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Are there any particular exercises that women and people generally tend to stop doing as they age? Because it's kind of like it becomes harder as you age, but they should definitely not stop doing. Oh my gosh. Like what are the ones where we all kind of stop doing it, but it leads to a downward spiral? Sprinting. 100%. I think that everybody should be sprinting.
Why? You are going to be increasing something called your VO2 max, which is just nerd speak for how much oxygen you can take in to the lungs and distribute to the cells. Along with that, we've all heard the stat that muscle declines 1% per year if you're not doing anything. VO2 max is the same, so you will decline your VO2 max capacity 10% per decade if you're not actively working on it. I'll put some graphs on the screen that show that decline over time.
Yeah, great. I can think of family members going up the stairs or down the stairs or trying to get groceries and bringing them into the house, who are huffing and puffing, right? They've lost their breath from going up a flight or two of stairs, but they say that's just getting older. Absolutely not. It's absolutely not a function of aging. It's just a loss of capacity.
Can you sprint? I sprint all the time. Yeah. But what I wanted to say is there's a couple of different ways that we can sprint. You can sprint on a track. I used to be a track sprinter, so that's my love. But you can also sprint on a cardio machine in the gym. In the winter time, I live on the East Coast where I can't always sprint on the track, so I will take my sprinting indoors, and I will do something called a Norwegian 4x4 on a bike. Have you ever heard of a Norwegian 4x4?
I have heard of it, but please do explain. Yeah, it's a special kind of torture. I hate it up until the moment I get on the bike, and then when I'm doing it I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this, and when I'm finished I'm so proud of myself. A Norwegian 4x4 is basically four minutes, in my case on the bike, but it can be done on a treadmill or any cardio machine, at 85 to 95% of your maximum heart rate. You need to know your maximum heart rate, the highest you have ever achieved, and work at 85 to 95% of that for four minutes. It's a long four minutes. Then you take a three-minute break and do it again, four times in total. Hence the name: four minutes, four times.
There are lots of really cool studies looking at VO2 max capacity. One I'm thinking of looked at women with an average age of 58, so many of them were postmenopausal, let's say. They were put on a sprinting protocol, and what they found was that in a period of eight weeks, they were able to increase their VO2 max by 10%. In two months, which is wild when you think about how quickly you can lose it. You can get 10% back in two months, which is phenomenal.
The other really cool thing about that study was that they took that cohort, the older cohort, let's call them, and compared them to 18 to 30 year olds. They found that the gains in the older cohort included mitochondrial efficiency improvements of 69%, whereas the younger cohort's mitochondrial gains were 49%. All that to say, a lot of people frame aging as, well, now you're getting wrinkles, now you're getting old, now you're over the hill, past your prime. These women had maybe a bigger gap, but they had so much more upside to gain. That makes me so excited, because it's never, ever too late. The best time to start was 10 years ago, but the second best time is today. You're not behind. You can totally do it now.
One of the top comments on your recent video was someone saying jumping or hopping is a good way to strengthen your bones and knees, and you should not stop doing that as you age. A lot of people start thinking, "I can't run anymore because it's not good for my hips and knees, and I've had injuries," so running is one of those things people stop doing because they're scared of joint issues.
Yeah. I think the old adage of use it or lose it is really key here. If you stop doing it, you're going to lose the ability to do it. Your body prioritizes the things that it does. If you want to be able to jump, sprint, or squat, age is absolutely inconsequential to that. In that comment, if somebody wanted to improve their bone density, you can strap on a weighted vest, do some plyometrics, or add weight to your jump. That increases the strain magnitude and strain rate on the bone, which drives positive bone reformation. But if you don't jump, you're going to lose your ability to jump.
Do you jump? I do it all the time. Well, sprinting is jumping, right? Is there such a thing as jump training, like plyometrics? Oh, is that what that is? Okay. 100%. And do you do that? Yes. Even if it's just isometric holds. Maybe somebody can't jump yet, but they can stand with their heels elevated so that the Achilles tendon and the calf, the gastrocnemius, are contracting.
To give you a visual here, one of the most famous tendons in the body is the Achilles. It is the extension of the calf muscles, and it wraps around the heel and attaches into the inferior part of the calcaneus, which is your heelbone. So maybe you can't quite jump yet, but you can come up onto your toes, contracting the gastrocnemius. This is called an isometric hold. The tension in the muscles and tendon is detected by mechanoreceptors that sense stretch and contraction. They signal that we need to remodel to meet the demand of the activity, and then you can progress to little hops, then to jumps. It's very easy to do. You don't need a gym or anything like that.
I've heard you say that deceleration is important for mobility. Deceleration is the opposite of acceleration. Acceleration is speeding up and getting fast; deceleration is coming to a stop. To come to a stop without dumping all of the forces into your joints, the tendons and ligaments need to be able to absorb that kinetic energy. From a sport perspective, your ability to decelerate, coming to a complete stop and then changing direction, is actually more predictive of whether you'll go pro than your vertical jump, your acceleration speed, or things like beep tests. It's also really important as we age. You might trip on something on the floor, or the corner of a rug, or lose your footing on the stairs. You need to be able to get your foot in front of you and stop the motion before you fall.
Are there other exercises that are really simple and underrated that one can do without equipment? I have so many to show you. Yes.
The one I love is almost a diagnosis, and the diagnosis almost becomes the plan, the care plan. I just call it the X-plank. It's very difficult to do, but it is a test for stability and mobility of the hip. We were talking about the Q angle before. This directly challenges the muscles on the side of the hip and whether you can stay stable. It's a great exercise. I'll show it to you, and then maybe you can show me.
So you're going to come into a side plank, where your wrist and shoulders are aligned, toes facing forward, and then you lift the top arm up, and you try to hold this for 30 seconds. It is not easy. It really tests the stability and mobility of your hips. It also tests your ability to stay abducted, which is what my leg is doing right now. Hopefully I'm close to 30 seconds. It's a great test for anybody. There's core work, there's shoulder work. It's a whole-body workout.
Okay, now you try. On your side, toes stacked on top of each other. Wrist tucked under the shoulder, hand waving hello, and now try to lift your top leg. Oh gosh. Okay, let me phone a friend. My feet hurt. In this case, if you're not able to do it, this becomes the thing that you train. Maybe I'll put my foot on the mat for a little more grip. That's no better. I think it's actually just me being weak. So, like this, lifting the leg up. There you go. Okay, I get it. Now you work yourself up to 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, and over time you'll be doing this at the airport. Where does this arm go? Just on top. Yeah. I think I've got more of a balancing issue. It's also a really strong balance test. This is one of those exercises that tests almost every system in the body, so I love it as a diagnostic.
Is there an entry version of this exercise that's a bit more beginner-friendly? For sure. Instead of doing it on both feet, you can do it on your knees. I'll demo that quickly. You stack the knees on top of each other and do it this way. You still have to recruit the glute medius, but there's less stress. Do you want to try that? See how it feels?
I got it. Is there anything else you can show me that's pertinent to the conversation we just had? This one relates to mobility, which we did talk about. In cultures where people sit on the floor, eat on the floor, and toilet on the floor, their fall risk is almost zero. As North Americans or Westerners, we can do more sitting on the floor. One of the big tests I use, though I usually won't start on the floor, is for an elderly person sitting on a chair: can they stand up unassisted, without using their hands? This is the hardest part of the test. Your feet are crossed, and we'll do it with both feet to see if you can get up without using your hands. You can use a little momentum if you want. Nicely done. Let's get back down and cross our feet the other way. The wrong way. Yeah, I know. You always typically cross your feet one way, so I don't do this one as well. I'm working on it as well. No hands, a little momentum if you want, and come all the way up. That one was not as pretty. This is really low. What muscles am I using there? You're recruiting mobility in your ankles, your quads to extend your knee, your glutes to extend your hip. It's the whole leg. Thank you so much.
Any others you love? You can do plenty without equipment at home. Push-ups, body weight squats, which you should eventually progress to weights, but many people have terrible technique, so you can have a fantastic workout with just your body weight. Glute bridges are fantastic. You can pick up a big bag of cat food or dog food and do walking lunges wherever you are.
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