When the goal is longevity, how should you structure a training program?
Many performance training models and fitness programs are designed to help you meet an outcome-based goal in a specific time period, such as being able to run a marathon in eight months or losing 15 pounds for a vacation or a wedding six months away.
It’s an intelligent approach to fitness, but it overlooks one very important topic that many health-minded people have considered: What should your training program look like if you want to live as long as possible and optimize your health while doing so?
That’s where the high-performance living model, shown below, comes into play.
Long before you work on your fitness, you first need to consider three categories that are vital to staying healthy and happy throughout a 100-plus-year life: nutrition, social health (think: relationships), and sleep/mental health, which make up the walls of the high-performance living pyramid. Each day, you will be forced to cater to these three areas of your life, whether you choose to optimize them or not.
Once these three components of health are addressed, you can focus on the five fitness elements that live inside the pyramid and can help improve your longevity.
HPL Foundation: Aerobic Training
The base of the high-performance living pyramid is made up of aerobic training modalities, or types of exercise that require oxygen as a fuel source and burn high levels of fat. Examples include fast walking, very light jogging, easy biking, easy elliptical work, or easy stair climbing. This type of training is foundational to training the metabolism to burn fat and helping the body to clear out blood lactate (a metabolic byproduct of exercise that can stress the body as it builds up). If you want to enjoy the labor of harder training efforts, like HIIT circuits, resistance training, or anaerobic efforts, it’s very important that the body has a strong mechanism to recover from those workouts. Additionally, aerobic training is the lowest-risk, highest-reward category for heart health; for the heart to pump efficiently over a lifetime, then aerobic exercise in any form needs to be a daily consideration for a training program.
HPL Foundation: Resistance Training
Also on the base of the pyramid is resistance training. Research has indicated that grip strength is an indispensable biomarker in humans. Specifically, those with stronger grips have been found to have reduced rates of all-cause mortality, according to research published in Clinical Interventions in Aging. It’s not that training grip strength independently is a fail-proof method to achieve a long lifespan, but it’s more likely a great indicator of a life well-lived. People who prioritize resistance training — or even daily movement that requires lifting, grabbing, and some levels of strength — have stronger grips as a byproduct. Due to this factor, it’s important that individuals wishing to optimize their lifespan and their healthspan incorporate resistance training at least twice into their weekly plan.
HPL Foundation: Regeneration
High levels of weekly activity will require some type of body maintenance (recovery) to maintain quality of movement, prevent pain, or any other orthopedic issue that could arise from consistent physical activity. That’s why you’ll find regeneration making up the middle tier of the pyramid. Certain individuals may need to prioritize stretching and self-myofascial release/pliability, while others may need to prioritize more stability training to mitigate any symptoms of hypermobility. The point here is that physical activity will increase the demand for body maintenance, and you should all take the time to learn what types of maintenance help you stay healthy and avoid orthopedic issues as the decades go by.
HPL Foundation: Anaerobic Training, Speed, and Power
After regeneration, anaerobic training should be your next highest priority. Research has shown that throughout a lifetime, your body will conserve its slow-twitch muscle fibers (the type that is less easily fatigued and contract slowly and with low force) in order to maintain heart health and metabolic efficiency. Additionally, fast-twitch muscle fibers, which are responsible for lifting, strength, pushing, pulling, and stepping, slowly atrophy, research shows. To maintain these muscle fibers — and thus preserve your quality of life and ability to be strong, move fast, and explore the world into your twilight years — it’s important to follow a safe approach to anaerobic training. Try fast running or sprinting, boxing, plyometric work, or any other speed modality, as long as it makes sense for your body. You can clear these types of activity with your doctor and consult a personal trainer if you are unsure.
HPL Foundation: Niche Methods for Optimization
Rounding out the top of the pyramid are niche science and lifestyle methods that have been shown to have positive outcomes on lifespan and healthspan, such as time-restricted eating, sauna use, and cold plunging. Research is still exploring which of these areas provides the largest return on investment, but, nonetheless, science suggests paving a path forward to incorporate these methods into your routine in useful ways for a longer life.
Michael Crandall is a Tier X Coach at E by Equinox Hudson Yards. He has a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Physiology and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA. Read more from Michael at Crandall Performance.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6778477/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3395188/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36268622/