Transcript
Dr. Josh Axe (0:00)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Dr. Josh Axe show, where each and every week we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be going through the top exercises for longevity. Also, I'll be going through what the. Let me say this, you're going to be surprised when you look at what the top exercises for longevity are, because everybody probably thinks it's either weightlifting or running. Spoiler alert. It's not. These are forms of exercise that we can all easily do. Some that are actually very fun but are more effective than cardio, that are more effective than when you're looking at traditional weight training, at actually increasing your lifespan. And so I'm excited to get into this today and how you can optimize your workout routine in order to live longer and fight things like blood pressure. In fact, I'll go into something today. It's really, really incredible how there's a device you can start using to natur support your blood pressure balance. I'll also get into how you can support your mitochondrial health, boost your cellular health, and a whole lot more on today's episode. And I'm going to be doing more of a solo episode today. But in addition to bringing on a guest expert that's going to talk about a specific type of exercise that can also be very effective at helping your body heal, live longer, drop blood pressure, and a whole lot more. Before I dive in, though, make sure to subscribe to this podcast and sign up for my weekly newsletter at the L in the show. Notes. Okay, well, first thing to note is that there are plenty of medical studies now that show that engaging in specific exercises can significantly enhance longevity by improving your cardiovascular health, your muscle strength, your balance, and your overall physical resilience. And I want to go through right now, based on a recent study, the activities that increase your lifespan the most. Okay, now, I would put beekeeping on this list, but it's not really a sport. That's actually going to be number one on the list, or it would be if it was a sport, but it's not. So the number one exercise that you can do that would increase your lifespan is play tennis. It's incredible. Tennis increases your lifespan by about 9.7 years. Years. Right after tennis. You also have badminton and pickleball, which are about 6.2 years. So think about that. Racket sports of all the sports studies of all the forms of physical activity studied, tennis, badminton, pickleball, racket sports, increases your lifespan the most. Now, I want to go through several reasons for that. One being it's a good form of cardiovascular activity. So we know if you've ever played tennis, you're moving a lot and you tend to be sort of in a position where your butt is back. So your butt is engaged, your quads are engaged, your hamstring, your back. And so you're actually using a lot of muscles when you play sports like tennis and pickleball. So one, it's a full body activity. That's number one. We're using larger muscle groups. Number two, so it's both working on your musculature, it's working on cardiovascular health. It's also working on your hand eye coordination, which is incredibly important for longevity as you age. In addition, it helps with your grip strength, which I'll be talking about thinking about. You're holding onto a tennis racket or a pickleball paddle for maybe an hour that whole time. And actually grip strength I'll get into that is a really powerful predictor overall health. And even if you're holding onto something at a steady state for a long period of time, it could also support your blood pressure dropping. So we're seeing here tennis and pickleball the top. And here's another big thing about tennis and pickleball. They're community driven activities. When you're playing pickleball, almost always it's you and a partner with a couple of others, right? A lot of true. This is true with tennis as well. So it tends to be very connected to other people. You're at least doing it with one other person frequently for other people. And so it's more of a social activity along with all of the other benefits, which is what makes tennis, badminton, pickleball, incredible sports for longevity. I had somebody recently say to me, they said, well, isn't tennis just up there? Because it is, Because a lot of affluent people that are wealthy go to clubs and play tennis. And the thing I asked them back was, well, on this list I'm about to go through, why isn't golfing on the list? So golfing's not on the list. Okay. That is a sport that actually tends to have. And there are actually several other sports I could have listed here as well, but that's probably the prime example. And it's not on the list. But tennis is and pickleball and badminton. And so there's something about all those things in combination that allow it to increase your lifespan. And so it's amazing. Soccer is next on the list after racket sports, 4.7 years. It increases your lifespan by now. Here's why soccer does this is it is doing HIIT training. You're sprinting, you're jogging, you're sprinting, you're jogging, you're sprinting, you're jogging or walking. And so it's a way of increasing something called your VO2 max. So it's HIIT training, it's VO2 max training. You're increasing your oxygen capacity. You're also doing things that takes a certain level of agility, that's 4.7 years. Next up are cycling and then swimming. We know cycling very similar. You're working very large muscle groups, your quads, a little bit your butt, your calves. And so you are working large muscle groups. By the way, when you're working larger muscle groups, you're increasing more blood flow through your body. You're also increasing something called hgh, it's human growth hormone, which is tied to longevity. It's also for men, it's very important for testosterone. So cycling is good for that. And then swimming. Swimming is a full body activity. It's easy on your joints. And if you've ever seen swimmers, they've got this, their lats are very big, their shoulders are very strong. And so you are working some large muscle groups there, including your legs, your back, your shoulders. And so that's a great one there as well. And then after that it is jogging. Now I want to mention this. There's a form of jogging in Asia and they call it Japanese slow, slow jogging or they call it chi running and it's a type of running where you're taking shorter distance steps and you're also, you're not striding out, you're not pounding the pavement. If you've ever again, it's almost like if you've ever seen A, an 80 year old running who has good form. And first off, it's amazing if you have an 80 year old running, you should be paying attention because 99% of people in their 80s can't run. So if you see somebody running in their really 60s, 70s and 80s, you just say what's their form that they're able to still be running this late in life? And it tends to be, they have very short strides, they're landing more on their forefoot, they're leaning forward more. It's actually a very specific technique of running called slow slow jogging. And I don't know why I have to say slow twice. But slow, slow jogging or chi running, qi running or chi Running and that can increase your lifespan by about 3.2 years. So if you are going to go and jog, going to a track or going on a trailer, going something where you have a little more cushioning or wearing shoes like Altras or some of the other brands out there are better options. By the way, if you are going to go and run, probably the best brand of running shoes is Altra. Now, there's other good brands, but it's called a L, T, R A. The reason is it has something called zero drop when you're running. A lot of these shoes have drop which kind of force you onto your toes. And when you're jogging, that's fine. But if you're walking, it's really not ideal because it sort of deactivates your posterior chain and doesn't allow your hamstrings and your areas of your butt and back to work as much. And that's why it's a really great brand. Still some good cushioning, but also it's a more natural way of walking and running. So that's a good exercise for longevity than weight training. Added 3.1 years to most people's lives in walking between 1.5 and 3 years. So if you're going to add years to your life, play racket sports like tennis and pickleball, get out there and kick the soccer ball, get on a spin bike like a peloton, or go outside and actually jump on your bicycle, swim if you're going to jog, do this Japanese slow, slow jogging. You know, do a little bit of weight training, a little bit of walking. These are the things that are most effective. But it's interesting, sports like pickleball and tennis are number one. Now I want to go through this study on pickleball, tennis, racquetball, badminton, squash. Okay, there's a lot of racket sports. But it was a meta analysis found in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. They analyzed over 80,000 British adults and found that racket sports were associated with a 47% reduced risk of all cause mortality and a 56% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. So of heart disease, 56% reduce risk. Another study published in the Journal of sports medicine on 2.6 million individuals found very similar thing increasing life expectancy. And again we see about 6 to 10 years of increased life by playing those sports. Now, when it comes to aerobic activity, whether it be what we talked about, jogging, cycling, swimming, brisk walking, there's a study done in Jamaica and what they found was this was on people who wanted to increase their lifespan via walking. They found 10,000 steps daily lowered mortality risk. And they also found one of the greatest things you could do is boost this VO2 max, which I'll talk about more in just a minute. Now, swimming, very similar thing, decreased all cause mortality by about 30%. And for swimming, there was a study published in the International Journal of Aquatic Research. This was done in 40,000 people. They found that those who swam versus those who didn't had a. Those, I'm sorry, Those who swam versus those who were more inactive had a 50% lower risk of death. And swimming regularly extended lifespans by 3.4 to 5 years. And next up is strength training. I think some people might have thought, hey, this could be number one on the list. Now listen, I'm a huge fan of strength training. I think everybody should be doing some form form of it, whether that be doing actual weight or body weight, such as push ups and planks and squats. These are all great or banded workouts. You know, all of these things are important. They help us maintain our muscle. And here's the reality, this is important. Do not forget this. Once you hit the age of 30, on average, you lose 1% of your muscle per year. Okay. And so you know, if you're 30 and then you eventually get to 6, you've lost 30, 30% of your muscle mass. That's quite a bit. And for some people it's even more. And so you do want to do everything you can to maintain your muscle. Your muscle acts as a longevity organ. A lot of people pass away early because they can fall and fracture a hip and they become more feeble over time. You want to maintain your strength as long as you can. And weight training can increase your lifespan from anywhere from one and a half years up to a little bit over three years on average. But you do want to continue to do some form of strength training. But surprisingly it's not even in the top five on the list. You know, there's a lot of gym buffs and I want to say this. I've known a lot of people that were in the gym lifting weights every day. And for a lot of time, for many of those people, it was the only form of exercise they did. A lot of it was by themselves and many of them died of a heart attack at. I've seen a lot of them die of heart attack at 60 years old. That sort of, I mean, I've seen a lot of people who were very into weight training and it didn't really serve them in the Long run. And I think part of it is a lot of weight training. If you're just going in there and hitting dumbbells and hitting machines or jumping on cardio equipment, it's not very functional. And so I think the more that you can make your exercises functional by doing things like lunges and actually body weight squats, doing more of the bodyweight stuff I actually think is probably better for most people because you want to be doing more of those activities as you age. There's this commercial I saw on TV recently. This was a Christmas commercial. And there was this grandfather and his family like looked in, they were watching him do his workouts and he had this kettlebell and he would bend down like he was squatting. He would pick up the kettlebell and then extend it above his head and then squat down and put it back down and do it over and over again. And then later they show this scene and I think it's so good. And then later he's picking up his grandson off the ground and holding him up while he puts a star on the top of the Christmas tree. Okay, that's functional movement. That grandfather was going to be doing that at some point in time. This is like going out and chopping wood. It's doing a pull up, it's pushing yourself up off the ground. You know, doing these sort of exercises is going to be more functional to where a squat, to where when you have to get up and down off the toilet when you're in your 90s. Right. So being able to do those things and do exercises that are truly functional, part of everyday movements is better for longevity than just doing the machines or training or bench press or any of those sorts of exercises. Now listen, bench press is great if you have a tree maybe roll over on you because if it falls on you, it'll probably kill you and then you need to push it off of you, which isn't very likely versus probably picking up kettlebell off the ground. All right, Next up here, VO2 max training. This is high intensity interval training in a way. However, I do want to say HIIT training or tabata tends to be shorter burst than a VO2 Max. So when we look at longevity, HIIT training is more you're going to go and sprint for 20 seconds or 30 seconds and rest for 20 to 40 seconds, something like that. So tends to be fairly short. VO2 max training tends to be a little bit longer, maybe around at least a one minute, but in most cases closer to a two to three and a half minute exertion. Of going at probably close to 90% for that period of time. So going out and for most people running about 800 meters, something like that, and doing intervals of 8 hundreds. So let's say you go out and you run 800 meters, a semi sprint, okay. And then you would walk 400 meters. Something like that would really help with VO2 max training or soccer. Again, you're sprinting, you're walking and you're jogging and you're sort of mixing those things up. So these are really good for. And there was a study published in the prestigious JAMA Network and they found there was a very, very high relationship between VO2 max and reducing all cause mortality. So there's no doubt that VO2 max training is very good for this. And one of the best ways to do this is to do a peloton bike or a carol bike or one of these types of programs where you're going hard, you're doing hitting hills or, or a tabata or something like that to where you are doing intervals, but sometimes a little bit longer intervals. This is very, very good for VO2 max training. It was something I would suggest. Swimming is also incredible for VO2 max training. So you could do it at a track, you could do it on a spin bike, or out on your normal bike doing those intervals, or do it in the pool where maybe you're doing repeat 100 to 200 meters while taking a break in between. Now, there's a few other things that you need to consider when it comes to exercise and longevity, and that has to do with flexibility and balance in breathing. Exercises like yoga, Pilates, Tai chi and qigong enhance flexibility, balance, coordination, reducing the risk of falls and improving overall physical function. I want to point out the studies that I've quoted here when it comes to the forms of exercise that, that increase our lifespan the most. This was a western study done in the United States of America. There are probably studies out of Asia, or they'll probably be doing studies in the future to look at something similar. And I guarantee if you look at some studies done in other countries where other types of activity are more prominent, we might see some different things on the list. Let me give you an example. Japan has the longest lifespan of any country in the world. They don't do much weight training over there. Okay. You know what they do? They do a lot of Tai chi, they do a lot of qigong. These are things where you're doing and focusing on your breath, deep breathing, strengthening your diaphragm and working on flexibility, balance Coordination, similar thing with yoga. And so knowing that a lot of these forms of exercises where you're also working on flexibility and balance and breathing have tremendous benefits for longevity. And I think if we would also include those in a study like this, some of these, like a Tai chi, would probably be fairly high on the list as well. Now I want to hit on something else that really has tremendous benefits for longevity. And this might surprise you. One of the greatest single predictors of lifespan. Okay, and so this is a test, right? If. So if we're going to go and test people, because it's hard to test people on, you know, if they're a good pickleball player, right? Or just, I mean, I guess we can rank people, but there's no study on that. However, there is a study showing that your grip strength, okay, grip strength, how long can you hold on to a pull up bar? Okay, how, you know, how strong can you grip a tennis racket? But grip strength and this, even think about this opening a can when you get older, right? You know, twisting off the top, opening a can, something like that. Grip strength is one of the most reliable, if not the most reliable indicator of overall muscle health and functional fitness of any test to date. Research shows that higher grip strength is associated with increased longevity, reduced risk of chronic diseases and better cardiovascular health. A decline in grip strength is often linked to frailty, reduced mobility and higher mortality rates in an aging population. And there are normals. And I'm going to show you a chart here. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see here male versus female, what's normal in terms of the strength you should have. It's pounds per square inch of pressure. And there's actually a device I've been using recently and I've loved it because I've shared this with all of you. I'm very focused on longevity right now. I want to increase my lifespan. I want to be around with my grandkids. I want to do everything I can to support my body being healthy as long as possible. And grip strength is one of the greatest tests you can do on a regular basis to be able to see where you're at. And so I got this device here, it's called Zona. Okay. And this one thing it does is it has me working on my grip strength, but in an isometric fashion. There are additional benefits for longevity, especially for cardiovascular health, for things like blood pressure when it comes to working on your grip strength, but in an isometric fashion. And so I have this, you can see this here, this Zona device here. And I basically, I press this green button and it says, go, okay? And it has me do this for a minute, two minutes, as me work on it at a steady state for a period of time, working my way up. So it does a few things. One, it does increase your grip strength, but also something else happens. It's pretty profound and incredible for your cardiovascular system when you are holding onto this at a steady state. It does something to your circulation, it does something to your cellular health, but specifically the health of your blood vessels, of your arteries to where it's bringing oxygen to the blood. It naturally starts lowering blood pressure and over time have some benefits between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve system and that response of your vagal tone, it's called. And so anyways, this is a great thing I've been doing, kind of holding on and gripping this, and I do it daily to continue to increase my grip strength over time. So you can see here, and this is a great thing you should do. I want to encourage everybody to check out this device. I actually have a guest expert coming on here in just a minute and I'm going to ask him about this because I wanted to bring on an expert on this device in grip strength because again, I think I get questions all the time of people asking me, hey, what's a good piece of fitness equipment for my family? Or what's a good test and indicator for longevity? And there are blood tests, by the way, that look at your biological versus chronological age. The thing I love about this, though, is I get to see on a daily basis how I'm doing. And I get to improve day after day after day at work on this isometric contaction. Here's the great thing about it too. It tells me if I'm getting too. If I'm gripping too weak or too much. Because it wants to be an isometric, a steady state. And so it changes how hard I'm gripping it on a regular basis. And by the way, this is a fun thing to do at family parties too, to see how everybody's grip strength is. Okay, so this is an amazing device I want to encourage everybody to check out. It's called Zona Z O N A. Working on your isometric strength, your grip strength and what that also does for your heart health is amazing. I'm going to bring on expert here after this next point, though. I do want to talk about isometric exercises. Okay, here's what most of us are used to doing. Eccentric and concentric exercises. Okay? So if you are doing a bicep curl, right? You're doing this, you know, you're doing this eccentric contraction versus a concentric like slow in the other direction. Most people don't even do concentric, by the way. It's just like this sort of like I'm going to just eccentric everything versus if you can do some more concentric and even better isometric exercises. That's a static movement. A great example of this is doing a plank or a wall sit, right? Everybody thinks a plank is easy until you get to the 42nd mark. And that last 20 seconds is absolutely so difficult. And then if a minute's easy, well then for some of you, once you get to two minutes, it's incredibly hard. That's only if you're very physically fit. But static exercises like these planks and wall sits involve muscle muscle contractions without joint movement. This actually enhances muscle strength, muscle length in certain exercises and your endurance. And unlike dynamic exercises like running or weight training, where muscles change length, isometric exercises require holding a position, engaging muscles without visible movement. And isometric exercises have been shown to lower blood pressure, improve muscle strength and contribute to longevity. Hey, Dr. Josh Axe here. I want to share something that's been a game changer for my cardiovascular health. It's the Zona Plus. The Zona plus uses the science of isometric exercise to help improve circulation, lower blood pressure and even boost nitric oxide production, which is key for keeping your blood vessels flexible and your heart strong. It's super simple. You just do custom hand grip exercises and the Vice takes care of the rest with its smart algorithms. What's really cool is it's not just treating symptoms, it's actually helping your body work smarter to stay healthy. Whether you're tackling hypertension, muscle fatigue, or just want to level up your overall fitness, this device is a powerhouse. If you're ready to unlock your your full Cardiovascular potential, visit zona.com axe and use the code AXE100 for $100 off for a limited time only. Trust me, your heart will thank you for it. Take control of your health today with the Zona Plus. It's a total biohack for better living. Now let me walk you through the scientific evidence supporting isometric exercise for longevity, for blood pressure and a number of other health benefits. There's a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine and they found that isometric exercise training led to significant reductions in resting blood pressure. And this resulted in an average of decrease of 7.3 mmHg in systolic blood pressure. And 3.3 mmHg in diastolic blood pressure. And let me say this. Lowering your blood pressure and keeping it low is one of the single most important factors for longevity ever. Okay? It's incredibly important. And there are so many people today who their blood pressure starts creeping up and then later on it causes a heart attack or stroke. Okay? I had this happen to a family member of mine last year. He was 60 years old. It was my father in law, one of my best friends. He was living with us at the time. And incredibly physically fit. He had high blood pressure for a period of time. And we think that's. Well, we know that's why you had the heart attack. And it's something that I'm so conscious of now, and I am so focused on helping people prevent that health crisis, prevent that early death, that this is a. Again, being able to do everything you can to lower blood pressure, improve longevity is so crucial. The second thing I want to talk about with isometric exercise is muscle strength preservation. Isometric exercises have been shown to maintain and improve muscle strength, which of course is crucial for aging populations without. And it actually can decrease your risk of joint injury. You know, most of us, when we're doing exercises, we're kind of plowing through things. Again, we're doing these exercises at a fairly rapid rate versus if you either do them very, very slow, very, very slow contractions or isometric, you can actually reduce the risk of injury. Number three here I want to mention is autonomic function improvement. Research indicates that isometric hand grip exercises can lead to reductions in resting blood pressure, which also suggests improved autonomic function. Of course, we're talking about your autonomic nervous system. We want to be able to support your nervous system, your brain, your spinal cord, these peripheral nerves, and especially your vagus nerve when it comes to longevity and then cognitive benefits. A study published in Frontiers in Physiology explored the effects of isometric hand grip exercises on cognitive performance. And the findings suggested that these forms of exercise enhance neurological function. When you're just doing something consistently, like working on grip strength there for five minutes total, you are increasing blood flow throughout your body, including up to your brain. So it's great for brain and neurological health. And here are the groups of people that can most benefit from isometric exercise, including strengthening their grip. Older adults. This helps them maintain muscle mass and strength, reducing the risk of falls and improving mobility. One of the things I love, I'm going to get one of these for my dad. My dad, if he's watching TV by the way. My dad's into health and fitness. He lifts weights, he does a lot of walking, he'll ride his bike. But watching TV at night and just sitting here doing this first thing in the morning or in the evening, just working on this for five minutes, you're increasing blood flow, you're bringing blood to the brain, you're promoting longevity while you're sitting there watching a TV show. Okay, so so many benefits with things like that. Also, people with joint issues. Since these exercises don't involve joint movement, they are gentle on the joints, making them ideal for those with arthritis and chronic pain. And anyone looking to enhance muscle strength, improve posture, incorporate low impact exercises into the routine, can benefit from isometric grip strength exercises. And here are some isometric exercises in addition to this you can incorporate in your exercise. Routine number one are planks. Planks are incredible. Now when you do planks, I just want to mention this. Your form is important. You don't want your back caving in. You want your back absolutely flat. So it's best to do in a mirror, look at the side. And you really want to make sure what's called your ta, your transverse abdominis, is well engaged when you're doing a plank. And so doing things like going shh, shh, shh, or coughing to where you feel the very low part of your abs, or kind of doing the motion or activity like you're holding your pee is actually how you know you're engaging those lower pelvic floor muscles. And so doing that right before a plank and making sure those are engaged and then, and then sort of expanding out through your entire breath and 360 degrees around your core. Then do your plank. Okay. And it actually, you'll probably fail earlier, but it's a better overall activity, an isometric activity. If you're doing a plank that way. The next one here is wall sits. Doing this where you're really working your quadriceps, your hamstrings and glutes. A glute bridge going up and holding at the top and really squeezing your glutes together is a great form of isometric activity. Isometric push up hold or doing them at different points, doing them at the bottom, you know, maybe three, halfway through, three fourths, way through and all the way up. You can do it that way. And then isometric bicep hold. You could do this on a pull up bar, Just go and hold. And then after you hold for, let's call it 30 seconds, then you let yourself down slow, slowly. And maybe you can only hold for 10 seconds and let yourself down slowly. But these are great forms of isometric exercise. Here's the truth. Incorporating isometric exercise into your routine can significantly, positively impact your health span and your lifespan. And the big thing here, it really supports more than anything is your cardiovascular health. And it also helps you maintain muscle, improve autonomic nervous system function, and promote cognitive and physical resilience. Simple additions like wall sits, planks and hand grip exercise can make meaningful differences in your overall health. I also want to encourage you, go out there and jump on the pickleball bandwagon. Go out there and play tennis, get in the pool, do some cycling, do some of these longevity exercises. If you're not, get them incorporated into your daily activities to increase your lifespan. Now, before we close, I wanna bring on an expert in this topic of isometric exercise. I'm gonna be joined by Mark Young. He's the CEO of Zona Health. Again, I wanted to bring them on because I've loved this device so much. It's been so great for increasing my grip strength. And if you're a person that likes to do pull ups or certain other activities, you'll notice the difference after you do this for a while. And Mark has a really interesting product, as we talked about here, that, that again, one thing I love about it too is it's biofeedback. It's telling you how you're doing in real time. It's telling you how to adjust your grip strength there. It's helping you get better. I'm a huge fan of this and so I want to welcome Mark to the show. Hey, Mark, thanks for joining today.