From gym injuries to top-40 mysteries, these are five telltale signs you are past your prime

Getting old sucks.

I'm turning 34 this year and even though I still have plenty of gas left in the tank, there are times when I'm reminded of my advanced age.

For example, earlier this week, I either bruised my sternum or strained a pec muscle while incline bench pressing a shockingly low amount of weight (still more than Mamdani, though).

For 48 hours, I couldn't even take a deep breath without my chest feeling like it was getting crushed, and all I could think was, "This never happened to me when I was 21."

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Athletes have plenty of telltale signs that it's time to hang it up, but what about us civilians?

It may not be as simple as your bat speed slowing down or getting run down in the open field by a linebacker, but there are indicators that will let you know when you're past your prime.

Here are five of the surest signs that your best years are behind you.

We'll start with a sneaky one, and one that might happen more gradually than some of the others.

I've never been a fashion forward guy, but I could always dress myself without sticking out like a sore thumb.

That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, because if it wasn't for my wife I'd probably look like a reverse Marty McFly, wearing fashion trends from 15 years earlier.

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Did you guys know cargo pants are back in style? I didn't, because whenever I see someone wearing them out in the wild, something in my brain tells me that guy is probably in danger of getting his head dunked in a toilet by some letterman jacket-wearing jock.

And don't even get me started on the "loose jeans" trend.

When I was coming of age, chicks wore jeans that looked like they took 45 minutes to put on and just as long to take off.

Now, girls who weigh 98 pounds have pant legs that look like they were ripped from the set of "My 600lb Life."

I've given up on trying to keep up, and if you're over the age of 30, you probably should too.

Have you ever gone to play a game of pickup hoops with your boys or maybe hopped in on a few games of beach volleyball while on vacation?

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Maybe you feel fine in the moment and you're even showing glimpses of your younger, more vibrant self.

Then you wake up the next morning and you feel like you just got hit by a bus; muscles you didn't even know you had are now throbbing in pain.

Congratulations, you're old!

And you can stretch all you want, bucko, it's not going to help turn the clock back.

Even if you aren't out there acting like it's game seven of the Stanley Cup Final, you're bound to feel like you need an ice bath the next day.

I once agreed to sub in for a friend on his corporate flag football team, and I was out there tearing it up.

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I felt like I was back in college playing intramural ball, until I went to a party later that evening and could barely peel myself off the couch because my lower back locked up so badly.

I had just turned 30 not too long before that and that was my first sign that I probably should hang my football cleats up for good.

If you're over a certain age (and it differs for everyone), then you know there is a stark difference between "grabbing a drink" and "going out to the bars to drink."

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They call them "bars," but let's be honest, these are straight up clubs, and they are places no one who is old enough to rent a car should ever be caught dead in.

If you've ever been out at one of these "bars" and you think to yourself that the music is too loud or that they packed way too many people in there, then you need to leave, because you're too old.

The other week, my wife and I went out with a few of our friends and we ended up at a fairly popular place in downtown Fort Lauderdale. This place is usually slammed to the gills with live music acts playing there every weekend, but since it was 3 in the afternoon on Derby Day, we made up six of the 12 people in there (including the bartender).

And you know what, I LOVED it.

I've never been happier to be out with my friends. I could actually hear them talk, the music was at a reasonable volume, and when my wife inevitably sent me to the bar to fetch her another hard cider, I didn't need to stand there like a jackass for 20 minutes while the lady behind the bar eventually made her way over to me to take my order.

And let's get one thing straight before we move on, an actual bar is a rickety old hole in the wall that is never more than half full, is playing '70s rock at a whisper, and has ACTUAL barstools where people can sit and drink and watch a game without being elbowed in the ribs by a guy dancing to Usher and trying to get lucky.

If you tell me we're going to a "bar" and we end up anywhere other than that, I'm leaving and I'm well within my rights to do so.

Picture this: You're working out at your local gym and you forget your headphones, so you are subjected to whatever radio station that gym decides to blare through its speakers.

You hear a song, then another, and then one more after that, and suddenly you realize you have no idea who any of these people are.

What's more, you can't even make out the instrumentation.

Was that a synth or a sousaphone? What are they even saying?

You thought you knew music, but this stuff sounds like it's being picked up from a broadcast in another solar system.

It happens to all of us, though for me it hit me far sooner since my musical tastes consist almost entirely of artists who broke up before I was even born.

This really doesn't even have to apply to music, either.

I can't tell you how many times I've been scrolling X to see what's going on in the world, only to be greeted by a pop culture aggregator account posting something that looks like a Babylon Bee article.

"You'll never guess what Lil Durk said to Sexy Redd to rizz her up in front of Lil Uzi Vert while at the Teen Choice Awards."

Those are all real people that I had to look up and confirm exist.

I had to give up on keeping up with contemporary pop music back in college, so if you're in your 30s and trying to stay hip to the scene, you might as well be the real-life embodiment of the Steve Buscemi "how do you do, fellow kids" meme.

I alluded to this one above, but the most telling sign that you are past your prime likely comes in the form of gym sessions turning into life-or-death propositions.

You probably remember lifting weights in college. It was magical.

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You would load the bar up, do your lift of choice, be sore for 36 hours if you really pushed yourself, and then do it all over again.

Nowadays there are entire exercises I skip for fear of snapping something in half.

Deadlifting feels like playing Russian roulette with my spinal column, and hang cleans are something I do every once in a blue moon if I'm feeling bold and the health insurance is up to date.

Recovery times also get elongated after you reach a certain age.

Can you believe I used to lift six days a week?

I'm not talking preacher curls either. I would be benching, squatting and deadlifting twice a week for each.

Now if I do one of each in a seven-day span, I throw myself a miniature party.

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If you're still able to lift with the same intensity and frequency as you did in your early 20s, you're either a freak athlete, a genetic anomaly, or you're abusing anabolic steroids.

Everyone reaches a point where they just have to look themselves in the mirror and say, "I ain't as good as I once was."

If you thought more than one of these five looked familiar, then it might be time to buy some white New Balances and fall asleep watching golf in a recliner, because there's no turning back time now.

Father Time comes for us all, just accept it.