Dhru Purohit Show - If You’re Serious About Living Longer, You Have to Get Serious About Getting Strong, Here’s How to Get Started

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Lumebox, and AquaTru.  We know that resistance training is a core component of health and longevity, but it can be daunting for many people to understand where and how to start. If you're seeking expert advice on getting started or continuing your journey to implement resistance training and maintain lean muscle mass, today's episode is for you. Today on the Dhru Purohit Show, we have a special compilation episode where Dhru speaks with several podcast guests about the importance of strength training and maintaining lean muscle mass. Dhru chats with Dr. Lyon about how to start the resistance training journey if your starting point is a sedentary lifestyle. Dr. Lyon shares why individuals fear beginning and how to overcome this limiting belief. Sal Di Stefano shares his thoughts on where to start, the biggest mistakes people make, and his views on creating sustainable habits. JJ Virgin shares the importance of aging powerfully and focusing on envisioning what you want your life to be like as you age. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is a Washington University fellowship-trained physician in nutritional science and geriatrics and is board-certified in family medicine. She founded the Institute for Muscle-Centric Medicine. Sal Di Stefano is one of the most highly sought-after experts in fitness. He has a practical and easy-to-execute communication style and is the co-host of Mind Pump Podcast, the world's number-one fitness and health podcast. JJ Virgin is a renowned health and fitness expert, bestselling author, and prominent media personality. With over three decades of experience in the field, she has become a trusted authority in nutrition, weight loss, and wellness. In this compilation episode, Dhru and his guests dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): Where Dr. Lyon believes you should start (2:40 / 2:40) It’s never too late and moving beyond walking (4:20 / 4:20) Feeling unworthy or a limiting belief (9:49 / 6:35) Resistance Training: how often and when (13:14 / 10:00) Use it or lose it (15:10 / 11:56) How Sal recommends you should be training (18:29 / 15:15) Top mistakes people make when starting their journey (22:32 / 17:42) Creating sustainable habits (25:40 / 20:14)  Sal’s recommendations on how to start and exercises to implement (28:50 / 24:00) JJ’s viewpoint on a sustainable practice (33:50 / 28:50) Aging powerfully (36:20 / 31:20) Working on form and balance (39:50 / 35:00) What is possible as you age (47:50 / 43:00) Also Mentioned in this episode:  Try This Newsletter on Muscle Health and Longevity This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Lumebox, and AquaTru. Optimize your energy and mental clarity with the purest form of creatine made by and used by the best. Go to livemomentous.com and enter promo code DHRU to get 20% off any order.  Lumebox is offering my community $260 off their FDA-approved portable Red Light device—that's over 40% off! Go to thelumebox.com/dhru to get your Red Light device. AquaTru is a countertop reverse osmosis purifier with a four-stage filtration system that removes 15x more contaminants than the bestselling water filters out there. Go to dhrupurohit.com/filter/ and get $100 off when you try AquaTru for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone, Drew Brode here. Today, I have a very special mashup episode for you. As many of you know, over the last few years, I've been prioritizing strength training and exercise in a way that's made it a foundational piece to my life. This means changing my routine, changing my schedule, hanging out with more friends who are going to the gym that I could work out together with getting a trainer, eating more protein, all because I've been totally convinced that this is an area of my life

that I've been sleeping on. years. I'm now in my mid-40s, early 40s, I did not prioritize resistance training and strength training. I was active. I played soccer. I played tennis. I played pickleball. But I wasn't doing a ton of resistance training. And if it did exist, it was a start and stop approach. But now that I've learned from some of the top experts in this field, I've made it a regular part of my life. Part of today's episode and mashup includes getting a chance to learn from many of these experts that have influenced me and hearing their top tips in the space of body composition and of course specifically strength training what these experts will be sharing about today will get you excited about starting to

resistance train and lift weights and hopefully start that today and make that a regular part of your routine get a trainer if you can if you're starting fresh from scratch because being stronger is the number one way to extend our health span and possibly our lifespan as well. Today, I'm sharing some of the favorite advice that I've taken away that we've featured in past episodes from three body composition experts. Dr. Gabriel Lyon, who's been a huge influence in my own world in this area, Sal DeStefano from Mind Pump Media, and JJ Virgin, celebrity trainer and nutrition expert. We talk all about how to get started, even if you're living a sedentary lifestyle, we say how do you get started today? We also talk about how to change your limiting

beliefs around getting stronger and being healthy. The best types of exercises for anyone at any stage and how to set up a fitness plan and how to create sustain success. Most importantly, we talk about how getting strong and building muscle will help build a better brain, more confidence, and an overall better quality of life. These interviews were so inspiring to me and I think you're going to find them extremely motivational on your end as well. If you like them, I have one request. Send this episode to a friend who needs to hear this life-saving information. All right, let's get into it. For the people that are listening today, who may go to the gym occasionally, but they don't have a consistent program, what are some of the core things you're looking at? Like, hey, look, this is a good

first baseline. First baseline is knowing where you're at, knowing what. And again, people should, I highly strongly, highly and strongly, if those two things can be combined, recommend working with a trainer or a fitness professional. If they are not able to do that, then there's lots of online options, but really having someone cue you to do certain things. Like this is, we are so domesticated as a species physically. We were not designed to be as sedentary as we are. You have to get moving.

And when you are thinking about where your baseline is, you should know how long it's going to take you to go a mile, right? How fast are you going to run a mile? mile if you don't run, how fast are you going to bike or row, some kind of something that there is some crossover. How long is it going to take you? You should know how many pushups you're going to be able to do. You should know how many pull-ups are going to be able to do.

You should know how many sit-ups you can do. Just basic standard. And then more advanced, how much can you squat? What does that compound movement look like? How much can you deadlift? So my only concern and the things that all the things you're saying are like valid things and they're important part, and obviously that's your work. I think there's a cohort of people, not everybody, because I think that since you've been on the podcast

and a lot of other conversations that have been happening and the work of people like Peter Atia and other friends and colleagues of yours that are in this space, a lot more people have been talking about the core element of like forget about these supplements for a second, forget about this, forget about that. Like let's look at like strength training. Yes. Protein. And let's look at just like your total amount of calories that you're looking at just as like

a measure. We actually had this whole summer weight loss series that we did, which was really about body composition. We've had money of your friends and my friends come on and share similar messaging that's out there, right? And I think a lot of them are standing on your shoulders and really Dr. Laman, Laman's shoulders as well too. And kind of sharing a lot of the information of how they've even themselves tweaked their little bit of their health focus. That's there. So there's a cohort of people, even though a lot of people have made progress, there's a cohort of people who are like, okay, I can't even do one pull up. I can't, maybe I can do a couple pushups on my knees.

I haven't tried to squat recently, even though I know kind of what it looks like. Am I doomed? What do you want to say to those people? Never. It's never too late. And we see that in the evidence. It's not purely my opinion. It's never too late.

It's never too late. But also that's combined with your feeling that, hey, look, just this focus on telling everybody to walk 10,000 steps a day, we're not going to get anywhere. No. Is that your belief? I, that is my belief. believe. And also that is, I don't consider that exercise. I just consider that physical activity. That's just part of brushing your teeth. You do have to do, if I were to pick the most important

exercise, it would be, or the most important exercise modality, it would be resistance training. Non-negotiable resistance training, which is moving something against force. And that could be bans. It doesn't have to be complicated. I came here with my suitcase and I have bands in there. Yes, I already have my gym plan of where I'm training today, but I still travel with a resistance band. I can do bicep curls. I can do squats with it. I can do whatever.

That is a form of resistance training and everybody can do that. Let's say they're at home thinking, you know, gosh, I can't do one push up, I can't do one pull-up. Cool. What can you do? You can do something. I do not believe that you cannot do anything. You can do something. And here's the thing that really, there's two, and I don't want to get too philosophical, but number one, do people feel worthy of having health and wellness?

They have to feel worthy of it, like they're deserving. In your experience, what is the main reasons why patients who come to see you don't feel worthy? It's usually past, it's usually some kind of past trauma, something that is maybe outside of their conscious awareness at the moment. How they were raised, adverse childhood experiences. Or maybe they're getting too far in life. And there's kind of this ceiling cap, this limiting belief. They're actually the patients, maybe a lot of my patients are very successful individuals or running families.

And sometimes they're like, well, do I really deserve to be this great? So again, I can give someone the perfect plan. But if the mind isn't right, doesn't matter. And what do you do for those people who the mindset is holding me? them back. Do you expose it? You expose it. That in itself just works. Yes. Yes. You know I trained two years in psychiatry. Did you know that? Yes. I do remember now. And one of the things is, is you have to under, so part of being a good physician is understanding patterns of illness, but being an effective physician, being an effective physician is understanding patterns of people.

And you use medicine as the modality to leverage the person to get the best out of themselves. So, yes, if you are not picking up a weight, you're never going to feel comfortable doing it, just as you never feel comfortable embarking on something new, right? Courage is earned. So you have to do it. And for your recommendation, for most people, initially that's going to be, you know, even if you have to like save up for a little while, it's so important to find a trainer that even can show you some basic movements that you can do at home yourself. You can go to the YMCA.

Okay, yeah, the YMCA. Great option. Do they have like resistance training bands that you can kind of love with? Totally. They have like silver sneakers. Yes. Amazing. So there's options at all levels.

There's options at all levels and all price points. Yeah. There's options at all price points. But it's really first people have to deal with the mindset piece if that's the thing that's holding them back. Yes. Because your initial question was, what if someone says, I can't do a push up, I can't do a pull up? They're just, the question is how, why?

Why are they at that point? What kind of framework brought them to that point? And we're jumping ahead a little bit, but we're going to jump all over. We are. Okay. So many great aspects of the book that are there. But now the question is, based on your experience and that walking is great, we're not discouraging anybody from walking.

There's so many benefits to walking. We've had so many people on this podcast that are there. And a lot of people don't even get into walking. And you actually, in my experience, you get even more excited about the walking when you're doing the resistance training that's there. Because you're like, oh, thank God, I don't have to do any more training. No, it's like a nice break, but you kind of feel like walking is a good way to maintain in a way, right? It's like you just feel like excited. You feel that you feel the passion that comes with movement, right? And regular movement in your life. And I like habit stacking. So,

you know, I have a bunch of walks throughout the week where I walk with friends or I'll take a walking meeting or I'll walk with family members. And it's just a nice way to catch up with people or I'll walk and take a phone call. That's like just something that I regularly do in my life. And once I work it into my schedule, it's a lot easier to get those 8 to 10,000 steps out there. But when it comes to resistance training, and again, this is jumping ahead to the later part of the book, what is the amount that we're shooting for? We're going to get to protein. We focused a lot on protein in the last conversation. So what are we shooting for to really have it be that regular part of our life that helps us preserve and grow muscle?

I think it's really simple. And we can make it really simple. so everybody here says, okay, I know exactly what I'm going to do. I love the, well, first let's lay out the general recommendations. The general recommendations are 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity plus two days a week of strength training. I would recommend you shoot for three days a week, you know, hitting each body part twice, if you can.

And that is very simple, and you can do 10 sets total per muscle group. and that can be spread throughout the week, and you can shoot for 8 to 12 to 15 reps, really kind of pushing yourself if you're going to do lighter weights, because maybe some of the older, more mature individuals listening want to do lighter weights. That's perfectly acceptable,

as long as you are putting in enough effort and enough volume to stress the muscle, to create metabolic change and stress the muscle. So you're thinking less the sort of 150 minutes, and you're more, hey, let's get three days a week. Exactly. Where in that three days, you're getting to hit each big muscle group twice. I would love that.

A minimum, yes. So that would be super easy to shoot for. And then for individuals who say, you know, they're really pressed for time. Why not throw in some kind of very short high intensity interval? It doesn't have to be running, right? I mean, you could see me running on treadmill. It's a nightmare. You don't want to see that, right?

it's, they could do an aerodyne bike or they could do some kind of activity that is safe for them where they're putting out maximum effort. Your body will only ever be as strong and as fit and as healthy as it thinks it needs to be. Our bodies evolved to be incredibly efficient with energy. For most of human history, food was scarce. So one of the primary drivers of evolution for humans was how do we survive in scarcity? How do we survive around the scarcity? And one of the side effects or effects of that was if we don't use it, we lose it.

That's an old saying in fitness, right? So here's this energy expensive tissue called muscle. We're only going to keep it if we need it. Otherwise, it makes no sense. Like, why would I have a V10, you know, six-liter engine truck if I only need to cruise at 25 miles an hour all day long and haul nothing. Like that's wasting gas, essentially, is what your body's saying. So it will only keep you as strong as you need to be.

And it will continue to adapt in that direction if that's what you present it with. So if as you get older, you become less and less active, your body is going to continue to meet that and adapt that way. So this is why, ask any doctor in the field, you take a patient who's having trouble walking, you put, they know, if they put them on a walker, they're going to, they're going to decline even faster. You take someone who is having strength and mobility issues, they sit down more, their health is going to decline even faster. They know this. Doctors will tell you this. Like we only, and this is relatively recent, they'll say, well, have you use a walker if necessary,

but we would prefer you strengthen your body to try to not to use them because we know your body will shape and mold and adapt to that walker. And that's what ends up happening. So you have to give your body a reason to maintain vitality. and strength and mobility. And if you're not doing that, your body will adapt in that way. And look, for anybody who's ever had a cast on a body part, you ever break a leg or an arm and have a cast on it, what does that arm or leg look like when you take it off 30 days later?

That muscle is gone. I don't care how old you are. I remember when I had it, I dislocated my knee as a kid, took the cast off, and I freaked out when I looked at my leg because it was like the muscle was gone. Luckily, it came back because I was moving and active, but your body will adapt. So if you tell your body, we don't need mobility. We don't need strength.

I don't need vitality. I don't need lots of cognitive function. It's going to start to decline. By the way, we separate the brain and the mind from the body, but it's the body. Your brain is in your body. Your mind is a result of lots of different things, but one of them is a healthy brain. If you allow your body to become unhealthy, your brain becomes unhealthy. It's a part of your body.

It's all the same. So look at the connection between dementia and diabetes, obesity, mobility issues, very strong connection, very strong connection. So you want to keep a sharp mind, keep a healthy brain, keep a healthy body. It's really that simple. Now, I do also want to say, because MySpace communicates this terribly, you don't need to to beat the crap out of yourself. You don't need to be, by the way, top athletes don't even work like this, workout like this all the time. The problem is we look at social media or, you know, when I was a kid, look at magazines, nobody's going to highlight their normal

workouts. You know, when I post my workouts even on social media, I'm not showing you how I normally work out. I'm going to post my PRs, right? The ones I want to show off on. That's not how I work out all the time. The way you should train 80 to 90% of the time is cruising. There's that 10% of the time where you're pushing. That's about it. even pro athletes train that way. They have an in-season and they have an off-season. So when you go train yourself, train yourself appropriately. Most of your workouts should make you feel good, not like you beat the crap out of yourself.

So if you're watching and listening to this, you're like, God, last time I tried to work out, I couldn't walk for three days or I took that class and I almost threw up. Not appropriate. You should feel more energized after your workout. You should feel some challenge, but it should be appropriate to your current fitness level. So if you're doing nothing now, just do a little more than you're doing now. And that's enough to elicit change. If you get super fit, well, yeah, your workouts are going to have to be much harder

to elicit any further change. But it needs to be appropriate. Too much is not only not appropriate, not only will it not get you there faster, but it might even reverse your progress. So there's a myth, you know, if I work out harder, I get results faster. No, if you work out too hard, you won't get there at all. Yeah, you see so many people feel like if I do not, leave the workout dripping in sweat, I didn't achieve

silly anything. Terrible, terrible. And we promote that, right? You go on, you look at fitness gurus and influencers and they make you think that every workout is like one that you need to survive. No, no, that's crazy. If I train my clients like that, I would have had no success as a trainer, both with clients that got great results and were able to maintain them forever and just as a business

person. any trainer watching this right now, if you're a trainer or coach, and you beat the crap out of your clients all the time, you're not going to last, I promise you. You're going to have clients who are going to drop like flies. Most workouts need to make you feel good. So you should leave the workout feeling better than you did walking into it, not feeling like you just survived.

That's a 100% fact, and I'll stand by that all day long. And every good trainer and coach will back me up. Are there any other core principles like that? You know, you chatted about that a little bit last time, but just while we're on this topic, other things that you think are sort of key mistakes when people say, okay, listen, I know I want to prioritize fitness to build muscle. Muscle has all these protective elements, which you've talked about, including deeply linked to longevity, cancer protection, et cetera, et cetera, other couple of handful of mistakes

that you feel that people are making once they go down that route. So the first one was, either you use it or you lose it. Right. So just so many people don't even start because they're intimidated and they're like, oh, it's too late. I wish I started my 40s and people were 40. I wish I started my 20s and, you know, so on and so forth. Second one was, you know, not thinking that a good or a successful workout is you beating yourself up every single time and being completely dead, right? I think a lot of fitness classes also, they become popular, especially in cities like L.A. or San Francisco or other places because people are like, oh my gosh, that workout killed me, right?

That was like a killer workout and it's like a challenging thing for all their friends to, you know, do together. Any other handful of things you'd add into that? Yeah. So let me, first let me cover that. That shared suffering can definitely, it can feel cathartic when the reason you're working out is because you hate the way you look and you hate yourself. So that's why it feels so good, by the way.

So someone watching right now is like, I love those workouts that make me feel like I'm a throw up. Probably because you look in the mirror and said to yourself, I hate myself. Wow. I'm gross. I'm unattractive. I'm not sexy. So that painful beat yourself up workout was cathartic.

But I'm going to tell you something right now. Keep that up long enough and you'll hate it and you'll rebel. And the rebellion is going to look like you're not going to work out at all. Same thing with diet. If you diet because you hate yourself, then diet becomes restrictive and it becomes a punishment. And at first it feels good. I don't deserve to eat that. I eat like crap all the time.

I'm going to eat this way. Well, at some point you'll rebel. You know what it looks like? It doesn't look like you go off your diet a little bit. It looks like you go way off your diet a little bit. It looks like you go way off your diet. If you track how people who approach diet that way, what it looks like when they go off,

they don't eat one cookie. They eat a box of cookies. And they feel terrible afterwards. So it's literally rebellion against that hating yourself model. So, number one, work out because you love yourself, because you deserve to be healthy. You deserve to be cared for. Go to the gym or do your exercise or eat because you want to care for yourself.

And that'll lead you in the right direction. Okay. Here's something that will probably blow people's minds, but it's 100% true. And I'll make the case. It's more effective to work out a little bit every day than it is to work out a lot a couple days a week. Even if everything's controlled, everything's the same. It's more effective. And here's number one reason why.

Habits are better formed when we do them regularly versus when we do them sporadically. Our bodies also adapt better that way. And all growth is a form of adaptation. Even learning is a form of adaptation. So if I ask you, if I had you learn a language and you went to one class that was seven hours long once a week versus you did one hour a day, which one do you think would impact you more positively? Yeah, one hour a day. That's right. So if you want to really hack this, this is what you do.

Get a pair of dumbbells or some resistance bands. keep them in your house or maybe a suspension trainer. That's also pretty versatile. And instead of going to the gym twice a week for 45 minutes a day or whatever, do 10 to 15 minutes a day, every day. Go do two exercises. That's it. Two.

Today I'm going to do squats and I'm going to do some push-ups. Tomorrow I'm going to do overhead press and I'm going to do some deadlifts. The next thing I'm going to do some crunches and I'm going to do some hip thrust. That's it. 10 to 15 minutes a day. It's more effective psychologically. The behaviors will develop faster. It'll feel more like a habit and it's going to solidify faster. It's more convenient. All the busy people, the executives, the people who are really truly like working crazy hours, it's easier for them to find 15 minutes a day than it is for them to find an hour or twice a week.

That's just a fact. People are at home with their kids. Same thing. You tell a mom or dad who's at home with the kids. Can you make time to go to the gym two or three days a week for an hour? I'm like, oh, I got to plan this out, maybe find a babysitter. But if I say to, hey, can you do like 10, 15 minutes a day? Oh, yeah, I could do that. I could totally do that. So it's far easier to stay consistent. Also, the data suggests that the body adapts better that way as well,

that the body actually adapts better with small doses than they do to less frequent larger doses when it comes to strength training in particular. Fatigue is a strength training. It counters a lot of the benefits of strength training. And that's why you do sets, by the way. This is why people who, when you do strength training properly, you do a set and you rest. When fatigue sets in, it stops becoming strength training. It becomes more cardiovascular training.

So that might be another reason why. So yeah, try that out. So literally two exercises a day, 10 to 50 minutes, keep the intensity moderate. it, watch what happens to your body. It'll be blown away. It will literally trip you out. And it also feels better because 10 to 15 minutes feels invigorating. Forty-five minutes can sometimes feel a little bit like too much work. So when I turned 40, which was last year, I got serious about strength training, building muscle mass, and started making a regular part of my routine and was very consistent for like nine months, took a little tiny break this summer, traveling, other things like

that, but was working out three to four days a week, feel so much more confident in the gym, body composition totally transformed and put on about, you know, almost about nine pounds of lean muscle mass in the process and dropped a bunch of body fat percentage as well. So now I'm at a different place than when I was starting. So I want to kind of go through a few different cohorts of people. So for that person that is literally like, okay, yes, I know I saw you the first time on the podcast. I've been watching your content. I like the idea of, you know, 10 to 15 minutes every day, I got the dumbbells. What's the best way for them to put or follow some sort of program?

Because you hear them, you hear individuals saying, I literally don't even know what to do. Yeah. Right. So are there self-guided things? Do you recommend that they follow stuff on YouTube? Have you guys at Mind Pump put together sort of introductory programs for people? Yeah. So we have a program called Maps 15, which is 15 minutes a day and it uses a suspension trainer to keep it convenient.

There is an advanced version that uses free weight. as well for people who like... What's the suspension trainer? Suspension, like a TRX. Okay, got it. Yeah, so you literally, you could, I mean, God, now you can get them on Amazon for like, I think, $50, and you can hook it over your door or something stable,

and then you have... The thing about suspension trainers are really cool is they're appropriate for beginners all the way to advance because you change the angle and it can make... I can make a push-up super, super beginner, or I can make it very advanced for somebody who's really strong, just simply by changing the angle of the handle. So they're super appropriate, very convenient. So you can follow a program like

Maps 15, very easy, convenient. If you don't want to invest in a program, you want to kind of try it out, literally pick one to two exercises and just practice those and try to change them up each time you work out. The best exercises to pick from are some type of a squatting movement. There's lots of variations of squats, okay, but some type of a squatting movement, some type of a horizontal pressing movement, push up, a bench press, a dumbbell press, a band press, something like that, some type of an overhead or vertical pressing movement. So like an overhead dumbbell press or with bands or something like that. Some type of a pulling movement, a row would be a great example. There's lots of variations of different kinds of rows.

and something that involves stabilization of the core or something with rotation. So like a plank or a crunch or what's called a chop with a band. And that's it. And there's lots of variations of those. So you can pick from those five or six movements,

pick two of them, do them on that on Monday, pick another two, do that I'm on Tuesday, pick another two, do them on Wednesday, and just kind of cycle through. Now, Maps 15 is much more meticulously

programmed and does make a difference. But if you're just getting started, you'll do fine by just doing what I said, where you just pick a couple exercises. It really isn't that crazy. And then focus on technique. So you are doing skills. So don't think that the end is, you know, I need to have sore legs or I need to feel a burn in this muscle. Don't think of it that way. Imagine you're practicing a sport. So I'm telling you to free throw one day. and I'm telling you to throw a three-point or another day, I'm telling you to dribble. If I were telling you to practice the dribble,

you wouldn't just dribble until you're fatigued. You were practiced a technique. So treat this like techniques. Okay, so Sal said a squat. I'm going to do a bodyweight squat. Don't just do them until you're tired. Watch yourself in the mirror, pull up a video on YouTube.

We have mind pump TV. We have every exercise I just listed is on there. You can watch us teach it. And then practice and perfect that movement. Work within your capability. So if you go too low and it hurts, that's okay. Don't go that low then. And then each time you practice, see if you can go a little lower.

Okay. Practice and perfect the technique that what I just said right now will guide most people for a while before they need any further type of programming. Yeah, like literally people could probably do that for at least six months or a year. Totally. And not only see results, but feel more confident to get to like the next level. Oh, they'll see great results within that period. Like great results.

You'll get stronger, especially. in the first year, your mobility, connection, control, and strength will improve almost weekly for probably the first year if you just did that. So every week, you'll notice like, oh, that feels easier. Wow, I did another rep. Ooh, I could go a little lower. Wow, that feels really good. So barring any injury or anything like that, yeah, you'll see progress. They call them newbie gains in the fitness world. So that's 10 to 15 minutes every day. That's it. Right? Seven days a week? Yeah, six or seven is perfectly fine. Yeah. I like, like seven just because it keeps the momentum. It's if you don't beat yourself up and you do what I just

said, it'll be appropriate for most people because you'll self-gauge the intensity based on your fitness level. I personally like to start the day that way. Less things get in the way. So it's like wake up and do them. But any time of the day is perfectly fine. Talk about with strain training. I think for a lot of women, especially in the 40 and older category, I think 40 and younger, it's really amazing because there's this resurgence and a lot of it's not a resurgence it's new it's new it's new i can tell you since i've been around this forever it's not a resurgence okay so there's this new energy right not to make it just completely about that because it's also kind of city and culture in l.A you see women of all different ages which is beautiful and men too working out prioritizing strength training

making it a part of their life being excited celebrating aging like you know really showing the power of the body to transform so i think for women under the age of 40 maybe a little bit easier, more examples, more of their friends in it. But I think over 40, there's still a little bit of intimidation of even kind of going to the gym and like what to do. So what are some of the ways or best practices that you've seen that make this a sustainable part of somebody's life? Yes.

And here's the mantra, forget aging gracefully. Forget age powerfully. That changes everything. And so to age powerfully, you got to lift heavy weights. Now, lift heavy weights. What does that mean? Heavy for you. Right now, depending on where you are, that might be doing air squats over a chair. That's fine. But you'll progress and it'll get harder. So you don't have to go to a gym. You can do this at home. You do it where you're comfortable. For years, people can't go to the gym. I don't have enough time. Well, first of all, I'd say make time. The number one reason people don't work out is they don't have time, but they have time for so many other things that do nothing for them. So, I don't buy it. That's a so I don't have to statement, make time, but you don't have to go to the gym because a lot of people aren't comfortable at the gym.

There's so many online resources now for working out. But here's the foundational stuff. And this is where exercise gets challenging. You know, as an exercise physiologist, there's so many different things for exercise. And there's cardiovascular training. And then within cardiovascular training, there's anaerobic and aerobic. Like there's doing like very short bursts and then a little longer burst. and then longer than that person, then steady state, and then slow, right?

So there's a cardiovascular training. There's flexibility. There's resistance. So lots of stuff here. So I'm going to give you the most important ones. Specifically, and I think with the emphasis, because you've already said it, on strength training. Yes. Well, strength and power.

Strength and power training. And, you know, as I looked at those stats, I will tell you, I wasn't prioritizing power in my own workout, but also in just teaching it in general. And as I looked at it, I went, well, the biggest thing we lose is we age is power. And if you really think about what do we need? We've got, when you look at what does it mean to be fit, we need to be flexible. So that's where I love to, hey, do yoga or Pilates once a week. But especially I love yoga because as you age, you've got to be able to get off the floor.

You've got to be able to stand on one leg. I mean, there's great studies just showing the ability to balance on one leg and correlating that with all cause mortality. Can't stand on one leg. You die faster. Can't get off the floor unassisted. You die faster. So that's where yoga's great. We started doing yoga and I'm like, why am I doing this stupid thing here on one leg over there?

You know, I don't want to do it. And then I read this stuff and I'm like, okay, I will do all of this stuff. Yeah. So you've got to have the balance. You've got to have the flexibility. You have to have the agility. And power is going to help you do that. Why do people fall?

They lose that. So it's muscle strength power, but the priority is really power strength muscle. Got it. And there are different types of training. Like in my grad thesis work, it was all on how do I create strength the fastest. That's not how you create muscle mass the fastest. Strength is like one to five reps, heaviest weight you can handle. Power is movement over time and really like, you know, fast moving it, right?

And then strength is doing repeated sets really in more like an eight to 30 rep range. So when you're designing something and I don't want to confuse people, first thing I'm going to say is you want to to do, you're not training to get better at training. You're training to be better at life, all those daily activity things you do. And in life, we are not bolted to the floor. So if everything you're doing at the gym are on machines, that doesn't translate as well to everyday life. So ideally, and this is where I love a TRX machine, because it can help support you as you start to go through these movements. So a squat. is one that's fantastic.

And you'll hear people say, I can't do that because of my back or my knee or whatever. Use a TRX machine to assist you. You can do a squat. You can do a one-legged squat. And you use less and less of holding on as you get better at it until you don't have to hold on

until you can use dumbbells or hold a weight here and do a goblet squat. So a squat is such a good functional movement. And someone might say they have a bad back. That was why I did the thesis work I did. It was all spinal lifting biomechanics and that if you strengthen your quads, you would have a better back, right?

You would take the pressure off. If you have a bad back, you better be good at squatting because you're going to have to get up and down off the toilet, out of off a chair, out of a low car. You have to do these things, right? The next one is a bent over row. And that is literally where you're bending over at the waist with your knees bent and you're pulling weights up because that's getting groceries out of the car. That's picking something up. Picking your luggage up. Right.

So both a bent over. of a row in a deadlift, these are such functional things that we do. And would you say generally for most people, again, if they're not used to incorporating the power, the strength, the resistance training that's there, you know, if you're serious about it and it's like this is your life, right? This is your longevity. This is the rest of your years. If you're not serious about it, get serious about it.

Get serious about it. Which means for most people, it's going to be better at least for a little while to probably work with some local trainer. Yes. Here's the thing. There's so many ways to do this. because if you're thinking, well, I can't afford that. You don't need to work with the trainer every single time.

Get the program set with the trainer. And, hey, if it's a stretch, get a friend to do it with you, which is even better. Or a small group. Learn the moves. Dialing your form. Form overweight every single time. Before you add a weight, you better have your form dialed. Because, you know, when you really look at how people get injured, it's not usually at the gym.

They'll get injured at the gym if they aren't not using good form. So form is first. that's why we need mirrors and to really feel it and to offset any imbalances that we have. So I think working with a trainer is essential or a physical therapist. Get these down. So a squat, a deadlift, a bent over row, a pushup. I just did a YouTube video on all these because you can take a pushup. You can do a push up against a wall.

You can do a push up against a bench. You can do a push up on your hands and knees as a tabletop. You can do a push up on your toes. You can keep making that push up harder and hard. harder and harder until you get to the point where you're doing jumping pushups, right, with a clap, or you're doing one arm pushups. So there's no end to pushups. The other one that's super important, especially for women, you know, when they talk about bone density, they're like walk. I go, that's not going to cut it. You need to axial load your spine. Like if you look at where we have

issues, spine and hips, if you're doing an overhead press, and what's an overhead press? It's putting your luggage in the top part, right, in the upper compartment, in the airplane. So overhead dumbbell presses are fantastic. So those things when you look at it, we've got, we've got your hips hinging, right? We've got upper body pushing. That's going to be your chest and your triceps. We've got upper body pulling. I actually do pull-ups and I think women should do pull-ups or hangs. I know they're like, oh my gosh. But if you just can hang, that's amazing for improving your grip strength. And grip strength is absolutely correlated with all cause mortality. So those simple things can make all the difference.

And there's a lot of room to improve. And they don't need much. You can have some dumbbells at home in a TRX machine. So it's easy enough to do to start at home if that's where you're comfortable. Are they targeting a minimum amount of working out on a week, right? For strain training in particular. Yeah. So the best thing that you can do is to hit each body part,

minimally two days a week. Now, if someone's listening to, And they might go, but you forgot core because like I have my core four program and it's upper body pushing upper body pulling hips and thighs and power core. But the reality is if you are doing swats and deadlifts and pushups, you are actually doing your core because it's engaged through all of that. It has to be. That's why it's so much nicer to do a pushup than like a seated chest press because a seeded chest press, I don't have to engage my core. I can let just sag whatever, right? But if I'm doing a pushup, I have to engage my core.

If I'm doing an overhead press, I have to engage my core. So your core is engaged in all these. You want to hit each body part at least two times a week. Three is really better. And I think since we are working against time here, three is better. For strength, for muscular hypertrophy, the range was funny when I was in school way back when it was eight to 12 reps, multiple sets. Because you only grow a fiber you recruit and you're not going to

recruit them all the first sets. So you do multiple sets with like 60 to 90 second rest breaks so that you can recruit more and more and more. Now we know it can be up to 30 reps, which is important because if someone is concerned lifting heavier weights, because you have to get to the point where you feel like you really can't do another one. You're really close to that. And for most people, they're not there. They could go harder. And so if it's scary for you to lift heavier, you can go longer. It just hurts. I don't like it. It's like I make myself do that every once in a while. I'm like, we're going to do a long day and I'm like, oh, I did it so much. So for strength and what you can do is throw in a strength day once a week or do a week of strength. A strength is really one to five sets.

And that I do, I'll do that like for a week every four to six weeks and it's hard. And you take, you'll need like two to three minutes to recover. Now, I like to once a week throw in some power exercises. So for someone starting out, let's say squatting, that could just be doing a little squat jump. You just added in some power. You can jump at our gym. We have all sorts of little soft boxes. So you could jump onto a box and step down. It can be doing a little kettlebell swing. So something that involves moving faster. Yeah. And for anybody that's listening that's not even there yet, it's like just work with the trainer. They're going to walk you through a lot of this. They are. They are. They are walk you through and they're going to meet you at where you're at.

trainer. So if you're like, I'm not leaving my house and there's no trainer around here, there are virtual trainers who can do this too. For sure. For the camera on you, watch your form. You can literally start with some bands and dumbbells. I'm a big, big fan of TRX. No affiliation. They should really hire me, but I'm a huge fan of TRX because there's so much you can do with this. And then the other thing that you can also use, if you, let's say, are restricted in any way, have an injury or recovering from something because one of the biggest things that throws people off their program is an injury or sickness and blood flow restriction bands are allow you to get to that fatigue at a lower weight so if you have any of those issues google blood flow restriction bands the person who created

all of this was this dr katsu k a t-su and that's like a 1600 unit but you can get the regular the ones are like 100 bucks so you can always do that too so there's The reason I'm pointing that out, there's no excuse. There's always a way. I remember when I had a knee surgery and I go to the gym, hop around, was lifting my weights, used to Schwinn-Arodine with one leg and arms. I'm like, find a way. There's always a way. That's a great message.

And it just goes back to this idea of strength training. People are listening. It's like, that sounds tough, but it should be tough. Yes, it is. It is tough. I don't remember I was I had a mentor of mine who kind of shared this quote with me. He said, either you kick your ass or life will kick your ass. life will still kick your ass, but you'll be better prepared for it.

Yeah. Right? You'll be able to kick back. You'll be able to kick back, right? At least protect yourself. Well, and the other thing that we've done is we go to this one place in Tampa called Camp Tampa where we do yoga. And we're like the old folks, the cute old couple in the yoga class, right?

And this place is really cool. It's got three different buildings. One's some kind of a weight circuit class. One was this hit thing. And then we just would go to sound healing and hot yoga. And the hot yoga was hard. Like it's not a little restorative yoga class. This is like crow, you know.

So we are like, we're holding our own here with these 20 year old yogi girls. We see that there's this other class there. We know that we need to push ourselves harder on our hit training. So we sign up for that. We go over there and they're like, aren't you the yoga people? You sure you want to go to this?

This is an intimidating class. We walk into it. It's like black walls. It says, grind on. It's got like disco music and lights and self-propelled treadmills down one lane and all these kettlebells and bands and step benches on the other. And we're like, we got this. You know, we killed ourselves because literally we were like, could have been everyone's parents, maybe in grandparents in the room. But what it really showed me too is we've got to keep trying different things and pushing ourselves.

That's where a trainer can be great. That's where going to a class can be great. A, it's going to keep you young, learning new skills hugely important. But holy smokes, I didn't push myself that hard. I'll push myself really hard with weights. I will just absolutely do it. But sprinting, uh-uh. I need to be in a class where I'm like going to compete with everyone around me.

What does it feel like to you to know that you are as fit as you are at the age that you're at? I'm actually the fittest I think I've ever been, which is super cool. did my body fat again because I was like, I'm going to be 60. Like, look at this. I was like literally just. Yeah, you're right. I went, all right. Like, this is an opportunity.

And I think we need to approach aging like this because you know what? You weed out the week. I know that it's like all of a sudden it's like you're fit and in your 20s, everyone's fit. But all of a sudden in your 60s, no. Like, Mark System's the only one, right? You know. What's possible for you in your life, right? When you look around at your friends, you know, the people that have been in this industry,

colleagues, you know, from high school, college, other stuff, you're looking around right now. You know, what are the things that you can do or even what's the mindset you have that maybe the folks that haven't prioritized that or haven't gotten serious about it that they don't have? Right. And here's the thing. If you haven't prioritized it yet, hopefully through this series, you're going, I am in because it is never too late to start. I mean, my husband's always been active, he's always been athletic, but the shift that he's made in the last six months kind of because I was like, now you get, I robbed the cradle, but I'm like, now it's your turn to get inspired for your 60th birthday, like let's go. Like, you have the opportunity now because

you have more knowledge, more access to things, and probably more time to really do these things. And all of a sudden, you look and you go, I'm going to be able to do all this cool stuff for years. I remember we were in Santorini and the stairs. Have you been to Santorini? I haven't know. So like to go to any hotel, you are like hiking up and down the stairs. Meanwhile, the guys carrying the luggage are like throwing your suitcases over their shoulders and running up and down the stairs. And I'm thinking, I want to be able to come here. We went down to a restaurant in Santorini and we walked all the way down these stairs. Everyone took burrows up and down. And we walked all the way back up it. And I want, I want to be able to do this at 70 at 80 at 90.

And so what do I need to do? Like, because you think about it, we work so hard. My dad, worked so hard his whole life because he had this plan for what he was going to do when you retired, you know, the boat and the travel and everything else and then retires, gets cancer and he's gone. Like, whole thing. So you look and go, what do I need to do right now so that I can actually feel better than I ever have because it's possible. I think we don't think that. I remember when I was in Dr. Phil, he was like, you know, don't think you're going to be able to be

where you were in high school. I'm like, yeah, you're not going to be. you're going to be so much better than that. So much better than that, right? So what if you approached it that way of like game on? I'm going to train now for the fun, cool stuff that I want to be able to do in a decade, two decades, three decades. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. me and it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share with a friend, share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol

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