Rediscover Fitness: Dr. Kennedy's Advice for Lifelong Athletes

Curious about how to kickstart your fitness journey after years of inactivity without risking injury? Join us for an eye-opening episode of the Wellness Musketeers podcast, featuring expert insights from Dr. Richard Kennedy, a seasoned internist. Learn the crucial first steps in safely beginning a fitness regimen, the importance of consulting healthcare professionals, and hear cautionary tales of overexertion. This episode is packed with practical advice on starting slow and building intensity gradually while listening to your body’s cues to avoid setbacks.

Tailored for older adults, our discussion highlights exercise recommendations from the American College of Sports Medicine. Discover how medium and high-intensity aerobic exercises, alongside weight training, can significantly enhance your muscle strength and overall fitness. Plus, we explore how activities like jiu-jitsu and boxing that double as effective resistance training routines. Enjoyment is key to consistency, and we'll show you how integrating enjoyable activities can make your fitness journey more sustainable and fulfilling.

In this episode, we also emphasize the critical role of sleep and recovery in achieving your fitness goals. From the benefits of REM sleep for psychological recovery to techniques like the RICEM approach for reducing inflammation, our conversation covers it all. Learn about the importance of hydration, setting realistic weight loss expectations, and the advantages of fitness trackers. Plus, get expert tips on monitoring heart rate and the mental wellness benefits of outdoor exercise. Tune in for a comprehensive guide to optimizing your health and fitness journey, backed by expert advice and real-life examples.

Chapters

• 0:05 Exercise and Recovery Techniques Discussion
• 14:49 Exercise Recommendations for Older Adults
• 19:29 Importance of Sleep for Recovery
• 26:23 Recovery Strategies and Body Soreness Discussion
• 43:37 Heart Rate and Exercise Guidelines
• 55:38 Benefits of Exercise and Injury Prevention
• 1:06:09 Fitness Trackers and Hydration Importance
• 1:18:31 Understanding Health and Fitness Progress

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Musketeers podcast, where we discuss health, wellness, fitness and, more broadly, the art of living. I'm your host, aussie Mike James, a freelance writer and speaker with over 30 years of international experience managing leading corporate fitness programs in Australia and in Washington DC with the World Bank Group. I am joined by my fellow Musketeers, the Right Honourable Dr Richard Kennedy, an internist who has over 30 years of clinical experience, including the World Bank Clinical Service and private practice. Welcome, Richard. Thank you. Kettle Heide, an economist whose 35 years of experience includes 24 years with the IMF and a focus on the vital interplay between wellness, society and organisational dynamics. Welcome, kettle.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Hey, welcome.

Speaker 1: 1:02

And last but not least, of course, our leader, david Liss, a DC-based journalist and media professional. Welcome Wellness Musketeers and listeners to a special episode focused on everything you need to be discussing exercise and recovery techniques, muscle breakdown, sleep and finding the right intensity for your training. We'll also be sharing expert tips on how to start an exercise program and figuring out the best approach, whether it's high-intensity workouts or taking long walks every day. Additionally, we'll delve into recent research on resting heart rates, avoiding injury and optimizing your health and fitness routine. But before we begin, please remember to subscribe wherever you listen to this wonderful podcast and while you're there, please also leave a five-star reviews. Five-star reviews do amazing things for the podcast and enable us to keep bringing you all the different gurus in health and wellness space and explain to you all the different ways you can live your best life.

Speaker 1: 2:16

And with that, here's our conversation on exercise and recovery. And I guess, our third question to start the ball rolling, I'll ask Dr Kennedy this one Right from the outset. For, say, someone who hasn't been exercising regularly and it might have been 20, 30 years before they've exercised might be just for some reason been exercising regularly. What are the first steps they should take to start a program.

Speaker 3: 2:50

Thanks for that question, mike. That's actually a pretty important question, partly because if people start to exercise again, one of the things that typically happens they try to start off with a last exercise, so they'll remember when they were last fit, last exercise. So they'll remember when they were last fit. It might have been 20 years ago, 15 years ago, when basically they were this superior athlete and they make the assumption I did it once. Let me try it before. But as we get older, our bodies change. But as we get older, our bodies change. The things that are really important is to have a meeting with your primary care doctor. You might also talk with your cardiologist if you have heart issues. You may also need to have a discussion with your orthopedist. If you have issues with your joints and your bone. You meet with them so that they can do an assessment of where you are now, where you are in that static state, and they can then give you some simple guidance on how to start. Paramount and Clear to this day start slow, go slow and build up gradually and listen to your body. And I think that's the one thing to take away from that question is you need somebody to give you some guidance as to where you are right now, where you should start, because the exercise routine you might want to start might not be the one that is best for you. So it's better to start somewhere which is safe, because the more you can do things safely, the more likely you are to continue the exercise.

Speaker 3: 4:46

One person, I guess about more than 30 years ago, when I had my practice in New York City and the guy was a basketball player but he also ran track and he used to. Back then they didn't call it the 100 meters, they used to call it the 100-yard dash, and so he had an exercise. He had probably from the weight that he was when he was fit and participating in those athletic endeavors. He probably put on 70-plus pounds endeavors. He probably put on 70 plus pounds.

Speaker 3: 5:26

And you know, and what happened is he said okay, you know what, I'm going on this family, I'm going on this family outing. They're going to get together. The guys would decide and they were going to go two hoops, they were going to run full court. He ran three times down the court completely towards Achilles' tent and, of course, in retrospect, when we talked about it, he said, you know, I didn't warm up like I would normally warm up, I didn't stretch. I'd had several beers before we started. Not a good start. The young guys were telling him he was old, he couldn't do it and so his ego got in the way and basically, yes.

Speaker 3: 6:26

So the lesson of that is he went through surgery and physical therapy and all of that, and also the fact that he kind of needed to lose a whole lot because the joints that he was walking on now were carrying a lot more upstairs, and so it taught him that, and so he came back about four years later. Um, he lost about 40 pounds, but he said you know, all I want to do is walk now, I don't want to do anything else, and that was fine.

Speaker 2: 6:57

It worked out perfectly well for him so, yeah, I just happened to know a friend of mine as well and this is actually some time ago and we were quite young and we want to start playing squash and the first thing that happened was they kill us, yes, and then I also started running a little bit, and then, of course, the muscle starts. It was not as careless, but at some stage you just feel this like the muscles giving away. Oh yeah, I don't know what it's called, and that sets you back some time and then you build it up. But it's a typical thing is that you start with the new thing and it doesn't need to be a law.

Speaker 3: 7:37

And then suddenly, you know, the body gives away.

Speaker 4: 7:41

Yeah, there's no question about that. What related to that? I read this article that talked about how when there's a snowstorm, people think I've got to shovel everything now and if they were going to do a sport properly, they would warm up, they would stretch, they would take breaks, they would hydrate. But they figure I've got to get all this done and they haven't maybe moved for the last six months or a year before and then they go and they get a heart attack or they fall and they rupture their Achilles or all kinds of horrible things. But you should approach activities of daily life like you would a sport as well. I think was the point. I don't know how you consider that or advise people about that kind of thing as well.

Speaker 3: 8:19

Well, it absolutely is true. I think part of it is, when you think about it. If we're just using shoveling snow, most of us don't shovel snow for a living and we don't do it year-round. It's seasonal, depending on where you are in the world. You can get away with it. The shoveling snow 10 years ago is going to be very different than shoveling snow in 10 years and further down the line. When you're not the same, you're just not the same person. And the first thing, it's hard for us to understand our morbidity and mortality, and we don't really start to understand it until we start to ache, hurt or come up with other things. Prevention is always better because we always remember where we used to be, where we had no limitation, where we had much less limit.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Also, I think it's interesting that a lot of the injuries start around that calf and achilles area, and that's even for conditioned athletes when they're coming back. It's almost like the link in the chain. It seems to be the, the weak point. I've noticed that a lot, and what I always used to say to folks that it happened to when they're coming back to an exercise program, as I say well, that's nature's way of giving you a warning. It could have been a hell of a lot worse. That's a way of the body saying hey, rest up, otherwise, if it ignores that, it could be your heart, it could be something more serious. I mean, I have nothing in way of research to back that up, but that's the way I've looked at it.

Speaker 3: 10:05

It's almost a safety precaution for your existence more or less.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Yes, that's a good, that's a great answer, rich, I mean. I really like the one about thinking about what you did years ago. And I think all of us, especially the male species, we have ego. You know, no matter how old we get, it doesn't get much smaller and we tend to think that we can still run the times that we used to, et cetera. So that's something we all face, unfortunately.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Yeah, especially if you're a group of people and some young people there and they say come on, come on yes, oh yeah. I've heard this so many times. Oh, yes, well, yeah, if you have a couple of beers, you know maybe three.

Speaker 3: 10:45

It always happens at those gatherings where you're just getting together with old friends. You haven't seen them in a while and they start reminding you of who you used to be, and the beers and the alcohol basically help you plus your ego, because your ego's probably standing taller than even the alcoholic.

Speaker 1: 11:08

I had an interesting anecdote from many years ago. I'll try and keep it as brief as I can. I attended a conference on cardiovascular health in Australia back in the mid-80s and there were a number of top cardiac surgeons there and also research doctors and we had lunch with them and they said that they almost had a good prescription for a male in his mid-40s to get a heart attack. They said because, if you remember, there was a big squash boom at that time.

Speaker 3: 11:39

Yes.

Speaker 1: 11:40

There's squash courts nearly going up everywhere in the mid-80s, more than fitness centers at that point. Yeah, and so consequently, you had the type A stressed individual who hadn't exercised for years got in there and ran around in a heated environment, competitive juices flowing, stretching doing squash is such a vigorous game.

Speaker 4: 12:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:01

And then they said, yeah, go back to the pub. After it a couple of cold pots of beer, instant recipe for a heart attack. And they said that there was. That was a recipe. If it didn't follow all of those ingredients, three quarters of them were always there when that happened because there was great spike in heart attack or heart-related events at that time.

Speaker 3: 12:24

Oh yeah, and that actually leads us to the next question. Sure, which are, what are the essential components of exercise and recovery for optimal fit?

Speaker 1: 12:37

Okay. Well, that can be easily summarized using the acronym FIT, but with F-I-T-T, and I'll go through each of those. It is for frequency. When we're talking about frequency, there we're looking at cardio, and I mean aerobic fitness and strength or resistance training. With cardio fitness, general rule of thumb, that it should be at least three times a week, and for strength, and it should be at least three times a week. And for strength, it should be at least two times a week. We'll talk about intensity and time as we go along, but that's the general broad brush track Cardio, at least three times a week. Strength, again two to three times a week. That's at its bare sort of minimum.

Speaker 1: 13:26

Now, in terms of the next one, that's frequency, intensity, we'll talk a little bit more about the actual formula in terms of heart rates. I'm going to keep it to the basics at this point and use the old advice that's been handed down throughout the years Sometimes that's bogus advice, but this time I think it's good is to employ what's called the talk test in terms of intensity. Now, if you're walking or jogging and dr kennedy asked me how I am, and although I might be a bit breathless, I might be able to say, yeah, I'm fine, rich, I'm going good feeling good, okay, okay, that's fine. But if dr Dr Kennedy asks me how are you feeling, mike and I'm, I can't talk. It's probably too intense. Yeah, okay, but that's a good rule of thumb. I think that's good to know because not all of us are data-driven. There's a preponderance of external age and indicators this day and age with Apple Watches and so forth, which are ubiquitous, but it's good to bear it down to its basics. I know my wife exercises every day at four in the morning. She never uses a watch or anything like that, she just goes by the basics and it works fine by her. So that's intensity, and again I'll talk about specifics in terms of heart rate a little later. Address that For time we're talking. Recommended by American ACSM, american College of Sports Medicine and other institutions is that it should be at least 150 minutes of medium intensity exercise a week, no matter how you break that up into sessions, 150 minutes or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise and again we'll talk more specifics on intensities later. But that's the time factor and type.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Well, for aerobic exercise, obviously it involves larger muscle groups with be walking, jogging, bicycling and so forth. Uh, weight training. It's, uh, working all the major muscle groups of the body. Now let me go back to intensity for weight training, because I skipped that. That should be intense enough that the last one or two repetitions if you're doing eight repetitions or ten it it should elicit a little bit of a response. It should be tough. It shouldn't be so excruciatingly tough that it's causing you to have a hernia. So the last one or two repetitions should elicit a little bit of strain or a strength response. That's the only way you will get stronger. So that's where we go to time and now type we talked about large muscle groups and.

Speaker 1: 16:08

But the most important thing got to be enjoyable, got to be fun. If it's not something you can do all the time or go back to with a bit of joy and relish, you're going to be one of these people who just stops. Fun factor is very important. I know that was a bit quick, guys. Do we have any questions about?

Speaker 2: 16:26

that I have a question. I basically would like to agree a lot with the. The fun part of it, yeah I you know, I I was, I grew up I didn't do much exercise, so I'm actually a little bit like I started doing exercise when I was late, when I started getting older, and the first point was really a stress release. I used to have a stress release, and not necessarily large intensity, and I built it up with focusing on things that are fun. So I did like martial arts and stuff like that, things that I found fun. So I think that's useful. I have a question, though so I'm also getting older, unfortunately. Some people say I should start working muscles, more strength training.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Yeah, strength training is recommended. But I noticed also, knowing you kettle, you do jiu-jitsu correct.

Speaker 2: 17:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:28

Now that's not strictly going into a gym and working your muscles per se in a weight training fashion, but that is resistance training. Yeah, you're working against someone else's resistance, you're working and moving, working and moving. And you know I have some arguments with my exercise physiology friends, this definition, but I maintain that type of exercise, as well as boxing training, hitting heavy bags, hitting speed bags, things like that, that is, in effect, resistance training that will make you stronger. You only have to look at the athletes who do that to look at their muscular hypertrophy. You know you don't get that sitting in a bar drinking beers. I mean that is resistance training. So you are doing some. I mean, would it help you to do a little bit more of a specific weight training? Sure, I mean it would also always help, but you're not a wimp by any means Kettle. So you're obviously doing some form of resistance training there. Does that answer?

Speaker 2: 18:27

your question. I mean, actually it is true that over the last when I, since I started training in jiu-jitsu, one of the big effects I've seen is actually on on on my muscle. I actually I could show you, I mean it looks much better than it looked like 10 years ago, six pack fully. But it's really like it's a mystery. And it seems like a mystery because I don't do strength training, but it really helped.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Yes, absolutely because one of the things that also happens when you you grow older is that the skin gets loose. That's not only about having strength, but you also want to make sure that the muscle fills and the fascia and all works together.

Speaker 2: 19:13

That probably takes a quite complex training to do it. If you do something like Jiu-Jitsu, which is very involved, I'm not really thinking everybody can do that, but I would actually advocate it for older people, as long as you're safe. But similar things. It can be similar things when you use the whole body against distance, against different body weight resistance. In a playful way, in a playful respectful way, anything.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Look at gymnastics, for instance. What about something I?

Speaker 3: 19:43

have a question. What about something? I have a question. What about something like Tai Chi?

Speaker 1: 19:49

Tai Chi is great for balance in the sense of strength, for a balance through the major muscle groups, because you're moving in a rhythmical fashion.

Speaker 4: 19:57

I think strength as well.

Speaker 1: 19:59

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 19:59

Is it?

Speaker 3: 20:00

resistant as well to some degree.

Speaker 1: 20:03

It would be definitely, but I don't think it would be as well. That's it would be definitely, but I don't think it would be as well. That's a matter of what you're after, but it's probably not something you prescribe to really get strong, if you know what I mean. But it's great for balance. Don't get me wrong Cheap people, don't send me bad letters.

Speaker 4: 20:19

What about golf? I mean, is it counted resistance to strike a ball?

Speaker 1: 20:24

It's some sort of resistance, but it's not really a progressive resistance. You're not hitting. I mean I guess you can hit If you like riches and you're going in the sand trap all the time. I mean you might get some resistance.

Speaker 2: 20:35

There's a little bit of a. I mean, they all have some resistance, but I do Tai Chi as well, so I know how Tai.

Speaker 2: 20:44

Chi feels relatively to J Jitsu. In a way it all comes from the same martial art place but it's very different to have a hundred pound guy on top of you trying to crush you and submit you and actually just trying to push him off, or her and actually doing the Tai Chi movements. But on Tai Chi I think there has been some actually ongoing research, I think at harvard, about when you age.

Speaker 2: 21:10

That can be very helpful for other things and it has to do with balance, has to do yeah, definitely the balance for the nation and and I know for my family, they, when you actually started 80 it can be really hard and they were actually one of the schools went so far. Don't practice at home, probably because of risk, but if you do that over the years this will never happen to you. So in the end you know you have to use your body. I mean, in the end it's the same thing. People don't walk, so they forget to walk.

Speaker 4: 21:44

Yes, something where they talk about that there's a relationship between grip strength and a decreased risk of dementia. I don't understand the relationship.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Well, I have read that they've also said grip strength and longevity in the terms of it, makes activities of daily living, which is particularly important for folks with Parkinson's and those sort of conditions. It just makes life a lot easier for them getting up out of bed, doing the things that you take for granted, opening a bottle of whatever it might be. Grip strength is something we take for granted, but whether you can drawing that long bow between that and dementia, I'm not sure that's for people more educated than me, but definitely is a factor in activities of daily living.

Speaker 2: 22:34

Have you ever shook hands with a farmer? Oh, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:38

Or a mechanic.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Why.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Yes.

Speaker 2: 22:41

I mean. So one of the things for the green zone is that these people not only eat well, but they never stop using their bodies. Yes, they make things. They do things in the garden, in the farm, whatever. They're always active and their grip strength will be strong. I mean, what's the cause and effect here is probably very hard to say.

Speaker 1: 23:03

But let me just close on that too. I'll just reiterate a couple of things, though. Guys. The beauty of strength training, of course, in terms of weight training, is that you can see the progressive strength gain much more readily. I mean, I've been doing shoulder presses, started off at 30, now I'm up to 55. I mean that's easily measurable, easily seeable, whereas kettle's jiu-jitsu he'll notice it but it's probably not as easy to measure.

Speaker 2: 23:29

No, frustrating, because I always find there was a guy that comes in there and he's much younger and he can submit you and whatever.

Speaker 1: 23:37

Yeah and the fun aspect. I always look to what the Swedish did. I think it's the Swedish kettle. I know it's from your neck of the woods the fartlek training. It's exactly as it's spelled F-A-R-T-L-E-K, which is speed play which incorporates running or anything you're doing, a fun element. So less structure, more fun. Fartlek training was a big proponent from the Swedish systems over the years when they dominated the distance running and endurance events in the Olympics. Okay, so any questions? I think that covers the FIT acronym. Let's move on a little bit now and let's look at how important is sleep for overall recovery and performance. Dr K, any comments on that?

Speaker 3: 24:24

I don't have any scientific thing, but from experience and talking to my patients, that when they and I'll say this about sleep in general that the ideal sleep time period for most people should be six and a half to eight hours a day or a night, and what that does is and if you think about it, whatever we do during the course of a 24-hour day, our muscles, whatever activity if you're opening a jar, if you're carrying a bag, if you're pushing something, if you're doing an exercise, you're carrying a bag, if you're pushing something, if you're doing an exercise those muscles need time to recover. And what happens when you rest and you sleep well, particularly if you don't have sleep apnea you're getting adequate amount of oxygen into all of the cells of the body. And what happens when we exercise of any kind?

Speaker 3: 25:31

Muscles, in order to get bigger, have to break down. They have to literally tear so that they can build up. And that's what normally happens. And most of that recovery happens when you're increasing the amount of oxygen intake into the individual muscle fibers so that they can replenish but also so that you can flush out the waste of the day of the muscle activity. So sleep is like it is for almost everything. It's critical. It helps us with our alertness, it helps us with our attention span, but it allows our muscles time to recover from the activity that we went through during that break.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Okay, guys, can I stop there? Sorry, I missed one. I missed number two there.

Speaker 2: 26:27

No, do we need to go back?

Speaker 1: 26:31

I think Dr K has covered that pretty well.

Speaker 2: 26:33

I think we can say a few things more about sleep now.

Speaker 1: 26:37

Yeah, okay, so sorry, go ahead. Sorry to interrupt, rich.

Speaker 2: 26:40

I have a question about REM sleep.

Speaker 1: 26:44

Go ahead.

Speaker 2: 26:45

Sorry guys, I just wonder because I've been actually looking a lot into sleep and yesterday I did go to Jiu-Jitsu and I slept very well because I needed it and I had even a nap. One thing I have been, especially in my retirement years, increasingly aware of is the importance of REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, and that's also because and I think I've been reading up on it, but that is really important for the psychological recovery and if you think about it, you actually go through scenarios, you go through things in the sleep, which is also important for if you actually do some kind of coordination exercises, that is important, which even is something like walking, which is also important coordination and can be very hard over the years. I wonder if you have any comments on that.

Speaker 3: 27:41

Actually not a lot, but I would tend to agree with you that REM sleep. I look at REM sleep as sort of the deep sleep and so when we get to a deep sleep is when our body, technically, is most relaxed. And if you just sort of extrapolate from what being most relaxed does, what being relaxed does, anything that allows the body to relax increases what we call the VO2 or the oxygenation of the body, and it's why they want people to get more of the REM sleep, because it's why people tend to. They say and I don't know if this is completely accurate, but the belief is people who have the deeper REM sleep are the ones less likely to have issues with memory issues as time goes on. But I would say that we really need to talk more with the sleep specialists about to get a clearer clarification, because I'm not absolutely sure if that's completely accurate, but it's just from what I've read over the years.

Speaker 2: 29:00

But I think. But also we talked about quality of sleep, one of the things people use a lot of sleeping pills. Alcohol affects sleep as well as does weed or THC, and I've been also looking at that, as there's some indication that all of these reduce REM sleep. So you sleep, maybe you sleep eight hours, but you don't get the same type of sleep, so that's something to look out for at least.

Speaker 1: 29:36

Yeah, take eight hours, but you don't get the same type of sleep. So that's something to look out for at least. Yeah, I'm not completely sure that it's for sure way out of my wheelhouse. Okay, okay, interesting discussion there, guys. Another topic that comes up Dr Kennedy talked there about muscle breakdown occurring during exercise and importance of sleep. What about some of the other best strategies for recovery?

Speaker 1: 29:52

If you've had a heavy session of exercise, I'll take this one and refer you to another acronym. I love those acronyms. I worked at the World Bank for that many years. My life is an acronym, I think, and this one is called ricem r-i-c-e-m. R is for rest and that now, if you've had something very intense, for instance, like I did an orange theory class the other day, familiar with that, that's high intensity aerobic exercise general principle is, the next day should do something, if not total rest, something that's different, maybe a bit of strength training or something of a lot less intensity. Again, that's a good exercise folklore that's been handed down through the ages. It's pretty appropriate. I think you rest between heavy sessions. You might get away with that when you're younger, but as you get older you do need to alternate the intensity with rest, or at least something different as part of the recovery process.

Speaker 1: 30:55

Next one is ice. Now that's an interesting one. Ice is used particularly if there's injury occurs, where you place ice in a cloth or some sort of material or a plastic bag or whatever it is, and place it on the skin if you have a contusion and so forth, and then you can press and then elevate the body part. But it's also been shown to be a great way to decrease muscle inflammation and there's lots of use of ice baths these days and in fact in sports like Australian rules, football, no matter what, and it's played in winter, no matter what weather it is. The next day they have the players go out into the seawater and wade in seawater no matter what the temperature in their speedos, get out there and despite all the complaints, they find that it decreases soft tissue injuries by about 30% to 40%. Wow, because of the use of ice, coldness and something to do with the seawater which escapes me a little bit on that. Yeah, so ice and ice baths are becoming more and more popular. Ice immersion as well.

Speaker 1: 32:04

Compression and elevation I mentioned that a little bit as well. Compression and elevation I mentioned that a little bit specifically. If it's an injury. You put an ice bag, say, on your thigh if you have a thigh contusion, and then you elevate the body part. And the last one is massage. I was a massage therapist for four or five years in Australia and that's a great way to help in recovery. It just helps rid the muscle of toxins and lactic acid helps you relax and just de-stress, especially the areas around the calves, the quads, upper back and so forth. Massage done correctly is a great way to recover. So that's a good acronym to remember RISCIM Rest, ice Compression, elevation Massage.

Speaker 3: 32:52

Would you also consider hydration in there?

Speaker 1: 32:56

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I don't know how it's going to affect my acronym, but yeah, that's high RISCIM. Yeah, definitely, that's a good point. Absolutely, yeah, definitely, that's a good point.

Speaker 2: 33:10

Absolutely. I have a question on different types of soreness. Yes, having done a fair amount of exercise, I think I've always been struggling with soreness in some way or another. I mean, they say it's okay the day after, but sometimes it's kind of lasting longer, right, then you're trying to take a different type of making, magnesium or whatever that can help somewhat, but still it's there and is the body trying to tell you different things, and what are the things I should listen to?

Speaker 1: 33:44

Yeah, again, I have a really thumb for that, one that's been handed down through the ages. I think it's pretty effective. Don't know if it's totally scientifically proven, but some sort of sauna is given up to about 48 hours. After 48 hours you start to think, and especially if it's joint-related and it restricts movement say the elbows, your knees, back or so forth, where it really impinges on your movement, with pain as different from just soreness, as a sharp shooting pain, and definitely if there's referred pain, if there's pain running down back of your leg pain or something like that, or pain radiating from your elbow down to your fingers, that is not just muscle soreness. Dr K, can you comment on that?

Speaker 3: 34:35

Yeah, I'd agree. Soreness is just that, means that the body part you feel it when you move, you feel the maneuvers that you were doing before the soreness happened. You tend not to feel the muscles If you're lifting a weight or if you're walking or if you're jogging or if you're doing a resistance thing. You don't feel it when you're doing it, but the day after, maybe two days after those muscles and part of it again, I think it's a reflection of the muscles breaking down and building back up and so there's an amount of inflammation in there and inflammation is going to and remember all along your muscle fibers. You have nerves running through them and so many times you're overstimulating those nerves and so you get. When it's minor, you get sore neck. When it's more significant, you get pain or even worse, sometimes you'll get numbness distant from the place where the injury is.

Speaker 4: 35:56

How do you decide when? Something means you need to stop or that you need to see a doctor.

Speaker 1: 36:07

Well, I'll take that one, if you like, Dr K, and get your comments. I mean, I think that's where I refer back to Dave is, over time you'll get to know, once you get to know your body, what's pain and what's soreness. And I think if there's something that is a really sharp pain that absolutely stops you moving, stops you taking a step, that your knee and swelling will obviously be a sign of that, Something that really impinges on your movement more than just soreness. You know you'll get typical soreness walking up a set of stairs, your legs ache a little bit or something like that. But if you're absolutely restricted in movement and there's sharp shooting pain or referable pain, referring pain down the body part, that's definitely a sign, I think, of injury rather than just soreness. Does that explain it?

Speaker 4: 37:02

Yeah, I just have known a lot of people that have just chosen to ignore their pain. That means they stop doing the activity that caused it. But they decided they're just not going to go see a doctor about this pain that stuck with them. They've stopped doing the weightlifting but they tell them the pain whenever they take a step on that foot, but they don't want to go see a doctor.

Speaker 3: 37:25

Yeah, I agree, but I would always say that this goes back to the person understanding their body, that if you, particularly if you've been doing an activity for a while, you kind of have learned what sort what's pain, you kind of learn that typically for me it takes two to three days after I do this particular activity for my body not to feel the discomfort anymore. It goes beyond that and or you get additional discomforts and or pain, then that means you need to have somebody take a look at it at least, because you could have done more damage than you thought. And it may not just be that it's just muscles that are trying to break down and build back up. But maybe you tore something. Maybe you know it's easier when it happens suddenly trying to break down and build back up. But maybe you tore something.

Speaker 3: 38:34

Maybe you know it's easier when it happens sudden, like what happened watching the Olympics the other day in the 200-meter final, or rather the 200-meter heat, one of the guys they were running down and maybe 50 meters in, you could see that gentleman pulled up and stopped immediately because his hamstring tore and he immediately stopped, and so that in and of itself tells him the fact that he couldn't push through, because that's the other thing soreness. Sometimes you can push through a little sword, yeah, you can push through mild pain, but you can't do it when you damage it, unless you have again. There's some people who have really high tolerances of pain, so they'll be pushed through.

Speaker 1: 39:34

But the issue is, most people, if they're being honest, know their body. And I'll add to that, of course, in really extreme cases or the most sensitive cases are, if you're getting heavy chest pain, either during or after exercise, pain radiating to your jaw or down your arm, or with ladies, with females in the upper back, that's a pretty good sign of heart attack. Heart ability, dr K, would you comment on that?

Speaker 3: 40:02

Like people can do an exercise and be short of breath and winded, where they can't really have a conversation. But if you rest it, you know, in short order you get your breath back but you're not having pain. You know most people are having heart attacks. We're gonna, as they, as many of them, will describe to you. It is a pain unlike anything they've ever had before. And so now there are people who will ignore that because they, you know, I just have to do this. One last thing before I go and check it out and if, if it gets better, they'll say, ah, I'll check it out later. But there are some things that won't let you. The body is really, really good at warning you that something's wrong. You just have to be honest with what you know your body is, because it's your body. You've carried it with you the entire time you've been on this earth. So one could think you can't ignore it too long because it will only get worse.

Speaker 1: 41:19

Back in Australia, one of the top executives for the company I was working at was experiencing chest pain. Playing table tennis, of all things, was experiencing a chest pain and pain radiating down to his elbow, his fingers, and he was one of these old, irascible sort of fellows who I'll be all right, I'll be all right. And fortunately my boss was equally irascible and said no, you're not, we're taking you to the bloody hospital, old fool. And he proceeded to have a heart attack about an hour later under some of the bloody old fool. And he proceeded to have a heart attack about an hour later under some of the best surgeons in Australia Good place to have a heart attack. From my understanding, they couldn't really stop the heart attack at that point. We're going back 30 years ago. It was going to happen, yeah.

Speaker 4: 42:00

Address it.

Speaker 1: 42:03

Yeah, that was a good case and unfortunately, along the way, both in Australia and here, I've seen and Dr Kennedy will remember one case unbeknownst to us. The person had been experiencing those pains for quite some time and passed away on a treadmill, unfortunately.

Speaker 2: 42:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 42:23

So you've got to know your body and know how it responds. Moving on from that one, guys, we're looking at the next question. It comes up a lot is how can a person figure out if they should pursue a high-intensity program or stick to something like long walks every day? Well, I would say the fun factor is a big thing there. It's what you enjoy. You're going to stick with it a lot better than something you don't. Now, also, in terms of pursuing something a bit more high intensity, I think the important thing is and we'll touch on it a bit later as well is just knowing your baseline a little bit, knowing what your baseline is whether it's walking, lifting and so forth and seeing how you progress. Now, that may entail getting a personal trainer to help you monitor that so that you don't overdo it straight away. And then you can progress gradually and we'll talk about different measures like the 12-minute walk-run test and so forth. But it's important at that point just to know what you enjoy but also know your baseline and progress slowly.

Speaker 1: 43:37

And general rule of thumb there in terms of sit, if you're talking walking, maybe running no more than about 5% in terms of distance or speed per week. I think 5% might be too much. About 3%, okay, so if you're. How's my math going? If you're walking one mile, you might make it to 1.05 mile the next week. Okay, only 5%. That doesn't sound like much, but it's better to do it slowly rather than going from one mile and doubling it the next week. You're taking it casually, more aggressively, less likelihood of injury and more likelihood that you'll stick with it. Any questions on that, guys?

Speaker 4: 44:26

Okay.

Speaker 1: 44:28

What is the significance of resting heart rate and maximum heart rate in exercise, recovery and tailoring your exercise program or your exercise regimen? Let me give you a quick formula here, and this is just the basic one, because it's a little complicated to go through all the different rations. But generally speaking, we're looking at a formula that uses these sort of figures and there's lots of formulas out there, but this is the basic one they're all derived from. It's called the Carp Vernon formula and it's 220, which is taken to be the maximum heart rate for a human being, 220 minus your age. So say, if you're 50 years of age like young David might be there 220 minus your age gives you 170. Now does Dave, when he exercises, want to get up to 170 each time to his maximal heart rate? No, definitely not. Definitely he's not starting. He wants to work in within about 50% to 70% of that 170. Now that will be a range of about I think it's about 85 to 120, 125 beats a minute, something along that range. And if he can work within that level he's getting a beneficial training effect from his exercise. It's not too slow, it's not too extensive, it's not too intense.

Speaker 1: 46:02

Now there's lots of different ways you can use that formula and they take into account your resting heart rate. I'll discuss in a second, but a little bit difficult to explain unless you've got a clipboard in front of you or a blackboard where I can go through all the different equations. Suffice to say, what we'll do, listeners, is add a little YouTube video that I've done that explains that formula a little more in depth when we take into account your resting heart rate. Now what's the significance of resting heart rate? Generally speaking, your resting heart rate is an indication of the strength of your heart at rest and how it pumps and extrudes muscles, blood to the working muscles. The average resting heart rate is between 60 to 72, taken to be between 60 to 72. You'll usually find people who are well-conditioned will have it significantly lower than that Kettle what's yours? Do you know what your resting?

Speaker 2: 46:57

heart rate is it's 45.

Speaker 1: 46:59

45,. There you go. That's a low resting heart. Mine's around about 50, 52, something like that. But generally speaking that's a good indication of your level of fitness and there are various formulas that bring that into the equation so that you have a more specific target heart range. And again, without getting too complicated at this point, we'll refer to a YouTube video I've done that looks at the four different ranges of exercise intensity. Have any questions on that, guys? It's very broad, I must say. I'm sorry, I'm going to be more specific if you like.

Speaker 3: 47:35

Well, I actually think you've actually explained it very well. Yeah, and it does make a lot of sense. We in medicine typically would say that the normal heart rate for an average adult can be from 60 to 90 beats a minute. Now, but you take into account that there are people who have different comorbidities. So they may have hypertension, they have asthma, they may have diabetes, they may be morbidly obese, they may have kidney issues, etc. They may be anemic. All of these things will affect the resting heart rate of an individual.

Speaker 3: 48:39

I learned in medical school is that we used to say that if you wanted to assess the size of a person's heart, you always would say tell that person to make a fist and typically that's the size of your heart.

Speaker 3: 48:45

Now, if you're a person who's more fit by default, so if you take one of the like most of these people in the Olympics, who are these athletes who work out four or five times a week, or professional footballer, soccer, their heart rates are I mean, their hearts are probably two or three times that size. So, for instance, kettle's heart rate of 45, his heart is probably at least half a size bigger than what his fist would be. And that's because, by default when you exercise regularly. The heart is a muscle. Regularly, the harder the muscle it's no different than your biceps or your triceps or your hamstrings or your thighs the more you work it, the bigger the muscle will get, because that muscle, that is the one muscle of the body whose main function is to send circulation and nutrients to the entire body. So it has to get bigger and that's why you look at, take most of the marathon. Most of the marathoners are walking around with resting heart rates of 30.

Speaker 2: 50:01

Five.

Speaker 3: 50:07

And what it implies is that they only need their heart to pump a certain amount in order to do the job, to send blood everywhere. Versus you take a person who has heart failure or who's had multiple heart attacks. That person's resting heart rate might be 100, 110 on a regular basis, because their muscle is weaker, because it's not pumping with the same and this again becomes the argument because it's the one muscle of the body that can't stop and still be here. Why we need to exercise regularly to strengthen.

Speaker 4: 50:49

Does that mean that if you have a higher resting heart rate, does that mean you're at a greater risk of death?

Speaker 3: 50:57

Not necessarily. No. No, it's more function, that you're more likely to be deconditioned or less fit. That's what it really reflects.

Speaker 1: 51:11

And so it also can be genetic. I mean your genetics too, I think, dr K, correct Absolutely, I must say, my genetics my folks all had, I think I've got this straight from my folks. Even when I haven't been very fit at all, I had quite a low resting heart rate and my brothers are the same. But alternatively, you remember David Vincent who worked with us in the fitness center. I think you knew him, dave, and you knew him, dr K. Yeah, he had a resting heart rate of about 75, but he was as fit as a fiddle. Yes, that's right, he was a spin instructor.

Speaker 1: 51:43

So it's not necessarily. It's usually a good indication, but there's always outliers. And that brings me to the actual formula. It is a formula but it doesn't fit every single person. I've seen many people, two other folks who work for me, arben and Marty. Yes, hello, arben, hello Marty. They can get their heart rates up very, very high, close to their maximal well, their theoretical maximal, according to that formula and suffer no distress at all. And Arvind was so high he actually went and saw a cardiologist, had a maximal stress test I think you referred him there, dr K and no problem at all. I mean, it's just, some people don't fit within that form, have to be very flexible and not wedded to any particular formula. It's a guideline, a good one. I think it's not foolproof. No guideline is no.

Speaker 2: 52:36

So I wonder when you're actually using this formula, when you actually exercise. So I used that in the beginning trying to see how high I could get it, but I mean at least I feel like now I can. It's more important for me to to have the feeling about where I am. Am I? Yeah, I get, I get this, all the signs from the body, and also I think even someone who's not that fit should look for that. Do you start kind of feeling faint? Do Do you feel the chest is bumping? Do you feel?

Speaker 1: 53:09

like… Do you pass the talk test? What are these?

Speaker 2: 53:12

things. Don't forget to listen to your body.

Speaker 1: 53:15

Absolutely. These are indicators and they're pretty good, but they're not exactly thought-proof. Again, some of the old style I mean a talk test is a pretty good one.

Speaker 2: 53:25

I like this talk test.

Speaker 1: 53:26

Oh yeah style.

Speaker 2: 53:27

I mean, your talk test is a pretty good one. Oh yeah, I like this talk test. Oh yeah, I think actually I have, uh, where I'm living in my home, when I stay in france, there's like a very steep hill and I tend to take people out there to kind of walk up that hill and I will not use the talk test yeah, yeah, I don't want anything to happen there, yeah yeah, yeah, and people will notice that before looking at any monitor and one other thing about the resting heart rate.

Speaker 3: 53:50

A lot most of us, when we're resting, don't feel our heart beating. And we're all sitting here talking. We know our heart's beating because we're here, yeah, but we but we're not necessarily feeling it. But if we literally all we did was to take five minutes and walk up a hill and come back and sit down immediately, we may feel our heart rate beating faster because we basically turn the system on saying we need more blood to go to the muscles of the body that are moving, so our heart rate will go up, but as we rest it will eventually come back down to its basic.

Speaker 1: 54:45

One thing I always find, and I've never really really, even after my studies in exercise physiology, and I've never had any any exercise physiologist answer this question no matter how fit you get and I'm sure if you've seen this, you can run up hills, you can do all of these things walking upstairs will still get you a little bit breathless, without question, and I think it's to do with the mechanics and so forth, and hence that's one of the tests the cardiologists use yes, oh yeah, yeah, because you do with the stress test.

Speaker 1: 55:17

Yeah, actually having you walk up an incline yeah, yeah, and I mean I've even seen marathoners get drifted. Get that not, not overly, but they'll get a little bit breathless, no matter what your fitness level is.

Speaker 1: 55:32

So we're humans, we're not machines. So it's good to remember those things. Next one we often hear is there a magic formula for the number of steps one should take per day? Now that brings up an interesting phenomenon. What do we hear every day? I mean, you must be bombarded with this every day in the media the 10,000 steps a day.

Speaker 3: 55:53

Yes.

Speaker 1: 55:55

Well, that originated back in 1964 at the Tokyo Olympics. It was a, I believe it was a marketing firm used that as a guide to just get people off their butts in Japan. They must have been having the same sort of problems that Western world was having with lack of exercise and so forth. So that was a random figure. That's a good random figure that has come down through the ages and only recently has there been any sort of formalized studies into whether it's the be-all and end-all. And there's nothing to my.

Speaker 1: 56:30

You know I've looked pretty extensively at it. Nothing definitively says that 10,000 is the actual amount you should do every day. All of the recommended guidelines still use time, the 150 minutes a week and the 75 for intense exercise as your guidelines, not to say it's not bad, the 10 000 it's good to shoot for. I think in my view the most important thing is you look at what your baseline is and they say with general studies, with human movement the minimal is about three to four thousand a day, just with with the standard activities of daily living. So you should look to increase that to get an exercise benefit. So if your 4,000 a day is your basics, look to the 6,000, the 8,000, the 10,000.

Speaker 4: 57:20

I'm giving you a politician's answer there and you can go any time.

Speaker 1: 57:24

Okay.

Speaker 1: 57:24

The other great thing about weight training, of course, whether it's free weights the shooting tool, so-called helps build bone and helps decrease the rate of osteoporosis, which is very important as we get older, and this, as Dr Ken be alerted to. Activities like tonic shooting also help with that because they're weight-bearing, help with great balance, strength, mobility. Activities like Pilates and yoga also help All great activities. Street training with fire weights is probably the easiest way to see progression, but they all help.

Speaker 1: 57:58

The other great thing about weight training, of course, whether it's free weights, machines or so forth, is it helps build bone and helps decrease the rate of osteoporosis, which is very important as we get older, and this, as Dr Kenby alluded to, activities like toy treating also help with weight bearing, help with great balance, strength, mobility. Activities like Pilates and yoga also help. All great activities. Street training with fire weights is probably the easiest way to see progression, but they all helped. There's nothing definitive, because I don't think there really is. It's a matter of just exercising and using that as, again, a guideline that's flexible. Does that make sense, guys? Am I being too much like a politician?

Speaker 2: 58:43

You're always being too much like a politician. That doesn't surprise me. I mean, I think these numbers are as you said. It doesn't come from anywhere, but it's good to have some idea about actually get out there, move, use your body, get some steps in. You walk as well, you know. Walk upstairs, walk in the nature, because we, as I mentioned before, walking is actually not that easy, that's right. It's quite a complex thing and we all walk a little wrong. But you know, if we stop walking, we completely we're not going to. It's not steps. You sit and drive the car the whole day and you walk out. Yes, you're not walking, you walk like a penguin.

Speaker 1: 59:26

Yeah, well, what they're finding too, is now that's even increasing, because people are working at home yeah. So they're walking per day. It might be from the bedroom to your makeshift office and back again, and nothing in between.

Speaker 3: 59:42

At least when you're working, you're getting in your car, you're moving to an office or walking around, and if you do that, you'll never get the 3,000 steps in a day. That's right, exactly. You won't even come close Because the 3,000 to 5,000 steps is a mile to a mile and a half. Yeah, I tell people you should walk to the point where you're huffing and puffing a little bit, but, as you say, the talk test. Yeah, you'd be able to hold a conversation with someone you're walking Exactly.

Speaker 1: 1:00:15

I noticed they're saying that 4,500 now is the minimal, and again I'm not sure where they get that from. There's nothing definitive, but that seems to be the 10,000. Again, that's minimal. That's without exercising. Again, I still think 10,000. Again, that's minimal. That's without exercising. Again, I still think 10,000 is good and something to aim for, but again, it's a guideline.

Speaker 3: 1:00:35

The key is to get people moving. Yes, exercise is that and again this is my personal theme is that exercise has become more of a business than a natural thing that humans should be doing.

Speaker 1: 1:00:54

Yes, yeah, absolutely, and it's interesting that Kettle talked about walking outside. There's been lots of studies now that are showing the benefits, not just physically but mentally, of getting outside amongst the elements. When you think about it, the gyms at the World Bank and at the IMF, to my memory, were all downstairs, no natural light. Yes, and I just think a walk out in the natural air and natural light is so much better for your mental health than getting on a treadmill inside next to people you don't like or know you're arguing with. Well, that sort of stuff there's a lot of studies.

Speaker 2: 1:01:32

in this I mean there's also being outside in the sun, so you make a difference between the light.

Speaker 1: 1:01:37

Yeah, vitamin D.

Speaker 2: 1:01:39

And also another thing we talked about sleep earlier. I'm using like a night mask now and it helps the darkness Because it's obvious. I have some streetlights outside and that's enough.

Speaker 3: 1:01:50

Yeah, yeah, and you breathe better. It forces you to breathe better.

Speaker 3: 1:01:58

It forces you to take, because most humans don't completely open their lungs up with normal resting, breathing that if just like we're sitting here now, if you were to do a quick chest x-ray, most of us, the very bottom of our lungs, is partially collapsed. You don't use it and we need to completely expand our lungs every day and that's what getting out and taking these steps will do. It helps with breathing, it helps with the muscle tone in your diaphragm chest wall, your lower muscles, your abdominal muscles, because they all play a part in our fitness and our general well-being.

Speaker 1: 1:02:51

With the lung capacity and so forth. There's been lots of studies and lots of anecdotal evidence of saying people who swim a lot, that helps a lot with people who have lung disorders or hopefully they've learned the techniques, they're not just throwing in the water but it definitely helps expand work on lung issues and expand the chest activity and so forth. Breathing and the moistness and the moist heat and so forth I believe helps as well with that. Weight training again is another great one. When you're doing things like bench press pullovers there's some of the first therapeutic exercises they give to people who may have a pneumothorax or disorder of the lungs. Hope I'm correct there, dr K. Is that?

Speaker 3: 1:03:31

right, yes.

Speaker 1: 1:03:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. Look, what strategies can people incorporate to prevent injury from their exercise routines? When we're looking at that one the most important thing when you're looking at a graph of your exercise, it's a traditional parabola, if you like. You're starting off slowly, warming up We'll talk about what warmup actually is in a second but getting your heart rate up until it elevates to that 50% to 70% then cools down. So it's a parabola, if you will. Now when you're doing interval training, there might be a few spikes and ups and downs in the middle of that parabola when increasing your intensity, but it's that basic shape a cool down, an intensity phase and then a warm up. Sorry, cool, intensity phase, then a cool down With the warm up.

Speaker 1: 1:04:22

There used to be a lot of talk about doing lots of static stretches before you warm up and so forth. They found that was not a great way to prevent injury. In fact, it could cause injury because your muscles might not warm enough when you're trying to do these stretches. So, generally speaking, they're talking about incorporating some movement patterns. When you're warming up, it might be high knee walking, high knee running, side walking, backwards walking, moving your arms up and down just traditional warm-up activities, perhaps incorporating some stretches. Then, when you cool down again, you're letting your heart rate come down, walking around, preventing the blood from cooling. You may even do a point where you might lie down, elevate the legs a little bit and do some deep, rhythmic breathing. At that point, meditation at that point can help. That's what we're talking about with injury prevention. Do any of you guys have any experience with that, dr K? Any comments?

Speaker 3: 1:05:23

Well, I'll just use myself as an example, now that I started doing this morning walk. One of the things that I do before I start the walks is I do a lot of movement with my arm. Where I reach my arms in the air, where I move my arms from side to side, I then tilt, I twist my body right to left, I bend forward, all of those things I do standing in, stepping in motion, without moving anywhere, just raising my legs up and down, and then I take my walk and then, as I I'd say, halfway through my walks, I automatically increase the pace. Initially it's a very casual walk and I actually think, for some people, I like listening to music when I walk.

Speaker 1: 1:06:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:06:18

And I think it's very soothing. So whatever music that you enjoy, use it, and it also helps you to clear your mind. Sure, I think you know helps you to clear your mind Sure. You know you're clearing your head. Sometimes it's helping you to think through the thoughts of what you've got to do during the rest of the day.

Speaker 1: 1:06:38

Yeah, you can even listen to the wellness musketeers if you like. Yeah absolutely. But I think prior to our broadcast here, doctor, I mean, um, that had a good comment about people shoveling snow, yes, and the injuries that can bring, and I mean that's a classic case of not warming up into the activity.

Speaker 3: 1:07:01

Oh yeah oh, yeah, yeah, my neighbor. I'll never forget. This was when I was still living in Maryland and I guess this was like 2008 or 2009. We had a pretty big snow and we got out and we literally start out shoveling our driveway and the hazy. And literally we were joking initially and we started there and he's a dentist and I was saying, no, you need to go slow, you need to go slow. And after a while I didn't see him anymore and I turned to look and he was laid out on the. He had a heart attack. Fortunately, we got to him, resuscitated them and we're perfectly fine now, lucky, with Dr Kennedy as his neighbor.

Speaker 3: 1:07:51

I'm telling you. But the fact that we always hear these stories that it happened Right, you know, you'll have a lot of people who breathe the shoveling of snow and their back, they throw their back out because you these are maneuvers that you do not do on a regular basis and when you and since you didn't warm up, cool down, you didn't stretch to prepare for muscle for the activity, the muscles are dumb. They do what you tell it to do, yeah, and when it says it can't do it anymore, that's when it's going to tear.

Speaker 1: 1:08:36

And it's not the same as lifting up a weight in a gym, where it's nicely balanced on each side. No, no, lifting can come in all shapes and sizes. Oh yeah, I do say, though, that weight training has evolved a lot and there's a lot more functional equipment like kettlebells, lifting tires and things like that, which at least are a little bit more functional in their movement than they used to be. That might help, but still the same principles apply. To warm up With something like snow shoveling, that's a lot of exertion. Any questions about that? I feel like it's all good.

Speaker 3: 1:09:08

No, it's all good Okay. And one point about this stretching. I mean not only stretching, but also hydration. Hydration is so critical, oh, yes, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:09:26

When you're talking hydration, rich, would you recommend the sports drinks or just plain water?

Speaker 3: 1:09:32

So well, I'd say, depending on the level of the exercise and where you are temperature-wise, I'd say water for sure, but I believe the sports drinks or the electrolyte solutions that we did, powder drinks that they have now, that basically gives you sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium in a powder form that you can put in water, all helps, because here in Texas, in the hot, humid climates that we have, you can get pretty dehydrated pretty quickly no longer, imagine In a short period of time, absolutely. And one of the things we used to always think that we can tell when we're dehydrated. Well, not necessarily. Not necessarily that there are a lot of people who are significantly depleted in water, and I think that has to do with that.

Speaker 3: 1:10:38

Most humans don't drink enough water, to begin with, yeah, on a daily basis, and so we should be trying to make sure we get, and there are lots of debates about this. People say that six to eight ounce glasses a day of water is too much, and my attitude is I've seen I've just seen too many of the downsides of people falling out, passing out, and not because they did anything, and this happens a lot when people are taking, like during the summer and the spring, where everybody's driving all over the place, driving four, six, eight hours away to visit people. They can't drink enough fluid when they're driving.

Speaker 4: 1:11:24

Yeah, oh yeah, and the hot car they drink enough fluid when they're driving, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:11:27

Oh yeah, and the hot car. I had someone, we were at a funeral and two people passed out in the circus Whoa.

Speaker 4: 1:11:36

Having driven? Is it also the kind of thing where it doesn't necessarily have to be water specifically?

Speaker 3: 1:11:44

Fluid, it's fluid, it's fluid. You get something in. Listen, if you want iced tea, if you want lemonade, all of that. I mean, I kind of would stay away from the carbonated beverages. I think it's a waste of time in that regard. Well, because what you need is what you really need is water and electrolyte. You know, our body is electrically neutral and it needs a balance.

Speaker 1: 1:12:13

Yeah, the role of nutrition is also important. It couples that with the hydration. Just a quick anecdote here the amount of times I almost became an expert in noting this in fitness centres I've worked in, how many people. And now, with this intermittent fasting, which can have its good and bad points the amount of people you saw. All of a sudden they're walking around, they start yawning, they start looking a different colour, they sit down, if they get to sit down, or they might just suddenly faint. You all ask them the question when did you last eat? Oh, about 4 o'clock yesterday. This will be about 7 in the morning the next day. Oh yeah, they're all trying to lose weight or get fit into their new suit, new wedding dress, whatever. So they've got nothing in their system. No food, very little water, and I'll let Dr K talk about blood sugar levels and all of that sort of thing. The amount of times I saw that I almost was able to see it before it actually happened and they all fell into that category. Very rarely they didn't.

Speaker 3: 1:13:24

It happens quite a bit, much more than we believe.

Speaker 1: 1:13:29

Yeah, I think they have the impression that the less you eat and you don't need breakfast, someone's told them that. Oh yeah, and an old folklore one that's bad. Some of them are good, but some of them are bad. I don't know if we all grew up with this one, but they used to tell us playing football, or don't have water, one of them means you're weak, don't need water, don't want to show the opposition, that you haven't water and you'll get stomach cramps.

Speaker 1: 1:13:55

Yeah, that's a lot of my goodness. That used to be quite prevalent, I know in Aussie rules football and things like that.

Speaker 1: 1:14:01

Thankfully it's not there now. Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. Now how should people consider the use of fitness trackers and aids like sleep monitors and so forth with? Regarding fitness trackers, I think they're a good guideline. I'm data driven. I love all the ins and outs of that.

Speaker 1: 1:14:20

I've kept diaries going back seven or twelve years in my exercise programs. I don't know what for, but I like writing things. I don't know what for, but I like writing things down. I don't know why, but you can just generally get to know your body better, know your heart rate a little bit better, set your goals and so forth. One particular one that I like now for nutrition that I've only got onto in the last year or two and I wish I'd have known a lot about sooner or I wish it was around was the MyFitnessPal app that monitors your dietary intake. I find that's a great feedback. Really makes you sit down and realize just how much you're eating or how little you're eating, and gives you the right guidelines and so forth. So I think they're great like that. I'd let Dr K talk on glucose monitors. That's a bit out of my field, but I think the fitness trackers are great, but again, you're going to learn to know your own body. And again, things about the talk test, things like that. We're not machines.

Speaker 3: 1:15:17

They're good guidelines, but indicators and helpful and I would say well, I think those are fine, particularly if you're someone who's going to pay attention to it and look at the data that you're getting, because it's informative. It really does give you an idea of where you are.

Speaker 1: 1:15:39

Yeah. And so what about glucose monitors? Specifically, dr Kerr, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:15:45

I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 1:15:47

See, I tend to look at glucose continuous glucose monitors for the individual, more for the diabetic patient or the person who's a pre-diabetes patient that you want to monitor and see how they're, particularly if they're now changing their diet, and they want to see what effect is the difference in their diet and their activity, their physical activity, what effect is it having? But for the average person you probably don't need that, I would always say a person who has issues with getting lightheaded or having fainting spells with whatever physical activity they're doing. Glucose monitors are beneficial. They're going to be very helpful in that regard, but I don't think everybody needs one. I think when you're working on weight loss and you're changing your diet, I think in order to do it properly, first you need a baseline, which means I think you should sit down with a nutritionist and go through your diet, because everybody's diet is different. The cultural diets are very different from one culture to the next and what works for person a may not work for person b, and you want something that will fit.

Speaker 1: 1:17:19

you want something that will fit with you so that you can be consistent, because the key is if you can be consistent, you can get the results you're looking just on that too, just when we look at the say, an issue does happen if one of your friends, or even if it's you, happens to get faint when exercising one day. The one thing I found that always helped. A general good rule is you lie down feet feet are elevated and, if possible, get someone to massage your calves so the blood flow gets back up to the heart. I'm not sure about the massaging the calves, that's exactly true, but it seems to work.

Speaker 3: 1:17:57

It seems to get some tactile response. Well, you get a tactile response, but what it's also doing it's literally contracting the calf muscle, which is contracting the venous system that's in the legs, pushing blood back up to the chest and then to the head.

Speaker 1: 1:18:19

Great, so we're doing it correctly. That's an old boxing way too. They use that in boxing a lot. It might be an enforced fainting and we're reaching towards the end. There's a couple of interesting ones. That people often ask is how should people set their expectations for healthy weight loss relative to their activities and exercise? That's a whole different podcast. I guess we could spend a lot of time on that. I'd reiterate on the MyFitnessPal. But dieticians these days, I believe, are recommending that you should lose in the vicinity of one to two pounds a week. That can be frustrating for people. They expect to lose it a lot quicker than that, yeah, and that they only weigh themselves once a week too.

Speaker 3: 1:19:01

Yeah, I think people fail to realize that, whatever weight that they are at, that they gain, gained that weight didn't happen overnight. Yeah, that happened over a significant period of time and, as many people will tell you, it snuck up on me, even if they knew that they were out there buying clothes to sort of make them fit so that they didn't look like they were larger. Because if you wear the same clothes and you've gained the weight you know, as they say, you feel like you're, you look like you're about to bust out of your, your attire, and so, if you understand that it took time for you to gain the weight, it's going to take time for you to lose the weight now. Sure, there are ways that you can lose it quickly, but the problem is your body may not be happy with that. Your body became accustomed to this new weight, is it? And so you need to gradually.

Speaker 3: 1:20:06

And the other thing is, if you're gonna lose weight, you want weight. Once you've gotten to what your goal is, or close to it. You want to be able to stay there. Yeah, otherwise, if you lose the weight too fast, almost invariably you will regain the weight, and then some.

Speaker 1: 1:20:25

Yeah, Especially, it's important that it's fat loss, not muscle loss as well.

Speaker 3: 1:20:31

Yes, yeah. Especially, it's important that it's fat loss, not muscle loss, as well. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:20:34

One question often comes up how can an individual assess their progress and fitness improvements in a meaningful way beyond the conventional metrics? My experience is one of the best ones and, for all the great laboratory tests and fitness tests and so forth, one of the standard ones used by the Cooper Aerobic Center out of Dallas, which is one of the first places effects of aerobic exercise, was the 12-minute walk-run test, and it puts you into categories, from poor through to advanced, and works out both walking and running programs. I can't give you the categories off the top of my head. There's lots of different categories, but it's easy to administer and I mean it's 12 minutes and it caters for both an intense runner and the average person who may not be able to walk for 12 minutes.

Speaker 2: 1:21:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:21:32

It gives them something. So I found that was a great one. And while I'm on that one, one I missed Kepa also has a good measure for if the exercise is too intense, using heart rates. He believes, or they've espoused over the years that if after 10 minutes no, sorry, after five minutes if your heart rate is not below 120, you've been exercising too intensely. So it should drop below 120. Okay. If after 10 minutes it's not below 100, you've been exercising too intensely. Okay. And if you're very fit, I'm sure Kettles gets down to under 100, probably in a minute.

Speaker 1: 1:22:15

Oh yeah, in a minute, yes. And so you know that's an indication. I think that I've used that as a rule of thumb and I think that's a very good one. So again, for the listeners out there, if your heart rate is not below 120 after five minutes of exercise, probably too intense, and after 10 minutes, if it's not below 100, it's certainly probably been too intense. So again, 12-minute walk and run test from Cooper is a great one.

Speaker 1: 1:22:43

There's also self-measures. You can just monitor how many push-ups you do a month, graduate them over time. Weight training, as I explained before, is a great way because you see the progressive resistance over time. As long as you've been regular, you'll see that you're lifting heavier than you were before, and so forth. And, of course, if you want to have a maximal oxygen uptake test, a VO2 max test on a treadmill, that's a great one, especially if you're looking at cardiovascular, actual improvement of your heart function, where a cardiologist can look at it, and so forth. Dr K, I don't know if you want to expand on that one a little bit. That's probably one of the more extreme ones, but it's a valuable one.

Speaker 3: 1:23:22

Yeah, it's true, but it's valuable, but it's a good one if you need to. I always say I'm a firm believer in starting simple Yep. And so Dr Cooper's 12-minute walk-run test. I think it was reasonable. Can you do 10 push-ups every day, and how long does it take you to do it? If it takes you 15, 20 minutes, you know that's pretty good. If it takes you 30 minutes to do 10 push-ups, then we know that it assesses your decondition as a minimum, and so that means those people should go and see their primary and or their cardiologists and their fitness instructors or their fitness trainers to get an assessment. Because I think part of it is you need somebody in the beginning to give you guidance. Yes, if you've not been exercising for a long time, you want to do it right so that we can get the maximal benefit from it. Yeah, Great.

Speaker 1: 1:24:35

Let's finish off with one. I think this one's more in line for you, Dr Case. How are you supposed to understand and interpret health? You see lots of different things out there. Eggs are bad in one study and good the next study. There's the impact of bro science, as they call it. The guys in the gym who've lifted weights to get news think they know everything. How do we interpret health news out there? And newspaper accounts don't help some of the time. I'll preface it by that. I'll let Dr Kennedy explain.

Speaker 3: 1:25:03

I would read it, see if it makes sense to you. But, as my mama used to always say, trust but verify, and so normally I would either talk to someone in the know who deals with this on a regular basis. So talk to your fitness trainer, talk to I wouldn't necessarily talk to the person on the weight machine next to you. It doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about, but for most of the time everybody knows what works for them, and many times you cannot extrapolate that to you, so you have to be real Go ahead.

Speaker 1: 1:25:49

Sorry, what about Dr K? I always like to look at reputable websites like Mayo Clinic, american College of Sports Medicine things like that.

Speaker 3: 1:25:59

American College of Sports Medicine. The European Union has a really good one, and I always say it depends on what's the exercise Right, you know, if it's just general exercise, the guidelines are the same no matter where you are in the world. Yeah, and so part of it is just finding one. I like the American College of Sports Medicine because they tend to extrapolate things globally. They don't just give you the American view, they basically take the data that has been compiled across the planet and apply it so that it can be reflective of the society we live in.

Speaker 1: 1:26:48

And just to close on your track. But verify, dr Kay, I had a journalism instructor many years ago, ted Gup, who was one of the contemporaries of Woodward and Bernstein. He used to say if your grandfather just told you that your grandmother died, check your sources.

Speaker 3: 1:27:10

Track but verify. Oh yes, that's a little causal way of putting it, I like that one.

Speaker 1: 1:27:21

Well, guys, I guess that covers a lot of territory. I really enjoyed this presentation. Thank you very much. Do we have anything before we go into our final recommendations and a brief summary? But finally, guys, thank you very much, listeners. I hope you find this great benefit.

Speaker 1: 1:27:36

Just to summarize, our recommendation for adults is to get at least 155 minutes of exercise per week, of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, a combination of both, preferably spread throughout the week. And again, we mentioned possibly three sessions a week of cardio. Two to three sessions of weight training there, yeah, and then we're talking about adding moderate to high intensity muscle strengthening activity for those two to three times a week. And again, the last one or two reps should be a little bit of a struggle without inducing a hernia. So not just a five pound weight doing a hundred curls, something that makes you work, might be a 15 pound weight that the last one or two make you strain a little bit To spend less time sitting. Even light activity can offset some of the risks of being sedentary and you can even get benefits just from being active. Just minimally a week, and it increased gradually over time. General rule of thumb is about three to 5% a week. And looking at those guidelines as well, don't forget the talk test If you're exercising and you can't carry on a conversation, it may be a little intense and Cooper's guidelines if after exercise, after five minutes, if it's not below 120 beats or 10 minutes below 100 beats, it may be a little intense and remember to moderate high intensity with some lower intense activities on a day-by-day basis.

Speaker 1: 1:29:16

In closing, folks, I hope that was again beneficial. A huge thanks to my co-hosts, dr Richard Kennedy, hedl Hiding and Dave List. Thank you for joining us wellness musketeers. Tune in for our upcoming episodes to gain the tools to improve your health, work performance and live with a greater understanding of the world we experience together. Most importantly, please subscribe, give us a five-star review they're very important folks and share this recording with your family and friends. You can make a contribution through a link provided in our program notes to allow this podcast to grow. Let us know what you need to learn to help you live your best life. Send your questions and ideas for future episodes to davelists at davidmlist at gmailcom.