One of the daily habits that experts advise for a long and healthy life is exercise. Additionally, according to Dr. Peter Attia, a physician who studies longevity, exercise has a greater impact on lifespan than other aspects of lifestyle, such as diet and sleep.
On the wellness podcast “Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris,” Attia stated, “Longevity, both through lifespan and healthspan, is impacted more through exercise than any of the other variables we have.”
However, how often you should exercise each week varies based on things like age and available time. If that’s not possible, you don’t have to exercise 14 to 16 hours a week, Attia said.
However, regardless of how much time you have, there is a specific way that people should structure their workouts to achieve optimal health, according to Attia.
Attia stated on the podcast that strength training should make up half of your weekly workouts. This indicates that if you exercise eight hours per week, you should devote four hours to strengthening and stabilizing your body.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that “increasing muscular strength, endurance, and bone density” is the goal of strength training. The CDC claims that the exercises can enhance insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism. They can also be referred to as resistance training.
Exercises for strengthening include:
Push-ups, deadlifts, lunges, planks, bodyweight squats, and burpees are the weight-lifting exercises. The other half of your time should be spent doing cardio exercises, according to Attia in the episode. He added that the remaining 20% of your cardio workouts should be high-intensity, while the remaining 80% should be low-intensity.
He explained that low-intensity is when “you can still speak, [but] you just don’t want to.” You have officially entered high-intensity mode if you can no longer speak.
Cardio, or high-impact, work out “gets you breathing harder and your heart thumping quicker,” which is extremely useful for cardiovascular wellbeing, as per the CDC.
Low-force cardio practices that you can do are:
Speed walking, biking at a moderate pace, mowing the lawn, and swimming laps in a pool are all examples of high-intensity aerobic exercises to try.
Running Jumping jacks Biking up a hill on a bike Jumping rope Attia said on the podcast that even a little exercise is better than none at all, so don’t get too caught up in how many hours you exercise each week.
He stated, “You will still give them a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality if you take a person who is doing zero exercise and you just get them to the point where they are doing three hours a week of exercise.”
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