- Taking care of our musculoskeletal health can help us stay strong and active as we age.
- Dr. Vonda Wright is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in healthy aging.
- She lifts heavy weights and does a weekly dance practice to age well.
A musculoskeletal doctor who specializes in healthy aging shared her weekly exercise routine that helps her maintain strength and mobility as she ages.
Dr. Vonda Wright, 57, is a Florida-based, dual-board certified orthopedic surgeon who helps elite athletes, including Olympians and World Rugby Sevens players, optimize their performance.
In our 30s and 40s, we naturally begin to lose muscle mass, which is essential to continue doing everyday movements, such as getting up from a chair. The process begins between the ages of 65 and 80.
It’s important to stay active to prevent weakened bones and muscles, and those who lead sedentary lives eventually lose strength and balance and start to fall or shuffle when they walk, Wright told Business Insider.
About 12% of American adults over age 50 have osteoporosis, and 43% have low bone mass, a precursor to osteoporosis, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But exercise significantly lowers the risk, Wright said
“Musculoskeletal aging and healthy aging is a lifelong pursuit,” she said. “Just show up every day for yourself.”
The “critical decade” for people to start developing habits that will allow them to live healthy and active lives into old age is between the ages of 35 and 45, said Wright, author of “Fitness After 40.”
“70 to 80% of how we age is due to lifestyle choices,” Wright said.
With that in mind, she works out five to six days a week, including cardio and strength training.
Power up
Wright recommends that everyone learn to lift weights to build and maintain muscle mass.
She is a fan of powerlifting, which consists of deadlifts, bench presses and squats. She does four sets of four reps each and makes sure she challenges herself with heavy weights.
“I can do four with good form. I’m exhausted. I might be able to do five, but I can’t do six. If I can do that, it’s too easy and I have to go up,” said she.
Alongside these, she does a few additional lifts that target individual or smaller muscle groups, usually focusing on her biceps, triceps, lats and deltoids. She does four sets of eight repetitions.
Running with the 80/20 rule
Wright usually does her cardio on a treadmill. Travel Couples/Getty Images
When it comes to aerobic exercise, Wright follows the 80/20 rule, which means she does low-intensity exercise, also known as zone 2 exercise, 80% of the time and high-intensity exercise 20%.
Research suggests that this approach builds endurance and improves cardiovascular health.
“For everyone from the very beginning runner to the most elite athlete, longer runs where you maintain a low heart rate are really beneficial for building aerobic endurance,” Dr. Morgan Busko, a sports medicine physician at NewYork-Presbyterian University/Columbia. Irving Medical Center, previously told BI. “By running slower for longer periods, you’re setting yourself up to be able to run faster.”
Wright typically runs on a treadmill for 45 minutes at about 60% of her maximum heart rate, and twice a week, she finishes with some speed training. She sprints as fast as she can for 30 seconds four times.
“When you sprint like that and really push yourself, no matter what age you are, you feel like a badass,” she said.
Dance practice
To maintain bone density, everyone needs a jump practice, Wright said, especially if you sit at a desk all day. That could be jumping off a box, jumping rope, or even running hard up the stairs, she said.
She does box jumps between lifts twice a week and gets up from her desk and jumps up and down 20 times a day. “My patients are used to seeing me dance,” she said.
In a 2009 study published in the journal Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Wright and her colleagues measured the bone density of 560 older athletes with an average age of 65.9 years. They found that those who played high-impact sports, such as volleyball, basketball and running, had the highest bone density.
When a person has low bone density, the risk of fractures and fractures, as well as osteoporosis, increases.