AGING with STRENGTH™

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.agingwithstrength.comHerman Pontzer, a professor of evolutionary anthropology and global health at Duke University, has influenced our collective understanding of human diet, exercise and metabolism — and the importance of moving our bodies.Dr. Pontzer’s latest book, “Adaptable: How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us,” explores how our bodies function and what we can do to help them work better for longer.Summary of this conversationHow much does your DNA dictate how tall, smart or athletic you are — or how long you’ll live? In this conversation, I ask Pontzer about not only DNA but also about the fascinating science of epigenetics — the study of how experiences our parents endured in their childhoods get passed down to us (and what we can do about it now). We also discuss the traits that are more and less likely to be inherited vs. influenced by how we live, grow up, eat, exercise and socialize.In the final 12 minutes, available exclusively to paying AGING with STRENGTH subscribers: Pontzer’s surprising discovery of the body’s relationship between physical activity and calorie burn, — which may change how you think about exercise and weight loss.“Every part of our body has a story that I bet are new stories to a lot of people.”Timestamps01:49 — The biggest misconception people have about their bodies. “I’m reminded every day how little people really know about their bodies.”02:45 — The many ways that online health “influencers” feed you bad information about diet. The myths about IQ and genetics.“The influencer sphere is full of wrong stories about how diet works.”03:42 — Anti-vaxxers who brag about being “mRNA free”: “If you’re body was mRNA free, you’d be dead.”04:13 — A dive into epigenetics, the science of how experiences (trauma) that shaped our parents and grandparents lives influence how our genes are expressed.04:30 — The plain-English description of epigentics, and how our DNA gets “marked”.06:40 — The human genome: Think of it like a thick book that gets filled with flags or Post-It Notes — marks from your epigenome, ie, your ancestors’ experiences.“We’re told that when you’re born your IQ is determined by your genes and there’s nothing you can do about that. There are people who really believe that.”07:47 — “A baby is born with a book that’s already marked” by mom and dad and even by grandma and grandpa.09:15 — How your epigenome is marked by your parents’ experiences as children vs. in their adulthoods.10:24 — What epigenetics implies for people whose parents experienced acute trauma as children, and the Dutch Hunger Winter example from the 20th century.12:25 — So your genes are “scarred” by what your parents went through as kids. What can you do about it now?14:50 — The epigenetic impact of chronic stress, poverty, racism, money, pollution, hunger, and other long-term negative influences. “These things are all cumulative.”15:56 — How much, or not, does your DNA dictate your destiny, and the art of aging differently than your parents.17:30 — Heritability: how much your genes predict, or not, your specific personal characteristics. Real-world examples of what’s more likely to be inherited from parents.21:00 — Heritability’s impact on longevity.21:37 — Pontzer’s discovery of the surprising relationship between physical exercise and calories burn based on his research on a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer community

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.agingwithstrength.comDr. Matt Kaeberlein is a biologist and one of the leading authorities in the space known as longevity medicine. He’s also one of the few leading scientists willing to call out his peers who are, in the vernacular, full of crap. He’s also CEO of health tech company OptiSpan.In this conversation, we discuss Kaeberlein’s dislike of the phrase “longevity medicine,” his willingness to call out longevity chiselers like Harvard’s David Sinclair and why almost all other senior scientists stay silent when their peers lie about or overstate their research. We then go into Kaeberlein’s personal fitness and nutrition routines before ending with his review (for paying subscribers) of 11 popular longevity supplements and a few others that the science shows are most effective.Timestamps01:32 — Is there any drug, supplement or treatment that can reverse aging in humans?02:30 — The problem of scientists who mislead the public about longevity research.04:05 — Exhibit A: David Sinclair, Harvard’s tenured longevity charlatan. “He lied.”05:38 — Academic scientists who sell supplements through deceptive advertising. “We do not needed our credibility degraded any more than it already is.”06:22 — Why most other senior scientists don’t call out chiselers like Sinclair. “The perception of shoddy science and charlatanism in this field has had a negative impact on resource allocation,” hindering research. Some leading scientists take the view that any attention brought to the field, even if it’s false information, is beneficial.07:55 — Modifying aging as a biological process. “In theory, we should be able to reverse that biological process.”09:01 — The importance of resistance training and body composition tests (e.g., DEXA scans) to understand fat and muscle mass.11:00 — Two camps of scientists: those who try to disprove their models with rigor vs. those that try to prove their models to support their pre-existing notions.13:15 — “Misinterpretations” by Sinclair and others about NAD+ research. “If you got a loud megaphone and you’re at a top institution….your opinion becomes dogma until it can get disproven,” which can take a decade or longer.15:28 — Why he’s on the fence about NAD+: “There’s a lot of things that have been published around NAD precursors and aging that has not been reproducible.”16:15 — Kaeberlein’s four pillars: Eat, move, sleep, connect. The importance of reading food labels, tracking your food intake, and understanding your body composition.“As a screening tool, [DEXA] is really valuable helping people understand…whether you need to focus on increasing muscle mass in particular.”18:30 — The importance of social relationships in longevity and healthspan. “Don’t avoid human interaction. Seek out opportunities to do things with other people.”21:15 — The connection between healthspan and mattering to others or showing others that they matter to you. Intentionally giving positive feedback (even if you don’t need it yourself.)22:45 — Kaeberlein’s thoughts on 11 popular longevity supplements, and the specific supplements he uses or recommends.

I recently had a life-changing conversation about managing stress. One of the more disturbing features of stress is that we often don’t notice it. But others do. The sources of this stress today feel existential, thanks to the growing instability of our financial, social and political futures.Maybe you’re struggling with a painful, chronic injury or disease. Maybe you’re managing a parent in the grip of dementia. Or trying not to panic about money and being able to afford life as you know it. Maybe our government’s willingness to act less as a public steward and more like a vaccine-skeptical kleptocracy is forcing you to think about your future in ways you never imagined.Let me tell you about that life-changing conversation — with my 10-year-old daughter. As my daughter and I talked, it suddenly dawned on me: the SOURCES of my stress — finances, career, relationships, the state of the United States, and so on — hadn’t changed so much as my ability to regularly purge them. Through exercise.The other lesson I learned from that conversation was what I needed to do every morning, before anything else.... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

There’s not many 43-minute podcasts you really need to hear. This is one of them. Annie Fenn offers a masterclass in creating a nutritional foundation for maximal brain health and muscle building in midlife and beyond. I learned a lot during our conversation, and I’m pretty sure you will, too.No more lunch meat or salted nuts, for instance.Annie Fenn, MD is the author of, ”The Brain Health Kitchen: Preventing Alzheimer’s Through Food,” a science-based cookbook for the brain. You may be familiar with her incredibly substantive, fact-packed Substack, Brain Health Kitchen. Annie, who’s a board-certified OB-GYN, is also a trained chef, making her advice about nutrition and brain health essential for building a strategy to maintain superior cognitive function throughout life.How to build brain healthy eating habits:01:25 — ”What you eat at midlife seems to be particularly predictive of whether you become vulnerable to one of these neurodegenerative diseases.”02:08 — “Most of the dementia that people get has a very strong dietary link. That’s why what you do at midlife is so incredibly important.”04:45 — How “food environments” create better nutrition habits.05:15 — “Unless you address your food environment, I don’t think it’s really possible to make meaningful change.”06:23 — ”What’s your brain health mindset?” (Figure out what really motivates you to alter entrenched eating habits.)07:45 — Building “your own brain-food pyramid.”09:11 — The building blocks of the Mediterranean Diet: “peasant food.”11:48 — Making beans and legumes a bigger part of your brain-healthy eating habits.17:01 — How to go from a bad food environment to a healthy food environment.19:31 — Vegetarian and vegan diets.21:27 — Eggs, cardiovascular risk and nutritional cholesterol vs. blood cholesterol.24:57 — Defining what is and isn’t “processed meat;” how bad is lunch meat, really?26:35 — Processed meat and “AGEs”: a recipe for inflammation and brain aging.27:39 — How to cook meat to avoid AGEs and the problems it’s associated with.31:35 — Protein for people over 40; the relationship between protein and dementia.33:40 — “Strength training is mandatory for women,” especially after their late 30s.36:00 — Is there a gender divide in nutrition for people over 50?37:20 — Getting strong and eating enough protein in perimenopause to ward off pre-diabetes, muscle loss and other potential issues.38:20 — Sugary drinks: a metabolic and brain health disaster.40:45 — Annie’s Top 3 takeaways for eating healthy after 50. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

Update, June 29, 2025: Turns out that simply talking about the goal of drinking less helps effectuate actually drinking less. Since I first recorded this conversation with Wendy Bounds, and certainly in the several weeks since publishing it, I drink noticeably less, which is to say less often, than at anytime since the pandemic. Original post: Earlier this year, I began talking with Gwendolyn Bounds, who is just a terrific explorer, journalist, author and human, after being introduced (remotely, as we live on separate coasts) by a mutual friend. Over the course of a couple phone conversations to explore our respective interests in all the ways to be better in this world, we quickly learned that we were both on individual quests to drink less. As we talked about our very different alcohol origin stories and strategies for winding down our respective drinking habits over time, we stumbled upon two ideas: * An unvarnished, candid and unselfconscious conversation about drinking less is something we should record, not because we know more or better but because our struggles and strategies may be helpful to others also trying to drink less. * Though Wendy and I have yet to meet in person, having a “non-drinking buddy,” as she aptly calls me in this recorded conversation, is a good thing. There’s a third idea, and it’s mine only. But first, in case you missed it: It’s that Wendy has been rather more successful and with setting her “drinking less” goals and achieving them than I have. We’ve each developed some tactics and mindsets that mitigate the urge to drink once the clock strikes a certain hour (and even that hour is different for her and me).* the Cheetos Protocol: If don’t want to consume it, don’t keep it in the house* put out visual cues that remind you why you don’t want to drink* sip your drink more slowly and parsimoniouslyAnd many others. For me, drinking has never been a problem, but it had become a very cozy, enjoyable and, honestly, lazy habit. One that exists at cross purposes to what I want to achieve in aging with strength for the remainder of this one life. Wendy, now a New Yorker, is originally from the South. I grew up in the steamy and frozen Midwest (those are my only two memories) but have now lived in California for almost as long. You will not be surprised to learn how differently our drinking was and remains today. But on the idea that we can never have too many non-drinking buddies, I hope you’ll listen to our 33-minute conversation and tell us what you think — about anything — in the comments. AGING with STRENGTH only recently learned how to properly pronounce Sláinte. But the favorite foreign word for cheers remains the Hungarian: Egészségedre. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

We all need to build more self-forgiveness into our lives.This topic is a pathway to greater strength, not weakness, and I’ll explain why. Not everyone needs a psychoanalytic intervention here, but almost every person I know, and who you know, I’m guessing, could benefit from taking a minute to consider how minor acts of self-forgiveness — some people prefer the term self-compassion — can make them stronger in life’s all-important second half.It’s so easy to just continue to be too hard on yourself.Two kinds of self-forgiveness* Tier 1 self-forgiveness addresses either profound, deep-rooted feelings like inadequacy, unlovability or trauma that go back to childhood, or more contemporary shame and guilt for something we’ve done to someone else.* Tier 2 self-forgiveness is caused by routine daily mistakes Self-forgiveness arises from the cognitive dissonance we experience when our actions don’t reflect our beliefs. Actions that build self-compassion* Admit your major failures. If you’ve wronged someone else, acknowledge that to them, apologize and explain why it won’t happen again. You won’t forgive yourself until you ask the other person to.* Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with the respect you would give a loved one.* Recognize what you’ve done well. Take the time and words, if only spoken to yourself, to celebrate your achievements.* Practice regular self-care through what makes you feel well: exercise, time in nature, getting a massage or watching the big playoff game; whatever brings you joy.Aging with emotional strength is harder than it seems. But it’s worth the effort. I’ll leave you with these six very good questions we should all be asking ourselves, courtesy of Helen Marie on Substack:What kind of life am I quietly dreaming of?What are the small joys that are holding me together?How can I return to what matters most?Who are my people & how do I nourish them?What stories am I ready to stop living out?How can I let myself be more fully alive? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

My interview with Sydney-based Erica Koo, a Level 3 fascia stretch therapist and former competitive powerlifter, explores how Fascial Stretch Therapy (FST) can make life better for people with significant mileage on their bodies, hearts and minds.Erica and I discuss FST’s significance in pain relief, mobility and overall health, the role of fascia in the body, its connection to movement, and how FST can benefit people over 40.Erica also shares her personal journey (see timeline below, if you’d rather jump to that fascinating part of our conversation) from a complete non-athlete to becoming a competitive powerlifter, lyra (aerial hoop) performer and FST therapist… who’s now on the road to also completing her psychology training. (Her latest athletic obsession is sprinting….clearly, Erica doesn’t do anything halfway.)Takeaways:* Fascial Stretch Therapy (FST) is crucial for pain relief and mobility* Fascia is a web-like connective tissue that affects movement* Aging increases the need for fascia care due to accumulated stress* FST works by addressing the fascial connections throughout the body* Therapists assess the body as a roadmap of experiences and pain* Immediate relief can often be felt after the first session of FST* Resistance training is essential for maintaining health as we age* FST is a collaborative process that prioritizes client safety* Psychological benefits accompany physical relief in therapy* Holistic health involves 5 pillars: exercise, nutrition, hydration, sleep, communityErica Koo/fascia stretch therapy video timeline:01:01 Introduction to FST: What is it & why you should care about your body’s fascia02:20 How Erica evaluates pain via fascial connections throughout the body04:50 Why fascia is so important for people over 40 to understand10:38 “The body is a roadmap” to everything it’s gone through in life11:24 Expectations of FST as a reliever of chronic pain14:15 Characteristics of people whose fascia is in the best shape15:40 Erica’s story: competitive powerlifter, aerial hoop performer, psych student22:00 The wide range of physical & neuro issues that Erica treats with FST28:10 The 5 pillars of healthy living: exercise, nutrition, hydration, sleep, community“With fascia stretch therapy, the more you move the joint, the more it does let go. And in doing so, you're able to create freedom in the joint and the muscle” — Erica Koo (aka “Stretch”)(SKIMMABLE) INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:PaulErica Koo, thanks for being on AGING with STRENGTH.EricaThank you so much for having me, I'm super excited.PaulYeah, this is going to be an interesting conversation because I don't know jack about fascia stretch therapy — FST as it's called.So could you tell us what FST, fascial stretch therapy, is and why we should care about it?Erica (01:08)It's a form of assistive stretching that allows us to work deep in the joints and stretch the move the body in ways that the client themselves may not be able to. In doing so, what we're aiming to do is relieve pain, restore joint integrity and also improve overall long-term mobility as well.How I would explain it to clients when they walk in is that fascia is a web like connective tissue that is all across the body. There is nowhere in our body that fascia does not exist. But the function is it helps hold our body together, but also helps coordinate smooth movements when we're walking, running, especially when we're training things like that.It's very flexible. It's meant to stretch and adapt when you move, but it can become quite stiff or tight if you have things like poor posture, if there's lack of movement or injury. And with massage, when people come in and they go, my shoulder's really painful. A massage therapist would just look at the shoulder and go, okay, well, we'll release the bicep, release the shoulder, neck, off you go. A physio would look at it and look at it in terms of a diagnosis. So they'll probably go through multiple assessments to be able to see what's the range of movement like, where's the pain, what sort of movements are triggering that, has there been an acute event to have caused that pain.With fascia stretch therapy, when someone presents with pain, I look at how that structure is fascially connected to different areas of the body. So for example, there's multiple different fascial nets across the body and you wanna think of fascia as a web like I mentioned before.And this fascia connects anatomically separate structures together across the body. So there's one called the superficial back net, for example, and it's just a big slab of fascia that runs from the top of the cranium all the way down to the neck, back, lower back, hamstring, calves, and down to the plantar fascia as well. They've done cadavers on this too. So if you are interested, you can sort of Google superficial back net and it should come up with like this big structure. So I look at, okay, well, I can, yes, stretch the shoulder if your shoulder is painful.But what other things, for example, cause internal rotation of the shoulder? What other things can lead to that sort of shoulder pain? So I look at an assessment that way. And then for my practice, I genuinely try to move away from pain, initially. So if someone's come in with a chronic issue that they've had for, let's say 10 years, which is not unusual for clients coming in to see me, I don't want to necessarily make them force through pain that they have been forcing through for 10 years.And I feel like that's where the magic of fascia structure comes comes in is that we can start down regulating the nervous system by working on and stretching structures that that shoulder is connected to and then work our way closer to the area of pain. Once the person is feeling a lot less of that.You mentioned foam rolling actually and how foam rolling relieves your back pain. When we look at how foam rolling works is essentially it, it inhibits the part in your brain that interprets the pain signals as threatening. That's why you get a relief in mobility, relief in overall pain, and then it helps you move better and actually get a lot more out of your training. So we're working very similarly with that process. If I'm looking at, what can I work on first? So is it bicep? Is it just the shoulder joint moving it around? it, is it okay? Is the body letting me move the shoulder around without pain? Okay, well then that maybe I can progress a little bit deeper into the structures.PaulIs this important for just young athletic people or, know, obviously my audience and this audience here at aging with strength is 45 and up, generally speaking. Why should they be interested in what you're saying to them right now?Erica (05:00)Because fascia exists regardless of age and it is crucial for smooth movement and health overall. And one of the common things I hear from people who are 40 and over is, oh, you I feel so stiff and I think that's just a part of aging. I always ask the question, okay, well, let's think about it this way. How much stress have you been under across the 40, 50 years that you have been alive?When did you start, when did your career start taking off? Did you start a family? Did you have any big stresses in your life? know, mortgage, moving house, moving, changing careers, things like that. And when did you stop moving the way that you did in your twenties and thirties, if you were training in the first place? So as we go through the different stages of our life, you also encounter different stresses. There's almost an accumulation of stresses and experiences, if you will.There becomes less time behaviorally to engage in the self-care methods that you may have done or that you could have gotten away not doing in your 20s and 30s. So I think as people age into their 40s and 50s, there's an increased need to take care of their fascia because they might just just might not be getting the same opportunities with increased stress compared to when they were younger.PaulSo what is…sorry, you may have answered this, but what is fascia? What's it made of? What does it feel like?Erica (06:33)Very….So how I would feel it when I'm looking at the person on the table, we have a movement called traction, which is essentially where I kind of pull the joint away from the body to see how it responds. And depending on that pull, I can feel where the tightness is coming from, whether I'm pulling on the leg and I'm tractioning the leg, do they have more tightness in the calf or is it coming from the hip? And then based on that, I work on what needs to be done first.And then even with fascia, you have the superficial layers on top and then the deep layers at the bottom. So fascia is like a connective tissue. when you, for example, look at images of what fascia is like under the microscope, it essentially looks like interweaving spider webs. So it's that thick layer that connects all together. And that's how it is able to stretch and able to produce force and absorb force as well.PaulIs it really a function of the more you massage, I'm using massage to mean any kind of manipulation or the more that you knead it like dough, the more supple it gets, is it that simple?Erica (07:43)Massage works a lot in isolation. So it will directly target, let's say the deltoid or the pec muscle and work until it releases or the muscle let's go. FST or fascia stretch therapy looks at, how do we use movement to create throughout the entire limb? So any, everything encompassing the wrist, bicep, shoulder. So instead of working in isolation, we're looking at, how do we move it around the body in the way that it should be moved?And with fascia stretch therapy, the more you move the joint, the more it does let go. And in doing so, you're able to create freedom in the joint and the muscle.PaulOkay, so why do people need fascial stretch therapists? Like what do you do that I can't do at home with my trusty foam roller or my friend who twists my arm backwards or whatever? What's

Andy Walshe is a globally recognized leader in the field of elite human performance for individuals, teams and large organizations in sport, culture, the military and business. Andy is a founding member of Liminal Collective, whose members include some of the most accomplished human performers (artistic as well as athletic) on the planet. Their quest is to answer a fundamental question: How do the best of the best operate, and what can we learn from them?Show Notes:1:50 — The 5-minute breath-holding exercise, the “threat of running out of air” and why it’s an effective training tool.3:56 — The definition of “human performance.”4:33 — Applying human performance principles to people 50 and older.5:20 — Andy’s patented human performance framework (with visuals).6:15 — “You are an N of 1, a unique individual….”7:30 — How to create a human performance framework for yourself (what you want to achieve + your restrictions + what works for you).9:10 — The “I saw an elite athlete do it!” trap and how to avoid it.10:15 — Defining characteristics of the highest performers: The ability to adjust in the moment; bringing oneself back to baseline; “inter-receptiveness” (being able to register how you’re feeling and respond to that), and more.12:30 — Why the breath-hold exercise is so effective: Recognizing your triggers and practicing handling them in the moment.14:00 — Training Tier 1 military special operations teams to do comedy improv (the value in training elite performers in “non-traditional environments.”)17:45 — The importance of not dwelling on failures and moving forward quickly. “The Roger Federer Effect” and the “threat vs. challenge mindset”: I made a mistake. What did I learn?21:05 — The value of seeking out coaching in some form or another.22:35 — Using AI as a coach, and the technology advances just around the corner. Uploading “your own version of yourself.”24:18 — Red-light therapy: useful or waste of money?25:13 — Andy’s “70-20-10 Rule” for human performance training.29:17 — The trap of relying on shortcuts, tech toys and supplements.30:43 — Andy’s take on alcohol and drinking.31:40 — Finding the Keith Richards prototypes. Andy: “That’s research I could get behind.”32:40 — Wrap-up thought on aging well. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

Here's some strategies for dealing with midlife athletic injuries and the frustrating, sometimes demoralizing limitations they impose on us. One of the most challenging aspects of hitting my fifties (and maybe you can relate to this) is reconciling the inevitable decline in physical strength and performance with my expectations — unreasonable as they are — that I should be able to just keep doing pretty much what I did last week, last year or 15 years ago.Not to mention the particular personal psychology that whispers, convincingly, that physical strength and ability are standards that must be upheld. As if they were virtues that, like all actual virtues, don’t ever change.And the pernicious feeling that if I can’t maintain my athletic standards, well, then, who am I, really?Of course, these thoughts and feelings are rarely overt; they’re more like emotional microplastics polluting my subconscious. But like all toxins, they tend to accumulate over time, to the point where they can influence my self-perception and, thus, my behavior. And here’s the problem with that: If you’re in a state of continual dissonance between what you want your body to be able to do and what it can actually pull off, you’re all but asking for an injury.Or, more to the point of this post, a nonstop series of injuries.Because athletes in their 50s are like the Tom Hanks character in, “Cast Away.” Remember that movie, from 2000? A guy stranded on an island invisible to the outside world. He survives on pure improvisation, lives in a cave gnawing on fish bones, staring at the wall wondering WTF. And then he becomes emotionally dependent on a volleyball and cries when it goes away.Sound familiar, athletes? If “Cast Away” isn’t an analog to life after 50 I’m not sure what is.At least we have access to ibuprofen and CBD gummies.The consequences of “ignore & override” for older athletesAt this point in my audiocasts, I usually offer a disclaimer that I’m speaking not as an expert but as a journalist and curious explorer. But on this topic…I’m an expert. My guess is that many of you are, too.Or, if you’re not yet, because you haven’t yet hit the 50-something athletic injury wall that no one ever bothered to tell you is approaching, I’m here, now, warning you about the negative surprises that many midlife athletes confront.Or, as the case may be, simply ignore.I wrote a post in October that examined the consequences of continuing to fight through athletic pain. And in the months since then, I’ve become a living lesson of what happens when ignore & override becomes your rule instead of the exception.A brief summary of my 50-something injuriesSo let me quickly run through what I’m dealing with, so I can get to the strategies for managing the nonstop injuries after age 50 with credibility.* My right shoulder now has 2 partial tears that make upper-body training tough. They wake me up, every night. I probably need surgery, because it feels a lot like my left shoulder 8 years ago, when a surgeon stapled together a full tendon tear.* But now, in both shoulders, I also have severe tendinitis of the long head biceps tendon, which connects the biceps to the shoulder. This is a direct result of my ignore & override habit, after too many rounds of hitting 200 tennis serves at a time.I was in too much of a hurry to be really good at tennis, and got a repetitive stress injury as a result.Consequences!So, now I focus more on lower body and core strength training, for stronger legs, quads, glutes, hip flexors, lower back and pelvic strength. As you get older, you want to be stronger from the ground up. And these are big muscle groups that burn a lot of calories.* Oh, yeah: As if on cue, last week my right knee took on fluid, for reasons I have yet to pin down. Going too heavy on the box jumping? Or the stair workout? Tennis drills against the pitiless ball machine? Whatever.Using athletic stress therapy to speed recoveryThough I make light of the stress I put on my body — and maybe that’s just another variation of ignore & override — when it comes specifically to tending to athletic injuries, I’ve found that continuing to use it — playing, running or working out on whatever part is hurting — can in some cases speed up the repair process far more effectively than the RICE therapy, which is based on Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation.Carefully stressing certain non-acute injuries, through newer therapies with acronyms like PEACE, LOVE, and MEAT works only if you know what you’re doing and have a strong and sensitive connection to your body’s nuanced pain signals.I could do an entire post on physical stress therapy, so I won’t go deeply into it here, but it’s not for everyone.But what if, instead of more effective therapies, we avoided taking on athletic injuries in the first place. Maybe there’s a better way to build strength and endurance and flexibility after 50 than simply by pressing on with the same workouts, the same routines, the same sports, even, that we practiced 5, 10, or 20 years ago.Getting smarter about staying physically strongIn that previous post about the consequences of continuing to ignore & override progressively louder pain signals, I gave two examples of friends, each with great tolerances for pain, who decided to stop doing certain sports they loved, to save their bodies.Because, yes, discontinuing what is painful may be the smart move.There are always other creative ways to build physical strength, including neuromuscular strength training.The concept of slowly, slowly ratcheting down your workouts over timeBut, instead of just pressing on doing the same routines and talking to a volleyball to keep from losing our minds, I’d like to introduce the idea of a controlled, almost imperceptible ratcheting down of your workouts, over years, as a way to stay healthy, remain physically strong and flexible and get off the perpetual injury train. Through more mindful, disciplined movements that recognize, instead of ignore, our changing physical abilities.It would look something like this:1 | A 1% per year reduction in weight/duration/distance/intensity of the training regimens or sports most likely to cause the injuries that set you back, physically and mentally.* maybe it’s 1%, maybe 5%, maybe .05%, but it becomes something you manage, which requires forethought, attention and discipline — things that athletes tend to be good at.* in the gym, that can look like preemptively reducing the amount of weight you're using in favor of doing more repetitions. You don’t need to go heavy to build strength or muscle.* after my 2017 left shoulder tendon repair, I ratcheted down to 50 pound dumbbells for chest presses, from 60 pounds, and that was absolutely the right move. 60 pounds is ego; 50 pounds is disciplined, mindful.* instead of keeping your max workout volume at 11, turn it down to 9. At first, it can feel disappointing, like you’re leaving endorphins on the table. But it’s still 9! And it creates a disciplined buffer against frequent commutes on the athletic injury train.* I no longer hit 200 idiotic tennis serves at a time, and instead limit myself to 40 or 50. That’s lowered my daily pain score, which I’ll explain in a moment.2 | Commit to acquiring no new injuries* what would that require you to change in practice, at the gym, on a bike, on a running trail, in the pool, or just negotiating a darkened staircase while texting and eating a sandwich?3 | Quantify the pain load you’re carrying, to lower it* example: on a scale of 1 to 10 daily, my right shoulder is a 5; my knee is a 1; my left shoulder a 2, for a total pain score of 8. I want my daily number to be 4 or lower. What’s my plan to achieve that?4 | Acknowledge the mental and emotional stress that athletic injuries create* that daily pain score directly correlates to the energy that you require to ignore & override or, worse, unleash your transmogrified pain on someone else.5: | Invest in high-quality, professional guidance for your specific athletic goals* instead of training only using free YouTube videos, which I use as well, create a modest budget to spend on your personal physical performance and maintenance.* a good physiotherapist or coach is as valuable to your enduring physical resilience as a good psychotherapist is to your emotional well being. This is a worthy investment that takes time and effort and pays major dividends.Since I mentioned psychotherapy, which I’ve been reaping the benefits of for 20 years now, let me mention one final, really important element of what drives many of us, especially men, toward unsustainable levels of athletic stress, pain and the dead-end of ignore & override. And this is where I also speak from personal experience.Confronting the lingering need to be dangerousWhat I’m talking about here is the need to remain “dangerous.” Which continuing to keep up an increasingly painful athletic standard, almost regardless of the consequences, bestows.This is a real need, felt by many men, especially. Here, dangerous does not mean antisocial, threatening or violent, but something much more subtle, socially acceptable and rooted in athleticism: a form of physical achievement and self-possession that tends to make people take notice in some way, small or large.As many psychotherapists, including mine, will tell you, the reason so many men of a certain age resist dialing down our athletic habits is because to dial down would be a tacit acknowledgement of mortality. But if you can still blow away that 38 year old dude on the trail, or compete with him, entirely in your mind at the gym, you’re not average! And you’re not going to die!As my therapist said to me recently: “There’s a limit to how strong one can be at different points in one’s life, regardless of one’s will. You need other capacities, other than just determination.”Other capacities: like maybe self-acceptance, self-forgiveness and an appreciation of the non-athletic qualities that make you strong,

Five simple principles about eating, food and alcohol to maximize your healthspan.1 | Nutritional accountability. The first principle is sharing your eating and nutrition habits with people whose opinions you value. There’s strength in accountability, and that absolutely applies to what you put into your body.2 | Eating habits. Are you willing to challenge some of the habits you’ve formed around how you eat and prepare food? If you are, then make a point of acknowledging that changing those habits will be a pain in the ass and will feel awkward. But also understand what is animating you to want to eat healthier foods, or conversely, what is keeping you away from them. I’ll mention some examples of each of those in a minute.3 | Experimentation. What’s the one food or dish that you know you should add to your eating routine but for whatever reason, you haven’t — maybe because you don’t know how to prepare it; or think it won’t turn out well; or won’t taste that good; or is too trendy? For the hell of it, just once, buy it, make it, eat it. See what happens.4 | For women over 50: Do you have a nutrition plan that will help manage the effects and impact of perimenopause and menopause? I may be out of my lane on this, but there’s plenty of evidence that food and diet can have a positive role in managing menopausal symptoms.5 | For men over 50: Do you have nutrition goals — at all? — and are you still eating the same kinds of crap you ate 20, 30 years ago? A slowing metabolism demands eating-habit changes to avoid turning into a pear-shaped geezer who, when he dies, leaves a decade or more on the table. Real men know their way around a kitchen and meal plans. Which I say in semi-jest. But only semi. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

I’m Paul von Zielbauer from AGING with STRENGTH.…with a few brief thoughts on how to make 2025 a great year to build not just physical strength but also enduring mental, emotional, spiritual, nutritional and community strength. I have some ideas, born of my own curiosity and years of trial and error, but feel it’s important to once again point out that I’m not an expert or guru. To the contrary, I’m a reporter and investigator of the experts and the so-called gurus, in service of isolating worthy information to share with you and exposing what is turning out to be a rather large amount of b.s. and unsupported conclusions from not only people who should know better but also the institutions that give them fancy titles and, often, tenure.In this brief AGING with STRENGTH audiocast, I focus specifically on physical strength and a few key routines and habits that, through the trial and error I mentioned, have been real difference-makers in helping me not only improve athletic and physical performance but also minimize small recurring injuries and pain that is familiar to anyone over, say, 45 who’s still pushing their physical limits.In subsequent audio notes this month, I’ll give this same treatment to each of the other pillars of aging — mental strength, emotional strength, nutritional strength, spiritual strength and community strength — in a way that is specific, personal and suitably ambitious without being obnoxious.Because let’s face it: We all want to be strong in the ways that most matter to us, but we’re not really interested in thousand-dollar supplements in a bid to live forever, like tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, who’s bringing his “Don’t Die Summit” to Los Angeles later this month. (I wish I were making that up, but I’m not.) And we all hopefully see through the charade by now of pitchmen like Andrew Huberman, Stanford’s in-house “Neuroscientist Gone Wild”, who in between his paid YouTube product promotions now calls aging a disease that can be reversed.No, we’re just trying to age with strength and resilience — aren’t we? — in each of these vital areas of our lives. And if we can also lower our biological ages by a few years or so, just through a more mindful focus on doing what makes us feel and become stronger, well, that’s even better. Maybe I’d even celebrate that win with some of Bryan Johnson’s $500 THC-infused retinol…guaranteed to make you sleep as soundly as his 18-year-old blood boy.Improving physical strength in 2025Jocularity aside, here are some ideas for becoming physically stronger over the next 51 weeks of 2025 — again, not handed down to you by an expert, but offered up by a deeply curious crash-test dummy of sorts who believes in improvement through improvisation, experimentation and a willingness to fail forward, as they say in tech. I hope that some of these ideas will be helpful, either as a regimen to try yourself, or try a variation of, or as a provocation that perhaps gets you to think differently about what’s possible for you to achieve.If there’s one thing I learned over the years, personally and as a social entrepreneur, it’s that we are each are capable of achieving so much more than we think we can.So let’s get to aging with more physical strength in 2025.I’ll start by saying that, to age optimally, regular strength training in some form is simply non-negotiable. Working out, with weights or some kind of resistance, just has so many indisputable benefits that go beyond maintaining and building muscle mass. It improves your mood, lowers stress, boosts confidence, improves brain health, reduces inflammation and risk of injuries and can even mitigate the damage from moderate drinking. But even if none of that is compelling to you, the fact that strength training slows and reverses biological aging should be. Who doesn’t want to look stronger, tighter and younger in jeans and a t-shirt?At my local Santa Monica YMCA weight room several years ago, there was an older guy who clearly looked, if not ripped, then noticeably fit for his advanced age. Which I assumed from the fluid way he carried himself and worked out was around 72 to 75 — pretty old for a gym rat. One day a high school kid, who obviously had also noticed this man’s physique, asked how old he was. Eighty-eight, he told the kid.There’s just something about regularly lifting even light weights that keeps the human machine running young, at the cellular level. And there’s plenty of credible science to support that assertion.In 2025, my goal is to get both stronger and faster, and leaner and more flexible. I’m not looking for bigger muscles but rather to increase neuromuscular efficiency, which develops by training the nervous system to control muscle fibers. Neuromuscular training, which I’ll link to in the transcript, has been shown to improve various aspects of athletic performance, including agility, balance, muscular strength, power and cardiorespiratory endurance, not to mention better joint stability and reduced risk of injuries in athletes. I equate neuromuscular efficiency to what is often called “old man strength” or “old woman strength,” because it’s about increasing physical power through movement, not just mechanical muscle strength.I don’t know about you, but I sit on my ass, staring at screens, way more than I’d prefer, and I often recall my osteopathic doctor’s admonition, after putting my sacroiliac joint back in proper position, that “bodies are meant to move.”More than anything, commit in 2025 to being a chronic mover. There’s a smart fitness-related YouTube channel, called Mover’s Odyssey, that I recommend, and in fact one of its more recent videos is on neuromuscular efficiency. The channel explores many unconventional forms of achieving strength through movement, and it’s smartly narrated and quite creatively illustrated — no humans on any of their videos, refreshingly; only visually engaging animated sketches. So, check out Mover’s Odyssey, if you are so moved.So, my 2025 physical goals are focused on maintaining durable core strength that enables three main athletic or personal pursuits:* staying quick and aerobically fit on the tennis court* surfing and being able to paddle for at least an hour in the ocean without losing shoulder strength* and being able to hold a semi-automatic rifle on target for a good two hours of shooting at my local outdoor range, for which proper technique involves core strength and breath work.To address all three of these goals, I’ve started jumping rope, for lower-body and ankle strength and the aerobic endurance required for tennis. It’s a complete core workout, especially with a weighted rope that also builds shoulder strength and mobility. And you can carry a rope anywhere.On the advice of my coach, Tiana Rockwell, I also started combining bar squats, with about 75% of my body weight, with immediate follow-on sets of box jumping. I follow three supersets of that with some relatively easy deadlifts or, alternatively, kettlebell swings. Nothing is worth doing without learning proper technique, obviously. I’m a big fan of using lighter weights at higher reps. That combination keeps my core and lower half strong and balanced, and keeps away the lower back pain that had plagued me for years.None of this happens, of course, without properly warming up using a foam roller, which I’ll talk about, somewhat rapturously, in a moment. However you decide to regularly put your muscles to work, even with the lightest weights imaginable, the act of developing a routine of core-focused strength training — combined with the incredibly important habit of stretching before bedtime and after waking each morning — is as winning a combination for people over 50 as any I’ve come across.But even if going to gyms and lifting weights and jumping rope aren’t for you, swimming is a full-body workout, and bodyweight exercises, like squats and lunges, increase physical strength, give you a lasting burn, and allow you to work out at home or in your office, two minutes at a time. More than a few professional hockey players in their mid-30s train only with bodyweight. You don’t need big weights or to be in a ratty gym to grow strong.One thing I’m trying to incorporate more in my day, as someone who works from home, are micro sets: 10 or 15 reps of whatever exercise I choose, on the way to the kitchen or bathroom. I place dumbells, a jump rope, a weighted ball, in common areas, so that when my Apple Watch tells me it’s time to stand up, doing a 30-second micro set becomes too easy to avoid, and they act like compound interest in building physical strength.Gaining strength is only half the equation. It’s nice to have big muscles, but if you can’t touch your toes or stand on one foot for 30 seconds, are you in balance?Flexibility, stretching and foam rollingStrength without flexibility is not a winning strategy, especially after 50. My relentless focus on being maximally flexible is born of great personal pain — mainly through the hell of debilitating lower back spasms and overtaxed quadratus lumborum. So I’ve learned to make a routine out of daily stretching and fascia manipulation, in the form of…foam rolling!If you haven’t discovered the miracle work that a $24 foam roller provides, pause this audiocast and buy one online immediately. A foam roller is the closest thing to an in-house chiropractor you can buy, and if used regularly, it will change your life for the better. The fascial system is a continuous, three-dimensional network of primarily collagen that permeates the entire body and accounts for about 20% of your bodyweight. Keeping it agile and well oiled is another non-negotiable facet of aging with physical strength, in my book.I know there are people out there who don’t have athletically or age-induced back problems, or tendinitis or bursitis; people whose hips or shoulders don’t ever crackle or pop, who don’t wake up stiff; who can’t understand why early-onset arthritis, nerve damage

I talk with history-making polar explorer and mountaineer Alison Levine, who's such a badass they named a beer after her. Alison was team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition and is one of about only 20 people to achieve “the Adventure Grand Slam.” But almost equally dramatic is her lifelong journey being the "parent" of her father, a bi-polar FBI agent who got on the wrong side of J. Edgar Hoover. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

Transcript:This is Paul von Zielbauer from Aging with Strength with a quick audio addendum, on this Thanksgiving eve, to my post yesterday on intermittent fasting, which I have found, through personal experience and by talking with many people who practice it in midlife and beyond, to have myriad benefits to daily well being. But not everyone thinks so, and some experts are on record saying intermittent fasting, or I.F. for short, works for losing some flab weight but not much else. One of my readers pointed out a recent WSJ article with almost that exact headline.So, where do I, a journalist who’s not a nutritionist, not a doctor, not a clinician of any kind, get off cautiously recommending I.F. to people in their 50s and up? And also, how the hell does anyone, including yours truly, really know if I.F., as some research that I linked to in my article yesterday indicates, helps slow the pace of biological aging, or reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s, or makes muscle tissue stronger even if it reduces its mass in the process? (These are all findings indicated in research I linked to in the post yesterday, among others.)Well, the answer is that I don’t really know — and neither do any of the “health and wellness” YouTube carnival barkers on the scale of Andrew Huberman and charlatans like him who profess categorical certainty about the efficacy of fasting and other experiments with nutrition, strength, eating and food. But I’ve talked to enough thoughtful people who practice I.F., about what they believe it does for them, and I’ve read the abstracts of enough credible research that isn’t bogged down by obvious conflicts of interest among the researchers, to believe that intermittent fasting done right can help wean us off the industrialized, ultra-processed food conveyor belt that so many Americans are on, or are susceptible to being on, because with every other daily stressor, it’s easier to just keep eating habitually, which for many of us includes snacking after dinner.Of course, I realize the irony of saying this the day before we stuff our pie holes with way too much food for Thanksgiving. Good luck with that, by the way.But if there’s one single thing that I.F. has given me, in my own experience fasting from 7pm to 10am almost every day, it’s the ability to not eat after dinner. And that alone creates knock-on benefits — for better sleep, better digestion, a less maniacal need for caffeine, a more durable daytime energy and ability to focus and the ability to simply remain food disciplined — that are lot harder to achieve, in my opinion, without intermittent fasting.Are there longitudinal studies proving I.F. helps slow your rate of biological aging? No. Is there research on more than a couple thousand people from diverse ethnic, gender and socio-economic backgrounds that are dispositive about I.F. lowering your chances of getting cancer or dementia or Type 2 diabetes? No.But when it comes to intermittent fasting, I’m encouraged by how it more closely resembles how humans evolved to nourish themselves and endure periods of involuntary fast. Physiologically, it feels natural to stop eating after dinner (once you get used to not eating after dinner, which takes some discipline.) At a genetic level amost, it just feels right to not wake up and immediately eat, then sit for three hours at a desk and then eat again, and continue the pattern of eating and “sedentarianism.”I’ll continue investigating the research on I.F., and if you have thoughts or questions, please put them into a comment on the Aging with Strength substack. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for listening. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

Dr. Renee Young, a Yale-trained naturopath is a medical-investigative force of nature who, at 50, is practicing the detailed and complex longevity gospel she preaches to her patients. In this 35-minute fast-moving interview, Dr. Young describes offers a portrait of what your life would be like if she had a say in keeping you healthy, fit and well for as many years as possible — even if you think you’re perfectly healthy already.01:25 — What’s a naturopath? How is naturopathy different than what your PCP does?03:10 — What a naturopath offers that your insurance-provided doctor can’t.04:30 — “One of the questions always in my mind is, ‘What will this person meet their demise from?’”05:24 — Component’s of Dr. Young’s “executive wellness” check.06:10 — The NutrEval comprehensive metabolic/nutritional test, and why Dr. Young recommends it.06:56 — Polygenic risk scores and genetic testing.07:55 — Paul’s recent NutrEval results: negative and positive surprises and what they show about how much insurance-provided annual blood/urine tests don’t tell you about your health.11:10 — Medicine’s marketing problem.12:26 — “How much healthcare do you want to consume?”18:00 — The curious doctor.19:05 — How to keep up with the explosion of longevity information and misinformation nowadays.20:10 — “Ask yourself hard questions.”21:15 — The Big Three aging processes to know and understand.23:32 — Investigating your own healthcare.25:55 — Next-level diagnostic tests.27:00 — The five pillars of aging.28:07 — Wellness as a series of rituals: yearly, monthly, weekly and daily.30:38 — Intermittent fasting! (One of Dr. Young’s favorite topics.)33:42 — The major benefits of assessing and knowing your biological age. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe

Not many professional bodybuilders start in their late forties. Fewer do it after overcoming a drinking problem. Almost none started out as a newspaper journalist — trust me on that one.Anne Marie Chaker is that rara avis who overcame a large amount of personal adversity to inadvertently reinvent herself, a story is captured in her just-published book, “Lift.”In this 18-minute conversation, Chaker reveals the road she traveled to become not only physically strong but also a more powerful person, and the many different ways in which her muscle-building lifestyle helped turned her life around.Time-stamped highlights:0:51 — “I remember being in the car, craving a drink,” and how a chance meeting with another hockey mom motivated Chaker to stop ignoring nutrition and start working out in a gym.02:15 — How Chaker’s 2020 first-person essay in The Wall Street Journal, titled, “I never thought I’d write this: I’m a female bodybuilder,” launched the idea for “Lift.”03:15 — “I just didn’t feel like I needed the booze anymore.” And, “I performed at my best when I was well fed, when I was strong.”05:02 — Going from “meh” to “Girl, you look good!”05:29 — “Aging Beastfully”: What it means and how you know if you are.08:15 — Flexing, or not, in the gym mirror: “I would love to have the balls to strut across the room — a woman — in a double-bicep pose.”11:50 — Chaker’s journey from muscle building to professional bodybuilding.13:28 — Chaker’s food and eating regime: A fridge full of salad and all the protein under the sun.15:33 — How people new to weightlifting and working out can build muscle, at home or the gym.16:43 — Chaker’s home gym set up: Some weights, a bench and some bands. “If you have a body, you have a gym.”17:15 — Chaker’s frustration with fitness gadgetry. “They make it way more complicated than it has to be.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.agingwithstrength.com/subscribe