The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
Will Harlow: STOP Losing Muscle After 50 (Do This Instead)
23 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What does a simple chair test reveal about independence at 80?
We almost look at people who've got these age-related problems and say, well, what do you expect? You know, you're 60, you're 70, everyone's suffering with this. And the worst part is when people are told that so many times, they believe it.
It normalizes this culture of group suffrage. And when it seems normal in your peer group, you just accept it as a consequence of aging.
We think that people only lose independence in their 80s and 90s, and we just don't think about it. It's one of those things we take for granted that we start to lose a lot earlier than we realize.
Independence truly is freedom.
Chapter 2: How can knee pain be misdiagnosed and what should you know?
As we get older, one of the measures of independence is do you need help with the activities of daily living?
The four pillars of independence, as I call them, are mobility, strength, so how strong you are, but also how much muscle mass you have on your body, balance, and then the fourth pillar is skeletal health.
The age-related muscle wasting, it's more rapid, I think, than people realize.
Muscle mass throughout the entire body is an independent predictor of longevity.
How important is it for people that are trying to build strength, but in older ages, to return that strength, do you have them draw their attention to those muscles? Do you find that that helps?
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Chapter 3: What are the four pillars of independence for older adults?
So what I tend to do with people now, and this is something people can do at home,
is
Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.
Chapter 4: How can short exercise bursts improve strength in older adults?
I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brekka, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between.
Chapter 5: What causes sciatica and how can you address it at home?
And today's guest, all the way from the United Kingdom, physiotherapist that I'm actually greatly interested in running this podcast with, decided at one point in his life that the patients that he was caring for that were leaving his clinic without pain were going home and the pain was starting to return.
and he wanted to find a solution to how people could care for themselves outside of the clinic and make a material difference on the trajectory of their life and this has to do with musculoskeletal pain and movement and your posture and so many things that are overlooked by modern medicine and we're starting to treat those symptoms that actually have a chronic underlying condition that can be fixed so you can put them permanently in your rearview mirror
So welcome to the podcast, Will Harlow. Thank you, Gary.
That's very kind.
Yeah, I'm super excited about today. And as always, we usually start running a podcast before the podcast starts. So we had a great conversation before the podcast started.
But I wonder if you might just give a little context to my listeners, because you're working at NHS as a physiotherapist and having a great deal of success with the patients that you were hands-on with that could come into the clinic and- and actually receive treatment and guidance.
But at some point you notice that when they would leave, those gains would go away and the chronic condition was coming back. And I believe that the people that are the most driven, purposeful, like passionate and impactful are the people that are solving problems.
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Chapter 6: How does the sit-stand test predict longevity?
And so that seems to be the problem that you solved. 100%. So give us a little context around that.
yeah so um i was in the nhs at one point but i actually started in professional sport and it was a it was a funny trajectory for me really because i spent my whole childhood growing up thinking i want to work in professional sport i don't care what i do i just want to be in and around the clubs and the players and i was also really interested in the human body as well like yourself
So when I heard about this thing called physiotherapy, I thought, great, this is going to tick both boxes. I'm going to be able to help people with their bodies whilst also working in professional sport. So I was locked on this idea of working in professional football, soccer, as you guys say.
Chapter 7: What impact does muscle mass have on overall health and mortality?
And I went right through university with this goal, came out the other side, and I got an in with a local football club, which just so happened to be the club that I supported my whole childhood.
Oh, man.
Yeah. So dream come true. Got an interview, got the job, got in there. And within about three to six months, I was looking around thinking, this is not what I want to do at all. I'm in the wrong place. It just was a bad character fit for me, a bad fit for, you know, the environment. I didn't really like the culture.
And it was almost like the world was coming crashing down for me because I thought I've trained my whole life for this.
Chapter 8: What strategies can help rebuild strength after 50?
I've got no plan B. What on earth am I going to do now? But I took the chance and left. And while I was trying to figure things out, that's when I went into the NHS. And when I was in the NHS, we were in this big kind of corporate mill-like clinic. I was seeing 15 patients a day. They were all referred from their primary care physician. And about 90% of them were people over 50.
I never really worked with this pocket of people before. So I've seen people with- Careful, I'm over 50, dude.
So don't come at us too hard.
I would never dream of it. People with knee pain, people with back pain, sciatica, all of these things. And from my training, I knew I could help these people. And I started to see these wonderful transformations. I was just giving people basic advice, telling them what they needed to do, coaching them through it, and then watching the outcomes.
And I look back about three months into the process and thought, this is the most fun I've ever had. So it was at that moment I knew this is what I was destined to do. And I don't know about in the US, but in the UK, there's a huge problem in terms of the attitude we have towards aging. Oh, no question.
We almost look at people who've got these age-related problems, in inverted commas, and say, well, what do you expect? You know, you're 60, you're 70. Everyone's suffering with this. And I knew from my training it wasn't true. And the worst part is when people are told that so many times, they believe it. And they go, well, the doctor said this is it. So I guess this is just life now.
But seeing people improve, I knew that there was something here and I knew the demand for it was massive. The NHS wasn't the right environment for me to take it further. We were very much constrained by how often we could see people and what we could do. I remember being given a 2.5 session average cap.
That's how many times you're allowed to see people before you have to get rid of them and bring someone else. 2.5? Yeah. We were marked only on our session average. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. Because you've got to make room for someone else.
Yeah, yeah. Because it's just a mill.
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