matter if I turn my head fully away from the edge and am not even looking at it.

If I'm on the edge of two surfaces and want to turn away from the less desirable surface, my only option in many cases is to just run out onto the worse surface, then turn.

Your brain won't let you jump because you're heavier, weaker, stiffer, heal slower and smarter.

When I was 20 something, my now wife and I decided to go bungee jumping. The feeling at the edge of the platform was quite memorable. My body refused to jump. Deep DNA self preservation. A very odd experience for me at the time as I was of the 20 something mind that I was invincible.

The worker at the top of the tower counted 3, 2, 1 and gave me a shove.

The bounce was a hell of a lot of fun👍

Approaching 65 and still don't have to think too much about jumping down three feet. Four, on the other hand, has become a different story. I know I could still do it (well, my mind says I could), but unless it was a genuine necessity ... no thanks.

Thanks to this thread, I can't help but wonder how long before three becomes two, two one and one, well, nada.

_

That's a good thing.


I still do things that I did when I was 28, and I'm impressed with myself as to how well I did. BUT, I'm tired for a couple of days afterwards.

When I was a teen I slipped off the side of a low diving board and missed cracking my skull open on the edge of the pool by inches.

The strange thing was that last year I began getting random memories of that event.
Day or night, the same fall would randomly flash before my eyes.
Except this time it was from the high dive.

Those memories absolutely terrified me and would not stop...
I tried tp intentionally fall on the other side of the diving board instead every time that memory occurred.
Cancel it all out by overloading and accepting it.

I then had to do a sketchy outside window screen repair at the rental using a sketchy ladder. That went okay. Barely. It was not safe.
And those flashbacks stopped completely.

I'm guessing the fear mechanism is the brain's way of preparing or recovering from an event.

Somebody said to me 'when we're older a new injury is like 'omg now i have to live with this for the rest of my life' instead of 'oh this will heal up in a week''

yup. I took a tumble down a small hill while raking leaves last November and bashed my knee. It is still a mess.

When I was a kid I'd jump down from 5-10'. I noticed that in my mid 20s, my brain would tell me "you probably shouldn't do that."

When I was a kid, I climbed, ran, rode, jumped and played all of the time. I was relatively strong and agile. By the time I was in my 20s, I was still reasonably fit, but not as fit. And it takes a combination of muscle strength in your calves, legs, and butt to jump down so you act as a shock absorber. I remember jumping off of the top of a platform that was about 5' up in my 20s. My brain was telling me "no" but I was thinking "that's nothing, I've got this." I landed with my legs straight. It was not fun. I was smarter after that. A few years back, I was cycling and did an MS150. I was able to perform a couple/few jump downs that I probably wouldn't have in many of the preceding years because my legs were stronger.

57 in a few months, not getting air like I use too, and last time I went for big air, didn't work out so well
No more jumping out of planes either. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1647192042.jpg

I have seen many elderly (60 and up) having to change their lifestyles because of a broken foot.
A ladder or footstool fall seems to be the most common.

Bones don't heal fast when you get to 60-70 years old.

I experienced the exact thing OP did. Since mid fiftys, not only no but eff no.

Semi blew out right knee at 30. Meniscus cleaned up at 40 but torn ACL remains.

Have favored that right knee for 35 years now.

I have had so many unfavorable twerks of that right knee that have cost me weeks of limping that the subconscious safeguards will not allow me to drop down hard ever from any vertical distance.

I gotta think if you are reasonably agile, as well as active, it's not the same mentally.

I'm lucky, I guess. I jump down from lots of things around my place & can still jump up on one of those jump boxes my wife used to use for cross fit workouts. Lots of friends say things like, "you don't climb ladders do you?/You don't get on top of that water tank do you?/etc". I don't think much about it but am consciously more careful. One thing that helps is what I think is muscle memory from when I did tumbling & gymnastics as a kid. I think I still have a decent amount of judgement & coordination from those activities.

^^^^^^ This. My 69 year old body lets me know this on a regular basis. When you make that 3 foot jump and jam your knees it is not a good thing.

I'm about Byron's age. 53, and still jump out of the back of semi-trailer dry vans, which has a deck height of about 4 feet. It's not as easy as when I was in my 20s, when I had a vertical leap of about 3 feet, meaning I could probably have jumped into the dry van from the ground when I was around 23 or even 24 years old.

I still jump off the bead rails of my 4x4 diesel. Dislike it, but do it when necessary. when I land wrong it hurts.