Why Maintaining Muscle as You Age is Crucial – Tips to Stay Strong & Healthy

Why Muscle Matters in Midlife 0:00

All right, so welcome to Sibling RX. This is, I don't know what episode we're on, but anyways, Um, I think that this is, this a great topic because one we're in midlife. So it's, it something that we can, we definitely relate to and to, um, muscle is the organ of longevity, right? It is. The new fountain of youth. We talked about movement. Yep. And I looked up some things on movement, just curious like how do we compare to other countries? It's obviously always a dismal statistic when you compare like health and wellness or whatever in the United States compared to the other country.

What country is the fittest country in world? What would it be your guess? I didn't know this. I'll give you a hint. It's not the United States. Oh, I knew that. Yeah. And we have the most gyms. I would probably say Japan. Nope. Finland. Oh, that makes sense. They have the saunas. Finland is the healthiest, most active, not healthies, the most-active aerobic and anaerobic country in the world. 90% of their people hit the Finnish standards. Here we have CDC standards of how active we should be. Ninety percent of people do that.

In the United States, only 24% hit. The CDC standard, which is not even great to live to go by. Some benchmarks, 24% of people. I know Finland, they started the whole sauna culture. Sauna is huge with them and homes come with saunas. Who do you think is the most inactive country? I mean, I'd say the United States, but we're probably in the middle. Brazil. Isn't that weird? With soccer and everything? Yeah, like Brazil, they're outside the ocean, the beach. But again, based on their standards of aerobic and anaerobic suggestions or whatever, there are the bottom of the list of all these countries that was evaluated, which was kind of crazy.

And of course, in Finland, obesity, only 10% of people are obese. in the United States, that's 40% clinically obese. So, so again, not to go back and rehash what we talked about last time, but we got a lot of comments on, uh, and, um, messages on the movement. And we just want to thank everybody that has been listening and subscribing. It's been pretty cool. We're grateful for that, just need to kind of see what other countries are, where they sit and where. Yeah, it probably has a their nutritional intake as well.

But let's talk about strength training. Let's talked about muscle. So as a female, there's always those myths about muscles and strength. Training like, I don't want to lift weights because I didn't wanna get bulky.

Strength Training vs. Cardio 3:10

It's just I don't have time for it or anything like that. If I only have a little bit of time, I'm just going to go do my cardio because because I think that's the only way I am going lose weight or stay trim. But actually, cardio burns your muscle off, right? So that is counterproductive. Let's talk about what muscle does. So muscle is like a glycogen sweep for your body. Every time you eat something, your your muscles just absorbs it and and it doesn't raise your it allows your blood sugar to stay stable.

It doesn' raise insulin. you are able to stabilize your metabolic efficiency, right? So that's one thing it does. It also helps with just regulating your hormones. So muscle actually helps regulate your estrogen as females, your testosterone as males. So it really helps just regulate everything. And as your estrogen declines in midlife for a female, you start to lose three to 8% of your muscle mass per decade. Yeah. That's a lot. It is a lie. Speaking of muscle, mass loss, like right now, obviously, millions and millions of people are on the GLPs.

And one thing that people hear about is if you're not strain training while you are these peptides specifically, you will just continue to get that muscle wasting. You said something about midlife or what did you call it? Midlife. Mid-life, right. Yeah. So it's really a common statement when, especially for women, like you said, they don't want to lift weights. They don' want take creatine. they didn't wanna bulk up. And I think now more and more people are going, wait a minute, guys have been taking creatines since they were in high school.

Now women are kind of catching onto it and they're like all on this creatinine craze, which obviously helps, you know, muscle development and all that stuff. But what are some other things Obviously, being in the world of musculoskeletal issues, bone density is a huge concern that men and women should have, definitely more with women, whether your bone densities starts to decline as you get older. Let's talk a little bit about how strength training can prevent bone-density loss overall. Yeah. So when you strength train, and you build muscle, it actually puts more demand on your bone.

So there's two different types of bone products, I guess. There's osteoblasts, which build bone, and then osteoclast. And what they do is they basically, It's a pattern or a tug of war of absorption and building, absorption building. When you're aging, your absorption of the bone increases. So the osteoclast absorption increases, and the osteoblast decreases. But as you build muscle, it's increasing the ostio-building part of your bone. to help increase the bone density. So it helps prevent, even if you're 90, if start lifting weights, you can actually reverse any osteoporosis or osteopenia.

It's a matter of just constantly building that muscle that will help build that bone. Yeah, so it's never too late to really initiate a regimen of strength training and then barring injury or whatever people have. And obviously if you're already osteoporotic or osteopenic where your bone density is already declining, you got to start smart, make sure you get some coaching or personal training. But definitely there's no reason to ever throw in a towel and say, I'm not going to strain train anymore.

There's not study that says strain training is bad for you. Just focus on cardio. Cardio is not bad. Your aerobic exercise is good. cardiovascular, but it's not going to do anything for these other things that we're talking about. That's why a workout that combines the two is. really good, right? So you're kind of hitting both things, you know? But you, really want, to separate them though. You don't want to combine them within the same movement. Like all the HIIT exercises, those are good in, if you are at a certain age, like 45 and older, HIITT is good once a week.

Then you need to seperate your cardiovascular, walking, your zone two cardio, on as one workout and your strength training as an, as another, because if you do them together, they count, their counterproductive. So if your doing cardio and strength, training at the same time, you're actually burning your muscle off because you are training for endurance. You're not training. Well, it depends on the type of lifting you doing though, too. No, sorry to disagree, but I disagree. It depends on how much you're lifting.

So if you are lifting heavy enough where you fatiguing six to eight rep max with maybe two more in reserve, but really training to fatigue, to failure, that's when you building muscle. But if these women, they're doing like 10 pound weights and they are doing 15 reps, That's not building muscles. That is more cardio. And then they doing you know, a burpee in between, that's endurance and cardio and HIIT training, which is great for minimal once a week if you're at 45 and older as a female. But if your younger as female or even older and post-menopausal, it's really, you really have to build on the strength training in addition to it.

Bone Density and Hormone Support 8:40

What about like, I know personally, let's talk about strength, just move, again, the kind of overlaps movement again. Personally, if I miss a workout in the morning, If I don't get my normal stuff done, I know I'll still get through my day, but it definitely affects my mood, my energy. No matter what the workout is, whatever it is for the day because what I do, it changes every day. But I on my schedule and I do what I need to be doing. The endorphins are released, you have just more energy throughout the day.

You have a better metabolism, obviously. When you miss a workout, how do you feel? Well, nowadays, if I have to miss the workout I make sure that I at least do my stretching routine. because you're old. I'm old, old people. Everything hurts, right? I am. And I actually, I do this lymphatic routine that like helps drain the lymph nodes and just get everything moving. We can talk about jumping in another episode, but when I don't work out, my anxiety goes a little bit higher in the day. It definitely is a mood enhancing, you know, like you said, the endorphins, everything so better, you feel better.

But again, I try to do something because I'm just really stiff in the morning. So I have to do something in a morning, get moving. And I know people, some people just don't like to work out or strain train them or they feel stronger in later in their day. Who cares? Like just get it done. It doesn't matter. Or break up your workouts, right? I Know some People will go do their cardio in morning and then maybe they'll go lift or do Something else in The afternoon or something like that. Just as long as you're getting it in and if you are not a Morning person, Some people do feel Stronger in afternoon.

I try to go to the gym in the afternoon sometimes and I'm like, I don't even want to be here. Like, it's just hard, you're tired. You kind of feel just run down from the day, but better than nothing, better. It is, and it, um, going back to. Cardio and the, uh, strength training component. If you are going to strength train to build muscle, It's always better to do your cardiovascular zone too, after your workout. You always want to save your glycogen stores and save for lifting. So if you lift first, do your zone two cardio afterwards.

If you're not going to do any lifting that day, you can do your HIIT cardio that day. So I always tell people, do you're lifting first and then you push all the lactic acid and all of the build up out during that zone too. Yeah, flush it out. The other thing that comes back to our world is strengthening. paraspinals and muscles that protect you, your core, muscles of your back and spine, stabilizers, so important. And I think that those are things that sometimes people neglect, doing something that really enhances their core and builds their course strength.

I know that obviously over the years of seeing patients, we would see people that You know, just injured their back, they had a herniated disc or pain going down their leg just from bending over and brushing their teeth. And they could be very much conditioned, but part of any rehabilitation or kind of being on the track of recovery involves some level of core strengthening and building your foundation around your spine in this case, you know. So I know sometimes that gets neglected by people and they just don't want to do that.

They're more prone to just basic back injuries or lifting down and picking up, you know, an animal or something and something super light. And you're like, Oh my gosh, my back just went out doing the simplest thing. You know? So, so core stabilizers, uh, I think are an area people need to focus on in their regiment of whatever they're doing super important because your core

Workout Timing, Fueling, and Recovery 12:40

actually stabilizes your back muscles and your back. Muscles are involuntary muscles that are constantly working. So those are going to fatigue faster. They're going tear faster, you're gonna strain them more often. The stronger you have your core, the stronger your paraspinal, your stabilizer muscles will be in the back, but again, You also have to stretch them and you know, it's a balance. Yeah. What about eating? What about, I don't like to eat before I go to the gym. Right. So some people like fasted workouts, right?

If I ate anything, it may be like, a couple of hard-boiled eggs or something like that. But I know people like to, some people just feel like, yeah, just a dozen. Like six, seven. Yeah. After I ate a dozens of donuts. Some people to have like a full on protein shake before they go to bed. I don't, for me, that doesn't sit well. Do you eat before you work out? Sometimes I'm hungry in the mornings. Sometimes. Regardless, I'll have my collagen in my coffee. Um, and then which breaks my fast really.

Again, going like through hormone changes and as a midlife woman, it's actually not good to do fasted workouts as woman. It's not recommended to intermittent fasting as women going through menopause. So I try to have something little like maybe one hard-boiled egg or I have like, maybe like literally a scoop of cottage cheese before I go. Or a donut. Yeah. I love donuts. There's a little but you just have 50 of them. You know, pre-workout donut. If somebody can make a pre workout donut, that would be amazing.

That's good for you. I mean, half the protein bars out there are garbage, though. Yeah, I don't like to eat, but I like eat right afterwards. Like I'm hungry right after. Right afterwards? It's funny too, because I am really not hungry afterwards, and what's interesting is when you strength train, your muscle actually activates your GLP one, like your natural GL P one production. So when you, some people, when they exercise like me, I don't get hungry afterwards, but it's good to take protein in right after you work out if you're not.

And, and really it. Well, we'll talk about protein. But it the, everyone thinks, Oh, you have to eat 50 grams of protein right. After you workout. No, The actual protein amount is the accumulation through the day, not in one sitting. The other thing with weightlifting and strength training is being smart about it, not doing things that are going to hurt you, going excessively just because the person next to you is doing whatever, because it's really, really simple to injure yourself. And we've seen it like deadlifts, for example, you know, are so commonly done wrong and done with excess weight for whatever reason, whether somebody's trying to hit a certain rep or they're trying to lift a weight, but that's a really, really good way.

If you're looking to really screw your spine for a long time, do a wrong deadlift and you are out. And even if you recover from it, it's always going to be nagging. The worst thing is doing some type of a strength training and then now you can't do that. Talk about not being able to work out or so, just being smart about your body, listening to your buddy. If a morning you get up and you're like, it's not kind of feeling it today, maybe go and listen to body and don't push through and potentially injure yourself.

And a lot of times when it comes to strength training, the simpler you keep it, The more efficient it is. So the exercise doesn't have to be complex. It doesn' have t be, you know, a fancy movement. I can just be a simple, exercise and do a few of them per workout to, to build the, the you know, your foundational, especially people that are just getting started, right? Like getting the foundation set first and then learning, okay, what's my baseline? That's, my base line weight. And then how can I increase the weight?

by like 5% each time, or after a couple of weeks. So when women always ask me, I always get approached at the gym, like, you look like you work out. Well, how do you do this? How do do that? And so I tell them. It's weird, because you have a donut in your hand when they ask you. I know, donut all the time. Yeah, constantly. So I tell them, I said, if you're just starting to work out, the best thing to do is three times a week, lift weights, do a full body routine.

Core Stability and Injury Prevention 17:20

And then I show them my simple full-body routine, which is just one barbell. So, you know, I tell them to start with like a 20 or 30 pound barbell. And do a bunch of moves with it. Yeah, and it's simple. It takes 30 minutes tops. All you do is you press, you squat, deadlift, row, that's it for 30 minute. You get as many rounds as you can get, as possible. Do like six to eight reps and that it, very simple and then once they feel like after they've done that three times a week and I just walk in between.

But I mean, walk on the days that you don't work out, try to get your steps in. But if once they do that after a month and I see them again and they're like, wow, like I did, I've been doing that workout or they text me, i've done doing. That workout is so great. You know, what can I do next? And I go do the same thing just to go heavier. Yeah, just go have here. They love it. It's simple, you know? It is quick and simple. I think the thing that we opened with really common with women is they are worried about bulking.

not a concern. You know, especially at that age, there's just really no concern that you're going to, you know... You're not going into a big bodybuilding competition. It's really important for your longevity, stability of your hormones, bone density, cognition, all those things. Super important is so much more relevant than worrying about, I don't want my deltoids to get too big, or something like that. And it will never... used to not do it. But it'll never get that big where, um, you know, bodybuilders look like that because they're doing stuff.

They're taking things, they are doing, and you, know I used, to do competitive figure competitions and I started doing them in my, I did two, started, doing I'm in, my early forties. And that was when I saw the, the There was a difference between bodybuilders and figure competitors. Bodybuilder's definitely had a lot of other things going on. And figure were, I feel like both combination are like the original biohackers because they, that was the first time I heard about peptides. It was a first I'm I about like, the way you have to like do certain time, time your carbs and different things like adding salt right before going on stage, you know, to get your veins to pop out and all these different.

So they were the originally bio hackers, but they have been, They're the ones that used to take creatine. So everyone thought, oh, if I take Creatine, I'm going to bulk up. But creatinine is essential for cognition, Alzheimer's dementia prevention as you're older, and all of that because it feeds your muscle. Like we talked about, it's an endocrine organ. Bone is an Endocrin organ, they help balance out your hormones. but the more we build muscle as men and women at our ages now, the less likelihood we have to become- Those conditions.

Yeah, have dementia, get diabetes, and they're calling Alzheimer's diabetes type three. That's crazy. It's always inspiring when you see older people at the gym. We have some older members in their 70s, late 70's, even though they may not be doing the exact workout for the day, but they are there and doing something because And I'll tell a couple of them, I'm like, man, most people your age, they're not in the gym. They're, you know, maybe on the golf course or doing, doing nothing right now. So just, it's never too late to just start something.

You know the, the biggest thing as you become elderly, if you continue to build the muscle and you continued to focus on progressive overload and constantly building,

Progressive Overload and Lifelong Fitness 21:00

Yes, you improve your bone density, but if you were to fall, You can get back up. You're not going to be bound to having someone living with you to help you get off the toilet seat or you'll be fully autonomous. Such a huge concern with people at that age, especially if they live on their own, is falls. You know, are unfortunately the death of a lot of people, right? They can break a hip, they can hit their head, you know. So building that foundation, like you said, of strength and stability will certainly help them in so many ways, so.

Yeah. And when you break hip past the age of 65, the rates of... Mortality rate is... Post one year is very high. Yeah, it's not good. So strength training, any other things we want to hit on that? I think we've made that our point. If you're not working out, if you not lifting weights, definitely start. There's great ways to get involved. And you can use AI to put a workout together for yourself or go to a gym and get a trainer or do whatever you need to do. Not doing it is the only thing that's, not an option.

Get out there, do it. It's never too late, and it never to soon. Yeah. Oh, what about that? What about, because, you know, sometimes there's a concern about a teenager starting too soon. Like I don't want my kid to lift when they're 12 years old, 13 years. So people think, when we were growing up, they used to say, Oh don t lift weights. You're going to get short, You know you're gonna, stay short. Actually, it's gonna stunt your growth or something. Yeah, It's going stunt you growth, but actually it s the opposite.

It actually builds more bone And it helps with your growth plates. So it actually, and what's interesting is when you look at basketball players, they're constantly jumping and they are constantly putting that pressure on their bones. And that even if their parents are, let's say, you know, not that tall than their basketball players, like six, five, right? Well, it's cause they're constantly jumping. The more you stress your bone with, with muscle or with jumping and impact, the more it is going to grow.

Yeah. And I think it was great for kids to start safely, build that regimen. They can always start weight, body weight and then progress to small weights. There's actually, what's interesting is at our gym, there is an eighth grade girl that is in there. every morning at 6 a.m. by herself, working out. Like she has a whole video thing. That's awesome. And she is doing stuff. She does pull ups. Yeah. Full pull-ups with non-assisted pullups. It's unbelievable. So that's a wrap on that, right? Anything else you want to add?

Yeah, if anyone has any questions, they need some workout advice or anything. Just comment, workout in our feed and we'll send you some guidance. So don't forget to subscribe, like us, share this with your friends, family, questions, comments. We'd love to hear comments, that's been really good. Sometimes there are messages and sometimes we just get text messages from people we know. Until the next episode. Yeah, we'll see you next time. Thank you. The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice.

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