#365 ‒ Training for longevity: A roundtable on building strength, preventing injury, meeting protein needs, guidance for women and youth athletes, and more | Gabrielle Lyon, Mike Boyle, Jeff Cavaliere

**Peter Attia** (0:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, and we've established a great team of analysts to make this happen. It is extremely important to me to provide all of this content without relying on paid ads. To do this, our work is made entirely possible by our members, and in return, we offer exclusive member-only content and benefits above and beyond what is available for free. If you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level, it's our goal to ensure members get back much more than the price of the subscription. If you want to learn more about the benefits of our premium membership, head over to peterattiamd.com/subscribe. Welcome to a special episode of The Drive, another round table conversation devoted this time entirely to strength and conditioning. My guests this week are Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, a fellowship trained physician in geriatrics and nutritional sciences, founder of muscle-centric medicine and author of The New York Times, bestseller Forever Strong. She runs a clinical practice in Houston and continues to publish research on skeletal muscle health and metabolism. Jeff Cavaliere, a physical therapist and former head strength coach and physical therapist for the New York Mets, who parlayed that experience into his incredibly popular YouTube channel using an injury-smart approach to make athletic training accessible to literally millions. And Mike Boyle, a pioneering strength and conditioning coach now in his 43rd year. Mike popularized NFL combine training in the 1980s and spent the 1990s with the Boston Bruins and opened the first for-profit strength and conditioning facilities in the US. He was also part of one of the Boston Red Sox championship-winning team. In this episode, we discuss the critical importance of strength training for longevity, how muscle mass, strength and power protect health span as we age, the participation gap in strength training and why closing it is crucial for lifelong health, injury prevention, metabolic resilience, plus the barriers that keep most people from getting started and staying consistent, the importance of building a protein-centered diet, how age, activity and metabolic health drive, how much protein and carbohydrate each individual really needs, resistance training across peri- and post-menopause, including tendon care strategies and why good programming matters, single-leg training versus heavy back squats and deadlifts, the risk-reward calculus that led Mike to swap most bilateral lifts for unilateral work, reverse lunge mechanics and other knee-friendly lower body substitutes that still let you load heavy and grow stronger, the exercise graveyard why unsupported chest flies, Cuban presses and other classics may be more risk than reward, and what you should be doing instead. Early sports specialization myth for kids, why variety in sports at a young age is still valuable and necessary to becoming a lifelong athlete. So without further delay, please enjoy this roundtable conversation with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, Mike Boyle and Jeff Cavaliere.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for all making the trip out to Austin. Been looking forward to this one for a while. As some listeners might know, this is our second version of a roundtable. But unlike the first one where I had interviewed the three guests multiple times previously, and they were very familiar to the audience, all three of you are people whose work I'm very familiar with, but I've never had the privilege of sitting down with you one on one. As much as I would have loved to have done that first, I think it would have stood in the way of doing this today. Before we jump into what we're about to talk about today, which is all things related to resistance training, I want to just ask each of you to maybe give the non-bio version of who you are and as such, why I think you're a great part of this. Let's start with you, Gabrielle.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (4:17)
Certainly. My name is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and I'm a fellowship-trained physician in geriatrics and nutritional sciences. I did my fellowship at WashU, and at the time, I was very reluctant to doing geriatrics because it can be a very arduous and sad experience. But I was fascinated by the nutritional research side. There was a moment, we were working on a study looking at body composition and brain function, and I really took to one of the participants and I imaged her brain. And at her mid 50s, she looked like the beginning of an Alzheimer's brain. And in that moment, muscle centric medicine, which is the concept that I practice and founded, was born. And it's really that skeletal muscle is the focal point of all our health and wellness. I'm an author, wrote a New York Times bestseller called Forever Strong. I continue to do research and work within the space.