I don’t know if it was intentional but this post made me feel veryI'm in my late 50's. Personal experience.
It's not so much a change in pain tolerance as it is in pain quantity...if that makes sense.
You start out and pretty much everything works as intended and pushing the limits is easier. When you get hurt, it's quicker to heal and you heal more effectively.
After a while, your body slows down. Old injuries start to become arthritic. New injuries take longer to heal and you heal less fully. Your ceiling drops...what was once possible becomes out of reach...and your recovery time expands far beyond what it was as a young adult.
Eventually, you are either too hurting to put in top effort, or too wary of getting hurt to put in top effort. You reach pain saturation.
There's this huge guy at my gym who eats Jolly Ranchers all of the time. His head is huge, he has back acne, but he recovers in no time at all. I would ask him what his secret is if I didn't feel like he would swing a bench at me.I'm in my late 50's. Personal experience.
It's not so much a change in pain tolerance as it is in pain quantity...if that makes sense.
You start out and pretty much everything works as intended and pushing the limits is easier. When you get hurt, it's quicker to heal and you heal more effectively.
After a while, your body slows down. Old injuries start to become arthritic. New injuries take longer to heal and you heal less fully. Your ceiling drops...what was once possible becomes out of reach...and your recovery time expands far beyond what it was as a young adult.
Eventually, you are either too hurting to put in top effort, or too wary of getting hurt to put in top effort. You reach pain saturation.
It's the explosiveness. Toews is a poster child for this, even before COVID.Unfortunately, players get old. We have all seen it. Malkin, Crosby, and Ovechkin are not as good as they once were. Aside from speed, what is it that make players lose the "it"-factor. Why are they no longer the most dangerous guy on the ice?
I suspect one answer could be reflexes, but I am unsure just how big of a factor that is. What things do you look at when you watch old highlights and think, "Wow! He could no longer do that."
This is a hot take:
While I 100% agree that hockey IQ is the least likely to be lost as you age and can even be improved (Ekholm being a prime example), I do think it's possible for a player to lose hockey IQ as well. Alzner's physical skills and his decision-making all deteriorated as he aged.
And all the intangibles, which I think are important and under appreciated by new age fans/analytics crowd. Leadership, taking younger players under their wing and offering guidance on & off the ice; as well as the ability to stay calm under pressureI think hockey IQ is really the only thing that can improve with age. Maybe vision as well.
Nah, that's still a physical deterioration. What ends up happening is that the time it takes to choose the right option and execute it on a given play is just slightly longer. We're talking microseconds. This is all bound up in the reaction time that other posters have mentioned. He didn't lose hockey IQ. He lost the ability to apply his hockey IQ as effectively and as often.
Think of it this way. A player needs to make a choice between four actions. Let's call them A, B, C, and D. In the prime of their career, their brain could evaluate all 3 options, choose the correct one, and then take that action in the time they have to do so. As they get older, they might not be able to evaluate option D and maybe not even option C before they're forced to make a choice by the opponent. All they can do is A or B, when they might not have ever chosen one of those options in the past. It seems like their hockey IQ is worse, but it's really their reaction time. (Obviously, this is oversimplified, but it serves the point)
Rangers fans are seeing this happen with Zibanejad right now. The stuff he does in the OZ at even strength, when there's less time and space than on the PP, seems mind-boggling at times. The reality is that he's still trying to operate how he could even 2-3 years ago and the connection between his brain and body is just not fast enough to do it the same way anymore. The only thing a player can really do about it is to simplify his game and not every player is going to be able to make that kind of adjustment. It sounds like Alzner never could. As a Rangers fan, I hope Zibanejad gets there.
Everything. I pulled a muscle in my neck washing my hair. That was over a week ago. I may never turn my head again. This didn’t happen in my 20’s.
Crosby doesn’t look like he’s lost a single follicle lmaoHair
Crosby doesn’t look like he’s lost a single follicle lmao
I don't believe this happens as early as in the early-to-mid-30s to an extent you're describing (like Zibanejad has early-onset dementia lol). I know there's some data about cognitive decline starting at around 30 years old is some persons, but there're also studies stating that overall mental ability peaks at around 30-40 years old. We also need to factor in that on-ice decision making is the specific skill players have been training for decades, which is likely to offset the start of physical brain deterioration (if not outright overcome it).Rangers fans are seeing this happen with Zibanejad right now. The stuff he does in the OZ at even strength, when there's less time and space than on the PP, seems mind-boggling at times. The reality is that he's still trying to operate how he could even 2-3 years ago and the connection between his brain and body is just not fast enough to do it the same way anymore. The only thing a player can really do about it is to simplify his game and not every player is going to be able to make that kind of adjustment. It sounds like Alzner never could. As a Rangers fan, I hope Zibanejad gets there.
This kind of stuff is underrated. When you’re in your 20s, you think you’re never gonna die and you don’t have a whole lot of responsibility. When I hit my 30s I suddenly had a wife, kids and a house. I worked hard, started making good money and built my “empire” if you will. And then thoughts about mortality start to creep in.I feel like a big one would be being less competitive. Like if you've got two kids and a dog or whatever, they're probably your main priority and hockey second