Episode 16: Independence Is Built, Not Given

We challenge the belief that independence fades with age and show how targeted strength training rebuilds freedom, confidence, and energy. We map the quiet drift into avoidance and lay out a simple plan to regain leg strength, grip, posture, and the skill of getting off the floor.

• the quiet loss of muscle and balance over time
• activity versus strength and why they differ
• the pillars: leg strength, grip, core, posture, confidence
• how strength reduces fear of falling and expands choices
• finding the right dose: avoid too much or too little
• the sweet spot: twice-weekly progressive training
• practical moves: squats, hinges, step-ups, carries, floor work
• start where you are and track small wins
• life is the goal, not the gym

So if you need help with that, or that kind of speaks to you, feel free to reach out to us. Again, we have three locations in Maine now, which is great and Candybunk, our flagship Scarborough in South Portland, where we work with people um every day that are new to training, coming in with different injuries, different paths of life, different goals, of course, um, but guiding them all the same along the way with our big passion of being freedom and independence to live your life to the fullest.

Transcript

Independence Is Built

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of the 1% better podcast with your host, Josh Williams. So today I want to talk about this idea of how independence is actually built. It's not just preserved. It's not something that we just, you know, have. You know, most people think that independence just kind of slowly fades away with age. They assume that it's it's normal to start losing some independence or function. You know, they think staying active is enough. But independence is not a given, it's not automatic, but it's actually built slowly over time. And there's this quiet drift that we see. Over time, we slowly lose muscle. You can look at the stats. I'm not going to throw any out there because I'm going to get it wrong, but uh each year we slowly lose a percent of our muscle. And if we don't do anything about it, we slowly see our balance decreasing. We feel a little bit less steady. We might catch ourselves more on a rug. You know, our our ankles roll or give out. Um, we start, you know, avoiding things that maybe we don't feel as comfortable about. And we can do this without notice. We might, you know, stop carrying things up the stairs. We might decide to not do an activity anymore or a chore anymore. We might hire it out because we can, but then we start slowly avoiding these things. You know, another one is getting up and down off the ground. It's one of the bigger struggles. It requires a tremendous amount of mobility, strength, and stability, but it's something that is very practical. And as we continue to get older, there's less reasons why I need to get all the way down on the ground, other than in the worst reason, which is which is a fall. And so we want to be able to do that. We we stopped carrying heavy things as much. Maybe we break them up into different loads because our our strength has slipped, so we no longer can uh carry it through the intensity. Again, no dramatic injuries may have happened. It's just this kind of quiet avoidance of things that we used to do that we enjoyed doing. You know, that could be you know in the summertime gardening getting you know harder, outside chores in general getting harder. It could be, you know, the stairs all of a sudden start feeling a little bit steeper. You know, when we travel, we don't do as much because we're exhausted, we're too tired, and don't have the energy to do it. You know, getting up out of a cushy couch or chair requires maybe some rocking and force and using our hands to you know push us up out of there. So, you know, this isn't necessarily weakness, it's it's a lack of strength exposure. Our life has become built slowly where we don't have to do things that require strength or we use AIDS to get around having to use strength, and it just kind of feeds into what we're trying to avoid. And one of the one second fallacy is a hard word, but staying active is not the same as getting strong. So walking is awesome. Walking is great. I hear so many people, oh, I walk three to four miles a day. That is awesome. Don't stop. Being busy, I do all these these things, whether I volunteer or around the house, I'm cleaning, I'm I'm doing yard work, I'm doing you know, XYZ, you know, tracing my grandkids, those those are all great things. And but the understanding of being active, being busy is not the same as strength training. They are not the same thing. But it doesn't guarantee strength. So what does independence require? So independence requires strength, specifically leg strength, being able to have the strength and stability in the legs, grip strength, being able to hold something, which also goes into the mobility and posture of the shoulders and overall shoulder health. Core stability, this also comes back to posture. So holding good posture, good balance, steadiness when we're carrying something, and then also just this ability to be confident under under load, to be able to come in contact with something that is going to require strength and feel confident being able to do it, knowing how to brace, move, breathe, all that fun stuff. Strength is what allows you again to catch yourself if we trip. It allows you to uh lift heavy things over the head. Like again, an example would be like getting a suitcase in and out of an overhead compartment, getting up and off the ground when we need to, whether that's during play or or maybe we we fell. We have to study ourselves and get back up. Big thing with strength as well, so it creates freedom, but also plays with the psychological independence as well. Our minds are very powerful, as we know. They you know shape us, they have a big effect on us. We don't do anything without what the mind says. So with strength, we are able to ideally move with less fear of falling, of tripping, less hesitation to do activities that we enjoy doing, more willingness to say yes to things because you have the energy, you know you're confident that you can do it, or you can at least do it at a level where you can enjoy. And then you also have this confidence in your body. And people move differently when they feel stronger, when they feel confident how they move, they're less stiff, they're less rigid, able to take larger steps and move with a uh a proud chest so that they're not hunched over. And so you overall the strength again plays in the mindset of how you move, and again, the more free we can move, it plays back into our freedom.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

And so the goal of the gym is not the gym, the goal is always life experience.

The Right Dose And Consistency

SPEAKER_00 5:47

We get stronger to experience life better, to maintain our independence and freedom as long as we can. And this requires the right amount of balance to build safe independence. And understandably, where we're starting from, depending on where you're at, this is the first time strength training. You need more guidance. We have to do this safely and correctly. The two things we see is people try it, they do too much, they get hurt, and they think this isn't for me. It is dangerous. That's not the case. You didn't have guidance, you did too much. Um, maybe, maybe there was a bad instructor or coach, and that's unfortunate. And then the other side is we we do too little. We we do this routine over and over and over again. We get comfortable with because we know what to expect, we know how it feels. But the body's amazing, it adapts and it then stops building strength. And so we need this right amount approach where you are challenging yourself enough to continue to build that strength, maintain strength. And that's why it's important to you know track certain metrics. But the goal always with strength training is consistency. So if you're the person that has a routine that they do every day, you get consistency locked in, and now you need steady, slow progression to continue to challenge the body to build that strength and independence. On the flip side, for the person that maybe has never done anything, you know, we you want to start out slow again, once to twice a week, twice a week is that sweet spot where we're building slow, steady strength over time.

Practical Focus: Legs, Core, Lifts, Floor

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And so this is the mindset we have to have is that that sweet balance of it.

Start Where You Are

Help And Locations

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So practically taking away what we're we need to focus on if you want to maintain this independence with strength, is going to be you know, strength training about twice a week, yeah, prioritizing leg strength for sure. It's one of the big ones. And then, yeah, you want to work on some upper body strength and then and then some core strength as well, depending on posture or orthopedic considerations of historical injuries, you know, we need to uh do that. You want to be able to pick up something heavy off the ground, heavy is relative. Typically, what we're looking at with our clients is you know, up to 50 pounds, sometimes even heavier than that, depending on the client. Again, we have clients that lift much more than that, but it's all comes back to where you're at, where you're trying to get to. But being able to lift and interact with something safe, heavy, and safely is gonna help keep you protected, whether that's because you have to lift something or you fall, and now your body's able to absorb that force better. Your bones are uh stronger because they've experienced intensity. And then just big things like getting up and down off the ground. If at the very least you do that a couple times a day, it's gonna help so much. Again, it's a lot of strength, it's a lot of mobility, it's a lot of stability. Being able to do that by rolling to both sides, both right and left, is is huge. So, in closing, wrapping this all up, it is never too late. It is never too late to start building strength. Never is. You're not fragile, there's you're not a fragile flower that that needs to be babied, but you need to be at the right intensity to continue to maintain that independence. And you just need the right dose. And so sometimes certain people progress faster or slower than others, and we have to accept though hard where we're at now and build from there. It's not what I used to be able to do or I used to do this. We get stuck in that a lot, and that keeps us stuck in this trap of almost like, what's the point? Versus like, I'm here now, and this is what I want my life to look like for the next X years. And so this is where I'm starting from, this is what I need to do to do that safely. And the goal again with working out is not these hero workouts where you're pushing intensity. No, the goal is to make life outside of the gym easier and more freeing to keep that independence. So if you need help with that, or that kind of speaks to you, feel free to reach out to us. Again, we have three locations in Maine now, which is great and Candybunk, our flagship Scarborough in South Portland, where we work with people um every day that are new to training, coming in with different injuries, different paths of life, different goals, of course, um, but guiding them all the same along the way with our big passion of being freedom and independence to live your life to the fullest. And that's all I got today. Thank you all so much for tuning in and listening. Hope you have a fantastic day and week, and talk to you all soon.