Fitness expert Jill Brown of Jill Brown Fitness joins the program to explain why investing in your health may pay bigger dividends than your financial portfolio. Jill breaks down the science of aging strong—from the critical role of fast-twitch muscle fibers and balance training in preventing life-threatening falls, to how years of cardiovascular exercise help you recover faster from illness.
Transcript:
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
We’re going to welcome back to the program, Jill Brown, excuse me, of Jill Brown Fitness. Jill, it’s always great to see you.
Thanks for joining us this morning.
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Thanks, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
As always, pleasure to be here with you. Yeah, I always love chatting about exercise and fitness, and especially as we age, it’s so important. Jill, I wanted to talk to you about exercise.
And as we are going through our lives, it becomes more and more important to exercise. Why is exercise actually paying better dividends than someone’s portfolio?
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
This is, I love this question because there’s a lot of people. Yeah, there’s a lot of people in the industry like myself who often refer to your fitness as banking your health for the future, like insurance for the future. So, for example, our risk of falls and injuries from falls increases with age.
So there’s a couple of scary statistics. So for people who are over 65, depending on which organization you’re looking at the numbers from, like whether it’s from the WHO or the CDC, et cetera, somewhere between 30% up to 50% of the people who slip and fall because they have bad balance or they don’t have enough muscle or response time from nerve impulse to the muscles to catch themselves, if you break your upper thigh bone or your hip bone, if you break this area up here, on that 30% to 50% chance you’ll be dead in one year. At the low end, 30%.
So 30% of the people, three out of every 10 people who slip and fall after 65 don’t make it for a year. And then some organizations have found that number to be 50. So doing balance exercises, which of course incorporates exercise, just having strength and then the type of muscle that we lose with age is called fast twitch muscle fibers.
So these are the ones that help you jump faster or jump higher or jump at all, run, but not just jog, but like sprint. So the muscles that are the ones, when you think of a sprinter, you think of their really large glute muscles and their really big quadricep muscles, those are the fast twitch muscles. And just with age, without training them, those are the ones that go away because your body’s like, eh, we’re old, we don’t need to jump up on anything, we don’t need to sprint away from that tiger.
So your body just literally does away with those fast twitch fibers. But when you slip and fall, what do you need to do? You need to react fast and you need to maybe have some power to like jump over something so you don’t slip and slide.
So doing a little bit of training for these fast twitch muscle fibers will help you if you fall off a curb and have to catch yourself. And then one other thing, for people who’ve been exercising for a long time, or actually two things, people who’ve been exercising for a long time who do a lot of cardiovascular exercise, walking, running, hiking, stair climbing, swimming, cycling, these cardiovascular endurance type exercises, they last for a long time. So even if you get sick and can’t train for two weeks or something or a month, that’s the part of your fitness that stays around for the longest.
So you’re actually literally all the cardio, the years and hours and hours that you’ve put in, week after week, day after day, year after year, will actually serve you so that when you’re sick, let’s say you, God forbid, have pneumonia or some lung problem or just a really bad cold in old age, all that endurance exercise or cardiovascular exercise for your heart and lungs that you’ve done over the years will actually pay off because you’ll recover faster and you’ll be able to get back to your fitness faster. And one other thing, there’s just tons of research that shows, okay, I can’t say tons, but lots of research in this area shows that the more muscle you have as you age, the longer you live, period. So people with more muscle mass live longer.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Okay. And I appreciate that. And I’m just laughing because I’m amazed at how your brain works.
And also the fact that you brought in if you were being chased by a tiger. I don’t know if that happens in your neighborhood. It certainly doesn’t happen here in Charlotte.
But point taken. And I come from the retirement industry, as you know, where all we talk about is accumulation, saving money, saving money. It seems like to me, wealth, banking your health is actually going to pay greater dividends longer term.
And just hearing out on this thesis, and you can rebut it or change it or whatever, is that the more you work on your health, the less you’re going to have to pay in health expenses, long-term care, and other things later on in life that would eat into your nesting.
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Yeah, like I said, remember when I was talking about tripping and falling and that 30 to 50% of the people are literally gone within a year? Well, what about the other? What about the 70 to other 50% that slipped and fell?
Well, they maybe broke a wrist. They maybe broke a bone or fractured or have an injury. They wind up in the hospital too.
But the ones who have been working out the longest are the ones who are going to walk out of the hospital, and that’s going to be 50 to 70% of the people, which will save obviously on your hospital care and your health care costs. And also people who do more weight training and more cardiovascular exercise. Ideally, I’ve talked about this before, you ideally want to be doing both.
Cardiovascular exercise is for your heart and lungs primarily, and strength training are for some a little bit for your heart and lungs, depending on do you lift weights vigorously, do you do it fast, whatever. But it builds muscle, which protects bones, protects joints, and will help you in a pinch like that slip and fall situation. So the more you exercise, we already know the longer you’re going to live, but we also know that people’s health care costs go down.
You’re less likely to live in a full care facility. You’re less likely to have dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. And you’re less likely to have lung and respiratory problems.
And here’s a big one. What’s something that really, really affects people long term is diabetes, insulin resistance and diabetes. The more muscle you have on your body, the less likely it is that you’re going to wind up long term with insulin resistance and diabetes because the more muscle mass you have on your body, the lower your insulin goes.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So one area I wanted to ask you about is nutrition. And you kind of touched on this, but, you know, and we talked to you about this before. Protein is still the basic building block of all muscle.
You need more protein, right? As we get older, you’re going to need, what is it, a pound per, or a gram per pound, you know, the numbers.
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Yeah, so to maintain muscle mass as we get older, so let’s say after 50, I’m 59, so let’s say after 50, we want 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. So if you want to write, if you want to give people the formula, you take your body weight in pounds, divide it by 2.2. That’s your weight in kilograms. So just body weight divided by 2.2. Now multiply that by 1.2. And that’s going to be your minimum. And then also take that number, your body weight in kilograms, multiply that by 1.6. That’s going to be your upper limit. Some people say 1 gram per pound. But if you weigh 200 pounds, that’s going to be a lot of protein, and you’ll be putting on a little bit too much weight probably in older age.
Yeah. Oh, and then the other thing is the more active you are, what’s the other thing that plagues all of us as we get older is arthritis. And people with degenerative joints like I have, if you’re someone who just is used to moving, you’ll get past that initial stiffness or pain that you have in a joint in like five minutes or less, and then you can continue on moving.
Whereas people who have been really sedentary and then the arthritis sets in, well, they have a very hard time. It’s a big barrier to entry to start trying to exercise when, like, it hurts to just even get started. Whereas people who exercise regularly, you know, five minutes, I’ll warm up, and I’m good to go.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. What about stretching? Because, you know, the older we get, the more – or at least I feel this way.
The older I get, the less supple are those hamstrings and other tendons. And even my – you know, Jill, my calves and my ankles are really tight, even though I walk and work out every day.
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Well, that could be why they tighten up. So there’s a genetic component to tightness. Some people are just like – if you couldn’t do a split when you were five and you couldn’t do a split when you were 15, you’re not going to be able to do a split at 55.
So there’s a genetic component to literally how your bones are aligned and how the joints are set up. But then the rest of the tightness that comes with age comes with tissue quality. Our tissue quality starts to decline with age.
So if we want to be able to move better, we do have to do more mobility and stretching and joint exercises. So things like yoga and Pilates are really good. But, you know, there’s a lot of things that get better with age, fine wine and cheese.
Two things that don’t get better with age are your balance and your flexibility.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Do I need to – I know you are a certified fitness trainer. That is your business. And, of course, you train many, many people of all different walks of life.
But do you have to join a gym? Or can you buy things like exercise bands, use a chair that you have in the house, use an office chair, use a desk to do pull-ups? Can you use that?
Is that good enough? Or do people need to rush out and buy the latest gym equipment fed?
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Well, I am in my home. And as you can see, I have weights back there. You do.
I have weights back there, a TRX. I’ve got a bike. Right there is a set of dumbbells and kettlebells.
That is a Pilates machine over there. I’ve got foam rollers and some mats. So that’s all you need for a home workout.
You don’t need a Pilates machine, though, but I happen to have one.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
That’s a good exercise, though. I used to do Pilates. That’s really good.
That activates – I’ll let you talk, but it activates different – my recollection, it activated different parts of my body that maybe hadn’t been activated in a while.
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Yeah, because most people, men typically, but women, too, when you go to the gym, you automatically start working on your mirror muscles. We don’t work on those biceps and those shoulders and those back muscles and those quads and the calves, the muscles you see in the mirror. With Pilates, you automatically start focusing on the deep core.
And so we start from inside. So I’m not only a fitness trainer, but I’m also a nutritionist. So that’s going to come full circle.
But we want to start from the core and work our way out. And then the same thing happens with our nutrition. When we think about the core needs of our whole foods that we need to eat, the same thing starts to radiate out.
So the more whole foods that you eat, the better health you’re going to be in. The more processed food we eat, we know that that’s going to be damaging to our health in the long run. What is something that people with weight problems have and people who have insulin resistance have, and another problem people with high cholesterol have, oftentimes they eat a high junk food or a highly processed food diet.
So changing your diet, not just your fitness, is also going to help pay dividends in the long run, too. So just wanted to throw that in there because people forget about how much our nutrition also has to do with our long-term health.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well, the last question, I promise I’ll let you go back to using the Reformer. Water. Let’s talk about water.
It’s one of the building blocks of life. It was one of the reasons why we are all here on this planet. How important is that?
How much water should I be drinking? And what if I want to avoid all the bathroom breaks that come with drinking a lot of water?
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Well, obviously we need water or we will cease to exist. So, yeah, you have to be getting enough water. How much water is really, really subjective.
There’s no set rule that all experts have agreed upon in the nutrition world or in the fitness world. But here’s the general rule of thumb. Number one, if you aim for approximately a gallon, if you’re a bigger person, to about three liters, if you’re a smaller person over the course of a day who’s active, that’s a high bar to set.
But you want to kind of think like, ah, can I get three liters of water or can I get close to a gallon of water? It’s really just nice. That’s especially for people who exercise.
As we get older, the problem is we have less detectors. Our brain detects thirst less. So we actually need to force ourselves to drink a little bit more.
Here’s the good news. It’s not just water that counts. What counts to your total body’s hydration also includes soups, coffee, tea.
Even if you drink soda, the first ingredient is water. That also counts. And then very juicy fruits.
Watermelon is very hydrating. All melons are hydrating. Apples, citrus fruits.
So that all contributes. So it’s not like you just have to sit there and drink a gallon of water. But factor in.
I had one tall, like, thermos of coffee today. Just a little bit shy of one thermos. So I count that towards my total water.
And then I try to get, like, three more of those slender, long, they’re almost a liter. They’re about 22 and a half ounces. So I try to get about three more of those a day.
And that gets me pretty close to a gallon. And the hotter the weather is, down where you are and down where I am in L.A., if it’s hotter, more water. If you exercise, more water or hydration.
And then if you’re in a colder climate, your body conserves it a little bit more, so you don’t need to be quite as hydrated as you do in warmer climates.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well said. Well, Jill, we’re going to have to leave it there. It’s always a pleasure seeing you.
Thanks so much for joining us. And we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.
Jill Brown, Certified Fitness Instructor & Nutritionist, Jill Brown Fitness
Anytime. Thanks, Jeffrey.
