Barr Health & Fitness

Let’s talk about exercise and type 2 diabetes.

This study was the first that made me realize just how powerful exercise is at preventing chronic disease. You can find the article here:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa012512

So, what’s going on in this graph? The authors assigned 3234 people with prediabetes to a placebo group, a metformin group, and a lifestyle modification group and followed them for an average of almost 3 years. What happened?

Unsurprisingly, more people in the placebo group developed diabetes than the metformin group or the lifestyle modification group. Metformin reduced the incidence of diabetes by 31%, lifestyle by 58%. To quote the authors “the lifestyle intervention was significantly more effective than metformin.”

I don’t know if you know anything about metformin, but as far as drugs go, it’s excellent. Want to know what the lifestyle intervention was? A 16-lesson curriculum encouraging participants to meet the minimum physical activity guidelines of 150 minutes of brisk walking per week and to achieve and maintain a weight reduction of 7% of initial body weight. Quite basic, really. And that was almost twice as effective as the best pharmaceutical available for the same outcome. Lifestyle beat metformin by about as much as metformin beat placebo. This is, to put it scientifically, bananas.

Think about what the results would be like if the lifestyle group added two strength training sessions per week 🤯

I’m excited to introduce a new program I’m launching called Senior Strength. It’s a six week, small-group strength training program designed to safely introduce seniors to high-quality strength exercises.

For the last few years, much of my work in the weight room has been with adults over 50. I’ve seen first-hand how a great training program can help people age well, move pain free and enjoy the activities they love. That’s why I created Senior Strength.

The first session goes from March 29th to May 5th on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There’s a 10:00 AM and 11:15 AM group, with a maximum of four people to each group. Senior Strength takes place at an amazing facility called Titan Performance which is right off the Queensway at the Montreal Road exit.

Detailed information about the program can be found here:

https://barrhealth.com/senior-strength/

If you’d like to learn more please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected]

Thanks and have a great day!

Let’s talk about aging, lifting weights, and osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is a gradual loss of bone that significantly increases the risk of falls, fractures, and a loss of functional independence. It’s definitely something that you want to avoid if you can. But how can we design a training program to optimally prevent or manage osteoporosis? Thankfully, there’s some high-quality research on this topic.

A systematic review of randomized control trials found that working with free weights at high intensities (>80% 1RM), twice per week was the best combination of variables for increasing bone density in post-menopausal women. Other aspects of programming are less well established, but there is good evidence in favour of using exercises that involve a high degree of axial loading like squats and high impact exercises like jumping.

I know that most people’s reaction to the idea that a grandmother at risk for osteoporosis should squat and deadlift heavy is that it’s crazy and dangerous, and if it wasn’t properly facilitated, it would be. But if that person was working with a qualified exercise professional and they increased load gradually, the benefits far outweigh the risks. And it’s too common for people in this demographic to pick up their 40-pound grandkids routinely but balk at the idea of lifting a 10-pound dumbbell. The weight room is one of the most effective anti-aging tools we have.

Links to studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7360540/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23287836/

This is my answer to the question "What's something that the average person doesn't know about training and fitness that can be an absolute game-changer?"