Top Weight Training Secrets for Overall Health & Longevity | Dr. Mark Hyman

having and using muscle is one of the most effective ways to slow the whole aging process now after age 30 you lose as much as 5% of your muscle mass per decade but muscle is the organ of longevity it's the currency of longevity those with lean muscle tend to live longer welcome back to another episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy and health bites where we take juicy little bites into current health topics I'm Dr Mark hman today we're going to talk about an important topic that has transformative effects on your health weight training I'm not talking

about being a muscle head the gym and getting Arnold Schwarzenegger muscles I'm talking about building strength and why that's important and it's important because we have this enormous rise in metabolic health issues and it's so important to understand why our metabolism is busted and how strength training and building lean muscle can be a transformative game Cher for your health now here's the exciting part weight training isn't just about achieving a certain look or Fitness aesthetic it's about creating a strong healthy Foundation that can protect you against a host of diseases like diabetes heart disease even

Alzheimer's we're going to explore how building muscle can improve your metabolic Health enhance your mental well-being and help you age gracefully and do whatever you want when you get older like I just going to turn 65 this year but I did helis sking for the first time in my life and I could do it because I'm strong and I want all of you to have that opportunity too not to go oh I'm too old I can't do that that shouldn't be in your sentences that you use at all fact my favorite guy on Instagram is

a guy called Anan Gustav who's like 78 and ripped I'm I'm jealous actually now the benefits of strength training are profound and the science really backs it up so coming up I'm going to break down the basics of resistance training how to make it accessible and manageable no matter what your Fitness level I'm going to also talk about practical tips and strategies to help you get started to stay motivated and see a Real Results so stay tuned as we unlock the incredible benefits of weight training for your body and your mind now why is it

important to focus on strength training or resistance training or weights or body weights where you have to build muscle why is that important well we have a metabolic Health crisis that's why 95% of Americans have a busted metabolism or metabolic dysfunction 6 in 10 Americans have one chronic disease and four in 10 have more than one even worse one in 10 Americans have type two diabetes and probably one in two have pre-diabetes or maybe even more if you're looking at the 93% depending on how you define it so that's terrifying 43% of Americans who are

adults in a here have obesity which is terrible uh that's frightening to me we also have a diet of too much Ultra processed foods about 60% of our diet we also have those Foods accounting for about 90% of the added sugar in our diet or about 150 pounds per person of sugar per year that's a lot of sugar fewer than 23% of Americans are actually meeting the recommended amount of exercise which is defined as 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week our diet uh combined with our sedentary lifestyle is absolutely

wreaking havoc on our metabolic health and metabolic dysfunction is the root cause of obesity of type two diabetes of Alzheimer's other dementias fatty liver kidney disease and early death so it's just basically the thing that kills most of us right from cancer heart disease diabetes dementia kidney disease many many other things even high blood pressure is caused by this now metabolic dysfunction leads to certain things that go on in your muscle it becomes filled with fat it's more like a ribey than a filet Min which you do not want maybe to eat it it tastes

good but not to have it in your body now intramuscular fat which is basically what most of us have it's called being skinny fat if you're not overweight or being overweight with marbled fat it's really associated with this phenomenon of insulin resistance which is the biggest driver of all age related disease and aging it's also associated with lower amounts of strength uh and loss of muscle we call it sarcopenia one of the biggest drivers of all diseases and aging but almost never gets diagnosed we're going to talk about how to diagnose it what to do

about it it also drives more inflammation so the less muscle you have the more inflammation in your body you have and the more risk for heart disease and many many other diseases like dementia cancer diabetes all these are inflammatory diseases it also makes you more tired because your mitoch conure aren't working when you have this problem of insulin resistance in the skeletal muscle it it can often be there decades before you ever see a rise in your blood sugar or get type two diabetes so what if building up lean muscle mass with resistance training could

help us avoid this metabolic Health crisis well it can muscle is more than just about looking good or portraying a fitness aesthetic it's really a metabolic organ that secretes molecules that promote health or create disease depending on it its health and functionality there's something called myocin you probably never heard of maybe you never heard of them you probably heard of cyto kindes cyto Storm from Co well myokines are molecules that help regulate inflammation and your muscles secrete their own messenger molecules there's over 600 peptides that have been identified to be secreted by the skeletal muscle

this is huge these are called myocin they're messenger molecules that regulate everything in our body and they're released in response to healthy muscle contraction and the good news is they exert Health promoting and Metabolism enhancing effects and they're also anti-inflammatory and that's good for us myokines talk to our bones they talk to our brain they talk to our fat tissue they help balance our hormones our blood sugar they support our detox system they help our blood flow and our mental health now many of the protective benefits of exercise in short and long term come from

the secretion of myokines now these myochin are particularly effective in the elderly it's really important because they go down when you get older and you want to build up more of them so let's talk a little bit about muscle and Longevity I wrote about it in my book Young Forever it's a really important topic uh it's something I actually didn't really want to pay much attention to till I was older but I bit the bullet and I've done uh a whole effort for myself on string training which is really transform my own agility strength stability

capacity to do things and it's quite amazing I wish i' gotten into it earli but better late than ever now after age 30 you lose as much as 5% of your muscle mass per decade uh most men will lose 30% of their muscle mass in their lifetime that's a lot but muscle is the organ of longevity it's the currency of longevity those with lean muscle tend to live longer those with more lean muscle tend to live longer having and using muscle is one of the most effective ways to slow the whole aging process now what

else is exercise good for in strength training well it's good for your brain now one of the things we see a lot in people with Alzheimer's and Dementia is sarcopenia and the loss of strength and that's why in studies resistance exercise has been shown to improve cognitive function and memory in the elderly with cognitive CLI so what's the mechanism here how does it actually do this well it boost something called bdnf that stands for brain derived neurotropic factor it's like Miracle growth for the brain now in human studies resistance exercise for about 12 weeks to

about six months has been shown to increase this bdnf or brain derived neurotrophic factor and that promotes neuroplasticity which is the reorganizing rewiring of your brain's neural networks which is good connections between brain cells it also helps stimulate neurogenesis which is the formation of new nerve cells so basically you get new brain cells and you you get better connected brain cells that are smarter one study found much higher levels of bdnf even just after one resistance training session that's not bad now it also reduces the expression of pro-inflammatory cyto kindes that are bad for your

brain uh exercise also enhances the clearance of something called ameloid beta plaques which is one of the known pathologies of Alzheimer's and it it doesn't just hold up for older folks right we don't just want older folks to exercise everybody needs to do it it also works on young people too a systematic review and Med analysis reported a small but positive effect on the cognitive and academic performance in adolescence who participated in resistance training an association between muscular fitness and academic achievement so that's pretty interesting if you're more muscularly fit you do better in school

not bad same is Ed for University students resistance training is associated with improved attention concentration memory with enhanced language and math skills not bad uh and the way it works is it's it's regulated by the production of certain neurotransmitters and neuromodulators things that affect your brain function that are resulting from exercise like lactate bdnf something called igf-1 which is a growth hormone regulator vascular endothelial growth factor or vef which helps your blood vessels stay healthy acetylcholine which is a neurotransmitter dopamine epinephrine serotonin all these are neurotransmitters so that's all good it also increases blood flow

in the brain now there is something called a healthy user bias so that may be a factor but maybe it's the students who do resistance training tend to be more physically active maybe they eat healthier maybe that's why they're doing better in school possible but I guarantee you exercise is having a role what else is a strength training and exercise good for well your mental health we know that resistance training has anti-depressant effects and research actually tells us that exercise is as or more effective than counseling or medication for alleviating depression or anxiety that's pretty

damn good so better than counseling would makes you cheaper and better than medications which often have side effects in fact one review published in the British medical journal included more than a thousand randomized clinical trials there were about 120,000 people in those trials it was the most comprehensive study on mental health and exercise ever done and what they found was moderate intensity and we call hit training which is high-intensity interval training offered more mental health improvements than lower intensity exercise so workouts weren't long just 30 minutes daily most days of the week and I did

one this morning was a super high-intensity workout with bands and strength training where I also did cardio as part of it because I'm doing it very quickly and you get your heart rate up like mine was up to 167 all that counts now all types of physical activity were helpful but resistance training offered the biggest benefit for depression now studies report greater self-acceptance they report personal growth Flow State social affiliations and connections and autonomy in your life from lifting weights not bad what else is string training good for well the list goes on and on

it's good for your heart uh the American Heart Association recently released a scientific statement that resistance training can actually reduce all cause and cardiovascular mortality it means death from any cause and death from heart disease now when you combine resistance training with aerobic exercise you get double the benefits a 40 to 46% reduction in all cause and cardiovascular mortality versus about a uh 29% uh benefit from string training alone or 18% % from cardiovascular exercise alone resistance training also improves other factors that relate to cardiovascular health like blood pressure it reduces your diabetes risk it

improves your triglycerides and cholesterol it helps your mood your body composition your blood sugar control inflammation sleep blood vessel Health the quality of your life and overall level of Fitness so it's pretty darn good and what else is string training good for well sex it's good for your sex hormones aging Beyond 30 to 40 years is a associated with a 1 to 3% decline per year in circulating testosterone concentration in men so as you get older your testosterone levels drop if you're a guy now this decline really results in a condition known as andropause which

is just like menopause but for per men and studies show that immediately after resistance exercise training your testosterone levels can increase significantly depending on the intensity and duration of that strength training the acute spike is temporary lasts about 30 to 60 minutes after exercise but over time resistance training and doing it rarely has increased resting Baseline testosterone levels in men especially when combined with adequate nutrition recovery and that does a lot of good things for you it improves your libido and sex drive your blood flow sexual performance so when resistance training is combined with aerobic

exercise in a series of Trials men experience a 15% Improvement in the erectile dysfunction which is great you don't need Viagra resistance training helps counteract age related declines in testosterone because it preserves muscle mass and strength as men age and maintaining lean muscle mass is really important to maintain and sustain healthy testosterone production because that's what happens when you exercise your muscle you make more testosterone on the other hand endurance-based exercises like steady state cardio don't really increase testosterone levels as much in women same thing resistance training stimulates the release of testosterone it also helps

increase estrogen which is important for maintaining bone health for postmenopause women and it balances the ratio of estrogen to testosterone improves insulin sensitivity which helps a lot of women's health issues like PCOS and irregular menstrual cycles so in a review on resistance training women with PCOS which is common and causes infertility irregular Cycles uh acne facial hair uh and a lot of things researchers found that resistance training interventions improved insulin sensitivity in these women improved their functional strength and led to Fat Loss around the belly we call visceral fat which is really important for man

managing PCOS because it's really not an ovarian problem it's a nutritional problem related to insulin resistance exercise and strength training is also good for your immune system now resistance training boosts immune function it helps the body better fight infections it reduces inflammation throughout your body so it's great and it also has been shown to improve the function of various immune cells such as your natural killer cells which are roaming around fighting cancer and infections and your tea cells which enhances your body's ability to fight infections and all sorts of diseases it also boosts your body's

production of antioxidant enzymes your body's own antioxidant system like superoxide dismutase or sod glutathion peroxidase these are enzymes your body makes but when you exercise with strength training it increases their activity and by enhancing these antioxid defenses resistance training lowers your oxidative stress levels it protects your cells it it helps your mitochondria stay protected and helps them from all the damage that can accelerate aging okay so that's a lot of benefits your heart your brain your mood sex pretty much everything weight loss metabolism it's just kind of a Panacea right it's amazing if there was

a drug that did all that it would be a trillion dollar drug trust me and yet you know what it's available to you anywhere anytime all you need is your body weight and you can do it I mean you can do other stuff too but it's easy to get started so let's talk about how to get started with strength training you don't have to lift like a bodybuilder to get the benefits you don't have to be in the gym all day studies actually show that people can maintain strength and muscle with as little as 30%

of their one rep max as long as they push themselves to momentary fatigue so you've got to kind of get your muscles tired so what is a one rep max I think of it as a point where you can't do another repetition with good form you might be able to get the weight up one or two more times by sacrificing technique and contouring your body but that's not necessary and it also puts you at risk for injury so you don't need to worry about the amount of weight you're lifting that's why bands light dumbbells even

your body weight can all be effective ways of working out now how much resistance training do you need to do to see results well in terms of minimum effective dose it's actually not a lot if you just want to maintain the strength you have research shows that just one workout per week one set per exercise is going to do the trick so it's really a minimum viable dose I don't recommend that low a dose but that's just to maintain where you are now the caveat here is that the one set needs to be all out

so again you push your muscles to fatigue so you can't do another rep or if you did it it would be bad form now if you're a beginner you can just do a full body workout plan using all the muscle groups in your body all the major muscle groups one day a week and you can do more and there's just common simple exercises right squats push-ups call bent over rows lunges planks uh dumbbell shoulder press bicep curls tricep dips super simple set of things you might not need to know everything about how to do them

you can learn on YouTube you probably want to get someone to show you if you don't know what you're doing but um it's really important now what about maintaining your muscle so you just want to maintain your muscle you know basically one day a week for 20 35 year olds is fine but as you age you're gonna need more it's just the way it goes that's the bad news about aging you can stay fit and healthy and strong but you need to eat more protein and you need to do more exercise so not less UH

60 to 75 year olds will need two workouts a week with two to three sets per exercise and I encourage people to actually do more probably three to four times a week one day you can do upper body like bench press bent over rows overhead press bicep curls one day you can do lower body like squats deadlifts lunges leg press what about increasing strength and muscle size if you just want to increase and not just maintain for most people lifting weights three to four times a week is going to help you significantly increase muscle and

strength and give you lots of the health benefits that we talked about associated with resistance training it's also a good strategy when you're trying to lose weight now some resistance training is better than none so make sure you set realistic goals that align with your life um break down bigger goals into the smaller parts where are you currently where do you want to be what's the best way to get there take baby steps um and so forth you know I I actually never liked resistance training I never liked the gym I thought it was smelly

I was intimidated because I was kind of a skinny guy and I didn't really feel good going to the gym with all the big guys with Bal muscles so I kind of avoided it but I started doing straight training I joined a gym I got a trainer I learned the basic mechanics I worked uh then with bands especially during covid and I got really strong uh just doing uh three to four four days a week at home it took me 30 minutes in and out really simple and I I didn't have to drive the gym

so I think encourage you to learn how to do this it's it's critical and there's just so many resources out there there's just no excuse so how do you make resistance training work with your schedule well I travel a lot um I bring my bands with me everywhere they're basically a pound or less it's this big and I Bunch them up and they fit in my suitcase even a day carryon or or a light suitcase uh you can use body weight workouts um planks squats push-ups uh and also block out the time that works for

you even if it's only 15 minutes broken up into five minute chunks throughout the day just do something right maybe you look at your roadblocks work your kids schedule events holidays you know I wanted to start doing push-ups and I you know just was busy and I I just didn't like exercise and I like okay I'm gonna I'm gonna take a uh every day I take a shower and I and I usually takes a minute for the shower to heat up my house so I have like couple minutes while it's warming up and in those

couple minutes I would get on the floor and I would do push-ups as many as I could possibly do and and that was great and it really helped me get into the string training at a very low friction level or I would do tricep dips just in my bathroom on on the bench so really simple stuff to get started so just make sure you do a commitment to yourself and hold yourself accountable uh do something right a fast-paced walk around the neighborhood with weights on your body just do 15 push-ups 25 air squats something just

do something okay now now what else do you need to do to build muscle strength training for sure uh and and 75% of our muscle mass is related to strength training but the other 25% and this is a key 25% comes from our diet now we need to make sure we're eating enough protein to build muscle back up you need to eat muscle to build muscle it's just how it goes it contains all the building blocks to build muscle you can get plant protein but you have to supplement it with amino acids that you find

in animal protein in order to act the right combination to build muscle and turn on the muscle building switch or what we call muscle protein synthesis uh and you need about one gram per pound of ideal body weight if you're trying to muscle uh you can do 7 if you're already there and maybe you don't need as much but basically 7 to one gram per pound of ideal body weight is what you want to do if you don't like working out of the gym which I don't really like try other things you can do rucking

it's probably the best exercise most people don't know about that's putting a backpack on with weights it add loads for your muscles and Bones increases Demand on your heart for a brisk walk so it's great and it's been shown to be helpful for back health and it doesn't require a lot of special skills you just get a weighted vest or something actually maybe is better you can throw weights in a backpack that can be a little hard on your body sometimes uh and just go for a hike somewhere whether there's mountains or Hills uh yoga

also can be helpful uh I I did a lot of yoga for my life I didn't find it to build a lot of muscle but I if you're you know really aggressive with it I think you can now does all this sound too intimidating maybe you don't have time in your schedule maybe you can try exercise snacks now what are exercise snacks well exercise snacks are isolated bouts of vigorous exercis and Las in about less than a minute and then performed periodically throughout the day just like snacking right but this is a good kind of

snack exercise snacks can help offset the effects of sitting all day now the feasibility and time efficiency of exercise snacks makes them really suitable for incorporating between activities of daily life right and it leaves you the need for planning and allocating all kinds of leisure time for structured exercise so every hour maybe have 10 to 20 air squats stand at your desk get your heart rate up by going for a brisk walk take the stairs bring resistance bands to your office you know do all those things it's all possible to incorporate into your life so

bottom line here folks is that if you're a human being you got to build muscle we evolved using our bodies when we don't use them they disintegrate and dissolve and that leads to Rapid aging and a whole host of diseases and adverse Health outcomes and it's entirely preventable and like I said my My Heroes on Instagram I don't really look at Instagram that much but my heroes are the the older bodybuilders and weightlifters I'm just so amazed I saw some 90-year-old guy deadlifting like 400 pounds um just blown away so we have the capacity we

just have to use it or we lose it and if we we get the problem of sarcopenia it's the beginning of the end for us so so I hope you got the message and you'll take it seriously so that wraps up today's episode of Health hacks I hope you're excited as I am about the incredible benefits of weight training remember just incorporating 150 minutes of modern exercise every week can significantly impact your health and thanks to weight training you can improve your insulin sensitivity you can reduce the risk of chronic dis diseases like diabetes and

heart disease and you can promote the secretion of these things called myocin which are amazing they have anti-inflammatory effects on the body and many other things and regular resistance training can help you maintain strong bones supports cognitive function boost your mood and lots of other good things even helps your sex life so keep tuning in for more insights into how you can take control of your health in ways that Empower and rejuvenate thanks again for joining me today and see you next Friday for another juicy episode of Health bites if you love that last video

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