What’s the Most Effective Form of Exercise for Someone in Their Late 50s?

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What's the most effective form of exercise for someone in their late 50s? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times Best selling author, celebrity nutrition, nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the health expert. Nicolette Mott1 from Instagram asks, what's the most effective form of exercise for someone in their late 50s? Okay, so I will be right back on that, but I would ask you even to go further with that question of really, what's the most effective exercise based on specific things that you're dealing with, issues you're dealing with. I'll bring up some of the most common ones in the 50s, but these could be happening to you in the 30s or 40s too, so we'll be right back to talk about that.

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All right, exercise in your 50. So I'm going to assume a couple things could be going on. All right, let's just assume a couple things could be going on. Number one, you're losing muscle and you could be losing bone. And here's the big thing with bone, you do not want to lose it. It's much easier to keep it than regain it. So we don't want to lose bone and we also don't want to lose muscle. And that whole thing of if you're not using it, you're losing it. Well, that is super true as we age. So let's not do that on my watch. Okay? So that's the first thing. Flexibility could be an issue here too. So that's another one. And possibly gaining some body fat. So there's another one. So let's look at what we can do that could help all of those things. And what I would say is I don't really do much different stuff. What's interesting for me is I'm in my 50s, what I did in my 20s, I've actually got lower body fat in my 50s than I did in my 20s. I'm 13% body fat and I work out about 25% as much as I used to. You're going, huh? Head scratcher. Here's why. Because I learned the right type of exercise to do. So here's what I tell you. As we age, we if you are not moving and using it, you're going to be losing it. So we really want to focus on what we can do to hold on or preferably build our lean muscle mass, hold onto our bone mass. And that is where resistance training is super duper, duper important. Resistance training is key here for helping you hold onto your muscle and hold onto your bone. And so, and again, shout out plug for my fast fitness program program@jjvirgin.com where I go through how to do this with free weights and body weights, easy things that you can do at home. But again, I work in what's called the hypertrophy range. Somewhere between eight and 12 repetitions or about 20 to 30 seconds. And I use multi joint exercises that would be things like a squat, a bent over row, a push up, things that aren't just one single joint, like say a bicep curl that are more functional, that are more similar to things that we would do in everyday life because these are things we need to get up out of the chair, to get groceries out of the car, et cetera. So that's the first one that's super important. Now the next thing is, as we age, we start to reduce growth hormone. We don't want to do that. Growth hormone is the hormone of youth. So one of the key things for helping you boost growth hormone is high intensity interval training. That is where you go all out for anywhere from 10 to, to 60 seconds and then you basically recover for twice as long. Although the fitter you get, the faster you recover. And you are going all out, my friend, like, push it, push it. Like run up the stairs, cycle as hard as you can. And what's cool about high intensity interval training is, you know, it's, it never gets easier. That's not necessarily cool. You're like, that's great, jj. No, but it never gets easier. You get stronger, but you keep pushing. So you're going to do that to accumulate anywhere from four to eight total minutes of bursts. Again, burst, recover, burst, recover. That triggers the release of lactic acid, that triggers the response of your body producing more growth hormone. So super important. Another really important thing for 50 plus is, and this is, I mean all these things apply for all of us at any age, by the way, is making sure that you also recover. Well, we focus so much on the workout, but the recovery is just as important. You know, when you sleep is when you're gonna repair muscle, raise growth hormone, et cetera. So sleeping, restorative sleep, super key. And one other thing that I'm really kind of mad at myself for, so don't let this happen to you, is I actually was a gymnast and an acrobat. I know this is crazy when in my, you know, from the age of basically 4 to 20, I was a gymnast and an acrobat and I'm 6ft tall, so this is a little bit ridiculous, but I would do like tricks off of stairs, off of fences, off of barrels. You know, we would go to old like senior citizens homes and we would do this stuff. And then I was wondering why my son wanted to do tricks off of barrels and stuff because he did too, which was kind of funny. But anyway, I was the first tricker, I guess way back when or parkour free runner. So I used to be super duper flexible. I mean crazy flexible. And then I just stopped paying attention to my flexibility. And here's the thing that is clearly one place where if you don't use it, you'll lose it. So I force myself to do yoga now because if I don't do that, I won't stretch. So really learn about yourself and what you need to do this. And so I think another super key, important thing here is to make sure that you are doing flexibility work. Now, we know some resistance training, full range of motion is going to help there, but not enough. So especially focus on the areas you're tight. We always want to stretch the areas that were loose. We don't need to stretch those. They're loose. Stretch the areas you're tight. Super duper important. All right. Now one other thing. Resistance training is going to help you burn more fat because it helps you get more insulin sensitive quickly in the muscles. First place, we can restore insulin sensitivity. The more insulin sensitive you are, the better you are. Burning fat and more muscle means a better metabolic rate all day long. Okay, so resistance train, HIIT training and get that flexibility in. There you go. Now the most important part of this equation is you taking action. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribe to to JJ.com.

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