Arnold Schwarzenegger on methods to stay healthy at age 50, 60 and beyond

On film, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been tough to take down. But in real life, the actor and former governor of California has had his share of health issues that required surgery and substitute parts as he has aged. Through all of it, he continues to work out — a each day regimen that features a bicycle for an hour, and 45 minutes with weights — and Schwarzenegger says that movement is the important thing to remaining healthy in our 50s, 60s and beyond.

“Do something,” Schwarzenegger said on the CNBC CEO Council Summit on Monday evening in Arizona. “It doesn’t matter to me should you play tennis, should you go skiing, should you play soccer, or should you lift weights … but do something.”

That seems easy, but he says it is a large issue in a world where a whole lot of thousands and thousands of individuals suffer from arthritic conditions which will require surgery, physical therapy, or body part substitute, or some combination involving all three. And too many individuals, in response to Schwarzenegger, are afraid of taking the steps needed, including replacing body parts, as they age regardless that the medical science has come a good distance.

The choice to getting past the fear of technology is one which Schwarzenegger put in Terminator-like terms: “In case you stop movement, then this is step one to death,” he said. “In case you rest, you rust,” is one other statement he has been fond of creating since he took up the role of Chief Movement Officer at medical device company Zimmer Biomet last yr.

In line with Zimmer CEO Ivan Tornos, who appeared alongside Schwarzenegger on the CNBC event for CEOs, there are 600 million people world wide living in pain, and that was a primary reason he sought out Schwarzenegger for the role in creating more awareness in regards to the advances in medical devices. Zimmer, which was founded in 1927, is now moving into areas far beyond “plastic and metal,” Tornos said, with health monitoring tech through firms including Apple and Microsoft, AI, mixed reality and robotics solutions, and 50 products launching over the following 36 months, he said.

In line with the Zimmer CEO, day-after-day within the U.S. there are between 10,000 and 12,000 people turning 65, and Tornos told CNBC last November that lots of these persons are “waiting on the sidelines to get treatment,” or are afraid to get treatment. Of the 600 million people on the planet with arthritis, Tornos has estimated that only 5% are doing something about it. Joint substitute survivorship was eight to 10 years on average three many years ago, and is now 25 to 30 years, or higher, he said.

Getting Zimmer’s board to endorse the manager role for Schwarzenegger because the messenger on how much the medical science has modified, from surgery to therapy and body part substitute, wasn’t easy at first. Tornos recalled that he told the board, “I need to get The Terminator to be the spokesman of the corporate, they usually desired to send me to get drug screening. Some went so far as to say it could never occur, he won’t ever take heed to you.”

However the message resonated with Schwarzenegger, who sees the medical science available to humans as we age as a part of his broader “movement” philosophy.

“My business is to make people move,” he said. “Everywhere in the world, to go and to pump them up and to say you possibly can exercise, train day-after-day.”

Even individuals who learn about body part substitute technology are afraid, he said.

“I see it firsthand within the gym,” Schwarzenegger said. “People come as much as me and say, ‘I am unable to do that lift anymore, my shoulder hurts and my surgeon doesn’t need to operate anymore, now desires to do shoulder substitute, but I’m afraid of it.’ I hear all these stories,” he said. “We now have to persuade people it is feasible to do that,” he said. “I had my hip replaced. I had valves replaced in my heart. … All these people complaining about problems in knees, hips and shoulders, they stop moving,” he added.

Tornos said there are actually thousands and thousands of individuals engaging day-after-day within the campaign that Schwarzenegger leads for Zimmer — called “You may be back” — an idea he said was Arnold’s. “I desired to call it ‘Terminate your pain today,’ and he said, ‘That is a silly idea. It isn’t about you. It’s about them,'” Tornos recalled.

The previous governor, who stays lively in various efforts including environmental policy and recently authored the book, “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life,” also linked his message on motion over living in pain to the present political moment.

“I do not have patience when people come to me with excuses,” Schwarzenegger said. “I feel that the environment all the time changes. The important thing thing is to know that for each attack, there is a defense. And so as an alternative of whining, I feel you’ve gotten got to go and move forward. … I don’t desire to listen to the excuse where now that Trump is in office, we cannot move forward with the environment. … It’s garbage. It’s an inexpensive excuse.”

Misunderstandings about keeping our bodies healthy as we age and body part substitute, specifically, are one other kind of fallacy he desires to fix. “It is incredibly essential to not stop moving whenever you’re 50 to 60 simply because of joint problems,” he said.

Schwarzenegger stressed that surgery should never be the primary alternative if therapy could be effective, and body part substitute might not be needed. However the message too often missed is that the technology does exist today that permits people to “walk out” of hip surgery, he said. “Once I did it, I had to remain within the hospital for days and had months of therapy,” he said. “I need to let people know and provides them the courage to get those things fixed and proceed moving.”

“Don’t let anything get in the way in which,” he said. “Exercise, exercise, exercise.”