Find a New Excuse

As you must know by now, I’m all about 4 basic foundations of your health. My mom used to say her 4 F’s for living were faith, family, finance, and fitness. She lasted into her 90s so she must have known something. My 4 foundations for health are; diet, exercise, sleep and stress and today we tackle exercise. Whether you are a couch potato or a fit person these exercises will challenge you in a short period of time. As I question my patients about their exercise habits I often hear that they don’t know what to do. They don’t know where to go. They don’t know how to get started. They don’t know what exercises are right for them and they’re afraid of getting hurt and mostly they don’t have the time. These exercises I’m going to recommend today can be done by pretty much anyone, can be done in your own home, and take a very short period of time. Of course, any physical activity outside of your normal present the opportunity to injure yourself. Do I really have to tell you not to go crazy and do things that you are obviously not ready for? Check with your people.

Do we really need to spend any time talking about why exercise is important? Independent studies have shown that your VO2 max which is a measure of your cardiovascular fitness and your muscle strength and balance are all important indicators of aging well. As a geriatric specialist I see a lot of people who make it to age 80 but some of them are playing golf and some of them are in a wheelchair in the nursing home and the data strongly supports that exercise is very important in which pathway you go down. It’s not all in your genes.

The beautiful thing about getting the exercise part of your life right is it also helps with the sleep and stress aspects of your life as well. Some people equate exercise with hours on the Peloton or the rowing machine or pushing iron in the gym. My suggestion is that a simple exercise done for shorter periods of time may give more noticeable results. You can do what everyone else does and blow it off as the rantings of yet another fringy healthcare provider or try the exercises and see for yourself.

Let’s start with the plank. 

How-To: Plank 

It’s basically assuming the position if you were going to do a push up but never going down. You simply maintain this position for as long as you can without letting your gut sag. You can do this on your hands or on your forearms and this is a great one because it involves so many muscle groups in the body, it’s intense and most people can’t do it for very long to begin with. Start with whatever you can do and time yourself and you will notice that you can improve over time. Once you get to doing it for a minute or two you’ll understand.

The second exercise is to hang by your hands from a bar above your head. 

The Benefits of Hanging from a Pull-Up Bar – Also for Beginners 

The longer you hang the better it is for your shoulders, your back, your abdominal muscles, etc. Again, this exercise takes a very short period of time before you fatigue. Don’t let that bother you, just keep track and see that you’re getting better on a regular basis. This all ties in with grip strength which has been shown to be an independent predictor of your mortality. I measure grip strength with a device in the office with my patients but more important than measuring it is trying to improve it and that’s what the hanging exercise is all about.

As pointed out in an article recently published by Dr. Mercola, research done in the Journal of Cachexia Sarcopenia and Muscle which showed that grip strength is a reliable marker of your biological age. Interestingly they were using DNA methylation tests to assess premature aging. There was another study in 2022 that concluded measuring hand strength allowed for preliminary predictions on the current level of immunity and inflammation in the body. Again you can use those tennis balls and squeeze them with those hand gripper things that were popular years ago but if you want to improve your grip strengths you hang from a bar from as long as you can.

Finally we have the great doctor Zach Bush’s four minute exercise.

ZACH BUSH MD | 4 Minute Workout 

No getting down on the floor for this one. Everything is done standing up and it releases nitric oxide in that 4 minutes which has many robust beneficial health effects. It exercises 16 different muscle groups and as the name suggests only takes 4 minutes.

So now you have three different very short exercises almost anyone can do. You’ll have to find a new excuse as to why you are in the shape you’re in!

Until next month…get well and stay well…JT BARRY MD

Dr. Barry