The strength program I give my patients

Why I think this matters

I have spent twenty years fixing broken bones and replacing worn-out joints. Here is the part that surprised me: it is almost never the arthritis that ends someone's independence. It is the fall. The broken hip. The wrist that needed a plate. The shoulder that never came all the way back.

And those falls are not bad luck. They come at the end of a slow, quiet loss that starts somewhere in your forties. Muscle goes first. Bone follows. Nothing hurts while it is happening, which is exactly why almost nobody does anything about it.

Walking does not stop it. I wish it did, and I still want you walking. But the muscle on the front of your thigh is the shock absorber for your knee. When it fades, every step puts more load on a joint that already hurts. That is why so many people tell me their knee got worse for no reason. There was a reason. It was quiet, and it took ten years.

There is a second reason I care, and it is a selfish one. The patients who sail through a knee or hip replacement are the strong ones. The ones who struggle came in weak. So the same work that might keep you out of my operating room is the work that makes the operation go well if you ever do need it. There is no wasted effort here. Either way, you win.

If you want the research behind all of that, including the study that shows running does not wreck your knees, I wrote it up here: If You Only Have Time for One, Lift.

Why it is free

Let me be straight with you, because you should know this before you click anything. The program is mine. I built it. Other people pay a hundred dollars for it, and I think that is a fair price for what is in it.

You do not pay. Not a discount — free, with nothing to hand over but an email address and a code. Three reasons:

• I would rather not operate on you. If a hundred dollars is the thing standing between you and stronger legs, that is a bad trade for both of us.
• I do not want to sell you anything in the exam room. Putting a price on my advice changes what the advice means. This way it is just advice.
• I want you to actually do it. Telling somebody to lift weights is useless. This tells you what to do on Monday, what to do on Thursday, and how to add weight without hurting yourself.

There is no card, no trial that turns into a bill, and nothing waiting to be sold to you on the other side.

What you get

• Two or three days a week, about thirty to forty minutes. That is the whole ask.
• A plan for each day: which movements, how heavy, how many.
• A gym version, a dumbbells-at-home version, and a version for no weights at all.
• A one-page sheet you can print and keep where you train.
• A harder track if you already lift and have for years.
• A short setup at the start so the plan fits you instead of somebody else.

A few honest things

• It was built for women around and after menopause. That is who the research behind it studied, and that is who the program talks to. A men's version is being written and is not finished. Men: everything in the article above applies to you, but the program itself will read like it was written for someone else, because it was.
• It is education, not medical care. Using it does not change anything in your chart, and nothing you type over there comes back to my clinic.
• Start supervised if you have osteoporosis, heart disease, or a joint that gives way. In the first month, good form matters more than heavy weight.
• If you just had surgery, your therapy plan comes first. Ask me before you add anything to it.

How to get in

1. Press the green button on this page. It fills your code in for you.
2. Type your email address.
3. Press Unlock my program.

Typing it in yourself instead? Go to unlockstrong.com/patient and use the code PATIENT.

That is it. If it will not let you in, email support@unlockstrong.com and it will get sorted out.