Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

The best movement to practice is the movement that you practice. The human body is built to move, though modernity has made it increasingly easy to be sedentary. As a result, all manner of mental and physical dis-ease have become the new normal. While I advocate titrating the dose of cardio in order to maximize well-being, I remain an enthusiastic exponent of moving your body at every opportunity. Whether taking the stairs in lieu of the escalator, or grinding your coffee with a hand-grinder in lieu of using a machine, the opportunities to move your body are baked into your daily life. Some days I commute by eBike, and other days I ride my "analog" bike. It depends on the weather, how much I have to carry and the trail conditions. For example, we generally need to get from Point A to Point B. For most of us, the default conveyance is the car. While I like cars as much (or more!) than the next person, every chance we drive the car is opportunity-cost for movement. Particularly...

It probably goes without saying: as you age, your body changes. Some of those changes show up in the mirror. Many more are happening under the hood. Staying physically active matters more as the body changes, but it also has to match your current physiology. It is tempting to train the way you “used to.” In my experience, that often leads to a familiar loop: injury, inactivity, recovery, and re-injury. Others swing too far the other direction and train so gently that they barely get a return on all the time they put in. The goal is a workable middle: enough stress to drive adaptation, not so much that you pay for it for days. That is one of many reasons that I monitor my heart rate when I train. Heart rate zone training gives you a window into what is going on under the hood , which can help you choose the right duration and intensity for the day. As I have gotten older, my training focus has shifted from performance to keeping the autonomic nervous system working well. With aging, man...

Working with wellbeing, particularly with regards to fitness, is often supported by setting goals. Goals, however, can be tricky to put into practice. At this time last year, I assembled the fitness goals that supported my recent 500+ mile bicycle pilgrimage. I'm now a few weeks away from sharing my 2026 BDG (big, dumb goal), though I am already drafting my Fall and Winter training plans. In setting goals, it’s important that the goals be clearly stated, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-limited. Without these factors, goals often fall by the wayside like so many unmet New Year’s Resolutions. An easy way to remember these factors is with the mnemonic of SMART. S MART - helpful goals should be succinct. Meandering goals tend to be too complicated to put into action, whereas succinctly stated goals are easier to keep in mind. S M ART - optimally, goals should be measurable. For example, getting fitter is a nebulous goal. What does “fitter” mean? To make this measurable, y...

Regularly doing cardio is one of the best investments that you can make in your health. Benefitting both mental and physical health, the benefits of regularly doing cardio are legion. Besides rowing, one of my favorite forms of cardio is biking. The just-right challenge is the key to optimizing the time that you spend doing cardio. I often see people working on the two extremes; "Too easy." Many people spend hours per day being physically active, though they’re not optimizing the time that they’re investing. If you're not breathing hard and heating up, you can likely extract a lot more benefit from the time that you are investing. Even increasing your workload a little bit can make a significant difference in wellbeing. "Too hard." For some people, they spend too much time in the “red” zone. Too much high-intensity cardio can lead to depletion, injury and increased levels of stress hormones and inflammation. High-intensity cardio is important for developing cap...

Both cardio and meditation are strongly associated with improving mental and physical wellbeing. Whether measuring the incidence and severity of diseases, indices of psychosocial wellbeing or inflammatory biomarkers, both cardio and meditation are disproportionately effective in cultivating wellbeing. During my recent pilgrimage, I spent many hours meditating while riding my bike. Since many of us are short on time, I strongly encourage you to practice meditation while doing cardio. The scientific evidence is increasingly indicating that active meditation confers the same benefits as formal meditation, and combining cardio and meditation has the potential to allow double-dipping in the time that you allocate to physical fitness. If you haven’t already tried my MDFL CARDIO classes, I encourage you to check them out via my studio's on-demand library . Interestingly, it appears as though cardio and meditation interact with different anti-inflammatory pathways. University of Wisconsi...

Does your workout regimen include muscle building activities? It’s hard to overstate the importance of maintaining and building muscle mass. While strength, power and muscular endurance are all very important for optimal aging, your overall wellbeing is disproportionately related to your muscle mass. There are several factors that are influenced by muscle mass. Among them are: Muscle mass supports your joints . More muscle mass is generally associated with healthier joints. Your sense of balance is highly dependent on sensations that arise from your muscles. As you lose muscle mass, your balance tends to become shakier Bone density is influenced by muscle mass. When muscles pull harder on the bones, the osteoblasts in the bones respond by increasing bone density. More muscle = more force = greater bone density. Muscles are integrally involved in glucose metabolism ; building muscle is a powerful way to both treat and prevent insulin resistance. The academic article, linked below, des...