STARTING as a dishwasher at the age of 17, the chef Mark Peel worked his way up at some of the great California restaurants: Ma Maison, Michael’s, Chez Panisse, Spago, Chinois and, finally, for more than two decades, Campanile, his own place in Los Angeles.

Those 41 years in the kitchen have brought him considerable fame: Campanile won the James Beard award as outstanding restaurant in the United States in 2001. They have also brought him carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists and thoracic outlet syndrome in his shoulders, resulting from repetitive stirring, fine knife movements and heavy lifting. He has a bone spur on one foot and a cyst between toes of the other from constantly standing. He has had three hernia operations and lives with a chronically sore back.

Being a professional chef, like being an elite athlete, tends to be a young person’s game. When he started out, Mr. Peel thought nothing of shifting a 125-pound stockpot full of hot, sloshing liquid from one burner to the next without calling for help, his arms stretched away from his body, muscles tight to control the motion. It was a recipe for trouble down the line.

The 16-hour days he once put in at Spago — seven days a week for seven weeks in a row — are no longer an option for Mr. Peel, who is now 58. He straightens a sore shoulder at the memory of those days. He can still work like that, he says — “just not as often, and not as long.” Today, he says, he can survive perhaps three days of crazy hours, as long as Day 4 includes sleeping in, to recover.