Getting Stronger at Any Age Part 1

For the episode this week, Tom tackles an exciting test ride – a crucial section of his 400-mile ride across Washington later this year! Will it solidify his wife's support, or throw a wrench in the plans? Plus, Tom shares his latest option for getting a continuous glucose monitor without a prescription.

The guests this we are Katie Butte, Ph.D an assistant professor at Seattle Pacific University in the Department of Health and Human Performance. The other guest is the department chair Dale Cannavan Ph.D. This first of a two-part discussion dives deep into the foundational principles of crafting an effective fitness program as you age. They bring a wealth of knowledge you won't want to miss!

So, grab your helmet, clip in, and get ready for an episode packed with inspiration, practical advice, and a peek into the challenges (and triumphs!) of cycling over sixty.

Link
How to pronounce "spuyaləpabš " youtu.be/LuAOacB4Rlk?si=px0rBLtU42zGIYm4

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Please send comments, questions and especially content suggestions to me at tom.butler@teleiomedia.com

Show music is "Come On Out" by Dan Lebowitz. Find him here : lebomusic.com

Transcript

Tom Butler: 0:04

This is the Cycling Over 60 podcast, season two, episode 46, getting stronger at any age. Part one, and I'm your host, tom Butler. I am back again with interviews that I hope will inspire and educate you as much as they do for me. First, here's the latest update on my efforts to get and stay fit later in life. Last week, I needed to pick up one of our cars from the shop that is about 31 miles from our house. I decided to make it a ride to demonstrate how a bike can be used to run errands.

Tom Butler: 0:43

The shop is in the city of Tacoma, washington, so I knew that there would be some challenges, because Tacoma isn't a really bike-friendly city. However, I didn't expect to experience maybe the most unsafe conditions that I have ever ridden. In many places, I had to opt for riding on the sidewalk. That meant riding slower than I had planned and also, as you probably know, sidewalks present their own obstacles. I was following instructions from Google Maps. I don't know if the route it put me on was the only route, but it certainly wasn't very safe for cycling For a number of reasons. I ended up taking three hours to do what I thought was going to take two and a half hours, but I did make it before the shop closed. I should say that I barely made it. I will not be doing that ride again. The good news is that a plan is in place to build a dedicated path through the worst part of the ride that I did. The bad news is they plan to complete it in 2029. A unique aspect of the planned trail is its name. The name honors the local native tribes in the Lushootseed language. Here is the best I can do at pronouncing it Spoyalapopsch. Now, if you want to see the spelling and hear the real pronunciation, there is a link in the show notes. I think it is a really fun name and, like the city of Puyallup, you'll be able to tell who is a visitor by how they pronounce it.

Tom Butler: 2:04

On Friday, I ride part of the route that I will use to ride across the state of Washington in September. If you are new to the podcast, this is my challenge for this season. Friday I'm going to ride part of what will be day two of the ride in September. I'm riding state route 20 from New Halem towards the pass. I'm only going to do 25 miles of it. I have two objectives in doing this ride. First is to get an idea of what my average speed will be for the climbing on day two. The second objective will be to see the condition of the shoulder on state route 20. My wife, kelly, is going to drive the car and pick me up at the end of the 25 miles. One big unknown is how she's going to react to the riding conditions. She hasn't yet warmed up to the idea of me doing this ride. I have a feeling that she could be really set against it if she hates the riding conditions. So this is a big moment that could determine her support for me doing the challenge.

Tom Butler: 2:57

I'm once again wearing a CGM after running out of my subscription from NutriSense. I find it to be an important thing to do right now. I wish I would have been wearing one when I did my century ride recently. I would like to have that data to help me determine how I should eat.

Tom Butler: 3:13

On Seattle to Portland next month I went through Diabetic Warehouse for my new sensors. I'm not sure why, but I didn't need to go through any prescription process with Diabetic Warehouse. The cost was basically $120 for one sensor. It was marked down from $200. You can get a sensor for $108 if you do a subscription. Now here's the thing the subscription delivers every 15 days. The sensor is good for 14 days, so there is a bit of a mismatch there. Not too big of a deal, but I do find it to be a little weird. I ended up getting two sensors. This gives me 28 days of monitoring. I'm hoping by the time I need another sensor I will be able to get them over the counter. I think it is possible that the CGMs coming over the counter means that the Freestyle Libra 2 sensor that I use will be on sale at a lot of places that see demand interrupted by cheaper over-the-counter models.

Tom Butler: 4:08

If anyone out there is using CGMs without a diabetes prescription, I would love to hear about your experience. I was searching for something online a couple of weeks ago and ran across a professor at Seattle Pacific University named Dr Katie Butte. I was very interested in Dr Butte's perspective because she is interested in impacting the fitness of older adults. I reached out to her and not only did she agree to come on the podcast, but she also recruited Dr Del Canavan to come on as well. Dr Canavan is the chair of the Health and Human Performance Department at Seattle Pacific University. They ended up presenting such a wide range of ideas for our discussion that we decided it would take a couple of episodes to get through it all. Here's our first discussion. I am joined today by two awesome guests. I'm joined by Dr Katie Butte and Dr Dale Canavan. Welcome to you both.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 5:07

Thank you, good to be here.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 5:09

Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for inviting us.

Tom Butler: 5:12

Well, I'm so glad that you agreed to come on and I'm so looking forward to this conversation. I have been ever since you guys agreed to join me. Could you both talk about what your backgrounds are, what areas you're interested in, what brought you to exercise science and your interests?

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 5:30

I went to Seattle Pacific as a student and had Dr Canavan and his love for exercise science also inspired me.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 5:38

So I also was a student athlete and I wanted to just basically use exercise science as a way to develop my own personal athleticism, and that was the sole focus going into grad school as well. I got my master's in exercise physiology and nutrition science at San Diego State and continued to fuel my passion for athletes and my own training. And then I had an experience and was exposed to several different both research and community health, older adult exercise opportunities and started teaching older adult exercise classes and doing some research there and said, wow, this is incredible. And so I ended up actually still fueling my passion and unselfish desires with exercise science, but then also diving into older adults and maintaining independence through physical activity. So that was what I focused on during my PhD and from more focused on older adults that are declining or have declined quite significantly in the frail category. But that's kind of where I ended up. And now, coming back to SPU, as a professor, I have many different interests, from the big spectrum of athletes to older adults. Still, Perfect.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 7:01

Yeah, good morning. My name is Dale Canavan and I have a little bit of an accent. I'm from Northern Ireland. My uh interest in fitness really developed at a very young age, like Katie. But I was in the British Army. I spent 13 years as a physical training instructor, training anyone from recruits through to special forces. Then, when I left, I I'd met my wife on one of my tours in the United States and I thought well, I better go back to school and get a degree. So I just studied my exercise science undergrad, jumped straight into a master's and then fell into a PhD straight after that. My PhD was focused on basically strength characteristics of muscles using ultrasound MRI technology, but I also did exercise physiology. So I'm Katie and I have very similar backgrounds in our interests. I think we're both of us are kind of unique in that we have our hands in many pies with the human body, and I think that's really a vital component of understanding how everything works together. I've been teaching at SPU now well crikey, 14 years, so yeah, it's a great place.

Tom Butler: 8:20

I'm wondering if you guys could comment briefly on the value of exercise in keeping people healthy. It just seems like there's so many disease states that we see right now that can be impacted by people just moving.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 8:38

Yeah, I always start off with the 3-4-50 in my classes, and that is three behaviors account for four diseases that lead to 50% of the deaths in the U? S. So those three behaviors are physical activity, nutrition and tobacco smoke or tobacco use. And so I always say, okay, if we could just think about physical activity and improving that as well as the other two behaviors and focus on that area, we now have added value to half of the people in the US. And so how much value we have in just focusing on that behavior and now the nitty gritty of what you're doing and how you're doing it, when you're doing it, that's sort of secondary to just getting people moving of secondary to just getting people moving.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 9:29

Not only will mortality be affected, but your quality of life will be greatly impacted by just being more active throughout life and having a healthy nutritional backup to that. You know, what is really used a lot in the arena now is exercise, is medicine, and I'm a firm believer in that. The more we move, the better we get. And as soon as we stop moving, that's when we get old. We don't stop moving because we get old.

Tom Butler: 9:55

Well, I like the thought that I want to die healthy. You know I want and I just see movement as such a vital thing to dying healthy, which obviously you know, I have a podcast on cycling over 60. You know, my focus is that cycling after 60 is going to be something that leads to quality of life.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 10:20

Yeah, that's great.

Tom Butler: 10:21

Tell me a bit about the Department of Health and Human Performance at Seattle Pacific University.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 10:27

I love our department because our graduates do so many different things, and so it's not like a nursing degree, which is great, but you're a nurse or an accounting degree. You become an accountant within exercise, science or health and human performance. We have so many different routes that people take either physical therapy, occupational therapy, chiropractic, athletic training, perhaps more grad school for research and teaching, or community health and public health, to name a few, or string and conditioning too, as well as personal training, and so within our classes we have such a variety of interests, and people then can supplement their academics with different internships and opportunities and projects that they have in order to make it what they really want.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 11:19

And to further on that. Both Katie and I, our whole philosophy is to put theory into practice. You know, reading a textbook, listening to a lecture note is one thing, but being able to jump into doing that from a practical perspective and understand that is what we strive for with our students. So I think it's a very hands-on approach. So when the students leave, not only do they have the theoretical underpinnings but they can do the stuff.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 11:51

When I was a student, I had an advisor that said find a major that has the most classes you want to this for undergraduate, the most classes you want to take that you're interested in, and the least classes you want to avoid. And that's exactly what our major is. Our classes are super fun and, as Steele said, practical hands-on. A lot of them are in the weight room or I can use them while I'm in the weight room and so that's yeah, just out on that. It's hard work, but it's really, really rewarding and really fun.

Tom Butler: 12:23

I love what you're talking about the program and, again, I think we need those professionals. I think that as a culture, we need to embrace those professionals. This is vital at this time for people to understand the importance of movement and what it can do for their health. So I love what you're saying about your program there. I have asked you to come on to do something impossible, which is, you know, to give us an comprehensive view of fitness for older people. You know something you guys are, you know, doing four years of instruction on for people. Something you guys are, you know, doing four years of instruction on for people. You know, and how to kind of boil that down to something in the podcast here.

Tom Butler: 13:10

I'd like to start here. What are some of the foundational things that you think people need to understand? There's all kinds of advice out there, you know do this, do that. You know, don't do that, do this. You know there's just all kinds of ways. What are some of the foundational things that you think people need to understand when they start developing their fitness program?

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 13:35

There are many ways we could approach this. For me, it comes down to starting off at the right intensity, because we want people to stick at it for longevity. I used to have my own personal training business and one of the things I would always try to emphasize with my clients if they were an aerobic or cardiovascular athlete was that the aging process is going to happen, no matter what. Aging process is going to happen no matter what, and part of that aging process is a body's ability to use oxygen at the cellular level, something we refer to as our VO2 max. So that's going to have a steady decline and there are many reasons why. But from about 25 to 30, we're going to see a decline as we age. But it's not all doom and gloom, because we can slow down that loss and indeed we can improve our body's ability to use oxygen, and that comes from our activities.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 14:36

How much physical activity we do, how much exercise, the type of exercise and lots of different training modalities will affect different things within that realm. One of the reasons we get this decline in VO2max is because we have this natural age-related decline in heart rate. So our maximum heart rate will decline as we get older. So one of the tools we use is this maximum heart rate formula 220 minus your age. So as we get older our maximum heart rate will decline and that will impact our tolerance for exercise. But the more physically active we are, the higher the tolerable limits we can maintain can happen as long as we keep training, or indeed start training. We can take 50, 60, 70 year olds and we can make them fitter if they've been sedentary. So it's an important concept to think. You know it's never too late.

Tom Butler: 15:37

And it seems like, katie, that it's never too late is something that you see right. If you're dealing with people that are kind of in that fragile fitness state and I imagine a number of them have not been active at all you would be seeing kind of the ultimate demonstration of that never too late, am I right about that?

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 15:59

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, my dissertation was in frail older adults in retirement communities not totally frail, it was moderate functioning, and so I actually sought out people that were not physically active and just implemented them to stand up more throughout the day and I said I'm not going to make you exercise, I'm not going to make you do exercise, I just want you to stand up more and just by increasing the amount of times they stood up throughout the day, as well as the length, the duration they stood up throughout the day, improve their function. So think, like lower body strength, upper body strength and, and that that was just going from basically less to a little bit more, and so starting somewhere is powerful as well, as you can continue to improve, and at some point then, maintaining your quality of life, maintaining what you can do, can also be considered an improvement.

Tom Butler: 16:54

Again, I think it's an important message no matter how inactive you have been, getting active is going to have benefit, and so do it whenever, as soon as possible, but do it whenever as soon as possible, but do it whenever.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 17:09

Right and with, as Dale said, keeping the long-term perspective. I think it's important for people to recognize of hurts. Well, either that gives somebody the mentality to either suck it up and keep doing it and make it hurt worse, or oh, I'm not going to do it anymore. And now I'm worse off than I was yesterday. Where the human body is amazing, and something I also really gleaned from Dale's classes that stuck with me was you know, if we can move in the right way and get our body functioning and moving in the right way, having mobility and stability at certain joints, so certain joints of our body move certain ways and they're designed that way. Other joints are a little more stable and are meant to be stronger and supportive, and so if we can pay attention to what's hurting and why it's hurting, we actually don't have to say, oh, it's just because I'm old or because I'm running, we can actually be healthy and pain-free.

Tom Butler: 18:14

So you're talking about utilization of oxygen as one of those functions or one of those foundational principles, and it seems like now you're talking about something else. As far as muscle strength, I don't know how, as an exercise physiologist, you talk about that else. As far as muscle strength, I don't know how, as an exercise physiologist, you talk about that, but kind of muscle strength, muscle ability to contract muscle, whatever. That that's also one of those foundational principles. Is that correct?

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 18:40

Yeah. So fitness is like being fit is a really broad term. There's five components of fitness, and so cardiovascular endurance, or strength, so how good your heart beats, and then the other components of fitness are your muscular strength, your muscular endurance, your flexibility, which I like to call range of motion or mobility, and then body composition. So those five components really make up what, how fit you are.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 19:07

So being fit in one area area you could think of a long distance runner they might lack fitness in a different area yeah, and on top of that, what katie mentioned, in addition to our vr2 max declining as we get older, we also get a loss of muscle mass as we get older. That age-related loss is something called sarcopenia and that is more prevalent in our fast twitch muscle fibers. So people, you know they lose. That's why one of these, why they fall over more often, because they lose their base of support and they can't have that quick reaction and and that's because they get a decrease or a loss in the nerve, the fast twitch motor nerve that's innervating the muscles. So that's a natural age-related loss. But if we remain active, or indeed become more active, we can re-kickstart that system.

Tom Butler: 20:00

I want you to say that again, because sarcopenia is like a really dirty word as far as I'm concerned at my age, you know it's the thought of losing muscle is not attractive to me. So when you say, kickstart that system there is a reality there I am thinking, um, there is a reality there. I am thinking you know, you're probably not, at 55, going to say I want to be a world-class sprinter and so I'm going to train for the next 20 years and when I'm 75, I'm going to be able to win Olympic gold medal in sprinting. Do you feel like we're? There's still a lot for us to learn as far as how we can maintain muscle as we get older.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 20:55

Yeah, there's always a bunch that we will study to learn. We know a fraction of it, but here's the scenario. Right, all of the cells in our body are constantly being built up and broken down. You know muscle cells, bone cells I think the only cell in our body are constantly being built up and broken down. You know, muscle cells, bone cells. I think the only cell in the body not to change through age is the, the lens and the eye.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 21:17

But when we exercise, our muscles go through this breakdown process and then in the recovery period, hopefully they're going to build back up with the correct nutrition, sleep patterns, all of that kind of thing. So we're always, you know, breaking down and rebuilding up tissues and our goal is to encourage that reparative process. A number of ways that we can stimulate that and of course exercise is one pathway. So so we exercise, the tissue breaks down and then we recover and during that recovery period this tissue is encouraged to repair itself and then we can enhance that through nutritional strategies. And of course our hormones have a big influence.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 22:03

So, unfortunately, as we get older for men, our testosterone decreases, so that reparative process slows down and naturally some men have more testosterone than others, hence they have bigger muscles, recover faster. Those types of things, certain types of exercise that we do have been shown to have a greater stimulatory effect on our hormones, and those are higher intense activities such as like really heavy weight training. So one of the things we can do to try to increase or encourage more testosterone is to exercise at a really high intensity, because when we're exercising at a really high intensity our body naturally wants to recruit those faster twitch motor units and with that process we're kind of tricking or teasing the body to release more testosterone. So particularly high resistance training and possibly high intensity interval training, these are really complex mechanisms.

Tom Butler: 23:08

Talking about hormones and what happens when you stress muscles, these are physiological systems that have real complexity to them. I just want to throw this out there. This isn't something that we're going to take a pill for someday. This isn't something like you know, just give me a pill so I can take it and I'll be fixed. I mean, this is requires real work.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 23:31

Totally agreed.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 23:33

There's a lot of research trying to do that, but it's a lot of money and not too much success yet.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 23:40

I mean, I think maybe the next blood doping equivalent for athletes is going to be genetic manipulation, but that's some way off and and it is it's. It's such a hierarchical process that creates these cellular adaptations. I think it's going to take a long time to try to figure out that that out. And and that doesn't even give us so. When we exercise, not only are we getting the physiological, biochemical changes, what about the mental state, the euphoria, and the pill I imagine wouldn't be able to deliver that.

Tom Butler: 24:15

I think that's well said and I think it's just a matter of as a culture. It seemed like there was a long time of trying to find ways to not have to expend energy, not, you know, finding machines that we could use so that when you're plowing the field, you had an engine plowing the field, not, you know, hanging on to a horse and a plow, and you know all the things that we've found to reduce our need to be active or to put out energy. And now there's this cultural shift like it's, you know, ok, we still need to put out that energy, but now we get the advantage of putting out that energy. You know, I'm out on the bike on a beautiful trail, mount Rainier in front of me. Now we need to select, to be active rather than being forced to be active.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 25:17

Yeah, I think you know technology is wonderful and it has made our lives a lot easier. But I can certainly compare myself as a child to the children I see today, and I grew up picking potatoes on a farm all day, you know, eight to 10 hours a day, and I was much healthier than today's children. I mean, the United States is the global exporter of metabolic syndrome or syndrome X or syndrome X and that is this cluster of health lifestyle-related ailments obesity, diabetes, hypertension, sedentary lifestyle and those are co-factors and you know we are becoming more unhealthy, not only as a nation but as a globe because of our lack of activity.

Tom Butler: 26:14

So, if we're going to turn that around, you know, and again, that's one of the things personally I'm very interested in and you know, the reason that I have the podcast is I'm hoping other people can hear some of these conversations and help them turn things around Again. We're talking about these foundational things and you mentioned the mental health aspects of it and I'm wondering is one of the foundational things to build a successful program to be more active? Is there an element of doing something you enjoy that you feel is foundational to that? Yeah, absolutely. It also is helpful that, if you enjoy, it feel is foundational to that?

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 26:48

Yeah, absolutely. It also is helpful that if you enjoy it, you'll keep doing it, and so, as we talked from the beginning, finding a program that you'll keep doing forever so that you're not going to get hurt, or when you do get hurt, you'll be able to be inspired to repair and keep going. The other portion we talked about the mentality of it, and Dale said you know part of the other improvements and benefits of exercise, and then, specifically, higher intensity exercise or heavy resistance training is hormonal changes and that affects your endorphins and your pleasure, and getting the high of exercise is great. Another thing that we see and there's a lot more research coming out about it is cognition, and so you mentioned that a scary word is sarcopenia. I think the other really scary word is dementia or Alzheimer's, and we see that there's something and I don't know the mechanism of it yet or the science, but there's something about this higher intensity adaptation that's also helping cognition and delay dementia onset or Alzheimer's.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 27:57

So that's an excellent point, katie, that psychological aspect, and there's a hormone called BDNF, brain-derived neurotropic factor, and when we exercise, particularly with higher intensities, we seem to see an increase in that and that's creating healthy neuronal development within brain tissue. Hopefully, as we learn more on that, it could be a mechanism for helping prevent or thwart some of these age-related issues like dementia.

Tom Butler: 28:30

The thing is, I don't think we need to learn much more about it. I mean, I think the more we learn about it, the more fascinating it will be, but I think, anytime that you're doing something that creates a biological chemical that benefits your brain, I want to do it. Yeah, yeah, and I get. It goes back to what I said about and it's making you feel good.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 28:53

Yeah, it's making you feel good.

Tom Butler: 28:55

And it goes back to I want to die healthy. You know I want to and I part of that is my cognitive ability. I want to die, having really good cognition.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 29:07

I want to be able to die by putting the coffin lid on myself.

Tom Butler: 29:13

I'm right there, I'm going. Yeah, let's close this down Again talking about some of these foundational things mitochondria Now we don't have time for a biochemistry class, but how would you describe mitochondria? You know, what do non-exercise science people need to understand about mitochondria?

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 29:37

Mitochondrial foundation is important in energy production. So we have these little organelles and muscles called mitochondria and in essence they make energy via aerobic metabolism, and aerobic metabolism is the stuff that we use the most of right now. So we take fuels that we eat glucose, glycogen, carbohydrates and fats and that is eventually converted into the energy that the body uses, called ATP, to allow us to survive. So all of the cells in our body have to use energy and that energy production has to come from somewhere. Now, within muscles, we all know we have different muscle fiber types slow twitch and fast twitch.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 30:27

Slow twitch are the muscle fibers that we use mostly for oxidative metabolism, so low intensity activities, all the stuff that we are doing right now. Our body will be using these muscle fibers and within those muscle fibers we have a whole heap of mitochondria. We have more mitochondria in our slow twitch muscle fibers than we do on our fast twitch. So our slow twitch muscle fibers have a better capacity for oxidative metabolism, and that's good, because under oxidative metabolism we use fat primarily as a fuel source, and some people are better at this than others and it's one of the training adaptations our body will get better using that as a fuel source, even under higher exercise intensities. It's a trainable factor and there are many reasons, but some of those reasons are as we train aerobically, we get more mitochondria in the muscle and the mitochondria become bigger and more dense. When that happens, that allows us to be better at making energy by a fat metabolism.

Tom Butler: 31:47

That seems to be an absolutely vital thing. When you talk about the US exporting metabolic syndrome, syndrome X, to me and again, for me personally, there's this element of visceral fat and I was a visceral fat production machine, I think, for about 30 years Not a good thing. And so now I'm in that phase at 61 where I'm trying to burn off that visceral fat. And so when you say that's something that can be trained, I think I'm hearing you correctly that even at 61, that capacity to metabolize fat and also look at diet, then putting myself in a condition to metabolize visceral fat, that's something that my body can be trained to do.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 32:46

Absolutely that my body can be trained to do. Absolutely, Tom. First I just want to start by saying well, you certainly don't look 61, mate. But you are absolutely right.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 32:54

Visceral fat is problematic for many reasons. What people mostly think about the aesthetic perspective. But from a health perspective, visceral fat is not good. Being apple-shaped is worse than being pear-shaped. So when we're apple-shaped, our body, when we have more visceral fat, our body, will release something called C-reactive protein and that is a global marker of inflammation within the body, and we know inflammation in the body is not good for heart disease. Not only that, it increases our insulin resistance, which, of course, is a precursor to becoming diabetic. For me, when I think about visceral fat and the health implications, I go back to mitochondrial health and I try to create a program that will make my muscle better at using fat as a fuel source, Because if I can use more fat as a fuel source, then that fat has to come from somewhere. And if our diet is good, then hopefully we're encouraging lipolysis, the breakdown of fat within our body that we can use for fuel.

Tom Butler: 34:10

I like how that sounds, for sure.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 34:13

So, tom, when we exercise, obviously we're using different proportions of fuel. Under resting conditions, hopefully, if we're healthy, if we have good metabolic health, then we're using fat predominantly as a fuel source, a little bit of carbohydrate, and then, as we increase our intensity of exercise, our reliance on glucose increases and our ability to use fat decreases. And somewhere in the middle you have this where both fuels cross over. And our goal is, with endurance training is to say, for most people it's about 50%, 40, 40, anywhere from 40 to 60 they're at. This 50 50 ratio coincides with your lactate threshold, and then our goal is to shift that rightwards so we can keep using fat as a fuel source for longer, at higher intensity, and of course that's super important for for cycling we also have this concept that's called EPOC excessive post-oxygen consumption.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 35:11

Thank you, it's like an acronym that I just feel like is a word. So that also is affecting basically what energy system you're using whether using oxygen for the fuels like your oxidative, or your anaerobic system. And so then at the beginning of your workout you're stealing from your anaerobic system and then you have to pay back your oxygen at the end of your workout or afterwards, and so how quickly you can stop stealing from your anaerobic system at the beginning also plays an effect into how well you're using oxygen and when and how hard you're working.

Tom Butler: 35:52

That seems like it introduces another foundational principle, which is energy storage muscle glycogen, liver glycogen. That storage system is also important, right?

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 36:05

Yes, but as long as you have a healthy diet, it should be, because you can only store so much. But if you have continuous exercise, our goal is, you know, we need to have a glycogen and glucose there to make the muscles work. But if we are better able at using fat as a fuel source, then we don't have to use as much of that glucose and glycogen. So our goal when we think about, for me, cycling or long distance running, is to limit the amount of glucose and glycogen that I'm using and maximize the amount of fat that I'm using. Then, when I need to do my high intensity work, like sprint up a hill or sprint for the finish, then I can rely on that high energy fuel, glucose and glycogen for that.

Tom Butler: 37:02

You're saying something that I'd like to clarify again. A lot of this is just clarifying for me. I eat a meal a good meal in the morning, let's say, and then I go out for a moderate intensity activity. I don't first use up my glycogen stores. If I'm doing it, there's a lot of oxygen, there's a lot of ability to burn fat low intensity Is my body going to first turn to the fat or is it still going to burn up that stored glycogen before it goes to fat?

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 37:38

That's a great question and one that's asked often. It depends on the intensity of exercise and it also depends upon your body's current physiological condition. So here's a scenario. A lot of people are aware of lactic acid and most people consider it like something bad. And it's not. I'm not going to get into that just yet for this bit, but it's not a bad thing.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 38:06

But when we are exercising, our body will want to start off using slow twitch muscle fibers and as the intensity increases we need more force. Therefore my body will start to call upon the faster twitch motor units and we're always sliding back and forth between that, based upon exercise intensity, because that dictates how much force we're asking the muscles to generate. If we're under low conditions gentle cycling we're going to be using probably a lot of our slow twitch muscle fibers. So when we're working between those two, our body can flip in and out of these energy systems. So the slow twitch we're going to be able to use oxidative metabolism. So with that we get a lot of fat use. But when we stomp on the pedals, our body just the actual speed of the muscle contraction is too fast to allow the oxidative system to work. Then it kicks into our anaerobic energy systems, glycolysis, where we cannot use fat as a fuel source. We can only use glucose as a fuel source, glucose or glycogen. So, depending upon the intensity of exercise, will depend upon which muscle fiber types we're using and therefore which energy systems we're able to use. As I'm increasing my exercise intensity, my body will be using a lot of fat, but then that fat amount will start to decrease as the intensity of exercise increases and at some point the anaerobic metabolism, the use of glucose and glycogen, starts to increase because the intensity of exercise is getting harder. Now a byproduct of that anaerobic metabolism is lactate. Lactate accumulation actually impairs an enzyme called lipase which is responsible for the process of lipolysis, the breakdown of free fatty acids. Lipolysis, the breakdown of free fatty acids. So what if lactic lactic acids or lactate is the muscles ability from using fat as a fuel source, and that's how we can fatigue really quickly if we go too fast.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 40:33

So the goal is, especially for long distance cycling, to try to ease the body into using more fat as a fuel source. So we have this concept called the crossover effect, where under resting conditions, most of our fuel is from fat, a little bit is from carbohydrate, and as exercise intensity increases, the the ability to use fat declines and our preference for glucose and glycogen increases. So, for example, sprinting it is 100 percent glucose and glycogen and under resting conditions it's sort of 70 30. It depends on the body's state of condition. For most people, where those two fuels cross, for most people where those two fuels cross, where we're using 50% carbohydrate and 50% fat, that occurs between 40 to 60% of your maximal fitness, your VO2 max, and that is because blood lactate is now increasing. And that is because blood lactate is now increasing, preventing our ability to use fat. Now that coincides nicely with our lactate threshold. You know the point at which our blood lactate goes through this exponential increase and we can gauge that roughly with our breathing. We have this exponential increase in our expiration.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 41:58

We call it the talk test. So if you can't have a conversation with someone when you're on the bike, that means that you're probably going into that anaerobic metabolism. So you're really starting to really use this glucose and glycogen and if you're using too much of that, you only have so much. The body will fatigue or hit the wall. If we do the correct training, we can shift that crossover concept.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 42:23

So if it occurs at 40 percent of your max. We could shift that to 45 to 50 to 65. We can shift that. It's really it's a really plastic malleable tool within our physiology. So that could be okay. Maybe pre-trained, this crossover effect occurred at 40% of my maximum work rate. After a few months training it could be up to 55% of my maximum work rate. That means I can pedal faster, go faster, but still be able to use fat as a fuel source. So the good news there is that it saves this precious fuel, glucose and glycogen for when I need to work harder, when I need to sprint hard to overtake Katie, because she's just such a speed demon, Right, right.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 43:12

And, yeah, I wanted to reemphasize what Dale said about how plastic this concept of lactate threshold is and how it can move. You can improve it really well and fairly quickly. You can also lose it, and that's the talk test, and this relative intensity is a better predictor of what your current cardiovascular fitness is at that point. Then this VO2 max term that is always thrown out there, where our VO2 max is much more predicted. We have a genetic threshold there, so it's not. It's going, you can improve it to a certain extent, but it's not quite as plastic as our lactate threshold.

Tom Butler: 43:54

Well, I just want to point out real quick that if people are interested in hearing more about lactic acid, there is an episode September 22nd called Winning the Cramp Battle and you can go listen to that, because we get into lactic acid quite a bit there. This is maybe, to me, some of the best news there can be right that this is something that can be improved, that this is something that can be improved, that this crossover is something that can be moved if we change our behaviors so that we can utilize fat, because I think that you know that's a big thing. You know, one of the things I'm really in the middle of thinking about is this concept of we have access to so many calories in our modern life, right, I mean, when you think about just how many calories there are in the grocery store that we can just walk in and have access to all these calories and very impactful calories.

Tom Butler: 44:54

You know things that are very sugary, not like an apple. You know a candy bar is not something that we had access to. You know, for the entire time we've been around on this planet as humans, and so you know this. This element of being able to utilize fat to me is a very important thing for for modern lifestyle.

Tom Butler: 45:22

Not only for exercise, but also for health. I want to bring something else in that. I'm wondering if you see it as a foundational element. One of the things I'm most thankful for is my ankles, my knees, my hips are in good shape, you know, I think, actually in great shape the joints, the connective tissue around those joints. I'm really healthy in that way, which has been such a blessing for this journey that I'm on. Would you consider that one of those foundational things? How do you view that?

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 45:54

Absolutely. Katie touched on it earlier. There's what we call the joint by joint approach, in that different joints are designed to do different things. Simply categorized, the ankle is a mobile joint, the knee is a stability joint, only does flexion and extension, and then the hip is this joint that has to do a huge range of motion. A lot of people struggle with ankle and hip mobility. So let's say, for example, we lose hip mobility.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 46:26

That lack of mobility, that movement has to come from somewhere. If it can't come from the hip, it's going to come from the joint above or the joint below. So that means it could be forcing the knee to do more movement patterns than a knee can do. So the knee flexion extension, that's a little bit of internal, external rotation, but not a lot. So if the hip can't move appropriately, then that means the knee might be forced to do those movements to compensate, which of course places a lot of stress on the things like the ACL, the PCL, the meniscus. Any of those soft tissue structures can become damaged. Or we might have to get that lack of hip movement in the lumbar spine and a lot of people suffer from back pain and it probably is linked to a lack of hip mobility. We get these lumbopelvic disorders and that's pretty common in cyclists.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 47:27

I've worked with a bunch of cyclists that always have low back pain and when I assess their hip mobility it sucks. You're lucky that you have good mobility in those areas and one of the biggest factors I feel impacts those is our lifestyle. We have this syndrome called lower crossed syndrome, upper crossed syndrome as well, really, in essence, where the muscles on the front of the body get super tight and the muscles on the back of the body get long and weak. So we have an immediate imbalance and that's because we sit at desks all day, we drive all day, we ride bikes all the time and it's a lifestyle maladaptation to our posture. So when I work with a bunch of people, first thing I actually address is someone's posture, because that brings about better muscle balance. So some of the cyclists I've worked with I don't really focus on them, like the quads or your chin on the back of the body, because that is constantly in a lengthened position.

Tom Butler: 48:33

I have to make an admission here that my ankle, my knee and my hip health is probably genetic. I don't think there's any way that you could attribute to that good decision-making on my part, unfortunately. You know I'm not very good with flexibility. I do set. You know I don't have my core strength is not that. So that's, you know, that's one of the challenges I have. That's one of the things that you know that I need to do more with. And I'm getting there. Tom, you chose your parents wisely.

Tom Butler: 49:07

Yeah, exactly. Well, we are kind of coming to the end of this podcast episode and there's so much more that I'd like to talk about, because I think we've laid this foundation, and then I'd love to have you guys back and talk. Okay, now, once we have this foundation, what you know, what can we do with it or what are the mixtures of things that we should be doing? But I would like I don't know that this is something that's easily conveyed but what are some things that you would recommend from an exercise perspective? You know, I'm 59 years old. A couple years ago I was 59 years old, I was really out of shape. I bought a new bike. I wanted to do something. What are some things that I should have done at that time to kind of assess where I was?

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 50:07

That's a great question. I got to find something you like and got to find something that will keep you doing that activity for a longer period of time, and I'm a big believer in progressive overload. So where you start, just go out for a ride and after 20 minutes that's it, you're done. Then you shouldn't really increase that by more than 10% in a week, and that allows you to keep climbing the ladder much longer and take one step at a time rather than jumping these four steps. Not only will that make you feel better mentally, you can feel like you're achieving your short-term goals much more easily towards your long-term goal. It will also help allow the body tissues time to recover and adapt to the fresh loads that are being imposed upon it. Remember, the body will adapt to the loads imposed upon it and if those loads are too high, then you could overcome the threshold of that tissue resiliency and I don't know know, get clontrophysiatis or something right and to also keep mixing that up.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 51:24

I think you've touched on this, but somebody told me once you don't actually get stronger in the weight room or on the bike. You're not getting stronger. At that time, Really, what Dale was saying you're breaking down everything, you're putting yourself into this voluntary inflammatory response state and so then having the appropriate time outside of that right. So if you work out an hour every day, you have 23 other hours to have an opportunity where you can get stronger and maximize the amount of time you did just spend doing your physical activity. And so more is not always better when you're starting out as a program, but paying attention to when you need to self-modify and paying attention to the things that do make you actually maximize your workout time, whether that's your other behaviors of nutrition and sleep primarily, and how that actually directly also affects your health and your exercise program.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 52:23

Yeah, tom, and you did sort of just because you mentioned VO2max and you know it's something that people can do. You can find these like the Queen's College step test is a three-minute step test that you can find online and that's a really good predictor of your VO2 max, or the multi-stage fitness test. There are things that you can use at least to get an estimate of where your current standing is and then you could put that into this. So for the average college-age healthy person, their VO2 max is roughly 40, 38 to 42, you know, and as we get older obviously that decreases. But if you want to have an idea, you could find one of these online tests and do it. You could improve that by as much as 40.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 53:13

For most people you get like a 5 to 20 improvement because it's genetically predetermined, but but if you are sedentary you could see a 5% to 20% improvement because it's genetically predetermined, but if you are sedentary you could see a 40% improvement and then if you are very fit, like you, tom, you might only see like a 5% improvement. But remembering, the VO2 max is just one component. It only has this small window of adaptation. It's those other factors. That lactate threshold is really really, really, really plastic and with it that allows us for this crossover, this effect of the fuel that we're using. So, but that comes back to the concept we spoke about earlier specific adaptations to impose demand, and I think that would be a good follow-up in our next podcast.

Tom Butler: 53:58

I love it. Well, this has been fantastic. You know, I knew it was going to be like I said. I was really excited about this conversation and it's been good. I appreciate so much the work that you're doing, you know, because I do think it's vital training people to understand these issues and going out with working, working with people, helping people get fit. I think it's vital. So I really appreciate the work that you're doing and thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.

Dale Cannavan Ph.D.: 54:28

Hey, if we can help if we can help one person be more active, our job is done Right.

Tom Butler: 54:34

I think that's a good perspective. For sure it's good perspective for the podcast too. So we'll find another time to have you guys on, but for now I'll talk to you later.

Katie Butte Ph.D.: 54:46

Okay, thank you.

Tom Butler: 54:50

Bye now. That was one of the most educational discussions that we have had on the podcast and I can't wait to do part two in a few weeks. One of the concepts that I am mulling over is the aspect of fast twitch muscle functioning. I gave my fast twitch muscle fibers pretty much zero reason to stay functional for at least 25 years, probably longer. Moving forward, I think I need to have a specific focus on building fast twitch muscle fiber capacity. I believe there are going to be so many benefits that come from doing the activities I need to do to improve fast twitch muscle. The other thing that just keeps getting emphasized in conversation after conversation is the aspect of hip mobility and flexibility, especially for cyclists. When I'm stretching my hamstrings, if I put my chin down, I can feel the stretch all the way down my back to my hamstrings. I just simply have to find a flexibility program that is going to make a difference. Kelly believes she has one, so stay tuned for info on that.

Tom Butler: 55:57

I'm really interested in hearing your stories of getting stronger on the bike. Later on in life, have you found that you've been able, for example, to improve your climbing significantly? I'm especially interested if, like me, you were really out of shape for a long time. You can find my email and Instagram in the show notes, and the best way to interact is in the Strava Cycling Over 60 Club. Join the club and post your experience. That way, everyone can benefit from reading each other's ideas. I hope you are all finding new ways of expanding your health journey. Remember, age is just a gear change. Bye.