← The Neuro Experience
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- [00:00]
A
I'm Louise Nicola and this is the neuro experience. There is a terrifying statistic that women lose up to 8% of their muscle mass per decade after the age of 30. By 50, most can't carry their own groceries up the stairs. What exercises would literally save women from becoming frail? And this actually takes into account this whole new wave that we've been going through called longevity. And you and I have touched on this offline, which is you. You've got longevity over here, which consists of the physiology, which is the exercise. But then there's nutrition, then there's sleep, then there's blood work, then there's hyperbaric oxygen chambers. All of these things that I think are so nuanced for the average woman. So if we're talking purely around how does a woman optimize for life after 50, what are some of the biggest pillars in exercise?
- [00:53]
B
I think full body strength training is the most efficient and effective way to get the physique you want, but also improve your bone density, maintain your vitality, maintain your mobility, all that type of stuff. Improving bone density is like site specific. So if you just do, you know, like, there's a new trend that I kind of have like not an ax to grind with, but I just don't love it with like women being encouraged to do high intensity jumping. And I think that can work.
- [01:23]
A
But I think what is high intensity jumping?
- [01:25]
B
Basically trying to load the body through impact. And I, I don't think most women are, most women 50 plus are in a point to be doing that. Yet I think you have to build a base of strength before you do that. But I also think it's important. The reason I say full body is improving bone density site specific. So if you just, if you don't do arms, for example, you're not going to improve the bone density in your arms. So that's why we do full body type of stuff. That's one of the reasons we do full body type of stuff. If I really had to boil longevity and aging gracefully down into three facets, I would say there's strength training, mobility and conditioning, or cardio, whatever we want to call it. And your training should address all three of those. But then you have a lot of leeway in terms of how you want to divvy that up. So if you are somebody that loves lifting weights and hates cardio, you could do more weights, but. But it's still good to do some cardio. If you're somebody that loves cardio, just lift some weights. And I think mobility is One of those things that most people find boring. If you find it exciting, you're lucky. But most people find it boring. But you just should do it. Because nobody over the age of 60 will ever say, I wish I stretched less or did less mobility work. It's always gonna be the other way around. So I think if your training addresses those three facets, you're doing really well. One thing that I'm pretty adamant about for most regular people that aren't gym heads is full body training over body part splits. So body part splits would be like chest day, back day, shoulder day, arm day, leg day, or it could just be like an upper body day in a lower body day alternating. Or it could be a push pull, leg split. There's a lot of different splits. I tend to focus on full body and mainly it's based in the fact that I don't have a single client with a 9 to 5 job or a regular schedule with me. And we tend to schedule day to day. So when you don't know when people are coming, a full body split just makes the most sense. So it's mainly based in practicality, but I think there's actually a lot of research showing that full body is amazing for both increasing muscle mass and strength because we tend to do best hitting a muscle group two or three times a week. Most men that I know hate doing a full leg day. Just, just doing one or two moves in a full body workout is much more palatable. On the flip side, a lot of women don't want to do a full arm day or upper body day. And, and so I think full body just lends itself to. Most people seem to like it better once they adjust. And it also doesn't create as much soreness because you're not doing in a full body workout. You're really only doing one exercise per body part per workout. So you're creating a good strength and muscle stimulus without a lot of excessive fatigue or soreness.
- [04:22]
A
I get very confused when I see the data that comes out of for example Peter Attia who states that most women should be able to lift half their body weight for farmers carries or be able to dead hang for I think it's around one minute, half your.
- [04:36]
B
Body weight in each hand, half your.
- [04:38]
A
Body weight split into two. So yeah, so if you're 100 kilos.
- [04:43]
B
Then that's pretty high. I mean the hang thing, I think research based people that don't train clients, the standards are a little inflated. I don't know very many women that could hang for A minute. And I trained some badasses. That's tough.
- [04:57]
A
Jessica Biels has actually been in the media lately for having the perfect back, the musculature of her back. And I've seen it and I envy that. And you mentioned that she's doing a lot of pull ups, correct?
- [05:10]
B
Yeah, Jess can do pull ups. We've never done those prolonged hangs. I see no problem with them. So I don't want to fear monger and say that they're bad or anything. We just don't really do them. But I would say for any women listening to this that feel bad that they can't hang for a minute, that's a really high standard.
- [05:28]
A
Are you finding that a lot of women are coming to you or men as well with these? I just saw this on Instagram and this is what I think I need to be doing.
- [05:36]
B
Not in my in person training business, but in my online app clientele. Yes. There's a very big disconnect between Real World fitness, the people that hire trainers, and the people that just live online and get all their stuff online. You could go online and find a lot of other experts that say the polar opposite to what I'm telling you. And so I think as a consumer, it's pretty tricky. I think you just have to find someone's philosophy that jibes with you and roll with it. Since I've been around, eggs have been healthy and unhealthy for you like 40 different times. You know, I don't really know where it currently stands. It's like just kind of the common stuff just vacillates. And I think at a certain point I always joke in Food World because I'm. I care about nutrition insofar as I want to be healthy and I don't want to get too dumpy, but I just don't really care that much. To be honest, not nearly as much as I care about training. So I always say that when it comes to food research, I just side with whatever studies support the foods I like. And I say that jokingly, but it's kind of true. At a certain point with training nutrition, you just have to find something that jibes with you and just roll with it because I think you can. You know, it's much better to just have a plan and stick to it than just hop around. And the Internet makes it very easy. If you know somebody that does my app, if they follow 20 trainers, they could just be scrolling and then see, like this, this guy says exactly the opposite of what Ben said or this woman says something different and should I be doing this? And the answer is, a lot of things work then. I think it's also important online when you're following health professionals to see who's actually doing it with real people and who's just sitting behind their phone or computer just making shit up for views.
- [07:25]
A
I think the Instagram culture now when it comes to fitness is people believing that they need to do these certain principles which goes into the biohacking world, Right. The hyperbaric oxygen, all of that. And I think all of these principles and biohacks and external technology and modalities are fit for a LeBron James, someone who is going to get marginal differences in their gains where 1% really means something. If you really honestly look at it. A, who's got time for hyperbaric oxygen chambers? B, who's got the money for that? Because it's really expensive, you have to sit in there and you're stuck in there for an hour. Not to mention getting to and from a location. Thirdly, you look at. I love getting into a red light bed. That takes a lot of time. And is that really going to push the needle forward for me in terms of longevity? No. But I'm doing it as a. An experiment for something specific.
- [08:17]
B
I'm actually curious about the red light. Your thoughts? Because I have one. I have this full body red light. I've used it like one time in 10 years because I read about all these benefits and it's the full length of the door. You're supposed to stand in front of it naked and then turn the other way for 20 minutes. And I'm like, logistically, this just feels exactly. I feel fucking stupid standing in front of this. And then also when I am in a room with red light for like 20 to 40 minutes after I see these rings and it just. I'm like, I'm good on this.
- [08:54]
A
Yeah.
- [08:55]
B
What does it even do?
- [08:56]
A
Yeah, it's so I love that question. Because I'm doing something. I'm actually laying down in a red light bed. So the wavelengths are so much stronger than what you and I have at home. Because I also have a panel.
- [09:08]
B
Yeah.
- [09:09]
A
And I'm doing it for two things. So there has actually been human evidence to show that it can cut through the skin and penetrate the superficial organs, which can induce something called mitochondrial biogenesis. Which means it's going to help with your mitochondria, help them to function better. I'm not doing it for that. I consider myself very healthy in that aspect. I'm doing it for skin health benefits just to see if it's actually going to really stimulate collagen production. Because we've seen it in both human and rat studies. And I think to myself, if I just have that 20 minutes a day where I can just stand there, is my face, is the skin going to change?
- [09:45]
B
So that's compelling to me because I, I will be honest. I think as a dude, until probably last year, I didn't. My skin care routine was like I had a 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner that's also a 4 in 1 because it was a face wash and a body wash and I just use it for everything.
- [10:02]
A
That's such a guy thing.
- [10:04]
B
And then the last year or two, I've started noticing on myself, I think everyone's insecure to some degree, but I've started noticing like wrinkles on my forehead here. I've worn sunscreen like less than 10 times in my life. And I'm. Yeah, and they're all recent because I'm like, I gotta start paying attention to this.
- [10:20]
A
So that's one thing that people are looking at, thinking I need to be putting that into my, my, my weekly routine. And it's not. Most women and men argue if they're in their 40s. Let's just say most general population aren't training for anything specific. They're just training for health performance. They're not training for a triathlon. So they just need the regular maybe two to three full body strength training sessions per week and throw in some cardio sessions there. They don't need to be particular on my VO2 max training, my zone 2 training, my deltoids, my this, my that. They just need to get it done. And I think there's a lot of noise in that area and it upsets me. It upsets me a lot because I'm actually, I feel like I'm, I'm stuck in the middle. As a scientist, I see and read the research and I then educate on that and I disseminate the science. But I too am just a regular person as well. At the end of the day, I'm not training for anything specific. I'm not training for body composition, body shows, whatever you want to call them. Yeah, not training for just really just training to be the strongest and the healthiest and to feel good. And it actually, if you look at the literature, it doesn't recommend that much for longevity benefits. You don't have to pound yourself in the gym for four hours a day.
- [11:37]
B
There's that saying that exercise is medicine. Which I couldn't agree with more. But I think that with any medicine, the devil's in the dose. So the right dose heals you. Too much can kill you. And I think that applies to exercise in the sense that a lot of the gym heads out there that preach exercise actually take it too far. And I'm somebody that's done that in my 20s. I have a lot of joint pain that I attribute to overdoing it with weight training. I think weight training in moderate doses is life changing, better. And I think overdoing it can lead to a lot of injuries and overuse. Stuff that stays with you for life. And that's the side that people don't always talk about. But I do think that there's an optimal amount that's also different for everyone. I think some people have a higher tolerance to exercise. They have a higher tolerance to medication, everything. And you have to. There's a little bit of trial and error to figure out how much is good for you. But I do think that it's one of those things that if some's good, more is not always better. That's a tricky message to get across because then there are so many people that don't do anything. So I think you really have to be honest with yourself about where you fall in that continuum.
- [12:56]
A
It.