The key to reducing risk of injury in your over 60 clients
Kaleena
Hey guys, welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. I’m your host today Kaleena Ruskin, senior coach, movement specialist, pelvic floor exercise specialist here at Gymnazo. And I am with the Guru, the legend, the rope flow extraordinaire, Director of programming, our coaches manager, CJ Kobliska
CJ
What’s happening coach? Thanks for that intro.
Kaleena
Of course, today we are talking about training, the aging population training older clients. When we say older clients, what do you think of how old? How old? Are we talking here? Because we’re gonna get a lot of flack for putting button old out there. Yeah.
CJ
Originally, I thought like 50 years old. Now I’m gonna say like, 100 100 years old 100 You’re still a kid.
Kaleena
I love it. I love it. Um, so today, we’re going to kind of cover a couple different topics about training and aging population, what functional training meets them, how we train them, how traditional training has trained them and what they really you know what functional training looks like, for them.
Michael Hughes
Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes, Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners, Peyton and myself and our top coaches, this podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online. And in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional, or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results.
Kaleena
What would you say? As we dive into this to get us kicked off here? What would you say are some generic traditional methods of training and older population? Like what do you think of what comes to mind? You know, when when we see I see commercials, you know, like, what for how to how to exercise after 50 after 60
CJ
Oh, man, there’s a very distinct visual that came in, I see sitting in a chair with a bunch of lines looking at towards the front of a room in a very dry space, standing up, sitting down, standing up, sitting down, raise your hands overhead, reach them to the side, sit back down, stand back up very boring, monotonous, functional, but not very dynamic, and not very explosive at all very slow, very controlled, very safe, secure movement patterns. And almost like a little bit of fear of doing anything else. But that that’s what I imagined. That’s what I originally learned it to be
Kaleena
training in a pool. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Water aerobics, you know, all that, like, let’s not have any impact training whatsoever. You know, we hear all the time like, Hey, guys, just don’t get older. Don’t did hurts. Everything hurts when I age, you know, what do you say to that person who’s like, you can stop training or stop doing things as you age,
CJ
I’m gonna go as hard as possible to I can’t anymore. I think like, Okay, if I hit 30, I’m good. 40 and still going hard. If I make it to 50 Great. If I don’t make it to 50 At least I lived a good life. You know, push, be excited. I think I think my my view of aging has shifted since talking to individuals and working with them. Over the years, you know, I took a geriatric class in at Cal Poly. And it was like How to Train older people. And that was like, literally what it was called. And it was like, Oh, God, I don’t want to get old. Like it scared me. Like, this is what happens when you get older. And I had a complete, complete idea that I didn’t want to serve that population at all. And since working with people here at Gymnazo, and seeing them actually get younger, you know, yes. And then 60 or 70, even at 85 years old, saying, oh my gosh, I feel like I’m moving better than I did 20 or 30 years ago. It’s like, oh, my own there’s, there’s hope here. There’s some there’s an opportunity to transform and get younger.
Kaleena
Well, yeah, it’s great. touchpoint so when you saw you know, when we think of these, quote unquote, traditional methods for training an aging population, it seems kind of boring. Seems very, very linear, very, like we said, safe and secure. But we know they still want to live their life like you dosed also you don’t hit a certain age, all of a sudden you’re like, sit down don’t do anything ever again, like you still want to be we have such an amazing clientele who they continue to want to strive to accomplish things as they age, and they’ve viewed fitness in such a different capacity as the they get older, it’s it becomes less about performance training less about I want to do as much weight as possible and run as fast as I can and more about how can I just straight move? Better? How do we and as the director of programming, especially for some of our our G one levels, which does work with a lot more of our older population or age demographic, you know, what goes into your thought process? When you’re training when you’re designing these programs? How are you? How are you designing it, like what you have in mind?
CJ
That’s such a fun question. It comes from years of having conversations with people who are over the age of 5067 years old, in one on one and group settings. And what I’ve found is that they’re very capable still, we may need to shift from performance in terms of like, high impact into as fast as possible, as heavy, and as quick as you can move, and more. So like searching for fluidity and availability for movement. So, gotta think about, like, what does somebody at that age want to do. And there’s so many different variables, you know, people like to travel. So you got to think about, okay, walking upstairs, downstairs carrying stuff like a duffel bag, or make you luggage, you got to put it in your overhead bin, you got to sit down in a tight space for a couple hours, you got to stand up. Maybe you want to go and you’re enjoying your retirement and you’re gonna go snorkeling and you want to go on a boat, and you want to be able to balance on something that’s moving, you want to go on a hike, and there’s rocky surfaces, you want to go for a walk, and there’s cars around people around, you got to react to your environment, you want to go to Costco and pick up a 24 pack of water bottles, maybe you got a dog, you may get a cat, you got dog food, cat food, you got to pick up and you don’t want anybody to help you. You know, there’s you got grandkids, you want to kick a soccer ball around, you want to throw a ball, you want to just be able to have fun doing your ADLs and not you know, not feel depressed, because you can’t just bend over and put something in the dryer, you got to have a top load because you can’t bend it. But in the front load those simple little things, you got dishes you got to put away. There’s so many little things that we do in our daily life that if we’re not training for them, intentionally, over time, we lose our ability to do them the way we want to do them or just have fun doing them. Now, we we don’t look forward to just living our life because things hurt. And so we try to avoid it as long as possible. Yeah, I think I think that kind of dives in that question a bit. But when I’m programming, I’m considering the body positions that I would love for our aging population to be able to visit, as simple as getting up off the ground. Getting down on the ground. Yeah, carrying your grandbaby around while having a conversation. Yeah, there’s so many fun little things that if we can include that into programming, it opens up conversation, it opens up new options and novel experiences that I think as we age, no matter what age you are, we tend to avoid because we’re afraid of hurting ourselves, or we’re afraid of failing. And as a kid, you know, somebody who’s under the age of 30, we don’t really think about those things, we just go do stuff. But once we start to, you know, get into work environment, we got a full time job, we got kids to take care of we stopped focusing on what we want to do. And we start focusing on how we need to serve the people around us. And I think that adds up over time. And we forget about how fun it is just to be. Because we’re so much in our head about what we cannot do, versus exploring what we can do.
Kaleena
Yeah, I think so many of our members love coming here. Because you know, the first thing that says I had so much fun doing that they don’t feel like they’re, they’re really working out until the next day, and they’re like, oh my gosh, I’m so sore. I had no idea it was gonna be that sore, because I just felt like I was moving and I was playing and I was able to do things that I want to do put my grandkids you know, pick up, pick up that dog food bag from Costco, I could garden again without pain. And that is such a life changing event for them in so many different ways. So again, they move away from the performance aspect, like I don’t need to be faster, I really don’t care about about riding. I want to be able to go enjoy a hike or I want to be able to get up and down the stairs without pain. We’ve had so many awesome success stories with seeing people transition from pain and aging to pain free and now enjoying movement all over again.
CJ
It’s a beautiful sight to see too. It’s you know, you seeing somebody come in for the first time maybe they’ve never done a workout program, right? How many people will be seen come in that are over the age of 5060 that are like yeah, it’s been probably 10 to 15 years since I’ve done any kind of organized training or been part of a community that trains I go for walks. Travel. Yeah. But if we don’t add those, those extra little pieces we tend to degenerate as opposed to regenerate, you know, and continue to build new neurons and feel more connected to our body. We tend to lose that and all sudden, we start losing our balance. We start thinking Oh no, I’m getting older versus Yeah, I’m getting wiser.
Kaleena
Yeah. Have you noticed cognitive function is not something that we always talk about or associate with fitness and the benefits of cognitive function with complex exercise. So it’s actually a really cool TED talk about how movement training and complex exercise actually increases your brain. Cognitive function, it keeps all the synapses firing, as opposed to just walking on a treadmill, or just doing you know, something like a basic bicep curl or restricted equipment. Because that complexity of movement keeps everything firing. So actually, in women, they say it helps not eliminate, but it can delay the onset of things like dementia, which is huge later on. Because you know, like, how many times we hear like, oh, my gosh, I’m not coordinated anymore. But also, it takes just a little bit like, Okay, we just have to practice this and then get into it. Or, and then all of a sudden, they’re like, Well, I can do that again. And it’s pretty cool for them. I did want to dive into a little bit of some some typical exercise and training methodologies that you have for for training specific. You know, your ADL is your every day, all day, all day activities. Yeah, it’s always busy all day activities. Yes. everyday activities. Like getting up off the floor. That is something that as we age, we just don’t want to do anymore, hurts our knees hurts our back. It’s uncomfortable to get up and down. But if you have a grandbaby, you want to get up and down, you want to get on the floor and play with them. Getting up getting down is the hardest part. How do you where do you start with training somebody who says, I have chronic knee pain, but I want to be able to get up and down off the floor,
CJ
it’s such a fascinating thing to witness somebody from a kneeling position or a seated position that is not comfortable getting up off the floor, and how they communicate to their body to get up. And so what I mean by that is somebody who’s young, fit active, they don’t really think too much, they just do the stuff, you see somebody sit on the ground, who’s pretty active, they’ll just kind of roll up like it was nothing, you get somebody who hasn’t been training for a decade, or maybe never has intentionally. And you ask them to do that, they look for something to hold on to, and to lift them up, and they struggle with it. And it’s not that they’re not strong enough, it’s that they’re, they’re not able to communicate to their hands and their feet. And they’re essentially how their bones are stacking on each other to do the task efficiently. So what I see somebody do like from a one sided kneeling position, let’s say they’re right kneeling, so the left foots on the ground, the right knee is down. And I say, Alright, stand up, what they try to do is go straight up, and they may not have the strength to go straight up, because they haven’t, they haven’t required their body to do that they’ve had something nearby that’s been able to help them leverage, which I think is great. But I want them to have that availability, so that when they do have someone nearby, it’s like a piece of cake. And when they don’t have somebody nearby, maybe it’s a little bit more work, but they’re confident in their ability to do it. And so what I watch for is where their head goes over their foot. If they try to go straight up, there’s no leverage, they’re trying to drive off their back foot. And typically they’re soft, they’re right kneeling their right knee and right quad are trying to fire to push them up. And they’re not trying to root their left foot in the ground. But when I have them just say, go ahead and drive your nose forward over your left foot and stand up, it’s like a piece of cake. And it’s because they’ve basically created this head over foot stability, that creates leverage enough when other bones say, Alright, go vertical. And they’re able to use that front foot to drive them upward. And so a lot of times, if they’re lacking that immediate attention to their head over foot position, I’ll just have them do reps, and reps and reps of that, until they realize it’s really easy to get off the ground, it’s just they have to communicate to their body in such a way that gives them better leverage. Also, from the I mean, if you try to get up from a seated position, this is just kind of using the truth of, of how your body interacts with the forces around you. If you try to stand up from a seated position without moving your head forward, it’s, I think it’s impossible, actually, you have to bring your head forward, which then loads up your posterior chain, and then you are able to pop up. And so it’s just kind of reintroducing these, these subconscious actions that we tend to lose as we age, because we’re not getting as many reps of that exact leverage. Um, so I try to try to program in those specific specific little cues until it becomes subconscious that like, well, I can go into a kneeling position from standing and not feel like I’m gonna lose my balance, I can stand back up and I can be holding a load and just continuing to build that confidence back up until it becomes an eight. Um, one more thing to do is is that people complain about is the balance sucks, like, Oh, my balance is so horrible, right? Yeah, it’s the same kind of thing. If you’re standing up with the foot shoulder width position, and you try to just balance on one leg and don’t move your head, you’re going to fall back down to that same foot. But if you shift your head over the lake, it’s gonna balance and then lift your leg. Your balance is almost kind of free, you’re stacked. And so just by bringing that awareness to those positions, starting to give the confidence back into those individuals. They go, Oh, wait a second, it’s this easy. I just need to pay attention to how I’m doing stuff. It carries over to all other aspects of their training. And now there’s less fear. And it’s more of a How can I do this? Versus I can’t do this?
Kaleena
Yeah, exactly. I think that that was one of my favorite things that we had done in one of our coaches meeting was learning to balance dots that you’ve talked about. So we have one at the back of our head and at the top of each foot. So when you’re standing and you’re upright, you’re kind of in a look at as a triangle, right, you’ve got two feet grounded, whether they’re whether they’re like it astride stance or whether they’re hip width apart, you have that triangle, so you’re a stable base. But if you’d like you said, you gotta balance on one foot, your head naturally is going to fall over to the foot that you’re balancing on. To stack those dots. You It’s like impossible, I love having people try and keep your head in the middle and then balance on one foot, and like not stack those dots you can’t eat. So awkward the body you fall over. But even in gait in our transition zones, when we walk, you’re actually that heads going to travel over the foot that you’re loading on to to push you off into that next phase, we just don’t realize it. And when we walk, you know, you’re not saying, Okay, ready, lo tz one push off here, like load the next foot, the next foot, your body just does it. But when you get into an exercise setting, and then people go into lunch, and they don’t shift that weight forward, or they don’t shift that weight laterally or whatever direction to try to go, all of a sudden, they’re unstable, and they like can’t do it, or they can’t load tissues. But if you just bring that awareness to your clients, all of a sudden, they go, Whoa, my my knee pain away, went away with that lunch, because I shifted my weight and I load a load on my hip, I loaded my foot, load my hamstring. And now I have that stability. It’s been such a powerful tool for people, because they can take that visual to have those dots or that shifting stability and they go apply it into the rest of their life when they’re walking upstairs. When they’re walking. Downstairs, they feel more stable. I know one of the things that I fear for for like my, not just myself, but like my grandparents and my older aunts and uncles and you and as we age, people are afraid of falling. That’s like their number one fear because you break a hip. That’s life altering, right, they don’t want to fall. And this is actually a great talking point to bring up next about balance, because we had somebody calls out and say balance is overrated training ability. We’re training stability is overrated. But yes, we say an aging population needs to be strong, strong to their hips strong through their core. But how does balance and stability tie into strength training? And how do we tie that in? To our training?
CJ
Yeah, it’s it’s a, it’s an interesting concept too, because as you’re aging, you’re more susceptible to osteoporosis, you know, you’ve, you kind of have gone beyond your peak. So yeah, there’s still some, as you age, you’re going to lose performance. But it’s kind of something we need to accept, but not to accept the level of, yep, now I’m just on the road to not being able to do anything, it’s like discovering new ways to do it. Our mindset is hold different when we’re when we’re younger, is it’s a lot more about performance and building up that bone mineral density, and say, I’m going to load my body pushing my body and kind of hit that that threshold. But, you know, thinking about what, what you want to do as you age, it’s it’s really about sustaining your ability and sustaining your awareness and realizing that, yeah, there is potential fall. I mean, we’ve got, we’ve had countless members, countless members come through that said, Yeah, I fell, but I got back up, or I’ve saved myself from falling. And I knew I know that five years ago or a year ago, I never would have been able to save myself like that could have been detrimental. And that fear is very real, it inhibits your body’s ability to route your feet down, relax and settle into your hips. And so if we think about putting our aging population into a stride stance, or into a wide foot stance, or into a narrow foot stance, or externally rotate, or internally rotate, and just expose our hips, to those extension, flexion adduction, a reduction internal and external rotation positions, we don’t have to do much more except move from those positions. Because proprioceptively, we’re becoming more aware of when our hips are in this position, we have stability, we have a route, we’re aware of where our head is over our foot, if all we’re focusing on is just the state strength principles and symmetrical loads and a lot of sagittal plane movements. What happens when we slide a little bit sideways or miss a step on a stair chances are we don’t either a body braces, and the impact is going to be that much harder. Or we search for something and then our bodies like grab onto something or someone and hold and then our body is even more fearful of falling because we almost fell. So the more we expose our aging population to some of these would be maybe considered more dangerous positions or like stability focuses and less strength, the more they feel behaviorally more confident in their abilities, and we can add load and stuff into those positions. But it’s certainly it’s certainly a matter of exploring wind As our bodies start to fight, whenever when does the body start to brace. And if we do fall, do we have that foundational strength to come back to after the fall, because the worst thing that could happen is not the fall, the worst thing that can happen is you don’t have any training beforehand, you fall and now you really don’t move. And now the next 5 10 years, it’s much different storyline, because you’re not new now even more fearful, because you don’t want that to happen. Again, it could be worse. So those members that have come in and train for a bit and they fall in, they’ve got back up and they’ve come back stronger and more aware and more confident because they go, I fell, but didn’t injure myself. I bruised a hip. I was you know, it couldn’t really train heavily for two weeks. But look where I am today. Yeah, I’m able to heal, right, come back and what’s been your experience with, with, you know, people who have fallen or when somebody comes to go, I’m afraid to do that move. You have me too. You know, like, I’m afraid that that’s going to hurt me because of what I’ve been told about either my age or what I know to be true about aging.
Kaleena
Yeah, I, I always am a little more relator. You know, I want to I want to make them see and realize what they do in their day to day life. Like, by the way you replicate this motion every time you do this. So many people are afraid of rotation and loading and rotation. One of my favorite functional tools that we use in the facilities is sambil. Because it’s it’s not a rigid, solid weight, right? You got 20 pounds to pick up a 20 pound sandbag, it’s it’s floppy, and they have to adjust. It’s not like it picking up a 20 pound dumbbell. When you have somebody who has grandkids or a dog, like even if it’s a 12 pound sandbelt, right. Like my my mom has a 12 pound dog. She got to pick that up and it wobbles But picking things up in rotation freaks people out. i That’s how I threw out my back last time. Okay, well, you know, your body only does what you teach it to you. Oh, well, I picked it up with wrong form. Well, you can say yes, no, but your spine is meant to extend and flex and rotate and do all of these motions we have we have that capability. We just haven’t trained it to utilize those capabilities. So teaching somebody is like when you go to pick up your dog or pick up your kid. How do you go to do that? Do you think about that? Textbook rigid form I’ve never seen anybody squat down to pick up their kid with like textbook form. Like your your toddler comes running up to you. Nobody’s like, hold on, hold on. I gotta set my feet square up race. Yeah, brace are like, you know, you just bend over and pick them up, right? Same thing like bending over and rotation, unloading the dishwasher, putting dishes away, you have to bend over, and then put things away in rotation. Like most majority, we’re gonna go out on a limb here and say like, 99% of people don’t do textbook, squat, stand up 90 degree pivot, and then anterior press anterior overhead press to put dishes away if you robots do it that way. But man, I don’t know, what you would do is unload the dishwasher. I like put a plate in one arm and I’m stacking as many as I can. So I do is less trips as possible to go back and forth. So throwing that into their training, dropping them down, like, No, it’s okay. Like you can you do this every day, we just have to kind of relax you to tension is and fear go hand in hand, right? we tense up when we’re fearful. So getting them to actually like breathe through it incorporating breathing into their training is life changing for them. They’re like, Oh, my gosh, I can do this. I’m not gonna hurt myself. And then you just build upon that. It’s building such a confidence. We see that that fearful. I did this however many years ago, and I hurt myself and I don’t want to do it again. But if you build baby steps, and you start with babies like and then you just remind them like, Hey, you remember you did this yesterday came where we did this last week, and you were totally good. Oh, yeah, it was okay. All right, great. We’re just going to build on that a little bit and building that confidence back up. And it’s it’s life changing for them to be able to realize that they can do all of these things that they didn’t think they could do anymore, or that they’re not fearful of getting hurt, because they’re like, they know how strong they are.
CJ
Yeah, I think it comes down to really knowing where you’re at in space, too. You mentioned tension. And I mean, we say so time, but you pay attention to your intention, intention. So, so like paying attention, just being aware of how your body is holding itself right now, I think as we age we are we feel less and less we’re unable to sense you know, a hamstring or a glute or intentionally target a hip position to reach down and it’s less about, Okay, I gotta make sure I’m flexed. I have adduction and internal rotation to tweak in my hips so that my glute is loading. That’s our job. Your job is simply to feel and then to act. And if you don’t feel this tissue working when we’re trying to intentionally, you know, just reach down and pick something up. Are you intentionally bracing your leg and just letting your back your the lumbar spine bend over and do this? Or do you feel your foot pushing into the ground so that when you lift something up off the ground, as simple as a huge drop your keys, it’s light, but it’s not about how much load it’s about how your body is in that position. When you go to reach? Do you feel your foot pushing in the ground as you pop back up? Or do you feel your foot is like a I’m lifting off my heel, and I almost fell over bending to grab something. So then every rep becomes either detrimental to your success, because you’re unaware of these things, and then over time does now overuse injury, or are you treating every rep every time you bend over for something, to feel what you’re doing? Right? I think that’s what’s so important. In our a 3d movement is a buzzword of functional training and three dimensional training and planes of motion. We utilize those tools, you know, to expose our sphere and where we’re strong, which is typically in front of us. Yeah. As we age, it gets stronger in front, and we start to bend forward. And like, somebody said, my name behind me and we go to say, Hello, but you don’t just turn your head, you turn your whole body, you do like the quick pitter pattern. Oh, hey, yeah, turn back around, versus like, take a rotational step, turn your head, like that’s a big rotational movement, that I think we we as a kind of fitness, fear of just unaware of what’s going on. We say, Hey, don’t rotate, versus like considering momentum and your tension in that momentum? Like, are you twisting too fast? And when was the last time you did that? Was it like three weeks ago, six weeks ago? Or do you do that in your training every day where your body knows, like, Ah, I know what happens when I turn my head that way? Yeah. Or you’re sitting in the car, and you go to back up, and like, oh, I kinked my neck, I can’t turn now I gotta turn my whole body. And like, Oh, God, I don’t want to rotate. You know, there’s these little things that we don’t, that we talked about, but I think isn’t talked about generally. And people just kind of assume that that’s part of aging. But we become so aware of it. As we try to move laterally, try to move rotationally and invite that fear to become present so that we can work with it and pay attention to how we’re intending to move through that tension. And realizing Whoa, something kind of felt funky or hurt. Now, is your internal narrative saying, Oh, it’s because I’m aging, I’m getting old. And that’s just how it is. My knee pain is just because I’m getting older, or is it because I haven’t done anything like this recently. And our job as trainers, as coaches, as therapists, as doctors is to open this narrative and bring in, you know, the beauty of experience and going to pay attention to that knee pain. It’s not you, it’s just it’s telling you something about maybe what we need to work towards, you know, there’s progressions opportunity or progression opportunities versus saying, let’s just not do that anymore. Let’s avoid it. Yeah, the more we avoid stuff, the more fear we develop.
Kaleena
of it. Give me I want to hear on here one of your favorite success stories. You’ve been so successful with so many different clients over vast different age group. But one of my favorite questions that we get on the on, like our intake form with people is it says if you were pain free, what would you do tomorrow? What was the first thing that you do? And take us through your favorite or one of your favorite success stories for somebody who came in that was older that had that was their thing? You’re like, we’re getting you there?
CJ
Yeah, there’s one individual and I know you’ve worked with him as well. Gosh, I don’t know how, how young he was, is, but he definitely got younger as as he progressed, but he came in walking with a cane, very stiff leg. ankles, didn’t move, knees didn’t move. big ol smile on his face. Like it really is enjoyed his life. And he wanted to do group training. And our you know, our entry level is pretty simple. But it still involves lunges, squats, push ups, Poles, locomotion, verta motion, to an extent and lifting and reaching. And so when he walked in, I was like, Man, this is going to be this gonna take some work, because you can’t just jump in and do some lunges, because his knees don’t want to bend. He’s walking with stilts. And but he’s, he’s, you know, his attitude was like, I’m here. I want to be part of this group. And so he’s like, I’m doing group training. Yeah. And I remember the first like, maybe it was two or three months, always next to a wall or next to like, something that was grounded and very sturdy, or maybe a mobility stick. But even that was to dynamically unstable, because it moves like, Oh, if I’m going over what’s going on with me, it’s like a long cane. So he did all six stations pretty much next to the wall. And no, every lunge look like a forward step. Like a baby’s first step. It’s like Oh, I’m gonna lose balance really wobbly. You know, in a minute, maybe you got four steps forward. Like okay, just we just got to keep on this trend and keep this keep the success didn’t hurt himself today didn’t fall over got really wobbly. I spent a lot of time next to him to make sure that didn’t fall over. And, you know, different swings and presses. It didn’t look as quick or as fluid as other people in the class but he was like I’m here to get better. So he was already very motivated, which was nice. Um, a lot of people don’t come in very motivated and then they they fall into their lack of ability versus learning ability. And after that time, he started to spend less time away from the wall or more time away from the wall less time next to it started to get down prone, started to add some contralateral movements with a with a pulley system, you know, pulling one hand and stepping the other foot back and just building that coordination that we haven’t we’re walking but for whatever reason, we break it down into its parts. It’s very confusing, right? You’re trying to give a signal to your hands and your feet. And I did a few one on one sessions did a few semi private sessions. And then he started to lunge, Anjali, laterally rotationally, with just a little less wobble, and I was like, This is so profound, like, think about getting out of your car and into your car and not even thinking about it. Instead of going, Okay, gotta hold those ship bar, I got to hoist myself up and sit back down. It’s like, you don’t even think about it. Now how much more mental real estate you have, how much you can have in your life, like you become younger just by emptying space in your, in your, in your brain of trying to think about I don’t want to forget to hold on to stuff. And so I think in the course, so he was probably member for what, two, three years maybe?
Kaleena
Yeah, he was he was a good 73 years young when he walked into our building. And I’m gonna say walk lightly he shuffled in. Because he had so little stability couldn’t actually lift up one foot at the time, he was a shuffler. And he was Senator Yang, a big smile on his face and said, I haven’t worked out in about 50 years since I got out of the army. He was like, That was 25. So he’s flying planes ever since. Yeah. And you know, he’s just still happy go lucky. And, man, that was that was an incredible transport.
CJ
And then he got vivo barefoot, he’s like, I want to get in on this trend. And I was like, that’s actually pretty cool. Because your feet are going to have way more communication with the ground. Just because there’s no support in there, now your feet are gonna get stronger, you’re gonna have sore ankles, and his calves are sore, his feet were sore. And I was like, this is all kind of part of your body transitioning into a new level of function. And, I mean, he’s moved away now. But over the course of those years, he was performing great in a in a G one level class lifting loads and those lunges, swing and stuff around throwing medicine balls reacting and it was like, there is room to progress at that age. It doesn’t just stop and then you degenerate, you may regenerate slower, you know, may take you longer to recover. But we need to keep accessing more availability in your motion and your movement patterns and see what can you do about yourself? Do you have anybody specific in mind
Kaleena
and I, I love working with actually the, I’m gonna say older, loosely here. older population, people who are aging and they just don’t feel capable anymore because I love that I love that challenge of I want to do this, or this is what I wish I can do. And I go, Oh, I’m gonna get you there. It’s gonna take it’s gonna take a minute, but we’re gonna get you there. Recently off, I had a client who had a surgery, she had had to have a tumor removed. Thankfully, it was benign, nothing serious. In her abductor, and it caused post op a ton of hip pain, could not walk more than two miles and she was like, I love it because she was part of that said little old lady grew. She has that little lady crew that does love them. They you know, they do their walks around the neighborhood. That’s just their thing is their social art. They go get coffee, they go for a hike. We live in such an amazing area guys like with such great hiking. And that’s what she wanted to do. And she couldn’t do it. And it was killing her spirit. It was killing her everything like Mind Body Soul, because she couldn’t walk when they’re not being like chronic debilitating pain. So we took her through a one on one series gave her homework and revision had ended up happening is that hip that she had had surgery on, it stopped working correctly. proprioceptively tissues didn’t want to load because for so long, she had been in fear of using it because of pain from the incision site. And then she actually had muscle cut out to remove some of the tumor. So the whole tissue, the whole tissue structure, and the whole hip structure is just different. It’s not working the way that it’s supposed to. So we had to do a lot of proprioceptive retraining to get her hip to pull through and to load like when we talked about that transitioning the loading into the routing the foot into the floor to push you into next phase. She wasn’t getting that load to push. And so she’s getting this chronic joint pain because it was it was like sinking into a sling and hammock. Like there’s just no tissue tension. And it’s just like, you know, Chinese water torture, it’s just boom boop.after.so You know, she goes for two mile walk. That’s a lot of steps. That’s a lot of that’s a lot of drops that hit and retrained it, how to do some homework, man, I wish we could have taken a picture of this smile on her face when she came back was like clean. I did a four mile walk at a power walk pace and had no pain and it was off and then it just promotional. Oh man and it just went off from there. And you know it took a couple of months it doesn’t it it’s not always a quick fix. Sometimes you hit the right spots. Sometimes you hit setbacks and or sometimes you find progress and then they tried to do too much when they’re not ready for it yet.
CJ
What usually asked us though, it’s good to experience that right? It is no,
Kaleena
it is and if you’ve never been in chronic pain before it is it can be debilitating, like you know, because it’s all you think about because it’s all you feel it’s the first thing you feel when you wake up. It’s the last thing you feel when you go to bed and it’s it’s debilitating. So to take somebody out of that stage where they get to enjoy the little things all over again has been awesome. So that’s one of my, one of my favorite, favorite success stories.
CJ
I’m gonna bring some up too, because this is, you know, we’re saying like, you know, aging population and Premiere, like over 60. And we’re just giving it an arbitrary number, like, yeah, aging starts.
Kaleena
Every day, you’re bored.
CJ
And you’re like, ah, you know, you’re thinking about it. But then there comes a point, I think it’s around like your 30s some people in their early 20s, and it could be a debilitating injury that kind of sets like, Okay, I gotta be a little bit more careful, or I’ve got kids, I gotta be a little more careful, I can’t go do that. backflip on the snowboard again, bring it all by bones. It, I think it’s a process. And for everybody, it’s different. And it is chronological, like you are having more revolutions around the sun. And you’re like, Okay, I’m approaching now a point where I have to question what I’m doing. Yeah. But I think it really starts. When you when you wake up, you’re like, Oh, my back kind of feels achy. And then what’s the first thought you have is like, Okay, I’m getting older. And then that just kind of starts this trickle effect of like, either I can’t do this, I can’t do this, or you recognize what you need to be shifting in your training so that you don’t damage yourself, which I think is a very smart way to go to recognize your biological aging, and your your mental aging, right, yeah. But I think there’s so many things that kind of build up in your 30s 40s 50s 60s, that you hit a point where like, this is just how life is. And it, a lot of it comes down to the accountability and the community you’re a part of. And if you’re seeing other people going through similar processes, you just assume that this is the path now. And you’re going to keep coming down the stairs, and they need to move to a place that doesn’t have stairs. And now you need to do things that don’t involve you being on a rocky surface, and you need to have more support in your shoes. And like this is how it needs to go. But I think what’s so cool about recognizing those things is going like I’m gonna use an example of a member that I’m working with right now who she couldn’t put deodorant on under her right armpit. Yep, she went to her look her right and she’s like, I have to like, rub into my leg just to keep my right arm gotta rub. I can’t like lift my right arm up. And I was like, that’s such a, that’s such a rough experience, then every day you’re reminded of your aging, but it’s not your aging, it’s your shoulders, lack of ability to use your thoracic spine and your hips, like there’s something not communicating. And, you know, in a few months time, we kind of went through a days that were really good, she could lift her arm up overhead, and other days where it was like, oh, it’s really hurting me to lift. And we have to understand that we can’t just go up. If we keep going up in terms of progressions in terms of load, or faster or just availability, at some point, we’re gonna hit a plateau and then either just flatten out and go, Okay, I’m not motivated anymore, or you dropped back down because you went too fast, too soon, or too far too soon. So we need to understand that the path is two steps forward, one step back, sometimes it’s five steps forward for three days in a row, and you’re like, I’m good. And then you go push, and you’re like, Oh, God, I’m back to square one. But what’s so beautiful about the process in aging is that you go through more experiences, you become wiser of what you how your body is experiencing these things. And then you’ve got a coach that can communicate to you and and listen to you of what you’re what you’re experiencing. And we’re going to work with you this day. What are you capable of this day, and over time, you’re going to, in the end, look back and go, Wow, I’ve had like three, four consecutive months, where I just feel good, as opposed to every other day sucks. It’s just in pain. And to have that shift, it creates a whole nother personality, like you become less fearful. There’s less anger and frustration with yourself. And then that carries out to that your community and the people that you’re around the family members, your friends, and now you can go do the things you want to do. You’re not being reminded of your degeneration, you’re being reminded of your power to regenerate and your power to get better and to continue to age successfully. Absolutely. Functionally,
Kaleena
I love the saying, you know, I’m as old as I’ve ever been. I’m as young as I’ll ever be.
CJ
Oh man. Wow.
Kaleena
That’s it’s I’m not getting any younger so I gotta keep moving and doing what I can until I can’t then I have to modify only you
CJ
can only use some props to you’re working with a gentleman that I’ve seen. I tell him he’s got the Benjamin Button effect every time I see him like how do you how do you keep getting younger man like I just saw you like from square one which is like, can’t step forward without losing balance. Can’t step backwards without you can’t step backwards. You can’t step sideways. It’s like this is miserable. But I see growth and I saw him the other day walking down a from a three foot box stepping down on a dorsi flexed wedge or a plantar flexed wedge with a viper in his hands and he did a sidestep come downs like damn, and I’m going to see you on the mountain soon. You’re you just crushing it like this stuff I would give my people who are 20 some 30 I
Kaleena
know he loves 60 It’s great because you see his face you don’t by the way, this is what you’re gonna do. And they look at you like, Oh, you’re fucking crazy. Like no way you’re gonna do. I’m gonna start small. We’re gonna start small. But you know, Tim, I say do you carry groceries in and out of the house? Yeah, guess what? This is carrying an offset load of groceries in and out of the house down down the stairs because you get to go up the stairs down the stairs like he had to do it because
CJ
all right. Thank you to pick up a wine shipment, that’s going to be some asymmetric load.
Kaleena
Exactly. It’s for sure what shipment? What advice? And would you give training? What advice? Would you give trainers who are working with an older population that maybe haven’t before, it’s very different training a 25 year old who wants athletic or performance gains versus training a 70 year old who just wants to move better? Who wants to get up and down the stairs? Who wants to be able to get in their car? What advice do you have for them for those trainers? And what do you think are some good like starting points to focus on?
CJ
Number one is opening the conversation of nowhere near where your athlete your client is on that on that day that they come in that day one? What is it that they want to do? If they if it’s a pain thing? What would they do if they’re not in pain, you know, like the knee pain, and they want to go for walks, or they want to go to squat and do yard work, whatever that thing is, they wanted to understand those positions and understand when they’re in pain. And if it’s not really a pain thing, it’s more of a fear thing. And they seem to build confidence, like they’re afraid to do something like maybe to jump, or they like to ski or snowboard or something, but they’ve avoided it now, because they’re afraid of falling, how can you incorporate some of that balance stuff that feels like boarding where they they feel more competent, just know what your client is, I think that’s most important versus pushing something on them right away. That way they know that, you know, what they what they would like to do, or what they see. And a lot of times they don’t have an answer for that. So you know, the music, I just, I just want to feel better, I don’t want to be afraid of falling. Or they might have a story about a friend or a family member who’s gone through something. And so understanding that is so important behaviorally, because now when you introduce something that looks like that, or feels like that, it might bring up feelings of fear, resentment towards their aging, or towards training in general, or it might expose the pain that they’re in. And as soon as you recognize those things, tell them it’s going to be okay, like I see, I see where you are like we know a starting point. And take note of that. So that when you go to introduce movements, that maybe what they want to do, like they want to go hike, think about hiking, it needs to be uphill, downhill, or maybe on an uneven surface, start to bring in just foundational stuff in those positions, I think knowing the position that they want to be able to access and what actions, if it’s a lunge squat, a push up, pull it from the ground, is it carrying something, you know, get to know what their daily life is like, it’s going to give you a better picture of where to take them. And you’re going to have a much better conversation and relationship in that process. Because you’ll know where they started. And they’ll know where they started, and where they’re going. So that every month, every few weeks, they’ll look back and go like, Oh, like I’m getting I’m getting better, or I’m going more towards a path that I want to be. So if there’s lack of alignment of where they see themselves, and where they are, which is I think most of the case, like they think back to their glory days, I used to be able to throw a football a quarter mile kind of thing, you know, I have access to these things. Now I don’t what’s going on, start to bring them in, introduce those things on initial range of motions, then medium range of motions, and then gradually add some more momentum or speed to them. Because I think a lot of times, you know, fearful of rotation, I can’t rotate, while we can all rotate for walking. And when we were walking slow. And so we need to gradually bring more and more momentum to test their ability to stay rooted and stabilize. I think that’s number one thing is you want to expose the fear of them be falling or where their thresholds are in their sphere, see, want to know, can they move forward? Can they move backwards? Can they move sideways? And can they move rotationally if we have that foundation, now we can start to expand upon it. And trust that reps and consistency will continue to breed results. If we think that we’re gonna get results in two or three days that it’s probably unlikely expectation or unreal expectation. But if we think about every four weeks or something, meeting with them once or twice a week, giving him stuff to do at home, we’re going to see progress, trust the reps trust the consistency. And I want to give one example of what I mean by this is I got a guy who’s come in. He was a professor. He was a professor and was standing a lot while he was teaching. And he did this for years and they retired and what what happened to his daily life and routine, he stopped standing, he started to sit more than his hips started to hurt. Then his knee started to hurt. And he had an ankle reconstruction. Both knees a hip ridden in a shoulder ridden in the matter of 10 years. Shit we haven’t done very much in those years words a lot of recovery. And as we age, it’s a little bit longer to heal and recover. And we tend to become more fearful or a body says no, you can’t do these things now because we’re all very aware of these joints that are we’re in pain and we don’t want to happen again. So you start simple. What can you do today? And let’s just continue to push that envelope a little bit expand that that box of or that threshold of function. If you can take a step Two feet in front of you, well, hey, let’s maybe step a little bit higher two feet in front of us. And now, let’s step lower two feet in front of us. Now let’s take away the height and maybe let’s step three feet, maybe two and a half feet. And it’s like baby steps. But those small wins build up to become big wins. But definitely open the conversation. What does your client athlete want to do if they were not in pain? Or if they were to be younger?
Kaleena
Yeah, I think one thing that you talked a lot about, like strategies and techniques and variables for extra exercises, but one thing you didn’t touch on that you’re so good at, and I think we do such a good job of is the mental behavioral side of working with older clients and making it feel like play. You know, we talked about the glory days, I love giving some of those clients when I talk to them and get to know a little better, what did you do growing up? What sports did you play and trickling in some of those old exercises, maybe not at the speed that they used to be maybe not at the the dynamic movement that used to be, but trickling some of that back end so that they leave, and they they have this smile on their face like, Man, I haven’t done that in years. And that felt fun, and it didn’t feel like this monotonous physical therapy, sit down, don’t move a muscle, you know, regimented exercise, it feels fun for them, because it lifts their spirit. And it becomes such like a fun thing to do. They look forward to coming and exercise. And then they come forward, you know, they’re not pushing performance, but they’re coming, they’re moving their bodies. And we know that that is bigger than anything sitting is the new smoking kills you faster than smoking and heart disease and diabetes combined. So movement is so so good for us as we continue to age doesn’t have to be at the capacity that it used to. But it needs to be at some moderate level and something that’s that’s going to be fun, because nobody, I mean, nobody wants to do something. It’s not fun. You can’t stick with it, you lose clients, they don’t want to come back if it’s not fun.
CJ
Oh, one study, I know we’ve got we’re running out of time. But there’s one study, I’m gonna kind of butcher all the things that happened in it, but could check it out. Essentially, they had these people living in a like a retirement community, or just essentially they were like 65, and over. And they, they were like assisted living actually. So not retirement, but is assisted living. And they did this study where they like put everybody into this room for a few hours and played music of the times when they were younger. They put in like old telephones, and just like colors and pictures and imagery and stuff that reminded them of their glory days, let’s say their 20s and 30s. And in the study, I don’t know how long it was. But they looked at it fingernail length, or finger finger length actually not fingernails. And like they found that these, these people’s fingers started to grow longer, their mental state started to get better. They were putting their canes down and they were dancing, and they’re playing catch. And it was all about the environment that was around them that helped set them up and remind them of what they were once able to do. Oh I love and simply by by bringing in just you know sounds and smells and sights of the time when they were able to do something. It was some kind of recall within them that their biologic, they biologically got younger. Hell yeah. And so that’s what we see in here is like we play some old tunes that funky Fridays. Yeah, stuff that’s like the good music from the 70s and 80s. And stuff from the 90s. And you see just people excuse
Kaleena
the 70s. See, CJ,
CJ
you pick up on the EDS, man, what a time I wasn’t even around. But But simply like having those tunes and bringing up those stories creates an environment where they feel not super old, they don’t feel like like they like they were just, you know, in their head and fearful, they kind of just let go a little bit. And if we can invite that play, and invite the sounds and ask them about themselves and their stories. Seeing their body shift is not just through the training, the movement, it’s through the experience and that behavioral side of it, that simply brings out the best in them.
Kaleena
Well, last question. For trainers, you can steal this one too. What do you tell a client who says I’m too old? I can’t do that anymore. I’m too old.
CJ
My natural reaction is to smile and laugh. Because like I said that now I consider like 100 Like if you’re under 100 You’re still a kid, you still you’re still learning about the world. Like you’re still learn about the world until the day that you pass and then then you still are learning I think. And so if somebody said I’m too old, and it’s like, I’m going to have him like jump on a box. I think that’s the most common it’s like I’m going to have them jump on a 12 inch box. Now I’m not gonna start them there. But I might step out, step up on it if they see that they’re capable of it and they say that I’m too old that they’re too old. I’m going to say, show me that you’re too old. And then like, okay, and then most of the time, I’m going to set them up for success. Sometimes I want to see them fail just so that they like in such a good positive way of like, this is where we are, and I’m going to make you be able to do this eventually. But I want to always start with success. And if they almost always they’ll say something like that, and then they’ll do it. They’re gonna be like, huh, I thought I was told to do this. I’m doing it. And usually it’s in the start that conversation about, well, I’ve been told that I shouldn’t be doing this or shouldn’t be doing that as like, Well, what do you want to be able to do? And do you believe that you have the ability to get stronger? And I want to shift that conversation as as much as possible? And they’re gonna say, I’m too old? Or what does that mean? What do you mean, you’re too old? Like, do you feel incapable? are you fearful? Are you is it hurt? You know, like, what? What is that definition to them? Because I think for every person is different. For some people. It’s just a coronal chronological thing, like I am this number, and now I’m too old. or Now I’m old. I think people have that number. And a lot of time that ties into their biological side, if they believe that they’re old, their body’s gonna believe that they’re old. And then also mentally, that’s what they’re telling themselves. That’s the personality of their reality is that I’m now old, and I cannot do, but I want that. I want that to shift to I am old. And take pride in that, um, that might change when I’m that age. I don’t know. But from what I’ve learned, is that, like, I tell everybody, like, you know, they see me doing like performance stuff or crazy stuff. And they’re like, oh, just wait. So you’re my age. I’m like, Yeah, you wait till I’m your age.
Kaleena
We’ll see a challenge accepted that I
CJ
think just opening that that kind of challenge creates an opportunity for growth. Love, would you say?
Kaleena
Love it? Ah, I will prove you otherwise. I’m too old Watson. We’ll see. We’ll see. I’ll get you there. I’ll get you there. Guys, thanks for listening this afternoon. This evening. Whenever you’re whenever you’re cruising listening to this. If you have more questions you want to know how we train an aging population our methodologies or strategies or principles or techniques. Check us out on social media on Instagram and your nozzle. Edu follow our individual Instagram pages. Facebook next generation trainer, Gymnazo Edu MDMC learn all about what we got going on here and why we have such an awesome, awesome clientele, how they’re so successful how we continue to train an aging population. Thanks for joining us.
CJ
Stay curious, keep exploring.
Michael Hughes
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