Pete Williams_FMA

Pete Williams_FMA I am a Functional Medicine Practitioner and Medical Scientist. With a focus on healthy ageing and cognitive health.

29/07/2026

One of the best decisions we made as a family was move my mum from a stick and walking very slowly with her head down because she was panicking about falling. And of course, my mum’s fault has fallen pretty frequently to grabbing go the stroller. The stroller has done many things that has helped her from a point of view of quality of life. She looks up rather than looking down at the floor. So now her walking becomes a little bit more community-based. She gets to see more than she did before, and she’s definitely less worried about falling. So that’s one of the key things that we’ve been able to do. Biochemically, bio mechanically, we’ve changed the way she walk, but importantly, she really pushes on with the stroller now, and why is that so important? It means that we can get her at a quicker pace, which means she goes to more places, but importantly, we get that circulation moving around. And as someone who’s 87. This is super important. So, again, don’t ever see whether it’s with your parents or someone else that a stroller is a bad decision. We actually think that we’ve helped Mum from a point of view of cardiovascular risk, from a point of view of neurological risk. She enjoys a walks a bit more, she gets out more, she gets fitter, because she feels safer with the stroller.

27/07/2026

So this is a classic 12, 9, 6 drill, and what we’re doing is replicating, obviously, the numbers on the clock, and we’ve got grandma here, and she’s going to do 12, 9, and six. She’s going to do a few repetitions on one side and then she’s going to move to the other. As you can see in the picture, she’s having to use her arms out wide to create more balance because her brain’s just not capable of doing it yet with her arms down by her side, but that’s obviously something that we all work towards. Now, of course, with all of this, the disclaimer comes in because there’s always a risk that there is an increased risk of falling. And of course, that’s why we do these exercises. We are trying to, trying to find a way that we can mitigate real life in a safe situation as possible. There’s no real repetition ranges on this, but I mean, I will try and run these with grandma, maybe once or twice a day, and we’ll probably spend 2 or 3 minutes on it. But again, it’s a really lovely drill for her from a point of view of trying to stabilise through her hips and legs, get her brain working to understand where she is in space. And of course, all of this is going to help her reduce her risk of falls.

26/07/2026

So this is the fall forward drill, and again, just 1st thing is the disclaimer. If you are going to do this drill, you’ve got to have someone who number one, is strong enough just in case your mum or your grandma does actually fall when she does this result. So again, be careful with it. again, it’s important to put the disclaimer in. But in a sense, what we’re trying to do is get grandma to get up onto her tiptoes and actually just physically fall forward because we are simply trying to replicate some degree of aspect of what would happen if she tripped up. And again, so what we’re doing there is just getting the brain and the muscles and the communication between both of them, sort of a bit of time to understand what it feels like with a little bit more acceleration. The reason why that, of course, that is so important is simply because falls are super explosive. So if you only ever train slowly, your brain is just simply not going to be ready for a fall. So in a sense, what we’re doing is doing a modified fall practice. And again, repetition ranges probably on this one I tend to do for reps, maybe we’ll do 2 sets.

24/07/2026

As you can see, I’ve got my mom down for a couple of weeks and as I’ve explained one of the main reasons I started Instagram is because actually, I want to apply a lot of this strength and conditioning aspect to my mum. Let’s keep it going at 87. there are lots and lots of nuances and good science, demonstrations and applications that you’re going to get from what I’m doing with mum. But what I need you to do, really, is just hang on towards the end of each post because as I say, there’s so much explanation in each one and I think you’re going to miss some really good stuff. So this post really is about making sure you listen to the posts to the end because there’ll be lots and lots of stuff that we talk about that I think is going to be really helpful for you.

23/07/2026

So, in a sense, this is the soleus squat. It is an exercise that predominates the soleus muscle, which is this broad strappy muscle on the back of the calf. It really has some interesting features as a muscle. It’s super strong, one of the strongest muscles in the body because it’s got to walk you around all the time. So it’s very fatigue resistant. But also, it seems to create this really sort of almost sort of pump. And that’s super important because what it’s doing is that it’s allowing your body to pump and blood flow back it up and into the body. And that’s super important as we age because our vascular system is never as good, our veins break down, and the valves in them aren’t as good as they should be. And so you’ll start to see, as you get older, many people collect fluid at the bottom of their ankles, or they start to have more significant problems as my mum does, unfortunately, at 87, there’s an arterial issue there. So with the soleus again, what we need to do is that we can hold onto anything as you do, but sit back and bend your legs forward and keep them bent whilst you lift your heels off the floor. And really the repetition rate is up to you. I like to take my mum until she feels a burning sensation in the calves and that generally happens at around about 15 repetitions. So we will do 3 to 4 sets of 15 repetitions and we will do them by daily. So not every single day. It’s a great exercise because it also helps cardiovascular system, and that’s good, not just from cardiovascular disease, but brain health as well, getting a nice bit of blood flow. And also it’s brilliant for fall reduction.

22/07/2026

So Mum is down for 2 weeks and at 87 with 2 very dodgy knees from a point of view a very much lack of mobility and very much lack of flexion at the knee. Her risk of really living to a ripe old age of 100 is down to the fact that she falls and she’s had some very significant falls over the last few years. So the beauty of having my mom down is that you really start to see in practice all of what my Instagram account is about. It is about staying as strong as possible, as you age, being able to apply speed, and importantly, power to be able to put that into an older body and still reduce your risk of falls. So, in many ways, the training we’ve done with Mum may have helped her, not from a point of reduced the risk of falls, which we probably have done, even though she has fallen, but importantly, give her mind and her brain time to know that she’s falling, and that may, of course, reduce her risk, particularly of a fracture of the neck of the femur. So the next couple of weeks, I am going to be showing you how I’m looking after mum in practice.

17/07/2026

I get a lot of questions on can you give me some more isometric exercises? This is a cracker again because it gives you a lot of work. It’s not totally isometric, but you get a load of work, particularly on some of these major muscle groups, the glutes, the quads, the hamstrings, and the back and the trunk. So really excellent exercise to do. Position wise, make sure that when you set up your back foot is not too far back, maybe about a foot to 18 inches, depending on your flexibility and mobility. And of course, this is quite a strong position with regards to whether you are comfortable in this position and range as you get a bit older. So certainly you can feel the back knee quite a bit and you want to just accommodate for that. But then once you’re in your position, you need chest up, weight backwards off the front knee and you are just pulsing nice and gently, nice and steadily, no bouncing, 10 to 12 repetitions and then swap over. And if you do this really sort of three sets, I aside, you’re going to get a very strong workout for the legs, the glutes, and the trunk.

07/07/2026

For most people, holiday is about rest and recovery. And so I completely reduce my training load, but I like to do a little bit of mobility work when I feel as though I sort of well rested. And so this is Milly demonstrating the inchworm. I love this exercise. It really gives the shoulders a great workout, the trunk a good workout, but you get this massive flexibility, particularly in the back of the legs and the hamstrings. So it really is a great exercise to do really helpful from a point of view of mobility and flexibility on the back side of your body, particularly hamstrings and calves. And it’s just a really good exercise to keep your mobile when you’re on holiday.

25/06/2026

A new study from Brazil has looked at calls muscle strength and endurance in the general population. Researchers have developed a calculator
https://achillestendontool.com/HRET
which allows you to estimate more accurately what would be expected for someone of your weight, height, s*x and activity level. Previous research has shown that 25 reps is a good target for a healthy active adult. This new study and calculator gives a more accurate guide. Why does this matter? Calf muscle strength is recognised as an important indicator of healthy ageing.
Give the test a try. Use the calculator to see what you should be achieving and let me know how many you can do.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11923623/

20/06/2026

This is a real cracker of a sequence for not only your legs, but the sort of inside of your legs, it gives you some really good internal rotation of the femurs or really good for sort of stretching you around the hips and obviously we get a slight lunge position. So pretty much working you through the whole of your hips and quads in particular. So really nice exercise. If you watch the way I do this, I’m not bobbing up and down. I’m trying to stay low on all positions, so all the way will come up a little bit in my stance. I’m not coming up much and I’m specifically trying to stay low because I want to generate that sort of consistent isometric picture. You need to feel as though you’re always in a bit of a sort of contraction pattern when you’re doing this exercise. Don’t come up and take a rest. Just keep going. Slow and smooth. And obviously as you’re turning down and turning one of your legs in, you want to kiss the floor with the knee, no hard pressure. Okay, so gentle with the knee as you hit the floor. Also, sort of considerate your upper body should be. It shouldn’t be falling over your legs. You want to trace and stay as upright as possible with that position as well. And really time frame, I’ll usually go for a minute full on with some patients anywhere between 30 seconds and a minute. But it really depends. And then we will run three or four repetitions of this or three which really probably take you about five or six minutes. It’s a cracker of a workout. So again, you’re really going to feel this. Give it as a go, let me know.

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