Hi guys welcome to Episode 277 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast! Im glad you’re here. I’m kind of telling on myself in this podcast and maybe you relate, maybe you don’t, but I have to tell you if you are interested in longevity like I am, this is a good episode to take in and also share.
Prior to Covid, My husband and I worked out with a trainer for several years. I complained and fought him on things I didn’t want to do. The things he knew would give me longevity and keep me safe during workouts…things like stretching…..foam rolling, doing non weighted sets for warmup, I scoffed at doing them. I felt like if I didn’t just push weight, I wasn’t getting a good workout and it was a waste of my time.
My husband on the other hand, never fought him and recognized immediately the value of the knowledge behind his experience with injury and how to prevent it and accepted recognized it as a crucial part of longevity.
So fast forward to post Covid. My husband has started working out with our trainer, Kevin again and I wasn’t quite ready to commit yet. But here’s the thing. The last 3 years, Ive been doing my podcast, which takes A LOT of self work and I have also become an avid podcast listener.
One of my favorite podcasts is The drive podcast by Dr Peter Attia, even though half the time, what he is talking about goes over my head, I am able to understand enough to recognize he knows A LOT about longevity and one of the keys is guess what…warming up, stretching, doing all the things Kevin wanted me to do, but I thought were a waste of time…yeah that matters…a lot.
On my own, I was running and doing weight lifting classes, where nothing against them at all, but form is not a priority, there’s 40 people in the class, you can show good form but if you’re doing bad form, it probably isn’t going to get corrected. So Im in this class and I can’t do the lunge or the squats properly because it’s causing pain in my knee. I chalk it up to hereditary something because knee problems run in the family. I do the best I can but I realize Im not going to build my legs up if I keep having knee pain. Dr Attia talks a lot about proper form and proper warming up….
Everything he was saying was sounding very familiar because Ive heard it before from my very own trainer Kevin, I just didn’t want to believe him at the time. You see I was being what I consider superficial about my workouts. I only wanted to work on the “Pretty muscles”. The ones that I could see when I wear a sundress, or the ones that keep me fitting in my skinny jeans. But longevity requires more than that. Longevity obviously requires your body have more muscle, less fat, I think we all know that but it also requires for us to be flexible and have grip strength. As we age those two things, flexibility and grip strength are just as important as having muscle and not too much fat.
One of the big things to help grip strength is dead hanging. Dr Attia has done tons of statistical research on longevity and dead hanging is one of the keys to being able to live longer. You know why? Because as you age, if you fall, being able to grip something to keep you from falling is huge. Guess what Kevin used to want me to do years ago? Dead hanging. I used to think that was the dumbest thing. I wouldn’t even do it.
This month I started working out with Kevin again once a week and we are dead hanging, we are doing farmer carries, we are stretching, we are warming up really well and Im not arguing with him about any of it. Oh and my knee pain, it goes away after all of the warming up we are doing. I just wasn’t getting the proper warm up.
The reason I thought this was a good topic is because of course we want to look great as we age, but we also want our quality of life to be really good too well, stretching, warming up really well and working on grip strength that’s all a big part of that.
Dr Attia’s suggestion was that a 40 year old fit woman should be able to dead hang for a minute and a half, which is basically just hanging from a bar, I use one of the chin up bars in my gym. I can’t hold for 1.5 just yet. Right now Im at 1 minute 7 seconds…so Im close. And he suggested to be able to farmer carry 75% of your weight. Which basically is you carry a weight in each hand and walk back and forth across the gym floor. So if you weigh 128, you should be able to carry a little over 45 lbs in each hand. Im not there yet either. I can carry 35 lbs at the moment.
My challenge to you today is to learn from my experience and be open to new ideas in every area of your life, not just your fitness. I wanted instant gratification and to only focus on the superficial when nothing is instant when it comes to your fitness and health and superficial will only last so long. We are in no rush, our life is being created as we grow and pivoting when you learn something is part of that process, there’s no shame in pivoting when you realize the course you are on isn’t the best for you long term. We are in it for the long game, let’s start acting like it.
I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in few days!
