1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,820
This episode is brought to you by Thorne and I have some incredible news for any of you

2
00:00:03,820 --> 00:00:07,960
that are in the military, first responder or medical professions.

3
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:15,860
In an effort to give back, Thorne is now offering you an ongoing 35% off each and every one

4
00:00:15,860 --> 00:00:19,780
of your purchases of their incredible nutritional solutions.

5
00:00:19,780 --> 00:00:27,280
Now Thorne is the official supplement of CrossFit, the UFC, the Mayo Clinic, the Human Performance

6
00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:31,480
Project and multiple special operations organizations.

7
00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:36,440
I myself have used them for several years and that is why I brought them on as a sponsor.

8
00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:42,080
Some of my favorite products they have are their Multivitamin Elite, their Whey Protein,

9
00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:45,840
the Super EPA and then most recently, Cynaquil.

10
00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:50,120
As a firefighter, a stuntman and a martial artist, I've had my share of brain trauma

11
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:55,520
and sleep deprivation and Cynaquil is their latest brain health supplement.

12
00:00:55,520 --> 00:01:02,640
Now to qualify for the 35% off, go to thorn.com, T-H-O-R-N-E dot com.

13
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:05,460
Click on sign in and then create a new account.

14
00:01:05,460 --> 00:01:09,800
You will see the opportunity to register as a first responder or member of military.

15
00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:14,680
When you click on that, it will take you through verification with GovX.

16
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:19,000
You'll simply choose a profession, provide one piece of documentation and then you are

17
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:20,920
verified for life.

18
00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:26,640
From that point onwards, you will continue to receive 35% off through Thorn.

19
00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:33,120
Now for those of you who don't qualify, there is still the 10% off using the code BTS10,

20
00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,120
Behind the Shield 10 for a one-time purchase.

21
00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:41,780
Now to learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with

22
00:01:41,780 --> 00:01:45,620
Joel Titoro and Wes Barnett.

23
00:01:45,620 --> 00:01:50,280
This episode is sponsored by a company I've literally been using for over 15 years now

24
00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:52,440
and that is 511.

25
00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:56,600
Now my introduction to their products began when I started wearing 511 uniforms years

26
00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:58,760
ago for Anaheim Fire Department.

27
00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:02,680
And since then, I have acquired a host of their backpacks and luggage which have literally

28
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:04,640
been around the world with me.

29
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:09,140
The backpack where I keep all my recording equipment is a 511 backpack and then most

30
00:02:09,140 --> 00:02:12,920
of my civilian gear, the clothes that I wear are also 511.

31
00:02:12,920 --> 00:02:17,540
Now more recently, they've actually branched out into the brick and mortar stores.

32
00:02:17,540 --> 00:02:22,140
So for example, Gainesville where I do jiu-jitsu has a beautiful 511 store.

33
00:02:22,140 --> 00:02:27,840
So if you are a fire department, a law enforcement agency, you now have access to an entire inventory

34
00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:31,320
of clothing and equipment in these 511 stores.

35
00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:35,300
Now I've talked about the range of shoes they have and how important minimizing weight in

36
00:02:35,300 --> 00:02:39,080
our footwear is when it comes to our back health, knee health, et cetera.

37
00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:44,040
I've talked about their unique uniforms that are fitted for either male or female first

38
00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:45,040
responders.

39
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:49,080
And then I want to highlight one new area, their CloudStrike packs.

40
00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:53,520
For those of you who enjoy hiking, this would even be an application I believe for the wildland

41
00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:54,520
community.

42
00:02:54,520 --> 00:03:00,760
They've created an ultra light pack now with a hydration system built in for rucking, running

43
00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:02,960
or other long distance events.

44
00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:08,600
Now as always, 511 is offering you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, 15% off

45
00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:10,780
every purchase that you make.

46
00:03:10,780 --> 00:03:20,440
So if you use the code SHIELD15, that's S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5 at 511tactical.com, you will get that 15%

47
00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:22,680
off every single time.

48
00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:29,000
So if you want to hear more about 511 and their origin story, go to episode 338 of Behind

49
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:34,440
the Shield podcast with their CEO, Francisco Morales.

50
00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:36,000
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

51
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:37,240
And I apologize for my voice.

52
00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:40,600
I've been cheering on the England team during the Euro cup.

53
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:45,400
But this week I welcome back onto the show a fellow Brit, David Vo.

54
00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:50,000
Now David spent a career in the London Fire Brigade before transitioning into the world

55
00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:51,800
of osteopathy.

56
00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:57,240
In our first conversation, which was episode 601, we talked a lot about the fire service,

57
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:01,480
holistic medicine and some of the challenges for ancient medicine when it comes to the

58
00:04:01,480 --> 00:04:05,560
pharmaceutical companies and other industries that we work against.

59
00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:10,560
Now in the second conversation, David comes back onto the show having just written stronger

60
00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:15,240
how to build strength, the secret to a longer, healthier life.

61
00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:23,720
So we discuss a host of topics from the importance of mobility, hormonal disruption, sleep deprivation,

62
00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:28,400
and then we focus on the middle-aged man and woman and how they can forge longevity through

63
00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:30,000
strength training.

64
00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:35,040
Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,

65
00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:39,920
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

66
00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:41,880
leave a rating.

67
00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:47,000
Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

68
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:48,600
others to find.

69
00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:53,220
And this is a free library of 950 episodes now.

70
00:04:53,220 --> 00:04:58,920
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

71
00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:04,560
I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

72
00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:10,360
So with that being said, I introduce to you David Vaux.

73
00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:12,160
Enjoy.

74
00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:34,400
Well, David, I want to start by saying firstly, it was amazing to see you in London and we'll

75
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:35,680
get to that in a second.

76
00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:38,820
And secondly, to congratulate you on your book.

77
00:05:38,820 --> 00:05:42,800
And thirdly, I want to welcome you back to the Behind the Shield podcast today.

78
00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:43,800
Thanks, James.

79
00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:46,600
Good to see you, mate.

80
00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:47,600
We've chatted a bit, haven't we?

81
00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:52,320
I mean, I saw you on the 7-7 in London briefly.

82
00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:54,960
Man, you look tired that day.

83
00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:57,160
We can get into that, can't we?

84
00:05:57,160 --> 00:06:04,560
But it's good to speak to you and thanks for having me back on the show.

85
00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:06,280
Yeah, absolutely.

86
00:06:06,280 --> 00:06:07,280
So let's start there.

87
00:06:07,280 --> 00:06:14,800
So 7x, for people listening, we, I say we, a group of Navy SEALs and elite triathletes

88
00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:19,880
and some high level scientists went around the world.

89
00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:26,200
While the athletes, the runners did seven marathons, seven skydives and seven swims.

90
00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:31,480
That was the goal, though he didn't manage all those in seven continents in seven days.

91
00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:35,120
So I think by the time that we met each other in Hyde Park, which I was just at the other

92
00:06:35,120 --> 00:06:37,600
day, I was just came back from London.

93
00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:43,680
I don't think I'd slept, you know, apart from a few hours on the plane itself for four or

94
00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:45,520
five days by that point.

95
00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:46,720
And we were getting some sleep.

96
00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:51,660
We were lying across the plane seats, but jumping straight into the seat deprivation

97
00:06:51,660 --> 00:06:59,760
and the career that we both did, having been out for a bit, I was amazed how much it sucked

98
00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:02,280
going back into that level of sleep deprivation.

99
00:07:02,280 --> 00:07:04,600
Yeah, I could tell.

100
00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:09,760
And, you know, I've been out myself for a while and, you know, I have sympathy because

101
00:07:09,760 --> 00:07:10,760
it did remind me.

102
00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,040
I think we touched base, didn't we, the week after.

103
00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:16,040
And yeah, I mean, it takes a while.

104
00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:22,200
And I think as one gets older as well, you know, I think the ability to to deal with

105
00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:30,000
that and go again, you know, it's a good example, isn't it, of of the long term effects when

106
00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:34,440
you when you are suddenly thrown into that and have to deal with that fatigue level on

107
00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:41,240
your body, both physically and mentally, neurologically, all of the above.

108
00:07:41,240 --> 00:07:49,680
So the work that the 7X project we're trying to do is so relevant to First Responder community.

109
00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:50,680
Absolutely.

110
00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:55,600
Well, I remember you brought the book, my book, and I signed it to you, but I didn't

111
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:56,600
sign it to you.

112
00:07:56,600 --> 00:07:58,080
I signed it, but I put the wrong name in.

113
00:07:58,080 --> 00:08:03,080
I was so tired that I literally signed a different name than the other firefighters that met us

114
00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:04,080
there.

115
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:05,080
And then I came to you about an hour late.

116
00:08:05,080 --> 00:08:07,120
I was like, oh, give me a book a second.

117
00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:08,120
I scratched it out.

118
00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:10,800
And I think next to it, I wrote, this is sleep deprivation.

119
00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:13,200
Yeah, you did, James.

120
00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:17,680
But that's, yeah, as I say, worthy subject matter, isn't it?

121
00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:21,160
You know, you're in you're in the arena right there, weren't you?

122
00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:24,400
Actually experiencing sleep deprivation in real time.

123
00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:28,640
I look forward to seeing the outcomes, you know, of that project.

124
00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:31,640
I believe there's going to be a documentary.

125
00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:37,240
Yeah, documentary and like a manual or, you know, should be getting finished up pretty

126
00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:38,240
soon.

127
00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:39,240
So we should be telling that story.

128
00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:42,800
Pretty, pretty amazing human stories woven in that.

129
00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:44,180
We're getting to to you.

130
00:08:44,180 --> 00:08:46,180
So we we talked.

131
00:08:46,180 --> 00:08:48,560
I mean, what was that a year and a half ago now?

132
00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:52,000
I think when we were there, almost a year and a half.

133
00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:53,000
Yeah.

134
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,540
And then that kind of spawned the conversation then of writing.

135
00:08:56,540 --> 00:08:58,740
Now I'm still finishing up my book.

136
00:08:58,740 --> 00:09:02,000
Your book Stronger is already released in the UK.

137
00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,820
When this goes out, it will be out in the US as well.

138
00:09:04,820 --> 00:09:08,320
So talk to me about the origin story of that.

139
00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:15,720
What were you seeing and then what were you hoping to change by writing your book?

140
00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:25,720
So as you know, I was formerly London Fire Service and.

141
00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:31,280
Experienced an injury that ended that career and so then had to reinvent.

142
00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:35,240
Really my whole identity, to be honest with you, having identified as like, you know,

143
00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:38,440
I was very, very focused on tactical fitness.

144
00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:44,840
In fact, I had a role as well as operationally in London Fire Service in physical education

145
00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:45,840
as well.

146
00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:52,320
So I'd already done a master's degree in exercise physiology and exercise prescription.

147
00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:56,660
And so and that was purely actually to kind of make me better at that job, to make me

148
00:09:56,660 --> 00:09:59,280
individually as good as I could be.

149
00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:06,080
And then had to pivot in my early 30s, having served 15 years because of the injury.

150
00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:11,200
And then went on to become an osteopath and work in private practice.

151
00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:19,120
And it took a long time to be able to wean myself off of the medication for pain and

152
00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:22,680
inflammation that I needed at that point.

153
00:10:22,680 --> 00:10:29,240
And the thing I found was breakthrough pivotal for me was regaining the ability, the, the,

154
00:10:29,240 --> 00:10:39,840
the muscle strength around the joints and to be able to move again with, with real fluidity.

155
00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:46,400
So in a nutshell, when I unpacked that, that was becoming stronger again.

156
00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:51,760
Because I had that background of physical education, tactical fitness, strength and

157
00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:52,760
conditioning.

158
00:10:52,760 --> 00:10:53,760
I wear two hats now.

159
00:10:53,760 --> 00:10:57,400
So in clinic, I work with people who have pain and injury, obviously.

160
00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:01,520
And then I have that other hat of strength and conditioning.

161
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:08,560
So to ask you a question, I was finding myself having the same conversation multiple times

162
00:11:08,560 --> 00:11:09,560
a day.

163
00:11:09,560 --> 00:11:15,720
And I found and so I started then that was a genesis of the idea to actually put my thoughts

164
00:11:15,720 --> 00:11:22,920
down because the majority of people I treated would benefit and have benefited from becoming

165
00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:26,600
stronger in some form in some way.

166
00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:33,520
Then I did a deep dive into, well, what are the, what are the real benefits of this, not

167
00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:39,680
just the aesthetic or, you know, in my case, the recovery and rehabilitation, but then

168
00:11:39,680 --> 00:11:45,640
the prehabilitation piece, you know, the preventative piece that is a bit of a hard sell.

169
00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:50,280
So I started, as you know, working for a arthritis charity.

170
00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:55,480
And so I had up their therapist team and had up any projects on exercise.

171
00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:59,400
One of them was a UK government healthy aging challenge.

172
00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:04,780
So I found myself around that same time as we met working on a project that was looking

173
00:12:04,780 --> 00:12:11,120
to add five more quality years to people's lives in the UK by 2035.

174
00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:16,200
And they're targeting people in their seventies, realizing that actually that's me.

175
00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:18,200
We're talking about that.

176
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:22,840
And you know, so I started to really reflect upon those two aspects of that health promotion,

177
00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:29,040
health piece, I mean, I'm clinical work based on my own experiences of knowing what works.

178
00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:34,520
And what really hit me was in, in researching that subject matter for the general population

179
00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:35,520
in the UK.

180
00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:41,400
Yeah, we share a lot of commonalities in terms of exercise levels, people who do and don't

181
00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:46,200
exercise as US, the same kind of demographic, we're very, very closely aligned in terms

182
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:54,160
of levels of obesity, metabolic syndrome, frailty and injuries as well from falling.

183
00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:58,160
So all these things were there at my fingertips.

184
00:12:58,160 --> 00:13:03,820
And I realized that we're developing a lot of, I'm throwing a lot of money and a lot

185
00:13:03,820 --> 00:13:09,600
of good advice at people who are already detrained, who are already frail, already weakened.

186
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:14,640
And I wanted to try to amplify my personal message I give to people in clinic, basically

187
00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:18,960
if you're a middle aged person, come into my clinic, irrespective of what it is you're

188
00:13:18,960 --> 00:13:20,620
coming for, you're going to get this message.

189
00:13:20,620 --> 00:13:22,920
So I wanted to give this message to more people.

190
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:25,120
And as I say, amplify that message.

191
00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:28,760
So I tried to write a book for the middle aged population of the world.

192
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:35,760
It's quite an undertaking because you know, I genuinely believe that there's an integrity

193
00:13:35,760 --> 00:13:41,320
to the message in that if we can all become a little bit stronger, we can avoid the vast

194
00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:50,280
majority of things that plague older age that we have become accustomed to thinking are

195
00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:57,640
merely symptoms of older age, whereas in fact, they are symptoms of detraining often.

196
00:13:57,640 --> 00:13:59,600
And so that was a genesis.

197
00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:01,200
That was the challenge.

198
00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:05,640
And to write a book, not a clinical book, but write a book for everyone, you know, write

199
00:14:05,640 --> 00:14:10,380
a book that I hope people would enjoy and write a book which is full of conversations

200
00:14:10,380 --> 00:14:16,560
and examples and pauses for reflection.

201
00:14:16,560 --> 00:14:22,600
Because I don't know what you think, James, but any behavioural change that I think works

202
00:14:22,600 --> 00:14:25,360
has to start with a friendly conversation.

203
00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:29,800
Ideally, a conversation which you can reflect and think about your own friends, family and

204
00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:34,020
yourself your own life and put yourself into that situation.

205
00:14:34,020 --> 00:14:36,480
So that was my starting point.

206
00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:37,480
Yeah.

207
00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:44,080
Well, going back to the parallel between the UK and the US, we're about the same age, you

208
00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:49,080
know, you have a pretty unique lens because you spent, you know, decade and a half in

209
00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:54,200
the British Fire Service and then you moved into osteopathy.

210
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:59,960
What are the reasons why the UK is mirroring the US because I've seen it.

211
00:14:59,960 --> 00:15:04,920
I literally just went home and it breaks my heart because it used to be I'd go home and

212
00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:08,880
people wouldn't look like they do in America and then here we are 20 years later of living

213
00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:13,760
in these states and now when I go home, depending on where I am, you know, if I'm walking through

214
00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:17,960
Hyde Park, for example, obviously you've got a more mobile fitter population are doing

215
00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:24,880
that but, you know, in the regular areas now, the obesity is horrendous in the UK.

216
00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:30,680
So what have you seen through your unique perspective from when we were young to how

217
00:15:30,680 --> 00:15:32,680
we got there today?

218
00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:39,360
That's a great question and I don't have all the answers but I have a theory, I think that

219
00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:47,640
we've, UK and the US, you know, if you grew up in the, well, if you become a teenager

220
00:15:47,640 --> 00:15:51,520
in the 80s in this country, which you'll probably remember James, you know, gyms were just starting

221
00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:56,720
out but they weren't gyms like health club gyms, they were kind of scary, dark places,

222
00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:00,400
usually, you know, under the, you know, in the basement somewhere full of kind of, if

223
00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:05,960
you're a teenager starting out there, you know, it was a very different experience.

224
00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:12,520
And I think the messaging now if you to, I think there's been an invasion of, I think

225
00:16:12,520 --> 00:16:20,840
that social media has hijacked the subject of strength and the problem is that we have

226
00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:25,520
probably over emphasised the importance of cardiovascular fitness over the last 20 years

227
00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:30,840
in both the US and the UK and it's led to something I call strength hesitancy in that

228
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:39,120
if you do not have a familiarity with strength training and understanding of it, as we have

229
00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:45,720
because we've had to have industrial levels, you know, in our industries and, you know,

230
00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:50,240
you are exposed to these things and so for me it became very fluent, like a language

231
00:16:50,240 --> 00:16:57,040
and normal but for everyone else who potentially hasn't been in the services, been in uniform

232
00:16:57,040 --> 00:17:02,680
or been a sports person, they generally stop strength training and challenging themselves

233
00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:07,000
in that particular way generally shortly after university if they go to university, certainly

234
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:16,560
by 30 you're done putting yourself in those sorts of challenging situations. However,

235
00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:20,880
a lot of people continue to do their cardio fitness training so I'm not against that at

236
00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:27,760
all, in fact we need to do both but the message gets lost somewhere there. There's a blank,

237
00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:31,600
kind of a blankness that comes across middle aged people if they haven't had those experiences

238
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:37,560
in their youth or in their formative years which the majority of us have not. So it's

239
00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:44,200
led to this strength hesitancy and this, you know, getting your 10,000 steps in etc. All

240
00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:49,000
of this is fantastic, don't get me wrong and it does a hell of a lot of good but the missing

241
00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:53,280
part is strength because without the strength you won't be able to protect yourself from

242
00:17:53,280 --> 00:18:00,240
psychopenia and frailty and osteopenia, osteoporosis and all the rage, you know, as you and I,

243
00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:06,320
first responders have responded to multiple calls where the only reason that person's

244
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,720
on the floor is they're not strong enough to get back up, you know, and it's heartbreaking

245
00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:18,280
and I think that is a form of, it's insight into what's going on because they didn't get

246
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:25,720
the message. So I wrote this book really because it's the book that the generation of our parents

247
00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:30,000
didn't get, they didn't get that message, they got the message about 10,000 steps, they

248
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:35,400
got the message about cardiovascular training as have the current cohort worldwide of middle

249
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:42,600
aged people. That said, there is a hesitancy and that's an understandable hesitancy because

250
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:48,440
it's an unknown thing and strength training, the basic movements that I talk about have

251
00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:54,000
to be trained and learnt, it's not difficult but you need to be coached through it and

252
00:18:54,000 --> 00:19:01,840
without sounding like a politician, heaven forbid, I wanted to democratise the opportunity

253
00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:09,440
for everyone to become stronger and older age and the time to do that is not when you're

254
00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:19,200
75. That said, you can do yourself a lot of great benefits in your 70s, 80s and 90s. We

255
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:26,200
know that you can reacquire strength but it's very difficult to reacquire strength and muscle

256
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:32,520
mass and the reason I say that is because as a middle aged person if we started and continued

257
00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:40,840
with consistency then we are able to build muscle mass functionally and to maintain our

258
00:19:40,840 --> 00:19:46,960
strength and power production. That strength and power are all important to protect our

259
00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:54,520
fast rich muscle fibres and the reason that that is mentioned is because when we do endurance

260
00:19:54,520 --> 00:20:03,280
training, when we walk, when we do Ironman which is objectively very difficult, we are

261
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:07,840
actually leaning into the slow twitch muscle fibres and becoming very, very good at that

262
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:12,880
but it's not the slow twitch that looks after us in older age. In older age if you've ever

263
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:20,960
had a parent who has suddenly aged overnight or a friend or a family member who has suddenly

264
00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:27,440
shrunk and slowed down in a short space of time and that's because of the exponential

265
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:34,800
acceleration of fast twitch muscle fibre loss when we get over 65, 70 and unless we are

266
00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:40,440
doing stuff to stimulate those muscle fibres in particular then they're going to accelerate

267
00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:46,440
even further. We can't hedge and we can't offset that loss entirely but we can do a

268
00:20:46,440 --> 00:20:52,280
hell of a lot to slow that decline and that's the name of the game. We are all going to

269
00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:57,680
decline but you can control it and you can offset a hell of a lot of that with resistance

270
00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:02,680
training so that can be resistance against weight, resistance against your own body,

271
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:09,240
weight and a little bit of faster work as well so combining that with a little bit of

272
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:14,080
work to do those contractions more quickly or take up a sport which requires fast movement

273
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:23,120
as well with the cardio training is going to protect us in a more complete way. I say

274
00:21:23,120 --> 00:21:29,200
get your steps and your reps in because without one or the other then you're only doing half

275
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:34,320
the job and I say the same if people only do strength training I get them to take up

276
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:40,120
some zone two and some interval training and consequently there's someone who concentrates

277
00:21:40,120 --> 00:21:47,760
on endurance training I get them to do that and incorporate in the very basics really

278
00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:54,560
of strength training as well. I'd love to reverse engineer each of the earlier life

279
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:58,280
phases before we get to middle age because obviously that's where you're going to unpack

280
00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:04,240
the solutions that you wrote about in the book. When I look back at my son's generation

281
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:11,960
of course video games and social media devices and all these things are contributing woefully

282
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:18,000
to the breakdown in physicality in some of our children, the increase in obesity and

283
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:24,760
being overweight so that kind of poor nutrition and lack of movement is very evident but if

284
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:31,960
we go back to prior to that one of the things that's interesting when you move from the

285
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:37,160
United States from the UK to America is we grew up in an environment where you just played

286
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:43,200
sport but there were no elite performance training centers where we were doing plyometrics

287
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:47,060
and all kinds of stuff to be the best footballer you could be. You just play football and if

288
00:22:47,060 --> 00:22:52,360
your school weren't shit you'd win and if they were like mine you wouldn't but then

289
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:57,720
what I saw is that then because there wasn't this high level of performance people seemed

290
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:02,480
to carry on so you had pub leagues and local leagues and so it seemed like football and

291
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:07,160
rugby and cricket and some of the other sports and badminton and you know all these things

292
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:12,760
swimming people kept doing after they graduated from school. Now conversely in the states

293
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:18,480
what they do is they eke performance but arguably at the expense of longevity of a lot of these

294
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:25,300
young athletes so you get a super high level 18, 19, 20, 21 and then you know an absolute

295
00:23:25,300 --> 00:23:28,960
just drop with all these guys you know walking around saying I could have, would have, should

296
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:34,840
have if it wasn't for my ACL, my shoulder whatever it was and so even though there weren't

297
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:39,640
the devices and those kind of things I look back now and you know I'm trying to kind of

298
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:45,120
see you and I are existing in a world where a lot of our fellow middle-aged men and women

299
00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:52,080
are deconditioned, are you know overweight or obese so starting at us when we were young

300
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:56,760
what were the factors that worked well for what we're going to talk about and what were

301
00:23:56,760 --> 00:24:03,840
some of the factors in built-to-culture then that have created this kind of you know disease

302
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:09,280
and lack of fitness and strength in our population at the moment? Well I think that's a really

303
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,800
great question because you know I think if there was a next book in me it would be the

304
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:18,240
part that that talked that wrote a book for you know the first half of the book would

305
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:22,720
be for parents to have conversations with their teenage children and then the second

306
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:28,400
half of the book would be for teenage children because there's a lot of toxic masculinity

307
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:33,680
currently and there's a lot of body dysmorphia on both sides of the gender divide that really

308
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:41,100
doesn't help in terms of putting the message across that strength training in fact movement

309
00:24:41,100 --> 00:24:47,920
based practices, strength training, cardiovascular training, healthy lifestyle choices should

310
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:54,000
be a lifelong consistency and arc over one's life beginning in school and carrying on and

311
00:24:54,000 --> 00:25:02,280
laying those foundations in. I think you're right that I think often the high watermark

312
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:10,360
of anyone's athletic career is in school or high school or university. Again unless you

313
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:20,120
then carry through and you play competitive sport which is often the case. The numbers

314
00:25:20,120 --> 00:25:25,520
are pretty terrible still though. I do occasionally see something popping up on Instagram where

315
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:31,160
there's a 75 year old or 70 year old still playing rugby or you know the masters sprinters

316
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:36,560
who I think are actually great and really inspirational still going but they're the

317
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:41,320
exceptions to the rule and that's why they're on Instagram because you know someone said

318
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:47,360
this is amazing and they are amazing it should be celebrated. However what we need is a shift

319
00:25:47,360 --> 00:25:56,320
in that that becomes the normal and so there's this top heavy thing where probably near to

320
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:03,840
90% of people aren't doing the required level of minimum really required level of strength

321
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:11,000
training. The 150 minutes of moderate exercise or the 75 minutes of intense exercise that

322
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,280
most people know about now. Those numbers are still pretty poor but what's even worse

323
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:20,000
catastrophic really are the people doing the two sets of strength training that comes in.

324
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:25,960
This is World Health Organisation NHS or you know across the globe are all saying this

325
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:30,640
but it's not being done and it's certainly not being educated. That message is coming

326
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:39,520
out into the middle age and older population. It's not being targeted in schools as effectively.

327
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:46,640
So I think there's an educational piece there needs to be a change in how we educate our

328
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:50,760
children. There are some children who are going to have an eye on a professional sports

329
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:57,840
career they always will be. However for everyone else you know for everyone else see that probably

330
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:02,880
is at 0.01% people who have a professional sporting career. For everyone else it should

331
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:10,000
be about consistency of health span you know and introducing the concepts of health span

332
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:17,840
at an early stage in education. And I think having embedded into that message that you

333
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:24,240
can't have health span you know which is not just adding you know years to life but adding

334
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:29,000
life to years because you don't want to be having a terrible terrible time and enduring

335
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:34,880
your life. You know it's got to be a life where you can say yes to things when you're

336
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:41,000
75, 85. You know that's really the goal I think of what we would define as a good life

337
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:46,040
you know to be able to say yes not to have to endure the end of your life but actually

338
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,840
hopefully enjoying it right up to the end of your life which is actually where I open

339
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:53,120
the book because I give an example of someone you know a patient I worked with into the

340
00:27:53,120 --> 00:27:59,120
mid 90s who did just that. But going back to your question about life stages we seem

341
00:27:59,120 --> 00:28:04,960
to we see high water marching school depending on which school it is you know if it's in

342
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:08,960
the private sector they tend to get a bit more physical education in this country. If

343
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:16,280
you're state sector that's a postcode lottery. You then have the university system which

344
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:23,920
again a lot of students go to university and drink. I'm not judging that at all but you

345
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:28,400
know unless you're studying something that's active then potentially if it's a difficult

346
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:37,560
course people don't prioritise physical health and wellbeing. So you then have people stop

347
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:42,280
really in the mid 20s putting themselves into challenging situations unless you have opted

348
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:51,240
for a career in the services. And so you have the vast majority of population stop challenging

349
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:58,160
themselves in physical ways. You know so for instance if you suddenly had to sprint you

350
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:04,640
know the amount of people I see in clinic the weekend after a parents race at school

351
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,880
because they sprinted for the first time in 10 years and their hamstring or achilles have

352
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:13,680
gone and laugh but we all kind of go oh yeah yeah yeah that happens to me and it's because

353
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:20,360
we stop sprinting we stop using fast switch fibre and then a very good example of that

354
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:26,120
then so if you have detrained and you become a cyclist so you your fast switch fibres have

355
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:30,400
detrained your slow switch fibres and your cardiovascular fitness is good then have to

356
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:36,620
run 100 yards which you do because you haven't got the fast switch there your connective

357
00:29:36,620 --> 00:29:44,000
tissue so ligaments tendons cartilage take too much impact and you're injured and it's

358
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:51,920
as simple as that. So you then become middle aged and a middle age in midlife then you

359
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:58,680
have to you have to deal with parents and children and career so it is by far probably

360
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:03,520
the busiest most stressful time and a lot again a lot of people say I haven't got the

361
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:08,000
time I haven't got the time and so again I was very within the book I was very careful

362
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:13,400
just to kind of give permission actually to be middle aged because I'll come back to that

363
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:19,240
point but we know from some of this some of the experts I spoke to to write the book you

364
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:30,000
know epidemiologists and health promotion experts in the UK that midlife has this this

365
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:40,760
key period where the habits and the the decisions we make are more profoundly related to our

366
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:46,960
older age and if we can get into the habit of doing a little bit of more little bit more

367
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:54,560
strength work training in you know that steps and reps way then the we know from long-term

368
00:30:54,560 --> 00:31:00,840
epidemiological research that as an older person have you made that decision in midlife

369
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:08,280
you get a real dividend in order age and it's I wouldn't say it's the last chance to make

370
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:14,380
a meaningful change but I would say that you know the because one is middle age as well

371
00:31:14,380 --> 00:31:21,360
you know that's the that's the debate in itself but that I would say that you when you start

372
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:25,880
training like that the outcome will be as good as a time you have left so why not start

373
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:30,480
sooner rather than later just like a pension start investing in it because you're going

374
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:37,420
to need to lean into that pension one day but I think really the problem is James that

375
00:31:37,420 --> 00:31:42,400
there's lots of really good information out there there's lots of there's lots of good

376
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:48,880
information but people don't necessarily want to do it when you google strength training

377
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:55,520
or becoming stronger as a search term you know people like you and me don't pop up you

378
00:31:55,520 --> 00:32:04,160
know it's kind of what pops up is generally a scantily clad man or woman promoting something

379
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:09,920
which you know a way of working out which is probably going to leave you injured if

380
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:14,480
you start it when you're middle-aged and probably going to leave you fatigued and burnt out

381
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:19,400
which means in the long arc of the next 20 years which is where my focus is you're going

382
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:25,360
to be weaker because the biggest chapter in my book is how to avoid injury and burnout

383
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:30,240
because that's the biggest challenge for a middle-aged reader don't get injured don't

384
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:37,800
over train don't burn out keep turning up but being consistent in a challenging way

385
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:44,000
but in a controlled way so send that message to your body that is still needed in multiple

386
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:51,600
ways not just to run or or to walk because we know there is a causal link actually between

387
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:57,520
sending those messages to our deep nervous system and therefore whole self and there

388
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:05,240
being a dividend 20 years time we know there is a causal link so we just can't really explain

389
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:10,560
why yet but we know there is one so you know the message is that in the book i tried to

390
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:17,840
i wrote it for middle-aged people because i didn't really feel like many middle-aged

391
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:22,080
authors had written something that was that was kind of coherent in that it's not all

392
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:30,360
about you know getting that beach body it's actually about the next 10 20 30 years consistency

393
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:38,120
and that that requires i feel a change in mindset um and almost permission permission

394
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:48,520
to be middle-aged um now what i mean by that is it it sounds a bit perverse but if if if

395
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:55,240
we want to stop people starting and failing you know in their attempts to in middle age

396
00:33:55,240 --> 00:34:01,960
to become fitter stronger healthier then we need to give a framework and create a framework

397
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:10,560
within which it's all right to ebb and flow within which it's all right to gain and regress

398
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:15,600
you know to have a good day a good month a good year or a bad one because that is life

399
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:20,520
you know the ebb and flow of life you know we talked before about you know what it's

400
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:26,240
like not to have a good night's sleep that's midlife isn't it um so the problem is that

401
00:34:26,240 --> 00:34:31,040
if you do that if you join something else that's very very intense you know that is

402
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:37,240
based on like quite militaristic training or quite kind of binary your turn up at four

403
00:34:37,240 --> 00:34:42,360
at 4 30 a.m and you will do this then what about everyone else who can't do that what

404
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,560
about everyone else who thinks well i i'll do it and then you burn out after a month

405
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:52,880
and think of yourself as a failure so the framework that i propose is something in which

406
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,040
you give yourself permission to keep turning up but you also give yourself permission not

407
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:01,680
to have to because if you have a period when you're too busy to turn up and then don't

408
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:08,400
it's not a failure and you know just like eating healthy most of the time i try to eat

409
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:13,680
healthy most of the time but there are occasions where i don't but i know that over the long

410
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:19,600
arc of the next 20 years i'm going to be eating pretty healthy most of the time you know 90

411
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:26,040
95 percent of the time that will be my life and therefore that side of my kind of lifestyle

412
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:31,680
choice is taken care of whereas if i try to do some sort of diet that's really really

413
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:35,360
restrictive i'd fall off and then probably eat really badly then fall off and eat really

414
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:41,760
badly and so 20 years of doing that is going to leave me in a terrible state so think of

415
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:48,480
strength training in the same way as eating healthy most of the time if you try to strength

416
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:55,120
train within a controlled but challenging environment that i try to lay out in the book

417
00:35:55,120 --> 00:36:00,720
then you're going to be fine over the next 20 years and it's trying to get that mindset

418
00:36:00,720 --> 00:36:05,640
into people that you know you're never going to fail if you're in a system that gives you

419
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:12,720
permission to fail occasionally because that's basic um life throws its curveballs at you

420
00:36:12,720 --> 00:36:17,800
isn't it and i i think i just want to have a really honest discussion in the book about

421
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:22,640
that to say that you know i'm no longer that person i was when i was a tactical athlete

422
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:29,240
you know when i was you know really defined myself as a rower as a firefighter as a pt

423
00:36:29,240 --> 00:36:34,880
not that anymore you know i'm a middle-aged dude changed by injury um he was actually

424
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:41,880
reinvent themselves but still want to have that good arc of life and i think it's just

425
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:48,480
being realistic you know and because the problem is that when people really sell the whole

426
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:54,320
you know go hard or go home well that's good for business for me because i'll see you in

427
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:58,880
clinic in a few weeks you know because you know people who get injured and then end up

428
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:06,600
weaker in the long run is off the charts so a bit of a rambling answer to that but um

429
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:13,940
yeah that would be my take on life stages and i think midlife being the key life stage

430
00:37:13,940 --> 00:37:19,580
which is why i've kind of dedicated the book to all midlifers out there really we talked

431
00:37:19,580 --> 00:37:25,160
about injury and i want to unpack that so i have a litany of injuries but to be fair

432
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,840
i mean you know i was a firefighter i was a stuntman i was a martial artist some of

433
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:32,880
those injuries are from being punched in the face or falling or whatever it was but some

434
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:38,380
of them are hands down the result of taking my job seriously coupled with sleep deprivation

435
00:37:38,380 --> 00:37:42,760
you can never tell you got punched in the face my wife can't shut my nose goes off

436
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:50,680
to the side um but you know but injuries whatever the origin story they are such a deterrent

437
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:55,240
to exercise because it hurts because your joints move that way because you know when

438
00:37:55,240 --> 00:37:59,600
you press the barbell overhead you get a sharp pain in your shoulder or you know you got

439
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:03,560
a deadlift and that old back injury that you rehabbed is still kind of saying oh i'm going

440
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:10,060
to happen again you know so there's that really kind of scary psychological point to injuries

441
00:38:10,060 --> 00:38:14,880
as well so with that being said whether it's you know the fire service you want to speak

442
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:21,240
speak you know to our professional or just the average person talk to me about injuries

443
00:38:21,240 --> 00:38:26,520
as we get to middle age because the the thing that i'm realizing now is i'm not trying to

444
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:31,600
get stronger or faster anymore i'm trying to basically lack of that word unfuck the

445
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:37,360
things that i did to my body for the last 30 years which will make me faster and stronger

446
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:43,160
so i am lifting i am moving but i'm not trying to you know find the envelope anymore so what

447
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:49,360
are the kind of commonalities with injuries in our age group and that as a deterrent to

448
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:58,600
the very thing that's going to be the solution well there's a reason why the injury prevention

449
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:03,160
and understanding pain chapter are the largest in this book because you know this is the

450
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:07,760
biggest challenge i think especially if i'm trying to sell you know it's a hard sell trying

451
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:13,880
to sell something new and alien to most people which is strength training there's a lot of

452
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:21,400
fear and hesitancy around that because it's it's the unknown injury and pain are by far

453
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:28,360
the biggest risk factors closely followed by fatigue and burnout in midlife to maintaining

454
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:36,160
a stronger older age the the thing about carrying an old injury which you know we both do is

455
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:42,600
that you might you've got a kind of at some point i think you've got to look yourself

456
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:49,480
in the mirror and it doesn't matter what other people are doing have they had your history

457
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:54,200
have they had your life experience have they experienced is that what you've experienced

458
00:39:54,200 --> 00:40:01,040
when you've had that injury and the answer is of course they haven't so firstly don't

459
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:05,940
try and judge yourself by anyone else this is a very personal journey this is your body

460
00:40:05,940 --> 00:40:13,720
and your journey so the second thing to say is that just like i had to you have to one

461
00:40:13,720 --> 00:40:21,960
day realize that you can't train like a 25 year old anymore i did try that a few years

462
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:26,240
ago and ended up just laying in a darkened room for i could do it but it's a lot of darker

463
00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:29,680
room for a week of a headache because you know i just completely annihilated myself

464
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:35,240
and you don't recover and the whole thing about overtraining as well the whole thing

465
00:40:35,240 --> 00:40:41,160
that human nature is interesting when it comes to physical conditioning because you think

466
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:48,120
and it's still pervasive now in culture that if i put go harder than this if i do more

467
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:55,480
than is meant to be kind of a safe thing if i do it more often then that means i'm going

468
00:40:55,480 --> 00:41:01,400
to get a bonus i'm going to get exponentially that will equate to me becoming better no

469
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:09,720
it really doesn't what we know is you know over the long arc consistency counts but not

470
00:41:09,720 --> 00:41:16,600
intensity consistency and not getting injured count if you happen to be starting from a

471
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:25,680
point of injury then there is always an alternative to the movement everyone else is doing always

472
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:33,240
an alternative that isn't going to injure you and reinflame something injuries everyone

473
00:41:33,240 --> 00:41:36,600
gets injured whoever you are i don't care who you are everyone gets injured you can't

474
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:49,880
prevent or injury and you know you can't prevent aging but you can offset aging and you can

475
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:56,040
slow some of the things that are wrongly associated with aging such as loss of physical condition

476
00:41:56,040 --> 00:42:05,200
and in particular strength so pain i think is a subject that that people you know i think

477
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,320
you know if you've been lucky enough to get injured then great but understanding what

478
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:13,000
your body's telling you as well having that kind of biofeedback and understanding into

479
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:17,840
what your body's telling you you know pain is there to communicate with us and i kind

480
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:21,800
of kind of refer to it a little bit like a like a annoying neighbor at times if it's

481
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:28,640
there if we're sat for too long we become stiff that's a form of pain is feedback if

482
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:34,920
we work out we get that burning in our muscles sometimes so that's a form of feedback and

483
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:39,640
we kind of can judge when we're experienced you know what our body's telling us should

484
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:45,780
i adjust that or not we've also um we also have delayed onset muscle soreness which doms

485
00:42:45,780 --> 00:42:51,520
as you know which again is an element that we have to lean into and understand what our

486
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:57,740
body is actually telling us so in that regard pain is something that i encourage all people

487
00:42:57,740 --> 00:43:03,340
to lean into and understand a bit better because um especially and especially if you're dealing

488
00:43:03,340 --> 00:43:09,800
with arthritis or dealing which often middle-aged people are um especially if you're dealing

489
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:14,680
with old injuries which often middle-aged people are um because understanding what your

490
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:18,800
body's telling you and then experimenting a little bit with with what we're we're you

491
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,640
know we're trying to do in terms of that movement and finding alternatives um will actually

492
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:29,680
help us in the long run realize that you know oh you know so i did that movement in the

493
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:35,920
water in a pool and it didn't hurt me um and you know or you know i did an alternative

494
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:44,520
that the person the personal trainer or the pt at the gym suggested so um there are all

495
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:50,720
there are generally ways of unlocking movements um that can that can help with pain and what

496
00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:55,360
i would say is that you know it's impossible in this discussion to give you know an answer

497
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:59,840
that would cover all the bases for people that's going to be listening to this but um

498
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:05,600
i do encourage people to try to understand to try to experiment with what they can and

499
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:15,160
cannot do when it comes to triggering an old response because the long the more you can

500
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:22,320
move your body around that response the better now what i mean by that is that in my own

501
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:28,120
example if i give you that you know i had multiple dysprolapses at the same time i suffered

502
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:36,720
a industrial i was on duty and um you know i had a compression injury a fall a compression

503
00:44:36,720 --> 00:44:43,040
injury and so that led to early onset of arthritis something called modic changes which means

504
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:49,280
that the bone marrow in the in the um vertical body itself becomes inflamed and that's something

505
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:57,000
i have to nurse and manage now you know 20 years on every day um i can still be active

506
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:02,520
and strong but within that i have my challenges of moving so i know what works and doesn't

507
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:10,400
work but on days even the things that do work sometimes don't so there is no one fix um

508
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:15,440
the way the way the reason i mentioned that is that back then when i had my original injury

509
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:19,280
it was a pretty catastrophic injury i had nerve root impingement which means that it's

510
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:23,280
the equivalent of you know what what a lot of servicemen experience and phantom limb

511
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:32,880
pain in that i still get um raging sciatica sometimes because the nerve root that i originally

512
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:41,040
inflamed 20 years ago has changed permanently and even a slight muscle strain at the same

513
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:46,840
level of the spine that was changed permanently will cause it to trigger i have basically

514
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:53,200
got a hair trigger i have to deal with but that's not to say i haven't found a plethora

515
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:59,280
of ways of moving my body which don't trigger that and so after a few days of moving of

516
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:04,560
moving generally you know in water i'm a big advocate of you know training in pools and

517
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:11,520
moving in that way i can defacilitate that i send messages to that spinal segment and my brain

518
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:18,320
that all is well because my body's moving it's not mindfulness it's actually moving my body to

519
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:26,880
send the signal to say all is well and so that's taken 20 years james and you know i think what

520
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:34,320
what what i suggest to people is if you can find a way of moving um even if it's in unusual setting

521
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:40,240
or an unusual movement for you do it even if you're if you've been previously in pain because if

522
00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:45,280
you can find a way of moving which doesn't aggravate what you're doing any movement will

523
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:51,680
more quickly get you to that point that i just described when i look at a lot of more chronic

524
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:56,160
pain i'm not talking about getting nailed by a train or you know falling off a fire engine

525
00:46:56,160 --> 00:47:02,800
and compressing your spine but the more kind of slow burn injuries it appears that it's ultimately

526
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:10,000
muscle imbalance and obviously immobility of joints and muscles so talk to me about the the

527
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:17,600
prescriptive element the the um uh the healing that you would get with a well balanced strength

528
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:24,320
training routine around that pain so healing some of this more chronic pain with exercise

529
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:31,280
i mean any joint um if we take a knee injury for instance um you know any joint is only as good as

530
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:35,200
the muscles around it even a prosthetic knee you're only as good as the muscles around it

531
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:43,840
in my experience in physical education and in clinic um if a person is able to just marginally

532
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:49,760
strengthen those muscles around that joint they will experience less pain it's because the muscles

533
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:57,280
don't just uh they don't just work as to move the joints they work to brace it and girdle it naturally

534
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:05,280
as well so there's literally a bracing that is there there's also um that signaling as well so

535
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:10,400
if you are only doing isometric work on a joint that is difficult to move in full range

536
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:16,240
just an isometric element of strengthening will benefit that joint as well strengthening the

537
00:48:16,240 --> 00:48:21,600
contralateral side the opposite side because human beings we are very much set up to be

538
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:28,480
bilateral you know we've got two pairs hands limbs etc so there's this neurological drive to keep us

539
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:33,600
moving so there's this thing called the crossover effect which means if this arm is injured train

540
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:40,560
this one i'll get a benefit on this one even though it's in a cast so in regards to the biological

541
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:47,520
processes of of why that would help well there's a couple of examples there but i think i think for

542
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:56,800
me the majority of um injuries tend to happen when when someone has um a lack of all-around

543
00:48:56,800 --> 00:49:02,000
fitness and that can be also be the cardiovascular fitness as well because when someone hasn't got the

544
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:07,200
vo2 max cardiovascular fitness they tend to rely more on their muscular skeletal system

545
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:13,600
and therefore pick up an injury um and then conversely you know if they haven't got the

546
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:20,400
you know the muscular skeletal strength then um they'll potentially burn themselves out more

547
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:28,000
quickly so i i think that with with well the way i look at how to prepare if we're talking about

548
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:36,080
first responders it's it's not about being um it's not about being able to do the first responders

549
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:42,000
it's not about being the biggest uh the fastest it's about being consistent it's about being ready

550
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:50,560
at any time um multiple times uh in one shift often it's about being ready and that's quite a unique

551
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:59,120
um that's quite a unique ask isn't it on human physiology um but i think that consistency i think

552
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:04,800
being mindful also of yeah you've got your good program you know so let's look at someone who's

553
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:10,400
got a great program have they do they do the mobility piece in that do they do they take care

554
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:17,440
to to mobilize um to stretch and decompress to relax very quickly because the sooner you can get

555
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:23,520
into that relaxed parasympathetic state um the more quickly your body will start to replenish

556
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:32,080
and recover so that brings us on to sleep you know sleep deprivation feeds into that um literally

557
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:39,440
you'll get less hypertrophy less recovery if you are sleep deprived or if you are in a higher state

558
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:47,040
of anxiety depression or you know some kind of neurological arousal all these things take away

559
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:54,160
from our ability our body's ability to recover replenish repair um and and to build strength or

560
00:50:54,160 --> 00:51:01,840
and to build strength or cardiovascular training so it has to all be there um and that's a challenge

561
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:11,520
especially over a 30 year career um i think if you have the knowledge of what works for your body

562
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:17,520
if you've trained for a while then the thing to do is to i think we're going back to middle age

563
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:22,480
again when you get to middle age i would say maybe change gears a bit um you have to give

564
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:27,440
yourself permission to change gears james um if we're talking about avoidance of injury if you

565
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:32,800
continue to train like you did when you were 25 and you're 55 you're going to get injured and you're

566
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:37,920
not going to be training like that at 75 at some point you're going to have to change gears and i

567
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,680
always encourage people to change gears when it's their choice not when they have to because there's

568
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:49,920
been an injury you know it's the old fable isn't it where um a you know someone has a fire then

569
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:55,120
puts a fire alarm fire alarm in afterwards you know like the barn door when the horse is bolted

570
00:51:55,120 --> 00:52:02,080
you can name probably several others make the choice before you have to in light of your world

571
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:09,200
i call it the great gamble because the amount of people who uh including myself up until actually

572
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:15,760
really diving into this subject matter you know we we train and we won't change our training

573
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:21,760
until we're injured and have to and hoping for the best and then when you get injured then you

574
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:26,480
think actually yeah i've had that niggle for ages and i didn't stop and then it became something

575
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:31,040
more and more and then i got injured whereas actually if you have that niggle lean into it

576
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:37,760
understand it lighten your load come back to it in a month train again train up train around the

577
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:46,400
movement but don't just keep going um with that niggle because if you do then there's a high

578
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:52,160
expectation in 20 years you'll be weaker and that's a tragedy to me because a lot of people

579
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:57,520
are trained and they get injured in midlife but it's very reason they might have trained for

580
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:03,280
quite a long time and then get injured and that's it uh and you know i see a lot of this when people

581
00:53:03,280 --> 00:53:08,000
retire as well you know when they had a certain regime and then they retire and their system

582
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:14,560
um detrains quite quickly because they stop moving in the same way and you know that's a tragedy

583
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:21,600
because um yeah but all that investment in time and effort and you're still going to end up weaker

584
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:27,040
i had an interesting conversation with a journalist a few months ago talking about this project and

585
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:33,600
this project and she was talking to me about you know the movements in the book and i and she said

586
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:38,480
that her husband knew she was talking to me that day and he'd asked her to ask a question and the

587
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:44,400
question was he hasn't done anything he's 45 and hasn't done anything he's literally didn't do

588
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:49,520
anything from school his work's been quite sedentary a little bit overweight um he's thinking

589
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:55,920
about taking up some strength training and some cardio training um and taking the advice that that

590
00:53:55,920 --> 00:54:02,080
i've kind of tried to amplify out there and um i said great so what's the question he said well

591
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:06,160
that you know is it too late and i said no actually no it's not too late this is that this book was

592
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:12,880
for him because and the lady who was interviewing me was a journalist who trained all her life so

593
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:22,720
you had really binary you know one and the other but i said that if she was to stop right now and

594
00:54:22,720 --> 00:54:31,920
he was to start because they're both about 45 at 75 he wins because you can't you cannot rely on

595
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:37,680
former glory it's gone you know you get a detraining effect whoever you are doesn't matter

596
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:43,920
you cannot rely on former glory uh a former physical fitness or former levels of strength

597
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:51,600
to protect you in 30 years time when you're 75 so the husband if he starts now and it's consistent

598
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:57,280
and sensible over the next 30 years wins the aging game because it is i think again from that

599
00:54:57,280 --> 00:55:01,760
regard it should be looked at as that and she was shocked she said well yeah but you know i think

600
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:10,160
you know she was a and still is a very active very strong very fit woman he wins give it a few years

601
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:15,680
he wins if it continues he definitely wins the aging game and it's because there's this detraining

602
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:20,080
effect in the nervous system in the muscular system i think i mentioned earlier in this

603
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:26,960
conversation that we know that 75 year old 85 year olds can reacquire strength have they've been

604
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:32,080
detrained for some number of years because there's a neurological component to strength

605
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:39,920
but they can't require the muscle mass and or certainly not in the way that one would think if

606
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:48,080
you can regain strength so the reason i bring that up is because strength and muscle are closely

607
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:53,360
related and we need a bit of both we don't want to be bodybuilders you know but we don't want to be

608
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:59,040
powerlifters we ideally want to be somewhere in the middle so we get functional hypertrophy

609
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:04,080
we get functional strength in movements that we're going to experience in our lives moving forward

610
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:10,560
which is how i try to break up those movements and the reason we want the the muscle mass is because

611
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:17,440
it helps with pain bracing the joints as i mentioned it also acts as a natural repository

612
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:24,240
of amino acids which are you know essential to life you know every hormone biological

613
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:30,960
cellular action are are actually dependent on our repository to be able to do that to be able to

614
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:38,000
repair replenish those cells make hormones etc if they're not there then our immune system

615
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:43,760
falls off a cliff as well because the muscular skeletal system our muscle mass

616
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:48,880
um should be and i believe is now being viewed by more people as an immune organ with definitely

617
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:54,240
an immune function in its own right which again explains why those older relatives who we see

618
00:56:54,240 --> 00:57:04,080
suddenly shrink and slow and lose postural kind of um you know their postural ability to function in

619
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:09,840
life also lose their ability to respond to the common cold because that repository isn't there

620
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:17,280
because that repository isn't there anymore so you know we we need to start thinking literally

621
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:24,160
about um age like that and so you know if you spent 30 years from middle age

622
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:29,360
maintaining what muscle you build doing what you can to build functional muscle mass

623
00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:35,280
and strength working on those fast twitch fibers which are important to save us from trips and

624
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:39,760
falls for that quick foot readjustment when we trip or to pull ourselves up from the floor when

625
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:48,080
we're on the floor as well as that repository of the ability within our amino acids to replenish

626
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:54,160
repair our cellular function then we're going to be in great shape compared to the person who

627
00:57:54,160 --> 00:58:02,800
stops in midlife and it's that binary when you talk about the hormonal impact of in the loss of

628
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:07,760
muscle mass to me it mirrors what we see in our profession and obviously you know there's a massive

629
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:14,080
element of sleep deprivation um that's contributing to that but there are men's clinics opening up

630
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:20,160
everywhere where i live now and it's all trt trt and i actually partner with a company called

631
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:25,280
transcend who are doing it right they do phenomenal blood testing they offer peptides if you just need

632
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:30,880
to boost your own levels a little bit and then trt for people who truly are devoid of the production

633
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:38,080
and need to actually have it exogenously but you know conversely sleep is going to help especially

634
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:41,840
these younger firefighters muscle mass is going to help not just firefighters but the general

635
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:48,160
population in you know in a country where like i said they peaked at 2021 and have been sedentary

636
00:58:48,160 --> 00:58:55,520
for the next 20 years so just kind of unpack that a little bit more the the the relationship between

637
00:58:55,520 --> 00:59:01,680
physical health and you know muscle health and the very sex hormones that we rely on for longevity

638
00:59:02,960 --> 00:59:06,720
yeah so you know obviously half the population over half the population are female

639
00:59:07,520 --> 00:59:14,480
and so one of the biggest kind of dangers obviously to the menopause is that loss of

640
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:26,240
skeletal muscle mass and tendency for osteoporosis osteopenia and again with men as you mentioned you

641
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:32,880
know testosterone levels dropping these hormonal drops if you look at a graph you know male and

642
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:41,680
female tend to do that whereas an acid they're not making the kind of right healthy lifestyle

643
00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:46,320
exercise choices resistance training strength training if you can then you can blunt the curve

644
00:59:46,320 --> 00:59:52,480
slightly but that slight blunting of the curve means a hell of a lot to your quality of life

645
00:59:52,480 --> 01:00:00,640
and older age is hell of a lot so in terms of trt what i would say in so this country it's

646
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:05,840
a very different system there are longevity clinics more and more popping up they call

647
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:13,120
them longevity clinics and you know it's exciting time to look at the research at the moment

648
01:00:15,040 --> 01:00:21,600
because my mission really was to democratize a stronger older age i wanted to talk about things

649
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:28,000
that everyone can do that aren't really based upon having the money to go to one of these things or

650
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:33,040
you know to be able to actually see a really good doctor because you know i mean personally

651
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:37,840
you only want to be seeing a real expert when you're dealing with hormonal replacement my point

652
01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:46,960
being that i think that anything medical like that should be considered if you really do have

653
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:52,880
a deficiency and should be medically advised but when it comes to the benefits that are there for

654
01:00:52,880 --> 01:00:59,600
everyone then it really is quite simple that the vast majority i think something like in the uk

655
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:05,360
seven percent of men and four percent of women are the only that amount actually currently

656
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:11,360
strength training therefore are maintaining that muscle mass and so the numbers are so bad that

657
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:20,240
i don't really entertain people or don't advise them seeking those kind of medical interventions

658
01:01:20,240 --> 01:01:27,920
certainly in the uk and i would probably stand by that in the in the u.s as well until they've

659
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:36,880
until they've actually done the the basics of you know you know try to lose a bit of weight in a

660
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:43,760
healthy way slowly try to gain some strength in a healthy way slowly try to get some cardiovascular

661
01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:50,320
fitness into your life without injuring yourself slowly if you've done that and you're and you've

662
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:54,000
done all those things and you're still struggling for whatever reason then i think the medical

663
01:01:54,000 --> 01:02:00,800
approach is absolutely valid i really do but i think the the reality is that unless you do that

664
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:06,880
i think you're robbing yourself of the opportunity to do it naturally because there's so much wisdom

665
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:13,280
in our bodies that you know we're literally rewarded with feel-good hormones you know if

666
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:21,040
we get it right there's so much wisdom that if we just commit to six months of trying to change

667
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:29,680
something it can benefit i know i've seen some one of your um one of your posts ages ago when

668
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:35,120
um you caught alcohol out you change your sleep routine this is after you interviewed a sleep

669
01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:41,920
expert and you shared your um i think you your your testosterone results and they went up

670
01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:47,040
something as simple as that you know you didn't have to do anything other than just kind of

671
01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:54,320
practice some lifestyle changes and that's my point in that it works it's not sexy is it it's

672
01:02:54,320 --> 01:03:00,480
not you know it's not wrapped up as a package and sold to you it's just actually a bit of practice

673
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:06,960
a bit of a bit of knowledge and a bit of wisdom that you lean into that's been there for millennia

674
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:12,000
that you can actually feel when you're doing something right just as you can feel when you're

675
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:17,280
doing something wrong right you know it's um there's that wisdom in the body so i mean i

676
01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:25,520
used to say um when it comes to you know the boundaries and the um knowledge at this point

677
01:03:26,240 --> 01:03:31,520
in terms of longevity in terms of the best practice we just don't know irrespective of

678
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:37,840
what people might say in science we just don't know truly yet because we can't put a control

679
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:44,560
group who do nothing we can put another group who do one thing another group who who have the

680
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:52,000
exercise regime and the medical advice or medical intervention because that's unethical we've got to

681
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:58,960
look at things we've got to be epic we've got to look at epidemiological research we've got to look

682
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:03,680
back and try and learn lessons from there and we've also got to kind of like look and look at the

683
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:10,720
experience of people who um work with people in this field so um there are some implicit

684
01:04:10,720 --> 01:04:14,960
relationships that are there we just can't definitively say how they're there like for

685
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:21,600
instance i mentioned we know that in midlife you know certain movements and certain practices

686
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:27,600
leads to um better outcomes for health generally in older age so things like grip strength leg

687
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:33,680
strength there is a causal link we just can't quite nail down exactly why yet but it's there

688
01:04:34,720 --> 01:04:38,800
so we shouldn't stop doing it because you don't know exactly how it happens and we don't want to

689
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:44,640
do a control blind trial where we put a lot of people who detrain and become psychopathic and

690
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:51,920
osteoporinic and risk of frailty because that's unethical as i say so um coming back to the

691
01:04:51,920 --> 01:04:58,640
original question um it's an exciting time because i think within our lifetime we will know more i

692
01:04:58,640 --> 01:05:05,200
think within our lifetime there probably will be a product that can um be uh accessible to the

693
01:05:05,200 --> 01:05:11,920
general population without too much expense that can potentially do something to the rate of cellular

694
01:05:11,920 --> 01:05:19,120
aging but right now you know it's important therefore to stay in shape right this you don't

695
01:05:19,120 --> 01:05:24,880
want to be a frail 70 year old you know um having to retrain first before you can even be considered

696
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:32,960
for some intervention be kicking ass when you're 75 85 um because probably you know if something

697
01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:40,160
does become more accessible in that longevity sector uh or more or there's more understanding

698
01:05:40,160 --> 01:05:45,840
of how the long-term effects of these hormones work um you if you're in good shape anyway you're

699
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:50,080
probably not gonna be bothered by me you know you know i think you're probably gonna be thinking

700
01:05:50,080 --> 01:05:54,400
it's working what i'm doing is working i don't want to put i don't want to do that so

701
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:58,400
i've got an open mind to that i think you know let's see but i think

702
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:05,360
stay in shape so you're around you're in the game when when things are becoming you know more yeah

703
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:14,400
what becoming clearer you touched on the body's innate ability to not only reward itself when we're

704
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:19,760
doing right but just the innate ability to heal the innate ability to thrive um and i think this

705
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:23,840
is you know you mentioned earlier about what it what is middle age you know my grandparents were

706
01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:30,800
99 and 105 basically when they both passed so what i see middle age being a glass half full kind of

707
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:35,200
a guys i'm not even there yet at 50 years old i got a couple of years before i matched my

708
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:41,120
grandmother's but you know again it's also the health span as you touched on when you did your

709
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:47,440
research and you looked at cultures around the world because i shared a haitian man not too long

710
01:06:47,440 --> 01:06:53,600
ago 80 i forget now three absolutely ripped still working in the sugar canes and things what he was

711
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:57,760
doing and he made a mention of he didn't retire because he didn't want to be a liability to his

712
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:03,280
children um but this man would have been you know would have would have challenged anyone in the

713
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:09,760
gym any you know 18 20 year old it was phenomenal watching him and so i think we have such a skewed

714
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:18,480
perfect perspective on what 50 60 70 even looks like so outside of you know the western kind of

715
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:23,280
modernized culture when you look at more indigenous cultures around the world obviously

716
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:28,960
factoring in you know the the disease and a lot of the stuff but when given you know the the diet

717
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:35,280
that they should be getting and free and disease what are you seeing as far as ability in you know

718
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:43,120
middle age onwards in some of these less um corrupted tribes yeah great question um

719
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:51,120
huge tolerance for life you see with people um you know we hear the blue zones around the world

720
01:07:51,680 --> 01:07:58,720
and i think it's because somewhere along the line you know they culturally

721
01:07:58,720 --> 01:08:04,880
the decisions were made that that i think they get benefits from multi-generational living

722
01:08:04,880 --> 01:08:10,320
they get benefits from being an elder not an older person but being an elder they feel valued

723
01:08:10,320 --> 01:08:16,480
they have community they don't stop necessarily working and retire they just carry on in that

724
01:08:16,480 --> 01:08:25,040
community i think it's very interesting i think they can't quite distill the golden pill of the

725
01:08:25,040 --> 01:08:32,400
blue zones but certainly looking at um you know some of the cultures so so for instance in japan

726
01:08:34,160 --> 01:08:38,000
they're not going to the gym in okinawa mate you know they you know but they are doing multiple

727
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:43,920
squats a day because their desks are on the floor they eat on the floor they socialize on the floor

728
01:08:43,920 --> 01:08:48,560
so on a very basic level you know they're getting their leg strength in there people working in the

729
01:08:48,560 --> 01:08:52,000
fields are getting their leg and hand strength there i'm not saying it's not kind of a hard

730
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:58,640
and sometimes quite brutal there's that there's that often thing you have to realize that

731
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:02,480
there was a reason why a hundred years ago there's a lower life expectancy

732
01:09:03,600 --> 01:09:08,320
because people were overworking overtraining a form of overtraining that raising their body

733
01:09:08,320 --> 01:09:15,040
inflammation then dying younger potentially but you know what is middle age i mean i for the

734
01:09:15,040 --> 01:09:24,320
purpose of the book i said 35 to 65 but it's a very as you say if you've got relatives longevity

735
01:09:24,320 --> 01:09:31,120
in the family live into their hundreds then you know what does that mean i mean i would say middle

736
01:09:31,120 --> 01:09:40,400
ages you're no longer young but you're not yet old and the not yet old bit is still very much up

737
01:09:40,400 --> 01:09:46,880
for grabs you know they're not they're no longer young that's gone that boat has sailed right and

738
01:09:47,440 --> 01:09:54,720
but i think the not yet old bit is the interesting bit because i intend to be not yet old for as long

739
01:09:54,720 --> 01:10:00,160
as i could possibly be and i think that's what i'm encouraging people to do is you know i'm not yet

740
01:10:00,160 --> 01:10:06,800
old yeah i want some of that you know let's not yet be old and that is done obviously by

741
01:10:06,800 --> 01:10:13,760
a whole plethora of lifestyle stuff that that that should aim to deliver you as a stronger you

742
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:18,320
in 30 years that does obviously include strength training also includes nutrition through sleep

743
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:24,800
relaxation happiness all these things but without the base building blocks of actually doing the

744
01:10:24,800 --> 01:10:32,880
physical practice then you're not going to have it and so yeah it's for me it's it's about it's

745
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:40,800
about it's about just having a mindset that i'm not yet old and in whatever that means to to to

746
01:10:40,800 --> 01:10:47,280
everyone we might look old but we might not yet be old physically and it's sending messages to

747
01:10:47,280 --> 01:10:54,400
your body and your nervous system that you're still needed you know if we decide to retire

748
01:10:54,400 --> 01:11:00,000
and sit then good luck because you'll become very good at sitting and you're sending a message to

749
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:06,960
deep cellular self that you're no longer needed to do challenging things and guess what you lose

750
01:11:06,960 --> 01:11:12,640
your fast twitch fibers you know you can no longer when asked do challenging things and what does

751
01:11:12,640 --> 01:11:16,480
that mean what does that life look like that will look like a life that's defined by the four walls

752
01:11:16,480 --> 01:11:29,520
you find yourself sitting it and so i see strength training in a controlled way so regular controlled

753
01:11:29,520 --> 01:11:35,600
strength training as not only building that strength in your muscular system but sending

754
01:11:35,600 --> 01:11:41,120
a very important message to your deep cellular self that you're still needed you still need to

755
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:47,040
show up and so stick around and it's the fast twitch fibers and the relationship between them

756
01:11:47,040 --> 01:11:54,400
and the nervous system that you're telling that to you're asking that relationship to stay to

757
01:11:54,400 --> 01:12:00,720
stay fast and you're asking those fast twitch fibers to stick around if you lose that if you

758
01:12:00,720 --> 01:12:06,160
do not practice that in any way then you know you might you might be running you might be

759
01:12:07,120 --> 01:12:13,520
cycling you might be swimming and it's all great but you'll be losing that fast twitch part of

760
01:12:13,520 --> 01:12:20,320
what could have been there and in terms of longevity fast twitch is golden and so

761
01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:25,600
you know that that basically summarizes summarizes what i'm trying to tell people really in that you

762
01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:31,200
know if you're only doing half the job if you you don't pay attention to the fast twitch fiber

763
01:12:32,080 --> 01:12:37,280
and to do that you need to do something challenging and controlled don't do something crazy do

764
01:12:37,280 --> 01:12:43,840
something challenging and controlled for the next 20 years regularly but giving yourself permission

765
01:12:44,480 --> 01:12:49,760
to have good and bad periods as long as you return to that practice you'll be already

766
01:12:49,760 --> 01:12:54,000
you'll be all right and the thing to say james is we're not going to keep doing personal bests all

767
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:59,280
the time for the next 20 years we might have already peaked i don't know you know i equate

768
01:12:59,280 --> 01:13:02,880
physical strength as like you know when you're climbing a rope but you probably did have to do

769
01:13:02,880 --> 01:13:08,640
this in training i did in training you have to climb a rope um and then you know ring a bell at

770
01:13:08,640 --> 01:13:12,640
the top then climb back down then do it again physical strength you know you might get half

771
01:13:12,640 --> 01:13:18,480
out the rope and that represents your high water mark of strength now you're all on a rope there's

772
01:13:18,480 --> 01:13:24,240
a line of you all on a rope and so you're in the middle on that rope and and then hormonally midlife

773
01:13:24,240 --> 01:13:30,080
you might come down a few hands down and then you look around you and you know it's all pretty

774
01:13:30,080 --> 01:13:34,160
similar and then the people who decide not to do any physical practice such as strength training

775
01:13:34,720 --> 01:13:40,400
they go down that rope even further and faster than you and eventually in older life they hit

776
01:13:40,400 --> 01:13:46,240
the ground literally we know people hit the ground in a metaphoric way in a physical way

777
01:13:46,240 --> 01:13:50,320
whereas if you started in midlife to come down but actually the rate at which you come down that

778
01:13:50,320 --> 01:13:55,600
rope is controlled and you don't actually hit the ground when you're older then good you might be

779
01:13:55,600 --> 01:13:59,760
a few inches off the ground but you haven't hit it is my and you're controlling that descent

780
01:14:00,560 --> 01:14:06,480
by your physical practice and then we're on to a winner and it's that simple that's the way i see

781
01:14:06,480 --> 01:14:14,320
aging that whole philosophy of not yet old i do the three four three hero challenge every year

782
01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:21,280
and there i think there's a division that's like 40 and above and i'm 50 now and uh every single year

783
01:14:21,280 --> 01:14:26,160
i enter into the regular one the younger one and it's it's i've got a teammate who is in that age

784
01:14:26,160 --> 01:14:32,320
group but he said to me before you know if you did the other division you might you might um be on

785
01:14:32,320 --> 01:14:37,920
the podium i'm like but it's not about that it's about showing the young firefighters that at 50

786
01:14:37,920 --> 01:14:46,800
years old i'm not yet old i can still show up in bunker gear grab ladder grab hose grab people

787
01:14:46,800 --> 01:14:51,280
and make it happen it's walking the walk and i think where that's powerful is like you said the

788
01:14:51,280 --> 01:14:55,680
psychological point of view because there's a lot of people wearing uniform that are a liability

789
01:14:56,240 --> 01:15:01,360
that aren't that can't do the job anymore you know and that's you know they know it they know damn

790
01:15:01,360 --> 01:15:06,000
well in their heart of hearts if they can or they can't so i think that you know it's less about oh

791
01:15:06,000 --> 01:15:11,360
but i want a trophy for myself and more about i want to stay in that mindset where i can am i

792
01:15:11,360 --> 01:15:16,720
going to be as fast or as strong as the 18 year old probably not but am i still able to move those

793
01:15:16,720 --> 01:15:21,600
tools that i need to for my job or roll with someone you know half my age on the jiu-jitsu

794
01:15:21,600 --> 01:15:27,680
mat or whatever it is yeah you know and it's a you know 80 of what i could do before but i'm

795
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:32,720
still doing it with this younger group of people and still feeling younger myself rather than going

796
01:15:32,720 --> 01:15:37,120
well you know i'm 50 now i'm going to take up golf you know so i think that there's a huge

797
01:15:37,760 --> 01:15:43,360
very powerful psychological point of that leaning into that not old especially if you're in a

798
01:15:43,360 --> 01:15:50,720
profession where your physicality is a life-saving tool definitely yeah i mean that's not i mean that's

799
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:56,160
that's that's exactly right and i think you you summarize it perfectly and that you know you're

800
01:15:56,160 --> 01:16:01,280
doing probably 80 percent of what you were doing what would have done when you were 35 30 but it

801
01:16:01,280 --> 01:16:05,920
doesn't matter he's still in the game he's still in the arena doing challenging stuff sending that

802
01:16:05,920 --> 01:16:10,800
message to yourself and you know that's my my metaphor was you're coming down that rope we all

803
01:16:10,800 --> 01:16:14,720
are but you're coming down more slow than the dude who's taken up golf that's for sure 100

804
01:16:14,720 --> 01:16:20,720
percent you know person who's taken up golf is probably already on the floor they just don't know

805
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:27,200
it yet because you know they haven't had that that that medical event um so that's perfectly

806
01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:30,960
right i think you've got to be sensible you've got to be give yourself permission to be belated

807
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:36,480
but still turn up and do challenging things in a controlled way you know i think as at the middle

808
01:16:36,480 --> 01:16:40,800
age you know in middle age and you know talking about middle age you know i mean in the uk

809
01:16:40,800 --> 01:16:44,960
generally if a firefighter joins at 18 they've they've left the job unless they're very senior

810
01:16:44,960 --> 01:16:55,120
officer by you know early 50s they're retired and um maybe 55 um that's the the worst thing you can

811
01:16:55,120 --> 01:17:04,560
do is to stop um any any kind of regime you've had um the best thing you can do is now that you

812
01:17:04,560 --> 01:17:10,160
don't have to put yourself in very sketchy physically dangerous situations if you are

813
01:17:10,160 --> 01:17:17,840
lucky enough to have come through that i can still move reasonably well then i'd hate what

814
01:17:17,840 --> 01:17:22,240
a tragedy if someone then injures himself doing something that's meant to be recreational finally

815
01:17:22,240 --> 01:17:28,480
you know so at that point i say change gears build upon that base and that knowledge you've got

816
01:17:28,480 --> 01:17:34,720
and then keep going but don't try and injure yourself you know have try and have a mindset

817
01:17:34,720 --> 01:17:41,840
on on the far horizon to to really look after yourself and not just yourself actually you know

818
01:17:41,840 --> 01:17:45,760
i think being strong and independent is the biggest gift you can give to your family when

819
01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:50,800
you're under and you know we've all got we're all in the same boat again globally you know we're an

820
01:17:50,800 --> 01:17:58,400
aging top heavy population so um you know i mentioned that in somewhere in the book i can't

821
01:17:58,400 --> 01:18:02,800
remember exactly where it was but you know we all die don't we and then we die again when someone

822
01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:08,000
stops saying your name but then there's a time before that i think if you're unlucky enough to

823
01:18:08,000 --> 01:18:15,440
lose that physical independence because frankly you know you've come to that point sooner than

824
01:18:15,440 --> 01:18:22,240
or you know than you needed to or um that's a tragedy that's another tragedy that's another

825
01:18:22,240 --> 01:18:27,360
death really and when we're in layers we've got quite a binary decision to make you know do you

826
01:18:27,360 --> 01:18:36,800
spend the next 30 years playing golf and slowly dying or do you spend the next 30 years being as

827
01:18:36,800 --> 01:18:44,160
strong as you can within sensible control limits and saying yes to everything you know

828
01:18:44,160 --> 01:18:49,040
competing in those things that you want to compete in giving yourself permission to be middle-aged

829
01:18:49,040 --> 01:18:53,520
and compete you know doing the 80% that 21 year olds you would have done if you're still in the

830
01:18:53,520 --> 01:19:00,480
game and you know the challenge James is to try to turn that narrative into not just a couple of

831
01:19:00,480 --> 01:19:05,680
people having a chat about it because i know you and i touch wood we'll be still in the game in

832
01:19:05,680 --> 01:19:10,960
20 years time and we need to and we'll be unusual for that you know we need to kind of make it

833
01:19:10,960 --> 01:19:17,920
unmute we need to make it the usual thing that you know people are still in the game get this message

834
01:19:18,720 --> 01:19:22,720
that you can still compete you can still put yourself in challenging situations you can still

835
01:19:22,720 --> 01:19:28,880
sprint you know you can still lift and lower and press heavy things but maybe not as heavy as you

836
01:19:28,880 --> 01:19:35,120
did when you were in school and that isn't a failure that's a success. I want to hit one more

837
01:19:35,120 --> 01:19:39,120
topic and then we'll go to the the strength training principles that you talk about in the

838
01:19:39,120 --> 01:19:45,280
book but one of the things i think a lot of us see certainly in in america because we do so much EMS

839
01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:51,920
as well is the impact of osteoporosis especially on our older women and the number of hip fractures

840
01:19:51,920 --> 01:19:57,280
and pelvic fractures and things that are you know not just an emergency but more often than not

841
01:19:57,280 --> 01:20:01,680
life-ending because they lose their mobility and then you know psychiatry or psychologically

842
01:20:01,680 --> 01:20:07,680
that's kind of like the end for them so i remember being in university of north london doing exercise

843
01:20:07,680 --> 01:20:13,920
physiology and there was one slide i remember to this day and it was a cyclist and they said

844
01:20:13,920 --> 01:20:18,800
that the only place in this study they found an increase in bone density was in their wrists

845
01:20:18,800 --> 01:20:23,040
where they were leaning on the handlebars as they were cycling because their legs were going in a

846
01:20:23,040 --> 01:20:28,960
circular motion and so you think about the messaging you know when it comes to bone strength

847
01:20:28,960 --> 01:20:34,880
that we were raised on it was drink milk you know and then now as you kind of carry on down the

848
01:20:34,880 --> 01:20:40,800
educational path you're like no it's it's impact you kind of you know you shock the bone and it

849
01:20:40,800 --> 01:20:44,720
rebuilds a little bit stronger you shock the bone it doesn't have to be impact impact obviously

850
01:20:44,720 --> 01:20:51,280
strength training tension from that muscle can do the same thing so talk to me about the imperative

851
01:20:51,280 --> 01:20:55,920
importance for strength training when it comes to bone density and then obviously the

852
01:20:56,560 --> 01:21:01,840
downstream effects of the lesser likelihood of a life-threatening injury like that

853
01:21:01,840 --> 01:21:06,960
yeah so you're right that we're always talking about impact and so all the runners and

854
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:12,400
joggers out there say great i'm getting that i'm good i'm all good but you're only again you're

855
01:21:12,400 --> 01:21:18,880
only doing half the job because yes there's the bones the the bone itself remodels

856
01:21:18,880 --> 01:21:28,480
more strongly and experienced impact but there's also the the fact that osteoporosis and

857
01:21:28,480 --> 01:21:34,480
osteoporosis and psychopenia which is lots of lean skeletal muscle mass is closely associated so

858
01:21:37,600 --> 01:21:42,960
you don't have one without the other so conversely if you maintain your skeletal

859
01:21:42,960 --> 01:21:48,480
muscle mass you're much less likely to have osteoporosis and it's because in the act of

860
01:21:48,480 --> 01:21:59,040
maintaining that lean sphincter muscle mass you have been lifting lowering pushing pulling ripping

861
01:21:59,520 --> 01:22:07,200
something with resistance that compression that your body feels the long bones especially feel

862
01:22:07,200 --> 01:22:15,040
when you're lifting lowering pushing pulling something directly stimulates specialist deep

863
01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:21,760
bone cells to lay down more bone and that doesn't happen in the same way as if you're just getting

864
01:22:21,760 --> 01:22:28,800
impact so you need a little bit of impact and that can be something like balancing can be tennis

865
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:35,840
you know boxing drills anything like that running but you need that other compression

866
01:22:36,800 --> 01:22:43,440
and relaxation of the bones to stimulate that very specific bone cell adaptation

867
01:22:43,440 --> 01:22:49,600
so yes you're doing a lot of group of impacts but to cover the bases and to avoid osteoporosis and

868
01:22:49,600 --> 01:22:56,160
psychopenia in one go do some strength training you know it's it really is like medicine so

869
01:22:56,880 --> 01:23:02,800
again i'm a big fan of bones i'm an osteopath i should be and you also see that varied movement

870
01:23:02,800 --> 01:23:09,680
in life leads to beautiful lines if you ever look at a bone or diagrams of a bone in a bone

871
01:23:09,680 --> 01:23:15,200
of someone who's fractured ahead of the femur generally speaking if you look at the trabecular

872
01:23:15,200 --> 01:23:21,120
lines which are the lines of stress that are laid down through life you can kind of tell

873
01:23:21,600 --> 01:23:26,640
how active or not or inactive that person was if you look at the bone of a healthy

874
01:23:28,240 --> 01:23:35,280
person the trabecular on their bone beautiful spiral lines you know like real kind of architectural

875
01:23:35,280 --> 01:23:41,840
beautiful lines and spirals that spiral around the head of the femur they've lived a life full of

876
01:23:41,840 --> 01:23:49,280
movement they haven't fractured the head of the femur when they've fallen you know so so i kind

877
01:23:49,280 --> 01:23:56,320
of went on a bit of a segue there but basically yeah to lift lower compress and relaxation that

878
01:23:56,320 --> 01:24:04,800
movement compression and release of the bone stimulates a bonus if you will by the way

879
01:24:04,800 --> 01:24:11,120
of strengthening bone in a way that merely impact will not beautiful well i mean this is such an

880
01:24:11,120 --> 01:24:15,440
important you know conversation especially i love the way you've just you were talking about seeing

881
01:24:15,440 --> 01:24:21,120
that simply on the bone itself like the rings of a tree so when it comes to my exercise journey you

882
01:24:21,120 --> 01:24:25,840
know early on i was running around a farm you know copying rocky on the exercise bike and

883
01:24:26,480 --> 01:24:32,400
punching dead cows and stuff it wasn't that wasn't that cows but um and then it progressed to you know

884
01:24:32,400 --> 01:24:36,880
the the typical english sports center which was all the bodybuilding machines and you know

885
01:24:36,880 --> 01:24:41,600
it's funny because we when i was 21 i was a lot weaker than i was when i was you know 40 to be

886
01:24:41,600 --> 01:24:47,680
honest um but then i got into crossfit and absolutely life-changing for me you know is

887
01:24:47,680 --> 01:24:53,280
it a perfect system no but it served me extremely well as a firefighter and as a fighter as well i

888
01:24:53,280 --> 01:24:59,040
mean and on the mass it was amazing but what i discovered is it wasn't so much that it was

889
01:24:59,040 --> 01:25:05,520
getting me injured but the injuries in you know in general that i was accumulating weren't getting

890
01:25:05,520 --> 01:25:10,240
better from that practice specifically and i was pretty diligent and i was doing some other stuff

891
01:25:10,240 --> 01:25:16,800
as well but it just wasn't wasn't really kind of you know moving the needle back to where it went

892
01:25:16,800 --> 01:25:23,360
what it should be and recently i've been doing a programming uh called wolf brigade and their

893
01:25:23,360 --> 01:25:28,640
whole philosophy and they're the kind of ex crossfit guy that developed it they lent right back

894
01:25:28,640 --> 01:25:32,720
into the strict movements so there's you know there's a lot of kettlebell pressing there's

895
01:25:32,720 --> 01:25:37,600
some of the barbell movements you know squatting and deadlifting and bench but then you know there's

896
01:25:37,600 --> 01:25:43,440
turkish get ups there's a lot of mace work there's a lot of strict pull-ups and it feels incredible

897
01:25:43,440 --> 01:25:48,480
and the mace work i can feel kind of you know forcing my shoulder for example i think i either

898
01:25:48,480 --> 01:25:52,960
separated my shoulder or broke my collarbone years ago doing stunts day three so i couldn't tell

899
01:25:52,960 --> 01:25:58,240
anyone so i had to just do it you know get on with it and suck it up but obviously it heals in the

900
01:25:58,240 --> 01:26:05,040
wrong way so what i have seen is it's not like oh i'm too old for crossfit anymore but rather than

901
01:26:05,040 --> 01:26:11,600
wait for an injury for me my analysis was all right my in my prior injuries do not seem to be

902
01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:18,400
progressing in this system anymore and so i just you know moved over to a different philosophy that

903
01:26:18,400 --> 01:26:23,040
is slower that is more strict that is a lot of compound pressing and and a lot of getting off

904
01:26:23,040 --> 01:26:28,240
the floor you know the elevator sit-ups the turkish get ups are beautiful just you know to keep

905
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:32,720
someone being able to get on the floor and then on a jiu-jitsu mat to drive your opponent off you with

906
01:26:32,720 --> 01:26:40,160
with the kind of strength that most people don't have so talk to me about the middle-aged male and

907
01:26:40,160 --> 01:26:47,600
female you know average member of the society or athlete and how in the book you know the the

908
01:26:47,600 --> 01:26:55,840
principles and philosophies shift slightly for that particular age bracket yeah sure so i mean

909
01:26:55,840 --> 01:27:04,800
the book i tried to write the book to represent the equivalent of a calpster 5k but for strength

910
01:27:04,800 --> 01:27:12,080
training because if because i'm a big fan of anything that gets you doing any form of resistance

911
01:27:12,080 --> 01:27:18,560
strength weight training but the my experience in clinic and also just kind of the research bears

912
01:27:18,560 --> 01:27:23,440
me out in that if you go too soon into those things you're going to get injured and so again

913
01:27:23,440 --> 01:27:31,120
long term you're weaker more at risk of health events and older age so it was very much the

914
01:27:31,120 --> 01:27:38,400
challenge was how to take the average detrain middle-aged population from literally no experience

915
01:27:38,400 --> 01:27:43,680
to being able to then walk in the door or wall fit or a cross-fit gym and then carry on their

916
01:27:43,680 --> 01:27:48,880
journey so this is what this quote represents it's like a feeder if you like to hopefully a

917
01:27:48,880 --> 01:27:56,080
lifetime of other choices i don't really recommend how after that i do i i give examples of how you

918
01:27:56,080 --> 01:28:00,960
can you can carry on doing something similar or you have choices i do try to encourage people to

919
01:28:00,960 --> 01:28:08,400
keep the journey moving in in a in a way that kind of you experience a variation as well which is

920
01:28:08,400 --> 01:28:15,360
very important in the long term but you're right that you brought up the importance of compound

921
01:28:16,000 --> 01:28:22,640
i think what i try to do is i broke down and you know i'm not the first person to do this because

922
01:28:23,360 --> 01:28:29,440
this information has been around you know since the ancient greeks frankly

923
01:28:29,440 --> 01:28:34,960
but what i try to do is break it down into recognisable movements you know all compound

924
01:28:34,960 --> 01:28:42,160
or grip strength movements that you're likely to experience in life moving forward that it's a

925
01:28:42,160 --> 01:28:49,760
very good idea to be strong in moving forward and i weighted them um against and what they've

926
01:28:49,760 --> 01:28:55,680
waited i put the importance of them how many of that particular movement in was weighted against

927
01:28:55,680 --> 01:29:00,880
was weighted against i felt the importance of that particular movement in terms of risk in the future

928
01:29:00,880 --> 01:29:08,800
and potential benefits that we know can be gained so for instance there's two grip exercises that i

929
01:29:08,800 --> 01:29:17,920
suggest because we know there's a causal link between grip strength and older age health

930
01:29:18,960 --> 01:29:24,720
we also know that as we age we lose more ability to maintain muscle mass and leg strength in older

931
01:29:24,720 --> 01:29:31,760
age as opposed to upper body strength so there's more legs leg stuff in there so the movements that

932
01:29:31,760 --> 01:29:38,080
i the the foundational 10 are you know are very much weighted against risk and benefit

933
01:29:39,840 --> 01:29:45,040
they're all compound apart from grip which tend to be a bit more isometric

934
01:29:47,040 --> 01:29:48,640
but the way i look at it is

935
01:29:48,640 --> 01:29:55,440
we're working on functional hypertrophy not just hypertrophy we're working on multiple muscle groups

936
01:29:56,000 --> 01:30:02,000
in a movement across a joint that we are likely to experience in life and therefore it's a very

937
01:30:02,000 --> 01:30:12,400
good idea to be strong in that movement and in terms of how to frame it this practice really

938
01:30:12,400 --> 01:30:18,640
you know you know as you know you know that my program if you start very unexperienced or

939
01:30:18,640 --> 01:30:23,280
detrained take about 12 weeks to do you can dip in and out of it if you don't want to start there

940
01:30:23,280 --> 01:30:28,240
there are other options you can do other things in your daily practice of just doing things i call

941
01:30:28,240 --> 01:30:35,120
strength snacking which is isometric stuff and stuff around the house or work you can leverage

942
01:30:35,840 --> 01:30:40,560
you know your your normal life to get stronger which which again there was a lot of work to do

943
01:30:40,560 --> 01:30:45,360
get stronger which which again it was really really great fun to write because what i'm trying to do

944
01:30:45,360 --> 01:30:52,000
is make this accessible to everyone not everyone's going to want to do you know a 12-week program or

945
01:30:52,000 --> 01:30:57,680
any program but what they might be open to is something that you know when the kettle's boiling

946
01:30:57,680 --> 01:31:03,360
when you're waiting for the toys to pop do a wall sit or hold a plank or you know you don't need any

947
01:31:03,360 --> 01:31:08,960
equipment you know you can be as simple as that and if you give me the person who does that against

948
01:31:08,960 --> 01:31:15,440
the person who does nothing the person who does those daily strength snacks is going to win in

949
01:31:15,440 --> 01:31:24,560
the long run so yeah it's uh there's no one program for it's all um but i've tried my best

950
01:31:24,560 --> 01:31:29,920
to create a framework as i mentioned earlier in this chat that gives you permission to be

951
01:31:29,920 --> 01:31:34,160
middle-aged gives you permission to come in and out of it and as long as most of the time

952
01:31:34,160 --> 01:31:40,960
you're in it then you'd be just fine in 20 years if you miss a few months or a few weeks start again

953
01:31:40,960 --> 01:31:48,160
slowly build up go again you need to allow we need to allow ourselves to progress regress to

954
01:31:48,160 --> 01:31:53,840
improve and pause because that's life and i think once we get our heads around that then we're more

955
01:31:53,840 --> 01:31:58,240
likely to come back to it if you have had a delay you've moved house you've been ill someone you

956
01:31:58,240 --> 01:32:02,320
know has been ill you've missed training for a week or two weeks or a month whatever you've been

957
01:32:02,320 --> 01:32:08,880
injured whatever it gives permission to live your life in that way they still come back to it i think

958
01:32:09,760 --> 01:32:15,680
i literally had to press pause while i was writing this book you know i mean literally i i went to

959
01:32:15,680 --> 01:32:20,240
jiu-jitsu i think once a week and didn't do strength training i'm just like i need to prioritize for

960
01:32:20,240 --> 01:32:26,240
everything it wasn't too long it was got 10 12 weeks maybe and i trained you know since i was a

961
01:32:26,240 --> 01:32:30,960
kid so it wasn't like you know i have these massive periods of not working out in the past

962
01:32:30,960 --> 01:32:35,760
but it was just one of those things where i'm like mentally i need to get this done you know and so

963
01:32:35,760 --> 01:32:41,120
i hit pause for a while and i'm just back in again swallowing my pride being sore and you know

964
01:32:41,120 --> 01:32:47,120
getting back into a yet another routine but but there's no guilt just like you said because i'm

965
01:32:47,120 --> 01:32:52,000
like this is more important at this point i'm not going to suddenly be 400 pounds if i just

966
01:32:52,560 --> 01:32:57,920
prioritize writing for 10 weeks you know but i think it's the same with alcohol drugs you know

967
01:32:57,920 --> 01:33:04,880
nutrition whatever it is if you've fallen off the proverbial wagon guilt and shame have no place

968
01:33:04,880 --> 01:33:09,440
all they're going to do is keep you on the ground next to the wheels you know you stand up you go

969
01:33:09,440 --> 01:33:15,040
all right well that was then all i have is now and you climb back on you know but knowing that

970
01:33:15,040 --> 01:33:20,480
there will be another thing and i told you about what happened to to my family today that derailed

971
01:33:20,480 --> 01:33:25,440
my morning you know but you know it is what it is i'm not i'm actually about to go to the gym after

972
01:33:25,440 --> 01:33:28,720
this but had i not i'd be like all right well this happened today i'm going to go walk the dog and

973
01:33:28,720 --> 01:33:34,480
get some exercise and some sunshine but that totally changed trajectory of my day but there

974
01:33:34,480 --> 01:33:40,000
doesn't need to be any guilt or shame you just have to you know as you said go look the i say in

975
01:33:40,000 --> 01:33:43,920
in nursing you know it's trending or in medicine you know is the patient getting better or is a

976
01:33:43,920 --> 01:33:49,520
patient getting worse well if you actually zoom in on that that line it's got all these peaks and

977
01:33:49,520 --> 01:33:55,200
valleys you know because it's not a straight line but if overall you're not going to be able to

978
01:33:55,200 --> 01:34:03,040
you're heading in that good direction that's what's important yeah that's so true and you know that

979
01:34:03,040 --> 01:34:11,760
that's that's basically the the the rationale for for creating the framework that i did in that

980
01:34:11,760 --> 01:34:17,520
i'm trying to help people get to that mindset that you have james and that i have in that in the long

981
01:34:17,520 --> 01:34:22,880
run you know we're trying to blunt that curve and avoid you know bad outcomes in the future

982
01:34:22,880 --> 01:34:29,440
but as yet we are unaware of so if you give yourself permission to live your life to not

983
01:34:29,440 --> 01:34:37,120
feel like a failure if you you know um fall off the wagon or fall off the training regime or fall

984
01:34:37,120 --> 01:34:44,480
off you know a program the key is picking the right program james you know having the right kind of

985
01:34:44,480 --> 01:34:50,800
attitude i think the key is being realistic and i say checking your ego and understanding

986
01:34:50,800 --> 01:34:57,600
that we're in in midlife my message was quite similar in midlife we are we're all about

987
01:34:59,200 --> 01:35:06,160
we're all about um you know not just adding adding the years but adding life to those years

988
01:35:06,160 --> 01:35:12,080
and that is a very different proposal to getting fit for the beach by looking good in the t-shirt

989
01:35:12,080 --> 01:35:17,360
you know this is this is a very different conversation you might still get those two

990
01:35:17,360 --> 01:35:23,920
things with it but the priority shouldn't be about the priority about functional movements that don't

991
01:35:23,920 --> 01:35:31,600
get you injured that are challenging but regular but if something happens like we've discussed then

992
01:35:32,240 --> 01:35:37,440
as long as you keep coming back and honestly the beauty of it is it kind of takes the pressure off

993
01:35:37,440 --> 01:35:41,040
because you think well i've got the next i'm not just talking about next year i'm talking about the

994
01:35:41,040 --> 01:35:48,960
next 20 years because we all know the short-term benefit of crash diets and things done fast

995
01:35:48,960 --> 01:35:56,080
generally don't last right so building something over the long term becoming fluent in a new skill

996
01:35:58,640 --> 01:36:07,120
over time always pays off and has to start with your mind though and so you know the mindset you

997
01:36:07,120 --> 01:36:13,120
just described so beautifully the one that i'm trying to lay out in my rationale is exactly

998
01:36:13,120 --> 01:36:19,600
where the middle-aged person who's who's actually serious about the long-term health who wants to

999
01:36:19,600 --> 01:36:26,480
stay healthy for whatever reason um to start to consider yeah well the i'm not just saying this

1000
01:36:26,480 --> 01:36:32,320
because we're friends the book is incredibly well written um you did absolutely blend the science

1001
01:36:32,320 --> 01:36:37,520
that's needed behind it with you know the ability to write to the average person like me you know

1002
01:36:37,520 --> 01:36:41,680
like i always say firefighter proof that's what we need to do that's why my book store is really thin

1003
01:36:42,800 --> 01:36:47,440
but um but you know but it's so important and then obviously you've got the exercises in the back as

1004
01:36:47,440 --> 01:36:54,960
well so the book is stronger how to build strength the secret to a longer healthier life people

1005
01:36:54,960 --> 01:36:59,520
listening all over the world where can they find this online and are there any other places

1006
01:36:59,520 --> 01:37:04,480
yeah so it's available online all good book sellers i think it's being launched in the u.s

1007
01:37:04,480 --> 01:37:14,560
territories in july which is exciting so amazon we can include a link to the u.s amazon page

1008
01:37:16,000 --> 01:37:22,800
for this for this i'm sure so yeah but if you just google that it will come up yeah so

1009
01:37:23,360 --> 01:37:27,920
and i thank you for saying that's very kind uh james you've been part of this in a way because

1010
01:37:27,920 --> 01:37:34,080
what people don't know is that you and i both been writing parallel to each other different genres

1011
01:37:34,080 --> 01:37:39,520
but we would occasionally meet up and talk about the process in our little writers group which was

1012
01:37:39,520 --> 01:37:43,920
great fun and very supportive so thank you for that time you gave me as well yeah i wish i could

1013
01:37:43,920 --> 01:37:48,800
be more supportive i remember i was just so overwhelmed that i don't think i was that valuable

1014
01:37:48,800 --> 01:37:53,360
as far as my experiences i mean the first one it's good to talk though isn't it it's good just to

1015
01:37:53,360 --> 01:38:01,360
talk about it because it's quite uh writing anything um even if it's the first second time

1016
01:38:03,120 --> 01:38:09,280
it's quite an undertaking and it's something that uh let's just say that you know

1017
01:38:10,800 --> 01:38:14,720
if speaking to someone else even if just chatting about how it's not going well

1018
01:38:15,840 --> 01:38:19,040
makes it makes it less scary because you know it's quite an undertaking and so

1019
01:38:19,040 --> 01:38:24,560
so yeah that was great that was great i'm thinking in that little group so where can people

1020
01:38:24,560 --> 01:38:31,360
find you online social media or websites uh so yeah i'm i really only do a couple of social

1021
01:38:31,360 --> 01:38:37,520
media things these days so i do um instagram so it's uh david under slash underscore though

1022
01:38:38,080 --> 01:38:45,280
the aux and um i'm also on linkedin so yeah probably instagram is the best place to find me

1023
01:38:45,280 --> 01:38:51,520
um probably going to be doing a little bit more on on um on youtube as well this year

1024
01:38:52,400 --> 01:38:57,040
uh but yeah you can find me just google my name and the book i'll come up um i'll say instagram

1025
01:38:57,040 --> 01:39:01,680
as well we can we can include the link to that as well james and i think the next steps for this

1026
01:39:01,680 --> 01:39:08,560
project potentially i'm looking at is um potentially to digitalize some of the assets in the book but

1027
01:39:08,560 --> 01:39:15,600
also i'm very keen on the idea of you know writing a book is very new and i'm also quite keen on

1028
01:39:15,600 --> 01:39:20,720
exploring the idea of a documentary um that kind of lays out like chapters of the book and speaking

1029
01:39:20,720 --> 01:39:25,360
to some interesting people i spoke to in the book and yeah so that hopefully will be the next

1030
01:39:26,000 --> 01:39:31,200
chapter of this crazy journey brilliant well i want to say thank you so much i mean the first

1031
01:39:31,200 --> 01:39:35,040
conversation was phenomenal obviously we dove a little more into the firefighter side as well

1032
01:39:35,040 --> 01:39:39,440
but i mean there's so many people listening that are either in that age bracket now or probably not

1033
01:39:39,440 --> 01:39:45,440
too far from that age bracket some may be uber athletes some may be realistically in the best

1034
01:39:45,440 --> 01:39:50,400
shape when they were in the academy and looking to get back on that wagon again but uh you know i

1035
01:39:50,400 --> 01:39:56,320
think between the people in the professions that are responding to citizens and and the citizens

1036
01:39:56,320 --> 01:40:01,920
themselves this is a really important conversation the long-term benefit of proactive nutrition

1037
01:40:01,920 --> 01:40:07,760
strength training and mobility on our longevity so i want to thank you so much for such a great

1038
01:40:07,760 --> 01:40:13,760
conversation again and coming on the behind the shield podcast james it's always a pleasure mate

1039
01:40:13,760 --> 01:40:32,640
and anytime and i hope to see you in person sometime soon