Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Summary
On episode 314 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Fred Bartlit, an 85 year old attorney, West Point graduate, and former Army Ranger who took up serious strength training in his 50s at the urging of his wife Jana and has spent decades since researching and living the case for lifting weights as we age. He is the author of Choosing the Strong Path.
Fred argues that sarcopenia, the progressive loss of muscle strength that begins around age 30, is the real threat behind the frailty, falls, and lost independence most people chalk up to normal aging, and that the medical world only formally recognized it as a disease in 2016.
The conversation covers why strength training built around real intensity, working close to failure, is the factor most correlated with health and happiness in the second half of life, why falls have become the leading cause of injury and death among older Americans, and why finding the right trainer matters as much as the training itself.
Links
- https://strongpath.com
Key Takeaways
- Sarcopenia starts around age 30 and accelerates every decade after. Nobody is immune. By your 50s and 60s the loss of muscle speeds up, driving what Fred calls the downward spiral of aging into frailty.
- Strength, more than cardio, is what’s correlated with a good second half of life. Fred puts it bluntly: over that second half, the thing most correlated with happiness, health, and success is pure strength, not being skinny or having good cardio alone.
- Falls are now the leading cause of injury and death among older Americans. In 2014 alone, older Americans had 29 million falls with 7 million injuries, costing Medicare over 30 billion dollars, and one in four people over 65 falls every year.
- It’s never too late to start, and the payoff is large. Harvard and UK medical research show exercise cuts the risk of heart disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and stroke by 20 to 80 percent, and describe it as a near miracle cure for sarcopenia.
- Training needs real intensity to work. Fred’s own routine splits chest and back, legs, and arms and shoulders across the week, using a mix of rep ranges (15, 15, 10, 8, 5) so both slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers are trained to failure.
- Getting the right trainer matters as much as training itself. Fred credits much of his own progress, and that of the people profiled in his book, to trainers who knew how to push and motivate a beginner, not just hand them a program.
- Losing weight too fast means losing muscle, not fat. Peer reviewed research Fred cites shows that losing more than a pound and a half a week burns muscle tissue, so slow, tracked weight loss protects the strength gains you’re working for.
- Longer life expectancy has stretched out the disability window sarcopenia creates. People still tend to become disabled around the same age they always did, but instead of 2 or 3 years of decline they now face 15 to 20 years of it if they never address the underlying muscle loss.
- A functional movement assessment reveals your weak links before they become injuries. Fred is a big believer in this quick, structured test, used with college athletes, that identifies which parts of the body need focused work.
“Over the last, that second half of your life, the thing that is most correlated with happiness, health, success, everything is pure D strength.”
Fred Bartlit
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 382 – Get bigger, leaner, and stronger with Michael Matthews
