Liam's diving deep into the juicy stuff today, chatting about the difference between lifespan and health span—basically, how long we live versus how well we live. Spoiler alert: just because we’re living longer doesn’t mean we’re living better, and that’s where strength training struts in like a superhero. He’s got some solid gold insights on how to keep our bodies functioning like well-oiled machines as we age, from building muscle mass to boosting our cardiovascular fitness. Plus, he drops some wisdom on how to explain your gym obsession to the naysayers in your life—because let’s be real, who doesn’t want to kick a ball around with their grandkids at 90, am I right? So, grab your earbuds and get comfy, because we're about to tackle how to make those extra years count!

Hello everybody.

Welcome back to the Wicklow strength and fitness podcast.

This week it's just myself, it's just Liam.

How are you?

Obviously we missed out on an episode last week.

I was traveling back from Poland where I got to see some of our guys tackle Hyrax and this one was in a stadium.

So it was just super cool.

And you know, watching the guys tackle the event was, was pretty awesome.

The week before that though, we had very special episode and it was the first time we've ever had an interview based episode where I had our own Katie Verbruggen on.

And I was.

First of all, I'd just like to say thank you to everybody who engaged with that.

It ended up being, you know, super popular.

It did, you know, a lot of numbers in terms of downloads and plays and, and we got a lot of great feedback from it.

So, you know, we are going to have the rest of the coaching team on at some stage over the next couple of months.

It's probably going to be, you know, one coach per month, so the next one you can expect will be sometime in May.

But I thought Katie did a tremendous job on the podcast.

I thought she came across amazing.

You know, she's someone I know quite well.

So it was great to see, you know, her character come across because I think like when you guys are in the gym and you know, the coaches are on the floor, you're not really getting to know them like personally too well.

I mean, there's obviously little bits of conversation that happen, but you know, in that one hour class, maybe you're having like a normal everyday life conversation for maybe like two minutes.

Right.

Because everything else is focused on training and coaching.

So I think these would be a really cool way for you to get to know the coaches and, you know, understand what they're like away from the gym floor a little bit as well.

Um, so yeah, thanks so much for all the feedback on that one, guys.

I really did appreciate it.

We've had a pretty great week in the gym this week with our testing period for the group classes and you know, seeing the numbers on that was, was awesome.

You know, like I was absolutely buzzing.

Like I didn't really get to spend too much time in the, in the gym this week because I'm moving house in the next, over the next few days.

So getting everything ready and getting everything finalized has just been super stressful.

So I wasn't really in the gym much, but like checking in on the results and just seeing everybody crush it has been, you know, it's Amazing.

I'm really happy with this last cycle, so I hope you are, too.

Anyway, that's a heck of a long intro.

What are we here to talk about today?

Well, we're going to touch on lifespan and health span, you know, two things that are intrinsically connected.

But the reality is in the modern world, we're living longer, but, you know, how much of that time are we actually spending healthy?

And the idea for this podcast came around from actually a couple of different conversations I've had with members in, you know, whether it's go reviews or just on the floor, but it's you guys asking me, you know, how to explain to people who don't go to the gym why it's important or, you know, when you guys tell me things like my family thinks I'm crazy for the amount of time I'm coming here.

You know, I'm a weirdo for the amount of time I spend going to the gym amongst my friends.

And I suppose that's what I wanted to touch on, the lifespan versus health span.

Because the reality is in the modern world, we're living longer than we ever have before.

And we hear about, you know, we hear about that in relation to things like the.

The state pension.

You know, it's going to be later and later as we get that, because people are living longer and it's becoming a huge cost to the state.

But I guess for us, when we're looking at it, you know, I want to just kind of touch on today, like, the importance of strength training, the importance of muscle mass, the importance of, like, aerobic work through VO2 max, and then gentle aerobic work through, like, Zone 2 stuff is vital, not just for longevity, but for maintaining the quality of life as we age.

So as we dive into that, you know, we want to think about the future, I suppose.

And I mean, this is something that we'll often touch upon.

But when you really think it out, I think what's pretty cool to do is just imagine yourself in your training, you're preparing for your final decade.

And I think what's a cool concept about this is there's Dr.

Peter Attia and he says, like, he's training for his final decade.

And he says the final decade is something you never really know when it's coming, but you know when you're in it because you can feel your body starting to deplete.

You know, your time is.

Is running low.

And he, he proposes that you ask yourself, what do I want to be able to do in that final decade?

What things Bring me true joy that I want to be able to do forever or I want to be able to do to my very last moments.

So to.

To do that, what we have to do is we have to maximize our health span.

Because if we're thinking about it, lifespan, the amount of time we're on the planet.

Health span, the amount of times we're actually able to live a very healthy and active life.

Okay, so while the two are similar, they're very different concepts.

Lifespan, just respond.

Refers to the total number of years we live.

You know, it's the moment, you know, if we're going to live till 90.

90 years is our lifespan, but living longer doesn't necessarily mean we're going to be living healthy and happy.

Right.

Healthspan instead refers to the portion of your life during which you remain healthy, active, free from disease or chronic pain.

It's the time in your life where it's.

You're not just surviving, but you're actually thriving.

You're active, you're engaging in life.

The key point here is that, you know, you could even live to be 100, right?

But if the last 30 years of your life are filled with poor health, disabilities, lack of physical, mental vitality, then your health span has been shortened despite the fact that your lifespan was extended to 100.

So our goal as human beings, now that we're living longer, should be to maximize the health span.

So how do we do that?

Well, I believe in kind of thinking about that.

What do we want to be able to do forever?

What do we want to be able to do until the moment the lights go out?

And that's gonna be different for everybody.

But the one that gets me is I always want to be mobile.

I always want to be able to move around.

You know, I always want to.

And I've kind of put this into a lot of our advertising campaigns.

Like, I want to be able to play with my grandkids at 90.

And I say that in a lot of videos because that resonates directly with me.

And what do I want to do?

Well, I love football, so I'd love to be able to go out and kick a football with my grandkids at 90.

Who knows?

Maybe it's a great grandkid.

Who knows what it is, right?

It doesn't matter.

The reality is I want to be active enough, so I'm doing that.

I don't need assistance.

I'm not just in on a couch, right?

So if we're looking at getting to that point, you know, I want to be Able to do that.

That means I need to be able to balance.

I need to be able to have single leg strength so that I can lift one other foot off the ground and swing it.

That stabilizing leg can support me.

So that means I need to build up leg strength.

It means also that I need to be able to move, so I need to be able to push my body through different ranges of motion.

I need to be able to get off a chair, so I need to be able to squat.

Right?

You can think about it in all these different ways.

And there's so many movement patterns that you can come up with if you just think of the activities you want to be able to do.

And that's pretty cool exercise to do too, right?

Sit down and write down three things you want to be able to do in your 90s or in your final decade and think about what muscles you're using to do those things.

And then, you know, maybe you need to have a conversation with me or one of the coaches to figure out what exercises that is, but more than likely you'll know what muscles it is.

And that just kind of brings us back to, you know, one of the biggest factors in increasing our health span is strength.

And I'm not just talking about kind of lifting heavy weights at the gym.

Like, doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be doing one rep maxes in your final decade, but instead it's about maintaining overall strength and maintaining it as long into our life as we possibly can.

You know, muscle mass is one of the key predicators of longevity, and we have to focus on strength training in order to keep our muscles functional throughout life.

You know, we, as we age, we naturally lose muscle mass.

And this is called sarcopenia, which you may have heard of, you know, through many different, you know, educational pieces, whether it's podcasts like this or maybe you've just read up on it yourself, but from around the age of 30, and I say this as a 31 year old approaching 32, your muscle mass starts to decline every decade by about 3 to 8%.

And this rate of loss increases significantly again after the age of 60.

And the catch with losing muscle mass isn't just that you're looking less toned or less fit, it's actually that you're going to lose strength as well.

And losing strength impacts so many aspects of health.

You know, your mobility, you need muscle mass, be able to move well, perform daily tasks, you know, getting out of a chair, carrying the shopping in, you know, picking up a kid, you know, metabolism, muscle mass is key for maintaining healthy metabolism.

More muscle mass means a higher metabolic rate, resting heart, resting metabolic rate, and that can help, you know, maintain a healthy weight and reduce the overall risk of any obesity related diseases.

Bone health, you know, strength training can help increase and maintain bone density, which can prevent osteoporosis, which is again a common issue as we age.

And strength doesn't just protect your body from physical decline, it gives you the functional independence, right?

And that's what we all want, right?

We want the functional independence, to live our lives without being dependent on others for basic tasks.

And again, as we think about latter life, that's something that should be, you know, hugely important to us.

So we talked about like strength and muscle mass there and I think that's important to note.

Why?

You know, if we're thinking of absolute strength, that's the rep ranges of one to five, right?

That's using the amount of muscle mass we have right now.

And we want to get those muscles as strong as we possibly can.

So when you're doing your gym program, you see that rep range, just know that that's you developing absolute strength.

And then there's only so much of that you can do as well.

Like anything over five reps.

We're probably more focusing on growing muscle mass, right?

Increasing the amount of muscle mass.

And this is a very simplistic point of view, by the way, that we, there's a lot more to it.

But just for you guys to know, like 6 to maybe 12 reps is more focusing on, you know, the famed hypertrophy and that's trying to like gain actual muscle mass.

And then over that, like you're up, you know, you can go up to like 20 to 30 reps and we're talking about muscle endurance.

And all of these things are super important.

You know, we want to be able to build more muscle mass and we want to be doing strength training to make that muscle mass strong.

So it's the combination of all of that that makes us well rounded and kind of gives us that buffer that as we age, we're not now losing muscle mass, we're actually gaining it.

We're increasing the amount of muscle mass instead of allowing that 3 to 8% drop per decade because we're remaining active, because we're training strength, because we're lifting weights, because we're doing resistance training, we are not allowing our body to lose muscle mass, we are not allowing our body to lose strength.

And then on, on the other end of the spectrum, I suppose the critical Component is cardio, right?

Everybody knows cardiovascular fitness, but today we're going to talk about like, VO2 max, right?

VO2 max is the amount of oxygen your body can utilize during intense exercise and is often used as an indicator of your cardiovascular and aerobic fitness.

It's one of the best measures of overall heart and lung health.

You know, it tends to peak in your 20s and then declines with age again.

But again, like strength training, it's something you can maintain or improve with regular aerobic exercise if you continue doing it into your latter years.

You know, high VO2 max is directly correlated with a longer lifespan and better quality of life as we age.

You know, people who can maintain good cardiovascular health throughout their lives have lower risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and more importantly, allows us to stay active and independent.

So it helps increase that health span.

So it is helping us live longer, but it's also allowing us to be more active and to be healthier as we age.

Because as we age, our ability to move efficiently and engage in physical activities that require endurance, right?

Walking, climbing stairs, playing with the grandkids.

You know, it depends heavily on having a well developed and maintained cardiovascular fitness.

Right?

We don't want to be puffed after playing with the grandkids for 60 seconds, right?

We want to be able to do it for a period of time.

So for that reason, we want to make sure we're incorporating aerobic exercise, we're incorporating those difficult conditioning pieces, and we do want to balance throughout the week.

Right?

Some days we want to push really hard, other days it's longer, it's slower, and that's important.

We don't want to allow for a decline in our cardiovascular health because that's associated with increased fatigue, you know, difficulty recovering from illness, greater risk of chronic diseases.

And as we said, the good news is, just like strength training, we can improve it at any age.

And I suppose this kind of touches in on why it's important to follow a structured program.

Like, if I was just doing what I wanted to do in the gym, would I hit a well rounded training regime?

Probably not.

I'd probably miss out on some things that are important.

You know, I might avoid certain.

I'd probably avoid deadlifting, to be honest.

It would lead to, you know, a flaw in my hinge pattern that I would probably regret in my latter years.

I feel like that's why it's important to engage with as many different.

Like if you're doing personal training, if you're doing individualized programming, it's important to know that all those movement patterns and those conditioning pieces are in there for a reason.

It's that broad spectrum of fitness that we're looking to build.

We're looking to build up as much area under the curve as possible so that as you age, you've built up such a buffer for your life.

You've built up so much strength, you've built up so much muscle mass, you've built up so much cardiovascular fitness, so that the time, by the time you do get to your latter years, you know, your 70s and 80s, and it does decline, you have so much of it that you have this buffer, you have this protective layer.

It's okay to lose some at that stage.

Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, right?

He's, he's in his latter years now.

He's a lot older than he was when he was a, you know, the Terminator.

But he looks great.

He still has a ton of muscle mass.

He's still training to this day.

And I know that's an extreme example, but I do think it's important to look at that and realize, yeah, maybe to a lesser degree, but I want to maintain my function, I want to maintain my strength, I want to maintain my muscle mass because I want to not only live longer, but I want to make sure that for as many of those years I'm active and I'm doing the things I want to do, I'm able to get out into the world.

I'm not cooped up.

I'm not just waiting around for people to come and visit me.

I'm able to actively go and visit them.

The work we do now through the consistent exercise, healthy eating and self care will set the foundation for the kind of life we lead as we age.

And I know that's not something we always want to think about.

Right now.

We like to live in the here, the now, this moment.

But if we can commit to investing in our health now, it ensures that our latter years are filled with strength, vitality, and independence.

And I think hopefully this episode kind of arms you with something to talk to your friends and family about if they ever say, you know, you're going to the gym too much, you're obsessed, we're a fitness freak, or anything like that.

I hope this gives you, you know, a helpful script to kind of go to.

Right.

And maybe you can even share it with a friend or a family member who you feel could benefit from these insights.

Because it's not always about the intensity.

It's about the consistency of application and always showing up for yourself.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode today, guys.

And I hope you learned a little bit about healthspan versus lifespan.

And I hope you took something away from it other than that.

I will catch you all in the next episode or I will see you in the gym.

Have a great day.