The Optimal Balance of Exercise for Health Span
It's not all about the amount: quality exercise, frequency, and objective assessments matter.
Exercise is our best tool for a longer, healthier life—more powerful than nutrition, sleep, and even those fancy meds. Studies consistently show that aerobic fitness and physical strength are key to delaying death, preventing cognitive decline, and making our golden years truly golden.
A well-rounded routine should ideally incorporate strength training and cardio every week. But what about those daily step goals? And where do high-intensity strength workouts that feel like cardio fit in? And how do you know if you are getting '“enough” exercise each week? With new research, we've got lots of new lingo and new exercise crazes. It's easy to get lost in the buzzwords and trends and loose sight of what we are working towards.
Weekly Exercise Goals: What's the Magic Number?
The two most important fitness concepts for longevity and health span are cardio and strength training. Cardio—anything that gets your heart pumping—keeps your heart and lungs happy and reduces the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer. Strength training builds lean muscle, revs up your metabolism, prevents obesity, and keeps your bones strong.
There is a range of best practices regarding exercise and optimal training, but here is where the science is very clear: engaging in both cardiovascular and strength training exercises is more protective and beneficial than focusing on one type alone. Additionally, maintaining physical activity throughout the day is more advantageous than being sedentary for extended periods and then doing a single session of exercise. To maximize the benefits of exercise and protect against age-related diseases, aim to do the following every week:
Strength Training: 150 minutes (e.g., three 50-minute sessions)
Aim to hit every large muscle group once per week for example, lower body, upper body, and core.
To gauge the intensity of your workout, keep track of how many reps you have left in the tank after a set.
Zone 2 Training: 180-200 minutes (e.g., three one-hour sessions)
Examples include jogging, rowing, cycling, swimming, and hiking.
Aim for 60-75% of your maximum heart rate. You should be breathing hard but still able to maintain a conversation.
Even one hour a week of cardio alone led to a reduction in mortality risk, with three hours yielding the most benefit.
VO2 Max Training or HIIT: 30 minutes
Examples include jumping jacks, jump rope, stair-climbing, hill repeats, or any preferred cardio exercise. Do a 4-minute sprint followed by a 4-minute rest and repeat 4 times.
Aim for 95% of max heart rate during sprints (220 minus your age = maximum heart rate).
Steps: 7,000 steps a day
Having exercise “snacks” throughout the day is better for our metabolic health than being sedentary all day and doing a one session of exercise. According to Dr. Casey Means in her book Good Energy, three 10-minute walks throughout the day is far better for overall glucose health than one 30-minute walk, and people who did 7,000 steps a day or more had the best health outcomes.
A daily step goal is a good proxy for consistent movement throughout the day, but the same benefits can be achieved with interspersed air squats, jumping jacks, or lunges.
Creating a Flexible Exercise Schedule
Your weekly plan could include three different resistance days, targeting each large muscle group, two long Zone 2 cardio days, and one combined Zone 2/HIIT day. I like Dr. Andrew Huberman's exercise guideline, which outline his workouts by day in a typical week.
However, if you’re like me and your workout schedule changes every week, it can be hard to track how much of each type of exercise you've done. To solve this, I created a progress dashboard using Notion that records my workouts and tracks how many minutes of resistance, Zone 2, and VO2 max training I have left for the week. It has been a game changer, helping me stay honest and motivated. You can download my template below.
The Why Behind Your Workout: Inputs are Not Enough
While moving your body every day and getting enough exercise is crucial, it’s more important to focus on why you’re exercising. For most of us, the goal is to be an athlete of life. What do you want to be able to do in your 60s, 70s, and 80s? Hike? Play with your grandkids? Get up from the floor without assistance?
Achieving these goals requires dedication now to build up our fitness reserve. Gradual loss of muscle mass, strength, and aerobic fitness are inevitable aspects of aging. Therefore, the best strategy is to build and maintain as much muscle mass and aerobic fitness as possible. In other words, create a “savings” of these core features to avoid dipping into the reserve as you age.
Focusing On Progress: Assess Your Fitness
It can be easy to fall into the mindset of ticking exercise off the checklist and prioritizing quantity instead of quality. But according to Dr. Peter Attia, we should focus on the outputs—like improvements in fitness levels—since they're more predictive of health outcomes and quality of life. Use assessments to benchmark your current aerobic fitness and strength, and track your progress. If you're not seeing improvements every 4-6 months, it's time to re-evaluate and adjust your exercise routine. Think like a scientist: make objective observations and decisions to boost your health span and longevity.
Aerobic Fitness:
VO2 Max: Aim to be in the elite category for your age group. If you’ve already achieved that, aim for the elite category of the age group below you. Check out this article on how to test your VO2 max and what to aim for.
Resting Heart Rate: The more we exercise, the lower our resting heart rate, as our heart becomes more efficient at pumping blood. A normal resting heart rate should be between 60-80 beats per minute.
Strength:
Push Up Test: Do as many pushups as you can for 3 minutes straight, resting as needed. The pushup challenge is a fantastic way to test your upper body strength and endurance of your core, chest, and arms. And since it doesn’t involve equipment, you can do it anywhere, anytime.
Grip Strength Test: Grip strength is linked to reduced mortality risk. It acts as a proxy for overall muscle strength and the ability to catch yourself if you fall.
Tests and Training:
Dead Hang: Hang from a pull-up bar as long as you can. Men should aim for 2 minutes and women for 90 seconds.
Farmer Carry: Carry a kettlebell or dumbbell in each hand. Males should aim to carry half their body weight in each hand for at least 1 minute, and females should aim for 75% of their weight.
By following these guidelines and focusing on both the inputs and outputs of your exercise routine, you can build a strong foundation for a healthy and active life well into your later years.