I played amateur hockey all my life and also hit a wall at 40. I retired from amateur hockey at 41 cause i could not do it anymore at the level i was enjoying it. I simply could not have fun as a defensive player since i used to score lot of goals and could not score anymore on a regular basis. Playing two games in two nights was also very hard. It was starting to have an impact on my job and i had to stop.
From my experience the first wall is at around 30. But experience help you diminish it. You feel it but it doesn't show stats wise. The 2nd wall if at around 35. This one hits harder but you sort of still can do it. You're slower but still strong and very experienced. You lose some offense buy gain some defense. The last wall is at around 40. This one is awful and you simply can't understand it until you experience it. As a kid you think you'll remain on top all your life. We are all like this. What is hard about the 40ies is not only the body slow down but the brain too. You're slower physically but mentally too. I used to play games at a very competitive level. I was even ranked relatively high in the world in some of them. Not professionally but at a high amateur level. But man nope not anymore. Trying to get into Overwatch right now and those god damn ***** **** kids don't stop killing me. Those little bastards ... i wish i would still be 20 to teach them rispek. Gone are the days where i could finish a game with 30+ kills and 0 death. Can hardly maintain a 1-1 kd ratio now.
Your brain doesn't slow down. You just see less images per second. Your brain is constantly 'painting' a picture for your consciousness and with time, it gets used to seeing about everything. Repeated experience makes neurons work in higher synchronicity, and in time the circuitry for certain highly repeated actions/experiences are reduced in size because they've become highly efficient. Because of this, with time, your brain needs to see less images per second to interpret what you're seeing. This has the adverse effect of a slightly slower reaction time to interpret new data, or images that change rapidly. On the plus side, you should be highly skilled, granted you kept playing and didn't stop for several years. The brain gleans unused neurons. And inversely, repeated experience strenghtens pathways.
New neurons keep coming till well into our 60's. It just depends on what you do, to where those neurons go. Necessity is the name of the game when it comes to the brain
Age also makes us less agressive and our motivation/reward system changes a lot. You get less motivated to dominate if you've already been there. It works subconsciously, just less dopamine coming in to motivate you to get the upperhand.
I have to say though, im curious to see the changes to my brain. There's rumors that Rockstar might make a remastered version of GTA 4 for the 7th generation consoles. I utterly dominated the deathmatch mode for over 4 years. If the remastered comes out, I'm curious to see if I can still dominate that game like I used to. I used to play CS a lot and played last summer after several years off.. took me about a few dozen games and was getting close to be on the same level that i used to be. Repeated experience is key for efficient action, no matter the age.
