What Worked in Your 30s Starts Costing You After 50 | Joe Friel, 82

Ageless Athlete Recording - Joe Friel Returns!
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[00:00:00] 

Joe: Joe, welcome back. Your first episode really resonated with people, and I think what struck listeners was not just all of your expertise, but also your honesty.

Kush: You know- Oh ... you are in your 80s. You're not talking about aging as, as an abstract idea. You're living it, observing it, adapting, and sharing. And last time we talked, you spoke about, you know, the moment when things started changing for you, and we spoke about muscle loss and realizing that old rules no longer applied in this...

in quite the same way. So I would love to go deeper into the practical side. So if the rules do change for us, starting in our 40s and then [00:01:00] 50s, 60s and beyond- ... then what do we actually do? So I have a few ideas for what we might want to cover today. Love to get your thoughts. So I wanna talk about muscle.

I wanna talk about strength training. I wanna talk about recovery. 

Joe: Sure. 

Kush: Touch again on intensity. 

Joe: Mm-hmm. 

Kush: And then also touch on nutrition and supplements. And I loved your book, Fast After 50. I just finished reading it, and there were some ideas on all of these topics that were enlightening. 

Joe: Good. 

Kush: So I would love to go deeper into this.

But before I start asking you things on those topics, I thought I would ask you first, after our first [00:02:00] conversation, did you feel there was things we didn't get to explore enough? 

Joe: There is always so much, especially on the topic of aging. You know, I like... As you know, I've wrote, I've written a couple books on this.

In fact, I've written three books on this topic. Uh, only the last two, I would say, are worth reading. First one was off the top of my head. But, um, and the last two have been based on a personal ex- largely on personal experience. But no, I would, I would say you covered, uh, we covered things very nicely in that last time we chatted, which has been a while now.

things are always changing. we're always learning more about the human body. and, uh, those things just go on for forever, and always will. We'll continue to learn more about how we age and what that means to us as we are right now. So, you know, it, it's, and it's accelerating. I recall back in the '90s when I wrote that [00:03:00] first book, there wasn't hardly a thing at all, at all on aging, especially for athletes.

But now, uh, there's not only a lot of information, we're sometimes overwhelmed with information. very interesting stuff. Very interesting stuff. But I've still got a lot to learn, uh, as we all do

Kush: Absolutely. we are evolving, the science is evolving alongside even faster. Joe, if someone listened to the first episode and they thought that, "Okay, I get it, aging changes the rules," what would you want them to understand next? 



Joe: I have to let them understand that there, that it can be modified.

yeah, the rules are changing from what you were used to when you were in your 20s and 30s. That world is, is changing. but it doesn't mean that you're, you have to age very rapidly a- as we see a lot of people do. Uh, if you [00:04:00] walk out on the street, any busy town, Boulder, Colorado, and walk down the main street, Pearl Street here in Boulder, uh, you're gonna run into a lot of people who are older folks, and you'll see people in their 60s who are, have a very difficult time, walking.

and you'll see people at the same time in their 80s and 90s who can run. so there's a lot, there's a lot to be said about how you live your life as these changes are taking place. You don't have to accept them as being 100% the way it has to be. You don't have to wind up in a wheelchair when you're 90.

You don't have to do that, but a lot of people do. why do people not wind up in wheelchairs in their 90s? Well, it's because they started changing their lifestyle or made modifications to their lifestyle as they aged. That's the key. Number one modifications to make is regular exercise. there's absolutely nothing more valuable for, [00:05:00] uh, slowing the aging process than exercise.

if we were to make a pill that gave you the same benefits as exercise, it would be the most, it w- it'd be the most rapidly selling product in the entire world in the history of the planet. That's how valuable this is, and it's at your fingertips. We can all do it. All we have to do is motivate ourselves to get out the door and exercise.

It doesn't take a lot. You know, if you were to go for, you know, if somebody's not been exercising at all for years, they're now in their 60s we'll say, if they just go for a 20-minute walk every day, what would that do for them? Not only in terms of longevity, but also in terms of health span, which is really more important than longevity.

Health span is how long you're healthy in your life. it leads to... It, there's a close tie between health span and longevity, but they're not the same thing. You can live a long time, and unfortunately have very poor [00:06:00] health all the way through your life. People do that all the time. But you can also live a long time and be very healthy right up until the very end.

I may have mentioned a friend of mine who, who passed away, uh, last year. I've forgotten what we talked about in our last discussion. But my friend died at age 91. Um, he had been a, a lifelong endurance athlete. Uh, he held the course record for the Ironman Hawaii for his age group, which is 75 plus. 



Joe: 13 hours and 31 minutes, if I recall, right?

Which is, if you know anything about the Ironman, that's, that's moving right along for somebody who's 75 years old. That's fast. Uh, if they, if they age-graded the results of that race, that would have won the race. Uh, that's how fast it was. It's tremendously fast for somebody who's 75 years old. He passed away last year at age 91.

Great guy. he was a coach also, by the way. Besides being an athlete, he was a coach. one of those kind of guys who you would love to talk to [00:07:00] anytime because he's, he's always willing to listen, besides give his insights as to what he had learned throughout his lifespan. and when he passed away, the, the day he passed away, he had a, he had a stroke.

The day he passed away, he did a workout that day. as a triathlete, you know, I, I don't recall now whether it was a swim, bike, or run, but he got in a workout that day. but that's the kind of person I would like to be. I would like to see myself go into my 90s, perhaps even beyond. I, I've got another friend I know who's in his 100s.



Joe: uh, you know, very active. Continue to, to see the world as being something that's not working against them but is working for them if they just take advantage of it. If they just get out and exercise, if they move, if they get fresh air, if they breathe that fresh air, if they're in the sunshine. All these things have a lot to do with how long you live.

Not only how long you live, but how healthy you are right until the very end. this, it's a, um It's really, it's something that we can all take advantage of. It's just a matter of making ourselves do it, 

[00:08:00] being motivated to do it. Most people don't have that motivation. But it, it doesn't take a lot.

All you gotta do is get out the door and do a little bit every day. Just a little bit every day will do it for you. So anyway, that's, that's my, preaching for the day. That's kind of my what I, what I feel down deep all the time is I see people all the time who ought to be exercising, but they're not, and it's something we could all be doing.

Kush: Joe, I could hear you preach all day. yeah, this, this, magic pill of exercise, it's available to all of us. And just the same way we start popping more and more pills as we get older, if we could just do that daily exercise. And that example of your, uh, of your friends, that is so vivid, that it's just such a part of their routine that they were doing it r- literally right till the end.

Joe, when- Older athletes come to you, and you have been working with, working with athletes for so long, [00:09:00] and they are frustrated that the old training no longer works. What's the first thing that you would have them start with? 

Joe: The first place I always start with an athlete, regardless of age actually, is with their sleep.

I think I, I learn a lot about the athlete just by learning how well they sleep, how long they sleep. the problem is with, with our life s- with the life in our, in Western society is that we are,we're basically overwhelmed with things to do all day long that are not necessarily things that are in our, in our own best interest.

Work, for example. We... Uh, a lot of people, especially in their 50s, uh, males and females in their 50s tend to put in a lot of time working. and they bring that work home with them. because, uh, by, by the time you're in your 50s, you're typically, you've moved up the, the ladder at, in your career to the point that you're now, you're now a leader in your, in your field.

Uh, [00:10:00] especially in your, unique business you have that you're working in. You've been, you've taken on a leadership role there because of experience, which is the prime, which is a great thing. However, we take that to a very high level. What we tend to do is we tend to bring that work home with us, and we put in an awful lot of hours.

There may be 40 or 50 hours u- in the office, but we bring in many, many more hours when we get home. We're still checking email. We're, we're writing things to people. We're making notes on what's gonna be talked about in tomorrow's meeting, whatever it may be. We're having conversations with people.

All this is going on outside of the office. 



Joe: and the problem we get into with that is we tend to, we tend to put that very high on our list of things that are important to us I like to believe that it, it is important. However, I like to see that there's some kind of limit to how much time we put into these things.

And by st- asking a person about their sleep, what I find out is how much time are they putting into all the stuff in their lives, which includes their career, especially in their 50s and [00:11:00] 60s. And so by finding that out, if I find out a person is only sleeping six or maybe five or six hours a night, next question is, what time do you go to bed?

At what time do you get up? How do you get up? What, what wakes you up in the morning? What I'm trying to look for is people who are trying to make sure they get enough sleep in their lives because sleep is really the, the foundation of becoming more fit. That's where it begins, is you've, you've got to be, you've got to be sleeping.

If you're not sleeping, you're never going to be able to, to improve your performance. In fact, you're gonna shorten your lifespan and your health span because of that. Sleep is critical not only to performance, not only to fitness, not only to health, but also to how long we're around on this planet. So I always start there because that tells me a lot.

What I tell the athlete is if they're getting-- they're not getting enough sleep, there's something wrong. The thing that's wrong more than likely is they're just, they're putting m- too much time into things outside of the, of what I call the big three. [00:12:00] Number one of the big three is your family. That's number one.

You've got to devote time to them. 



Joe: if you're taking time away from your family because of your career, that's not good. and we've all done that. I've done that. I was, back in that, when I was younger, that became too important in my life. My career became more important than my family at one point, I recall.

We can't have that. You gotta have n- number one's gotta be your family. Number two can be your career, which is fine, but it's gotta be behind your family. And number three has got to be, if we're talking about an athlete now, your training. You've got to have exercise. You've got to be devoting yourself to that on a daily basis.

Everything beyond this is stuff that we can begin to, cut out of our lives So I'll coach an athlete, I'll take on an athlete I'm going to coach and I find out they're only getting five or six hours of sleep a night. So I ask them, "Well, how, how do you wake up in the morning?" Well, they wake up almost always, I, this is close to 100%, with an alarm clock.

[00:13:00] 

Joe: we wanna get away from that. that's a problem. That wakes you up with a stressful environment immediately. You wake up to stress. Cortisol begins to spread throughout your body immediately and you're reacting to something which is really outside the realm of what humans are supposed to be reacting to.

What that tells me is you're not going to bed early enough. If you go to bed early enough, you'll wake up without an alarm clock. 



Joe: we have a, a schedule. Your body is on a schedule. 



Joe: if you, uh, pay attention to that schedule, you're going to bed early and you're gonna wake up early without the alarm clock going off.

If that scares you because you're afraid you're gonna be late for work, try for a while, try on the weekend, try going to bed at, at 9:00, no later than 9:00, to see when you wake up on the weekend to find out. What you'll probably find is it works fine. You, once you get into the habit of going to bed at 8:00 or 9:00, wherever it may be, you'll wake up at plenty of time to get breakfast and shower and get dressed to go to, to go to work in the morning.

But you've gotta start [00:14:00] someplace. The place to start is on your weekends. Plan on getting more sleep on your weekends by going to bed earlier 

Kush: and- Joe, let me pause you there- 

Joe: Sure ... 

Kush: for, for a second. I thought I would ask you this, that- 



Kush: We hear from older people generally that they are having difficulty just sleeping longer hours.

I can say that for myself that, again, I'm 48, but when I was younger, I would hit the sack after a long day, I would pass out, and I would stay in deep sleep, I think, until the next morning, right? But something has changed, and I hear that from a lot of people that they can't sleep as soundly.

Either they can't go to sleep quickly enough, or they are sleeping fitfully. 



Kush: Do you support that? And what have you found that allows people to actually get that rest even when they have [00:15:00] scheduled you know, those, those full eight hours in bed, that they are actually able to rest soundly during that period?

Joe: Yeah, th- it can be a problem. I don't doubt that. some people have lifestyles that are so stressful that, uh, they take those stresses to, to the bedroom with them, and they have a hard time going to sleep at night because they got too much stuff on their mind. That, that's the career thing all over again perhaps.

Or it could be other stuff. It could be financial. It could be family matters. There's, there's all kinds of things that we, as humans, we all, we are all involved in things that 

Kush: can stress us. No, just tell us what tactics or strategies we can implement- 

Joe: Yeah ... 

Kush: on how we can sleep better. 

Joe: What I... let me tell you something I always, I've always told my athletes to do.

It's something I've been doing for, more than 30 years. When I go to bed every night, and we, we always go to bed, what people would consider to be early. We're in bed usually by 8:00 at night, my wife and I. And, um, the first thing I do when the lights are out and [00:16:00] I'm, I'm turned over and ready to go to sleep, the first thing I do every night is I go back and review my day.

What were the things that were my successes today? What really went well for me? What things would I be proud of in my day? and most of the time for me, that's usually workouts. It's what workouts did I do, and how did I feel? Was I satisfied with the workout? There may have been things I was doing career-wise.

Like, I, I do a lot of writing. I may review something I wrote. How do I feel about that? Am I proud of what I did? This is the last thought I have every night before I go to sleep, is what did I do today that I'm, I'm happy with, I'm proud of? And that, that helps me go to sleep. I don't lay there and think about all the things went wrong with my day and the problems I have and how I'm gonna deal with all those problems tomorrow.

Those things are gone. they're, they're, they're either gone or they're gonna happen tomorrow so I'm not gonna worry about it right now. But I review things that I've done which are successful. And over the, over a [00:17:00] lifespan, you build up A tremendous number of successes by doing that. I can still remember doing that back in the 1990s.

There was one workout I did back in the early 1990s that I, I recall thinking about as I went to bed that night and sleeping with it, that I can still visualize that workout in my mind. It was the hardest workout I ever did, and I got myself through it under very stressful conditions, and it paid off eventually because of what I did down the road in terms of racing.

But nevertheless, that, that memory's still with me. Now I've got all these, all these things have been stored away up here for, 



Joe: 30 years or they've been stored away in my head, all these successes I've had. And that, that's, I think, is very beneficial not only for, for your sleep, helping to get to sleep and with your mind in the right place, but also what you think about the next day.

You can remember all the things that you've done in the past that have been successes, as opposed to thinking about things that I did w- that were failures. Let's [00:18:00] think about success all the time. So that, that's my cure for the... Th- that's what I always tell the athletes to do that I coach, is when you fall as- before you fall asleep at night, I want the last thing to be what you did today that you're proud of.

And often that will be your workout, and that's great. Relive the w- what... If there was... You did intervals and there was one interval that was great, relive that interval until you fall asleep. So Joe, 

Kush: how does that type of positive affirmation helps us sleep better? 

Joe: Yeah. K- get your mind back in the right place.

I think the reason we don't go to sleep usually, uh, may- there may be things beyond this, but I think the most common reason we don't go to sleep easily is because we got too much on our mind that are causing problems for us. We're trying to deal with problems as we go to sleep. Now, there may be other things that are going on also.

There may be poor diet. There may be, inactivity throughout the day, didn't, just didn't do enough that day. There could be other things that build into this, this sequence of things that may result [00:19:00] in poor sleep. But I think the cure for most of all this is re- is focusing on the things that you did that were good for you, things that were successful, things that are, you're proud of.

Those are the things we wanna remember, and those are the things we wanna use to go to sleep with as opposed to our failures. let's put your failures aside. We're all going to have those. I have those. You have those. Everybody has them. We're gonna put those aside, and we're gonna think about as we go to sleep tonight things that were successful for us.

Let's relive those things. Let's get our mind in the right place. Hopefully everything else is going well in our lives also because it's sometimes very difficult to do what I just suggested if you've got problems with the IRS, for example. You know, if you got- Sure ... the IRS coming down your throat, that could be a real problem that's really hard to put, put aside.

But beyond things like that, let's say, you had a hard day at work and there, and you had, maybe had an argument with somebody. That's gonna happen. That's l- that's life. That's just the way it is. Let's set that aside and think about what you did today that was good. What was [00:20:00] successful?

Kush: Perfect, Joe. So what you're telling us that the stress that we carry into bedtime is damaging enough that it can likely offset every other type of environment adaptations we have put in place. So we might have all the right things going on with, the way we have eaten food, the way we have consumed liquids, the way we have set up our bedtime,our room, but, but that stress that we carry with us Needs to be counterbalanced by this, practice of affirmations and gratitude so that when we go to bed.

Got it. So sleep is number one, Joe. Quickly, what might be the second and third things that that you would ask about, that you would ask of these athletes when they come to you? 

Joe: Yeah. Well, the next thing we typically go to is, is what are your goals? What are you trying to achieve this year?

uh, and we- then we start [00:21:00] digging deep into how does, how has that been in the past? Have you ever had this goal before? Have you succeeded with that goal before or have you failed in trying to achieve it? So we'd start digging into places they wanna go because they're hiring me, you know, not to help them sleep quite honestly, although I think that's part of it.

They're hiring me to get them to perform in a, in a competition, in an event, in a race. That's why they're bringing me on board. And so that's the next place I always go is what, what are we aiming at? what are you trying to achieve? Most athletes, are fairly realistic in their goals, but they, they tend to stretch themselves a little bit, which is good.

I like to see a person stretch themselves a little bit. I like to see a person say, for example, "I, I wanna qualify for Ironman Hawaii." And they've done, they've never done that before, but they've been successful in triathlon and now they wanna move up to the next level. That's a great, that's a great goal.

Or goal along that line, "I wanna be in a national championship. I wanna be on the podium at a, at an event in my state championship. You know, I wanna..." [00:22:00] Whatever it may be, but they've got these, these goals that are fairly high goals and my next problem, my next challenge as a coach is figuring out how we're gonna do that.

that's typically the second question has to do with how are you, what, what are we aiming at? What, what is the, the goal for your season this year? then I start thinking about how I can help this athlete achieve that. And that go, this takes us down this rabbit hole which has got all kinds of pieces to it, but that's where it all begins 

Kush: And since we are in this list, what might be the third thing quickly?

Joe: Oh, gosh. Third thing is it typically has to do with, what's going on in their lifestyle. how is stress in their lives? Uh, th- to, to achieve this goal, first of all we're gonna get lots of s- we're gonna get sleep. That's first thing. Second thing is I wanna know what their goal is and how we're going to go about achieving it.

Third thing typically is what are all the stresses in their life? So w- that may come out in the first question, the sleep question, but I wanna get into things that really kind of, uh, are challenges for their [00:23:00] goal. Uh, they're working 10-hour days. they're working six days a week. you know, those things like that, or, or they're having family stress.

Typically, athletes don't wanna go into that issue with me, but I can sometimes sense what's going on in their lifestyle just because of what they tell me. So if they, they may have family stress that's going on. there may be financial issues. I'm not gonna dig into things like that, but I just want them to know I'm there to help them if I can, can with all these things that are stressors for them.

They don't have to tell me what those stressors are, but if, if they want to I'm happy to, to talk with them. I am not a counselor, I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist, I'm not a sociologist, so I can't really give meaningful discussion about these things. But if they just want someone to bounce ideas off of, that's one of the things that typically a coach does, ' cause a coach is there in part to respond to the athlete's needs, whatever those needs may be.

Kush: And Joe, I'm, I'm guessing you have worked with so many athletes over decades, and you've [00:24:00] accumulated so much knowledge that you can likely identify patterns that afflict these populations outside of, just their training. And there are probably some themes that run across. Joe, moving on, I wanna talk about muscle loss after 50.

So last time you spoke quite openly about noticing muscle loss in your legs- Mm-hmm ... even though you have trained and lifted for decades. So that really stayed with me. For athletes Older athletes, is it actually possible to build meaningful muscle? Or are we just trying to stave the rate of loss? 

Joe: Yeah, there are some things you can't change.



Joe: this is one of them. It's... All, all we can do is slow it down. as you mentioned, I've been lifting the weights since I was in college, and not as a bodybuilder but as an endurance athlete, which is different. things I've noticed are, that I've [00:25:00] noticed in the last few years, for example, is that my- And 

Kush: Joe, I would also love to...

Sorry, I, I would like to preface this by saying I would also love to know, because you're talking about a pretty big population here, right? Let's talk about the athlete over 45. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: And I would love to hear you speak on maybe for each successive decade, what might be the most important thing? 

Joe: Yeah, when it comes...

And you mean in regards to, to muscle mass? 

Kush: Muscle mass, yes. can we- Yeah ... can we, grow muscle at 50? 

Joe: Sure. 

Kush: Can we... Yeah. Or, or 60 or 70. So I would love to, like, because I think we have, we have listeners who span that spectrum- Sure ... of 40 to 80. So what would that person in that decade need to be aware of?

Joe: Well, it all starts, for most of us, in our mid-30s. Um, that's when we begin to see this begin to change. But it's, it's so slight, it's so small that it's hard to recognize at first. [00:26:00] Because for an athlete especially, we're losing VO2 max. Let's say the a- athlete is in their late 30s. Not only losing muscle mass, we're losing VO2 max.



Joe: other things are changing physiologically also, but those are two of the biggies. And, uh, at first the athlete isn't aw- isn't aware of this because what's happened is, if they've been in the sport for several years, 10 years or more we'll say, if they've been in the sport for several years, they're starting to become very good at the strategy of racing and knowing how to prepare for a race, knowing how to train, because they've got experience now.

Early 20s, they had no idea. You know, they were experimenting, trying all kinds of things, and by the time they're in their late 30s, they've now figured it out. "This is what I need to do to prepare for this competition, and not only that, this is what I, what I have to do, uh, during the competition to succeed."

But they don't realize that there's little changes taking place, but because they've become better at training and, and the s- [00:27:00] strategic racing, that consequently they don't see the change taking place because they, they can maintain their performance into their late 30s. They're just as fast at 39 as they were at, uh, 34, and yet they've lost muscle mass and they've lost VO2 max more than likely.

More than likely. there's, there are individuals who don't experience that quite that early, but they're in the minority So we see we're still racing well, we're still doing great, so therefore I haven't lost anything. All that, all we know is that they've actually just become better at training and racing.

that's what's happened. So now they move into their 40s and now it begins to become aware, become apparent that things aren't exactly the same as they were. They can no longer perform in the same way as they did even in their late 30s. It's about by the time they're in their mid-40s. Let's take an example of that.

If you look back at all... Let, let's take a, a, a cohort, a, a group of people who we can really rely on to say these are people who have, who are really working the extremes in terms of age. I would say that's [00:28:00] gonna be professional athletes, professional endurance athletes. You know what the oldest age is if you take all the, the major endurance events in the world?

Ironman Triathlon, Boston Marathon, World Championship Cycling, whatever it may be, the, the Tour de France. Whatever it may be, if you took all the events, the biggest events in the world, endurance events, and try to find what the oldest person is that's ever won one of those, the age is 41. 

Kush: Oh, right.

Wow. Yeah. 

Joe: That's, that's the age. Age, there's one athlete who managed to win the Vuelta de España, uh, a cycling, three-week stage race, one of the major events in cycling, at age 41. Extremely rare. It was a male. The second, the first female was age 40 But Joe, aren't, aren't... 

Kush: I don't have the, the statistics in front of me, but don't we have, marathon runners- For sure

or long distance runners where the age has crept up on people who [00:29:00] are not just winning, but even breaking world records? 

Joe: If you take the events like, let's take, uh, UTMB, the biggest ultra, uh, marathon in the world, that's never been won by anybody beyond the age of 41. You know, that, that, that's, the cutoff is in your 40s.



Joe: if we talk about the best, events that the best athletes in the world go to like UTMB or like the Tour de France or like Boston Marathon, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera- 

Kush: 41 

Joe: is the number ... we're never 

Kush: g- 

Joe: yeah, we're never gonna find anybody beyond the age of 41 because it hasn't happened yet.

Now, it may happen in your local 5K race that somebody who's 45 year old wins, but who showed up for the race that day? You know, we're talking here about world-class events. So now, so what, what that does is it narrows the range down. We know when we go to the major event, UTMB, Vuelta a España, Tour de France, Boston Marathon, Olympics, world championships, whatever it may, that's gonna be the best people in the world who are gonna be there.

The best athletes in the world. If we separate [00:30:00] them out by who, how they finished, we'll find that the oldest is 41 in the history of the world. The oldest is 41. More than likely they're gonna be in their early 30s, more than likely. 31 years old. It's very common. 

Kush: A small, uh, clarifying question. So what we have observed over the last couple of decades is that the top age, or maybe even the average age of some of these athletes seems to have crept up.

Mm. Even in team sports, soccer, football, et cetera, you have people who are in their 30s, sometimes even in their 40s who are outperforming. And- what's happened there? what are the, the top things that has allowed th- that sort of that average age, which is honestly, like, really motivating- 

Joe: Mostly they've become smarter. that's the biggest thing that's changed. physiologically, m- it would be rare to find somebody in that, in that category we're talking about who has physiologically [00:31:00] improved or even stayed exactly the same as they were in their 20s or even their early 30s.

We're not gonna find that person. I've, I've never found any examples yet of a person in any sport, I don't care what it is, that's been able to i- improve performance into their 40s, especially their late 40s. Why? Because number one, aerobic capacity declines. It starts going down at age 35 typically. Uh, it's going down something like about, 1% per year, uh, as we age up from about age 35 on, 1% per year.

1%, you can't s- you can't feel a change of 1%. It doesn't show up. You don't, you're not aware of it. 



Joe: But give it a decade, that's 10%. Now you're aware of it, but now that, that, now we're in our 40s when you become aware of it. It isn't until you're in your mid-40s that you become aware this is, this is happening.

So it kind of sneaks up on you because of that. So we're losing muscle mass, we're losing VO2 max. A lot of other things are changing too, but [00:32:00] those are two of the most important things that are happening, and we were talking about muscle mass beyond, in decades. That was, uh, I was talking about the 40s.

There's what's happening in your 40s, is you're, you're losing muscle mass, you're losing VO2 max, but muscle mass is going down. Not a, not gigantically. 1% per year is, is quite small. Very small. It takes years to accumulate. Now we get into our 50s and the athlete becomes aware of it. Most athletes in their 50s don't have anything near what they had if they were also athletes in their early 30s.

They don't have that anymore However, every group, every cycling club, every running club, every swimming club, every triathlon club has somebody in the group who's in their 50s who still kicks butt, who is still a tremendous athlete. That athlete st- is still there because they, they've just been able to, they've slowed the, the change down, is what they've learned how to do, is [00:33:00] slow down this loss that we're talking about of muscle mass and VO2 max.

They've become smarter, and they've learned how to do it. And because of that, they get, they eke out a few more years of performance because of that. But they're still losing muscle mass. They're still losing VO2 max. They've just got it at a small fraction of what it used to be. Instead of being 1% per year, they've got it down to a half a percent per year.

That's the key to them, is dropping this down by, by a half a percentage point per year, which is minuscule. Gi- tiny little thing we're cha- chain- changing. And why does that change? Because this person in their 50s is now dedicated. they train regularly. They're consistent They don't over-train.

They don't make mistakes. If they feel something that's a niggling little knee problem, they give it a chance to heal up. They don't go out like a 20-some-year-old does and it's run on it anyway because I can make it go away by running through it. They know that's not gonna happen. They're [00:34:00] wise now and say, "The knee is bothering me, I can't work out today.

I've got to let it heal up just a little bit, and maybe I need to see my, my, my doctor or my physiologist, or whoever I work... my phys- physiotherapist rather, or whoever I work with." But anyway, they're just, they've gotten smarter. That's the key. You give up some physi- you give up some physiology and you gain some psychology, is what happens.

You just become smarter. because of that, you can now perform in your 50s much as you did when you were younger. And that can, carries on into your 60s. You're gonna lose more muscle mass in your 60s. VO2 max in your 60s, but there's still people who are very smart, and that's the key.

You've got to be very smart when you get to these ages. You can't make dumb mistakes like you did when you were in your 20s. you continue doing that throughout your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, you're just not gonna make it. You're gonna fail. So you've got to hone in on what it takes to be successful in my sport, [00:35:00] and make sure you do those things repeatedly.

Kush: Joe, I'm curious though, so just on the subject of muscle mass, we might have athletes who never really focused on the weight room. You know, they were out there rock climbing, swimming, running, what have you, and they get to their mid-40s and- and then they start lifting weights, right?

So they may have underutilized capacity when it comes to building muscle. Do because we do hear that, I'm not sure how much of this is fact or fiction, that you can keep building muscle into your 70s, 80s, even 90s, right? So I'm just trying to reconcile these two things.

Joe: Yeah, you can continue to build muscle, but things are still going to change. You're g- you're going to lose fast twitch muscle fiber. That's the thing you become most, you become most aware of. I am now, in my 80s, very aware of my loss of fast twitch muscle fiber. the slow twitch muscle [00:36:00] fibers are doing great.

They're fine. But, uh, I can't do the powerful things I used to do. I can't sprint like I used to sprint, for example. I can feel it in everyday little things like cl- walking up a flight of stairs. used to be I could take two or three steps at a time, no problem at all. Now in my 80s, that's very much a challenge, and that's because of loss of, fast twitch muscle fiber.

Not because of slow twitch, but because of the fast twitch. The slow twitch muscle is maintained fairly easily as you age. It's the fast twitch that you lose as you age, primarily. And that begins to show up someplace in your later life, 60s, 70s, 80s. It begins to show up, and you become very aware of little things you can no longer do, but you can still do a lot of things.

I can still push a big gear, for example, on my bike. I can still do that. I can still climb a hill, but I can't sprint. If it comes down to a sprint, I lose. if there's a hill, I've, I've got somewhat of a chance. It kind of depends on a few other things there. But, you know, it's, it's things like that. it has to do with, how smart [00:37:00] am I as I get older to make up for these losses I'm seeing, but I have to be aware that there are losses.

It's not going to, it's not going to change. You're gonna continue to lose that fast twitch muscle fiber. 

Kush: What I'm also understanding a little simplistically here, Joe, is that maybe observationally you might be able to get some size back and some definition back, but when it comes to performance, one will not have the same capacity for fast twitch fiber or muscle development.

So I think that is bullseye ... because that is so important to be able to continue performing at a high level, like having reserves of both fast twitch and sl- slow twitch. So on that note, if I can pick your brain further, which is how can we continue- developing or at least slowing down that, that loss of fast-twitch muscle fibers?

Joe: That's a tough one. that's a tough one. [00:38:00] I've never come across anything yet in the research that even suggests an answer to that question. I've not come across anything in my life that suggests an answer to that question. Uh, lifting weights has certainly not stopped it. It may have prolonged my, my, uh, fast-twitch muscle into later life.

in my 70s, I could still sprint somewhat. I wasn't gigantic, never have been a great sprinter, but I could still sprint pretty well. I could put out pretty big numbers in my 70s. But today, you know, in my 80s, I can no longer put out those numbers in a sprint. I can't do it. I- I'm still lifting weights.

That's not changed. I- I'm still training much as I did when I was, 10 years ago. I'm still training much the same as I, as I did then. Uh, but, my body has changed, and this has gone away. Why? I don't know. I really don't know why the body gives up fast-twitch muscle faster than it does slow-twitch muscle.

There must be a reason for this, something about our, how we develop as human beings about why we give [00:39:00] up fast-twitch muscle. Maybe it wasn't necessary for, for life, as we got older, but the slow twitch was. Y- I, I don't know. You know, I'm, I can just come up with off the top of my head reasons why, but I don't find anything in the research that, that answers that question.

Kush: Mo- moving beyond why that happens, but if you were coaching these athletes How would you design their training program? Again- generally speaking across sports, where they can still utilize that fast twitch so that it doesn't disappear completely? 

Joe: Yeah.

That's a good question. Um, my only thought off the top of my head is that what we'd probably do if I have an athlete, let's say an older athlete in their 70s wants to, for some, whatever reason, wants to maintain their sprint, for events like, like road cycling, which often comes down to a sprint.

And so a 70-something athlete wants to be, to improve their sprinting, uh, which [00:40:00] means more fast twitch fiber. We've got to somehow build that. I would probably have to start doing things that are more, uh, power-based in the weight room. I- instead of just doing, three sets of 10 reps, we're gonna do, three sets of three reps, four reps, five reps, and we're gonna do them very powerfully.

We're gonna... Time is gonna become the issue as opposed to so much load. It's how fast we can, can we move in the weight room doing squats, for example. can we come off the floor with our squat? Can we use so much power that we can, with a bar on our shoulders, take our feet off the floor as we come up?

You know, that, that kind of sprint feeling. Maybe we could do it that way, but I've, quite honestly, I've never had anybody in my coaching career in their 60s or 70s who said they wanted to main- maintain their sprinting. Can we do something to become a, make them a better sprinter? Somehow we tend to lose interest in sprinting as we get older.

It becomes more along the lines of being able to, uh, have the slow twitch fiber to get us to the finish line fast, as opposed to being able [00:41:00] to sprint at the finish line. Good question. I wish I knew the answer. 

Kush: Yeah, no delusions here, right? appreciate the, the candor, but I would still love to tease out some specific strategies, adaptations we can put in place.

So I wanna ask you a couple of things. okay. Let's start with this. What are maybe the biggest mistakes older athletes make in the gym? 

Joe: In the gym. Ah, okay. probably the biggest mistake is they don't do it enough. They don't, they aren't consistent enough in the gym. that's always the biggest problem with anybody in any sport.

It's always consistency. And if you're not in the gym consistently, it's it's a hit or miss sort of thing. there are gonna be days when you just don't feel like going to the gym. that, that's gonna happen to all of us. I had one of those days yesterday. I was really tired.

I had a really hard day the day before, and I came back with a very hard day, morning of [00:42:00] yesterday, Monday, was a very hard day also. That's when I went to the gym. I started doing my, my w- strength workout, and I realized this is not going anyplace. I'm just kinda like going through the motions, but I'm not really, making good movements here.

So I stopped the workout. Uh, and that's okay. That, that needs to be done on occasion. You need to stop a workout and say, "This is not the day for this workout. I'll do it another day, but not today." that's always the starting place for this is the athlete has to be willing to stop. The other side of that coin is the, uh, the athlete have to be willing to start, have to be willing to go out and do the workouts in the gym, for example, which a lot of athletes are not willing to do.

They've... And I understand, they've got busy lives. We talked about that already. You know, family, career, and, and training take up a lot of time. "I just don't have the time to go to the gym." I understand that, and if that's always gonna be the case, then we gotta figure out a way for you to, to train, to maintain muscle mass as best we can without going to a [00:43:00] gym.

and that can be done, it's just not quite as, as nice as going to a gym. but that, that's the problem we're all going to face. Uh, and I, I don't see any way to get around that other than to, uh, be consistent in your training to get to the workouts. if they're getting to the gym, if they just do the major workouts for their sport, for example, if, uh, it's, if it's a cyclist we're talking about, again, squats, for example, or, or leg,press on a machine.

there's all kinds of variations on the squat. You know, single leg squats and all kinds of stuff, lunges and so forth. but that's certainly gonna be something the athlete ought to be doing is exercise like that. Plus, they need to be working on core also, which is, a lot of athletes don't work on nearly enough.

the core is kinda like the bridge between your upper body and your lower body, and if the core is weak, you can't transmit the, uh, the power from one part of the body to the other, which is necessary. Take somebody for exam- obviously when it's [00:44:00] rowing. If you're a rower, you've gotta be able to transfer power from the upper body to the lower leg, to the lower body as you extend the, pull the oars, the paddles that's part of the sport.

That's part of what you have to be able to do. That's, that's very obvious. In running it's not quite as obvious, but it shows up. You can usually tell if somebody doesn't, if, if a runner doesn't have good core because their upper body is doing things it shouldn't be doing. It's moving in ways that are not, not very,friendly to, to speed.

it shows up obviously in cycling when the athlete has d- has poor core. So you gotta work on the muscles which are the primary movers of your sport in the gym. For example, squats for cyclists. And you've also got to work on core. Every endurance athlete n- needs to work on core.

That's the other thing that has to be improved. So it's gonna be, the gym session doesn't have to be very long. You can probably get it done in 20 minutes if you do just the things that are most important. Of course, if you get in the gym and you start, you know, if it, if it becomes a social atmosphere and you've, you've [00:45:00] spent more time talking to people, you may be there for half hour to 45 minutes, but it's not all work.

You know, if you go in focused, you can just get your, you can, you can be out of the gym in 20, 25 minutes if you do that. So it doesn't have to take up a lot of time, but you do need, you do need to devote time to it. 

Kush: absolutely. So- How sport specific should strength training be? Because, because we also hear of coaches across different sports also talk about, I think, what they call GPP or general physical preparedness.

And I'm curious, in a typical week spent in the weight room, what percentage of time should be on, let's say, sport specific strength training versus general conditioning? 



Joe: sport specific is what I think an athlete ought to be focusing on primarily. unless the athlete has time to burn. If they've got more time, they can, they can spend...

L- l- let's give an example, like a runner for [00:46:00] example. They're, I can probably narrow the runner's workouts down to, like, three primary exercises to do in the gym. We can, we can accomplish an awful lot if they do that. But if the athlete has the time and the inclination, they may wanna do more than that.

They may wanna do s- because it's gonna be mostly lower body stuff we're gonna do. We're gonna do core- 

Kush: Yeah, no, so that's a good 

Joe: one ... 

Kush: and lower 

Joe: body. 

Kush: L- l- let's talk about the runner, right? So at least I'm not a runner, but I'm guessing, yes, like you said, lower body exercises. 

Joe: Mm. 

Kush: But isn't being able to strengthen one's upper body just generally important for- 

Joe: I 

Kush: think it's good

overall wellbeing? 

Joe: Yeah. I, I think it's very good. I'd like to see a person go in the gym and, and do more than just their sport specific exercises. For example, let's talk about with a runner doing some arm curls, some, uh, bench presses or, or, uh, pushups anyway. pull-ups, chin-ups. there's all kinds of things that can be done in the gym besides the lower body for a runner, and those things would be [00:47:00] great.

That's fine. I would have no problem with that. In fact, I would encourage people to do that. But now we're starting to talk about more time. Instead of becoming a, a 20 to 30 minute workout, it becomes a 40 to 60 minute workout, and that generally is a no-go for most people, uh, because they got so much stuff in their lives as we've talked about so many times already.

so consequently, if I, I'm, I'll narrow it down to things that have to be done for their sport. But if they wanna do more, great. Go ahead, do more. I'd fully encourage you to do that 

Kush: So are there things you used to do in the gym in, again, let's say in y- in your, uh, 50s, 60s, or 70s that you no longer do in your 80s now?

Joe: I think I'm still doing everything I was doing back then. Okay. You know, I do a lot of lower body and upper body. You know, I, I don't do, don't do just sport specific stuff. I also do some upper body even though I'm a cyclist and it doesn't have a lot to do with my performance [00:48:00] or how I feel on a bike.

But, you know, I think it's, it's just g- it's just good for you. So nothing has really changed in my, in my life, in my career of, uh, coaching or of coach- of rather of, uh, of lifting weights 

Kush: And then last question on this is how does one know when strength training is helping versus simply adding extra fatigue?

Joe: It really shouldn't add much fatigue. W- we really want to avoid fatigue in the gym. you know, if, if the athlete is getting fatigued in the gym a- and it begins to affect their performance on their bike or when they run or when they swim, that's a problem. It really shouldn't be fatiguing. the only time it would...

Let me back up one step. The only time it should be fatiguing or even come close to being fatiguing is very, very early in the season. I'm talking about for most people in the Northern Hemisphere, we're talking about something like, uh, November, December Because we're not to the race season yet. We're way [00:49:00] beyond the, we're way early, way before the race season.

If that, if the athlete's lifting enough weights in the, in the gym at that point to become fatigued, that's probably acceptable, 'cause that's where the main focus of training at that point, is strength. Uh, but as we move into the January, February and so forth, I don't wanna see them fatigue in the gym.

It should be, should be a short, to-the-point workout, an endurance athlete's workout, not a bodybuilder's workout. get in the gym, do those lifts, and move on. You know, don't, don't lift to, uh, failure. Stop one or two l- repetitions short of failure. take a long break. You know, bodybuilders take very short breaks between episodes, between reps they do, between sets they do.

Don't do that. Take a long recovery between them. Only work out twice a week. Don't work out five times a week. That's what bodybuilders do. We're not gonna do that. We're gonna work out at the most three times a week. so s- basically what we do, we, what we do is begin to focus on lifting weights [00:50:00] as an endurance athlete does, as opposed to what a bodybuilder does.

and that, bodybuilders build fatigue. They want fatigue. That's one of their, that's one of the things they wanna see come out of their workouts. But not, not endurance athletes. We don't wanna build fatigue in the gym. We wanna avoid that. So that's the bottom line always. 

Kush: Makes a lot of sense that one wants to save one's energy for their actual sport that they need to practice.

Yes. You're, moving on, recovery is a topic that a lot of people have asked about, and it is something that I think we didn't fully unpack last time. So here's this, question for you. So when an athlete stops improving, how do you tell the difference between being undertrained and being underrecovered?

Joe: Yeah. well, undertrained is, is typically gonna [00:51:00] show up in things other than performance. It's gonna show up in what the, how, what, how frequently the athlete works out if the athlete's missing lots of workouts, we can count on them being under-trained. That's just gonna be a part of it. in that case, what we need to do is figure out, again, we're going back to the sleep issue.

We've tr- trying to figure out why this is happening to them, and try to cor- help them, uh, adjust their lifestyle to better fit their training, which is one of the most difficult things you can ever do as a coach, is try to help s- an athlete change their lifestyle. this is gigantic. This is not by any means, uh, simple.



Joe: but sometimes it's necessary for the athlete. The, the... Usually the point is that you've gotta convince the athlete they've gotta change their, their lifestyle. And that, and that's, that's not easy. If I tell you you gotta change your lifestyle, we're gonna change these things about your lifestyle, your what, what you do in a day, that's a big change.

that's... We're gonna resist that. I don't care who you are, you're gonna say, "Well, I'm not gonna do that." You know, this is what you're thinking. I've got my [00:52:00] lifestyle figured out, and this is how I do it, and I'm not gonna change it. No matter what you say, I'm not gonna change. So the coach has really got their hands, uh, in a strange place when they start trying to figure out the athlete's lifestyle and making changes to it.

That's why I started with sleep when we started this whole conversation, is because that's the one issue that has got to change. If the athlete's not getting adequate sleep, we've got to change that. If we don't, there's no reason for me to coach you. You might as well... You, you don't, if you can't sleep, why?

You don't need a coach. You just need, just do whatever you wanna do, because sleep is, it's kinda like saying, "I wanna be a great athlete, but I don't wanna train. I wanna be a great athlete, I don't wanna sleep." You know, it's the same thing. so you know, that's, it's, it's a really difficult issue to deal with.

But nevertheless, you know, that, that's kinda where I am on this whole, this whole matter. It's a sticky situation 

Kush: Yes. Yes. every athlete is different, and one has to navigate, that blurred line between that person's [00:53:00] sport and that person's lifestyle. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: and some things are, are harder to, to change than others.



Kush: okay, let's talk about this. So what are the signs that somebody's recovery capacity has changed? 

Joe: Yeah. probably we start seeing, more than likely what we'll see is poor workouts, uh, workouts that just aren't able to achieve what we're trying to achieve in the session. They're not long enough, they're not, or they're not hard enough.

or the athlete feels some kind of, uh, something just doesn't feel right when they're doing the workout. They feel weak, for example. these are the sorts of things, you know, you'll begin to see, but they'll typically show up be- before you see that in the, in the workout, what you'll see is the athlete's not...

the workouts are not what they should be. they're missing workouts, for example, or they're cutting workouts short, uh, or they're not doing the workout as, as it was called for. They're doing something else. And that doesn't always mean going too easy. Sometimes it means going too hard. these sorts [00:54:00] of things athletes are, are quite common for athletes to do, uh, because they think they know their body better than anybody else, therefore they're the ones who ought to decide how hard they should work out or if they should work out hard at all.

And to some extent, they're right. They understand their body better than the coach does, but the coach understands physiology better than the athlete does. So there's typically a lot of things going on here we have to kind of blend to come up with an answer to that question. But recovery is a difficult topic, because it's, it's such a, there, there are so many components to it.

sleep being number one. I keep coming back to sleep as being like the number one issue. if the co- athlete is not sleeping, they're not recovering. No matter what else they do in their life, if they're not sleeping, recovery is, is going to be the thing where it shows up Also, recovery is, is gonna show up if they're training inconsistently.

they're, they're gonna be doing strange workouts, hard workouts when they shouldn't be doing hard workouts because they missed, they missed a workout yesterday because they had to take a [00:55:00] day off, so they decided to combine two workouts today. You know, I see that all the time, trying to make up workouts and, and that's, that's, that's gonna screw up recovery basically.

what I try to do with athletes when we talk about recovery is I try to come up with a routine that makes sure they're recovering all the time. I call that a five plus two routine. Five days a week they're gonna go easy, two days a week they're gonna go hard, and those two days they go hard are gonna be separated by at least two days.

If we do that and they keep those five easy days truly easy, I mean, zones one and two, if they keep it truly easy, they'll recover fine and they'll be able to do the next hard workout. But if they screw that up, if they start putting hard workouts back to back, that really challenges their body's response to, um, to the physiology of recovery, and because of that they're just not going to perform as, as well as they could have performed.

So it's a [00:56:00] real simple thing, it's just like, just gotta make sure you get easy workouts done between the hard workouts. That's the key 

Kush: Joe, I sometimes think that what becomes difficult for even me to understand is, let's say I had a training day planned and I'm not feeling up to it, and I'm trying to understand is it my body that needs to rest or is it simply Lack of motivation.

And I want to see , if you had any guidance on being able to objectively gauge, and if there was a way we could gauge that, hey, today is a rest day because I am over-trained/and under-recovered. So what are the things we should pay attention to beyond just that feeling of, you know, that blah feeling of- 

Joe: Yeah

Kush: of soreness? So Are there [00:57:00] some, like, tangibles we can measure, like- Sure ... when it comes to soreness, sleep maybe resting heart rate, maybe HRV- Yeah ... maybe something else? 

Joe: Yeah. You're, you're right. I've, I have a- I have had athletes do that every morning when they wake up, as I call it, their morning warnings.

Um, we just kinda go through a checklist, and you've already mentioned some of those things. HRV, for example. you know, an athlete should check their HRV every day. Every morning when they get up, first thing they do, check HRV, check resting heart rate. how was the sleep during the night?

how was their workout the day before? How'd it go? D- Were they able to complete the workout? Did they feel fine doing it? 

Kush: So sorry. Uh, when we say check, you know, everybody may not have that level of attunement with being able to simply being able to scan their body themselves. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: Are there any tools we can use?

do you- Yeah ... recommend using trackers? Yeah. maybe checklists we should like... W- w- what would you tell somebody who has not developed that level of [00:58:00] self-diagnosis? 

Joe: Yeah, there are checklists. I, I wrote about this, in fact, for my, uh, Substack column about, oh, five or six weeks ago and suggested a checklist to use in the mornings.

uh, we're moving in that direction with wearables. We're not there yet, but we're moving in that direction. you now can have a wearable that tells your HRV in the morning when you get up, and you don't have to do anything. Just wear your watch to bed. How accurate is it? I don't know.

I've have doubts about how accurate it may be, but it's a step in the right direction. we've got the same thing is happening with your heart rate, your resting heart rate. you've got a wearable, your, your watch, for example, your Garmin or whatever it may be, will tell you what your resting heart rate is in the morning when you wake up great.

we're getting to the point we're gonna have other things that wearables tell us. The only question is, how accurate are they going to be? That's the one area that concerns me the most right now, is we get an awful lot of inaccurate information. For example, we've talked about sleep here a [00:59:00] lot. my Garmin watch, tries to tell me every day how much I slept, and it's, it's, it- it's unusual if it gets r- even close to being what I know is the right answer to that question.

You know, it typically measures how long I was laying horizontal without moving, and assumes that's the same thing as sleep. But we all know there are times in the middle of the night when you wake up and you're, you're awake for an hour or so, your Garmin watch considers that to be sleep, and so it's kinda like screwed up information you're getting that way.

But I think they'll con- continue to work this out and work out these bugs, and eventually we'll have all these morning warnings that I had my athletes do, you know, off the top of their heads every day, th- kind of a checklist they go through. We'll have those things done by wearable items. We're not there yet.

We're moving in the right direction, but we're not there. But there are things like, you know, as I mentioned already, HRV, resting heart rate, how many hours of sleep you got, how did you feel yesterday, how do you feel [01:00:00] right now, uh, any soreness, any, any muscles that are, that are achy or tight as you wake up, and the list could go on and on and on with all kinds of things we can check.

And what I usually tell athletes is one of these things by itself doesn't really tell us anything. But if you c- you've got, like, three of these things that are morning warnings, we need to make a change to your routine today. if, for example, your HRV is, is really low and your resting heart rate is really high, and your workout wasn't very good yesterday because you just didn't feel right, you were tired or just didn't train well, obviously that's three warnings we have right there, so that, that would tell me today let's take it easy.

What does that mean? Well, that may mean we're just gonna go zone one for a short workout, or it may mean we're gonna take the day off. It kinda depends on the athlete and all the things that are going on in their life. But, those things are very valuable to, to do. and it's the sort of thing you can do just habitually.

You just wake up in the morning and [01:01:00] that goes through your head You know, you, you use your watch to check your HRV or your phone, whatever it is. You got your d- your device, and, uh, same with your, your heart rate, uh, or you just count it with a clock. or, a- and you, you know how you felt yesterday in the workout.

Well, you, so you go through this, this checklist in your head and you say, "Yeah, that's okay, that's okay, that's okay, that's okay. Okay, I'm, I'm gonna do a regular workout today." But you say, "That's not okay, that's not okay, that's not okay." Okay. There's a problem here

Kush: Right on. maybe a segue from the topic of recovery could be just touching on, talking about intensity. 

So I think a lot of older athletes, they hear the term recover more- Right ... and assume that they should stop doing hard work Is that a mistake? 

Joe: Yeah, it is.

Um, especially for the athlete who is, uh, probably for everybody, but especially for the athlete who is, uh, training to perform at a high level. They're, [01:02:00] they're, they race, for example. They still like to race, and they still like to do, perform well in their, in their, their age group. in that case, yeah, it's, it's important that we do high-intensity workout also.

It's not just all, it's not one or the other. We need to have a blend of both high intensity and low intensity. and this, this, we can actually trace this back to our prehistoric Stone Age way of life. , That's how we evolved to this point in time, is we, we had hard times during the day and, and easy times during the day, but we didn't have hard times all the time.

Hunting was an example of this. Um, you know, the, uh, Paleolithic ancestors would go out for a hunting session, and, uh, this, this is one of the reasons why we're such good endurance athletes, humans are, is because we evolved to do that. We hunted our animals. We hunted animals to feed the, the group by chasing them down, not typically by running all the time, but just by being on their tail all the time.

You know, if we're trying to chase down [01:03:00] s- a deer, for example, it may go on for hours to do that. it's not sprinting. It's just simply long-distance work is what it is. We just stay on the athlete's, stay on the athlete's, stay behind the athlete, force them to w- continue to run, and they don't have near the endurance that humans do.

We've got great endurance. We're the best, best endurance athletes in the world as humans. We're the slowest animals on the planet. Everything can beat us, but we can, we can outrun everything if it's long enough. So that's how we came to be endurance athletes, and that's how our h- how our lifestyle evolved.

if we're, um, always chasing down animals over long periods of time, that involves both s- long distance easy e- endurance and fast twitch stuff, high s- high speed stuff. Eventually the animal's gonna give up, and the, the, it's gonna be over. Uh, and you're gonna be able to feed the, the tribe, if you will.

but that was because of hard, easy days, and which, which comes out of the same [01:04:00] idea. If we did have successful, uh, hunting session yesterday, today we can have a easy session. We can just all sit around the fire and, and chat and have a good time, and the next day we'll go out hunting again. We'll be doing endurance and high intensity, and we'll come back with a, with another, uh, more food to feed the, to feed the tribe.

So it's kind of like this is how we evolved to, to function is we were doing both slow twitch and fast twitch. We were doing high intensity and low intensity throughout the day on alternate days. It wasn't always the same day. And we had to be able to, you know, go long distances. You know, the, we can- we're going long distances on a fairly regular basis.

several miles is not unusual at all for humans. That is unusual for most other animals, though. It's unusual- Sure ... to travel several miles in a day. But humans, we can do that quite easily. It's no problem at all for us. we're great for endurance. 

Kush: Joe, let me pause you here. Let me ask you this.

So the- [01:05:00] I guess there are different types of intensity terms we hear about, and curious on what kinds matter the most as we age. So should we be looking at VO2 max, or threshold, or sprint power, like we spoke earlier, or hill work, or muscular endurance? What matters the most as we age? 

Joe: Well, let's break that down a little bit.

We can talk about aging as an athlete or aging as a human. if we're aging as an athlete, my first question becomes what are we trying to accomplish? We're back to the idea of a goal again. You know, if we're trying to accomplish, um, I want to win a, a marathon, uh, I'm a runner, wanna win a marathon or in my age group, we're not gonna do a whole lot of very high intensity stuff.

We're not gonna do probably no VO2 max stuff at all. No, no short high intensity [01:06:00] intervals. But we'll do some intervals that are gonna be longer intervals with the shorter recoveries, and they're gonna be hard, they're gonna be hard, and they're gonna be fast, but they're not just not gonna be what I would have a 5K runner do, for example.

That would be a little bit different 'cause that's high speed. They're gonna do a lot of VO2 max. Good... For the marathon runner, we're gonna do a lot of durability stuff. can you maintain zone three for a long time when you're tired? that's the key to that success. So that's, that's what I'd do with an athlete.

If I was talking to the person who's not, who's not really wanting to be athletic, not wanting to, to compete, for example, they simply want to live a long time and be healthy, I would say, you know, I would do a little bit of everything. I would... what I like for people like that is something called fartlek training.

It's a Scandinavian term that means to train how you feel, uh, on a given day. Like, you go out for a run, let's say, and, uh, as you're running along, it's nice and slow and easy. You feel, "Wonderful how, how I'd [01:07:00] feel if I r- just ran real fast for a little while here and just, just try it out and see how it feels."

And you do that, and then you slow back down and you run easy again. Then you decide, "Well, I think I'll run up that hill really fast," so you run up the hill really fast, then you slow down again. You know, so you kind of do what you feel like doing. that's what I think is great for people who are not really training to compete, is just do fartlek.

Just do how you feel. What- whatever the thought comes through your mind, do it, do it that day, but don't do that every day. Just do that a couple times a week. You don't need that all the time. Couple times a week will do it. The rest of the time, go easy. Just take it nice and slow and easy. 

Kush: I think that's a pretty, pretty good answer to cover both athletes who are trying to perform for specific events versus the recreational athlete who's just trying to stay in the best shape and trying to compete against their best selves.

Joe: Yeah. 

Kush: I thought I would just talk about VO2 max for a second. In my sport, VO2 [01:08:00] max doesn't come up as often- Yeah ... but in the world of, uh, sprinting and triathlons and cycling, it's all the rage. Do you think that it's overhyped? 

Joe: Uh, no, VO2 max is very important for your life, for your lifestyle, for your longevity.

Let's think of it this way. it's not just something you do to build fitness for racing. It's something you do to build fitness for life. but you don't have to do high intensity all the time to get it. the number's always gonna go down, with very small, reversals where it goes up.

That's gonna be very brief and very short throughout your lifespan, but generally the trend is gonna be downward throughout your life. let's say at age 25 a person had their VO2 max checked and it was, let's say, 60, which would be really good for somebody who's 25 years old in our society. But at age 35 it's it's gonna be 59.[01:09:00] 

You know, at age 45 it's gonna be, it's gonna be something like, uh, 48. Uh, it's gonna just, it's just gonna keep on going down all the time. When that number gets to 15, which is gonna take a long time if you started out at 60, but if you don't, if you don't exercise enough it's gonna eventually hit 15.

And when you hit 15 or that, that neighborhood, you're gonna be in a wheelchair. You're gonna be unable to take care of yourself. You'll need somebody to, to move you around and help you with your getting through the day. That's how important VO2 max is. But we don't have to do just high intensity stuff to build VO2 max.

You can build VO2 max with low intensity stuff. It just means you have to be consistent. You have to get out and do it. You have to go for long walks, easy long runs, whatever long means for the individual. riding a bicycle for a long period of time. you just have to stay active and VO2 max will continue to stay relatively high.

Could you get it higher? Yes, you could. You could do high [01:10:00] intensity training and you can make it higher. That would cause it to go up a little bit, but you'd have to maintain that for it to stay up at that higher level even, or even just to decline at a slower rate you'd have to do much higher intensity stuff.

But you don't have to do high intensity at all. You can just be active and keep your VO2 max up. you know, we keep, I've been talking about wearables here today that, you know, your Garmin watch, for example, tells you what it, it thinks your VO2 max is, your aerobic capacity is. if you look at it, you'll find it and you'll find it on your, in your device and, uh, it- it's kind of using a way of coming up with VO2 max which is not very accurate.

It's quite inaccurate, in fact. However, what it does tell you though, which is probably fairly accurate, is what's happening to your VO2 max over time So if you're checking VO2 max, a year ago and you're still checking it today, you'll probably see it go down a little bit. maybe 1%, which again is very [01:11:00] small.

That's a tiny little amount in one year. But over 10 years it becomes 10%, and now we can see it. So if you kinda pay attention to it over time using your Garmin watch, even though it's, it's not a precise number, we can say that the... We can probably say with some su- sincerity that it's, it's actually, uh, giving us a good idea of what's happening to tren- what's happening to the trend of our VO2 max over time.

That's probably where it's most valuable to us, is just to keep watching to see what, what goes on. You don't need to check it every day. If you checked it once a month, that'd be great. But just check it every... Keep checking it for years and years and years, and you'll see what's happening to it over time.

you know, it, it is an important number. Just, it's not just about how athletic you are or how fast you are, it's about really, longevity, health. All these things that go into being a human being are somewhat tied to your VO2 max. It's not just a number about fitness. 

Kush: I think [01:12:00] that might be the headline here, that, uh, VO2 max is key to- 

Joe: Life

Kush: just aging well. Just life and aging well. Joe, moving on to this, this topic that, I think is so important. Nutrition. And you have written about nutrition. You have experienced changes in your own diet Let me ask, let me start with this, which is what changes nutritionally after 50 for athletes?



Joe: the, you know, it's, it's really not much different after age 50 as before age 50 when it comes to diet. We're, we've all still got the same physiological needs, that diet i- plays a role in. Part, I, I think probably the most important thing we can do in our, in, in terms of diet, regardless of our, you know, whether we're athletes or not, probably the most important thing we can do is just be aware of how much junk food we eat.

And by junk food, you know, it's ultra-processed food. [01:13:00] That's, that's probably the biggest problem we, we have in our, in our diets anymore, is we just get too much ultra-processed food. When I was a kid, there was hardly any. You know, there was Cheerios. This is back in the 1940s and '50s. There was Cheerios.

That was about the limit of our junk food. There were a few others besides that, but that was the biggest one. Now we're overwhelmed with junk food, Cheerios types of foods. Um, every ai- every aisle you walk down the store is loaded with junk food, ultra-processed. That's where we get into our problems. You know, we just need to avoid that kind of food.

Eat more fruits, vegetables, and lean, lean muscle, lean protein. That's the sort of stuff we need to be really focused on. That's, that's where true health comes from. Does that mean you should never, you know, have a, have a cookie? No, doesn't mean that at all. It just means that the cookie shouldn't be the biggest thing in your life.

It shouldn't be the thing you, you depend on, or things like cookies. it should be something you occasionally, you have. this, [01:14:00] this whole thing is just really just, it's the same no matter what a- if you're five years old or 50 years old, it's still the same thing. We just need to eat, eat fruits, vegetables, and, you know, eat, eat real food.

that's the bottom line. 

Kush: I, I think you're so right. I think it's not that people are not aware of foods that are good for them. It's just that there is this overabundance of-

Exactly that, like hyper-processed foods Yes and I think I ju-I was just reading that the-the current administration, they were trying to pass the new laws about making ultra-processed foods more, more easier to identify with better labeling and maybe some other things. But the food lobby is just so omnipotent in this country that the...

I- it's kind of an uphill, uphill battle for the everyday person. Joe, okay, this topic I think just gets debated endlessly, but I wanna hear your take on this, which is do older [01:15:00] athletes need more protein? 

Joe: Good question. Um, there's some reason to believe the answer is yes, and there's some research that supports that concept.

Qui- in fact, quite a bit of research that, that supports that, that idea, uh, that we need something like,maybe, uh, it's like 20% more than what we need when we're younger. perhaps, uh, I don't think the research... I wouldn't say that the research is, um, is without question on this issue.

but there's increasing amount of research , that's suggesting that that is something we need to be concerned about, is eating more, more protein. how do you eat more protein in your diet? You know, that's... it's difficult to change your diet. People have diets that are... you're kind of like this is just how you, how you live your, your life, is you eat certain foods.

Uh, and so it's very difficult, but that, that is one change if I was gonna make a change. For most athletes I come across, it would be that, that they have more protein in their [01:16:00] diet. They ty- we typically get too much carbohydrate in our diets. we're eating far too much, highly processed carbohydrate.

That's kind of the way our, our stores are anymore. They have a lot of those things in the middle aisles that you can buy very easily, but the real food is around the perimeter of the store. So, but, you know, the one thing I would look for around the perimeter of the store is, is protein. I, I'd like to see that included in every meal the athlete eats is to get protein.

That can come from lots of different types of sources. You know, even vegetables have, some vegetables have, are relatively high in protein. Dairy products are relatively high in protein. Animal products of various types. we just need to make sure we include those foods in our meals on a regular basis, on a daily basis, so we're getting adequate protein.

Joe, 

Kush: do you have some rule of thumb on how much is the right amount of protein? 

Joe: Yeah. There's the- And many of those rules- ... the most recent research this is, yeah. 

Kush: Yeah, there are [01:17:00] many, many such rules that get debated endlessly, but I'm curious what is the one that you advocate? 

Joe: Yeah. Um, I don't really have a number I look for when I'm eating.

I just make sure I include protein in a meal. as we started off our conversation today, the conversation started with what did I have for breakfast, and primary thing I had was, was a yogurt with, uh, berries and, and, uh, and granola. And, um, you know, the yogurt is high in protein. Greek yogurt especially is high in protein.

That's one of the reasons I eat it. there are other types you could get that are, don't have nearly as much protein in them, but I would rather have the one that has a substantial amount of protein, and I try to have protein in every meal I eat. I think that's a healthy way to eat. I think, again, I, I always go back to how we came to this point in time.

We've, you know, we've, we've, as modern-day humans, we've been on this planet for a very, very brief period of time. If we think about human [01:18:00] experience, on the planet as being 24 hours, we've been here for like the last four minutes,with the type of lifestyle we have now. This has not been around very long.

Before that, nobody would've ever thought about do we need to include protein in our diet because that was there every day. They always had protein in their diet. You know, that's, was just part of what they did. You know, that was part of being a- I 

Kush: mean, is that, is that really correct? Joe, is that really correct?

Yeah. Because from what I read and hear is that our ancestors, it was very difficult to obtain protein, right? So they were mostly subsisting on foraging for wild herbs, fruits, berries, and protein was the occasion treat 

Joe: It depends on where they were. there were, for example, there was one tribe that had absolutely no ac- access to animals whatsoever.

I forgot where this was, and I read about this a long time ago, and they lived off of nuts primarily. ancient peoples living off of nuts, but the nuts had some protein in them. so they were still getting some protein in their diet. They just didn't have animal products in their diet. you [01:19:00] know, there was no one single diet that we all ate as, 20,000 years ago.

We didn't all eat exactly the same thing because it wasn't available every place that humans inhabited on the planet. But there was protein typically in some source on the planet, wherever they were, and they typically found ways to, uh, to eat that, that protein. fish products, you know, sea- seaborne products, uh, are, are another example.

Living on the coastline someplace where there's not much like in Alaska. You know, living on the coastline meant fish. That was a protein. But if you could live in, uh, the Sahara Desert, you know, or on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, there's no fish. there's certainly no fruits, uh, growing wild there.

So i- it's becomes a different lifestyle. They've got to find different things to eat, so they ate more foods that we probably wouldn't even think about eating today, but they were-- they had to eat them because that was all they had available to them. So it really depends on [01:20:00] where the people lived that we're talking about.

But generally, they had protein in their diet and fairly regularly. 

Kush: Joe, let me actually ask a slightly opposite question, which is, which is many athletes can become rather obsessive about their diets, right? Like being very careful. I know that is, has been true for myself. I stopped eating meat about 10 years ago, and then this, you know, big source of calories kind of went away.

And then I realized after a while that I likely wasn't getting enough calories. it took a visit to a dietician and going literally like counting calories, counting my meals. And I realized that I was perpetually under-fueling myself and maybe... And, and then I upped my, my consumption, and then I found my levels of energy going back up again.

So is that something you have also observed? I think the signs of overconsumption are maybe a little bit more clear, [01:21:00] right? Like you notice that in your waistline. You notice that in that feeling of whatever, always being full. But do you think under-fueling can also be an issue?

Joe: Yeah, it could be. I, I, I run into that occasionally. I've had athletes before who were under-nourishing you know, mostly that's always the, the... This is not the only example of this, but, you know, the only person I've, people I've seen like that, that I've coached have been women. I've never had a male who under-nourished, but that doesn't mean they don't ever do that.

It's just that I, I didn't happen to come across any in my coaching. but certainly I've seen people like that, and coached people like that, and that, that becomes a, a real difficult matter because the- Is there 

Kush: a sign? Yeah, is there a sign that people can look for when they find that One reason may, maybe I'm not recovering well or I'm not- Yeah

performing well is because I'm undernourished. 

Joe: Most definitely. Most definitely. That was, like for example, one of the athletes I can think of that I've, I've ran into this experience with, uh, [01:22:00] undernourishing, it was obvious to me that she was undernourished. she had very difficult time finishing workouts.

She was tired frequently. and there were other issues I won't go into also. But, those sorts of things, eventually she wound up working with a, with somebody who was a, a counselor in, in the medical field, in, in this nutritional field, and, uh, she was given help and corrected the situation.



Joe: but that, it happens. it's a fairly common thing to see this among elite athletes, especially elite female athletes. And, uh, if you wanna learn more ab- more about this, there's a good book that came out a few years ago called, uh, Win At Any Cost. I forgot the author's name. but it tells the story of, of one coach, I won't go into any names here either there, of one coach who's coaching elite athletes, especially female athletes, and he demanded they lose weight all the time.

And, uh, so some of them were restricting calories to the point that they were [01:23:00] becoming sick, lost their normal, uh, cycles, female cycles, periods weren't, weren't a- occurring as they should be. You know, so things like that, and this book goes into the details of how this happened, how this came about.

It was just really a matter of just weighing the athletes every day and then, you know, he'd encourage them to, to lose weight every day, and, uh, that's just not gonna happen. You know, you can't become an elite runner just by losing weight. And, um, but that's fairly typical unfortunately in, in sport, especially on the female side of sport, is losing weight becomes a thing where the athlete, cannot perform anymore because they just don't have the, the energy to perform at like they used to.

So it's a, it, it's a gigantic issue still, especially in women's sports. Um, I've never faced that situation 'cause I've never really tried to get athletes to lose weight. It's not my role a- as a coach. Um, but there are some coaches who see that as being what their job is all about, is getting better performance by losing weight.

Kush: [01:24:00] Appreciate your observations on that, Joe. Just coming to the last couple of areas. time flies. You're sharing so much with us. supplements, kind of a natural segue from talking about, uh, nutrition. So

Supplements, are they useful or are they a distraction? 

Joe: Yeah, I, I really don't use any supplements whatsoever. I rely on my diet and getting out in the sun and being, uh, m- and moving on a regular basis. I think that's really the, the, you know, the, the underlying key to success and health and longevity is, um, are those things.

I don't really think supplements can have a lot to do with it. in fact, I was reading, I was reading this morning, I'm reading a book called, uh, Why We, Why We Die, is a book I'm reading right now. Interesting book. it's written by a scientist, and he goes into extreme detail.

He loses me frequently throughout the book trying to go into all the details of the human body and how it functions. [01:25:00] And, um, this was one of the things he was talking about is, is, nutrition and, um, how the body thrives on certain types of foods and, uh, cells operate in ways that are dependent on the nutrition, on the types of nutrition they're getting on a regular basis determines how they function.

if you try to change that because we've got some grand scheme in our head about losing weight and therefore we want to cut back on all these carbohydrates, whatever it may be, how that can lead to really real problems for athletes. And, and it goes beyond that with talking about supplements.

He's talking about, I'm trying to work off my memory now from a couple days ago, that there was a, uh, something we were very concerned about health-wise back in the 1980s and '90s. I forgot what it was now. anyway, this was a great concern of ours back then, and, and what we thought was the, the key to solving that problem was to take in more supplements, take in more vitamins, minerals of a certain type.

[01:26:00] These would call, these would correct the problem if you took these supplements in. Then we discovered 20 years later, these things we were taking actually made the problem worse. Um. Uh, and so we're seeing, you know, so he's giving examples of things like that, that, cause you to stop and think, "Should I really accept what they're telling me about supplements right now in, in the current literature, what it's saying about supplements?

Should I accept that now?" Because 20 years from now we may find out it actually made it worse to do, to take these things. So I would rather just depend on food, you know? 

Kush: Got it. Food. No, I think your direction is super clear. Eat real foods unless maybe you're medically advised to supplement with something.

Yes. One last thing I wanna a- ask here is, creatine. Creatine is all the vogue. I admit, I take creatine and I ha- I have been off and on for, like, years now. Where do you stand with that? 



Joe: well, I don't take any- anything like that. I don't, I don't use anything at all that's, um, beyond what I can get in my diet.



Joe: so but [01:27:00] I've read good things about creatine. I've heard of, of athletes actually doing quite well, uh, using creatine. So I think it's got some merit. The research- Okay ... seems to support it. Okay. so if, you know, there are things like that if you wanna try it, I don't know of any downside.

There may be a downside I'm not aware of, but I don't know of any downside. have fun. See what happens. 

Kush: Sure. Sure. Joe, I wanna end with the bigger picture. You have spent decades coaching, writing, and thinking about endurance and performance, but now you're also living this terrain in real time at, at 82.

What has aging taught you that training theory alone never could? 

Joe: Oh, gosh. well, it's one thing to talk about aging and to write a book about it. It's another thing to actually experience it. you know, I can write in the book that you're gonna lose muscle mass and VO2 max is gonna decline, and I can say that in the book, but when I start [01:28:00] seeing myself losing muscle mass and VO2 max declining, it scares me, quite honestly.

because I know what that means. I mean, it's gonna keep on going. These numbers are gonna keep getting lower all the time. they're gonna go back up only temporarily, and not very much at a time if they do go up at all. So I'm, I'm very concerned about those things and, but I, you know, I, I still got this notion that you-- we're not, none of us is gonna live forever.

Th- that's not going to happen. there's always going to be, uh, an end to our lives. And, uh, my, my goal in life is to be as healthy as I can and happy as I can throughout life. that's my goal. And, um, those things that make me happy and healthy, I continue to do as much of as I can. Those things that do the opposite of that, I try to do as little of those things as I can.

So I, I just try to keep it very simple and, um, stay alive 

Kush: Love that, Joe. When you look ahead, you know, you are-- when you look ahead, Joe, what are [01:29:00] you still curious about? 

Joe: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm, I'm curious about, how life will end. I've had a number of people I've known who have, who have passed away and, uh, you know, it's very difficult for the survivors when somebody passes away to deal with, with death.

That's why I'm reading this book right now called Why We Die. it's an interesting book. I don't know that it's gonna change anything about my lifestyle or how I view death, but it's interesting. I'm learning things. And, um, that for me is, is, um, still remains the most important thing is I just wanna make sure that I'm, I'm, uh, doing things that, that are good for me health- health-wise, and because of that are beneficial to my family, uh, my wife and my, my son and his wife and granddaughter and so forth.

We all have happy, healthy lives. That's what's most important to me, and that's the thing that comes with aging is I'm, I'm now the guy [01:30:00] who has some responsibility for that, who can say, "This is the way we need to be living our life. This is the thing we need to be doing." or at least provide examples of that sort of thing for my family.

at one time in my life, when I was in my 20s, I thought I was gonna change the world. that didn't happen. but I can change my family, and so I'm, I become, the older I get, the more focused I become on the family as opposed to the bigger world itself. And my role in that family is much more important now than, than my role ever was with the bigger picture of the entire population of the world