Smart Movement for Aging Better with Lara Heimann

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function.

And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine.

And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25 milligrams of CBD and 25 milligrams CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites.

What are you waiting for? Good night. Let's talk about your mobility. Do you hurt? Do you think your range of motion is terrible? You've never been flexible? Do you avoid movement because it's not feeling good? This is your episode.

I'm Debra Atkinson, and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert and international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause-and-beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week, I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve.

There is all kinds of exercise and all kinds of exercise are good. Some will say any exercise is better than no exercise. And I think we'd all agree that if there's a way to enhance movement for better aging, whether we're already exercising or we're in need of getting started, We're in. If you've ever said or felt, every time I started to exercise, I get hurt, this is for you. Or if you're looking at a long history of an active lifestyle and you want to keep on this path for as long as you live, this episode will also hit the right spot right where you love your exercise. There's no lack of science to prove that mind, body, and spirit can no longer be separated. They're an integrated part of all components of wellness. And if you emotionally feel good with a positive mood, you tend to want to move more spontaneously. It's easier and it's more fluid. When you're down, you're feeling heavyhearted, movement becomes stiffer and more effort. And we know exercise has a major impact on the brain. It's a dose of clarity, problem solving, creativity, and it supports better connections similar to what I would call plugging in electrical outlets, sitting on the floor right next to the outlets but not yet plugged in. You can do that with your brain at any age. Your memory improves. We discuss this neuroplasticity with my guest today. Feeling a little stiff? You may feel better, or at least see a light at the end of the tunnel by the end of this episode. My guest is Lara Hyman. She's an internationally recognized yoga pioneer, physical therapist, and founder of the revolutionary LYT— that's L-Y-T— method, an evidence-based approach to movement that combines the principles of yoga, physical therapy, and functional movement. Lara's passion lies in empowering people of all ages to move better, live pain-free, and optimize their physical and mental well-being. Her work has reached thousands of students and teachers across more than 50 countries, transforming lives with her innovative blend of movement science and spiritual connection. She holds a BA in biological anthropology and anatomy and an MS in physical therapy from Duke University, along with a neurodevelopmental training certification through Stanford University. In 1999, Laura realized that traditional yoga often lacked a comprehensive of understanding of body mechanics. Determined to change this, she developed the LIT method, which merges— I'm sorry, the LIT method, which merges physical physiology, kinesiology, and neurology with functional movement patterns. Her method emphasizes sustainable, intelligent alignment, is designed to help individuals move more efficiently, prevent injury, and build long-term vitality. Whether addressing physical pain, enhancing mobility, or supporting the challenges of aging, the LIT Method is rooted in science and designed for all bodies, ages, and abilities. Lara's approach emphasizes that movement is not just about exercise, but creating a holistic, sustainable lifestyle. Her commitment to fostering resilience, balance, and purpose in a world increasingly dominated by technology and sedentary habits makes her a sought-after voice in wellness, workplace health, and longevity. Can't wait for you to hear this communication that we had today. It was amazing. I think that you'll find right away there's some things that you'll take away, little tidbits, but stay to the end because the very best takeaway happens at the end of this episode. Lara, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you so much for having me, Debra.

I am so excited to hear about this. And, you know, I am certified in all the things you might guess after 41 years, but I think there are specific things that I really found were pivotal for me in going through. And always, I think, as a fitness or movement expert, instructor, trainer, or whatever hat you're wearing, The excitement comes when you yourself have an experience and then you want to share it with everybody else. It's like, you know, if you were going to share your best boyfriend with somebody, this is what it would look like. What is your experience? How did you get here doing what you're doing?

Well, you know, that exact thing kind of happened to me and I think, like you said, this happens to a lot of people in the movement world. I was— I graduated from physical therapy school, and I'd always been interested in movement. I had been teaching movement. I taught aerobics, you know, back in the '80s, high-impact aerobics and hip-hop, and then went on to teach step and spin and just loved being an instructor of fitness. And then I became a physical therapist and found yoga at the same time and really loved yoga in a way that I had not anticipated. So I continued to teach yoga and teach other forms of fitness, and then parallel track was doing my PT by day. I went and got another, um, postgraduate specialization in what's called neurodevelopmental training, which really works with, um, neurologically involved clients, whether they've had a stroke or a, a traumatic brain injury. And they've suffered some kind of motor impairment. And you, instead of teaching compensation, you try and retrain and rewire neuroplasticity so that you can get some of that motor function back. And it's very successful. And I was working with a client who had, you know, had hemiplegia, one arm just like he was just hanging down. Seemingly paralyzed. And I eventually got him to the state where we were crawling on the floor. And it was when he was crawling and his wife said to me, I can't believe he's doing this. You know, he was really in a wheelchair for 2 years before we found you and all this. She was, she was like crying basically. And I just had this aha moment of like, what if I did some of this in my own practice, even though I'm able-bodied? Because if somebody who's starting off already with some impairment makes these kind of changes. It's kind of like speed reading, you know, the— yeah, the, the— what has been shown is if you give somebody who's a slow reader a speed reading class, they improve like 50%. But if you give it to somebody who's already reading quickly, they improve like 400%.

Wow.

It's right. So you're capitalizing— you, you improve from wherever you are, but if you already have a lot of things going, you'll improve even more. So, I started just playing around on my own like a little laboratory and implementing some of these things that we're doing, which are on-the-ground developmental moves that we all did when we were young. And, the idea is that your brain really— you grow your brain through movement and you grow your movement patterns and the sophistication of using both hemispheres of the brain through movement. So, if we all have some kind of maybe suboptimal movements, which typically is going to happen once you're sitting in a chair most of the day, then what would happen if I brought in this as a way of almost rebooting the system before doing bigger movement patterns? So, I'm bringing in kind of a fresh palette, better neural wiring instead of just reinforcing some habits that I might have had. And I found that after a month, my practice changed dramatically. My practice was stronger. It was more integrated. It felt so— I was able to start doing things I never thought, like teaching myself how to handstand. I mean, it was really quite dramatic. And then I started— yeah, of course, I was like, I want to teach my people this. I'm teaching them classic vinyasa. But I'm no longer practicing it that way. So I want to teach them and let them see if they discover the same things. And sure enough, I was lucky to have a home studio with a small group of people, and I started teaching them. And at first they're like, this is kind of weird, but we trust you. And then after a month, they were like, why is not everyone doing this?

Wow.

So that was my moment, is like just thinking, why am I keeping these two parts of my life and my education separate instead of integrating and bringing the best of both into this kind of movement practice that really uplevels everything.

Wow. Okay. So I want to recap two things that you said that I am still blown away by, and I want to make sure that every listener hears this because I think sometimes in the conversation on exercise, it is almost the opposite. So it can be a little shocking for you to put this together. So we would say like for somebody coming off the couch to begin exercise, I mean, they're gonna reduce their, you know, risk of mortality by, by incredible percent. However, if you're already fit and you go to advanced fitness, you're not gonna improve your longevity all that much. Your ROI, you know, you've kind of hit a threshold. You'll get some benefit, but it won't go as fast. But what you're saying is actually the opposite in regards to like teaching this motor unit, you know, learning and teaching yourself how to move better. If you have already pretty good results, you can actually go from good to great, like exponentially. That's super exciting.

Yeah, and I will add to that that the quality and how you do it is very important. So if you're doing the same thing all the time and you just decide to do more of it or add more time, your return on investment isn't gonna be as high. You have to purposefully add in things that are different. Your brain craves novelty. Your brain, the response to novelty the response to the input of something different, you will get a huge charge. You will get much. So it's not that you just want to do more, you want to do the things smarter. And that means that you're going to have— so when I talk about challenge, I'm not just talking about, oh, this feels like, wow, this is a lot of weights, or wow, this is 20 more extra minutes. The challenges to the brain, and that is like, oh, I'm doing a movement pattern that is different, that is sequenced a little different, that is something I didn't expect. So another, getting back to handstanding, like learning to handstand, whether you actually get vertical or not, is way less important than the pathways you lay down to getting there. So it is the quality and it is that you have to— it has to be challenging.

I so love that. And I don't know why this popped into my head, but I want to first— the second thing, and I'm going to come back to this, the second thing that you said was, oh my gosh, I could kiss you right now, but you, you grow your brain from movement.

Absolutely.

And then so we wonder why dementia, memory, creativity, problem-solving, brain fog.

I mean, come on, you know, if we could just learn right from the very beginning, life is going to be challenging. This is going to all happen, but movement is the answer to everything. It is the antidote to everything, everything. Every system in your body functions better and more optimally with movement. And then, the converse is also true. So, if you're not moving as well, your systems in your body aren't going to be working. So, the things you talked about, neurological, You're going to have more brain fog. You're going to have more potential for memory loss. And we know this to be true just in the way we feel when after we move. And it can be as simple as like you're really feeling super like not motivated, just want to sit down and watch a bunch of Netflix, but instead you go out and walk your dog for 15 minutes. You feel different. We know that. Well, now we have the research to also back it up. So we, like, I love research, but some of this is just how you know this to be true. We know kids play because it feels good. There's not like an end goal to it. It feels so wonderful to move their body. And we have just been— we haven't been taught to continue to play, to continue to look at movement as exploration, and to look at movement as life. It is life. We, we live better, longer, more fully, and brighter when we move and move regularly.

I love it. And coming back to— and it needs to be novel. So for those of you— and I know there's some of you— we get into these routines, we get into a rut. And even if you don't experience this feeling of, you know, I'm repeating myself, If you are just very disciplined, you're motivated, and some of you don't like anybody to move the cheese. Like, you like it that way. That's my routine, you say. That's who I am, you say. You know, if you're not changing. But this reminds me of, okay, and now I'm blanking. She's the mother of mindfulness. Maybe you can help. But she will say, you know, this is about awareness that maybe creating habits is not what we wanna do. Because habits just have us going the same thing automatically. We're not paying attention. And when you start being aware of your environment, like noticing things, then you come alive again. And that's kind of what you're talking about, like doing it physically so that the brain comes on and your Wi-Fi signal gets better, right?

Totally. And that, I mean, I would have people who would sometimes say, well, I like, you know, if they went to a class, let's say, that did the same thing every time. And there are yoga classes that do that.

Yeah.

And, and it's like, well, you're not learning anything, right? You're not. And you are in a way going on autopilot, you know, it's like, and we already are going to be somewhat conditioned to be on autopilot because there's so much distraction. We do need to conserve our energy and have these kind of things that we know. But even if you're driving the same pathway, to pick up your kid, the goal is like, can you, can you pay attention? Do you always have to be distracted or be entertained? And if, if that's the place to do it, fine. But in movement, come on, don't do it there. We don't need to be entertained. We don't need to be distracted. We actually need to be pulled in to everything that we're feeling, sensation. And this is an opportunity to also rework Why are the thoughts that come up, you know, the thoughts that are like, well, this is too hard, I really suck, or whatever it is, it's like, no, this is your story and let's rewrite it. And you can rewrite it through challenge because you will stay with it and be determined in that mindfulness to be, you know, continue as opposed to just go down a track that you might be used to.

I love it. And we should probably back way up just for any listener who we've skipped over this for. Let's define neuroplasticity so everybody here understands what we're talking about.

Neuroplasticity is simply your brain's ability to grow and change. So think of something rigid, it is not, you know, it is not going to be changeable versus something that is plastic can be re, you know, remolded, re-sculptured. And with neuroplasticity, our brain with input, that's why we need different input. That's why we need to challenge ourselves and not be doing the same thing all the time, it will change, it will grow. And it is— it used to be thought of, you know, not as close as 50 years ago, that we pretty much are going to reach our brain's potential for change, you know, in our adolescent years. And that has been shown to not be true for a long time now. And it's— people will come to me like, oh, I'm too old for this. I'll never be. And it's like, no, the thing is, until you're dead in the ground, you're never too old to change.

You're never too old not to, right?

Right. The best time is today because that is like— it's amazing. Our circuitry is such that we can always change. We can change the way we move, the way we breathe, the way we behave, the way we respond, the way we think. It's always there. And that's because of this beautiful CEO that is plastic.

And I want to ask you, this is a segue, and nothing, you know, nothing that got you here, but you're talking about injury. You've dealt with injury, I'm sure, as a physical therapist. But talk a little bit about how this is related to pain. And, you know, because often in prior conversations about pain, you know, it's like a signal from the brain, and the brain can keep sending that signal even after, say, an injury has healed. Like, it'll still tell you. And like, an example for anybody listening might be, let's say you sprain an ankle and then you limp around for a while. You're compensating, you're limping. And then, you know, 2 weeks later it's actually healed, but you may still be limping because your brain has still learned that pattern. Oh no, I got to protect you, I got to protect you. How does what it is you're teaching— is there a relationship here with helping Yeah, with pain.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson. I love creating the Flipping 50 podcast for you, and I have for over a decade. I also love helping midlife women shift not only their physical energy, but their beliefs about what effective exercise looks like and how much it can positively and powerfully impact your life, how you menopause, and exercise in menopause determines how you will live, not just now, but decades from now. If you're not exercising right now, you're getting tired, not stronger, or you think you don't have time or the energy to exercise, do a 5-day flip with me. I'll send you one short video a day for 5 days. It's just 15 to 20 minutes long. So you can see exactly how I plan out a fitness plan for myself and for thousands of clients I've worked with. You can get this at flipping50.com. Right now.

What are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 together.

Well, there's a couple things. One, very basic from a PT perspective, we teach biomechanics. So, right, good biomechanics means that you are positioning yourself and moving yourself with efficiency. And efficiency isn't as sexy as some other words, but it's really important. When you are efficient, you're much, much less likely to overdo something, to strain something, because you have a collaborative effort on the part of all the muscles that move the joints. And they're doing it in a way that is most efficient. And so biomechanics means moving well in your hip versus relying on your pelvis or your low back. Your hips are made to move trillions of cycles. They are big synovial joints just like your knees, they're made to do that. But people in yoga practice, for instance, you say fold forward, they're going to do it in whatever way their body is kind of positioned or accustomed to doing. So right off the bat, we teach them how do you hinge at your hips and bend your knees, bend your knees, please. Whoever told you to keep your knees straight for yoga, that you're going to be somehow showing more reverence or doing it the best is wrong. Your knees are made to have, like, transmit energy, not meant to lock out. And they're made to support the more important joint for the movement, which is closer to the body. That's your hips.

Okay, wait, can I, can I inject here?

Yeah.

So I want to say that, and you might have to just say, okay, this is my personal professional opinion too. I've seen that, or not. But I think there are a lot of yoga instructors drawn to yoga because they're good at it, because often they have hypermobility. I think that a lot of people have learned from those instructors, and so therefore think, I should look like that too.

Look at the pictures they're showing. We are, like, sold this side. And this is one thing where I came in, you know, I started teaching this way over 15 years ago. It was— and there was a lot of resistance in the yoga world. Because yoga had really glorified in-range of motion, big range of motion, lots of binds, all these type of things, these kind of positions that don't really make sense biomechanically. And I came in and said, why are we doing these? This is kind of dumb because the people that are able to do them should probably not be doing it. That's what I always told when I started teacher training. I'm like, you're going to be fine with the stiff person in the back. They are getting all kinds of information from their nervous system. What scares me is the bendy person in the front row because they're getting no information from the nervous system. They're hypermobile, which means they're dulled. That communication between brain and body is not sharp. And they're not getting that messaging like, hey, you're going towards the end range. And they're the ones who are not going into stability. They're going into joint collapse. And so, I started just saying things like there is nothing impressive about sinking into joints. There's nothing to be applauded.

But, that term is used so often, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah. It's gotten better, but I will tell you, I have been shouting it for a little while. And, You know, it's usually the really bendy people who at first were kind of resistant. And then unfortunately, later I often see them and they're like, yoga did this to me. And I'm like, sorry, that happened. And I'm going to teach you how to actually contain yourself. So getting back to being, you know, but so biomechanically, much you want to— we teach how to move in a way that is efficient and joyful. And it's not putting undue stress on you know, any of the structures, in particular those passive structures of the joint. Also teaching people that they can improve their imbalances so that maybe the pain that they've experienced, they won't experience anymore. A perfect example is the low back. Low back pain is the most predominant pain you'll hear about, bar none. It is And low back pain, if you think about it, in our sedentary way, our modern lifestyle, the low back is obvious it's going to be one of the victims because we're sitting, we're putting pressure on it, we're not giving it support from the ground up typically. And then we go and try and move and that feels really stiff and we're not moving in a way that is making it feel good. So we start to get some signals, hey, you know, pain is just information to do something different.. It's just telling you, like, what you're doing, I don't really like. It's not saying stop moving. It's saying move differently. So for people that have, like, have— and I, and I want to— when I say story, I mean, I'm not saying that in a bad way. I'm saying it's a narrative that has created for a reason. And that read just like pain was there for a reason. It was protective. But then, like you said, it can remain. And then we can, like, Oh, I have a bad back. I have my low back tense. My low back will go out. All these things. And it's like, well, number one, you're feeding into this readiness to feel something that's not necessarily going to be there or accurately displaying the condition of your body. Pain is just, again, move in a smarter way, but don't stop moving. So, if you have some kind of pain, go to somebody who understands good biomechanics and alignment and can teach you how to move in a way that is going to offload whatever habits had created this original, you know, pain cycle from. But, like you said, there are people who are still feeling, quote unquote, the pain even though there's no trauma to the tissue. Anymore. And that is something you can break by moving better and teaching your body like, oh, I'm safe, I'm strong, I can do this. Not doing it, it's like the fearful kid, you know, you're just making them more fearful.

Very cool, I love it. Okay, so let's kind of bring this back to— I mean, we know movement is important for aging. We've kind of illustrated how it's, it's important for our brain, for dementia, for memory, for just cognitive functioning, problem solving, remembering where the keys are, remembering if you left your wife at church, you know, all those good things, you know, um, you know, super important. But talk about, you know, what do you see as a physical therapist? And, you know, and now much more proactively you're getting to see the other side, but as a physical therapist, you probably saw a, a pattern, I'm guessing, of people coming in older and older, more and more immobile. Um, yeah, talk about aging and movement and how optimizing it in this way can really be a huge benefit.

Well, what I, you know, in when I first was a physical therapist, I was in a rehab clinic. And so by and large, 80% of the clients there were in the older population, you know. And so what I saw was, was just a brilliant, like, kind of picture of what a life could be or could not be. And it was really most people worked really hard, didn't take care of themselves, waited until they retired, something happened, and then in rehab. I mean, it was, it was just, that was almost everyone's story. It was not the people like took really good care of themselves and, you know, unfortunately broke their hip. Every once in a while, you'd see something like that. But almost everyone there. And so, what I learned is, wow, how you live your life is really determining how well you age with time, right? And so, and my expectation, I'm 55, my expectation is I'm going to move as well in 10 years as I do now. Will it be slightly different? Maybe. Will I have slightly different, you know, practices maybe. But I'm anticipating that I'm going to be moving as much and as well. And I know that because I know how to move well, and I know that I need to move well, and I need to be challenged, and I'm not afraid of that. And so more than anything, at any age, wherever you are, first, just this whole mindset of when we age, we deteriorate and decay and die is really a terrible, terrible one that we've been sold a lot in the Western society. But if you look at people who live long and live well, the one common thing is they're active. They stay active, they're moving, and they never weren't active. So, if you're in the middle part of your life and you haven't been as active as you want to be, it's never too late. That's the beautiful thing. It's never too late. Even if you retired, you weren't active, and you're feeling like, oh, I have no hope, it's never too late. You just have to start and you have to move more. If anything, you have to move more with age, not less.

Okay.

For the people in the back, would you like to repeat that?

With aging, you have to move more, not less. And that is the biggest, like, turn it on its head, because most people think, well, naturally I'm going to move less. I'm going to move into a one-story house where I don't have to climb upstairs. I'm going to elevate the toilet so I barely have to crouch. And some would say, well, that's a safety thing. And I disagree. My mom is 83. She lives in a house with a lot of stairs. Everybody's like, don't you want your mom to move? And I'm like, I don't. She doesn't want to move. I don't want her to move because I want systems in place if something were to happen. But she is where she is and so mobile and traveling internationally and not afraid to, by the way, because she lives in a house with stairs. She's bringing her grocery up the stairs. She's got handrails and all that. But she's— there's— she's not babying herself. She's not an infant. And we don't want to infantilize aging. And so we have to move more. It doesn't mean you have to go out and do an hour of this or an hour of that, but you've got to move more frequently, more purposefully. And you have to add in the things that we know we need, which are strength. We need mobility. So for anybody like you were mentioning that is older and feels really stiff, quote unquote, you just need to mobilize your joints. Your joints, guess what? They are engineered to move. They aren't going to get more mobile if you don't move them. They are literally designed for movement. So you got to start lubricating the joints and get them more mobile. It might take you a lot longer. Okay. So, I think of this as like, what do we do in our daily life? We brush our teeth, we brush our hair, we wash, you know, we take that. We don't even think twice about that. Like, that is like, oh my gosh, hygiene, we're going to take care of that. We're going to eat. We're going to drink our water. Movement needs to be included in the ingredients of everyday life that is just so automatic in terms of like, it is not Debatable, right? I'm gonna do it.

Agree, agree. You know, and back to, you know, talking about downsizing or, you know, moving— I— that whole thing, really, I mean, that is like the opposite of neuroplasticity. That is like beginning to buy into the fact that it's all slowing down, that this is my phase of life now, that this is who I am now. I, I am— it's so funny. So I'm 60, I'm looking at homes and purchasing it. So I told you I have a sign in my yard and, you know, my siblings are all older than I am, significantly so, actually. And they're like, well, that's a lot of house to take care of. You don't need a house that big. And I'm like, oh, yes, I do. I mean, who's asking you? I mean, should you not be asking me? Like, I do need that kind of space. And why would you make that decision for me?

It's—

but they have this mentality that, you know, I— we've got a thread going on today, serendipitously, that, you know, it's like, it is interesting.

Like, I, you know, I could afford to have somebody clean my house. I've had that in my busier years when I had two kids at home and was running a business. But I clean my own house now. Number one, nobody's gonna clean it better than I am. I know that. We all know that, right? But it is It is such like all the moves we do getting on the ground, like all of the stuff for cleaning your house, whether or not that's like, that's also time. Like if you're doing something else, fine. I'm not suggesting everybody here clean their house, but could you clean your house? Could you do it easily and gracefully? Like that's a good measure because there's a lot of big moves movement patterns that you're going to want. Getting up and down from the ground. I mean, Debra, I had people in their 50s, now I'm my age now, but I was 10 years younger, who would tell me they barely got on the ground anymore. Everybody should get on the ground every single day. Every single day. My mom, she gets on the ground every— like, I tell her, like, these, those are the range of motion you need. You need that— like, there's so much work to do on the ground. It's great because you get a lot of support for your center of mass, your pelvis. And then getting up off the ground is essential. We need to be able to do that. It's not only safe, but it's just like the movement pattern is already there. And of course, we know that that can— is connected with long— longevity studies are, can you get off the ground by yourself?

Absolutely. You know, and I have—

for—

so I've been in the fitness industry for 41 years. I've hated burpees the entire time. You'll never see them in in a program, you will never see me doing them other than to say there's a— there's between 6 and 12 things that could go wrong here. But I recently today have to bite my tongue and retract that because someone was showing why seniors— why burpees are essential for seniors, and they showed it in slow motion with someone who appeared to be between 80 and 90. And I'm like, I'm all down for that, right? In slow motion is perfect.

Do this like— but yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because it's weight-bearing on your hands. Weight-bearing on your hands is another thing I recommend for everyone. Yeah. Because you're getting, you know, you're keeping your wrist strong, your wrist range of motion. You're getting so much great information into your shoulder girdle, which is an area that women in particular, everybody gets a little bit rounded, but women who are more prone to having any kind of bone density loss, they need that weight-bearing through their hands to help all the way up into their shoulder girdle and thoracic spine.

I love it. I think we could probably talk for a couple more hours here. We're going to just have to agree we'll have you back. But you also in the green room before we started offered something very generous for our audience. So tell a little bit about that and then we'll tell them how they can get their hands on it.

Yeah. So I, I had a brick-and-mortar studio for 10 years and then I would travel and do workshops and teacher trainings, and people would say, please do something online. So I created an online platform in 2019, and it has grown and is— good timing. Yeah, it was really good timing. So I was totally prepped. And then COVID, of course, there was a big boom for the— in COVID. And we have, since then, we've listened to so many people that have come on, and we've really answered the needs which were needed slower moving things, needed beginner things, needed shorter. So we have pretty much everything. And we have prehab stuff there. We've got prenatal, postnatal. We've got this method, which is called the LIT method, which is the method that I created, which is blending physical therapy and yoga and neuroscience. And I'm giving everybody listening a chance to try it out. 5 weeks for $5. And yeah, you really get 6 weeks because it's a free— there's a free week trial in there. So I'd love for you to try it out and write me with any questions or comments.

So good. Okay, so listeners, if you have a mind like a steel trap and you're not driving or lifting and you want to put this down, so the code to go and get it will be flipping50.com/LYT Yoga. LYT Yoga. So it'll be in the show notes for today. You can come over and get that. Lara, will they need a code to get it?

Um, once they go to that, they'll just go— when they get onto the Lit Daily and ask for their information, the code there is MOVEBETTER. Okay. And it's also just MOVE, but MOVEBETTER.

Yeah. Okay, sweet. We've got it. And how about on social? Are you everywhere that they can stalk?

Yeah, so on Instagram, I'm @lara.hymen. And then my brand is Lit Method on Instagram, and then same thing on Facebook. Those are like the main channels we're on.

So good. Yeah, this, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. Great to get to know you a little bit and to share all of your thoughts about movement and about aging optimally.

Thank you so much, Debra.

Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes. And I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman.