Why have a functionally strong body over 50

So, I've just gone kayaking today and had a lovely time out there, and now I need to take my kayak up from the beach. So this is where strength training comes in handy, to fulfill all those things you want to do in everyday life, doesn't matter what it is. So why functional strength training?

Well, our body knows only of how it moves. It doesn't actually think of specific muscle groups as we do things in life. So, if I'm about to pick up a big pot from the ground and lift it up onto a bench, I'm not going to think about, I need to activate my glutes, now I need to switch on my quadriceps, and now I need to think about turning on my biceps and my triceps.

No, our body knows only of how it moves. So if we don't move well, then things can happen. So, when we functional strength train, we are trying to actually move and strengthen all those muscles around our entire body, whether it be our external movers in our arms, our legs, or our stabilizers that come through our midsection, our torso.

We're trying to work it all. So, the aim with functional strength training is not just to sit on a machine and working out legs one at a time or whatever, but it's to work the entire body all in one go. So, we actually train movement.

So, when I'm functionally strength training, I may pick a load up from the floor and lift it up and then pick it up again from the floor and lift it up. So, then I'm working multiple muscle groups, not just one muscle group, as you would find a bodybuilder would doing. So, a bodybuilder may be there just working their biceps.

So, they've got a nice big weight just trying to work their biceps all by themselves, but that is not how we functionally move every day. We're using multiple muscle groups who all need to work together to perform the movement. So, our body also goes through a decrease in muscle mass.

There's lots of sound at the beach today. So, a lot of muscle mass as we get to our late 30s and beyond. And particularly after our 60s, we lose about 3% every year.

So, that's how our muscle mass that we lose. And so, you think if you decrease your muscle mass, what do you have to support your joints? What do you have to keep everything supported and going well?

So, the thing I see often with people that lose weight is they lose their muscle mass as well. And losing muscle mass is not a good thing because it means that we don't have support around joints anymore and that's something you want to avoid at all costs. So, also with functional training, so if you think about...

Let me just grab my awl. If you think about people in a pump class where they're using a bar like this to lift. Now, imagine my right arm is stronger than my left because I'm using a bar.

So, I'm not making my right arm work by itself and my left arm working by itself. So, if I press this bar up and my right arm's stronger, this is what you'll see. So, you'll see somebody in a class, if my right side's predominantly stronger than my left, you'll see the bar going like this because my right arm's doing a lot more and my left arm's doing a whole lot less.

So, when we functional strength train, I love to do things separately. So, we train one arm separate to the other arm. Not all the time, but most of the time I will have you with one weight in that arm and one weight in that arm or we'll have this by itself using one weight and then transferring the weight over to the other arm.

Then your core has to work as well because it's imbalanced. Even if you're lying on the ground and you're doing a one-arm press, you are unbalanced still so your core has to work quite hard. But if I've just got one bar, like I just showed you then, and I have a stronger part, then that part will always, always take over and that's just how life will be.

If you've got a part that's not functioning as well or isn't as strong, then your stronger bit will always take over. And that's why some of these pump classes, you'll see people coming away from quite a few injuries if their body is not already functionally sound and the right muscles are not switching on. You'll often get somebody with injuries from a pump class and some of those classes that you see where you have to do so many reps in a specific period of time, you'll also get people with injuries as well because other muscles will take over when those muscles get tired, fatigued, or are weak and can't keep doing the work that they're supposed to do.

So as you get older as well, there's more falls. People have a huge amount of issues for falls in that the proprioceptors, so the signals that get sent from the brain down to the muscles, they stop working as efficiently. So if I'm not practicing being unbalanced, and I mean by that standing, say, on one leg, standing on the other leg while I take the other leg up and not holding on to a wall, if I'm not actively practicing that, then my proprioceptors will not be efficient.

So when it comes to that time when I trip on the crack in the pavement, then it just means that I'll probably fall because by the time my head tells my body I'm going over, then it's too late, I've already gone down. So we want to be actively practicing that all the time. Simple to stand on one leg, the other leg, and you'd be amazed at the muscles that you see working when you're standing on one leg.

It goes right from the muscles around the toes, right through the foot, and right up through that lower leg and upper leg as well. So older clients particularly don't think that as you get older you go smaller weights. No, you still need to lift relatively normal-sized weights, normal size being, I would say, five kilos and up.

But if you can't start there, that's fine. You may start with a one, go up to two, three, four, five, and then beyond that. Because the fact of life is that we don't just hold a pot full of water, say I'm doing a big stew for the next week for me and my husband, and we have a big crock pot, and one of my clients does, she's 87 years old.

And this big crock pot is one of those old-fashioned, really thick, heavy ones. Now if she fills that with soup and vegetables, she's probably got a five kilo weight that she has to transfer from the stove over to the bench. And she's not going to be able to want to lift that safely with her cord switched on and know that she's not going to fall with that as well.

 

So smaller weights, just cut it as you get a bit older. You need to be progressing along until you get to slightly bigger weights. Now swimming, walking, I have clients that tell me, well, I swim, you know, I swim all week and I walk.

Well, swimming's great, we're in the pool all the time and we have to vacuum in the pool and do all of our stuff in the pool. But otherwise, swimming's great for mobility. So as you move those arms around, it gets everything more mobile, really loosens up those joints.

But swimming, we'll not cut it if it comes to everyday life where we have to pick things up standing with our feet on the ground. So that's where strength training comes in very handy because we all need to be able to do things, pick things up. And if we don't have any muscle in our shoulders, in our arms, in our back, in our core, legs, then we're not going to be able to do those things.

And as for walking, the same thing is great, like gets fresh air into you. And if you're a couch potato, walking will suffice for quite a while. But you will need to get to a place where you actually strength train because strength train will do a whole bundle more stuff than just walking does.

So strength training will build up those muscles quite a lot. Walking and strength training would be ideal, but walking on its own will cut it for a while. But at some stage, you'll need to add to that with strength training.

As we get older too, some people or even young people can get arthritis as well. Now what's the best thing for our joints and our bones? They need supportive help around them.

They need their girdle around them. What's their girdle? Muscles.

Muscles are the girdle. Now muscles are great because they'll support your joints. And how many people have come through my door with arthritis that couldn't barely move and go to bed in pain every night?

And then you start to strength train them. It is amazing how the pain goes, how they move better. And even their consultants, one of my ladies, Joan, her consultant was gobsmacked with where her body had gotten to and would say, wow, that is superb.

You have glutes now, but muscles that you didn't have before. You've got muscles there. And as she went along, she actually said to her consultant when he asked her to pick up a weight, she said, they're too light for me.

Do you have anything bigger? I thought that was quite cute. And he said, you know what, I don't think I need to see you that much anymore.

You're doing exceedingly well. She was doing exceedingly well because she put her mind to strength training three times a week and now it's cut down to two times a week. But for those first few months, three times a week.

And it has done her the world of good. So people with arthritis, go for it. As we get older too, our tendons and ligaments become stiffer.

So we just need the actual muscle that is in our body that supports muscle, bones, everything. We just need those to be stronger to support all of these as well. As we get older, well, actually most of us, you'll find we'll play tennis a certain way or golf a certain way, and we even vacuum a certain way.

So if you vacuum all the time with your strong arm, I know that when I vacuum, my right arm is stronger so it comes behind and vacuums out that one side, then try taking the vacuum cleaner the other side. So take the other arm and press it through so you're not always working that strong one. When you come out of Coles or Woolworths, make a point of picking up your bigger stuff in your weaker arm.

So that weaker arm has to work just as hard as your strong arm because the whole idea of functional strength training is to take that which is weak and bring it closer and closer and closer to that which is strong. So therefore you want to end up going where I said about the bar before, if you've got a stronger side that will lift that side up, you want to get that place to where both sides are doing the same amount of work. So you want that left arm to be doing just about the same as what your right arm is, that's your predominantly strong arm.

So you always want to balance out your body. And the same goes with your neck as well. Now if you get a sore neck all the time, have a think about which of the muscles you're working.

So if you look at the side of my neck, down the side that comes right into the back of here is my sternocleidomastoid. Now these things work a lot. Every time I poke my head forward a bit to look at the computer or I lean forward to pick something up from the ground and my head just does that slight bit of movement forward, then my neck has to do a lot of work and all of us overuse these sternocleidomastoids that come down to the side.

So the simple fact of putting your tongue behind your top teeth when we have to lean forward or lean back, particularly while we're strength training, will help to activate these ones that run down the front that flex our neck. So we want these to work at the same time as these. So we're trying to balance up our neck because even our neck does get unbalanced where this is too strong and this is too weak.

So we want to balance things up. And if you think that your neck weighs about 8% of your entire body weight. So if you're, say for example, a 90 kilogram person, then your head will weigh 7 kilos.

And therefore, if my head weighs 7 kilos because it contains a brain and everything and girls also hair, then if I'm leaning forward and this neck has to hold 7 kilos while I lift things up or I'm weeding in the garden all day and I don't have my tongue in the right spot, then we're going to get a sore neck. So it's as simple as that. It's balancing up muscles everywhere you can.

If my right side's stronger than my left, balance up my left side. If my neck muscles, if I get a sore neck, you want to make these work by putting the tongue behind the top teeth and a nice planting there, just not just lying there, which we all do when we're not talking, but a nice small push there. So activate that.

And the other thing I'd say to you, if you have one predominantly strong side and this side's weak, then if I'm doing one arm stuff and I've got some weights in each arm, I'm going to work my left arm first. So say if I'm doing 20 seconds of reps in each side, I'm going to make my left side, if that's my weaker side, and I'm talking about that because that is my weaker side, I'm going to make that work first. And if I can only get 10 reps of a weight on that side, then your strong side is only going to do 10 reps as well.

Your strong side is only going to do what your weaker side can do. Don't ever do more or you'll keep that imbalance going where our stronger side is stronger, even stronger still than our weaker side. We want to try and balance things up.

So what are some of the benefits of functional strength training? Well, we have enhanced lung function and pumping of the heart. So you think that the lungs and the heart are actual muscles as well, internal muscles but they're muscles as well.

So the more that we can work those and get them working well, the more efficient they become. So the lungs breathe slower, the heart rate will come down slower, and it becomes really efficient at pumping the blood around the body and moving sugars and things out. So the heart also does a great thing when it actually becomes more efficient.

There was a course I did that was called Lift for Life and they actually looked at all the studies and all the statistics on strength training and how lifting is beneficial for people with diabetes, with heart problems, and the list goes on. So if you're anyone with comorbidities of any type, then strength training is wonderful for it. And they looked in Lift for Life, they looked at even standing at a stand-up desk is equal to going for a one-hour very brisk walk.

So the fact you go from sitting down to standing up for half a day is equal to a one-hour brisk walk. It's a really good thing to do. They also did some training on people where one half of their body didn't train and the other half of their body did train.

And then they did ultrasounds, MRIs of the whole body and found the side that didn't do strength training was all blue, so much more sluggish. The side that did strength training was bright reds and pumping and the whole metabolism was raised on that side. That was a really good study because you couldn't say, well, this person got better results because whatever.

It was just one half their body strength trained, one half didn't. And I thought that was a real eye-opener for me. It just made me even more enthused about strength training and what we can do with it.

And the other thing is that, so if you're a pre-diabetic or a diabetic, then your sugars get pumped out of your blood far more efficiently when you do strength training because it really makes that whole blood flow happen much more. So then those sugars that are in your body will get out much faster, which is why quite a few of my clients have been able to come off their diabetic medications totally. They halved it, then halved it, halved it, and then off entirely because they've just become fitter and everything functions far more efficiently.

And that's mainly for the type 2 diabetics. Obviously type 1 can be a bit of a different thing where you don't have any insulin produced at all. Then bone density.

So bone density increases substantially with strength training. I had one of my clients with osteoporosis in her spine and her hip. And she actually thought because of all the stuff we did, her spine wouldn't improve but her hip would.

She was surprised when her spine improved just as much as her hip. And she was surprised about that. But I guess I'm not so surprised because if you think that all the movement we do emanates from our core, and we were doing a whole lot of core-based stuff and back work.

And so where that spine maybe wasn't doing so much stuff before, it now was doing quite a bit of work. So she was able to increase her bone density in her spine, which was fantastic, as well as her hip. And I was having an interesting read of dementia the other night.

So there's a correlation between exercise and dementia. So in this study, we're showing that by the time we're 60, we've had multiple and many strokes in the brain. So the brain's gone through a whole lot of wear and tear.

And so that was showing how exercise improves the cardiovascular system, which is connected to the central neuro system, which is the brain and spinal cord as well. So just by improving the cardiovascular system also improves the actual neurological system as well. So that was a really interesting thing.

It's just not about our body. It's not just about muscles. It's about having this head in a great place as we get older as well.

So depression, well, we get increased endorphins, particularly if you put loud music on while you're doing things. And we also have a little thing that sits in the inner ear called a sapulus. And when that vibrates, it actually makes you feel good as well.

And so that's why I often crank up the music when I'm training people. I know my oldies don't like it, but my younger people, well, my age, quite like it because it just makes you feel good. And you feel like you want to work harder as you've got that little sapulus vibrating.

So pain relief. So pain relief is great. When you start to work your body, get stronger muscles surrounding joints, you just start to decrease your pain.

It is incredible how many people I've had tell me who are now trainers that they started training strength training because they were told that their back was so bad, they were never to lift a weight. So what did they do? They started to lift weights.

And it's incredible the work they did down through all those back muscles. You even have tiny little muscles that run down either side of your spine. And getting all those strong can make such changes to you, but not just the back, every joint you have.

So if I've got a sore elbow here, what would be my main aim would be to get these forearm muscles strong, my biceps, my triceps. So by getting all that strong, I'm supporting my elbow. You cannot beat having a supported joint.

But the other thing to do, and I tell all my clients, is that we don't just strengthen, we also stretch. So we'll often have tight areas around somewhere that's had an injury before or something's happened. So if you get some muscles that you have tightened, so I may have had an injury, say on my elbow here, maybe it's gotten right in there at one stage and I've maybe done something or had a slight tear, I'm probably going to be tight.

So the idea is to lengthen that out again. Because when we do have an area that's been injured before, our muscles contract up. And so we need to lengthen them out from being short and tight.

We need to lengthen them out again. And we only need to do that really with those areas that are sore, tight, sore. And so to be able to get on a foam roller, even to get a ball, just a tennis ball, spiky ball, and be able to start to get into that spot and go right down my limb, right get into the spot, press down.

So there's so many ways that we can stretch out as well, and stretching's superb. So both of those things work hand-in-hand, strengthening and stretching. I think I get sad sometimes when I know that people are just going for remedial massage therapy every week.

So I know the person I go see every now and then tells me that she's got a couple of older people that come every week. And I think the thing that I get sad about is that they're going, they get relief from being tight. But what would be great if they strengthened as well, because they would find that they wouldn't need to go as much because they wouldn't have those muscles that are weak and tight.

So that would be, so that works hand-in-hand. And the other, some of the other things that go well, just me for example, a few weeks ago I decided to look into why I've never had kind of a sore lower back before, but I've just been going to some bigger weights and wondering what I'm doing.