Strength and Mobility Training for Your Osteoarthritis (Abridged Version)

and my guests as your weekly walking buddies. We'll hear stories from caregivers and gain tips and insights from health experts and advocates who know how important it is to take care of yourself and manage joint pain due to arthritis that often accompanies being a caregiver. We'll discover a community ourselves and maybe even alleviate some joint pain due to arthritis in the process as we walk together and

connect to the best parts of being a caregiver. Hey, there, so glad you could join us for another episode of care Walks. I cannot believe this is already our sixth episode. I hope you've learned as much as I have so far and are finding new ways to take care of yourself and refill that cup as you care for others. As a reminder. Right now, you're listening to the abridged version of this episode, but if you're looking to get

a little extra inspiration, don't miss a minute. Check out the full length version of this episode in your podcast feed now. Today's episode is all about building strength and strengthening our mobility in ways that will help us combat joint pain due to osteo arthritis and maybe give us a leg up as caregivers to I've invited personal trainer Pete McCall to join our walk today. Pete has twenty years of experience teaching personal trainers all over the world

to design workouts for their clients. He knows the importance of strength and mobility training for safe and smart practice. We've learned a lot about how just walking can be a really important practice to treating joint pain, but I'm curious about how strength conditioning can also play a role. I'm looking forward to hearing how Pete approaches training through this lens. But before we get to our conversation with Pete,

let's get moving and start our walk with intention. Find a pace that feels good to you, ground yourself more with each step. Notice how each part of your body moves as you walk along your path. Where do you feel tightness in your body as you move? How can you actively release those areas of pressure and tension as we walk? Consider those sensations and allow these feelings to keep you present in the moment, in this time you

have set aside for yourself. Keep moving at a relaxed pace, and I'm going to share my conversation with personal trainer, fitness educator, and author Pete McCall. Pete, thank you so much for joining us on care Walks. Well, thank you, Holly. It really is an honor to be here and to be having this conversation with you. I'm excited to speak with you, so first of all, can you tell us what first sparked your interests in fitness and ultimately led

to your great career in personal fitness and education. I'm a product of my generation, Holly. I am a die hard Gen X or eighties kid, and I grew up and this is how I got into fitness, right. I grew up on eighties movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, John Claude on Dom and all those movies. The guy with the Biggest muscles always won and always got the girl right. And so as a as a fourteen fifteen six year old,

you see that and you know Arnold was everywhere. But in all seriousness, that's what got me into exercise in terms of changing physical appearance. But over the years, what I've really learned to love about exercise and what it can do for the body isn't just how you look, but it's how you feel. So that's really what I try to focus on when I do education for personal trainers, is it's really getting to understand that the biggest benefits come from how you feel and just the overall health

benefits for your body. Yes, absolutely, I want to dig into the physical benefits of movement. How can straight training help those who struggle with joint pain due to arthritis? Now, this is something it's kind of like, I played rugby for years, I played like competitive club rugby for years, and somebody who's lifted ways for years too, I deal with arthritis right, and arthritis is inflammation of the joint structure. Osteo arthritis is you're wearing down the tissues, the protective

tissues that help protect the joints the bones themselves. So when you look at this when you look at movement. Anytime you move, you're building more tissue that can either protect the joints, meaning must is help protecting stabilize the joints, or that ultimately become the connective tissue that tendons and what's called the fascia which surrounds each layer of muscle, which can ultimately help your body become stronger, more resilient

against whatever you might be feeling. Yeah, and what's interesting is, you know, we know that the movement is helpful, but it's hard to get that motivation right which is more important to moving better, strength training or cardio which does more for joint pain. Are they both beneficial? I would say yes, but I mean it's and that's the thing with exercise. The hard part is with exercise, there really is no one right way to do it, and everybody's

going to enjoy their favorite thing. And what's pretty consistent at this point is a lack of regular exercise, meaning if you're not moving, and I'm gonna qualify a little bit a lack of regular movement, not just exercise. And the challenging thing about arthritis, and I'm speaking about this

from two points. One from the technical standpoint of having done the research, and two from a user standpoint of knowing what a body feels like with darthritis is that first few minutes of exercise can be somewhat uncomfortable, like my nee will be yelling at me saying, don't do this, don't do this. But what happens after the first like eight to ten minutes is your body will produce its own internal kind of pain killers, and your heart rate comes up and on all of a sudden, you feel great.

So if it comes to strength and cardio, the answer is yes, do both so that the way there's a good balance of different forces going into the body. Yes. Absolutely. On care walks, we talk a lot about finding movement that fits into a busy schedule, because Pete, we're all busy and we can always find some excuse not to not to get moving. So what are some of your favorite ways to add fitness into a very busy routine.

The main thing is finding an activity that you enjoy and my one of my favorite it's so funny to say this now, one of my favorite workouts is honestly going for a long walk because I can do that with my kids. I can do with my parents. My parents are in their late seventies and so walking is one of those things that I do with all generations of my family. So I really want to give people,

you know, for any advice. If you're just looking at starting a workout program, just start with what you've got. That's so true. We love walking on care walks. That's our thing, and hopefully our listeners are on a walk right now with us. But what are the best types of strength building exercises for alleviating some of their symptoms? Is there one that you might be able to walk

us through right now on the podcast. One of my favorite exercises to recommend for almost everybody is something called the glue bridge. And the glue bridge is when you lay down on the ground, your feet are flat on the floor, your knees are pointing up towards the ceiling, and you lift your hips up towards the ceiling, and

you do that by pushing your heels down. So if you push your heels down while squeezing your glutes your butt muscles and pushing your hips off, what you're gonna do is activate those glute muscles, and the glutes protect your knees. The glutes protect your ankles, and the glutes protect your low back. So with the glute bridge i'm describing, if you do fifteen to twenty repetitions of that, meaning

move up, pause, and lower yourself down slowly. If you do that fifteen to twenty times, the major benefits are you're strengthening the glute muscles, which really helps stabilize your body while you're walking. Strong glues really allows you to be more active. Okay, I just learned that. I always think about when I'm taking care of my body or or looking to strengthen something. I'm always focusing on the core because I feel like the core. You know, obviously

it has a lot of benefits. But I did not know about the glue bridge. So I am putting that on my to do list. And if you're listening right now on care walks, maybe this is something you would you say to do this before you start walking or after. Actually it's a good question. I would do it before because if you're warming up and you're gonna go out for a walk, then firing up your glutes will help

you protect your knee. So every time your foot hits the ground, theoretically your glute should fire to help stabilize the knee. And so if you don't do glue bridges before you warm up, they're not gonna be as effective. It. Okay, so let's talk about discomfort, something we all have experience. But because discomfort can be so prevalent for specifically caregivers with joint pain. How can you tell if aches and pains after a workout are good or bad? That that

I love that question. If you feel something sharp, that's really that's sharp, it's like, oh my goodness, where did this come from. That's pain that should be avoided. That's a that's a signal from your muscles or a joint saying hey, this didn't feel good, don't do this again. All right, We don't want to feel pain. That said, however, a little bit of discomfort. We want to feel a little bit of discomfort because that means our body has done more than it's used to doing, and that's how

we stimulate growth. We want to be able to manage discomfort, like with with arthritis with my right knee. With my right knee is a little uncomfortable, I'll slather on Volterian before I go for a walk or before I do any type of hard workout that know it's gonna beat up my knee, but I know that moving my knee through the discomfort makes my knee stronger in the long run. So thinking about more safe fitness practice are what are the best ways that you have to cool down after

a walk or work out? Any favorite stretches? When I look at post workout, it's honestly just slower movement. Right. So when I come back from a long hike, what I'll do is I don't sit down right away. I just stay on my feet for another fift twenty minutes and slow down my pace. You're allowing your heart rate to come down a little bit, You're allowing your circulation to come down a little bit. Personally, I wouldn't there's not much need to stretch really after a long walk.

But a harder workout, like if you did a hard strength training workout, that's where you might want to stretch the quater steps, the hamstrings, the larger muscles involved, just so you maintain joint motion as those tissues kind of cool as a tissue temperature comes back down. Yeah, don't skip the cool down. You've got to slow it down and ease yourself out of working out any kind of movement for those are just starting a movement journey, and we talked earlier about how hard it is to just

kick started. How do you stay consistent with an new workout routine, and how can caregivers set themselves up for success when making new self care habits. That's a huge question because you're looking at how does anybody create a habit? And one of my biggest, one of the biggest pieces of advice I have for people, Holly, is start with

realistic expectations, start with realistic goals. Once you see some success, either add minutes I'm gonna walk for five more minutes or at another day, and just begin with what you can do and just challenge yourself to do a little bit more than you think you can and just stay consistent with it and you feel better as a result. Yes, feeling better is the goal. Yeah, it's really clear to me, Pete,

how passionate you are about what you do. What is your favorite part about being a fitness instructor is after a class is over, when somebody says that was the right workout for me today. Honestly, I mean it's like when somebody says that felt right today. I don't want to beat people up. My my goal as a trainers

and instructors, I don't want to be in pain. And for any out there, if you're listening and you take exercise classes on a regular basis, the best thing you can do for your instructor is at the end of class and a big smile and say thank you. That felt right today, because honestly, what I love about what I do is you know you're having a direct impact on helping somebody have a better day because of something of what they did in your workout. Well, Pete, I

have to tell you that felt right today. That felt right, and I really appreciate having this conversation with you on care Walks. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you soon. Well, thank you for the conversation and really thank you for inspiring people to be more active. And hey, the more active that you can be, the better you'll feel. Absolutely, thank you so much. Thank you

Pete for joining me on care Walks. This conversation has really opened my eyes to ways that exercise and strength training can improve not only joint pain caused by osteo arthritis, but also as us the tools for better care for our bodies as caregivers. I don't have to tell you what a physical job caregiving can be, but I don't think that I ever really realized or thought about the best ways to get stronger for the work of being a caregiver. That's all for this episode of care Walks.

Don't forget to come back next week when we talk about the wonderful parts of being a caregiver with our guests, fellow caregiver Rob Phobian. I'm really looking forward to that. Keep walking until then, and don't forget to take care of yourself too. Care Walks is produced by I Heart Radio and partnership with all teran Arthritis Pain Gael and hosted by me Holly Robinson Pete. Our executive producer is

Molly Sosha. Our head engineer is Matt still Oh. This episode was written and produced by Sierra Kaiser, with special thanks to our partners at GSK Platform, GSK, Weber Shandwick and and all men from fr