Choosing the StrongPath: Reversing the Downward Spiral of Aging

by Fred Bartlit, Steven Droullard, Marni Boppart, ScD

Overview

Choose health. Choose strength. Choose the StrongPath.
Choosing the StrongPath is a book about the most insidious health crisis in the world, Sarcopenia, a muscle-wasting and frailty disease. It impacts all of us as we age, unless we proactively prevent it.

As a world-renowned investigator and case builder, Fred Bartlit has done this once again with this book. He and coauthor Steven Droullard, along with muscle physiology expert Dr. Marni Boppart, want to share a little known fact with the world: You don’t have to fall apart as you get older. Through carefully calibrated progressive strength training and supporting nutrition, you can stave off sarcopenia, along with dozens of other age-related illnesses.

​Using scientific evidence and real-life case studies, Choosing the StrongPath offers a clear path away from a steady decline in the last third of your life and toward a healthier, happier you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626344761
Publisher:	Greenleaf Book Group Press
Publication date:	01/02/2018
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Fred Bartlit
Fred is a West Point graduate, a US Army troop commander, and a U.S. Army Ranger. He was first in his class in law school and holds the top academic record in the 120-year history of the University of Illinois College of Law. Fred is the subject of many books and publications, including America’s Top Trial Lawyers: Who They Are and Why They Win, American Bar Journal, and the National Law.

Fred has tried over 100 major cases in 24 states, the Virgin Islands, and Scotland. In 2001, he was selected by President Bush to represent him in the presidential election “hanging chad” trial. And in 2010, he was selected by President Obama to be the president’s chief counsel for President Obama’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Fred has been on the StrongPath for 34 years. Choosing the StrongPath is his first book. To reach Fred or to learn more about the StrongPath, visit strongpath.com.

Steven Droullard
Steven is a National Academy of Broadcasting graduate and was a news reporter in DC during the Watergate era at WPIK/WXRA. Steven was the director of COLL, a mindfulness-based commune during the mid-1970s. He also is a graduate of the Gemological Institute of America and became the CEO of Intergem, Inc. Steven got his master’s in consciousness studies from the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, CA, where he is now a faculty member. He is also chief business advisor to William R. Hearst II and has been a consultant to the Board of Directors of the New York Diamond Dealers Club.

Steven was among the first to identify the newly emerging attention economy and worked closely with Sylvain Ringer, a director of the New York Diamond Dealers Club on its practical implications for the diamond industry. In 2005, Steven introduced the dynamics and mechanics of the developing attention economy to the Diamond Industry Steering Committee.

Steven authored The Power of Attention in support of his course in “Attention Mechanics” in 2005. Steven and Fred began working together in 2003. Fred taught Steven the powerful impact that serious strength training has on physical and mental fitness. Steven has been on the StrongPath for 12 years. Choosing the StrongPath is his second book.

Marni Boppart, ScD
Marni Boppart obtained her bachelor degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from the University of New Hampshire, in Durham. She obtained her master’s degree in cell biology from Creighton University, in Omaha, Nebraska, while serving as an officer and aerospace physiologist in the US Air Force. She received her ScD in applied anatomy and physiology from Boston University and completed research for her degree at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School. Her postdoctoral work was completed in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health and is full-time faculty at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she heads the Molecular Muscle Physiology Laboratory.  

Her research interests include cellular biomechanics, cell signaling, and the role of extracellular matrix proteins in the protection of skeletal muscle from injury, disease, and aging.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Our Gift of 50 Additional Years of Life

UNTIL THE LATE 1800s, the average life expectancy around the world was between 30 and 40 years. High infant mortality rates played a large part in this low average figure. Major advances in the treatment of infectious disease or chronic diseases, like cancer and heart disease, had not yet occurred. Even simple illnesses or injuries could result in death, because we did not yet have the antibiotics or medications to heal them. Today, most people are reaching their high 70s. And, because of so many medical advancements, our generation and those who follow us have the potential to live even longer. The question is Will they live better?

While science has given us the gift of additional years, we are at risk of spending many of those years in a state of diminished quality of life. The sad reality is that many of us will wind up in a nursing home in our later years, because we have become too frail. In this chapter, we'll explore why these added years do not necessarily translate to better health and why it's critical to shift our mind-set so that we value and do not waste this gift of longevity.

AN ILLUMINATING REUNION

During the last 15 years, Fred began attending reunions with the men he had served with as a troop leader and a US Army Ranger. Back in the 1950s, they were a strong, athletic, and vibrant crowd — the pick of young American men. At the reunion 60 years later, their capacity was much diminished. Many of these guys moved slowly and with difficulty. Some avoided stairs. Many had lost height and seemed shrunken. Fred had followed their careers and accomplishments throughout the years and had been impressed. They'd met from time to time over the years, but the difference between then and their most recent meeting was downright startling. Their conversations, once focused on family and sports, turned to joint replacements, medications, bowel movements, and finding retirement homes — not to mention the discussion about the passing of many of their buddies over the years. Fred remembers standing back at one point, looking out and feeling sad. The event seemed less like a celebration and more like a winding down of it all, as if this group were saying good-bye to a once-energetic era and to their love of life.

Unlike his Army buddies, Fred was taking on new challenges in his 70s, trying to capture the same enthusiasm he'd had for sports and action in his thirties. Fred was getting stronger; his friends were growing frailer. They were all once successful, talented, vibrant leaders of industry. The difference between Fred and so many others his age was stark and growing starker each year. There was a dividing line between the strong and the weak. Time had passed, and perhaps that made their obvious aging more apparent. But Fred's energy level and lifestyle compared to theirs made it clear there was something else happening. Aging into frailty wasn't inevitable. Fred was living proof that people could age and get stronger simultaneously. But how? What separated them and those like Fred?

THE BENEFIT: LONGER LIVES

Today, we are living longer and the stakes are higher. Even though our bodies had been honed and fine-tuned by Darwin's natural selection into a perfect vehicle for life on this earth, none of these genomic changes had added even a week to our average life expectancy until recently. Starting around 1880, after millennia of stagnation, our life expectancy crept up slowly. By 1950, we lived to be 68 years old on average in the United States. By that time, improvements in sanitation, penicillin, and sulfa drugs had yielded the first substantial decrease in US adult mortality. In the latter part of the century, living standards continued to improve for most Americans. Decreasing smoking rates and better medical care also lowered mortality from chronic diseases. Most of you reading this will live on average 40–50 years longer than your ancestors born in 1880. Think about that; for 30,000 years, half or more of those born were dead 40 years later. That's almost unfathomable. Because we've been given the precious gift of time, most of us think that 39 or 40 is when life actually begins.

What Causes This Increase in Life Expectancy?

• Control of infectious diseases and better nutrition spurred a dramatic rise in our life span through the first half of the twentieth century.

• In the middle part of the twentieth century, penicillin and sulfa drugs increased the average adult life span.

• In the latter part of the twentieth century, better understanding of living standards, the impact of human behavior on health, and better medical care addressed chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Cardiovascular disease, in particular, showed dramatic decreases due to better medications, surgery, and reduction in tobacco smoking.

WE HAVE A CHOICE

With the gift of more years comes trepidation about aging — mostly based on the notion that we will grow frail and age poorly. Not only that, but many corporate pensions are a thing of the past. Now we must prepare to take care of ourselves financially as we age. Retirement at 65 is a high-risk proposition these days when decades ago it was the norm. Personally, Fred thinks planning on retiring at 75 is more sensible. But our minds must shift: Not only are we not planning financially for this gift of added years, we're also not viewing the years as potentially healthy ones.

Fred recalls a conversation with one of his kids, who asked, "Who would want to live to be 90 years old anyway?" He answered, "Someone who is 89 — especially a healthy 89." People shouldn't be afraid of aging, but they should be terrified to age the way most of the current generation has thus far. The ability to protect this gift of time is completely in our hands.

No one fears living. In fact, longevity is a near-universal dream. What people fear is physical degeneration, indignity, disability, and suffering. Numbers like 95 or 100 years old commonly inspire visions of decrepitude, chronic disease, and suffering. These disturb and scare everyone. Everyone wants to live long, but no one wants to suffer long. The StrongPath is rewriting what longevity looks like. It secures the whole-body improvement that extends health span and life span. It maintains vigor and strength while reducing chronic disease and suffering to a minimum throughout life.

To combat the change in life span, you need to shift your mentality: Instead of fearing age or aging, embrace it. Make it great. Few realize this opportunity exists as a choice. Being a centenarian can be a positive experience. Our behavior determines the path we choose. Here's an example: In 2015, the Huffington Post reported on a guy named Fred Winter, living in Michigan, who was 100 years old at the time and still doing 100 push-ups a day. He began working on his strength and fitness around age 70. He reportedly competes (and wins!) senior games, too. So the choice is ours: We can embrace this gift of years as illustrated in Figure 1.1, or we can squander it.

We are now living longer than ever before in history, nearly doubling our life span since the late nineteenth century due to extraordinary medical advances. The implications of those extra years of life are enormous. Unfortunately, many of us are not active enough, and we waste these later years because we do not realize that a change in our physical activity can dramatically improve the quality of these years. That needs to change and so does our view toward aging. We must embrace that gift by making those extra years healthy ones, not frail ones.

CHAPTER 2

A Sedentary Lifestyle: The Threat to Our Longer Life Spans

THE MATTER OF quality of life has taken on much greater significance as medical advancements have added years to our lives, making the downward spiral much longer and profound. This is a big reason we are so passionate about this cause. We're tackling it as a project, because we want to turn the ship around for this country. To our knowledge, no one — not clinicians or others — has adequately sounded the alarm on the detrimental impact of sedentary behavior on the community. If we are going to embrace the gift of longevity, it's important that we fully understand how to change our behavior, so those additional years represent a better quality of life rather than a decades-long dreary period of increasing disability, frailty, chronic disease, and mental decline.

In this chapter, we'll look at the impact of sedentary behavior on our physical bodies and learn why it is so harmful. Now that we are living longer, taking care of our strength has become critical.

THE REAL DANGER OF SEDENTARY BEHAVIOR

The impact of our sedentary lifestyle on our musculoskeletal system is pervasive: Statistics confirm that one-third of adults are inactive and another one-third is not sufficiently active to sustain health. While we lose muscle and bone as we age, we gain fat. Body fat is not only unsightly, but it also initiates a systemic inflammatory response that can harm tissue health. While some deterioration in function and health is noticeable in certain people early on, most will not be fully aware of its impact until much later in life, as the cycle of musculoskeletal tissue loss and fat infiltration progressively increase.

Two factors have created a perfect storm related to our aging population: the rapid rise in the numbers of older adults and the impact of sedentary behavior throughout their life spans. The result will be a dramatically increased rate of disabled, elderly people. Disability is a concern not only from the standpoint of loss of quality of life but also from a health-care perspective. It is unlikely that our health-care system can provide the infrastructure necessary to properly care for those who can't care for themselves.

If you don't take action now and get up and get moving by building strength, you are letting the opportunity to enjoy your personal optimal health and strength slip through your fingers. There is no "do-over." If you build your strength, you will greatly increase your health and even add years to your life. Otherwise, long before your time, you will lose your independence, physical ability, and much of your dignity. Your strength will likely deteriorate to such a degree that you'll slow way down. You may become unsteady, fall and break a hip or other bones, and become bedridden — if so, it can be a rapid decline to death. You don't have to miss the long, strong life you can have. You want to thrive. The default, a life of declining strength, is not inevitable; it is a needless waste of the opportunity of life that can be avoided.

That's why we're sounding the alarm bells now. Dr. Boppart assures us that the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), particularly the Strategic Health Initiative on Aging, has done an excellent job of gathering experts in the field to provide specific recommendations on exercise. The "Exercise Is Medicine" campaign was created to inform physicians about the importance of prescribing exercise to patients. She continued by saying that because the recommendations were not always translated or interpreted by someone with a scientific or medical background, the recommendations often went unheeded. We are committed to serving as translators, bridging the research and medical communities with anyone who will listen. We want to provide an unfiltered message about the realities of inactivity and the benefits of exercise and strength.

OUR DREAM FOR THOSE GIFTED EXTRA YEARS

We dream of being in our 90s and doing the same level of activity — travelling the world, continuing to ski — and being those 100-year-old guys who still do their sit-ups.

To us, there is nothing more important, valuable, or wonderful than being in your 80s doing all you have ever loved and still being able to improve. You will be happier in your 80s than ever before in your entire life because you will know that you saved your own life.

*
WHAT KIND OF years will you have as you age? You need to ask yourself that simple question. Will they be quality years? If your lifestyle is mostly sedentary, those years will likely be unhealthy and unhappy ones. Extra time is an incredible blessing, especially if it means more of all the wonderful feelings and experiences you love and treasure. But you must take action now and get up, get moving, and build your strength — before it's too late.

SARCOPENIA: THE INSIDIOUS DISEASE

We are all prone to a disease that causes strength and muscle loss. It is called sarcopenia, and we need to understand it to combat it. For almost all aging adults, ambition is no longer on the table. Their core value has been reduced to existing. Everything has become all about the past; the future is no longer part of the discussion. Why? Because people aren't aging well. They are deteriorating and giving up, because they don't believe they can age better. They're living longer but not better. That's why the differences between our lives and those of our longtime buddies and peers, and our relative views of life in general, were growing more profound with every passing day. We have learned from experience that frailty does not have to come with age. In fact, it is possible to become stronger as older adults than we were in our youth.

Doubling our life expectancy means that we must focus on the quality of those extra years — with a deep sense of urgency. Sarcopenia, while still a mystery to much of the medical community, will most certainly jeopardize your enjoyment of that gift of extra years, if you do nothing to combat it. The loss of strength that accompanies sarcopenia will dramatically impact your physical health. However, there is hope: You can counteract this loss of muscle tissue with strength training, which will also have a positive effect on many other chronic diseases.

SARCOPENIA IS PREVENTABLE

Let's think for a moment about how truly wonderful our lives should be today now that we have 80 to 90 years of life instead of 40. We have been handed decades of extra time to build successful businesses, be with our families, travel the world, and develop new activities and interests. Sadly, for almost all of us, these extra years we've been granted make life worse, not better. This is because everyone reading this has or will acquire a disease, a condition that deprives us of the full enjoyment of these additional years. Right now, as you read these words, you could already have sarcopenia — the insidious, almost unknown disease that threatens all you hold dear.

Beginning in our thirties, every single human being on earth develops a condition, which stealthily and steadily sucks away our strength. Every year we get weaker and weaker unless we proactively work against this default trend. The erosion of our strength accelerates in our 50s and continues to increase as we move into our 60s. There is an exponential increase in loss of lean tissue after 75.

The result is that all of us are trapped in a death spiral: As we lose strength, we become less active, and as we become less active, we lose more strength. Unknowingly, we spiral downward.

HOW THE SARCOPENIA DEATH SPIRAL AFFECTS OUR LIVES

The downward progression works like this: By the time we are in our 60s, we have lost a lot of our strength. This loss of strength makes it hard to recover if we lose our balance. And sooner or later, most of us suffer a bad fall — a fall that may even break a hip. The resulting couple of weeks of bed rest, or even simply inactivity, causes a further dramatic reduction in strength, which in turn further reduces our activity. We then become much more cautious, because we can feel how close we are to falling again in our steadily weakening condition. Eventually, we endure a series of falls, each time further reducing our activity. In a few years, we can basically become disabled, confined to an easy chair, walker, or wheelchair, as the unending spiral of injury and reduced activity grinds us into worthlessness.

Please know we are not exaggerating. We have seen friends who loved life, golf, and travel become caught in the spiral until, at ages younger than 85, they died of frailty and the inability to move.

How does this happen? You know that chronic diseases are the major killers, but did you know that physical inactivity is a primary cause of most chronic diseases? Inactivity is also a primary cause of sarcopenia, which is strictly correlated with physical disability and death.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Choosing the Strong Path"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Hard Facts, LLC.
Excerpted by permission of Greenleaf Book Group Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Foreword xiii

Preface xvii

Introduction 1

1 Our Gift of 50 Additional Years of Life 5

2 A Sedentary Lifestyle: The Threat to Our Longer Life Spans 11

3 The Cause of Sarcopenia 25

4 The Enormous Cost: Life on the Frail Trail 37

5 Why Most Doctors Do Not Understand Sarcopenia-or Its Remedy 43

6 The Remedy: Intense Physical Activity 57

7 The Motivation We All Need 87

8 Making the Mental Shift to the StrongPath 103

9 Habit, Willpower, and Our Ancient Brains 121

10 Getting Started: Know Your Muscles 141

11 Ongoing Objective Assessments 159

12 Working Out: Building Your StrongPath Plan 175

13 Your Full-Body Training Approach 189

14 The Final Critical Habit: Feed Your Muscles 217

Notes 249

Index 269

About the Authors 285