by Jonathon Sullivan MD, PhD, SSC, PBC If swimming is (or might be) your Thang, I can recommend it without reservation. Late last year, I penned a few pieces on the conditioning prescription and the power of the “Lift Weights and Play Your Sport” philosophy. On this view, the Athlete of Aging trains in the gym, building strength, power, and conditioning with this simple formula: Strength Training with the Big Lifts + HIIT. That is The Barbell Prescription in a nutshell. If yo

by Jonathon Sullivan MD, PhD, SSC, PBC Setting your back is lifting the bar. Lifting the bar is setting your back. Let’s do a thought experiment, or, as it is more elegantly and classically known, a gedankenexperiment. Let’s have you go over to the leg press machine and start titrating up to a heavy set of five. How much can you leg press? If you’re like most people, you can leg press more than you can squat, so the answer is “I can leg press a LOT.” That’s not the experiment