Strength and Mobility Training for Your Osteoarthritis

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 all right now, just a reminder. Right now you're listening to the full version of this episode, but if you don't have time for a full walk today, then go

check out our bridged version of the same episode. It's like cliff Notes for podcasts. 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. Let's take a deep breath, slowly inhale through your nose, and now slowly exhale out of your mouth. Yeah, how

are your knees moving? What about your arms from your elbow down to your wrists 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. Take another deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Bring those shoulders down, Let your arms sway from front to back. That's great. Keep moving at a relaxed space, 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 Claud von 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 big 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 strength 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, actually what you're doing is you're you're stimulating production of new cells in the body. So strength training, more than other types of exercise, stimulates production of new muscle cells of fiber blasts,

and fiber blasts become new tissues and the cells. So that's one of the big benefits of strength training is you're building more tissue that can either protect the joints meaning muscles help I can stabilize the joints, or that ultimately become the connective tissue that tendons and what's called

the fascia which surrounds each layer of muscle. So when you exercise, what you're doing you're stimulating production of new cells, 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. We know that moving better is so important, but it sometimes it can be very difficult. Which is more important to moving better?

Strength training or cardio which does more for joint paint? 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, but if you're not moving your body and you're not getting your heart rate up a couple of times a week, you can take years off your life. And I'll say that because I mean, I just I wrote a book in about high intensity exercise and how high intensity exercise slows down the aging process.

So when you look at strength training, strength training provides a much greater benefit because you're producing new muscle, you're producing new tissue. However, when you look at cardio, cardio is very important because you're moving the joints, you're moving

the muscles. 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 arthritis, is that first few minutes of exercise can be somewhat uncomfortable, like my knee 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 then all of a sudden, you feel great. So that's one of the biggest benefits about exercise, is like cardio going out for a walk or riding a bike, is once you work through that initial discomfort, your body will feel amazing and you'll be thinking like, man, I gotta be doing this all the

time because of the way you feel. So if it comes to strength and cardio, the answer is yes, do both, but alternate days that maybe one day you're doing a total body strength workout. Using all of your muscles together so you move more effectively, and then the next day would be like go for a walk, go for a bike ride, or go for a swim. That way, you're using your muscles differently, and you allowed that they're recovering from strength training while you're doing cardio, and then the

recovering from cardio while you do strength training. That 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 you some of your favorite ways to add fitness into a very busy routine. I love this question because, again, Holly, I've been working

the fitness industry for more than two years. I got certified back in the late ninety nineties, and the one thing is just being consistent. Is we want to be consistent, and for care walks, 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 can do with all generations of my family. And here's the deal. I love strength training, but if I'm a little sore of the day after a hard strength training workout or maybe something happened, you know, I've got something happened going on. I didn't sleep well at night, because we can't really work out that great if we don't

get a good night's sleep. But if I'm sore from working out, if I didn't get good night's sleep, a three to five mile walk is one of my favorite go too is because you feel so good just moving your body on a consistent basis. 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. You know what I mean, Because anybody can put on a pair of shoes and go for a walk around your neighborhood and you get to see

things you might not have seen. 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

in the podcast. Yeah, that's a great question because when you look at some strength training and exercises, and we look at some things like arthritis, where oftentimes we can experience arthritis is in our feet and our knees, right, and so 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, so you're flat on your back, feet are flat on the floor, knees or point up to 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. The other thing, too, is you're stretching your hip muscles. That the hip muscles along the front of your thighs is you're getting good stretch there. The combination the two can really reduce stress on the low back. And strengthening the glutes is one way to

protect the knees. And again, as somebody that's dealing with some pretty wicked arthritis in my right knee, one of the things I make sure I do, especially my lower body workouts, is keep the glute trending up because I know, I mean just from studying it, that the stronger my glutes are, the better protection I have from my knees.

Strong glues really allows you to be more active. Okay, I just learned that 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 lists. And I really didn't even realize that the glue bridge helped

you with knees. My husband's had knee replacement surgery, and I'm sure he knows this as a former athlete, but I did not know. So I've written that down and I'm gonna get my glue bridge in. 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. You know, think about football players, right, I mean, your husband was a football player. When he was playing, he was out there doing mobility drills, and

those drills activate the muscles, so that way. If he plans to make a sudden cut of direction or change the direction, the glute is going to fire to stabilize the knee. Now, somebody walking for exercise is not going to need to make a rapid change of direction to well maybe never know, pete, never know that car is coming the wrong direction, somebody's coming down with one of those scooters. You gotta get out of the way. No, you know what, I'll back it up because you're right.

Because you might not think you might have to change the direction. But if somebody's flying down the sidewalk on electric scooter, or somebody's dog gets out of control and you don't want to give yeah, you might have to make a change of direction. But having stronger glues. But in all seriousness, having stronger glues will protect that. If you have to make a sudden lateral change or sideways change and you're putting your foot down, your glutes will

fire to stabilize your knee. So it all comes in. Yeah. The funny thing is one of the best core exercises that we could do. Holly is actually walking because when we look at how all the muscles in our body are aligned, walking is like our basic movement pattern that

we can all do. So the more walking that we can do, the more that we use all the muscles in our body, because when you look at how we move when we walk, our shoulders move, our hips move, our arms move, and that can really be one of the most beneficial things of a long walk is you're

just automatically tying all those muscles together. You know. Now, it's actually I'll show this because I go to my I'll see my chiropractor a little bit later today, and that's always this recommendation as you start the morning with the five to ten minute walk or I do a ten minute walk after every adjustment, because your body is just going back into its normal movement patterns. This is great information, Pete, thank you so much. We'll be right

back with more from Pete McAll. Welcome back to care walks and now back to my conversation with Pete McCall. Okay, so let's talk about discomfort, something we all have experienced. 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 are 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 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. So at the end of a workout, you want to be feel a little bit of discomfort, meaning you want to feel like I just did something and my muscles have worked harder than they're used to. That's good, that's what we want. However, we don't want to feel pain. What I always tell clients is like if clients are complaining about something, I'll say pause, time out. Does that hurt because if it hurts, we're gonna stop. But if

it's uncomfortable, that's what you're paining me for. Right. That's because discomfort is where we get 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 volter and 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. Because here's the thing, Hollywood, when it comes to arthritis and with the joint discomfort is I look at it personally, I'm willing to put up with a few minutes of discomfort so that my joint remains functional and I continue to move my joint

through its full range emotion. Because here's what I fear, knowing what I know about the body is if I don't move my joints, if I don't move my knee, if I don't move my hips, if I don't move my elbows, if I don't move my joints, there, they're gonna lose their range emotion. Yeah, just a side note. Rodney had so much discomfort that he pushed through because of his training as an athlete, the need to learn to play with pain, and it was like chasing him for a year is trying to get him to treat

this knee. But listen our walking routine. We slather on the ball terran for each other. So I put a little one, you put a little on mine because mine are starting to act up as well to just a little bit of pain. Especially noticed going downstairs. I noticed like a little tweak of pain in my knee. I'm like, oh my goodness. So thinking about more safe fitness practice are one are the best ways that you have to

cool down after a walk or work out? Any favorite stretches other than the glute bridge, which is going to be my new go to. Well, and this is where, honestly, and this is where like technology comes in handy, right, And that's where a percussion gun, like those little percussion guns and handheld massage guns, those can be a very effective way for after being active because what is doing is that pressure can help desensitize, meaning reduced tightness in

muscle tissue. However, and I'll say this, that's not going to be appropriate for everybody experiencing joint pain, right, So that's been one of my goats us. But when I look at post workout, it's honestly just slower movement. Right, if I'm going for a long walk, what I do when I get back and I'm pointing over my shoulder for listeners. I'm pointing over my shoulder like you guys

know what I'm talking about. But outside my door, Holly, there's a system about a quarter mile away, there's like a ten mile network of trails that either go mountain biking on a rotting or hiking on one or two times a week. But that's why I'm living where I live, because I have access to that. However, 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 fifteen twenty minutes and slow down my pace right because hiking or walking or hiking is not super strenuous. All you need to do is kind of slowly gradually, don't sit down yet. You want to take about fifteen to twenty minutes of just standing after you get done a long walk or a long hike, you just want to take about fifteen twenty minutes of continued to stand before sitting down. That way, what you're

doing is allowing your circulation. You're allowing your heart rate to come down a little bit. You're allowing your circulation to come down a little bit. That way, when you do sit down, your muscles won't be as warm and you and won't get stuck in a position at what you sit in. Because that's the challenge, right If you come back from a walk and all of a sudden you sit down for another two hours, your muscles can

kind of become locked into that position. Whereas if you do a long walk and you spend some time just moving around standing for a little bit, what's gonna happen is your temperature, your tissue temperature is gonna come down. So yeah, after a long walk, it's just some low, intensey movement because I don't think there's really 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. I've done that before. Pete, Like, I just well, I'm done. I'm just gonna get off the treadmill and don't skip that cool down as a reason why it's always in your program on your treadmill.

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 a 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. Because what tends to happen is if we're starting, if we're recording this on a Monday, right if I say this week, I'm gonna exercise every day of the week, and Monday I do great. Tuesday I go to the gym, but Wednesday I have to stay

late at work or something happens. Now I feel like a failure because I didn't make it to the gym every day of the week. Therefore, I'm just going to throw it in because I can't do this, this is too hard. However, if you say to yourself, I'm only going to exercise two times during the week and one

time on the weekend, that's my goal. My goal for the next couple of weeks is I want to go out for a twenty minute walk two times during the week, and I want to try to do a forty minute walk on the weekend when I have a little bit more time. If you start small and you're able to do that twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there, you start building up success. You start layering success. So you go from doing it two times during the week and once

on the weekend, now I feel pretty good. Let me do a third day during the week, let me do a little bit longer on the weekend. So it really is. My advice for listeners is when you start a program, when you start to move more regularly, just very simple, small goals. Do ten to twenty minutes at a time. Because we know, I mean Devan and shows ten to twenty minutes of activity is better than no activity. You know, twenty minutes of something is better than than zero minutes

of nothing. So for listeners, if you're listening to what you're saying. I want to get moving. Start small, and 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. 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 you to be sore. I don't want to be in pain because if I make you, If I if you're in pain from an exercise session,

you can't move tomorrow. And that's not my goal. I want you to move every day. And for anybody 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, yes, we get paid by the gym to teach a class. However, any time that somebody says that to me, that's worth

more than than the money going the bank. Because you know what I love about this industry and 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 I did your workout? Yes, absolutely, because physical and mental health are so intertwined. How can we make fitness a part of a mindfulness or meditation practice? My mindfulness me, Holly, my personal journey with mindfulness really

helps me kick start my day. So how can individuals use movement and fitness as part of strengthening mental health? And do you also do you have any favorite mantras or or pieces of motivation that you use to inspire your clients. I know you have some pe I just met you, but I feel like you have some whole

pete lexicon that you can get people motivated. But in all, seriously, that's such a great question, right because for years, for years, we've always looked at meditation, or the perception with meditation has been is as some sort of like whatever mind body is not really connected. But what we're seeing is that your brain controls every aspect of your body. So taking a few minutes in the day and one of

the things I go to you. I don't know about you, but I'll try to take a few minutes in the morning and when I meditate, I kind of do a little checken how's my body feeling. I'll take some deep breaths, and I was like, how are my hips feeling, how are my knees feeling, how's my shoulders feeling? And it's like, what do I want out today? What do I want to be able to do today? What do I want

my body to do for me today? So just taking a couple of minutes in the morning to kind of do a little that mental checklist, Hey, everybody, how are you doing? What's going on? And then just sitting there and think how do I want to use my body today? And then for me, the final part of that is just I live in southern California, and I try to be very grateful that I live in a in a very great area. I lived near you know, my daughter's

pretty close to me. I just try to I try to start the day with a sense of gratitude for you know what, I get to move today, I get to be up, I get to be able to do what I want to do, and that also helps me kind of overcome anything that It's like, Yeah, my knee might be bothered me a little bit, but you know what, I'm still so I still have the ability to get up and move. I still the ability to go out and use this thing, and I'm gonna use it for

as long as i can. So don't know if that's helpful for anybody, but I really try to start the day with just being thankful that I have the opportunity to get up and use this vehicle that we've been blessed with. Yeah, gratitude is everything. It can be so motivational in so many ways. 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. You just got to get through that first few minutes. And the more active you are, the better you'll feel in the long and better off you'll be in the long run. 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 gives 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 in partnership with al Teren Arthritis Pain Gael and hosted by me Holly Robinson Pete. Our executive producer is

Molly Sosha. Our head engineer is Matt Stillo. This episode was written and produced by Sierra Kaiser, with special thanks to our partners at GSK Platform, GSK, Weber Shandwick and and I'll Man from f