There is such a thing as being sore in a good way, and there is such a thing as being sore in a bad way. As I get older, I am starting to appreciate the former soreness way more than the latter, and it’s changing the way I view the game of lacrosse, and very likely, my entire perspective on life.
What’s Good Sore?
Good sore is the feeling you get about 24-36 hours after a really intense workout. I used to get this feeling regularly, but since I stopped really hitting the gym, I don’t experience this type of good sore very often. Ask pros like Paul Rabil, Rob Pannell, Bill O’Brien or Marty Bowes about it, I’m sure they can go on for days about how it feels good to feel sore after a really tough workout. It means you pushed yourself! At least that was always the way I thought about it when I was living like an athlete. (D3 baby!)
But there is another type of “good sore”, and it’s really only experienced by older people, and I never really understood it until about 2-3 years ago. This type of soreness hits you when you do something you used to be able to do easily and instead of feeling ok the next day, you feel like you got hit by Michael Evans AND Adam Ghitelman. Even in my early 30s I could play a game of box lacrosse and bounce back pretty quickly. A couple of field games in a day were no problem. Years of conditioning, losing about 30 pounds after college (205 was way too heavy for me), and a still spry body made it all pretty easy in men’s league and tourneys. I could run, I could still hit a little, I could shoot and compete.
Fast forward to now, and it’s a very different story.
I don’t do much more, or much less, “training” than I did right out of college 15 years ago. I coach a good amount, run around with the kids during practices, play some wall ball and do the bare minimum of body weight exercises once a week if I feel up to it. I often don’t. I’m doing as little to nothing as possible without turning into Gumby. But my effort, while absolutely minimal, has been somewhat consistent.
But something has definitely changed recently.
My left knee hurts every morning. My right shoulder hurts every day. And when I play lacrosse, both points of pain get a little worse, in addition to all the bumps and bruises I accumulate playing 45 minutes of a sport I used to play for hours straight without problems. My body simply does not weather the storm that is a game of lacrosse like it used to.
Now, it may sounds like I’m complaining, but the weird thing is, I’m NOT. I actually love the above soreness, and it’s flipping me on my head.
I always thought I’d hate getting old. I thought that if I couldn’t compete at my highest level, or that if I ever took a step backwards, I would give up on the game out of frustration or work out like crazy to maintain whatever I had left… you know, psycho until you die style… but the exact opposite has happened. I smile more, I take responsibility for my poor play more often (both out of need and a better realization of what I’m doing wrong), and I just try to give a good effort when my lungs, legs, and mind are all up to challenge. They still usually agree to get going after some hearty convincing.
Have I lost some of that competitive fire that used to run through my blood? I don’t take any pleasure in a slap check that finds the gap in an opponents padding anymore (I sure used to!), so perhaps I have, but the fact is that I’m enjoying the game more than ever, and I believe this stems from one place:
I am just happy that I can still go out and play a game I truly love playing.
That’s it.
So when I woke up this morning after getting trounced in a box game yesterday, both on the scoreboard and physically, I wasn’t bummed about all the shots I missed or loose balls I let pass me by or that big hit that made fall over. I recognize I didn’t play well, and I wasn’t jazzed that we lost that badly, but that fact didn’t consume me like it used to. I certainly want to play better next week, but I’m also immensely thankful that I got to play this week at all, even given the huge loss. My bum shoulder hurts, my knee isn’t doing me any favors, and one of my biceps feel like it got smashed with a roofing hammer, but I wouldn’t trade any of it away if it meant that I didn’t get to play lacrosse yesterday, even if I was absolutely terrible, which I was.
So Then What’s This Bad Sore?
There is another kind of sore altogether, and it has nothing to do with your body.
This is a soreness of the mind, and if this type of sore ever invades my play, PLEASE ASK ME TO QUIT PLAYING. I don’t see it a lot, but when I do, it sticks out like a longstick in a box game.
This soreness is evident in the guy who complains to the ref, or about the ref, constantly. It’s evident in the guy who talks trash in a men’s league game. It’s evident in cheap shots, guys who won’t shake hands, and guys who refuse to smile at any point during a game or befriend an opponent. It’s the guy who refuses to admit that the game is passing him by, or thinks that he knows best in any scenario. It’s the guy who focuses on anything but the game. It’s the guy who is looking for excuses. It’s the guy who has a bad week at work just because he played poorly on Sunday.
Maybe these players are frustrated that they can’t do what they used to, and it consumes them. Maybe they never really understood how it all works, or maybe they are just angry. I’ve certainly had my moments of being “bad sore” throughout my career (if you can call it a career), and I doubt many players are completely immune to these tendencies, but everyone knows the difference between someone who is having a bad day and someone who is just sore in general about the game, or even worse, about life.
I have found that as I’ve gotten older, I get bad sore less and less. I joke with refs, and accept their calls readily. I try to play the game as cleanly as I can. I still do “bad” things, but I apologize when I mess up. I shake hands. I smile. I play hard, but I realize I have a lot to still learn. I focus on the game. It is what it is, and I try to enjoy it.
What’s hard to see is guys going in the opposite direction – guys getting more sore as the years press on.
Be Sore, But Don’t Be Sore
At a certain point in your lacrosse career, you will take a step down. Your once upward trajectory will come to a close, and the slow drift to old man rec league status and a 5 minute showing in your alumni game will begin. Your body will hurt more and more with each passing season and year, and some days you will question how much longer this can go on. If you’re curious, “until you die” is the answer.
If you play the game for what it is and forget the past, you can focus on your sore old body, and keeping the train moving as best you can. Every extra trip is a bonus. Then it’s every extra mile. Someday it’s every extra foot. If you focus on what you were, or what you could have been, the mind gets sore along with the body, and all can be lost. You’ve come a long way, be proud of it!
Play the game as long as you can. Play for fun. Play to prove you still can. The awards and dreams are over or ending, so make these later memories about more important things, like character, effort, legacy, growth, and friendship.
My days of hoping to hoist some serious hardware are over but it doesn’t matter because every day I play the game is a win.
