How to Stay on Top of Your New Year's Fitness Goals
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, it's that time of year when many of us dust off our running shoes or sign up for a gym membership and vow to develop a fitness routine we can stick with. Whether you're just getting started or aiming to set a new personal record, we'll talk to two experts this hour about how to set a fitness goal and form an exercise program that's best for your situation.

What are your New Year's fitness resolutions and what advice would you like on how to keep them? Join us. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Why do we so often fail to keep our exercise-related New Year's resolutions? Well, can you tell me?

Kelly and Juliet Starrett have some thoughts. Juliet is a certified nutrition coach, and Kelly is a doctor of physical therapy. They're both co-founders of the mobility program, The Ready State, and co-authors of the book, Built Positively.

to move the 10 essential habits to help you move freely and live fully, which we talked about the last time you were on forum, Kelly and Juliet. It is so great to have you back and to get your expertise on setting good fitness goals for the new year. Welcome. And listeners, you are invited to join the conversation with your new year's resolutions and

difficulty sticking to them if that is something that you experience what gets in the way for you what fitness or mobility or nutrition advice would you like juliet starrett as i said is a certified nutrition coach and is also happy to talk with you about diet as well tell us by calling 866-733-6786 email forum at kqed.org or post on our social channels at kqedforum.com

Kelly, welcome back to Forum. Oh, sorry. We are having just a little technical issue with sound. Let me see if Juliet is there. Juliet, are you there as well? Well, let me tell you, the social channels you can call in on or post on are Blue Sky X, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. And already we have advice from a listener. So if you have found things that have helped you stick to your fitness goals, we'd love to hear those too. And this listener writes,

Two things that have helped me stick to fitness goals have to do with getting out of bed in the morning.

First, get an automatic coffee maker and second, lay out your workout outfit the night before. I love waking up to fresh coffee and having my clothes already picked out. It is one less thing to worry about. I completely relate to that. One of the things that I do, uh, when I have to go on a run, but I really don't feel like going on a run is I actually put, uh,

my running shoes on and just have them on so that as soon as the urge strikes, I walk out the door. Juliet, are you with us?

We are here now. Can you hear us, Nina? I can. Welcome back to Forum, Juliette. Yeah, no, no problem at all. I was starting out by sort of posing the question to our audience why we so often fail to keep our exercise-related New Year's resolutions. And it made me wonder, Juliette, is the New Year's resolution in fact a good vehicle for a fitness goal? Yeah.

Well, I'll start by saying I do think that there are some catalysts that can really help us sort of rev up a fitness goal. I think the new year is one of those times. Oftentimes when our kids go back to school in the fall is another time where we're able to get back onto our schedule.

necessarily opposed to the New Year's resolution, but our view is that people are often overly ambitious and create New Year's resolutions that don't fit into their life and maybe actually aren't achievable. And that's why people often fail at their resolutions. So then what makes for a good fitness resolution?

Well, let's begin by expanding sort of our – Hi, Kelly. Hi. Let's begin by expanding our definition of what it is we mean. Oftentimes we think, hey, it's just about body composition, but we want to just go ahead and expand this definition of, hey, I want to do something well for my fitness and my health, so how might I improve my sleep? How might I get more nutritious, whole foods?

getting more micronutrients and fiber in my diet. Hey, how can I just get more activity during the day? So the first order of magnitude there is not necessarily to jump in and crush ourselves with fitness thing like things, but to say, hey, what is it I can do to meaningfully change and find a behavior that is really sticky and allows me to kind of take one small change at a time? Is that why you have suggested that limiting screen time is actually a fitness goal? Because

it encourages you to do more activity typically? Yeah, I mean, I would 100% agree with that, Mina. I think that that is one just small goal that somebody could add to their life. Or one of the things that we love and are huge advocates of is sitting on the floor for 30 minutes a day. And we can talk more about why we love that as a habit. But what we know is that people are on their screens and they love to watch Netflix at night. And that's just a habit that you can add on to

something you're already doing, and just sort of change a little bit of how you're doing that. Yeah. And do you want to say a little bit about just how beneficial the simple act of sitting on the floor can be?

Yes, it seems really counterintuitive, but one of the things that we know is that having to get up and down off the ground asks us to engage in a greater movement language, sort of exposure to positions and shapes we might not have in our day-to-day lives. The other thing that's remarkable about sitting on the ground is it asks our tissues and our joints and our hips to

to really spend some time in a really sort of maybe unfamiliar, ungranged position. And the first order of business is exposure. So if we can get someone sitting on the ground, they're long sitting, they're side sitting, they're 90-90, they're kneeling, what ends up happening is we end up exposing the tissues of the lower body and the hips and the low back into a whole bunch of shapes that translate to I feel better, my knees feel better, my back feels better, and it's easier to do the things I want to do with my body.

I read this piece in the Times that also said, you know, think about achieving a skill or developing a skill as opposed to actually thinking of some kind of exercise program that you want to do. So like achieving the goal of getting up from the cross legged position without using your hands, which I know we talked a lot about the last time, is actually a great fitness resolution. Do you agree? Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, one of the things, let's go ahead and expand on that even more. And let's say skill turns into play. One of the things that I think has been sucked out of all New Year's resolutions, which are austere calorie restriction and intense exercise, what we can do instead is say, hey, why don't we go find activities that we

really enjoy doing. And what we find if we peel back the sort of the veil of the modern fitness industry and we look at places where people are living a long time, they have low morbidity, low mortality is that they're engaged in outdoor activities, they're hanging out with their community, and they're doing things they love. That might be tennis, might be pickleball, that might be walking in your neighborhood. Really what we need to do is put the play

back into what it means to be an adult, trying to change and create sort of more beneficial health habits. Yeah. And I really like your advice on just sort of the frame of mind of New Year's resolutions not being thought of in terms of restrictions, but as additive. What do you mean by that?

So I'll give you an example. You know, one of the things that we promote when people ask what sort of nutrition plan they should follow is something we call the 800-gram challenge, which was developed by a nutritionist friend of ours named E.C. Sienkowski. And what that is, is to just eat 800 grams of fruits and vegetables every single day. Not 800 grams of carbohydrates. Yeah, 800 grams of fruits and vegetables. And, you know, I think everybody listening to this

knows that they should eat more fruits and vegetables, but nobody has ever told them how much. And there's actually some data to show that there's some some

something magical about that 800 gram number in terms of our overall health. And, you know, if it seems like a lot of food to people for medium sized apples is 800 grams. And what we love about this eating philosophy is it's additive. It's the first time anyone has ever been told that they can add more to their diet and that they can eat whatever fruits and vegetables that they enjoy that fit into their cultural eating habits. And so unlike our,

And let me just add that I love cookies. I may have a cookie.

a cookie problem. But if I take one Starbucks cookie, which is about 350 calories, or I go over here and eat a pound of melon, which is about 230 calories, what we find is that there's a huge amount of fiber and micronutrients and health wrapped into eating a ton of very sweet, fun food that ends up being sort of calorically very reasonable. I mean, eat a pound of melon and tell me you still want something sweet and you're still hungry for that cookie. It's impossible. Yeah.

Yeah. And both of you, you really don't want people to aspire to skinniness or to a certain appearance, right?

No, I mean, I think that we also have associated health with having shredded ads like we see on Instagram or being skinny. And we're really trying to expand the idea of health to being so much more than just about body composition. Do you have healthy relationships? Do you go outside, like Kelly said, and play? Are you eating enough fruits and vegetables and getting enough sleep?

and maybe walking a little bit around your neighborhood. So, you know, we're not trying to assail anyone's body type. Some people naturally have a thinner body type. But what we're trying to say is let's expand what it means to be healthy and make sure that health isn't just about being skinny or having shredded up. And one of the issues is potentially that in order to get that skinny body, which we –

value culturally we understand and it's complicated, it ends up saying that we see a lot of sort of health behaviors that aren't necessarily congruent with, you know, being 100 years old and really thriving. And oftentimes we see that people who are engaged in a lot of very sort of low-level toxic cardio, those people actually have lower bone density. And one of the things we're finding out, for example, is that one of the keys to lifelong sort of happiness in a functional body is keeping muscle mass.

And sometimes on brutal calorie restriction diets, especially sort of temporary shreds, is that it's easy to lose that, you know, really important sort of biologically imperative lean muscle mass, which is so good for our systems and good for immune health. So we just want to make sure that we're not sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

We're talking about how to set realistic New Year's fitness resolutions and how to stick with them with the Star Reds.

Thank you.

Share if you have difficulty sticking to exercise resolutions and what gets in the way or what you found has helped you stick to your fitness goals. 866-733-6786 is the number. I see we've got lots of calls coming in and comments already. The email address, forum at kqed.org, post at kqedforum. More after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. It's January, the time of year when many of us want to get into an exercise routine we can stick with. And we're talking with fitness and mobility experts Juliet Starrett and Kelly Starrett this hour and with you, our listeners, telling us your fitness-related resolutions for the new year and also any tips that you have about sticking to your fitness goals. We've got calls coming in. Let me go to Lindy in Santa Rosa. Hi, Lindy. You're on.

Hi, thanks for taking my call. This is so useful because so often we set ourselves up at this time of year to just fail.

I'm going to be 68 in a couple days. And what I'm learning is my goals are very different than they were 10 years ago. And so what I try to do right now is be gentle with myself and know that anything I'm doing is better than nothing. My primary goal is not get hurt at this age.

because there are so many pictures out there in the fitness industry that are capable of hurting me. So I try to diversify

to get as strong as I can at this time, especially with hormone changes. So I have a combination of a new CrossFit plan for older people, which is really helpful because I'm very focused on the technique. And then I alternate it with swimming, which is a wonderful combination. But what's most important is it's progress, not perfection. And again, there is no more used to

at 68 it's what I can do now and to have myself stay as strong as I can at this time have community with which I do the CrossFit and community at the pool so that we're kind of all in it together I also in terms of eating I try to have half my plate be fruits and vegetables a quarter protein and a quarter carbs and if I eat those fruits and vegetables on half my plate first I

I find it fills me up and satiates me pretty effectively. So I'm really grateful to have this conversation and have your expertise and to bring in the opportunity of someone that's in this chapter of their life in their late 60s, how one can make it work for me.

So thank you. Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, thank you for bringing all of that in. And, you know, we'd love to get your thoughts, Kelly and Juliette on what Lindy was saying. But also the fact that I think Lindy brought something up that a lot of people feel, which is, they're not sure what kind of exercise program is good for them if they're afraid of getting injured or worried about injury.

Yeah, let's unpack that incredible call. If everyone engaged in that level of sort of conscientiousness and diversity in play, we would all be in a great place. Some things that are really great about that is appreciating that our bodies have different needs.

One of the things that is universal is that we need to walk and just move more. And that can be, you can get that non-exercise activity in a whole lot of ways. And to your point, if I'm worried about sort of injuring myself, let's say, let's start with some basics. And one of those basics is, let's see if we can hit 8,000 steps a day. That might mean increasing my step count just by going for a short walk after meals, a little 10-minute walk. But that 8,000 steps has to be

has a 51% decrease in all-cause mortality and morbidity. And so what we see is that if we can just get people moving their bodies a little bit more, preferably outside, we can start to say, okay, well, could we load a backpack on that? How about if we, you know, jumped into a class a couple days a week because that's a really simple place to get some coaching to gain some muscle. And, again, I just want to highlight so many great things about that last call.

Yeah. What if you are somebody who though has lived a very sedentary lifestyle or have a very sedentary job? What are some of the first things that people should think about? Should they be thinking about exercise or thinking about mobility?

For someone in that category, and I just have to echo that amazing what Lindy is doing there, and thank you for sharing. For someone who's been sedentary for most of their lives, the two practices that I would suggest they start with are focusing on their sleep, which might sound counterintuitive, and then also exactly what Kelly said, which is just begin with a walking program, which

And I think if I were to add a third, I would say, and I think this would go for anybody interested in starting a program, is consider hiring a coach or a personal trainer. There is so much free information available online about how to train yourself and exercise programs all over the place. But I think for people who are truly new, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to hire a coach.

and how protective that will be in terms of learning how to do these movements, especially for someone who's been sedentary. We've been getting some questions about what to look for if you are wanting to go the route of hiring a trainer, what to look for as a good trainer.

Well, let's start this way. The first thing is we have this incredible thing called a community. So ask your friends and family who they're using because that – I mean, would you just let a stranger cut your hair? No way. So first of all is that if the person we know locally in our community is the place –

The second thing is there are great places like the YMCA, like your local CrossFit gym, or independent fitness studios where there are great certified coaches. And what you want to do is actually just take a second, interview them, talk about your goals,

you know, have a chat and understand their education background and sort of their needs. You know, if I'm, you know, I'm a 51 year old man and maybe, you know, that 22 year old track superstar is not the best coach for me in this moment. Let me go to call her Jeff in Palo Alto. Hi, Jeff, you're on.

Hi, Nina. Thank you for taking my call. I had such a great conversation to be involved in, and since I've been listening for a while, I got so many ideas popping into my head. But I'm going to try to narrow it down to three things that I came up with that I thought would be of value. And just for full and fair disclosure, I'm a fitness professional myself, a health and fitness coach for the last 38 years. And so one of the first things that you're talking about, years of evolution, is

What I find with people that I work with is the best thing to do is define goals that are both attainable and sustainable. If you set yourself up for something that's too huge to accomplish and –

And it's like a crash program. You're setting yourself up to fail. So attainable and sustainable. And then on top of that, you got to have a big, juicy reason why. Something besides, well, it's January 1st that I'm supposed to do this because society tells me to. So that was my first thought. Second one was starting your day in a very fit manner.

helps your whole day be fit. So how you wake up in the morning, I developed a process for myself 25 years ago with intentional breathing and mindful hydration. So just when I'm still laying in bed,

I do a breathing exercise to get a lot of oxygen into my body and into my brain. And as soon as I sit up, I drink the coldest water I possibly can. And I just, I don't gulp it down. I take sips and just really let it get into my system. Between the breathing and the water, there's a cascade of physiological and neurological reactions that are going to wake you up.

Basically, without the caffeine. You know, I love what you're saying about starting your day, because we also have questions about that, Kelly and Juliette, with regard to the best mobility exercises you can do in the morning to loosen up. The sister writes, when I'm short on time, are there two or three that will hit all the major groups? Yes.

Well, I'll tell you what, let's sort of talk about a couple things. One is I love the idea of being consistent before being heroic. So I think that is really great. The second thing is, as you just hinted at, is, you know, as a busy working – we're working parents –

And we find that we have a little bit of agency before we leave the house, and then when we're gone, we have no agency during the day, and we have a little bit more agency in the evening. So we really are going to have to figure out where can I put some of these behaviors? And what's really great about even jumping in and doing something like sun salutation or –

a couple of just yoga flows, which you could throw up on the, you know, just Google internet, you know, Hey, five minutes stretching routine really doesn't matter. It's a great place to say, Hey, I put some input into my body. And if the rest of the day gets away from me, maybe I've done a breathing practice. I've had some nutrition. I've moved my body a little bit. And that's how we begin to think about creating a really sustainable physical practice for decades.

And can you talk about with this listener's question with regard to a couple of mobility things that they can potentially do at a time of day that's best for them? The difference between exercise and mobility and why exercise does not replace what you need to do to improve your mobility necessarily. Yeah.

Yeah, so let's define mobility. When we say that, what we really mean is can I use my body in the way that I want to? Do I have access to my normative ranges? And am I pain-free? So one of the things that we love, for example, in the evening is if we're sitting on the ground, all those positions we define, sort of legs out in front of you, legs to the side, kneeling, those are all sort of end-range isometric positions, right?

One of the things that we love to do is go ahead and put a roller right next to the couch. So if you find yourself on the ground, you might say to yourself, hey, if I'm sore or something stiff or I had this sort of day where I couldn't access or something didn't feel good, I can put a little input in with a ball or a roller in 10 minutes.

But ultimately, everyone recognizes, I think, we're like, we should need to stretch. Like, yeah, stretching is good. And what we say is, well, why aren't you stretching? Well, I don't have time or it doesn't make me feel good. So again, I think the idea in the morning is we'd much rather have someone, you know, honestly, instead of saying, hey, I'm going to do this little sun salutation routine, which would be great. Why don't you go for a quick stretch?

Eight minute walk as fast as you can and then come back in and start your day. And what you'll see is that that movement, getting that blood flow, walking fast, squeezing your butt, getting some sunshine that will set the day very differently. Let me go to caller Will and Marin. Hi, Will. You're on.

Hi there. I'm wondering if you could speak to the social component of both exercise and sticking to an exercise routine. Most of my exercise is solitary. I run and bike and surf and swim.

but it's so easy to talk yourself out of those exercises in the morning. Uh, I've been thinking about exploring, getting back into tennis where I would be meeting with a partner or going to some group classes. Um, so yeah, I would love to just hear sort of the, the, your thoughts on the social side. Julia. Sure. I'll take a crack at that. Well, and thanks so much for your call. Uh,

I cannot emphasize enough how important I think the community piece is. You know, I have a set workout time Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays with some women that I meet on those mornings. And it's a set time. We don't text or call about it. It's just –

It is just a recurring event. And so just knowing that I have to meet people, it motivates me to show up even on those days where I wake up and don't feel like working out. And then on top of that, it is this wonderful community time where we're not only exercising, but we're connecting and talking about our lives and our kids and learning about what's going on with each other. And so it has this dual purpose of

you know, motivating us all to show up and creating this amazing community and support network for each other. And I think there's a thousand ways to do that. I mean, having a walking group. We also mountain bike on the weekends with people. But I think creating that opportunity to do it with others not only creates accountability, but it makes it more fun and provides a level of emotional and other support that is so essential. We might even think –

The brain is not a brain unless it's around other brains. And I think we really are sort of undervalue how important it is to go engage in pleasurable play activities. And again, maybe lifting weights or jumping into yoga doesn't seem pleasurable to everyone, but that's a form of play. You know, my mother-in-law has a regular dance group that she goes to in the evening. And that group of people moving, exploring, laughing, that is wonderful.

Two-thirds of the magic.

This listener writes, and that's so funny that you bring that up because I remember doing a story years ago of seniors in a dancing class and the incredible benefits of that. And you're really reminding me that with your mother-in-law story. This listener writes, I'm approaching middle age and love to run. I want to be able to run as long as possible, but everyone keeps commenting on how my knees or hips will give out. What are some good daily stretches I can do to keep my body resilient? And what other tips would you give someone like me who wants to run far for as long as possible?

Well, first of all, if you're already running, keep running. That's amazing. And it is a myth that your knees and hips are going to wear out. In fact, we say motion is lotion. And the best thing you can do is kind of stay in motion. What we don't want to have people do is turn the

the car off. We want to keep the engine idling. That's really sort of the goal. And if we're looking at sort of high level performance and I'm saying, hey, I want to run and make myself durable, then we may have to substitute some of that running with some really intelligent, very short sort of strength training because running is

won't necessarily build the kind of strength or even sort of prescribe the bone density needs that I may need in other aspects of my life. The other thing is you have an upper body, learning to hang from a pull-up bar, learning to do sort of some of the fundamentals of push-ups and chaturanga. Those things translate very well.

you know, to a body that's capable and durable of running. One of the things that I would say easy to drop in is if you're not already jumping a rope, we love jump roping with all our aerobic athletes. Hmm.

Let me ask you this. What is more important for sticking with an exercise routine, a routine that is, you know, very good for a particular thing that you need for your body or an exercise or activity that you love to do? If you had to pick one, how important is it to love what you do versus to do something that is supposed to optimize whatever you're trying to achieve?

I would just say I think that the data shows that something like 85% of us aren't getting the recommended amount of physical activity. So I would lean heavily into finding something that you love. You know, there was just a study that came out that said of all the predictors of mortality and morbidity, the most important one was total amount of physical activity. And so we know that just moving a lot is really important for us. And I could not agree more that moving

finding something you love is going to mean that you want to do it and that you enjoy doing it and that you keep doing it. And that is vast. I mean, we've talked about my mother-in-law and her dance group, you know, walking and hiking and learning a new sport. I mean, I really believe there's something out there for everyone and it might be a bit of trial and error and, you know, experimentation to find what you love. But I really believe there is a movement out there that is for everyone. And one of the things that

sometimes gets lost is that we have trained ourselves to think that fitness has to happen in discrete one-hour sections and it's very formal and it's very prescriptive. And one of the things we have been doing forever because we have little kids and multiple businesses is that we moved a kettlebell into our kitchen.

And at one point in my life, I had something called the 10-10-10-at-10, which was 10 kettlebell swings, 10 pull-ups, 10 push-ups for 10 minutes at 10 p.m. And it wasn't elite fitness, but I think you could still go have an activity.

activity or a skill or something you love, and you could come home and do some kettlebell swings in your garage or your kitchen and still meet all of the requirements of, hey, my body needs a little bit more than this play, but this play is more important to my brain and my sort of social needs.

We're coming up on a break, but Donato writes, there's no denying that once we begin to exercise, the feeling is overwhelmingly positive. However, when we stop exercising, we seem to quickly forget that positive feeling. Is there a physiological or psychological reason behind this?

You know, I think this is why it's really important that we look at reducing barriers to doing the things that we want to do so that it's easy to set ourselves up. I mean, if you're sore, you know, afraid to go use the washroom for two days because your legs hurt so bad, boy, that's a real fast track to not wanting to do that again. So, you know, I think the key is we, no one ever regrets going out and moving. We just need to

make ourselves set up with our behaviors and our habits so that it's an automatic thing. We constrain the environment. If I don't want to eat cookies at night, I don't have cookies around the house. Yeah. Removing those barriers. But Julia, do you have any thoughts at all about why it feels like we forget that positive feeling and don't channel it? No.

I actually don't think we all have the same desire to move. I do think some people, and whether it's genetic or what, some people do have a higher drive to move. And if you're someone who doesn't have a higher drive to move, I think setting up those communities, having that accountability becomes all the more important. Because I think some people just are not as motivated to move. And once they sit on the couch, it is really difficult to get up.

I think that's where those important habits come in. We're talking with fitness and mobility experts Juliet and Kelly Starrett about setting realistic New Year's fitness resolutions and sticking to them. More with them and with you after the break. I'm Mina Kim. Hi, I'm Bianca Taylor. I'm the host of KQED's daily news podcast, The Latest.

Powered by our award-winning newsroom, the latest keeps you in the know because it updates all day long. It's trusted local news in real time on your schedule. Look for the latest from KQED wherever you get your podcasts and stay connected to all things Bay Area in 20 minutes or less.

You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're learning why it's so hard to stick to fitness goals and how to set ones that you can with Juliette Starrett, a certified nutrition coach, and Kelly Starrett, a doctor of physical therapy. Kelly's books include The Supple Leopard and Becoming a Supple Leopard. And together, Juliette and Kelly have authored Built to Move, The 10 Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully. Both are co-founders of the fitness and mobility program, The Ready State. And Juliette is CEO of

the ready state. Listeners, share your fitness resolutions for this year, the questions that you have about sticking to them. What gets in the way for you when you do try to create an exercise routine or exercise resolutions? And what advice would you like? Call 866-733-6786, email forum at kqed.org. Find us on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other social channels.

at KQED Forum. This listener, Lucinda, writes, for those short on time, I suggest when you heat up your coffee for 30 seconds in the microwave, get down on the floor and do a plank for those 30 seconds. You use quite a few muscles to do this exercise. Another listener writes, are there any helpful tips or cues to help with jumper's knee to get back to playing sports? Jumper's knee. Any of you have advice on that?

So, you know, jumper's knee just can be sore knee. And oftentimes what is going to happen as we begin to exercise and play is that we're going to experience potential discomfort. And I want everyone to know that pain is just a request for change.

and not to panic when something hurts after we begin to exercise or move and we're not 17 anymore. So one of the things that we try to use is, hey, that exercise or that strength training can suddenly be a diagnostic tool. And beginning by saying, hey, are the systems above the knee stiff? Do I have stiff calves? How about some simple quad stretches? If you Google something called the couch stretch exercise,

It's really simple, doesn't need any requirements of equipment, and you can begin to recognize that you may not have access to

to your native or normative ranges of motion because your day-to-day life isn't sort of requiring you to have access. So suddenly even just rolling around on a roller for five minutes above the knee, you might discover tissues that are stiff or uncomfortable to compression. That is the gold and an easy way to begin to untangle what seems like really intractable problems. Let me go to Kirsten in Palo Alto next. Hi, Kirsten, you're on.

Hey, thank you so much for all of the knowledge that you send out into the world. You guys are incredible. I'm a huge fan. So I have a quick question regarding shoes. I know that doing stuff barefoot is pretty awesome. You want the foot to move as much as possible. But when you get into the gym, you have flat shoes.

shoes, so zero drop shoes, you know, as much contact with the floor as possible. But then what do you recommend for people who are looking to do longer walks, long runs? You know, the zero drop shoes don't really seem to cut it when you go on super long distances. So I'm just curious your thoughts regarding shoes. Thanks, Kristen.

Thanks so much for the question. You know, one thing that is great is there is now a new group of shoes out there that is both zero drop and has a lot of cushion. And that's my go-to shoe. You know, I am obsessed with walking and I try to walk eight to 10,000 steps a day in a

addition to whatever else I'm doing. And I found that if I am in a really flat zero drop shoe with no cushion whatsoever, my feet are negatively impacted. And I found a variety of shoes out there that have, they're both flat and are zero drop

And have cushion, and that is my go-to sort of everyday walking around shoe. And we should just remind ourselves that there are so many good shoe selections now that you can have a shoe that still looks good with jeans, still makes you feel like, you know, cute. I want to feel cute in my shoes.

But shoes are just a tool. So when I'm Olympic lifting, maybe I have a pair of Olympic lifting shoes. And if I'm strength training, maybe I need a little bit of a heel. So to the color's point, the best shoe that we can have is the shoe that interferes with the foot the least, which is probably being barefoot as much as I can, but not being afraid to shoe up when I want to solve a specific problem.

Thanks for the question, Kirsten. Okay, this listener has a question related to exercise and addiction. When you're deep into an exercise routine, say running five miles every day, it can feel like an addiction. You start to crave the highs that exercise brings and you're grouchy when you can't exercise. Is this problematic? Or is being addicted to exercise okay?

Well, let's not say necessarily addiction, right? Addiction means that like suddenly I'm like, you know, I'm not going to hang out with my kids and my family. I'm going to go run. That may be addictive behavior. But I think what we start to recognize is that these patterns and habits really do facilitate us feeling better in our lives.

And what we should be thinking about is, you know, there is some amount of daily movement that's really required for the human being to be a full functioning human being. One of the reasons we want to move more is that all of the waste systems of our body are bootstrapped into our muscles. So those are lymphatics.

And if we're going to take the waste out, the sewage out, we need to actually have muscle contraction to sort of bring the groceries in and take the garbage out. And so, you know, from a baseline, what we often find is that most people are only walking 1,000 to 2,000 steps a day. And that sort of we're recognizing is insufficient to sort of have all these potentials.

potentially upregulating positive effects on the body. And if you are feeling like, hey, I need to go move, that's fantastic. I sometimes feel like I need ice cream. It's a less effective behavior. Well, this listener wants to know what, Kelly, you met early in the show by toxic cardio.

Oh, well, oftentimes what we see is that we have told everyone that the only kinds of training that the body, you know, we should be doing is really, really a lot of sort of high volume cardiorespiratory training. Looks like running. And as an example, one of the things that we find is that

people spend a lot of time in the sort of mid-range of their aerobic capacity. So what we find is that people aren't spending enough time doing actually high intensity, and they're not spending enough time doing lower intensity aerobic training. And so they end up

feeling like, hey, I've done a lot of work, but they're not getting faster. And all of the metrics of their health may be trending in a less effective position. They're seeing that their bone density and muscle mass is going down. We may see sort of an altered blood panel in those people. So what we end up doing is saying, hey, let's make sure that we're sprinting more and doing some actually high interval repeats and that we're spending a lot of time

going out and making sure that we're doing sort of zone two plus cardio, which is really, really sustainable. And I would just add that I think the name of the game is diversification. You know, what the ultimate goal is, and I think we heard this from Lindy in the beginning, is to try to do a little bit of strength training and a little bit of cardiovascular work and a lot of general movement like walking throughout our days, and that ultimately those are the most effective and sustainable programs.

We're getting a couple of comments and questions related to menopause. The listener on Discord writes, I'd love to hear some frank discussion about the impacts of menopause from unwanted fat gain to changes in fat distribution to changes in what it takes to shed that fat to disorganize sleep, decrease self-esteem and even depression. These things are all related and they happen to roughly half the adult population at some point, but we don't talk about them.

Another listener writes, I'm a postmenopausal woman, postmenopausal, and finding it hard to lose weight and get rid of belly fat. What exercises do you recommend to overcome this? Well, first of all, I'll just add that I am right in there with them as a 51-year-old woman experiencing all the things. So I first of all want to say I hear you and it is difficult.

And I think one of the most important things, and I think this is starting to gain traction based on the data of women going to the gym, I think one of the most important things at this phase of our life is to figure out how to incorporate a strength training practice and actually lift heavy weights effectively.

One of our friends and colleagues, Dr. Stacey Sims, has been a proponent of lifting heavy weights for menopausal women. And she also has a ton of amazing courses and resources about how to survive menopause. And that includes adding a strength training and heavy lifting program. And, you know, I think that's one of the best ways in this age, in this sort of long age period we all go through of trying to combat some of the symptoms of menopause.

Go ahead, Kelly. Well, I just want to just acknowledge that if you're working with coaches working with you and you find yourself as a typical person who is a woman and this is happening to you, make sure that that person is identifying and is programming to your needs. There are great resources, as Juliet said, with Dr. Stacey Sims.

Dr. Vonda Wright, and there's a wonderful book by Dr. Mary Claire Haber called The New Menopause. And I think we're finally wrapping our arms around that, hey, not all sort of conditions and training is appropriate for a person in this part of their life. And it might even be, you know,

talking to your doctor about hormone replacement therapy. I know that that feels like a big, big ask. But if we're seeing that we're altered sleep and we're desired to train and all these other things are going, we want to say, hey, this might be a perfect intervention to begin a real conversation with our physician, simultaneously lifting some weights and doing a lot more sort of low-intensity cardiorespiratory demand practice like walking.

Yeah, we were talking earlier about the importance of the social component of exercise, but some people are shy about exercising in public or if you're exercising out in the world, what advice do you have for them? Sure. One of my most important pieces of advice for this population is to start to build out a home gym.

I completely understand that gyms are not for everybody. Some people are solitary movers and solitary exercisers. I personally know quite a few of these people. And my recommendation is to start to accumulate some home gym equipment. I think one of the myths with creating a home gym is that you have to all of a sudden have $10,000 and a perfect space in which to put some home gym equipment, and that is not true.

A home gym is something that you can build up over time piece by piece, and there's a lot of affordable gym equipment on places like Craigslist. So my recommendation to those people are to slowly but surely start to build up, you know, a few pieces of strength equipment and maybe one piece of cardio equipment and put that in your apartment or in your garage if you have one and just own that you're not someone who wants to exercise with others, but at least create a space to be able to do that.

So start with strength equipment like dumbbells or weights.

Yeah, you can do 100 different workouts with two dumbbells, for example. This listener writes, last Christmas, I got a Quest 3 and started exercising with Supernatural. I hate exercising, but love Supernatural, where I get to smash orbs with either bats or boxing gloves in spectacular places in the world. I hate exercising, but this combines gaming with real exercise and virtual travel, and I exercise most days now.

Let me remind listeners, we are talking with the Star Reds, Juliet Star Red, a certified nutrition coach, Kelly Star Red, doctor of physical therapy, co-founders of The Ready State. And you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Let me go to Steve in Oakland. Hi, Steve. Thanks for waiting. You're on. Hey, how you doing? So,

So my question is, I enjoy working out and doing my push-ups and sit-ups, but I'm prone to pinching nerve in my right arm. And every time I get it, it takes about maybe a couple minutes

of months for it to go away. I mean, I try to do exercises, my physical therapy exercises, but it still takes a long time. So how can, is it possible to try to avoid certain exercise that won't bring that on? What do you think, Tyler? Well, let's...

Let's start by just saying that it's reasonable to say, hey, I know that this thing triggers it. And we always are asking, is there some technique that we're missing or some range of motion that we can improve that might unload or change how my body is reacting? One of the things that we want to do is start to say, hey, first order of business, let's make sure you're moving your body and having fun and you're in community and outside, etc., etc.,

But then we can start asking, hey, is my movement practice actually asking me to express myself

putting my arms over my head or putting my arms behind my body or rotating my spine. And there's a reason that yoga and practices like Pilates have been around a long time. They end up being very complete movement practices. And what I would say is even if you maybe don't fancy yourself a yogi, jump into a yoga class. And if you struggle with some of those positions, that might be an indicator that you might have some blind spots in your pharynx

fitness routine or fitness program. And so ultimately is we're asked to kind of come in and help, you

the world's best athletes and elite kings and the 49ers, et cetera, sort of solve their movement problems. We look at how their asses are moving and making sure that they're exposing themselves to some regular positions. An example is that hanging from a bar, even with your feet on the ground, is really restorative for your back and for your neck. But if you're only doing push-ups and sit-ups, it may be that you have sort of a blind spot in your movement matrix

And that potentially sets you up for overuse or sort of biasing your tissues in a way where this happens. Let me go to Mark in San Francisco next time. Mark, you're on.

Hi. I just wanted to ask a quick question. I'm in my early 70s and was very athletic in my younger years, but I injured my ankle in the military. And now it's very, I can have a hard time walking any sustained distance. You seem to recommend a lot of walking, but for those who can't walk, what do we do? And by the way, my daughter is in the PT program at UCSF.

Oh, cool. Thanks, Mark. Well, the first thing I would say is let's talk to your daughter about is there any input? And this would be a great situation where seeing a professional person about an old injury to see if we can get a little bit more movement out of that. How is that calf working?

And, of course, sometimes we get injured and we have to change the things we do. In this situation, swimming is great. Riding a bike is fantastic. Right. Maybe not loading in the walking. And we end up saying, hey, let's instead of using walking as our chief vehicle, let's use those walking credits to go to the farmer's market or or or engage in play like pickleball or something.

Thanks so much for that call, Mark. And let me go next to Drez in Milpitas. Hi, Drez. You're on. Hi, Nina. Thank you for the show. So I was wondering, one of your guests had talked about certification. So what kind of certifications should we be looking for? And my other curiosity is about any cross-discipline between a personal trainer, someone who is actively coaching you throughout exercises and

and has more education, like saying, in physical therapy. Thanks. So you mean certifications for a trainer, basically? Sure. I'll tackle that. There are traditional personal trainer certifications through organizations like the NASM. Another certification to look for is the CSCS. That stands for Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. And, of course, you also have the occasional hybrid certification

a coach like Kelly, who's both a physical therapist and a coach. And I would say for folks who maybe are battling an injury and also want to start a strength and conditioning program, they might look for someone who has that kind of training. But I think for 98% of people, working with a traditional personal trainer who has that kind of certification or a certified strength and conditioning specialist is perfectly fine.

So I want to end with just, again, how to motivate to get started or to keep your resolutions. We've been hearing some music, some songs that my producers have been having fun with during this hour. I'm wondering, is there a song that you use to motivate either of you?

Oh, man. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Beyonce, so I would take any Beyonce song as a motivator. I like this thing that sounds like French techno, you know, something that's in the background. I'm also really hearing throughout this that even a little bit of added movement or exercise, if consistent, can go a long way. It really does have that kind of cascading effect, just a little bit, if it's consistent.

It really does. And I hope that people take one thing away from this is that it all counts. And if all you have is 10 or 20 minutes to get a little bit of movement in, that counts and that's important. And we have a saying in our family called never do nothing, which is from a friend of ours named Dave Spitz, who owns a strength and conditioning center in the East Bay. And we use that as our own mantra on those days when we are totally jammed. Our goal is to never do nothing. Yeah.

Never do nothing. We're talking with Juliette Starrett and Kelly Starrett. Check out their books, Built to Move, The Supple Leopard, Becoming a Supple Leopard, and their fitness and mobility programs on The Ready State. Thank you both so much for being with us. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Nina.

And thank you, listeners, for your questions and tips. And thank you as well, Suzy Britton and Mark Nieto, for producing this segment. This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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