Resistance training: How to stay strong as you age | Prof. Brad Schoenfeld

There are certainly people in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s who have more muscle than they did in their 20s when they started

resistance

training

later in life. The key, IMHO, is

resistance

training

. In fact, we conducted a meta-analysis on older people. seniors 75 and up who were sedentary and received resistance training, there were marked increases in strength and by the way, these are short periods of time, we're talking 8 to 12 weeks, welcome to Zoe Science and Nutrition, where World-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health We learn how to keep our bodies

strong

as we age and why this is so crucial to a long and healthy life Already in our 30s and 40s our muscles begin to shrink and we begin to lose strength, this puts us at great risk of fragility.

Falls and fractures that in old age can even cause death, but there is good news: this future is not inevitable. Today I'm excited to talk with Professor Brad Schoenfeld Brad is a

prof

essor of exercise science at Lehman College in the Bronx. New York and a world-leading expert in muscle and strength development, he has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and written numerous books on fitness. Thanks for joining me today. Now we have this tradition on the show that we always start with a quick round of shooting. questions from our listeners um and we have some very specific rules, Brad, that we know are very difficult for teachers and the rules are that you have to say yes or no or if it's absolutely necessary, you can go as far as a one answer. prayer so that the First question, are my muscles important to my health?

Yes, if I have more muscles, I will age more slowly as a general rule. Yes, IMHO strength training is more important than cardio for health. Yeah, I mean, they're both both. I think that influences it. It is an injustice for one or a question because they are complementary. Can weight training combat bone density loss after menopause? Yes, is it ever too late to start increasing muscle strength? No, okay and finally, and you, no, you don't have to do it. say yes or no what is the biggest myth about strength training that you often hear so many women feel that it will make them too bulky athletes often feel like they are being tied down to become less athletic that it takes a lot of time and I could go on and on Go on, there are so many myths and none of those things are true, none of them are true, that's incredible, well look, I hope to unpack this.

Hello, I hope you are enjoying the show so far. I'm not a regular listener yet. I hope you feel like you could come back. Be sure to hit the Subscribe button and turn on notifications so you know every time a new episode arrives. In fact, I've been looking forward to this show personally. I'm in I'm almost 40 years old and I've been doing regular workouts with a trainer for about seven or eight years and that started because I had this knee pain that I've had for a few years now. I went to see a doctor and it turned out he won.

You're not surprised that apparently being as weak as a baby doesn't really help anything, and the interesting thing is that exercising regularly has made me feel much better, but one of the things that really surprised me since starting Zoe was discovering that Regular exercise isn't just about joint problems and joint pain, it could actually have a broader positive impact on my health, so before we delve into any kind of practical advice for our listeners, I'd love to start From the beginning. and I understand and I think the initial question for me is how our muscles work, the muscles attached to the bone, the assistance and the muscles shorten and lengthen, so that when they shorten, they lift the bones to perform a movement, and ultimately instance, that allows you to walk to walk, allows you to pick up packages, pick up your children and of course allows you to do resistance training, so obviously they are essential, whether you are like jelly on the ground, without the description that you just described, it doesn't seem obvious why they would be important to our health, as long as they work long enough for us to walk.

So can you help me unpack that? To me, the idea is that when your muscles start to shrink and get weak, you do it. You are not

strong

enough to perform basic tasks and then lose your functional independence, which is the main reason why most people go to nursing homes or care facilities as they age. It also causes or can lead to falls, hip fractures, which are often fatal over time as mortality in elderly people who suffer falls is close to 50 percent over a period of a couple of years. Functional disabilities, of course, have a far-reaching impact on people's ability to perform their activities. on their own, which is not only really bad in terms of your ability to participate in life, but it's also mentally demoralizing, there are aspects far beyond that, also important muscles store glucose, so glucose, Of course, they are sugars, they are the decomposition products. of sugars and glucose is stored in mussels as glycogen.

If your muscles start to shrink, you have less capacity to store glucose, which tends to lead to diabetes, insulin resistance, and diabetes, also the functionality of your muscles in terms of your insulin receptors. ability to deliver glucose to the muscles, so it's not just about size and its ability to store a certain amount of glucose, but also its ability to absorb glucose and, by the way, as you mentioned earlier, also when pulling bones help strengthen them. or when weakened, they facilitate a decrease in bone density, so really all organ systems can be affected by muscle. I mean, I think I really want to continue with the first part because I guess for a lot of people listening to this this idea. about having freedom for as long as possible and being in good health for as long as possible is really central um and I think I grew up basically understanding that as you get older you know you get wrinkled and you get weaker and you stop being. able to do things and that's just the way it is and this is going to happen to you anyway to what extent is that true when it comes to your muscles and is there something you know you can do now when you could be in your 40s or 50s? or 60 or whatever that's going to affect that lust muscle loss that's having this effect on loss of freedom as you get older yeah so age related muscle loss called sarcopenia uh actually now it's a diagnose a medical condition um and uh, it's not inevitable that resistance training is really the key now, certainly, other activities can help in that regard depending on what they are, but ultimately resistance training that can be defined like activities that promote muscular work against a given force and that can be achieved by lifting weights is often considered the most common view, but I mean it can be a bodyweight exercise, it can be push-ups, bodyweight squats, They can be forms of resistance training, you can use resistance bands. bands, you can use cable machines and other types of units so that they can be integrated and I mean, there is yoga that involves resistance where they do several, so anything where your body, your muscles are working against a certain force and to respond to your question, then if you do resistance training that substantially challenges the muscles over time, you can not only avoid sarcopenia, but you can also maintain more.

There are certainly people in their 60s, 70s and even 80s who have more muscle than they did when they were in their 20s when they started resistance training later. in life and they have more muscles than 20 year olds, you know, at a certain age, so I would say that IMHO the key to sarcopenia declaration is resistance training, well, I love that It's really positive, right? because I think often in this area it's all very depressing about the idea that there's nothing to do, you're going to get old, you're going to lose everything, and I think what you're saying is that there's actually a lot of things you can do and It's not too late, right, if you didn't do any exercise when you were 20, you're saying it's not too bad.

I love this idea of ​​being 60 or 70 years old and having more muscles than I had when I was 20. I just want to interrupt and say that there is research where we actually conducted a meta-analysis on older people, which were people 75 years or older who were sedentary and receiving resistance training, and a meta-analysis is a combination of all the studies on the topic um there were marked increases in strength and we see hypertrophy increases in muscle growth differences uh and these are short time periods by the way, we're talking 8 to 12 weeks again at 75 plus, so what these are a minimum of 75 years, could you?

Explain it a little bit because I think we skipped over this link a little bit between doing this resistance training and preventing your muscles from contracting, like why that happens, how these two things fit together when you resist the stresses that you're applying. to the muscles, the forces you are applying to the muscles are converted into chemical signals. These chemical signals carry out protein synthesis, create more protein for the body to produce more muscle proteins giving you bigger muscles when you resistance train, uh at an intense level, you are challenging the muscles to a greater extent than when you walk so walking will be better than lying down all day of course so if you're lying down all day if you're in your room and then you get up and walk around that will help you build some muscle, but it will be minimal.

The body only builds muscle to the extent that it is challenged to gain more muscle. You have to provide more stimulation. Everything that matters to the body. It's survival, so maintaining muscles is energetically expensive and we still live in the bodies of our Paleolithic ancestors, so the body doesn't realize that we can go out and get food whenever we want, etc., and tries to be nifty to maintain muscle will be energetically expensive, which would have a negative impact on survival when you're poking around in the historic days. So to bring this home when you're lying down, even though let's say you're not doing anything, you're very inactive.

The body realizes it doesn't need this or thinks it doesn't need this extra muscle and it's energetically exhausting to maintain, so why bother? Why would we need to keep it if we are not going to use it? That's the use. Make it or miss it principle when you lift weights that challenge the body because you might want to talk about how you don't necessarily need to lift heavy weights, but when you lift weights that ultimately become challenging, the body realizes that or thinks that you need to be able to maintain muscles to carry out these activities in order to survive and again it all revolves around what the body perceives as its survival needs.

It's really interesting because it's very similar to a lot of discussions that we have about nutrition where we also have this problem where we have these bodies that were built for this permanent fear of hunger and famine and we live in an environment where you know there's a Starbucks and a McDonald's in every corner and everything is lost and I think you are saying exactly the same thing about exercising our muscles, that our body is worried because the cost of supporting these muscles is constantly trying to reduce them, while in reality we would like to keep them very high and that Unfortunately there is no magic pill. and you have to do something that really puts them under pressure if you want to maintain the right level of muscle that will keep us healthier and I would also add, since you mention nutrition, that protein consumption is also an important component. uh protein, protein consumption is used, the amino acids in it are used to build muscle, so when protein is deficient, at least to some extent you will compromise your ability to gain muscle, but the most important factor is the training of endurance.

You can still build muscle even with a fairly suboptimal protein intake, but you won't compromise the magnitude of your gains. Does that mean that as people age they think they should be conscious of increasing the amount of protein they eat? so you might be thinking the opposite, yeah, so there are several things, um number one, there's something called the leucine threshold. Leucine is one of the essential amino acids and has been shown to start the protein synthesis process after resistance training and therefore, as you age, your body becomes lesssensitive to leucine and generally speaking needs to consume more protein in a given environment and in a given session.

To reach your leucine threshold, the most important thing is resistance training again, it will compromise gains. to a point, but it's not like you're not going to make gains if you don't meet your leucine threshold, but it's important that as older people get older, you try to squeeze out as much as you can because it becomes harder to develop. muscle and Brad is like a constant decrease over time or is it more like I have a 15 year old son and he's basically gaining muscle every week, like just looking at him, you know, just looking at him and I, on the other hand, train all the time and I feel like I've completely plateaued and it's incredibly difficult to build muscle.

I'm in my 40s and that can be a lot worse, you know, when I'm in my 60s and 70s, what does the science say? It's very gradual, so generally speaking, there's not much you can do, let's say hormonally men will generally lose about one percent of testosterone after age 40. These are averages. Different people have genetics that will go into that and other factors, women, it's even more pronounced because women, when they go through menopause, whose estrogen is basically considered the male component, the female component of testosterone to facilitate muscle development, at least there is good evidence. to indicate that, and the reductions in estrogen are huge, so it's a tenfold reduction in estrogen production for women, which further compromises their ability to build muscle, so that in itself will be a chronic inflammatory effects factor, so the body produces these inflammatory cytokines as people age chronically and injuries can affect diseases like osteoarthritis may be involved, so there are a multitude of factors when you age that go into your con and it seems that, particularly when you're a woman going through menopause, there's like a big change in your ability to maintain or grow muscle after menopause compared to before, did I understand that right?

Men are going to have a more gradual decrease in testosterone, let's say that from the age of 40 you simply start to see a change. However, it seems to accelerate when you get into your 70s and beyond, it can have an even greater downward linear trajectory where women over a period of several years during menopause actually have this drastic drop in estrogen and uh and that. apparently again it compromises muscle building ability to a greater extent, but like I said, that doesn't mean you can't build muscle, both men and women, alike, can achieve very good gains, well, I think you've convinced everyone that your Muscles are really important, you've scared us all with this idea that your ability to hold them gets worse and worse over time.

I'd love to start talking about the actionable side of this because I think everyone's like, well, I'd like to have more bustles, I don't want to fall and break my hip, I want to be able to get up and out of my chair, um, right before get into the details, like I just want to start at the highest level because the terminology related to exercise can be very scary to non-experts and quite confusing, so usually they talk about resistance training, a lot of people talk about cardio and we have this question at the beginning. I love understanding because I think a lot of people will say, "Well, my doctor is just telling me I should exercise more.

Can you help me understand this difference between lifting something heavy and going for a run?" a cardiovascular cycle implies that you are engaging the Victoria system of cardiovascular rest, where it is dependent on oxygen, so you are just not, you are generally training in a submaximal way where you can continue doing it for a long time. During long periods of resistance training, you will be limited; you will not be able to lift weights continuously for 20 minutes. I mean, then essentially you'll be doing cardio, so you know that out of a minute, 90 seconds a little bit. In addition, it stops being resistance training and begins to enter cardiovascular, where it becomes more of an aerobic effort in which your body uses oxygen.

Now we have heard many people talk about the benefits of cardio and that it has many health benefits. kind of long-term studies, but it doesn't seem to give you the muscle support benefits you've been talking about. Could you help us analyze that? I think you said something pretty interesting at the beginning that, overall, you really think that, You know, if you had 20 minutes to decide what I'm going to do? Actually, resistance, if I were to do one or the other, resistance will actually be better for my health than the cardio that I do. I think a lot of people would be very surprised.

Could you help me explain that yes, of course? We've touched on this before, but when you do cardio you're not substantially challenging your muscles. develop and increase their strength all they need to do again the body is looking to survive if your cardio consists of walking a couple of miles a day the body will adapt to be able to do that but that is a very low bar as far as to the muscle necessary to achieve that, whereas if you are lifting weights, the body will perceive a threat to its survival and will substantially increase the size of its muscle and strengthen the various neural factors, as well as to adapt to those types. of changes that occur over time and to be able to carry out those functions constantly because the body waits forward, you know if you are walking well, the body thinks that you are going to need to walk regularly. base until you stop doing that and then the body starts for a period of time and then the body backs off and says, "Okay now, we don't need to do this anymore." Strength gains can happen in a few weeks, you know, two, three. weeks you will begin to have hypertrophy, which is the construction of muscle tissue.

Increases in muscle size usually start to become evident in about a month, about four weeks, now again, it depends on what you're doing and genetics to some extent. you're going to get into this, uh, but those are general. I would say they are general guidelines. This is pretty good. In just a few weeks, you're saying you'll get the benefit. It's good, a lot of the things we do, I think, in our lives. that are supposed to help our long-term health, they actually don't and we see this, for example, even with your microbiome, you know it can take three to six months before you really start to see any changes, so that in reality there is a very rapid adaptation.

I think compared to a lot of the things I've heard people tell us about, I think everyone's going to hear the same thing, so okay, what should I be doing? I would love it if you could. Talk a little bit about the type of exercises people might do and what's best in terms of this strength training. There are many muscles in my body. Do I somehow need to do an exercise for each of my muscles? Or if I'm worried about my hip, do I only worry about my hips? What should people think about what it takes to get the benefits you describe?

Just so you know, these are questions that are always specific to each individual, but I can give a general recommendation is that you should train all the muscles in general. If you're looking for, let's say, not specific problems, you just want to be healthier. You should train the main muscles of the body. Generally you should. uh resistance training a minimum of twice a week again, that's a bare minimum and depending on how you're structuring it, there may be other guidelines, but let's go with the minimum of twice a week and you should look if you're looking. to save time and I will say that these two half hour sessions a week can give you very powerful gains.

You're not going on stage as a bodybuilder. I think I've already missed that boat, Brad, but from a functional standpoint. From a health standpoint, even just looks, you certainly look better. You can literally achieve one hour a week. You don't want to do it all in one session. It would be better if you split it up to, say, two half-hour sessions, but I. I would say at the very least that can give you a good

prof

it, decent profits and if you want a little better profits, you know, maybe three or three days a week and doing 45 minute sessions, so even the time is there. time saving ways you can do, what are they? called supersets and other types of techniques where you can reduce the rest time between exercises and achieve time efficiency, so again working the main muscles think about the chest muscles, the shoulder muscles, the back muscles, the quads, the glutes, people will often work or concentrate. in biceps curls and triceps presses, well, you get substantial engagement of those muscles when you do rows and presses, so literally doing minimalist type routines that involve these multi-exercise exercises can work the entire musculature again, not to the maximum.

To what extent are you going to get on stage, but most people, as you point out, are not looking to be bodybuilders. I do a lot of consulting with Elite level athletes and bodybuilders and the recommendations for them will be very different. Not only be much more disciplined and aware of your routine, but you should also focus on much more scientific principles when you get to that level, but a very basic routine can achieve very, very powerful effects from a health and wellness point of view. physical state. I think that's really exciting and look Brad. I know you used to be a bodybuilder and personal trainer, so I'm going to assume that you enjoyed the exercise and that you kind of enjoyed the physique you were building, but there are a lot of people out there who ask a lot of the questions I'd like to ask now and who don't.

They go to the gym regularly or I myself in this category would not receive many. I feel great after doing it, partly because it's done, but I would be very interested in maybe getting started. with a question that came up a few times, and that is we had quite a few listeners who said they were really intimidated by their local gym and the idea of ​​starting this idea of ​​strength training, what advice would you have? for someone who's listening to this and saying, wow, okay, I'm really convinced this is important. I have to go and do this, but you know, I'm not sure how to start, yeah, so the most important thing.

The important thing is to make sure you have a good idea of ​​what you are doing. I would say that in general it is very good to find a qualified personal trainer. If possible, that will be an expense, but it will take several sessions just to get an idea of ​​what you need to do, you don't have to

stay

with the trainer for long periods of time, but I would say at least several introductory sessions, the Most gyms, when you go there, offer you a free session with a personal trainer, that can be a start, but usually people need several sessions to get an idea of ​​what they are supposed to do.

If money is a problem, understand it. There are many videos online that you can search. You can do it for free, you can go online, but I mean, if you know, look for qualified people, that's what I would say and, uh, uh, make sure you know what you're doing and then plan a plant. The most important thing is to have a plan, there is an old Chinese saying that those who do not plan, plan to fail, adherence of course is the most important factor, so you must be regimented, you must commit to a minimum of a couple days a week, like I said, uh, and ultimately.

It should be like brushing your teeth if you just commit to that schedule where you do it in a regimented way. Try, I would say if possible, choose regimented days where wherever you go in, you know you're going in and just do it and if you keep doing it for a couple of months it will become a habit. uh and um. I would say when you're starting out just repeat the same workouts over and over, don't try to get into too much variety, you just want to get the muscles learning movement patterns, so that's a basic way of learning.

The principle is to continue doing something over and over again until you master it. Generally speaking, free weights have certain benefits over machines, but you asked me how and when. someone is starting out, I think as a general rule, particularly you know that if you're with a personal trainer, okay, then he can instruct you or she can instruct you, but if you just go to a gym on your own, there's a higher chance of suffering. an injury if you don't know what you are doing with free weights than with a machine. I would like to share something interesting.

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Well, back to the show, we had quite a few questions in the same position from women saying they felt like they were in the weights section of their gym. It felt very intimidating, so it wasn't necessarily people who hadn't done any exercise, but it feels like a pretty intimidating place, that's where you need to be if you want to do this resistance training and we had a few questions. around things like Pilates and yoga and to what extent do you know how well they work compared to lifting heavy weights to get this resistance that you're talking about, like I said, you don't necessarily have to use them and I would say that the decrease in this It's somewhat debatable, but the decrease you would get simply won't be significant in practice for most people, so you can continue using machines and make very good profits now.

When it comes to your point about yoga or Pilates in general, they don't, they're not enough to get you the same kind of results that you wouldn't get with resistance training, they just don't challenge the muscles to the point of cause optimal muscle development, so I think they're on a spectrum from cardio to free weights and they're in the middle, it would be better than doing just cardio and I saw you write this great article on light charcoal. I think it's kind of like no time to swap, which is great because most scientific papers have titles that are pretty boring, so I thought this was nice.

My eyes immediately went up, so imagine you said, you know, someone tells you, I literally have 15 minutes in my one-on-one session to work out Brad, um. You know, I've done some exercise before, so it's not the first time I've done it, but I only have 15 minutes to do it. What would you say? What should we say? and I understand that it is different between people. but what would be the basis of what you would tell them to do? Let's say they are at home, if time is a barrier. Focus on pressing and performing rowing or pulling type movements, which can usually be a row. those are the common movement patterns and then what's called the hip hinge for the lower body, so the three basic movement patterns are a press and generally you'll want to do a press for the chest area and a shoulder press, so there are two. pressing movements, you generally want to do two pulling movements, which can be rowing type movements, if you have access to them, like a pull down in the gym, which is another pulling movement, and then the hinge type movements of such as squats, you could do a leg press such as The hip hinge movement, which is a machine-based movement, squats and lunges, can require a lot of balance and coordination, and for people just starting out , certainly older people may have problems with that 15 minutes, it's not a lot of time, but it could be enough, let's say.

Focus one day on your uh Squat and uh push it and press your chest. Next time you come in, do a lunge and another move a bit like the same thing you said about how little time you need to do to actually do a Again, you're not describing the difference as an incredibly complex set of 25 different exercises that you have to do. to obtain some benefit. You're saying that these basic exercises work a lot of different muscles and this again is this. It's kind of an achievable first step for people that doesn't involve, you know, the same complexity of maybe being able to participate in a proper sport.

I would love to talk about the weight involved because this is something I hear a lot. different people say different things including that you know unless you're using a very heavy weight and pushing yourself to the extreme then none of this really matters and I think for a lot of people you know that's a little scary or I'm worried about injuries . I know again, this is something that you've studied, what's the way to think about the weights that you're using in terms of getting these benefits. Yes, this is something that has revealed a lot to me.

It goes against what we were taught when I was a promising exercise science student, but you can use relatively very light weights that you can lift, say 30 to 40 times and achieve similar muscle growth as you would. lifting five to eight times, so a heavy weight you're lifting five to eight times, as long as you're lifting it with a high degree of effort, make the last few reps a challenge to complete, um, now that being said, since From a strength standpoint, I got somewhat better strength gains with the heavier load, but even that, the difference between strength is nowhere near what people would generally think, so I'd say yes, if your goal is to maximize strength, a heavier load is needed. but for most people I think they will get functional force transfer from light loads that would be sufficient to carry out their activities of daily living and that will not substantially compromise their number one ability to perform their functional tasks. and really to have some meaningful effect on their lives, so just to make sure that I achieved that.

I think you're saying that it doesn't really matter how heavy the weight is, as long as you do the exercise often enough. That, it starts to get difficult if you're above, say, 40 reps, so which is a lot, I mean, if you're lifting 40 reps, that's almost a two-minute set, the set is just going to start. to become a cardiovascular effort, so again, when you are, most people would get very bored doing weight sliding on that, but I mean, we're talking about very light loads that you just keep lifting, yeah, the last few reps, as long as they are challenging the muscles to the point where it becomes very difficult to lift them in the last few reps.

The gains are relatively similar, certainly for hypertrophy they will be almost identical. That's really interesting. I have said it on a personal level. I think I always find it easier when it's quite heavy, as I don't like to do anything that's difficult, so if it's heavy, it's difficult for a short period of time, while it's a little less heavy, it's still quite difficult for any longer and I don't do it. I don't know if it's just me, but I personally feel that it's actually easier to do something that's really heavy some of the time and something that's pretty heavy a lot of the time.

I don't know if that makes any sense the way I describe it. I've read, yeah, I wouldn't use the term easier, but it's less burdensome, it's worse, well, that's burdensome because, like you said, having both is going to produce discomfort, but you're just having discomfort. for a shorter period of time and what I would say is that the discomfort with lighter loads comes from what is called acidosis, which is a buildup of acids within the muscles and that produces a really intense burn that does not occur in the same extent with heavier loads, but that said, many people, especially as they age, do not have the ability to tolerate heavy loads on their joints, so they develop osteoarthritis and other joint-related conditions that can affect its ability to use heavier loads and, in that case, lighter roads is an option.

We got a lot of questions from our community about people saying I have joint mobility issues or some other type of injuries, disabilities, um, and that means that therefore I can't do any of this strength because I know I don't believe that can lift a really big weight, the use of lighter loads becomes a viable alternative in those scenarios. Now remember also that if time efficiency is something you're looking for, doing lighter loads will lengthen the length of your session, so if you're going to do, say 30 reps instead of 10 reps, each set will take about three times as long, since that decisions should be made based on lifestyle factors and your message to people who are in this group is: 'I have these, you know, joint mobility problems or whatever, many of which I think have served people.

I have to stop doing all this. It's really you. You shouldn't do it and the health benefits are still very high, even if potentially. You have to adapt a little bit and maybe this isn't as heavy as it might otherwise be, but it's actually not too late for people like this to get the right benefit from this resistance training, so I think it's very empowering. I would like to ask one last question from our listeners. We had a lot of questions about menopause and I think a lot of people are worried about how post-menopause can affect bone density and they're like, "uh, what about you?" You then described more concerns.

I think about how the loss of estrogen could affect your ability to control your muscles, something I at least hadn't heard of before, and I say, is there something specific they should be doing? you know the best exercises in that situation if that's what you're worried about, yeah, so estrogen is osteoprotective, meaning it protects bones, it helps build bones and the loss of estrogen causes a disturbance in that balance and balance. of bone formation and causes bone loss in women. It's been a while since I looked at the stats, but I guess they haven't changed much.

Approximately 80 percent of cases of osteoporosis, which is a minor bone. Beyond a certain point, it is considered where there is a severe risk or osteoporosis by the way means porous bone where there are actually holes within the bones uh anyway uh generally again resistance training is the primary intervention uh that will be helpful in preventing bone loss uh or at least to reverse somewhat reverse the effects of bone loss and these primary sites of bone loss or osteoporosis or in the wrist in the spine and in the femur in the hip area in general and doing so , as I mentioned earlier, those types of movements I talked about.

What are the structural movements? Presses, rows, and hip hinge movements are ideal, it doesn't mean other exercises aren't just as effective, but the ones I mentioned really load those areas substantially and that will help offset those bone losses. and to some extent it can help reverse those effects and presumably the same advice you've been given, swear that even a couple of sessions a week will really make a difference, tell me, imagine at this point someone listening to this says well. I have more time, I don't really have time, um, restricted and I want to do this, but it's not the only thing I want to do in my life, like if I were doing this for my health, what would be the number of times a week that Ideally this type of resistance training should be done every day for the average individual.

I would say that three sessions a week or 45 minutes to an hour, when I say maximize, will give you very solid gains, to the point that I think the vast majority of people would be very happy both from a fitness point of view. health as well as from an aesthetic point of view, because that is where you can really start to make substantial gains, even as people get older, many still want to. cosmetic gains and when you do these minimalist routines, the amount, uh, generally more specific to strength than hypertrophy, you will compromise muscle growth to a greater extent than muscle strength, so Brad, I have one more question.

Listen to all this. I think you've made this speech incredibly powerful for resistance training and how important it is. So I guess I'm left wondering what's up with this non-resisted cardio exercise other than how important it is. that and what would you say to people who, in a sense, should be at the top if again, this is kind of a long-term health perspective rather than anything else, yeah, it's very important, so again, if you're asking me if you had to choose a gun in your head, no one necessarily has to choose one and you can include cardio in your life, you don't have to walk on the treadmill or do high intensity interval training etc, you can just walk. uh, I mean steps, so if you focus, there's nothing necessarily magical about ten thousand steps a day, but it's a good default.

I think it's generally a good goal if you can achieve, say, ten thousand steps a day.some compelling evidence that that confers health-related benefits doesn't mean you have to hit that goal every day, these are not hard limits, but you should try to fit them into your lifestyle and yes, cardiovascular exercise, so the Resistance training itself will help you. To promote cardiovascular benefits, your minimalist routines won't result in more resistance training and more cardiovascular benefits, but you can still stretch different types of cardio routines to fit your lifestyle. I keep harping on this, but it's worth repeating.

Adherence is the most important thing, the most important quality in a routine is adherence and if you don't develop adherence or what's important to someone in their routine, it won't matter Brad. I think this has been incredibly helpful and interesting. I'd love to try to do a recap, this is what we always try to do on the podcast and please keep me honest so if I'm wrong about something and what's been pretty messy, then adjust so I think we'll start with Solo I explain that muscles are really important and there is something called sarcopenia, which is the loss of muscle as we age, which is not inevitable, but it is actually something that for most of us will probably take away the pleasure of our life, whether it's you know, losing the freedom to get out of the chair and end up having to be in a nursing home or falling and breaking our hip, and we know that's often the really quick route, unfortunately, to getting to the end of the life. life. and then in order to fight this, we are in this miserable world where our body thinks there are no calories and is constantly trying to shrink our muscles, so the only thing we can do is this resistance training where we are getting stronger.

This is achieved by pushing these forces against each other and there are several ways to achieve this, but it sounds like you know that weight training is the optimal solution you are proposing, although you can get some of this through other things like Pilates or yoga which unfortunately are It's harder to gain muscle as you get older so you fight this harder as you get older and for men there's kind of a slow decline, for women it seems like it's an accelerated decline around menopause and in In both cases, therefore, it's simply harder to control those muscles, but there is some very good news, which is actually that a surprisingly small amount of exercise each week can have protein.

Gates, you said that two half-hour sessions can give you a really big gain in your muscle and you also said that I have done this peer-reviewed article showing that people over 75 in just 8 to 12 weeks could dramatically increase their strength, so there is a very positive story. I think about what you can do and it's much less than I think. most people expected that ultimately you would think that if you had to choose between resistance and cardio you didn't want to be forced, but you're like okay, actually resistance is the most important thing and there's quite a bit of flexibility.

Think of a strong push here: if you've never had a trainer, you should try to get someone to help give you this advice, but there are three key types of exercises. I think you talked about pushing. pull and you talked about this hip hinge which is kind of like squats or lunges or deadlifts and interesting if you're doing those three and you're worried about osteoporosis kind of resting your bone after menopause, actually, that's going to address directly um those areas, which I think is really good, but I think interestingly, for everyone, that alone will help them a lot with this help, that they don't have to lift a huge weight to improve it and that Interestingly, you know you've changed your view on this and you could actually use much lighter weights and do it more frequently, so if you have joint mobility issues or other things that restrict you, you can still do this resistance training, but you need to continue doing it to the point that this is hard and we talked about the fact that I'm terrible at it so I prefer to do it heavy for a short period of time and then lastly you said, look, you can add. cardio and it's actually very simple, like going for a walk and if you're doing 10,000 steps a day, then you're probably getting most of the way toward that health goal if you combine it with resistance training and ultimately, I think You said the most important thing is compliance, so basically it's following the routine, none of this matters, if you're going to do it for a week or a month, you have to find something that you can keep doing as a permanent part of your lifestyle. because that's what will give you these benefits in the long run.

It's a perfect summary. I could summarize that you have a two-minute podcast and that's why I'm not as credible as you. Brad, so I'm just trying to reproduce it, but thank you very much. I think it's really interesting for people and I think we would definitely like to do more follow-up, I think to help people understand how this ends up. because I think what you're also describing is that there's a lot of complexity in exactly what to do, but I think most people will come away feeling like there's something that can really transform their health and maybe it's more accessible than they would have thought.

Thank you. Brad, for joining me today on Zoe's science and nutrition. If you want to understand how to support your body with the best foods so that you have many more active and healthy years, then you may want to try Zoe's personalized nutrition program. You can find out more and get 10 off if you join the zoe.com podcast, as always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolfe, so science and nutrition is produced by the yellow hughins, Martin Richard Willen and Tilly Fulford, Until next time abroad.