Aging Backwards_10 Years Lighter and 10 Years Younger in 30 Minutes a Day Read online




  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTIONThe Myth of Aging

  PART I: HOW AND WHY WE AGE

  CHAPTER 1What Is Aging?

  CHAPTER 2The Building Blocks of Life and Our Inner Fountain of Youth

  CHAPTER 3“Why Do I Suddenly Feel So Old?” How Your Body Responds to the Big 4-0

  CHAPTER 4Meet Your Muscles, Ligaments, and Joints

  PART II: HOW WE STAY YOUNG AND HEALTHY

  CHAPTER 5Stretch It Out: Flexibility Is the Fountain of Youth

  CHAPTER 6Maximize Muscle Power: Boosting Strength and Endurance

  CHAPTER 7Get Moving: The Connection Between Fitness and Disease Prevention

  CHAPTER 8Prevent and Heal After Injury

  PART III: THE EIGHT AGE-REVERSING WORKOUTS

  CHAPTER 9How to Do the Workouts

  CHAPTER 10Straighten Your Posture

  CHAPTER 11Speed Your Weight Loss

  CHAPTER 12Soothe Your Joints

  CHAPTER 13Increase Your Energy

  CHAPTER 14Relieve Your Pain

  CHAPTER 15Enhance Your Balance

  CHAPTER 16Improve Your Mobility

  CHAPTER 17Protect Your Bones

  AFTERWORDThe Power of Life

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Index

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  THE MYTH OF AGING

  Every day, no matter what our age or current health status, we have a very clear choice: We can grow older or we can grow younger.

  I mean this quite literally.

  Some people might not see aging as a choice—they see it as something they have no control over, just like the passage of time. But with the information I share in this book, I hope to convince you that you absolutely do have a choice in the age of your bones, your muscles, your internal organs, and your skin. You can decide if you want to spend your days feeling vital, energetic, and healthy, and joyfully use your body to exercise, travel, and play with your children (or grandchildren)—or if you want to be confined to a life of joint and back pain, limited mobility, and a lack of physical strength that keep you sitting on a bench and watching others do the things you once did.

  The difference between these two extremes is a matter of 30 minutes a day—that’s all. You already possess the power to determine your body’s true age. The choice is yours: Passively allow the aging process to take over, or actively counter the aging process in a mere half hour a day.

  Me, I like that kind of deal. I plan on staying young forever (or as close to it as I can manage!). And I hope you do, too. I can show you how.

  THE MYTH OF AGING

  Until very recently, medical researchers believed that many of the negative effects of aging were inevitable. As we grow old, conventional wisdom has told us, our skin sags, our muscles waste away, we gain weight, and we eventually develop a chronic disease, such as heart disease or cancer, which will kill us. (Is it any wonder we are such a youth-obsessed culture?)

  But in the past few years, scientists have made tremendous discoveries that offer a different picture of what it looks like to get older. Consider these common myths about aging that have recently been disproved:

  Myth: Our brains grow only until we’re in our twenties—and then they start to die.

  Truth: Neuroscientists have proved that, as long as we stay mentally active, our brains can actually keep growing and adding brain cells well into our twilight years, through the miracle of “brain plasticity.” (And the most powerful booster of brain plasticity? Exercise.)

  Myth: Our metabolism slows down when we hit 40.

  Truth: If we do absolutely no exercise, yes, our metabolism will start to take a hit at 40. But study after study over the last 25 years has proved that people who consistently exercise three times a week can completely avoid age-related metabolic slowdown and actually retain the same metabolism as people almost 40 years younger.1–3

  Myth: Our skin will inevitably age and wrinkle—our only defense is good genes.

  Truth: We know now that many, many factors have an impact on the health of our skin. And, luckily, the amount of sun exposure can be countered with sunscreen. The amount of free radical activity can be countered with a fruit- and vegetable-rich diet packed with free radical–fighting antioxidants. The impact of gravity on the skin’s elasticity and firmness can be lessened with plenty of fresh water, enough deep sleep, and—you guessed it—exercise. (Recent research found just 3 months of exercising twice a week can restore the skin of 60-year-old sedentary folks to the same state as that of a 20- to 40-year-old!)4

  Myth: Our muscles inevitably fade away with each passing decade.

  Truth: If we don’t use it, we will lose it. But if we do use it—meaning, if we engage our muscles—we don’t need to lose a single ounce of muscle. One University of Pittsburgh study looked at a cross section of 40 recreational athletes aged 40 to 81 who exercised four or five times a week. They underwent MRI scans, body composition testing, and quadriceps strength testing; the researchers measured their muscle mass and the amount of fat under their skin and between their muscles. The researchers found that, with exercise, the athletes could retain exactly the same levels of lean muscle mass from their forties into their eighties—in fact, some of the older exercisers had even more lean muscle tissue than the younger athletes.5

  Myth: Our joints are destined to fail.

  Truth: Our joints fail not from age but from mismanagement. If we learn how to protect our body from intense impact (by learning to walk gently), pay attention to range of motion in our training, and learn the proper ways to support our joints with flexible muscles, our original joints—the ones we are born with!—should remain healthy until our very last days.

  Myth: Everyone gets cancer/diabetes/heart disease eventually.

  Truth: Up to 34 percent of cancer risk is directly attributable to lifestyle choices.6 Every kilogram of weight loss lowers your risk of type 2 diabetes by 16 percent—so losing just 10 pounds could reduce your diabetes risk by over 60 percent.7 A study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that 82 percent of heart disease and heart attacks in women can be attributed to factors such as smoking, not exercising, being overweight, or eating a high-glycemic-index diet.8

  If these truths seem hard to believe, I’m not surprised. The dogma has long held that we are powerless against the march of time. After all, research had long found that, between the ages of 40 and 50, adults lose up to 8 percent of our muscle mass, with the loss accelerating to over 15 percent per decade after we hit 75.9 The assumption has always been that this muscle loss was simply an inevitable consequence of aging.

  But just in the last five years, the field of aging research has exploded with new clinical findings. Those scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and other well-respected medical centers have been proving just how wrong the assumption that age equals muscle loss has been. They’ve found that aging is far more a consequence of lifestyle choices than of calendar years. In fact, many of the symptoms we associate with aging are actually the result of not just the wear and tear on our bodies from years of use but also the negative effects of disuse. In our muscles are the keys to our longevity—the mystical wellspring of youth, called the mitochondria—the powerhouses of the cells. If we can keep these mitochondrial fires burning, our muscles—not to mention our bones, hearts, lungs, skin—can all enjoy the vitality and energy of youth, right up until our final days.

  The secret to keep
ing these powerhouses well fed and burning strong may surprise you. You don’t have to run marathons. (Unless you want to.) You don’t have to spend hours grunting in the gym. (Unless you’re into that kind of thing.) All you have to do is something that takes just a few minutes every day and makes your body feel lighter, leaner, smoother, more graceful, and relaxed. All you need to do is stretch.

  LOSE 10 POUNDS AND 10 YEARS IN 10 MINUTES

  Now, I’m not talking about the kind of stretching you do as you get out of bed and yawn in the morning. When I say stretching, I’m referring to a very specific kind of stretching, the ESSENTRICS model of toning and strengthening, which I will share with you in this book. Throughout my 30+ years of creating, developing, and teaching this approach, I have seen how it helps people instantly improve their appearance and very quickly improve many aspects of their health and fitness. I’ve been amazed at how the ESSENTRICS model can radically change the lives of busy people who thought their fittest years were behind them. And I love to see the looks on people’s faces when they realize how quickly good posture can radically change their appearance. (As I like to say, by using the ESSENTRICS model, you can “lose 10 pounds and 10 years in 10 minutes”—simply by changing the way you carry your body, you will look a decade younger.)

  In working with thousands of people on every continent in the world, I have seen how the ESSENTRICS model:

  •improves core strength

  •lengthens and tones all muscles (for a “dancer’s body”)

  •increases energy, balance, and flexibility

  •speeds lymphatic drainage and circulation

  •improves circulation and cardiovascular tone

  •decreases the need for prescription drugs

  •relieves back, knee, shoulder, hip, and foot pain

  •rebalances joints; alleviates and reverses arthritis and osteoporosis

  •heals acute and chronic injuries

  •decreases falls, sprains, and other injuries that can lead to inactivity and lack of mobility

  and, most delightfully for many,

  •helps speed weight loss—without extra effort

  All of these remarkable benefits can be yours for just the slightest investment of time every day. If one drug could offer all of these benefits, we’d be beating down our doctors’ doors for prescriptions, and the pharmaceutical companies would be rich beyond their dreams. We all have access to these benefits—and many more—every day. Give yourself just 30 minutes, and very soon, you will be leading a better, richer, longer, healthier, and happier life. Not a bad trade!

  I have taught this method to Olympic athletes, arthritic retirees, busy working parents, aspiring actors and dancers—and even professional hockey players. All these diverse groups of people have been surprised by how pleasurable, simple, and quick exercises can make such a profound difference in their lives. This simple approach has been a life-changer for thousands of people—but the very first life it changed was my own.

  THE DANCE OF LIFE

  The idea of the ESSENTRICS model was born when I was just a girl, studying at the National Ballet School of Canada, and then in my work as a professional ballerina with the National Ballet Company. There I developed a combination of discipline and creativity (not to mention an intimate knowledge of form and physique) that sparked my imagination for research and exploration, but I wouldn’t develop the techniques until much later. I had to understand the need first.

  After dancing in one too many Nutcracker performances, I left the company and started my own company, then was lured into the corporate world. I enjoyed the glamorous but grueling travel schedule, which had me leaving my 5-year-old daughter with relatives two weeks a month. Leaving that job was the best decision I ever made, though at the time it seemed like the most irresponsible. I had no job, and had no inkling as to how I was going to support my little Sahra as a single mom.

  I started teaching fitness classes at a local church to make ends meet. With strong word of mouth, my aerobics classes rapidly gained popularity, and before I knew it, I was teaching almost five classes a day in the basement of a church. I was outgrowing the space, and decided to dream big and open my own fitness center. As I began to discuss my work with more and more people both within and outside the fitness community, I came to realize that most people really didn’t love to exercise. The members of my studio enjoyed my classes, sure—but I gradually became aware of this huge number of people who weren’t walking in my door and didn’t do any exercise, at any time.

  This fascinated me—why did they not enjoy something that gave me so much pleasure and satisfaction? I surveyed many non-exercisers to find out, and what was revealed to me was the fact that people actually did want to exercise—they just didn’t like what was being offered. While aerobics had taken the fitness world by storm, we heard plenty of complaints about it, too. For many, the loud pounding music, high-impact movements, and copious sweating, and the bulky muscle tone they seemed to develop, were all strong deterrents. I kept hearing from my members, especially the women: I would like a workout with smooth movements that stretches me out instead of bulking me up. I want to have a long, lean, slender body. In other words, a dancer’s body.

  Well, I could certainly help with that! I set out to create an “anti-aerobic” workout. With thorough research and the invaluable mentorship of the director of Oncology and Surgery at Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital, Dr. Shibata, and a retired sports physiotherapist, Fiona Gilmore, I dived deep into the subjects of anatomy, physiology, and basic kinesiology. As the owner of the center, I had the ability to offer trial classes to a select group of students who guided me into designing a program that was fun, was healing, and, most important, slimmed them down and toned their bodies in the ways that they hoped exercise would.

  What came out of these classes was the foundation of the ESSENTRICS approach, a method I called the Esmonde Technique, which forms the basis for this book and for all the other fitness programs I have ever developed. All of these classes were aimed at keeping participants young and healthy, from cradle to grave.

  I named my first class Classical Stretch because the workouts stretched the muscles with long, simple, elegant lines that reminded me of classical architecture. When I opened Classical Stretch classes to the public at my fitness center, they were an instant hit. They became so popular that, to fill the demand, I had to train new instructors to teach my technique.

  Having to train others forced me to get my method out of my head and onto paper, to make it teachable to others. I had to dissect the technique and figure out what it was before I could train anyone else. I spent much of that time with my nose in any medical, anatomical, and physiological manuals I could get my hands on. This marked the beginning of a 10-year process of writing my own manuals, testing them, and starting again. I went through that process three times before completing a series of four manuals, levels one to four, which are the basis of our teacher-training program.

  After experiencing surprisingly huge growth in the program, in 1999, I worked up my courage and approached PBS with the faint hope that it might be interested in airing my fitness program on its network. Well, the rest is history. Fifteen years later, Classical Stretch is still viewable daily in millions of U.S. households. Thousands of Americans wake up to do the program daily.

  Over the years, we’ve worked to create better descriptions for this powerful method, so we can do a better job of training people. Many have said they think of ESSENTRICS as a flexibility program, with a bit of tai chi, some elements of physiotherapy stretching, and a lengthening of the muscles similar to that of ballet. When we named our program Classical Stretch, we were confident that it was a flexibility program, since everyone who did it gained flexibility.

  But here’s the thing: We kept receiving testimonials from viewers of the TV show and from our own clients telling us about the dramatic changes in their strength, weight, and body shape. If they stuck with it, people found ESSENTRICS would elo
ngate their legs, hips, and stomach, not to mention their arms, neck, and shoulders; improve their posture; slenderize their shoulders; lengthen the pectorals and upper back; open the chest and elongate the neckline; reduce love handles; and eliminate underarm flab. After a few weeks of intense ESSENTRICS, they weren’t the only ones noticing these changes—they found a measuring tape and a camera helped them see startling changes in the length and shape of their muscles. Many lost a pants size, or more.

  We were baffled. We didn’t think it made sense that stretching was causing these changes in strength, weight, and body shape. Even though we knew that people were losing weight while doing the program, we couldn’t figure out why. In our search to identify what Classical Stretch was, we ended up finding the answer in the science of movement and muscle anatomy. We had our epiphany.

  According to sports science, you can strengthen your muscles in one of two ways: eccentrically or concentrically. Concentric exercises strengthen the muscle by shortening it; eccentric exercise strengthens the muscle by lengthening it.

  Most other fitness programs focus on concentric strengthening. You see concentric strengthening every day in the gym, when people tense up and shorten their quadriceps muscles as they attempt to straighten a leg on the leg extension machine, for example, or pull a hand weight toward a shoulder in a biceps curl, or “crunch” their abdominal muscles during a sit-up. That concentric motion is typically where we focus all of our workout attention—we don’t give as much attention to lengthening our muscles.

  But by ignoring this, we’re giving short shrift to a very critical aspect of the development of healthy, strong muscles—eccentric exercise. Eccentric exercise simultaneously lengthens and strengthens, and is just as critical as concentric exercise, but is often overlooked as “wasted” time. In fact, your body is actually doing eccentric exercises as you reach into a high cupboard or get out of a car: You bend a knee and stretch out your quadriceps while these are still bearing the full weight of your body as you stand up. You are strengthening while lengthening.