The art of quitting

Pain is built by the brain, and because the brain can change, pain can change. That is the core of what pain psychologist Dr. Rachel Zoffness lays out in this episode. Pain is never all in your head, but it is never only in the body part that hurts either. It is biopsychosocial: biology, psychology, and your social world all turn the volume up or down. Dr. Zoffness is faculty at the UCSF School of Medicine, lectures on pain science at Stanford, and is the author of Tell Me Where It Hurts: The New Science of Pain and How to Heal. She walks through her three core truths about pain, why 96% of medical schools teach no dedicated pain science, the pain dial (how stress, mood, and attention change what you feel), and the pain recipe: writing down what makes a bad pain day so you can build the opposite. She closes with the three things that matter most for a healthy life with pain: movement, social health, and balance. Time Stamps: 03:48 Why pain is coming for all of us 07:56 Core truths 1 and 2: pain is the brain's opinion, and the brain can change 10:40 Core truth 3: pain is always biopsychosocial 16:05 A hammer and a bigger hammer: why medicine reaches for pills and surgery 19:41 The sociological domain: loneliness, trauma, and the 80% overlap 23:06 Acute vs. chronic pain, and the opioid lie 26:40 The pain dial: how stress and anxiety turn the volume up 27:46 Mood and attention change pain volume 32:03 Your high pain recipe, your low pain recipe, and painsomnia 36:11 Movement first, pain reduction later 37:35 Loneliness, cortisol, and social health 41:12 You have more power over your pain than you've been told Links: Dr. Rachel Zoffness (free resources page): https://www.zoffness.com Tell Me Where It Hurts: The New Science of Pain and How to Heal Instagram: @therealdoczoff Fit for Task Muscle and Strength Workshop: https://40plusfitness.com/muscle  

You can still build muscle after 40, and the research says you can build it at close to the same rate as a 25-year-old. What has to change is not how hard you train, it is how strategically you train, eat, and recover. Alain Gonzalez is a fitness coach, author, and the creator of the largest YouTube channel dedicated to men's fitness over 40. He has spent more than 17 years helping men build muscle and get their health back, and his book is Muscle After 40. In this conversation we walk through his four pillars of muscle growth: mindset, training, nutrition, and recovery. We cover why volume is the thing that has to change with age, why movement quality sits above everything else in the gym, how to order your nutrition so protein comes first, and why recovery is the pillar most people over 40 quietly skip. Time Stamps: 05:21 Why muscle matters as you age 07:08 The four pillars of muscle growth 08:30 Pillar one, mindset 09:39 Pillar two, training and volume 11:14 Movement quality comes first 15:24 Can you still build muscle in your 50s and 60s 18:06 The staircase model 19:18 Effort and training close to failure 20:37 How progressive overload really works 22:23 The nutrition staircase, protein first 24:10 Protein frequency after 40 24:47 Recomposition versus bulking and cutting 26:14 The recovery staircase 26:59 Sleep and chronic stress 28:49 Three strategies to get and stay well Links: Alain Gonzalez on YouTube: Muscle Monsters Alain's book, Muscle After 40: How to Build the Strongest, Most Jacked Body of Your Life: https://amzn.to/4cVbmAD Fit for Task Muscle and Strength Workshop, free and live Tuesday September 8th at 8:00 PM Eastern: https://40plusfitness.com/muscle Allan's book, The Wellness Roadmap: https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn  

Living longer is not the goal. Living better is, because the extra years most people are gaining are sick years, not good ones. In this solo episode, Coach Allan digs into the Global Burden of Disease study published in The Lancet Public Health, which found the gap between lifespan and healthspan grew from 8.8 years in 1990 to 10.7 years by 2023. That is nearly eleven years, about 15% of a life, spent sick and incapable at the end. He opens with a story from Puerto Vallarta, where an earthquake left a man in his early seventies stuck on the third floor because he did not have the leg strength to walk down the stairs, and had to tell his wife to go on without him. The earthquake did not cause that. It revealed it. Allan then walks through his own earthquake moment, a stage 3 kidney cancer diagnosis and the immunotherapy he is still going through, the five levers that actually close the gap, and why the retirement-account model of health is the wrong one. Time Stamps: 00:00 Lifespan versus healthspan, and the gap between them 05:58 Why the United States has the widest gap 10:02 Strength and stamina as non-negotiables 13:17 Purpose and relationships as the foundational why 17:23 Health deposits are not a retirement account 20:02 The Long Life Readiness Quiz   Links: Long Life Readiness Quiz (free, takes a couple of minutes): https://40plusfitness.com/gap The Wellness Roadmap by Allan Misner: https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn  

Relying only on low-impact exercise can leave you more fragile as you age, because your bones and connective tissue need impact to stay strong. Graham Tuttle, a coach, the author of Born to Sprint, and the self-styled Barefoot Sprinter, argues that sprinting, jumping, and throwing are the real markers of a healthy body at any age, and that stripping impact out of your training in the name of safety quietly erodes the very capacity it is meant to protect. In this conversation, Graham and Coach Allan get into why impact signals your bones and your brain that they are still needed, how training barefoot restores feedback and movement most of us have lost, the story of Graham coaching his own father to run again 15 years into a Parkinson's diagnosis, and his 10% rule for reintroducing impact safely when you are starting from badly out of shape. Time Stamps: 06:00 Trusting the body's natural design 07:44 Poor eyesight, lifting for looks, and losing body connection 12:27 Rethinking the reductionist physical-therapy model 13:42 Fascia, movement patterns, and the whole body 17:57 Why impact keeps the body and brain online 20:51 How the muscle system manages force 24:04 Physical limitation and how you perceive the world 30:23 Impact, hormones, bones, and the brain 32:56 His father's Parkinson's and rethinking fitness 35:55 Finding purpose and meaning in older age 39:44 Jeffy: starting from ground zero 41:12 The philosophy of sprinting 46:44 Using impact to shake things loose 48:25 Rebuilding movement patterns from the ground up 54:03 Sprinter swinging and plyometrics 55:01 Restoring the ability to sprint Links: Graham Tuttle's book, Born to Sprint: Unlock Your Natural Strength, Speed, and Athleticism: https://amzn.to/4xzlCqa Graham's website: https://thebarefootsprinter.com/ Graham on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram: The Barefoot Sprinter Coach Allan's book, The Wellness Roadmap: https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn  

Mobility, your ability to move a joint through its range using your own strength, matters more for men over 40 than passive flexibility, and rebuilding it is what lets you keep squatting, lifting, and moving through daily life without pain. In this episode I talk with Dean Pohlman, founder of Man Flow Yoga and author of Yoga Fitness for Men, about why sitting all day leaves most of us with mobility deficits that gym work alone won't fix. We get into the real difference between flexibility and mobility, why knee pain usually starts at the hips, core, and ankles, and the simple daily habits that keep you moving well as you age. Time Stamps: 03:59 Why yoga feels time-intensive 07:42 Why men feel out of place in yoga classes 09:51 Flexibility vs. mobility explained 12:15 The everyday movements that need mobility 13:33 Why mobility work is essential, not a bonus 14:41 Benefits beyond mobility: breathing, balance, pain relief 17:39 What makes Man Flow Yoga different 21:02 Why you shouldn't quit squats at 40 23:38 Knee pain starts at the hips, core, and ankles 25:30 Allan's ankle injuries and the mobility fix 27:16 Building yoga and strength into a weekly routine 29:33 Dean's 3 wellness strategies: mobility, mindfulness, connection Links: Dean Pohlman on YouTube (Man Flow Yoga): https://www.youtube.com/user/ManFlowYoga Man Flow Yoga app and membership: https://manflowyoga.com/join Better Man Podcast on Instagram: @bettermanpodcast Dean's book, Yoga Fitness for Men: https://amzn.to/4hJuZz5 Coach Allan's daily wellness tips newsletter: https://40plusfitness.com/tips The Wellness Roadmap (Coach Allan's book): https://amzn.to/3U1xEdn      

On this episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, Coach Allan breaks down the fight playing out right now in Washington, DC, between GLP-1 medications and peptides. The two keep getting mentioned in the same breath, but they sit on opposite sides of the evidence line. GLP-1s like semaglutide and tirzepatide are tested medications with known dosing and documented side effects. Peptides like BPC-157 and TB-500, the so-called Wolverine stack, are not approved for human use and live in a gray market built mostly on rat studies and anecdote.  Coach Allan walks through the recent FDA Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee panel that recommended approving 6 of 7 peptides even after the agency's own scientists raised safety concerns, and he points out what it means for you. Time Stamps: 02:54 GLP-1s and peptides, framing the fight 04:26 Peptides and the gray market 05:20 The cheating debate around weight-loss drugs 06:07 The peptides: AOD-9604, BPC-157, TB-500 07:00 Branding and hype: the Wolverine stack 08:50 How both sides market GLP-1s and peptides 09:54 RFK Jr. and what the FDA is for 11:04 Follow the science, not the phrases 12:57 Off-label prescribing and thin peptide data 14:34 Gray market and inconsistent manufacturing 15:47 The FDA compounding panel meets 16:32 FDA scientists warn against approval 17:43 The panel's conflict of interest and 6-of-7 recommendation 19:50 The Joe Rogan ivermectin parallel 22:20 Peptides, cancer risk, and personal caution 23:11 The N=1 experiment and its limits 26:33 Making the decision that's right for you   Links - Work with Allan one-on-one (a few coaching slots are open right now): [email protected] - 40+ Fitness: https://40plusfitness.com

Summary Dr. Tom Walters, a board-certified orthopedic physical therapist and the founder of Rehab Science, returns to talk through two of the most common complaints after 40: knee pain and back pain. We get into why rest alone rarely fixes either one, how cartilage actually gets its nutrients through movement, and how to tell a tendon problem from something deeper in the joint. Tom explains load management, the real reason most aches show up without a specific injury, walks through the red flags that mean you should see someone for back pain, and covers how stress and sleep feed into chronic pain. He also shares his three tactics for staying well: social support, exercise, and sleep. Key Point Timestamps 05:01 The Rehab Science book series and why it was split by body region 07:09 Why knee and back pain are so common after 40 10:05 Telling a tendon problem from a cartilage problem 13:40 Managing flare-ups with rest, heel slides, and gentle mobility 16:17 Load management: why most pain is too much too soon, or too little 19:29 Red flags in back pain that mean see a professional 24:19 Chronic pain, nociplastic pain, and neuroplasticity 26:39 How stress can trigger and sustain back pain 29:51 Nerve pain and sciatica, and how treatment differs 32:47 Sleep, social support, and exercise for staying well Links Dr. Tom Walters / Rehab Science: Website: https://rehabscience.com Instagram: @rehabscience (https://www.instagram.com/rehabscience/) YouTube: search "Rehab Science" Books: the Rehab Science series, on Amazon and Barnes & Noble Rehab Science app (rehab programs by body region) Coach Allan / 40+ Fitness: Daily wellness tips newsletter: https://40plusfitness.com/tips  

On episode 756 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Eric Bach, entrepreneur, coach, and author with over 16 years of experience helping thousands of former athletes and executives get lean, strong, and look great naked, without sacrificing all their time to the gym. Think your metabolism is "broken" after 40? Think again! Eric breaks down why age isn't to blame for stalled progress, dispels common calorie myths, and reveals why relentlessly executing the basics will always beat chasing shiny new trends. We'll dive deep into the realities of metabolic adaptation, the pitfalls of over-restrictive diets, and why how you train matters just as much as what you train; especially when it comes to joint health, tempo, and avoiding injuries as you age. Time Stamps: 04:22 Understanding metabolism changes 08:48 Effects of aggressive dieting 12:59 Challenges with calorie counting 14:44 Challenges of Fitness Trackers 19:17 Warm-ups for all clients 20:22 Sticking to workout fundamentals 26:03 Training with proper tempo 27:27 Importance of Controlled Exercise Tempo 31:38 Benefits of online vs in-person coaching 36:35 Starting online coaching business 38:48 Balanced fitness and nutrition tips https://www.instagram.com/bachperformance/ https://substack.com/@bachperformance  

On episode 755 of the 40+ Fitness podcast, we're joined by Tyler Harnett, a former super heavyweight powerlifter, strongman, and rugby forward turned strength coach who specializes in helping people over 40 lose fat without sacrificing the strength they've worked hard to build. Tyler shares his personal journey from "Mr. Big Guy" to dropping over 80 pounds while maintaining his power, and dives into the mindset, nutrition, and training strategies crucial for making lasting changes as we age. He talks about the all-important identity shift, why periodizing both your training and nutrition matters, and how to stay strong even when your joints start "barking." Time Stamps: 05:09 Finding success with phased training 09:49 80s fitness and workout tips 11:47 Coaching women's football in Vegas 15:03 Struggling against Dallas defense 17:46 Dealing with exercise pain 21:20 Training for longevity and health 25:55 Periodizing diet and fitness routines 28:28 Tweaking diet and solving problems 29:57 Fitness advice for 40 plus 33:15 Grandma's journey to strength training https://tylerharnett.com/rebuild-blueprint 

On episode 754 of the 40+ Fitness podcast, Coach Alan dives into the revolutionary science behind chronic pain with internist, pediatrician, researcher, and educator Dr. Howard Schubiner. Explore why pain isn't always the simple result of an injury or structural issue, and how understanding the brain's role in pain can be a game-changer for those who suffer from chronic conditions like back pain, migraines, fibromyalgia, and even long Covid. Discover the concept of "neuroplastic pain," why traditional medicine sometimes misses the mark in diagnosing and treating pain, and learn the key steps to unlearning chronic pain and reclaiming your active, healthy life after 40. Get the free Pain Playbook Guide at 40plusfitness.com/pain. Time Stamps: 03:41 Challenging pain assumptions 07:51 Emotional pain causes physical pain 09:46 Understanding brain neuroplasticity and adaptation 13:39 Study on neuroplastic vs. structural pain 17:13 Understanding neuroplastic pain conditions 20:53 Debating Long Covid Causes and Treatments 24:23 Pain reprocessing therapy steps 27:40 Addressing Emotional Pain 30:16 Embracing Change After Hardship 33:33 Exploring alternative pain solutions 36:23 Understanding and Managing Headaches https://unlearnyourpain.com Get the free Pain Playbook Guide at 40plusfitness.com/pain.