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When should I stop exercising? Well, I hope this is a trick question, because the obvious answer is never! Kind of like asking when you should stop walking, or sleeping, or eating for God’s sake! Moving your limbs and constantly striving to make improvements in your physical abilities is a lifelong project, and just as we should constantly work at getting better and more able physically, we should also try to do so mentally as well.

Just as I am constantly researching about improving my overall health and nutrition, I am always on the lookout for physical improvements I can gain. At 73, I should change my goals somewhat - for instance, if I worked at this stage to get as big and bulky as possible, that would be idiotic! Actually, even when I was in my 20’s this was never my goal, and never would be: I wanted an aesthetic, symmetrical, Frank Zane/Steve Reeves kind of a body. Still do; and I hope you do too. Think of Greek statuary of ancient times- that is still the ideal of Western civilization, and should always be the ultimate ideal!

Luckily, this is also the ideal can be carried throughout life- even in old age, a lean, and quite strong and lithe physique can be yours for life. Flexibility and healthy joints should also be your lifelong goals, along with a certain amount of musculature. My mother’s brother, my uncle Bob Manthey, just turned 103 recently, and while quite lean, he also still has a pretty functional physique! He is a lifetime example of what we should all aim for- a healthy mind in a healthy body- and he has been following the principles I recommend here for his entire life.

He avoided vaccines for life, and although he himself was a medical doctor (an eye doctor) he avoided medical doctor appointments and tests that were more harmful than good. (Like most medical appointments are today at the typical clinic). Uncle Bob’s only vaccine was for small pox, when he enlisted in the army for WW2. Other than that, he relied on improving his bodily ’terrain’ through good natural nutrition and exercise. It certainly worked out very well indeed!

He lived on a small farm in South Dakota, and had 12 children. Also, he was very active musically, playing multiple instruments, singing, and playing with his family orchestra (with my mother and my aunts) and with other bands of various sizes.

I am active musically myself, as were my parents (my mother turns 100 this coming March 14), and I believe that music is a wonderful adjunct to life, bringing a type of pure joy to the spirit that never dims! If music is not your ‘thing’, other art forms are similar in inspiring your health and joy in life! Just choose your own NON poison form of Art…

The only caution I will give you here is to limit your use of heavy weights as you age. Preservation of your joints and tendons become paramount as you age, and muscular bulk means very little compared to your circulation and smooth, pain free joint movement. You can drop the heavy barbell squats and deadlifts, and go for high rep body-weight and one-legged squats balancing while holding gymnastic rings, and get rid of heavy bench presses to save your shoulders. Use the gymnastic rings for pushups, dips, pull-ups and rows, and if anything your physique will improve!

So, there is your advice from both me and my and Uncle Bob! In thirty years, when I am 103, I will update my thoughts- see you then!!

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Workouts are absolutely necessary for health and fitness! Now, hopefully you know that, and already accept the fact that while a proper, paleo sort of diet without industrial seed oils and processed foods of junk and fast food stuff, and loaded with good meats and full fat dairy is vital as well.

But what kind of workout is best for you? The bottom line is this: it changes over time! When you are a kid, meaning 20 or so and under, I suggest that calisthenics are best. Running is fine, but forget the long distances, meaning a mile of more. Sprints are great, but middle distances of varying tempo and terrain give you the best bang for your buck. Active sports are best, and playing games with your friends are ideal of all purposes.

I started weight lifting when I was was 20, and I believe this was ideal. Your body is primed and ready to put on muscle, strengthen tendons and ligaments, and grow at that age. Through your twenties and 30’s, you should build your physique to its potential. Sessions of up to an hour, for 2 to 4 hours per week is plenty. In my opinion, a home gym is ideal, in a basement or a garage. Simple barbell and dumbbell movements are ideal, and with a power rack of supports you will be perfectly safe!

The main thing to learn is that you need to work HARD. Strength training is probably, by definition, the hardest you will ever work! This is a wonderful lesson to learn, and will stand you in good stead in any endeavor you undertake for the rest of your life- in comparison, anything else seems easy, because you strive to make each test as easy as you can make it. Only in strength training do you purposely make each movement as hard as possible- for that is the point!

Following such a regimen is the best thing you can do for your total health - both physical and mental! The idea is to keep at it, over time, for the rest of your life. Proper paleo diet, good hard exercise and sleep- this will lay the foundation for a strong, healthy life! The discipline alone of such a life will carry over into anything you set yourself to accomplish.

As you age, though, certain things change. In your 50’s, the poundages you use should be kept down. Your base strength levels will tend to be far higher than average untrained fold of your age. This is great, but you do have greater chance of injury than you did in your 20’s and 30’s. Start to emphasize repetitions over heavy weights and low reps. Heavy singles are a mistake as you age; even heavy reps under 5 aren’t appropriate in your 50’s and 60’s…

I am now 73, and I enjoy training at least as much as I did in my youth! I’m still in my basement, and I do a split of lower body one day, and upper body the next training day. I prefer to use gymnastic rings over barbells, ring pushups and dips, along with ring pull-ups, accomplish the same thing without joint trauma, since the rings flex naturally throughout your movement, without overload. Also, now I use much higher reps, with constant tensions throughout the longer sets. The results are vastly better on the musculature shape.

Also, as you age, you need more rest days! What I do is, if I feel the need of a rest day, I don’t feel guilty at all. There is no longer really any pressure- just enjoy your days!

I no longer do heavy deadlifts or squats- they are unnecessary. I now do bodyweight squats with raised heels, and kettlebell swings for high reps, along with single legged squats holding the rings for balance. It’s all about the reps now!

One thing I have added in in my 40’s and 50’s, has been a morning sessio

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It seems as though the great ‘Paleo Boom’ has come and gone! All the books, all the podcasts- where have they gone?

I’ve been writing and podcasting for more than 10 years; I used to listen to Robb Wolf and The Paleo Solution, Jimmy Moore and Livin La Vida Low Carb, Mark Sisson and his Primal Podcast, and many others. Don’t hear much from Robb Wolf anymore- Jimmy Moore is locked in prison for God’s sake- and Primal goes on, and is just kind of Paleo with a different name…

Now, the cutting edge seems to be focussed on Carnivore, with Sean Baker and others. But is this carnivore pivot really all that much different than Paleo or Primal?

Not really. Those are all just words that encapsulate a certain set of ideas- that living in a more ancestral way, more in keeping with that of our forebears, is far healthier and more beneficial than the modern, pharmaceutical and processed foods-based version of the present day. In other words, simpler is better.

Carnivore could easily be another word for Paleo. It’s just another, more extreme way to practice the way our ancestors lived. It is certainly A way, and a very simple way to have a ‘restart’ with your health, that is possibly really messed up in the present day.

I mean, you could call your paleo type of diet ‘The Great Grandparents diet’, or the ‘Post nuclear apocalypse Diet’, and the results would be very similar. The idea is just to get away from the modern conventions and pronouncements of current ‘experts’ and getting back to timeless sorts of recommendations from the past. Time-tested and proven methods of health and wellness that have stood the test of time- of millennia- and not just those ideas that are being pushed by Big Medicine and the modern trinity of Pharmaceuticals, Big Food, and the Government .

You know: Moe, Larry and Curly. The EXPERTS!

I’m being a bit facetious, but in light of Fauci and the Covid disaster, along with the Low Fat food recommendations of the past 60 to 70 years, and the endless recommendations of Vegetable Seed Oils in our diets, well, the “experts” aren’t looking too expert really, are they?

And let’s not forget the Exercise recommendations- “run long distances to gain complete fitness and above all, heart health…”. More nonsense in place of simple strength training, walking, and stretching! Grounding barefoot by walking on the earth, rather than sprint-running to exhaustion in timed races on tracks with over-cushioned shoes.

I’m sure you get the idea. The Paleo Diet and Lifestyle hasn’t gone away, not at all.

Maybe the erstwhile leaders have left the field, moving on to other endeavors. But the movement is intact, as strong as it was when it was being promoted by figures such as Weston A. Price, the dentist who noticed in the 1920’s and 30’s the wonderful health of pre-industrial people who ate their ancestral diets and moved in the manner in which they had evolved over long periods of time.

All of the tenets of Paleo are intact, and correct. Eliminate most of ‘modern medicine’, including most vaccines and pharmaceutical drugs, especially for our children. Go back to ancient leaders, like Hippocrates, who said in old Greek times to “Let thy medicine be thy food, and thy food be thy medicine”. This is timeless truth!

Eat good, basic foods like meat and dairy. Fermented dairy is best, and raw dairy is better than processed! Likewise with grains- they are optional, but if made in accordance with established traditions, such as sourdough fermentation, they can

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There seem to be many views on what should be the goal of exercise! Should you aim, above all, at flexibility, or should it be cardiovascular ability? Or should you shoot for a balance of strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular (aerobic) fitness!

Well, obviously it seems to me, that a balanced approach is better- after all, all of these three components are crucial in their own ways. But together, they are the key to ultimate fitness, right? Well- kind of…

It used to be axiomatic that running, particularly long distance running, conferred the most health advantages! A strong, enduring cardiovascular system would keep you from getting a heart attack, and that is the ultimate goal…

However, it turns out that endless distance running also consumes your musculature and strength, while simultaneously rendering you more and more inflexible and lowering your immune response to many diseases, and cancer itself! It also, over long distances and years, destroys your knee and hip joints. And the cardio benefits seem to be very temporary: once you stop running (from your self-inflicted destruction), those benefits disappear.

Flexibility as a sole benefit is very slight. The ability to bend your body and limbs over a wide range of motion might seem impressive and desirable, (especially after you have destroyed most of your flexibility by long-distance running alone), by itself to become a kind of ‘yogi’ like this is more a type of parlor trick, other than the sum of being fit. It just doesn’t make you capable of much at all!

No, ironically, the number one goal of overall fitness is to build strength and muscle! This is the last component that has been considered to be important in the last few decades. But, as you age, it becomes apparent that strength training is by far the most important thing you can do.

To be self-sufficient and vital, you need strength above all. Muscle tissue is what will burn calories, even when you are not exercising, thus keeping you from becoming obese. Of course, strength is also what keeps you mobile and walking, able to lift heavy items and move things as well as yourself.

The main goal of the elderly, and those of us who will all eventually become elderly, is actually to build strength and muscle tissue. Strength training is what keeps us out of the nursing home, and in our own homes! Everything else: sports of all types - running, basketball, racket sports, gymnastics, horseshoes, basketball and other “ball” sports- they might be fun, and improve us in some subtle ways; but they do not give us true, measurable, and long-lasting benefits.

Only strength training does that, and it can be done for our entire lives! In one study, researchers compared muscle building ability in women in their 90’s to those in their 20’s, and found that the elders built muscle and strength as fast as those much younger!

This shows us how much muscle is valued and needed by the body, providing we induce the stimulus by strength training to show that the muscle is needed. Muscle that can keep us from falling, helping us to keep our balance, and also building our bone strength along with our musculatures.

Strength training is indeed crucial!

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One piece of misinformation that has been around for a long time is the idea that strength training workouts need to be…LONG! And I mean HOURS long…

I fell for this myself in my younger days. I mean, if 1 hour of intense workout exercises is good, well, 2 hours is even better, right? And the big one: if 3 workouts per week is enough for Steve Reeves and his ilk, well why not be like Arnold and Zane, and workout 6 days per week, sometimes twice per day!

This is all sad, and ridiculous, really. Especially for average people, who don’t want to win bodybuilding contests, but just want to be strong and healthy for a lifetime! I remember reading about Jean Claude von Damme, and how he worked out 6 hours per DAY!! What a joke, really…

I’m here to give you a liberating philosophy of strength training:

You can reach your ultimate potential, and train for your whole life long, by training for 20 to 30 minutes, 2 to three times per week! Really. I now train my lower body one day for about that long, and my upper body for the same time frame. I train, skip a day, and then train again. My weights and gymnastic rings are all set up in my basement, and I just walk downstairs, and start working…

Very convenient, quickly done, and very productive! Today, for instance, I took off two days between workouts, since leg training sometimes is more draining than upper body. No matter; I just try to feel how I am recovering, and judge accordingly.

It really is surprising to learn that, when you workout really intensely, a short duration is really all you need, and really all your body can stand! An intense stimulation of the targeted musculature must necessarily be brief, and is all that you really need or want.

Just as you don’t need a ton of food to grow and recover, you don’t need a TON of exercise to stimulate gains! Just make sure that the food you do eat is mainly protein, meat, eggs, cheese and seafood, and you will be very strong and healthy…Supplements are good too, so take vitamin D, magnesium and potassium, vitamin C and you will have all you need to grow, thrive, and be super healthy and strong!!

That is really all there is to it! It’s really not that complicated, my friends.

My only qualification is that I also work out every morning, first thing, for about an hour…

But that is my joy and pleasure- working out in front of the television, mainly with stretching and virtual resistance exercises, that feel amazing and make you like a cat, twisting and stretching to make you supple, and feel like you are a free creature of the jungle! You learn to use the muscles you build strength training like a feline, feeling alive in your body, injury free and vital!

To me, that is the ultimate, lifelong goal of physical culture.

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I have worked out with weights, and then with calisthenics for many, many years. Starting in my teens, and continuing now, as I prepare to turn 73 in April. My results have been phenomenal, and as I continue to work out daily, I have turned more and more away from weights and equipment, and more and more rely on calisthenics and virtual resistance.

I have acquired some injuries over time, and the most nagging is the shoulder. Everyone who does heavy pressing movements, particularly the bench press, has problems with the rotator cuff of their shoulders. Me included, even though I stopped bench pressing long ago, in favor of gymnastic ring pushups and dips. These movements are far superior to bench presses, and are highly recommended to all! Far more natural in movement; the joints are also brought through a full range of motion.

However, shoulder injuries will haunt you if your exercise in the standard manner when young, or from sports or other injuries. What then? Should you use bands and/or dumbbells to do lighter, therapeutic types of rotator cuff exercises? Well, you can… but I have found a better method. Far safer, and no equipment is needed.

Virtual resistance is applying force through the limb itself. For the shoulders, just stand relaxed, legs shoulder width apart. Move your arms backwards, from down by your hips, applying force simply by flexing as you move. You can make it as hard, or easy, as you like, simply by applying internal force.

Move forward in an arc, as if you are doing a fly, followed by a row. Do one rep, slowly with internal resistance, forward and then back. Move your arms up a bit, and repeat. Then, move up some more (higher) and repeat. Then, repeat downwards, for five sets, up and then down. Do maybe five cycles, upwards to the sides of your body.

Do this daily, or at least a few times per week. Trust me; this will cure your rotator cuff shoulder problems completely! Gently, yet inevitably, without risk of further injury.

You will probably realize that this form of exercise can be done throughout your body, not only on your shoulders. Try doing a curl, without weights, but only with internally generated resistance. You can make it as hard, or as easy, as you’d like!

Try it with flies, and military presses- generate a lot of resistance. It is just as effective as weights or pulley machines! You can also replicate squats, and deadlifts- generate the resistance within your own body. You can also do bent rows, shrugs, and even pressing outwards, imitating the bench press- but without risk of injury, since the ‘weight’, or resistance, can be nullified in an instant by you, yourself, internally!

And there you have it! Not just a shoulder rehab although that is a perfect place to start, and to show yourself just how well it works. Virtual Resistance!

Now, I don’t stop there: I also do gymnastic ring exercises, dips, presses, and pull-ups, among others. But the fact remains that Virtual Resistance, by itself, can replicate any other exercises, and can do so with perfect safety, and is the ideal way to recover from injuries.

Learn it, and incorporate it into your fitness strategy!

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Our country has been failing, for quite some time. The democrats have become a new party, completely: from the “party of the working man”, which was never really true at all, they have fallen to the level of a totally leftist, socialist/communist totalitarian state, ready to rule over us all!

Donald Trump has changed all that. Not that he’s a perfect person, no one says that. But, he is a real, honest-to-God person that represents us all, in particular real, honest-to-God workers: those of us who actually do a real day’s work, and are proud of it!

NO DEI bullshit, or affirmative action, or anything FAKE. We are back on the track of MERIT to accomplish things, we shall return to honesty and reality. We were dangerously going down the path of the French Revolution, where all of history, and Western civilization itself, was being questioned and reinvented! An awful nightmare, where the basic tenets of civilization, like the days of the week, were being questioned and reinvented.

Just as our own nightmare democrat leftists, were questioning basic gender rules, and leading us into a nightmare scenario of no men, and no women, but instead into a hellish dreamscape of no rules or reality, but instead a land of lunacy where the state decides what is reality. It started with Obama, who was awful from the start, and it has continued until now…

I’ll bet you probably wonder why on this fitness and health oriented podcast I am bringing up such things…. Well, I will say that we were literally on the brink of civilization failing, and now we are saved, for the moment! That is how extreme our situation was, and only now are we starting to see the glimmer of light ahead…

Even in the choice of Robert Kennedy Jr. we are being shown a path to health! He is a path to sanity and life, and thank GOD! The Democrats were leading us into the land of endless medication, and processed food- now we have a chance to escape this nightmare scenario.

Rfk jr. plans to lead us into an uncontaminated world, a world where glyphosate is not pumped into our grains and environment without restriction, poisoning us all. A world where proven carcinogens like various food dyes are banned as well, and a harmful chemical like fluoride, (which does NOT protect dental health!), is banned from our water supplies, as it should be.

And this is all at Trump’s behest, as he hires the very best and brightest to run our governmental agencies! Biden and his traitorous administration is even now selling the fencing we need to protect our borders for pennies on the dollar- just to harm Trump’s administration and keep them from efficiently building the immigration fencing that the American people want and need. This is blatant criminality!

Our future, my fellow Americans, is firmly in our past- we should expect and relish the chance to reenter the American 1950’s, that halcyon time when women stayed home and raised families, and men supported those families on one salary that was not over-taxed so that both spouses needed to work, and a time when patriotism was a given, because our country was a golden beacon to the rest of the world!

We WERE a shining beacon to the rest of the world, a bright light in the pantheon of Western Civilization- and now, under Trump’s leadership- we can and will be again!!

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I think this is a sane recommendation for any person: work out sensibly for one hour, every day of your life! Not too extreme, and not wimpy- you need this hour for strength and flexibility training, not mindless cardio, where you run like a brainless chicken. Such “training” only drains you, diminishes your muscle, not build it, and ignores strength building (the essence of truly working out!).

A true workout is very mindful. You need to ‘think into’ your muscles, flexing them slowly, and intentionally, throughout each exercise. This can be using weights, barbells and dumbbells, or bands, calisthenics, or a myriad of machines. What you use is not really that important at all- sales people will tell you otherwise, but trust me: it’s the intensity that matters. Time under tension, if you will.

I use a combination, gymnastic rings hung up high are actually a near genius exercise device! Instantly scalable, from very easy, to superhuman level. All in a rather cheap, portable package that never wears out, and can target every part of your body. Pushups, pull ups, rows, one-legged squats, dips- you have it all in the rings! Plus, it’s silent, and actually kind of fun, in a way…

You can also add in other things, like heavy deadlifts (on occasion!), along with Jefferson curls, also called stiff legged deadlifts for the lower back- very effective, and very SAFE! As I have aged, I have stopped doing a full routine, and instead do upper body one workout, and the next workout do lower body. Full body, at least at age 72, is too much; better to split the workout for recovery.

To workout for one hour per day should not seem onerous- it is well worth it to spend one hour out of 24, when by doing so you make the other 23 hours far more enjoyable and productive! You will make yourself immune from awful joint replacement operations, and bypass endless diseases of disuse that clog our medical clinics!

Each day, what works for me, and has for many years, is to get up, and stretch and do what I call ‘virtual resistance’ in front of the television. This is simply flexing your limbs, for repetitions, as if you were lifting weights. You supply the resistance from within as you move. Try it with curls: just curl you arms, as if you hold weights. You can make it as hard as you like, simply by flexing! Do it with curls, military presses, shoulder raises- every exercise there is. Cover the whole body, and you will be drenched in sweat if you did it intensely enough, and on top of it you will feel energized, rather than drained as if you had used actual weights.

Do this for about 1/2 hour, while you enjoy your TV program. Then, later that day, go to your rings and weights. Mine are in the basement, yours could be outside, or anywhere really. Rings at least!

I also add in, besides ring pushups and pull-ups, etc. : Superslow pull-ups, dips, and military presses! I watch my big clock on the wall, and do military presses with a dowel, slowly, as I resist my super slow movement up, and then down, for one minute, to a minute and a half. You need a power rack for this, but you could do the super slow pull-up slowly on the rings, bending your legs on both the upward, and the lowering portion. Just make it as hard as you can, for both up and down!

Then, the super slow dip needs a dip station: I made mine out of plumbing pipe years ago. Just go slowly up, and down, for at least a minute.

The beauty is, that there is NO danger of injury, and you are strengthening not only your musculature- but your tendons and ligaments as well! This whole routine should only be anothe

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