Move Your Body, Rinse Your Brain: Aerobic Exercise, Cerebrospinal Fluid, and Brain Clearance
Regular aerobic exercise helps move the cerebrospinal fluid that clears waste from the brain. What the research shows and how adults 50+ can use it.
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Strength Training After 80: The Best Proven Results From 8 Studies
I have, and still do, coach and train Men and Women in their eighties. It always begins with the 1st phase, which is core stabilization. This approach helps them understand what it is and why it increases their ability to do more. In this phase, flexibility through stretching and static holds i.e., modified planks, side-lying,…
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The Importance of VO2 Max After 50
I have been endurance training for most of my adult life. In fact, I recently wrote a short story on Substack based on my college days, https://tomstratman.substack.com/p/the-river?r=3s5xzoThere are three major biomarkers in endurance training: VO2max, lactate threshold, and exercise economy (efficiency). For the over 50 casual athlete, VO2max after 50 is the most difficult of…
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Beets for Endurance Athletes Over 50
Vegetable Review of the Month-October Beets for endurance athletes are one of the few foods with a real physiological mechanism behind their reputation, and that mechanism matters more, not less, after 50. The reason is nitrate, a compound beets carry in unusually high amounts, which your body converts into nitric oxide, a molecule that relaxes…
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Bovine Collagen and Tendon Repair
Why Tendons and Ligaments Are a Collagen Story Tendons and ligaments are, structurally, collagen tissue. Type I collagen makes up roughly 60 to 80 percent of the dry weight of a healthy tendon or ligament, organized into densely packed fibrils that give these tissues their tensile strength (Taye et al., 2020; Screen et al., 2015)….
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Why Running and Cycling are Symbiotic in Endurance Training
Ask a dedicated cyclist why they started running, or an amateur runner why they picked up a bike, and you tend to hear the same story: something plateaued, or something broke, and the other sport turned out to be exactly what filled the gap. That is not coincidence. Running and cycling load the aerobic engine…
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What Is DNA and Epigenetics?
What is DNA? DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for building and operating every living organism. It is shaped like a twisted ladder, known as a double helix, made up of two long strands wound around each other. The rungs of that ladder are pairs of four chemical bases:…
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Exercise and Serotonin: What Aerobic Training Really Does
I work out 8-10 hours per week. It’s a combination of indoor cycling (which I teach at the YMCA) and my Fit for Life classes 4 times/week @ 50 minutes/class. I am a strength & conditioning coach for an alcohol & drug recovery entity. And I strength train a minimum of 3 times per…
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EAA Supplementation for Muscle Tear Recovery: What the Science Actually Supports
If you’ve strained or torn a muscle — an erector spinae strain, a hamstring pull, a rotator cuff tweak — you’ve probably been told to “get your protein in” for recovery. That advice isn’t wrong, but it’s incomplete. The research on tissue repair points to something more specific: essential amino acids (EAAs), and one in…
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L-Leucine and the Active Aging Advantage
You’re Doing the Work. So Why Is Muscle Still Slipping Away? L-Leucine for Active Adults Over 50: What the Science Says You’re not sitting on the couch. You’re showing up for your workouts, watching your protein intake, and taking your health seriously. Yet somewhere in your fifties or sixties, you noticed something frustrating: maintaining muscle…
