Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about
Speaker 1: your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine,
Speaker 1: but you know that something is off, well, you're not
Speaker 1: imagining it. That's why I created Vitality three sixty to
Speaker 1: help you better understand what's going on inside your body
Speaker 1: so that you can take the targeted action needed. With
Speaker 1: a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the
Speaker 1: guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've
Speaker 1: teamed up with Doctyesmina, an incredible integrative GP and together
Speaker 1: we will help you decode your body's signals and answer
Speaker 1: questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing
Speaker 1: my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe
Speaker 1: missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better,
Speaker 1: you can transform your health. Visit v three sixty dot
Speaker 1: health or check out the show notes for more. I'm
Speaker 1: a crossfitter and when I tell people that they like
Speaker 1: roll their eyes and they go, what, You're one of
Speaker 1: those people that do those crazy high intensity workouts, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, let me just paint the picture
Speaker 1: for you. The average age in my CrossFit box is
Speaker 1: fifty five, So I will say that we are a
Speaker 1: more mature group of crossfitters, is what I would like.
Speaker 2: To call it.
Speaker 3: But interestingly, a lovely group of ladies.
Speaker 1: And I have kind of done a little breakaway group
Speaker 1: at the moment for six weeks. It's called Smolov. We're
Speaker 1: doing this strength training program. It's a program op outside
Speaker 1: of our classes. And I was chatting with these awesome ladies.
Speaker 1: I'm the youngest in the group. I'm forty six, and
Speaker 1: I think, look, I don't know what the age.
Speaker 3: Of the ladies are.
Speaker 1: They all look very young, but I know that there's
Speaker 1: some in there that have a six in front of
Speaker 1: their age. And I was chatting to them yesterday that
Speaker 1: there just aren't that many options for strength training for
Speaker 1: women that you know, are a little bit older and
Speaker 1: maybe haven't done strength training in their life.
Speaker 3: And so, for example, these ladies, we've.
Speaker 1: Been doing CrossFit for a long time, so we know
Speaker 1: the major lifts, we can do, Olympic lifting, We've learnt
Speaker 1: these things. But a lot of these ladies were saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, they've got friends that have never strength trained,
Speaker 1: and they've done their walking and they've maybe played tennis
Speaker 1: or something like that, but they don't know where to go.
Speaker 1: So just got me thinking that, you know, there's not
Speaker 1: many options for women out there who are not experienced
Speaker 1: at strength training and who want to get into it,
Speaker 1: but they just don't know where their next best step
Speaker 1: should be.
Speaker 3: This is helping her with Amelia Phillips.
Speaker 1: As women, we're often so busy looking after everyone else
Speaker 1: that we forget to think about what maybe our future
Speaker 1: self might need from us today. So imagine traveling forward
Speaker 1: in time. Imagine visiting your eighty year old self while
Speaker 1: she's asleep and whispering in her ear, what do you
Speaker 1: need me, your younger self, to start doing or maybe
Speaker 1: stop doing today to better support you and your body
Speaker 1: in your beautiful golden years. I wonder what my future
Speaker 1: self would tell me to say today.
Speaker 3: She'd probably say, please take a holiday.
Speaker 1: Today we're diving into exactly what that question is with
Speaker 1: the doctor brilliant Vonda Wright.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about how to future proof.
Speaker 1: Our body, our bones, our muscles, and our joints, and
Speaker 1: the small consistent habits that make a really big difference
Speaker 1: to how we feel and how we move later in life,
Speaker 1: which becomes so so important, Doctor Vonder Wright is a
Speaker 1: world renowned orthopedic surgeon, researcher, author, and passionate advocate for
Speaker 1: redefining aging. I love this because I'm not a big
Speaker 1: fan of the word aging, to be honest. She's known
Speaker 1: for her groundbreaking work in active aging and mobility and
Speaker 1: helping people extend not just their years, but their vitality
Speaker 1: in their years. She is the founder of the Aging
Speaker 1: Well Lab and internationally recognized and the author of several
Speaker 1: influential books, including Fitness After Forty and more recently, the
Speaker 1: most amazing.
Speaker 3: Book Please go and buy it.
Speaker 1: It's called Unbreakable, A Woman's Guide to Aging with Power.
Speaker 1: She's most recently on as well one of my favorite podcasts,
Speaker 1: A Diary of a CEO with Stephen Bartlett, where her
Speaker 1: message about taking charge of our health at every age
Speaker 1: really struck a chord with me and of course with
Speaker 1: the millions that we're.
Speaker 3: Watching and listening.
Speaker 1: Doctor Vondad, thank you so much for joining us today
Speaker 1: on Healthy Her.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for helping me.
Speaker 3: I am so excited.
Speaker 1: I actually last night was laying in bed just thinking
Speaker 1: about this conversation. I often feel so blessed and honored
Speaker 1: that I get to speak to amazing people like you.
Speaker 1: It's just such a privilege. It's not work at all.
Speaker 1: It's just aren't we lucky to do what we do?
Speaker 2: What a fun job?
Speaker 1: Then, I know, well, talking about jobs, you are an
Speaker 1: orthopedic surgeon. Can you please explain what you do and
Speaker 1: who you mostly treat?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I'm an orthopedic sports surgeon, meaning that after
Speaker 2: medical school I did a general six year orthopedic residency,
Speaker 2: which means I take care of everything muscle, tendon, ligament, bone,
Speaker 2: and really restore mobility so that you can walk again,
Speaker 2: or you can use your shoulders again, or or all
Speaker 2: those body parts. And then after my residency, which was
Speaker 2: six years, I did an additional fellowship year which really
Speaker 2: made me a specialist in sports and arthroscopy. So I'm
Speaker 2: looking around my office. I'm in my office. I was
Speaker 2: looking for instruments to pull up here. But you know,
Speaker 2: we do the really big surgeries through the tiniest little apertures, Like,
Speaker 2: for instance, I do knee surgery. Now, not even I
Speaker 2: don't even need to cut the skin. I use a needle.
Speaker 2: Oh that is that's just yeah. It's the size of
Speaker 2: a pencil lead and it's just big enough to do
Speaker 2: certain through So isn't that amazing?
Speaker 3: It must have come such a long way.
Speaker 1: And I'm so fascinated to speak to you because unlike
Speaker 1: in fact, I don't know anyone else who actually gets
Speaker 1: to go under the hood.
Speaker 3: And so we're really going to talk.
Speaker 1: About our physical bodies today, but you get to go
Speaker 1: under the wood and go, oh, my goodness, what is
Speaker 1: this person done to their bones or their joints or
Speaker 1: their muscles. And look, my audience is mums mostly and
Speaker 1: kind of mums in midlife.
Speaker 3: So if you think about that.
Speaker 1: Cohort, what are the most common reasons women in midlife
Speaker 1: might come to see you or might need an orthopedic surgeon?
Speaker 1: And I know your sports, but just what is going
Speaker 1: on for our muscles, joints and bones in midlife?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so glad you asked that. Like so many
Speaker 2: of the things in midlife, our muscular skeletal system, which
Speaker 2: all the tissues again are muscle, tendon, ligament, bone fat,
Speaker 2: actually muscle stem cells. So there's six or seven different
Speaker 2: the discs in your back, all of those tissues, all
Speaker 2: of them respond to estrogen. So the biggest reason women
Speaker 2: in midlife come to me, whether they know it or
Speaker 2: not is because they're losing their estrogen. And so today
Speaker 2: I had a clinic today and a woman I had
Speaker 2: a lot of forty six year olds. It was interesting.
Speaker 2: One came with a shoulder that was just too sore
Speaker 2: to move and it wouldn't move, and she was showing
Speaker 2: me how she lost motion very rapidly. Well, that's called
Speaker 2: frozen shoulder. And it's a phenomenon the world over. Every
Speaker 2: country calls it something different, and yet it is the same,
Speaker 2: highly inflamed. My shoulder doesn't move. I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: And so people show up like that, or they show
Speaker 2: up with advanced arthritis at a very young age, and
Speaker 2: lo and behold, we have known since nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: for one hundred years, we have known that losing our
Speaker 2: estrogen predisposes us to a lot of arthritis, which is
Speaker 2: why we get knee pain and need joint replacements at
Speaker 2: some point.
Speaker 3: And you're referring to osteoarthritis and that or rheumatoid or.
Speaker 2: Both specifically osteoarthritis. Now, women without estrogen also have an
Speaker 2: increased incidence of autoimmune disease, whether chogrins or hashimotisyroiditis. But
Speaker 2: Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease affected by loss of estrogen.
Speaker 2: So those are all reasons women come to a musculoskeletal doctor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So when I hear say estrogen, is it
Speaker 1: just as simple as let's slap on a patch and
Speaker 1: we're going to be tikety boo or is it a
Speaker 1: little bit more complex than that?
Speaker 2: You know what, when we're going to master midlight, which
Speaker 2: is what I call this, like, we are going to
Speaker 2: get in front of this and we are going to
Speaker 2: really make this time our own. Yes, there are many
Speaker 2: things that we do. Number one, Uh yeah, slap on
Speaker 2: an extra dial patch and we will be much better.
Speaker 2: Right in a very short amount of time. Muscular skeletal
Speaker 2: symptoms such as inflammation respond to that. But I wish
Speaker 2: it were that simple. It's never going to be that simple.
Speaker 2: So number one, you need to make your hormone optimization decision.
Speaker 2: And I know several great practitioners in Australia. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's a huge continent, so you have to know more
Speaker 2: than the three that I know. But you deserve a conversation,
Speaker 2: You deserve to be educated. And if someone just says,
Speaker 2: do you know I won't talk about it, Well, then
Speaker 2: they're not going to be your doctor very long. You
Speaker 2: deserve a conversation, So make that decision number two. Listen,
Speaker 2: you cannot get where you want to be without reinvesting
Speaker 2: in yourself. And so you and all your friends do
Speaker 2: CrossFit and that is a marvelous way in addition to
Speaker 2: powerlifting and lifting weights to build the muscle we need
Speaker 2: to not become frail. But it's more than muscle. You
Speaker 2: know where everybody in the world is talking about muscle
Speaker 2: right now, It is more than muscle without bone. Muscle
Speaker 2: is just a heaping pile of metabolic tissue without form function.
Speaker 2: It just sits there, connected to bone. It collaborates to
Speaker 2: move us, to communicate, to be a whole system that
Speaker 2: keeps us from frailty. Right, So we build muscle and
Speaker 2: bone to get in front of this stage. We also
Speaker 2: have to eat an anti inflammatory diet. Our bodies are
Speaker 2: not garbage disposals. Not everything gets a place inside of us.
Speaker 2: And so especially in midlife when we're so inflamed anyway,
Speaker 2: we really have to look at not eating sugar. We
Speaker 2: have to make the hard decision whether or not we're
Speaker 2: going to be drinking alcohol, which not only disturbs our sleep,
Speaker 2: it kills our brain and exposes us to increase cancer risk.
Speaker 2: We have to make those hard decisions and so those
Speaker 2: are some of the other tools that we can use
Speaker 2: to optimize our aging process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean you only have to look at
Speaker 1: the broad range of physical health profiles in people sixty
Speaker 1: and over, where you've got such a broad range. You know,
Speaker 1: people in your twenties and thirties, you can get away
Speaker 1: with so much, and then you really start to see
Speaker 1: the impact of people's choices later in life, where you've
Speaker 1: got the ninety year old that's out there playing pickleball
Speaker 1: versus you know, someone that's in a wheelchair. And interestingly,
Speaker 1: in the programs that I run, I am just surrounded
Speaker 1: by highly motivated people that want this too, and I
Speaker 1: love that. And that's why the education that you're doing
Speaker 1: is so important, because most of us are like, we
Speaker 1: want to do this, but we're just a little bit
Speaker 1: confused or overwhelmed. And I guess I want to touch
Speaker 1: on your book Unbreakable, which is incredible.
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
Speaker 1: This concept of aging with power really struck me because
Speaker 1: a while ago, the word aging had a bit of
Speaker 1: a negative connotation in my mind about oh well, it's
Speaker 1: this decline and it's this thing I don't have any
Speaker 1: control over. But this reframing of aging with power really
Speaker 1: struck a chord with me. What does aging with power
Speaker 1: mean to you when you get to see the spectrum
Speaker 1: you know under the hood as well, even with you
Speaker 1: and your own personal journey?
Speaker 3: What does aging with power mean?
Speaker 2: So when I look ahead to ninety seven, I've arbitrarily
Speaker 2: chosen ninety seven as a goal, not the end. But
Speaker 2: if I make it there, I will have, you know,
Speaker 2: everything else is bonus. And the reason I chose that
Speaker 2: is because when I was thinking through Unbreakable, I was
Speaker 2: fifty seven years old and realized that I wanted to
Speaker 2: live long enough to be around to bug my daughter,
Speaker 2: my youngest daughter, until she was my age. Oh I
Speaker 2: love that because I had her at forty so I
Speaker 2: was an older mother, and so I need to be
Speaker 2: around till ninety seven. So when she's my age, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: you're good, I'll see you later. But at ninety seven,
Speaker 2: I want to do what I want to do whenever
Speaker 2: I want to do it without having to ask for
Speaker 2: help unless I want to, And I only want to
Speaker 2: be in a wheelchair because I want to be in
Speaker 2: the front of the line in the airplane line, not
Speaker 2: because I can't walk down the jetway. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: a little nickty, and that's what I want, right, But
Speaker 2: it doesn't come free. There is work involved in preparing
Speaker 2: for that goal. I mean, I have this fantasy of
Speaker 2: I was raised on a farm and with hundreds of
Speaker 2: acres and all these animals, and I have a fantasy
Speaker 2: and I've lived in the city ever since I left home.
Speaker 2: I've got this fantasy of getting a tiny little farm
Speaker 2: and having miniature goats and a miniature donkey. And well,
Speaker 2: to do that, I'm gonna have to be a little
Speaker 2: bit able, right, not disabled, but able.
Speaker 3: Oh I love that.
Speaker 1: I've just got images of you with your buckets and
Speaker 1: your donkeys eor and.
Speaker 3: You're like, that's drying my way. I'm coming through the
Speaker 3: old lady's coming in.
Speaker 2: But to do that, I need to work at it now.
Speaker 2: Because what I see in my ors that I talk
Speaker 2: about when I talk and I write, is I see
Speaker 2: the future of frail women every single day who either
Speaker 2: didn't know that they needed to invest in their future,
Speaker 2: or knew but didn't and just thought there would always
Speaker 2: be time, and you know, showing up with broken hips
Speaker 2: and continence, dementia, heart disease, and sometimes saying listen, I
Speaker 2: wasn't always like this, and you know, thinking about the
Speaker 2: pathway that how did I get here? I've not always
Speaker 2: been like this, So that's a motivation. So when I
Speaker 2: think about aging and longevity, I don't just think about
Speaker 2: it as a timeline. It's not just a timeline of
Speaker 2: memorable moments like turning thirty or you know, my last
Speaker 2: child leaving the house, or being firmly middle eight. I
Speaker 2: don't think it is a timeline. I think of it
Speaker 2: as a design plan. Aging requires design. Longevity in the
Speaker 2: way you want to live is by design. It's not
Speaker 2: by accident. It's not by timeline alone. It's by design.
Speaker 2: And this comes from me being an elite sports doctor.
Speaker 2: In my day job, I work with collegiate and professional
Speaker 2: athletes and high performance people, and if we're going to
Speaker 2: squeeze performance out of these people, we do it by design,
Speaker 2: right in a planned way. And so I wrote a
Speaker 2: book many years ago that was basically a strategic plan
Speaker 2: for your health. Right, we have plans for everything, a
Speaker 2: design for everything, but not our health in general. When
Speaker 2: I was writing Unbreakable, I took elements of that framework
Speaker 2: I had always used to take people through. How do
Speaker 2: we identify our values? Using our values? How do we
Speaker 2: identify our goals? Knowing our goals? How do we assess
Speaker 2: where we are and then build a plan by design
Speaker 2: around that?
Speaker 3: Oh that is just music to my ears.
Speaker 1: Somebody who's very I love being organized and having structure
Speaker 1: and being clear.
Speaker 3: And everything you've.
Speaker 1: Just said then is like absolutely, and you're so right.
Speaker 1: This needs to be very intentional. It's not something that
Speaker 1: you know just happens organically. You need to really focus
Speaker 1: on particular areas.
Speaker 3: And I think exercise is an interesting one.
Speaker 1: Because you know, if exercise a lot of people just
Speaker 1: getting their shoes on, getting out, going for power walks,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe doing the odd class here or there.
Speaker 1: It's kind of, you know, organically ticks the exercise box.
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to focus on your exercise for
Speaker 1: your ninety seven year old self by design, what are
Speaker 1: some of the elements in that by design that you
Speaker 1: would like to see in our exercise programs?
Speaker 2: Well? I made up in an acronym to help people
Speaker 2: remember how to design their programs because when we're twenty
Speaker 2: and life is easy in terms of physical health in general,
Speaker 2: you can get away with anything. But by design it
Speaker 2: requires at least four elements. And the acronym is face
Speaker 2: face face Your future f is flexibility and joint range
Speaker 2: of motion. Our muscles, tendons, and ligaments work best in
Speaker 2: their full length. As we age the bonds between the
Speaker 2: collagen of muscles, tendons and ligaments get tighter and tighter,
Speaker 2: so we need to pull them back out so that
Speaker 2: they function most optimally. That takes daily dynamic warm up stretching.
Speaker 2: And the other reason we need that is so our
Speaker 2: joints don't get so stiff that we start being shuffling
Speaker 2: people hunched over shuffling, right, you've seen it. So that's
Speaker 2: where pilates yoga. Daily dynamic stretching can be very helpful,
Speaker 2: but that's never going to be enough, right. We must
Speaker 2: then fa have an aerobic practice. We still have to
Speaker 2: keep our heart optimized. Women and men in this world
Speaker 2: die of heart disease. It's the number one killer of people.
Speaker 3: And the incidence for women goes up.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think we outperform men over fifty because
Speaker 1: until recently I always thought of heart diseases man's disease,
Speaker 1: but women unfortunately outperform men over fifty.
Speaker 2: When we lose our estrogen, our risk of microbasketar disease.
Speaker 2: The heart increases forty to fifty percent, so it's significant.
Speaker 2: So what is the aerobic pathway? Well, you know, I
Speaker 2: always like to ask people what are you even training for?
Speaker 2: And the reason I asked that is because if you're
Speaker 2: training for a race, well then there's really probably specific
Speaker 2: things you need to follow the training plan. But why
Speaker 2: are we on the high intensity rat race ferris wheel
Speaker 2: all the time?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Why every day do we gut it out at moderate
Speaker 2: ranges and end up hurt all the time? Because that's
Speaker 2: not how we train pro athletes. Pro athletes, they are
Speaker 2: recovery days that are low intensity and still useful, and
Speaker 2: then really high intensity days you have nothing else to give, right,
Speaker 2: and there's room for all of it. But what I
Speaker 2: see people doing is they're so embedded with circuit training
Speaker 2: and high intensity circuits and the same thing day after day.
Speaker 2: So it's more intense than base training, but it's not
Speaker 2: as intense as the highest heart rate you can get.
Speaker 1: Which is going to increase their fitness and their VO
Speaker 1: two max.
Speaker 2: Oh, their fitness. They're physiologic, everything physiologically ramps up because
Speaker 2: it's such a good stress. They're here in the muddy middle,
Speaker 2: and you know what happens. They're not only hurt all
Speaker 2: the time, but they don't see progress. They're not reshaping
Speaker 2: their body. They're not really getting fitter, and they are frustrated.
Speaker 1: And then they're hurting and they're wrung out because they
Speaker 1: come out of the gym feeling like they've slugged it.
Speaker 3: But you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2: They need to take a nap, yeah, and then they're
Speaker 2: because they do that every day. There's not the recovery
Speaker 2: that you need to truly improve, right, because I am
Speaker 2: suggesting people do high intensity, but it's with such in
Speaker 2: frequency that you have so much time to recover. So
Speaker 2: f a c here you go, crossfitter, carry a load.
Speaker 2: We must lift some heavy these stuff, and preferably a
Speaker 2: bar on your back or a bar on the ground
Speaker 2: that you deadlift, because our body must see that kind
Speaker 2: of stress. And as we lift, for peak performance and longevity,
Speaker 2: we have to lift heavier with fewer reps because that's
Speaker 2: what tells our body to get stronger. But I understand
Speaker 2: that it has not always been the culture for women
Speaker 2: to lift, and people may be starting on the couch,
Speaker 2: and that's okay because this is not a six week program.
Speaker 2: This is a lifestyle for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: So if it takes you six months, nine months a
Speaker 2: year to work up until you go from lifting mamby
Speaker 2: pamby pink weights to putting a bar on your back
Speaker 2: with the great form so you don't get hurt, that's okay.
Speaker 2: That's what it takes because in life there's not shortcuts.
Speaker 2: There's just slow and steady work that gets you where
Speaker 2: you're going. So fac he is equilibrium and balance. You
Speaker 2: may be strong, you may be fast, you may be flexible,
Speaker 2: but unless we have good balance, we can fall and
Speaker 2: break a bone and then over.
Speaker 1: I love it when you say balance and equilibrium. What's
Speaker 1: an example of a couple of things that people could
Speaker 1: do or include in their workouts to help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so easy. You can stand on one leg while
Speaker 2: you brush your teeth.
Speaker 3: Oh great.
Speaker 2: Or for the yoga people out there, you just strike
Speaker 2: a tree pose while you're brushing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yoga is great for this, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I get so wobbly and yoga.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all great because it doesn't take a lot. In fact,
Speaker 2: you can do it during the day. It's not an
Speaker 2: extra activity. Take a phone call standing on one leg
Speaker 2: and it will come back. Actually, when I'm standing on stage,
Speaker 2: I do this so often, demonstrating to you. I don't
Speaker 2: even realize, but I see pictures I'm standing on one
Speaker 2: leg on stage. Isn't that funny?
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about
Speaker 1: your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine,
Speaker 1: but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it.
Speaker 1: That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you
Speaker 1: better understand what's going on inside your body so that
Speaker 1: you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional
Speaker 1: health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to
Speaker 1: uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up
Speaker 1: with Dottyasmina, an incredible integrative GP and together we will
Speaker 1: help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like
Speaker 1: why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight?
Speaker 1: Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients?
Speaker 1: Because when you understand your body better, you can transform
Speaker 1: your health. Visit V three sixty dot health or check
Speaker 1: out the show notes for more. I want to circle
Speaker 1: back when you were talking about strength training and reps
Speaker 1: and you are saying fewer reps. Do you have a
Speaker 1: REP range? I know that my listener's doing to be
Speaker 1: light Well, what is the REP range?
Speaker 3: Is it three reps? Is it twelve reps? Is it
Speaker 3: eight reps?
Speaker 2: The research calls for three to six reps, which is
Speaker 2: really low reps high weight. In my book, I use
Speaker 2: four reps four sets, frankly, because that was the way
Speaker 2: I was taught. And the workout you see in the
Speaker 2: back of my book that's six week workout is actually
Speaker 2: my last powerlifting program. While I was writing the book,
Speaker 2: That's just what I was doing. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: put this one in. But there are a varieties, so
Speaker 2: very low reps high weight. Because here's why you got
Speaker 2: to know what your goal is in midlife. Your goal
Speaker 2: is strength and power. If you want endurance, then you
Speaker 2: lift the lightest weight you can, the most reps you
Speaker 2: can two failure. You might fail at thirty reps at
Speaker 2: five pounds, but you're lifting to failure trying to hypertrophy,
Speaker 2: or just build bigger muscles. Then you do medium rep
Speaker 2: ranges ten to fifteen. They're not as heavy, but you're
Speaker 2: just damaging your muscle enough that it's going to get big.
Speaker 2: For strength, you need two things. You need neuromuscular coordination
Speaker 2: and you need muscle strength, and you get that with
Speaker 2: higher weights, lower reps. So four reps four sets. There's
Speaker 2: another protocol that's very popular and comes out of Sorry
Speaker 2: doctor Beck, I can't remember if you're in Australia or
Speaker 2: a New Zealand of Australia.
Speaker 3: I've had her on my podcast, Yes, Belinda Beck. She's amazing.
Speaker 1: Lift more guys, if you're interested in bone health and strength.
Speaker 3: It's a great episode. Actually, she's wonderful.
Speaker 2: She is, she's great. I've heard I've never met her,
Speaker 2: but I've heard her on episodes. But her protocol for
Speaker 2: women with osteoporosis is still five reps five sets. It's
Speaker 2: still very heavy. And so what that looks like if
Speaker 2: you're imagining it. If we take my example, four reps
Speaker 2: four sets on a bench press, let's just power lift today.
Speaker 2: So if you're doing four reps on the bench press,
Speaker 2: you're lifting your fourth rep and that you know you're
Speaker 2: getting a little shaky, but you can do it. You
Speaker 2: put it down and you do a fifth one and
Speaker 2: you're not sure that you can top it out all
Speaker 2: the way. You're getting there, but you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I made it, but you're probably not doing a sixth
Speaker 2: rep because you're going to drop the weights off of
Speaker 2: one side. That is what failure is, and so sometimes
Speaker 2: it needs people around just to make sure you're safe.
Speaker 3: It needs good form.
Speaker 1: And for my ladies listening, they're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I've been doing twelve reps on what did you say
Speaker 1: the pink mamby Bambi.
Speaker 2: Well, twelve reps is moderate. It can you it's the
Speaker 2: pink weights that you lift thirty times. I've had women
Speaker 2: tell me I do thirty reps. Well that's fine if
Speaker 2: your goal is endurance, but who's doing for endurance these days? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, I think the great thing about it most of
Speaker 1: us are very time pole. So the great news is
Speaker 1: it's actually less reps and so you will get your
Speaker 1: workout done, although you need adequate rest. But it is
Speaker 1: such a reframe because it can feel scary to go
Speaker 1: to fan for some people that aren't used to that,
Speaker 1: but I think it's such an important point and obviously
Speaker 1: this is what bone health.
Speaker 3: Needs as well. Can you explain why you can have
Speaker 3: people who have been strength training or thought they've been
Speaker 3: strength training, but they're still presenting with osteopena or osteoporosis?
Speaker 3: What do we need to do to prevent that?
Speaker 2: And you know what, those people are so disappointed. I
Speaker 2: mean I see them every day. They've been doing everything
Speaker 2: air quote right. Well, there are lots of reasons. Maybe
Speaker 2: they were young female athletes and never had a period
Speaker 2: for six to nine months and never laid down the bone,
Speaker 2: so they didn't have a very high peak bone density
Speaker 2: at thirty. Maybe they were those Maybe they were in
Speaker 2: their youth the fat skinny people where you look relief
Speaker 2: in but you're not eating enough, so your body composition
Speaker 2: is forty percent fat, right, so you're not really strong
Speaker 2: than either. Or maybe you're a high level athlete as
Speaker 2: a young person and just never ate enough. Right. It
Speaker 2: takes a lot a lot of calories, so maybe you
Speaker 2: never built peak bone density. Maybe you were one of
Speaker 2: the moms that got the osteoporosis of pregnancy, because it's
Speaker 2: a it's a real entity. Did you know that? Is
Speaker 2: that right?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I did not know that.
Speaker 2: Yes, So that to build a baby, it takes about
Speaker 2: five hundred milligrams of calcium a day. If we are
Speaker 2: not taking that in, I mean, it's just what we
Speaker 2: do nature, it's natural. So where our bodies work, our
Speaker 2: bodies will take it from our bones because we prioritize
Speaker 2: our baby.
Speaker 3: These babies literally sucking the.
Speaker 2: Cal in the most loving way.
Speaker 3: I had four of them in five years.
Speaker 1: So you're so busy, I feel like I'm lucky I've
Speaker 1: got any bone left.
Speaker 2: Well, our body will rebuild. We are designed to rebuild
Speaker 2: our bones, but not unless we eat enough. Right, So
Speaker 2: a young mothers who are so sleep deprived and breastfeeding
Speaker 2: and all the things, have to remember to eat.
Speaker 1: It's so frustrating because then we also look at, you know,
Speaker 1: the obesity epidemic, and we've got a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: people that are also you know, overfed. And it's such
Speaker 1: a delicate balance. And I think this is why we
Speaker 1: have to understand our own unique bodies.
Speaker 3: So so well.
Speaker 1: But if we're sitting here in midlife and we really
Speaker 1: want to prioritize our bone health as far as strength
Speaker 1: training goes obviously that's a key one. What are a
Speaker 1: couple of the kind of top tips that you have
Speaker 1: for us to improving our bone health at this age?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so I was trying to think of an acronym
Speaker 2: for that the other day. I couldn't quite get it.
Speaker 2: Maybe you guys can help me. But there are really
Speaker 2: four things. You have to make your hormone optimization decision
Speaker 2: because body identical estrogen is critical for bone health, and
Speaker 2: you know if you choose not to do it, it's
Speaker 2: your decision. However, you will continue to be in overabsorption
Speaker 2: and underbuilding forever. We know that there's no getting around that.
Speaker 2: So make your hormone optimization decision number one. Number two
Speaker 2: talked about lifting and lifting heavy because muscles pull on
Speaker 2: bone and create impact. Essentially, Number three you need to jump.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is not spoken about enough jumping impact training.
Speaker 2: That's right. We did a study years ago. It was
Speaker 2: such an old study, but asking amongst master's age athletes
Speaker 2: which are fifteen above, what does it take across a
Speaker 2: lifespan to maintain bone density into your eighties? And first
Speaker 2: we answered the question can you by remaining active? Yes?
Speaker 2: But what kind of sports all the impact sports, not swimming,
Speaker 2: not bowling, not dancing, impact sports, the jumping ones. So
Speaker 2: lots of people stop jumping, People stop sprinting, they stop jumping.
Speaker 2: It's not that you're incapable, you just stop. So for
Speaker 2: effective bone jumping, it's off an eight inch step, which
Speaker 2: is like the bottom of your staircase at home. That's
Speaker 2: about eight inches. Just jump off and land hard and
Speaker 2: then but anything I'll do hopscotch, jump, rope jumping up
Speaker 2: and down. And if you can't because your knees are
Speaker 2: killing you, then the space programs use trampolines to get
Speaker 2: their astronauts back at it. So make your hormone decision.
Speaker 2: Lift jump. And can we please feed our bones? Can
Speaker 2: we please eat enough protein bones or fifty percent protein?
Speaker 2: Can we please eat high calcium food such as dairy
Speaker 2: salmon with the bones, bock choi, prunes, mushrooms, there's you know,
Speaker 2: you can google what foods have the most calcium and
Speaker 2: eat those. Well.
Speaker 1: I would actually love to get you back on if
Speaker 1: that's okay to talk about calcium and to talk about
Speaker 1: some nutritional strategies, because I see in our ladies and
Speaker 1: our programs such aversion to calcium rich foods that I'd
Speaker 1: love to get your take on that, so I'll put
Speaker 1: you back in on that. It's one that I want
Speaker 1: to deep dive with you. Oh gosh, I could speak
Speaker 1: to you all day. I want to just wrap all
Speaker 1: this amazing education up for a mom who's listening and
Speaker 1: she has just heard all this amazing wisdom that you've
Speaker 1: given us, and she's heard that calling from her older
Speaker 1: self that you really wants her to be focus intentional
Speaker 1: by design for her body so that she can thrive
Speaker 1: when she's ninety five ninety seven one hundred. What is
Speaker 1: a parting message that you'd have for my beautiful ladies
Speaker 1: in midlife that are ready ready to refocus on their
Speaker 1: bodies and their health.
Speaker 2: So I want you to know, ladies, that I see
Speaker 2: you and I hear you because I am you right,
Speaker 2: I am busy, I am the mother of a blended
Speaker 2: family of six children. I know you. But here's what
Speaker 2: you need to know. You need to know that you
Speaker 2: are worth the daily investment in your health. You are
Speaker 2: worth it. Everyone you take care of is not more
Speaker 2: important than you taking care of yourself. So I want
Speaker 2: you to give yourself the grace to know that it's
Speaker 2: so okay and it's not selfish to invest in your longevity.
Speaker 1: Doctor Vonda Wright, thank you so much for your time today,
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