You Want to Live Longer? Focus on These Five Things
Training for the field of play can definitely yield positive results in your play. But, did you know that the adaptations necessary for sport are also the adaptations that can lead to longevity?
In this article, we’re going to talk about the 5 biggest indicators of longevity. Now, these indicators have been shown to be more important than even a family history of heart disease and cancer. What are the most important indicators for long-term health?
Leg Strength
VO2 Max
Muscle Mass
Foot Speed/Agility
Grip Strength
While there are a lot of standards in fitness, these five seem to be the most important when it comes to long-term health in human beings. Oddly enough, these are also some of the biggest standards when it comes to success in athletics. The only one missing from this list when it comes to athletics would probably be the vertical jump, and in all honesty, if the above five are in place then your vertical jump will more than likely be solid as well.
So, why are the above adaptations so important? We’re going to go over each one individually today.
Leg Strength
Leg strength is important for many reasons when it comes to longevity. The first and most important is being able to perform activities of daily living, or ADLs. Weak legs mean a weak existence. We’re humans, we walk everywhere (for now), and losing the ability to walk or stand up and down with ease will start the clock toward your inevitable death.
I had a professor in college who spent a good amount of time in the cardiac rehab setting and she told us a story about her clinic, and I’m going to share that with you here:
Cardiac issues are plenty in modern-day America. Now some of this is due to inactivity, some of it due to the foods we shove down our gullets, and most of this is a byproduct of the above two.
In her clinic, they saw people every single day who had cardiac issues. Mostly elderly, however, it seemed that the average age was getting younger and younger as time went on. When their patients would walk around or just stand up to move around, their heart rates and blood pressure would spike and seem to stay high for a good while. Many of these patients had already had heart attacks or were well on their way to having one so the stakes were high.
For the most part, all of these patients were treated with low-level cardio exercise in an effort to strengthen their hearts. The hand ergometer was a popular modality for many of these patients because just getting on a bike was really difficult for a lot of them.
What they found was that on the hand ergometer, their heart rates wouldn’t spike quite as high which made them think maybe it wasn’t necessarily a cardiac issue the patient was suffering from.
What they found was that these patients were so weak (or just so overweight that they were weak in comparison to their body weights) that just standing up was a maximum effort type movement for a lot of them. This meant that just the act of standing up forced them to exert so much force, that their heart rates would spike in an effort to deliver enough oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles to allow them to recover from just standing up.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been under an incredibly heavy barbell and squatted, but it takes a TON out of you. We’re talking one rep max efforts here. It can take minutes to recover from an effort like this and you’ll notice your heart rate goes up after you finish the rep. With these patients, every time they stood up to move around this happened. They didn’t have blockages and cardiac issues, they had a strength issue.
The stronger you get, the more sub-max everyday activities become. You can think of it this way, if you can squat 300 lbs, then squatting 135 lbs feels pretty easy. But if you can only squat 150 lbs, then 135 lbs feels fairly intense.
What they did with these patients was put them on leg-strengthening programs and the “cardiac” issues seemed to disappear. When they got stronger, it put less stress on their hearts.
The above scenario isn’t true for everyone, but I can guarantee you that if you increase your leg strength, you’ll be able to move around a lot longer. Doctors will tell you that once someone doesn’t move around as much, you can start their inevitable death clock. Getting stronger can save your life.
Now, this doesn’t mean that at 50-60 years old you need to squat the house, but it does mean that keeping up with your leg strength will ensure you’re around to watch your grandchildren grow up. Strong legs can and will take a ton of stress off of your heart.
VO2 Max
Your VO2 max is a measurement of how efficient your heart is. Have you ever seen the old Gatorade commercials where they would have the athletes running on a treadmill wearing a mask? Or maybe 50 Cent’s “In da Club” music video? These are tests we run on athletes to gauge their VO2 max, or how efficient their hearts are. A more efficient heart means this particular athlete is going to be able to last longer on the field and recover between shifts/plays/games faster.
In the above scenario, I spoke about leg strength and its importance for longevity in the cardiac rehab setting. But what about the people who didn’t lack leg strength? They had weak hearts and needed to increase their heart’s efficiency.
While leg strength can’t be overemphasized, a strong heart is just as efficient. When your heart isn’t efficient, it takes much more work to get oxygen to the working muscles causing your heart to work overtime.
Have you ever gone for a run after not going for a run in a long time? How did you feel afterward? Probably crushed! Imagine feeling like this every time you just needed to walk to the bathroom or the kitchen. Having an inefficient heart can be detrimental to every aspect of your life and can cause you to dread moving, which will make the situation even worse over time.
Muscle Mass
Muscles are important for many reasons. For one, having larger more defined muscles looks better. But they also have function believe it or not.
A larger muscle is more efficient and tends to be stronger for most people. There’s also another often overlooked purpose of muscle and that’s immune function believe it or not. I’ll explain why here.
All of our immunoglobulins that help us fight off viruses and diseases are made up of amino acids. If you’ve ever read that whey protein can help with immune function, this is the reason why it helps. If you have more amino acids flowing through your bloodstream, then your body has plenty to both help repair protein structures in your muscles (and skin, organs, etc), and create a robust immune system.
Why would having more muscle mass help with our immune system though? Our body is incredibly efficient at storing macronutrients that we take in, but don’t use. Sugar gets stored as both glycogen and fat. Fat gets stored as fat, duh. And proteins get stored as muscle. This is a defense mechanism against death when nutrition is scarce. Now some might say we’ve evolved past the need for this with food as abundant as it is today, but our bodies still perform this task. These mechanisms are why we have so many overweight people today.
Protein structures in the muscle are important for two reasons. First off, they allow us to become stronger as we build more muscle and secondly, they store amino acids for us. This means that in time of protein deficiency, your body can still pull amino acids from your existing muscle to create a robust immune response. Amino acids also make up some hormones like growth hormone, which is vitally important even as we age.
Studies show that your body will even pull proteins from your muscle mass (our storage of amino acids) to create sugars through a process called gluconeogenesis, or the creation of glucose. This means during times of malnutrition, your body can still function in a manner that will allow you to fight off disease, and have energy to move.
Our muscles are our body’s storage facility for amino acids, just like our fat cells are storage facilities for triglycerides, and our liver (and muscles believe it or not) stores glucose in the form of glycogen. More muscle means a longer active immune system when food is scarce, or during times when the person doesn’t want to eat in a situation like chemo treatments.
More muscle means more longevity.
Agility
Now this one seems kind of weird if you’re not aware of what agility actually is. Typically, agility is the ability to accelerate, decelerate, and re-accelerate your center of mass (hips and torso). This involves a good deal of what is often considered foot speed as well as strength.
When it comes to agility in the aging population, we’re talking about being able to move your feet fast and control or decelerate your center of mass. The reason this becomes important is falls that break bones. Having the ability to move your feet quickly and decelerate yourself can ensure you don’t end up with a broken hip from a trip/slip and fall.
When you fall and you’re young, typically it’s just a little bit embarrassing. However, when you’re older it can be downright dangerous. A fall can lead to broken bones, and these broken bones can lead to inactivity. Earlier I talked about how you can start the clock once someone stops moving, and it’s true whatever the reason for this inactivity is.
The ability to control your center of mass and decelerate it when need be is paramount to avoid these fractures that can sideline you from life. When you’re young a broken bone can mean a missed season, or bare minimum an irritating few months. However when you’re 60 years of age plus, it can mean the inability to move, which will start a cascade of events that can eventually lead to a worse quality of life and even a shortened lifespan.
Maintaining agility, or foot speed, is an incredibly important aspect of healthy aging.
Grip Strength
Grip strength is last on this list but by no means the least important. Grip strength isn’t necessarily the most important factor, but it’s a little bit different than the others. I’ll explain.
Grip strength is merely an indicator of the other things we’ve touched on, and not necessarily something that will increase your longevity. What I mean by this is that if the rest of this list is good, then more than likely grip strength is solid as well.
Having good grip strength and poor leg strength won’t mean much for your longevity, but if you have solid leg strength chances are you also have good grip strength. Whereas the rest of this list will have benefits for your life and training them can mean a longer life, the same can’t really be said for grip strength. Increasing leg strength will have a positive impact on your muscle mass, a positive impact on your foot speed, and a positive impact on your VO2 max. They all work in conjunction with each other.
But, increasing your grip strength is unlikely to increase the rest of these adaptations. Grip strength is merely an indicator of longevity and not something that training will have a huge impact on your lifespan. That being said, you should absolutely look to increase your grip strength! I just wouldn’t put a ton of stock in training your grip while letting the rest of the list go. Grip strength should come last here.
How Do I Increase These Indicators?
If you’ve let yourself go and have found a new love for life and want to live as long as possible then you’re in luck! All of these indicators are trainable adaptations no matter how old you are. Below we’ll go over the best ways to increase these adaptations
More Leg Strength
This one’s pretty easy. You don’t have to squat the house or deadlift a billion pounds. You just need to be able to ambulate with ease. This can be accomplished the following ways:
Squats
Bodyweight, goblet, barbell
Lunges
Bodyweight, dumbbell, barbell
Jogging
Easy enough to go for a jog for a mile or so. It doesn’t have to be crazy long but the impact of running will have a positive impact on your leg strength
Walking
This is the most overlooked cardio modality. Walking can literally save your life if you stick to it.
Hinge Variations
Deadlifts, RDLs, bodyweight variations
Open Kinetic Chain Exercises
Knee extensions, hip bridges, leg curls, etc. Anything where you’re using your legs but not on your feet.
You don’t have to do a billion lunges or squat 300 lbs to increase your leg strength high enough to live longer. You just need to consistently make yourself uncomfortable in your training, and be consistent with it!
Increased VO2 Max
Believe it or not, the same things that will help you gain leg strength can/will also help in your quest for a higher VO2 max. You can also do the following:
Running/Jogging
Walking
Swimming
Biking
Higher volume/lower intensity weight training
Sled pushing/pulling
Your VO2 max is a measurement of how efficient your heart works at pumping blood through your body. To increase your VO2 max you need to elevate your heartrate for extended periods of time. We’re not talking marathons or running cross country distances, but you need to get your heartrate up for about 30 minutes or so. You can accomplish this with jogging, running, swimming, biking, and even higher volume weight training. Think sets of 15-25 rep, “supersets” within your moderate volume training, or HIIT training. These will all help elevate and keep your heart rate elevated for extended periods of time.
Increased Muscle Mass
Increased muscle mass is probably the most difficult task on this list. It takes time, and a lot of it. weight training with a progressive overload over time is the only real way to accomplish this. That being said if you’re starting out at the bottom of this ladder then running, jogging, walking and body weight movements will do the trick. Over time you’ll need to increase the loads if you want to continue building muscle.
There are two different types of muscle growth and for longevity we want what’s called myofibrilar hypertrophy. If you need more information on this, I did a podcast episode on Strength Coach Rants on this exact topic!
Better Agility
I’m actually not a huge fan of the typical “agility” exercises for athletes, however when it comes to the general population agility ladders can be incredibly useful for this. Various exercises in the agility ladder coupled with enough strength training can ensure you don’t end up with a trip and fall that puts you on the sidelines of life.
Core training can also be really huge for this as well. Being able to control your torso, while being able to decelerate yourself, and have quick feet will keep you from those dreaded falls as you age.
Grip Strength
Earlier in this article I mentioned that this one is more of an indicator than something we should train to gain/maintain. That being said grip strength increases can be accomplished with weight training. You don’t even need to do grip exercises, just make sure we do some bottom loaded dumbbell work for the lower extremity, and enough pulling with the upper extremity and your grip will be more than ok.
If you’re doing enough of those things listed above then chances are you’ve got more muscle mass, better leg strength, more agility, and a better VO2 max. Like I said grip strength shouldn’t be the focus, it should just be a byproduct of having the rest of your house in order.
Wrapping It All Up
We only get one life here on Earth, so you should do everything you can to make the most of it! These five indicators have been shown to correlate with longevity moreso than even family histories of heart disease (cholesterol, blood pressure, etc) and cancer.
Living longer is a goal we should all aspire to, and if you want to be around to meet your grandkids or leave a good legacy, then you should make sure your physical house is in order. Training like an athlete leads to a longer, healthier, happier life!
