Are there any studies on how much each different exercise may increase baseline life expectancy? I imagine this would be nearly impossible to track with all the variation and combinations with these exercises . I would also love to add in swimming but that involves four different strokes at different paces.
Is there any consensus on which adds the longest LIFE expectancy or which are even correlated with longer life expectancy?
I don’t think any of them increase life expectancy per se’, but regularly meeting the exercise guidelines is part of a health-promoting lifestyle that reduces the risk and burden of disease processes that increase premature mortality.
Jordan, my understanding is that our various life expectancies are pretty much “fixed” by our genetics, but as you say, meeting certain exercise guidelines can enable us to avoid premature mortality.
In the “Where Should My Priorities Be” article on the website, you reference some standard “physical activity guidelines” for meeting these goals. These are broad guidelines for a general population. As an older adult (61) who has been doing barbell training for more than five years now, I’m wondering what your evaluation of these guidelines might be, and how might they be optimized for older individuals (given our frailties) who are training for ongoing health and not necessarily for power lifting? Which of your programs might be best for someone with this type of goals in mind?
Yea I don’t know that I agree that our life expectancies are “fixed” by our genetics, as there are a number of environmental factors that influence genetic expression. Like other issues pertaining to health, behavior, and performance, genetics are no doubt important.
I think the current guidelines are reasonable as a minimum target, which is what they were designed for. I wouldn’t really do anything to the activity guidelines per se’ for older individuals, though providing more specific examples of resistance training may reduce some of the barriers folks have to engaging in that type of activity. I don’t think the guidelines or are recommendations are set up for powerlifting, though powerlifters should be held to the same standard from an aerobic training standpoint.
I think all of our programs exceed the resistance training portion of the recommendations and fulfill a significant proportion of the cardiorespiratory training portion of the program. Only our powerlifting programs are designed for powerlifting specifically, so for a non-beginner, any of the templates would be sufficient.