You don’t even need to know me well to tell that this Anthropologie maxi dress (created exclusively for Anthro by Whitney Pozgay of WHIT fashion brand) was actually made for me. It’s vintage inspired slash slow living essence has my name all over it, plus the natural motif of dark beige leaves only proves
The post Tzipora Loves : Anthropologie Maxi dress appeared first on TLV Birdie Blog.
By Dr. Mercola
Slow-cooked casseroles are one of the most convenient oven meals. They’re simply delicious, and if there are any leftovers, you can store them in the refrigerator and just reheat them later.
If you’re tired of eating the usual casseroles, you should try this delicious vegetable casserole recipe. Pine nuts, zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes make the perfect ingredients for this meatless casserole:
Ingredients:
- 1 eggplant, sliced into chunks
- 2 pounds zucchini, sliced into chunks
- 1 red pepper, sliced into strips
- 2 medium onions, sliced
- 4 medium tomatoes, diced
- 1 cup olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- ½ cup pesto sauce
Pesto:
- 2 cups fresh basil or spinach
- 2 garlic cloves, sliced
- 2/3 cup coconut oil
- ¼ cup pine nuts
Directions:
- Blend all ingredients in a blender or food processor.
- Heat coconut oil in a medium saucepan. Add eggplant, zucchini, red pepper, and onions. Sauté over medium heat in small batches, so there is enough coconut oil remaining for all the vegetables.
- Heat the oven to 350 °Fahrenheit. Place the sautéed vegetables in a baking dish, leaving the oil used for the vegetables in the saucepan.
- Add the tomatoes to the oil in the saucepan, press the garlic cloves into the pan, and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Pour tomato mixture and pesto over the vegetables. Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes or longer for a more crispy texture.
(From Healthy Recipes for Your Nutritional Type)
Make sure you place your casserole in the middle of the oven to ensure that it bakes evenly.1 To achieve a crispy texture, do not cover while baking.
This healthy and delicious casserole tastes even better when made with basil pesto sauce. If you have basil in your garden, you can easily make fresh pesto sauce. You can make fresh pesto sauce in large batches and then freeze it to extend its shelf life. Frozen pesto sauce can be used for up to three months.2
Eggplants provide the meaty texture for this meatless casserole. It is important to pick firm and glossy eggplants with bright green stems. When you push the flesh with your thumb, it should bounce back. If it doesn’t, it’s a clear sign that it may be overripe. Store your eggplants in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator to keep them fresh longer.
For zucchinis, I recommend keeping their skin intact when cooking as it contains most of their antioxidants and fiber.
Look for fresh tomatoes that are bright red and do not have any cracks, wrinkles, bruises, or soft spots.3 It is also better if you avoid using metal pans and storage containers to prevent dangerous aluminum being absorbed by the tomatoes and your body.
This vegetable casserole is a perfect addition to your wholesome diet as it contains the following healthy ingredients:
Zucchini
Zucchini is often classified as a vegetable even though it is actually a fruit. It is low in calories, but is abundant in fiber. It helps slow down aging and prevents disease through the help of its many flavonoid antioxidants such as zeaxanthin, carotenes, and lutein.
Zucchini is a great source of B-complex vitamins such as folate, B6, B1, B2, B3, and choline, which help maintain blood sugar regulation. It also offers minerals such as iron, manganese, and phosphorus.
Eggplant
Eggplant may be one of the most underrated vegetable in the US, as the average American only consumes less than one pound of it per year, but it is actually beneficial to include in your diet. Eggplant is rich in various vitamins and minerals such as fiber, folate, potassium, manganese, copper, thiamin, niacin, and vitamins C, K, and B6.
It also contains nasunin, an anthocyanin phytonutrient that fights free radicals and prevents brain damage by protecting the lipids (fats) in your brain. Nasunin provides iron-chelating mechanism, which is beneficial if you are suffering from iron overload.
Tomato
Tomatoes are known to be beneficial for your health as they contain vitamin E, thiamin, niacin, folate, magnesium, vitamin B6, phosphorus, and copper. They are also an abundant source of manganese and vitamins A, C, and K.
Take note that canned tomatoes can be a health hazard. Many cans linings are contaminated with bisphenol A (BPA), which can transfer to the tomatoes (or any food). BPA negatively affects the brain, behavior, and prostate glands in infants, children, and even in fetuses.
Tomatoes contain zeaxanthin, a phytonutrient that protects the eye and helps prevent age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Tomatoes also provide the antioxidant lycopene that protects the skin from ultraviolet damage. Lycopene also helps lessen oxidative stress and lower the risk of osteoporosis.
Pine Nuts
Pine nuts are rich in monounsaturated fat, protein, iron, and magnesium. They also provide vitamins E and K as well as manganese, which are efficient in maintaining a healthy heart. Another component of pine nuts is pinolenic acid, which supports healthy cholesterol levels.
Pine nuts have a wide range of antioxidants that help combat free radicals and protect your cells from reactive oxygen species (ROS). Pine nuts are also rich in lutein that reduces your risk of AMD (just like tomatoes) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
By Dr. Mercola
Root canal is a commonly performed procedure in most adults. But is it a wise one? Dr. Robert Kulacz, a dentist, has spent a significant portion of his professional career trying to answer this question.
What he discovered profoundly changed his life, and led him to write a book about his findings called, The Toxic Tooth: How a Root Canal Could Be Making You Sick, which I think is among the best available on this subject.
Dr. Kulacz began practicing dentistry in Brewster, New York. After six years as an associate, he opened his own practice in Somers, New York in 1992, where he performed all the conventional procedures of dentistry, from restorations to extractions and root canals.
"I did a lot of root canals for many years," he says. "Everything was going smoothly until one day, a patient of mine said to me, 'You know, I heard from my physician that root canals may be bad; that root canals may cause or contribute to other diseases in the body.'
And I said, 'You're crazy. Who is telling you this? That's impossible.' He said, 'You got to look at this information.' He gave me websites of organizations like the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT) to look at.
I went on to explore this topic so I could come back to him and say, 'Here is where you're wrong, here's where your physician is wrong, and here is where the American Dental Association (ADA) is right.'
Lo and behold, I found out they're right; I was wrong.
I looked at Weston Price's work, the work of Rosenow, and others. I decided to go to an IAOMT meeting... Dr. Boyd Haley's lecture on root canals and how toxic they are changed my life. I realized I was wrong... From that day on, I changed my practice."
Dr. Kulacz stopped performing root canals in 1995. He doesn't promote a ban on root canals across the board, but stresses the importance of informed consent.
The American Dental Association states that root canals are a safe procedure that cannot cause any systemic diseases, and according to Dr. Kulacz and others who have spent time investigating the matter, that's simply not true.
"If a patient is informed that these root canal teeth remain infected; that bacteria can indeed travel to other sites in the body, and that bacteria in root canal teeth and the surrounding bone release potent toxins, then the patient can decide to have a root canal or not," he says.
Many dentists believe they can sterilize a root canal tooth and that the act of instrumenting and irrigating the canal will eliminate all the bacteria, but that's not the case.
“I’ve done biopsies on every root canal tooth that I have extracted. Almost all of them have remnants of necrotic debris still in that canal meaning that they were not thoroughly cleaned. Microbiological cultures of the surrounding bone showed infection almost 100% of the time.” Dr. Kulacz says.
According to the ADA, any remaining bacteria will be "entombed" within that tooth, but that's not true either. The gutta-percha, the filling material used to seal the canal, is not getting into the tiny lateral canals that branch off the main canal, so leakage is almost always possible, especially since the tooth is porous.
And even a perfectly sealed root canal cannot prevent the small molecule exotoxins produced by the bacteria inside the root canal tooth from easily migrating out of the tooth and into the body.
The bulk of the tooth structure is composed of dentinal tubules, hollow structures that run from the main canal outward. If you were to put these tubules end to end from just a single rooted tooth, they would stretch for about three miles.
But they’re big enough to harbor bacteria three across, which you can never remove or sterilize. A tooth is more like a sponge than a solid structure.
“If you had a solid tooth structure that was like steel or a metal, you were able to clear out the main canal of that tooth, there were no tributaries, and you can perfectly seal it, and eliminate the residual infection in the surrounding jaw bone a root canal would be great. But we can’t do that,” he says.
"Now, it doesn't mean that all root canal teeth are going to cause disease. It depends upon the type of bacteria that are in there, what kind of toxins they produce, and the immune system health of the individual.
But with 25 to 30 million root canals done per year, multiply that by how many years a person is alive, there's a lot of root canals out there. And a lot of them are not good."
Since root canal teeth are chronically infected, they may contribute to a number of different health problems, including heart disease. While the ADA insists bacteria from root canal teeth can never travel to distant sites in your body, Dr. Kulacz disagrees, explaining:
"Heart disease is caused by the damage to the inside lining of the blood vessel (the cholesterol is a secondary byproduct). The primary cause of heart disease is the damage of the intima lining of the blood vessel and migration of macrophages and cholesterol inside that artery.
Inflammation causes plaque to rupture into the lumen, into the space of the blood vessel, causing a blood clot and a heart attack. [A] study done in 2013... compared the bacterial DNA in blood clots and arterial plaque in heart attack patients to the DNA of the bacteria in the mouth.
The same bacteria found in the root canal teeth and in gum disease are found in the plaques in coronary arteries and in the blood clots that caused the heart attack.
These bacteria move from the mouth into other sites of the body like the arterial plaques. They've also found the same bacteria in the pericardial fluid or the fluid that surrounds the heart... In heart disease you don't want infection and inflammation in an arterial plaque.
The presence of oral bacteria from root canal teeth and gum disease in the arterial plaque and blood clots of heart attack patients points to direct causation, rather than correlation between oral infection and cardiovascular disease.”
Because root canal teeth no longer have a blood supply, the bacteria remaining inside all root canal teeth are effectively “hidden” from the immune system. To make matters worse, the root canal tooth becomes more infected over time due to the influx of bacteria from the gum tissue surrounding the tooth.
Other research has shown pathogenic bacteria from infected root canals destroy or kill the white blood cells designed to eliminate them, which is why the surrounding jaw bone can harbor such chronic infection. The bacteria can also evade your immune system by:
- Bacterial mimicry; mimicking your body's own bacteria, which your white blood cells will not attack
- Disabling your antibodies and white blood cells
- Forming sticky biofilms
The video above was recorded about four years ago. In it, I discuss some of the health effects I suffered from an infected tooth, which were resolved after having the tooth extracted. It's important to recognize that the reason you get cavities and/or infected teeth in the first place is related to your diet—primarily eating too much sugar.
If your diet is inadequate, your immune function will be compromised, and if your immune system is weakened, the bacteria's ability to wreak havoc is magnified. So does this mean you have to extract all of your root canal teeth? No, Dr. Kulacz says.
"We can't become so closed-minded that we ignore mainstream dentistry or mainstream medicine just because we don't believe one part of it. Just saying that we're going to extract all root canal teeth and we're going to cure all disease is not valid. That's as bad as saying that root canal teeth can't cause any problems. We have to find the balance... we have to evaluate objectively and then come to a reasonable conclusion and protocol on what to do with these root canal teeth."
If you’re considering having a root canal done, evaluate the data and your personal situation, such as your health risks, before making your decision. I would also suggest considering ozone therapy prior to root canal or tooth extraction. Ozone therapy is typically administered through a syringe, right into or around to the base of the tooth. Multiple visits are usually needed to address the infection. Ozone is directly toxic to infectious material, and it also stimulates your immune system.
I was able to prevent a root canal by using ozone therapy not too long ago. However if the pulp tissue has completely died due to infection, nothing, including ozone, will bring the tooth back to life. It took about five treatments. It's safe, non-toxic, and relatively inexpensive, so it may be worth considering before taking more drastic measures.
If you decide to have the tooth extracted rather than doing a root canal, there are several options on how to restore that missing tooth. The first and least expensive option is with a removable appliance or partial denture. You need to take it out at night, put it back in in the morning, and keep it clean. It's the least invasive way to restore missing teeth.The second and considerably more expensive alternative is to do a bridge. The teeth on either side of the missing tooth are prepared for caps or crowns, and the missing tooth is attached to those two abutment teeth. The bridge is permanently put in as one unit. The problem is you have to cut down a lot of the enamel on the adjacent teeth, which causes trauma to those teeth, potentially risking the need for another root canal over time.
The third option is a dental implant, where a screw is inserted into your jawbone after a healing time of between three and six months to ensure a base of solid, healthy bone in the jaw. Then a tooth is built upon the top of the implant. The implant functions as your root would have and you have a permanent crown that functions like your real tooth. While that may sound ideal, there potential problems to consider.
First, if you use a titanium implant, you're placing metal into your jawbone, which can cause a galvanic or battery response with other metals in your mouth. There are reports in the literature of allergy and tissue toxicity to the metal used in dental implants that can also negatively impact health. At the very least, if you are considering a titanium dental implant, have an allergy test to all the metals present in that implant. This is especially true if you have a known sensitivity to metals.Dr. Kulacz prefers zirconium implants, as they do not have metallic ions found in titanium implants. However, if an implant is placed into the bone where a previous root canal was done, and the bone was insufficiently cleaned out when the tooth was extracted, then your bone may still be infected. In such a case, you're placing an implant into a chronically infected bone, which is inadvisable.
"It's critical when you extract the root canal tooth that you remove the periodontal ligament (the little sling that holds the tooth to the jawbone), the lamina dura or socket bone (the only purpose of that socket bone is to support the tooth), and then a small amount of bone outside that space. That's done with a slow-speed, round dental bur with copious or lots of sterile sealing and irrigation to keep the bone healthy.
If you do that, you remove the infection, you induce good blood flow into the jawbone – without blood, there is no healing – and you have a non-infected, healthy, and healed bone to which you can then place your dental implant," he says. “Bacterial cultures and tissue biopsy of the surrounding bone after thorough socket cleaning can uncover any residual infection that may remain. This is why I do not favor immediate placement of a dental implant into the socket of a root canal tooth, preferring to wait for the results of the cultures and biopsy as well as adequate bone healing.”
Gum disease is also a common problem associated with implants. An infection or an inflammation in the gums is very similar to having an infection or inflammation in the bone or the root canal tooth. Natural teeth have a barrier against the migration of bacteria into the surrounding bone.
They are full of fibers that insert from the gum into the root of the tooth and the bone, which prevents the bacteria from getting in to the bone area. Dental implants don't have that. They rely on a sticky coating secreted by the gum around the cuff of the collar of the post that supports the crown.
That cuff of tissue has to be maintained with good oral hygiene to prevent inflammation that might otherwise loosen the tissue around the tooth. If you have gum disease and don't clean the implant post thoroughly, the gum disease around implants will progress much more rapidly than around a natural tooth. If you have a dental implant, it's imperative to follow strict oral hygiene, or you may quickly end up with gum problems.
A root canal tooth is no longer alive. It's dead tissue, which should never be left in your body. If you have appendicitis, the surgeon just doesn't isolate it and leave it in there. He has to remove it. Yet when it comes to teeth, this rule is ignored.
According to Dr. Kulacz, many people who came to see him—often as a last resort—were able to resolve chronic health issues once their severely infected root canal teeth were extracted and/or the infection properly treated. Interestingly, Dr. Weston A. Price was even able to reproduce people's diseases in rabbits simply by implanting the person's root canal tooth beneath the rabbit's skin.1
"The ADA tries to refute Price's work, saying it lacks adequate controls and they used too much bacteria when they inoculated the bacteria into these rabbits. Well, that's not true. They took the actual root canal tooth and they implanted the same root canal tooth with no more bacteria than would have been found in the person from which it came.
That same tooth was implanted under the skin of rabbits. Lo and behold, they would find the same disease occur in the rabbits. The ADA says they repeated Price's work and found it to be invalid. Well, they never have. I've looked for it. I've emailed them. There is no repeat of Price's work. Further, current research supports Price’s assertions that bacteria from root canal teeth DO travel to distant sites in the body.”
To learn more about root canals, and/or to help educate your dentist, I strongly recommend picking up a copy of Dr. Kulacz' book, The Toxic Tooth: How a Root Canal Could Be Making You Sick. If your dentist is honest and sincere, he or she will likely come to the same rational conclusion as Dr. Kulacz. Granted, in many cases, you're likely to meet with resistance. This seems to be the norm before changes in thinking finally shift to the majority. In some cases the resistance can be severe.
Dr. Kulacz ended up losing his practice after the New York State dental board drummed up a series of charges against him, including "gross misconduct" for extracting root canal treated teeth. The dental board initially wanted to pull his dental license, but backed off when the prosecuting attorney admitted no dentist had actually reviewed the reams of data he'd sent in defense of his treatment—a case of misconduct on behalf of the dental board.
“I called the chancellor of the board of regents in New York State and said, 'Your dental board is corrupt. The prosecutor admitted to me that my case was not about justice. It was not about the truth. The dental board had an agenda. They already dismissed this patient’s file as a cause of action.'
Now, I’m not a conspiracy guy. I never thought that this kind of thing could happen. In fact, if somebody would have told me in the years prior that this could happen, I would’ve thought they were crazy. But it did happen to me,” Dr. Kulacz says. “The next day, the attorney from New York State called and said, 'The dental board is going to drop all charges if you will accept a records violation.' They had to have something, otherwise I could go after them for false prosecution.”
Considering it would have taken several years and a quarter of a million dollars to continue fighting, he accepted the records violation—not realizing this would effectively put him out of business... He kept his dental license, but he never realized accepting the violation would increase his malpractice premium ten-fold—from $8,000 a year to $80,000. After being shut down for a year because of the board's action, he made the painful decision not to reopen. Dr. Kulacz' story is yet another example of what can happen to a professional who bucks the trend.
It's not very different from the case of Ignaz Semmelweis, an ob-gyn and surgeon who, about 150 years ago, was vilified for his theory that microbes cause infection. Semmelweis was labeled "insane" by his colleagues for having the audacity to suggest they should wash their hands between deliveries, and they fired him.
He tried to continue his research but was ostracized by the medical community. His mental health eventually did deteriorate, leading to his death in an insane asylum.
Fortunately for us, Dr. Kulacz wrote a book instead of mulling on the pain and frustration of losing a two decades long career. It's a great resource, with the details necessary to convince most rational individuals that root canals are not in the best interest of your health. And, if you have a root canal tooth, to be cautious and consider having it extracted if indicated. You can also learn more on his website, coletrex.com, or contact him via email at: rkulacz@yahoo.com.
The following organizations can help you to find a biological dentist specializing in mercury-free dentistry and other holistic approaches:
- Consumers for Dental Choice
- Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions(DAMS). E-mail them at: dams@usfamily.net or call 651-644-4572 for an information packet
- Holistic Dental Association
- International Academy of Biological Dentistry & Medicine (IABDM)
- International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT)
- International Association of Mercury Safe Dentists
- Talk International
By Dr. Mercola
You might not think much about your grip strength, unless you’re trying to open a jar of pickles, but it turns out this seemingly minute detail of fitness may reveal quite a bit about your overall health.
In a study of nearly 140,000 people, ages 35 to 70 and spanning 17 countries, grip strength was found to be a simple, low-cost indicator of heart attacks and strokes.1 On average, male grip strength ranged between 67 and 84 pounds while female grip strength ranged from 54 to 62 pounds.
For each 11-pound decrease in grip strength, there was a 17 percent increased risk of cardiovascular death, a 7 percent increased risk of heart attack and a 9 percent increased risk of stroke.2
There was also a 17 percent greater risk of death from causes not associated with heart disease. According to study author Dr. Darryl Leong, assistant professor of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario:3
"Grip strength could be an easy, inexpensive test to assess an individual's risk of death and cardiovascular disease… Doctors or other health care professionals can measure grip strength to identify patients with major illnesses such as heart failure who are at particularly high risk of dying from their illness."
It’s unclear at this time whether specifically targeting your grip strength could lower your risk of death and heart disease, or if a strong grip is a marker of a healthier lifestyle or a tendency to exercise harder. Strength coach Jedd Johnson told Men’s Fitness:4
“Having strong fingers, hands, and wrists helps you lift more weight and allows you to hold the weight for longer time and more reps… This translates to better results in the gym."
In fact, research published in 2011 found that hand-grip strength is a predictor of total-body muscular strength and endurance.5 Past research again found that grip strength appears to be a useful marker of overall fitness and may be associated with frailty.
In those aged 64-74, low grip strength was associated with more markers of aging than was chronological age alone.6 Lower grip strength is also associated with reduced health-related quality of life in older men and women,7 and is also considered a useful tool to identify people at risk of mobility limitations, such as difficulty walking or climbing stairs.8
Among those in their 80s, a weak grip strength is even associated with higher mortality rates while higher grip strength is associated with higher cognitive function and hemoglobin levels.9 In case you’re wondering how grip strength is measured, it’s typically done using a hand-held dynamometer, which registers pounds of compression as a person squeezes it.
Your grip strength may be partly innate, as it’s positively associated with your weight and height at birth. However, lifestyle factors also play a role, including your diet and, in particular, consuming omega-3 fats.
One study found an increase in grip strength of about 0.9 pounds occurred with each additional portion of fatty fish, rich in omega-3 fats, consumed per week.10 Hand-grip strength was also associated with vitamin D levels in one study of young women,11 which makes sense since vitamin D is critically important for muscle function.
On the other hand, the use of certain cardiovascular drugs is associated with reduced grip strength in older people. Furosemide (Lasix) was associated with average decreases in grip strength of nearly 7 pounds among men and more than five pounds among women after adjustment for age and height.12
Other heart medications, including nitrates, calcium channel blockers, and fibrates were also associated with reduced grip strength. If you tend to crack your knuckles often, you may be interested to know that this habit, too, has been associated with lower grip strength.
If your grip strength is lacking, it’s a sign that your muscles may be starting to waste away. Richard Bohannon, a professor of Physical Therapy at the University of Connecticut told the LA Times:13
“Grip strength reflects your overall muscle status and a general sense of how much muscle mass you have… If you have more muscle in your upper body, you probably have more in your lower body as well."
To improve your grip strength, pull-ups are useful. The pull-up builds grip strength because your fingers, hands and forearms are all used. The Daily Burn also shared the following five exercises to help build grip strength. This shouldn’t be done as one workout, but rather try to incorporate one of these into your strength-training routine (and rotate them regularly).14
“1. Partial-Grip Pull-Up
How to: Grasp a pull-up bar with a palms-down, shoulder-width grip, but leave your thumb out. Perform pull-ups as normal. Sets: 3, Reps: AMRAP (as many reps as possible), Rest: As needed
2. Plate Pinch
How to: Pinch a plate in each hand between your fingers without holding on to the handle or lip of it. Hold them at your side for as long as you can. When this gets too easy, try pinching two plates together. Sets: 3, Reps: To failure, Rest: As needed
3. Towel Pull-Up
How to: Loop a regular workout towel around a pull-up bar. Hold an end in each hand and perform pull-ups as normal. Just make sure to move your head to either side as you get closer to the pull-up bar. Sets: 3, Reps: AMRAP, Rest: As needed
4. Farmer’s Walk
How to: Grasp a pair of heavy dumbbells or kettle bells. Keeping the core engaged, walk from one end of the gym to the other until you can no longer hold onto the weights. Sets: 3, Reps: To failure, Rest: As needed
5. Push-Up
How to: Lie face-down on the floor, hands at shoulder-width palms on the ground, toes driving into the floor. Think about trying to grab a handful of the ground, as this will fire up the muscles in your forearms important for grip strength.
Push yourself up, so your hands are under your shoulders, and your body is a straight line from the back of your head down to your heels. Slowly lower yourself down so your chest touches the floor. Sets: 3, Reps: AMRAP, Rest: As needed”
The more you engage in strength training, the more you’ll be using and building your gripping muscles. In addition, a full-body strength-training program is essential to building other muscle groups as well. A strong grip strength tends to go hand-in-hand with muscle strength elsewhere in your body.
If your grip strength is weak, you’ll certainly want to begin a strength-training program… but this is important even if your grip strength is normal. If you’re not engaging in strength or resistance training, chances are you’ll become increasingly less functional with age, which can take a toll on your quality of life.
Interestingly, strength training even has a beneficial impact on your gene expression. Not only has it been shown to slow cellular aging but it can actually return gene expression to youthful levels. In seniors who take up strength training, the genes’ clocks can be turned back by as much as a decade!
Age-related muscle loss, also known as sarcopenia, can actually begin far sooner than you might think—starting as early as in your 20s if you’re sedentary.15 After the age of 50, you tend to lose about 0.4 pounds of muscle with each passing year.16 So what do you have to gain by starting weight training – even if you’re already “older”? According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM):17
“Given an adequate training stimulus, older adults can make significant gains in strength. A two- to three-fold increase in strength can be accomplished in three to four months in fibers recruited during training in older adults. With more prolonged resistance training, even a modest increase in muscle size is possible.
…With increasing muscle strength come increased levels of spontaneous activity in both healthy, independent older adults and very old and frail men and women. Strength training, in addition to its possible effects on insulin action, bone density, energy metabolism, and functional status, is also an important way to increase levels of physical activity in the older adult.”
By slowing your movements down, it turns your weight-training session into high-intensity exercise. The super-slow movement allows your muscle, at the microscopic level, to access the maximum number of cross-bridges between the protein filaments that produce movement in the muscle. This is a beneficial and safe way to incorporate high-intensity exercise into your workouts if you’re older and have trouble getting around.
You only need about 12 to 15 minutes of super-slow strength training once a week to achieve the same human growth hormone (HGH) production as you would from 20 minutes of Peak Fitness sprints, which is why fitness experts like Dr. Doug McGuff are such avid proponents of this technique. The fact that super-slow weight training gives you an excellent boost in human growth hormone (HGH), otherwise known as the "fitness hormone," is another reason why it’s so beneficial if you’re older.
As you reach your 30s and beyond, you enter what's called "somatopause," when your levels of HGH begin to drop off quite dramatically. This is part of what drives your aging process. According to Dr. McGuff, there's also a strong correlation between somatopause and age-related sarcopenia. HGH is needed to sustain your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which produce a lot of power. It's also needed to stimulate those muscles.
"What seems to be evident is that a high-intensity exercise stimulus is what triggers the body to make an adaptive response to hold on to muscle," Dr. McGuff says. "We have to remember that muscle is a very metabolically expensive tissue… If you become sedentary and send your body a signal that this tissue is not being used, then that tissue is metabolically expensive. The adaptation is to deconstruct that tissue…"
People of all ages can benefit from super-slow weight training, but this is definitely a method to consider if you’re middle-aged or older. I recommend using four or five basic compound movements for your super-slow (high intensity) exercise set. Compound movements are movements that require the coordination of several muscle groups—for example, squats, chest presses, and compound rows. Here is my version of the technique. I also demonstrate a number of exercises in the video above, starting around the 15-minute mark:
- Begin by lifting the weight as slowly and gradually as you can. In the video above, I demonstrate doing this with a four-second positive and a four-second negative, meaning it takes four seconds, or a slow count to four, to bring the weight up, and another four seconds to lower it. (When pushing, stop about 10 to 15 degrees before your limb is fully straightened; smoothly reverse direction)
- Slowly lower the weight back down to the slow count of four
- Repeat until exhaustion, which should be around four to eight reps. Once you reach exhaustion, don't try to heave or jerk the weight to get one last repetition in. Instead, just keep trying to produce the movement, even if it's not “going” anywhere, for another five seconds or so. If you're using the appropriate amount of weight or resistance, you'll be able to perform eight to 10 reps
- Immediately switch to the next exercise for the next target muscle group, and repeat the first three steps
Remember, exercises such as these will help build your major muscle groups along with your grip strength, leading to significant improvements in overall strength, range of motion, balance, bone density, and even mental clarity. If you’re just starting out, consult with a personal fitness trainer who can instruct you about proper form and technique. He or she can also help you develop a plan based on your unique fitness goals and one that is safe for any medical conditions you may have.
This calm Friday morning, by my first (and far from the last) cup of coffee with biscotti, I am thinking how grateful I am for the opportunity to share my green beauty discoveries, slow living lifestyle inspirations and creations on this blog, with all of you. This is so important to me – this
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