"Fitness: 50, 60, 70 and Beyond" with author Michael Guadagnino, DC

Many thanks to Dr. Michael Guadagnino, author of the new book “Fitness: 50,60,70, and Beyond.” Dr. Guadagnino is a fitness enthusiast and chiropractic practitioner for more than 30 years. 

During our 20-minute interview, Dr. Guadagnino shared his background in chiropractic medicine and fitness, emphasizing his extensive experience and focus on wellness for older adults. We discussed the challenges of exercising as one ages or in the presence of chronic illness, the importance of keeping a positive mindset, the advantage of writing down goals, and the value of exercise as an injury prevention strategy. 

Dr. Guadagnino stressed the importance of staying active. He emphasized the importance of warming up before exercise and observed that even stretching counts as exercise. Balance exercises can help prevent falls and injuries and are especially important as people age. Even small daily activities like walking or swimming are beneficial and can improve well-being. 

Dr. Guadagnino added that supplements may be helpful but are merely a “supplement” to regular physical activity and nutritious meals.

To learn more, please check out Dr. Guadagnino’s new book, “Fitness Over 50, 60, 70, and Beyond.” You can find more information or contact him at his website: https://drguadbook.com

Please click "Fanmail" and share your feedback!

If you enjoy an episode, please share with friends and colleagues. "The Art of Medicine with Dr. Andrew Wilner" is now available on Alexa! Just say, "Play podcast The Art of Medicine with Dr. Andrew Wilner!" 

To never miss a program, subscribe at www.andrewwilner.com. 

Follow me on Instagram: @andrewwilnermd

X: @drwilner

linkedin.com/in/drwilner 

Please rate and review each episode. 

To contact Dr. Wilner or to join the mailing list: www.andrewwilner.com

This production has been made possible in part by support from “The Art of Medicine's” wonderful sponsor, Locumstory.com, a resource where providers can get real, unbiased answers about locum tenens. If you are interested in locum tenens, or considering a new full-time position, please go to Locumstory.com.

Or paste this link into your browser:

https://locumstory.com/?source=DSP_directbuy_drwilnerpodcast...

Transcript

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (0:08 - 1:35)

Welcome to the Art of Medicine, the program that explores the arts, business, and clinical aspects of the practice of medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Wilner. I've planned a great program for today, but first, a word from our sponsor, locumstory.com.

Locumstory.com is a free, unbiased educational resource about locum tenens. It's not an agency. LocumStory answers your questions on their website, podcast, webinars, videos, and they even have a locums 101 crash course.

Learn about locums and get insights from real-life physicians, PAs, and NPs at locumstory.com. And now to my guest. Today, my guest is Dr. Michael Guadagnino, who has been practicing chiropractic medicine for 33 years. He is also the author of the new book, Fitness, 50, 60, 70, and beyond. Michael is serious about fitness and has taken a special interest in fitness and wellness for those of us over 50. And I certainly qualify, so I have a particular interest in today's discussion.

Since many of us are living longer and want to be active and productive when we get older, it seems worthwhile that whatever your current age, learning and incorporating healthy habits might help. Let's find out. Welcome, Dr. G.

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (1:36 - 1:39)

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Wilner, and thank you for having me on today.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (1:39 - 2:10)

It's a pleasure. Yeah, it's my pleasure. And we were talking earlier.

I do try and exercise almost every day, and I'm not gaining any ground. You know, with any luck, I'm almost as good as I was three years ago, but there's just like, you know, I like to improve when I do stuff, and I don't see that. I feel like, you know, the leak, it's a dam, and the water just keeps coming in, but I still keep showing up.

So I want some tips. So tell us about your background. How did you get into this fitness thing?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (2:11 - 3:31)

Right. My fitness, I've always been a fitness enthusiast. As a kid, I was a black belt in karate, and I continued that through college.

Always into fitness, played sports. In college, I went to New York Institute of Technology, where I received a bachelor's degree in biology. So I went on to New York Chiropractic College, where I received my doctorate of chiropractic for practice for 33 years.

Still a fitness person, a fitness guru, someone who I do a lot on social media for fitness, especially for those of us over the age of 50. It's important, as we talked about earlier in our pre-discussion. I feel that everything, as we age, and science tells us, everything leads to entropy.

Everything wants to kind of decay and become less organized. Falling apart. That's not the way I'm putting it.

That's not the way I'm putting it. Yeah. But I think it's important to kind of not fall apart, and what we can do to help prevent that.

And it includes the exercise, it includes the nutrition, it includes the hospital supplements, positive state of mind, keeping that state of mind positive, discussions, meeting with people, talking with people. And along the way, you're like a salmon. You're swimming upstream.

You're continuing to fight that entropy, that falling apart. And to me, that's important.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (3:33 - 4:54)

Right. So that's really the game. We are swimming upstream as we get older.

So maybe part of the mental challenge is just to accept that. It's like, you know what? It's hard.

And take that challenge on. Exactly. And start with that.

It's like, no, it's not going to be easy. No, you can't lose 10 pounds in seven days. It's not going to work.

Right. So specifically, I looked into this. As you get older, there's a tendency to gain weight.

There's a tendency to lose muscle mass. I know renal function decreases. We watch that carefully in all of my patients.

And as you get older, the kidneys, when you're born, one kidney is good for like 10 people. But as you get older, your kidneys just barely hanging on, good enough for one person. And if you're lucky, it gets you to 100.

And even the brain, there's such a thing as age-related brain atrophy. And we see this in MRI. You get some older person than me, and you look at the brain and go, yeah, look at that.

There's all this cerebrospinal fluid where there used to be brain. So, I mean, given that, that's what we got. What kind of fitness goals are realistic?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (4:55 - 6:12)

What we talk about in my book is we want to do the best we can to fulfill our genetic complement. Some people may be genetically geared to lift 110. Some people may be genetically geared, unfortunately, to lift 65, 70 or less.

But whatever that is, let's do what we can. Stay away from toxins. Toxins that will affect the kidneys, will affect the brain and the heart.

Exercise. You mentioned about you lose muscle mass. But you can exercise and you can still lift weights up until your 90s.

Look at Jack LaLanne. And continue to keep that muscle mass. They found, the science has shown, by keeping your muscle mass, it will help you fight off disease.

It will help you fight off illness. It will help keep you healthier and stronger. And all that's important.

So, we're swimming upstream. It's not easy. Nothing in life is easy.

But it's important that if you want to keep yourself healthy, you don't want to decay at a much rapid rate. Let's take care of ourselves. And even if it's just a little bit every day, just a little walking every day, a little swimming, eating right, cutting back a little bit on some of the sugars, makes a difference.

It really can make a difference.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (6:13 - 6:40)

You know, what about motivation? A lot of people are kind of behind the eight ball. They've got some chronic illness, maybe trouble breathing, or, you know, a little bit of heart failure, or their blood sugar is always off, or they don't feel good, or they, you know, have orthopedic problem in their knees.

And you say, well, you know, you really need to exercise every day. I can't exercise. You know, and it's, so how do you stay motivated when you have a chronic illness?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (6:41 - 8:44)

Well, chronic illness, I have to talk about that too. There's chair yoga. There's some stretching.

There's just some, there's a little bit of movements. Doing what you can in a complete nonjudgmental way. If it's walking, if it's, if it's outside doing some breathing exercises, there's always something that somebody can do.

Some are congestive heart though, you don't want to get them on, you do not want to put them on a treadmill. But there are other things you can do that, that just working the chair. I've seen classes with people sitting in a chair and they'll pass a ball around.

It just gets a little bit of movement, a little bit of that motion. And that's, that's so important and doing that. And you talk about motivation.

I, the big thing of motivations is a lot of times what happens, it's January 1st, everybody's motivated. January 15th, no one's motivated anymore. They, their resolutions kind of go away.

So I tell people, get yourself a notebook, a journal, write down, you know, the younger people might, you might do it on their cell phone, but our generation still writes. Write down why, what's so motivating? Why are you motivated?

What excites you? And then just read it every day. And just kind of follow that, that process.

And then add to it, you know, today I'm going to walk a little bit, tomorrow I'm going to eat a little bit, I'm going to something, I'm going to try to stay away from extra sugars or whatever it is. And just continue to follow that. And the same thing too, you can set yourself some goals and then reverse engineer those goals in your journal.

You know, I want to lose, like I said, 10 pounds before. Well, seven days is kind of, it's, you can't do that safely. I mean, really, it's not really the same thing.

I'm going to lose 10 pounds over two months. When that comes to, well, a pound a week. And even if you fall short and only lose eight pounds or seven pounds, you'll be motivated because you have, I got three more pounds to go.

Just like writing things down, seeing them, using another sense as opposed to just your mind, it makes a difference. It really helps keep you motivated and keeps you striving to reach those goals and fight through those diseases that somebody may have.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (8:46 - 9:12)

Talk a little bit about, you know, injuries. I was prepping for a trip and I said, well, I got to really get in shape. So I pushed myself a little harder.

I was swimming and I pulled my hamstring and I could barely walk for like a month. And that led to another injury because I was limping, you know, and I was like, boy, this is a downer. So what about injuries?

How do we navigate that?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (9:13 - 10:20)

There is a reality of being over 50. We're not as flexible as we once were, even on the microscopic level. Our muscles and tissues are just not as flexible.

It's not as moist. Things dry up. So yeah, these things happen.

And stretching is always important and warming up is important. Similar to two different things. Warming up is what you do before you exercise.

Stretching is just another type of exercise where you can do some stretches to keep your hips loose, make it a workout, keep your ankles, your hamstrings loose. And then warming up is before you do your exercise, you do some dynamic type of exercises, stretches to allow you to then get into it. And then injuries are going to happen.

I mean, all of us, tendonitis, pull hamstrings, and just work around it. I mean, it's just treating it safely. You know, you either go to a chiropractor, physical therapist, something you treat it yourself if it's minor enough.

And you can always work around it. You hurt your hamstring, but you can still sit in a chair and do some exercises during that month, during the time.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (10:20 - 10:40)

There's like 200 million people in the U.S. with back pain, right? I'm a chiropractor. I know.

And you've seen a lot of, not all of them, but you've seen a lot of them. So is there any sort of tip there as to either avoiding it or treating it or, you know, what you've learned in your 33 years? Balance is important.

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (10:41 - 11:26)

Balance between the hamstrings, the abdomen, the back, keeping it nice and balanced. I find a lot of times when people have back pain or back issues, somewhere along the line, one of those muscles is very tight. They have really tight hamstrings or they have really tight lower back, or their abs are just not in shape.

By keeping it balanced, keeping them all stretched out, keeping them flexible, it helps to prevent back injury. A lot of times these back injuries when, you know, people come in and say, oh, I just bent over. I just got out of bed.

That was set up probably for most of the time because those muscles were just tight. The back was tight. The abs are just weak.

And something just overfired. And then you have a slow back muscle, or in your case, a hamstring pull.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (11:27 - 11:51)

Yeah. You know, I have a theory. I mean, I was never much of a jock, but when I started exercising, I found maybe this is a strategy for injury prevention.

In other words, if I'm a little bit in better shape, my legs are a little stronger, my balance is a little better, maybe I'm less likely to fall and then have a real injury. What do you think about that? Does that make sense?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (11:51 - 12:49)

Completely. I even talk about that too. Balance is, especially as you age, balance is important.

Especially when people, folks, you know, they get older, they're 70 age, and they really should do some exercise on balance. Exercise with eyes open, exercise with eyes closed, working two different parts of your brain. Exercises on one foot, exercises on the other foot.

It just, it really helps with balance. It's just so important to prevent falls. Because balance, as you know, Doc, it's basically your space, knowing where your space is, where your place is in space.

And when you lose that is a lot of times when you lose your balance. You know, folks fall and sometimes break, God forbid, they break their hips. They just keep their balance.

So I really, I stress that, especially with folks, and doing it in a safe environment. I don't want to be in their house standing on one leg with their eyes closed. But doing it with a spotter, doing it in a facility, doing it safely.

But yeah, balance is extremely important for injury prevention on so many levels.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (12:50 - 12:57)

Yeah, falling. Falling is bad, right? Yeah, right.

You know, particularly you get older, you get kind of brittle.

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (13:00 - 13:28)

Yeah, but you know, Wolf's Law, science says that you exercise, resistance exercises, helps build and helps keep the bones stronger. So that's why I really want people to exercise a little bit, even if they sit there with two pound weights or a can of tomatoes, just something to help keep it. So it's not only to work your muscles and your joints, but Wolf's Law keeps those bones nice and harder, much stronger.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (13:29 - 14:03)

Yeah, you know, my residents asked me, well, what kind of exercise do you do? And I said, well, I have all these, I have a little bit of a home gym, but I said, it doesn't really matter. It's like, from my point of view, it's just whatever I do is more than doing nothing.

So if it's on the treadmill or the rowing machine or the climber or, you know, free weights, it doesn't matter. It's like, you know, the Olympics is not on my horizon. So it's just a matter of showing up and not being, you know, bored to tears.

Right. And It's doing something.

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (14:05 - 14:26)

It's doing something. It's whatever it is that you're doing something, you're breathing, you're sweating a little bit, you're working the muscles, the bones, the joints, makes that heart pump a little bit more. It's just doing something.

And before you said you felt like you've been flat for three years. If you're flat for three years, that means you haven't decayed in three years. That's all good.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (14:27 - 14:45)

Yeah, right. So just holding your own is already a big accomplishment. Right.

Yeah. So as a as a chiropractor, what kind of, you know, injuries do you see like the most common that could have been avoided, for example?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (14:47 - 15:46)

Most low back injuries. But really, if it comes down to having that balance, most of what I treat in my office is low back. I treat a lot of.

Disc injuries, lower back, I have some medical doctors who send patients to me first before they send them to surgery, and to see what we can do first. And a lot of times we help them. And if we don't, I send them back and say, you know, we gave it a shot, or this is someone who I really, we really can't help.

And, but by keeping that balance, a lot of times when they come to me, it's been there for a while. They've hurt their back, and they try to get past it. And I come and I do an intake.

And yeah, about two years ago, this happened to me. And that's when the injury happened. But even if you go back further, the imbalance, I'm sure was there.

And it's just, I just really feel that if you kept yourself in that balance, you kept the nice and some flexibility, some abs that are a little bit tighter. Back is a little bit looser, and the hamstrings a little bit looser. It really makes a difference.

It really will help prevent those injuries.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (15:47 - 16:38)

Now, one topic I just want to touch on before we close is, you know, people are looking for an easy answer. This hurts, you know, I want to be stronger. I want to prevent injury.

And there is this supplement industry, right? So as a medical doctor, you know, my training is there's got to be some, you know, FDA approved kind of indication. It's got to be well tested.

And of course, that doesn't really apply to the supplement industry. They just put something in a bottle and say it works with some fine print that gets them out of the FDA world. And I think it's really hard to know whether that's, you know, I mean, the danger is usually just to your pocketbook.

Most of the stuff isn't poisonous, but the supplements are pretty popular. Do you do you have a kind of a take on that from your experience of, you know, what kind of supplements or no supplements or?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (16:40 - 18:57)

I think supplements are important. Supplements are a supplement. They don't replace your meal.

They're supplement. Living in this country, there's a lot of the agriculture breaks the ground, it's a deep scraping of the ground, it takes a lot of the minerals and vitamins out of the food. And it doesn't get into the plants.

Animals eat the plants, we eat the plants, we eat the animals. So I think it's important for some supplementing. I do.

Usually, it's like, you're right, it's tough, because there's so much out there. And everybody's the best. But it's look and see what kind of testing has been done.

My own company has been around, what's the company's grade? Has anybody else evaluated this company? I'm running a couple of given names of companies or which ones I think would be best.

But that's really how we approach. I do think again, supplementing, I just think it is important. As we age, CoQ10 repletes for mitochondria.

And it's important. There's been some tests done that shows that supplementing with CoQ10 helps heart issues. It's really good for people who take statins.

It's especially people with congestive heart failure. I've seen some data on that. And in my book, I use at least 200 citations, which the citations are from the Lancet, the AMA, they're from real good sources.

Legitimate sources. Legitimate sources, yes. And that's important.

Natural health does not mean alternative health, doesn't mean crazy health. I'm a chiropractor. I know there's a lot of times when people look at me but if you evaluate what you're doing, you use good science, good data that's out there, and just follow through with it.

That's why I have medical doctors refer me to patients because I follow that course. And I try to instill that and help my patients in that way. This book is following that way, the natural way of being healthy, but not going off the rails.

It's all based on pure science and data. Mike, I'm excited to read your book.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (18:58 - 18:59)

Where can we find it?

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (19:00 - 19:50)

Obviously, Amazon. Amazon's the best way. It's again, fitness over 50, 60, 70 and beyond.

And I also, if you go to my website, drmguad.com, d-r-m-g-u-a-d.com, I have everything on there. You can find, I blog once a week on different health issues. It could be about the back, it could be about supplements, it could be about fitness.

My own podcast I've been on, this one will be on there too, to help people with answers, as well as a link to get you to my book. And again, if someone has questions, there's an email they can send me and I will respond. If you're selling me something, maybe I won't respond.

As you know, we get a lot of those. But if someone needs help, I'd be more than happy to respond as best I can with the limited information or information that I have.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (19:51 - 19:57)

Well, that's just perfect. Dr. Michael Guadagnino, thanks for joining me on the Art of Medicine.

[Michael Guadagnino, DC] (19:57 - 19:59)

It's a pleasure. Thank you very much.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (19:59 - 22:29)

And now a final thanks to our sponsor, locumstory.com. Locumstory.com is a free, unbiased educational resource about locum tenens. It's not an agency.

Locumstory exists to answer your questions about the how-tos of locums on their website, podcast, webinars, and videos. They even have a locums 101 crash course. At locumstory.com, you can discover if locum tenens make sense for you and your career goals. What makes locumstory.com unique is that it's a peer-to-peer platform with real physicians sharing their experiences and stories, both the good and bad, about working locum tenens, hence the name Locum Story. Locumstory.com is a self-service tool that you can explore at your own pace with no pressure or obligation. It's completely free.

Thanks again to locumstory.com for sponsoring this episode of the Art of Medicine. I'm Dr. Andrew Wilner. See you next time.

This program is hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Wilner, MD, FACP, FAAN. Guests receive no financial compensation for their appearance on the Art of Medicine. Andrew Wilner, MD, is a professor of neurology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee.

Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this program belong solely to Dr. Wilner and his guests and not necessarily to their employers, organizations, other group, or individual. While this program intends to be informative, it is meant for entertainment purposes only. The Art of Medicine does not offer professional, financial, legal, or medical advice.

Dr. Wilner and his guests assume no responsibility or liability for any damages, financial or otherwise, that arise in connection with consuming this program's content. Thanks for watching. For more episodes of the Art of Medicine, please follow on YouTube or your favorite podcast player.

Please share with your friends and subscribe. www.andrewwilner.com