Why Lifting Matters After 50

Philip Pape 0:00

If you are over 50 and you're wondering whether it's too late to start lifting or whether walking and yoga are enough, you're gonna want to hear this one. On today's bonus episode, I'm bringing you a replay of my conversation with Lynn Hardy on her show, The Aging Games Podcast. She asked me a lot of the same questions I hear every day. Things like, why should I lift instead of doing yoga or Pilates? How much protein do I really need? What about carbs? Am I going to get bulky? And can I actually build muscle at this age? We also discussed sitting and why it's an independent risk factor for your health, exercise snacks, sprinting, CrossFit, and why I stopped doing it. And a simple three-day-a-week lifting framework that works for beginners and advanced lifters alike. I think you're going to get a lot out of this one. So please enjoy the conversation.

Philip’s Path From CrossFit To Strength

Lynn Hardy 0:50

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Tag Podcast. I have a very special guest for you guys today, and we're going to be talking about one of my favorite topics lifting weights, getting jacked over 50, and why muscle is so important as we're getting older. So, Philip, welcome to the podcast. Please tell us a little bit about yourself for the audience.

Philip Pape 1:10

Sure, Lynn, thanks so much for having me. My name is Philip Pape. I'm the founder and host of Wits and Weights. It all started with a podcast because I personally had two decades of my life, my 20s and 30s, where I struggled with fitness and nutrition, had no clue what I was doing. I was an engineer behind a desk, very sedentary. And as I got older, as I had kids, I realized something had to change. So in my 30s, I started CrossFit, thinking that was a solution, right? We all did that. We all did that. Because that was around the right time, around 2010. And but it was during those years, for about eight, 10 years, where I did a lot of experimentation. I learned how to use a barbell, I learned about conditioning, but I didn't really learn all the right things like how to progress and how to build muscle, how to control my diet in the right way and make it sustainable. So around when I was about 40, I was 39, turning 40, right before the pandemic, I finally did a lot of listening to podcasts, watching videos, reading books, came across the Muscle and Strength Pyramids by Eric Helms and also Starting Strength. And some of the big nutrition guys in the space, like Alan Aragon and Dr. Bill Campbell, and all these names. I'm sure your audience knows a lot of these, and really just started to flood my brain with this so-called evidence-based fitness and nutrition, and started to apply that myself. And I spent the year of 2020 building a home gym because that's what I had to do as a gym's work. Yeah, we all did that in 2013. Exactly. And I, you know, I started squatting, deadlifting, pressing with barbells, just very simple, strength-based movements, building over time, eating a lot of food, drinking a lot of whole milk because I didn't know what I was doing exactly.

Lynn Hardy 2:53

Yeah.

Philip Pape 2:53

And just learning, learning, learning. And through that year and the following year, I kind of started to figure out what worked with a lot of the information in the industry coming into my ears, but sorting through it and trying to cut through that noise. And had my first successful, I'll say bulk and cut, let's just say, where I built some muscle for the first time in my life in a meaningful way, cut some fat, felt felt better about my body for the first time in my entire life because I was always self-conscious about my body. And then decided I wanted to share it with the world. So I started my podcast late 2021. Fast forward a few months, one of my one of my guests, who was also a coworker at the time, wanted me to coach her. She was a power lifter. I said, What are you talking about, coach, nutrition coaching? She's like, Look it up. So I looked it up. I when I commit myself to something, I go all in and I learn and I do it. I became a coach. I started working with people. And really, that's now what three, four years later that I've been helping folks with their nutrition and their building muscle.

Lynn Hardy 3:54

Well done. So what was your biggest issue? You said you were self-conscious. Was it were you overweight or under muscled? What was the problem?

Philip Pape 4:02

Everybody knows this term, dad bod. Dad bod, right? So kind of like never a little overweight or a little underweight with no muscle, depended on my diet. So if I was really gung-ho on my keto or my low carb diet for a while, which I did, then I would, you know, lose a bunch of weight, but lose a bunch of muscle. I didn't have muscle, so then I'd feel like skinny fat. And then the other extreme was just, you know, overweight, didn't want to take my shirt off, pale white guy with, you know, on the beach with his shirt on, uh, kind of deal. So yeah, but you know, we it's some degree of the same struggles that your listeners can all relate to in some way of just I don't know what to do. I'm a hard worker, I have a decent career, you know, I'm a family guy, but I'm really self-conscious, don't know what to do with my physical fitness.

Hormones, Menopause, And The Fragility Myth

Lynn Hardy 4:46

Yeah, I think I think this happens a lot. And my my audience is ladies over 50, and we're all struggling. You know, the hormones are changing, and everything that worked for us before, as far as weight loss or getting fit, just doesn't work anymore. And a lot of women are believing that, okay, well, we just need to work harder, you know, we need to run further, we need to do more cardio, burn more calories, eat less calories. What do you say to that?

Philip Pape 5:12

I say I challenge the idea that it actually ever worked. And because I use the same messaging, right? And I'm like, what worked for you in your 20s? I think what happens is, you know, your hormones are at their peak, you know, your ovarian function for a woman is at its peak in your you know, teens and 20s, right? Because that's your re pre reproductive years according to evolution. And for men, that's testosterone. You have a bunch of muscle mass that that you've grown through your teenage years, through puberty, and you have all this function going on. So you just don't know what you don't know. And then once you get to your 30s and 40s, as the hormones decline and then the muscle mass declines, and then life gets more stressful, right? And you start doing moving less without even realizing it, then it just starts to accumulate that the lifestyle you've led would inevitably lead to this point. So that's kind of what I say to it. And I also say that no matter what age you are, you can change it to the day you die, to the till your 90s, you can change that trajectory and be healthier and more fit and functional.

Lynn Hardy 6:13

Isn't that cool that you can actually build muscle at any age? You can start at any age. Obviously, if you have a background or working out, it's it's easier to build. But the the fact that it's never too late like really gives people a lot of hope.

Philip Pape 6:25

Yeah, and and women in particular, because your audience is is is mostly women.

Lynn Hardy 6:29

Yes, mostly women. Yeah.

Philip Pape 6:30

There's like a fragility narrative uh in the space right now, right? Where like, you know, you're broken and you can't do this, and it what it's fear mongering, right? In my opinion. Where let me if I just dispel one myth, for example, women can build muscle at the same rate as men. That might be a surprise to you right now if you're listening, because you have you start with less muscle mass. I'm sorry to say. That's just the the luck of the jaw. Women have more bodies.

Lynn Hardy 6:53

More fat, you know, we're blessed with more fat.

Muscle As A Longevity Engine

Philip Pape 6:56

You know, and but and but you know, it doesn't matter how much testosterone you have, whatever, you can build muscle at the same rate as men. That's one myth. And then the other thing is the hormone decline or menopause. You know, menopause transition is like a three and a half year period, right? And I've talked about this on my show as well. I've learned a lot about it for a guy, right? I've learned a lot about it. And it's while, yes, the the progesterone drops, the estrogen changes, DHEA, like all the reproductive hormones, follicle stimulating hormone, and it happens really quickly. A lot of what we see doesn't really have to do with aging, it just has to do with the lifestyle. And what I like to tell women is if you can get the lifestyle together, right? Which there's there's a way to do that with a minimum effective dose that's time efficient and not like super stressful, you can then see what's left in terms of pharmaceutical support or HRT support or something, something like that you might need. But a lot of women and men find that just improving their lifestyle mitigates a lot of those issues. And then the fragility nerve totally totally goes away. I mean, I I talk to women every day who are in their you know, 40s, 50s, 60s. They're just living a great life. And they might have struggled a lot more if it weren't for the lifestyle changes. So why muscle? Why is muscle so important? This is a big one. Muscle is like an endocrine organ, right? It is a it's part of your hormonal system, and we don't think of it that way. It's effectively other than your skin, it's kind of your biggest organ on your body, if you think of it. It's the one thing that you have the most control over in terms of change, in terms of your tissue, right? Because yes, you can change your body fat, that's energy storage, but your muscle mass is part of your physical tissue, and it's associated with every marker of longevity, of health, of metabolism, of inflammation, of anything you can possibly say that leads to the decline in aging, uh, such that if you can improve it, you're going to turn back the clock. You know, you're gonna be 20 years younger than your peers by the time you're in your 60s and 70s, you know, in terms of your physical age. And you're gonna avoid a lot of those those things that we worry about, like fragility, you know, falls, bone dead, bone fractures, type 2 diabetes, all the obesity-related diseases as well, because building muscle supports losing fat and it allows you to carry more fat with less health issues. So I just told you like the benefits of muscle, right? But it is one of the most strong predictors of how well we age because of all of those. Metabolic health and glucose and insulin sensitivity is another big one. I I love to talk about Lynn. People are worried about carbs. Well, if you have more muscle and you're training for muscle, both of those are huge sinks for glucose and glucogen, glycogen, so you could eat more carbs and your food will be better partitioned in your body so that you can thrive even on higher calories. So it's just it's just cascades to one benefit after another.

Lynn Hardy 9:49

I love it. What's your diet like, Philip?

Philip Pape 9:52

My diet is pretty flexible.

Lynn Hardy 9:54

So in terms of So you don't follow like a keto or carnivore or any kind of strict diet?

Protein Targets Made Practical

Philip Pape 9:59

I do not. No, no, and I don't, and I don't advocate for that either. I'm not against somebody following a protocol or diet if the end result is it works for them and it makes them feel good. That's the goal, right? Yeah. As opposed to doing it because you think it's the right thing to do. My personal diet is anchored in protein. So plenty of and we can get into numbers, but sufficient protein for building muscle, holding on to muscle. And then I have plenty of fats for hormone support, energy, and then the rest is carbs. So when you do it that way, you end up having probably like 15, 20% of your diet is protein, maybe 30% of your calories is fat, and the rest is carbs.

Lynn Hardy 10:35

So, like, I mean, I can get into details, but yeah, get into details because let's talk about protein because you know, we're always on about how important protein is as we're getting older. And I always tell the ladies, you know, make sure you prioritize protein, make sure you're getting enough protein because it's it's very difficult. If you're looking at like, you know, two grams per body weight, but pound body weight, right? That's that's quite a bit. Like for me, I need to be eating like 120, 140 grams of protein a day. And it's hard. Like now, for the first time, I started tracking my micros and my macros and everything, which I've never done before. And I'm shocked at how hard it is to get the right amount of protein in for my body. So, what could we do with that? Or do you even recommend that to to you know, to consume higher amounts of protein?

Philip Pape 11:22

No, I get the question all the time. Just yesterday, my group, a new a new client asks, she's like, My target seems to be around 0.7 grams per pound, but I've heard you need one gram per pound, and that's so much more. How do I do it? And first I said, Okay, hold on, take a step back. 0.7 grams per pound is what the evidence currently suggests.

Lynn Hardy 11:41

Oh, sorry, I was talking about kilos. So what I was doing. I got it. Yes, exactly.

Philip Pape 11:45

I figured you were you were talking about 1.6 to 2.2 grams of per kilogram or exactly 0.8 or 0.7 to 1 per pound per pound of exactly. Should I speak in metric or no? Either one is fine.

Lynn Hardy 11:59

I'm in Europe, so I'm like all mixed up Canadian living in Europe. So it's like half my brain's in kilos, the other half's in pounds.

Philip Pape 12:06

So let's just say the lower end of that. So the 0.7 grams per pound or the 1.6 grams per kilogram is more than enough for 90, 90 five percent of what you're looking for in terms of your needs. Now, I always tell people like if you can bump it up a little more, you might see other benefits for satiety, you know, fullness. You might have an advantage with your muscle building and preservation, especially in fat loss. So when you're in a calorie deficit, having more protein can help hold on to that muscle more easily. But you have to balance that with sustainability and variety in like what you like and what you, you know, how many calories you have. Because if you're a lower metabolism person, just naturally, it's gonna not leave you as much room for the fats and carbs. So you might have to make some trade-offs. If you're a guy that eats 3,000 calories, it's like, why are you not getting the full gram per pound? Because you also are gonna have lots of carbs and fats. So yeah, I'm a big proponent of that. As far as getting it, there are so many sources of protein. If you're an omnivore, of course, vegetarians and vegans, it's all it's harder.

Lynn Hardy 13:03

Yes.

Philip Pape 13:04

You've got any animal-based source, lean meats. Seafood is one of my favorites. So low mercury mercury tuna like Skipjack, any any white fish, right? Salmon's great, but it also has higher fat. So you just have to watch for that. And shrimp. I love peel and eat shrimp as a snack because it's like pure protein. So lean meats, also dairy, any form of dairy. Now, people think eggs, but eggs do have a lot of fat. So you want to like add egg whites with eggs if you need more protein. And of course, there's cottage cheese, there's Greek yogurt, there's fair life milk, and then you have all the plant-based sources like oats and all the soy-based products, like tempeh and tofu and soy, or I already said soy. And yeah, I think I think I basically listed most of them.

Lynn Hardy 13:46

Okay. So you're advocating for high protein but lower fat, if I hear correctly.

Balancing Fats, Carbs, And Fiber

Philip Pape 13:52

Okay, so we anchor the protein on 0.7 to 1 gram per pound or 0.1.6 to 2.2 gram per kilogram. Then I recommend 30% of your calories from fat, plus or minus 10%. So it's a big range.

Lynn Hardy 14:04

Yes.

Philip Pape 14:04

And I 30% again is like a kind of a natural spot. A lot of people will fall. A lot of women I work with will tend to just eat leaner, so it'll fall more like 25 or 20% of their calories. And then a lot of guys I know they eat more meat that have more saturated fat or something, and they might be up in 35%. Or if you come from the keto world, you just are used to eating more fat in your diet, and that's fine. And then carbs are everything that's left. So if you're eating, let's say, I don't know, 2,500 calories, that might look like 150 or 200 grams of carbs, you know, depending on how much protein you need. If you're above that, it's going to get into two, threes, and four hundreds, which tends to be more men, but a bigger, stronger woman might be up there as well.

Lynn Hardy 14:45

Yeah, it's really interesting that about fat because, you know, I did a, I was in the keto world for many years, keto carnivore. But you know, with keto, you're really focusing on fat. You're like 70% fat and moderate to low protein. But now things are changing. So even in the keto world, now they're recommending lower fat, especially for women over 50, as your hormones are changing. They're saying that your body's not able to tolerate as much fat anymore. And in order to lose weight, you really need to reduce your fat and up your protein, which kind of goes against the whole keto values. Do you have you noticed that with your clients?

Fueling Training And Carb Timing

Philip Pape 15:20

I mean, my clients come to come in right away, knowing my philosophy that it's more flexible and like not specific to a diet. And so they're they're probably already open to the idea, that idea. But here's the way I frame it instead of like what you shouldn't have, right? It's what you should have. And you alluded to this by saying protein. I think of okay, what are the pillars that we need for our health, for our longevity, for our strength, for all of our goals? Protein is great for all of them, right? Because you're gonna build tissue, you're gonna repair yourself, even when you're injured, when you're sick, like protein is great. And then fat, you don't need too much fat. You need a certain amount of fat to support hormone health, but not more than that. You know, fat is needed for your cells, your mitochondria, and so on. But I like to say, okay, where does carbs come in here? Because carbs is what's been fear-mongered. And I think in the keto world, that's like, or in the carnivore world, plants, fiber, carbs are like a big no-no. But I would say, look, we know that diets high in fiber are more associated with better mortality outcomes, better health outcomes. We don't have long-term studies on diets low in fiber. So I it's more of a like, maybe you're taking a risk, maybe you just don't know if you don't have fiber in your diet. I prefer to look at it as fiber helps you stay full, it helps with your gut, it helps with your bowel movements, all that stuff. And it gives you a lot of, and it's associated with plants and the carbs that keep you full, right? The high fiber carbs. The rest of carbs, I lean into the muscle side of the equation and I say, look, having more carbs is going to help with building muscle and strength and having more energy. And if that's important to you, you're going to see a difference 95% of the time. And what I mean by that, Lynn, is inevitably I have a client that comes in, they do fasted training. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with fasted training. In fact, recent research showing women doing fasted training, they can have just as successful outcomes as not. And I kind of used to be on the fence on this and say, you should eat before you train. However, it seems anecdotally that most people who eat before they train will perform better when they train, and therefore they'll get a little bit faster progress over time and they'll just feel better. You know, have that banana, have that whey protein before you eat. And that's where carbs are powerful because carbs are glucose, they're sugar, right? They get converted into glycogen in your muscle, in your liver. And that's an immediate store of energy in the form of, you know, of glycogen along with your ATP when you work out and when you train. When you're lifting heavy weights, you need that spike of energy when you go into that heavy, you know, eccentric on the way down, and then you need to explode back up. Clients who don't do that report feeling drained, feeling wiped, not getting all the reps, feeling like they couldn't go up in weight this week, something stalled. Those are the kind of things I'm talking about with carbs. Not to mention, carbs spare protein. So when you have more carbs, you don't necessarily have to have as much protein as well. And it helps you have a more balanced diet.

Lynn Hardy 18:10

Very interesting. What do you think about progressive overload when it comes to training?

Progressive Overload Explained

Philip Pape 18:15

It's it's everything. Progressive overload is everything. So if we think about why muscles grow, they grow because of mechanical tension. That that's it. They grow because you are training really close to failure. Your body gets stimulated through a hormonal process, right? Growth hormone, testosterone, everything. And your body says, you know what? You just push me so hard that I'm not quite capable of that. I'm gonna, while you're sleeping, we are going to increase the size of your sarcometers that's your muscle cells. We're just gonna, you know, read, we're gonna adapt to this, right? We're gonna adapt while you sleep. Next time you go to the gym, you're gonna be able to add a few pounds of the bar, right? It's up to you now to do that. So that's progressive overload. So like the muscle tension happens when you push close to the limit, but then every time you go to the gym, you have to keep pushing close to the limit. So another way to put it is you're always training within a few reps shy of failure. And because you're getting stronger, that sh those few reps shy of failure is gonna be a heavier weight or more reps or more sets every time you go to the gym for that lift.

Lynn Hardy 19:18

What do you say to women who are worried about getting too big, too bulky? This is very common. I know a lot of women shy away from lifting weights completely because they think they're gonna be huge.

The “Bulky” Fear Debunked

Philip Pape 19:30

If you want the lean toned athletic look, if you want a six-pack, if you want to find biceps and a back and to look like a badass woman who is strong but lean, you have to build muscle. And I'll tell you what, I this is the joke. I always say, I would love to get bulky myself, and I have a hard time doing it. It takes years of years of lifting and eating and growing and being in a surplus, let alone performance-enhancing drugs. When you look in your Instagram feed, like when you look, trust me, you know this, Lynn. If you're not careful, you look at a couple good physiques on Instagram and you get flooded with all the women with the eight packs and on the beach, and it's all doctored up, it's all photos, it's all, and a lot of times it's drugs too. You know, it's these elite bodybuilder types. Women, you're not gonna get bulky at all. Building visible muscle takes years. I most clients who I work with, like in short order, they're like, I want more muscle now. Now that I've gotten into this, I see how cool it is to have the little Christmas tree on my back and the nice cut in my shoulders and the little bit of you know, line in my biceps. You know, my wife jokes about it because I got her doing a program. I don't coach her, but I said, here she wanted one. I said, here you go. And she's like, Look, look, look at my arms now, just from a little bit of stress on your muscles. So yeah, you're not gonna get bulky.

Lynn Hardy 20:48

And we all want beautiful arms. I mean, that's that's that's my struggle. That's what I always struggle with. And I've been, you know, training, lifting weights, working out, bouldering, I do everything. And I cannot get the definition in my arms that I would want. And I I would kill for that.

Visible Arms: Build, Cut, Repeat

Philip Pape 21:03

Yeah, so uh it's funny. When we talk about physique, which which there's nothing wrong with having a vanity goal because at the end of the day, I always tell people physique is an expression of a lot of things. It's an expression of strength and function and health and how you look, and it all ties together. But if you really want to build the visibility, you're gonna have to specialize for a bit in that muscle group, right? Like maybe train it two, two or four times a week, depending, you know, two or four exercises a week. You're gonna have to lose enough body fat to show it, and you're gonna have to repeat that cycle over time, over several years. So, like the problem for a lot of women is they never want to spend the time to truly build muscle. They want to recomp, which we can do, but I'll I'll give an example. I just had a client finished working with her. She wanted to gain, she wanted to lose 10 pounds of fat. At the end of the day, she lost six pounds of fat and gained three pounds of muscle. Now, do you think she was disappointed? No, she was thrilled because she felt better, she looked better. She had smaller waist size. So she actually ended up only three pounds lighter on the scale, but with a way better physique than we started, right? And it takes time. And also you have to sometimes lose body fat. That that was like five or six months, and that wasn't all in a fat loss phase. You know, like I always I always think you should spend a month or two dialing in your behaviors and habits first before you do a fat loss phase. So the fat loss was like 10 or 12 weeks. Yeah.

Lynn Hardy 22:27

Wow. That's that's very impressive. I'm sure she looks amazing.

Philip Pape 22:30

Yeah, yeah. But I'll tell you, we this one client, I can tell you she went through a lot of mental and emotional struggles that we work through. And this is a this is common of like impatience, right? Because you you think, okay, uh my goal is to lose 10 pounds on the scale. And really, you're that's not your goal, is it? Your goal is to feel like yourself, like the person on the inside, right? Is to be the confident person you are and to like be able to play with your kids or grandkids or just go do the sport, you know, show up confidently at work, you know, all those things are really what you want. And there's a lot of emotional stuff to work through sometimes that have nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of physique development. You know what I mean?

Lynn Hardy 23:09

No, it's true. And it's also it is true what you're saying, like the self-confidence that it gives you. Like I do bouldering as well. So when I come out of the bouldering club and I climb down that wall and I'm like, I walk out and, you know, my muscles, everything's all pumped up, and I'm like, I'm so badass, you know, I'm walking through the bark, like anyone gonna mess with me? Like, it's an amazing feeling. Like, I love the fact that I'm 55 and I'm strong, you know, that I feel strong, I can carry anything, I can pick it, you know. I carry my husband around and he's like over 200 pounds, or my son, and and I love having that strength that makes me feel really, really powerful compared to a lot of women who, you know, my age or even younger, they start getting frail and weak and their bones are deteriorating. And it's it's just a really sad thing to see. And it's so easy to easy to avoid.

Philip Pape 23:56

Yeah, no, I I I totally agree. I hear the stories every day. Either, you know, 65-year-old woman who was having trouble getting off the chair and now she deadlifts and can like, you know, get knees feel good. I mean, I hear this all the time with joints, you know, joint pain, because that affects a lot of uh people, especially women, and bone density concern for osteopenia, osteoporosis. And a lot of that is mitigated when you start lifting weights because you're loading your skeleton and your muscles to do what they're designed to do, and you're therefore starting to bring everything up to support your spine. You're bringing everything in line with your hormones. It's just a beautiful thing. So to me, I I can't say enough about lifting weights. I know that's why you brought me on, but like to anybody listening, if you're not doing it, it's okay. There's some you can start and we can talk about like practical steps how to start.

Lynn Hardy 24:42

Yeah, where that was my next question. Like, where would where would someone start? If you know, if I've never worked out before, I'm quite intimidated, I'm scared to go to the gym. I don't want people laughing at me, maybe I'm overweight, I need I, you know, I need to lose some weight, and you're shy, you're intimidated, where do you start?

Strength And Confidence Stories

Philip Pape 25:00

I really it really depends on the person, but for for a lot of women that I've talked to, either if they're okay with going to the gym, you know, it's it's having a very basic functional program that that you're confident in that you can do like two or three days a week, right? If you if you don't want to go to the gym, like you said, gym intimidation, there's stuff you can do at home with body weight, with dumbbells. If you're listening and you have the space and investment, I can I can give you a home gym guide that's like gives you options for how to set up a power rack and a bar and plate. I know it sounds crazy. You're like, oh my God, he's talking barbells, but let me tell you, barbells are a game changer for a lot of people I work with because they're very safe, simple tool that can progress for the rest of your life. And it's like the only thing you would have to buy, and you don't have to worry about all the machines and everything. So I always say start where you're at and your level of enthusiasm because some women I've talked to, they're like, they have an avulsion to any thought of working out because of something in their past where it was like it's miserable or it didn't work or they got made fun of or whatever, right? And and and you I kind of be sensitive to that and say, okay, what can we do at home where you practice the movement patterns, the squat, the picking up, the deadlift, the pressing, just practice the movement patterns and take equipment that will make it hard for you. So that could be your body, right? If you've got extra weight, great, that's an advantage because that weight is going to be load on you. Take advantage, reframe it. That's an advantage. Um, it's also a dieting advantage we can talk about. But yeah, start where you're at with like dumbbells or bands or body weight, do the basic movement patterns. And three days a week doing squats, deadlifts, and some sort of press is huge. As long as you get go up in weight or reps each session, each session, not each week, each session when you're beginning.

Lynn Hardy 26:51

But if you're if you're doing body weight exercises, for example, how can you would you just increase the duration or what what would you do?

How Beginners Should Start Lifting

Philip Pape 26:58

Yeah, so that was gonna be my next thing is you're gonna hit a wall. You're gonna get too strong for that, right? And and and because I don't know where you're starting from. Like when I was helping my mom out a couple years ago, she was having knee pain and couldn't get off the couch. We started on a chair. And then after a week, she's like, the chair's too easy. What do I do? I said, let's go with a low box. And then after that, she's like, What do I do next? I say, okay, now we put the bar on your back. It might just be a PVC pipe, or it might be a barbell or women's barbell or whatever. And so you're gonna have to do that. So I have a lot of clients or people I've spoken to who, for whatever reason, they can't have access to a barbell or a gym, but they have dumbbells. I strongly invest, I strongly suggest the adjustable dumbbells. You know, they're not the cheapest in the world, but like they're compact, and you're probably gonna invest five or six hundred bucks to get the really big ones that'll let you grow for several years, especially as a woman. I'm not belittling women, but women tend to be less strong than men, so you have a little more leeway on the dumbbells. But I will say most people will top out pretty soon if you're doing it right, and you're like, what do I do next? Well, then barbell machines and cables, you know, if you can get to a gym or barbell at home is where I would go. Yeah.

Lynn Hardy 28:06

Would you recommend hiring a trainer? Would that be important in the beginning to learn to see the exercises properly?

Philip Pape 28:12

Yeah, 100%. And you're gonna find this funny, but a lot of people I work with, I don't recommend they hire me because I I'm a nutrition coach, slash lifestyle coach, and I do a lot of the like my prerequisite is that you're already lifting when you come to me and I want to help you refine your technique. I would actually work with somebody in person who's local. You know, you can get an online coach and a really good one could be decent with the form checks and stuff, but it's really hard to see your mechanics and fix them in real time without being in person. So if you could get word of mouth recommendations for a good coach who knows what he's talking about, I know it's hard. They can at least help you with some safety and confidence with the form early on. Yeah.

Lynn Hardy 28:50

So that would be like initially, right?

Philip Pape 28:52

Yeah, initially. But then I'll tell you what, even if you're not gonna be perfect, like to this day, I'm always gonna be personally working on my form, right? So once you're kind of got a basic thing going, online form checks can be very powerful, right? So, like I did it with clients or in our group where you could just post a video and I'm gonna go in and either do a screen share or in text, say, hey, you know, I don't, I see you've got more room for depth there. I want you to use this cue for your deadlift. You know, I want you to look straight out, like those little cues that help people fix their form. And it's just a constant process of improvement.

Lynn Hardy 29:25

I love that. Well, have you ever heard of exercise snacks before? I'm a big fan of exercise snacks. What do you think of that? For okay, obviously, you're not it's not really the progressive overload and getting jacked, but it's I think also a great way for people to stay fit, especially when they're very busy. You know, I always tell people while you're brushing your teeth, do 10 squats, while you're waiting for the water to boil, do counter push-ups. Do you think those small exercise snacks, do you think they make a difference? Or in the big picture, it's not enough.

Home Setup, Dumbbells, And Barbells

Philip Pape 29:54

They do. I would never discourage them. They they they're really helpful. We have to look at our goal here, right? If if the goal is, like you said, to get strong and build muscle and get jacked, they're probably not gonna move the needle a lot because pretty quickly you're gonna be too strong for them to challenge your muscles. So you're not really doing them for that. I see exercise snacks. Let me let me let me clarify two categories. There's there's splitting up your workout routine into maybe a couple times a day. That's not really exercise snacks. That's more of you know, working around your schedule. Exercise snacks would be every half hour, every hour, every two hours, whatever, you run up the stairs for a minute, right? Or you go and walk around for two minutes, or you do the air squats. There's a really cool study from 2021. I actually reviewed it on my podcast where they compared air squats every 30 minutes to walking every 30 minutes to nothing and just sitting down all day. And these were all people who were sitting, so desk jobs for eight hours. And they found that the walking had the biggest impact on muscle protein synthesis and blood flow and insulin sensitivity, like all the health markers, and it was massive. It was like people who sat all day, their muscle protein synthesis dropped by half. People who walked once every 30 minutes, it went up by 47% from baseline.

Lynn Hardy 31:10

Wow. And the people who squatted, it was a little bit less than the walking group. Uh-huh. But it's a good alternative if you can't walk to at least and do a few squats.

Philip Pape 31:21

Absolutely. Although I know a lot of people would, most people would be like, Thank God I'll have to squat. Let me just walk. I can just walk. Yeah, it's much easier for sure. Yeah. But so I've been telling people, and I have one, I have an app on my phone. I think it's called Stand Up. It's like a free app that you can set a reminder, and every 30 minutes it reminds me to get up and move around. You know, even now we're on this podcast. I'm standing, right? I'm standing. That's another thing I like. But we're gonna be not stuck. This is great for an hour, but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna have my break. So after that, I'll go for a walk.

Lynn Hardy 31:51

Yeah.

Coaching, Form Checks, And Safety

Philip Pape 31:51

Um, and and and it's huge from that perspective. So there's a lot of studies on walking in general, step count, and on movement snacks that just show game-changing levels of improvement for health, mobility, joint fluid, you know, synovial fluid in your joints, vascular health with the you know how some people buy those little ellipticals for their feet, yeah.

Lynn Hardy 32:15

You know, the yeah, well, the desk, right?

Philip Pape 32:18

Yeah, and even that shows those kinds of results too of like just the fact that you're moving your body in some way, you know, on a basis. So, yeah, yeah.

Lynn Hardy 32:25

We just spend we just spend way too much time just sitting around, yes, lying around, lounging around, scrolling on the phone. I mean, humans are meant to be moving. We are not plants, right?

Philip Pape 32:37

Yeah, it's an independent risk factor. Like you have people who I've seen three different scenarios. I've seen people who lift a lot and then they don't do anything else. I see people who lift and then they walk and they don't do anything else. And then people who lift, walk and move. And and and on each of those levels is kind of a step change in the biomarkers for health and longevity. So, like somebody who lifts but doesn't do anything else, they're gonna have great benefits from the lifting, but they're actually letting a lot of it go to waste, if you will, with their nutrient partitioning and everything else because they're sitting around. Like it's almost inflammatory to sit around. I mean that in the true blood sense of inflammation, you know, see reactive protein, interleukin 6, like the actual measurable blood markers, not the hocus pocus inflammation the influencers talk about, right? Because seed oils aren't inflammatory. We can get into that whole thing, anyway. Sorry. But then the middle category is if you lift and you walk, but you don't, but you still sit around all day, we still see a lot of issues with health markers. And so you've got to do all of them lift, walk, and move.

Lynn Hardy 33:42

Yeah, I'm all for that. I mean, walking is definitely like one of the best exercises, and and and pretty much anyone can do it anytime. I'm you know, if I don't do my 20,000 steps a day, I feel like uh, you know, what am I doing with my life? Like that's like smiling, that's great.

Philip Pape 33:56

That's impressive.

Lynn Hardy 33:57

You should see my parents, my parents are 75 and they're like 22, even for the other day, they did 40,000.

Philip Pape 34:03

And they retired.

Exercise Snacks And Sitting Risks

Lynn Hardy 34:04

They retired, yes. Okay, I've done I've walked the Camino de Santiago with them twice. So, you know, like a walking family. And they're 75, they have no joint issues, no heart disease, like no pain, no back pain, nothing. Like people don't realize that, you know, the people that are sitting home with knee pain and you know, hip replacements and all that. It's it's normally not from overuse, it's not from exercise, it's from lack of use.

Philip Pape 34:30

100%. Yeah, no, there's a lot of counterintuitive things that I see in older generations. You know, I think of my in-laws, and they just recently discovered the benefit of walking on their treadmill at home. And oh my gosh, my knees feeling better. Oh my gosh, my shoulders fit and they're in their 70s, you finally figured this out, you know, but they're too stubborn to like listen to others, you know, give them advice, right? You you understand that. But yeah, the the the younger generations, I think, were and through podcasting, we're trying to get that message out of just being active, moving around. Imagine the implications it will have when we're all older on our children not having to take care of us and not burdening the healthcare system. And that all leads to a better economy and better everything else. Anyway, yeah, I'm very passionate about it.

Lynn Hardy 35:15

No, it's absolutely true. And you you want to be able to play with your grandchildren or even your great grandchildren and get on the ground and you know, play with them on the floor and get up and all that. I mean, it's so important.

Philip Pape 35:26

Yeah, and the other thing I hear, and you probably do as well, is the back issues, right? When you get older and the knees and the elk shoulders. And you you said like being mobile is part of it, and also lifting weights has helped a lot of people in those areas. I work with a lot of engineers, because that's where I come from, who, you know, I finally convinced them just do some deadlifts. That's gonna solve your back issues. They're like, How can that be? Isn't it gonna make it worse? You know, fear-mongering, like, and they start deadlifting like a week later. Oh my gosh, my back pain is gone, you know. And I'm not saying it's a miracle or anything, it's just common sense that when you start to use your body, whether it is walking, whether it is lifting, you're using what's there. It's kind of like you're you're a robot that was sitting gaining sit gaining dust in the corner, somebody turned you on and you started moving and oiling up your joints again. Right. Well, as they say, motion is the lotion. Motion is the lotion, yeah. Right and and what and and if you think of lifting weights, you are you're you're prof you're putting a lot of gravitational load on mechanical joints and connections in your body, right? Like all your muscles insert into bone, you have lens, the tendons and ligaments, which are connective tissue, you have cartilage, you have the fluid that connects it all, and you're basically just making all of that work mechanically, like you know, crank up again and start to build and get stronger and bigger and the engine's bigger. So all your whole body is now just feeling lighter and more athletic. You know what I mean? Like it's just it's a great visual.

Walk More To Change Your Health

Lynn Hardy 36:52

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. So, uh, how many times a week would you recommend lifting weights for someone who's just starting out?

Philip Pape 37:00

I think a beginner three days a week is solid. Three days for like a half hour to 45 minutes, usually. That's all.

Lynn Hardy 37:06

Doesn't have to be longer.

Philip Pape 37:08

Yeah. I, you know, if you if you look up, if your listeners look up starting strength, for example, it's a basic barbell program, you'll see it has three movements and it's three days a week. You know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday through. And when you first start, even if you take long rest periods, which you should be, this is not circuit training, this is not endurance training, you should be. It should take maybe 45 minutes. Now, as you get stronger and the weights get heavier, it might take a little longer. Also, as you become more advanced of a lifter, you're gonna add more things in. Maybe you go to four days a week, right? It's all about volume and frequency based on how you adapt. So, like if you don't do it enough, if you don't squat enough frequently enough, your body's just gonna detrain back to its current strength level and it'll never progress. And then you're just wasting time when you go to the gym. You're like maintaining what you have. So that's why you have to have enough volume and frequency.

Lynn Hardy 37:57

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And the as far as the exercises, would you recommend just focusing like on the basic exercises like pushing, pulling, squats, that kind of thing, you know, deadlifts, bench presses, or should people get into the more complex exercises?

Three Days A Week Framework

Philip Pape 38:16

Yeah, I would start with the natural human movement patterns done with the full range of motion. So what you just said, and people put them in different categories. They'll say hinge, push, pull, they'll see squat, deadlift, whatever. From an exercise perspective, it looks like a form of squat where you're going all the way below parallel, right? With some load. So that could be a goblet squat with your dumbbell in your front of you. It could be a front squat, it could be a back squat. You know, I'm I'm partial to the ones that let you move the most weight, like a back squat, but it doesn't have to be. So you've got a squat, then you've got a hinge, a hinge deadlift. We call it a hinge, but really it's a pull, right? It's a pull from the ground. So that's a deadlift where you pick something up, you pick a bar off the ground, maybe dumbbells off the ground, maybe bands. Then you've got pressing, and I like both horizontal and uh vertical pressing. So horizontal would be a bench press and vertical would be an overhead press of some kind. But again, you could do different angles. You can, you know, if you have shoulder issues, there's modifications. But if you Monday, Wednesday, Friday do squat every day, deadlift every day, and then alternate between horizontal and vertical press, that is enough to make a lot of progress for the first six months to a year and get super strong and muscular, you know, for from where you started.

Lynn Hardy 39:32

I love that because it's simple. You know, because people think you need like this complex workout program and you've got all these exercises that you have no idea how to do. If you really master three, four exercises, basic exercises, and do them regularly, you're gonna get the results.

Philip Pape 39:47

It's because they're efficient, they're efficient with time and they're efficient with your body, which is great, especially if you don't have a lot of time. They're called compound lifts, right? Because they compound meaning multiple, they use multiple, and uh, you know all this, but for the listener, multiple joints. You think of a squat, you're bending your hips at your knees and your ankles. They're all bending, right? Furthermore, when you do a squat, your whole body and your posterior chain is engaged because your back has to stay tight, your shoulders have to stay tight, your scapula, you know, squeezed, your glutes are tight, your quads, your everything. And then when you go all the way down to depth, you're using all of your hip musculature, you know, from your abductors from the outside to your adductors and groin muscles on the inside, quads on the front, glutes and hands on the back, you're hitting your ankles and calves, you're putting isometric load into your back, right? So you're just getting so much out of one lift. Same with the deadlift. Now the pressing movements are a little more upper body focused, but we need that as well. We need that pushing strength. We need our shoulders to be engaged, right? We need to use our chest, all of that. And then it all uses your back as well.

Master The Big Four Movements

Lynn Hardy 40:55

What do you think about kettlebells? They're one of my favorite tools. Are you a fan or not?

Philip Pape 41:01

They're versatile. They're very versatile. I will say that you can do a it's kind of like a landmine, like which I used to do in CrossFit, and I still have one at home and you know, land my barbell and a landmine. Yeah, they're very versatile. I I normally tell people like they're more of a supplemental or like an alternative if maybe you can't have access to other things only because of practicality and load, because you would have to have like a whole bunch of kettlebells. Or I know they have some adjustable kettlebells nowadays. So they do. I haven't seen those. I think so with a little dial and it like changes the radius, so it depends on how big it pulls the bell out.

Lynn Hardy 41:35

That's very cool. I'll have to check that out. Because I love I love doing outdoor exercises rather than being inside the house, sure so that so that I get the whole benefit of being outdoors and the sun and grounding barefoot and all that stuff. So, you know, with a kettlebell, it's so versatile and it's so easy to do.

Philip Pape 41:51

And I can I mean you could you could swing them, you can squat with them, you can press them overhead, you can do all sorts of it. I I get it, I totally get it. It's I I always just come down to like sustainability, practicality, equipment, blah, blah, blah. Dan John, do you know Dan John? He's like a kettlebell expert. Yeah, yeah. So I always throw his name out there. Amazing guy who like you look at him, he's big, you know, come comes from the Olympic background, and he can do like snatches and cleans and stuff with a barbell as if he's like a 20-year-old. It's insane. He's so athletic, but he's this huge guy and he's big into kettlebells, you know.

Lynn Hardy 42:24

Yeah, it's very cool. So we we talked about CrossFit, and looks like you're not a big fan of CrossFit anymore. We've all been there, we've all done that. I think a lot of people have, but it's still quite popular. What is wrong with CrossFit?

Kettlebells, Tools, And Tradeoffs

Philip Pape 42:38

That's a leading question. But I like it. But I like it. What's wrong with CrossFit is it doesn't do what people think it does for them, and they're doing it for the wrong reason. So, like if your goal is to get a massive amount of high stress conditioning, and maybe you want to improve the skills of the CrossFit sports because you want to compete in CrossFit, that might be it's one area that it has some benefit. Even the CrossFit athletes, you look at all the big athletes from framing, froning, whatever, to all the ones today, their primary form of training is strength training. And then the CrossFit is more the specialization for the sport so that they can compete. So it's like a sport. I did CrossFit for eight years thinking it would improve my physique or make me stronger. It may be a little stronger, of course, because I went from sedentary to well, puking and on the first day because that's how insane it is, to touching, you know, learning how to use a barbell, but honestly, the form was terrible. And they don't most boxes, that's what they call the gyms, right, have decent coaches, but the the certification requirements are pretty low. You know, you have to go to a thousand dollar class and you get certified. And honestly, this is the case with most gyms anywhere when it comes to trainers. It's very hard to find really good ones. And when it comes to form, CrossFit throws form out the window because a lot of the wads are time based and they're rep based and they're really fast. So I I know for a fact I've probably created some root causes of later injuries from CrossFits of deadlifting, you know, 135 pounds as many times as I could in whatever minutes, or trying to deadlift 21 deadlifts as fast as possible. And you're just like slamming that stuff up. And I have personal experience with the whole array of CrossFit. I got decent at some of the stuff as well and very good conditioning. Let me tell you, like my heart resting heart rate was down like low 40s. Now it's upper 40s, but it was low 40s during CrossFit. Having said all that, it's it's super high stressful. It can definitely injure you. It doesn't provide the benefit of progressive strength and muscle development over time. And you don't need it in terms of the conditioning. Like if you want to be well conditioned, walking, a little bit of high recovery sprinting, and some extra cardio sprinkled in at like medium intensity is all you need, unless you're an endurance athlete and that's your goal. So that's my thoughts on it.

Lynn Hardy 44:59

No, sorry, I agree. And you know, for women over 50, it's it's we have a huge issue with cortisol. And we don't want to be doing stuff that it's gonna spike the cortisol because it's gonna mess up the hormones, it's gonna mess up our sleep and everything. So that's why I found CrossFit not the best type of exercise for women over 50. What do you think about like yoga, Pilates, those kinds of things? Can they replace weight training or are they a good addition to weight training?

Why Philip Quit CrossFit

Philip Pape 45:28

So it depends. Like both of those have a big spectrum of styles, right? Like yoga has, you know, more strength style versus relaxation, balance. You've got hot yoga, you've got new yogas that I'm not even familiar with. People are talking about Pilates is a little bit more, you're using weights, right? So I would say unless you enjoy it and are using it as a form of cardio or supplementary work, it's not really a great alternative to strength training for that purpose. But I've had clients who do that, or they'll do orange theory, or they'll do F-45, or they like their what is that, Tybo or what's the the dancing?

Lynn Hardy 46:04

Well, the kick kickboxing. Um, kickboxing.

Philip Pape 46:07

You know, Zumba, all that stuff. And I'm like, look, let's let's create a pyramid. And what's at the bottom? At the bottom is lifting because what you care about, what you came to me to talk about, what your listeners care about is their body composition. They want to be strong and functional, they want to keep the stress low. Maybe they want to lose some fat and have a healthy lifestyle. Okay, let's start with lifting weights at the bottom, and then maybe walking, you know, and then above that is maybe some enjoyment. And this is where the sports piece comes in.

Lynn Hardy 46:34

Uh-huh.

Philip Pape 46:34

Pickleball, Zumba, yoga. Actually, I would kind of put as like a long walking. I think it, I think most yoga is fine as much as you want to do because it's kind of relaxing.

Lynn Hardy 46:45

Stretching, stretching, relaxing.

Philip Pape 46:47

You know, as long as it's not a time stressor, you know, like, oh, I have to do yoga and I have to lift and I can't fit it all in. But the more the stuff that uses weights and resistance or something, you got to watch out because it's going to interfere with your recovery from your lifting sessions and it's going to create more stress. And that could also reduce your metabolism a bit and hold it back because of the stress, stress response. So it's kind of like how do you balance that pyramid? You know, and then sprinkled at the top is like sport, performance, sprinting, like the little bonus stuff at the top that you want to boost your VO2 max a little or something like that, if you have the time and inclination. That's my thought on it. It's really about goals and balance.

Lynn Hardy 47:25

Do you think sprinting is important?

Yoga, Pilates, And The Training Pyramid

Philip Pape 47:27

There's a form of sprinting I think is really beneficial that I talk about ever since I met Brad Kearns. He wrote, he co-wrote the book of Mark Sisson called Born to Walk. Great book. So just everybody get it. And I stole his protocol and now I use it all the time with clients. Um, so I'm giving him credit. Giving him credit. In fact, I'm doing a workshop in a couple weeks called Adaptive Cardio. And I have like a cardio pyramid and sprinting's in the top section. Because again, I don't want you to do the sprinting until like you've dialed in walking and you don't have enough steps and you're lifting weights. But the sprinting protocol sounds it goes like this it's four to eight sets, 10 to 20 seconds all out, six times recovery. So if you sprint for 10 seconds, you rest for at least a minute. So it's not like hit, it's not like Tabata, it's very high ratio of rest to rec of rest to work. And it's no more than eight sets and no more than 20 seconds per set, and that's it. You you never go past that, you just get faster and more powerful over time. That's all. And then you can do that once or twice a week. If you do it twice a week, make one of those not flat ground. So make it on a machine, so it's less stressful. Yeah. Right. And if you do it flat ground, it's better to do it on a like a softer surface, like a track. But I mean, I I have a road, I'll just go on there every now, and it's fine if you you know sprint lightly on your toes, which you can't help but do. Yeah, the other thing I like about sprinting, it's anabolic, it's it's supportive of your hormones and recovery for lifting, it doesn't detract from it and it is not running. So let me tell you, people, if you don't want to run, you don't you hate running or whatever, it's not running. Go sprint as fast as you can for 10 seconds and report back. Send me a note on Instagram. Tell me if that's the same as running. Because I I I guarantee it's probably not. It's like being a superhero, it's not running.

Lynn Hardy 49:14

No, I agree. I love sprinting. I do with my dogs. I have a dog who's 16, and I make sure I sprint with her because it's important for her to run as well.

Philip Pape 49:22

That was my conversation with Lynn Hardy on the Aging Games podcast. If you want to check out her show, it's called The Aging Games. I'll link to it in the show notes. Now, if anything in that conversation hit you hard, resonated with you, especially the part about eating more protein, lifting heavier, building muscle as your best tool for aging well. That is exactly what we're building with Eat More Lift Heavy. It's a 26-week coach program where you get a training program assigned to you on day one, a personalized nutrition strategy, and monthly live coaching calls with me and Coach Carol. There is no content library that you have to browse on your own. You don't have to guess, you just follow the week by week process. We guide you through it, and by the end, you have these skills to coach yourself. We are opening enrollment very soon with founder pricing for anyone on the wait list, but only for people on the wait list. So if you want that first access, go to witsandweights.comslash eat more and get on the list. You can use the link in the show notes as well. That is witsandweights.comslash eatmore. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.