The Secret to Longevity: Keep Moving

Summary

Episode Summary: "The Secret to Longevity: Keep Moving"

In this compelling episode of Chasing Life, hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the focus centers on the crucial role of mobility in promoting longevity and overall health. Dr. Gupta engages in an insightful conversation with Dr. Kelly Starrett, a renowned physical therapist and co-author of Built to Move, exploring the multifaceted aspects of mobility, its definitions, significance, and practical strategies to enhance it in daily life.

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Defining Mobility: Beyond Strength and Cardio

Dr. Starrett introduces the concept of mobility as the "third pillar" of fitness, complementing traditional focuses on strength and cardiovascular health. He elaborates on the distinction between mobility and terms like flexibility and stretching, emphasizing the need for precise definitions in the fitness community.

Dr. Kelly Starrett [02:07]: "Ultimately, we want to give you more movement choices... people who sit on the ground, their 5k times get faster, their backs stop hurting..."

Dr. Starrett defines mobility as the ability to control and access one's native range of motion without pain, facilitating everyday movements and problem-solving tasks. He underscores that mobility isn't just about being flexible but about functional movement that supports a healthy and active lifestyle.

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Mobility's Role in Longevity and Daily Function

The conversation delves into the correlation between mobility and longevity. Dr. Gupta references a personal anecdote involving former President Jimmy Carter, highlighting the significance of mobility in aging gracefully.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta [09:09]: "I've never forget... he got up out of that chair without putting his hands on the side rests."

Dr. Starrett explains that falls are the leading cause of death among those over 65, primarily due to diminished balance and mobility. Enhancing mobility reduces the risk of such incidents by improving joint flexibility and muscle control, ultimately contributing to a longer, more independent life.

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Practical Strategies to Enhance Mobility

Dr. Starrett offers practical, actionable advice for listeners to incorporate mobility exercises into their routines without feeling overwhelmed. He advocates for simple practices like sitting on the ground in various positions and spending time hanging from a pull-up bar.

Dr. Kelly Starrett [02:46]: "If we can spend 20 or 30 minutes in the evening touching some of these novel shapes of the tissues, we're having the body engage in body-like things."

These exercises aim to challenge the body’s range of motion, encouraging muscles and joints to adapt and become more resilient. By integrating these movements into daily life, individuals can significantly improve their posture, reduce pain, and enhance overall physical functionality.

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Introducing Mobility as Vital Signs

A pivotal moment in the discussion is the introduction of mobility as vital signs, akin to measuring blood pressure or temperature. Dr. Starrett and his wife, Juliet, have co-authored a book that outlines key mobility indicators essential for maintaining health.

Dr. Kenny Starrett [16:24]: "How can I begin to understand my range of motion... we were realizing that, hey, we should probably put this as a vital sign..."

This innovative approach democratizes self-care by providing clear, objective measures that individuals can monitor independently. Vital signs of mobility include the ability to perform movements such as standing up from the ground, breath control, hip mobility, and neck flexibility. By regularly assessing these indicators, individuals can identify potential issues early and take proactive steps to maintain their mobility.

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Addressing Modern Sedentary Lifestyles

The episode also tackles the impact of modern sedentary habits on mobility. Dr. Starrett points out that prolonged sitting and excessive use of digital devices lead to poor posture and reduced range of motion.

Dr. Kelly Starrett [26:55]: "Halfway through the first grade, some of those kids start to do heel striking... their bodies have started to adapt."

He emphasizes the importance of reintroducing varied movements into daily routines to counteract the negative effects of inactivity. Simple changes, such as integrating walking school buses or utilizing movement breaks, can lead to substantial health improvements and foster a more active, engaged community.

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Conclusion: Embracing Movement for a Healthier Future

Dr. Gupta and Dr. Starrett conclude the episode by reinforcing the transformative power of mobility. They highlight how small, consistent changes in movement habits can lead to significant enhancements in physical health, mental well-being, and overall quality of life.

Dr. Kelly Starrett [31:07]: "When we start to put movement and we start to think differently about the choices we make, suddenly those small aspects end up aggregating into really massive change."

The episode serves as a powerful reminder that maintaining and improving mobility is essential for longevity and a fulfilling life. By prioritizing movement and integrating mobility practices into everyday activities, listeners can "Chase Life" with vigor and resilience.

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Notable Quotes

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [00:35]: "If you haven't worked out in a while, I get it... But at the same time, it is essential. It's got to be as important to you as the most important habits in your life."

• Dr. Kelly Starrett [02:26]: "We created this definition of, do you have access to your native range of motion? Can you control it?"

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [06:24]: "Has it changed throughout our lives, different men and women?"

• Dr. Kelly Starrett [10:29]: "The body is always going to adapt... let's begin with something really simple."

• Dr. Sanjay Gupta [18:36]: "Breathing is just how long can you hold your breath... there's normative standards as well."

• Dr. Kelly Starrett [25:03]: "If I took a picture of you, would you like what you saw? In terms of how you're organized?"

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This episode of Chasing Life provides an in-depth exploration of mobility's critical role in maintaining health and extending longevity. Dr. Gupta and Dr. Starrett offer valuable insights and practical advice, encouraging listeners to embrace movement as a foundational aspect of a healthy lifestyle.

Transcript

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[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Welcome to Chasing Life. I wanted to start today's episode by saying this. If you haven't worked out in a while, if you haven't exercised in a while, I get it, okay? I get it. I know for me, between having three teenagers, having dogs, the carpools, work, finding time to exercise is not always easy. But at the same time, it is essential. It's got to be as important to you as the most important habits in your life. You've got to make exercise and movement one of those priorities. And that is why I am recording this podcast right now from the ground. Okay, I'm going to explain. I know you can't see me, so you're going to have to take my word for it. And my wife, who is actually helping me right now, I'm sitting down on the ground. Crisscross applesauce. A man in his mid-50s. Why? Because it turns out that doing this every day, just sitting on the ground, is really good for my body. It's really good for my joints and good for my muscles, but also importantly, my ability or inability to get up from this position without really using my hands or any help from Rebecca. That is a real test of my overall health and fitness.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Why? Because it's not about strength. It's about your ability to move your body to solve problems that we know are going to become important to you.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

That's Dr. Kelly Starrett. He's a physical therapist, a former professional athlete, co author of a really good book called built to the 10 essential habits to Help youp Move Freely and Live Fully. And and he wrote that book with his wife, Juliet. Kelly is also an expert and a leading voice in the growing fitness trend called mobility.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Ultimately, we want to give you more movement choices. So what we see is that people who sit on the ground, their 5k times get faster, their backs stop hurting, they want to walk more, they want to interact with their neighbors more because their bodies Feel better. And it's simply because we're having the body engage in body like things.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

So I wanted to have Kelly on the podcast today to talk about this idea of mobility. What exactly is it? Why is it so important? As we age, what are some potential red flags? And to give all of us busy people some of the simple tools to improve our range of motion, our posture, decrease our pain, and yes, become more mobile. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is is Chasing Life. Crisscross. Applesauce. Two Standing up. Okay, I'm up. I'm not gonna lie. I did use for a split second my left palm to sort of just sort of boost me up. You know, I think when I was reading about you, one of the things that sort of struck me was this idea of just fitness and how people define it. Yeah. Like, I think of myself as a fit person. But to be honest, after again, reading some of your work, I started to wonder about that a little bit because I focus a lot on strength. I focus a lot on cardio.

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[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

But one of the things that you talk a lot about, though, is mobility.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Yeah.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

And it almost seemed like a third pillar. So cardio, strength, mobility. And it made total sense as I was again reading your work. So I wonder maybe if we could start with some basic definitions. What is mobility?

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

I love that. So when we started to think critically about how teaching this and the language around it, what we had was non specific words like stretching and flexibility.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Flexibility, right, right.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

And what you'd say to someone is, do you stretch? Like your coaches were like, did you stretch? You're like, yeah, yeah, sure, coach. I stretched and like talk to my coach, apparently. Yeah, yeah, sure. So what we found was we didn't have clear definitions of what those things meant, so we tried to use this word mobility. And what we intended were. And I would say, I'll give you two definitions. One is that every physician on the planet, every physical therapist, every chiropractic physician, all agrees about what the body should be able to do. We've said, here's what blood pressure is and everyone knows that, and here's what temperature is, and everyone knows that. And we started to become very sophisticated about understanding some aspects of our physiology, but not range of motion. So what ended up happening is we created this definition of, do you have access to your native range of motion? Can you control it? And when we improve those things, did what matters to you improve? Now let me give you the definition that I have in my 50s, right. This is a little bit different. Now, number one, are you pain free? And I think this is really important because I think the problem is that it's very normal for human beings to experience pain, discomfort, that is, I mean, talk to your children, everyone, like, knee hurts, back hurts, right? This is a feature. And what we are trying to do is help people reimagine. What does pain mean by starting by saying pain is a request for change. And number two, I want you to be able to do with your body what you want as it relates to your job, as it relates to your recreation, as it relates to being a family member. And that's a much better definition of mobility.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

So just a couple of quick questions about that. The normative range of motion. Yeah. So again, I think cardio and strength and I can measure how fast I'm running, I can see how much weight I lift. But when it comes to mobility, I'm in my 50s as well. So would your normative range of motion in mind be the same? Has it changed throughout our lives, different men and women?

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

What a great question. So no, the one thing that doesn't have to change is over the whole lifespan is your range of motion. We absolutely are likely to see if no one ever said, hey, you should put your arms over your head or be able to take a big breath. You might get stiff in your shoulders and upper back. What we don't have to change is our access to our range of motion. So for example, one of the ways that one of the ways we want to think about this is I have a finite amount of time to work on my body. It would be great if I could go to a fantasy health ranch and I could have someone massage me every day and someone makes my meals and someone does a perfect program. But let me introduce you to having teenagers and working a crazy job. And this is all of us. And so one of the things we really try to spend a lot of time is saying, how do we simplify the process so it doesn't feel so overwhelming. I'm not giving a busy working mother another listicle. Here's how you're going to optimize your morning routine. She's just stoked to have a coffee and get her kids out the door with lunch. Right. So what we want to be thinking about is where are the places in my day to day life where I have some agency and some control? And one of the things I'd like everyone to leave here with is if you begin to sit on the floor in the evening for 20 or 30 minutes, we know you're watching TV. The research bears that out. So all I want you to do is get off your couch and sit on the floor. And you can sit cross legged. You can be 90, 90. You can side saddle. You put your legs out in front of you. You can kneel. I don't. It doesn't matter. In fact, when you need to fidget, go fidget, change your positions. But what we found is that if we can spend 20 or 30 minutes in the evening touching some of these novel shapes of the tissues, you know, we're in, if, if we took a step back and I said, okay, I'm going to look at all of your movements during the day. What are all the things that Sanjay does during the day? I could create a almost like a library of words of vocabulary words. I can see the shapes you are in. Most of us occupy just a few shapes. We just use a few words. We get up out of the bed, we stand up, we walk around, we sit back at the desk. Maybe I do a little peloton, which again, is more sitting. And it just, you know, more aggressive sitting. And all of a sudden what we see is we didn't really take our bodies into the shapes and positions that we're capable of. And one of the ways that we can begin to shift and expand your movement language is to just start to have some exposure to some of these shapes. We're having the body engage in body like things. And I think that's how we can begin to say, how do we simplify this seemingly complexity in that world? Well, let's begin by sitting on the ground.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I love that. I mean, it's simple, obviously, but. And I think I understand what you're saying. You're utilizing different, you say language, but using different muscles, different joints and things like that to sit on the ground. And then you have to get up. And that's, by the way, a quick side story. Jimmy Carter. I interviewed him several years ago. It was 2015, I think. Yeah, what a guy. And I'll never forget at the end of the interview, he was sitting in a nice chair. And at the end of the interview, he got up out of that chair without putting his hands on the side rests. And I was just kind of blown away by that. And of course, a lot of people, when they get up out of a chair like I am right now, they're kind of giving themselves a little boost with their arms. He didn't do that. And I remember thinking, I hope I'm like that when I'm in my 80s. But you've brought up this notion a couple of times now, Kelly, this correlation between mobility and longevity.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Yeah.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Well, my guess is, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that as a society, especially in the developed world, we've probably become less mobile because we're addicted to these devices. We're sitting in these chairs on computers. So it's gotten worse, not better. And yet at the same time, we know that mobility is associated with longevity.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

We can absolutely just start there. Is that we can say, well, what's the number one reason people end up in in the E.R. turns out it's falls. What's the number one predictor of death above people? 65 a fall. And one of the reasons we're seeing is if I don't have access to balance or range of motion, I can't solve as many movement problems. And losing your balance is a movement problem. Getting up and down and being independent is a movement problem. Being able to rise from a chair while you're holding your baby or your cat or holding a cup, cup of coffee in a book is just a movement. So how can we keep as many movement solutions available to the brain as we can? And the stiffer we become, the less access easily that we have of our joints. But getting up and down off the ground, not only does it help me create and maintain my movement solutions, it correlates really well with living well because of all the ancillary benefits that come with it. I'm more likely to garden and be outside and be able to stay connected to my community. I'm more likely to want to be in an exercise class. I'm more likely to be less timorous about riding my bike around Central Park. And the real question is, who and where are we thinking about this? And the answer is we're not. So we like the word we think longevity is definitely a buzzword right now. We all want to be. We're obsessed with being old, but ultimately Juliette and I feel like my wife and who's my business partner. We feel like durability is the best word. And the reason is we think the hits are going to come if you're over 50, you're going to something bad, you're going to body's going to throw an error. You're likely to have something bad happen to you. You're not as robust. So what we're really saying is, hey, if I want to have a joint and tendons that act like joints and tendons my whole life, I better use that joint. And I better load those tendons, otherwise they're not going to be. They're not going to be available to me as readily. And the good news, everyone, Muscles and tissues are like obedient dogs. They always adapt. At no age do you stop healing. At no age do you lose the ability to reclaim range of motion. It can be a little slower than when you were 15, that's true. But the bottom line is your body is always going to adapt. So let's begin with something really simple.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Look, I think as much as we talk about fitness on this podcast, I don't think we've talked about this topic enough and I think Kelly is really spot on here. The human body has this remarkable ability to adapt and grow and heal in both directions. By the way, it can get bad really fast and it can improve really fast. So it's never too late to reclaim our ability to move pain free and to live well. So when we come back, Kelly's going to give us some pretty simple tools to help us get started.

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[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

You and your wife, as you mentioned, Juliet, by the way, that's fantastic that your wife is your business partner and you guys have these same interests and you wrote a book together.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

That's right. That's right.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

And one of the things that you talked about in the book was this concept of mobility. Vital signs.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Yeah.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

And you're likening this to. You're measuring your blood pressure, your respiratory rate, actual vital signs. How did that come about? How did you start to think about this in terms of vital signs?

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

So, number one is when we don't always give people clear, objective measures around their body, sometimes we do.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

And that exists, though, to be clear. Like if I went to. If I came to see you, Kelly, the idea that you could objectively tell me what these measures should be for my mobility. That exists.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

That exists. Absolutely. And you don't need a professional person to help you understand how your body moves. So, for example, everyone can understand that 120 over 80 is not heroic blood pressure. It's a sign where we start to say, hey, maybe, maybe we need to make a little small change in our environment, our behaviors. And what we found was that we hadn't done that for how the body moves in space, and we certainly hadn't done it in the language of mere mortals. So how can I begin to understand my range of motion? How can my children begin to understand their minimum range of motion? And then what are the simple tools to help me just keep an eye on it we were democratizing self care the same way we all think we all should probably eat fruits and vegetables and some quality protein and we should get some sunshine and we should play. We just want to objectively measure those things a little bit so that we can begin to say, oh, wow, I haven't done this for a while, or, hey, my knee hurts. I look at how stiff my quads are, and it turns out I found a problem. And that's something I can change.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Everyone should read the book. It's one of those things that probably should just be there, right? As a. As a manual for your life next to, you know, the joy of cooking, a finance book, whatever it might be. But you mentioned the first vital sign, which is being able to get up and down from the ground, which I think is second one. I'll just mention a few of these. Maybe we can talk about a couple of them. Breathing. Just how long can you hold your breath? Which again, there's objective measures of this. You can count how long you can hold your breath, but there's normative standards as well.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

That's right. The first movement of the spine is the breath. That's the first thing that the body does, is it takes this breath. The rib cage needs to expand, the belly distends. Right. And what we see, oftentimes we fail to appreciate how the environment is impacting my ability to ventilate effortlessly. So probably people have heard that when you're not working really hard, you should probably be able to breathe through your nose most of the time. And one of the reasons we do that is that we get better function. Suddenly, if I take a nose breath, my diaphragm is recruited. If I breathe through my mouth, I don't really use my diaphragm. I end up using my neck musculature. But if I'm using my neck all the time to ventilate because I can't access my diaphragm or I'm sitting in a chair, well, suddenly we have really ineffective breathing. So you're gonna walk up those stairs and feel out of breath even though you're not. And then the impacts it potentially has on our anxiety, our abilities to regulate, is really profound. And what's cool is that I'm pretty sure modern people are not the first people to ever think about breathing. I'm pretty sure it's a cornerstone of the yoga traditions. People have been doing this long time, but by tapping into the objective work of our brothers and sisters out there, we were realizing that, hey, we should probably put this as a vital sign, because it has so many possibilities to upregulate function.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Right, right. No, there's 10 of these vital signs, and I'm just gonna tick through a few of them. The next one is one that I gotta tell you, Kelly, I have trouble with hip mobilization. And it's interesting. I remember. I like to do triathlons, and I remember getting done with a triathlon and just being kind of pretty racked at the end of this thing. Way more racking.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

As you should be if you're racing appropriately.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Yeah. But I was just like, God, I mean, this is not fun. And I feel. And I went to go see a physical therapist who was near the finish line, and right away it was all about my hips and the hip mobilization. So you've listed that sort of as a third vital sign. Why is. Why is it so important? And what could someone like me do about it?

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Yeah, well, you know, we fortunately have already talked a little bit about one of my favorite interventions, which is sitting on the ground, which is your first.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Vital sign as well. Right. So these are. These. These. They're related.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Yeah, absolutely. So looking at how your knee comes to your chest is one of those key pieces. And one of the reasons we started with the sit and rise test is that in order to stand up from a seated position, across legged position, you have to lean forward to shift your center of over your feet. So you're sitting cross legged. But if your hips are stiff and you can't bring your knee to your chest or your chest to your knee, that becomes impossible. It becomes an impossible test. So all we're doing is putting the body into a position that requires more normative. Not even full range, just some baseline range of motion to express that hip range of motion. And the reason we love that test is that it's one of the first times where people confront the fact that their hips are stiff. Because you were able to do a triathlon and still kick butt, but you didn't even need to have full range of motion. But what you experienced is that you paid a very high session cost. You had to pay a price for this is inefficiency. So imagine you're driving your car with your handbrake on. Look, cars. Human beings aren't cars. I get it. But if I just click that handbrake on one notch, there's sort of a drag on the system. You're not gonna get good fuel economy. Your brakes get a little hot sometimes. It's not high performance machine. So all we're trying to do is say, let's take the brakes off by restoring. And this knee to chest is a really simple way to do that.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I'm going to do it right after this podcast. I'm going to self assess Kelly and I love it. I love it. I'll call you and let you know how it goes. Another chapter in the book is called future Proof, you, neck and your shoulders. And again, we talked about the fact that so many of us are on devices and staring at computer screens way too much. What's an easy way for listeners to sort of assess if they're starting to get into the danger zone with regard to that?

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Well, let's start by saying not necessarily dangerous zone. You could have terrible shoulder range of motion, not be able to take a full breath. And you may never have neck pain, but likely is your tolerances for silliness start to go a little bit down, right? And then you've been in front of your computer all day long and all of a sudden you're like, hey, your neck is a little bit sore. And again, I think most of us are like, my neck's a little bit sore. Let me reach for that glass of wine without ibuprofen, because I don't have time for that right now.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Right.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

So what we can do instead is start to say, hey, what is it I'm supposed to do? And notice that we already talked about one of the most important interventions for neck pain, which is breathing. So we restore your ability to vulnerability, ventilate, to take a massive breath. What you're going to see is that your rib cage, your thoracic spine, ends up being a really important chassis off of which your neck and head function. So we start to see the neck, the shoulder and the upper back as a really simple system. And if we want to improve one aspect of the system, we look at other aspects of that system. So, for example, if you're sitting here with me and you're listening to this and I'm slouching, if I turn my head to the right, I may not be able to rotate as far. Now watch this. Get into a position where you can take a big breath. So you and I are both going to adopt slightly dwarf organizations. I didn't tell you what to do with your head or your shoulders. I said get into a position where you take a bigger breath. And if you rotate now from that position, you'll see that you can rotate a lot further. And that hints at the fact that when we're in better sort of organized sort of geometries, Better structures that hint at more function, we get more function back. And when we restore people's function, we oftentimes knock pain out because we're not overusing tissues, we're misusing tissues, you know.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

And I don't mean to oversimplify, but just posture, just your overall posture, when you're sitting, when you're standing, I slouch time to time, my mom.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

So say we all.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

So say we all. How big a deal is that? How much do you think about that?

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Well, I think we should. If I took a picture of you, just not aware, would you like what you saw? Right. In terms of how you're organized? And what I'll tell you is that there are a lot of hints out there about what good organization looks like. Look at the Vitruvian man, right? Shoulders. I mean, that's Savasana, right. So it's almost like our, you know, our genius was like these yogis know something about Shavasana. That's the same organizations as the Vitruvian Man. So really, posture is the Latin derivative, is just position. So what you're saying is I have good position or a bad position. And what we want to be clear is that there are, there are postures, there are positions and shapes that are more highly correlated with dysfunction. So forward, head, on neck, rounded shoulders. Those positions may or may not ever cause pain, but they're certainly really bad positions to swim in. And more importantly, they are well correlated with disease, with dysfunction. But what we don't want to say is, I have pain because of my posture. What we say is, hey, the reason we choose this organization of the body is that it maintains more lights on in the room.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

You know, have you ever wondered if we have this sort of native way that we should carry ourselves, this native way that we should be mobile, that we should sit? If we are sitting or standing, why do we lapse into these sort of bad habits? Would you say? Why does. I mean because it is quite normal to. If I look around the office to see a lot of people slouching or even if they're walking and standing their sort of head forward, you know, is it just because of the technologies that. Is that what's doing it to us? Why do we evolve this way?

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

It's. I tell you what, we. We wrote another book called Ready to Run. Ready to Run. It's a play, play off on our friend Chris McDougall's book.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Yeah.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

And one of the things that we wanted to say is like, running is a natural normative skill, but what we noticed with our kids was that we had all these beautiful runners. Everyone runs the same in kindergarten. They all like, they're little usain bolts. They run on their foot. They lean forward, they have powerful hip extension. They land on the ball of the foot. And then halfway through the first grade, some of those kids start to do heel striking. They fundamentally alter their primary locomotive pattern. So instead of sprinting, now they're putting their foot out in front of them and heel striking. And they're in these crazy shoes and it's crazy. That's like halfway through the first grade, we switch from writing right handed to left handed. That's what the equivalent is. Like, hey, we have this skill we've been developing for six years, and now let's throw that skill away and change it. We have to ask what has changed for this child? And the only answer is they're now engaged in more chronic sitting at desk behaviors. So their bodies have started to adapt. So when we see people our age at the peak of their powers and they're working hard, what we see is their body tells a story of their movement, history of their environments. And there's a reason that when you run into a gymnast, you're like, oh, yeah, you're a gymnast, I can tell, right? You were a dancer. What is it about that? Well, part of that experience of being able to do those things is that we had to practice a certain carriage and organization that turns out to transfer really well to these pieces. And so what we need to do as modern humans now is say, hey, maybe I have to think differently a little bit or I have to sort of manage this adaptation response to the environment. And that might just be by sitting on the ground or hanging from a pull up bar, which is one of my absolute favorite interventions. You want to change your posture, Start to put a pull up bar in your house, start to hang on something, go to the park, spend three minutes hanging. You can have your feet on the ground and you will be a different human being in a year.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Wow. Even with your feet on the ground, just hanging from the. What is it? Just. It's, it's, I guess addressing many of the things that you're talking about with these vital signs.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Yes, yes. And, and doing so in a play movement position. Right. You can do downward dog too. Three minutes of downward dog a day will get you. But what you'll see is that I don't even have to be skilled. I can just put my arms up and just let gravity take over and you'll start to see Changes in your shoulder, changes in your upper back, your ability to rotate, your ability to take a big breath, all of those will change. And maybe some of you need four minutes a day and some of you only need one minute a day.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

This is far more fascinating than I even expected it to be. And I expected it to be fascinating. I love this. Will you come back? Because what I'm going to do is I'm going to spend some real time putting into practice some of the things that you've talked about today.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Anytime.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I'd love to give you a report and just get some feedback.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

I love it. And again, I want to get beyond pain. No pain. I want to be. I want to know how you swam faster, how you dusted that kid, that young 17 year old kid at the gym. I want to know how you crushed him. And ultimately, you know, we feel like if we can improve the, how the health of the household, we don't need to worry necessarily about some of the things that the universe is telling us to worry about. We are robust, incredible humans. And the magic is being able to spend time with our friends and family, with, with our neighbors and walking, playing. These are the ways of how we transform our communities and society.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

I mean, that's the ultimate measure, I think, like you said. But the human body is so remarkable. And I sometimes think like, you know, people buy these really Fancy, you know, SUVs that are all tricked out and all they do is drive their kids to school a couple miles and back. They never really put it to the test. And some of the things that you're talking about allows our human bodies to be put to the test and to show off a little bit in terms of what we can do, which is fantastic.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Yeah, you know, I'll just leave everyone with an anecdotal story. We started a walking school bus for our to bring our kids to elementary school. Not everyone felt like they could walk with their kids. We're like, we'll be here. It takes about 25 minutes. We'll be here every morning. We have a little more flexibility in our schedule, but drop your kids off. And so we started dropping, we started walking our kids and we got out of the drop off lane, which was toxic and chaos. And we'd walk this mile and a quarter to school, interact, rain or shine. And then parents were kind of started jumping in with us and we had a couple parents who lost 30 pounds walking their kid to school and they were like, this has changed my life. I'm like, hold up. We just walked your child to school. We walked two miles a day and you lost 30 pounds. Like that's not fair. And so I think when we start to put movement and we start to think differently about the choices we make, suddenly those small aspects end up aggregating into really massive change. We just need to run this experiment for our lifetime.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

What a pleasure, Kelly. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and I hope to talk to you again soon.

[Dr. Kelly Starrett]

Likewise. We are just everyone knows we are such major fans and it's such a pleasure meeting. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Give my best to Juliet as well.

[Sleep Number Advertiser]

Done.

[Dr. Sanjay Gupta]

Okay. Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Aaron Mathewson, Jennifer Lai, Grace Walker, Lori Gallaretta, Jesse Remedios, Sofia Sanchez and Kira Dehring. Andrea Cain is our medical writer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Amanda Seeley is our showrunner. Dan Dezulla is our technical director. And the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lichti, with support from Jamis Andrest, John D. And Nora Hailey Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Lainey Steinhart, Nicole Pessarou and Lisa Namorow. Special thanks to Ben Tinker and Nadia Kunang of CNN Health and Wendy Brundage.

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