Latest / The You Project / #1925 We Grow Old Because We Stop Playing - Harps
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: I get a team. I hope you're bloody great. It's me.
- 0:03Speaker 2: So today I want to do something different. It's very different.
- 0:06Speaker 2: I've never done a podcast like this before. So I'm
- 0:08Speaker 2: going to say up front, some of you this will
- 0:10Speaker 2: be interesting. Some of you we will be relevant.
- 0:15Speaker 1: For some of you it might.
- 0:16Speaker 2: Just be an interesting listen because you are a trainer,
- 0:22Speaker 2: or you are an exercise physiologist, or you are a
- 0:24Speaker 2: group exercise teacher, or you work with older people who
- 0:28Speaker 2: or you work in the health wellness space more broadly.
- 0:33Speaker 2: But I just want to give you some ideas. I
- 0:35Speaker 2: want to share some ideas and thoughts and exercises and
- 0:39Speaker 2: activities which I believe are really really underutilized and I
- 0:45Speaker 2: believe are potentially powerful, helpful and potentially transformational additions to
- 0:58Speaker 2: anyone's kind of day. So one of the things that
- 1:01Speaker 2: happens is as we get older, quite often and quite obviously,
- 1:06Speaker 2: we tend to stop doing a lot of things that
- 1:08Speaker 2: we did when we were kids. You know, running and
- 1:09Speaker 2: playing and moving in lots of directions and climbing shit
- 1:12Speaker 2: and jumping shit, and you know, playing with balls and
- 1:15Speaker 2: throwing balls and catching balls and just a lot of
- 1:19Speaker 2: incidental fun based stuff that we did for no reason
- 1:24Speaker 2: other than just to hang out with our friends or
- 1:26Speaker 2: to have fun.
- 1:27Speaker 1: Or to move or to.
- 1:30Speaker 2: You know, whatever it was. But we don't do that
- 1:32Speaker 2: when we get older. And while I understand why we
- 1:35Speaker 2: don't do that, it would actually be great for us
- 1:39Speaker 2: if we did maintain a level of I don't need
- 1:43Speaker 2: to do this, but I'm gonna do this activity, a
- 1:47Speaker 2: level of fun, a level of play into our day
- 1:50Speaker 2: to day kind of operating system.
- 1:53Speaker 1: So, I mean, you all know that I'm going.
- 1:56Speaker 2: To advocate for strength training for older people and for
- 1:59Speaker 2: you know, lifting and doing some pilarates or doing some
- 2:03Speaker 2: body weight stuff, and doesn't matter where the environment is.
- 2:06Speaker 2: And you know, walking every day, you know, ten thousand
- 2:09Speaker 2: steps give or take something like that.
- 2:12Speaker 1: You know all of that stuff. So today is not
- 2:14Speaker 1: going to be that.
- 2:15Speaker 2: Today's me suggesting some or giving you some movement options,
- 2:23Speaker 2: some options for your body. None of them are particularly
- 2:27Speaker 2: hard at all. I had a look at the list.
- 2:29Speaker 2: I've got ten things on my list. My dad could
- 2:33Speaker 2: do these. I'm not saying it could do all of
- 2:34Speaker 2: them brilliantly. But Ron is somewhat restricted at the moment,
- 2:38Speaker 2: and he's eighty five he's eighty six in a week
- 2:41Speaker 2: or two in fact, next week July four, Happy birthday,
- 2:44Speaker 2: old fella next week as I record this, And there's
- 2:49Speaker 2: just a lot of stuff that we can do to
- 2:51Speaker 2: maintain function as we get older, but we tend not
- 2:56Speaker 2: to do a lot of really easy to do things
- 3:01Speaker 2: just because.
- 3:02Speaker 1: I don't know, just because that's what life dictates, that's
- 3:04Speaker 1: where we're at.
- 3:07Speaker 2: So by introducing some of this stuff, or all of
- 3:10Speaker 2: this stuff, like I've said, there's ten things, it might
- 3:13Speaker 2: be one, might be two, three, four or five. It
- 3:15Speaker 2: could be the whole lot. None of them are hard.
- 3:17Speaker 2: Like I said, Now, let me just preface this by saying,
- 3:21Speaker 2: of course, this is not a personal prescription or program.
- 3:25Speaker 2: If you are worried about any of these from a
- 3:28Speaker 2: health or a safety perspective, for you, see your doctor,
- 3:34Speaker 2: see your exercise physiologist, or your trainer, or probably a
- 3:37Speaker 2: doctor and say, look, this is some of the stuff
- 3:39Speaker 2: I heard might not be a bad idea to incorporate
- 3:42Speaker 2: into my day to day.
- 3:43Speaker 1: What do you think some of you will know?
- 3:46Speaker 2: You probably don't need to go to that length because
- 3:48Speaker 2: none of this is particularly intense or difficult or complicated
- 3:54Speaker 2: or requires an immense amount of skill or conditioning. So
- 4:01Speaker 2: without further ado, here are the ten things that I
- 4:04Speaker 2: reckon are great, free, relatively easy to do, don't require
- 4:11Speaker 2: any special equipment, don't require a special exercise outfit, but
- 4:18Speaker 2: done consistently, can really make a significant physiological functional shift.
- 4:29Speaker 2: And not just physiological and functional from movement point of view,
- 4:32Speaker 2: but also psychological and emotional, because we know when we
- 4:35Speaker 2: change our body, when we get a bit fitter and
- 4:37Speaker 2: a bit stronger, and a bit healthier, and a bit
- 4:39Speaker 2: more balance and a bit more all of those things,
- 4:41Speaker 2: we get a bit more confidence, and we get a
- 4:43Speaker 2: bit more joy. So it's this stuff is of course
- 4:47Speaker 2: it's in essence it's addressing physiology, but it kind of
- 4:54Speaker 2: there's a flow on effect to our mind and our
- 4:56Speaker 2: emotions and our day to day states. So that's really
- 5:00Speaker 2: portner as well. So the first thing I'm suggesting that
- 5:04Speaker 2: you do, if you're interested in trying this, is just
- 5:06Speaker 2: some real basic balance stuff. One of the things that
- 5:10Speaker 2: happens as we get older is we lose balance. One
- 5:13Speaker 2: of the biggest challenges and dangers and problems for people
- 5:17Speaker 2: over seventy is what's commonly referred to as age related falls,
- 5:22Speaker 2: and people fall for a couple of reasons. But one
- 5:27Speaker 2: of the reasons. One of the reasons is they don't
- 5:29Speaker 2: have enough muscle, They don't have enough strength to recover
- 5:31Speaker 2: if they trip. But also another really crucial factor is
- 5:36Speaker 2: they just their balance as shit. Their balance is not
- 5:39Speaker 2: what it once was. And so we know that at
- 5:43Speaker 2: any age, even my dad's age eighty five turn in
- 5:46Speaker 2: eighty six, my dad can still improve strength and balance
- 5:50Speaker 2: and coordination and you know, europic endurance and muscular endurance
- 5:54Speaker 2: given the right stimuli doing things the right way. He's
- 5:57Speaker 2: not going to make the Olympic team. He's not going
- 5:59Speaker 2: to run a sub you know, four minute mile, is
- 6:02Speaker 2: not going to bench press his own body weight anytime soon.
- 6:04Speaker 2: But what we know is that bodies are adaptable. And
- 6:09Speaker 2: if we go from doing nothing to like, if you
- 6:12Speaker 2: go from doing no balance work and then you introduce two, three, four,
- 6:16Speaker 2: five minutes a day of balance work, all things being equal,
- 6:20Speaker 2: you're going to see an improvement. It's not high risk,
- 6:23Speaker 2: it's not dangerous, it's not there's not too much exertion.
- 6:29Speaker 1: So when I say balance.
- 6:31Speaker 2: I'm suggesting you start with something like this, just standing
- 6:34Speaker 2: on one foot and you might want to do this
- 6:38Speaker 2: initially near a bench or near something, eyes open by
- 6:42Speaker 2: the way, eyes open facing the bench, where if you
- 6:46Speaker 2: feel like you're going to fall or over balance, you
- 6:48Speaker 2: can catch yourself, you can grab yourself. So my suggestion is,
- 6:52Speaker 2: you know, obviously one foot a time, one foot off
- 6:55Speaker 2: the ground, one on the ground, one off the ground,
- 6:59Speaker 2: and maybe installments of ten seconds. Start with ten seconds,
- 7:03Speaker 2: build up to fifteen and build up to thirty, build
- 7:05Speaker 2: up to maybe build up maybe to a minute. And
- 7:09Speaker 2: you might want to have your hands on your hips.
- 7:11Speaker 2: You might want to have them out to the side.
- 7:13Speaker 2: It probably doesn't matter too much. Typically you'll find it
- 7:17Speaker 2: a bit easier if your hands are not on your
- 7:20Speaker 2: hips but rather out to the side, because it allows
- 7:22Speaker 2: you to adjust and adapt and correct.
- 7:24Speaker 1: A little bit.
- 7:25Speaker 2: Now, I know this seems like as I'm saying this,
- 7:27Speaker 2: I'm like, this is so bloody fundamental. Do I really
- 7:32Speaker 2: need tell to tell people how to do this? And
- 7:34Speaker 2: probably not, I probably don't need to tell you how
- 7:37Speaker 2: to do it, But just the idea of saying, you know,
- 7:40Speaker 2: what if I incorporated three million, three minutes of balance
- 7:44Speaker 2: a day, so I did you know, right leg, left leg?
- 7:47Speaker 2: I'm just muck around like that, and I do three
- 7:50Speaker 2: minutes a day, that's twenty one minutes a week of
- 7:52Speaker 2: balance stuff. If I do it every day, that's twenty
- 7:55Speaker 2: one minutes a week. I'm investing into training my muscles
- 8:00Speaker 2: and my nervous system in a new and different way
- 8:03Speaker 2: to improve a really important component of fitness and mobility,
- 8:09Speaker 2: which is balance. And then you'll find, you know, maybe
- 8:13Speaker 2: you get to the point where you can do thirty
- 8:15Speaker 2: seconds really easily and it's not a challenge, then you
- 8:19Speaker 2: might want to try again stand close to something that
- 8:23Speaker 2: you can grab, but you might want to try with
- 8:26Speaker 2: your eyes closed, and that kind of that makes it
- 8:29Speaker 2: a whole new ball game. So I'm suggesting balance stuff,
- 8:34Speaker 2: you know, even like for those of you who are
- 8:38Speaker 2: you know, relatively fit, strong, functional, you might go Craig,
- 8:41Speaker 2: That's that's like too easy for me.
- 8:43Speaker 1: I'm going to go cool.
- 8:45Speaker 2: So what like, for example, I do is quite often
- 8:49Speaker 2: let's say I'm washing dishes. I might think this is bullshit.
- 8:52Speaker 2: This is one hundred percent true. If I'm washing the dishes,
- 8:55Speaker 2: I will see if I can wash all of the
- 8:57Speaker 2: dishes on one foot, and then I'll dry all of
- 9:00Speaker 2: the dishes on the other foot, so I might be
- 9:03Speaker 2: doing a task. Sometimes I'm currently sitting at my desk,
- 9:08Speaker 2: but it's a stand up desk, so it comes up
- 9:10Speaker 2: and down. Some days, I'm doing a podcast where I'm
- 9:14Speaker 2: chatting to someone and I'm standing, not sitting, and I
- 9:17Speaker 2: will just swap feet. I'll stand on one foot for
- 9:20Speaker 2: as long as I can, and then I'll stand on
- 9:23Speaker 2: the other foot. I'm still present, I'm still having the conversation.
- 9:25Speaker 2: No one knows what I'm doing, but I'm working my
- 9:29Speaker 2: nervous system and my muscular system, and I'm improving or
- 9:32Speaker 2: working on my balance while I'm doing something else. And yes,
- 9:36Speaker 2: that would equate to a man multitasking.
- 9:39Speaker 1: You welcome.
- 9:41Speaker 2: The next one, which is a no brainer, is stair
- 9:44Speaker 2: walking or maybe a light jog, depending on where you're at.
- 9:47Speaker 2: Stairs are great walking upstairs one at a time or
- 9:51Speaker 2: maybe two at a time. I have stairs in my house.
- 9:55Speaker 2: I probably walk up and downstairs twenty times a day.
- 9:58Speaker 2: You think about that over seven days, that's one hundred
- 10:01Speaker 2: and forty times a week. I'm climbing stairs. And that's
- 10:04Speaker 2: obviously not part of my exercise program. That's incidental, but
- 10:09Speaker 2: one of the by products of me climbing stairs one
- 10:11Speaker 2: hundred and forty times. It's probably more, it's probably two
- 10:14Speaker 2: hundred times a week. I'm up and down the stairs
- 10:16Speaker 2: all day because I work from home as well. But
- 10:21Speaker 2: one of the byproducts or benefits for me having been doing,
- 10:25Speaker 2: you know, two hundred flights of stairs every week of
- 10:28Speaker 2: my life for the last thirty years or so that
- 10:30Speaker 2: I've been living where I currently live, is that my
- 10:33Speaker 2: legs are actually really quite strong. So I've got quite
- 10:35Speaker 2: strong quads, quite strong butt, sorry to tell you that,
- 10:39Speaker 2: and quite good muscular endurance because I'm getting up and
- 10:42Speaker 2: down the stairs all the time. Now that's before I
- 10:45Speaker 2: even train my legs in the gym. But what we
- 10:48Speaker 2: know also when you're obviously when you're going up a step,
- 10:51Speaker 2: you're stepping with one foot ones remaining them bringing up
- 10:54Speaker 2: the other one. So there's an element of balance as well.
- 10:57Speaker 2: So if you can walk up the stairs, for those
- 11:00Speaker 2: of you can walk up the stairs without holding onto
- 11:03Speaker 2: a railing or a rail, I should say, if you
- 11:05Speaker 2: need to do. But walking up stairs and downstairs is
- 11:09Speaker 2: great for strength, great for a bit of muscular endurance,
- 11:13Speaker 2: great for aerobic endurance, and if you want to up
- 11:15Speaker 2: the intensity of course, you can step two steps at
- 11:18Speaker 2: a time, you.
- 11:19Speaker 1: Can vary the speed, you can do more volume. But
- 11:22Speaker 1: even you know.
- 11:24Speaker 2: Consciously doing five minutes a day where it's not incidental,
- 11:30Speaker 2: it's intentional. Or it could be a hill, it could
- 11:33Speaker 2: be a ramp. There's a ramp right near me which
- 11:39Speaker 2: is about eighty meters up, and I quite often I
- 11:43Speaker 2: walk down to the bottom of that ramp and I
- 11:45Speaker 2: run up the ramp and I do that. You know,
- 11:47Speaker 2: I don't sprint up, but again I might do that
- 11:49Speaker 2: five times, and that down and up the eighty meter
- 11:52Speaker 2: ramp might be sixty let's be honest, but it's really steep.
- 11:55Speaker 1: It's really steep.
- 11:59Speaker 2: And I do that five times every time I walk
- 12:02Speaker 2: past it, and that probably takes me in total four minutes.
- 12:04Speaker 2: So things like where we are actually carrying our body
- 12:08Speaker 2: weight uphill, be that you know, on a ramp or
- 12:11Speaker 2: an actual hill or stairs, greatful lower body strength, great fitness,
- 12:17Speaker 2: of course, you know, essentially pretty easy to execute.
- 12:22Speaker 1: And if you are older and more.
- 12:23Speaker 2: Frail and with worse balance, do it, but do it
- 12:26Speaker 2: slower and more carefully and hold on to the rail,
- 12:29Speaker 2: and you might graduate to no rail and more reps
- 12:33Speaker 2: or more stairs and a quicker speed over time. Number
- 12:36Speaker 2: three on my list is which I've spoken about once
- 12:40Speaker 2: or twice, is backward walking. Now, of course, when I
- 12:45Speaker 2: say walking backwards, this can be fraught with danger. I'm
- 12:48Speaker 2: suggesting you don't do it, you know, in Chapel Street
- 12:52Speaker 2: in Melbourne, or you don't do it in the middle
- 12:54Speaker 2: of people or a crowd. Of course, I would suggest
- 12:59Speaker 2: that if you want to try a bit of backward walking,
- 13:02Speaker 2: go slowly to start.
- 13:04Speaker 1: Do it on grass. The reason that I love.
- 13:07Speaker 2: I actually really love backward walking. I do that probably
- 13:10Speaker 2: a couple of times a week because I walk past
- 13:12Speaker 2: and oval and the oval that I walk past, I
- 13:16Speaker 2: try to walk from goal, well, I don't I walk,
- 13:19Speaker 2: not try to.
- 13:20Speaker 1: I walk from gold to goal up and back.
- 13:22Speaker 2: So I guess goal to goal up and back is
- 13:24Speaker 2: maybe three hundred meters maybe a bit more. Where I
- 13:28Speaker 2: walk backwards the whole way, and so there's nothing around me.
- 13:31Speaker 2: I can't trip over anything. There's over grass, there's grass
- 13:35Speaker 2: I'm walking on. I should say what's over grass? And
- 13:40Speaker 2: I guess you know. The beauty of this is that
- 13:44Speaker 2: you know, when you think about when we walk, obviously
- 13:47Speaker 2: we're always are generally moving in a forward direction most
- 13:50Speaker 2: of the time now and then laterally, but generally we
- 13:54Speaker 2: don't step sideway as much. We don't step to the
- 13:57Speaker 2: right or to the left much. In terms of the
- 14:00Speaker 2: total steps that we take per day, for most of us,
- 14:04Speaker 2: very close to one hundred percent of those steps would
- 14:06Speaker 2: be taken moving forward, obviously, But what is great for
- 14:12Speaker 2: our us, I'm going to be honest, our glut sclop
- 14:14Speaker 2: medius and all of those muscles around our bum in
- 14:18Speaker 2: our bum and our hamstrings, even lower back muscles. What's
- 14:23Speaker 2: great is backward walking because we're getting a bit of
- 14:26Speaker 2: strength through that kind of posterior area or that posterior
- 14:32Speaker 2: chain of muscles some people call it, where it is
- 14:35Speaker 2: quite often compared to the muscles on the front quads
- 14:39Speaker 2: hip flexes, all of that quite weak. So backward walking
- 14:43Speaker 2: is great. Also, backward walking is something that is recommended
- 14:47Speaker 2: by a lot of physios and a lot of EPs
- 14:52Speaker 2: for alleviating back pain. And I have had a history
- 14:56Speaker 2: of back pain, and since I've started it's not to
- 14:59Speaker 2: say that you can if you do backward walking you'll
- 15:01Speaker 2: never have back paint again. But for me it's been
- 15:03Speaker 2: a game changer and so I've probably been doing it
- 15:06Speaker 2: consistently for about three years and I've really had no
- 15:10Speaker 2: significant back issues. Well, I have had zero significant back
- 15:15Speaker 2: issues over that time. Whether or not that's coincidence, whether
- 15:18Speaker 2: that's correlation or causation, who the fuck knows, but I'm
- 15:21Speaker 2: going to keep doing it. Number four is what we
- 15:24Speaker 2: call a wall squad. Now, this is when you probably
- 15:27Speaker 2: know what it is. It's like you put your back
- 15:29Speaker 2: against the wall, preferably probably not a probably not a
- 15:34Speaker 2: plaster wall, unless you're sure it's in front of a
- 15:36Speaker 2: stud Probably you know, something quite sturdy, and then you
- 15:42Speaker 2: slide your torso your upper body down the wall until
- 15:46Speaker 2: your legs are bent at the knees and they are
- 15:48Speaker 2: in a right angle position or a ninety degree position
- 15:51Speaker 2: at the knees. So you're now supporting your body weight
- 15:56Speaker 2: against the wall.
- 15:56Speaker 1: So you're leaning so.
- 15:58Speaker 2: Your upper body and the top of your is leaning
- 16:00Speaker 2: against the wall. Your head is also against the wall.
- 16:04Speaker 2: Notice that your head is also against the wall, shoulders
- 16:07Speaker 2: against the wall, back pressed against the wall, top of
- 16:10Speaker 2: your bum against the wall, and then your legs are
- 16:13Speaker 2: at right angles in front of you, your feet are
- 16:15Speaker 2: on the ground, your knees are bent to ninety degrees
- 16:18Speaker 2: and you are just holding yourself there. Now, the way
- 16:22Speaker 2: that people do this, which makes it easier, which we
- 16:25Speaker 2: don't want is Oh. Also, by the way, I just thought,
- 16:29Speaker 2: how much backward walking in three to five minutes whenever
- 16:33Speaker 2: you get a chance to do it in terms of.
- 16:35Speaker 1: Volume wall squat.
- 16:37Speaker 2: So what you'll see a lot of people do is
- 16:41Speaker 2: their lower leg instead of it going straight down to
- 16:44Speaker 2: the ground vertically, they have their feet way forward, which
- 16:48Speaker 2: means it's the knee. The back of the knee joint
- 16:51Speaker 2: is not at a right angle, not at a ninety
- 16:53Speaker 2: degree angle. It's at a more obtuse or a bigger angle,
- 16:57Speaker 2: which takes the pressure off the odds.
- 17:00Speaker 1: We don't want that.
- 17:00Speaker 2: We want we want your need to be right angles,
- 17:03Speaker 2: your feet flat on the ground, and everything else against
- 17:07Speaker 2: the wall. Now, what what does this do? It builds strength,
- 17:12Speaker 2: It builds lower body strength. And it's a static contraction.
- 17:16Speaker 2: So your muscles are not you know, increasing or decreasing
- 17:22Speaker 2: in length through the movement.
- 17:24Speaker 1: They're just static.
- 17:26Speaker 2: So there's no eccentric or concentric contraction. There's just a
- 17:30Speaker 2: static hold. Now you might start with fifteen seconds and
- 17:35Speaker 2: go fuck with your fuck, that's pretty hard. Cool start
- 17:38Speaker 2: at fifty you might start at six seconds, you might
- 17:40Speaker 2: start at three minutes.
- 17:41Speaker 1: I mean.
- 17:42Speaker 2: But also if this is for you potentially dangerous, don't
- 17:46Speaker 2: know who you are, I don't know what your current
- 17:48Speaker 2: level of function is, then maybe don't do it. Having
- 17:52Speaker 2: said that, like if I was going to get my
- 17:55Speaker 2: dad to do this exercise I'm describing to you now,
- 17:58Speaker 2: instead of his legs being at right angles, I would
- 18:00Speaker 2: have his bum a bit higher on the wall, if
- 18:02Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So he's not in such
- 18:05Speaker 2: a deep squad. He's kind of in a partial squat,
- 18:07Speaker 2: halfway between being upright and being in that position that
- 18:11Speaker 2: I described. But even for someone who's eighty five being
- 18:15Speaker 2: in something of a wall squad, even if it's like
- 18:17Speaker 2: a half wall squad, that's a good place to start. Okay,
- 18:21Speaker 2: So we've got the balance stuff, the stairs, the hills,
- 18:24Speaker 2: the backward walking, the wall squad. Next one, I literally
- 18:28Speaker 2: have one of these, and my dad has one. I
- 18:30Speaker 2: took him up one two months ago, which is just
- 18:33Speaker 2: a rubber ball or a tennis ball you can use
- 18:37Speaker 2: to squeeze and you go, well, what's that about. Well,
- 18:40Speaker 2: we know that there's an absolute. There's research in fact
- 18:44Speaker 2: correlating stronger grip strength with longevity and not only a lifespan,
- 18:49Speaker 2: but also health span. Now we're not saying that just
- 18:53Speaker 2: including squeezing a ball into your program is going to
- 18:56Speaker 2: make you live ten years longer, but we do know
- 18:59Speaker 2: that there is a correlation between that because generally, when
- 19:03Speaker 2: someone's stronger in the grip, they're stronger in the forearms,
- 19:05Speaker 2: they're stronger in the body, and so on. So there,
- 19:08Speaker 2: whether or not that is causal or you know, causation
- 19:12Speaker 2: or correlation, I'm pretty sure it's correlation more than it
- 19:17Speaker 2: is causation. In other words, a strong grip doesn't make
- 19:19Speaker 2: you live twenty years longer, but definitely you know that.
- 19:23Speaker 2: Really easy, Just grab a ball, squeeze it in, hold
- 19:26Speaker 2: it as hard as you can for three seconds, let
- 19:29Speaker 2: it go. I'm doing it right now in my office.
- 19:32Speaker 2: I'm doing this squeezing movement.
- 19:34Speaker 1: It's hilarious.
- 19:37Speaker 2: So squeeze the ball for two or three seconds, let
- 19:39Speaker 2: it go. Squeeze it two or three seconds, hold let
- 19:43Speaker 2: it go. Do that five times each hand. Now, even
- 19:46Speaker 2: if you can only squeeze a little bit, whatever, you
- 19:48Speaker 2: can do one hundred percent for you is one hundred percent.
- 19:51Speaker 2: Your maximum squeeze might be someone else's easy squeeze or
- 19:54Speaker 2: vice versa. But what we do is when we do that,
- 19:59Speaker 2: where increasing grip strength, hand strength in general, forearm strength,
- 20:05Speaker 2: and certainly you know it's a very easy thing to
- 20:08Speaker 2: do with some pretty good benefits.
- 20:11Speaker 1: Speaking of balls, number six is bouncing the ball. Now.
- 20:13Speaker 2: One of my favorite sayings is we don't stop playing
- 20:17Speaker 2: because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing,
- 20:20Speaker 2: which I think George Bernard sure said. So I'm definitely
- 20:23Speaker 2: not taking credit for that, but you know it seems funny.
- 20:27Speaker 2: But the ball that I told you that I squeeze,
- 20:30Speaker 2: it's a yellow rubber ball. And I often, probably sixty
- 20:35Speaker 2: or seventy percent of the time when I go walking,
- 20:37Speaker 2: I take that ball with me and I often just
- 20:40Speaker 2: walk five k's say, seven thousand steps just bouncing the ball.
- 20:44Speaker 2: I'll be listening to a podcast or listening to a
- 20:47Speaker 2: lecture that I need to for UNI. I'll be walking
- 20:50Speaker 2: and I just bounced the ball on the footpath in
- 20:52Speaker 2: front of me, or the dirt in front of me,
- 20:54Speaker 2: from hand to hand, so across in front of me,
- 20:58Speaker 2: right to left, bouncing off the ground in between left
- 21:01Speaker 2: to right, bouncing off the ground in between, and again balance, coordinate, coordination,
- 21:11Speaker 2: put your teeth in harps. Really easy to do, fun,
- 21:16Speaker 2: good for you, good for hand eye coordination, and something
- 21:21Speaker 2: that creates a positive effect. And also like it's fun.
- 21:25Speaker 2: I know it seems weird and people look at me sometimes.
- 21:30Speaker 2: In fact, a lady said to me recently that looks
- 21:33Speaker 2: like fun, and I said, I'm a twelve year old
- 21:36Speaker 2: trapped in a sixty one year old body, and she laughed,
- 21:39Speaker 2: I said, and she said something like we should all
- 21:41Speaker 2: be so twelve, you know, or something like that. I'm like, yeah,
- 21:44Speaker 2: it's fun, and you know, it's I don't know.
- 21:47Speaker 1: To me.
- 21:47Speaker 2: I get in a little bit of flow state.
- 21:49Speaker 1: Just walk bounce, walk, bounce, walk bounce.
- 21:53Speaker 2: So you can use the same ball that you do
- 21:54Speaker 2: for your ball squeeze. Number seven still includes the ball,
- 21:58Speaker 2: although it could be a different a different ball. And
- 22:02Speaker 2: this is really coordination and a little bit of mobility
- 22:07Speaker 2: and strength and balance, which is throwing and catching.
- 22:11Speaker 1: Most people don't throw.
- 22:12Speaker 2: A ball after they're about eighteen or not regularly, or
- 22:16Speaker 2: even fourteen or fifteen. So five hundred meters from where
- 22:22Speaker 2: I live and by the way, I'm not trying to
- 22:24Speaker 2: be self indulgent here. I'm just giving you examples, like
- 22:26Speaker 2: if you want to find a way to do this shit,
- 22:28Speaker 2: you'll do it.
- 22:28Speaker 1: You'll do it. And if you think, you know.
- 22:32Speaker 2: One of the challenges with this stuff is it doesn't
- 22:34Speaker 2: seem high tech, it doesn't seem like groundbreaking. But if
- 22:41Speaker 2: people just did this stuff, but they just don't like
- 22:45Speaker 2: if old people just squeeze the ball all the time.
- 22:48Speaker 2: If old people, and I mean that with complete respect
- 22:51Speaker 2: because I'm one of them, walk some stairs. If old
- 22:54Speaker 2: people did some not think about it and not do
- 22:56Speaker 2: it three times, then never do it again. If old
- 22:59Speaker 2: people just bound the ball or throw a ball right,
- 23:02Speaker 2: and it could be throwing it to another person. It
- 23:04Speaker 2: could be an underhand throw. It doesn't have to be
- 23:06Speaker 2: an arm over your head, external rotation of the shoulder,
- 23:10Speaker 2: you know, world champion throw.
- 23:12Speaker 1: It can be under arm catch, under arm catch.
- 23:16Speaker 2: So right where two blocks from where I live, there's
- 23:19Speaker 2: a small park on a corner, and in the middle
- 23:22Speaker 2: of that is like a half basketball court on one
- 23:25Speaker 2: side and like on the other side are half a
- 23:27Speaker 2: tennis court with a brick wall in the middle. And
- 23:30Speaker 2: so I just go on the tennis side, and I
- 23:33Speaker 2: just throw my ball at the wall. I throw with
- 23:36Speaker 2: one hand, I catch with the other. I throw great
- 23:38Speaker 2: with my left hand because I'm left handed, and I
- 23:41Speaker 2: throw shit with my right hand because I'm left handed.
- 23:44Speaker 2: But I throw whatever hand I throw with, I catch
- 23:47Speaker 2: with the other. I do that for about one hundred throws.
- 23:50Speaker 2: Then I keep doing my walk. Now again, like these
- 23:54Speaker 2: things that seem really simple and childish are so good
- 23:59Speaker 2: for your nervousness, so good for your balance, so good
- 24:02Speaker 2: for your hand eye coordination, so good for keeping you young.
- 24:07Speaker 1: But you know, we just need to get out and
- 24:10Speaker 1: do it.
- 24:11Speaker 2: My suggestion to you, if this is resonating, and if
- 24:13Speaker 2: you're forty five or older, maybe an idea for you.
- 24:18Speaker 2: Of course, you know you're going to do something or nothing.
- 24:20Speaker 2: That's okay, and that's up to you, of course, but
- 24:23Speaker 2: you might choose two, three, four of these and go,
- 24:25Speaker 2: I'm just going to start to do this. I'm going
- 24:28Speaker 2: to start to do some of this just because it's
- 24:31Speaker 2: easy to do and there's some real.
- 24:32Speaker 1: Value in it.
- 24:34Speaker 2: So the next one that I'm going to.
- 24:35Speaker 1: Share with you is.
- 24:39Speaker 2: It's it's this is more for older people, but it's
- 24:45Speaker 2: called I call it a clock step, and what it
- 24:48Speaker 2: is is so this is probably I mean, anyone can
- 24:51Speaker 2: do this, but especially for people who are say sixty plus. Now,
- 24:56Speaker 2: if you know someone who's sixty plus or seventy plus
- 24:59Speaker 2: or eighty plus, you can.
- 25:00Speaker 1: Get them to do this.
- 25:01Speaker 2: And this is a really good exercise. So let's you
- 25:04Speaker 2: need to have a little bit of an imagination. So
- 25:06Speaker 2: you're standing on the floor. You've got a little bit
- 25:08Speaker 2: of space around you. So where you are standing is
- 25:10Speaker 2: the middle of a clock, right, So remember this activity
- 25:14Speaker 2: is called clock step clock step.
- 25:17Speaker 1: So you're in the middle of the clock.
- 25:19Speaker 2: Then you are you step forward from the middle of
- 25:24Speaker 2: the clock, which on this clock that's on the ground.
- 25:27Speaker 2: So you're stepping up to twelve let's say, left foot
- 25:30Speaker 2: forward and then right foot and then back to the
- 25:33Speaker 2: middle of the clock. Left foot back, right foot back. Cool.
- 25:36Speaker 2: So you've just gone from twelve o'clock back to the
- 25:38Speaker 2: middle of clock. Now you go to nine o'clock on
- 25:41Speaker 2: the ground, which is to your left. So you step
- 25:43Speaker 2: out left foot to the nine, bring your right foot
- 25:47Speaker 2: to the nine, then step back to the middle of
- 25:49Speaker 2: the clock with your right foot, bring your left foot
- 25:51Speaker 2: in to meet you you're back in the middle of clock.
- 25:53Speaker 2: So now you've gone twelve o'clock, nine o'clock, and now
- 25:56Speaker 2: you step to your right, which as we look at
- 25:58Speaker 2: the ground, as we step to the right, that would
- 26:00Speaker 2: be our three o'clock on our clock. So we step
- 26:03Speaker 2: out to the right with our right foot leading this time,
- 26:05Speaker 2: not left, so and we step laterally, so in other words,
- 26:08Speaker 2: we step out.
- 26:09Speaker 1: To the side.
- 26:10Speaker 2: We don't, so we keep facing the twelve o'clock. So
- 26:15Speaker 2: we're facing straight ahead, but we're stepping to the right.
- 26:18Speaker 2: Take right foot out, bring left foot to meet right,
- 26:21Speaker 2: then bring left foot back into the center of the clock,
- 26:24Speaker 2: right foot back in, and now you know what we're
- 26:26Speaker 2: going to do. We're going to step back to the six.
- 26:28Speaker 2: We're going to keep facing forward, and now we're going
- 26:31Speaker 2: back to the six left foot, back to the six
- 26:33Speaker 2: right foot, and then back into the middle of the clock.
- 26:36Speaker 2: Right now, so it's just a four way kind of
- 26:39Speaker 2: step where we're going forwards, we're going sideways, left, sideways right,
- 26:42Speaker 2: and then we're going backwards. But even just doing twenty
- 26:46Speaker 2: of those, twenty of those is probably going to take
- 26:50Speaker 2: you two hundred seconds, So like once around the clock
- 26:55Speaker 2: is maybe ten seconds. I actually haven't timed it, but
- 26:58Speaker 2: I'm guessing summer in that now, two hundred and seconds
- 27:01Speaker 2: of that. Let's round it down to one eighty to
- 27:04Speaker 2: make it three minutes.
- 27:05Speaker 1: That's quite a bit of work. That's quite a bit
- 27:07Speaker 1: of work.
- 27:08Speaker 2: Some people might start with three, some people might start
- 27:10Speaker 2: with five.
- 27:11Speaker 1: Just start whereever you start.
- 27:14Speaker 2: And this is really good for like if you've got
- 27:16Speaker 2: a mom or a dad, or a grandma or a
- 27:18Speaker 2: grandpa or somebody, or it might even be you where
- 27:22Speaker 2: you know you've had a hip operation or you've got
- 27:24Speaker 2: some kind of balance issues, or I don't do this
- 27:28Speaker 2: at the moment because I probably am a little bit
- 27:31Speaker 2: to advance for that. But there'll be a time in
- 27:33Speaker 2: my life where I really probably you know, in the
- 27:36Speaker 2: not too distant future, where I incorporate that and if
- 27:40Speaker 2: you really then want to go, I want to do
- 27:42Speaker 2: a more advanced version of that. Will then when you
- 27:45Speaker 2: step to the point on the clock, you bend your
- 27:47Speaker 2: knee a little bit and you do almost like a lunge,
- 27:51Speaker 2: like a lunge where you step into it, you bend
- 27:53Speaker 2: your knee, then you bring your other foot forward. Now,
- 27:55Speaker 2: whether or not you're going to twelve or nine or
- 27:58Speaker 2: three or six o'clock on clock, you can still do
- 28:01Speaker 2: that same kind of knee bending lunch movement. Again, if
- 28:04Speaker 2: you're worried about any of this, clear it with your
- 28:07Speaker 2: physio or your exercise scientist or your exercise physiologist or
- 28:12Speaker 2: you know the appropriate health fitness professional.
- 28:15Speaker 1: Two to go.
- 28:17Speaker 2: The second one is the second last one is easy,
- 28:23Speaker 2: easy to explain, and relatively easy to execute depending on
- 28:27Speaker 2: how you do it. So the second last one is
- 28:30Speaker 2: just weighted walking, and so you can do it a
- 28:35Speaker 2: couple of ways. There are actually vests that you can buy,
- 28:38Speaker 2: but I'm trying to do this without any equipment for you.
- 28:41Speaker 2: But so I have two vests, two weighted vests or
- 28:47Speaker 2: two vests that I can put weight in. And the
- 28:51Speaker 2: weights that I have are three pounds. Don't ask me why, Well,
- 28:54Speaker 2: ask me why why? Because it's American, so it comes
- 28:57Speaker 2: in pounds. But I can put up to what is it?
- 29:03Speaker 2: I think it's one hundred. It's about one hundred. Goive
- 29:07Speaker 2: will take one hundred and forty pounds, which is about
- 29:10Speaker 2: sixty four kilograms, which is crazy in one of my vests.
- 29:13Speaker 2: Obviously I've done that like twice. It's hysterically hard.
- 29:17Speaker 1: I don't do that.
- 29:18Speaker 2: But what I often do is, which is for me
- 29:21Speaker 2: relatively easy. I put twenty kilos in one of my vests,
- 29:27Speaker 2: and so which is it's solid. But I can walk
- 29:30Speaker 2: with a twenty kilo pack or a twenty kilo kind
- 29:34Speaker 2: of vest, you know, relatively, I mean it's it's I'm working,
- 29:38Speaker 2: but I can do five ks with no real problems.
- 29:41Speaker 2: Now think about this. I go from my current weight
- 29:46Speaker 2: is eighty one kilos, I put on this vest and
- 29:48Speaker 2: now I'm now I weigh in inverted commas one hundred
- 29:52Speaker 2: and one kilos. So now the same guy with the
- 29:55Speaker 2: same lungs and the same strength, and the same bones
- 29:58Speaker 2: and skeleton and bone density is moving twenty more kilos.
- 30:05Speaker 2: You think twenty kilos as a percentage of eighty is
- 30:09Speaker 2: twenty five percent, right, as a percentage of eighty, twenty
- 30:13Speaker 2: extra kilos is twenty five percent. So even though it's
- 30:16Speaker 2: only twenty kilos more, it's twenty five percent more of
- 30:19Speaker 2: my body weight. So now I've increased my body weight
- 30:22Speaker 2: in inverted commas by twenty five percent.
- 30:24Speaker 1: So what does that do for me?
- 30:26Speaker 2: Well, that increases That makes my heart and lungs work faster,
- 30:30Speaker 2: so there's cardiovascular benefit, increases bone density because I'm carrying
- 30:35Speaker 2: more weight, increases strength, increases muscular injury. It's whole bunch
- 30:40Speaker 2: of stuff, right, And it also with me, it makes
- 30:42Speaker 2: me really activate my core, you know how the kids
- 30:45Speaker 2: say that. It really makes me make sure that all
- 30:49Speaker 2: of the muscles around my lower back and stomach, so
- 30:53Speaker 2: that whole kind of belt around your waist are really
- 30:55Speaker 2: switched on and activated. So core muscles, lower back, postural muscles.
- 31:00Speaker 2: Now you're all going, well, I don't have a fucking vest.
- 31:04Speaker 2: I'm like, I get you.
- 31:06Speaker 1: Now.
- 31:07Speaker 2: You could find.
- 31:10Speaker 1: You could not wouldn't be very comfortable, but you could walk.
- 31:12Speaker 2: With a couple of bricks, you could walk. I think
- 31:14Speaker 2: most of you are going to have somewhere a.
- 31:17Speaker 1: Backpack or you know.
- 31:21Speaker 2: Like one of the things I do is I walk
- 31:23Speaker 2: to the supermarket sometimes where I will buy maybe ten
- 31:27Speaker 2: kilos of groceries and I walk down without them obviously
- 31:30Speaker 2: walk back with them. So I've done a ten kilo
- 31:33Speaker 2: carry back from the and it's a bit uncomfortable, and
- 31:36Speaker 2: I've got more weight in one hand than the other
- 31:37Speaker 2: and this, but all of that discomfort and that imbalance
- 31:41Speaker 2: means I've got to work harder. I've got to work harder. So,
- 31:45Speaker 2: if per chance you have a backpack, if not, maybe
- 31:48Speaker 2: you want to buy a real cheap one from somewhere
- 31:50Speaker 2: target ten dollars one and put some weight in there.
- 31:53Speaker 2: You don't have to put in I would start with
- 31:55Speaker 2: five kilos. And again I probably shouldn't say that. It
- 31:59Speaker 2: depends on who we are, but most people that I
- 32:02Speaker 2: know that would do this. You can probably start with
- 32:05Speaker 2: five kilos. If you're a bit fitter and stronger, you
- 32:07Speaker 2: can start with ten. And also the other benefit is
- 32:10Speaker 2: because you're moving more weight because you're you know, like
- 32:13Speaker 2: for example, this is bro science what I'm about to
- 32:17Speaker 2: share with you, but I want to give you an example.
- 32:20Speaker 2: Say when I walk, Let's say when I walk five kilometers.
- 32:25Speaker 1: Let's say I.
- 32:25Speaker 2: Walk for an hour, and let's say I'm walking at
- 32:29Speaker 2: five kilometers an hour, so that's my average speed. And
- 32:34Speaker 2: let's say hypothetically I expend four hundred calories in that
- 32:39Speaker 2: five kilometer slash one hour.
- 32:41Speaker 1: Four hundred calories.
- 32:43Speaker 2: Now, how many calories I expend depends on, in other words,
- 32:48Speaker 2: how much energy I burn depends on how much I weigh.
- 32:52Speaker 1: One two how.
- 32:54Speaker 2: Efficiently or inefficiently I walk. Interestingly, the more inn ficial
- 33:00Speaker 2: or biomechanically inefficient I am, the greater the energy expenditure,
- 33:06Speaker 2: whether or not I'm walking on a really firm surface
- 33:09Speaker 2: or a soft surface. Like you know that walking on
- 33:12Speaker 2: sand is much harder than walking on a hard surface,
- 33:15Speaker 2: So thirty minutes of soft sand walking is exponentially harder
- 33:20Speaker 2: than thirty minutes of walking around suburbia on a footpath.
- 33:25Speaker 2: So and then I guess the last one. There's probably
- 33:28Speaker 2: another one that I can't think of. But the last
- 33:30Speaker 2: one that I can think of is whether or not
- 33:33Speaker 2: you're walking on an incline or flat or stairs or hills,
- 33:37Speaker 2: or that's a variable too. But back to me going,
- 33:42Speaker 2: Let's say the variable that I change is I'm now
- 33:45Speaker 2: twenty kilos heavier. Well, I'm going to expend I don't
- 33:50Speaker 2: know the exact number, but I would tell you that
- 33:53Speaker 2: I'm going to expend a significantly greater number of calories
- 34:00Speaker 2: more energy doing the same walk five kilometers at the
- 34:04Speaker 2: same speed five kilometers per hour over the same time sixty.
- 34:07Speaker 1: Minutes one hour.
- 34:08Speaker 2: Right, doing the exact same thing but at a heavier
- 34:12Speaker 2: body weight in inverted commas. I'm going to increase energy
- 34:16Speaker 2: expenditure significantly, and also I'm going to get a much
- 34:20Speaker 2: greater cardiovascular benefit because my heart rate is going to
- 34:25Speaker 2: be up because I'm working much harder to mobilize one
- 34:30Speaker 2: hundred and one kilos not eighty one kilos. So a
- 34:33Speaker 2: range of benefits, but don't be me. You could start
- 34:37Speaker 2: with two ks, you could start with one K. Like
- 34:40Speaker 2: whatever you are carrying is an extra challenge that you
- 34:44Speaker 2: don't normally have, so think about that. And my last
- 34:47Speaker 2: one is the easiest thing. My caveat with this is
- 34:54Speaker 2: if you suffer from or deal with low blood pressure,
- 35:00Speaker 2: you might want to maybe give this a miss, or
- 35:05Speaker 2: if you're not sure if what I'm about to share
- 35:07Speaker 2: with you is you know, safe for you, or it's
- 35:10Speaker 2: definitely not a high risk thing by the way, but
- 35:13Speaker 2: still let's be sure check with your medical professional. And
- 35:17Speaker 2: that's just box breathing. And we've spoken about box breathing before.
- 35:21Speaker 2: And while this ain't going to make you run fast
- 35:24Speaker 2: or a jumphire, or it's not going to.
- 35:25Speaker 1: Make you jacked.
- 35:27Speaker 2: For those of you who overthink, for those of you
- 35:30Speaker 2: who deal with stress and anxiety and who struggle with
- 35:36Speaker 2: the internal chaos and turmoil. At times, this kind of concentrated,
- 35:44Speaker 2: focused breathing can be life changing, life changing, if not
- 35:52Speaker 2: state changing, in the moment. And so my protocol, so
- 35:57Speaker 2: box breathing is essentially we breathe in for a period
- 36:00Speaker 2: of time. Then once we fully breathe in, we hold
- 36:04Speaker 2: our breath for the same amount of time. Then we
- 36:07Speaker 2: breathe out for the same amount of time, and at
- 36:10Speaker 2: the end of that full exhalation, we hold our breath
- 36:13Speaker 2: for the same amount of time.
- 36:15Speaker 1: And then that's one box.
- 36:16Speaker 2: So in, hold out, hold, So we've kind of gone,
- 36:21Speaker 2: you know, around the square, so to speak. So for me,
- 36:24Speaker 2: I tend to do five to six seconds. I don't
- 36:27Speaker 2: sit there with a watch or a clock, but you know,
- 36:30Speaker 2: so for me it would be in I don't know why,
- 36:34Speaker 2: I'm demonstrating breathing, in, breathing and breathing, and then I
- 36:37Speaker 2: get to the end of that, I hold that for
- 36:39Speaker 2: five or six then I breathe out slowly five or
- 36:41Speaker 2: six and at the end of that exhalation, when you
- 36:43Speaker 2: really want to take a breath, you just hold. And
- 36:46Speaker 2: what that does is it activates our power sympathetic nervous system.
- 36:50Speaker 2: So the calm the farm, not the fight or flight
- 36:53Speaker 2: the other one. And typically typical symptoms lower heart rate,
- 37:01Speaker 2: more relaxed breathing, lower blood pressure, changes in biochemistry where
- 37:07Speaker 2: we now our body starts to produce calm chemicals, not
- 37:12Speaker 2: you know, the kind of stress chemicals, and it puts
- 37:16Speaker 2: us quite quickly, or it can put us quite quickly
- 37:20Speaker 2: in a much better space. So I recommend box breathing,
- 37:24Speaker 2: you know, once or twice a day, or.
- 37:27Speaker 1: As often as you need it.
- 37:28Speaker 2: But again, all of those things, so number one is balanced,
- 37:31Speaker 2: Number two is stare or he'll walking.
- 37:34Speaker 1: Number three is backward walking.
- 37:35Speaker 2: Number four as wall squats, Number four as ball squeeze,
- 37:38Speaker 2: So just grip strength stuff, bouncing the ball as number
- 37:41Speaker 2: six throwing catching. Number seven the clock step, remember standing
- 37:45Speaker 2: in the middle of the clock blah blah blah, weighted walking,
- 37:49Speaker 2: So exact same protocol. Just make yourself a bit heavier.
- 37:53Speaker 2: And the last one box breathing. Now I'm not going
- 37:56Speaker 2: to win an award for that program. It's not groundbreaking,
- 38:02Speaker 2: it's not revolutionary. But the truth is that most people
- 38:06Speaker 2: don't do any of that stuff ever, most people, well.
- 38:12Speaker 1: Not intentionally anyway.
- 38:14Speaker 2: So if you're a person and you want to start
- 38:15Speaker 2: to make.
- 38:18Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you're a person. Let me say that again.
- 38:20Speaker 2: If you are a person who wants to make a
- 38:22Speaker 2: few changes, there might be something really simple in there
- 38:26Speaker 2: which is.
- 38:26Speaker 1: A kind of a stepping off point for you.
- 38:29Speaker 2: All right, team, Or or you might want to share
- 38:33Speaker 2: this with someone for whom you think it's relevant and
- 38:36Speaker 2: might be helpful. Love, your collective guts is see ya.