The Wild Health Take: The Drive Roundup

The Wild Health Take: Each week Dr. Carl Seger listens to your favorite podcasts to summarize the data and give you our precision medicine take. This week Carl has summarized content from The Drive.

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Episode: Exercising for Longevity

1. Training in zone 1, zone 2 & zone 5 are the general zones that will help support longevity. These are the zones that life predominantly takes place in. By training these zones, we are preparing our bodies to better adapt as we age. Training in these categories can help improve autonomy as we age including, stability, strength, aerobic, and anaerobic. Spend time training dynamic and static stability. Incorporate these into strength training to help support core strength and stability.
2. Strength: Deadlifting is an integral movement for activities of daily living- it requires a complex set of movement patterns to be executed well in order to be done successfully. Strength training helps maintain muscle mass, which is integral as we age. We lose strength at a rate of  2-4% per year from 30yrs-80yrs. The weaker you are to start, the quicker this declines. 3-4 days per week of designated strength training can offset this decline.
3. Importance of low intensity aerobic training for health as we age: Modality to train zone 2 is not as important as the level of intensity itself. The stationary bike or treadmill are great options for most people-brisk walk at an incline, biking at a pace that you can sustain for 1 hr+ at a conversational pace. Rowing is a better piece of equipment for zone 5 training as many people are not as efficient with rowing for zone 2.
4. Zone 5 training = anaerobic training. Try the 10/20 Tabata (10 seconds of work, 20 seconds of rest) to gain an understanding of a full out effort utilizing VO2Max and zone 2 recovery. VO2Max-size of your engine- tells you how quickly you can take in oxygen and use it. VO2Max can be affected by total muscle mass (how much muscle needs oxygen to be delivered to it).
5. Stability is how we transmit force from the outside world to the body, and vice versa. We lose stability as we age. From birth, we are super stable as we are learning to move through space. We lose this stability as we go through school, work, driving, etc, as we lose the need to be stable. DNS, pilates, Pelvic Floor Training can all be great tools to develop core and pelvic stability to support us as we age.

How: There are some great examples in this podcast of how to incorporate zone 2, zone 5, stability and strength training into your daily exercise routine to promote physical wellbeing as you age. While there are no one-size-fits-all recommendations, these are easily applicable to most people, with some adjustments in what the movement itself may look like depending on training age/experience, any physical limitations, and interest/time to devote to training.

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Episode: AMA: Anti-aging

1. Biomarkers of biological aging: “Eyeball test”- if you look at a patient, if their skin and eyes are vibrant, they have muscle definition, and they move well, they are likely healthier than a patient who has dull skin/eyes, is overweight, and is sedentary.
2. Other biomarkers that can help identify aging outcomes: blood biomarkers, functional biomarkers (organ & tissue function), vo2 max, zone 2 threshold, muscle mass, strength, grip strength, cardiovascular efficiency, phenotypic markers (insulin, APO-b, lipid markers, glucose uptake)
3. There is a lack of evidence that shows that we can conclusively and accurately predict biological age or have the ability to reverse biological age, however healthy lifestyle habits can potentially help improve outcomes.
4. Epigenetic clocks- it is possible to predict biological age based on these biomarkers. This provides information about future potential risks- no one has proven health outcomes can actually be predicted. This is an opportunity for more research to be done. Epigenetic health takes into account methylation status and the effects it has on our health.
5. Environment plays a huge role in our health as we age. Our environment has changed dramatically within the past 20-30 years, which has had a dramatic impact on our health and how we age.

How: This was a “preview” of an Ask Me Anything episode. While, according to this episode, there is not enough conclusive evidence to show that we can reverse our biological clocks, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence showing that developing a healthy lifestyle and focusing on improving biomarkers of health and fitness can help support healthy aging.

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Episode: The Art of Stability

1. Functional training includes training full ranges of motion helps to ensure we are stable and strong throughout our lifespan. “Pay attention when you practice” because it can help support the actual results you are looking for in this type of training. Bilateral movement (split squats, walking lunges, etc) is an integral part of training for stabilization & strength. The back of the body (posterior chain) is a priority to train to ensure healthy movement for longevity.
2. Everything is connected- from your toes and hips, to your ribcage and shoulders. If your shoulders are stuck in place without any movement/mobility, it can affect your gait, and if your toes are not mobile, it can affect your hip flexors. Neurological control of our muscles is integral, and requires specific training.
3. There is no such thing as bad posture, because you *should* be able to move and work in different postures safely and effectively. The only time there is a bad posture is when it is the “only option.” It is ideal to be able to move through all different types of postures to train all the planes of motion/stabilization.  Eccentric control is more important than concentric control, because that is how you decelerate,
4. Here are some great resources for functional training, stability & mobility: Functional Range Conditioning, Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization, Postural Restoration Institute.
5. Training and playing sports are not the same thing, and they do not have the same benefit. Sport is more intense, and gives no space to learn. Training is where you learn, grow and find the limitations to movement patterns to improve.

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How: There are so many great nuggets in this episode, mainly how connected every part of our bodies are, and how imbalances anywhere in the body can impact other areas. So often, we have patients that experience back/hip/knee pain, and would benefit from some form of these types of training (FRC, DNS, PRI) to support full and complete ranges of motion rather than always focusing on the “traditional” methods of strength and stability training.

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