I was a runner and swimmer, always a skinny guy so I kind of backed into this. Yes Arnold is cool on many levels (Franco and Lew legendary), body builders previously considered "meats" stumbled onto some valuable health info. My sons more muscled, played football etc, and I'm glad they know good diet and exercise. My oldest a very smart "meat", nerdy classmates in college always trying to knock him off his game (many have a bias against men w muscles...too bad). For me, no back or joint pain, but then I did sports, farm labor & built houses, always bending & lifting in my every day (though I was an engineer). If I had to guess, the "rules" of health are:
1) When aging, exercise especially important for quality of life, longevity. Maybe half cardio, half strength? Exercise a natural anti inflammatory, if one can't exercise then pop those anti inflammatory pills, but that's 2nd best. Old guys at our lap pool have bad posture and barely even try to put in a good workout, I hope that's not my future.
2) Relaxation of epithelial cells (ie increasing blood flow) seems quite important in older men (an anti heart attack, Alzheimers, Covid, etc thing). NO/Sildenafil seems a great way to do this, along with the effects of exercise.
3) Jury is out on hormones. They say women have less heart attacks because estrogen naturally opens up blood vessels (but after menopause they lose that protection). Elderly men/women seem to benefit from hormone replacement, but with some risk.
4) Not sure about other supplements. I used to take Ashwagandha and Chondritin (and Statins) but no more. I'm sticking w workouts, 120 gm protein, 35 gm fiber, about 1600 cal/day (plus 25 mg slidenafil per day), trying to keep it simple.
5) My big thing is that anti inflammatories work against muscle mass, which is critical in old age, plus exercise the best anti inflammatory. Some MDs agree with me that a BMI of 26-27 is ideal for an elderly body builder (given that a little more weight going into old age is protective, if its largely muscle)
6) I remember Lyle Alzado from the Raiders. He died young, but probably put some other bad elements in his body (unlike LaLannes), or else was "fast growing" (technically a robust mTOR response, which they can now mute with drugs). I'm watching Arnold's geriatric health, he seems somewhere in between Alzado and LaLanne? He's 75 and sometimes complains of the difficulty of maintaining muscle mass at his age. Arnold a very smart "meat"!
7) LaLanne had an incredible "rage to live", and yet was broad-minded, relatible, and humble. Quite a guy.
