500 Words a Week - Training for Longevity

The following ideas are taken from Dr Peter Attia.

Longevity is a combination of healthspan and lifespan. Lifespan is simply how long you live. Dr Attia defines healthspan as a measure of how well you live, not necessarily how long. Dr Attia breaks down healthspan into 3 aspects:

Brain – how long can you preserve cognition?

Body – how long can you maintain muscle mass, functional movement, strength, flexibility and freedom from pain?

Spirit – how robust is your social support network and your sense of purpose?

Dr Attia makes some compelling arguments stating how technology and civilization have taken a bunch of acute problems (lethal infections, starvation, trauma) and traded them for more chronic ones (lower back pain, heart attacks, type 2 diabetes).

Peter has four key areas that we should look to train to improve our longevity. What is important to note is that each as of these areas interact with the other and aid each other.

1)     Stability

Imagine a toddler running full tilt at you, this toddler has only recently learned to walk and so has no idea about how to stop themselves hurtling forwards. The toddler thinks, that’s where you come in, you’re the brakes. Can you simultaneously squat down, stop the toddler from their endless waddling and pick them up for you to hold? Can you control distal loads (away from your body) through using your larger proximal musculature (close to your body)? Have you the stability and strength to remain controlled on one leg and prevent yourself from falling over?

2)     Strength

By strength, your mind my flash to someone in the gym squatting or benching a heavy weight. However, from a longevity standpoint this couldn’t be further from the case. Have you the strength to sit up and down out of a chair un-helped for the rest of your life? Have you the strength to do everyday tasks independently for the rest of your life? Strength and stability will closely compliment each other for performing tasks throughout our everyday life.

3)     Aerobic Efficiency

Peter refers to aerobic efficiency as the maximal amount of work you can do while purely staying in an aerobic zone. I also like to think of this type of training as anti-aging for the heart. Performing moderate-prolonged exercise in around 65-75% of your maximum heart rate to ensure you ticker keeps ticking. When we exercise at high intensities, our heart doesn’t have enough time to fill and stretch to it's full capacity before having to pump blood around the body. By staying somewhere in this 65-75% range, we give our heart more time to fill to near its full capacity and range.

4)     Anaerobic Peak

What’s the maximal amount of energy you can output in a short timeframe? You are late for you bus, you see it pulling up ahead of you at the stop 20m in the distance, have you the energy to sprint to the bus?

Using these 4 areas we can quickly create an easy to follow training plan to help aid us in seeking longevity.

“You don’t have to do superhuman feats to have a great healthspan and by extension longevity. But you do have to do some very deliberate things to overcome our civilized environment.” - Dr Peter Attia