These aren’t quirks: They’re the byproduct of a job spent watching what happens when people stop maintaining their bodies. The surgeons who rebuild knees, replace hips, and fuse spines for a living have, over decades of practice, developed a set of personal habits that don’t look much like the wellness advice the rest of us hear. Some are surprisingly small, some are weird, and all of them are doable.
Here’s what six orthopedic surgeons do to stay strong, mobile, and upright as they age.
They prioritize legs over almost everything else
Many people lift weights to look a certain way: toned arms, a flatter stomach, a more defined chest. Dr. Cory Calendine, an orthopedic surgeon in Brentwood, Tenn., trains for something different. “I train legs like my life depends on it,” he says. “And statistically, it does.”
The case he makes is straightforward and a little jarring. “The single biggest driver of losing your independence as you age—it’s not your heart or even your memory,” he says. “It’s your legs.” Once you can’t stand from a chair without using your hands, or catch yourself when you stumble, the cascade starts. And by the time most people notice their legs have gotten smaller, the more important loss has already happened. Power—the explosive, fast-twitch capacity that catches you mid-fall—goes first. Then strength. Mass, the thing you can see in the mirror, is the last to go. “Most of us are training for mass,” Calendine says. “But by the time you’ve lost mass, you’ve already lost the power.”