Dr. Howard Luks

05/04/2026

The most straightforward thing I can report is that progressive overload works. It works at 63 the same way it worked at 43. You load the tissue, the tissue adapts, you load it more. The timeline is longer than it was, and the recovery between sessions requires more attention, but the adaptation is real, and it keeps coming.

My bench press is close to what I was putting up in my thirties. My leg extension numbers rival those of athletes at my training facility who are decades younger. I didn’t expect that. I expected meaningful strength decline by now, and what I’ve found instead is that if you give the tissue a consistent, progressive mechanical signal, it responds. Sarcopenia is not inevitable. Provide the signal, and the muscle strength holds up reasonably well.

I progressed more slowly than I wanted to early in the year, and that turned out to be right. When I tried to accelerate loading, I felt it in my connective tissue before in the muscle. At 63, the tendons are the rate-limiting factor, not the muscle. The muscle adapts faster than the connective tissue can keep up with. Patient progressive loading more patient than felt necessary was the approach that actually worked

Read full article here:
https://howardluksmd.substack.com/p/training-at-63-what-the-past-year

05/04/2026

Most people don’t quit exercising because they lack motivation. They quit because they tried to do too much, too soon, and the whole thing felt unsustainable by week three.

I see this in my office every week. Someone tells me they started a new program, an hour-long, six-day-a-week commitment that left them so sore they couldn’t sit down, roll over in bed, or walk very well. That’s not an exercise or movement program… It’s more like a punishment.

Read full article here for (part1)
https://howardluksmd.substack.com/p/saturday-action-plan-the-20-minute?utm_source=publication-search

Read full article here for (part2)
https://howardluksmd.substack.com/p/saturday-action-plan-the-20-minute-f52?utm_source=publication-search

05/04/2026

It sounds surprising, but your bones are not static. Even in older adulthood, your body is constantly breaking down old bone tissue and replacing it with new. In fact, the entire adult skeleton is renewed over time, about every 10 years on average. Some areas, like the spine, turn over even faster.

This means your bones today are not the same bones you had a decade ago.

Think about that for a moment.
Your skeleton is not a fixed structure, it is a living system, quietly adapting every day to how you move, what you lift, how active you are, and even how well it is nourished. When this process is balanced, it helps keep your bones strong, responsive, and capable of supporting your daily life.

But as we age, this balance can become more delicate. Bone may be lost a little faster than it is rebuilt, often without any clear symptoms at first. This is why understanding and supporting bone health becomes so important in later years, not just for strength, but for independence, confidence, and mobility.

Read the full article to understand how this remarkable system works and what you can do to support it at any age:
https://howardluksmd.substack.com/p/your-bones-are-far-more-complicated

05/02/2026

Stay tuned for these balance training exercises to prevent falls and build a stronger you.
Apollo Performance Chiropractic apollopcny

05/02/2026

By far the most popular post on my Substack... How and Why I Train the Way I Do at 62.
The biology of aging and the physiological changes that take place as we age require it. For those of you in the gym... this is a comprehensive guide, the longest one I have ever written.

As requested by many of you... My typical week

05/01/2026

Most people’s lives narrow. Not all at once, instead… gradually, a little at a time, until the opportunities available to them are a fraction of what they once were. I’ve watched it happen to patients who were otherwise healthy, who thought they were doing fine, who didn’t realize the margin was shrinking until it was already gone.

Long ago, I decided that mine wouldn’t.

That decision is the reason I train the way I do. Not to look a certain way and certainly not to compete or hit a particular number on my watch. I train for life. I train to keep my opportunities open — to hike, climb, play tennis, travel, and stay physically capable of doing the things that (for me) make a life worth living well into my seventies, eighties, and beyond. That’s the goal. Everything below is in service of that goal.

What follows is my typical training week, the reasoning behind each component, and how I think about the dose required to get the benefit. I’ll be direct about what the evidence supports and honest about what I find difficult. I pull it all together in the end with a weekly schedule. I’ll be honest… it’s a lot. In my enough, better and optimal framework, my week is squarely in the optimal range. You should not think that you need to do all of this. But my rationale for my approach might help you figure out what your week should look like.

Read full article here: https://howardluksmd.substack.com/p/training-at-62-what-i-do-why-i-do?r=8b26

05/01/2026

Everyday athletes (not just pros) often underestimate hydration’s impact how you hydrate before activity heavily determines performance and recovery.

Start every session well-hydrated. Small, thoughtful habits like monitoring body weight and thirst can protect your performance every time you train.

05/01/2026

We often discuss cardiovascular fitness as the ultimate health drug, free and effective. However, muscle is at least as important, making muscle loss an equally serious problem, which is often overlooked.

Muscles are far more critical than for appearance alone. Propulsion, balance, power, glucose storage, metabolism, and robust endocrine function all highlight the importance of muscle tissue to our existence.

https://howardluksmd.substack.com/p/muscle-mass-if-you-want-to-kick-ass?r=6d999j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

04/29/2026

Intensity Remains Trainable

Higher-intensity, longer-duration exercise was inversely associated with cardiac aging and physical frailty risk in older adults. High-intensity exercise in older adults enhances muscle strength, bone density, cardiovascular fitness, metabolic health, and cognitive function. That’s good news :-).

Intensity isn’t the enemy. Frequency without adequate recovery is.
In contrast to the perception of slower recovery, repeated days of intense endurance cycling were similarly tolerated by young and veteran athletes in terms of performance. However, there was a greater change in perception of muscle soreness, and significant changes in fatigue and recovery were observed in veteran athletes.

Older athletes can handle the intensity. They feel it more and need more time between sessions.

04/29/2026

I hear this regularly from patients who decide they’re finally going to get serious about their health, lace up their sneakers, and head out for what they expect to be a manageable walk or easy jog. Ten minutes in, their heart is pounding, they’re breathing harder than they think they should be, and they’re upset. They assume something is wrong with them, or that they’re just not built for this, or that they’ve let themselves go so far that even starting feels impossible. Many will quit at this point… it simply feels too hard or they’re worried.

But… Nothing is wrong with them. What they’re experiencing has a name and a mechanism, and understanding it should change how you approach the early weeks of building an aerobic base. This works for experienced athletes and newcomers alike. I start every spring off with a 6-week base-building period. Let me explain…

Read the full article here: https://howardluksmd.substack.com/p/why-your-easy-pace-feels-so-hard

04/29/2026

The young ones stagnate or get slower and can't figure out why. The older ones get hurt. Different outcomes, same root cause they are not giving the body the time it needs to resolve or heal what the training demanded that it do.

Recovery is not the absence of training. It is where the training adaptations happen. Muscle proteins are synthesized. Tendons remodel. Mitochondria multiply. The parasympathetic nervous system reasserts control, HRV climbs back, and the body consolidates what the last session started.

None of that happens during the workout. It happens in the hours and days after.

The older we get, the longer that process takes and the more it costs us when we shortchange it. The recovery burden increases with age. The same session that took 48 hours to recover from at 35 takes 72 to 96 hours at 55. Push back into hard training before that process is complete and you are not building fitness. You are accumulating damage.

Rest up. Cross train, walk, ruck, hike instead of run. Train again when you're ready. That is how adaptation and thriving works.

04/27/2026

The most common mistake I see isn’t people doing the wrong exercises, it’s waiting for the “perfect” moment to begin.

I understand why that happens. When time is limited, energy is low, or expectations feel high, it can seem like anything less than a full, ideal session isn’t worth it. But that belief often keeps people stuck longer than they need to be.

The truth is, your body doesn’t require perfection, it responds to consistency. Even a few minutes of movement still matters. A short walk, a few gentle stretches, or a brief set of exercises is not “nothing.” It’s a signal to your body that you’re showing up.

And showing up, even imperfectly, is where change actually begins.
You just need a starting point that fits your life today and that is already enough.