Aging Is Inevitable, Decline Is Optional | Dave Frost on Longevity & Strength

Episode Overview

In this episode of The Integrative Continuum, Dr. Richard Rocker sits down with David Emerson Frost, master fitness trainer, elite rowing athlete, and author, to explore what it truly means to age well.

This conversation challenges the conventional narrative that aging equals decline. Instead, it presents a powerful, systems-based approach to longevity where strength, resilience, mindset, and daily habits determine long-term health outcomes.

From personal injury and recovery to elite performance in later life, David shares practical insights on how to maintain physical capacity, prevent disease, and remain independent well into your later years.

  What You’ll Learn

• Why aging does not have to mean decline.
• The concept of “down-aging” and how to apply it.
• The biggest drivers of physical decline (and how to reverse them).
• Why muscle mass is one of the most important predictors of longevity.
• The role of inflammation, sleep, and recovery in long-term health.
• How modern healthcare often misses preventative opportunities.
• The importance of self-advocacy and proactive health management.
• Simple, practical strategies to improve strength, resilience, and independence.

 Who This Episode Is For

• Anyone interested in longevity and aging well
• Patients dealing with fatigue, chronic pain, or decline
• Clinicians looking for a practical systems-based approach
• Individuals who want to stay strong, independent, and capable into later life

      ⚠️ Medical Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The content shared is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition.

Always consult with your qualified healthcare provider before making any changes to your diet, lifestyle, exercise routine, or medical care. The views expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest and do not replace individualized medical advice.

 Connect with David Emerson Frost

 Website: https://wellpast40.org
  Social: WellPast40 / David Emerson Frost

#davidemersonfrost (Instagram)

wellpastforty (Facebook)

davidefrost (LinkedIn)

 Books: 

-Kaboomer -thriving and striving into your 90’s

-Strong to Save

Dr. Richard Rocker Contact Info: 
Website: https://rockerclinic.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drrichardrocker/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RockerClinic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-richard-rocker-589127/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You've landed at the edge of what medicine has known and what it's becoming. I'm Dr. Richard Rocker, and this is the Integrative Continuum, a podcast bridging biology, energy, and human potential. In each episode, we explore how quantum biology, frequency medicine, and ancient healing systems are transforming our understanding of health. This is where mitochondria meet meaning, and blood work meets bioenergetics. Subscribe now and join me on the frontier of integrative healing, where science and soul are no longer separate. This is the podcast where we explore health, performance, and human potential through a system-based integrative lens, bridging the gap between conventional and functional approaches to better understand how the body truly works. As always, I stand by the truth as I know it and as I learn it. Today's episode is a powerful one, particularly for anyone interested in longevity, performance, and what it is, what it really means to age well. I'm joined by David Emerson Frost, master fitness trainer, life coach, internationally competitive rowing athlete, and author of the book Kaboomer, Thriving and Striving into Your 90s. David brings a unique blend of real-world experience and practical insight with a background that spans military service, corporate leadership, and elite-level athletics. He has dedicated his work to helping individuals maintain strength, vitality, and independence well into later life. He is an NFPT certified master fitness trainer and rowing coach, as well as a national and world champion masters rower. Through his work and his book, David challenges the conventional narrative around aging, promoting a model of health that is not about decline, but about sustained performance, resilience, and purpose. His philosophy is simple, but powerful. Aging is inevitable, but decline is optional. In this conversation, we explore what it truly takes to maintain physical and mental capacity over time, the biggest mistakes people make as they age, and how to build a system that supports long-term health and performance. So with that, let's get in today's conversation. Welcome, David.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Thank you. It's wonderful to chat on any day that ends in a while about my favorite topics, health and wellness.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

So excellent. Excellent. Yeah. Well, listen, David, you have a wealth of experience. You've written actually two books, so I'm sure we'll get into that. So uh David, for people who may not be familiar with your work, can you give us a bit of your background and what led you into the space of longevity and performance?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yes, and I'll try to keep my story a short one, not the unabridged one. So a competitive rower in college, or maybe I could back up even more. Uh I was a Boy Scout, Boy Scouts of America before lots of social issues came up with that great organization. Um, but I was a chubby kid that couldn't do a pull-up. And my first challenge in life was to do a pull-up to get a merit badge. Then it was to run a mile, then it was to get on the football team and learn how to wrestle, then it was to get into the United States Naval Academy and take up a sport of rowing, which I had never done before. So uh my collegiate experience set me up and I found a mentor. And you know, if if I could kind of paraphrase the term doctor uh to back to the Latin word to teach, probably the best teacher I've had in my life was not my parents, it was my surrogate father, my rowing coach. And I dedicated Kaboomer, the book that you nicely mentioned, Dr. Rocker, uh, to Coach Ulrich because he taught me mental toughness, resilience, uh, digging a little deeper, and most importantly, uh it's not a uh it's not a mantra. Um there is no I in crew. So whether we talk about functional medicine or thriving and striving, uh, we should think of it as a team sport. So uh so life was going along and happily married. Uh my wife and I will celebrate 50 years of um matrimonial bliss here in July. Uh we have two wonderful kids, three wonderful grandkids. And uh life happened. I got busy in uh midlife, and uh lo and behold, I blew out my back, a pretty severe herniated L5S1 disc, and all the therapy in the world uh could not delay, well, it delayed, but could not prevent the inevitable invasive surgery, spinal fusion. And that's what in 2001, and in fact in September 2001, which was a terrible day for uh the world with terrorism and uh just heinous acts, I had my own personal problems. So um how I became a master fitness trainer after my athletic career was learning about my own rehab and post hab. And as a college professor, I realized how much I like to write and share as a teacher. So that kind of is um, well, actually, it was probably longer than a short story, but uh but uh so uh injury was the uh the trigger for me to get into what I'm doing in the third chapter of my life.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

So so essentially that was the kind of the turning point or experience that shifted your perspective uh on health and aging. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Very much so. And instead of just being uh passive, uh proactive, forward-leaning, and holy smokes, what can I learn? I was a systems engineer in college, believe it or not. How does that relate? Well, it I think it nicely relates with integrative medicine, doesn't it? Um you have inputs, you have transformation, you have outputs, and you have the feedback loop in that system. So that that is my why. I like to take a complex thing like the human body and try to understand it for performance, for longevity, and try to uh accept um the kryptonites that do come up. And yes, I have kryptonite, and probably most of us do, right, Dr. Rocker? Yet our bodies are amazingly good at hiding uh lurking kryptonites. Uh and in my case, and one of your wonderful guests talked about um uh more than the average blood test. And I had an epiphany just a year and a half ago when a cardiologist shared with me, you know when you get a call from the cardiologist abnormally, it's kind of like, why should I be alarmed? Well, the cardiologist said, don't be alarmed, you have the coronary arteries of a 92-year-old. Now, believe it or not, I'm not 92. I'm getting there, but I'm not 92. And in fact, I hope to get there. I hope to become a centenarian with a little luck and a lot of um interventions and adaptations. But, you know, that proxy test, the calcium scan in my case was life-changing. And at first it was the spinal fusion, but then to find out I wasn't invincible. You know, I was pretty good in the athletic realm. Holy smokes, I have dis-ease. And, you know, maybe I was in denial, maybe I was just happy go lucky. But when you get a wake-up call, that kind of clarion call that says, hey, dude, you better deal with something. Um, that so the last year and a half have been particularly uh defining for me as I write my third book, which talks about uh preventing a preventable disease in most cases, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease. In America, 80% of Americans have some ASCVD heart disease, and most of it is preventable, or if not, at least we can change the trajectory of its development. And as a layman, as a practical, you know, as a practitioner, not as a clinician, I say American could do better. And I know one of your guests talked about the sick care system, what I call the sick care system. America has a wonderful sick care system. It waits to diagnose something, you have a big problem, it intervenes and oftentimes saves your life and extends your life. And yet, holy smokes, if I knew that I had the inflammatory marker that I do, lipoprotein A, when I was 40, would I have changed my dose response of exercise? Absolutely. Would I have maybe changed my work-life balance to lower the cortisol and the chronic stressors of life? Absolutely. So, uh, hey, I can't go back and find 31 years. But if I could, it's nice to accept technology that now has these wonderful CRP, APOS B, lipoprotein A. I am blessed with so many metabolic and blood um check marks, such as my triglyceride and HDL. It's to die for. No, it's not to die for, it's to live long for. And yet I've got this inflammatory market that says you better deal with that. You know, it's uh so um so that that awareness has made me realize what an Olympic champion told me is that when you adapt, when you surround yourself with resources, and when you become a student of your endeavor, you're probably going to do all right. So that's my mission. It's to surround myself with good resources, talk to nice people, share ideas, share actions, and then become a student of my endeavor to share my learnings and my mistakes so that others can thrive and strive.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Absolutely. Yeah, that's uh that's a big philosophy of mine as well. You know, I always say the learning never stops no matter how old we get. And uh sometimes even when we learn something, and then maybe 10, 15, 20 years later you go, well, maybe that's not exactly how it is. And uh then we have to have enough uh gumption in ourselves to say, hey, maybe maybe I was wrong and maybe I need to change it. And uh that's the only way we evolve is when we we're able to question things. Um that's why I hate that that saying there, the science is settled. And I'm going, is it? Is it ever settled?

SPEAKER_00 10:41

It's evolving. Oh. And if I could pile on, Dr. Rocker, uh very uh in the last six months, I heard three notable sports cardiologists say that they need another 10 years of clinical study with double blind, you know, all the right uh study criteria to establish a better definition of what dose response is for the duration and the intensity of exercise. Of course, we know that exercise is good for us, but is it true that more is better? No. What is endurance? I I hopefully in two weeks will help set a 24-hour endurance record with another gentleman for indoor rowing. So we're gonna try to do, let's see, 0.6 times 300 kilometers, about 182 miles in 24 hours. Is that gonna inflame my body? Absolutely. Um, so I heard one wonderful sports uh cardiologist share you should do a marathon once for the experience. It's a terrible way to burn a pound of body fat. That's it. A pound of body fat, you know, bragging rice, maybe you get a bling. Yet the inflammation that it causes with the cytokines is just extraordinary, and I wouldn't do it a lot. So, what am I doing at the age of 73? I'm gonna try to set a world record in two weeks for uh doing my share of a hundred and eighty three kilometers.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Well, we wish you the very best for that.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

I need I need a lot of good good backing. Very good. So you know, uh but isn't that interesting? It these wonderful uh Dr. Levitt, Dr. Churchill, and Dr. Um oh he's the doctor for the Boston Marathon. Um I'm drawing a blank on his name, I'm sorry. But they say we need another 10 years of study as we learn more about the body, its resolve, its resilience, what it can take, and trying to get back to homeostasis, it's fascinating. The best in the world say we need another 10 years. You know, it's uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, I I I suppose uh for for some studies, yeah. Um uh but then there there are there are there are some things that we know and uh for a fact that, okay, let's say in the context of aging, that well, we need to maintain muscle mass, uh maybe we can lose bone density, but again, is this a factor of aging or is this a preventable thing, which I believe it's a preventable thing because I'm doing it every day in the clinic with people, and I know you know that. Um we just need other people to know that, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Absolutely. And and you know, I re- I think back when I was before I could do that first pull-up, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Council on Physical Fitness because he saw some things, maybe it was uh uh fast food, you know, back in the days of TV dinners, or maybe television was uh drawing kids instead of being outside and throwing a baseball or hiking and wrecking around a hill in the countryside. Um so that was in 19 maybe 62, and here we are, what, 38 and almost 60 years, yeah, 60 years later. America has never been fatter. It's never had worse health conditions for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and mental illnesses than ever before. Yes, we're living longer, but is 77 for America a good longevity span? Maybe. Uh I would like to beat that. Um our social security system says I'm dead at age 85. Social Security system might be right, but I would beg to differ with them, you know. And I I I absolutely positively agree that yes, there's there's that genetic component and there's that environmental thing, but so much of it, and I would say 80% until age 80 is us. It's what we do, it's how we live. Um, I'm kind of notorious for making portmanteaus or compound words, but the one that I share in this instance is glothic. Two of the seven original sins are gluttony and sloth. And from the layman's perspective, so President Kennedy was unable to change America's trajectory for obesity, poor fitness, uh, longevity. Sixty years later, maybe instead of top down with the president, maybe bottoms up. Maybe people can inspire other people to say, you know, these things are preventable. It's not a preordained thing that you're going to die from heart disease, even though that's our top uh cause of morbidity, I think, in the world, certainly in America. And if 80% of heart disease is preventable with avoiding gluttony and sloth, what's what's wrong with that equation, you know? So uh so let's let's change that equation, Dr. Rocker. You and I on both West Coasts, Ireland and California. Let's let's do that.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

That's right. Well, we're doing our best there to get rid of some of these myths. And uh I think I've always said, I think for the probably the last 80 years, the narrative has had kind of really shifted uh in terms of, I think, exercise and definitely and definitely nutrition, uh, where it seems we're we're in a time and a nature now where everything seems totally upside down. It seems inverted. And if you're listening to the mainstream, it's pretty well you should probably do the opposite of what the mainstream is telling you, and you'll probably be a lot better. Uh and then we we would go, well, why is that? And unfortunately, there's a lot of money in different, different uh organizations that uh that really rely on people being not sick. Or sorry, uh sick or half sick, you know. Um we don't want to kill you, but uh we don't want you to be optimal either.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

By the way, that goes for priests. I had a wonderful Episcopalian priest tell me, an Anglican priest tell me, we've got to keep these old people alive longer. They're the ones that fund the church. So, you know, if we can get them into church in a wheelchair, by golly, that's what we're gonna do. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

So okay, so you've had a very diverse career, um, if I understand correct. Military, you're in the corporate world, athletics. So how did these experiences shape or your approach to health?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Yeah, and and it's kind of that integrated um uh lining up of the pluses and minuses. So my own portfolio, I call it my physical bank. Um, if I can start with that side, because I wrote about it in Kaboomer, you know, we can make things really complicated. As you shared, life sometimes is telling us to do something, and really there's a simple response uh that is counterintuitive but may work better. So I took a look at the idea of fitness and longevity, and I said, how about a framework? How about a model that maybe people can remember? So I came up with a 7S, well, it's been around forever, but I kind of codified it. If you put together strength, stability, stamina, stretching, restorative sleep, anti-inflammatory sustenance, and don't stress, you've got one heck of a physical bank that probably is going to have you outlive, outlast, and do it happily for more than your peers. So that's what I call a kaboomer, is someone that figures out that integrated model of not stressing, of getting that restorative sleep, which by the way, I probably would have to arm wrestle others as to whether strength, sleep, or sustenance is the most important to longevity. And I think the answer is yes, they're all very important. As well as the other four, stability not falling, um, uh endurance, you know, the stamina uh for staying alive, hiking through the hillsides of Western Ireland, um, those things, uh, our bodies were made to move and to reach homeostasis after being uh challenged with imposed demands. I call it the said principle, specific adaptations to imposed demands. And uh to a point, back to the dose response, to a point, with appropriate stressors in strength, stability, stamina, stretching, um, we're probably gonna do all right. Maybe we'll become one of my favorite books, by the way. I don't know. It's uh it's a little book by two doctors, the world's healthiest people. Uh very practical, uh, not a lot of clinical stuff, and there's some really good lessons in there. Some of them are intuitive, some of them are counterintuitive. So um, so that that's the fitness part. The military part kind of told me um that it's a team effort, whether you're talking about a crazy uh military evolution in Southwest Asia or whether you're talking about keep peacekeeping operations. An army is by definition uh a group of people, uh complementary people, not all the same people, but complementary people to work toward a common goal. So the military was extraordinarily um useful in my own case for uh compiling uh lessons of life uh and uh doing important things. Uh my kids think it's absolutely hysterical now when I shared, we couldn't talk about it in the old days, but I shared that I was responsible for part of our nation's nuclear stockpile on my ship. We had four weapons that just happened to, if if we used them, they would cause a big bang. But I didn't want to cause a big bang theory, right? So uh, nor did I want to lose them. And uh, I don't know if you can see the background, but uh my office is not all that squared away. It's a little unkempt. So my my kids say, Dad, you can't find your your pen. How do I know you didn't lose any nuclear weapons? And the answer is, well, it was important, and I didn't. But um, but uh that common good, that common mission was probably the most important thing from my military years in my career. And I thank all any listeners in America that are paying for my retirement, I thank them very much. Corporate America for me was all about projects, getting things done, and um refining soft skills. Uh, if you have autonomy, mastery, and purpose, I argue you're gonna do your best work. Your soft skills of motivation, empathy, self-realization, self-actualization, and social skills really help you get along. Yes, they're outliers. Perhaps somebody from South Africa can have a personality disorder and be the world's richest person. But most of us, most of us uh really can um thrive with uh soft skills like motivation and and uh self realization to move on. So those are the those are three of the elements that you asked about. Uh the military taught me there was more than me. Uh there's no, you know, it's it was a team effort. The fitness taught me that the mind-body had to be aligned for high performance. And my own operating system, I learned a little bit in corporate America, what I call my operating system, is as a systems guy, I like to take complex problems, break them down, and try to share frameworks or guidelines or benchmarks with others so perhaps they can embrace them if it fits, such as that 7S model for uh being a kaboomer.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

So you you use the term kaboomer and you have it in your book. So what does that actually mean to you, kaboomer?

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Well, thank you for asking. And uh we start off kaboomer with a knock-knock joke, actually, Dr. Rocker. So uh a baby boomer and a kaboomer come up to the door and knock-knock. Person answers at the door and says, Who's there? Who's there? And and the answer is, well, it's a baby boomer and a kaboomer who? And well, the answer is a baby boomer takes two pills at a time and a kaboomer takes two steps at a time. So kaboomer is I didn't invent the word, but I used the word as doing something naturally and avoiding polypharmacy and hopefully living longer and living better.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Okay. All right. So you mentioned before, you talked about thriving into your 90s. So what are the biggest misconceptions people have about aging?

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Absolutely. Uh, and and again, technology, the study of crafting and things that serve us is changing. Uh, we now believe, and and I don't know all the exact studies right now, Dr. Rocker, but we now believe that our own lifestyle and what we do uh for nurturing our beings uh gets us into our 80s. And after that, apparently longevity genes uh kick in and take more of a role in, I don't know if it's 60, 40, 70, 30, 80, 20, or 100%. Um, you know, the world's longest living lady that we know about, Jean Calme, the French woman, signed a deal with her landlord. And she said, Of course I'll let you have my apartment when I die. Well, guess who died first? The landlord. So, but you know, she had some aches and pains. She smoked a little, she drank some good French wine, she had some niggles, uh, and yet um there's probably no doubt that she had a longevity gene which was en masked and helped her uh but she apparently had a quite a good life well after becoming a centenarian. Uh is that for all of us? Probably not, and yet, numbers being what they are, the fastest growing part of the American population is 90-year-olds and 100-year-olds. It's a small denominator, but uh, but you know, we're living longer. But the question is, can we take two steps at a time and rely less on two pills at a time? So um so the misconception is that there's this linear glide slope downward to your epitaph and death. Now we've heard, uh, and I think it to be fairly credible, it's very much nonlinear. I think it was a Stanford study within the last six months, Dr. Rocker, that, well, at least for guys at the cellular level, there is a knee in the curve, a bounce in the curve at about age 44 and about age 60. So it's not linear. Uh by the way, performance isn't linear either, is it? There's a lot of L's and S curves in in life. So we're learning that there are these uh knees in the uh long uh lifespan uh curve. And what are we doing about it to maybe dampen uh the change or to enhance the the plus side of these nonlinearities? And um it kind of circles back to dose response, doesn't it? That we talked about. We're learning that uh too much exercise is bad for you. Uh no exercise is probably bad for you, and somewhere in the middle is the right answer. We just don't know what the right answer is. So uh so the trajectory of aging is now challenged. The old conventional thing, you got your gold watch, you're on the planet to procreate and then hang around, see the grandkids, and then kick the bucket. That's not necessarily true. And, you know, we see people like Warren Buffett, who is not known as a fitness guy, and yet he was mentally active, he had a great sense of humor, and he moved enough and kept his mind agile enough to run the world's one of the world's largest corporations in well into his 90s. He probably still is power steering it, Berkshire, even though he's not the guy. So isn't uh Armand Hammer was another guy who I think he ran that oil company uh when he was 100 years old. So the idea of you know 65 and done is is a myth that uh really needs to be uh changed. And we we need a new rubric for aging uh adults. And um, and there's lots of talk, uh, there's lots of um uh wonderful uh and well-known people. The Surgeon General, for instance, shared this thing that I remember because it's simple. I'm you know, a systems guy, but a simple guy. You want to better your brain, eat berries. You want to better your body, eat beans and exercise. How about that? Let's live to 100 by berries, beans, and exercise, or adopting an anti-glothic behavior. So um we don't need to slow down. We're not a bristle-cone pine tree, we're not a mushroom. Uh mammals, by definition, have mobility, and uh we should move more. Uh here, I yes, I'm sitting, but I do have my feet on a uh on stable surface, so I'm exercising my uh perineal nerves and all that uh to try to make use of the time where I'm sitting. Uh I could also be using uh because grip strength is such a biomarker for longevity, you could be flexing and extending your hands uh while you're doing other things, perhaps not in uh during your clinical day, uh, but when I'm writing or whatever, I can certainly do things like that. So um another myth is that um accepting well it's just I'm sorry, the I think it's the main thing that the rules, the rubrics, the guidelines are changing. And as we learned, um, you know, until I had that detailed blood work which identified my kryptonite, um I couldn't explain why I had heart disease. And I think the myth is that the doctor's gonna tell you when something's wrong. I think the myth that has to be busted is that we should, with uh a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of exploratory, a little bit of outreach, get in and see the white coat doctor and try to look early preventative ways or early remediation of things that our bodies are very good at hiding. So uh heart disease doesn't magically show up at age 71 or 72 or whatever. Uh in my case, uh it was there lurking. And unfortunately, my body was very good at hiding it. Uh until the doctor on a whim said, well, you know, you've got a pretty big ticker, you've got great VO2 max, uh, but you had a little discomfort in your chest. Let's figure out what's going on. Oh, what the heck? Get a calcium scan. So uh a myth is that the our in America, the the system, the myth is the system's going to take care of you. And what I think we have to bust is we have to take care of ourselves and be an absolutely almost obnoxious advocate for your own wellness in dealing with our healthcare system. Um, so that that is to me, that's very profound. If I didn't push for the detailed work to understand, even after massive exercise, my CRP is fine. I have no problem with APOS B. I have insulin sensitivity to live long and prosper, and yet I have arteries that are calcified because of a very uh very high marker um lipoprotein A. If I had known that earlier, if the rubric had changed to do preventative screening, would I have changed my life? Absolutely. Or if I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid, right? If hey, you're gonna have the coronary arteries of a 92-year-old 22 years early, uh, I would act on that. So, you know, so probably the biggest myth, I'm sorry to wrap it around it, but probably the biggest myth is we had become accepting of very influential, very affluent white coats in America who rarely do the functional integrated uh practices of healing, of treatment before uh you reach that threshold of um uh chest discomfort or um these other things that our bodies are so good at hiding. So that's probably number one.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah. I think uh I think it's the same in in many places in the world. It's just not America. Um I I I can talk for Ireland and the UK here as well. Listen, there's uh the statistics, the obesity and disease statistics, they're they're getting higher and higher and higher. And um however, I I've been here in Ireland for 24 years now, and I've seen a change over those years, and I've always said I see Ireland becoming Americanized. Oh. And I don't mean that in in a very critical way, but um it's uh you know, it's I think uh America has what is it, third on the list on the worth health statistics, or is something along that those lines like that. So it's it's so embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

And that's not the type of diplomacy that we want to be sharing with our uh fellow uh earthmates. You know, it's it's embarrassing. The Golden Arches and PepsiCola are two of the biggest ambassadors of America, and they're probably two of the worst that we could have.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I I think the saying is spend the most on health care but have the worst health, something along those lines there. Yeah. But that's a paradox that we gotta change. You know, that's uh yeah, absolutely. But you're you're you're absolutely right. The unfortunately, the the standard systems that are in place, they're they're not really put there for optimal health. And it really is to a point now where people need to become proactive and they need to to look into and fight, actually really fight for their own health. And um, you know, I I run a clinic here uh and it's it's a private clinic, and but it's unfortunate that when somebody goes to their doctor that they can only get you know this much of a test here when people may want a lot more, but they're they're simply not able to get it. So they'll have to go outside of that system. They'll have to pay outside of that as well to in order to and to get what they need. Like you, you got the information that you required. Um and you're starting to see people now, they're starting to fly to other countries where they maybe have a little bit more uh uh open system, like I know some of the Eastern European countries, when I've gone traveling, you could walk right into a lab and you could say, I want this, this, and this. They take your blood and you get your results in the afternoon or the day after. And it's like, well, if they can do it, why can't we do it, right? And that's a good question, which gets into a lot of politics, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Oh my goodness. And you know, and maybe this gets back, uh, just maybe it starts today on this wonderful Tuesday. Maybe if we get uh folks more self-sufficient and more self-deterministic. In my family tree, Ralph Waldo Emerson was a transcendentalist and he talked about the individual. And over time, I think we've become accepting of the crutches of our what was called the healthcare system, yet I disparagingly call it the sick care system. Um I wish there were more people that were almost obnoxious like me to push for root causes. Now that I know that our bodies are so very good at hiding things. Uh so uh we have in and you know, America's a pretty big country, 345 million people. Fitness is so on-democratic. It's based on zip code, it's based on heredity, it's based on uh many things that are um should be changed. I don't, you know, I can't change them today or in the next 20 years. And yet uh it for us being a republic or claiming to have some democratic principles, to me there's really less, there's nothing less sacred than the general, you know, our constitution says the general welfare. We're not doing a very good job with the general welfare. Uh we throw out a lot of seeds and crutches, but we don't make people self-reliant in the old frontier days, you know. Uh and that to me is a real travesty. And we my kids cannot afford the sick care system that they're inheriting. And I I believe that. I can't, you know, I haven't done the actuarial numbers yet, you know, we hear that our safety net is not is not gonna be fully funded in 2030. And that's that's alarming, not for me. I'm blessed. Maybe it's okay, you know, aging treachery, I'm okay. But I worry about the kids and grandkids that are promised this safety net that's gonna have a lot of um holes in it. And it's preventable. It's preventable. It's so preventable.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Absolutely. Um there's another phrase. You like you said, you have a lot of great words and phrases. So uh there's a phrase that you use in your book, down aging. Can you explain that concept for us, please?

SPEAKER_00 36:25

I d uh I'd love to, and if I could share that we all have calendar ages. We're blessed to be born on a certain day, and at our first birthday, we've had a one lap around the wonderful sun. Um so that's our calendar age, and yet fitness age, if we do it right and more skill than luck, we can down age and perform as if our bodies were younger. Uh I just was lucky enough to row with four Olympians in a rowing race last weekend. Was I the slowest guy in the boat? Yes. Uh, you know, uh the guy that sat in front of me just won a bronze medal in Paris, uh, 25-year-old, uh national team uh bronze medal winner. Yet I was able to not embarrass them and I was able to uh row uh credibly uh because I take it to heart that I want to down age and not act my calendar age. I want to do things in the gym, whether it's pull-ups or deadlifts or um uh doing a 24-hour endurance event on the indoor rower. I want to do things that are special because the human body is capable of doing special things. So down aging, I don't like superlatives. I'm a pretty basic guy. I was born in Vermont, you know, one of the original colonies. I'm a pretty simple guy. Um so I don't like superaging and I don't like uh superlatives like that because I think they're disingenuous. Yet down aging, we can prove the Mayo Clinic, America's Mayo Clinic, has a set of standards for aging Americans. Your flexibility in sit-to-reach, can you get up from the ground without using your hands? Uh what is your grip strength? These types of very important biomarkers uh are there. And if you're if you've worked at it and if you have a little bit of luck with genetics, hopefully you've downaged. So to me, it's the difference between your calendar age and your ability to perform at a f at years. Uh you're competing as a peer with younger people, and that's pretty cool. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Yeah. So then you might have touched on some of these before, but what are the biggest drivers of decline that you see in people as they age?

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yes, I think uh must muscle loss, I mean, it's it's inevitable. We're all gonna have maybe there's an exception, and maybe Samson was the exception, I don't know in the Bible, but generally we're gonna lose muscle mass. This is a terrible phrase, sarcopenia, loss of flesh. And we know that at about age 30, if you do not challenge your muscles, your muscles, your connective tissue, your joints to move and move heavy stuff, that you are gonna lose your muscle mass at a rate at the normal sarcopenia rates, which is like 1% per year, which is terrible. Uh but if you can change that trajectory, if I can only lose half of the muscle mass at age 73 that my peers lose, I'm better off. And more and more we know that thousand benefits, maybe not a thousand, I haven't counted all the benefits of having uh functional um uh muscle or sarcomeres, um, but there are things like higher metabolism, uh avoiding falls. Many of the things that affect our morbidity are related to functional strength. It doesn't mean bolder shoulders or bulging biceps or um, you know, beach body um, you know, things like that. It means can I do more than my activities of daily life? And can I, you know, you mentioned a second book, Dr. Rocker, thank you. The second book is called Strong to Save, and I mean that. That's a that's an old English nautical phrase. Um, and in in the days of wooden sailing ships, it was often the mind and the brawn of the sailor that got the ship back to port. So I find that at middle age we give up on muscle mass. Oh, it's inevitable. You're gonna lose muscle. Yes, it's inevitable, yet the trajectory can be changed. And uh it takes it takes a little time, a little forethought. It takes surrounding yourself with good people, and it takes being a student of your endeavor. But I think number one is truly skeletal muscle. Now, having said that, we know that the cardiac muscle has more mitochondria and it never rests. You know, my my thought my quads can rest, but the heart never rests. So it's so extraordinary that uh we want to remember to honor the mitochondria and and our our hearts too. So I would say number one is is muscle loss. Number two is senescence, another S-word, senescence. And isn't it interesting that senescence come from the, I'm not a Latin scholar, but senescence comes from the same word as senile and senate. Mmm, senate, mmm, let me think about what happens in the U.S. Senate. Just kidding. But senescence means that we need a tune-up, right? We have what I call zombie cells. That's probably not, I know it's not the correct medical term, and yet we get sludge in our systems. And if we don't intentionally, um, as we get older, if we don't intentionally find ways to do the autophagy to purge that sludge, um, our system gets clogged. Our system needs a tune-up. So number one, sarcopenia, number two, senescence, and number three, um, sleep. Now, for the guys uh with their urinary tract issues, uh we could talk about that for hours and hopefully there are natural ways other than a bunch of pills to help guys sleep through the night. But I would say the top three, Dr. Rocker, are uh sarcopenia senescence and lack of restorative sleep. And we tend to accept it, right? During COVID, I think everybody probably binge watch more than they should have, TV programs, you know, um, but that COVID. And by the way, the only time I had COVID, I was in Athenrai, and I had the nicest integrative doctor. We didn't know what to do. My wife and I both came down with COVID on a tour, and we missed the cliffs and more, but we had the nicest conversation with a pharmacist and a doctor who said, okay, um, I just want you to wait it out. Athenrai's a pretty nice town, you know, go out and walk, you know, um, and um you'll get better and you can fly home when you feel ready. To me, that was perfect medicine for me. That was treat that was diagnosis, treatment, and and well-being, all with a doctor I had never met, you know, just and it all happened in Athenrai. But um, so those are the big three uh sarcopenia, senescence, and lack of restorative sleep. And they're all maybe not you can't always have restorative sleep, but we can all do better, I argue. Naturally. Naturally.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

Okay, so let me put this out at two. So how important is movement versus nutrition versus mindset and how may they interact?

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Oh my gosh. Yeah, I think that's a wonderful Venn diagram and the union of those, the interaction of nutrition, motion, and mind. Um, and isn't it uh I d we have a saying, you know, um, one of the busiest airports in America is Las Vegas, McCarron Airport in Las Vegas. I go to Las Vegas to people watch. I am not a lucky better, although I did pick the national, um the national basketball champion last night. So That was lucky, but um but you know uh we talk about lost wages, but one of the keys to this intersection that you just mentioned of uh lifestyle of motion um uh is is the vagus nerve, that information superhighway. So how many folks don't rub their ears enough to stimulate the vagus nerve? How many people don't hum enough? How many people don't exercise enough? How many people don't take hot and cold showers to exercise their information superhighway that connects the mind and the gut and most of the major organs? So I think it's a tremendously important um intersection, but in that union is well-being, and it's driven by how you do small things on a daily basis to make that Venn diagram really, really, really strong. Um, you could be the strongest person in the world and still die at age 59 for any number of reasons. Yet if you have an agile mind that is that you eat berries, and because exercise is so important to the oxygen, I mean, our brain is a wonderful organ. Um a forebearer of mine named Robert Frost, a shirt sleeve relative, said the mind is a wonderful organ. It it starts working the moment you wake up and only stops when you go to the office. But anyway, that's uh um but the mind really, I say it needs rest because isn't it amazing it doesn't have its own cleansing system? I mean, it has its own cleansing system, it doesn't use the lymphatics. It needs oxygen and sugar. And if we keep the inflammation out and if we keep the brain nourished, hopefully we're gonna do a better job with these dementia-related diseases, which is on democratic in America, hits the women harder than the men. I don't really understand all the reasons, yet um I do know that we can all do better, but we do want to pay special attention to things like dementia-related diseases in women because they're they happen more in women than men as they age.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Yeah, I think there may be there may be some dietary and some stress components to that because when we see um when we see people with elevated homocysteine levels, uh the research clearly shows that those with elevated homocysteine levels they're more likely later in life to be more prone to Alzheimer's and dementia. And so when I look at homocysteine, besides, yes, it could be a cardiac inflammation marker, yes, it could indicate methylation type issues, but at the end of it, what are the nutrients that really drive that either lack of going up or having enough bringing it down? And though there come to three things vitamin B12 and your essential fatty acids and your coenzyme Q10. So then again, I'm looking at well, does this person have a dietary that has those uh ingredients rich enough? And um I think there's a lot of diet philosophies out there, and and I think people get stuck in these diet philosophies rather than looking at biochemical facts, and they're so arguing about this and that and the other, and I'm going, but it doesn't make any biochemical sense, you know. And and there and there are some more well-known people out there that are also spot spouting stuff out that doesn't make any biochemical sense. So um I think people are in a really difficult position these days because we have loads of information, um, but just because it's out there doesn't always mean that it's right. So I think it goes again back to what we said earlier. You have to be proactive about your health. And if you can find a practitioner that you can work with that is able to get you proper testing and help to guide you through it, uh, along with maybe some of these fit devices that we have. I don't I don't like some of them, but I think some of them can help push people in the right direction. And I think that can be very useful as well. Any any thoughts on on those things?

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Absolutely, and uh, thank you. Uh what many of the things that you offer in your practice are what I, as a simple guy, call X factors. Uh does vibration help heal? Yes. Does light help heal? Uh does uh sauna help heal? Well, it has for thousands of years. Maybe we should do more saunas and warm baths, those kinds of things. So I actually devoted uh a chapter in both um uh strongly save in the new book uh Burden or Banish About Heart Disease about these X factors. And I agree with you that we're deluged with heck, the Wall Street Journal last weekend talked about this aura ring and is it a curse or a blessing? And the answer is yes. Uh and yet for four years I will share that this device, and and I think it's okay to say a uh a brand name on your show. If not, I apologize. But uh there are other ones that are.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

We're not selling them, so that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

And yeah, I have no relationship with aura other than I do know that this ring, uh for the ladies, it's tremendously accurate, the younger ladies at predicting their monthly cycles, which is important for performance and you know, lifestyle. Uh for me, this ring told me that something was wrong two days before I came down with COVID-19 in Athenrae, Ireland. This said, hey, your heart rateability is down, your respiration is up, something is what's going on? And I'm I'm on vacation, everything should be fine, right? I had a nice, nice uh Irish dinner, you know, uh salmon and uh maybe a pint. Yeah, I had a pint. But some the ring told me something was wrong, and we know that with you know COVID, early response is better than you know, letting things cascade as the cytokines happen. Also, this ring told me I had shingles. It didn't say, hey Dave, you have shingles. This ring said your temperature, your respiration, your sleep patterns are our host. What's going on? And then classic two days later, the you know, the one-sided um adult measles. Um so uh so there this has in my life has made a difference. And now that I am a practitioner of teaching other people how to live long and live well with that 7S framework, I focus on things like what is your resting heart rate, what is your heart rate variability, what is your resilience, and what are the trends, right? So one of the things I'm fascinated by, I shared that I'm in this two weeks, I have a big inflammatory event coming up, Dr. Rocker. And this spring, it's it's not precise or accurate, but it says my heart age is not as good as it was two weeks ago. Well, I've been doing a whole lot of inflammatory things, and I think it's gonna bounce back. My endothelia will say, okay, dude, you went through a lot of stress, you're gonna get better. But I argue that knowledge can be power. You're absolutely right. We get too much data, too much information, not enough actionable knowledge. And I know that it can be costly. Yes, I do wear, um, I don't like to wear a chest strap for heart rate, which is the most accurate. But for most things, just a check of pulse rate to be in the right training zone for me is appropriate as an athlete. So I argue see what you can do for cheap, see what you can do for analog before you go digital. And if you go digital, do be a smart buyer, be a smart consumer, and don't buy the most expensive thing with features and functions you will never use. So I find it amazing that many ladies tell me that they have sleep problems. The clients and and even my blessed wife. Uh, I say, okay, and you have an Apple Watch, if I can use a brand name. And she said, yes. And I said, Do you wear when you sleep? And she said, No. And I asked, then, how can you measure the important things of you know, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, stress levels, and monitoring one quarter to one third of your life if it's charging when it should be measuring. So isn't it interesting that um the device can't do the work for you? And yet I argue selectively, these X factors, such as a uh perhaps a fitness appliance, can be helpful. What's most important? Get a uh water bottle that doesn't have chemicals in the plastic of it and uh and a towel and go move. That's most important. Um, but can X factors like digital devices help? Yeah, I argue that yes, they can selectively, but I wouldn't run out and buy everything.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I would agree. Um I kind of resisted him for a while and I got a various kind of fitness watch, and uh yeah, I was a little hesitant at the beginning, but then when I played around with it more and like you said, started wearing it at night, you you started to notice uh a lot of interesting uh information coming up and little things like how an extra hour of sleep can benefit you, how an extra 2,000 steps changes your score and and and various things like that. And actually at the end of the day, now I'm going, well, yeah, you know what? I do need to get to bed on time, or um I I do need to take the dog for another walk or whatever the c whatever the case is. Um so I yeah, I think it's helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Um But they can't do the work for you. You mentioned a lot of Yeah, they can't do the work for you. Okay. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So you're still competing, and some would say you're competing at a high level still. So what does your training and routine look like?

SPEAKER_00 53:56

So uh uh if I can use uh the weekly basis as kind of a micro-periodization. And incidentally, after 17 years, the American College of Sport and Medicine says, well, maybe we focus too much on periodization and not just on general effort. So earlier we chatted about rules changing, common sense, rationality, entering into these very structured things like periodization, how hard, how fast, how often. So I call my approach the Dulce Vita, and Vita, you know, Dulce for sweet, but Vita, volume, intensity, tempo, and adapting as I work toward a competition. So the volume of my um I in met hours, uh, I and I like Met hours um more much better, and it helps having a device to measure that. But what is the intensity of your uh either your strength or your endurance work times the time that you do it? And is it enough to help you down age? So the answer is I do um strength training, dedicated strength training two days a week. As an older guy, I need two days to recover fully. The second day, I'm more sore with delayed onset of muscle soreness than the first day. So for me, it would be a Monday, Thursday, Thursday, you know, twice a week. Uh folks at about 50 or so or younger can probably lift diligently three times a week. Uh, one of the myths that I didn't pile on earlier when you asked about when I said strength, um, it is so important for coronar uh coronary health, cardiovascular health to continue to do uh strength training. We know more and more that higher mid and higher intensity work, not too much, but more uh enough higher intensity work helps your uh your cardiovascular system as well as hopefully helps with hypertension and those kinds of things. So um I'm sorry I drew a blank on the original question, Dr. Rocker. I was rambling now.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

No, I was saying just what your own training and routine were looking like. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

Yeah. So my in med hours, uh right now I'm a little higher because I'm getting ready to row 12 hours in a 24-hour period. So it's pretty high. And what I'm trying to do, as a rule of thumb, if I do an hour of cardiovascular endurance training uh four days a week, do strength training and body weight and general stretching and walking two days a week, I always take one day off. Uh and I know people will say, well, why do you do that? And I say, because you want to miss it. You want to be excited about the next day after a day off. And it helps our bodies kind of think about homeostasis again, too. Hey, you really missed exercise. Aren't you excited to get back to it? So in my case, four days of at least an hour a day of um appropriate um endurance work, two days of strength training, and that doesn't take long. A myth about strength training, it takes hours and hours. No, no, it doesn't. You can get a very good strength workout in after warming up appropriately in less than an hour, and it's a wonderful way to spend uh about a percent of your week in strength training to better you and possibly help you get seven to ten extra healthy years in your life. So uh four days, as I say, four days of uh cardiovascular, two days of strength, which by the way does help cardiovascular and one day off. And then I'll change as I get toward a peak competition. The race that I had last weekend was 2,000 meters. Uh, it's called a sprint distance, so I did more high intensity work. But as a rule of thumb, if I do, let's just say I do six hours a week of um endurance training, only 20% of that or about an hour should be high intensity. Uh when I was in college back rowing, it was like it was like 6040. Uh we want more high intensity. Uh and now we're finding out that 80-20, 80% low intensity zone one and two capacity building for mitochondria and arteries is is is a pretty good benchmark and uh and also helps with that inflammatory stuff. Too much too hard for too long is not healthy. We don't know how much, but we know too much too hard too long is not healthy. So hope that answered it. Four, two, and one. Four days of uh endurance, two days of strength, one day off.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

Okay. So then what are the non-negotiables for maintaining strength and function as we age?

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Yeah, uh, so and another myth that we talk about is you have to move joints to stay strong. And not really, right? You can hold a plank and have good uh endured uh strength, functional strength work too. So I want, I would love if more people embraced isometrics as well as isotonics, moving joints. But so much of what uh as we get older, of course, one of the things, and hopefully not too many of your uh folks that come into the clinic, about one-third of every American over the age of 65 falls every year. And if they go to the emergency room, bad things happen, and there's there's no good outcome that comes from a broken hip, a broken um uh elbow or broken wrist. Nothing is good for that. So, how do we, number one, prevent falls? You have to have the neuromuscular system so that if you trip, you don't fall. But if you did happen to fall, you don't break something because you have muscle as cushioned. Back to sarcopenia. We don't want to lose flesh, we don't want to lose skeletal muscle. So it's not negotiable that you give up strength training. Now, could it be body weight? Yes. Could it be resistance bands? Absolutely. Could it be the grandkids? Yes. Could it be carrying heavy groceries instead of having the delivery service do it? Yes. But uh, we're in mammals, and mammals are meant to move and move heavy stuff, is very, very good medicine. So that to me, that is non-negotiable. You stop moving heavy stuff, you start compromising your independence, and it's a that trajectory does become more linear toward um being a burden to your uh offspring.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned before about having rest days, and um I think uh a a big issue sometimes is people do too much. We're in a day where everybody's doing too much to think more is always better. So what role do you does recovery and sleep play in longevity in your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

Oh well, even before uh sleep, I have a wonderful wife who says, Well, you're a little snippy. I think you're overtrained. So even before the next morning when my fitness appliance says your heart rate variability is down and your resting heart rate was up, my wife would say, uh, I think you're overtrained. Uh but uh perceived exertion and heart rate certainly are key. Um, but it's not just that. Um it it could be uh, hey, the weather's changing, maybe you're a little dehydrated, because we know that one of the first signs of fatigue is that you're dehydrated. Um so um if you're thirsty now, you should have drunk 20 minutes ago, right? So uh it it is unfortunately we don't know until the next morning whether what I did yesterday and the sleep that I had last night was what I needed to be ready to do um my periodization for the next day. And yet it's a good data point. I do know that you can run yourself into the ground. There's so many cases of wonderful athletes overtraining and not being able to peak at the right time because their their mind and body were just spent, their reserves were done.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

So yeah, yeah. So then for someone listen for someone listening who feels like they've lost it physically, what would be a good starting point or where should they start?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

Uh I would start with the muscle between our ears, and I I don't mean that in a glib way. Uh, attitude is so important to say, yes, I can make a tiny difference. I studied just last week. I haven't checked into the double blind nature of it, but it implied, like you shared earlier, Dr. Rocker, that on the margins, maybe 10% more steps can decrease your total morbidity by 10%. Now, what does that mean? You know, but uh maybe just a little bit extra is enough without doing a whole lot extra that isn't helpful. So um it is it's it's rational. It's it's approaching with um am I what are my goals and what can I do? And can I do it myself, or do I need a buddy? Do I need a coach? Or uh, you know, read again, we want you to be resourceful, we want you to be a student of your endeavor, surround yourself with resources and ask lots of questions to get to root causes. If you have a shoulder that just isn't right, well, is it because you're playing pickleball and you didn't warm up properly? By the way, that's our number one injury. When I um I was uh I was a flexologist and still am, but um, I saw more pickleball injuries than golf or tennis for aging athletes because they don't warm up and they think they're chasing yesterday and they're performing like they're 22-year-olds, and then they get tendonitis, which as you know can take you out for a long time if it really gets inflamed. So um being rational is something, but also the realization that starting is so much more important. You know, um I didn't do very well in math, but I know there's a big difference between one and zero. If you do nothing, that's not good. If you do a little, like one, it can mean a whole lot over time. And if we talk about your body as an amazing uh thing, a system, but I call it your physical portfolio. And it's those seven S's, strength stability, stamina, stretching, don't stress, sleep, anti-inflammatory sustenance, and will you will your bank outlast you? Will you have reserves that um will be there for the rest of your earthly days before your epitaph is written? And I argue that if you do a little in that balanced approach and maybe do some of the X factors, like investigate saunas or red light therapy, or um, hey, I try to do the vibration plate every day. Why did I get a vibration plate? Because I have a client with a hereditary spastic paraplegia, and the British folks say that vibration helps that person's neuromuscular system hang on. He's on a terrible trajectory for losing his independence and mobility, but he's fighting it. And he's fighting it with not only motion, but he's fighting it with technology like vibration and and electrical stimulation. So um I I just hope that folks know that there are alternatives to polypharmacy. I guess that's kind of one of my uh takeaways.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you said. Zero, one is better than zero. So if we're going on simple things, then what are the what would be the simplest habits that somebody you or sorry, let me rephrase that. What are the simplest habits that give the biggest returns over time?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:22

Ah well, uh, and again, this is not meant to be uh trivial, but I have a um a mnemonic aid called morning. And it, yes, it did start with Adam Mumbick Raven who said, make your bed. So the M is make your bed. But then uh give yourself a big hug and then start the work, the meridians of your body to get the vital forces flowing as you wake up before you have a cup of coffee. And I always say, you know, have lemon water to uh celebrate your liver and your hardworking liver, all it does uh in in modern life, uh, before you have a stimulant, if you're gonna have tea or coffee. But uh the most important. thing is to uh in a in a in a way of gratitude is to say this is a day of motion and when i'm ready I'm gonna move heavy things if today is a move a heavy thing day but even if it's move my body you know I'm about a hundred kilos believe it or not and um and I move that hundred kilos that's it's helping my metabolism it's helping my joints my connective tissue and hopefully the right motion is keeping that vital force that you know the yin and the yang in balance so um just start by moving even if you're sick um in unless you had a respiratory thing that's really deep in your lungs I say do something gentle even if it's just stretching or uh mindful breathing but uh one of the most important systems that we tend to take for granted is our respiratory system and we know that uh VO2 Max and VLA Max are two of the amazing statistics for longevity. Uh the Norwegian studies are very profound that uh if your cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory system are good, you're probably going to be around unless you get hit by a greyhound bus. But we take our lungs for granted and I don't think people realize how hard the lungs have to work to do the gas exchange and to make it possible that you can get oxygen to your brain into your body. And where does that start? It doesn't have to be running a marathon it can start with mindful breathing. And I think everybody can find one minute a day to exercise diaphragm breathing and maybe the 4x4, 478. I know there are many, many different breathing techniques for mindful breathing, but that's one of the best exercises we can all do to I mean Navy snipers, uh Navy SEALs do four by four breathing before they take their long range sniper shot because it calms the blood pressure's down the respiration's down and they're ready to perform so breathing uh and using your diaphragm is one of the most um to uh to go downward and to expand the lung capacity is is tremendous. I mean a lot of uh my my grandfather was a country doctor he used to call pneumonia uh the gentleman's disease because as you slow down and you lose your respiratory capacity, you know, bad things start to happen and sometimes it they happen peacefully but I don't want to die from pneumonia. I've had it twice.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

I don't want to die from pneumonia you know so I want to die from finishing uh a rowing race you know in first place but you know it's uh yeah yeah yeah I think the brief I think the breathing i i is is really important and it's it I don't think it's something that's talked about enough. Um I always say I don't I don't think most people really know how to breathe. That may sound funny, but uh you know you mentioned earlier on uh about you know the vagal tone and working the vagal nerve and you know breathing is a part of that. The humming, uh the singing is all good on that. The the cold showers it kind of made me laugh because there's I'm sure that some people in my house think I'm nuts and maybe the neighbors if the windows open because I always I end I end my shower with a you know a minute cold shower and uh and then when I'm done it I I do the pound on the thymus gland and I I I yell like I'm Tarzan and so they probably think I'm nuts.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

But you know we uh and and another thing where I think your functional and integrated medicine helps so much is the endocrinal system. Unless you're lucky in a in America and find the right specialist, you're on your own to figure out how to work your happy hormones and how to I call it a four valve trumpet, you know, your oxytose in the hugging hormone, your dopamine for motivation and your serotonin, which by the way you need restore to sleep if you're going to have good serotonin levels. But those three valves can be overcome by the fourth one cortisol if we let it, right? So we want our parasympathetic, the vagals to be a bigger part of our lives and we want our endocrines to be happy and we want them to be working for us, not working against us.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:08

So how do you how do you help people break out of it? It's um you know this kind of we talked about mindset that it's the you know the the woe is me or it's too late for me mentality. How do you get people to break out of that?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

Well uh in some cases I ask them to uh look in the mirror you know uh mirrors uh uh spandex and uh drunks and children don't lie right so we want truth and if you look in the mirror and you're happy with uh yesterday uh working with a client uh busy lawyer and he just looked beat if this is uh the day after Easter and it was a busy holiday weekend isn't it interesting the holidays can become stressful but I said whoa what is going on your face looks really stressed and he said oh I was playing pickleball I just broke my metatarsal for the third time and I said oh so number one look in the mirror are you happy with what you see or do you see that you're not a composed relaxed and resilient individual number two um perhaps look look to someone like me I'm not the youngest trainer on the planet and I never ask one of my clients or people that I know or the people that I teach in rowing classes to do something that I don't do. So uh it's not anything other than to say if I can do it, let's see if you can do it. So by example I think is the second part. And the third part is just not to be a platitude but believe to achieve what what did you do in younger day that you for whatever reason have compromised and are no longer able to do or choose not to do and can we change that? What are those habits that we can change? And it's not New Year's resolution because we know how many of those fail but it's what are resilient things that you used to do that um you can brag about and write about to your kids and grandkids? What can you be proud of? So pride maybe is the third one. First one is look in the mirror self you know self-realization. The second is find somebody perhaps your same demographic group that is doing things that you might be able to emulate and the third is is that um just what can I be proud of? And it doesn't have to be set an Olympic record. It's just what can I be proud of to make you know my grandkids say man Grammy really did something cool you know that kind of thing. She got up from the ground without using her hands you know that you know those are those are those three things I think are it excellent. So so where where do you think the future of longevity and health is heading now in this modern day well I hope that it is I saw an article which I love and I embrace uh we talk about spans a lot Dr. Rocker and um lifespan is I I guess that's a goal most of us you know I have some people say I don't want to live as long as my mom did and I said why not? Well you know she was tired and didn't have her mojo at the end of life and I said did it have to be that way and oh probably not so uh of the spans I think of uh I think of uh strength span and I think of health span and as well as lifespan so in America it is to me it's an absolute travesty that about 15% of the average adult's lifespan is unhealthy meaning a debilitating condition or something that helps keeps them from being a full person, a man in full, a woman in full 15%. So let's uh American woman lose to 78, so one sixth of that 13 years of the average American woman's life is unhealthy. What is wrong with that? You know it wouldn't it be like you know Queen Elizabeth you stop you drop you know 96 interview the prime minister and then drop boom now of course she had you know she had great medical care and all that sort of stuff. But to me it is an absolute travesty that too much of our lifespan is spent in unhealthy ways or less than optimal ways and what can we do to help that? Work on your gluttony work on your sloth are the two big things and sleep.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:34

So yeah yeah yeah so then if you could give one piece of advice to someone who wants to say strong capable and independent in their into their later life, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:48

Move stuff and try to move heavy stuff appropriately heavy stuff is good medicine. Now uh not to gloss over diet or sleep but of the if if it was a three-legged stool Dr. Rocker I'd say that strength sleep and diet you know strength meaning could be endured strength as well as muscular strength um but um figure out can I lift that five pound bag of sugar? Could I get wrist weights when I go from my walk with the grandkids? Could I do little successful steps that will compound over time uh to build a better physical bank just small ways to move heavy stuff. Now what's heavy it's relative right but uh you know you must have an unabridged dictionary back there you can give to your client and say you know do some presses with it or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:38

I'm sure there's one back there somewhere yeah so so just to kind of finalize and maybe your last uh comment has part of this in here but um you you have your term living well into the 90s so what does living well into the 90s actually look like to you yes it is to me it is independent or nearly so now it could be eyesight or other reasons why you can't drive but in America you lose your driving that's the first step of the slippery slope of not being independent um uh what what makes a centenarian you know from the blue zones?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:13

Multigenerational families purpose uh good diet and appropriate activities of daily life not crazy bungee jumping or running marathons but those five things maybe that's not 100% accurate but those five things are really important. So to thrive and strive in your 90s you have to stay you know we have to avert dementia related diseases by staying active doing crossword puzzles uh getting the berries getting the oxygen and the sugar to your brain and not having clogged clogged uh arteries leading to your to your uh brain um so the the the purpose uh having family around you we know more and more that sport the type of sport as we age is more important than the sport meaning group sports help you live longer than single sports which is interesting because of the social aspect so if there's a way to exercise move a heavy stuff in a social setting whether it's a Pilates class or a group fitness class or you know uh wearing um uh a a weighted vest or or weighted wristbands to go for your walk in nature, uh those things will help you thrive and strive. But again a lot of it is the muscle between your ears.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:27

Absolutely absolutely yeah well you know I I'd like to thank you um I think there's a lot of great advice that you've given to people and it's it's very practical advice it's uh it's not expensive advice uh you know uh it's things that people can do uh anywhere at any time um so I I think that's great um so Dave you you you've got a you've got a bit of your own work and you've got your own books and so if where can people find out more about your work learn more about what you're doing if they want to stay in contact with you um where where what what can you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:05

Oh well thank you for that Dr. Rocker uh my main website my company name is well past 40 uh and so the main website is well past 40 and that's spelled F O R T Y dot or G. And then I'm on on the social media platforms is Well Past 40 or David Emerson Frost. But I'd love to engage uh with anyone. If you have any military listeners I thank them for their service and if they reach out to me uh via the website I'd be happy to send uh whatever they need to help them on their journeys a copy of Strong to Save or or whatever or uh just chat with them because um you know the world's a crazy place but it's good to have policemen that keep us safe. So thank them and thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:50

So absolutely and thank you for for for your work uh and dedication as well that that's great. What we'll do is we'll make sure we'll put all the uh excuse me all of those details into the into the show notes for people to make it easy for them. And uh I encourage everybody to get in touch with with Dave and uh support his great works and uh keep moving, keep active uh keep fit and uh all those good things that you that you mentioned uh I think that's fantastic. And uh and people please uh please like and and share and subscribe I I know it may sound a little bit cheesy but in this day and age where uh sometimes a lot of voices and information get censored and not put out there this is the only way that it really gets out there so please share it uh with people that can benefit from it and uh I'm sure you'll be helping somebody with that. So with that in mind I'd like to thank our listeners and David I'd like to thank you once again for being a part of the integrative continuum and uh hopefully we'll we'll run past again in the near future.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:54

I look forward to that and I can't wait to get back to County Clare to say hi.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:58

Actually you come on in here and we'll we'll we'll we'll do a little bit of hiking and moving those body yeah absolutely all right all the best take care everybody until next time see you later bye bye thank you for joining me on the Integrative Continuum I hope today's conversation gave you new insights and practical tools for your own health journey. If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe share it with someone who would benefit and leave us a review. It helps us spread this message further. Until next time I'm Dr. Richard Rocker. Stay curious stay empowered and keep moving forward on your path to integrative health