Walter Brown's "Lifting For Life" Presentation Takeaways

Walter Brown's "Lifting For Life" Presentation Biggest Takeaways

By: Ethan Swiatlowski

Lifting for Life 3.0: Exercise Considerations for Taking Control of Health and the Aging Process is a comprehensive guide that focuses on various exercise considerations that individuals need to take into account in order to maintain their physical health and improve their overall well-being as they age. This essay will highlight the most important takeaways from the information in the guide. I like to think about resistance training as we age as defying the laws of aging, meaning that as we age we are going to lose strength and endurance at a certain rate no matter what we do. For example, VO2 max can be defined as the efficiency of how much oxygen the body uses when exercising maximally.  Starting at about 30 years of age, strength and VO2 max drop about 1% per year. With this being said, there are certain lifestyle choices you can make to increase this rate, such as living a sedentary lifestyle and eating fast food every day. On the other hand, there are ways to decrease the rate of losing strength as we age. Ultimately, through resistance training and zone 2 aerobic training, we can slow down the process of aging in terms of strength and muscle loss along with protecting our cardiovascular health. 

This is a presentation that was given to us at TrainSMART by the well-known Physical Therapist, Walter Brown. Walter is a passionate, knowledgeable, and compassionate clinician that works in the Buffalo area. He helps people to reduce pain, heal quickly, and return to everyday life and activities as fast and efficiently as possible. Walter’s main goal is to show people how to get strong, stay strong, and move with less pain. All of this will be broken down into in-depth reasoning as to why this is important and how truly beneficial becoming stronger can be for longevity and living a better quality of life. This will be discussed in great detail throughout this overview of Walter Brown’s “Lifting for Life 3.0” presentation. 

First, more about Walter Brown. He graduated from Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences with a Physical Therapy degree. Where he learned from some of the best practitioners in the world. According to the U.S. News and World, this is a top 8 percent program in the country. Walter has an array of certifications and specialties: including but not limited to; Orthopedic Certified Specialist (OCS), American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties (ABPTS), Certified Kettlebell Instructor, Certified SpiderTech Kinesiotape Therapist, Certified TRX Medical Trainer (Suspension Training), and Graston Technique Certified. Lastly, he takes pride in the fact that he never stops learning and teaching. He has around 60 specialized training experiences from all around the United States. He has also taught over 30 courses and workshops around the country as well. Walter Brown is a lifelong learner and truly has a passion for helping people live stronger and healthier lives without pain. 

There are many obstacles when it comes to creating longevity and better quality of life by becoming stronger. One of the main obstacles to staying physically fit as we age is negative perceptions and resignation towards aging and fitness. Many people feel that they cannot avoid the age-related decline in strength and cardiovascular endurance and therefore give up trying. Furthermore, there is a fitness paradox where despite the proliferation of big box gyms and exotic fitness regimens, there is low engagement among the elderly. Dr. William

Evans, a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology, has pointed out that the fitness industry has failed the elderly. There are very limited fitness regimens that cater to the elderly even though they need fitness and exercise the most to become resilient to injury. Another obstacle is environmental factors such as neighborhood and city design, racial and class disparities, and health and fitness deserts. Some places and communities around the country lack fitness education and resources. There are also very rural parts of the country that do not have access to gyms, fitness centers, or fitness professionals to guide them to a healthier lifestyle. This can be very detrimental. 

The guide from Walter Brown notes that movement illiteracy is a common problem among the young, where individuals tend to be watchers rather than participants in physical activity. The emphasis is more on athletics rather than athleticism, leading to a joyless approach to physical fitness. Among adults and the elderly, movement amnesia is a common challenge. According to Walter Brown’s presentation, research has shown that 32% of adults aged 70 and above have difficulty with physical functioning, such as being unable to lift 15 lbs overhead, get up from a chair without using arms, or get up from the floor. The CDC exercise guidelines are also not being met, with only 28% of Americans meeting these guidelines. 

Society has become exercise-deficient, meaning they are lacking proper exercise recommendations. The guide notes that despite apparent public awareness, there is a rise in obesity and associated health problems. Industrialized societies such as ours have jobs and leisure activities that do not place a training demand on the body. For example, most jobs are in corporate America sitting at a desk 8 hours a day with no physical activity or demand. The guide points out that only 17.1% of students in grades 9-12 meet the CDC standard for physical activity (150 minutes of moderate activity/75 vigorous per week).

Obesity causes metabolic syndrome and can be described as a condition with a cluster of risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease. This is caused by a sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet with excess calories. The consequences of inactivity are important to understand. The guide states that a life with minimal physical activity is the road to reduced endurance, weakness, bone demineralization, increased likelihood of chronic disease, the likelihood of frailty, and loss of independence. Rapid loss of strength and aerobic capacity is not a consequence of aging but a lifestyle choice, as noted by Dr. Michael Geraci, M.D.

The guide highlights that while we do lose capacity as we age, the question is how much and how fast does this occur? The guide provides an experiment on the physiological effects of a short-term bout of sedentary behavior, which shows that inactivity is a spectrum disorder, where the ill effects correlate positively with the amount of sedentary behavior over a lifetime. 

The guide notes that sarcopenia, derived from the Greek dictionary "poverty of flesh," is a significant problem that affects muscle mass and includes strength decline. According to Walter Brown and the “Lifting for Life” presentation, as we age, the loss of nerve supply to the muscle and neuromuscular junctions degrade, leading to a loss of motor units. Strength declines faster than the actual volume of muscle, and type 2 fibers decline faster than type 1. Additionally, there is a change in muscle quality, and anabolic resistance, resulting in decreased protein production. Sarcopenia increases the overall mortality risk, with three times the risk of falls, myopathy of respiratory muscles, increased incidence of hospitalization due to falls and compromised endurance, loss of independence, and increased incidence of chronic diseases such as CVD, DM2, and Met Syn.

Mitochondria are vital to human life. Responsible for generating energy for protein maintenance, protein genesis, basal metabolism, and movement. Normal mitochondrial function is necessary for maintaining and building muscle, and it plays a key role in the quantity, density, and efficiency of muscle function. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator (PGC)-1alpha is a gene that stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis and promotes the remodeling of muscle tissue. Mechanical stress is necessary for the gene expression for mitophagy, which cleans up the mess of old dysfunctional mitochondria that are producing mito DAMPS, damaging muscle, nerves, and vessels. The oxidative phosphorylation that takes place inside the mitochondrion is a vital part of metabolism but it produces reactive oxygen species that lead to the propagation of free radicals, damaging cells and contributing to disease, aging, and senescence. Diet, lack of exercise, and stress are the culprits of mitochondrial damage-associated molecular patterns. The picture below is a great representation of 

Resistance and zone 2 aerobic training offset the loss of muscle mass, strength, and endurance, and aerobic training leads to the genesis of new muscle protein. Aerobic exercise improves the density and quality of skeletal muscle mitochondria, leading to the absorption and recycling of old mitochondria (mitophagy). With more mitochondria available, there is better production of ATP not only for movement but also for muscle building (proteogenesis). More efficient mitochondria means better utilization of O2 for creating energy molecules (ATP), less nasty byproducts (free radicals), and a healthier cellular environment (proteome).

In a study by the Cleveland Clinic, it was found that cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is correlated with all-cause mortality, and there is no upper limit to the benefit of vigorous exercise. However, metabolically demanding workouts may be potentially harmful to older age groups, explain how and there is a U-shaped dose-response to explain this. The study looked at all-cause mortality rates in five performance groups distinguished by CRF (number of METs on a symptom-limited ETT). Elite performers (2 SDs above mean age and sex) had a less all-cause mortality rate compared to all groups. There was no upper limit for load exposure for any age group, and there was a significant difference in the oldest age group. 

The Evans study looked at two cohorts of men and women, young (20-30) and old (60-70), who were all untrained-sedentary. The intervention was cardiovascular training at 70% VO2 max for 50 min/day, three times a week for 12 weeks. There was a 12% improvement in VO2 max in the young and a 20% improvement in the old group. The older group essentially regained the fitness level lost over the last 15-20 years. The improvement was primarily due to an improvement in the oxidative capacity of the muscle by stimulating mitochondrial genesis and density. That is absolutely mind-blowing! There is something you can do to change your cardiovascular health drastically by 15-20 years! 

Zone 2 training refers to aerobic base training, foundational training, or polarized training that focuses on building healthy mitochondria that are metabolically flexible. Sedentary individuals have mitochondria that are unable to use fatty acids as an energy source. Therefore, damaged and inefficient mitochondria rely on the glycolytic pathway, which uses glucose as a fuel source and produces excessive lactate even at low activity levels. Damaged mitochondria use some of the lactate, but the rest binds with H ions to form lactic acid that diminishes muscle force by 50% or more. In contrast, trained individuals' mitochondria can use fatty acids and stored muscle glycogen for energy and are able to use the aerobic pathway at higher levels of output, burning both fat and glucose. 

Zone 2 training improves the quality and quantity of mitochondria in type 1 skeletal muscle by increasing biogenesis and mitophagy. In contrast, training in higher zones, such as Zones 3 to 5, does not oxidize fat, making the body glucose-dependent. Unfit individuals hit higher zones at lower levels of physical demand. The five zones of training correspond to specific metabolic pathways that muscles use to use various substrates for energy, including creatine, glucose, FAs, and lactate. 

Type 2 fibers are glycolytic and produce lactate as a by-product. From a performance point of view, it is important to use that lactate up as an energy source before it builds up and becomes lactic acid. Zone 2 training carries over into higher levels of effort, such as Zones 3 to 5, by increasing lactate utilization, resulting in more energy and power. The MCT 1 transporter (lactate shuttle) is expressed in Zone 2. To train in Zone 2, individuals should maintain a heart rate at 70-80% of their peak HR, or as estimated by age adjustment. The talk test can measure Zone 3 when individuals cannot speak in complete sentences. 

Training in Zone 2 has its benefits, including increased mitochondrial density, which helps the cell maintain homeostasis and adaptability to stress without sacrificing the need to generate new protein. This is an important component of offsetting aging, which is the inability to maintain homeostasis. Low VO2 max is a predictor of early mortality and loss of independence, but individuals do not need to train in the highest zones to improve it. Resistance training was once thought to do more harm than good for elderly individuals due to cardiac concerns and potential injury. However, the Exercise Training and Nutritional Supplementation for Physical Frailty study found that high-intensity resistance exercise and nutritional supplementation improved strength, gait speed, and stair climbing power in 100 frail nursing home residents with multiple chronic diseases. 

In conclusion, "Lifting for Life 3.0" emphasizes the importance of exercise in maintaining physical health and well-being as we age. The guide, presented by Walter Brown, a knowledgeable and passionate Physical Therapist, highlights the benefits of resistance training and zone 2 aerobic training in slowing down the aging process, protecting cardiovascular health, and preserving strength and muscle mass. Overcoming negative perceptions and addressing environmental barriers are crucial for fostering a lifelong commitment to fitness. By debunking myths and emphasizing the positive effects of exercise, individuals can defy the aging process, improve their overall quality of life, and reduce the risk of chronic diseases.