Build Strength and Connection as an Older Adult: A Conversation with Eric Levitan

#004 Discover how Team Vivo’s online, live, small-group classes are transforming fitness and relationships for older adults. Join Eric Levitan to explore strength training that improves health, mobility, and connections with loved ones.

Promo (Jan 2025)
Team Vivo is currently offer a free month of membership including 2 classes per week!  Yes, free, with no obligation or requirement.  We know how hard it is to start a new exercise program and we want to make it as easy as possible.

https://teamvivo.com/join/

Use Promo: STRONGER25

About Eric Levitan
Eric Levitan is the founder and CEO of Vivo. Eric brings to Vivo more than 25 years of executive leadership in the technology and software sectors.  As he witnessed the decline of his parents’ quality of lives as they got older, he realized he wanted to better understand the aging process and help them. That’s why he started Vivo – to create awareness and a safe, engaging, and impactful program to guide older adults to a safer and healthier life. 

About Team Vivo
Team Vivo is a revolutionary virtual fitness program designed specifically for older adults! Featuring live, interactive classes led by certified trainers, Vivo sessions are small-group, personalized, super fun, and adaptable to all fitness levels. With Vivo, you will get 'personal trainer' level attention and directly interact with your instructor, all from the comfort of home.  Vivo classes also focus on cognitive health through the use of dual-tasked exercises, which also build a sense of community.  As a bonus, Vivo also tracks your progress with 1-on-1 assessments to keep you accountable and motivated.

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Transcript

Zach Aten: [00:00:00] Hey friends, and welcome back to the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast, where we are routing you to more accessible and cost effective healthcare. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Eric Levitan, the founder and CEO of Team Vivo. Eric's personal journey with his aging parents inspired him to create a transformative solution for older adults looking to build strength, improve mobility, and maintain independence as they age.

In our conversation, we explore the science behind healthy aging, the importance of strength training, and how Team Vivo's innovative, live, small group classes are making fitness accessible for everyone, regardless of age or ability.

Whether you're looking for a way to stay active or hoping to help an aging loved one take their first steps towards better health, this episode is packed with options.

 Let's jump right into the conversation.

Eric Levitin Good to see you my friend. Welcome to the Healthcare Wayfinders. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Eric Levitan: Well, thanks, Zach. I appreciate it. It's [00:01:00] great to be here.

Zach Aten: Yeah I'm really looking forward to Hearing about y'all's solution at Vivo and how it's really helping folks live healthier, more active lives. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it and what you guys do.

Eric Levitan: Sure. So Vivo just very broadly is an evidence based fitness program for older adults with a real focus on building strength. And there's a really important part of this that I think we'll probably get into as we talk through, which is this understanding. Around why it's so important to build strength as we get older, and maybe just to give a quick introduction, we all lose muscle mass as we age every single one of us, it actually starts in our thirties, which is crazy to think about, but it is the case, and it is a progressive condition.

It accelerates as we get older, and a lot of people, you know, we think about, Frailty that comes with old age but we don't really know what's going on in the science behind that. [00:02:00] And that is this concept that we are losing muscle mass at an ever increasing rate as we get older. And there's actually a name for it.

And that's a part of the origin story of this company, but that word is called sarcopenia. And I'm happy to dive into that a little bit more, but it is this progressive loss of muscle mass as we age. That leads to a loss of function, a loss of mobility and ultimately a loss of independence and we just don't think about this a lot, right?

We think about falls, we think about osteoporosis, we think about cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and all these other disorders. Conditions related to aging, we don't think about what is the precursor to all of that, which is we start losing our muscle mass and our strength. And so that is what we are focused on.

And that's really the whole foundation of what this company is all about.

Zach Aten: That's cool. what was the genesis for that or how did you get inspired to, you know, one start a company like this and two to focus on, you know, folks 55 and older.

Eric Levitan: So, you know, it's a little [00:03:00] bit of a winding story that I'll try and keep brief, but I think for a lot of people who are in this space, it's a personal experience with my own aging parents that really put me down this path. So back in probably 20. 10 I was running another startup that I was fortunate to be a part of that was a technology company in the media entertainment space nothing to do with this and I was an executive coaching program here in Atlanta called Vistage and we used to get speakers every month and we had a speaker come in who was an older gentleman he was in I remember so vividly he was in a short sleeve polo shirt and with bulging biceps and he was older.

But you didn't really know how old he was. He probably at the time for me, I was in my thirties. I assumed he was in his fifties. He introduced himself. He was a neurologist in Houston, Texas, and he was 75 years old, and he literally looked 20 years younger. He proceeded to deliver a pretty inspiring presentation on the four cornerstones [00:04:00] of healthy aging.

And for the most part, it was intuitive. It was nutrition, exercise, sleep, and mental health slash meditation. And I knew a little bit about each of those, but he went really deep into each. And in particular, he's the one that introduced me to this word sarcopenia. I'd never heard that word before. And I remember So vividly how much he talked about the importance of maintaining your strength as you get older.

And my parents were beginning to go through that period. They were in their early seventies at the time. And I remember asking both of my parents, have you ever heard of sarcopenia before? No. You know, did you know that you're losing muscle mass as you age? No. Did you know that there's something you should be doing about that right now?

No. And I remember it just really sticking out. Like. Why don't my parents know this like they're living this every day so at the time i was running another business i didn't really think much beyond that and then i was very fortunate to be a part of an exit and and sold the [00:05:00] company in twenty thirteen i actually stayed with the acquiring company until twenty eighteen at which point i really wanted to go back and do something entrepreneurial again and at our I guess serendipitously in kind of a positive and negative way both of my parents started having really significant challenges as a result of aging that I now know to be very typical of that age but they really had a precipitous decline in their quality of life and their mobility.

And my mom in particular had a series of falls. And I can remember her, you know, team of physicians that she was seeing, um, letting, telling her that the best thing for her to do to prevent these falls was to walk. And I knew, as a remote caregiver for my aging parents, that my mom was already walking two miles a day.

And yet she was still having these falls and literally had this kind of, you know, memory of sarcopenia, right? My mom is losing muscle mass. She doesn't need to walk more. She needs to strength train, but a. Her healthcare team is not really passing on this information and be [00:06:00] where do I even send her to strength train right as a seventy five year old woman who lives in another state than I do she lives in florida there just wasn't a lot of available programming out there.

That I certainly I knew about, and I really felt like this was an opportunity to do something that would specifically impact my own parents, but knowing the demographic shift that was happening, right? We have this, the largest population of older adults the world has ever known is happening right now, and it's growing.

And what an amazing opportunity to make a significant impact in a lot of people's lives. And that really drove, I kind of poured myself into the research. I was very fortunate to have a relationship with my alma mater. I went to Duke University I stayed kind of close to the school and was an advisor for some professors and got connected to the Duke center for aging and really got to talk to some very smart people who were already doing things around exercise and strength building for older adults, which really inspired me to [00:07:00] create this company called Viva.

Zach Aten: that is so cool. And you know, I think it's always, a team and especially a founder. It's always so much more passionate when, you know, what you're building comes from your own personal experience or problems that you or loved ones that you have experienced. Yeah. You know, I just love y'all's story.

Jump in, tell us what the program is. How does it work? How does somebody take advantage of it?

Eric Levitan: Yeah it's quite different from really the status quo. So we all know fitness is a crowded space, right? There is there, there are in person gyms, right? That, that are catering to, you know, these big box gyms, whether it's Crunch or LA Fitness or whoever it is. and then there's Boutique Fitness Studios, there's Orange Theory, there's CrossFit, there's SoulCycle, and Barry's Bootcamp, and all this litany of different, you know, boutique that are in person, but smaller, a little bit more intimate, a little bit more curated in terms of what their programming is, and then you have what they're trying to All slew of apps and online options, some of which are just YouTube videos, right?

And then there's all these apps that you can [00:08:00] get. And then of course there's personal trainers. And what we do and what we found is really the key to why this works so well is what we are doing is different from all of that. If you're already going to the gym and you're already self motivated to do that on a consistent basis, keep doing that, right?

That's working for you. Similarly. If you're disciplined enough to do an online program or an app in your basement, you know, two or three times a week. Great. That's amazing. What we have found is for older adults and really 50 plus, let's call it. I hate to put an age around this because there is no bottom threshold and there's no upper threshold, by the way.

But for a lot of us having the motivation and the discipline to exercise on a regular basis is hard. And so we really try to speak to those individuals, which I think is most people. And in particular, we deliver this as an online, but live and interactive small group. And I'll break down the kind of impetus [00:09:00] behind that.

And there's really three things. The first is, We deliver this as an online solution. I would never argue that being, you know, an online experience is superior to being in person. It is not. Being in person is always better for lots of different reasons. However, being in person presents some barriers to participation.

Maybe you don't have access to a facility that's close by, right? And it's too far. Maybe you don't feel comfortable going into a gym. A lot of gyms are really, you know, designed for younger people, not for older people. They can be intimidating. Maybe you don't know what you're doing. It's embarrassing to go in and not really know how to use these machines or these weights.

maybe you don't have transportation. Maybe you don't want to deal with the cold weather. Maybe you don't want to deal with traffic. There is a litany of reasons for why we don't engage in person. So doing something online where you can literally open up your laptop or turn on your computer or turn on your tablet and engage just removes a lot of those barriers and makes it a little bit easier to engage.

And then the [00:10:00] live and interactive small group makes it feel pretty close to being in person. It's not exactly the same, of course. But as soon as people start engaging, it actually feels like you're a part of this group, which takes us to the second part, which is we do this as a live interactive small group.

We have a live certified personal trainer who understands exercise and aging, who is looking at everybody and giving you real time feedback. And this is a really fundamental aspect of what we do, because especially as we, you know, even without. You know age is a factor we all have unique set of circumstances right some of us have low back pain some of us have knee or shoulder dysfunction we all have different things going on we all really need someone looking at us as we age it only gets more complicated and so we have a live trainer who's giving everybody real time feedback and in order to be able to do that effectively.

It's got to be small, right? With a group of 20, 30, 40, 50 people. You just can't give people that level of individualized [00:11:00] feedback, but we do. We keep the classes around 8 to 10 people, which allows our live trainers to look directly at you and correct your form. Keep you safe, modify and exercise if you've got pain or discomfort help you find the right level of challenge for how you're feeling that day.

It's a really subtle, but really important thing because even with your own, you know, preexisting set of issues, sometimes you feel good, right? And you've gotten plenty of sleep the night before. Sometimes you don't feel so great. You wake up, maybe didn't sleep enough. Maybe your back hurts, your neck hurts, or you know, enjoyed one too many cocktails the night before and you're dragging a little bit.

So knowing how to help someone reach a level of challenge on that day is important because that's what gets the outcomes. That's where the magic happens. If exercise is too easy, you will not see the benefits. It's got to be a little bit hard, not a great message to deliver, but it's the truth. We have to challenge ourselves to experience growth.

So that's really the second part of why we do what we do. [00:12:00] And the third part is arguably the most important. All of your listeners probably already know that exercise is good for us. We all know this. Again, it's hard to create habit. It's hard to have that discipline and that self motivation when you make exercise fun and you make it social and you feel a part of a group, it makes it a little bit easier to adopt and it creates accountability and accountability leads to behavioral change.

And that is what we are going for. So with these small groups, we are very intentional about creating social engagement, creating conversation creating social connection and social support that leads to repetitive behavior, that leads to behavioral change, which leads to having exercise be a part of your DNA, a part of what you want to do, because the other thing that is not a great message to deliver to your listeners, but is also the truth, you can't exercise occasionally and see health outcomes, and you can't exercise for 12 weeks and check the box and never do it again.

This is something that we need [00:13:00] to do. Multiple times a week every week for the rest of our lives, and it's not a fun thing to think about. But again, it's the truth. It's what we have to do. So the sooner you can build this in as just a part of your lifestyle, the sooner you will see these tremendous benefits that exercise and in particular building strength brings.

So we. Are very intentional again about creating this social engagement not to go on and on, but I think it's probably important to maybe explain a little bit of how we do that. And we actually utilize something called dual test exercises and many people have not are not familiar with this concept.

It was really developed for older adults or specifically individuals with cognitive, neurocognitive disorder like Parkinson's or dementia. It is the simultaneous physical movement and cognitive recall. In other words, we ask people questions while they're exercising, it engages the brain. It's a really interesting thing that your brain is really focused on moving your body.

And when you have to recall [00:14:00] information, it leads to something called neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. It's this formation of new neural pathways. It's really good for cognition, for executive function. It's actually really good for balance. Interestingly enough, but what we found, we built it into this program because obviously, as we get older, we all want to focus on our brain health.

We have, we're all hearing the news and the studies around cognitive decline and dementia and Alzheimer's, and we want to focus on that. That's why we built this into the program. What we found, though, is when you get people talking in small groups, Yeah. It creates conversation and when you create conversation you create community and so we really started leaning into this more and more so sometimes we ask people silly questions you know that while you're doing your warm up of squats or chair stands whatever you're doing i want you to name for me as many words that begin with the letter b as possible go and it sounds silly it is silly it's actually hard.

You're standing up from a chair or you're doing squats, whatever it is that you're doing, [00:15:00] and you have to think of words that begin with the letter B, and it's shockingly hard and frustrating, but that's the important part of it. And then sometimes it's less nonsensical and it's more about you.

Hey, tell me about, hey, we're approaching Thanksgiving. What's your favorite part of the holiday meal? And this was a real example from a class in the past, right before Thanksgiving, someone said cranberry sauce and that was their answer. And someone else was like, cranberry sauce is disgusting. How could you like cranberry sauce?

And for the next 45 minutes, the group Really split into these two sides of people that love cranberry sauce and people that hate cranberry sauce. And it culminated after the class people emailed around the recipes of how they make their cranberry sauce. And it was such a wonderful example of, we were exercising for 45 minutes, but nobody felt like they were exercising, right?

We were talking about something really fun and silly and connecting. And it was a wonderful example of what happens in a Devo class,

Zach Aten: In my [00:16:00] mind, I'm like thinking of like George Costanza's parents and Jerry Seinfeld's parents exercising and arguing

Eric Levitan: talking about

Zach Aten: Thanksgiving food. Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. That is so funny. Oh, man. Well, everything you're saying, I mean, that resonates with me. I'm 37 and I go to a, you know, a private gym where it's a small class and they just tell me what to do.

Cause like I've, you know, I work all day. We've got small kids. I don't want to have to think about it. Right. But I still want to be healthy. I want to be healthy for my family. And so I just go and show up, but you guys are making it even easier. You just, Turn on your computer, I guess. I'm assuming this is like on Zoom or something like

Eric Levitan: we leverage the zoom platform. We want to use something that people were comfortable with and make it really easy. So whether you're comfortable with technology or not, we send people reminders in their email, and it's literally got a big button says join class. We do have an app and a platform that [00:17:00] we utilize as well.

But most of our members just joined by clicking that button. And yes, a zoom window pops up and we've, we leveraged the zoom platform as a familiar one that I think we all got pretty used to during the pandemic.

Zach Aten: Yeah, what's What's like the progression level for folks? I mean, I'm assuming you've got beginners, like, do you have the 75 year old neurologist with massive biceps? Are they all in the same class or do they have different classes or how's that work?

Eric Levitan: So there's actually two, two parts to that answer. It's a great question, by the way, for every exercise. So there is an age is not necessarily an indicator at all, right? We've got, really mobility challenged younger folks in there, whether it's 40s, 50s, 60s. We've got extremely fit participants in their 70s, 80s and 90s and beyond and everything in between.

And knowing there's so much variability in this very large, diverse audience. what we do is for every exercise that we introduce for every movement pattern, we [00:18:00] introduce four different variations of that, of that exercise. We just refer to those as levels. So level one is always going to be seated or standing supported.

So if you've got really, You know, you're challenged from a balance and mobility perspective, or maybe you're even chair bound, you can participate in a vivo class on the other end of the spectrum. Level four is going to be the most challenging versions of those movements, and it is going to be generally getting involving getting to the floor or some sort of plyometric jumping, hopping you know, more challenging kind of movement and a wonderful example Would be a squat.

A squat is one of the most fundamental functional moves. We're very, very focused on functional movement that mimics activities of daily living. This isn't about, you know, benching and doing these things that are also really good for us, by the way, but it's really about functional movements and a squat is probably the, arguably the most important, right?

A squat is essentially standing [00:19:00] up from a chair, sitting down and standing up in the chair. When we lose our ability to stand up from our chair, we truly lose our independence. And so we want to help people preserve that. Well, the level, the progression of levels for a squat looks like as follows. A level four version of a squat would be a squat using weight, maybe holding a kettlebell or a dumbbell or using resistance bands, something to add some weight, a level three version.

So maybe you can't do that. That's too hard. Level three might be, well, you can just use body weight. You don't need to hold any additional weight, but can you, um, you know, Squat down and stand back up just using body weight and maybe you can't do that. So a level two version of a squat might be a chair stand where you're actually standing up and sitting back down in a chair, which is a little bit easier than just a standard body weight squat or potentially another variation of that might be standing behind a chair or a counter and using your hands as leverage to help take some weight off of your body.

And some people can't do that. And they really can't get out of a chair. [00:20:00] And so a level one version of a squat will be seated doing knee raises. And so for anybody of any level of mobility, they can engage in that exercise. And so for every exercise that we introduce, we introduce these four levels. So that's really the most fundamental thing around what we're doing is we're helping people find the level.

And by the way, you might do. Level two or three squats one day, but maybe your knees are bothering you and so you decide to do level one squats the next time this is where we want to help people figure out how to reach that level of challenge for how they're feeling that day. Also one other quick side note people are not levels exercises are levels one of the other very common things that we see is you may be doing.

Level three or four versions of upper body exercises, but level one or two versions of lower body exercises because you have knee pain or hip pain or lower back pain. Right. or vice versa. Maybe you're doing, you've got really strong lower body, but you've got some sort of shoulder mobility [00:21:00] issues or arthritis or rotator cuff issues, and you can't do any, you know, overhead movements.

You might be doing level one upper body and level three lower body, right? So that's very, very common. So fundamentally we've got these four levels for every exercise. What we then did is we realized there's a little bit more of a cohesive experience when. People are of similar levels of mobility and fitness in the same classes.

And so, first and foremost, anybody can join any class. And this works really, really well. And we have classes with people who are all over the spectrum. But we also have these branded versions of our classes designed to try to group people together by your fitness. On the one hand, we have what we call VIVO Foundations.

VIVO Foundations are generally for people Who are uncomfortable with exercise. Maybe they're just starting their journey. Maybe they've got significant balance or mobility issues. We're doing mostly level one and two exercises. People that may be chair bound or remain seated the entire program. [00:22:00] Those will be in our Vivo foundations classes.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have a class called Vivo plus Vivo. Plus are for people that want a really challenging at home exercise program. We're mostly doing level three and four exercises. We're doing maybe more increased number of sets or repetitions or exercises in that class. It's a little bit faster paced.

And then in the middle, we just call it Vivo. We probably should have a better name than that. But we have a Vivo foundations, Vivo and Vivo plus, and we help people find which class they're going to be most comfortable in.

Zach Aten: That's awesome. I feel like that makes it super accessible for someone wherever you're at on the spectrum and if you have any kind of like, you know, injuries or something like that, I love it, you know, and I'm assuming you guys do some kind of like assessment or something to start off with so that, you know, like the trainer knows, like if I have a, you know, I had a dislocated shoulder in high school football or something and I need extra help there or I need a movement change or [00:23:00] something like that.

Wow.

Eric Levitan: big differentiator for us and a lot of other fitness programs out there is whenever someone joins our program, we start out and we do a one on one assessment with a specialist. We have a team of researchers, PTs, scientists that do these one on one assessments also over zoom.

So it's literally just the assessor and the individual and we will talk about health history. We'll talk about goals. Goals are actually a really important part because we want to translate. Yes, it's great to see improvements in strength and balance, but to what end right to what means whether it's taking a trip, whether it's just wanting to get on the floor and play with your grandkids establishing those goals helps with that motivation.

But then we baseline. Your strength, your upper body strength, your lower body strength, your balance, your endurance, and your agility. We use standard scientifically validated assessments with normative data, and we capture where you're at. And that gives us a really good indication that we can pass on to the trainer.

So they know more about [00:24:00] you and they know what your goals are. They know what maybe chronic conditions you're suffering from or limitations or pain, and then. Every two to three months we reassess so we actually track progress and here's the crazy thing 100 percent of everyone we've ever baseline assessed and reassessed two to three months later have gotten stronger 100%.

We've never had anybody who got baseline assessed and then reassessed and did not get stronger. And it's crazy because this is not rocket science. It turns out that if you strength train consistently over time, you get stronger. That's just how it works. And so what's really beautiful about this is not snake oil, right?

This is not some magic pill or, you know, magic bullet that we're offering. We're offering something that is proven in science to work literally all the time. And if you engage on a consistent basis to a level of challenge, you will see outcomes. And we see that over and over and over again. And it's amazing because when you build strength, it changes your entire [00:25:00] life.

It affects your sleep. You have deeper sleep and longer sleep people. It affects your pain. You almost always it's counterintuitive. People often use pain as an objection to participating in a program like this. It's actually super beneficial for arthritic pain. It lowers your A1C. It lowers blood pressure.

It's good for your heart. People often lose weight. It's good for mental health and depression and anxiety. It is this really, really wonderful utility that's available to all of us that we just underutilize. And so that's where we really love to see. And these assessments help demonstrate that to folks that they get to see their progression.

We send them a little chart. It's got graphs for each of the different areas. That we're assessing and they, we have a very, very good understanding of what that's going to look like for every single person. And it's always very, very positive.

Zach Aten: What do you guys do if like, let's say Husband and wife want to work out together. Can they do that or do they schedule different sessions or how's that [00:26:00] work?

Eric Levitan: So that's one of my favorite parts about what we do. And still to this day, we probably need to figure out how to better market and talk about the fact that this is a way of connecting families. So first and foremost, as your question, husbands and wives, we have spouses, significant others. We have a lot of members that participate together.

I do this with my wife. Sometimes we're in the same screen together. Sometimes we're in different screens and different rooms, or we, she may be traveling. I may be traveling, but we often engage. We also have spouses that choose intentionally not to be a part of the same class together which is also very, very real example where this gets even more interesting.

And one of my favorite things to talk about is this is a way of connecting adult children with their aging parents. And this has been, I'll speak very much personally. One of the most amazing parts and kind of ancillary benefits of starting this program is, I do Vivo twice a week with my dad and twice a week with my mom.

They're [00:27:00] divorced. They live in different states. My dad's in Pennsylvania. My mom's in Florida. I live in Atlanta. And I get to see both of my parents twice a week and engage in a shared experience with them. It's amazing. Both of my parents are in their 80s. I get to see how they're looking, see how they're moving, and we're talking, right?

There were, there's an exchange. It's, they're not just a, you know, a muted box on the screen. We're a part of something. And what's really cool is we're a part of something as peers. I'm not their child, right? They're not parenting me. I'm not their caregiver. I'm not looking after them. There's someone else who's facilitating an event that is connecting us.

And beyond the obvious benefits of my parents are getting healthier and stronger, I'm getting healthier and stronger. It's actually improved our relationship. It's incredible, right? We used to have phone calls, maybe a weekly call, be like, dad, how are you doing this week? I don't know. I'm okay. How are you doing this week?

Like that was the nature of our calls. It has opened up our relationship. Vivo has become a really significant part [00:28:00] of just yeah. Keeping that communication line open throughout the week my dad will text me after a class will talk about how hard it was or how silly it was or how funny it was or can you believe this thing or that exercise I'm so sore like it's just created a new you know connection point and, When I first built this program back in April of 2020, I remember bringing it to my dad and saying, Dad, I love you to be an early customer, right?

You're part of the inspiration for why I created this. I'd love for you to try it and give us feedback. And my dad said no. And it was a really wonderful learning experience because I was like, what do you mean? No, I'm, I'm your son. This is my company, like support me. And, uh, he proceeded to go through what I now refer to as the objections.

And this is feedback that we see all the time. So it looks something like this. I don't have time. It's one of my favorites. Um, I, I don't, I can't lift weights. This is not for me. I'll get hurt. I'd be [00:29:00] embarrassed. I already walk. That's another one of my favorites. I don't need to strengthen. I'm already walking every day.

We see the same, you know, objections over and over and over again. And I challenge, if you're an adult child in your 30s, 40s, 50s, and you've got aging parents, I challenge you to ask your parents about a program like this and hear their response. And you'll probably hear one of those, those answers. And all of that stems from some very, very core emotions that are in all of us.

And as it relates to exercise and aging, whether it's from living in an ageist society or just the way that we naturally are fearful, there's two things that are these great inhibitors to participating in a program like VIVO, and those two things are fear and shame, and fear and shame are very hard to overcome.

We're afraid of getting hurt or worse. We're afraid of putting ourselves out there and being embarrassed and not being able to do things or looking stupid or silly. Those are hard things to help people get over. What I found after this debate with my dad of trying to counter [00:30:00] his objections was ultimately, I got frustrated and I said, dad, what if I just do this with you?

And without hesitation, he said, okay. And that was a real learning moment and that's something I would love to pass on. And again, whether your listeners are choose to do Viva or not and do something else, engage with your aging parents, be that motivation to help them get started because know that fear and shame are really powerful things that are preventing people from doing things that they know they should be doing.

Right? We all know exercise is good for us. It's hard to take the first step as adult children as part of that sandwich generation. We can help be the catalyst for the first step. So I did this with my dad. I do this with my, I do this with my dad. I do this with my mom. It is a wonderful, they continue to show up and they engage in vivo twice a week.

There's so much healthier. It's unbelievable. My dad is an 83 year old man. He does planks on the ground on his elbows and toes, just like I do. At 83, [00:31:00] he was not doing that before Vivo. It is amazing to watch someone get stronger, more confident and how it opens up their world. And again it's been a gift for both of us because it's improved our relationship and I'm so proud of my parents, right?

It's amazing to watch them engage in a strength program in their 80s and watch what's happening to their lives.

Zach Aten: That's amazing. That's, that's like a win, win, win, win, win all around for everybody.

Eric Levitan: Totally.

Zach Aten: Man, Eric. Okay. So, you know, we've talked about this. How do people get engaged if they want to with Vivo or they want to recommend it to their family members or, or they want to, you know, start Something at the beginning of the year where they're going to work with their aging parent.

How do they how do they connect with you guys?

Eric Levitan: So the best way to start is to go to our website, which is team vivo. com team. Like you're a part of a team. We consider when you join this program, you do, you're a part of a team. We're in this together. It's hard to do by yourself. So it's T E A M V I V O. com. And because we have [00:32:00] this understanding around behavioral science and knowing how hard it is to get started, we offer these free intro classes four times a week.

Completely free, no obligation, and it's more talking than moving, because we know people are uncomfortable or might be nervous. So, we just want to give you a demonstration, talk about how we run these classes, why we do the things that we do, and what it looks like. Because we know there's some trepidation, right, to, to get started.

So, it's a great way to get some confidence to do some of the movements in a smaller environment. Thank you. And to see that you can do this, that's actually one of the other objections I didn't mention is for a lot of older adults. They think this is not for them. This is for younger, healthier, more fit individuals.

I've already lost my mobility. I have significant balance issues. I'm in so much pain. I can't do this. It's too late. It is never too late. That's one of the greatest misconceptions. Some of the landmark research around this from the late eighties from Tufts University was [00:33:00] with Individuals in their 90s and nursing homes who were not exercises at all and had lost much of their mobility and saw these incredible gains from engaging three times a week in these 45 minute classes.

And so knowing that it's not too late, we run these free classes to help people understand that they can do this from there. You can decide if this is a program you want to do. If you're an adult child, you can give this to your aging parents. There's a way to buy this for them. Thank you. But I love what you suggested and doing this with your aging parents is such a wonderful way to help them bridge that, you know, take that, that next step.

And for those of you who are listening to this in January, we are actually doing something that's pretty special where we are offering a free month, an entire free month. If you sign up by the end of January, you can engage in vivo classes twice a week for free with no obligation to really see how this works.

We want people to have this experience, and even if they end up not choosing Vivo, [00:34:00] hopefully they see they can do this, they feel better as a result of doing this, and they incorporate that into their lives in whatever way makes sense for them. Because that's the ultimate goal, right, is when we exercise on a consistent basis, and in particular focus on strength, It, as we talked about already, it is such an important integral part of healthy aging.

We just want people to adopt this, have this awareness and adopt it, know how to adopt it as habit. And so engaging for free for a month and twice a week classes, 45 minute classes is a pretty cool thing that hopefully will resonate with your listeners. And either they'll do it for themselves or do it for their parents, or they'll do it with their parents.

Zach Aten: Eric Levitin Leader of Team Vivo appreciate you for coming on the podcast and sharing the amazing work that y'all are doing we'll link everything that you talked about in the show notes so that people can find you and Yeah, y'all check it out. It's Great way to start the year. Thanks for coming on the show, Eric.

Eric Levitan: I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.