- Welcome to Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.

Bonnie Tsui is dedicated to a life of physicality.

She was a swimmer before she can remember, worked as a lifeguard, taught swimming lessons.

She's a surfer and as a journalist and author, she writes about the Body in motion.

You may have read her book, "Why We Swim."

Her new book is about our muscles, the engines that power the body, and all the fascinating and often overlooked things they do for us physically as well as the way they shape us culturally.

The book is called On Muscle, the stuff that Moves Us and Why it matters.

Welcome to Forum, Bonnie.

- Thanks Mina.

I'm so glad to be here with you.

- It was your dad who played a big role in influencing your dedication to physicality, right?

- That's right.

He was, he is really like the singular, most influential guy in my life when, in terms of, when my early childhood, he shaped us, my brother and me in karate and art.

He was a professional artist and a martial artist, and we just grew up in his studio.

I mean, we have these hilarious photos of us in diapers, you know, following him around as he showed us all of front kick, sidekick ran house kick, you know, and, and we would grow up that way in the garage, just following his movements and, and running with him after, after dinner.

- And what do you think that instilled in you growing up that way?

- I have had, I've spent the last few years thinking about that.

I mean, I never, I think, I just always thought, oh, you know, we, we love sports, you know, we've been doing this for a long time because of him, or we have had an exercise practice because of that.

But the last few years, I, I, I started to write this book and I thought there's something so much more than the physical stuff of muscle itself.

There is the meaning of what it is to spend your life dedicated to this practice of the body, - Meaning to spend your life dedicated to this practice of the body.

What kinds of meaning started emerging for you as you thought deeply about muscle?

- One of the things that was very clear to me growing up is that he, my my father's father died young age of 64.

He had a heart attack, and it was a surprise.

And it came as a surprise to my dad because my, his father was the one who in Hong Kong, like took him spearfishing, you know, and just, he told me that my grandfather had taught him how to do these things in a time when exercise wasn't really a big thing, you know, in the, in the fifties.

And so he, I think it really shook him.

I think it, I think whenever your parent passes and certainly when, at a young age at, at an unexpectedly young age, and he always thought, well, maybe I won't get to 64, but he was already in this practice of, of health and exercise and vigor.

And I think he just sort of doubled down on it.

And we kind of watched that.

And he still, I think, thinks about this quite a bit, even though he's a, you know, as a fit, as a fiddle, 78 years old now.

I mean, he's just remarkable.

But, you know, it, I think you can't help but think about what is this, what is this, what is this?

When we put muscle on our bodies and focus on it, I mean, it's the stuff that moves us through the world, and then it enables us to do basically everything as we exert ourselves in our environment.

Right.

And, and so what does that mean?

What does it also mean to kind of push back against mortality?

- Hmm.

You yourself, I think have said that you thought you wouldn't live a long life or to a ripe old age.

- I don't know.

I mean, I don't know that, I didn't think that I would, I think I just thought about it from when I was a kid.

I just, like, when I was a little kid, I was six, I remember it was the sort of annual, you know, Ching Ming festival, like the tomb sweeping festival where you go and visit the, the, the cemetery and, and your ancestors and you perform all these rituals to kind of make sure that they're having a good time in heaven.

And I was scared.

I just didn't, no one had really ever talked to me about death and why is it we're doing these things and what it is, what really is to die.

And I just remember I like ran and threw myself down on the couch and I just was crying and my parents were asking, what's wrong?

What's wrong?

I said, I don't wanna die.

You know?

And they thought, you know, this is a 6-year-old kid.

They thought that was so funny.

They, why is this little kid worried about death?

And it, it's just something that has always like, preoccupied me.

And so I think everything that I do is mindful of, I don't think it's, I mean, I don't think it's a morbid thing.

I mean, I think about it more as like a memento Maori of, you know, the, the, the philosophers would think of, you know, to have a, a, a skull in your desk that reminds you every day what if, so, so what if it was the last time you did a thing?

Like how, what would it mean to you?

And would it make you appreciate it more?

And so I think the process of writing this book was, that, was wrestling with that.

- Hmm.

Well, let's talk about some of the pretty incredible things you learned about our muscles that you feel like we overlook.

Sure.

We take for granted and we don't truly understand.

But first, can you remind us of the three types of muscles?

- Yes, of course.

So cardiac smooth and skeletal cardiac muscle is the muscle of our heart.

It's what pumps, you know, the blood around our bodies.

And smooth muscle is the muscle we often think of as an involuntary muscles, right?

Controlling our organs, like don't have to think about it to breathe or that, that our, our food is being pushed through our digestive system, right?

And skeletal muscle is the main preoccupation of the book because those are the muscles that we control and those are the muscles that, you know, make me smile at you and wave my hands at you and, and, and, and have me really physically convey these words to you.

And, and there's something kind of magical about that.

I mean, as I'm thinking about it, as I'm speaking to you and how my brain is telling my body to do these things, it's kind of remarkable.

And that we don't have to about it that hard to do it.

Our bodies respond, our muscles respond because we've spent our whole lifetime learning our bodies, you know, our brain, our, our muscles.

I think one of the interesting facts that I learned while researching this book was, you know, when we are in REM sleep and we're our bodies twitch, it's essentially us learning our bodies all over again as they change.

You know, 'cause 'cause we're not, we don't have the same bodies that we had when we were babies or even little kids or young adults.

And so it's a process of change.

And so we're always learning our bodies again, and those muscles and, and sort of how to control those.

- Talk about that brain muscle crosstalk that you learned about too.

It was so fascinating.

- Okay, so one thing I learned is that our muscle is an endocrine tissue.

And I didn't, I just never knew that.

I think I just never thought about our muscle.

You know, we, we, we, I think we understand that our muscles are the things that are, are the basis of locomotion, right?

Like moving our bones around and our bodies around.

But I didn't really think about it as a tissue that secreted, like signaling molecules that travel all around our bodies to tell all the other parts of our bodies to respond and do the things that they're supposed to be doing.

And so those signaling molecules are called myokines.

And so when you start moving, when you start exercising, when you start jumping, swimming, running, doing whatever, there's this whole wash of chemicals that's like moving through your body and reaching places, including your brain to tell the, to tell your brain, to, to have all these beneficial responses.

And that includes all these, the messages that are being received are also like, you know, good feelings.

Like we think about dopamine and we think about just the endocannabinoids that are making us feel that exercise is good, but it's also these, it's telling our brains to respond with, you know, boosted neurons and, and, and, and, and synaptic plasticity and the things that support, like learning and memory.

And how cool is that?

Like how cool is it that it also boosts cognition, mood, emotional state.

And so it's this love letter from your muscle to your brain.

I just love that so much.

- Yeah.

That's why you call our muscles, our muscles pretty chatty.

I was also struck by how you talked with Matthew Sanford paralyzed from the chest down and how he invigorates that mind - Muscle connection.

How does he do it?

So Matthew Sanford is a pioneer in adaptive yoga.

And so he is this renowned yoga teacher to all kinds of people in all kinds of bodies.

But he was paralyzed in a car accident when he was 13 years old.

And, and before that he'd been very, you know, he was a middle school athlete.

He loved playing basketball, and he just always was thinking about how, you know, once he was paralyzed, his doctors would tell him, you know, forget about the paralyzed part of your body.

Pay attention to the not paralyzed body, like kind of strengthen your upper body, make your upper body really strong.

And he felt like there was a loss there, a loss of connection that he was told to ignore a, a big part of his body.

And so he, he could feel certain sensations.

And it wasn't that he was feeling like that his nerve nerves were regrowing such that he could, you know, his his spinal cord wasn't severed.

It was that he could feel interoception like, and, and interoception is, you know, the messages that your body is sending to you that you're, that is sort of below the level of conscious thought.

Proprioception is our sense of our body in space, right?

Usually that's like external receptors in our skin and, and just how we understand where our body is in space.

And inter interception is much more subtle.

It's like temperature, the depth of your breath, like just things that we, you know, hunger, you know, things that we understand are signals and signs of like how our body is doing.

But he said he would feel, you know, a sensation of, I don't know, like electricity or, you know, like up his, this energy when his body was feeling right, when he was sitting up and balanced.

And he, and you know, he started to practice yoga and understand that certain poses, if he put his whole body in that pose, if he moved his legs, even even having someone move his legs for him, or he would move his legs with his hands, could have him be centered and balance in a way that his whole body felt well.

And so it was like, you know, he calls it, you know, yoga as using your muscles and service to the whole.

And I just loved that.

I loved learning how, you know, all different bodies could benefit from a practice like yoga, which is like, you are stretching, you're moving, you're, you're strengthening your muscles, but in, in, in service to what?

In service to the - Whole, we're talking about the muscle brain connection.

We're talking about all things muscle with Bonnie Tsui, whose new book is called On Muscle, the stuff that moves us and why it matters.

Listeners, what are your questions for Bonnie about muscles?

How do your muscles make you feel?

How do they affect your self-perception?

You can tell us by emailing forum@kqed.org finding us on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, or Threads at KQED Forum or by calling 8 6 6 7 3 3 6 7 8 6.

Welcome back to Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.

We're talking about our muscles.

Bonnie Tsui says, muscles deserve more consideration than we give them.

And this hour we're learning why, but what they do for us physically to how they shape us culturally.

And I wanna get into that right after I read a few comments from our listeners, Beth on Bluesky writes amongst me and my friends, all in our seventies.

We equate muscle development to good heart and brain muscle health.

Any science to back that up?

- Absolutely.

You know, there has been a, a wealth of information and research out recently that links all kinds of muscle strength and muscle mass to cognitive health in later life and cardiovascular health.

So even something like grip strength, which I think more and more people are understanding, grip strength is a basic test of strength and health and correlated with longevity and mortality and all of these things and cardiovascular health, I mean, all of the research is, is starting to point in this direction that muscle mass and maintaining muscle mass and strength and function as you get older is so important to your overall health.

And that includes heart health, includes brain health.

Because if you're thinking about how your muscles are always, you know, sending these, like we were talking about, Mina, they're chatty, right?

They're constantly talking to other parts of our bodies.

And so when you move them, that's how you get them talking.

- So even though a lot of the functions and the incredible capabilities of our muscles, their communicativeness and so on, is often not well understood or sort of overlooked, I feel like culturally muscles really loom large in our imagination.

Like we imbue them with all kinds of virtues, - Right?

Yes.

And when I started writing this book, I could not ignore how language tells us all of these things.

So you tell someone to muscle through it, you tell someone to, you know, exhibit a flex, you know, or to even when you're telling someone to not be active and not activate your muscles, you're telling them to relax.

Or when you're asking someone to, you know, get sort of extend or stretch past their comfort zone or you know, be in good form, you know, show us good form, be in perfect form or are you a person of action?

These are virtues, you know, these are things that are correlated with whole personhood.

And I thought that that was so fascinating.

- Yeah, and I mean we, we tend to think of people who are muscular as having strength of character.

You mentioned like we, we tend to think of them as people who have lots of control over their bodies and over their lives - And they're healthy and they have leadership skills.

I mean, I talk about this in the book, but it's so funny because, you know, all these sort of public show feats of strength and and strength tests have been something that we have been doing.

Demonstrations of strength have been something that we have been doing across human history.

And in the book I talk about how lifting a heavy thing like a rock is, is a, is a sort of atavistic way of showing you have leadership skills.

'cause it was, I mean, you, you know, how do you demonstrate your fitness?

How do you demonstrate that you are worthy of getting a greater share of the catch when you're on a fishing festival?

Like, you know, you are, you are physically well, right?

- Yeah.

- And so obviously things have changed quite a lot and we do lead increasingly virtual lives.

But at the same time we do, like you said, attribute these, these positive qualities, these possible positive personality traits to athletes.

We laud them, we like elevate them in our society and culture.

And then at the same time, there's this kind of competing message I think where we have also said that, you know, brains and muscles are in opposition to each other.

You know, like you call someone a, a dumb jock or you think someone who's like a, a 98 pound weakling with like no muscles and, and is a nerd.

And so you mu if you have a big muscles, you must not be intelligent.

I mean the, these are like, this is sort of our, our binary thinking.

I think we've always sort of just been simplistically trying to put people in categories in that way and how we understand as, as, as human beings we just like to categorize things.

But obviously, obviously you can have muscles and brains at the same time.

And as we talked about, muscles and muscle health and brain health promote each other.

So, you know, these things go hand in hand.

- Yeah.

But you're right, our relationship with our muscles are complicated, very complicated.

And especially if you're a woman, - Especially if you're a - Woman, and how women have been told who are muscular, that they're too muscular.

So talk about some of the inequities we're tapping into there.

Bonnie.

You know, - I have always, I, the phrase too muscular was stuck in my head since the beginning of writing this book.

And I just kept kind of chewing on it and, and marinating, and I'm just wondering like, what is it that we're saying when we say a woman is too muscular and there's so much to unpack and there's a section on the book that I really get into that, but a lot of it is power.

And a lot of it is, are you allowed to, to, to access power wherever you are?

And it's like a, it's like a, it's rooted in disruption, right?

So like when we talk about someone as being too muscular, because we, we have these binary gender roles in society and have had them for a long time, you know, we, we have equated muscles and man with strength and females with weakness, right?

And, and, and sort of our cultural roles have kind of put that cast on it.

And so, you know, there are many examples of this.

I am very happy that that is changing.

I am very happy that a more diverse representation of bodies is allowed to women and men too, right?

Like I think, but if you kind of think about it, men are, have historically been allowed a much more maybe like range of ideals of beauty.

Like you can think of like a, a very lean marathoner or something, and like a, a bulked beefy weightlifter.

And those are both considered in different circles and in also in many circles.

But in those, you know, that that, that that's a beauty ideal.

But for women, there's an upper limit or has historically been an upper limit where when a woman gets too muscular, the, the judgment is that there's an like, there's a discomfort with that.

There's like a, a category error I guess.

And it's because, you know, I talked to a lot of anatomists at UCSF about this 'cause I wanted to know like, what do you as an anatomist, as a, as a, a teacher in a medical school about the human body?

What do you, what are the muscles signaling to you?

Because like, you know, obviously they're talking about function, they, they're concerned about what these muscles are for, but in, in culture, you know, they have a message.

And so, you know, the fear has always been like you can't be looking too masculine.

Right?

And there's a fear around that.

And, and often that is rooted in, well one of, one of the signal events is like during the doping era of the Soviet sports machine, Eastern sports machines where people were competing in the Olympics with steroids.

And so there was a fear of appearing too muscular or too masculine because of this like stigma that hung over sport.

And I think that there's, there's, we're still sort of reckoning with that.

- Yeah.

That's why you see muscular women as really challenging as a direct challenge to those times types of structures.

Yeah.

It sounds like, - Yeah.

- And it feels like it's so timely in the sense that right now we are at the highest levels sort of glorifying and more traditional demure femininity at the moment as well.

- I got a lot to say about that.

That's a whole other show.

Mina.

- So tell me your favorite muscle or your favorite muscular part of your own body.

- Well, I have spoken about this in the book and elsewhere about how I just love the shoulders, right?

Shoulders are just have so much rich metaphor and you know, when you, when you shoulder a burden, right?

Like that's, you are, it's a, it's a, it's a generous act.

But I also love shoulders because strong shoulders are swimming, swimming shoulders and that it's also a complex joint.

You know, there's many shoulder muscles that work together in concert.

And I had the great privilege to witness a dissection at UCSF under the guidance of Amber Fitzsimmons, who is the chair of the Department of Physical Therapy and rehabilitation at UCSF.

And also she has a joint appointment in the anatomy department.

So we spent a lot of time in the anatomy lab and also talked to a bunch of the anatomists who teach all these students.

- Yeah.

And I read you were quite taken by the shoulder - Muscles when yeah, it was really cool to, and she's also a swimmer, so she said, I also am biased for, you know, but to be able to have the privilege to examine under the skin what that looks like was really, it was very special.

- Yeah.

And also probably revealed to you the very functions of the muscle that, that you admired so much without actually being able to physically see them because you weren't looking at a real one - Under the skin.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

To kind of see how these muscles sort of move, slide over one another and sort of as you rotate your shoulder and understand that there's so much that can go wrong.

And also there's so much that goes right, you know, for you to have that 300 and, you know, 60 degree rotating motion.

Yeah.

When you reach for a can on a high shelf or put your phone in your back pocket.

- Well, we're getting calls and comments from listeners and again, listeners tell us your questions for Bonnie about muscles or a muscle movement and what role it has played in your life.

Cultural identity.

Maybe there's a dance board or ritual that makes you feel connected to who you are, or a moment when you really became acutely aware of a specific muscle or muscle group.

You can email forum@kqed.org, find us on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram or Threads at KQED Forum or call us at (866) 733-6786.

And Wendy on Bluesky writes, I love dances of the African diaspora, Haitian Cuban, Brazilian, though I don't come from that background, the movements, physicality and songs of that tradition resonate with me more than that of my own.

Another listener, Joanna from Berkeley writes, my understanding from my physical therapist is there are two types of muscle fibers.

One you develop with walking, hiking, et cetera.

The other is more about strength training.

Can she comment on these two types?

- So fast twitch and slow twitch muscles and, and we're all, we call kind of understand, right?

So fast twitch is for like sprinting and they are fast acting but are run out, you know, of energy pretty fast.

And, and, and slow twitch muscles are for endurance, you know, like long lasting, like running a long time.

And so it's, we're all born with a set number of fibers and types, but you can change like you can, you can through exercise change your body.

And I think that's what's one of the really fascinating and inspiring things about muscle itself as a tissue is that it's so adaptable, right?

So there's this twin study, I think Alex Hutchinson wrote about it, especially in his book in Endure, or he wrote about it in a, in an article, which was that there were these twins who were tested for their muscle fiber type.

And so they had started out with a similar proportion of fast twitch is a slow twitch.

And then they got into their fifties and, and, and they, one of them had become very sedentary, I think was the truck driver.

And the other person had con kind of continued running and marathons and, and the composition of their, the ratio of their fast switch to slow twitch was very different.

You know, like had ch like many, many percentage degrees had changed and, and it was like a reminder that you can, you're born with what you're born with, but you can do so much to improve your health at any age, right?

I mean at any age respond.

Yeah.

And they will always be doing that.

You know, you can start, I don't, I don't recommend starting to exercise in your seventies, but if you do, there's still an incredible amount of, of of health benefit that comes from that.

You can change and your muscles will respond the second you start moving and have a regular exercise practice and, and lifelong exercisers see this benefit.

- Yeah.

Well, Bonnie wants to know, oh no, this lister wants to know what is Bonnie's view on stretching?

Does she prefer static or dynamic stretching?

What's the best for our muscles?

- I prefer dynamic stretching.

I mean, I just like to, you know, we were, we were taught, I just remember when I was a kid, I was, we were taught like to do this static stretching before you would exercise.

And now I think that sounds terrible, but, but in terms of, and, and by dynamic I mean like that you would do a slow warmup of whatever it is that you're going to be doing, whatever motion.

So I surf a lot, right?

So let's say I would, I would do a bunch of like rotating, you know, shoulder movements or you know, kind of big big muscle group squats or something to kind of get the, the blood flowing to my muscles and to wake my body up in the morning.

I went surfing this morning before I came to the studio.

Wow.

And so, wow.

You know, I thought about that a lot as I was, as I was in the water this morning, like, what are, what are my muscles doing?

And the water was quite chilly, but I was warm because I was, you know, moving.

And so I think, at least for myself, I think a lot of people will have different thoughts on how they feel and I would say, do what feels good to you?

But what if I if I stretch too much cold when my body is cold and not warmed up yet, I don't like that feeling.

And, and I think that's why static stretching to me doesn't feel like it's beneficial.

It's more like a, i I think about a slow body warmup doing the, the motions that I will be doing.

- We're talking with Bonnie Tsui about her book on muscle, the stuff that moves us and why it matters.

And you, our listeners are sharing your questions.

Matthew writes, I'm a massage therapist specializing in deep tissue work.

I've been amazed by the number of clients who experienced deep emotional release when specific muscles are engaged.

For example, one client began weeping when I opened up the muscle around his neck.

He re-experienced a bullying incident in middle school where an older boy choked him.

The body keeps score as the research and PTSD shows is the body actually the unconscious mind and what are the author's thoughts about body work and the upsurge in interest?

- I love that story.

I've, I've heard stories like that before as well.

And I think, you know, we think about muscle memory and oftentimes we are, when we talk about muscle memory, we're talking about a, a memory of what's not the memory of the muscle tissue or the muscle cells themselves, right?

It's that this motor pattern.

- Yeah.

Like if you're playing the piano - Or an instrument or something, and it's the neurons that are like this, the, the memory is stored in this motor pattern that has been refined over time and that, you know, the classic example is that riding a bike that you don't forget to do it.

And I think that there is, there are, there are, you know, neural patterns in our brains that are associated with certain movements and things.

And I think that that story that you told about your client, you know, having that emotional response was trigger a trigger of like emotion that of, of motion, of emotion by motion, which I find so fascinating.

But there is actual actually muscle memory of the muscle cells themselves.

And that's - Like are separate from what - You're talking about with that very, it's very separate.

It's like within the muscle - Itself has memory.

- Yes.

This is something that I just was blown away by and is new research.

And so our muscle cells themselves have a memory of prior exercise.

And so what that means, it, there's two kinds.

There's cellular and epigenetic and epigenetic is that the, the genes themselves aren't changed, but which ones are switched on and off.

And the response that you will have from exercise is changed.

So if the more you exercise, there are these certain genes that are more expressed.

And that means that, you know, when you exercise, again, your cells are primed to build mass, retain mass, like do all of these things so that you'll get, you'll, they will get up to speed faster.

And athletes have kind of always known this to be true anecdotally.

But now the, the research is bearing this out to be true.

- We're talking about new research on muscles with VNI toy and with you our listeners, 8 6 6 7, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 6.

The email address forum@KQED.org.

And you can find us on our social channels on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram or Threads or at KQED Forum.

Stay with us more after the break.

I'm Mina Kim.

We're talking with Bonnie Tsui who's taken a close look at our muscles and realized how much we don't understand about what they do in our bodies, but also how taking this deep dive deepens our understanding of strength, beauty, and what it means to be human.

Bonnie's previous book is Why We Swim.

Her new book is on muscle.

The stuff that makes us, the stuff that moves us and why it matters.

And you, our listeners are sharing your experiences and questions around this.

T writes, what are the best ways that caregivers can help slow muscle loss and provide movement, especially when dementia has started, pain and dizziness seem limiting and the senior is primarily in bed or sitting in a chair because they're unsteady and a fall risk.

- That's a really great question.

I think I don't have personal experience enough to give advice, I would say on what is the safest way to do that.

But any kind of mobility that you can offer that's assisted is beneficial.

So I don't know if there's a walker that, you know, a certain patient could use, but even like mobility in bed is really important.

Assisted mobility and then we've talked about with adaptive movements and especially with yoga like that this is something that is beneficial.

It is important.

There's a something called per personal space representation and it's, we an unwieldy term and we talk about in the book, but it is something that we all need to understand our bodies in space.

And as our bodies lose function, it's that goes away.

And so you kind of don't understand and don't feel as much.

And so even assisted mobility can do a lot to restore that sense of self.

- Let me go to call her Denise in Ukiah, California.

Hi Denise.

- Hi.

I'm calling 'cause I'm, I'm interested in the tongue as a muscle, a unique muscle as I understand that's attached at only one end of it and how it is able to be so nimble and we can articulate words without even really thinking about it.

- I will be honest and say I did not study the tongue in great depth.

It is a great question.

I would consult someone who has lingual knowledge and and I, and I'm sorry that I couldn't give you a more satisfying answer.

- Yeah.

But I love your description Denise.

I thanks for the call, Tom from point raise station rights.

Can you talk about the difference between weightlifting and Tai chi?

My Tai Chi master said I should not be doing weightlifting because it's a contradiction to Tai chi.

- Hmm.

That's interesting.

I would love to know why your Tai chi instruction instructor thinks that, but I will tell you.

Okay.

So I, I am imagining that your Tai Chi teacher is, is prioritizing the fluidity of movement and how our bodies are so connected.

And, and I don't know if your instructor is concerned that if you are lifting weights, that you'll somehow lose that fluidity.

But I think there is a a, something that I really learned culturally in traditional Chinese medicine and then in like western Greek medicine in ancient times was that there was a divergence in, in western medicine, Greek medicine and Chinese medicine in that their, you know, thinking about the body and strength in Chinese medicine was about the flow of qi and, you know, energy in the body and like breath and that a a a healthy body did not look muscular and bulging with ripples the way in ancient Greece they did.

And the philosophers talked about that they would create these sculptures that had bulges and ripples where there weren't actually muscles, but that signaled a healthy body, a healthy, strong body.

And so that was prized because even before they understood what muscles were, they understood that this is beauty and this is has to do with strength and health.

And whereas in Chinese medicine, a healthy, a strong healthy body looks more like a yogi with a big belly because that's sort of how your, you know, it was not unhealthy though.

It was, it was, you had a lot of qi.

And so I think it's just a different way of thinking about health and energy flow and, and what is, you know, what is ideal motion, right?

So with Tai Chi, again, this fluidity, and I don't know if I would be very curious, you should follow up and say like, what is it that you're afraid of?

But in reality, like strength training is great.

It just supports your joints.

And if you were strength training and lifting to strengthen all of those muscles around those movements, I think that would be only be a good thing.

- You Right, and you touched on this a little bit, but that weight, weight lifting has been shown to build psychological resilience Yes.

In the mind.

- Yeah.

And that makes a lot of sense because if you think about, and there's quite a lot of literature now of supporting this where as a, as an intervention to treat PTSD, that weight training, strength training is, it's, think about it, it's, it's daily incremental gains that over time become bigger gains and changes and you become stronger, you become physically stronger and more able.

And so that reinforces the sense of yourself as a person with agency, as a person who is in control of your own life and that you are capable of change.

And I think that really just makes perfect sense.

- Let me go to caller Zoe in Oakland.

Hi Zoe.

You're on.

- Hello?

My question, well, it's a, actually not a question.

I would just like me just to say a little bit more about her very quick comment earlier about people in their seventies who perhaps had not been active or very not very active physically during their lifespan not starting to exercise in their seventies.

I I don't know if I misheard that, but I - Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.

I, I apologize if that wasn't clear.

I meant I don't recommend waiting till your seventies to exercise, but if you do juice, but I highly recommend that if you are in your seventies and you haven't to start, so I apologize if that wasn't clear.

I didn't mean don't do it because what I'm really saying is do do it.

- Yeah.

And the fact that your, your body's capacity and the adaptability of muscles to, to respond to that kind of activity as you were saying is so high.

- Yes.

Which is incredible and it's so high.

And if you think about it, you have only even more gains to make.

Right.

Even more changes that you will see beneficially.

To start then - I wanna read something from your book that I was touched by and I felt like it had some resonance to you as well.

You say the way you build muscle is by breaking yourself down muscle fiber, sustained damage through strain and stress, then repair themselves by activating special stem cells that fuse to the fiber to increase size and mass.

You get stronger by surviving each series of little, allowing for regeneration, rejuvenation, regrowth, building up and breaking down.

We exist in this constant cycle.

In fact, it is the cycle that allows us to exist.

- Yeah.

I mean I find it very inspiring this philosophy of muscle that the reality is that muscle only gets stronger with stress, with strain, with micro tears.

And then you, your body begins this incredible process of repair and regeneration and you come back stronger.

You know, I think that that's a beautiful thought and, and, and a way to embrace things that are challenging in life beyond the body.

You know, and I I I do think that that's a philosophy of muscle that I can live by.

Yeah.

- Carrie from Mill Valley says, I have cervical myelopathy when nerves coming out of your brain are pinched stop signals from going to my body.

My hands are numb, my drop things walk with a gate also makes you feel weak in my legs and arms, wondering if this condition prevents messages from going from my body back to my brain.

- I am not familiar with this condition, but the way you describe it makes me think that is what's happening.

And I wonder if yoga is something that could help you to have a more restored sense of, of yourself in space.

And, and I think to get in to the extent that you can try to find a practice in which you are moving in a way that does try to help wake up those pathways again in a way that feels good, is something that is absolutely worth pursuing.

And I encourage you to look up Matthew Sanford and MINDBODY solutions because his org, this nonprofit that he runs, offers classes free yoga classes on Zoom, you know, every, you know, every week and multiple days during the week.

And I encourage you to try it.

It, I, you know, the first class I took with Matthew Sanford was on Zoom and it was this adaptive yoga class and I got so much out of it.

It was chair yoga.

And I just remember, and I'm actually, I think I'm sitting, I'm sitting up and straightening up my spine right now thinking of this first class because he said, you know, we all feel alignment, you know, sort of scoot your butt to the edge of your chair and kind of think about how your head is stacked above your spine and into your sit bones and into your chair.

We all feel more awake and I didn't mean is doing it too.

I know I have not great posture and you just feel different, you know, you feel more, you more alive.

- Yeah.

Well this listener wants to know if you can address the impact of weight drugs like Ozempic on muscle loss.

My 78-year-old mom has lost a hundred pounds and reduced her A1C on one, but she seems so frail now and I see a big change in her gait.

- Yeah.

From what I understand, the, the kinds of drugs like Ozempic that trigger this rapid weight loss can also trigger rapid muscle loss.

I think if your diet doesn't support and your movement doesn't support that muscle to be retained and remember that sarcopenia, which is age-related muscle loss, which affects all of us.

You know, no matter if you're a a very active athlete or not, that starts in your thirties.

I have bad news for you and accelerates through to your sixties.

And so as much as you, you know, so, so I think what I, to your question about the rapid, you know, loss of just weight in general, I think that if she isn't doing a program of strength training that allows her to keep her muscle, that will also fall off as well because it is, you know, you know, there are certain changes that are happening in the body.

And so I think just, I think that the advice has been for people who are taking these drugs to make sure they are getting enough nutrition to support their muscle and to do the strength training to retain that muscle.

- We're talking with Bonnie Tsui about our muscles and you are listening to Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.

Let me go next to caller Brandon in Foster City.

Hi Brandon.

Hi - Brandon.

Good morning everyone.

Thank you so much Mina for taking my call.

I just wanted to say I was a personal trainer for many years and one thing that was so wonderful was the connection that we would have with our clients is, I mean, I really wanted to ask about the, I think there's a deep psychological positive build between two people when you teach them how to exercise and sweat and reach into that zone that's beyond what they thought they were capable of doing.

And the dynamic is not one rooted in capitalism where you're trying to get as much as you can where it's adversarial in nature where there's two sides on the negotiating table and the ones trying to get as much as from the other as as possible and vice versa.

But instead my clients would know that they're coming to me and I'm, I'm out to get them the best possible workout.

And I think that is such, I've gotten Christmas cards thanking me for my work with them and just, I feel like the bond is just, and also too, even bridging the gap between political differences.

I, I'm, I'm, I'm very far on one side of the spectrum and I've had workouts with, and when you, somebody's failing physically and you kind of support them to go through that next rep or two and and show them they can, I swear it transcends like the political differences.

And anyway, I just wanted to hear some thoughts on that and, and I just believe in the benefits of exercise and assisted stretch and, and I just, I just wanted to share those, those experiences.

- Brandon, I really love that because I'll be honest, Bonnie, it reminds me of how you describe the way that you feel like you and your dad communicated through shared physical activity.

- Yeah, I it's a way of connecting, it's a way of like even - Communicating it - Sounds like can, - Like, it was like your love language.

- It's, it can be a love language.

It really can be.

And also that to our caller's point, which I thought was very lovely, like to have shared movement, to have communal movement is very powerful because we as human beings are a communal species and shared movement, whether it's in dance or in in exercising together, you know, group runs, group swims.

We do this together collectively collective movement is, can be effervescent.

You know, as Dacher Keltner the Berkeley psychologist talks about.

And he, you know, he would talk about a sporting event and we, and we had a discussion about how jumping is one of those, those movements that is joy and to jump together.

We were talking about specifically like the what happens at the end of like a world series game where everyone just kind of like floods down to the field and you've got like a communal jumping jack in the box situation and what is that, you know, what is that?

Accept an expression of collective joy and I love that so much.

And so I think that to do something with someone you love and care about, you know, whatever that kind of love and care is, is very special.

And, and that's why sports and these kinds of physical practices we have together can be really connecting.

- Yeah.

Mary writes, I surfed early too.

I'm noticing that the muscles in my 76-year-old body feel weaker than they used to while paddling and carrying my board.

Do strong muscles get weaker or stop repairing themselves as we get older?

If so, what can we do?

- Yes.

So we talked about, and also I love that you surfed this morning.

We were soulmates today that, you know, our, we talked earlier about sarcopenia, you know, again, age related muscle loss.

It happens to everyone no matter how active you are.

And so I think one thing that I started doing more seriously this past year was strength training.

Was strength training specifically to support movements, functional movements of my shoulders and back and my whole body that would support like longevity in surfing, but also longevity in in life, right?

And so in, in healthy movement and I think weight training, you know, all that really means is lifting weights that are challenging for yourself.

And when I say lifting heavy weights, people often get intimidated by that.

But what you really just need to do, we talked about stress, muscles need stress and strain and to be challenged to grow.

And, and so when we do that, it doesn't mean that you've to spend your entire day at the gym.

The great thing about only doing eight to 10 reps of something is that you could be done really fast or you could do it at home.

But just to understand that lifting heavy weights is beneficial for everyone from, from, from the like collegiate athlete to the 76-year-old surfer who wants to keep surfing for a good long time.

- This listener related to our earlier conversation, I think about the brain muscle connection they write, I realize that the brain is very involved in the rehab of my knee injury.

My biggest challenge is to activate the right muscles.

For example, when climbing steps, I find myself tapping my quads and glutes to activate the right muscles even though they are strong enough.

I find that the muscle reverts to the old pattern.

It's taking a long time to coordinate the brain muscle connection.

- I know exactly what you're talking about.

I remember when I tore my ACL in my knee playing sports, guess must have been like 15 years ago.

And in order to wake up my quadriceps and, and, and do the rehab and do the pt, I had to tap my quad to be like this wake up because it wasn't doing anything.

And it is, and I'm doing it now as I speak.

Because it was such a sense memory of like, okay, if you tap it, then you can, your brain has to remember how to trigger that muscle to activate and it will come, it will get easier, I promise you.

- Yes.

- Like all those squats, all those wall squats you're doing will help and and you'll come back to yourself.

- Well thanks Bonnie.

I think yeah, this really reminds you we need a lot more connection and strength and flexibility in this moment.

Funny toy, the book is on muscle.

Thank you.

Thank you listeners.

This is Forum.