Speaker 1: Did everyone. Welcome to conversations again. Guest today is doctor
Speaker 1: Peter Larkins. Now, Peter's a friend of the program. He's
Speaker 1: a friend of the Crows in the early days. He's
Speaker 1: one of our Crows doctors when we went to Melbourne.
Speaker 1: He's top sports medico. That's a great description. But he's
Speaker 1: highly qualified and he's very informative and he's written a
Speaker 1: new book called The Healthy Hundred one hundred Ways to
Speaker 1: a healthier, happier and longer life to get to one hundred.
Speaker 1: Peter Larkins, how are you, nie?
Speaker 2: I'm really great, great to chat with you and we're
Speaker 2: both still here. Isn't that fantastic?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well it this fantastic. So well, you're determined to reach
Speaker 1: a hundred day that I think.
Speaker 3: One hundred and beyond was the original title, but it
Speaker 3: got shortened by the publisher. But you know, in the
Speaker 3: days when you and I are at school, if you
Speaker 3: reached one hundred and got a telegram from the Queen,
Speaker 3: that was such a huge achievement, you know, in our
Speaker 3: era growing up, and I thought, well, you know, why
Speaker 3: are we setting the target of one hundred? And then
Speaker 3: I started looking at longevity and you know, my patients
Speaker 3: were all concerned about they were slowing down an age,
Speaker 3: and so I started to look at why we age
Speaker 3: and why we slow down, and you know, found all
Speaker 3: these populations in the world, Graham where people were living
Speaker 3: to one hundred and five one hundred and six. So
Speaker 3: one hundred isn't the target anymore. It's one hundred and
Speaker 3: beyond provided you live healthy. So the whole content my
Speaker 3: book is not just how long you live, it's how
Speaker 3: well you live. And so you want to be living,
Speaker 3: you know, in your nineties and it may be nineties,
Speaker 3: but the point is, you know, when the life expectancy
Speaker 3: only fifty years ago was seventy something in Australia. Now
Speaker 3: it's hit at eighty one if you're a male, eighty
Speaker 3: three and a half if you're a female.
Speaker 2: It's still well short of one hundred.
Speaker 3: But there are plenty of people reaching one hundred and
Speaker 3: so that was the target in my book is how
Speaker 3: to look after yourself to try and offset the things
Speaker 3: the killers, because they're all documented. We know what kills
Speaker 3: as heart to these, bowel cancer, lung cancer, you know, stroke,
Speaker 3: So there's all those things in the book about hey,
Speaker 3: you identify those early and get your check ups done.
Speaker 1: Well, what part does genetics play.
Speaker 3: Though, it's important part, So would you say twenty percent
Speaker 3: is important? So eighty percent is lifestyle, whether you smoke,
Speaker 3: whether you're over eight, where you're a weight, where you're
Speaker 3: eating crap. But twenty percent, absolutely you need to know
Speaker 3: your genetics. So if you've got a family history of
Speaker 3: prostate cancer, you've got a family history of heart disease,
Speaker 3: that puts you on the front foot to start checking
Speaker 3: for those things, perhaps a bit earlier than the general
Speaker 3: GP check us be cause people say when should you
Speaker 3: start having checkups? Well, you know, the medical world sort
Speaker 3: of says at age forty. But if everyone in your
Speaker 3: family had breast cancer in their forties and you're a female,
Speaker 3: you should be having checkups in your twenties. So the
Speaker 3: genetics is only twenty maybe twenty five percent, depending on
Speaker 3: which statistics you look at, Graham. So the other eighty
Speaker 3: percent is lifestyle choices.
Speaker 1: Right, we're going to part of the book now, We're
Speaker 1: going to come back to the book because I think
Speaker 1: your journey has been really interesting. That your age is
Speaker 1: no secret. You've turned seventy, it's weill got a full
Speaker 1: head of hair, looking good. I don't know what you
Speaker 1: do in face where you have the botox done and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff, But maybe it's the athletic background.
Speaker 1: But let's go back even further than that. Tell us
Speaker 1: about your early days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, sport has really been fash my life the
Speaker 3: whole way through. I was very fortunate to grow up,
Speaker 3: you know, in a town called Geelong. I think people
Speaker 3: in Adelaide have heard of Gelong Graham and you know,
Speaker 3: it was a very it was a rural city at
Speaker 3: the time, but I went to a private boys college
Speaker 3: with sport was not mandatory, but it was sort of
Speaker 3: expected that you'd play sports. So from a very early
Speaker 3: age I was into the typical sports that you play
Speaker 3: at school as well as the academic achievement being expected.
Speaker 3: So cricket, footy and athletics were a sort of three
Speaker 3: big sports that I went into.
Speaker 1: What school was it.
Speaker 3: It's Saint Joseph's CBC, which is a large boys only
Speaker 3: school at the time in Geelong, so it's on the
Speaker 3: top of the hill overlooking the rest of the school,
Speaker 3: so it's a big school zone, but it's still there,
Speaker 3: still going well. In fact, a real of side point,
Speaker 3: it's got the most number of AFL recruits of any
Speaker 3: school in Australia now from Saint JOWI So whether you
Speaker 3: go camer or Jimmy Bartel or Sam Walsh or Patty McCartin,
Speaker 3: the list goes on fame.
Speaker 2: So we're a strong footy school.
Speaker 3: I was lucky enough to captain school footy, so you know,
Speaker 3: from under tea, under twelves, under fifteen and first eighteen
Speaker 3: I had a fair run at footy. But athletics was
Speaker 3: also in the genes side to speak, not so much
Speaker 3: from my dad who wasn't He just played footy and
Speaker 3: used to nail the stops into the bottom of his
Speaker 3: work boots on.
Speaker 2: The weekend and go then take him out to go
Speaker 2: back to work.
Speaker 3: That's true story back but my brother was a very
Speaker 3: good runner a few years older than me, and he
Speaker 3: was a very good cross country runner and won a
Speaker 3: few trophies. So I sort of had a target to
Speaker 3: try and out do my brother and so I got
Speaker 3: into sport at a very age, which then obviously got
Speaker 3: me looking into performance. So when you look into sport,
Speaker 3: you look at what you should eat and watcher should
Speaker 3: train and you know what should you stretch? And so
Speaker 3: the principles of getting best out of himself even as
Speaker 3: an eight or nine year old was sort of instilled
Speaker 3: in me by a very good coach that I had
Speaker 3: at a place called Landy Field, named after John Landy.
Speaker 1: Tell us about your dad though, what did he do well?
Speaker 3: My dad worked for the local council. He was sort
Speaker 3: of in the construction and heavy machinery driving. So I
Speaker 3: was always impressed that my dad would drive left hand
Speaker 3: cars and left hand machinery because a lot of them,
Speaker 3: assuming those days, was imported. So my dad was on
Speaker 3: the a driver for the council on construction and so
Speaker 3: he was involved in driving heavy equipment equipment, particularly left
Speaker 3: hand drive. But he also was involved at the social
Speaker 3: club down at Geelong. He was very good friends with
Speaker 3: a bloke called Frank Costa, who people don't know.
Speaker 2: Frank Costa.
Speaker 3: You yeah, I know, you're smiling, Graham and Frank Costa
Speaker 3: was Mayor of Geelong. He was the head of the
Speaker 3: fruit and vegetable industry in Australia, also president of Gelong
Speaker 3: Footy Club. So the Costa family and my dad so
Speaker 3: we had a pretty good connection with the footy club
Speaker 3: and in fact my uncle Pat. When I was nine
Speaker 3: years of age, I was in the chains rooms down
Speaker 3: at Gelong Footy Club, smelling the liniment and watching ankles
Speaker 3: be strapped. So at nine I got into the medical
Speaker 3: side of sports so to speak, by watching my uncle Pat,
Speaker 3: who was second head trainer down at the Cats. And
Speaker 3: that was in the sixties when Polly Farmer and Billy
Speaker 3: Gog and Johnny Sharick were playing. So I really had
Speaker 3: a pretty good entry into sports medicine, even though it
Speaker 3: was pretty rudimentary at the time.
Speaker 1: Grame to get the medical degrees that you had, you
Speaker 1: must have had an innate intellect. So were you smart
Speaker 1: at school? Were you one of the ducks of the
Speaker 1: school so to speak?
Speaker 2: Well, I was, so to speak.
Speaker 3: These days you sort of choose a sporting career or
Speaker 3: an academic career. In those days, it wasn't the option,
Speaker 3: you know, because really it was secondary to academic. And
Speaker 3: as I said, Sin Joey's, you know, the Christian Brothers
Speaker 3: school as it was at the time, not so much now.
Speaker 3: The Christian Brothers have moved on and they're lay teachers.
Speaker 3: But yeah, academically I was always in the top one
Speaker 3: or two in my classes on the way through, and
Speaker 3: I guess I was always driven to achieve, and that
Speaker 3: wasn't driven by my parents or I wasn't pushed. You know,
Speaker 3: you've either got an innate hunger to be successful, I think,
Speaker 3: whether in sport or careers. Graham and so luckily, you know,
Speaker 3: I had a few academic brains, and so I did okay,
Speaker 3: And I was always planning to go to university.
Speaker 2: I really didn't.
Speaker 3: Decide on a medical career until I was about sixteen
Speaker 3: because I always thought I'd be a scientist. But my
Speaker 3: brother was a scientist. He was a Rhodes scholar and
Speaker 3: a Churchill Fellow. So my brother was the true rocket
Speaker 3: scientist in the family and he was older than me.
Speaker 3: So I was always stepping gingerly in footsteps after my
Speaker 3: brother Frank, who's a professor twice over professor, went to
Speaker 3: Oxford College as a Rhodes scholar. So academically I was
Speaker 3: under a bit of pressure peer pressure like your boys.
Speaker 3: I guess when they were playing footy, the oldest one
Speaker 3: you got the next one coming through. But academically, yes,
Speaker 3: I went. I luckily got into the medical degree. But
Speaker 3: so I was running, you know, in the state team
Speaker 3: at seventeen and eighteen State senior team, and then during medicine.
Speaker 3: It was really difficult because it was a really sort
Speaker 3: of those days. You know, you expected to put your
Speaker 3: head down and study, which I did.
Speaker 2: By the age of twenty, I was sort of on
Speaker 2: the brink of the national team in athletics.
Speaker 3: So I given up footy at seventeen when I got
Speaker 3: knocked out twice in my last game down a Codinia Park,
Speaker 3: So I decided footy wasn't for me. But you know, academically,
Speaker 3: I was trying to study medicine, but also had fortunately
Speaker 3: a nine or ten year international career right up until
Speaker 3: after I graduated in medicine.
Speaker 1: Well come to that. Can I explore this concept of intellect?
Speaker 1: I mean I having coach Maddie Liptak, I was able
Speaker 1: to combine footy sport, but he had a natural in
Speaker 1: collected that you obviously one of the smart kids at
Speaker 1: school now and you obviously were that. Where did it
Speaker 1: come from? And did it come easily to you?
Speaker 3: I never considered myself a smart kid. I considered myself
Speaker 3: a kid who knew you had to work hard to achieve.
Speaker 3: And I mean that seriously, Graham, So Maddie they take,
Speaker 3: of course, was in the team when I was working
Speaker 3: with you at the Crows back in the early days,
Speaker 3: and Maddie went on to be a great orthoptic surgeon.
Speaker 3: Still have contact with him from time to time as well.
Speaker 3: But so it didn't come easy. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: the obvious answer is was hard work. I studied so
Speaker 3: at university, just not to go too far ahead, but
Speaker 3: at school I studied and I trained, and my social
Speaker 3: life was pretty ordinary. I lived outside Gelong for a
Speaker 3: while on a property, so it wasn't easy to be socializing,
Speaker 3: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Uni.
Speaker 3: You know, I used to study and then train, and
Speaker 3: then I lived on campus because I wasn't from Melbourne,
Speaker 3: and so that you know that you just sort of
Speaker 3: put your head down and decided that you needed to
Speaker 3: do well. And I thought part of that was influenced
Speaker 3: by I know, my parents had worked hard off and
Speaker 3: two jobs to give my siblings an iron and education Graham,
Speaker 3: and so without feeling pressure, there was a sort of
Speaker 3: an innate obligation to want to reward them by doing
Speaker 3: well academically. So the hard work was partly driven by
Speaker 3: wanting to achieve, but also it just meant that you
Speaker 3: worked harder than other people, the same you do when
Speaker 3: you're training in sport. Did you mum have a career, Yeah,
Speaker 3: my mum had a great career. She worked at the
Speaker 3: Geelong woolen mills and she was in charge of quality
Speaker 3: control before the woven wool went off to Italy to
Speaker 3: be woven into those expensive battalion suits that you like
Speaker 3: to buy. Graham So Wool and Western District Wool, as
Speaker 3: you know, between Adelaide and Geelong's the Western District is
Speaker 3: called where all the great wool growing has done. So
Speaker 3: Geelong is famous for its woolen mills. So the wool
Speaker 3: would come in and there would be processed and then
Speaker 3: woven into fabric. And my mum worked at the woolen
Speaker 3: mills for many many years, even worked at home at
Speaker 3: one stage where the big roles of wool would be
Speaker 3: delivered to our place and Mom would sit there checking
Speaker 3: them before they went on the ships out of the
Speaker 3: harbor at Gelong to go off to Europe to be
Speaker 3: made into all the beautiful woolen fabrics.
Speaker 2: That we now pay so much money for.
Speaker 3: And yet they were coming off the off the farms
Speaker 3: down Western District so that was her job right up
Speaker 3: until the time. You know, she retired about sixty. My
Speaker 3: dad retired at the compulsory retirement age of sixty, which
Speaker 3: is bizarre now because at sixty, you and I have
Speaker 3: passed sixty. Imagine if we were told we had to
Speaker 3: stop what we're doing at sixty.
Speaker 2: It's just bizarre.
Speaker 1: Mom and Dad still with us.
Speaker 3: No, No, Mum made it to ninety three, and you know,
Speaker 3: she had a great life, and she unfortunately developed one
Speaker 3: of the nasty cancers. So we talk about cancer check us.
Speaker 3: But pancreatic cancer is a very famous one in the
Speaker 3: medical world. And my dad did die of a heart
Speaker 3: attack at a younger age, and so I'm very conscious
Speaker 3: of making sure I keep ahead of that.
Speaker 2: So they've both passed on some time ago.
Speaker 1: Oh that's sad. Dr Peter Larkins is my guess. He's
Speaker 1: talking to us about his book The Healthy Hundred one
Speaker 1: hundred Ways to a Healthier, Happy, and Longer Life, originally
Speaker 1: was called How to Live to one hundred and Beyond
Speaker 1: one hundred and Beyond backshortly, folks. Peter Larkins is my guest. Folks,
Speaker 1: we're doing this on the zoom. Peter where you based
Speaker 1: at the moment. Where are we speaking to you from?
Speaker 3: Well, you're speaking from You've done the beautiful Mornington Peninsula,
Speaker 3: which is about an hour and a quarter from Melbourne
Speaker 3: down south, so it's a nice little part of the
Speaker 3: part of Melbourne. I've sort of just snuck down here
Speaker 3: for a day to do a few tidy ups at
Speaker 3: a place down here. My working life is still based
Speaker 3: in Melbourne four days a week, Graham at Epworth Hospital,
Speaker 3: which is one of the large private hospitals here, very
Speaker 3: close to the MCG so we've got a good connection
Speaker 3: with the footy clubs. But I work in the sports
Speaker 3: and orthopedic area. So my elite athlete patients started about
Speaker 3: age fifty these days and go to age ninety, so
Speaker 3: I'm looking after all the broken down hips and knees
Speaker 3: and shoulders. But a limited association with some sport elite stuff,
Speaker 3: including the World Championships of the Hawaii iron Man, which
Speaker 3: is another story in itself. But I go over here
Speaker 3: to the World Triathlon Championships. But my medical work four
Speaker 3: days a week is really at but just down the
Speaker 3: beautiful mornings in Pininsula today.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's split the athletic career from the medical career.
Speaker 1: We'll come back to the medical career. So you've got
Speaker 1: the geens to run. Obviously, you're a three thousand meter
Speaker 1: steeple chase runner. How did you morph into a into
Speaker 1: a steeple chase athlete?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, again, trying to make it a short story.
Speaker 3: At school, I was an eight hundred meter runner, Graham,
Speaker 3: So that was my sort of go to event all
Speaker 3: through schoolboys state championships, national championships up until about fifteen
Speaker 3: or sixteen. At eight hundred meters, I didn't think I
Speaker 3: was capable of running further of that. But I had
Speaker 3: a fantastic coach called Rudy hop Writer who'd beat an
Speaker 3: Austrian Olympian in his day, and he was coaching me
Speaker 3: from about the age of ten, and he insisted that
Speaker 3: you do every event. You do the sprints, you do
Speaker 3: the hurdles. You just wanted to all round, you know.
Speaker 3: So speed training was a big thing for him, even
Speaker 3: though I was training for eight hundred. So I was
Speaker 3: a good hurdler. In fact, I was glong schoolboy hurdles champion.
Speaker 3: But then one day I was watching the steeple chase
Speaker 3: and I thought that's an interesting event. There's a distance
Speaker 3: race where you've got a hurdle things I was about
Speaker 3: when I was fifteen at the time, and the junior
Speaker 3: distance was fifteen hundred meters steeplechase, whereas the Olympic and
Speaker 3: international one is three thousand. So I had a crack
Speaker 3: over the fifteen hundred meter steeplechase just to try it out.
Speaker 3: And it just felt natural to me because I hurdled
Speaker 3: the jump. So as people will know, if you're in
Speaker 3: school hurdles, you hit the hurdle, it falls over. But
Speaker 3: if you're in a steeple chase, you hit the hurdle,
Speaker 3: you fall over because everybody sowd and so I.
Speaker 2: Just I learned that and so with it.
Speaker 3: At fifteen, I sort of had a crack and within
Speaker 3: my third I think it was my third race, I
Speaker 3: set a national record at the junior distance and I thought, geez,
Speaker 3: maybe I'm onto something here. So and by that stage
Speaker 3: I was getting to sort of sixteen seventeen and I
Speaker 3: was running fifteen hundred meters, so I really did more
Speaker 3: fifteen hundred meters running because the steeplechase was something that
Speaker 3: I reserved really for big events. It was only so
Speaker 3: many per year you could do, but it was the
Speaker 3: one I was best at, so eventually became you know,
Speaker 3: national champion and then obviously in the Australian team for
Speaker 3: that by morphing through. So in my international care I
Speaker 3: ran steeplechase, but I also ran fifteen hundred meters as
Speaker 3: much as I could too, Graham, it was an easier
Speaker 3: event for me.
Speaker 1: What time did you get for fifteen hundred meters? I mean,
Speaker 1: I love that event. It's my favorite.
Speaker 3: I got down to three forty one back in the while,
Speaker 3: I'll be honest, in the seventies. So it was still
Speaker 3: running miles in those days occasionally too, so there was
Speaker 3: a few good milers around, blokes like John Walker and
Speaker 3: Rod Dixon from New Zealand and John Walker, I should said,
Speaker 3: and then Graham Crouds here, so I ran a few
Speaker 3: miles along the way in events when they didn't have
Speaker 3: a steeple chase on the program. But yeah, it was
Speaker 3: then the steeple I was running. Kerry O'Brien, if you remember,
Speaker 3: from South Australia, had the work, but he also had
Speaker 3: the Australian record, so there was a record recognized which
Speaker 3: around internationally got home and I'd break Kerry O'Brien's record
Speaker 3: when I was twenty one years of age, and so
Speaker 3: I suddenly thought I was onto something then because Kerry
Speaker 3: was a bit of a he was a standout.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 3: Weren't many steeple chases internationally from Australia and Kerry was
Speaker 3: a standout. So I never met him, but he certainly
Speaker 3: was from what I looked up to.
Speaker 1: He was a legend here. Of course Kerry O'Brien will
Speaker 1: knew him, and he was a fitness coach, fitness and
Speaker 1: conditioning coach of Port Adelaide put La Magpies in the
Speaker 1: sandfle I haven't heard from him lately, but he was
Speaker 1: quite a legend here. So you never ran against him,
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 3: Oh no, No, he was a bit older than me,
Speaker 3: so aged me that much. He was older than me,
Speaker 3: and so I had a couple of really people I
Speaker 3: looked up to. Kerry because of what he did, never met.
Speaker 3: And then a guy called Ralph de Bell, if you've
Speaker 3: ever heard of Ralph de Bell, who was my brother's
Speaker 3: best friend at university and used to come and stay
Speaker 3: at Gelong with my brother and they go training down
Speaker 3: the sand dunes doing the old Percy Srity sand Dune.
Speaker 3: So Ralph won the gold medal in the Olympics in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty eight at Mexico City World and set a
Speaker 3: world record. So Ralph was another great mentor in one sense,
Speaker 3: but just someone I looked up to. So Kerry and
Speaker 3: Ralph were two guys. Ralph still around, still see him
Speaker 3: at the Olympic Club that we have annually.
Speaker 1: Obviously it was a dream to represent Australia in the
Speaker 1: Olympic Games, which you did. Tell us how that progressed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you stay a dream, I know kids talk
Speaker 2: about I've dreamt about this. I never did.
Speaker 3: I never thought I was that good Graham around the
Speaker 3: first Olympics nineteen seventy six. At nineteen seventy five, I
Speaker 3: was Australian champion. I was just off qualifying and by
Speaker 3: that stage I'd moved on from Rudy as my coach
Speaker 3: Ready hock Rider, a guy called Alan Barlow at Boux
Speaker 3: Hill Athletic Club now Box Seals are very famous athletics
Speaker 3: club in Melbourne and Allen was coaching me from the
Speaker 3: time I went to university because I couldn't get to Geelong.
Speaker 3: So really Allen took over about nineteen seventy four, so
Speaker 3: I was two years into him, and he said to
Speaker 3: me in nineteen seventy five, I think you could make
Speaker 3: the Olympics next year.
Speaker 2: And I just thought he was delusional. Grame, I really did,
Speaker 2: because I was.
Speaker 3: In medical school. I was already in the hospital, working
Speaker 3: working pretty long hours. I'd moved away from the living
Speaker 3: on campus because I did the first three years, and
Speaker 3: then I was living in hospital, and I thought, but
Speaker 3: I was still trying to train around my studies. And
Speaker 3: I improved seventeen seconds between nineteen seventy five and nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy six in my time, and that was just between
Speaker 3: the age of twenty and twenty one. So it's interesting,
Speaker 3: how incredible. And it was him believing in me that
Speaker 3: said it. And so suddenly I'm in the Olympic squad.
Speaker 3: I'm going, my god, Alan, you were right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I wasn't the thing on dreaming
Speaker 2: to be the Olympics. And then I thought, geez, what
Speaker 2: am I going to do? Now? I've got to train.
Speaker 3: Harder, which which was silly because you shouldn't train harder,
Speaker 3: you should just do what works for you. But I
Speaker 3: suddenly then got caught up in thinking, oh, I've got
Speaker 3: to train harder and how am I going to get
Speaker 3: away because it was quite hard to balance. In fact,
Speaker 3: I took a year off and did an exercise physiology
Speaker 3: degree in nineteen seventy six. So I went back to
Speaker 3: and did a master's degree at Melbourne UNI because I
Speaker 3: really couldn't commit to the medical program and also get
Speaker 3: away enough time to run at the Olympics.
Speaker 1: That intrigued me. We've mentioned Maddie Leftak a few times
Speaker 1: seeing how he was able to combine his medical studies
Speaker 1: with football. But when you say you improved seventeen seconds that,
Speaker 1: how did that happen? I mean you must have. You
Speaker 1: must have had some change in your training program or
Speaker 1: some extra commitment.
Speaker 3: Look probably a bit of extra commitment in the sense
Speaker 3: that Alan taught me. Well, it was a different training style.
Speaker 3: Ellen taught about we about recovery, and so I was
Speaker 3: recovering better. Alan was all about quality. There were two
Speaker 3: streams of thought in athletics in those days. There was
Speaker 3: the Ron Clark Rob de Costella sort of group that
Speaker 3: was Glenn Huntley Athletic Club. That was distance distance endurance,
Speaker 3: cardio cardio, and then there was the Alan Barlow School
Speaker 3: at box Hill, which was high quality intensity, good recovery,
Speaker 3: high quality intensity. I mean my event only went for
Speaker 3: eight minutes, four minutes, three minutes forty if you talk
Speaker 3: about fifteen hundred. I didn't need to do these two
Speaker 3: hour runs that these guys were doing, So the quality
Speaker 3: of training probably improved. I was training fifteen sessions a week,
Speaker 3: so twice a day every day, three on a Saturday,
Speaker 3: including the day's week, so we'd train in the morning
Speaker 3: and then compete in a grade in the afternoon and then.
Speaker 2: Do a recovery run at night on a Saturday.
Speaker 3: So the quality of the training, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: in terms of volume, you know, I was running around
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty k's a
Speaker 3: week was the sweet spot for me. But that you know,
Speaker 3: half of that was on the track doing high quality
Speaker 3: intervals short recovery interval short recovery. So yeah, look, the
Speaker 3: quality of the training was good. But I thought I
Speaker 3: trained hard in seventy five, but in seventy six it
Speaker 3: quably went up a little bit. But actually, you know
Speaker 3: that's I trained harder when I made the team, so
Speaker 3: I improved that seventeen seconds. Really off the back of
Speaker 3: the work I'd done in seventy three and seventy four.
Speaker 2: That's what I really credited with, Graham.
Speaker 1: Can you remember the emotions of being selected to represent
Speaker 1: Australia at an Olympic Games.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Now, the biggest emotion was my mum and dad had
Speaker 3: their photo on the front page of the Gelong Advertiser.
Speaker 2: Serious.
Speaker 3: That was the greatest thrill for me because of what
Speaker 3: my folks had done. My dad drove me to training,
Speaker 3: drove me to foot he picked me up. I'd go
Speaker 3: and run the cross country in the same muddy shorts
Speaker 3: that I'd played footy on At ten o'clock. I'd be
Speaker 3: doing the cross country at one o'clock in my dad's
Speaker 3: car with that even a shower in between.
Speaker 2: So they'd worked. Really, my dad was a timekeeper at
Speaker 2: every event that I went.
Speaker 3: Who We waved the flags at the footy as the
Speaker 3: goal umpired And I know it sounds Gleod, but you
Speaker 3: know it was a great thrill to make it because I.
Speaker 2: Hadn't expected it.
Speaker 3: And my mom and dad on the front page of
Speaker 3: the paper was the biggest highlight of the year, apart
Speaker 3: from the opening ceremony and getting across to Montreal, which
Speaker 3: is again, once you're there, it's a whole different world.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that after the break. Dr Peter Larkins
Speaker 1: is my guest, folks. He's here to talk about his
Speaker 1: new book, The Healthy Hundred, How we Can Live to
Speaker 1: one hundred and beyond. But he's just been selected in
Speaker 1: the Australian team to represent Australia at the Montreal Olympics.
Speaker 1: Back after the break, Welcome back to conversations everybody. If
Speaker 1: you've just tuned in, we're chatting with Dr Peter Larkins,
Speaker 1: one of our foremost sports medicos. I I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to describe you, so highly qualified. Was one
Speaker 1: of the Crows Club doctors in the early days and
Speaker 1: we went to Melbourne, Doctor Larkins would always be there.
Speaker 1: But if you just tuned in these combined his medical studies,
Speaker 1: he's decided he discovered that he can actually he's got
Speaker 1: a talent for athletics, get selected to represent Australia in
Speaker 1: the Montreal Olympics in the steeple chase event. Montreal was
Speaker 1: now finest moment as an Olympic Games, was it? Peter?
Speaker 1: But can you tell me your experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what you're alluding to is we didn't win a
Speaker 3: gold medal and that was just historical for Australia given
Speaker 3: our history of sport. I'm talking about athletics, I'm talking
Speaker 3: about any sport, whether you talked about rowing, whether you
Speaker 3: talk about hockey, you talk about swimming.
Speaker 2: Was we had some real favorites in that.
Speaker 3: But I can tell you now, look the experience was
Speaker 3: it blurs a little bit because you know, I was
Speaker 3: twenty one years of age Graham and I was sort
Speaker 3: of it was such a new world. You know, I
Speaker 3: really hadn't been overseas and can I tell you you know,
Speaker 3: if you look at the way teams prepare these days,
Speaker 3: they have these training camps overseas before Olympics. And just
Speaker 3: as a quick side story, so if you're in the
Speaker 3: rowing team or you're in the hockey team, you go
Speaker 3: away and you spend weeks competing for the month or
Speaker 3: two before the Olympics, and you go to the Olympics
Speaker 3: really in match condition. Imagine playing a Grand Final having
Speaker 3: not played a practice match. That's what we did in Montreal.
Speaker 3: It was eight degrees in Melbourne when we got on
Speaker 3: the chartered plane and we flew to Montreal. It was
Speaker 3: thirty four degrees. We went straight into the village, no
Speaker 3: pre competition. So this was in about July of seventy six,
Speaker 3: So we came out of winter in Australia on a
Speaker 3: chartered flight. The swimmers, the hockey plays, everyone on the
Speaker 3: same plane. I say, next to Blake called Steve Holland,
Speaker 3: who was called the Fish, and he was supposed to
Speaker 3: be a big swimming star that was going to be there,
Speaker 3: and so it was totally the wrong preparation I think
Speaker 3: in the Olympic Committee in those days and all the sports,
Speaker 3: it just doesn't happen those days. So we're off season
Speaker 3: because the Olympics are usually held in the Northern Hemisphere season.
Speaker 3: So we got into the village and we were the
Speaker 3: first big team to arrive. There was a few small teams.
Speaker 3: We had I think two hundred and something. We arrived
Speaker 3: in this big village and what happened was we had
Speaker 3: so much time to hang around doing nothing. The swimmers
Speaker 3: all put on about ten kilos if you look back
Speaker 3: at the history of that, because there's twenty four hours
Speaker 3: a day buffet food and so the swimmers all got fat.
Speaker 1: We did ten, not ten kilograms.
Speaker 2: They would have time they put on weight.
Speaker 3: Exactly what I'm saying is you go there, you know,
Speaker 3: supposedly lean and fit and ready to go.
Speaker 2: Three weeks is a long time.
Speaker 3: I remember, you know, when you arrive at the village,
Speaker 3: they raised the Australian flag and have a bit of
Speaker 3: a welcoming stumm and there was only about three flags going.
Speaker 3: Remember there's two hundred teams going to be there. There
Speaker 3: was only three flags flying, and then Australian team goes up.
Speaker 2: So we had to train in the heat, no racing
Speaker 2: under our belts.
Speaker 3: So for me it was you know, I really was
Speaker 3: good at peeking off the back of racing a lot,
Speaker 3: so I used to like, as I said, imagine playing
Speaker 3: the granny and not having a practice match.
Speaker 2: So we didn't do well.
Speaker 3: I was ranked fourth in the world, only I ran
Speaker 3: tenth when I got over there. You know, I was
Speaker 3: training okay, but I also had developed an injury back
Speaker 3: in May competing in a road relay in Australia where
Speaker 3: I developed an inflame back and I was put on
Speaker 3: some pretty high powered tablets that don't even exist anymore.
Speaker 3: But they thinned my blood down and I got a
Speaker 3: low blood count, Graham, So I was quite a mneemic
Speaker 3: which was only discovered in the village as well. So
Speaker 3: off the back of not being as prepared as I
Speaker 3: should be, I also had a low blood count which
Speaker 3: really worked against me, and I was very disappointed in
Speaker 3: my performance, even though the experience, of course is life
Speaker 3: changing and you know, very memorable for lots.
Speaker 2: Of other reasons.
Speaker 1: Who won the gold medal in that event.
Speaker 3: One of the Italians who was on the blood doping.
Speaker 3: So blood doping is when you take blood out of
Speaker 3: your arm, stow it in the fridge, and then you
Speaker 3: put it in a day or two before the event,
Speaker 3: so your blood boosting. This was the days now we're
Speaker 3: talking seventies, Graham, and so there was a lot of
Speaker 3: dodgy stuff being done.
Speaker 2: East Germany and Russia were sort of at their peak.
Speaker 3: You know, there was a lot going I was lucky
Speaker 3: enough to travel a lot on the international circuit behind
Speaker 3: the iron curtains, so Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, and
Speaker 3: as a medical student, my eyes were as wide as
Speaker 3: they could be wide, I'm saying when I saw the
Speaker 3: stuff that was going on.
Speaker 2: So there was and Montreal.
Speaker 3: If you look back as well, there was just the
Speaker 3: rudimentary beginning of drug testing. So we were competing in
Speaker 3: the distance against people that were on EPO and on
Speaker 3: blood doping, and you know, we were just so far behind.
Speaker 3: And we still don't cheat in Australia, but the drug
Speaker 3: testing was just coming in. That was the first time
Speaker 3: ever that anabolic agents were.
Speaker 2: Tested for it.
Speaker 3: The Olympics was seventy six and it's fair to say
Speaker 3: there weren't many detections.
Speaker 1: What's your long lasting a memory of being an Olympian?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's such a such an achievement.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you didn't live up to your expectations,
Speaker 1: but it's an amazing thing to have done in an
Speaker 1: event like that.
Speaker 3: I would have thought it's hard not to dwell on
Speaker 3: the fact that you didn't perform as well as you should.
Speaker 3: I know, you've got to move on, and I have.
Speaker 3: But you know, my memory is that I was disappointed
Speaker 3: in my own performance. But when people talk about the
Speaker 3: fact that, you know, you went to the Olympics and
Speaker 3: with the people that I met, and the experience and
Speaker 3: taught me about preparation and what we learned from that
Speaker 3: and I was selected in the eighty Moscow team as well, Graham.
Speaker 2: Four years later, I'd really put my head down to
Speaker 2: work really really hard.
Speaker 3: I'd already graduated from medicine, so again I won the
Speaker 3: selection and I was running just the same speed four
Speaker 3: years later, four years older, four years more experienced. I'd
Speaker 3: won every national title in between. But in eighty the
Speaker 3: Olympics again were a disaster because the government didn't fund
Speaker 3: the Olympic teams and all the Olympic teams were restricted
Speaker 3: on finance, and I was one of the athletes who
Speaker 3: was dropped out of the Olympic team through later months
Speaker 3: and so never got to a pear in Moscow even
Speaker 3: though I was and in fact it was embarrassing because
Speaker 3: I was on the front page of the Herald Sun
Speaker 3: newspaper here in Melbourne when I made my second Olympic
Speaker 3: team getting presented with the Olympic tie by Rick Pannell,
Speaker 3: who was the CEO of Athletics Australia. So that was
Speaker 3: my second Olympic memory was being selected and not allowed
Speaker 3: to eat because Malcolm Fraser with drew all the government funding.
Speaker 1: Are you bitter about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I am, because I committed four years mentally and emotionally,
Speaker 3: and I took a year off from MIDS and so
Speaker 3: in eighty I actually stepped aside from working because I
Speaker 3: really in seventy six I studied and I felt that
Speaker 3: that probably inhibited my performance. So in eighty i'd actually
Speaker 3: taken a year off work, so no income and was
Speaker 3: trying to prepare for the Olympics.
Speaker 2: So beeh a bit better at the Australian government over that?
Speaker 1: Did you get over it?
Speaker 2: Now? Doesn't?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm saying I was a dual Olympian by selection,
Speaker 3: but only competed in one and I've been Look, I've
Speaker 3: been to nine Olympics in total, and so my Olympic
Speaker 3: career was really started by Montfior.
Speaker 2: That's the positive thing. You know.
Speaker 3: I've been a contributor in the Olympic movement over a
Speaker 3: long long time, so you know, it's once you're an Olympian,
Speaker 3: you're always an Olympian, and there's no such thing as
Speaker 3: a former Olympian. So it has is open enormous pathways
Speaker 3: for me. So there's a positive side that I'm really
Speaker 3: pleased about it. And now it's just so different the
Speaker 3: way the athletes prepare in the fact that they don't
Speaker 3: try and study full time while they're training.
Speaker 2: They really put their head down and have a crack.
Speaker 1: That intrigues me. Do you think could you have done it?
Speaker 1: Could you have qualified today if you were under the
Speaker 1: same regiment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would have qualified. Now you know whether or
Speaker 3: not I would have had the ability to do that,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So you know I was. I was capable of improving further.
Speaker 3: In fact, after eighty I started to really put my
Speaker 3: head down and concentrate on mits and even more. But
Speaker 3: I came back from a traveling fellowship at the end
Speaker 3: of nineteen eighty three having competed, I thought for the
Speaker 3: last time at the kom Off Games in eighty two
Speaker 3: up in Brisbane, which I don't know if you were
Speaker 3: their Graham, but it was. You know, we obviously host
Speaker 3: them in Brisbane in eighty two, and a coach at
Speaker 3: the end of eighty three when I came back from
Speaker 3: me you.
Speaker 2: Said do you fit? And I said, oh, I'm halfway fit.
Speaker 2: He said, we've got eight weeks to the Olympic trials.
Speaker 2: Do you want to have a crack? And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, I haven't raced for a.
Speaker 3: Year, and you know I trained hard with Ellen for
Speaker 3: six weeks. You know, I missed out on the Olympic
Speaker 3: selection by three seconds.
Speaker 2: You know what three seconds is?
Speaker 3: One two three, That's how much I missed out a
Speaker 3: third Olympic selection.
Speaker 2: One two three Gray, And that's all I was.
Speaker 3: So I was still running pretty well in my early thirties,
Speaker 3: but that stage the world had moved on. So I
Speaker 3: would have been a selection without necessarily being a threat
Speaker 3: when I got there. It's like making like being eighth
Speaker 3: in the in the in the AFL eight, You're not
Speaker 3: really a threat. You're just snuck into the finals.
Speaker 1: You did so much. I mean, maybe we're going back
Speaker 1: a little bit. I just want to read a few things.
Speaker 1: You had degrees in medicine and exercise physiology. You were
Speaker 1: rewarded the inaugural Sir Robert Menzi's Medical Scholarship. You did
Speaker 1: postgraduate studies in sports and exercise medicine in Canada, the USA, England,
Speaker 1: and East Africa before coming back to continue your practice.
Speaker 1: You completed medical training at Alfred Hospital. You wrote a
Speaker 1: master's thesis in exercise physiology, receiving the Hume Turnbull Research
Speaker 1: Fellowship during your fourth year of study. So I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, or of somebody who's such a high achievement.
Speaker 1: Can I just pick a little snippet out of that?
Speaker 1: What did you doing East Africa? Was that Kenya? I
Speaker 1: guess it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well done?
Speaker 3: Yeah it was because if you think back in the eighties,
Speaker 3: who were the dominant distance runners, think of those great battles,
Speaker 3: So the Kenyans, the Ethiopians and the Tanzanians. So they
Speaker 3: were the three East African countries that I was just
Speaker 3: fascinated by these these there were young kids that I
Speaker 3: was racing against them, and they were most gentle people.
Speaker 2: And so when I had the opportunity and so that fellowship,
Speaker 2: I had to.
Speaker 3: Spend time in commonwealth countries, one of which was a
Speaker 3: developing area of the world. And in fact that the
Speaker 3: people that gave me the scholarship wanted me to go
Speaker 3: to India to study the hockey program. And I said,
Speaker 3: I've got no interest in hockey, with all due respect
Speaker 3: to hockey players.
Speaker 2: Yea, they said to.
Speaker 3: Me, I said, want to go to East Africa And
Speaker 3: they said, well, is it because I'm fascinated to know
Speaker 3: the talent identification program over there? Everyone says it's because
Speaker 3: they live at altitude and I just didn't believe that,
Speaker 3: And so I went and spent nearly six months living
Speaker 3: in East Africa, watching them train, watching the kids run
Speaker 3: to and from school barefoot. Literally that they grew all
Speaker 3: the food that they ate, everything was organic, the healthiest
Speaker 3: diet of vegetables and fruit you can imagine. But the
Speaker 3: big thing Graham was from the altitude. It was the
Speaker 3: motivation to do something with their life. They're very poor
Speaker 3: over there, and if you want a scholarship to go
Speaker 3: America as a runner, you were made for life, you know.
Speaker 3: And the road racing those days they could win good money,
Speaker 3: and that means you could buy land, because only the
Speaker 3: rich people owned land over there.
Speaker 2: So it was an interesting thing to go across. And
Speaker 2: I wrote a sort of more of a social.
Speaker 3: Thesis, not a medical thesis, about how the kids any
Speaker 3: of the Opia and Kenya are really motivated to follow
Speaker 3: their idols like kip Kino and Jibouti and these other
Speaker 3: guys that have run and just a very quick story.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 3: I went to a place called Elderette up and the
Speaker 3: highlands of Kenya, and I busited Kip.
Speaker 2: Kino, who was well known.
Speaker 3: He ran against Ron Clark and we stood on the
Speaker 3: porch of his house, Graham, and you could see all
Speaker 3: the lights of the villages in the distance, and there
Speaker 3: were ten different villages that I could see lights from,
Speaker 3: and he told me there are eleven world record holders
Speaker 3: that had come from those villages that I could see
Speaker 3: just at night within within visuals you distance of where
Speaker 3: Kip Kino lived.
Speaker 2: So fascinating.
Speaker 3: Talk about genetics, well maybe you know that, but the
Speaker 3: motivation to be the next Skip Kino or the next
Speaker 3: Gilbert Baye who was the great runner from from Tanzania.
Speaker 3: So it was an interesting study side thing for me.
Speaker 3: And I've got great respect for the East African runners.
Speaker 1: Doctor Peter Larkins lepygathlete, medico author. His book is called
Speaker 1: The Healthy Hundred. We'll talk about that in a bit
Speaker 1: more detail after the break. Acutly my guest on conversations
Speaker 1: is doctor Peter Larkins. He's an author as well as
Speaker 1: all the other great things he's done. When we went
Speaker 1: to Melbourne, he was our club doctor in the early
Speaker 1: in the early days. How did that connection come about
Speaker 1: with the Crows, Peter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, look I had a strong AFL history, if
Speaker 3: you like. With down with my dad at Geelong and
Speaker 3: my uncle Pat. But then when I first came back
Speaker 3: from overseas travels, I helped Kevin Threlfel, who was the
Speaker 3: club doctor down at Geelong.
Speaker 2: So I had the Cats for the first six years
Speaker 2: as an assistant doctor down there.
Speaker 3: And then of course when the Crows got their license,
Speaker 3: I was good friends with doctor Brian Sando, who of
Speaker 3: course you had a lot to do with.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Brian and I went back to our Olympic connection because
Speaker 3: he was involved in Olympic teams with the swimming and
Speaker 3: the diving, and so Brian and I had a chat
Speaker 3: and Brian when the Crows were coming in, he said, Pete,
Speaker 3: we need someone in Melbourne who knows the Melbourne scene
Speaker 3: in case a player needs an X ray or needs
Speaker 3: to stay overnight, it's got a broken rear ball. We
Speaker 3: need a specialist in this all that area. So I
Speaker 3: sort of became on board right from game one day
Speaker 3: one as one of the Crow's medical officers, assisting out
Speaker 3: with all the Victorian program. And you and I cross
Speaker 3: paths of course when you were coaching there, and I
Speaker 3: still remember your talks about bringing.
Speaker 2: The oxygen breathe the oxygen deep breeds steep breaths.
Speaker 3: It was the Corns mantra at the court at time
Speaker 3: breaks gorn, So you were famous. Brian Sando unfortunately passed on,
Speaker 3: but he was a great doc in the sports world
Speaker 3: and my connection that led to the Crows.
Speaker 1: I should have known more about your career. Mean to me,
Speaker 1: you were just another face in the background when I
Speaker 1: was worried about a footy team. No, I don't think
Speaker 1: I've paid you the respect you were worthy of those days.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what coaching is like.
Speaker 3: You've got your blinkers on, and I was just happy
Speaker 3: to help Brian out because I knew a fair bit
Speaker 3: about medical stuff with sport, and Brian knew that.
Speaker 2: Brian knew a bit more about me than you did.
Speaker 2: But that's all right now, you're very polite.
Speaker 1: Well that's good. I shudder sometimes and I think how
Speaker 1: I must have spoken to and treated some of the
Speaker 1: room stuff. You book, The Healthy hundred, it's a book
Speaker 1: I've heard you say, and I've lived it. You can
Speaker 1: pick it up and go to any page and find
Speaker 1: something that's useful in it. How did you distill it down?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, it's sort of a it was a compilation.
Speaker 3: I mean it was something that you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of advice I gived in my day to day sort
Speaker 3: of work with patients is how to sort of keep
Speaker 3: ahead of the curve of slowing down, you know, whether
Speaker 3: it's muscle wasting or whether it's their lack of energy
Speaker 3: or looking after their joints. And so, you know, I
Speaker 3: was doing a lot of this sort of advisory work
Speaker 3: just in the day to day work that I do
Speaker 3: with people about how to live healthier and how to
Speaker 3: keep away from doctors, which is you know, and then
Speaker 3: a few years ago I got to ask to a
Speaker 3: few men's health talks, and so I was really compiling
Speaker 3: the things that men have to do with their health
Speaker 3: checkups and you know, finding out about your background, if
Speaker 3: you've got heart disease and your family history, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and just being you know, making sure you eat well
Speaker 3: and don't be overweighted, don't smoke. And I thought, why
Speaker 3: am I just talking about men that anyone in the
Speaker 3: community should be taking that advice. So I started to
Speaker 3: distill down all the healthy living principles. And so when
Speaker 3: you look back at my sporting career, there was a
Speaker 3: whole lot of concepts that an athlete puts together like
Speaker 3: nutrition and sleep and mental preparation and looking after their
Speaker 3: body with the niggles, And that was about high performance
Speaker 3: in sports. So I really wrote a book about high
Speaker 3: performance in life, and it was all about the things
Speaker 3: that we can do.
Speaker 2: So again, I think COVID.
Speaker 3: Made is really aware of our frailty and our vulnerability,
Speaker 3: certainly here in Melbourne, but in Melbourne we had a
Speaker 3: terrible time with social isolation. So the mental health and
Speaker 3: the mental stress became a thing. So in the book,
Speaker 3: I don't just talk about physical things like why we
Speaker 3: should exercise and why we should eat well. I talk
Speaker 3: about two other really key pillars in life to perform well,
Speaker 3: and that is setting mental challenges for yourself and always
Speaker 3: looking at personal development. And I talk about social connectivity.
Speaker 3: So if you look at those aging populations around the
Speaker 3: world where people live to one hundred and five one
Speaker 3: hundred and six, they're socially connected with each other.
Speaker 2: The generations look after each other.
Speaker 3: And so the book was a sort of a bit
Speaker 3: of an at z because every weekend you pick up
Speaker 3: a weekend magazine and to be a story about sugar,
Speaker 3: there'd be a story about caffeine, or a story about
Speaker 3: how much sleep you should get, and I thought, I
Speaker 3: know all that, why don't I put it all together
Speaker 3: and try and make a little.
Speaker 2: Encyclopedia of helping living principles.
Speaker 3: I'm not an expert in any of those gram but
Speaker 3: I tried to to steal them down into everyday language
Speaker 3: that people could understand. The cornerstone being exercises, medicine, exercises
Speaker 3: the greatest drug will ever take.
Speaker 1: I understand that. But as you get older, slow down?
Speaker 1: How do you how do you modify your I see
Speaker 1: guys running part and ladies running past my place every day,
Speaker 1: and slowly they age and slowly they stop. And I
Speaker 1: just how how important is running? I mean other more
Speaker 1: important forms of exercise.
Speaker 2: You have to move.
Speaker 3: The body doesn't know the difference between cycling, swimming, a
Speaker 3: rowing machine, skipping, walking, exercising on a treadmill. It's called moving, Graham,
Speaker 3: and you do slow down, but consistency is the key.
Speaker 3: So moving creates metabolic things in the body. Seriously about antioxidants.
Speaker 3: There's certain chemicals that are released that are lower your
Speaker 3: blood pressure, lower your cholesterol, so you.
Speaker 2: Don't have to run them.
Speaker 3: And as a runner, because there's a there's a there's
Speaker 3: a chapter in my book saying I hate to run,
Speaker 3: and it's because my pace better.
Speaker 2: You're a runner.
Speaker 3: You don't talking about running, I said, I'm not talking
Speaker 3: about running, I'm talking about moving. You know, if you're
Speaker 3: out an exercise bike, that's great. If you just walk
Speaker 3: around the you know, the greatest piece of exercise equipment
Speaker 3: you'll ever buy, Graham as a dog. It's not a treadmill,
Speaker 3: it's not an exercise bike. And people say, I got
Speaker 3: to take my dog for a walk. I say, no, no,
Speaker 3: your dog's taking you for a walk. That's keeping you healthy.
Speaker 3: So those people you see going past you you're down
Speaker 3: near the beach, I think so, I think people going
Speaker 3: past your place, well they used to run five years ago.
Speaker 3: As long as they're walking past your place, then in
Speaker 3: fact they're still moving, so they're still getting the exercise component,
Speaker 3: which includes mental health. So the importance of mental health
Speaker 3: and the dopamine and sero tone and the two famous
Speaker 3: chemicals that doctors prescribe when you go in there with
Speaker 3: anxiety and depression, they give you tablets that help stabilize.
Speaker 2: Those two hormones.
Speaker 3: You know, when you go for a walk today, those
Speaker 3: hormones are naturally being harmonized by your own body. So
Speaker 3: I think in the book I just talk about being
Speaker 3: responsible for your health. You will slow down, but you
Speaker 3: want to slow down slowly. The secret of life is
Speaker 3: to die young, but to do it late. And what
Speaker 3: that says in the book is want to be ninety
Speaker 3: and hour. But it doesn't mean you're running at the Olympics,
Speaker 3: or it doesn't mean you're playing footy for the crows
Speaker 3: or the cats. It just means that you're actually looking
Speaker 3: after yourself. Just getting out the door and social connection.
Speaker 3: Having someone a buddy to walk with or to play
Speaker 3: golf with, or to go and do something with, really
Speaker 3: makes you compliance a lot better because it's very hard
Speaker 3: sometimes to get up and do it by yourself. Having
Speaker 3: a commitment to meet someone who's a big tip in
Speaker 3: the book. It's one of the one hundred tips.
Speaker 1: So what about as you developed these afflictions, as you
Speaker 1: get older and the doctors want to put you on
Speaker 1: medication or get you to take supplements. How important are
Speaker 1: supplements and how important is to listen to a doctor's
Speaker 1: advice to take the cholesterol and if you have maybe
Speaker 1: blood thinners and things like that.
Speaker 3: No, I think your medicine is obviously very important. And
Speaker 3: this is not a replacement. This is not a medical book,
Speaker 3: and it says that very early on, if you've got
Speaker 3: high blood pressure, then make sure you're getting that tree
Speaker 3: to a low exercise will probably lower that. Meeds you
Speaker 3: need a lower dose of the medication. You've got high cholesterol,
Speaker 3: get that true to because we know these things do
Speaker 3: contribute to particularly to heart disease and stroke. And so
Speaker 3: doctors who are tuned in to healthy practices should be
Speaker 3: giving you the exercise advice. The greatest prescription they can
Speaker 3: give you is to buy a dog or walk around
Speaker 3: the block. But certainly the medication for inflammation. Inflammation ages
Speaker 3: our body. So we know that inflammation can be a
Speaker 3: sore knee or a sore hip. There's a new term
Speaker 3: camp called inflammaging. So the role of inflammation in aging
Speaker 3: our body more quickly, Graham so things to reduce inflammation,
Speaker 3: which is good nutrition. So a lot of the stuff
Speaker 3: we buy today has got preservatives, colorings.
Speaker 2: You look at the numbers on the label.
Speaker 3: If they've got numbers, it means it's artificial, right, So
Speaker 3: healthy living like God grew up on a farm. So
Speaker 3: the amount of foods can control inflammation and slow you down.
Speaker 3: So healthy living involves healthy nutrition. But the medication absolutely,
Speaker 3: whether it's diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure.
Speaker 2: Make sure you get your doctor's advice. But hopefully part
Speaker 2: of his advice is to be active.
Speaker 3: Because we're all going to slow down. I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to slow it down more slowly. So the art of
Speaker 3: aging youthfully, that's.
Speaker 2: What we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: Do you still run?
Speaker 2: I rock? So there's a term called rourking.
Speaker 3: It's half running and half wall looking and need surgery
Speaker 3: for a bit of treadware on my kneecap from all
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand k's of running that I've done. So
Speaker 3: what I do now I do five or six days
Speaker 3: a week up to an hour, and it's a mixture
Speaker 3: of walking a bit, running a bit, walking a bit.
Speaker 3: So my longest run in the last year's probably been
Speaker 3: two minutes gram so it doesn't sound like a run peat,
Speaker 3: but I run two minutes, walk two minutes, run two minutes,
Speaker 3: walk two minutes. That way I can control the load
Speaker 3: that I'm putting on my joints. My brain still thinks
Speaker 3: I'm running. My heart rate goes up into a running zone.
Speaker 3: So I think the fitness benefits are there, but I'm
Speaker 3: careful about it.
Speaker 2: I do it. And the other point is strength training.
Speaker 3: So cardio is obviously running, walking, you know, the tread mills, kipping,
Speaker 3: as I said, swimming, that's the big part.
Speaker 2: But strength training. As we get older, we lose muscle mass,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 3: Getting up out of a chair, just getting up, you know,
Speaker 3: you say I'm tired, because you get fatigued. So strength
Speaker 3: training two or three times a week for half and
Speaker 3: now it's just some home resistance bands or resistance weights.
Speaker 2: Everyone over fifty should be working on that as well.
Speaker 3: So I do two or three days where I do
Speaker 3: some strength work and probably five or six days where
Speaker 3: I get out and smell the roses and do that.
Speaker 2: Rawking, I'm going to put you.
Speaker 1: Right on the spot here. The book is called The
Speaker 1: Healthy Hundred, one hundred Ways to a healthier, happier and
Speaker 1: longer life. Just give me one, give me the most
Speaker 1: important one.
Speaker 2: To Graham. You see, I've got one hundred. You're trying
Speaker 2: to pick one.
Speaker 1: I know it's a combination of that, but for some
Speaker 1: people make small changes. If they could do one thing.
Speaker 3: One of the whole hundred look, I think I'll give
Speaker 3: you three because one is to move regularly. Two is
Speaker 3: to have your health check ups with your doctor to
Speaker 3: find out medical care is so much better for prostate cancer,
Speaker 3: bowel cancer, lung cancer, melanomas, So have your check up
Speaker 3: so you can get ahead of it. And the third
Speaker 3: one is prioritize social connection. Keep up with your mates.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you make an effort to have friends, whether
Speaker 3: it's a lunch, whether it's a warp, whether it's a
Speaker 3: game of pickleball or a golf So be socially connected,
Speaker 3: get your health checkups, and get out there and move.
Speaker 1: Well, there's another ninety seven really in the book.
Speaker 2: There is. It's not a hundred eight. You've got to
Speaker 2: get it. You've got to get it at dr Peterlarkins
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 3: You've got to get it at Amazon, or you've got
Speaker 3: to get at any bookstore in Adelaide.
Speaker 2: They'll get it in for you. But doctor Peter Arkins
Speaker 2: dot com we can post it out to people.
Speaker 1: Great to catch up, Peter, Thanks for your.
Speaker 2: Time, appreciate it the chat. It's been fun. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Doctor Peter Larkins is my guest. Folks. This book is
Speaker 1: called The Healthy hundred, one hundred ways to a healthier,
Speaker 1: happier and longer life. Just open it to any page
Speaker 1: and you will find something interesting. Thank you for joining us.