5 Best Exercises for Longevity - Add These To Your Workout

Any form of exercise is going to improve your longevity

However, not all exercise is equal in terms of how important it is to slow down aging and improve your quality of life

In this video, I'm going to give the top five exercises I think you should do for longevity

I'm going to cover the entire body, so it's going to be useful for everyone. Make sure you watch until the end because the fifth exercise is especially interesting

Number one is sprinting. With age, we lose both cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength

Both low cardio and muscle are risk factors for all causality and heart disease

Interestingly, sprinting is one of the best forms of exercise to counteract that

With age, you see a disproportionately greater loss of type 2 muscle fibers, also known as fast-twitch

muscle fibers. These are the fibers you use to sprint, jump, and lift something heavy

If you look at an elderly person, then their movements are very slow. They're not able to move fast anymore, and that's because of the loss of fast-twitch muscle fibers

This is also a big risk factor for falls. If you're slow, then you won't be able to catch yourself or grab a hold of something when you fall

Falling is the leading cause of accidental deaths among people over the age of 80

Most people stop sprinting or lifting something heavy after high school, which is why they also age much faster

The elderly men who do strength training have been seen to have a very similar amount of type 2 fibers as young individuals

whereas this is not the case with older people who are only doing endurance training or no exercise

Master athletes 40 to 85 years of age who continue, doing sprint training have been seen to experience an age-related decrease in their 60-meter sprint

speed, but their muscle fiber composition stays the same. Just doing cardio and low-intensive

exercise isn't enough. You need to do things fast to recruit those fast-witch muscle fibers. Now, any

form of resistance training can typically increase fast-witch muscle fibers, but the problem is that

you can also be slow with lifting weights. That's why you still need dedicated training for speed

and explosiveness Sprinting has also been seen to increase testosterone and growth hormone levels both decline with age So how should you do it Doing some form of hit intervals is effective for stimulating fast muscle fibers and increasing your cardiorespeter fitness However for maximum effectiveness for increasing your fast muscle

fibers, you need dedicated sprint training, not just trying to get tired. So instead of doing short

rest periods between your sprints, it's better for speed development to rest as long as you need to

and then run as fast as possible for a shorter distance. And that's how you'll focus on speed development

the most. At least once a week, you should do some sprint training for 60 to 100 meters

Repeat that for about 5 to 8 rounds and rest as long as you need to between the sets

Number two is pull-ups. Next, I want to introduce an upper body movement to keep things in balance

Pull-ups are probably one of the single most important upper body exercises you could do

They're so versatile and target so many muscles. Pull-ups improve your back muscles, arms, forearms, grip, while also improving shoulder mobility

and decompressing the spine. If pull-ups were your only pulling exercise, then you can pretty much cover most of the benefits you could gain from pulling exercises

Every year for my birthday, I'm going to try to do the equivalent amount of pull-ups as my age

Last year I did 29 for my 29th birthday, and this year I'm going for 30

and we'll see how long I'll be able to continue this streak. My goal is to try to do at least 10 pull-ups when I'm in my 70s and 80s

Number three is back squats. Resistance training also trains fast-switch muscle fibers

but lifting weights is more effective for bone density and muscle mass, which are also critical for longevity

The reason I chose back squats is because they're great for increasing bone density in your femur bones

Hip fractures are life-threatening for elderly people, and you want your bone density to be above normal already in your youth

because it's much harder to increase your bone density when you're old. Weight-bearing exercise is the most effective way to increase bone density

and doing deep barbell back squats targets specifically the femur bones, your spine and your knees in terms of increasing bone density

I've been lifting weights for over 12 years, and my bone density is several standard deviations above normal for my age group For example the bone density of my spine is three standard deviations above normal And that only because I been lifting weights for so long But the reason I added back squats into this list isn because of the idea of increasing your barbell back squat number and trying

to lift as much weight as possible. The reason I added it into this list is because of the mobility

aspect. Instead of trying to lift as much weight as possible, the goal with this exercise, in my opinion

should be to practice good form and go as deep as you can without feeling any discomfort. This way

you're increasing the bone density in your femur bones, your knees and your spine the most

So the goal shouldn't be to lift as much weight. The goal should be to do it as a mobility exercise

while still overloading the joints and the bones. Number four is zone two cardio cardio. I've talked a lot

about the benefits of year to max and zone two cardio before, and sprinting can certainly improve your

year to max if you do longer intervals lasting up to four minutes. However, there's also a lot of value

to doing low heart rate training, which is called zone two, instead of just doing high-intensity exercises

Zone 2 is a heart rate zone of 60 to 70% of your maximum heart rate, and it's where you burn the most amount of fat

The benefits of this for longevity are related to metabolic flexibility, increased mitochondrial biogenesis, and better fat metabolism

With age, these things all go down. And by doing some zone 2 cardio, you're improving your cardiorespeter fitness as well

You can do zone 2 in virtually any way. You can jog, you can cycle, hike, swim, play sports, etc

The key is to just stay in that 60 to 70% of your max heart rate, which is in the same

the low 100s for most people. It is important to do strength and speed work when you get older because

you lose more strength and speed as you get older, but increasing your aerobic base and increasing your

frei respiratory fitness, it's also very essential to slowing down your heart aging. Before I continue on

I briefly mention to you about one of my favorite longevity gadgets, which is the bond charge infrared sauna

blanket. It's a cheaper and more convenient way to take the sauna anywhere at any time. I've talked a lot

about the benefits of regular sauna use. I believe taking the sauna regularly is the second

best thing for your longevity after exercise In fact the sauna mimics a lot of the health benefits of exercise The sauna is also effective for excreting heavy metals and other chemicals were exposed to on a daily basis The bond charge infrared blanket is made of pure leather and it low in EMF It got a rating

of 4.9 out of 5 based on 176 reviews, which is crazy. But I'm not surprised because I'm

using the blanket almost every day and it gets the same job done as a regular sauna. Plus

it's easy to clean and you can store it under your bed. All right, back to the video

And the last exercise is Hindu push-ups. To counteract sitting and the forward position

the Hindu push-up is also effective for strengthening upper body pushing muscles. If you've done yoga, then you know the downward dog and sun-salutation exercise

The Hindu push-up is a combination of that done for reps. You start from the downward dog position and then dive into a sun-salutation to stretch and extend the back

In the downward dog position, you're also opening up the shoulders and upper neck

With age you become more hunched over because of loss of muscle and mobility

The hindu push-up is one of the best exercises for counteracting that. If you do it for several reps, you're also getting a good workout for the chest, shoulders and triceps

If you're already strong and advanced, you can make it harder by lifting up one of your legs

dropping your elbows to the ground and doing a push-up like that which is called the Tiger

push-up, or just pause at every part of the rep for a few seconds to increase the tension

Again, it doesn't matter how many reps you can do, but how well you do them. To sum it up, I included only the top five exercises best for longevity

Longevity isn't about specialization like a powerlifter or a marathon runner. You need to kind of cover all the bases of strength, mobility, endurance, flexibility and also speed

Of course, you shouldn't limit yourself to only these five exercises. You should do more exercises that introduce variety and also improve your athleticism

If you want to learn about my evidence-based workout routine, then check out this video. Other than that, thanks for watching this video

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My name is Seam, stay optimized, stay empowered