1 00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:13,640 Speaker 1: Helllly, Welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Today we're 2 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:16,160 Speaker 1: going to dive into something that I think is a 3 00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:21,320 Speaker 1: real game changer, especially as we age, and that is 4 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:25,520 Speaker 1: the concept of muscular power, which I don't pronounce very well. 5 00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:31,880 Speaker 1: That's powe R muscular power. Now, we've long known that 6 00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:36,240 Speaker 1: VO two max, or cardio respiratory fitness is a massive 7 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:38,000 Speaker 1: predictor of how long we're going to live. 8 00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:39,680 Speaker 2: In fact, it's the biggest predictor. 9 00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:42,879 Speaker 1: And I've talked about that numerous times on the podcast, 10 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:44,400 Speaker 1: and it's won't be used. 11 00:00:44,159 --> 00:00:45,360 Speaker 2: To any of our listeners. 12 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:49,760 Speaker 1: And numerous studies have shown that your level of fitness, 13 00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:52,960 Speaker 1: how well your heart and your lungs work during exertion, 14 00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:58,760 Speaker 1: is the strongest predictor of mortality. And more recently, research 15 00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:01,520 Speaker 1: has shown it's not just about your heart and your lungs. 16 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:05,480 Speaker 1: Muscle size and strength also matter. And I've also done 17 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:09,720 Speaker 1: a podcast on that. I've talked before about hand grip strength, 18 00:01:10,920 --> 00:01:15,160 Speaker 1: for example, is a very well validated proxy. 19 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:17,800 Speaker 2: For overall muscle strength and. 20 00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:23,840 Speaker 1: Is associated with reduced risk for cardiovascar disease, metabolic issues, 21 00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:27,440 Speaker 1: and all cause mortality. If you have good hand grip strength, 22 00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:30,160 Speaker 1: and again it's not just about your grip. That's a 23 00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:34,880 Speaker 1: proxy for overall muscle strength. And we know that lower 24 00:01:34,880 --> 00:01:38,360 Speaker 1: body leg strength is also a strong predictor of mortality. 25 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:42,640 Speaker 1: But today I want to talk about muscular power and 26 00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:48,520 Speaker 1: why it's an even better predictor of survival than muscle strength. 27 00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:52,480 Speaker 1: And it's a really good study from the what's called 28 00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:56,000 Speaker 1: the clinemex Cohort, and it was just been published in 29 00:01:56,080 --> 00:02:00,200 Speaker 1: the Male Clinic Proceedings and the results I think are 30 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,960 Speaker 1: pretty profound. So let's talk about the difference between strength 31 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:08,280 Speaker 1: and power. Strength is how much force that you can produce. 32 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:12,000 Speaker 1: Think about your max dead lift or how tightly you 33 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:16,600 Speaker 1: can squeeze one of those grip dynamometers, but it is 34 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,920 Speaker 1: static and it's raw. Power, on the other hand, is 35 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:25,680 Speaker 1: how quickly you can generate that force. It's force time's 36 00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:29,200 Speaker 1: velocity or force times distance divided by time. 37 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:31,720 Speaker 2: So it's not just how hard. 38 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:34,800 Speaker 1: You can lift or push or pull something, it's how 39 00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:36,040 Speaker 1: fast you can do it. 40 00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:37,560 Speaker 2: And here's the kicker. 41 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:43,600 Speaker 1: Muscular power declines even faster than strength as we age, 42 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:48,279 Speaker 1: and that's a problem because as you get older, everyday 43 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:54,120 Speaker 1: tasks like rising from mature climbing, stirs and especially stopping 44 00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:55,480 Speaker 1: yourself from falling. 45 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:57,880 Speaker 2: They rely heavily. 46 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:02,200 Speaker 1: On muscular power, not just strength, and muscular power comes 47 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:07,000 Speaker 1: from those fast twitched fibers that decline quickest as we 48 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:10,440 Speaker 1: start to age. In fact, your fast twitched fibers started 49 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:12,480 Speaker 1: decline from your thirties onwards. 50 00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:13,440 Speaker 2: So in this. 51 00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:17,639 Speaker 1: Study, the researchers followed nearly four thousand individuals, which is 52 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:20,800 Speaker 1: a pretty good sized cohort. Now, they were mostly men, 53 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:24,160 Speaker 1: and there were ages between forty six and seventy five 54 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:26,400 Speaker 1: at the start of the study, and they followed them 55 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:27,560 Speaker 1: for almost eleven years. 56 00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:31,440 Speaker 2: And they measured relative muscular. 57 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:35,240 Speaker 1: Par using an upper body rowing movement and compared it 58 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:38,880 Speaker 1: with relative strength using the hand grip tests. So what 59 00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:41,800 Speaker 1: I mean by relative is they adjusted for body weight, 60 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:44,600 Speaker 1: so they divided the par or the strength divided by 61 00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:47,760 Speaker 1: your body weight, so it's normalized. So it's not about 62 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:50,920 Speaker 1: how big or heavy you are, it's about how much 63 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:54,440 Speaker 1: par or strength you had for your size. And this 64 00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:57,760 Speaker 1: is the great leveler for everybody. And what they found 65 00:03:57,880 --> 00:04:02,600 Speaker 1: was pretty remarkable find. And as we know, strength is 66 00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:07,040 Speaker 1: a strong predictor of mortality, but relative power was a 67 00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:12,320 Speaker 1: much stronger predictive of mortality than strength alone, and in fact, 68 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:16,640 Speaker 1: for men, being in the lowest tier of muscular power 69 00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:22,320 Speaker 1: carried nearly a sixfold increased risk of dying compared to 70 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:25,839 Speaker 1: those in the highest tier, and for women it was 71 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:29,640 Speaker 1: even higher, close to seven times the risk for those 72 00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:32,560 Speaker 1: who had the least versus those who had the most, 73 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:36,560 Speaker 1: and this held up even when they controlled for things 74 00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:40,719 Speaker 1: like age, wete to height, ratio, and chronic health conditions. 75 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:45,480 Speaker 1: So we've known for a while that your cardobascular fitness 76 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:48,560 Speaker 1: is hugely important. And we've also known that your strength, 77 00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:52,320 Speaker 1: whether it's tand grip or leg overall strength matters, but 78 00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:57,520 Speaker 1: how fast you can move matters more. Now why does 79 00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:01,720 Speaker 1: this matter? So as we age the velocity component of 80 00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:06,040 Speaker 1: muscle function, your ability to move quickly declines earlier and 81 00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:09,960 Speaker 1: more steeply than strength does. And it makes sense when 82 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:11,920 Speaker 1: you think about functional decline. 83 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:14,240 Speaker 2: What often happens as people age. 84 00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:17,360 Speaker 1: They struggle to get out of a chair quickly, They 85 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,280 Speaker 1: fall over because they can't regain their feet or their 86 00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:24,160 Speaker 1: hands quickly. They then fracture a hip. And as I've 87 00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:26,640 Speaker 1: said before, if you fracture a hip in your sixties 88 00:05:26,720 --> 00:05:28,839 Speaker 1: or seventies, you got a fifty percent chance of being 89 00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:33,000 Speaker 1: dead within the next five years. So par training, therefore 90 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:36,520 Speaker 1: isn't just for athletes or CrossFit junkies. It's a critical 91 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:40,240 Speaker 1: part of maintaining independence and extending lifespan. And it actually 92 00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:44,200 Speaker 1: reminds me back of the time when I owned PTA Academy, 93 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:48,560 Speaker 1: personal Training Academy. We used to train personal trainers and 94 00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:52,560 Speaker 1: certify them, and I always said, when you're training older adults, 95 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:57,200 Speaker 1: muscular power is the most important thing. And this has 96 00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:01,080 Speaker 1: really been borne out by this study. Back then it 97 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:05,400 Speaker 1: was it was kind of more theory, but now it's 98 00:06:05,760 --> 00:06:08,120 Speaker 1: very very clear in terms of the outcome. 99 00:06:08,600 --> 00:06:10,320 Speaker 2: And now there's a. 100 00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:13,719 Speaker 1: Really interesting point that the authors in the study reised 101 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,880 Speaker 1: our current definition of sarcopenia, which you'll have heard me 102 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:21,520 Speaker 1: talk about that age related loss of muscle mass and 103 00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:25,640 Speaker 1: function that actually ignores muscular par. 104 00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 2: And that is probably a big miss. 105 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:35,320 Speaker 1: This paper argues that muscular par should absolutely be included 106 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:39,599 Speaker 1: in how we define and assess sycopenia because it's more 107 00:06:39,680 --> 00:06:44,640 Speaker 1: closely linked to actual outcomes like falls, disability, and even death. 108 00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:46,839 Speaker 2: So let's get practical. 109 00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:51,120 Speaker 1: If muscular power is so important, what type of training 110 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:52,360 Speaker 1: should we be doing? 111 00:06:52,839 --> 00:06:53,039 Speaker 2: Right? 112 00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:57,279 Speaker 1: So, This isn't just about lifting heavy weights. It's about 113 00:06:57,400 --> 00:06:59,800 Speaker 1: moving resistance quickly right. 114 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:00,920 Speaker 2: And it can. 115 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,320 Speaker 1: Be a relatively heavy weight that you try to move 116 00:07:04,360 --> 00:07:08,159 Speaker 1: as fast as possible, or it can be a lightweight 117 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:12,560 Speaker 1: that's moved very very quickly. Right, So you can take 118 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,000 Speaker 1: a bench press and get a really heavy weight and 119 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:18,200 Speaker 1: try to move those past as possible, or you can 120 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:20,920 Speaker 1: have that weight and really get quite explosive. 121 00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:24,280 Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be a bench press. Great stuff 122 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:24,720 Speaker 2: for this. 123 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:29,200 Speaker 1: Is jumping squats or even skipping, and think about what's happening. 124 00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:33,320 Speaker 1: You're generating par from your legs whenever you're skipping and 125 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,559 Speaker 1: doing jumping squats is really good. 126 00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:37,800 Speaker 2: Medicine, ball throws, those sorts of. 127 00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:42,720 Speaker 1: Things, and anything that's fast movement with resistance bands can 128 00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:47,520 Speaker 1: actually be really excellent for power work because they naturally 129 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:52,840 Speaker 1: increase the resistance as you increase that range of motion. 130 00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:56,600 Speaker 1: So resistance bands are actually a very safe and effective 131 00:07:56,640 --> 00:07:59,880 Speaker 1: way to do par training. And if you're a little 132 00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:04,680 Speaker 1: bit older, this is things like the sitt sitting stand tests, 133 00:08:04,720 --> 00:08:06,360 Speaker 1: So how many times can you get up and down 134 00:08:06,440 --> 00:08:10,240 Speaker 1: out of a chair in a minute. It's walking quickly 135 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:15,040 Speaker 1: up and downstairs, but even doing pliometrics. So if you're 136 00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:18,520 Speaker 1: a bit older and really not that confident, just doing 137 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:21,480 Speaker 1: little bunny hops is really beneficial. 138 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:23,800 Speaker 2: That is going to develop your power. 139 00:08:24,200 --> 00:08:26,640 Speaker 1: It's also going to help with bone density. We know 140 00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:31,160 Speaker 1: that walking does nothing for bone density, whereas jumping is 141 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:33,839 Speaker 1: actually good for bone density. And then if you're a 142 00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:37,840 Speaker 1: bit younger, and it's about then using resistance. But remember 143 00:08:38,480 --> 00:08:42,199 Speaker 1: it's about moving that way whatever it is, reduce the 144 00:08:42,360 --> 00:08:45,880 Speaker 1: amount and move it really quickly. And when you're doing 145 00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:49,720 Speaker 1: a par training workout, the key is that you don't 146 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:53,520 Speaker 1: go to complete fatigue. You go you leave a number 147 00:08:53,559 --> 00:08:56,040 Speaker 1: of reps left in the tank because it's really it's 148 00:08:56,080 --> 00:09:00,960 Speaker 1: about that explosiveness that's really key. So in something up, 149 00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:05,079 Speaker 1: this research is really pushing us to rethink how we 150 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:09,559 Speaker 1: assess and train for longevity. For years, it was all 151 00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:14,160 Speaker 1: about cardiovascular fitness, then strength come into the fold, and 152 00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:18,640 Speaker 1: now muscular power seems to be the missing third pillar 153 00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:22,200 Speaker 1: that really ties it all together. So yes, keep doing 154 00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:26,880 Speaker 1: your cardio, keep lifting heavy shit, but remember to move 155 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:28,320 Speaker 1: it quickly every. 156 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:30,760 Speaker 2: Now and then. That's it for this week, folks, Catch 157 00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:31,319 Speaker 2: you next time.