The Science Behind the Midlife Groan

Abstract: Research from the University of Virginia suggests that the all-too-familiar groan during movement isn’t just about aging—it may signal your body preparing for action, while also revealing underlying muscle imbalances that can be improved with targeted training.

That involuntary groan when you stand up, bend down, or lift something awkward may feel like a punchline to getting older.

But according to Susan Saliba, a professor at the University of Virginia, it is something else entirely: a physical cue that your body is bracing for movement—often compensating for weaker or poorly coordinated muscles. In other words, it is not just noise. It is information.

Anyone in their 50s and 60s and obviously older knows what its like to feel the strain in the muscles after too much lifting or an over-abundance of exercise. It hurts when you move and thus, you groan.

That groaning sound, according to Saliba, co-director Exercise and Sports Injury Laboratory at the University of Virginia (UVA), is actually the body preparing itself for action.

It is, she stated in a recent release, the “vocalized proof that you have lived long enough to have a joint injury or two, and weaker muscles.”

The groan itself, she explains lives with us: “You may grunt on occasion in your 20s. You may groan more often in your 30s. By the time, you reach middle age, the sound you emit during exertion can become almost a habit.”

Physical therapy can help quiet the groan, says Saliba, adding that “the normal method to work on that is to reteach those muscles how to contract before bending over. That’s what a physical therapist is going to do; spend time retraining those muscles to work in synchrony with the entire movement.”

The UVA release states that” training the deeper muscles to stabilize the spine, as you did in your teens, can help you bend over and continue breathing while making nary a sound. Ultrasound imaging, biofeedback, and exercises can help reinstate the ‘normal, pre-conditioning’ of muscles and the feed-forward mechanism.”

According to Saliba, at that point, “then, when we advance your exercises, we’re teaching you to breathe on top of it, so you can maintain that contraction without having to use all of the muscles that create that exhale.”

With therapy, you can repulse the middle-aged groan, she advises, “but once you start strengthening exercises, you should not stop, lest it returns.”

The biggest risk factor for any musculoskeletal injury is the previous injury of that particular joint,” Saliba said: “If you’ve sprained your ankle, you have a higher chance of spraining your ankle than people who have never sprained their ankle. You’re trying to retrain the muscles in your brain and your entire neuromuscular system, but it’s a lifelong type of thing.

“You want to maintain that strength, and if you don’t use it, you’re going to lose it,” she said. “It’s like brushing your teeth. You don’t just do it once, and then you’re done. You have to do it every day.”

According to her UVA bio, Saliba’s research focus is developing the “efficacy and effectiveness of therapeutic interventions during rehabilitation. Recent projects include electrical stimulation, blood flow restriction therapy, and biofeedback to improve functional outcomes.”

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