Eric D’Agati – Rediscover Your Strength and Energy After 50

In this episode of the Fit Over 50 Life Podcast, performance coach and movement expert Eric D’Agati joins us to break down how to stay strong, pain-free, and powerful well into your 50s and beyond. From movement assessments to strength training, recovery tips, and the truth about inflammation, Eric shares practical science-backed advice to help you live like an athlete—no matter your age.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;19;15

(00:05):
Unknown
Hey, for our 50 life audience, we have a great show for you today with special guest Eric D’Agati from new Jersey. He is a performance specialist. He is in his 50s and he is going to show us how. We do not have to have any fear about being an athlete in our 50s and beyond. Tune in science.
00;00;19;15 - 00;00;52;04
Unknown
Practical tips, how you assess yourself and more. Welcome to the Fit Over 50 live podcast. Our show features engaging, thought provoking and inspiring conversations with experts, influencers and thought leaders in health, fitness, longevity, mindset and personal growth. For us, those over 50. Okay. Welcome everybody. We got a great show for you. We have Eric. Let me get your name right.

(00:30):
00;00;52;06 - 00;01;07;05
Unknown
Gary did I say that right? Eric. Pretty close to Gary. Yes. Okay. I'm thinking of the other Gary, but, maybe you can correct me on that, I apologize. Hey, we're going to talk about today on this show. Some really great stuff. I think you're going to get a lot of value on it. What are you going to talk about?
00;01;07;05 - 00;01;25;09
Unknown

(00:55):
Becoming an ageless athlete, which is something I think we're all going to want to hear about. Kelly, why don't you do a formal introduction for Eric so we can dig right into this? Absolutely. You know, it's it's tough to give someone like Eric just this in a bio with just a short paragraph or so, but we're going to reveal more as the interview goes on.
00;01;25;11 - 00;01;47;09
Unknown
Eric, truly is a world class performance coach and he is a movement expert. He's a keynote speaker. He spent decades helping pro athletes and coaches and everyday people and students move better, train smarter, live longer. He's worked with and AFL teams. He's worked with Olympians. We're going to dig a little into that, see if he could do some name dropping.
00;01;47;09 - 00;02;12;22

(01:20):
Unknown
But Eric has worked with the best, and now he's on a mission to help really bring science back. Performance strategies to everyone, including those of us who are 50 and over and want to stay in the game. Eric, thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's a pleasure. So you've spent over 20 years working with people, from pro athletes to everyday people, and try and help us all feel better.
00;02;12;22 - 00;02;35;24
Unknown
What first really got you passionate about helping people optimize their lives? There's kind of two, two stories that kind of go in the back story. One is I had really bad back pain, when I was in my early 20s. Like, when you shouldn't be having back pain, but I'm just stubborn. And so I just slept on the floor for, like, three months, and finally, my mother said, you have to go to the doctor.

(01:45):
00;02;35;24 - 00;02;52;04
Unknown
So I go, and I just. I didn't know any better. I went to a general practitioner. I sat in office for 2.5 hours to go sit on the tissue paper for another hour, to have somebody look at me like I would look at if you opened up the hood of my car and I know nothing about cars. And he just said, could be a slip.
00;02;52;04 - 00;03;07;24
Unknown

(02:10):
This could be a pinched nerve, could be anything. I said, really? That's that's the best you have to offer me. So I frustrated, I went and I just said, I'm just going to go to the gym. And I looked at every machine that said back. And I just did that. And I just just by pure luck, it made my back feel better.
00;03;07;24 - 00;03;20;09
Unknown
And so I'm like, you know, this is kind of cool. And so I had always worked out for for playing sports and so forth. So I kind of got into it and I said, you know, if I don't invest as much time and I want to learn a little bit more about it, and that just kind of got my inquisitive mind going.
00;03;20;09 - 00;03;38;11

(02:35):
Unknown
And it just kept going, kept going, and then said, you know, there might be an opportunity to do something here, like as, as a career. And in the back of my mind, I also had another story. My grandmother, who ran a gift shop, had four significant knee surgeries, including to replacements. She was someone who was vital.
00;03;38;11 - 00;04;02;05
Unknown
She loved to dance. She loved to do all those things. But she. It was an incredible amount of pain. So much so at the end of her life, she had a morphine pump in her stomach and it's like her life was completely side railed by something that if I could have gotten to her when she was in her 40s, like, get her some better mobility, get her a little bit stronger, like she wasn't somebody that crashed on a black diamond ski run or got checked into the boards in the NHL like she ran a gift shop.

(03:00):
00;04;02;10 - 00;04;25;19
Unknown
Your knees shouldn't fail you to the point where you need morphine to get through your day. And so it's like I want to save the next person to not have to have their life derailed like that. Wow. That's incredible. So moving away from pain for both you and your grandmother were two really big motivators. Yeah. And then obviously not liking sports, the performance side came into play.
00;04;25;19 - 00;04;48;16
Unknown

(03:25):
And then, you know, the convenient thing is a lot of athletes get hurt. And so if you can marry those two things together, make them perform better and then keep them on the field or on the court or the track, you know, that was kind of the sweet spot for me. That's awesome. And I love through your excellence and pursuing this that you were able to work with Navy Seals and Olympians and, can you do any name dropping some of the people you've worked with?
00;04;48;19 - 00;05;16;03
Unknown
So probably the most significant is I spent nine years with the New York Giants back when we were actually good, and we won two Super Bowls. And so, they were I worked with a couple NFL teams, but I work with them hands on as a consultant. I was there twice a week for all the time and got to work with all the players and, it was a very cool experience being part of a team and, being able to see what high performance looks like at that level with some of the greatest athletes in the world.
00;05;16;05 - 00;05;39;02

(03:50):
Unknown
What about baseball players? I saw you worked with some, baseball players. Yeah, I've worked with, with from high school all the way up to the MLB. And you know, I've done testing at the MLB combine. And so baseball is my own kind of personal passion. I still play to this day, you know, in a 35 year and all the horrible league and try to survive every Sunday and and, stay youthful.
00;05;39;02 - 00;06;01;18
Unknown
But I'm not, I'm not. Go down easy. I'm the guy that's still, still in bases, laying out for baseballs and laying out triple. So. So you think that's because of the conditioning or the hard headed, new Jersey mentality that all three. It's a little bit of it's a little bit of both. But, you know, the latter certainly helps, but there's I am not the guy who's got the knee sleeves and pounding Advil and who needs a pinch runner.

(04:15):
00;06;01;18 - 00;06;19;21
Unknown
I just, you know, and and, a lot of that is preparation, you know, and I, and I work towards that and to, to make sure that I want to be able to do this and not only be able to do it now, but my ultimate goal is I want to be able to play with my kids, which means I got to keep playing for another ten, 15 years until the age eligible to play with me.
00;06;19;23 - 00;06;38;02
Unknown

(04:40):
Well. So what do you think has changed in when you were, are you still active with athletes or have you moved on to helping others? I think that I will still get some referrals, but I kind of pivoted, for a few different reasons. One, from a business standpoint, athletes are very transient. They you know, pro athletes don't stay pro very long.
00;06;38;02 - 00;07;03;28
Unknown
And so, you know, from a business model, having to constantly refill that tank is, is tough. And then from the at the younger side, you know, it's kind of a little bit discouraged where youth sports has been professionalized by adults. And, it was very discouraging to try to develop young athletes when they just never got a chance because they were being forced to, to compete year round, and they really never had a chance to develop.
00;07;03;28 - 00;07;22;11

(05:05):
Unknown
And so I don't want to kind of be part of that model. And then there was also the realization that, like, okay, I kept having this client come to me and they were seeking me out where they were, somebody who was over 40, who still wanted to work out, was refusing to to go to the rocking chair, but just didn't know what to do.
00;07;22;11 - 00;07;39;20
Unknown
And they were breaking down. And, and I kind of had I was an answer for them. And then after seeing enough of these people come to me, I'm like, the universe is trying to tell me something. And then I was just too stubborn to look in the mirror and say, like, dummy, you're one of them. Like, you're you're the you're the guy that your ideal client is.

(05:30):
00;07;39;20 - 00;08;00;29
Unknown
And so that's where I pivoted. That's where I kind of, you know, started, you know, putting more of my focus on finding people like myself who are looking at a lens of 40 and over a little bit differently than our parents and grandparents did. So let's talk about and pivot on that. So we have an audience that definitely is all about being fit over 50.
00;08;01;02 - 00;08;21;13
Unknown

(05:55):
We all have battle wounds from years and years of life. I always say that, you know, a life well-lived as a life with some, slight injuries for the most part here. If you don't challenge yourself, what is somebody what do you take with somebody from. Let's say, what do you do? What? A person who's out of shape.
00;08;21;16 - 00;08;47;28
Unknown
What do you do? What? A person is in shape. Is there anything different, you could do with somebody like that? It's the same recipe. It's just how. It's just where you plot them along the continuum. So regardless if you came in to me tomorrow and you're, you're an MLB All-Star, or if you're, a couch potato, you know who in their 50s or if you're somewhere in between and an active, you know, someone in your 30s.
00;08;48;01 - 00;09;05;27

(06:20):
Unknown
I'm doing the same intake. I need to know the same things about you. I need to know, basically, you need to know your past. What your medical history, injury history, training history, what you've been successful with, what has not worked. Then I need to know where you're at currently. And I can't make assumptions on that, so I don't.
00;09;05;27 - 00;09;30;29
Unknown
Yes, I test and that's why I want to I want to look at what are your movement competencies. How well do you move? I want to look at if you have performance goals okay. Where are we starting from. And getting some baseline performance testing. That's within the framework of what you're capable of and what your goals are. And then I got to get a bigger picture of the other 23 hours of your day, which is just as important, if not more impactful, because I always give the, the conversation I always have.

(06:45):
00;09;31;00 - 00;09;46;10
Unknown
Mark is is about seeds and soil, right? I explain our training is just planting seeds for hopefully for harvest down there. Like it would be great if we did a set of bicep curls. We have these beautiful arms, you know, we put the weights down. It doesn't work that way. Right? You're putting in an investment for hopefully that'll pay off later.
00;09;46;10 - 00;10;07;27
Unknown

(07:10):
Well with that you need to plant them in soil. That's going to be fertile enough for that to grow. Well, that soil is analogous to the what I call the big three. It's your sleep, it's your nutrition and your stress management. And if those three are in line, I can give you the greatest workout in the world. It's it's going to be a useless piece of paper if I can't get those other three things to support it.
00;10;08;00 - 00;10;31;14
Unknown
So what are the biggest mistakes, somebody makes, let's say in their 50s or even 60s at this point? When they're working out. So there's, there's two types of, there's two types. There's, there's one that underestimate themselves. And they never push themselves to see their, their potential. And then the other ones are like, oh, well, you know, I just I played ball in college.
00;10;31;14 - 00;11;00;02

(07:35):
Unknown
I can just pick back up where I left off and they overestimate themselves now. They're technically the more dangerous ones because they'll they'll be the ones who hurt themselves going into the gym. But that could easily be corrected. We just have good programing. The ones who underestimate themselves don't don't see it because that's a little bit tougher because there's a mental framework there that they're they're not allowing themselves a different identity because of where they're at.
00;11;00;02 - 00;11;21;28
Unknown
And, and that's a little tougher to crack. I can I can rein in the over rambunctious guy with good programing. The other one, I have to try to convince that you're not broken and that's that's a tougher sell. It is definitely tougher. So I'm all about, you know, values, beliefs and identity are the things that dictate our entire, life, so to speak.

(08:00):
00;11;21;28 - 00;11;43;20
Unknown
So I agree with you on that one. So, Kelly. Yeah. So, Eric, if someone our age, they're willing to commit to 30 minutes three times a week, what would you recommend they be doing? Okay, so there's I break things into, into, into big kind of, pillars. And I say there's three big things right? We got to move.
00;11;43;22 - 00;12;01;21
Unknown

(08:25):
Right. We have to we have to fuel and we need to reset. So and each of these things breaks out to into the next three big pillars. So move means you got to move well meaning that you are not going to get in your own way. You have the freedom of movement that you can do, the things you need to do, and we can get a little bit deeper into what that looks like.
00;12;01;24 - 00;12;19;14
Unknown
Then you have to move with some purpose, right? You have to be able to have strength. And so strength training is going to be a cornerstone of that 30 minutes. But it has to represent and support your movement. And and so if there are certain things you can't do if you can't touch your toes, probably deadlifting is not your best option.
00;12;19;22 - 00;12;34;18

(08:50):
Unknown
So we have to make sure that those two marry each other. And then the last thing is you have to be able to move off and you have to have this the ability to have some capacity that you can run up a set of stairs or you can go, you know, go out and play with your kids or go, do, you know, play a pickup game, basketball and not run out of gas.
00;12;34;18 - 00;12;50;24
Unknown
Two minutes it. And so those are kind of the three like the trinity of of movement. Then that gets supported with the other stuff is kind of the more of the soil and that we need to, you know, fuel is is mostly most people think of nutrition, which is obviously the biggest part of it. Then there's hydration is another part of it.

(09:15):
00;12;51;00 - 00;13;09;03
Unknown
And then fuel also that that people don't consider is what you let your eyes in your ears. It's the it's the books you read or the social media you watch the TV, you watch the people you hang around with. All that is just as much fuel as is our nutrition. And that can drag you down just as much as a, as a, a cookie.
00;13;09;03 - 00;13;23;17
Unknown

(09:40):
And so we need to make sure that that's in line as well. Then reset is that's when the magic happens. We got to make sure that your sleep and your ability to recover and sometimes just be quiet and settle your mind. Those all have to be in line as well. So circling back to your question, Kelly, 30 minutes.
00;13;23;23 - 00;13;38;07
Unknown
We got to make sure you move. Well, getting some good movement. That means taking some time for a proper warmup, which a lot of us skip. Just pulling your arm across your body and riding the bike for two minutes doesn't cut it. We need to make sure that we get, you know, some key areas moving, which we like I said, we can go deeper into.
00;13;38;09 - 00;14;01;18

(10:05):
Unknown
Then you got to get strong. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have grab a barbell. I have very few people, you know, that unless it's part of their sport or part of their team program, that I ever have to touch a barbell. And then, you know, strength trains are a big part of it. And then to build that fortitude and and capacity, that means that we need to have some sort of energy system training, whether it's some intervals that we do and those.
00;14;01;18 - 00;14;16;13
Unknown
And what we do has to be smart. And consider also your movement that if you don't have good ankle mobility and hip mobility, running may not be your best option. But there are other options. You can, you know, push a sled, you can do battle ropes, you can do a lot of other things if you're creative with it.

(10:30):
00;14;16;18 - 00;14;33;03
Unknown
But we just have to check all those boxes. So you mentioned something about pushing yourself. When do you know if you're pushing yourself too hard or too little? How does a person know that? Or do they really need a coach for that? The first role I teach you. Day one. Mark, if you're my client, day one, I'm teaching.
00;14;33;03 - 00;14;46;27
Unknown

(10:55):
And we need to be two things for this to work. Number one, we need to be challenged. If you're not challenge, you won't change. That's the whole reason this works. Is that the most fundamental level, it's you pick up something heavy, your body goes, oh my gosh, if you're going to keep doing that, I'm going to have to get stronger.
00;14;46;27 - 00;15;05;05
Unknown
I'm going to have to to add maybe a little bit more muscle. So if there's not enough challenge, you won't change. But you also need to be successful. So what does that mean? That means I if I'm asking you to do ten repetitions of this given drill or exercise, you should be able to get ten perfect repetitions. And when you're done, maybe you could do done 1 or 2 more, but that's about it.
00;15;05;08 - 00;15;19;26

(11:20):
Unknown
If you can't even get to ten with perfect form, well then you're you have too much challenge. But you're super, you know, if you have, can you get to ten? You have too much challenge and you're not very successful with it. If you can do 20, well, then you're super successful. You just don't have enough challenge.
00;15;19;26 - 00;15;38;17
Unknown
And so finding that sweet spot is a little bit of trial and error. But you should know that when you're done that like, I could have maybe done that for another couple seconds or another rep or two, but that's about it. So as far as being over 50, is it possible? Is it possible at all to build muscle for 1,000%?

(11:45):
00;15;38;17 - 00;15;59;18
Unknown
Absolutely. There's people in their 90s they've shown in research that can build muscle now. Well, when people think build muscle, are you going to be, Arnold Schwarzenegger? Probably not, but but, you know, most people aren't, especially even when they're younger, unless you're, you're taking some, some chemical, helpers. So with that, yes, you can absolutely build muscle.
00;15;59;18 - 00;16;22;29
Unknown

(12:10):
And even in as almost as important as muscle and strength is power, there's been some very cool research that they they call it the powerful but fat, conundrum where people, even if they were slightly overweight, but if they can produce power. Now, the difference is this for the people listening strength is I'm going to move an object from point A to point B, but there's not a time component.
00;16;23;07 - 00;16;41;13
Unknown
Power is is there's a speed component to it and the rate at which you can do that. And that's almost as important, if not more important. And unfortunately, it's the one thing most of us don't train either, because we don't know or we're afraid of it. And, two, we lose it at twice the rate we lose strength as we get older.
00;16;41;15 - 00;17;01;09

(12:35):
Unknown
So where would one of those fall into what we call progressive overload? With any of those be a progressive overload is. And do you suggest that every time I do a personally a progressive overload and I go too heavy, I end up just tweaking something. So, and then I have to spend a little bit of time nursing that, in place.
00;17;01;09 - 00;17;16;26
Unknown
So what's your thoughts on that? All right, so I got an answer for you here, Mark. So this is, is, is that there's more than one way to progress an exercise. So most people think, all right, how are you gonna make an exercise harder? Kelly. What's most people going to do. Increase the weight. Right. So that's there's I call it the principle.

(13:00):
00;17;16;27 - 00;17;35;23
Unknown
Right. Is that resistance is one way you want to make it harder, add more weight. You want to make it easier at less weight. Now you can also do fusion body weight. You can change your body position, but sometimes adding more weight may not get you closer to what your goal is. Right? And so there are other ways to create more or less challenge.
00;17;35;23 - 00;18;04;04
Unknown

(13:25):
The second one is stability, right? So if you take that same exercise and so let's say you're doing a even if something as simple as a bicep curl. But now you do that in a split stance, or if you do it in a kneeling position or a half kneeling position, you've created of greater stability demand. And now that may actually have more carryover to you going out and playing tennis or you going out and doing something, you know, more functional out in, in, in real life.
00;18;04;04 - 00;18;21;10
Unknown
And so that may actually have a better carryover for you than just adding more weight. The third component kind of ties back to what I said before is tempo. That's how fast you move it. And so you can increase the speed at which you move it to try to, you know, create a greater rate of force production in power and speed.
00;18;21;12 - 00;18;36;16

(13:50):
Unknown
Or you could slow it down if you want to create more strain, maybe to build more muscle or even slow down to the point where you just hold it and do isometrics. And there's been some great research showing the power of just doing isometric holds being a great way to build strike. The especially in tendons, in connective tissue.
00;18;36;18 - 00;18;57;16
Unknown
So being able to play those three things and not just having weight is your only tool is really helpful in being able to, to challenge yourself a whole lot more without having those breakdowns. So you mentioned about Isometrics and, I think one of the biggest mistakes I see people so many doing is not having a full range of motion.

(14:15):
00;18;57;16 - 00;19;17;02
Unknown
Like for example, they do biceps, they don't come down, get the oxygen really into that. What's your kind of take on people just kind of going, oh, the form is probably more important than the weight itself. I would, at least that's my belief. What's your thoughts on that? To a certain extent, it's relative to your goal.
00;19;17;05 - 00;19;38;21
Unknown

(14:40):
You know, if I'm training a powerlifter, that that may not that may change the rules a little bit, but for general fitness. Yeah. So I want you're working through full pain. You know, I'll give you a disclaimer. Pain free ranges of motion that you can own and control. And so that's, that's a big component. And that's why when I start people out, that isometrics are a great way to do that.
00;19;38;23 - 00;19;57;11
Unknown
So I created, for when I coach and mentor other trainers, I wanted to come up with a system to kind of reign them in, like, how do we not allow coaches and trainers to make dumb decisions with their training? And I said, you know, I had this revelation, like, what? What if we had a belt system like the martial arts, right.
00;19;57;11 - 00;20;17;18

(15:05):
Unknown
The martial arts. What saves you, me, from walking into a dojo and just, you know, starting off day one, sparring with a black belt, is that black belts going to kick my butt? Not to mention the black belts getting nothing out of that. So what if I took that and applied it to exercise and said, okay, we'll create different tiers of belts that say, well, let's say a perfect example is a chin up and you want to go be able to do a chin up.
00;20;17;18 - 00;20;32;11
Unknown
Well, there's some steps you need to earn to be able to do that. So before I even think about to have me do a chin up, can you do a straight arm hang meaning palms facing away from you, full grip it shoulder width and can you hang from a bar for at least 60 seconds? If you can't do that, well, guess what you're gonna do.

(15:30):
00;20;32;11 - 00;20;45;17
Unknown
You're just going to hang from the bar. It's just an isometric, and you're going to build some great shoulder integrity. Get it to connect with your core. And once you can pass that hurdle, well, now can you do a better man? Well just flip your hands towards you. Get to the top there where your chest is at the bar.
00;20;45;20 - 00;21;06;11
Unknown

(15:55):
And now you got to be able to hold that for 30s. Now you've shown me proficiency at the bottom end and the top end of the two, and for a full range of motion. Now I just got to connect the dots. Now I'm going to have you start to gradually progress and chin ups as opposed to what most people do is jump up, grab the bar, wiggle and have this awful form getting from A to B if they can even get there, and they get frustrated when they don't improve.
00;21;06;13 - 00;21;25;03
Unknown
So if you have these steps, it kind of keeps you in line. And it also makes sure you can even get into the positions and shapes and postures that you need to at either end of an exercise. Kelly. Yeah, so I love at the beginning, Eric, when you mentioned the other 23 hours, people like to put their fitness in a box.
00;21;25;03 - 00;21;43;15

(16:20):
Unknown
Like I can give you 30 minutes or 45 or even an hour, but it is the other 23 hours. So what are age? What are some of the things? Because I know from the moment I wake up in the morning until the moment I go to bed, you know, my body, my life, my life, if I want to be well and fit and energized, those 23 other hours really make a difference.
00;21;43;15 - 00;22;04;16
Unknown
So speaking to our audience, who is hungry to optimize their life at 50 and beyond, what are some of the other things beyond that? You know, 30 or 60 minutes in the gym that are really crucial for living a fit over 50 life? Yeah. So like I said, Kelly comes down to the big three sleep nutrition and stress management.

(16:45):
00;22;04;18 - 00;22;26;12
Unknown
Now, out of that there are certain ways you can look at, where is the leak in the bucket to see, you know, what do you need to focus on more or less of and I have I have kind of assessments that do that, but let's just say it's equal across the board. So with sleep, it doesn't mean you need to go out and buy, a sleep tracking ring or anything like that.
00;22;26;12 - 00;22;48;07
Unknown

(17:10):
Because for some people, that actually may be the worst thing that they do. But I want to make sure that you're mindful of more of your sleep habits than anything else. Right. And a lot of this just comes down to habits. And the first thing I teach people is that we need to create some what we call non-negotiable habits, meaning that if you're going to be this person in this identity, there's certain steps that kind of go with that.
00;22;48;07 - 00;23;06;23
Unknown
That means that I, you know, during my, my normal schedule, I'm going to go to bed at these times. I'm going to wake up. At these times I'm going to have this routine. My, my electronics are off or I'm going to do this prior to going to bed, whether it's a breathing routine or meditation or mobility routine that's going to help me more, be more restful.
00;23;06;25 - 00;23;26;21

(17:35):
Unknown
And then when I wake up, this is just part of my morning routine. Now. It doesn't have to be some biohacker one hour routine. It has to just be. This is kind of what is my day looks like in terms of the nutrition. There needs to be certain, you know, markers that you say, look, no matter what else happens, I'm going to make sure I get enough water throughout the day.
00;23;26;23 - 00;23;45;19
Unknown
I'm going to make sure that I get enough protein throughout the day. Then everything else will kind of work around that. And then when it comes to stress management, it's it's your ability to kind of manage your states and understand that, you know, you know, kind of the stove philosophy of what are the things you control, what are the things that you can't control.

(18:00):
00;23;45;19 - 00;24;05;25
Unknown
And then how can you manage your state's best to try to optimize those other 23 hours? If you can get those big general things, then we can get into some more details. But usually that's the biggest thing is getting them into that routine of not just kind of working reactively. Reactively is, oh, I don't need anything today. Let me pull to the side of the road, grab some food.
00;24;05;27 - 00;24;32;20
Unknown

(18:25):
Your choices aren't going to be really good at that point. That's so true. Very, very good points in there. So I know one of your specialties is injury prevention and pain. Can you speak to the person who is, you know, our age and has a throbbing back pain. It's keeping them from enjoying their lives. One L1, L2 all three l4, L5 back surgery, torn meniscus and both knees.
00;24;32;22 - 00;24;53;11
Unknown
Arthritis. Come on, man, fix me up here. All right. You all right? You don't scare me, Mark. I've seen worse than that. So? So here's a free jump rope, too, by the way. So. But you know what? Do you know? Okay, so here's the thing is, is first, understanding that you are not your diagnosis. And that I could see five different people with the exact same diagnosis who present five different ways.
00;24;53;11 - 00;25;13;27

(18:50):
Unknown
It's a very tricky thing and how we do that. And you know, when people come in and they say, well, I have this disc herniation, I saw that discontinuation could be from a high school football game. Like, I don't know if that's your necessarily a problem. And so what we want to do is we want to try to look for root causes, and we want to try to look for opportunities where we can make you better.
00;25;13;27 - 00;25;31;21
Unknown
So here's one of the big mistakes that that, that my field made when they started to to crossover where a lot of people like myself were kind of working hand in hand with physical therapist or were I? A lot of times I'm the person that people come to when I've been to the PTA. I've been to chiropractor and acupuncture.

(19:15):
00;25;31;22 - 00;25;51;24
Unknown
Nothing has worked. And I and I'm kind of last resort is a lot of people. What they started to make the mistake of was putting you into bubble wrap and saying, oh, well, you have this. Let's just create this gentle fitness type of experience. And it was okay. As much as I want to find out what you can't do and I don't, I don't want to remove the negative.
00;25;51;26 - 00;26;10;15
Unknown

(19:40):
I also need to find out what it is that you can do. So if I train those things really hard, it's kind of like this, this concept in Chinese medicine where they call it surrounding the dragon. So if you can only, you know, move your arm from overhead down a couple degrees and you can move from your side up a couple degrees, and then you have this painful range in the middle.
00;26;10;20 - 00;26;28;12
Unknown
If I train that top range in that bottom range, eventually that range in the middle gets smaller and smaller until it goes away. So I may find out that with your meniscus that lunging is a problem for you. Well guess what? Don't lunch and we'll find alternatives for that in other ways to strengthen you until we can teach you to lunge.
00;26;28;15 - 00;26;48;03

(20:05):
Unknown
And then find out. Okay, your back prognosis doesn't necessarily tell me anything about what you can, can or can't do from a movement standpoint. So let's look can you touch your toes. Can you extend back and you rotate right to left. Can you side bend. Can you reach behind me with both behind yourself with both hands, whatever thing you can't do.
00;26;48;03 - 00;27;03;02
Unknown
Well then that's the thing that we're not going to go and challenge. We're going to give you some stuff to try to address that and let's challenge all the rest. That's the problem we have with a lot of rehab settings, is that you go in and you're going to get rubbed, heated, ice stemmed, whatever it may be for the part that hurts.

(20:30):
00;27;03;04 - 00;27;23;29
Unknown
And we disregard all the, the rest. And so maybe you fortify the one thing that's hurt while the rest of the organism is getting weaker and breaking down. And so it's this never ending process, this cycle that you almost never get out of. If you don't strengthen the organism. And so the art is, how do I strike you as strong and as fit as possible without making everything else worse?
00;27;24;01 - 00;27;44;29
Unknown

(20:55):
And over time, those things that bug you don't bug you anymore. So I think we're really talking about what is, becoming a serious, I don't want to say an epidemic, but it's certainly on everybody's. I'm. I awarenesses, and the amount of inflammation that people are experiencing today, I mean, you're talking about dementia is a byproduct of inflammation in the brain from blood sugar.
00;27;45;04 - 00;28;03;15
Unknown
You know, is it the food system? Is it lifestyle? Is it a combination of everything? You know, for me personally, I think you said you hit the nail on the head the only thing and Kelly's seen me struggle through some pretty a bad couple of months here in the last couple of months where I'll be wiped out for two days because of inflammation and pain.
00;28;03;15 - 00;28;22;00

(21:20):
Unknown
The only thing that resets it for me is literally 24 hours of sleep. So, sleep is probably the thing that I've struggled with the most. I don't know if anybody else who's watching or listening this struggles with it, but it is basically seems like it's, a thing that can cure a lot of stuff that's taking place.
00;28;22;00 - 00;28;47;23
Unknown
I'm curious to what your thoughts are on inflammation and also the thing they call and what is it in aging, I think inflammation. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, the biggest thing that you'll see is a difference in terms of if I, you know, had somebody who's at 30 versus 40 versus 50 is is the recovery ability and realize that inflammation in and of itself is not a thing.

(21:45):
00;28;47;23 - 00;29;06;13
Unknown
It's part of it. It's a natural process. And so when we train we create inflammation. And so, that's a great thing. Provided it's it's not too much. It's kind of like this Goldilocks is that if it's not enough, it's not enough to stimulate change, not enough challenge. And if it's too much then it's it's creates this breakdown.
00;29;06;13 - 00;29;20;28
Unknown

(22:10):
So finding that sweet spot and that's where you have to kind of look at all your dials. And what I mean by that is race car drivers going around, you know the track and they have all these dials to kind of tell them when it's time to go and get a pit stop. Well, we're not really in tune with that as humans.
00;29;20;28 - 00;29;39;16
Unknown
We're you know, I joke, we're just kind of like carcasses with a floating head that, that just don't connect to any of this. And so we don't even, you know, have the awareness to think about sleep or the quality of sleep. And, you know, and so, yeah, the stats show a lot of people have have some sleep issues and sometimes that's surrounded, like I said, around habits.
00;29;39;24 - 00;29;57;07

(22:35):
Unknown
And sometimes they're not seeing the connections. That's where like a wearable device is very powerful because they can see I've had clients that never really realized until they got a woop strap or an or a ring or something like that, that, wow, you know, they have that glass of wine at 9:00 versus 6:00. It completely changes my sleep.
00;29;57;10 - 00;30;15;20
Unknown
If I have something to eat, a little too close to, that completely changes my sleep. I kind of stumbled on this discovery because I've been kind of the guinea pig for everything I've done with my clients, is that I've found with a lot of wearables that when I would do a mobility routine, that I would actually have more restful sleep.

(23:00):
00;30;15;22 - 00;30;35;17
Unknown
Is that because maybe I'm not tossing and turning as much and I don't wake up as easily? Not sure. But I started experimenting with my clients and sure enough, get them to do some deep breathing and mobility work before they go to bed. And they're getting they're not only falling asleep faster, but they're getting more restful sleep. And so you're setting yourself up for the ultimate reset, which is sleep.
00;30;35;19 - 00;30;57;01
Unknown

(23:25):
So, inflammation is not bad in itself. It's when it's it's, coming at you from all angles, whether you're getting it from your nutrition, you're getting it from from poor training, you're getting it from stress, and then you're getting it, you're not letting it exit because you're not taking on either any active recovery strategies and your poor sleeping.
00;30;57;01 - 00;31;11;18
Unknown
Well, then, yes, it all kind of compounds and piles up. I'm smiling there because I remember when I first started training clients, I was 17 and they would say to me, you'll see when you get old, you won't be able to eat before you go to bed and you won't be able to eat tomatoes. And you, you know, all these things.
00;31;11;18 - 00;31;38;11

(23:50):
Unknown
But I was like, wow, you know, and here we are now you're right. If I eat late, I cannot sleep at night. That is definitely a thing in the stretching matters. And I walk every night after dinner and all those things matter. And your body is your own sort of guinea pig, and you get to experiment. And so we need to be, you know, wise and go, okay, that wine at night is not, you know, really helping me, but find the things that are, you know, is stretching, helping you because that just makes a lot of sense.
00;31;38;13 - 00;31;56;05
Unknown
And before you mentioned power and of all the things at this stage in our life, we think about doing box jumps and, you know, these kettlebell snatches. It probably is the thing where maybe the least motivated to do, the last year and a half, I was at F45 and I did 500 straight workouts, and then I had tennis elbow.

(24:15):
00;31;56;05 - 00;32;17;28
Unknown
So I quit and I went back to the regular gym and lifting weights. And now the thought of going back to power moves. I'm like, is that something I probably really do on my own? I might do it in a class, but what? It's important. I just did the Manitou Incline, a few days ago, which is 2678 steps, and I did it in 45 minutes, and I train for life.
00;32;17;28 - 00;32;39;19
Unknown

(24:40):
I didn't train for that, but I know the power is important. So what would you say to someone you know, our age and older about how do we begin to incorporate power moves? Okay, so first thing is just the rate at which you move something. So if you're first you have to be good at moving. Right. If you add speed or resistance to, bad movement, it's just going to get worse.
00;32;39;19 - 00;32;59;16
Unknown
And but if you can move, well, right, then what we're going to do is we're just going to. The easiest way to gradually introduce it is work your tempos. So instead of where most people go in and let's say, okay, I'll just use the I'll use a bench press instead of just going, I'm going to come down a thousand, 1000, 2003 pause for a second, and then thousand, 1000, thousand to get three up.
00;32;59;18 - 00;33;24;15

(25:05):
Unknown
What I want you to do is control that down, pause for a second, and then I want you to put that thing up as fast as you possibly can while you're maintaining perfect. Four can you do that? And so come down slow, pause for a second, off as fast as you can. And with the clients I see in person, the few people I do see in person, I actually have a a device called a velocity based training device where we attach that to the bar, or we can attach it to to a waist belt and it'll give us feedback.
00;33;24;15 - 00;33;39;12
Unknown
It'll show has an app that'll give us feedback to show you how fast you're moving. And so now you can actually challenge yourself just to see that. So that's so that's the easy low hanging fruit. So even if it doesn't move fast but the interesting thing if you think about moving it fast, it still has the same result.

(25:30):
00;33;39;14 - 00;33;59;10
Unknown
You're recruiting a different, motor units in terms of your nervous system. You're recruiting a different fiber types in terms of your muscle, and you're actually recruiting more fiber. So it's all about building muscle. It's a great way to to build muscle at a quicker rate. Then the next entry entry point is medicine balls. Okay. And the best things get big soft medicine balls.
00;33;59;10 - 00;34;16;16
Unknown

(25:55):
And they don't have to be heavy. They the idea is speed and so six 8 pound medicine balls and just doing simple slams into the ground. Starting in kneeling postures is the best way to do it. Just in a nice tall kneeling posture or half kneeling posture. Just take that thing as high as you can reach it and slam into the ground.
00;34;16;16 - 00;34;34;16
Unknown
Now here's what you get. You don't need a fancy velocity based training device. The louder that sounds when it hits the ground and the the more it bounces back up, the more power you've produced. And nothing makes me crazier when I see people in a bootcamp class, they're taking the medicine balls, and essentially they're just falling out of their hands like there's no umph, there's no intent in.
00;34;34;16 - 00;34;56;18

(26:20):
Unknown
They're like, I want you to put that thing through the floor and it. And then people like, it's it's fun, it's engaging. It's stress management. Like, put that thing through the floor, make noise. And so that's another great way to do it. You can do the same thing with battle ropes. Take battle ropes instead of just going to try to feel the burn and, you know, get tired, take them and make like you're like, you're riding the biggest horse you can imagine.
00;34;56;19 - 00;35;12;11
Unknown
You're going to rip those ropes up and then ripping, make it back down and you're going to make a big ripple and wave in the in the ropes. How high can you make that wave? Like make it as high as you can and slam those ropes into the ground. Oh, that's just speed of a, you know, rate of force production and speed.

(26:45):
00;35;12;11 - 00;35;46;07
Unknown
And that's great ways to start to introduce power. That's that's one side. The other thing is that we do not train, and that's where all our injuries occur. And this is even more with, with athletes is we need to learn how to absorb force, how to decelerate okay. So whether it's an athlete who plants and rolls or ankle or, or you know, plants and pulls your hamstring or it's, the, the, you know, person playing pickleball who rolls and buckles their knee because they don't have the ability to decelerate or someone who's even older, our ability to get our foot down in time.
00;35;46;07 - 00;36;03;26
Unknown

(27:10):
So we don't fall and we can absorb force is incredibly important. That's rate of force production. There's simple things you can do that basically balance in an athletic stance on one foot. And can you jump from your right to your left and reestablish that balance? And how long does that take from the time your foot hits the ground to the time you can kind of rebalance?
00;36;04;03 - 00;36;28;00
Unknown
That's kind of our metric. The shorter we can make that time, the more efficient you are. And deceleration. Just learning to decelerate is probably one of the best things you can do in terms of injury prevention. Motivate me. Go ahead Kelly, I know I'm going to say I picked it back up because as Eric said before, speed is one of the things that we can do to change the, you know, just the overload.
00;36;28;00 - 00;36;46;14

(27:35):
Unknown
Honest. And I've been going slower. In fact, I remember back to the days of this people slow training stuff. Oh yeah, lower self. But I'm going to you've motivated me. I'm going to pace a bit and and I know it makes a difference. I can feel it in my energy. Like you had a question. Yeah. Eric is there a sweet spot or is it different for everybody?
00;36;46;14 - 00;37;09;29
Unknown
You've mentioned Sweet Spot a few times in here. What's the number of times the length? You know, when does or missus kick in? You know what? What you're kind of take on that. So it's, it's way before most people think. Right. Unless you're really training for body composition, like, I got to get beach fit, right, which I.

(28:00):
00;37;09;29 - 00;37;26;13
Unknown
That's like 2% of the people, right? Other than that. Right. You should walk out of the gym feeling like you could have done more. You should walk out feeling like I still had at least 3 or 4 more sets in me. Especially if you're training for speed and power. You could feel like I could have done that workout again.
00;37;26;16 - 00;37;47;28
Unknown

(28:25):
If you feel like that, you've probably hit the sweet spot right now. That's going to be different for each person. And as your capacity grows, that end point will grow. But the more intensely you train, the less you need to train. I mean, my workouts, my strength workouts are, if they're 30 minutes from beginning to end or a lot.
00;37;48;00 - 00;38;07;22
Unknown
But when I'm when I'm going, I'm going and I have jumps and I have medicine ball slams and I'm moving explosively. And so I don't need all that much because I when I'm done, I'm not shot. If I'm doing an arm workout. Yeah, you can walk out and have your arms tired. Fine. That's nobody's going to nobody ever died from an arm workout.
00;38;07;29 - 00;38;29;29

(28:50):
Unknown
But if you're working for for full body like capacities, walk out way before you think that you're done. And the number of times a week obviously vary. But is there a sweet spot for that minimum is two you're not going to get? I've very I've never seen anybody make significant changes in one. Now one is better than none, but two is where you can start to see some changes.
00;38;30;01 - 00;38;47;02
Unknown
For is about the max that I've seen. Unless you're making them super short. If you're going to take do it in like kind of snacks and you're going to do it in 20, 30 minutes. And yeah, you could probably handle more than four, but somewhere between 2 and 4. And that's usually more dictated by life than it is the science of it.

(29:15):
00;38;47;05 - 00;39;18;00
Unknown
Yeah. So what is your take on exercise snacks? There seems to be a lot of research on that. And that was part of some of the notes. If it was, something that you had brought up, I'd. Let's touch on that. Yeah. I think it's it's the way we we need to go. I think our fitness industry has done a terrible job of giving you these recommendations of that you need to where you need to go join a special place, and you have to drive your car there and wear a special outfit, and you have to be there for a certain number, a time for this to actually count as fitness.
00;39;18;00 - 00;39;42;19
Unknown

(29:40):
And it's it's insane. And there's research that shows that if you did three ten minute walks versus one 30 minute walk, not only did you have the same result, but you had higher compliance. And it just and it also what happens is it increases your what's called your spa, your spontaneous physical activity. Because now just more of what you do as opposed to like what Kelly said, it's just in the silo that you forget about the other 23 hours.
00;39;42;19 - 00;40;03;06
Unknown
And so it is huge. And it also proves to the point you don't need that much. You don't need that much because most people are trying to get it all. Now for some people, unfortunately. Look, the reality is, if I'm training, a man or a woman who's got to get on a 6 a.m. bus to be in the city, work all day, and they get home at 7:00 and they can just muster enough and energy to exercise.
00;40;03;11 - 00;40;21;07

(30:05):
Unknown
They have to compacted into one, you know, big bite. But for the people that have the ability to do it, I would much rather have that spread out in smaller doses throughout the day. Yeah, yeah, especially at our age. I mean, it breaks up our day to have little fitness breaks from sitting, which is the new smoking.
00;40;21;10 - 00;40;44;24
Unknown
We're sitting way too much. I'm Eric, you mentioned assessing and testing, which I love for those people who maybe do work out at home and they don't have access to a personal trainer or a gym. There are some things that they can do to measure their progress at home, to see that they are making benefits or not. Okay, so let's look at, you know, first one movement standpoint, you should be able to keep your legs straight and be able to touch your toes.

(30:30):
00;40;44;26 - 00;40;56;21
Unknown
You should be able to get your arms up overhead to where you can kind of cover your ears. And then you should be able to reach back and kind of extend to where if I drew a line from your ear or to your ankle, you can kind of get some extension back. What is that? What do I gotta do here?
00;40;56;22 - 00;41;15;09
Unknown

(30:55):
Okay, okay. Your arms up overhead. So you're covering your ears. Now, if I ask you if you're standing to reach back with behind you, like almost a little mini backbend. Yeah, absolutely. Standing. Imagine a line if I was staring at you from the side, from from your ear to your ankle, you should be able to get behind that line so you can create some extension there.
00;41;15;11 - 00;41;36;14
Unknown
And you can do this. You can do this and you can do it pain free, more importantly than if you take your hands out in front of you and just kind of hold your hands together with your arms locked straight, and you rotate as far as you can to the right and left, you should be able to turn your chest, work more or less lines up with your hips, about 90 degrees of rotation each way, and then you should be able to reach your hand over your head to touch your shoulder blades.
00;41;36;14 - 00;41;55;09

(31:20):
Unknown
You should be able to reach your hand behind your back to touch your shoulder blade. Right? Can you do those? Those are the kind of the big, things that I want to look for. Obviously, I can break it down and look into a little bit more, but those are the big movements. If you can't do those, it's going to restrict your ability to do some, some certain movements, a certain exercise.
00;41;55;09 - 00;42;11;19
Unknown
I'm not going to prescribe for you. There's three main areas where we lose our our mobility. And we can just thank you desk chair, from this. It's your ankles. It's your hips and it's your trunk and t spine, your rib cage in T spine. And so if you're going to look to get mobility in three areas those are the three.

(31:45):
00;42;11;19 - 00;42;31;16
Unknown
And you'll they'll show up in one of those tests that I just gave you in terms of some some fitness test. There are certain, things that that they have different markers for male versus female. That kind of falls into what we talked about with our belt tests that we look for you to be able to do in terms of being able to do a push up, in terms of being able to hang from a bar for 60s would be a good thing.
00;42;31;19 - 00;42;51;04
Unknown

(32:10):
Meaning you'll do good clean, push up with your legs locked, a straight line from your ears to your ankles, from your chest to the floor all the way up. Can you do that? And then how many can you do? There's even correlations with how many pushups you could do and your longevity. The, another correlation is the reason why the hanging so important, because there's huge correlations with grip strength and longevity.
00;42;51;09 - 00;43;20;28
Unknown
And so that's why that's important. And so being able to squat down, be able to get down to the floor and back up, incredibly important. Can you do that? And how do you do that without assistance? Is, is another movement factor. But it's also in terms of functionality. Can you do that? Can you balance on one leg for at least, you know, 10s minimum and ideally 20 or 30s those are kind of all the movement categories, fitness categories, you know, that gets a little bit trickier.
00;43;20;28 - 00;43;42;06

(32:35):
Unknown
You could look into things like VO2 Max. Which also they can predict longevity based on that. You can even predict when someone can no longer live, independently based on your VO2 max. Now that you don't have to go to exercise science lab and wear a mask and all that stuff, there's actually some, some tests that you can do that will give you an approximation of your VO2 max.
00;43;42;08 - 00;44;04;25
Unknown
And with that, I actually have a program you can get for free on my website too, that gives you some of those tests that you can do to kind of to learn a little bit more about that, and then some other tests to look at your, your, your height to waist ratio. Right. Your height should be, at least double your, your, your waist size in terms of, body composition is probably one of the strongest numbers that they found.

(33:00):
00;44;04;27 - 00;44;28;15
Unknown
And then in terms of, where you're at and if I can go ahead, I'm sorry, your height to your, your weight, your waist size should be. Yes. At yes. Okay. So I have to process that. Okay. Got that. All right. That makes sense. So yes your waist is is more than, you know, your BMI, which I think is what did you want your thoughts on BMI by the way.
00;44;28;15 - 00;44;49;12
Unknown

(33:25):
Because it's it's an outdated metric that that doesn't really work that well. That's why the height to weight ratio is, is, is gold okay. That's good, that's good. And I run into say, you know, hey, you know, I'm obese or this or that. I'm like, don't go by BMI at this point. Okay? So now and even body fat, I've moved away.
00;44;49;12 - 00;45;07;15
Unknown
I have body fat calipers and and and you know I have access to to things you can get body fat and I don't even use that that much unless I'm working with an athlete. I just tell people, get an old fashioned, you know, cloth tape, measure and measure your waist measure. You know, depending male or female, you're going to, males.
00;45;07;15 - 00;45;40;22

(33:50):
Unknown
I'll measure waist, chest, arm and thigh. Females, I'll measure, waist, arm, thigh and hips and just use those as your best gauge for your improvement because the scale is not going to tell you that. And so that's, that's for some of your body composition measures. And then I'll give you one more test because we talked about kind of the big three and talking about you know sleep is a little tougher unless you have some metrics or other than just doing a journal nutrition, is you're kind of your health and your blood markers are going to kind of tell that story as well as your body composition.
00;45;40;24 - 00;46;00;08
Unknown
In terms of stress, that's a little bit trickier. Okay. Stress impacts our autonomic nervous system. All right. This fight or flight or rest and recover. And ideally we want to be able to kind of balance more towards that parasympathetic side. The rest of recover versus the sympathetic well if you're over stressed you're going to be more sympathetically driven.

(34:15):
00;46;00;11 - 00;46;26;15
Unknown
So one quick window into that is looking at your breathing. And do a breath hold test. So if you just sit up tall, hands on your lap, take three natural breaths, and at the end of your third exhale, pinch and hold your nose and just run a timer and see how long you can hold your breath. Now you should be able to hold it for at least 20s if you can't, that tells me your RPMs are running a little hot, right?
00;46;26;18 - 00;46;42;14
Unknown

(34:40):
That you are someone who's a little stressed, because what's causing us to want to breathe is a stress response. So the more calm state you're in, the longer you will be able to hold that. So for when I have somebody come in and I've had people hold it for seven seconds, eight seconds, that's someone who's super, super stressed.
00;46;42;19 - 00;47;00;03
Unknown
And so exercise to stress. I gotta be really careful what I do with this person. And it's not a, it's not a, static measure. You want to look at it from one day to the next, and you can see changes in kind of what you're readiness for that day. And it's amazing what you'll see. Impact, sleep will impact it.
00;47;00;05 - 00;47;17;03

(35:05):
Unknown
I had a one client tell a story. Very mild mannered guy. Always has a breath hold of, like, in the like. 40s. Plus, one day I see him out the window before a session, and he's very animated on the phone, and he comes in, he's like my f ING partner. And he got in a fight and the phone with his partner, he does breath hold.
00;47;17;03 - 00;47;36;20
Unknown
It's like 15 seconds just because he's use revving so high. So it's a little window to where your stress levels are and how you're managing that. So take that whole battery. And that kind of gives me an idea to find out where your sweet spot is. Where do I need to even start? Where is the the leak in your bucket and restart their body doesn't lie.

(35:30):
00;47;36;20 - 00;47;59;04
Unknown
Those are great tests and I hope that our listeners do go in and do these. So I'm going to go and do them because I'm curious to see how I'm doing. Eric, what is one fitness myth, especially in our 50s, that you just wish were not a thing? There's there's a bunch of them, I think probably the biggest thing.
00;47;59;04 - 00;48;15;13
Unknown

(35:55):
And this this was reinforced last week with, with a, a story. I just told it in on a post I just said is I went to my dentist and there was a new hygienist there who I never met, and she asked what I did when I told her, I always kind of say it begrudgingly, because I never know what's going to come out next.
00;48;15;13 - 00;48;39;14
Unknown
And she she reinforced that, that fear, Kelly and that she said, oh, I worked with a trainer once. I couldn't walk for two weeks after we did legs and I, my first thought is, okay, this woman is like, this wasn't like someone who's a competitive bodybuilder. This is when somebody who's like a CrossFit competitor, this is like this sweet, like, maybe very casual exerciser.
00;48;39;19 - 00;49;06;13

(36:20):
Unknown
Why is she doing a bodybuilding leg workout? Right. So the fact that that unfortunately, and being a former bodybuilder myself, I get it. And thank God for Arnold Schwarzenegger making fitness become part of our lexicon. But because of that, a lot of what we do in fitness today is biased based on bodybuilding. And so, look, bodybuilding is a very, very unique niche sport, right?
00;49;06;16 - 00;49;25;01
Unknown
Very few people come, you know, you know, come to me and they say, I need to go stand on stage in my underwear in front of a panel of judges who are going to make sure I'm perfect. Right? That's essentially what the sport is. And so unless I tell everybody, unless you're going to go stand on stage in your underwear, the panel of judges making sure you're perfect, we don't need to train like that.

(36:45):
00;49;25;03 - 00;49;42;04
Unknown
And so that training does work. It's very effective if you want that end result. But realize that there there's a couple prices that you pay with that one is is because you need so much volume of training. It's incredibly taxing. And you can expect to be sore all the time. When I competed in bodybuilding, I was never not sore.
00;49;42;05 - 00;49;59;17
Unknown

(37:10):
It just changed throughout the week where I was sore. And then two is that you need a lot of time. When I was in my 20s and competed, I could do it, but if I plan a four day workout split for you and something comes up where you got to drive your kids somewhere more for you, have a business meeting or something like that, and you don't get day four.
00;49;59;17 - 00;50;21;06
Unknown
Well, guess what you have now? Body parts that don't get seen for two weeks that are going to get overlooked. And so because of that, and because it's not, it used to kind of be a badge of courage to walk around with your legs sore when you were 20 and cool when you're 45. And I got to take my kids to soccer practice, and I got to get on a flight, and I got to walk through the airport like it's not cool anymore to be sore all the time.
00;50;21;09 - 00;50;44;22

(37:35):
Unknown
And so I never unless someone has a very specific physical, never program anything but full body workouts. You should know you did something the next day, but you should never be that sore where it's going to impact your function. It's interesting you say that because a lot of my workouts have progressed towards what I call full body workouts, which is what you have suggested and or you suggest to your clients.
00;50;44;22 - 00;51;07;24
Unknown
And one, just for time purposes, I want to be at the damn gym all day long. Number two, I just find, you know, more productive, by getting stuff done between an hour and an hour less. And I rather do it that way. So we were talking about. Sure. Let's, shift and let's talk about the process of recovery.

(38:00):
00;51;07;26 - 00;51;28;12
Unknown
I think that's a big topic we could speak on here. What is what works? I mean, you got plunges, you got soreness, you got, you know, peptides. So we can we're going to go down a lot of rabbit holes at this point. But I'm curious to what you're utilizing now with clients that's working for recovery because that's a big one.
00;51;28;15 - 00;51;43;01
Unknown

(38:25):
Yeah. Work big work your way in. What do I mean by that? So there's a, I use the analogy. It was a great story about a college professor who talked about the jar of life. Right. Takes out a jar, puts it on his desk, and he fills it up with these big rocks and he says, is the jar full?
00;51;43;03 - 00;51;58;09
Unknown
And classes? Yeah, it looks full. And then he takes some pebbles out and fills in the space between the big rocks. And so is it now full? Mason said. Well, yeah, I guess it's full. And then they take he takes sand and he fills in the space and it fills in there. And it was. His analogy was, that's how we should approach life in the big rocks.
00;51;58;10 - 00;52;12;08

(38:50):
Unknown
Your family, the people close to you is the people you love and your pebbles is your is your profession and so forth. And then the sand is kind of the little things and don't. Because then he would he do to empty out the jar and put all the sand in first. And when you do that, you have no room for the other stuff.
00;52;12;08 - 00;52;26;28
Unknown
And that's how it's kind of a great, you know, kind of way to look at life, that if you get caught up in the minutia, you'll miss out on the big stuff. Well, it same goes for training and that I got to look at the big rocks. How are you sleeping? What is your nutrition look like okay. And how you're managing your stress.

(39:15):
00;52;26;28 - 00;52;44;11
Unknown
Those are the big three. Before we ever worry about plungers or soreness or any of those things, if those things are relatively in order, then what we're gonna do is in terms of recovery, understand that recovery starts before your sweat dries. And the first thing that most people skip out on that I highly encourage is a good 2 to 5 minute cooldown.
00;52;44;11 - 00;52;59;17
Unknown

(39:40):
At the end of your workout. That jump starts that recovery. It puts you starts to put because you just went into this sympathetic overdrive of training of stress creating inflammation. Great. That's what we want to have. But now let's start to down. You know, I don't want you huffing and puffing. Swing your keys on the finger walking out the door.
00;52;59;19 - 00;53;18;09
Unknown
I'm going to maybe put you in some sort of yoga pose, or do some sort of mobility drill, or just have you lay on your back and just do some deep breathing, focusing on super long exhales for 2 to 5 minutes and have you just completely walk out at a lower heart rate than you walked in at that jump starts the recovery process.
00;53;18;11 - 00;53;38;25

(40:05):
Unknown
Now from there, depending on what your goals are, I'm not going to have your cold plunge anywhere too close to when you worked out, because it will act as it because what does it do? It cuts back inflammation. Well, that's not good if part of the inflammation process is part of what builds muscle and it. And so I kind of have to let that run its course.
00;53;39;02 - 00;53;54;19
Unknown
I don't want to interrupt it with an ice bath. So and then also I don't want to have an ice bath right before, you know, or anywhere close to bedtime because the ice bath is stimulating. It's a sympathetic thing. So if you're going to do it first thing in the morning, make sure it's a couple hours away from any type of strength training you do.

(40:30):
00;53;54;21 - 00;54;18;22
Unknown
And it can certainly have some value, especially if you're involved in any kind of activity or sport. You know, afterwards it can dull the sensation of some of the post, you know, competition soreness. He is phenomenal. The research on sauna just keeps getting better. If you have access to one, use it. Use it as best you can. You know, research shows probably about an hour total per week is great.
00;54;18;22 - 00;54;41;05
Unknown

(40:55):
However you break that up is fantastic. Nutritionally, protein is number one by far, without even a close second making sure you're getting enough protein in throughout the day. And for most people, that's going to that's going to be somewhere close to a, gram per pound the body weight or somewhere in that neighborhood. If you tell people that, they're probably going to fall a little short.
00;54;41;05 - 00;55;02;25
Unknown
But if I set that as a marker, they're going to it's just going to naturally boost up their protein more, and then from there it's hydration and all the other stuff will support that, but it won't replace that. Now, when you talk about protein, what about if somebody is looking to lose weight? Because I work with a lot of weight loss clients and, I guess I'm looking for validation.
00;55;02;25 - 00;55;21;20

(41:20):
Unknown
Maybe, but, I'm big on the simplicity of one gram of protein per healthy pound of body weight you're looking to be. So if you're 200, you want to be 150, shoot for 150. It's most of the time, like you said, they're going to fall short. But it's an easy goal to remember. You still feel the same way about protein as long as they're looking to lose weight.
00;55;21;20 - 00;55;41;27
Unknown
Or would that be too much? I would also I would want to say more. And you can't. Oh, you almost can't overeat protein, right? No one's ever come calling all your years, anybody will come to you, say, I, I got it, I'm a mess. I eat too much chicken. Right. So it never happens. And so with that is is protein is satiating meaning it helps fill you up.

(41:45):
00;55;42;03 - 00;56;02;18
Unknown
Protein has a higher, thermic effect of eating, meaning a certain certain amount of calories just get burned off in the digestive process. Has the highest thermic effect of eating of all the macronutrients. And then, you know, they've shown people where they in research, they said, look, you can eat whatever you want, but you have to hit this protein number.
00;56;02;21 - 00;56;25;02
Unknown

(42:10):
And those people all still lost weight, just because of those effects. And so if you can just get people eating enough protein, a lot of the other stuff falls into place. Well said, well said. I 100% agree with you on that. Excellent. So, Eric, recently you launched The Ageless Athlete blueprint for men over the age of 40 who want to do all the things you're talking about.
00;56;25;02 - 00;56;47;01
Unknown
They want to perform well, not be in pain, recover faster. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah. That's been kind of a labor of love since, you know, I had this concept for it. So, I wanted to be able to expand. Part of it was, was, was, you know, during Covid saying, oh, my gosh, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to train a person in person again.
00;56;47;03 - 00;57;07;11

(42:35):
Unknown
And how do we figure out a solution for that? But then realizing, okay, well, this this opens up doors to where I have people that want to work with me, but they just physically can't get to where I am and don't have that bandwidth. So how can I deliver this? And so I really sat down and said, I want to deliver the same experience that you would had if you were one of my clients opts and retraining with me for 20 years.
00;57;07;11 - 00;57;24;26
Unknown
And so the first part of that was, building an app that could deliver that. And the second part was not just having it be here's exercises. Yes, there's exercises with all the, you know, videos explains, here's what you do, here's how you do it, and here's your reps and sets and how to track and all that stuff.

(43:00):
00;57;24;26 - 00;57;39;27
Unknown
Here's how you track nutrition. That's great. The other part of it is if if I'm training you, Mark, I'm probably spending as much, if not more time educating you than I am actually counting reps or doing any of the other stuff. And so I want to be able to teach you all the things we've been talking about now.
00;57;39;27 - 00;58;01;09
Unknown

(43:25):
And so what I did is over the I have my, my little notebook that I kept next to me while I was training people for almost two years. And I write down what are all the things that I keep saying and teaching people. And then what I did is I shot over 100 short video lessons that are anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes on recovery, on, hot and cold on, you know, cardiovascular conditioning and all these things.
00;58;01;09 - 00;58;16;16
Unknown
And I have all those lessons available to you that are kind of spoon fed to you throughout the process. So you're getting this education. So I want to have it to the point where, you know, kind of the the proverb, I want to not just feed your fish. I want to teach you how to fish and teach you how to take care of yourself.
00;58;16;16 - 00;58;31;13

(43:50):
Unknown
And so that's what the process is. And all along the way, how do I also deliver the assessment piece to make sure it's dialed in for you. And so that's where I created that belt system to say okay, here's a test. See if you can do and tell me where you fall on this test. Here's a movement test.
00;58;31;13 - 00;58;46;29
Unknown
If you can't do these movements, not only here's the exercises that you're going to do alternates for, but here's a program. If you can't touch your toes, well, there's a program built in there for if you can't touch your toes, do this every day until you can't touch your toes and so I wanted to make it as comprehensive an experience as possible.

(44:15):
00;58;46;29 - 00;59;19;08
Unknown
So it replicated what I had been successful doing in person for 25 years. That's pretty awesome. That's impressive. So yeah, that's impressive. Carly, you're going to say something. Yeah, I was going to. Unless you have another question. I was going to ask people how they could find out more about Eric and all the things he does and where to get this ageless athlete blueprint, because it sounds amazing from so, so there's so the easiest way is you just go go to my website and it's my name, it's Eric Eric D’Agati
00;59;19;10 - 00;59;48;21
Unknown

(44:40):
And then on there you'll have all the information. And in there you'll find out about Eternal athletics, which is the arm of, of my, hands on coaching. There are my, my virtual coaching you're talking about. And then I also have a couple things you know, we talked about power. I have an ageless power program that's on there you can get for free, where it kind of gives you a step by step over the course of anywhere from, you know, I recommend 6 to 12 weeks how you can start to integrate certain power movements into your workouts gradually over time, and give you the reps and sets and the exercise and so forth.
00;59;48;21 - 01;00;07;22
Unknown
And then there's also I mentioned VO2 Max, there's a little mini course on VO2 Max and how you can test that yourself and some metrics and some, you know, methods you can do to try to improve that. And then from there, if, you know, if it's something that you think you need, might a little more help with, well, that's where, you know, you can just book a free strategy session with me and kind of figure out where you're at, where you need to be.
01;00;07;22 - 01;00;24;13

(45:05):
Unknown
And, and if I can be the person how to get there. You know, those strategy sessions. People don't realize how valuable they are. You get through one limiting belief. You know, you have that moment and something that you could have been struggling with for the next ten years. You could literally just break through that. Those things are so powerful.
01;00;24;13 - 01;00;42;20
Unknown
So this was a strategy session for me, Eric. It was I am going to go back. He got his top man. I'm behind the gym. Eric, I've been going through the motions. I'm going to test and see where I'm at and make sure I'm improving, add more power and, definitely be sharing this message. Eric, is there anything we didn't ask you that you'd like to share with our audience?

(45:30):
01;00;42;23 - 01;01;10;15
Unknown
No, just I would say, you know, going back to what Marc said and the most important thing that, you know, as coaches and trainers that I on the other side where I teach coaches and trainers is that, you know, empowering people in this demographic is reminding them you're not broken, right? You're not broken. There's there's lots of things that you're capable of and can do, you know, and so I truly believe that there's a lot of powerful things that you can do.
01;01;10;17 - 01;01;26;22
Unknown

(45:55):
We just this is the first real our generation, the first real generation to kind of test those waters. You know, I look back at pictures of our parents or grandparents. They didn't think of doing any of the stuff. They just assumed after 50, you and you just you're on the back nine and let it slide. And gardening was the extent of it.
01;01;26;22 - 01;01;56;23
Unknown
So you were the first generation that's refusing to take that. But we don't know quite what to do with that. That's okay. There's people like myself that can help you with that. But first you need to to accept that that identity is not who you need to be, right, that you are not broken. It is number one. And number two is that, there's a lot of things that comes out of you feeling powerful in terms of how that's going to, you know, and the first side mom was telling you, your mind is going to drive your body.
01;01;56;23 - 01;02;15;12

(46:20):
Unknown
And on the flip side, it goes the other way, too. The more powerful I fear, what it takes away is what a lot of people that I wish I could, if I could take away one thing from from our generation and above, is fear, is that you shouldn't be scared to go up and down stairs. You shouldn't be scared to get down on the ground and get back up.
01;02;15;12 - 01;02;30;03
Unknown
You shouldn't be scared that oh, I can't. Do you know how many guys I talked to be like, hey, you want to come play baseball with me now? I can do that. I kill me, I blow out my shoulder, I do whatever I'm like. I have zero fear of that, I have none. I'm stealing second base the second you lift your leg.

(46:45):
01;02;30;05 - 01;02;51;08
Unknown
I have no fear. I'm sliding to second base. Yeah, I donated some skin to the infield this weekend, but I have no fear that I'm going to that I don't. I'm not going to get up from this and I can't wait to do it again. And that's a very empowering thing to lose that fear. And so the two sides, you're not broken and, and and please don't keep going through life scared.
01;02;51;08 - 01;03;11;03
Unknown

(47:10):
It's a really lousy way to go through life. You know, Kelly spoke very highly of you. And one of the things I noticed and just talking to you is this is not everybody gets. You know, a lot of people know the mechanics of moving people. But mindset, which I believe is probably 100% you definitely, definitely 100.
01;03;11;03 - 01;03;30;03
Unknown
And this is not stroking your ego. This is the truth. You get the mindset behind moving people. And it's a pleasure. Pleasure to see and align with somebody like yourself, man. So, appreciate you participating in this day thing today. And hopefully, you can help some of our, our old folks trying to be young here at fit over 50 life.
01;03;30;03 - 01;03;55;17

(47:35):
Unknown
So, for sure we all get old. We don't have to be old. That's right. That's a great good hashtag. I love that, Eric. Very inspiring. Just encourage our audience with your not only the science base, but the practical and just really incredible information that's useful. Everyone go to his website Eric to goddard.com, check out the programs, get a lot of great free resources there.
01;03;55;17 - 01;04;18;03
Unknown
And definitely the men should check out the Ageless Athlete Blueprint and take advantage of those resources. Thank you so much Eric. Thank you very much. Thanks, Eric. Thanks everybody, for your two biggest commodities, your time and your attention. We appreciate it. We'll see you on the next episode.