Dear Health Conscious Reader,
Plans for my new Anti-Aging Center are moving fast, and everything is getting finalized this week.
In the next five years, we’re going to make 100 years old the new 50.
We’re going to use a new measurement of how young your body is called Body Intelligence.
Body Intelligence is the total measurement of:
• the power of your heart
• the strength of your bones
• the flexibility of your arteries
• your VO2 max (human horsepower)
• the reserve capacity of your lungs and heart
• your reaction time
• your vision
• your speed
• your physical power
• your functional muscle strength
• your body’s ability to defend itself from infection
• your capacity to stop inflammation
• your capability for fighting oxidation
I’m going to track all these measurements and give a “body IQ” score. Then we’ll show you how to improve it so you can keep moving without limits and have total freedom to age 100 years and more.
Let me give you an example.
The strength of your quadriceps muscles is an indicator of how young your body acts.
In fact, the strength of your legs can offset the effects of some diseases.
In one study of people with lung disease, the only two things that were significant factors in how long they lived were age and quadriceps muscle strength.1
And in a study of people with congestive heart failure, those with the weakest quadriceps muscles were 13 times more likely to die within two years.2
In order to increase your Body Intelligence in this area, we would give these muscles on the front of your legs a test called QMVC (quadriceps maximal voluntary contraction force).
We measure QMVC by first seating you in a chair. Then we connect a flexible but non-stretch strap from a dynamometer (strain gauge) to one ankle at a time.
Then you try as hard as you can to straighten each leg for about eight seconds at a time.
The force you generate sends a signal to the gauge so we can read your level of strength. This test itself isn’t new, but what is new is that we can amplify the signal and pass it on to a computer running specialized software so you can see it online.
Once we know how strong your quads are, we can then give you specific exercises to increase the functional strength of these muscles. This will raise your QMVC score so that you have the legs of a much younger person.
In fact, you can make your legs younger starting today.
My PACE program is perfect for increasing the power of your quads. And one of the best ways to do this is to use an incline for sprints.
Don’t let the word “sprint” scare you. We’re not talking about a hundred-yard dash. A sprint can be walking as fast as you can for 35 seconds, depending on your level of fitness.
The important thing is that you start at whatever level of exertion you’re comfortable with, and progressively increase the challenge, not the length of your workout.
To build strength in your legs, you want to work out harder, not longer; then recover between periods of exertion.
What I like to do is find a nice hill to work with. That’s tough to do here in South Florida where it’s so flat. But I’ve found a park with a nicely inclined hill that’s perfect for this exercise.
I sprint at full speed halfway up the hill; then I turn around and finish the last half running backwards.
By then, I’m at the top of the hill and can use the walk down as my recovery.
The reason this works your quads so well is that you’re using them when you run forward going up, of course, but you work them out again on your way down the hill. That’s because each step going downhill works your quads while you’re recovering from your sprint. It’s like a dual workout.
I do this three times, and it gives my legs a very intense challenge.
But leg strength is just one of the ways we’ll be able to help you increase your Body Intelligence.
For example, my PACE fitness program also can help you build the reserve strength of your heart and lungs – an important measure of how young they act.
We’ll also be able to help you have sharper vision, and give you the oxidation fighting strength of someone decades younger.
I’ll be writing to you a lot more about our new Center, and the technology, tests and metrics we’re developing.
We can make 100 the new 50. That’s my promise to you.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1 Swallow, Elisabeth B., et al, “Quadriceps strength predicts mortality in patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” Thorax 2007;62:115-120
2 Kamiya, Kentaro, et al, “Decreased Strength of Quadriceps Increases the Risk of Mortality…” Circulation 2010;122:A12709