Hello,
Dan Zeman is an ACSM Certified Exercise Physiologist with over forty years of experience in the health, wellness, fitness, and sports medicine arenas.
He started his career with cardiac rehab patients by helping change the approach from mandatory bedrest to daily physical activity after a heart attack or surgery. He quickly expanded his exercise expertise by working with individual’s encompassing a wide cross section of medical conditions, ages and levels of physical fitness.
The Sports Medicine community recruited him to work with the professional sports teams. He worked with the NFL, NHL and spent nineteen seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves performing tests to determine each player’s ideal playing weight. Dan worked very closely with three-time Tour De France winner Greg LeMond across the final years of his legendary cycling career.
Dan has done research looking into the aerobic capacities of firefighters, wheelchair athletes, mountain biker racers and he helped open the door into mitochondrial adaptations with exercise.
Dan wrote and published a book to the aging male Baby Boomer entitled “You’re Too Old to Die Young”. As an aging male baby boomer, Dan understands the responsibilities and legacy defining consequences that accompany those who will live longer than any generation in history.
My Message
The Baby Boom generation – by the timeline of their birth – was literally given the gift of longevity (Bonus Years). They avoided dying young because of the unbelievable number of medical advances that were introduced prior to the birth of the Baby Boom generation in 1946. The Bonus Years are obvious when you contrast the number of Americans who survived to the age of 85 years prior to 1946 against the number of American Baby Boomers who are predicted to live past the age of 85 years after 2040.
My hope, is these bonus years will force the Medical Model to broaden its diagnosis and definition of aging. The new healthy aging model needs to include a person’s cognitive abilities, functional movement patterns, emotional stability and the desire for social engagement.
Eventually, every Baby Boomer will define their bonus years and tears as either an emotional blessing or a financial curse. Unfortunately, history will take a more objective approach and define these bonus years by the financial and cultural burden they left on future generations.
Ironically, a generation who believed they would stay forever young, could end up being remembered by their decision to stay forever old.
