In Part 1 of this series, we explored the idea that fatigue does not always mean we are finished. In Part 2, we discussed why recovery is essential if we want our bodies to repair, adapt, and become stronger.

Both ideas are true, but I decided there is a third piece of the conversation we can’t ignore especially in today’s technologically dominated era:

What happens when conditions are less than perfect, or when we’re not fully recovered, but we still must perform?

So, I decided to include this third installment in an attempt to come up with an answer or at least stimulate some debate.

Here’s the Reality, Life Does Not Check Your Recovery Score

I recently heard a neurosurgeon discuss this in an Instagram post (@itsbrainsurgery). In it, he explained that he cannot refuse to perform emergency brain surgery simply because his wearable says he is poorly recovered or because he had a bad night of sleep. If someone needs him, he has no choice but to step up and do his job well.

Most of us will never face emergency brain surgery, but we all encounter moments when life doesn’t give a !@#$ about our recovery score. For example, when a family member needs us or a crisis develops at work, or when we have to compete, travel, make a decision, or fulfill a responsibility when we do not feel our best. Let’s face it:

Often, we do not get to choose the conditions.

Life Cannot Be Optimized

We can monitor sleep, plan training, manage nutrition, and create the best conditions within reason, and these things matter, but life cannot be completely optimized. As the saying goes, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”.

For example, I can think of times when my daughter became sick, my flight was delayed, or I slept poorly before an important event. The fact is if something needs to be done, no one really cares what our wearable says. In fact, if we convince ourselves that we need ideal conditions to sleep, exercise, think clearly, handle stress, or perform well, I would argue that we are actually training ourselves to be fragile.

And if you cannot perform when the going gets tough, eventually you are going to have problems, because sooner or later, the going gets tough.

Good Conditions Should Not Become Requirements

I am not saying that recovery is not important or that we should intentionally and repeatedly exhaust ourselves. After all, that’s what part 2 was about, and it’s well documented that chronic sleep deprivation and inadequate recovery carry consequences for health, judgment, reaction time, mood, and performance.

But, I am saying that there is an important difference between creating good conditions and becoming dependent on them.

A quick hat tip belongs to author and thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who coined the term “antifragile” in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Taleb says that something resilient can withstand stress and recover from it. Whereas, something antifragile goes a step further: it benefits from stress, disruption, or uncertainty and becomes stronger or more capable because of it.

Being antifragile means learning to operate when conditions are not ideal and then becoming stronger because of it. At times, we may need to modify the plan or accept that we will not perform at our absolute best.

This happened when I published my book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist’s Guide to Longevity. Each time I reread it, I found more ways to improve it. I am a recovering perfectionist, so it was difficult for me to finally accept that the book had to be “good enough”, or I might never have published it at all.

Waiting for perfect conditions would have kept me from moving forward. Publishing it required me to accept some uncertainty, act before everything felt ideal, and trust that I could learn and improve along the way. In that sense, imperfect conditions did not prevent progress — they became part of the process.

If modifying the plan is not an option, we simply have to put our heads down, tough it out, and do what needs to be done anyway.

Toughness Is Also Trainable

Antifragility tells us that we become stronger by exposing ourselves to an appropriate amount of physical stress and then recovering from it. Each time we successfully navigate discomfort, fatigue, or disruption, we prove that imperfect conditions do not make us fall apart. They help us become even more capable. However, that does not require frequently staying awake all night or performing dangerous activities while exhausted.

Instead, we can do things like complete a workout when motivation is low, adapt when equipment is unavailable, remain calm when plans change, exercise outside our favorite time, take on a new challenge or face a fear, or fulfill an important responsibility when we would rather rest.

Viewing setbacks as challenges meant to improve us can help us keep a positive attitude when life gives us lemons. But remember, proper balance is key, and the goal is to expand our capacity, not prove that warning signals never matter.

Wearables Are Advisers NOT Commanders

Wearable technology should be viewed in proper perspective. It can provide useful information about sleep, heart rate, and recovery trends (I use it myself), but that information must be interpreted within the context of real life.

A low recovery score may suggest modifying a workout or confirm what our bodies are telling us, but it should NOT convince us that we are unable to perform. Because as anyone over 40 knows, sometimes despite what the data suggests, the job still needs to be done.

Recovery and Antifragility Need Each Other

Recovery without antifragility can leave us dependent on ideal circumstances and more fragile. However, antifragility without adequate recovery can become recklessness, so we need both. As a result, ahead of time we should recover deliberately whenever possible, so that we are ready and have greater capacity when life becomes demanding.

Because our subconscious looks for proof that we can perform under pressure and in less-than-ideal conditions, we should also occasionally tolerate safe, manageable adversity so that we improve gradually (e.g. 1% per week) and do not lose confidence whenever conditions are imperfect.

This also matters as we get older. For example, we should respect changes in our bodies without treating every poor night, ache, or difficult day as proof that we are no longer capable, because as I’ve said before, age gets a vote, but not the ONLY vote.

Do What the Moment Requires

The skill is not about blindly pushing through everything. Rather, it is about learning to respond appropriately. Sometimes the wise decision is to stop, sometimes it is to recover, and sometimes it is to modify the plan.

But sometimes the moment requires us to be tough and continue despite feeling less than perfect. Fatigue asks us whether we have more in the gas tank, recovery prepares us to go again, and antifragility allows us to give what is needed when life does not provide ideal conditions.

SO, recover when you can, adapt when you should, perform when you must, and become stronger because of it!

🗨️ Join the Conversation

Have you ever surprised yourself by performing well after poor sleep, disrupted plans, or less than ideal preparation? How do you distinguish between a moment when you truly need recovery and one when you simply need to tough it out? Leave a comment and share your experience.

Lou | Thrive A/F Team

A Shark, a Half Marathon, and My Ride-or-Die

In case you missed it, our latest episode of the Thrive A/F Podcast was a little personal for me. Our guest was Doug Sarmousakis, one of my closest friends on the planet. Doug is a father and husband first. He’s also a successful businessman, a lifelong surfer, an expert boater and fisherman, and the most “all in” person I know.

Doug and I met the way a lot of dads do. Our kids were in the same school. And in the years since, we’ve participated in many adventures. Including half marathons, Tough Mudders, ice-water dumpsters, and at least one very bloody game of pickleball.

So this one felt less like an interview and more like three friends telling stories and laughing with the microphones on.

We covered a lot of ground. But three things stuck with me enough that I want to highlight them here.

Saying yes is a mindset, and you can build it

I’ve never known Doug to say no. Not to a friend who needs help, and not to a challenge. So I finally asked him: were you born that way, or did something make you this way?

“I think people have been telling me that my whole life. I’m all in... I don’t have any regrets about it. I actually like that. Because I feel like, man, we’re here, let’s do it. Right? That’s my mindset.”

Then I asked if any adventure ever made him think it wasn’t such a great idea.

“No. Because even if it doesn’t work out right, I look at it and say, I’ll take something good out of it.”

That second answer is the one that matters.

Because Doug’s adventures don’t always go perfectly as planned. Ask him about the dive where he stayed down alone after his son’s tank ran out of air, with a bleeding hogfish clipped to his hip. A reef shark showed up and got a little too close to, as Doug put it, his “happy place.” He’s honest about it:

“It’s not safe to do that. It’s not smart to do that.”

But he came up, learned from it, and he’s still diving.

That’s the part I think we can all train. Not recklessness. Antifragility. The habit of looking at a setback and asking what you can take from it.

Give your training something to shoot for

Like a lot of us, Doug let exercise slide when his kids were young and his career was taking off. And like a lot of former athletes, he’s carrying some hardware. Football left him with a partial shoulder replacement.

So how does he stay ready to surf the Pacific in his 50s? He trains for something.

“I’ll train for six or eight weeks in the pool, just paddling every day, just to get my cardio up, get my shoulders in shape enough to be able to paddle out in the Pacific Ocean... and still have a good time, be safe, and enjoy the time with my son... I like having something to shoot for. It just makes it easier for me.”

I see this constantly with patients and clients. A goal on the calendar gives your training a purpose. Furthermore, it gives you a reason to show up on the days you don’t feel like it.

And Doug has adjusted how he trains as he’s gotten older:

“I’m not interested in lifting heavy weights anymore... I’m more about the stretching and strength training, but not heavy weight training.”

As a physical therapist, I’ll add one thing. Adjusting doesn’t mean quitting. You can stop chasing max weight and still keep building strength. Shifting toward mobility and sustainable strength is exactly what keeps you in the game long enough to take the next trip.

Friendship is the best training partner you’ll ever have

Our half marathon started after a night out and a scare that Doug calls “a whole different podcast.” The next day, he knew he needed a change:

“I said, man, I gotta do something, dude... Somehow running a half marathon came up and I said, would you be interested? And Lou was like, [bleep] yeah. And that really started it... Lou’s my ride or die when it comes to stuff like that.”

We went from zero to a half marathon in 13 weeks. Doug ran it on a badly sprained ankle, against the professional advice of his training partner. On race day, the course ran out of water.

We didn’t set any records. But we got it done. And that’s what started the friendship.

Keith made a point on the episode that I haven’t stopped thinking about:

“Especially for men, it seems like as we get older, those deeper relationships, sometimes they’re harder to find... But it’s like at different stages in your life, like when your kids are in school, that’s when you seem to form some bonds like this.”

He’s right. And here’s what I’d add. Those friendships don’t just make life better. They make you do things. I would never have signed up for a Tough Mudder on my own. I definitely wouldn’t have walked into a dumpster full of ice water.

But Doug asked. So I said yes.

This is the short version. The full conversation runs about 50 minutes and gets into a lot more, including the full shark story (yes, he shot it, and no, he would not let go of his $500 spear), why blood looks green 85 feet underwater, the electric-shock obstacle Doug ran through with a metal shoulder, and a rapid-fire round where Doug took pickleball over tennis and then tried to walk it back. We didn’t let him. The full episode is live now, so go check it out.

Oh, and Doug signed me (and Keith) up for the Everglades Half Marathon in January. Live, on the podcast.

We didn’t say no.

If you’re enjoying the content and the podcast, please do us a favor and help spread the word.

Lou | Thrive A/F Team

🗨️ Join the Conversation: Who’s the friend in your life who always says yes, and pulls you along with them? Tell us about an adventure you never would have taken on by yourself. Leave a comment and share your story.

In this episode:

• How a near-death scare led to a zero-to-half-marathon training plan in 13 weeks, run on a badly sprained ankle

• Training for life's adventures: how Doug preps for surf trips, and why he's swapped heavy lifting for yoga, stretching, and strength work

• The "all in" mindset, and finding something good in every adventure, even the ones that go sideways

• The full shark story: diving alone, a moray eel, a reef shark between the legs, and a $500 spear

• Why blood looks green underwater

• Cold plunging before it was cool: Tough Mudder's 34-degree ice dumpster (with video)

• Running through electric shocks with a metal shoulder implant

• Rapid-fire: dessert first, sunrise vs. sunset, map or no map, and why pickleball is considered a contact sport

Follow along for more from Thrive A/F, and if you're in Atlanta, come see what Terminus is all about: https://crossfitterminus.com

Resources:

• GRAB THE BLUEPRINT! Get Lou's book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist's Guide to Longevity, available now: https://delraycarept.com/thrive-a-physical-therapists-guide-to-longevity/

• Delray Care Physical Therapy: https://delraycarept.com/

• Keith's Consulting Business: https://www.pescadorconsulting.com/

Chapter Timestamps

00:38 Welcome and guest introduction

05:25 How Doug and Lou became adventure partners

10:35 Doug’s athletic background and getting back in shape

14:30 Outdoor life, family, and training with purpose

18:16 The “all in” mindset

20:42 The full shark-diving story

35:57 Tough Mudder memories and the Arctic plunge

42:43 Rapid-fire: adventure, rules, and pickleball

49:06 Surfing, future adventures, and closing

In Part 1 of this series, we explored how fatigue does not always mean we are completely spent. Sometimes we have more in the tank. But just because we can push through fatigue, does that mean we always should? Absolutely not.

Recovery is often treated as time away from training. But recovery is not what happens instead of training. Recovery is part of the training.

Training provides the stimulus. Recovery allows your body to repair, rebuild, and adapt. Without enough of it, performance and motivation may decline, sleep may suffer, and small aches may grow. More training does not always create more progress. In fact, sometimes it simply creates more fatigue.

Recovery Is Not the Same as Doing Nothing

Sometimes complete rest is exactly what you need. However, recovery can also be active: walking, easy cycling, mobility work, relaxed swimming, or lighter technical practice.

For a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner, that might mean drilling instead of fighting for your life during every round. For a runner, it might mean walking or an easy run instead of intervals. The goal is to move without creating significant additional fatigue. If a recovery workout leaves you tired, it was just another workout.

Your Body Keeps a Running Total

Travel, emotional stress, illness, poor nutrition, dehydration, alcohol, demanding work, and disrupted sleep all affect recovery. Think of yourself as having a recovery budget. Training spends some of it, but so does life. Temporarily adjusting your training is not abandoning your goals, it’s responding intelligently enough to keep pursuing them.

What Changes After 40

People over 40 can become stronger, improve endurance, learn difficult skills, compete, and take on new challenges, but many of us cannot repeatedly abuse our bodies and recover as easily as we once did.

That does not necessarily mean less intensity. It may mean applying it more judiciously. A well conditioned 55 year old may tolerate more than a sedentary 30 year old who goes “hog wild.” Health, experience, sleep, nutrition, injury history, and life stress matter. Age gets a strong vote, but not the only vote.

How Do You Know When You Need More Recovery

Wearable devices are useful tools, NOT unquestionable authorities. Pay attention to the technology AND the human being wearing it.

Possible signs include declining performance, unusual fatigue, prolonged soreness, irritability, lost motivation, disrupted sleep, an elevated resting heart rate, feeling uncoordinated, repeated illness, increasing pain, familiar workouts feeling harder, or feeling “wired but tired.” One bad day does not necessarily mean you are under recovered. Look for a pattern.

The Foundations of Recovery

Recovery can become unnecessarily complicated. Devices, supplements, treatments, and biohacks may help, and I use several recovery technologies myself and in my practice. But they CANNOT compensate for neglecting the basics.

Sleep supports physical repair, nervous system recovery, immune function, and emotional regulation. Nutrition provides energy and rebuilding materials. Hydration matters, especially in South Florida heat and humidity. Appropriate movement can reduce stiffness. Emotional stress also affects recovery, so quiet time, enjoyable activities, meaningful relationships, and stepping away from work matter.

Planned Recovery Beats Forced Recovery

Many people train until pain, illness, exhaustion, or declining performance forces them to stop. Consequently, what could have been a lighter day may become weeks away from the activity they love. Planned recovery is usually less costly than forced recovery. It may mean alternating hard and light sessions, taking a rest day, or periodically reducing training volume.

When I returned to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at 56 after an eight year layoff, much to my surprise, I retained much of my knowledge. But knowing what to do and being physically prepared to repeat it are not the same. So, I had to rebuild slowly and train for who I was at that moment, not who I remembered being eight years earlier.

Train Today but Protect Tomorrow

In Part 1, I asked whether the voice saying “you are done” was always correct. However, in Part 2 the question becomes: Even if I can do more today, what will that effort cost me tomorrow? Humans need challenges, but today’s decision should support the larger goal.

Recovery is individual. Ask how you feel compared with normal, whether performance is improving or declining, how well you slept, and what other stress you are managing. Sometimes fatigue can be challenged, but oftentimes it’s useful information, and/or a warning.

As I discussed in Part 1, consult your physician or physical therapist before starting a new exercise routine or significantly increasing an existing one. Persistent unexplained fatigue, declining exercise tolerance, chest pain, unusual shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting, an irregular heartbeat, sudden weakness, or sharp and escalating pain deserve medical attention.

We do not recover because we are weak. We recover so stress becomes adaptation and improvement rather than accumulating damage. Push when it is time to push, but recover when it is time to recover so you can return ready to push again.

Thriving after 40 is not about winning one workout. It is about staying healthy, capable, and in the game for decades to come.

Train today, but protect tomorrow!

🗨️ Join the Conversation

Do you find it harder to push yourself or to recover? Have you ever ignored recovery and been forced to stop, or found that backing off helped you return stronger? Leave a comment and tell us how you balance working hard with protecting what you love.

Lou | Thrive A/F Team

In case you missed it - SEASON TWO of the Thrive A/F Podcast kicked off with our first-ever guest, and honestly, we couldn’t have picked a better one. Emily Bridgers Benson is a co-owner and managing partner at CrossFit Terminus here in Atlanta, a former UGA gymnast, a six-time CrossFit Games competitor, and — back in 2014 — the sixth fittest woman in the world.

She’s also our first female guest, which, ten episodes into a podcast about training and longevity, felt overdue, and turned out to shape a lot of what we talked about. Mostly, though, she’s just a friend I’ve trained next to for years, which made this conversation feel less like an interview and more like the kind of talk we’d have anyway, just with microphones on.

We covered a lot of ground but three things stuck with me enough that I want to highlight them here.

The intimidation factor is real, and it’s fixable

Emily’s been doing CrossFit since 2010, back when she’d have to explain to people what it even was. She watched it go from a “niche, hardcore misfits” scene to something much bigger, and along the way she and her husband Ben got intentional about a specific problem: how do you make this less intimidating without watering it down?

Her answer stuck with me:

“You don’t have to do handstand pushups to improve your overhead shoulder stability... there are other ways to work on this skill that’s not going to put you at risk.”

That’s the whole philosophy in one line. You don’t need the highlight-reel movements to get the benefit. You need a coach who can scale the skill to where you actually are, and the mindset to believe that it’s never too late to try new things. This is something Lou and I have been talking about on Thrive A/F since episode one.

Strength training might be the most underrated entry point in the room — especially for women

I asked Emily point blank: is CrossFit a good on-ramp for someone with zero strength training background? Her answer was more emphatic than I expected:

“CrossFit is one of the best ways that people can be introduced to strength training... the instruction that you get with technique, if you’re at a good gym, is pretty unmatched.”

She told me about members who’ve moved away and set up garage gyms rather than find a new box, because “we didn’t find a gym that felt as good.” That’s not a marketing line. That’s what actual retention looks like when the coaching does its job.

Since Emily’s our first female guest, I wanted her take specifically on what she’s seen from women around strength training — and her answer connected two things I hadn’t put together before: the clients she’s working with right now, and the cultural shift she’s watched happen over her whole career.

“I’m currently personal training a handful of people that are on GLP-1s... I’ve definitely recommended that they continue strength training while they’re on it. There’s certain people that have seen huge benefits with blood work and all kinds of things.”

And on the bigger picture:

“I feel like when I was in my 20s and even my early 30s, women would kind of look at me doing this really heavy strength training and be like, that’s crazy... But now people are, you know, between 35 and a little over 40, they’re like, what are you doing for strength training? I need to be doing something.”

That’s not a small shift. That’s a whole generation of women going from “why would you do that” to “teach me how.” We’ve shared examples on our podcast and in these articles about strong women doing amazing things, and it was great to get Emily’s firsthand perspective to add to the story.

Lou brought the science side of this home. Starting in your mid-30s, you lose muscle every year you don’t actively fight it — sarcopenia, if you want the clinical term. And it’s not just about looking strong:

“Muscle is the best padding to keep you from fracturing a hip or some kind of fracture that may end you up in the hospital and turn into a real disaster.”

Recovery isn’t one-size-fits-all — and it changes with you

The importance of recovery is something we talk about a lot, and Emily was refreshingly honest about what elite-level recovery actually looked like during her competing years — massage every two weeks, PT every two weeks, a red light therapy unit she’d use between events at competitions. Cutting-edge stuff, and also, by her own admission, not sustainable or even healthy long-term:

“I was not very well. I had a lot of anxiety. I would have panic attacks because I think my central nervous system was just always on high alert.”

Now, recovery looks completely different — no more training twice a day with a nap in between, more listening to her body, more actual sleep (well, as much as any of us get anymore). It’s a good reminder that “optimal recovery” isn’t a fixed target. It moves with your life stage, and that’s not a failure, that’s the point.

One practical tip I’m stealing from her: she brings a mobile DEXA scan truck to Terminus two or three times a year, giving members real data on lean mass, fat mass, and bone density instead of guessing. It’s a habit I’d love to see more people adopt early (I’ve done it once), especially given how often osteoporosis risk gets treated as a “someday” problem instead of something worth a baseline number now.

This is the short version. The full conversation runs almost an hour and gets into a lot more including nutrition, raising active kids, and a rapid-fire round that includes Emily’s take on pickleball versus tennis (spoiler: she tried to walk back her answer and we did not let her). Full episode is live now, so go check it out!

It was a great kickoff conversation to start Season Two of the podcast, and set a high bar for our next guest! And if you are enjoying the content and the podcast, please do us a favor and help spread the word.

Keith | Thrive A/F Team

🗨️ Join the Conversation: Emily talked about watching women go from being told heavy lifting was “crazy” to actively seeking it out in their late 30s and 40s. If that shift describes you, what changed your mind? Leave a comment and share your story.

In this episode:

• How CrossFit evolved from a "hardcore misfits" niche into a more inclusive, accessible fitness community

• Why you don't need advanced skills like handstand pushups to build real strength and mobility

• The truth about CrossFit's injury reputation — and what actually causes most injuries

• Why strength training may be one of the most important things you can do as you age (and the real risks of sarcopenia)

• Recovery then vs. now: what elite-level recovery looked like during Emily's competitive years, and how her approach — and her mental health — has changed since

• Nutrition, macros, and why there's no one-size-fits-all diet (including Lou's own keto vs. vegan blood-work experiment)

• GLP-1 medications and muscle loss — what to know if you're on one

• Raising active, healthy kids without food restriction

• Rapid-fire: guilty pleasures, pickleball vs. tennis, and a Georgia-Florida prediction

Follow along for more from Thrive A/F, and if you're in Atlanta, come see what Terminus is all about: https://crossfitterminus.com 

Resources:

• GRAB THE BLUEPRINT! Get Lou's book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist's Guide to Longevity, available now: https://delraycarept.com/thrive-a-physical-therapists-guide-to-longevity/ 

• Delay Care Physical Therapy: https://delraycarept.com/ 

• Keith’s Consulting Business: https://www.pescadorconsulting.com/ 

Chapter Timestamps

01:29 Emily’s journey from gymnastics to CrossFit ownership and competition

03:41 What it means to step away from competition

05:27 How CrossFit and CrossFit Terminus have evolved

09:57 Making CrossFit more inclusive

11:09 Managing injury risk and scaling movements

13:18 Recovery after a back fracture and elite competition

16:11 Training for life instead of competition

23:03 Macro balance, diet extremes, and flexible nutrition

31:23 Why strength training becomes more important with age

32:46 Why CrossFit can be a strong entry point for beginners

38:33 GLP-1s, muscle loss, and strength training

54:36 Emily’s current projects and Power Monkey Camp

This is the first installment of a two-part series on fatigue and recovery. Both matter enormously for those of us over 40. First, ignoring either can wreak havoc on your performance and your health. I see the consequences of both all the time in my practice. Second, the harder you push yourself, the more fatigue you’ll experience and, therefore, the more recovery you’ll need to restore your body and nervous system.

Recovery is when your body repairs and rebuilds itself. That’s when you adapt to the work you’ve done and become stronger, more powerful, and better conditioned. Push through fatigue without recovering properly, and you raise your risk of injury and burnout because your body and nervous system never get the time they need to fully adapt.

There’s another piece of this that matters, especially when you’re taking on something new: when you start an activity your body isn’t accustomed to, it’s generally better to ease in than to go “hog wild” and push your limits right off the bat.

So how do we decide how far to push ourselves during training, or any challenging activity?

Here’s something I’ve noticed in my own training. I do a lot of push ups, so I know my capacity well. If I decide beforehand that I’m doing a number I know will be very challenging (right around my limit), it’s remarkable how often I begin feeling seriously fatigued right around that number. But if I decide ahead of time that I’m doing five more (obviously harder, but still realistic), the wall often seems to move with me.

That raises an interesting question: Why should knowing the number change when I feel exhausted?

Exercise physiologist Tim Noakes may have the answer. He has spent decades challenging the simple idea that fatigue is merely an empty gas tank. His Central Governor Model* proposes that the brain plays an important role in regulating effort in anticipation, continually adjusting how much we’re willing or able to recruit in order to protect the body and preserve homeostasis. It’s one possible explanation for familiar phenomena like pacing, then somehow finding another gear when the finish line comes into view.

Anyone who has trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu knows the feeling. You’re exhausted, and the round feels endless. Then you catch a glimpse of the clock and there are only thirty seconds left. Remarkably, you find some additional resources to draw on.

Does that mean fatigue is imaginary? Absolutely not. Muscles fatigue. Energy availability, previous training, and conditioning all matter. Heat, hydration, cardiovascular strain, sleep, pain, nutrition, and neuromuscular factors all matter. The Central Governor Model* itself remains debated, and fatigue is probably better understood as a complex interaction between the brain, the body, AND our perception of effort.

But to me, this complexity is the most fascinating part.

Within the realm of our actual physical capacity, our expectation of where the endpoint lies seems to influence when severe fatigue arrives. For example, I can’t simply tell myself I’m doing 125 push ups and magically create the physiology to do it. After all, physiology still gets a strong vote. But perhaps our perception of exactly where the limit sits is more negotiable than we think.

One mind trick I often use when I’m feeling the burn but know I still have a ways to go is the “40% Rule,” an idea popularized by former Navy SEAL David Goggins: when your mind is telling you that you’re completely spent, Goggins believes you still have 40% left. I don’t take that as a literal physiological measurement, but I do use it as a cue to push through to my goal.

And guess what? It works!

That brings me to aging and what Keith and I discussed in our second podcast about Lever 1 in my book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist’s Guide to Longevity. In that episode, we repeatedly returned to the idea: Whether you think you’re old or young, you’re right.

I believe there’s something powerful behind that statement and that our minds function more like projectors than cameras. Our previous experiences, thoughts, expectations, and beliefs shape our perception of reality, and that applies to how we age as well as how we experience a given activity or exercise.

For example, psychologists Mukta Bhalla and Dennis Proffitt at the University of Virginia found that our physical state can influence how challenging we perceive our environment to be. People in poorer physical condition tended to judge hills as steeper than those who were more physically fit. In other words, the hill itself had not changed, but the brain’s perception of the challenge appeared to change depending on the person’s physical condition. Presumably, being fitter made the effort required to climb the hill feel more manageable, and that altered how steep the hill appeared.

Roger Bannister’s historic four-minute mile offers another powerful example. Before Bannister accomplished it in 1954, running a mile in under four minutes was widely viewed as a barrier beyond human capability. However, on May 6 of that year, Bannister ran it in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. Then, just 46 days later, Australian runner John Landy broke the barrier as well, recording a time of 3 minutes and 58 seconds. By the end of 1957, 16 runners had recorded a mile in under four minutes!

That says a lot, because human physiology had not suddenly changed in those three years. Improvements in training and competition certainly contributed, so perception was not the whole story. But Bannister gave other runners undeniable proof that the barrier could be broken. Once they knew it was possible, the four-minute mile no longer represented an impenetrable wall. It became an extremely difficult but ACHIEVABLE goal. Sometimes, seeing someone else cross a boundary allows us to reconsider where that boundary really lies.

Which raises a much bigger question:

⁉️ How many limits do we encounter as we get older because our physiology has genuinely changed, and how many are simply predictions we’ve gradually learned to make about ourselves?

We hear that people our age shouldn’t run, lift heavy things at CrossFit, learn difficult skills, spar on a jiu jitsu mat, or take on something that scares us. Eventually, some of those cultural expectations become our own.

The lesson here isn’t to ignore fatigue. Sometimes fatigue is exactly the message we need to hear: recover, slow down, or stop. The better approach is to get curious about it.

❓ Is this a true warning or just my incorrect perception? Could this be an overprotective response arriving a little early?

An important note: this discussion assumes you’re medically cleared and appropriate for the type and intensity of exercise and activity you’re doing and don’t have a medical condition, injury, or restriction that limits you. Always talk with your physician or physical therapist before starting a new activity or significantly increasing your exercise intensity.

Additionally, some signals shouldn’t be negotiated with. There’s a difference between the familiar discomfort of working hard and symptoms that deserve attention, including but not limited to:

• New or unusual chest pain or pressure

• Significant or unexplained shortness of breath, dizziness, or feeling faint

• A fast or irregular heartbeat

• Sudden weakness, or sharp or escalating pain

These are not invitations to prove how tough you are, and wisdom isn’t simply learning how to push harder. It’s learning which signals can be challenged and which ones should be respected, and getting this right becomes even more important as you age.

Your limits are real and need to be respected, but your perception of exactly where those limits are may be negotiable.

So the next time your mind says, “That’s enough. You’re done,” maybe don’t automatically fight it.

On the other hand, don’t automatically obey it either.

🧐 Get curious. Who decided?

Learning that we may occasionally have more in the tank doesn’t mean the answer is always to push harder. Stress is only half of the adaptation equation. The other half is recovery, and as we get older, how well we recover matters every bit as much as how hard we can train, if not more.

That’s what I’ll discuss next: recovery. Not as weakness, laziness, or time away from training, but as an essential part of the training itself.

Because thriving after 40 isn’t about proving you can always do more. Rather, it’s about learning when to push, when to recover, and how to keep doing the things you love for decades to come.

Thrive A/F: for people who refuse to let age decide what they can do.

🗨️ Join the Conversation:

Think of a time your mind told you that you were done before your body actually was. What did you do, push past it or respect it?

What about a time when you thought an activity was going to be harder than it was, only to realize afterward that it wasn’t so bad?

Leave a comment and share your story. We’d love to hear how you tell the difference between a real limit and a made-up one.

Lou | Thrive A/F Team

*Important Note: The Central Governor Model is an influential but debated theory of exercise regulation. It’s presented here as a useful framework for thinking about fatigue, not as proof that fatigue is purely psychological or that physiological warning signals should be ignored.

Welcome to Ep. 3 of the “Dogfood” series, where I’m going to dive into goals, insights, and results, starting with Lever 4: Sleep. This is a pretty long piece so if you just want the topline summary I provided one below.

One caveat before we dig in: This isn’t a scientific paper and I’m not pretending to be a researcher, doctor or data analyst — the internet has plenty of “experts” like that. I’m just a curious person with a fitness tracker and access to some standard AI tools trying to look for trends and insights that align with the themes we talk about on the podcast.

Topline Summary

🛠️ I made some small, incremental changes to my sleep habits based on advice from Lou’s book and our podcast.

📊 I tracked sleep performance over 90 days and saw improvement in three of the four metrics (the fourth stayed flat) I was tracking. I used AI to help me review the data and look for patterns and changes.

⏱️ The most impactful change was in sleep duration — my average went from 6.96 to 7.32 hours/night. This 20-minute increase helped me reduce a compounding sleep debt and it was a noticeable change that I could feel.

🔗 There are some indications of a relationship between sleep consistency (going to bed and waking up at consistent times) and recovery. A 5% increase in consistency showed some correlations that are worth exploring.

🎯 For me, the ultimate takeaway of this summer sleep experiment is that I think we are on the right track with Thrive A/F. I made some small changes to an existing routine based on Lou’s book and our podcast, and those are turning into sustainable habits and results that I can measure — and I feel better as a result!

👇Read on to get the details — what I changed, how I measured it, results across different metrics, insights and closing thoughts!

In case you missed the previous articles in this series, here is a quick recap:

• Ep. 1: The “Why” — Set the foundation for taking some of the health and longevity advice from our podcast and Lou’s book and testing it out myself. The core mission: make sustainable habit changes across Sleep, Movement, and Nutrition without over-engineering daily life.

• Ep. 2: The “How” — Looked at the tech powering the experiment. We covered using fitness trackers for baseline biometrics and leveraging AI tools (Gemini and Whoop AI) to track habits, analyze patterns, and guide daily choices.

In the sleep episode I talked about shifting from a passive mindset to a more active approach, and in the technology episode I talked about using my fitness tracker to track and improve sleep consistency and reducing my sleep deficit by implementing strategies from the podcast.

For measurement I used my Whoop to establish a 30-day baseline, followed by a 60-day optimization period with monthly reports, and capped off with an additional 10 days of detailed daily tracking.

What Changed: I made some tweaks to my sleep routine based on cues and things I learned from our podcast episode:

• I added two common bedtime supplements to my routine: magnesium and melatonin.

• I set an alarm every morning even if I didn’t need to get up at a specific time. I was in the habit of getting up early if I woke up before my alarm, and I wanted to teach myself to resist the temptation to get up earlier than I needed to and spend more time in bed (even if I was unable to get back to sleep).

• I made an effort to make my sleep more consistent, mainly by getting to bed close to the same time every night.

• I started using some basic breathing exercises as a way to try and get to sleep if I was having trouble, and get back to sleep if I woke up before my alarm.

• If I had a poor night’s sleep, I tried not to stress about it.

The Detailed Breakdown

Whoop uses three* primary physiological metrics to monitor and evaluate sleep performance and cardiorespiratory state during rest:

• Sleep Duration: total daily time spent asleep in hours, which captures both primary overnight sleep and any recorded naps.

• Resting Heart Rate (RHR): Tracks heart rate, measured in beats per minute (BPM), specifically while asleep.

• Respiratory Rate: Tracks breathing frequency, measured in respirations per minute (RPM), during sleep.

* I also added Sleep Consistency which measures how similar sleep and wake times are over a 4-day period.

This chart shows the baseline measurement and improvements over the two “optimization” phases and the net results. I’m only sharing the results for the heart rate and respiratory rate (not the actual numbers) because there are some things I want to keep private.

The areas where I felt the most difference and got the most benefit were sleep duration and sleep consistency. While there are a lot of factors that can influence the outcome, I think the intentional behavioral changes I made were a big factor.

Because I was running a small but compounding sleep deficit, adding an extra 20 minutes on average was a difference I could feel. On paper it looks trivial but as we emphasize on the podcast, progress isn’t always achieved through massive behavior changes — it’s frequently gained in the margins through small, compounding habits.

If you run 20 minutes short of your sleep need every night, that accumulates to nearly two and a half hours of sleep debt by the weekend. Over a month those extra 20 minutes add up to over 10 hours of bonus sleep, chipping away at a running sleep debt before it can snowball into a real recovery drag.

While sleep duration is the most obvious change, the underrated hero of this experiment may be sleep consistency. When you anchor your bedtime, you align with your body’s natural circadian rhythm allowing you to spend more time in restorative, deep sleep stages that can’t simply be made up by sleeping in later.

Unlike sleep duration, I didn’t feel the immediate impact of improving sleep consistency by almost 5%, but here is an example of how it can impact recovery:

• Night 1 (August 28): I slept for 410 minutes but had a 67% sleep consistency. My sleeping Resting Heart Rate (RHR) increased by 5 BPM, landing me in a 34% yellow recovery.

• Night 2 (August 29): The next night, I got virtually identical sleep (409 minutes) but I anchored my bedtime, locking in an 81% sleep consistency. My sleeping RHR dropped 5 beats, and my recovery rebounded to 50%.

The data exported from my Whoop is full of examples like this that show some correlation between sleep consistency and recovery. Are there other factors that come into play? Of course there are — but now if I want to, I can go deeper and look for additional connections when I have the time.

I don’t know for sure if the two supplements I added had any effect, but they sure didn’t hurt. Since magnesium and melatonin are safe and pretty standard supplements I’m going to keep using them as well.

Final Thoughts: One of the best things about focusing on sleep is that if you have a fitness tracker, once you make changes to your routine the device does the work for you. Unlike food or exercise logging, it is just passive data collection and there aren’t any extra steps to getting good information and insights.

I could have used Whoop’s built-in AI for the analysis, but I preferred to download monthly reports (easily accessible in the Whoop app) and then a full export of detailed daily logs. Then I loaded it all into Gemini Notebook/NotebookLM and started asking questions to analyze the data. Since the Whoop AI is only available on the phone app and I’m well A/F (After 40), I prefer working on a big screen and keyboard.

Most of the conclusions were pretty obvious from the standard monthly reports, so I’m not sure if I need all the data from the export. But if I ever want to go back and do deeper dives or cross-tabulation with the full data export I can use the AI for that as well.

Now I need to do my best to stick to the new routine and hopefully the trends will continue to show improvement. The next topic I’ll cover will be Nutrition, and I’ll follow a similar approach with a few tweaks.

As always, thanks for reading — if you’ve made it this far and really want to dig into the details or swap stories about sleep or health tech, reply to this email or post a comment on Subtack and I’ll get back to you!

Keith | Thrive A/F Team

Celebrate the end of a phenomenal first season with us, and learn how habits can completely redefine your healthspan!

📸 Follow Us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thriveafpodcast/ 

📝 Subscribe and leave us a comment on Thrive A/F Substack at https://www.thrive-af.com/

• GRAB THE BLUEPRINT! Get Lou's book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist's Guide to Longevity, available now: https://delraycarept.com/thrive-a-physical-therapists-guide-to-longevity/ 

• Delay Care Physical Therapy: https://delraycarept.com/ 

• Keith’s Consulting Business: https://www.pescadorconsulting.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

• Wendy Wood — a study of college students finding that roughly 43% of daily actions were habitual. 

• Hal Elrod — the three phases of forming a habit: unbearable, uncomfortable, unstoppable. https://miraclemorning.com/ 

• Charles Duhigg — the habit loop: cue, action, and reward.

• James Clear — Atomic Habits and the idea of “habit stacking.”

• Dr. Hal Hershfield’s fMRI research on how brain activity views the future self like a stranger, impacting willpower and delayed gratification. 

• Cal Newport — his podcast and books on reducing digital distraction, including making phone use less automatic.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and episode overview

02:00 Reflecting on the season and establishing routines

07:31 Why habits are crucial for health and longevity

09:59 The law of inertia and habit persistence

11:23 The importance of consistency and overcoming the hump

14:26 Willpower as a finite and infinite resource

16:34 Visualizing future self to boost motivation

22:25 Strategies to remove friction and make starting easier

34:32 Keystone habits and their impact

36:08 Reducing and replacing bad habits

42:01 The significance of consistency and small incremental changes

Welcome to our Season 1 Recap! What started as a routine conversation between two college friends with a shared mission to align our healthspan with our lifespan has grown into an expanding community centered on the Thrive A/F podcast and Substack.

We are fast approaching the end of our first season, with just one final episode left to record (Episode 9, which will cover Lever 8: Habits). Before we pull that final lever, we wanted to compile this recap article. Whether you are just getting started or you missed an episode and want to go back and listen, this is the perfect resource.

We started with a mission to offer practical, realistic strategies for health and longevity after 40 through authentic, fluff-free conversations — and hopefully have some fun along the way.

This season focused on eight synergistic levers of health. These are simple, daily lifestyle choices that focus on protecting your physical independence for the long haul. Our most practical advice is the 80/20 rule: if you can pull these levers consistently 80% of the time, the benefits over a lifetime are exponential.

We’ve had a tremendous amount of fun recording the podcast, writing the articles and engaging with the audience in-person and online. Hopefully that joy and optimism comes through in the content, and you will stick with us as we move into Season 2!

So with that in mind, here is our episode-by-episode breakdown of Season 1.

Episode 1: The Origin Story & The Mission

• Main Topic: Introduction to the Thrive A/F Podcast & Longevity Framework

• Episode Focus: Aligning Lifespan with Healthspan

We kicked things off by sharing how our parallel journeys brought us back together. Lou is a physical therapist, Certified Heroic Life Optimization Coach, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt based in Delray Beach, Florida. Keith is the co-owner of CrossFit Terminus in Atlanta, Georgia, who discovered functional fitness after years of struggling with maintaining a consistent physical fitness routine as life got more complicated and busy.

This episode is a natural starting point if you want to get the backstory on why we started Thrive A/F and a great intro to Lou’s book Thrive: A Physical Therapist’s Guide to Longevity.

Episode 2: Lever 1 – Mindset

• Main Topic: The Foundational Lever of Belief and Agency

• Episode Focus: Re-projecting Your Aging Reality

Why start a physical therapy and longevity guide with Mindset? Because mindset is the “activator lever.” If you believe your health destiny is predetermined by your genetics, you won’t take action to pull any of the other levers. However, if you believe you have agency over your body, you will execute the habits required to change your biology.

This episode is another great entry point to learn about the lever that forms the foundation for many of the other topics we discuss, and the important role mindset plays in your overall health and longevity.

Episode 3: Lever 2 – Exercise and Movement

• Main Topic: Building a Movement Reserve for Life

• Episode Focus: Functional Movement as the Ultimate Anti-Aging Drug

This is our #1 most-streamed episode, so you know it’s a banger! If exercise could be compressed into a pill, it would be the most widely prescribed, powerful anti-aging medication on Earth. Movement is the ultimate delivery system for health, and yet the simplest rule of thumb remains: “Use it or lose it.”

In this episode, Lou and I talk about building a physical “reserve” for your future. We break down why building muscle is actually the best physical padding you can have against accidental falls, demystify VO2 Max using a simple “talk test,” and discuss why exercise is a crucial countermeasure to muscle loss associated with some weight-loss trends.

Whether your goal is a new athletic milestone or just easily getting up off the floor, grab your sneakers and tune in to hear how you can start training for your next decade and beyond!

Episode 4: Lever 3 – Nutrition

• Main Topic: Food as Medicine and Addition by Subtraction

• Episode Focus: Eliminating the SAD Diet and Designing Your Environment

This is the #2 most-streamed episode! The modern food landscape is an evolutionary mismatch. For 99% of human history, calories were scarce; today, ultra-processed, cheap calories are everywhere, driving the chronic disease epidemics of the Western world.

Lou and I discuss how to make simple, high-impact shifts—like avoiding the traps of the Standard American Diet (SAD), filling 75% of your plate with whole foods, and adopting the Okinawan practice of hara hachi bu (learning to eat until you’re only 80% full).

We also break down why designing your kitchen and environment is infinitely more powerful than relying on pure willpower, and how these small daily habits can radically transform how you feel and age. Tune in to hear how you can start flipping the script on the modern food landscape!

Episode 5: Lever 4 – Sleep

• Main Topic: The Active, Silent Pillar of Cellular Repair

• Episode Focus: The “Digital Sunset” and the Sleep Perception Matrix

For years, many of us (including me and Lou) wore getting four or five hours of sleep like a strange, hard-charging badge of honor—but what if that “hustle” is actually putting a serious cap on our healthspan?

In this episode we focus on shifting perspective from viewing sleep as passive downtime to treating it as an active, biological process that literally repairs our tissue and integrates our daily skills.

Lou opens up about his own struggles with insomnia, and we share practical strategies to help you conquer the night. We break down the essentials of sleep hygiene and explore fascinating studies that reveal just how much of the sleep game is played in the mind.

Tune in to find out why prioritizing a great night of sleep is the ultimate start to a successful tomorrow!

Episode 6: Lever 5 – Sense of Purpose

• Main Topic: The Ultimate “Lighthouse” for Daily Longevity

• Episode Focus: Purpose and Meaning

A sense of purpose is dynamic, fluid, and changes as we transition through different stages of life. Whether it is competitive jiu-jitsu, writing, or volunteering, having a clear “Why” acts as a lighthouse keeping you on course.

While it might sound a bit philosophical at first, we break down how having a clear reason to get up in the morning is actually deeply rooted in hard science and is a major player in physical longevity.

Grab a cup of coffee and tune in to learn how finding a vision bigger than yourself is the ultimate key to thriving in your later decades.

Episode 7: Lever 6 – Technology and Optimization

• Main Topic: Empowerment Through Personal Tech

• Episode Focus: Wearables, Continuous Testing, and Avoiding the “Optimization Trap”

In this episode, we plug into the matrix to tackle personal technology and wearables, exploring how to empower ourselves with real-time health data without losing our minds—or our social lives.

We break down the confusing world of biometric algorithms and how to find your own healthy middle ground, and share some personal strategies for how we use data to inform our fitness and nutrition choices.

Grab your smart ring, strap on your chest monitor, and tune in to hear how to make technology work for you! This episode also spawned the “Dogfood” series of articles that is an ongoing part of the Thrive A/F mythology.

Episode 8: Lever 7 – Relationships & Emotional Well-Being

• Main Topic: The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack

• Episode Focus: The Loneliness Epidemic, Antifragility, and Charging the Storm

In this episode we explore how human connection directly impacts our health and why we aren’t meant to thrive in isolation. We dive deep into the profound physical impact of social connections, and why maintaining deep friendships and active networks takes deliberate, proactive work.

From there, we pivot to stress management, breaking down the concept of becoming “antifragile,” and our preferred breathing and meditation tactics to help downregulate your nervous system in the middle of a chaotic day.

Grab your headphones and join us for the perfect, high-vibe sprint towards the finish line of Season 1, and see if we finally manage to get our organic sign-off right on the first try!

Episode 9: Lever 8 – Habits

• Main Topic: Closing Out Season One with the Science of Sticking With It

• Episode Focus: Building Systems That Outlast Willpower

We saved the glue that holds everything together for last. Lou opens with a stat from researcher Wendy Wood: 43% of our daily actions are habitual — and he makes the case it’s really even higher once you count mindset and outlook as habits too.

From there we dig into what actually makes a habit stick. Lou borrows Hal Elrod’s three phases of change — unbearable, uncomfortable, unstoppable — and the law of inertia to explain why most people quit right at the start, before momentum ever kicks in. We talk through the practical toolkit: removing friction (lay your shoes out the night before), stacking a new habit onto one you already have, and Lou’s favorite line on commitment — it’s actually easier to do something 100% of the time than 90%, because 90% leaves the door open to negotiate with yourself every single day.

We also flip it around and talk about breaking bad habits — making them as invisible and inconvenient as possible — and close on the idea of a “keystone habit”: the one consistent decision that gives you the most leverage on your long-term health.

It’s a fitting note to end Season 1 on, since consistency has been the through-line of every lever we’ve covered.

That’s a Wrap on Season One

Three-plus months, eight levers, and a whole lot of conversations we’re genuinely proud of. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and sticking with us while we figured out how to do this.

Season 2 is already taking shape, and it’s going to look a little different — we’re bringing new guests into the conversation to widen the lens beyond just the two of us. If you’ve enjoyed the ride so far, the best thing you can do is share the podcast or Substack with a friend who could use a little more Thrive A/F in their life!

Keith & Lou | Thrive A/F Team

My friend Karl Kortemeier invited me to join a group from the Atlanta Fly Fishing Club on a two-day float down the Ocmulgee River. If you listen to the podcast, you’ve heard me call Karl my ‘Fishing Sensei’ for his uncanny ability to catch fish anytime, anywhere. Even though I’m not a fly fisherman, I couldn’t pass up a couple of days learning from the Master and meeting some fellow fishing enthusiasts.

The plan was to camp Friday and Saturday night at a friend’s property on the river but I couldn’t arrive until Saturday morning. The campsite—a grassy field right at the water’s edge—was ideal. After meeting up with the group Saturday morning, we loaded-up our gear and boats (mostly kayaks and one raft) and headed to the put-in just south of Juliette Dam.

The Ocmulgee flows 255 miles through central Georgia toward the Atlantic. The section we were paddling offered mostly calm water punctuated by mild shoals. My experience kayaking rivers is limited and I got hung up on a few ledges, but overall navigation was fairly straightforward and not too challenging.

Our main target was shoal bass, though we also landed largemouth, spotted bass, and a big channel catfish caught by Karl. Shoal bass love moving water and they tuck in behind boulders, ledges, and drop-offs where the current slows, waiting to ambush prey swept downstream.

Having floated another section of the Ocmulgee with Karl, I was familiar with the drill for fishing shoals. The technique he taught me: drift over a shoal, execute a quick turn, and either idle in the eddy or drop anchor facing upstream. From there, you cast right into the break where fish hold.

On larger shoals, another option is anchoring, wading out or climbing up and casting from the rocks. The upside: you can cover more ground without constantly resetting the anchor. The downside: those rocks can be slick and the current is deceptive—as you’ll see in the video, taking a spill is easy even when you’re being careful.

Fishing has a reputation for being sedentary, but Saturday was anything but. We spent nearly ten hours on the water—a long day of casting and maneuvering, even going with the current. It became an endurance test punctuated by quick, aggressive bursts of paddling to shoot shoals or hold position upstream.

The real challenge was the heat, but we found plenty of chances to jump in and swim. An afternoon rain shower cooled things off considerably, making Saturday night’s sleep much more comfortable (even if it stayed pretty warm).

Most of the fish I caught were small but aggressive, feeding right through the heat of the day. Sunday morning after breakfast, we broke camp and did a quick float to a boat ramp a couple of miles downstream to close out the trip.

The Atlanta Fly Fishing Club was incredibly welcoming and didn’t give me any grief for using a spinning rod. Watching them work and listening to them trade stories and technique around the campfire gave me a real appreciation for the art form. If you’re in the Atlanta area, I highly recommend checking them out—I know they have more trips planned this year!

💬 Have you ever taken on an outdoor activity expecting a relaxing day, only to end up in a surprisingly intense endurance test? How do you handle long days out in the elements when heat or current start wearing you down? Drop a comment below or reply directly to this email to share your story!

Keith | Thrive A/F Team

📸 Follow Us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thriveafpodcast/ 

📝 Subscribe and leave us a comment on Thrive A/F Substack at https://www.thrive-af.com/

• GRAB THE BLUEPRINT! Get Lou's book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist's Guide to Longevity, available now: https://delraycarept.com/thrive-a-physical-therapists-guide-to-longevity/ 

• Delay Care Physical Therapy: https://delraycarept.com/ 

• CrossFit Terminus: https://crossfitterminus.com 

• Keith’s Consulting Business: https://www.pescadorconsulting.com/ 

Mentioned in this episode:

• Bowling Alone, The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam: http://bowlingalone.com 

• Kelly McGonigal / Harvard study on stress mindset TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend

• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: https://a.co/d/07jCG5kb

Chapters:

03:48 - Why people need a community for both hard times and good times

05:04 - Social connection in older adult communities and avoiding isolation

08:39 - The loneliness study and why isolation is so damaging

09:36 - Relationships take work, especially as you get older

10:43 - Why proactive effort matters for maintaining friendships and support

12:01 - Stress management and relationships are tightly linked

12:45 - Coping with loss, counseling, bereavement groups, and saying yes to support

14:13 - Kelly McGonigal’s Harvard research on threat mindset versus challenge mindset

16:10 - Breathing techniques that help in the moment: 4-7-8 and box breathing

17:27 - Why meditation helps most when practiced consistently

22:22 - Modern tools for sleep, breathing apps, and phone-based meditation

23:45 - Antifragile: fragile, resilient, and stronger after setbacks

25:08 - Stoicism, obstacles, and moving toward challenges

26:09 - The buffalo-in-the-storm metaphor and facing difficulty directly

27:35 - Gratitude as a daily way to support emotional well-being

27:41 - Bowling Alone and the decline of community-based social life

32:05 - Introversion, extroversion, and why social energy can still be draining

37:23 - Guest contributor Trisha’s cancer story and its connection to resilience

My journey began in October 2022 when I went for what I thought would be a routine mammogram. Two weeks later, my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I soon learned that I had two different types of breast cancer, one of which was Stage III.

The news was absolutely devastating, and I found myself asking, “Why is this happening to me?” Despite the fear and uncertainty, I made a decision early on - I was not going to quit. My fight had begun.

Over the next several months, I endured six months of chemotherapy, receiving treatments every three weeks. After that came five weeks of daily radiation, followed by a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

Unfortunately, my journey didn’t end there. I developed complications with my skin, experiencing repeated necrosis that required more than eight additional surgeries to remove the dead tissue and repair the area. It felt like every time I thought I was moving forward, another obstacle appeared.

Looking back, I realize this journey taught me lessons I never expected to learn. It showed me strength I never knew I had and reminded me that every single day is a gift.

Life can change in an instant, and tomorrow is never promised. I learned not to waste time worrying about things that are beyond my control because they only steal the joy from today. Instead, I learned to focus on what I can control - my attitude, my determination, and my gratitude.

One of the greatest lessons I learned is not to sweat the small stuff. It may sound cliché, but it is absolutely true. The little things that once caused stress or frustration no longer seem important. In the grand scheme of life, they have very little impact.

Cancer changed my life in ways I never imagined, but it also taught me how to truly live. It taught me resilience, gratitude, and the importance of embracing each new day with hope.

Today, I am incredibly proud to say that I am a breast cancer survivor. My journey was not easy, and there were many moments when I questioned why I had to endure so much. Through every challenge, I discovered a strength and resilience I never knew I had.

I could not have made it through this journey without the unwavering love and support of my husband and my daughters. They stood by my side through every treatment, surgery, setback, and victory, giving me the strength to keep moving forward when the road felt impossible.

If sharing my experience can inspire even one person to keep fighting, then every challenge I faced has a greater purpose. Today, I choose to live with gratitude, appreciate every day, and cherish the time I have with my family. I am stronger than I ever imagined, and I am proud of the person this journey has helped me become.

Tricia | Thrive A/F Guest Contributor

In Episode 7 of the podcast, Lou and I touched on wearables and AI. This is the deeper breakdown I promised—though if you want the quick, entertaining version, you can always listen to Episode 7!

In the first article in this series I talked about taking some of the advice from our podcast an putting them into practice in my own life. In this article I’m going to cover a couple of pieces of technology I’m using to support this goal.

Quick note: this isn’t sponsored content, and we receive zero compensation for mentioning these tools. Feel free to swap either out with similar devices or AI models that fit your preferences.

• Fitness Tracker + Phone: I use Whoop. I picked it up after seeing a lot of Terminus members with one, and after using it for more than a year, I have a robust dataset for setting baselines and tracking key metrics. It’s a screenless wristband with a companion app.

• AI Assistants/Coaches: I use Whoop’s built-in AI (powered by GPT-4) to log my daily CrossFit WODs and workouts. I also rely on Google Gemini Chat and Gemini Notebook to refine my approach across all three core focus areas: sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Gemini Chat has been more valuable to me than Whoop’s AI, largely because of how I use it—a setup I’ll dive into deeper in the next article.

A few things to remember about fitness trackers that we covered on the podcast:

• Whoop only measures a handful of raw biological signals. Everything else is an algorithmic proxy.

• Wearables are good at tracking directional trends but do not provide absolute accuracy. Wearables generally have a 5–15% margin of error compared to a true lab test.

I’ve been experimenting with how to use this combo for about 45 days, and this is the basic routine I’ve settled into for a “typical” weekday because that’s when I’m most consistent in my routine.

As I mentioned on the podcast, when I write it out like this, it seems like a lot. But now that I have it worked into my routine, it doesn’t take that much time. It took much more time to write it down than it does to execute.

Wake Up and Get Ready (on my phone):

• Check Whoop sleep and recovery scores.

• Take a screenshot of the Workout of the Day (WOD) from the Terminus scheduling app and upload it into Whoop’s AI, which provides a recommendation on how to approach the WOD based on my morning vitals and history. If I’m running, I replace the WOD with my run plan.

• The Whoop AI tracks areas where I have pain or soreness so it understands how I protect my knees and other potential problem areas. I’ve also provided information on common scaling strategies I use in the gym for specific movements (e.g., I typically sub box step-overs for box jumps).

• I copy the Whoop morning summary and paste it into an ongoing fitness/nutrition chat thread in Google Gemini. Gemini provides its own POV on the Whoop summary and WOD or run plan.

• I usually eat a small snack before the gym or run. I have a few standard options, but I’ll ask Gemini for a recommendation and sometimes it gives me advice on what is “optimal” based on the past few days, my recovery score, and the type of workout I’m doing (e.g. short intense intervals vs. longer, sustained runs). This is a pretty typical example:

At the gym or during a run (on my phone)

• A typical 1-hour Terminus class starts with a warm-up and then a main WOD or sometimes a strength session + WOD or occasionally just a pure strength day.

• Whoop records activity automatically, but it’s more accurate if you start an activity session manually. So when it’s time to start the strength session or WOD, I start an activity session. The two options I use most often are “weightlifting” and “functional fitness”.

• Because CrossFit WODs typically involve multiple movements and exercises, I don’t track specific movements unless it’s a strength session. If so, I record exercises (e.g., squats), reps and weight after the session.

• If I’m running, I still start a Whoop activity but also use Runkeeper because it provides pacing information during the run.

After the Workout

• After the workout, I ask Whoop AI for a summary of results and copy and paste it into Gemini (if It’s a run, I’ll paste a screenshot from Runkeeper as well). If I decide to do a cool down or stack another activity after the WOD, I’ll start a new activity session to record it.

• If I haven’t done it already, I’ll get a post-workout meal recommendation from Gemini or tell it what I plan to eat.

Rest of the Day

• The main activity for the rest of the day is food logging. I try to take a picture of everything I eat and upload it to the ongoing chat I have going with Gemini. This has been the biggest positive change for me, as I’ve never been good at logging food. It was kind of a hassle at first, but once you get used to it it’s an easy way to track food (and drinks). If I miss a meal I don’t stress about it. A quick summary even without a photo works fine.

• The AI is pretty good at estimating calories but that’s not really what I’m after. At first I just wanted to test my ability to maintain a consistent log and then go back and analyze it based on some goals, but I’ve started to use it more as an interactive chat about what to eat and when.

That’s pretty much the routine. The combination of having an ongoing food and exercise log has worked better than I expected, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at some of the results and insights I’ve been getting from it. That will be the focus of the next article.

Thanks for reading, and if you have your own routine, methods, or thoughts about using this technology to support your goals I’d love to compare notes!

Keith | Thrive A/F Team

Join us for an in-depth discussion about how to interpret data, maintain perspective, and leverage technology for better health decisions. We explore the nuances of health tracking technology, the influence of business models on data accuracy, and practical approaches to integrating wearable data into daily health routines.

Also tune-in for THRIVE NATION shout-outs and birthday wishes, a shameless plug from Keith for his consulting business, and a gut-wrenching tale of Lou’s long struggle with seasickness! 

📸 Follow Us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thriveafpodcast/ 

📝 Subscribe and LEAVE US A COMMENT on Thrive A/F Substack at https://www.thrive-af.com/

RESOURCES:

• GRAB THE BLUEPRINT! Get Lou's book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist's Guide to Longevity, available now: https://delraycarept.com/thrive-a-physical-therapists-guide-to-longevity/ 

• Delay Care Physical Therapy: https://delraycarept.com/ 

• CrossFit Terminus: https://crossfitterminus.com 

• Keith’s Consulting Business: https://www.pescadorconsulting.com/

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and episode overview

07:36 Social media and digital marketing updates

12:24 Disclaimers and scope of discussion

15:13 AI prompts and personal health data

16:20 The importance of traditional medical tests

17:49 The value of regular health checkups

20:05 Physical therapy and baseline assessments

21:33 Wearables and real-time health monitoring

23:13 Blood glucose monitors and personal insights

24:50 The FedEx logo and visual insights

25:04 Insights from Apple Watch sleep tracking

26:18 Using data to make lifestyle adjustments

27:04 Interpreting algorithmic trend data

28:07 The personal impact of wearable data

29:25 Understanding data inference and measurement limits

29:49 Subscription models and engagement in health tech

Background

“Eating your own dog food” (or “dogfooding”) is a phrase we used at Microsoft related to product testing. When major updates and product launches were a big deal, they would force the employees to use beta versions to work out bugs before products were released to the public.

I guess the idea was that if you are going to feed something to your dog, you should taste it first to test the quality. The CEO of Kal Kan Pet Foods reportedly ate a can of their dog food at a shareholder meeting to prove the quality - which seems kind of extreme but you get the picture (I hope).

How does this relate to Thrive A/F? Well one of the things I’m trying to do is take lessons from the podcast and apply them to my own life. If Lou and I believe our product (podcast and Substack) are beneficial for other people, we need to be willing to “dogfood” it ourselves.

So I created some goals and for the past month or so I’ve been using tactics and strategies from the podcast and documenting the results. Since the foundation for the podcast has been the Levers from Lou’s book Thrive: A Physical Therapist’s Guide to Longevity, I’m going to use the same framework for my goals and combine some of the Levers for maximum impact.

In this article I’ll cover the Levers I’m focusing on and the methodology I’ll be using. Future articles will go deeper into technology, goals and my experience with tracking progress and results.

The Levers:

• Sleep: if you are a podcast listener you know that in our sleep episode, I talked about shifting from a passive mindset to a more active approach based on Lou’s book and research from other experts. I am going to use my fitness tracker to try and improve sleep consistency and reduce my sleep deficit by implementing strategies we discussed. This dovetails with a more active approach to recovery in general.

• Movement & Exercise: My movement & exercise focus has been centered around CrossFit training with sporadic bursts of running and some sports like volleyball. I want to keep my CrossFit focus but take a more disciplined approach to include more zone 1 & 2 training across running, rowing and cycling to support a more balanced approach with an eye towards longevity.

• Nutrition: I’ve had short-term success in the past with different nutrition plans and diets but have never been disciplined enough to stick with one thing long-term. We eat pretty well in my house (my wife is an excellent chef), but I’m hoping to make some small changes and find some opportunities for improvement that I can stick with. I’m also going to experiment with logging my food and creating a more direct connection between nutrition, training and goals.

My main objective here isn’t to “optimize” myself into oblivion. I really just want to try and follow the advice and support the ethos we are establishing for Thrive A/F with small, incremental changes across different Levers that work together to improve my fitness across several categories (without making myself or my family miserable in the process).

I also want to discover things that I can incorporate into daily life that are sustainable and can be turned into healthy habits (Lever 8). And underneath all of it is a shift in mindset that is one of the most powerful levers available to all of us.

The next article in the series will be about the technology I’ll be using. This will align really well with the conversation we will have in episode 7 of the podcast.

Thanks for coming along for the ride, and I’d love to get your comments, questions and stories along the way!

Keith | Thrive A/F Team

Imagine This...

Your running clothes are laid out beside the bed. Your shoes are waiting by the door. You set your alarm for 5:30 a.m. because you promised yourself this would be the week you finally got back into a consistent exercise routine. Then your toddler wakes up twice during the night.

So when the alarm sounds, you’re faced with a decision that tons of people wrestle with every day: Do you skip the workout and grab another hour of sleep, or do you get up and power through anyway?

🤔The Dilemma

At first glance, this seems like a simple question. But it isn’t.

This is one of those common situations where two very good things compete for the same limited resource - your time.

The fact is, both sleep and exercise have great health and longevity benefits. Both reduce disease risk, help us handle stress, improve mood, enhance cognition, and improve work performance.

Sleep supports learning and memory, emotional regulation, hormone balance, cardiovascular health, recovery, and injury prevention. On the other hand, exercise benefits nearly every organ system, helps ward off depression, improves cognition, strengthens bones and muscles, preserves function, reduces cancer risk, and improves insulin sensitivity.

❓So, Which One Wins?

In my opinion, the answer depends.

Is this one bad night or part of a chronic pattern? What kind of workout do you have planned - an easy walk, a run, heavy deadlifts, or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? How much sleep did you actually get? What outcome matters most today? Is your workout partner relying on you to show up? Are you looking for stress relief, peak performance, recovery, or simply trying to stay consistent for an upcoming race or tournament?

The context matters far more than a one-size-fits-all rule.

💡My Experience

As I’ve mentioned before on our podcast, I chose exercise over sleep for decades. Looking back, there were certainly times when that was the right decision. But today I have a much better intuitive feel for when I’d actually be better off grabbing another hour of sleep and skipping my workout.

I’ve also noticed that a good night’s sleep provides benefits that are often more subtle than those I derive from a great workout, but they seem to last throughout the day. Whereas the benefits from a great workout, or a hard Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu session, often feel more intense, but for me they also seem to wear off after a few hours.

To be fair, I still struggle with that choice. Like many people, I don’t enjoy missing a workout. But I’ve learned to remind myself that missing one, or even two, workouts isn’t going to derail my fitness.

🦉The Bigger Lesson

The fact is that longevity isn’t about winning today’s workout or last night’s sleep. It’s about becoming the kind of person who keeps showing up - day after day, year after year - until healthy decisions simply become a part of who you are.

Every day we have to make trade-offs: sleep versus exercise, nutrition versus convenience, meditation versus scrolling, career versus stress. The healthiest people aren’t perfect. They’re simply better at making these trade-offs over decades.

⚡The Thrive A/F Perspective

Maybe the real goal isn’t to become an expert at choosing between sleep and exercise. Rather, maybe the real goal is designing a life where you have to make that choice less often.

I’ve found that building routines, protecting your schedule, setting boundaries, and creating healthy habits make both sleep AND exercise easier to sustain.

Thriving isn’t about making one perfect decision tomorrow morning. It’s about making hundreds of good decisions over the course of a lifetime.

That is what thriving looks like to me.

💬Join the Conversation: What’s one boundary or routine you’ve set in your daily schedule that helps you protect both your sleep and your exercise? Share your best tips with the community below!

Lou | Thrive A/F Team

But in the meantime - we will post a new Substack article Wednesday, and also wanted announce we recently created an Instagram account, so if you want to keep up with us give us a follow!

We should be back on schedule with a new podcast episode next week. Thanks!

Keith and Lou | Thrive A/F

I’ve always had great legs. In fact, in high school I was often referred to by the nickname “Stems.” My outfits of choice always included something above the knee. Little dresses, short skirts and petite jean shorts were usually what you could find me wearing to show off what I too thought was my best asset.

My legs weren’t just pretty, they were strong, muscular and solid. They allowed me to thrive as an athlete. I was always on Varsity no matter what season or sport – Field Hockey, Basketball, Lacrosse or Tennis – all Summer. I was usually the fastest on the team, always a midi and a player who you never wanted to take out of the game.

Those legs carried me to four MVP awards, and a spot in the National Woman’s Lacrosse League’s Hall of Fame. Not to mention countless team and personal wins on the field or the court. It was simply a bonus that they looked good too. Although slightly misogynistic, the nickname “Stems” never bothered me because I did in fact, love my lower limbs and what they were able to accomplish.

Now at 47 years old, I look down at my legs and two 9” scars stare back at me from both my right and left knees. There is a part of me that was devastated by the fact that two total knee replacement surgeries would leave such major scars on my precious legs. No matter how much the scars fade, they are there. For the first time in my life I found myself reaching for pants and long skirts which could hide the fact that both my knees had been operated on in a big way.

It was only after regaining my strength, my movement and flexibility after surgery that I had a complete change of attitude. My legs tell a story. My scars are simply signs of a life well lived (thus far). After all, I was a former D1 athlete who led her teams to victory countless times. And after leaving school and team sports behind, became a Spinning instructor, an avid tennis player, a gym rat and high school girls lacrosse coach.

My knee scars really are a badge of honor paying homage to the mountain of life which I have climbed with vigor, might and fight. Without saying one word, the scars I see everyday remind me that I am a warrior, a renegade, a force to be reckoned with and a survivor.

I survived two knee replacement surgeries in seven months and that is to be celebrated, not hidden under clothing or shame. The journey was real. The pain was legitimate and intense. The work to get back to the athletic life I’ve always enjoyed was not easy. It was long. It took true work and grit. But I made it. I did it. And now, I’m stronger than ever.

The years were not kind to my knees. I continued to spin and play tennis when possible while maintaining a career which also kept me in high heels for 20 years. During the girls lacrosse practices I was always jumping into drills which required running and lots of pivoting. My knees were always an issue. I always had pain but I had just learned to live with it. I must have had both my knees drained and shot up with cortisone at least 10 times.

I was a regular at physical therapy and chugged Advil several times daily just to relive the discomfort. I was desperately trying to fend off what I was told by countless doctors – the inevitability of two total knee replacements. I suffered and agonized to the point it was just my way of life...until it wasn’t. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. Until the pain outweighed the fear of surgery. Until I was out of options. It was time.

I’ve never been hospitalized. I’ve never had surgery and my skin bore no scars. So when I was laying in that hospital bed surrounded by nurses and doctors, IV’s and beeping sounds with (I assume) a thumping heartbeat...I was terrified. I could feel tears rolling down my cheeks no matter how consoling the staff was that “everything was going to be ok.”

Not knowing what to expect the next time I opened my eyes plagued my ability to stay calm. What if something goes wrong? Would I be able to play tennis again and at the level I’m used to? Would I ever win another tournament? Would I even be able to Spin? Walk? Dance? All I could do was trust. Trust the surgeon, the nurses, the instruments, the medicines and machines; and most importantly the fact that everyone kept telling me that when it’s all over, it’d be worth it and I’d be pain free.

Recovery from surgery was as expected. Raw, painful, uncomfortable, frustrating and demanding unbelievable patience. What I was not expecting were the challenges that came along with the very important journey through physical therapy. I was so focused on the hospital stay, the cutting and scarring that I didn’t go further than that.

PT is essential to knee replacement recovery, and oh so challenging. Reaching milestones of degree bend and straightening. Learning how to walk properly again, heel to toe, took work and persistence. It took time. It took dedication, and drive. It took an unspoken will to get back on the court, back on the field with my lacrosse girls, back on the bike...BACK TO MY LIFE!

Now, one year post-op, I look down at the scars that adorn my “stems” and I smile. I smile because I didn’t get MY life back, I got a BETTER life back. A pain-free life. A life where I can do so much more than I have been able to do for years. I used to live in fear that I would injure myself with my fragile knees. Now, they stand solid as a rock. Not only am I back, but I’m better than ever. The agonizing pain which had plagued my ability to truly thrive athletically was over. I continue to improve every day. I continue to push myself free from fear. Just recently I played in a tennis tournament, and there was no sweeter sound than hearing the Umpire state “Game, Set, Match, Champion...C. Cohen.”

Today I love helping others who are faced with knee replacement surgery. No one knows better than I that the fear is very real. Even more so than the pain. If I can be an inspiration to anyone who needs to undergo such a procedure, I welcome it. It really did take a village. My friends, my family, my PT people, my awesome trainer who never let me give up. Everyone.

So now, I take today, and every day, as another chance to, DIG IN and GO HARD! Life is a journey of discovery, not certainty...and the only sure way to make it, is to TAKE IT ON STRONG, and NEVER give up. And when I look back at the road I’ve traveled with these knees, I’m finally one of those people who say “I wish I had done it sooner.”

C. Cohen | Thrive A/F Guest Contributor

💬 What sport, hobby, or activity kept you motivated during a difficult physical setback? How did digging in and refusing to give up help you get your active life back? Thank you C. for being the first Thrive A/F Guest Contributor to share your story with us. We would love to hear more from our community. Leave a comment below or reply directly to this if you would like to share yours!

Lou and Keith

Also tune-in for THRIVE NATION shout-outs and birthday wishes, and a harrowing tale of survival on the high seas!

👉 Subscribe and LEAVE US A COMMENT on Thrive A/F Substack at https://www.thrive-af.com/

• GRAB THE BLUEPRINT! Get Lou's book, Thrive: A Physical Therapist's Guide to Longevity, available now: https://delraycarept.com/thrive-a-physical-therapists-guide-to-longevity/ 

• Jill Fratto’s Ideal Retirement Book: https://a.co/d/06un0MHP 

• Delay Care Physical Therapy: https://delraycarept.com/ 

• CrossFit Terminus: https://crossfitterminus.com 

• 🎾Follow Total Tennis on Instagram: Total Tennis Lessons (@totaltennis_lessons) • Instagram photos and videos 

Specialists and authors mentioned in this episode:

• Brian Johnson CEO of Heroic public benefit Corporation (https://www.heroic.us) & (@HeroicBrian)

• The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday: https://store.dailystoic.com/products/the-obstacle-is-the-way-expanded-10th-anniversary-edition

Key  topics

🔸The science linking purpose to longevity

🔸Personal routines for mental clarity and purpose

🔸The concept of ikigai and its role in health

🔸The impact of purpose on motivation and health behaviors

🔸Research studies on purpose and lifespan

🔸The role of purpose in retirement and aging

🔸The exponential effect of small acts of kindness

🔸The importance of purpose in mental health and well-being

Chapters

• 2:42 — A Clarification on Sleep and Busy Seasons

• 6:12 — Purpose as a Foundation for Healthy Habits

• 9:53 — Building a Daily Protocol Around Purpose

• 13:31 — Purpose vs. Goals

• 16:08 — What Research Says About Purpose and Longevity

• 18:33 — Finding Purpose in Retirement

• 22:44 — Meaning, Service, and Helping Others

• 28:05 — Thrive Nation Recognition and Community Shout-outs

• 40:52 — Next Episode: Technology, Health, and Longevity