Transcript
Speaker: You need to be building your body every step of the way because then if you have this injury or life happens or you're postpartum or you fall when you're older, you're not climbing out of a hole. You've already gotten a certain baseline established so that you're ready for those life things that happen and you're not just completely taken out by it.
Speaker: This is the Home of Health Spam podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
Speaker: Dr. Shannon Ritchie, it is a pleasure to have you today on the Home of Health Spam podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to connect again after meeting at South By. Yes, that was, as I said at the time, and I continue to say the single best panel I saw all week. i was there for nine days, not the South by was going the whole time. So I appreciate you moderating that. it was a fantastic panel.
Speaker: That's a huge compliment. That is a huge compliment. And I was very nervous about it, but it ended up being, it ended up exceeding my expectations. So I'm excited that we're here to talk about it even more.
Speaker: Yeah, me too. And before we do though, how would you describe yourself? I am a lively entrepreneur, founder of Evola Fitness, mom of two under two and Austinite.
Speaker: Awesome. Yeah. So that that's a ah funny one because as people might notice, if you're watching this, I have a totally different background than normal because I'm actually in Los Angeles this week. And I was really excited because I i saw, even though I met Dr. Shannon in Austin, I thought she was based in LA. I was like, Hey, we could do this in person. She said, I'm not in LA. I'm in Austin. Yeah. But I used to be, i used to be and I miss it. It's like the best, but yeah, I miss it every day.
Speaker: But Austin does seem like the center of the health and wellness universe. And so I keep thinking I'm going to have to move there sometime soon. You might have to. There's a lot going on here. And it's really it's really a great place to to be the founder of a fitness app and um highly recommend.
Speaker: For sure. All right. So on that, when we met in Austin, it was at South by Southwest. I believe it was the first year South by Southwest had a specific health track thanks to the Eli Lilly or the Lilly sponsorship.
Speaker: And as you might expect, Lilly being a sponsor, one of the big topics were GLP-1s. And the the panel that we were referencing that Dr. Shannon moderated was a very deep dive, rigorous, but balanced view on g l p one GLP-1 usage, risks, benefits in women's health from thyroidism to fertility to perimenopause and menopause.
Speaker: And yeah maybe let's start there. What was it that inspired you to put together that panel? Well, each one of those guests I had had on my podcast and I had connected with in the past. And when we were thinking about what we want to put together for South by Southwest as a pitch, because I don't know if you know anything about it, but to get a panel on South by Southwest, it's a very rigorous application process. It starts like a year in advance. You have to make this whole, like we had to do this whole video, this whole thing, like come up with this whole pitch. And
Speaker: And with each of my conversations with these women individually, and they're all um medical practitioners, we would come back to GLP-1s frequently. And what I realized is each of them had a unique perspective on how GLP-1s affect women's health. And I just thought it was so fascinating because the general public just understands them as either diabetes medications or most people just understand them as weight loss medications. But their benefits seem to go far beyond that. So I thought this would be a really illuminating conversation for people to learn what these medications can or can't do for your health beyond just weight loss. And then also, I think and a very important part of this conversation is that
Speaker: Weight loss is going to become more accessible than ever. I personally know so many people on GLP Ones. I'm sure you do as well, Andrew. And we're going to be coming across an epidemic of people losing muscle at an even accelerated rate than they already are. And that's a problem because as we age, we are losing muscle anywhere between three to 8% per decade after the age of 30. So this doesn't just happen when you're older. This is happening after 30. And when you have rapid weight loss, muscle loss accelerates. So this is a problem for our metabolic health long-term, for the way your body feels and functions now, for your insulin sensitivity So it it to me, i see a crisis coming where we are going to be losing muscle in an accelerated rate. And unfortunately, the public does not have information on how to build muscle properly.
Speaker: and They think that just if they pick up some weights or if they go to a group fitness class or if they walk with their weight in A weighted vest. yeah They walk with their weighted vest, then that's enough. um But unfortunately, it's not. So there's there's a big opportunity to educate the public here.
Speaker: For sure. And I do want to get your thoughts and touch on this, on that that loss over time. So for example, I had read after 30, our metabolism slows down 1% per year on average.
Speaker: And then more recent research I had seen was This doesn't actually happen. It's just, we're moving less. We're burning fewer. And so I'm wondering on the muscle loss, is it truly fate has written this or, Hey, if if you're in there as Dr. Shepard on the panel said, lifting heavy shit, it's not pre-written in the stars that you're going to lose this. What, what do you see there?
Speaker: Absolutely. So as far as metabolism, this is one of the most empowering facts is that metabolism does not drop due to linear age. Metabolism drops due to loss of lean mass. One large scale study looked at thousands of individuals across their lifespan and found that from the ages of about 20 to about 60, if you standardize for lean mass, metabolism was the same.
Speaker: The reason why your metabolism is dropping as you age is because you're losing lean mass. So this is a huge motivation for people to continue to load their bodies and build muscle because it helps you keep a youthful metabolism. But that said, let's say you're 50 and you've lost muscle, you can build it at any time. And um she said, lift heavy shit.
Speaker: And that there's some there's some interesting... i would love to talk about this because people think it has to be heavy and it doesn't necessarily have to be heavy because I think people think like heavy and they think of like heavy barbells at the gym and it doesn't need to be that. There's a wide range of loads that will work to build muscle even in peri and postmenopausal women. So I think the understanding that will help people with adherence because if they think, oh, it has to be this certain way and I don't want to do that or I'm afraid to do that or I don't know how... then that stops them from doing it at all. where Whereas when they understand the loads that do work to build muscle, you're more likely to to try that and then stay consistent with it.
Speaker: I'm really curious on that point. um you know I was a competitive athlete all through college on the national team, and i weigh maybe 25 pounds more now than I did then as a very distance swimmer with a lower body fat percentage. right like You can kind of change it with that. It was just because you were burning so many calories, you couldn't i couldn't keep on muscle mass. like Over the summer when I didn't have the dining hall that was all you can eat,
Speaker: and I was having to cook for myself, I would lose 10 pounds over the summer. You just couldn't keep enough calories in your body with the amount I was training, which now it's a lot easier when you're not swimming a billion miles a week.
Speaker: But the I'm really curious on the... what heavy means, right? Because we already said, hey, just wearing a weighted vest doesn't really do it. Doing a lot of zone two or walking doesn't do it.
Speaker: um What does it take to truly build strength? I had a coach, it was an Olympic coach, national team coach, who would say, look, if you can do 20 reps or something, you're not getting stronger.
Speaker: Because I would just sit there and rip out pull-ups. Like, no, you need to weight that stuff. Like, if you're doing 20 reps or more, you're not getting stronger. So what does the science actually show us there? Yes. Let's put some definitions around this. So your coach wasn't entirely true or that's not, that's not what the literature is showing now. So this is over the last like 10 years, there's been a lot of research about this, which is really empowering for people because it gives you options. So let's, let's talk about this. So What we see from the data is that to build muscle, you can lift anywhere from about four reps with heavier weights all the way up to about 30 reps with relatively lighter weights.
Speaker: As long as your final rep is two failure or one to three reps shy of failure. So if you could do 20 pushups or 20 pull-ups, but then you're like, I could actually really do 30, but I'm just stopping because I'm bored and I'm whatever, or I'm fatigued, then that isn't a stimulating set to build muscle. But if you're like...
Speaker: I did 20 pull-ups, but I could only do 21 pull-ups before I completely fail, then that is a stimulating set to build muscle. So what's great is that you can lift relatively heavy for four reps if you want, or you can lift moderately, maybe like eight to 15 reps. That's where a lot of people like to stay because it feels, doesn't feel so daunting, but um you're not, the sets aren't taking so long. Or you can lift, you know, all the way up to 30-ish reps. The problem with lifting in that higher rep range, like 20, 30 reps, is that you typically stop the set because you're fatigued or you're or you're bored or you're like, okay, this is just taking too long. Like I'm done. but not of time
Speaker: Right. versus And it's just harder to gauge. Okay. Did I actually get close to failure? So that's why I like to recommend for most people, a moderate rep range or heavier rep range just tends to be a little bit more foolproof. But it's not necessarily superior. And if you're only going to do those ah lighter loads at higher rep ranges, then then you can absolutely go for that as long as they're taken to failure or near failure.
Speaker: And that to failure or near failure, I think this may be a difference between somebody who's been a competitive athlete versus somebody just coming into it. Because it's very hard to gauge what failure looks like.
Speaker: And what I've heard, and i you're the expert, so I'm curious, is... failure is when your form starts to go. So maybe you could squeeze out a few more pull-ups, but you're kind of kipping and and moving around, but you're not really doing the the exercise well. And so failure doesn't mean you're sitting there squatting and you absolutely collapse, but your form's starting to go and you're like, okay, that that's gotten me to failure.
Speaker: It's a good question because this this is like a little bit of some like nuance, like niche stuff that maybe um maybe doesn't apply to most people. I would say, okay, let me back up.
Speaker: For the majority of people, yes, I would say you have failed when you can no longer complete a rep with good form. But we do see that there's something called quote unquote forced reps, which is like you're doing the rep, but you're not perfect form. So like if you're bicep curling, maybe your shoulder is also like flexing, you're kind of like getting, using a little bit of momentum. And we see that if you can, you can do forced reps and you might be able to get a little more stimulus out of the muscle. So maybe that is slightly more effective, but but then it's a cost benefit type of thing. So like, what's the risk of, you know, completing a rep with bad form that probably isn't worth it. So I think for the majority of the population, yes, your final rep is the one that you can do with good form. So it's harder to so to gauge true failure with bigger compound movements like a squat.
Speaker: It's easier to gauge true failure with more quote un isolated or single joint movements like a bicep curl, or even like a chest press where you just have more of your body supported or like hip thrust or something where you you just have more support. There's less need for additional muscles to contract. So if someone is newer and they're trying to gauge, okay, what is true failure? I would recommend using some of those simpler movements to kind of feel what it feels like to get to true failure instead of, you know, trying to get to true failure in your squat or your deadlift right off the bat.
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Speaker: I'd like to ask some questions on squat and deadlift and these compound movements. So especially for someone coming into it newer, and and maybe this is...
Speaker: more timely for me. I spent Sunday trying to help a neighbor whose 89-year-old husband had had a fall and we ended up having to call the ambulance and hospital and he just had a hip replacement, right? It's balance as we age is incredibly important, not just the strength and the muscle mass, but the balance as well.
Speaker: And That's something i don't know if a lot of people work on. We had JJ Virgin on the show and she would always end the workout. would Say, hey let's do it when you're fatigued. Let's work on the balance when you're fatigued.
Speaker: And so I wonder whether it's squat, whether it's deadlift. I've started based on a podcast that Peter Atiyah did with Jeff Cavalier and Gabrielle Lyons and others doing unilateral.
Speaker: So single leg deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats and lunges rather than barbell squats. What do you like to do with your clients? Because one side is...
Speaker: risk of injury as you keep loading more and more on, on the spine. um but the other is that balance side. Yeah. So I like to separate, i like to separate balance from strength training. Now you will absolutely see balance benefits when you are stronger. And this is because you have better proprioception. So there's multiple components of balance. There's the, um, the vestibular side. So this, the, um,
Speaker: the visual side of balance. like if you If you close your eyes, it's harder to balance. right So your eyes are taking in a lot of information and helping you ah coordinate a balanced position. There's the sensory side. So like feeling ah your muscles contract and feeling the floor underneath you.
Speaker: And so strength training can really help you with that sensory side. So even if you aren't intentionally working on balance... Strength training will have transference into balance improvements, which is such great news.
Speaker: However, if balance is a specific concern and it's something that you want to work on separately, i recommend separating it from your strength training workout. This is because if you're trying to do, let's say, a Bulgarian and you're trying to balance and contract muscles with sufficient ah intensity at the same time, you're going to be limited by one of those things. And usually the balance wins because our body's always trying to keep us safe. So if it's fears that you're not fully balanced, you'll stop that exercise before you hit true muscular failure because your body's just trying to keep you from falling over because it wants to keep you safe. So that balance will win. And and so therefore that set might not be very stimulating for strength or muscle.
Speaker: So I like to recommend like focus on your strength and muscles separately from your balance training, but know that if you are strength training and you're not doing us a ton of separate balance training, like you are still seeing benefits from that.
Speaker: Okay. You wouldn't necessarily recommend a lot of unilateral because I ended up with a lot of imbalances. Maybe it's from breathing too much to one side. And so I was in, my daughter was doing a lot more jumping, which you're going off one foot.
Speaker: And so I was trying to get her more balanced. it was working with her as well, trying to do more unilateral work. And so I don't know if it's, if you start young enough, That, hey, great, we're keeping it balanced and we're not trying to overload the weight anyway. It's right now it's much more about form and feeling what it's like. And then later, once you have a certain level of strength, you can go those unilateral. Are are there times that it makes more or less sense maybe? Okay. So I am a huge fan of unilateral work. That's pretty much the only work that I do.
Speaker: That's not true. I do a ton of unilateral work for my lower body and my upper body. Um, and oh my gosh, I could nerd out about this. Um, but I don't do it for the balance.
Speaker: I do it for the, because you have, there's something called bilateral deficit. So when you work one side of your body, instead of working both sides at the same time, um, you tend to be able to load that muscle more effectively. So when you work, you could try this. So see how many bicep curls you could do with with dumbbells in both hands. And then see how many bicep curls you could do just on one side. Odds are you could do more with the same weight when you just work one arm at a time. So the same goes for your legs, which is why I love to do single leg or single arm work.
Speaker: But what I like to do is take the balance component out of it so that that's, again, not part of the equation and like hold a wall or hold a squat rack or hold the a door frame or hold something so you're not trying to not fall over and you can fully focus on getting close to failure. But yes, I'm a huge fan of doing unilateral work.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, yeah, even doing like dumbbell bench, I'll do it on the ground, right? So you're not having to worry about any balance. but Exactly. no Yeah, okay. Yeah, yep, exactly.
Speaker: The more you can stabilize your body, the higher motor output you can have. And that's just because, again, your body's always trying to keep you safe. So when it senses, okay, my spine is fully supported, i don't have to worry about contracting everything all at once, it can send a higher motor signal to the muscle that you're actually trying to operate and move. And you can see better outcomes. So um it's kind of cool. Like there's all these little things that you can do to work with your nervous system to ah improve your outcomes and reduce the risk of injury.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. And I mean, that's the name of the game. I guess people do it for different reasons, but this show being about healthspan, it really is... is My understanding, we don't degrade in this linear fashion. It's these step functions typically tied to injury. There's something taking us out of the game and it's much harder to get back in it.
Speaker: So doing things that aren't taking you out of the game and and and making you more resilient to keep you in the game are what's really important here. That's a really, really good way to describe it. And that's exactly how I feel. And that's, unfortunately, I think a lot of people, especially my age, um women who are having babies and they're like, okay, I know I want like another kid or another, another two kids. And so I'm just going to wait until after I'm done having kids to get in good shape. Or maybe they're like, you know, i just want to be as small as possible right now. I know that strength is important when I'm old. So I'm just going to worry about it then. But the problem with doing that is that, again, you need to be building your body every step of the way, because then if you have this injury or life happens or you're postpartum or you fall when you're older, you're not climbing out of a hole. You've already gotten a certain baseline established so that you're ready for those life things that happen. And you're not just completely taken out by it. So I love the idea of like the steps. I think that's a perfect analogy.
Speaker: You just made a comment about, I want to be as small as possible right now. and And one of the things that often comes up in my conversations with women on strength training, building muscle is, well, I don't want to get bulky.
Speaker: And as you know, as as people who do this, it's really hard to put out. Like you really have to, I have to think about all the protein and everything. And if I go on vacation, right, i'll I went for 10 days to Italy.
Speaker: And just eating pizza, ice cream, like all this every time and just not getting the same kind of workouts in. And I lost something like 12 pounds, right? So it's, it's very difficult to get bulky. It takes a lot of work. I'd be curious what you work with your clients on or how you advise people here.
Speaker: It is so true. like It's funny because two things to to like comment on there. When you have more muscle mass, you have more flexibility with what you can eat because your muscle disposes something like 80% of the the glucose that you eat from your food. So when you have more muscle, you have a little bit more flexibility. And so when you do take time off or when you do have a period of time where you're enjoying all of the carb-rich meals, you have more of a buffer when you have more muscle mass, which I just think is so cool. And then the the second thing you I wanted to touch on was being bulky. Okay. So I get asked this on, I think, every single podcast I go on. And it couple of things to say.
Speaker: Bulky is subjective. So some people think that being bulky is like that bodybuilder aesthetic. So like lots of muscle, ah quote unquote, masculine looking. There's that that people fear. That type of body takes years of training, a lot of volume. So you have to be spending a lot of time in the gym. And basically, you have to treat recovery like your full-time job. And so people are not accidentally stumbling into a body like that. It's just, it's not going to happen by accident. it basically has to be your full-time job.
Speaker: But I think more realistically, what happens to kind of the average person who starts lifting weights is they are lifting weights and they're building muscle, but then they're not losing fat or they're gaining fat. And this is really common when people start exercising is they think that they've burned more calories than they actually have in their workout. And so they overeat. thinking that, oh, I worked out, this erased that meal, or I earned more food or whatever it is. And so they unintentionally start to gain fat and they're gaining muscle. So they just feel bigger overall.
Speaker: Whereas i like to separate exercise from fat loss completely. So if fat loss is your goal or that ah body recompositions of losing fat while you're building muscle is your goal, it comes from a delicate balance between nutrition and building muscle. So it might mean you just need to have have some more awareness around your calorie intake or under protein intake. Maybe that means tracking for a little while to get some awareness there. But yeah, I just think that that's often why people feel like bigger or bulkier is because they're gaining fat or they're not losing fat and they're gaining muscle.
Speaker: That makes a lot of sense. I remember when my dad, when I was in high school, he was trying to get back in the gym and he almost immediately put on weight because you're hungrier, right? You're hungrier than you are normal and you you overeat.
Speaker: One, two I think whether it's the elliptical or whatever people might be doing in their calorie counting on the those things lie. That is not the calories you're burning.
Speaker: And so the number of times I see somebody think they're going great in the gym and then they drink a Gatorade that's more calories than they burned in the gym. You're like, you ended up worse off. And for the longest time, I did not want to believe it.
Speaker: But the the idea you you burn ounces in the gym, pounds in the kitchen, it really is a nutrition problem. if If that's what you're, and this is with the lively, we have these five pillars and we have fitness and movement. And then another is nutrition. And we explicitly called out body composition because before we didn't, and people were trying to work on body composition and fitness. Like you're not going to get there. You need to, you need to focus on lean mass. Yeah. Over here.
Speaker: And that's one thing that I am constantly trying to fight and help re-educate people. Because in the fitness industry, we're taught that if you just work out more, that's what helps you lose weight. And I don't know if you you remember those commercials from the 90s. It was like P90X and they would be holding out their pants. And you know their pants are like four sizes bigger than their their current body. and they're like, look how much weight I lost on P90X. And we are... marketed all of this stuff from young ages that exercise is what helps us lose fat. And it makes sense intuitively. But what we see is that our bodies just don't burn as much as we think that that they do with exercise. And so it really is so much more about food. But yes, exercise is so good for your health, for your cardiovascular fitness. It does help keep your energy expenditure high. But I like to think of use exercise for your health and use it to build muscle because that will help build and improve your body composition, but don't use it as your primary fat loss tool.
Speaker: P90X is an interesting example too. I never did it, but a friend of mine who was a teammate in college said, you know, I did P90X and I did the exercise program without the diet and the diet without the exercise. And I can tell you the diet without the exercise, I had the same results, but yeah the exercise without the diet, I did not. Right. Like it was really there. And I, at that time, I still did not want to believe it. I loved cake. I love cupcake. I was like, nope, I can just outwork a ah bad diet and I know. i know. And it's, it's honestly like when you fully internalize this and just accept it, like it, it is kind of hard to accept, I think at first, but it becomes a lot more freeing because you no longer think that you have to punish yourself based on what you ate and it helps you take more responsibility for your food. So you're like, okay, I'm going to eat this intentionally knowing that I can't go work it off tomorrow because that's not how it works. So if I'm choosing to eat this, it's intentional. It's not because I'm going on a binge and I'm just going to like be like, okay, that's a later problem, which I used to do for sure. um and so it really, i think it really can help improve your relationship to food and exercise in the longterm.
Speaker: I do want to double click on something you just said there on the punishing yourself, because, you I, as a former distance swimmer, I came from the world of work harder, work more. That's always the answer. more, and more. more and you You talked about, even when you were the bulky side, that it's not just lifting in the gym. You really need to think about your recovery. It's, it's the sleep. It's the rut. That's actually when the muscles are building, not when you're breaking them down.
Speaker: And so you are known for this general consistency. kind of approach and mindset. And can you take us through how you landed there and what that actually means? Because it is not how I was brought up.
Speaker: yeah um But as I get older, it it sounds much less painful. So I'm very curious. I truly think that this is game changing because again, i think what we are all conditioned to believe is that exercise needs to smash you. And I think this comes from a lot of us that have played sports growing up. Again, that is totally the mindset. um Especially I think if you were raised when we were raised in the 90s and early 2000s.
Speaker: combine that with what we were seeing at the time with fitness culture, which was no pain, no gain campaigns like Nike's just do it, you know, where you saw lots of sweaty athletes and lots of punishment as that is what works. And that's what your fitness, that's what what we should aspire to do in our workouts. And that's what we have to do in order to see results. But our bodies just don't always function that way. I'm sure that you've been as an athlete through many phases where you're pushing pushing pushing, pushing, pushing, and then you get injured and then you're, you know, you're out for two weeks, you're out for a month or whatever. And then you feel like you have to start over. And I know as a physical therapist, I saw that with my patients all the time who...
Speaker: They weren't athletes. They were just trying to be fit. They were just trying to improve their body composition, be healthy, all those things. And so they were pushing themselves like they were athletes, thinking that that's what they needed to do in order to achieve their results. And they were getting injured. i was helping them in physical therapy, and then they were going back to their workouts and getting injured again. And it just was like this chronic cycle. Whereas if you are properly training, your body should become more resilient and less prone to injury, not the other way around. You shouldn't be more fragile from your strength training and from your workouts. If you are aligning recovery, strength training, cardio, sleep, nutrition, all of those things together.
Speaker: So I think this idea of gentle consistency comes from that is that continuing to show up, give your body the right stimulus over and over and over. it won't feel like it completely smashes you. This doesn't mean your workouts need to be easy or should be easy, but it's that they're dosed appropriately. And that will feel more quote unquote gentle than maybe most people are used to. And yet it will provide your body the right stimulus to adapt and grow and build without completely tanking your recovery.
Speaker: And it kind of builds on itself as kind of this virtuous cycle because then you can show up more consistently. you know, you don't have to smash yourself. So you're you're more likely to go do that workout knowing that it's not going to completely, you know, set you, ah make you feel like you got hit by a truck and those results compound. So this is a ah method that we see is so much more effective and sustainable for the general person who's just struggling to stay consistent. i Yeah, I wish I had done this earlier is there's so many directions to go so many questions i have on this i mean so to start i think it does tie back nicely to what we were saying with the the step declines of you lose when you're out of the game and so something that's keeping you in the game is the right answer for longevity for health span for peak span
Speaker: There's another piece for me. So I was competitive athlete all through college, then went to law school, i had two years off, then was in the UK and they didn't have the eligibility rules so I could compete again.
Speaker: And whereas we were training 10 to 11 practices, 30 plus hours a week in the US when I was competing over there, we do four practices, 45 minutes, right? Totally different world.
Speaker: And in the 200 free, I went two seconds slower. So it was like 20% of the work got me to 80% of the effort. But if you're competing at the top level, yeah, all those two seconds meant the world, right? If you're just trying to be in shape. And so if we're thinking about health,
Speaker: we can get so much of the benefit from way less of the work. It's only if you're trying to be LeBron James or Michael Phelps. You really have to push the limits of what is physiologically possible. And so people do need to separate out of, am I trying to be the best in the world? In which case, this may actually be bad for my health in some ways, versus am I here to try to be healthy and just remember why you're doing this?
Speaker: I mean, I could not have said it better myself. You just absolutely nailed everything, like the whole philosophy in a nutshell. And honestly, i think just to add to that, a lot of times we see these incredible performers, these incredible athletes. And again, they are recovering like it's their job. They are training like it's their job because it it is. And they're dialed in in every single facet of their life. And then we're saying like...
Speaker: Oh, ah me who has two kids at home that aren't sleeping and a business and life stress and parents and but andda and all these other life stress things. um I should train like that person because that's what I want to look like.
Speaker: And unfortunately, not only is it not necessary, you can see great body composition changes with much, much, much less. But ah yeah, it's it' ah it's more of a short-term mindset because I think part of the discussion that gets lost with athletes is that their bodies break down. They're only in that for a short amount of time. And then they can't sustain training like that for the rest of their life. That's why they're, you know, athletes usually peak in what like depends on the sport, but you know, thirties maybe if they're lucky. Um, so it's not a sustainable long-term thing. It's much short term, more short-term focus. And we as general public people need to be more long-term focused.
Speaker: At two levels. I mean, one, they also have a seasonality. So whereas we think, no, no, it's a 12 month athlete. Like they're not right. So there's a big and recovery cycle to it. And then also a shorter window of what they're, they're trying to do.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you nailed it. I think this is a really important conversation that I don't get to talk about that much because we hear like, it sounds so cool to like train like an athlete. And I think there there are certain parts of athletic training that that are amazing. Like, don't get me wrong, but I just don't think we need to like smash ourselves thinking that that's that's the way to to do it.
Speaker: The other question I had is how to reconcile this with the pushing close to failure and the reps in reserve of we know to build strength, we have to push it to the limit, but not so far that we're making ourselves more prone to injury. How do you suggest people navigate that?
Speaker: I'm really glad you brought this up because I was just on a podcast and I got that question a lot. People were confused and I wish I would have clarified this. So training close to failure in a lift doesn't necessarily feel as globally exhausting as, let's say, go into a bootcamp class where you're doing a million burpees and then you're going right into the next exercise and right into the next exercise.
Speaker: Lifting weights, especially if you're training near failure and you're giving that muscle group recovery in between when you hit it again, it's not going to feel globally exhausting. In fact, a lot of times you won't even break a sweat. You're probably not burning burning very many calories. You might not feel that overall exhaustion, depletion that you tend to feel when you're doing like bootcamp style workout or a workout that has a lot of cardio integrated in. So when I say your workout doesn't have to smash you, that's kind of what I mean. But I don't mean that it shouldn't be intense enough to drive the adaptations that we're looking for. So training near failure is the stimulus that your body needs to lay down new tissue. But let's say you're training near failure in a hip thrust. Let's say you're targeting your glutes. You know you do 12 reps. Your 12th rep is at or near failure. And then you're done with that. That doesn't necessarily feel globally exhausting. It doesn't feel like you got hit by a truck. So I think that's the delineation. And another thing that we tend to do, and we kind of touched on this earlier, that um helps reduce what's called systemic fatigue. So all over fatigue ah around across your whole body that actually tends to limit muscle performance is to choose exercises that are really focused and really stable. So we talked about doing a chest press on the floor where you have additional support of your body, or we talked about lunge work where you're holding a wall or you're holding a support system so that your body has that cue of stability. So you feel other muscles that you're not trying to target don't have to co-contract and work so hard. so you don't feel as like drained and exhausted. So there are little things that you can do in your lifting workouts to keep the stimulus to the muscle high while not feeling completely depleted.
Speaker: Yeah. And I mean, I think, and you started to touch on it too, there's probably a ah mental component to this too. And the correlation I would draw is spikes in cortisol versus the consistent high level stress. And so going into 45, 60 minutes of just cranking high stress, but you're actually not pushing anything to the level to get stronger or build muscle. You're just...
Speaker: really stressing your body out versus really focused, intense. Hey, I built this adaptation, but I'm also getting the recovery. You got it. Like you could go do something that feels really intense, but you're not actually hitting the proper intensities required to change your body because you're just kind of operating at this, you know, right below that and for a longer period of time. And this isn't to say that there aren't positive adaptations of going to something like a bootcamp class, but those adaptations are mainly cardio adaptations and conditioning adaptations. They're typically not muscle building adaptations because again, you're likely not training close to failure. You're likely doing an exercise and stopping because you're fatigued or the timer went out or your heart rates really skyrocketed, not because the muscle was at its true limit. So, um,
Speaker: Yeah, i think I think that that's a really good way to to put it is you're not, you're just not reaching the the proper intensities. Yeah. ah Dr. Shannon, like I could keep asking you questions all day, but I do want to be respectful of your time for people who do want to learn more about you, Evlo Fitness, the whole approach. Where can they find you?
Speaker: Yes. So I have a podcast as well. It's called the Dr. Shannon show. We do seasons. Um, and there's, you can learn a lot more if you want to know more about kind of the science of all of this. And then evlofitness.com is my fitness platform where I teach it alongside, uh, five other doctors of physical therapy. So everyone's teaching fitness classes in there, mainly lifting, applying a lot of the stuff that we talked about here. And then Instagram, Dr. Shannon, DPT.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much for your work, for all you share and make accessible to so many people. I know I learned a lot today and I'm i'm sure the same is true for our listeners. So thank you so much.
Speaker: Thank you for having me. You asked amazing questions. I love nerding out. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Healthspan podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on Alively.com.
Speaker: Enjoy a lively day.
