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Our Live Better, Longer series (a thought-provoking interview series that takes a deep dive into longevity) is back with our second interview! Our host Kelly Stranburg, interviewed Eric Levitan, the Founder and CEO for Vivo (Vivo is an online but live and interactive small group fitness program for older adults with a real focus on building strength). Here are some of the highlights from Eric’s interview (be sure to watch the video for the full interview!):
Question (Kelly): Why are you so passionate about strength training for older adults? What made you even start this idea of Vivo?
Answer (Eric): It was actually two concurrent experiences of the universe pointing me in this direction. First, I was fortunate to have been a part of a presentation on the four cornerstones of aging (kind of the equivalent of a TED Talk) and they really focused on these four pillars of exercise, nutrition, sleep, and mental health. And in particular, this presenter, who's a neurologist and ran a pain center in Houston, Texas, really dove into exercise and introduced me to a new word that I'd never heard before. That word is sarcopenia. And for almost everyone I tell this story to, most people have never heard that word before, which was a part of the problem. I had never heard it. Sarcopenia is an actual condition that virtually every person on the planet will get. It is the progressive loss of muscle mass and strength as we age that leads to impaired function and ultimately losing our independence. It is a natural part of the aging process - it happens to all of us. We may think about it as frailty (a general understanding of what happens as we get older) but there's actually a real condition. It’s this physiological process of losing muscle mass, which begins to impact our lives in a number of different ways.
Second, at the same time that I had heard that presentation, my own parents (who were in their mid-to-late seventies at the time) started going through what I soon found to be a pretty typical, but precipitous, decline in their quality of life. In particular, my mom started falling. I can very much remember my mom talking to her primary care physician who told her she needed to walk more, as kind of this answer for what was happening, yet my mom was already walking two miles a day. There was something missing. There was this disconnect between what her physician was telling her and what she needed to be doing. And that’s where I connected these dots - my mom needs to be strength training, right? We need to be focusing on maintaining our strength so that we don't fall, so that we can do the things that we want to do. That really served as a catalyst and kind of this aha moment where I felt like there was an opportunity to make a significant difference in the world and really create awareness in education around what happens to our bodies as we age and make this accessible program that would help older adults take that first step into focusing on maintaining their strength.
(Kelly) I'm very familiar with Vivo and I know a lot of members of Vivo, and the difference it is making in their everyday life. People are noting that they can garden more easily. They are noting they can do household chores more easily. People are going on trips and vacations that they didn't think previously they would be able to handle or navigate successfully. I know some of the first-hand stories coming out of Vivo members and how awesome it is that we are offering something virtually to address sarcopenia, which we do see as we age.
Question (Kelly): When you think about the current state of longevity in our society today, what are you hoping to impact when you think about Vivo? What really resonates with you deep inside, and why do you keep going on this mission forward?
Answer (Eric): There are two aspects that we really try to focus on. One is helping people understand the importance of these preventative measures. This is something that we don't think about - losing our strength. We don't think about strength training very much. We, I think all of us, understand the importance of walking and certainly, the Apple watches, the Fitbits and the counting our steps of the world has ingrained that to us. But we don't really think about challenging our muscles on a regular basis and how important that is. The reality of the situation is, we are losing muscle mass and that is contributing to a great number of issues of aging.
We kind of referenced falls a little bit earlier, how losing our strength and losing our muscle mass impacts balance. It makes us more susceptible to falls, but it's so much bigger than that. It also helps contribute to osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, COPD, dementia, hypertension, obesity, on and on. It is this really significantly impactful thing that happens to us, but we just don't think about it that much. And when we do focus on maintaining our strength, it's really impactful in just the opposite ways that we talked about it being detrimental. It helps build bone density to help prevent or manage cardiovascular disease and conditions like osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and so on. It’s this really wonderfully broad-based solution to help older adults not only maintain their independence and maintain their quality of life, but keep these chronic diseases of aging at bay or under control. That's the first thing that I would hope everyone walks away with - this understanding that strength training is a really powerful tool for healthy aging and chronic condition management.
The second piece of that is: it's never too late to start. Some of the biggest objections I hear on a consistent basis are: “I can't do this”, “I'm too frail”, “I'm too weak”, “I'm in too much pain”, “I've already got these chronic conditions or an artificial knee or artificial hip.” The truth of the matter is that is all fear-based rationale and reasoning that we suffer from in some form or another. We try to help people understand that they can do this.
One of my favorite things to do when I'm presenting about what we do at Vivo, in front of an audience (especially an older audience) is I'll ask the audience, raise your hand if you can do a pushup. If there's a group of 50 or 100 people, you'll see a smattering, maybe two, three, four, five hands go up. And I'll say the reality is everyone in this room can do a pushup. It's just a different version of a pushup than you're thinking about. Because most of us think about it this way: we're going to do a push -up…we get to the floor…we're on our toes and our hands…we lower our chest to the ground… we push ourselves up (which is a hard move for many people). But you know what else is a pushup? Doing that same movement, but not necessarily going to the floor - instead doing it off the back of a chair or a countertop. And the further your feet are back, the more challenging it is. And you might not be able to do that, but you can always stand against a wall and literally extend your arms away from the wall. Again, the further your feet are away from the wall, the more challenging it gets, but almost everybody can stand next to a wall and extend their arms away. It's part of creating a level of understanding for older adults that they can do this, it's not too late, and you see results really quickly.
Part of what we also provide with Vivo is assessments. We baseline everybody to know where they're at with their strength, endurance and balance. Then we reassess every two to three months because we want to make sure that this program is working for them. There's a lot of variability, a lot of uniqueness to every single older adult that joins this program, and we want to track progress. We want to make sure they're progressing according to their goals. What we see is that everybody makes progress - you make progress in about six weeks, you make significant progress at eight weeks and even more significant progress at twelve weeks. It doesn't take very long for people who really consistently engage in a program like this to see real impact in their lives.
(Kelly) When I think about some of the philosophy and mission at Dividat and the whole premise behind live better longer, you're hitting the nail on the head. There's two points to take away from what you just said. One, you can make a difference and have an impact regardless of age. And two, it's about awareness. It's more often than not that we continue to see, especially in Western societies, that it's normal to spend 10 to 15 years declining in health and functional abilities. But we know that's not the case, you do not have to spend 10 plus years declining - that you can live your life on your terms if you're open to embracing different lifestyle habits and behaviors.
Question (Kelly): What is a tip that you can give our audience that they can easily embrace or adopt to help themselves either live better longer or if they work with an aging demographic, what is something that you would advise them to consider to help the people that they work with to live better longer?
Answer (Eric): I’m going to give you one foundational thing that is absolutely critical that everyone needs to walk away with. And then I'm going to give you a tip for how to incorporate that one foundational thing into your life. And actually, maybe I’ll split that one into two parts.
The most important thing is consistency. If you do not exercise on a consistent, regular basis, you will not see those outcomes. And this is what we see so often - someone will exercise really infrequently, really inconsistently. They may exercise once on a given week, they'll take two weeks off, then they'll exercise again, they'll take three weeks off. You will not see results from that kind of behavior. It's all about behavioral change. And we really need to help people understand to see these kinds of impacts that you want to have in your life it needs to be done consistently.
Part B of that consistency is it also needs to be a little bit challenging. If it's too easy, your body will not adapt and will not get stronger and see those health improvements. And that's also a little bit scary, right? Because there's already this intrinsic kind of sense of fear and shame that exists in a lot of us as we think about taking on new exercise programs. We don't want to be embarrassed. We don't want to get hurt. To be able to engage not only in a consistent basis but to a level of challenge, there's a little bit of a leap that we need people to do, to take that first step.
Where we have really leaned into with what we do in Vivo, and really understanding the behavioral science behind this, is it has to be fun and it has to be about community. Yes, we deliver Vivo as an online class, but we keep the classes small. We actually cap our classes around eight to ten people. And the reason that we do that is that we want to make sure we can give individualized attention to everybody, because that's another critical component, right? We're feeling fear, we're feeling some shame. If we don't get individualized attention, there is the risk of getting injured or potentially worse. So, giving individualized attention and feedback plus keeping them safe is really critical. The other nice thing about a small group that is interactive and live, even though it's online, is we are building social engagement. We are making the classes fun and that creates behavioral change. That is what gets people to do this on a consistent basis.
My advice is, “how do you want to create a fun experience for yourself?”, because it might be different for everyone. What we've leaned into a lot is creating little communities. I think it is probably true for a lot of us, but not all of us, is that when we feel connected to a group and accountable to that group, it tends to create that behavioral change where we almost feel a little guilty or maybe a little fear of missing out if we don't go to the class.
So that's really what we lean into. But for others, really think about how to make that fun for yourself, how to make that accountable for yourself. Some of us want to do it in the comfort of our homes or maybe we want to do it by ourselves and you really like music or you want to watch movies or you want to create challenges such that you can continue to monitor your progress. Think about what motivates you, what will keep you accountable, possibly even scheduling appointments in your calendar. Don't just say I'm going to wake up and exercise. Put an appointment in your calendar for 8am three days a week to go do a program that will work for you. That foundation of seeing improvement in your life has to be done consistently and has to be a little bit challenging, and then we really lean into the community building aspect of this accountability.
Thank you to Eric Levitan for his insight and beneficial tips! For more insights and tips from experts and thought leaders in the health and wellness industry, be sure to check out our interview with Tony Galvan of Vi Living.