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

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
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 MikeJames, a freelance writer and
speaker with over 30 years ofinternational experience
managing leading corporatefitness programs in Australia

(00:25):
and in Washington DC with theWorld Bank Group.
I am joined by my fellowMusketeers, the Right Honourable
Dr Richard Kennedy, aninternist who has over 30 years
of clinical experience,including the World Bank
Clinical Service and privatepractice.
Welcome, Richard.
Thank you.

(00:46):
Kettle Heide, an economistwhose 35 years of experience
includes 24 years with the IMFand a focus on the vital
interplay between wellness,society and organisational
dynamics.
Welcome, kettle.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hey, welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
And last but not least, of course, our leader,
david Liss, a DC-basedjournalist and media
professional.
Welcome Wellness Musketeers andlisteners to a special episode
focused on everything you needto be discussing exercise and
recovery techniques, musclebreakdown, sleep and finding the

(01:28):
right intensity for yourtraining.
We'll also be sharing experttips on how to start an exercise
program and figuring out thebest approach, whether it's
high-intensity workouts ortaking long walks every day.
Additionally, we'll delve intorecent research on resting heart
rates, avoiding injury andoptimizing your health and

(01:49):
fitness routine.
But before we begin, pleaseremember to subscribe wherever
you listen to this wonderfulpodcast and while you're there,
please also leave a five-starreviews.
Five-star reviews do amazingthings for the podcast and
enable us to keep bringing youall the different gurus in

(02:09):
health and wellness space andexplain to you all the different
ways you can live your bestlife.
And with that, here's ourconversation on exercise and
recovery.
And I guess, our third questionto start the ball rolling, I'll
ask Dr Kennedy this one Rightfrom the outset.

(02:31):
For, say, someone who hasn'tbeen exercising regularly and it
might have been 20, 30 yearsbefore they've exercised might
be just for some reason beenexercising regularly.
What are the first steps theyshould take to start a program.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Thanks for that question, mike.
That's actually a prettyimportant question, partly
because if people start toexercise again, one of the
things that typically happensthey try to start off with a
last exercise, so they'llremember when they were last fit
, last exercise.
So they'll remember when theywere last fit.
It might have been 20 years ago, 15 years ago, when basically

(03:10):
they were this superior athleteand they make the assumption I
did it once.
Let me try it before.
But as we get older, our bodieschange.
But as we get older, our bodieschange.
The things that are reallyimportant is to have a meeting
with your primary care doctor.

(03:30):
You might also talk with yourcardiologist if you have heart
issues.
You may also need to have adiscussion with your orthopedist
.
If you have issues with yourjoints and your bone.
You meet with them so that theycan do an assessment of where
you are now, where you are inthat static state, and they can

(04:01):
then give you some simpleguidance on how to start.
Paramount and Clear to this daystart slow, go slow and build
up gradually and listen to yourbody.
And I think that's the onething to take away from that
question is you need somebody togive you some guidance as to

(04:22):
where you are right now, whereyou should start, because the
exercise routine you might wantto start might not be the one
that is best for you.
So it's better to startsomewhere which is safe, because
the more you can do thingssafely, the more likely you are
to continue the exercise.

(04:46):
One person, I guess about morethan 30 years ago, when I had my
practice in New York City andthe guy was a basketball player
but he also ran track and heused to.
Back then they didn't call itthe 100 meters, they used to
call it the 100-yard dash, andso he had an exercise.

(05:09):
He had probably from the weightthat he was when he was fit and
participating in those athleticendeavors.
He probably put on 70-pluspounds endeavors.
He probably put on 70 pluspounds.
And you know, and what happenedis he said okay, you know what,

(05:31):
I'm going on this family, I'mgoing on this family outing.
They're going to get together.
The guys would decide and theywere going to go two hoops, they
were going to run full court.
He ran three times down thecourt completely towards

(05:51):
Achilles' tent and, of course,in retrospect, when we talked
about it, he said, you know, Ididn't warm up like I would
normally warm up, I didn'tstretch.
I'd had several beers before westarted.
Not a good start.
The young guys were telling himhe was old, he couldn't do it

(06:16):
and so his ego got in the wayand basically, yes.
So the lesson of that is he wentthrough surgery and physical
therapy and all of that, andalso the fact that he kind of
needed to lose a whole lotbecause the joints that he was
walking on now were carrying alot more upstairs, and so it

(06:40):
taught him that, and so he cameback 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 wantto do anything else, and that
was fine.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
It worked out perfectly well for him so, yeah,
I just happened to know afriend of mine as well and this
is actually some time ago and wewere quite young and we want to
start playing squash and thefirst thing that happened was
they kill us, yes, and then Ialso started running a little
bit, and then, of course, themuscle starts.
It was not as careless, but atsome stage you just feel this

(07:19):
like the muscles giving away.
Oh yeah, I don't know what it'scalled, and that sets you back
some time and then you build itup.
But it's a typical thing isthat you start with the new
thing and it doesn't need to bea law.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
And then suddenly, you know, the body gives away.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yeah, there's no question about that.
What related to that?
I read this article that talkedabout how when there's a
snowstorm, people think I've gotto shovel everything now and if
they were going to do a sportproperly, they would warm up,
they would stretch, they wouldtake breaks, they would hydrate.
But they figure I've got to getall this done and they haven't
maybe moved for the last sixmonths or a year before and then
they go and they get a heartattack or they fall and they

(08:04):
rupture their Achilles or allkinds of horrible things.
But you should approachactivities of daily life like
you would a sport as well.
I think was the point.
I don't know how you considerthat or advise people about that
kind of thing as well.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Well, it absolutely is true.
I think part of it is, when youthink about it.
If we're just using shovelingsnow, most of us don't shovel
snow for a living and we don'tdo it year-round.
It's seasonal, depending onwhere you are in the world.
You can get away with it.

(08:40):
The shoveling snow 10 years agois going to be very different
than shoveling snow in 10 yearsand further down the line.
When you're not the same,you're just not the same person.
And the first thing, it's hardfor us to understand our

(09:03):
morbidity and mortality, and wedon't really start to understand
it until we start to ache, hurtor come up with other things.
Prevention is always betterbecause we always remember where
we used to be, where we had nolimitation, where we had much
less limit.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Also, I think it's interesting that a lot of the
injuries start around that calfand achilles area, and that's
even for conditioned athleteswhen they're coming back.
It's almost like the link inthe chain.
It seems to be the, the weakpoint.
I've noticed that a lot, andwhat I always used to say to
folks that it happened to whenthey're coming back to an
exercise program, as I say well,that's nature's way of giving

(09:45):
you a warning.
It could have been a hell of alot worse.
That's a way of the body sayinghey, rest up, otherwise, if it
ignores that, it could be yourheart, it could be something
more serious.
I mean, I have nothing in wayof research to back that up, but
that's the way I've looked atit.

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 aboutthinking 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 weget, it doesn't get much smaller
and we tend to think that wecan 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 theysay come on, come on yes, oh
yeah.
I've heard this so many times.
Oh, yes, well, yeah, if youhave 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 oldfriends.
You haven't seen them in awhile and they start reminding
you of who you used to be, andthe beers and the alcohol
basically help you plus your ego, because your ego's probably

(11:07):
standing taller than even thealcoholic.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
I had an interesting anecdote from many years ago.
I'll try and keep it as briefas I can.
I attended a conference oncardiovascular health in
Australia back in the mid-80sand there were a number of top
cardiac surgeons there and alsoresearch doctors and we had
lunch with them and they saidthat they almost had a good

(11:30):
prescription for a male in hismid-40s to get a heart attack.
They said because, if youremember, 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 fitnesscenters at that point.
Yeah, and so consequently, youhad the type A stressed
individual who hadn't exercisedfor years got in there and ran
around in a heated environment,competitive juices flowing,
stretching doing squash is sucha 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 potsof beer, instant recipe for a
heart attack.
And they said that there was.
That was a recipe.
If it didn't follow all ofthose ingredients, three
quarters of them were alwaysthere when that happened because
there was great spike in heartattack or heart-related events

(12:23):
at that time.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Oh yeah, and that actually leads us to the next
question.
Sure, which are, what are theessential components of exercise
and recovery for optimal fit?

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Okay.
Well, that can be easilysummarized using the acronym FIT
, but with F-I-T-T, and I'll gothrough each of those.
It is for frequency.
When we're talking aboutfrequency, there we're looking
at cardio, and I mean aerobicfitness and strength or
resistance training.
With cardio fitness, generalrule of thumb, that it should be

(13:00):
at least three times a week,and for strength, and it should
be at least three times a week.
And for strength, it should beat least two times a week.
We'll talk about intensity andtime as we go along, but that's
the general broad brush trackCardio, at least three times a
week.
Strength, again two to threetimes a week.
That's at its bare sort ofminimum.

(13:26):
Now, in terms of the next one,that's frequency, intensity,
we'll talk a little bit moreabout the actual formula in
terms of heart rates.
I'm going to keep it to thebasics at this point and use the
old advice that's been handeddown throughout the years
Sometimes that's bogus advice,but this time I think it's good
is to employ what's called thetalk test in terms of intensity.

(13:48):
Now, if you're walking orjogging and dr kennedy asked me
how I am, and although I mightbe 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 mehow are you feeling, mike and
I'm, I can't talk.

(14:08):
It's probably too intense.
Yeah, okay, but that's a goodrule of thumb.
I think that's good to knowbecause not all of us are
data-driven.
There's a preponderance ofexternal age and indicators this
day and age with Apple Watchesand so forth, which are
ubiquitous, but it's good tobear it down to its basics.

(14:29):
I know my wife exercises everyday at four in the morning.
She never uses a watch oranything like that, she just
goes by the basics and it worksfine by her.
So that's intensity, and againI'll talk about specifics in
terms of heart rate a littlelater.
Address that For time we'retalking.
Recommended by American ACSM,american College of Sports

(14:52):
Medicine and other institutionsis that it should be at least
150 minutes of medium intensityexercise a week, no matter how
you break that up into sessions,150 minutes or 75 minutes of
high intensity exercise andagain we'll talk more specifics

(15:14):
on intensities later.
But that's the time factor andtype.
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 majormuscle groups of the body.
Now let me go back to intensityfor weight training, because I

(15:35):
skipped that.
That should be intense enoughthat the last one or two
repetitions if you're doingeight repetitions or ten it it
should elicit a little bit of aresponse.
It should be tough.
It shouldn't be soexcruciatingly tough that it's
causing you to have a hernia.
So the last one or tworepetitions should elicit a

(15:58):
little bit of strain or astrength response.
That's the only way you willget stronger.
So that's where we go to timeand now type we talked about
large muscle groups and.
But the most important thing gotto be enjoyable, got to be fun.
If it's not something you cando all the time or go back to
with a bit of joy and relish,you're going to be one of these

(16:19):
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 agreea lot with the.
The fun part of it, yeah I youknow, I I was, I grew up I
didn't do much exercise, so I'mactually a little bit like I
started doing exercise when Iwas late, when I started getting

(16:50):
older, and the first point wasreally a stress release.
I used to have a stress release, and not necessarily large
intensity, and I built it upwith focusing on things that are
fun.
So I did like martial arts andstuff like that, things that I
found fun.
So I think that's useful.
I have a question, though soI'm also getting older,

(17:13):
unfortunately.
Some people say I should startworking muscles, more strength
training.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, strength training is recommended.
But I noticed also, knowing youkettle, 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 aweight training fashion, but
that is resistance training.
Yeah, you're working againstsomeone else's resistance,
you're working and moving,working and moving.
And you know I have somearguments with my exercise
physiology friends, thisdefinition, but I maintain that

(17:49):
type of exercise, as well asboxing training, hitting heavy
bags, hitting speed bags, thingslike that, that is, in effect,
resistance training that willmake you stronger.
You only have to look at theathletes who do that to look at
their muscular hypertrophy.
You know you don't get thatsitting in a bar drinking beers.

(18:09):
I mean that is resistancetraining.
So you are doing some.
I mean, would it help you to doa little bit more of a specific
weight training?
Sure, I mean it would alsoalways help, but you're not a
wimp by any means Kettle.
So you're obviously doing someform of resistance training
there.
Does that answer?

Speaker 2 (18:27):
your question.
I mean, actually it is truethat 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 mymuscle.
I actually I could show you, Imean it looks much better than
it looked like 10 years ago, sixpack fully.

(18:51):
But it's really like it's amystery.
And it seems like a mysterybecause I don't do strength
training, but it really helped.
Yes, absolutely because one ofthe things that also happens
when you you grow older is thatthe skin gets loose.
That's not only about havingstrength, but you also want to
make sure that the muscle fillsand the fascia and all works

(19:11):
together.
That probably takes a quitecomplex training to do it.
If you do something likeJiu-Jitsu, which is very
involved, I'm not reallythinking everybody can do that,
but I would actually advocate itfor older people, as long as
you're safe.
But similar things.
It can be similar things whenyou use the whole body against

(19:34):
distance, against different bodyweight resistance.
In a playful way, in a playfulrespectful 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 TaiChi?

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Tai Chi is great for balance in the sense of strength
, for a balance through themajor muscle groups, because
you're moving in a rhythmicalfashion.

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'reafter, but it's probably not
something you prescribe toreally 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 countedresistance 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 Ifyou like riches and you're going
in the sand trap all the time.
I mean you might get someresistance.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
There's a little bit of a.
I mean, they all have someresistance, but I do Tai Chi as
well, so I know how Tai.
Chi feels relatively to J Jitsu.
In a way it all comes from thesame martial art place but it's
very different to have a hundredpound guy on top of you trying
to crush you and submit you andactually just trying to push him

(20:58):
off, or her and actually doingthe Tai Chi movements.
But on Tai Chi I think therehas been some actually ongoing
research, I think at harvard,about when you age.
That can be very helpful forother things and it has to do
with balance, has to do yeah,definitely the balance for the
nation and and I know for myfamily, they, when you actually

(21:21):
started 80 it can be really hardand 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 thiswill never happen to you.
So in the end you know you haveto use your body.
I mean, in the end it's thesame thing.
People don't walk, so theyforget to walk.

Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yes, something where they talk about that there's a
relationship between gripstrength and a decreased risk of
dementia.
I don't understand therelationship.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Well, I have read that they've also said grip
strength and longevity in theterms of it, makes activities of
daily living, which isparticularly important for folks
with Parkinson's and those sortof conditions.
It just makes life a lot easierfor them getting up out of bed,
doing the things that you takefor granted, opening a bottle of

(22:16):
whatever it might be.
Grip strength is something wetake for granted, but whether
you can drawing that long bowbetween that and dementia, I'm
not sure that's for people moreeducated than me, but definitely
is a factor in activities ofdaily 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 thegreen zone is that these people
not only eat well, but theynever stop using their bodies.
Yes, they make things.
They do things in the garden,in the farm, whatever.
They're always active and theirgrip strength will be strong.
I mean, what's the cause andeffect here is probably very

(23:01):
hard to say.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
But let me just close on that too.
I'll just reiterate a couple ofthings, though.
Guys.
The beauty of strength training, of course, in terms of weight
training, is that you can seethe progressive strength gain
much more readily.
I mean, I've been doingshoulder presses, started off at
30, now I'm up to 55.
I mean that's easily measurable, easily seeable, whereas

(23:24):
kettle's jiu-jitsu he'll noticeit 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 andhe's much younger and he can
submit you and whatever.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Yeah and the fun aspect.
I always look to what theSwedish did.
I think it's the Swedish kettle.
I know it's from your neck ofthe woods the fartlek training.
It's exactly as it's spelledF-A-R-T-L-E-K, which is speed
play which incorporates runningor anything you're doing, a fun
element.
So less structure, more fun.

(23:57):
Fartlek training was a bigproponent from the Swedish
systems over the years when theydominated the distance running
and endurance events in theOlympics.
Okay, so any questions?
I think that covers the FITacronym.
Let's move on a little bit nowand let's look at how important
is sleep for overall recoveryand performance.

(24:19):
Dr K, any comments on that?

Speaker 3 (24:24):
I don't have any scientific thing, but from
experience and talking to mypatients, that when they and
I'll say this about sleep ingeneral that the ideal sleep
time period for most peopleshould be six and a half to

(24:45):
eight hours a day or a night,and what that does is and if you
think about it, whatever we doduring the course of a 24-hour
day, our muscles, whateveractivity if you're opening a jar
, if you're carrying a bag, ifyou're pushing something, if

(25:06):
you're doing an exercise, you'recarrying a bag, if you're
pushing something, if you'redoing an exercise those muscles
need time to recover.
And what happens when you restand you sleep well, particularly
if you don't have sleep apneayou're getting adequate amount
of oxygen into all of the cellsof the body.
And what happens when weexercise of any kind?

(25:31):
Muscles, in order to get bigger,have to break down.
They have to literally tear sothat they can build up.
And that's what normallyhappens.
And most of that recoveryhappens when you're increasing
the amount of oxygen intake intothe individual muscle fibers so

(25:53):
that they can replenish butalso so that you can flush out
the waste of the day of themuscle activity.
So sleep is like it is foralmost everything.
It's critical.
It helps us with our alertness,it helps us with our attention
span, but it allows our musclestime to recover from the

(26:18):
activity that we went throughduring 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 intosleep and yesterday I did go to
Jiu-Jitsu and I slept very wellbecause I needed it and I had
even a nap.
One thing I have been,especially in my retirement
years, increasingly aware of isthe importance of REM sleep,
rapid eye movement sleep, andthat's also because and I think

(27:09):
I've been reading up on it, butthat is really important for the
psychological recovery and ifyou think about it, you actually
go through scenarios, you gothrough things in the sleep,
which is also important for ifyou actually do some kind of
coordination exercises, that isimportant, which even is

(27:30):
something like walking, which isalso important coordination and
can be very hard over the years.
I wonder if you have anycomments 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 ofthe deep sleep and so when we
get to a deep sleep is when ourbody, technically, is most
relaxed.
And if you just sort ofextrapolate from what being most

(28:04):
relaxed does, what beingrelaxed does, anything that
allows the body to relaxincreases what we call the VO2
or the oxygenation of the body,and it's why they want people to

(28:32):
get more of the REM sleep,because it's why people tend to.
They say and I don't know ifthis is completely accurate, but
the belief is people who havethe deeper REM sleep are the
ones less likely to have issueswith memory issues as time goes
on.
But I would say that we reallyneed to talk more with the sleep
specialists about to get aclearer clarification, because

(28:53):
I'm not absolutely sure ifthat's completely accurate, but
it's just from what I've readover the years.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
But I think.
But also we talked aboutquality of sleep, one of the
things people use a lot ofsleeping pills.
Alcohol affects sleep as wellas does weed or THC, and I've
been also looking at that, asthere's some indication that all
of these reduce REM sleep.
So you sleep, maybe you sleepeight hours, but you don't get

(29:24):
the same type of sleep, sothat'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 outfor at least.
Yeah, I'm not completely surethat it's for sure way out of my
wheelhouse.
Okay, okay, interestingdiscussion there, guys.
Another topic that comes up DrKennedy talked there about
muscle breakdown occurringduring exercise and importance
of sleep.
What about some of the otherbest strategies for recovery?
If you've had a heavy session ofexercise, I'll take this one

(29:58):
and refer you to another acronym.
I love those acronyms.
I worked at the World Bank forthat 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, ifyou've had something very
intense, for instance, like Idid an orange theory class the

(30:19):
other day, familiar with that,that's high intensity aerobic
exercise general principle is,the next day should do something
, if not total rest, somethingthat's different, maybe a bit of
strength training or somethingof a lot less intensity.
Again, that's a good exercisefolklore that's been handed down
through the ages.
It's pretty appropriate.
I think you rest between heavysessions.

(30:43):
You might get away with thatwhen you're younger, but as you
get older you do need toalternate the intensity with
rest, or at least somethingdifferent as part of the
recovery process.
Next one is ice.
Now that's an interesting one.
Ice is used particularly ifthere's injury occurs, where you
place ice in a cloth or somesort of material or a plastic

(31:08):
bag or whatever it is, and placeit on the skin if you have a
contusion and so forth, and thenyou can press and then elevate
the body part.
But it's also been shown to bea great way to decrease muscle
inflammation and there's lots ofuse of ice baths these days and
in fact in sports likeAustralian rules, football, no

(31:28):
matter what, and it's played inwinter, no matter what weather
it is.
The next day they have theplayers go out into the seawater
and wade in seawater no matterwhat the temperature in their
speedos, get out there anddespite all the complaints, they
find that it decreases softtissue injuries by about 30% to

(31:48):
40%.
Wow, because of the use of ice,coldness and something to do
with the seawater which escapesme a little bit on that.
Yeah, so ice and ice baths arebecoming more and more popular.
Ice immersion as well.
Compression and elevation Imentioned that a little bit as
well.
Compression and elevation Imentioned that a little bit

(32:11):
specifically.
If it's an injury.
You put an ice bag, say, onyour thigh if you have a thigh
contusion, and then you elevatethe body part.
And the last one is massage.
I was a massage therapist forfour or five years in Australia
and that's a great way to helpin recovery.
It just helps rid the muscle oftoxins and lactic acid helps
you relax and just de-stress,especially the areas around the

(32:36):
calves, the quads, upper backand so forth.
Massage done correctly is agreat way to recover.
So that's a good acronym toremember 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'sgoing to affect my acronym, but
yeah, that's high RISCIM.
Yeah, definitely, that's a goodpoint.
Absolutely, yeah, definitely,that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Absolutely.
I have a question on differenttypes of soreness.
Yes, having done a fair amountof exercise, I think I've always
been struggling with sorenessin some way or another.
I mean, they say it's okay theday after, but sometimes it's
kind of lasting longer, right,then you're trying to take a

(33:32):
different type of making,magnesium or whatever that can
help somewhat, but still it'sthere and is the body trying to
tell you different things, andwhat 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 throughthe ages.
I think it's pretty effective.
Don't know if it's totallyscientifically proven, but some
sort of sauna is given up toabout 48 hours.
After 48 hours you start tothink, and especially if it's

(34:05):
joint-related and it restrictsmovement say the elbows, your
knees, back or so forth, whereit really impinges on your
movement, with pain as differentfrom just soreness, as a sharp
shooting pain, and definitely ifthere's referred pain, if
there's pain running down backof your leg pain or something

(34:26):
like that, or pain radiatingfrom your elbow down to your
fingers, that is not just musclesoreness.
Dr K, can you comment on that?

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, I'd agree.
Soreness is just that, meansthat the body part you feel it
when you move, you feel themaneuvers that you were doing
before the soreness happened.

(34:55):
You tend not to feel themuscles If you're lifting a
weight or if you're walking orif you're jogging or if you're
doing a resistance thing.
You don't feel it when you'redoing it, but the day after,
maybe two days after thosemuscles and part of it again, I
think it's a reflection of themuscles breaking down and

(35:19):
building back up and so there'san amount of inflammation in
there and inflammation is goingto and remember all along your
muscle fibers.
You have nerves running throughthem and so many times you're
overstimulating those nerves andso you get.

(35:41):
When it's minor, you get soreneck.
When it's more significant, youget pain or even worse,
sometimes you'll get numbnessdistant from the place where the
injury is.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
How do you decide when?
Something means you need tostop 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 Irefer back to Dave is, over time
you'll get to know, once youget to know your body, what's
pain and what's soreness.
And I think if there'ssomething that is a really sharp
pain that absolutely stops youmoving, stops you taking a step,

(36:28):
that your knee and swellingwill obviously be a sign of that
, Something that really impingeson your movement more than just
soreness.
You know you'll get typicalsoreness walking up a set of
stairs, your legs ache a littlebit or something like that.
But if you're absolutelyrestricted in movement and
there's sharp shooting pain orreferable pain, referring pain

(36:52):
down the body part, that'sdefinitely 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 theactivity that caused it.
But they decided they're justnot going to go see a doctor
about this pain that stuck withthem.
They've stopped doing theweightlifting but they tell them
the pain whenever they take astep 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 understandingtheir body, that if you,
particularly if you've beendoing an activity for a while,
you kind of have learned whatsort what's pain, you kind of

(37:46):
learn that typically for me ittakes two to three days after I
do this particular activity formy body not to feel the
discomfort anymore.
It goes beyond that and or youget additional discomforts and

(38:06):
or pain, then that means youneed to have somebody take a
look at it at least, because youcould have done more damage
than you thought.
And it may not just be thatit's just muscles that are
trying to break down and buildback up.
But maybe you tore something.

(38:27):
Maybe you know it's easier whenit happens suddenly trying to
break down and build back up.
But maybe you tore something.
Maybe you know it's easier whenit happens sudden, like what
happened watching the Olympicsthe other day in the 200-meter
final, or rather the 200-meterheat, one of the guys they were
running down and maybe 50 metersin, you could see that

(38:50):
gentleman pulled up and stoppedimmediately because his
hamstring tore and heimmediately stopped, and so that
in and of itself tells him thefact that he couldn't push
through, because that's theother thing soreness.
Sometimes you can push througha little sword, yeah, you can

(39:14):
push through mild pain, but youcan't do it when you damage it,
unless you have again.
There's some people who havereally 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, ifyou'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 ofheart attack.

(39:57):
Heart ability, dr K, would youcomment on that?

Speaker 3 (40:02):
Like people can do an exercise and be short of breath
and winded, where they can'treally have a conversation.
But if you rest it, you know,in short order you get your
breath back but you're nothaving pain.
You know most people are havingheart attacks.

(40:23):
We're gonna, as they, as manyof them, will describe to you.
It is a pain unlike anythingthey've ever had before.
And so now there are people whowill ignore that because they,
you know, I just have to do this.
One last thing before I go andcheck it out and if, if it gets

(40:45):
better, they'll say, ah, I'llcheck it out later.
But there are some things thatwon't let you.
The body is really, really goodat warning you that something's
wrong.
You just have to be honest withwhat you know your body is,

(41:06):
because it's your body.
You've carried it with you theentire time you've been on this
earth.
So one could think you can'tignore 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 wasexperiencing chest pain.
Playing table tennis, of allthings, was experiencing a chest
pain and pain radiating down tohis elbow, his fingers, and he
was one of these old, irasciblesort of fellows who I'll be all
right, I'll be all right.
And fortunately my boss wasequally irascible and said no,

(41:42):
you're not, we're taking you tothe bloody hospital, old fool.
And he proceeded to have aheart attack about an hour later
under some of the bloody oldfool.
And he proceeded to have aheart attack about an hour later
under some of the best surgeonsin Australia Good place to have
a heart attack.
From my understanding, theycouldn'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 andhere, I've seen and Dr Kennedy
will remember one caseunbeknownst to us.
The person had beenexperiencing those pains for
quite some time and passed awayon 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 aperson figure out if they should
pursue a high-intensity programor stick to something like long

(42:43):
walks every day?
Well, I would say the funfactor is a big thing there.
It's what you enjoy.
You're going to stick with it alot better than something you
don't.
Now, also, in terms of pursuingsomething a bit more high
intensity, I think the importantthing is and we'll touch on it
a bit later as well is justknowing your baseline a little

(43:06):
bit, knowing what your baselineis whether it's walking, lifting
and so forth and seeing how youprogress.
Now, that may entail getting apersonal trainer to help you
monitor that so that you don'toverdo it straight away.
And then you can progressgradually and we'll talk about
different measures like the12-minute walk-run test and so

(43:29):
forth.
But it's important at thatpoint just to know what you
enjoy but also know yourbaseline and progress slowly.
And general rule of thumb therein terms of sit, if you're
talking walking, maybe runningno more than about 5% in terms
of distance or speed per week.

(43:49):
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, youmight 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

(44:11):
rather than going from one mileand doubling it the next week.
You're taking it casually, moreaggressively, less likelihood
of injury and more likelihoodthat 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 inexercise, recovery and tailoring
your exercise program or yourexercise regimen?
Let me give you a quick formulahere, and this is just the
basic one, because it's a littlecomplicated to go through all

(44:48):
the different rations.
But generally speaking, we'relooking at a formula that uses
these sort of figures andthere's lots of formulas out
there, but this is the basic onethey're all derived from.
It's called the Carp Vernonformula and it's 220, which is
taken to be the maximum heartrate for a human being, 220

(45:13):
minus your age.
So say, if you're 50 years ofage like young David might be
there 220 minus your age givesyou 170.
Now does Dave, when heexercises, want to get up to 170
each time to his maximal heartrate?
No, definitely not.
Definitely he's not starting.
He wants to work in withinabout 50% to 70% of that 170.

(45:38):
Now that will be a range ofabout I think it's about 85 to
120, 125 beats a minute,something along that range.
And if he can work within thatlevel he's getting a beneficial
training effect from hisexercise.
It's not too slow, it's not tooextensive, it's not too intense

(46:01):
.
Now there's lots of differentways you can use that formula
and they take into account yourresting heart rate.
I'll discuss in a second, but alittle bit difficult to explain
unless you've got a clipboardin front of you or a blackboard
where I can go through all thedifferent equations.
Suffice to say, what we'll do,listeners, is add a little

(46:21):
YouTube video that I've donethat explains that formula a
little more in depth when wetake into account your resting
heart rate.
Now what's the significance ofresting heart rate?
Generally speaking, yourresting heart rate is an
indication of the strength ofyour heart at rest and how it
pumps and extrudes muscles,blood to the working muscles.

(46:42):
The average resting heart rateis between 60 to 72, taken to be
between 60 to 72.
You'll usually find people whoare well-conditioned will have
it significantly lower than thatKettle 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 agood indication of your level
of fitness and there are variousformulas that bring that into
the equation so that you have amore specific target heart range
.
And again, without getting toocomplicated at this point, we'll

(47:21):
refer to a YouTube video I'vedone that looks at the four
different ranges of exerciseintensity.
Have any questions on that,guys?
It's very broad, I must say.
I'm sorry, I'm going to be morespecific 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 ofsense.
We in medicine typically wouldsay that the normal heart rate
for an average adult can be from60 to 90 beats a minute.
Now, but you take into accountthat there are people who have

(48:01):
different comorbidities.
So they may have hypertension,they have asthma, they may have
diabetes, they may be morbidlyobese, they may have kidney
issues, etc.
They may be anemic.
All of these things will affectthe resting heart rate of an
individual.

(48:39):
I learned in medical school isthat we used to say that if you
wanted to assess the size of aperson's heart, you always would
say tell that person to make afist and typically that's the
size of your heart.
Now, if you're a person who'smore fit by default, so if you
take one of the like most ofthese people in the Olympics,
who are these athletes who workout four or five times a week,
or professional footballer,soccer, their heart rates are I

(49:05):
mean, their hearts are probablytwo or three times that size.
So, for instance, kettle'sheart rate of 45, his heart is
probably at least half a sizebigger than what his fist would
be.
And that's because, by defaultwhen you exercise regularly.
The heart is a muscle.

(49:25):
Regularly, the harder themuscle it's no different than
your biceps or your triceps oryour hamstrings or your thighs
the more you work it, the biggerthe muscle will get, because
that muscle, that is the onemuscle of the body whose main
function is to send circulationand nutrients to the entire body

(49:49):
.
So it has to get bigger andthat's why you look at, take
most of the marathon.
Most of the marathoners arewalking 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 amountin order to do the job, to send
blood everywhere.
Versus you take a person whohas heart failure or who's had
multiple heart attacks.
That person's resting heartrate might be 100, 110 on a
regular basis, because theirmuscle is weaker, because it's

(50:32):
not pumping with the same andthis again becomes the argument
because it's the one muscle ofthe body that can't stop and
still be here.
Why we need to exerciseregularly to strengthen.

Speaker 4 (50:49):
Does that mean that if you have a higher resting
heart rate, does that meanyou're at a greater risk of
death?

Speaker 3 (50:57):
Not necessarily.
No.
No, it's more function, thatyou'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, Ithink, dr K, correct Absolutely,
I must say, my genetics myfolks all had, I think I've got
this straight from my folks.
Even when I haven't been veryfit at all, I had quite a low
resting heart rate and mybrothers are the same.
But alternatively, you rememberDavid Vincent who worked with
us in the fitness center.

(51:32):
I think you knew him, dave, andyou knew him, dr K.
Yeah, he had a resting heartrate of about 75, but he was as
fit as a fiddle.
Yes, that's right, he was aspin instructor.
So it's not necessarily.
It's usually a good indication,but there's always outliers.
And that brings me to theactual formula.
It is a formula but it doesn'tfit every single person.

(51:55):
I've seen many people, twoother folks who work for me,
arben and Marty.
Yes, hello, arben, hello Marty.
They can get their heart ratesup very, very high, close to
their maximal well, theirtheoretical maximal, according
to that formula and suffer nodistress at all.
And Arvind was so high heactually went and saw a

(52:15):
cardiologist, had a maximalstress test I think you referred
him there, dr K and no problemat all.
I mean, it's just, some peopledon't fit within that form, have
to be very flexible and notwedded 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 actuallyexercise.
So I used that in the beginningtrying to see how high I could
get it, but I mean at least Ifeel like now I can.
It's more important for me toto have the feeling about where
I am.
Am I?
Yeah, I get, I get this, allthe signs from the body, and

(52:59):
also I think even someone who'snot that fit should look for
that.
Do you start kind of feelingfaint?
Do Do you feel the chest isbumping?
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 yourbody.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Absolutely.
These are indicators andthey're pretty good, but they're
not exactly thought-proof.
Again, some of the old style Imean 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 Ihave, 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 outthere to kind of walk up that
hill and I will not use the talktest yeah, yeah, I don't want
anything to happen there, yeahyeah, yeah, and people will
notice that before looking atany monitor and one other thing

(53:48):
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 heretalking.
We know our heart's beatingbecause we're here, yeah, but we
but we're not necessarilyfeeling it.
But if we literally all we didwas to take five minutes and

(54:17):
walk up a hill and come back andsit down immediately, we may
feel our heart rate beatingfaster because we basically turn
the system on saying we needmore blood to go to the muscles
of the body that are moving, soour heart rate will go up, but

(54:39):
as we rest it will eventuallycome back down to its basic.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
One thing I always find, and I've never really
really, even after my studies inexercise physiology, and I've
never had any any exercisephysiologist answer this
question no matter how fit youget and I'm sure if you've seen
this, you can run up hills, youcan do all of these things
walking upstairs will still getyou a little bit breathless,
without question, and I thinkit's to do with the mechanics

(55:09):
and so forth, and hence that'sone of the tests the
cardiologists use yes, oh yeah,yeah, because you do with the
stress test.
Yeah, actually having you walkup an incline yeah, yeah, and I
mean I've even seen marathonersget drifted.
Get that not, not overly, butthey'll get a little bit
breathless, no matter what yourfitness level is.

(55:32):
So we're humans, we're notmachines.
So it's good to remember thosethings.
Next one we often hear is therea magic formula for the number
of steps one should take per day?
Now that brings up aninteresting phenomenon.
What do we hear every day?
I mean, you must be bombardedwith 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 amarketing firm used that as a
guide to just get people offtheir butts in Japan.
They must have been having thesame sort of problems that
Western world was having withlack of exercise and so forth.
So that was a random figure.
That's a good random figurethat has come down through the

(56:19):
ages and only recently has therebeen any sort of formalized
studies into whether it's thebe-all and end-all.
And there's nothing to my.
You know I've looked prettyextensively at it.
Nothing definitively says that10,000 is the actual amount you
should do every day.

(56:39):
All of the recommendedguidelines still use time, the
150 minutes a week and the 75for intense exercise as your
guidelines, not to say it's notbad, the 10 000 it's good to
shoot for.
I think in my view the mostimportant thing is you look at
what your baseline is and theysay with general studies, with

(57:02):
human movement the minimal isabout three to four thousand a
day, just with with the standardactivities of daily living.
So you should look to increasethat to get an exercise benefit.
So if your 4,000 a day is yourbasics, 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.
The other great thing aboutweight training, of course,
whether it's free weights theshooting tool, so-called helps
build bone and helps decreasethe rate of osteoporosis, which
is very important as we getolder, and this, as Dr Ken be
alerted to.
Activities like tonic shootingalso help with that because
they're weight-bearing, helpwith great balance, strength,

(57:46):
mobility.
Activities like Pilates andyoga also help All great
activities.
Street training with fireweights is probably the easiest
way to see progression, but theyall help.
The other great thing aboutweight training, of course,
whether it's free weights,machines or so forth, is it
helps build bone and helpsdecrease the rate of

(58:09):
osteoporosis, which is veryimportant 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 andyoga also help.
All great activities.
Street training with fireweights is probably the easiest
way to see progression, but theyall helped.

(58:30):
There's nothing definitive,because I don't think there
really is.
It's a matter of justexercising and using that as,
again, a guideline that'sflexible.
Does that make sense, guys?
Am I being too much like apolitician?

Speaker 2 (58:43):
You're always being too much like a politician.
That doesn't surprise me.
I mean, I think these numbersare 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 thenature, because we, as I

(59:04):
mentioned before, walking isactually not that easy, that's
right.
It's quite a complex thing andwe all walk a little wrong.
But you know, if we stopwalking, we completely we're not
going to.
It's not steps.
You sit and drive the car thewhole day and you walk out.
Yes, you're not walking, youwalk like a penguin.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Yeah, well, what they're finding too, is now
that's even increasing, becausepeople are working at home yeah.
So they're walking per day.
It might be from the bedroom toyour 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 officeor walking around, and if you do
that, you'll never get the3,000 steps in a day.
That's right, exactly.
You won't even come closeBecause the 3,000 to 5,000 steps
is a mile to a mile and a half.
Yeah, I tell people you shouldwalk to the point where you're

(01:00:06):
huffing and puffing a little bit, but, as you say, the talk test
.
Yeah, you'd be able to hold aconversation with someone you're
walking Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
I noticed they're saying that 4,500 now is the
minimal, and again I'm not surewhere they get that from.
There's nothing definitive, butthat 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 isgood and something to aim for,
but again, it's a guideline.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
The key is to get people moving.
Yes, exercise is that and againthis is my personal theme is
that exercise has become more ofa business than a natural thing
that humans should be doing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Yes, yeah, absolutely , and it's interesting that
Kettle talked about walkingoutside.
There's been lots of studiesnow that are showing the
benefits, not just physicallybut mentally, of getting outside
amongst the elements.
When you think about it, thegyms at the World Bank and at
the IMF, to my memory, were alldownstairs, no natural light.

(01:01:18):
Yes, and I just think a walkout in the natural air and
natural light is so much betterfor your mental health than
getting on a treadmill insidenext to people you don't like or
know you're arguing with.
Well, that sort of stuffthere's a lot of studies.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
in this I mean there's also being outside in
the sun, so you make adifference between the light.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Yeah, vitamin D.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
And also another thing we talked about sleep
earlier.
I'm using like a night mask nowand it helps the darkness
Because it's obvious.
I have some streetlightsoutside and that's enough.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
Yeah, yeah, and you breathe better.
It forces you to breathe better.
It forces you to take, becausemost humans don't completely
open their lungs up with normalresting, breathing that if just
like we're sitting here now, ifyou were to do a quick chest

(01:02:14):
x-ray, most of us, the verybottom of our lungs, is
partially collapsed.
You don't use it and we need tocompletely expand our lungs
every day and that's whatgetting out and taking these
steps will do.
It helps with breathing, ithelps with the muscle tone in

(01:02:36):
your diaphragm chest wall, yourlower muscles, your abdominal
muscles, because they all play apart in our fitness and our
general well-being.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
With the lung capacity and so forth.
There's been lots of studiesand lots of anecdotal evidence
of saying people who swim a lot,that helps a lot with people
who have lung disorders orhopefully they've learned the
techniques, they're not justthrowing in the water but it
definitely helps expand work onlung issues and expand the chest
activity and so forth.

(01:03:12):
Breathing and the moistness andthe moist heat and so forth I
believe helps as well with that.
Weight training again isanother great one.
When you're doing things likebench press pullovers there's
some of the first therapeuticexercises they give to people
who may have a pneumothorax ordisorder of the lungs.
Hope I'm correct there, dr K.
Is that?

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
right, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right.
Look, what strategies canpeople incorporate to prevent
injury from their exerciseroutines?
When we're looking at that onethe most important thing when
you're looking at a graph ofyour exercise, it's a
traditional parabola, if youlike.
You're starting off slowly,warming up We'll talk about what

(01:03:54):
warmup actually is in a secondbut getting your heart rate up
until it elevates to that 50% to70% then cools down.
So it's a parabola, if you will.
Now when you're doing intervaltraining, there might be a few
spikes and ups and downs in themiddle of that parabola when
increasing your intensity, butit's that basic shape a cool

(01:04:14):
down, an intensity phase andthen a warm up.
Sorry, cool, intensity phase,then a cool down With the warm
up.
There used to be a lot of talkabout doing lots of static
stretches before you warm up andso forth.
They found that was not a greatway to prevent injury.
In fact, it could cause injurybecause your muscles might not

(01:04:37):
warm enough when you're tryingto do these stretches.
So, generally speaking, they'retalking about incorporating
some movement patterns.
When you're warming up, itmight be high knee walking, high
knee running, side walking,backwards walking, moving your
arms up and down justtraditional warm-up activities,
perhaps incorporating somestretches.

(01:04:57):
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 whereyou might lie down, elevate the
legs a little bit and do somedeep, rhythmic breathing.
At that point, meditation atthat point can help.
That's what we're talking aboutwith injury prevention.

(01:05:18):
Do any of you guys have anyexperience with that, dr K?
Any comments?

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
Well, I'll just use myself as an example, now that I
started doing this morning walk.
One of the things that I dobefore I start the walks is I do
a lot of movement with my arm.
Where I reach my arms in theair, where I move my arms from
side to side, I then tilt, Itwist my body right to left, I

(01:05:49):
bend forward, all of thosethings I do standing in,
stepping in motion, withoutmoving anywhere, just raising my
legs up and down, and then Itake my walk and then, as I I'd
say, halfway through my walks, Iautomatically increase the pace

(01:06:09):
.
Initially it's a very casualwalk and I actually think, for
some people, I like listening tomusic when I walk.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
And I think it's very soothing.
So whatever music that youenjoy, use it, and it also helps
you to clear your mind.
Sure, I think you know helpsyou to clear your mind Sure.
You know you're clearing yourhead.
Sometimes it's helping you tothink through the thoughts of
what you've got to do during therest of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Yeah, you can even listen to the wellness
musketeers if you like.
Yeah absolutely.
But I think prior to ourbroadcast here, doctor, I mean,
um, that had a good commentabout people shoveling snow, yes
, and the injuries that canbring, and I mean that's a

(01:06:58):
classic case of not warming upinto the activity.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
Oh yeah oh, yeah, yeah, my neighbor.
I'll never forget.
This was when I was stillliving in Maryland and I guess
this was like 2008 or 2009.
We had a pretty big snow and wegot out and we literally start
out shoveling our driveway andthe hazy.

(01:07:21):
And literally we were jokinginitially and we started there
and he's a dentist and I wassaying, no, you need to go slow,
you need to go slow.
And after a while I didn't seehim anymore and I turned to look

(01:07:44):
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, withDr Kennedy as his neighbor.
I'm telling you.
But the fact that we alwayshear these stories that it
happened Right, you know, you'llhave a lot of people who
breathe the shoveling of snowand their back, they throw their

(01:08:07):
back out because you these aremaneuvers that you do not do on
a regular basis and when you andsince you didn't warm up, cool
down, you didn't stretch toprepare 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

(01:08:31):
do it anymore, that's when it'sgoing to tear.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
And it's not the same as lifting up a weight in a gym
, where it's nicely balanced oneach side.
No, no, lifting can come in allshapes and sizes.
Oh yeah, I do say, though, thatweight training has evolved a
lot and there's a lot morefunctional equipment like
kettlebells, lifting tires andthings like that, which at least
are a little bit morefunctional in their movement

(01:08:58):
than they used to be.
That might help, but still thesame principles apply.
To warm up With something likesnow shoveling, that's a lot of
exertion.
Any questions about that?
I feel like it's all good.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
No, it's all good Okay.
And one point about thisstretching.
I mean not only stretching, butalso hydration.
Hydration is so critical, oh,yes, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
When you're talking hydration, rich, would you
recommend the sports drinks orjust plain water?

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
So well, I'd say, depending on the level of the
exercise and where you aretemperature-wise, I'd say water
for sure, but I believe thesports drinks or the electrolyte
solutions that we did, powderdrinks that they have now, that

(01:09:57):
basically gives you sodium,potassium, magnesium, calcium in
a powder form that you can putin water, all helps, because
here in Texas, in the hot, humidclimates that we have, you can
get pretty dehydrated prettyquickly no longer, imagine In a

(01:10:19):
short period of time, absolutely.
And one of the things we usedto always think that we can tell
when we're dehydrated.
Well, not necessarily.
Not necessarily that there area lot of people who are
significantly depleted in water,and I think that has to do with
that.
Most humans don't drink enoughwater, to begin with, yeah, on a

(01:10:43):
daily basis, and so we shouldbe trying to make sure we get,
and there are lots of debatesabout this.
People say that six to eightounce glasses a day of water is
too much, and my attitude isI've seen I've just seen too
many of the downsides of peoplefalling out, passing out, and

(01:11:08):
not because they did anything,and this happens a lot when
people are taking, like duringthe summer and the spring, where
everybody's driving all overthe place, driving four, six,
eight hours away to visit people.
They can't drink enough fluidwhen they're driving.

Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
Yeah, oh yeah, and the hot car they drink enough
fluid when they're driving, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
Oh yeah, and the hot car.
I had someone, we were at afuneral and two people passed
out in the circus Whoa.

Speaker 4 (01:11:36):
Having driven?
Is it also the kind of thingwhere it doesn't necessarily
have to be water specifically?

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
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 stayaway from the carbonated
beverages.
I think it's a waste of time inthat regard.
Well, because what you need iswhat you really need is water

(01:12:05):
and electrolyte.
You know, our body iselectrically neutral and it
needs a balance.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
Yeah, the role of nutrition is also important.
It couples that with thehydration.
Just a quick anecdote here theamount of times I almost became
an expert in noting this infitness centres I've worked in,
how many people.
And now, with this intermittentfasting, which can have its

(01:12:34):
good and bad points the amountof people you saw.
All of a sudden they're walkingaround, they start yawning,
they start looking a differentcolour, they sit down, if they
get to sit down, or they mightjust suddenly faint.
You all ask them the questionwhen did you last eat?
Oh, about 4 o'clock yesterday.

(01:12:55):
This will be about 7 in themorning the next day.
Oh yeah, they're all trying tolose weight or get fit into
their new suit, new weddingdress, whatever.
So they've got nothing in theirsystem.
No food, very little water, andI'll let Dr K talk about blood
sugar levels and all of thatsort of thing.
The amount of times I saw thatI almost was able to see it

(01:13:18):
before it actually happened andthey all fell into that category
.
Very rarely they didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
It happens quite a bit, much more than we believe.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Yeah, I think they have the impression that the
less you eat and you don't needbreakfast, someone's told them
that.
Oh yeah, and an old folkloreone that's bad.
Some of them are good, but someof them are bad.
I don't know if we all grew upwith this one, but they used to
tell us playing football, ordon't have water, one of them

(01:13:51):
means you're weak, don't needwater, don't want to show the
opposition, that you haven'twater and you'll get stomach
cramps.
Yeah, that's a lot of mygoodness.
That used to be quite prevalent, I know in Aussie rules
football and things like that.
Thankfully it's not there now.
Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Now how should people considerthe use of fitness trackers and
aids like sleep monitors and soforth with?

(01:14:14):
Regarding fitness trackers, Ithink they're a good guideline.
I'm data driven.
I love all the ins and outs ofthat.
I've kept diaries going backseven or twelve years in my
exercise programs.
I don't know what for, but Ilike writing things.
I don't know what for, but Ilike writing things down.
I don't know why, but you canjust generally get to know your
body better, know your heartrate a little bit better, set

(01:14:35):
your goals and so forth.
One particular one that I likenow for nutrition that I've only
got onto in the last year ortwo and I wish I'd have known a
lot about sooner or I wish itwas around was the MyFitnessPal
app that monitors your dietaryintake.
I find that's a great feedback.
Really makes you sit down andrealize just how much you're

(01:14:57):
eating or how little you'reeating, and gives you the right
guidelines and so forth.
So I think they're great likethat.
I'd let Dr K talk on glucosemonitors.
That's a bit out of my field,but I think the fitness trackers
are great, but again, you'regoing to learn to know your own
body.
And again, things about thetalk test, things like that.
We're not machines.

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):
They're good guidelines, but indicators and
helpful and I would say well, Ithink those are fine,
particularly if you're someonewho's going to pay attention to
it and look at the data thatyou're getting, because it's
informative.
It really does give you an ideaof where you are.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
Yeah.
And so what about glucosemonitors?
Specifically, dr Kerr, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
I don't know, I don't know.
See, I tend to look at glucosecontinuous glucose monitors for
the individual, more for thediabetic patient or the person
who's a pre-diabetes patientthat you want to monitor and see
how they're, particularly ifthey're now changing their diet,
and they want to see whateffect is the difference in

(01:16:10):
their diet and their activity,their physical activity, what
effect is it having?
But for the average person youprobably don't need that, I
would always say a person whohas issues with getting
lightheaded or having faintingspells with whatever physical

(01:16:30):
activity they're doing.
Glucose monitors are beneficial.
They're going to be veryhelpful in that regard, but I
don't think everybody needs one.
I think when you're working onweight loss and you're changing
your diet, I think in order todo it properly, first you need a

(01:16:54):
baseline, which means I thinkyou should sit down with a
nutritionist and go through yourdiet, because everybody's diet
is different.
The cultural diets are verydifferent from one culture to
the next and what works forperson a may not work for person
b, and you want something thatwill fit.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
you want something that will fit with you so that
you can be consistent, becausethe key is if you can be
consistent, you can get theresults you're looking just on
that too, just when we look atthe say, an issue does happen if
one of your friends, or even ifit's you, happens to get faint

(01:17:41):
when exercising one day.
The one thing I found thatalways helped.
A general good rule is you liedown feet feet are elevated and,
if possible, get someone tomassage your calves so the blood
flow gets back up to the heart.
I'm not sure about themassaging the calves, that's
exactly true, but it seems towork.

Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
It seems to get some tactile response.
Well, you get a tactileresponse, but what it's also
doing it's literally contractingthe calf muscle, which is
contracting the venous systemthat's in the legs, pushing
blood back up to the chest andthen to the head.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
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 enforcedfainting and we're reaching
towards the end.
There's a couple of interestingones.
That people often ask is howshould people set their
expectations for healthy weightloss relative to their

(01:18:39):
activities and exercise?
That's a whole differentpodcast.
I guess we could spend a lot oftime on that.
I'd reiterate on theMyFitnessPal.
But dieticians these days, Ibelieve, are recommending that
you should lose in the vicinityof one to two pounds a week.
That can be frustrating forpeople.
They expect to lose it a lotquicker than that, yeah, and
that they only weigh themselvesonce a week too.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
Yeah, I think people fail to realize that, whatever
weight that they are at, thatthey gain, gained that weight
didn't happen overnight.
Yeah, that happened over asignificant period of time and,
as many people will tell you, itsnuck up on me, even if they

(01:19:27):
knew that they were out therebuying clothes to sort of make
them fit so that they didn'tlook like they were larger.
Because if you wear the sameclothes 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 ofyour, your attire, and so, if
you understand that it took timefor you to gain the weight,

(01:19:48):
it's going to take time for youto lose the weight now.
Sure, there are ways that youcan lose it quickly, but the
problem is your body may not behappy with that.
Your body became accustomed tothis new weight, is it?
And so you need to gradually.
And the other thing is, ifyou're gonna lose weight, you

(01:20:09):
want weight.
Once you've gotten to what yourgoal is, or close to it.
You want to be able to staythere.
Yeah, otherwise, if you losethe weight too fast, almost
invariably you will regain theweight, and then some.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Yeah, Especially, it's important that it's fat
loss, not muscle loss as well.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
Yes, yeah.
Especially, it's important thatit's fat loss, not muscle loss,
as well.
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
One question often comes up how can an individual
assess their progress andfitness improvements in a
meaningful way beyond theconventional metrics?
My experience is one of thebest ones and, for all the great
laboratory tests and fitnesstests and so forth, one of the

(01:20:54):
standard ones used by the CooperAerobic Center out of Dallas,
which is one of the first placeseffects 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

(01:21:16):
running programs.
I can't give you the categoriesoff the top of my head.
There's lots of differentcategories, but it's easy to
administer and I mean it's 12minutes and it caters for both
an intense runner and theaverage person who may not be
able to walk for 12 minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
It gives them something.
So I found that was a great one.
And while I'm on that one, oneI missed Kepa also has a good
measure for if the exercise istoo intense, using heart rates.
He believes, or they'veespoused over the years that if
after 10 minutes no, sorry,after five minutes if your heart

(01:21:54):
rate is not below 120, you'vebeen exercising too intensely.
So it should drop below 120.
Okay.
If after 10 minutes it's notbelow 100, you've been
exercising too intensely.
Okay.
And if you're very fit, I'msure Kettles gets down to under
100, probably in a minute.

(01:22:15):
Oh yeah, in a minute, yes.
And so you know that's anindication.
I think that I've used that asa rule of thumb and I think
that's a very good one.
So again, for the listeners outthere, if your heart rate is
not below 120 after five minutesof exercise, probably too
intense, and after 10 minutes,if it's not below 100, it's

(01:22:36):
certainly probably been toointense.
So again, 12-minute walk andrun test from Cooper is a great
one.
There's also self-measures.
You can just monitor how manypush-ups you do a month,
graduate them over time.
Weight training, as I explainedbefore, is a great way because
you see the progressiveresistance over time.
As long as you've been regular,you'll see that you're lifting

(01:22:57):
heavier than you were before,and so forth.
And, of course, if you want tohave a maximal oxygen uptake
test, a VO2 max test on atreadmill, that's a great one,
especially if you're looking atcardiovascular, actual
improvement of your heartfunction, where a cardiologist
can look at it, and so forth.
Dr K, I don't know if you wantto expand on that one a little

(01:23:18):
bit.
That's probably one of the moreextreme ones, but it's a
valuable one.

Speaker 3 (01:23:22):
Yeah, it's true, but it's valuable, but it's a good
one if you need to.
I always say I'm a firmbeliever in starting simple Yep.
And so Dr Cooper's 12-minutewalk-run test.
I think it was reasonable.
Can you do 10 push-ups everyday, and how long does it take
you to do it?

(01:23:42):
If it takes you 15, 20 minutes,you know that's pretty good.
If it takes you 30 minutes todo 10 push-ups, then we know
that it assesses yourdecondition as a minimum, and so
that means those people shouldgo and see their primary and or

(01:24:05):
their cardiologists and theirfitness instructors or their
fitness trainers to get anassessment.
Because I think part of it isyou need somebody in the
beginning to give you guidance.
Yes, if you've not beenexercising for a long time, you

(01:24:27):
want to do it right so that wecan get the maximal benefit from
it.
Yeah, Great.

Speaker 1 (01:24:35):
Let's finish off with one.
I think this one's more in linefor you, Dr Case.
How are you supposed tounderstand and interpret health?
You see lots of differentthings out there.
Eggs are bad in one study andgood the next study.
There's the impact of broscience, as they call it.
The guys in the gym who'velifted weights to get news think
they know everything.
How do we interpret health newsout there?

(01:24:56):
And newspaper accounts don'thelp some of the time.
I'll preface it by that.
I'll let Dr Kennedy explain.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
I would read it, see if it makes sense to you.
But, as my mama used to alwayssay, trust but verify, and so
normally I would either talk tosomeone in the know who deals
with this on a regular basis.
So talk to your fitness trainer, talk to I wouldn't necessarily

(01:25:27):
talk to the person on theweight machine next to you.
It doesn't mean they don't knowwhat they're talking about, but
for most of the time everybodyknows what works for them, and
many times you cannotextrapolate that to you, so you

(01:25:48):
have to be real Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:25:49):
Sorry, what about Dr K?
I always like to look atreputable websites like Mayo
Clinic, american College ofSports Medicine things like that
.

Speaker 3 (01:25:59):
American College of Sports Medicine.
The European Union has a reallygood one, and I always say it
depends on what's the exerciseRight, you know, if it's just
general exercise, the guidelinesare the same no matter where
you are in the world.
Yeah, and so part of it is justfinding one.

(01:26:22):
I like the American College ofSports Medicine because they
tend to extrapolate thingsglobally.
They don't just give you theAmerican view, they basically
take the data that has beencompiled across the planet and
apply it so that it can bereflective of the society we

(01:26:45):
live in.

Speaker 1 (01:26:48):
And just to close on your track.
But verify, dr Kay, I had ajournalism instructor many years
ago, ted Gup, who was one ofthe contemporaries of Woodward
and Bernstein.
He used to say if yourgrandfather just told you that
your grandmother died, checkyour sources.

Speaker 3 (01:27:10):
Track but verify.
Oh yes, that's a little causalway of putting it, I like that
one.

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
Well, guys, I guess that covers a lot of territory.
I really enjoyed thispresentation.
Thank you very much.
Do we have anything before wego into our final
recommendations and a briefsummary?
But finally, guys, thank youvery much, listeners.
I hope you find this greatbenefit.
Just to summarize, ourrecommendation for adults is to
get at least 155 minutes ofexercise per week, of moderate

(01:27:47):
intensity activity or 75 minutesof vigorous aerobic activity, a
combination of both, preferablyspread throughout the week.
And again, we mentionedpossibly three sessions a week
of cardio.
Two to three sessions of weighttraining there, yeah, and then
we're talking about addingmoderate to high intensity

(01:28:07):
muscle strengthening activityfor those two to three times a
week.
And again, the last one or tworeps should be a little bit of a
struggle without inducing ahernia.
So not just a five pound weightdoing a hundred curls,
something that makes you work,might be a 15 pound weight that
the last one or two make youstrain a little bit To spend

(01:28:29):
less time sitting.
Even light activity can offsetsome of the risks of being
sedentary and you can even getbenefits just from being active.
Just minimally a week, and itincreased gradually over time.
General rule of thumb is aboutthree to 5% a week.
And looking at those guidelinesas well, don't forget the talk

(01:28:49):
test If you're exercising andyou can't carry on a
conversation, it may be a littleintense and Cooper's guidelines
if after exercise, after fiveminutes, if it's not below 120
beats or 10 minutes below 100beats, it may be a little
intense and remember to moderatehigh intensity with some lower

(01:29:11):
intense activities on aday-by-day basis.
In closing, folks, I hope thatwas again beneficial.
A huge thanks to my co-hosts,dr Richard Kennedy, hedl Hiding
and Dave List.
Thank you for joining uswellness musketeers.
Tune in for our upcomingepisodes to gain the tools to

(01:29:31):
improve your health, workperformance and live with a
greater understanding of theworld we experience together.
Most importantly, pleasesubscribe, give us a five-star
review they're very importantfolks and share this recording
with your family and friends.
You can make a contributionthrough a link provided in our
program notes to allow thispodcast to grow.

(01:29:52):
Let us know what you need tolearn to help you live your best
life.
Send your questions and ideasfor future episodes to davelists
at davidmlist at gmailcom.

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