Aging decreases the ability to deal with variation - also the ability to generate variation; the two are intrinsically related. They are two sides of the same coin.
The fragility of the coffee cup is fixed whereas a 20yr old can cope with a jump...
...from 20ft, but at 70yrs cannot cope with a jump from 10ft. Fragility in increasing.
The aging body is like a badly run business, it can't adapt to environmental challenges, randomness, and variation.
The body no longer has the system to deal with it; more precisely the system is working within a reduced range, it has degraded.
This is why as one ages, to slow down the downward spiral, it is *essential* to keep working the 'tails', the extremes...
...very high heart rates, strength, acidosis, HIIT, etc. Keeping your body's ability to generate and tolerate extremes is a superpower - it enables you to cope with the challenging environment, shocks and zombie attacks.
Do not take it easy by *only* doing moderate exercise, add in hard work (but don't over-exercise, you need to recover). Your ability to sprint goes first, then your ability to run, then your ability to walk - this is increasing fragility to things you used to be able to...
...take in your stride.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY:
1 Resistance training – weights, circuits, and calisthenics
2 Intervals - short to long (anaerobic/acidosis/aerobic)
3 Daily low-level activity - aerobic base.
4 Occasional 'mega' challenges
LIFESTYLE:
1 Move out the City (pollution) if u can
2 Swap chronic, fragilsing stress for acute, robustifying stress
3 Get plenty of Sun and fresh air (Nature)
4 Get enough sleep
General Physical Standards (to retain) - you can add your own.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Gravity is an increasing challenge for people as they age; they fall, they break bones, they have difficulty walking up stairs or slopes, they can’t get up from a chair without using their arms.
Working against gravity is how we retain our strength. Using ‘hyper-gravity’ (my term for resistance training), in any direction or plane, means that normal gravity is easier to overcome.
Strong, robust and enduring strength is the fountain of youth. Look at the elderly people… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
This physical decline of strength and fitness starts in your 30’s if you are not actively doing something about it. Again, elderly people don’t suddenly become fragile, it’s just a point on the unresisted trajectory of aging.
What do sauna, ice baths, sprinting, training to failure & acidosis have in common?
They are EXTREMES. Generating extremes and tolerating extremes are a superpower. It doesn't matter the nature of the extreme, they are what keeps you young, robust and dynamic.
As you age, your ability to tolerate/generate extremes is the first thing that degrades
First the 'extremes' go - sprinting, jumping, acidosis tolerance, strength; then the normal becomes harder, walking, getting out of a chair, walking up steps....
Aging is Diminishing Variation.
Older people lose the ability to generate and tolerate extremes - they lose the *desire* as well because it hurts. This is the most important quality to retain in age - it's what I do (gentle exercise isn't enough).
- It’s better to be naively right than expertly wrong
- Much of modern medicine is a solution in search of a problem
- The more powerful the ‘superfood’ the more potential for harm
- The more energy you eat, the less energetic you are
- The human body is designed for scarcity
- Starvation reveals your primal nature
- Supply dictates harm/benefit
- Plants make sense when viewed as drugs
- Eat plants, not all of them, not too many
- The extent of your omnivory is dictated by what you tolerate
- Deranged intestinal permeability causes systemic problems
- In a modern environment the body is harmed by its own protective mechanisms
- Your body is sub-set of the environment
- Your body’s processes match those of the environment
- Nature is senolytic
In the wild environment they are intermittently called upon to help us survive. However, when they are *chronically* engaged by an abundance of calories (& w/out the need to exercise) they start to harm us; obesity, visceral fat, chronic inflammation, Insulin resistance.
During the first lockdown I spent huge amounts of time in the Sun; in the park, on the heath, at the track, in the woods and at the coast. I exercised outside (did interval training on the empty roads) and I knocked about London with my top off.