One potential framing of the situation is to think that my body is falling apart. Or to think that I’m prone to injury. It’s easy to blame age, or look for pathology, or wonder What’s wrong with me? But I really don’t like this way of looking at it. I don’t think it’s useful.

What’s going on? I’m having pain in new areas of my body. Each new experience feels relatively sudden and unprovoked.

But it’s not quite that simple. In truth, I’ve been trying new movements and asking more from tissues unaccustomed to providing. And I’m continuing to push in now-familiar movements, asking even more from tissues that, though accustomed, surely have a limit to their current capacity.

What’s another way of thinking about the situation that will do some good? I’m choosing to frame the experience as exploring the edges of my capacity.

The thing about edges is that it can be unclear where they are. Sometimes you have the idea they are lurking just ahead. Other times they catch you completely unaware. It often takes going past an edge to know where it is, and then, of course, you wish you could back up. But you learned by doing this. You learned where the edge was, what it took to cross it, and what you could do differently to perhaps stay away from the edge. You know your limits now.

This sounds like a way to avoid future injury and all that comes with it, like the pain, frustration, inconvenience, and emotional strain. The idea of staying far away from the edge is appealing. It’s an approach I could take without shame—because who wants to hurt themselves? But it also puts a limit on what I can achieve, and I’m not interested in limiting myself.

What if, by exploring the edges of capacity, we learn to see an edge as simply the thing that currently hinders our ability to make progress toward our goal? What if we treat it as something innocuous and likely temporary? It’s a nuisance, certainly, but not something that defines us. It’s not This is what forty-five looks like or I’ll never be able to do this. It’s just (another) challenge that requires patience and work.

And, at risk of rolling my eyes at this later, I might even call this exposure of weakness an opportunity.

Before encountering the edge, we don’t know where our limitations are. If you’re doing what you want to do and don’t encounter your limits, they may be irrelevant for you. After all, it’s only when they stop us from doing what we want to do that we consider them limiters. But if you’ve discovered a weakness and you haven’t reached your goal yet, you can work on it—to create more capacity, more space between your active self and the edge.

Am I injured? I think so, yes. But I get to choose how I think about it. I’m not falling apart, and I’m not particularly injury prone. What I am is an athlete who wants more from my body. I’m generally working within my capacity while also trying to increase it, and because I’m pushing against the edges on a regular basis I occasionally step too far.

It’s okay. I’m exploring the edges. I know where some of them are now.