Dr. Jordan Metzl

05/30/2025

Do stronger glute muscles decrease the risk of injury for runners?

I’ve had a fifteen-year obsession with strength, and for runners in particular, the importance of gluteal strength. When we started with IronStrength 15r years ago, the goal was performance. Plyometrics meant stronger muscles, improved running economy, and improved power output. Over time, I began prescribing plyometric-based strength for my patients with similar results for them as well.

Over the years, the incorporation of strength into my sports medicine practice has evolved, initially from performance now to prevention.

As such, it was an honor to be part of a study published last week (link below) led by the amazing and our running medicine collaboration with and .

The study sought to ascertain if stronger glute muscles, assessed using a single-leg glute bridge, reduced the likelihood of running related injury.

The answer - YES IT DOES! By 49%!

In short, what I’ve been saying for years, = is scientifically valid.

Summary: Get out there, lunge, squat, deadlift, and build those glutes to stay on the road and out of the office.

Strength and Flexibility Self-Assessment and Subsequent Training Injuries Among Runners of the New York City Marathon - PubMed

05/29/2025

Get ready for FREE fitness events this summer! Let's move together!
https://conta.cc/43C4Ppc

Email from IronStrength NYC Spring IronStrength Classes are now open for registration     Are You Ready for Movement and Fun? It's time to get out and move with us! We've curated 16 unique fitness eve

03/08/2025

It was an honor to meet this morning with fitness/health icon and founder Nerio Alessandri. Starting in his garage with a concept of functional fitness in the 1980’s, he built Technogym one of the world’s most innovative fitness and wellness companies.

We discussed our mutual commitment to expanding the usage and messaging of exercise for preventive health and discussed ways to bring the domains of medicine and movement closer together for the benefit of all.

it is always such a pleasure to meet a kindred spirit who is equally committed to preventive health through movement. He is an inspirational human being.

02/26/2025

Doctors Lounge Circa 2025:

Last year embarked on a project to create one of the first wellness spaces for our health care professionals. The concept is that healthcare professionals spend their careers taking care of others, while sometimes neglecting their own physical and mental health.

The Halvorsen Wellness Center, a state of the art facility open to everyone at HSS, is designed to address these issues.

With spaces for mental health, physical health, and recovery, the goal is to provide a place where those who take care of others, nurses, physical therapists, physicians, medical staff, administrators, physician assistants, researchers, and everyone who helps make HSS exist, can work together to create a healthy community.

In this morning’s strength class we had a great group from across the institution, it’s like that every time. All classes are free, all you have to do is register and show up!

The hope is that our employees will continue to utilize this space, and that other institutions will see this as a model and create similar locations for their own staff.

In the old days, it was coffee and donuts in a doctor’s lounge. Today it’s working hard in a group fitness class to build fitness, muscle, and camaraderie. Great job everyone! Looking forward to seeing you in our next class 💪🏻💪🏻

02/11/2025

Saying special THANK YOU today to our amazing nurse who has been with us for 20 years this week!!
has been such an honor to work with her taking care of our patients. She always goes the extra mile, keeps us on track, and makes our office a special place for everyone, staff and patients alike.

We are so appreciative of you Stacy Ann. Here’s to 20 more years!! ❤️🙏🏻

01/22/2025

Fitness and Health Myths have increasingly become an issue in our world. In the old days. health and fitness information was vetted through media, editors, and fact checking. As the internet became a source of information, health and fitness information became one of the most searched topics. Unfortunately, Dr. Google only had a 30% accuracy rate when it came to health information, but he was still the most consulted physician worldwide.

Fast forward to today, social media has given rise to health and fitness influences who readily offer information, most of it unfiltered. Some of it is accurate, some of it is completely wrong. The burden of assessing accuracy has fallen on the consumer, it’s a rough state out there.

It was a pleasure to speak on (link in bio) yesterday about debunking common fitness myths. Yesterday we tackled 5 myths and in 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Our topics were:

1 - Is it healthier to be thin and inactive or moderately overweight and active?

2 - Is running bad for your knees?

3 -Is exercising in the cold bad for your health?

4 - Does stretching reduce injury risk?

5 - Should I exercise with arthritis?

Have a look and let me know your thoughts.

My take: the age of informational access is upon us, for better and for worse. The only way to counterbalance this is through providing accurate counter-programming.

01/06/2025

MUSCLES.

As we kick off 2025, I want to emphasize the importance of consistency with regard to skeletal muscle mass. This recent review of sarcopenia (muscle loss) from McKendry et al looks at the effects of disuse on muscle loss with aging.

Muscle is essential not only for locomotion and to protect our joints, it is also an important way to maintain glucose homeostasis and improve metabolic function. We need muscle in many ways, both metabolic and physical.

Unfortunately, it takes many months of hard work to build muscle and only a couple of weeks to lose it. this phenomena only gets worse with aging. As your mom used to say “use it or lose it.” That’s the basic point.

As you set your fitness intention for 2025, make sure to commit to 2-3 days of strength training to maximize and maintain skeletal muscle mass. I tell my patients of all ages to commit to working on their muscle mass, and I push myself to do the same. 💪🏻

12/12/2024

Our office team celebrated with our annual holiday outing last night. Instead of the usual dinner, we went for team building with rock climbing at Brooklyn Boulders(followed by dinner). The best part, seeing everyone cheer for each other, conquer fears, and celebrate each other’s accomplishments.
If you’re looking for ideas, team building activities are a great way to celebrate collaboration.
Special thanks to Chris for his A+ instruction!
Ready to climb!

11/14/2024

This is a look at young vs old muscle (Granic et al). In the young muscle on the left, we see a high distribution of muscle fibers and a balance of type II, fast twitch, and type I slow twitch fibers.
The photo on the right shows the aging process where we selectively lose far more fast twitch fibers and overall muscle mass decreases .
This process is known as age related sarcopenia.
What does it mean for our health and is it inevitable?
Although muscle loss from aging is inevitable, there is excellent data that it can be slowed and altered with consistent strength training. Muscle not only helps us move better, reduces pain around, achy, knees, backs, and hips, but is metabolically important. Muscle is the biggest storage site in the body for a glucose in the form of glycogen. When we have less muscle, we are less able to control our metabolism. Losing muscle has both functional and metabolic effects.
So…..
For reasons, movement and metabolic health, build and maintain your muscle throughout your life. It’s never too late to start! Strength training should be part of what you do two or three times a week. Build it, keep it, and even think about fast twitch activities such as jump squats, burpees, even sprints, to maintain type II muscle volume. Your future self will be glad you did! 💪🏻

11/02/2024

Here today expo to pick up my bib for my 20th consecutive NYC marathon. Although my times have gotten slower over the years, I am so deeply appreciative of the chance to set and complete this goal each year. It is a big part of what I’ve learned over the years about fitness motivation. Here are my takeaways:

1. Give yourself a goal every year that’s a bit outside of your comfort zone.
2. Set that goal 6 to 12 months into the future so you have to work for it.
3. Make sure you take time to smile and have fun along the way.
4. If possible, join a group, or create one, to make this a shared experience.
5. There will be times during the race (and training) that it’s amazing, there will be times that it’s awful and you want to quit, that’s all normal. It’s just like life. You’ve got a roll with it and keep moving, just like Nemo, just keep swimming.
6. Most of all, nobody gives a sh how fast you are. Just get out there and be so appreciative and grateful that you’re able to be part of this amazing experience, and enjoy the moment. 👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻

10/27/2024

It was an honor to be back in Kona to lecture at the Ironman Medical Conference on issues for endurance sport athletes and ways to keep them healthy.

Connecting with incredible colleagues from around the world, hearing their wisdom and insights, was just priceless. Being surrounded by the Ironman spirit again was intoxicatingly motivational.

Most of all, it was so deeply meaningful to see the Pease brothers, Brent and Kyle. One brother pushing the other, while raising awareness and funds for research for athletes with disabilities, represents the absolute best of the human spirit. In a world beset by negativity, this finishing photo is exactly what we need to see. When we work together, we can overcome almost every obstacle.

10/15/2024

It was an honor last week to travel to Italy and participate in the Healthy Longevity conference sponsored by and .
The goal of the conference was to discuss the ways to improve healthy longevity, how to make the most out of your years, in essence how to maximize lifespan.
The topics included nutritional, psychological, and physical domains. I lectured on the role of exercise and body composition as a means of enhancing healthy longevity including daily commitment to movement, and also an ongoing need to maintain muscle across the lifespan. This term, known as muscle span, has both orthopedic and metabolic significance. Muscle helps keep your joints moving, but also has a strong endocrinologic function with glucose homeostasis among other factors.

Also on this trip I was lucky to film a podcast (coming soon) with Technogym and emphasizing the importance of these points.

In summary, movie daily, maintain muscle, and think about the ways to keep your healthy longevity across your lifespan. More to come….!!