Welcome Avatar! If you’re 20 something and still able to drink/party till 2 in the morning, go to work and hit the gym like nothing happened… this doesn’t really apply. If you’re starting to lose explosive strength (vertical leap, sprinting times, etc.) then this one is important. Chalk this info up to later in life and just put a book mark on it.
Essentially, we’ve got a bunch of theories/beliefs related to aging and “AI/SI” is going to say it doesn’t work. We’re fine with it since the only way to be ahead of the curve is by doing things that AI/SI claims isn’t true.
General Longevity
We’ve posted this quite a few times but it’s useful to understand the why behind it. The general idea in a word is this: mobility
If you look at the top two sports it all has the same thing in common: 1) scapular mobility, 2) hand eye coordination and 3) reaction time. Before anyone chimes in with the same complaints “biased for wealth”, it doesn’t explain golf (which isn’t even on the list and is significantly more expensive)
If you want to be more intense about it, soccer is essentially a mobility game as well. However it is further away from the heart (legs). Therefore we’ve got a decent starting point for the why.
Scapular Mobility
This is probably the biggest thing you can work on even if you don’t want to play tennis or badminton or another racket sport. You can buy a cheap device and simply improve your range of motion/mobility through slow rotational movements.
Most of you, including us, have spent a ton of time sitting in a forward position. Specifically, your shoulders are likely inwardly rotated. If you want to test for this, stand with your feet, back and shoulders completely flat against the wall. Now try to get your elbows against the wall and go from this pose to directly above your head (elbow, wrist, back of hand always against the wall along with your entire body).
Women in general have more flexibility so not as difficult. We’d wager that most men will struggle with this. It’ll feel like a brick and ultra tense/stiff. This is a sign of weakening shoulder mobility.
Since your shoulder is close to your heart and your heart is required to pump blood through all your limbs, you can guess what this means for the tension in your arteries, capillaries, veins etc.
Simple Fix: If you do not want to play tennis or a racket sport, you will need to spend about 3-5 minutes per day using a basic Indian club to expand the range of motion of your arm. You will have to do this until you can get fully externally rotated. This means you can get into this position and actually go back beyond the wall (IE. you could stand up straight, reach behind you *without* bending your back, legs or neck)
Simple Theory: As mentioned “AI” and a doctor will say none of this matters. It seems pretty logical to us though. If you lose mobility and flexibility in your shoulders, it would make everything else underneath the body work harder. The stress on your heart likely goes up (basically imagine being consistently pinched).
If you look at the image below, you can see that that the before person “looks older”. Despite being the exact same person. This is because the natural rounding is what we see in people who are 50, 60, 70 and up. Hunched over which is just a slow progression from having a permanently rounded front shoulder position (worsening over decades)
Hip Flexors
If this looks like max pain to you? Problem to solve as soon as you can!
In conjunction with the poor upper mobility, the second most common is tight and immobile hip flexors. You can get away with having this issue for years (since it doesn’t matter as much), however, it will cause long term pain in your joints to lose hip mobility.
Tennis is a way to keep the mobility up, moving left to right and forward/back (lots of lateral ability needed) which is why people who can play tennis consistently at old age are generally healthier.
Over time your goal is to be able to do that exact same position but get your head all the way to the ground. Once again, women can typically do this easily and men typically avoid this work because it feels awful. Men (in general) over-gear to maximum reps, pain and effort. They ignore the boring slow stretching sensation because they don’t get a sweat and don’t feel like they worked out. Ironically, this is what causes a long-term injury later on (torn tendon/ligament)
Knee Health and Calves as the Second Heart
This is a good example of a beginner version. If you have knee pain/calf blood flow issues, this stretch is for you. A good sign of either issue is if your legs fall asleep during long flights (never a good sign for any limb to fall asleep).
Take the exact same thing you see here and sit up straight. Back entirely flat vertical and sitting on your heels. If you can’t do that today, it is fine. Keep doing it for the same 3-5 minutes per day and you’ll eventually get there.
Summary: If you can do all three of these things, you’re basically in “good enough” shape. By being able to do it all, you’re unlikely going to have poor mobility in old age. If you want to add an extra one, do some 90/90 hip rotations on the floor as well. When you can do them without arm support you’re in “good enough” shape.
Speeding Up the Whole Process Up
One of the biggest issues with middle age is the accumulated stress from stimulants. We’re not saints either. Everyone goes through the meat grinder and is forced to abuse caffeine or other substances to get their work done.
The problem is that this ends up being a bad long-term habit. Constantly speeding up the nervous system and constricting blood vessels catches up with people eventually. This is also why a lot of middle aged people have joint and back pain. It is all a symptom of a consistent root problem: messed up sleep and poor blood flow.
When you’re younger it doesn’t seem like it is having any impact. However, it is. Waking up more tired than usual builds up over years. Slowly reducing mobility builds up over years. Next thing you know you’re taking down 500mg of caffeine and accumulating systemic inflammation in your body.
Enter Sauna/Steam Rooms
Once again, AI will claim that this is dangerous. However, at this rough age band of middle age, you can get away with it. If you are out of shape, never really took care of your body and have poor signal recognition (then yes you have problems). For the majority who are still working out and notice that they are getting less athletic? Sauna/Steam Room Hack
Basic Premise: If you get into a sauna or steam room the temperature will easily be into the 100s (120+ or so). Sitting here for about 5 minutes will increase heart rate and circulation while dropping your blood pressure.
In addition to this it’ll loosen up the fascia which is probably one of the main impingements to getting your mobility back in the first place.
Repeated 30 Second Holds: As mentioned, most guys have a problem with over working their system. It’s a lot easier to get a guy to max rep three times vs. sit in a boring position for 30 seconds at a time. Naturally, this means the stretching is of utmost importance (since no one wants to do it).
Basic 30 second options:
Hamstring and calf stretches
Hipflextor stretches
Shoulder and back
These three are going to open up the major issues we listed in the beginning. It’ll take months (sadly) to get all of this to a respectable range of motion. By the end of it, you’ll feel about 2-3 years younger.
Still Don’t Believe It?
The prior demographic of tennis/racket sports vs. the rest has been well known. People still debate it (for reasons unknown). If you dig a bit further you can test our mobility theory with a simple search: compare it to gymnastics.
We know people will just dump it into AI for the data so here it is
Enough to See the Correlation: At this point you have enough to paint a mosaic. The common thread between something like gymnastics and tennis is simple: flexibility and functional mobility. While we can argue semantics all day, tennis is a pretty fluid sport requiring lengthening of limbs and change of direction. Gymnastics requires something similar. Long lengthening of limbs (rings for example) and coordinate change of direction (floor routines). Add this up and you can see why a lot of fitness influencers have glorified dead hangs as a potential health marker (all related to the same scapular mobility and range of motion).
There you have it. Just extended your life by about 8-years without any serious financial cost. For the more serious people, you can check out the HRT items we’re involved in. As usual, none of this is medial advice of any kind, AI/SI will say this is dangerous. DYOR and best of luck!
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce.
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