Speed Workout to Improve Longevity at Any Age | Dr. Andrew Huberman & Stuart McMillan

00:00:00.000 | I'm absolutely struck by this stride comes before sprint thing and I'm remembering back to

00:00:09.120 | cross country where they say we're going to do a stride workout at the end of a run we get back to

00:00:14.360 | the track at school and they do some strides and I'm just chuckling to myself because I always

00:00:21.520 | would tell myself in subsequent years you know okay I'm going to sprint but I'm going to sprint

00:00:25.780 | at you know 50% of my all-out speed yeah so I always think of all-out speed for me as um somebody's

00:00:34.100 | chasing me with a syringe filled with poison okay and I've got to get away okay um that's all-out

00:00:40.540 | speed I don't want to die so 50% of that 60 70 you know it's you know and I'm measuring it subjectively

00:00:46.740 | I'm not doing this by heart rates or anything like that and indeed anytime I've done 100% all out like

00:00:52.080 | in my mind imagining you know someone trying to try to really take my life and I'm running all out

00:00:56.140 | I end up with this lower back thing because of the you know it you get hurt yeah um but striding sounds

00:01:02.320 | like something that people could work up to how do you know after doing the skip workout that you

00:01:07.400 | described that you're quote-unquote ready to stride and start doing a stride workout and I should mention

00:01:13.580 | that the these workouts because we did one yesterday um you finish them feeling great this is an aspect

00:01:21.240 | of exercise that I think most people don't talk about unfortunately that this leave it all on the mat

00:01:27.100 | you know you take every set to failure in the gym or you're you know these long runs where you're just

00:01:31.840 | shredded that they're not great for teaching people how to be healthy because people are exhausted

00:01:40.220 | afterwards they're tired they over train quickly and then people say there's no such thing as over

00:01:44.940 | training it's like yeah if you can sleep all day eat all day and your profession is to do this

00:01:48.780 | but there is a such a thing as having a stressful life and wanting to be healthy and exercising and trying

00:01:53.620 | to incorporate that in a way that feeds the rest of your life yeah and I think these workouts that we

00:01:58.260 | did the workout we did yesterday excuse me um left me feeling you know posturally energetically

00:02:04.800 | mood wise it's feeling great I slept great last night felt great this morning

00:02:09.020 | I had a great workout in the gym as I mentioned earlier so I want to encourage people to give this

00:02:14.280 | a try and in doing that I want to give them a roadmap so a warm-up of 10 to 15 minutes

00:02:20.360 | 50 meter or so skip um could they do it on lawn dirt or concrete does it matter no it doesn't

00:02:27.440 | great yeah if you've got a really flat grass perfect okay but if you if you don't and do it on

00:02:33.900 | concrete no problem okay so basically no cost to this except a little bit of time and attention

00:02:37.860 | um 10 to 15 of those you know 50 meters out walk back repeat after a warm-up and if you need a little

00:02:44.940 | bit longer recovery than the probably 90 seconds it takes to walk back take it not a big deal the

00:02:50.220 | quality here is a term determining factor as you said you're not trying to get really fatigued from

00:02:56.300 | plyometric work this is a plyometric session you want to be kind of fresh going into each one and that's

00:03:02.520 | going to take you know for most people doing a maximal skip over the course of 50 50 meters it's

00:03:08.620 | 90 seconds is about enough but if you're really explosive and you're a really good skipper it might

00:03:13.420 | be three minutes that's fine as you said you want to feel good at the end of that you don't want to be

00:03:18.960 | beasted at the end of that now if you can do it where you're if we transition say from the skips

00:03:24.720 | and you can stride really well and if you can stride really well maybe you can sprint really well

00:03:29.280 | really well that doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't be tired at the end of the session

00:03:34.240 | but the quality of the movement has to be the governor there not the capacity not i got to get

00:03:41.200 | the work done and i don't care how that work looks or what it looks like i just got to get it done no

00:03:46.720 | with high intense work with sprint work your governor is always the quality of the work what does it look

00:03:52.980 | like what does it feel like it's a lot like resistance training in that way 100 always quality

00:03:57.780 | so um how does one transition into striding and what what what does that look like this is saying okay

00:04:04.120 | i'm gonna i'm gonna sprint but it's not a sprint because i'm gonna hold back a bit but how do you

00:04:09.660 | hold back and still have the expressive part because the expressive part it's a little hard to describe

00:04:14.160 | in words but yesterday you were encouraging rob and i to get us you know tall with our posture

00:04:19.360 | as if we're being pulled up by a string from our heads and it has a profound psychological effect and

00:04:24.000 | then you just feel your your body opening up in natural movement you don't have to think about

00:04:28.240 | coordinating the hand lift it just you're in you know like this full bowing out it's really wonderful

00:04:34.080 | if we describe the difference between all of the gait patterns just through the amount of space that you

00:04:42.320 | take up on the planet so when you when you walk it's a small space when you jog you're taking up a little

00:04:47.840 | bit more space when you run it's a bit more space when you start to stride it's more space again and then

00:04:52.800 | when you sprint you're up here and you're being maximally expressive so just think about it from that

00:04:57.520 | perspective the other part is jogging and running typically happens behind your center mass you crash

00:05:06.000 | onto the ground and you push back you have this propulsive phase there's not a lot of a break of

00:05:11.440 | braking phase here there's a long propulsive phase that happens with the foot pushing back behind the

00:05:17.280 | center mass striding and sprinting happens in front of the center mass there's an actually a longer

00:05:24.000 | eccentric phase where you drive a lot of force into the ground it's in front of the center mass

00:05:30.320 | and then you propel yourself off and it's a very short propulsive phase so think about it that way so

00:05:34.960 | it's a bigger shape and it's primarily more in front and it's also as i said this is important

00:05:40.560 | you can't sprint and most of the people that are listening to this cannot sprint are you telling us

00:05:45.920 | to not sprint no no i'm what i'm saying is you do not have that strategy available to you

00:05:52.480 | most of us like everybody who's listening to this almost everybody will be able to walk

00:05:56.240 | and if you can walk as you said you could probably jog and most of the people on the planet can walk

00:06:02.640 | jog and maybe they can run most people on the the planet can't stride they can't get any faster than

00:06:10.160 | 75 of what their capacity is because they will they just can't do that anymore if you're a kid you can do

00:06:15.440 | that you can run you can you can stride along all day but you get to a certain point where our tissues

00:06:21.440 | and our joint systems and we just do not have the capacity to run that fast safely and we definitely

00:06:28.800 | don't have it when we're sprinting and the difference here is when you're striding it's essentially a pretty

00:06:34.320 | simple traditional spring mass system the body acts as a spring just whether it's 50 on the front

00:06:41.280 | side 50 on the back side you hit and you bounce off you hit and you bounce off where sprinting is a

00:06:46.640 | little bit different this is the work of dr ken clark is a good friend of mine that he he published

00:06:51.520 | this in i think in 2018-19 it's called a two mass system where it's not the body is not acting as a

00:06:59.840 | spring there's a secondary mass of the shank and the foot that's contributing to up to about eight percent of the total

00:07:07.120 | force through contact so this elite sprinter is hitting the ground so hard that so there's another

00:07:13.840 | mass that's added to the spring and that's what i'm saying that's not available to you because you can't

00:07:19.440 | move your limbs fast enough and you don't have the range of motion that's big enough to be able to get

00:07:24.320 | that sort of velocity there's a dozen players in the nfl that can do that every elite sprinter

00:07:31.520 | is actually a sprinter most every other athlete and most every other sport can't actually sprint

00:07:36.800 | they're just they're operating as spring mass they don't have that secondary mass because they can't

00:07:41.680 | move their limbs fast enough when dr peter tia was on this podcast and elsewhere he talked about

00:07:47.280 | one of the major causes of death mostly in older people is they'll fall

00:07:55.440 | they'll be mobile they'll catch some sort of infection related to contact with the bed or

00:08:02.480 | you know post-surgical lack of circulation and that's what takes them out i was shocked to learn

00:08:10.800 | this right i mean i thought it'd be heart attack or cerebrovascular disease or that instead but that

00:08:16.400 | led to this whole notion that i think is gaining more popularity nowadays that part of longevity is

00:08:21.200 | maintaining things like grip strength one's ability to jump and land and jumping and landing is eccentric

00:08:27.120 | control yeah my mom's turning 80 this year and she's fortunately in very good health

00:08:32.240 | my dad's already 80 he was on this podcast and for anyone that saw that he's clearly in very good health

00:08:37.360 | but i worry about them and i worry mostly about a step down off a curb a step going down a stairwell

00:08:48.960 | that is not controlled and then a slip and then a fall and then the break and then the immobility and

00:08:53.760 | then the the sequence that atia and others have referred to would skipping be a good activity for

00:09:00.960 | people in their 60s 70s or 80s to undertake carefully as a way to learn eccentric control

00:09:08.080 | because i'll be honest i've seen some wonderful inspiring videos of people in their 70s and 80s jumping

00:09:15.520 | off of boxes doing plyo type work in the gym i don't know many folks in their 70s and 80s who

00:09:23.600 | are going to embark on that yeah but you can skip kind of small skips then you can do larger skips you

00:09:30.240 | can skip anywhere it's free if you approach it carefully you probably don't even need a trainer

00:09:35.120 | there's some videos now of you having us skip and um i you know here i'm like inspired to start a

00:09:41.840 | skipping movement uh with you um for all these reasons uh you don't need even need a piece of

00:09:48.160 | equipment probably even do it barefoot on grass if you couldn't afford shoes right 100 what are your

00:09:53.440 | thoughts on folks who are um in the 16 up club yeah um skipping yeah i think you've nailed it i think

00:10:01.440 | that is so important that eccentric control or the eccentric capacity is the one that we really lose

00:10:07.120 | the ability to handle ourselves eccentrically is just it's it's we don't do that work anymore

00:10:11.600 | everything that we do is concentric in nature and uh it is it's not just elite sport i said before that

00:10:20.000 | the differentiator is always in the eccentric force capacities in elite sport also in us in gen pop

00:10:29.760 | we have we lose the ability to apply eccentric force whether it's fast or maximal so 100 i think it's so

00:10:38.240 | important my dad um was an elite athlete when he was younger and has probably averaged four days a week

00:10:47.440 | running for almost his entire life good for him yeah he's 78 in 2019 he ran the new york city marathon

00:10:55.840 | ran 502 so he's at 74 or 73 years old and he doesn't do that anymore but he still runs four days a week

00:11:05.760 | and he runs about 20 to 25 miles and two of those days are skipping sessions where he walks 30 seconds he

00:11:12.960 | skips for 30 seconds and then he strides as fast as he can as fast as his capacity will allow for 30

00:11:20.240 | seconds and then he walks then he skips and then he strides and he walks and it's it's it's so key

00:11:26.240 | it really is like it's it's for me like the ability to express yourself maximally through

00:11:32.080 | running and i've already said i don't feel like most people can do this

00:11:37.520 | i don't know if there is a better single metric to as a measurement for

00:11:43.840 | whatever word you want to use here vitality or health then the ability to safely express

00:11:52.640 | maximal speed of you as you as an individual like you choose vo2 max you choose all of these

00:11:58.720 | different things that you might come up with i don't feel like any of them are as good as the

00:12:04.000 | ability to just run maximally so let's start with that if we feel like that is important

00:12:10.320 | and you can argue whether whether it's the most important or the 10th most important we know it's

00:12:14.880 | important if we know that's important how do we get there and as you said i think skipping is the way so

00:12:20.880 | i'm on board with the skipping movement let's get everybody skipping because it is as i said this

00:12:25.280 | is your ability to be plyometric to work on those eccentric force capacities and move in a way in

00:12:31.200 | which you can actually express yourself again

Speed Workout to Improve Longevity at Any Age | Dr. Andrew Huberman & Stuart McMillan

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