Good morning! Did you miss me? I missed y’all. I had a great time galavanting around Savannah (new city to me) and Boston (starting to feel like a familiar friend).

Despite only getting two or three workouts in over the ~12 days, I seem to have maintained fitness exceptionally well. My first two workouts back have been improvements from where I left off.

On my travel, I was getting plenty of steps in, staying generally active, and eating pretty healthy. It just goes to show you that a week or two “off” is highly unlikely to be detrimental to your fitness. It may be the rest break you need to come back even better!

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🐇 Skip, Hop, and Jump into Spring!

Before you say, “NOPE!” and click away from this article, hear me out. Skipping, hopping, and jumping can be for almost anyone! No, they’re not going to hurt you, and no, they’re not childish or girly. Pretty much every exercise can be scaled back or up depending on fitness level and ability. So stay with me here.

• This week’s article was inspired by a similar podcast from The Huberman Lab. You can check it out here!

We know that strength, speed, and muscle mass all decline over time if we’re not training them. Power declines exponentially faster, since it’s a product of strength times speed. Thus, if we want to remain active, robust, and healthy as we age, it’s vital that we train for power.

Training both strength and speed can both help our power. There’s also another type of exercise—plyometrics—that keeps us powerful and springy. Plyometrics is a fancy word for basically any jumping, bouncy, or explosive exercise that involves leaving the ground or breaking contact with a support.

Plyometrics are not only great for maintaining power in our muscles; they are also great for tendon, bone, and joint health! Yes, that’s correct, jumping is actually so good for your ankles, knees, hips, and everything else up the chain. Of course, if you’re not used to it and push your body beyond what it’s currently capable of, that will result in pain or injury. But if you progressively overload, you can achieve much improved joint and tendon health.

As our muscles approach bone on either side, the tissue changes to tendon before attaching securely to a bone. Muscles contract and pull on taut, but elastic, tendons, which move bones and thus move our bodies. Think of your tendons like rubber bands or a thick elastic band you’d use to strap something down. 

• Imagine an old, crusty, unused rubber band that’s sat in a drawer for ten years. If you suddenly pull it out and yank on it, it’s going to deform, stretch in a weird shape, and either stay distorted when you release it or break from the pressure. This is what old, inactive tendons are like.

• A fresh, healthy rubber band will handle the stretch well and quickly snap back to its original shape. Think of healthy tendons in this way.

Bone density, which also decreases with age and inactivity, also improves from plyometrics. The quick, compressive force on bones literally stimulates more bone growth. Considering that 50%+ of falls over age 60 result in death within the next year, the importance of bone health can’t be understated.

So seeing as plyometrics are a great way to improve tendon and bone health and extend longevity, I think it’s quite paramount that we incorporate them into our lives and training!

Don’t SKIP this part (bah-dum chhh)

Skipping is a highly underrated skill. Children are always doing it. Every elite sprinter in the world is also doing it. What about everyone else in the middle? That alone should end the argument and convince you to start.

Most adults can’t sprint. We can try to run fast, but we probably can’t perform an actual sprint. Most can walk. Many can jog. Lots can run. Few can stride. Hardly any can sprint. So what’s a girl to do? SKIP! 

Skipping puts our body into positions and patterns that are so healthy for us. It gives us many of the benefits of sprinting without having to reach maximal speed and perfect form. It’s basically the opposite of a hunched-over, folded-in, legs-flexed position that many of us sit in every day. Everything is extended, bounding, and coordinating with force. 

You can take tiny, small skips across your floor. You can bound in high, powerful skips across a lawn or road. Anything in between works, depending on your ability. Many people feel fresh, opened up, revitalized, and energized after skipping. It brings life back to our tendons and freshness into our stiff joints.

• If you want a good skipping workout, one of the world’s leading experts and professional sprint coaches suggests a warm-up followed by skipping for 50 meters and walking back until you feel fresh again, then repeating for 10–15 times. That’s it!

Personally, I’m going to start incorporating skips on my daily walks. I may get a funny look or two, but who cares? I’m moving to improve. They’re judging to grudge. (Still workshopping that.)

Life’s too short to fear judgment from others when you know you’re doing something good for your body. If someone is bold enough to say something, let them know that all elite sprinters skip in their workouts, and you’re training for speed and longevity.

Jump, jump, jump around!

Other plyometrics are great to incorporate into your routine as well. Even a few sets once or twice a week for a few minutes can make a meaningful difference over time. Some examples:

• Box jumps

• Skipping rope

• Jump squats

• Burpees

• One-legged hops

• Hurdle hops

• Broad or long jumps

• Vertical jumps

• Depth jumps (advanced)

Remember, these can be scaled up and down in height, speed, intensity, etc. depending on what your body can handle.

Whether you’re jumping an inch or a yard, it’s giving your body a fresh new stimulus to improve power and joint and tendon health. Incorporate more plyometrics into your exercise routine today and reap the benefits as we spring into this new season!

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Start literally so small. Hop in place a little. Boom, you’re doing plyometrics.

Level 2: At least once a week, skip a little bit. Relearn the coordination and have fun with it! You’ll feel the difference in your body.

Level 3: Regularly incorporate different plyometric exercises into your routine once or twice per week.

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

Interested in becoming a sponsor? Know someone else who might be? I’d love to get to know you and/or your business and see how we can partner together. Reply to this email!

✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Process this: The “healthiest” processed & ultra-processed foods if you A) don’t have other options or B) just want to splurge a bit more consciously.

• Burn, baby, burn: “How we really burn calories and lose weight.” Another masterclass from Dr. Andy Galpin!

• Skip & Sprint: A reminder to check out the podcast episode that inspired this week’s newsletter.

See you next week!

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).