Back up a hearse and let them smell the flowers

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

A short time ago I interviewed a group of senior citizen physical overachievers: people in their late sixties and seventies who seem to defy the odds. The group was selected by a San Diego area physical therapist, Charlotte Sears (a pseudonym, as are all the names here).

Almost everyone at the table was a swimmer. One was former Navy SEAL, Raymond Dobson. He was big, well over six feet tall and looked like he had probably put on a few pounds since his active-duty days.

We met at Charlotte’s home where she had set up lunch on a table on her covered patio. It was a warm, Southern California day. There was a pitcher of iced tea and another with water and lemon slices on the table. Also, one large plate of BLT sandwiches sat in the center.

The SEAL had already grabbed a sandwich, and I guessed there were no vegetarians in the group.

The house was situated on a hillside with a great view to the north, San Diego landmark Black Mountain prominent just a few miles away.

“Charlotte invited all of you because you seem to be outliers,” I said. “People others might guess to be 20 years younger than your actual age. Not only that, but your biomarkers and physical abilities are also those of folks much younger. What are your secrets and can others learn from your example?”

“I had my annual physical the other day and that was interesting” Raymond said. “Everything checked out ok, of course. Good blood panels, healthy blood pressure, nothing noteworthy.

“But the doctor said, ‘You seem to be in excellent health. You’re not on any prescription drugs. You’ve got a low resting heart rate. So, you’re exercising regularly?’

“I had to laugh at that question, but I just told him that I did.”

“What’s your routine?” the doc asked.

“I told him that I get up early, around 5:00 o’clock, drive to the beach and do an ocean swim. Usually about three miles, sometimes more. Then I told him that I go to the gym and lift for an hour, then I go to my office for consulting work with clients. Oh, and then later in the afternoon I told him that I drive up to La Jolla cove and meet some buddies and we do a swim to Scripps Pier and back, so that’s another three-mile swim. That’s about it.

“So, the doc, he gets a kind of shocked look on his face. ‘Isn’t that awfully extreme?’ he said.

“I told him no, just a regular day.”

“But, don’t you know you can overdo it? Too much exercise can be bad for you.”

“I laughed again. I told him not to talk to a Navy SEAL about overdoing it. We’re experts.”

Everybody had a good laugh at that.

“I mean, I suspect my doc would tell everybody at this table that we’re overdoing it. Mike can do a 10-mile swim, not only do it but race it because of his daily training. Alice swam both the Catalina Channel and English Channel. Charlotte, you’re going to Europe to swim in the World Masters Championships this summer because your sprint distance swims are near world records. I did a 24-mile ocean swim last year.

“Seems like normal stuff to all of us. It’s not that we’re overdoing things so much as the rest of the population is underdoing it. I know people are busy. Except for Alice, who’s retired now, we all have jobs, kids, grandkids, housework and so on, but we get out and do these things.”

“The doc is right though,” our hostess said. “Overuse can be a problem. Most of the clients in my physical therapy practice are athletes. Mostly swimmers or triathletes. And I can tell you about overuse injuries. Also, there are extreme cases, like the runner who died of heart complications during the Olympic marathon trials in New York in 2007.

“On the other hand, and here’s a real concern of mine, there are clients who come in with some physical strain or pain and seem to be motivated to get better but do none of the exercises that I prescribe. I mean none. I try to cheerlead, or shame, or guilt, but nothing works for a lot of these folks. It’s not just the current injury that concerns me. Because as they do literally nothing, I see them getting older, weaker, sicker and the result seems inevitable. After a few weeks, I just cut them from my practice.”

Mike, the distance swimmer and tech whiz, said, “US Government recommends 150 minutes a week of cardio plus some resistance training. And they say they’ve got the data to back that up. It’s enough, they say, but to me it’s only enough to keep you from dying. To me it seems too minimal. The WHO says 400 minutes per week of cardio activity. That’s obviously more than double the US Government recommendation. Who’s right? Is anybody?”

“I get more than150 minutes per day, not per week,” Alice said.

“I do too,” Mike said. “And Raymond gets even more.”

“Yeah,” Raymond said. “I told the doctor about the swimming and weight training, but I left out that I also do a 50- to 75-mile bike ride most weeks out on an East County loop, and I hike the Iron Mountain Trail with a 40-pound backpack. Poor guy was already shocked.”

“Have you all read Peter Attia’s book, Outlive?” Chris said. Everybody nodded. “That may be the best source I’ve read. But with this group, he’s preaching to the choir. We need a go-to source for your friends and neighbors who are just living normal lives. Are they going to read Peter Attia? Hell, I wish they would, but he may be too much.”

“I think we’d all agree there’s no shortage of knowledge,” I said. “Most people know what they should do but just don’t. So, what’s missing?”

“They’re all lollygaggers,” Raymond said, laughing. “Like that scene, in Bull Durham, they need a shake up.”

“Don’t think that would work,” Charlotte said.

“We all have a body, yet many people do not think seriously about taking care of it. Think of it the way you would a business: it needs attention, discipline, and management. Maybe what we need is a new kind of MBA — Masters in Body Administration. The trouble is, that’s just more information, and there’s already enough.”

“A man can do much more than he thinks he can,” Raymond said, “and is doing far less than he thinks he is. I read that somewhere. Another SEAL, David Goggins, says when you think you’re done, you’re less than half done. Most just don’t push it enough.”

Charlotte laughed. “I think that’s true of most of us. Human nature, maybe.”

“Back up the hearse and let them smell the flowers,” Alice said, and then she was quiet for a moment to let that ink in.

“Charlotte,” she said,” show your clients the signs of creeping decrepitude. Have a serious talk with them. Tell them they won’t be able to play with their grandchildren, assuming they live long enough to have grandchildren. They won’t even carry groceries from the car to the house. Back up that hearse. If you paint that picture well enough, maybe that will get them off their butts.”

“What I hear from all of you,” I said, “is that our government, while its intentions may be good, is recommending far too little. Yet most of the population is not even doing that. Every one of you is doing every day what the government recommends doing in a week.”

“Wasn’t it Gertrude Stein who called the generation in Paris after World War I the ‘Lost Generation’?” Mike said. “So, what do we call this one, and the generation after that — the soft generation, the comfort generation? I don’t know the cure. I’ve read Michael Easter, but maybe not enough other people have gotten the message. Two percent, I think Michael Easter says.”

“Sure,” I said. “The Comfort Crisis could help — if enough people read it and then actually go do hard things. As he puts it, ‘Have fun. Don’t die.’ Is that the basic message?”

“I have just a couple of more questions,” I said. “What about supplements, maybe peptide injections, any of the bio hacking tricks we’ve all heard about?”

“All the common ones,” Raymond said. “Vitamins C and E. Magnesium. Nothing outrageous.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Mike said. “I also take creatine twice a day. I’ve looked into peptides and am tempted, but they seem too risky.”

Alice just nodded. “Nothing special. I don’t think there are any magic bullets out there. People just need to move. Oh, there might be one magic bullet: people need to get out among the trees. Smell the pines.”

“I wish there were a simple solution,” Charlotte said, and paused as though thinking this over. “But I sure see a downward spiral.

“When I talk with some of my clients now, I’ll try Alice’s idea. I’ll paint the picture an old-fashioned big black hearse backing up, warning horn beeping. It’s theirs, I’ll say, not death’s door necessarily, but ruined health. I’ll tell them to lean in close and get a good whiff of the flowers. Lillies, roses, chrysanthemums. Can you smell them now?”

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