This is for my friends and clients who tell me things like →
I know I need to do something, such as exercise, because I’m starting to notice I don’t have much energy these days.
Plus, I don’t sleep that well and my back and neck hurt. And I’m only 40! 
I’m getting old, I guess…. WHOAH!
You’re NOT getting old!
You’re like a lot of people, you’re getting LAZY.
It’s time – to get off the couch and get moving!
Here’s what a beginner needs to do ASAP in the simplest possible terms:
First, the bullet points, then the details:
- You need to start moving and KEEP moving.
- Don’t wait until you have researched the Perfect Way to Start.
- You need to commit to start doing something NOW and be consistent.
- If you are a beginner with no experience, start slowly – like two, 30-minute brisk walks a week, for the first three months.
- To avoid injury, train in both Cardio and Strength in a stable, safe, and controlled manner.
- Think Training rather than Exercise. Training has a purpose and keeps us focused on our goal – training for the sport of life – an active, rewarding, fun life.
Exercise has been called the most powerful, effective, Longevity Drug in existence.
The fitter you are, the longer, better life you live!
The vast amount of research and data on PubMed/National Library of Medicine overwhelmingly show the efficacy of exercise on our lifespan and on our healthspan. By exercise, we mean both cardio AND weight training.
From The Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association:
“Exercise positively affects virtually every aspect of the body and brain, and its unique ability to improve physical and mental wellbeing has convinced the general public that staying physically active is one of the best ways to stay healthy and enhance longevity.” [1]
First: Cardio Training – how it contributes to a long, healthy life
Cardio/Aerobic training helps our longevity in two main ways:
- More energy: Cardio training builds our energy production capacity by increasing our oxygen uptake and absorption.
- Metabolic health: Cardio also trains our body’s metabolism to be healthier and more flexible in the ways we utilize our dietary fuel to produce energy.
The magic of Zone 2 cardio training – more energy and metabolic health
The magic of Zone 2 cardio – your 30-minute walk, swim, or bike ride – is that it trains your body to utilize dietary fats for energy, not just sugar/carbohydrates. This is called Metabolic Flexibility – a very good thing for preventing common metabolic illnesses.
How do our bodies create energy? Our bodies convert (metabolize) fats and carbohydrates to produce energy molecules, ATP (adenosine triphosphate). This conversion (metabolism) occurs only in the tiny Power Plants inside our cells, our mitochondria.
These power plants produce energy for everything we do, by converting fats and carbs into ATP in the presence of oxygen. Burning our fats for energy requires more oxygen than burning carbs, which is one of the reasons we want to improve our aerobic capacity – so we can produce this energy.
A key benefit of Zone 2 cardio is its ability to stimulate the demand for energy which in turn stimulates our body to produce more mitochondria and maintain our existing mitochondria. More power plants mean more energy production capacity.
Who doesn’t want more energy?
What is the difference between Zone 1, 2, and 5 training?
Zone 1 is a casual stroll with easy breathing and Zone 5 is a flat-out, full-on sprint where you’re gasping for air by the end.
Zone 2 is moving at a pace you can roughly determine by the Conversation Test – ie., you are able to have a conversation with full sentences but don’t really want to. Your breathing is somewhat labored. It is the perfect pace for training your body to burn fat.
Zone 2 cardio training is usually about 80% of the cardio training you will eventually do. A total beginner is suggested to start with two 30-minute walks per week for three months, slowly building up to a Zone 2 pace, a brisk walk. As you progress, you can change things up so your Zone 2 workouts can include cycling, swimming, or climbing.
Once you feel you need more challenge, Peter Attia, MD, [3] suggests you slowly increase the number of weekly walks to 3-4 30-minute walks. Once those are no longer challenging enough, make them longer – say 45 minutes each.
Once you have completed the first three months, you are ready to begin the next level of cardio training—VO2 Max training.
VO2 Max training – slowly building our body’s energy production capacity.
VO2 Max simply means the maximum amount of oxygen, O2, that our bodies can uptake and use during movement and the conversion of our food into energy. VO2 Max training is all about improving and increasing the amount of available O2 for immediate energy use.
The more O2 we can uptake, the more energy we can create. Conversely, if we have poor O2 uptake from being a couch potato for a few decades, we may not have enough energy to get up one set of stairs. Assisted living is in our future!
With VO2 Max Cardio training – we can hike into our 90s.
Without it, we may need a walker.
A general VO2 Max training consists of four sets of any activity – like stair stepping, medium-fast jogging, or cycling – done at a pace that you can sustain for around four minutes (3 to 8 minutes) so you are completely out of gas by the end of each 3-8 minute set. It is NOT easy, but the results for health and longevity are huge.
These 3-8 minute sets get repeated at least four times, with a couple of minutes of very easy recovery activity in between each set.
It may take a while to get a feel for this pace. If you feel exhausted after the first minute, you came off the starting point way too hard—slow it down in the beginning.
Cardio at a glance:
Zone 2: will eventually be 80% of your cardio workouts, not that hard, with phenomenal benefits; such as metabolic health, preventing metabolic illness, some improvement in O2 uptake, and a myriad of other things.
VO2 Max: will eventually be 20% of your cardio workouts – challenging in a good way, also with great benefits – energy to dance, garden, climb, kick-box, windsurf, shoot hoops – all in your 90s!
Plus, you just FEEL GOOD – because you’re fit and healthy!
Second: Strength Training – how it contributes to a long, healthy life
This is the second half of the longevity formula
Without strength, AKA, muscle mass, life-changing accidents can happen to people as they get older.
From Peter Attia, MD – “A ten-year observation study of roughly 4,500 subjects ages 50 and older found that those with low muscle mass [low strength] were at a 40% to 50% greater risk of mortality than controls.” [4]
From the National Council on Aging: Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among older adults. [And] More than one out of four Americans age 65+ falls each year. [5] Falling is just one of the things that can be prevented by strength training.
As I have gotten older, I have noticed again and again – when I stop training with that extra push that results in heavy breathing and sweating, my strength and aerobic fitness decline much faster than they did in my 20s.
Dr. Attia’s data and clinical studies from across the world clearly show the importance of training for anyone who wants quality of life as they age, especially beyond 60.
Why Strength Training? First, the highlights:
- First, the obvious – strength gives us the ability to be active and prevent life-changing accidents.
- Having strength can be the difference between assisted living or taking trips to Europe.
- Women who do strength training exercises… are more likely to live longer and have a lower risk of death from heart disease…. [2]
- Strength training is good for bone density, joint health, preventing falls, managing blood sugar, mood, and metabolic health… [2] and way more.
What’s the right way to begin lifting?
Once you’ve been doing your brisk, 30-minute walks for three months, you can begin doing simple weight-lifting/resistance exercises. Lifting weights is safer and more stable when you are using machines, as there’s less chance of an injury.
You can also use stretchy exercise bands or your own body weight to exercise, preferably focused on the kind of movements you make in everyday life. Things like pushups, one-legged squats, one-legged deadlifts, step-ups, lunges, dips using a chair, leg-assisted pull-ups, crunches, and more.
This type of strength training that mimics daily life, commonly called functional fitness, consists of exercises that mimic the movements we do every day—like walking, pulling (lifting up a bag of potting soil), hip-hinging (getting out of a low car seat), twisting, reaching up, and grip strength (opening a tight jar). We train so we can keep doing ALL of these types of movements.
Bodyweight exercises are much safer for the novice, with much less chance of injury.
Don’t wait for the perfect time: Start Now!
If you need help, ask around at local gyms for a good trainer who knows how to get a newbie started out safely. I always suggest finding a certified trainer who is a little bit older, with some experience working with people like you.
They will understand your goals and respect what you are able to do, and not do. Most importantly – they have learned how to prevent you from being injured.
If you have some experience and you’ve been doing some Zone 2 cardio (walking, cycling…) then perhaps take some classes at your local gym, or try some beginner CrossFit classes or Barre, to get some ideas on how you want to proceed. Try stuff, and don’t be afraid to say, no, this is not for me.
The main thing, as we said in the beginning:
- Don’t wait until you have researched the Perfect Way to Start. That moment never comes!
- You need to start moving and KEEP moving.
- You need to commit to start doing something NOW and be consistent for the long game.
- If you are a beginner with no exercise experience, you need to start slowly.
This could be the most rewarding thing you will ever do for yourself.
As we have heard before – Just DO It!
Peter D. Black, LMT, Freelance Writer
Footnotes:
- Training for Longevity: The Reverse J-Curve for Exercise
- Women who do strength training live longer. How much is enough? (The Journal of the American College of Cardiology)
- Peter Attia, MD.
- I utilize many of Peter’s insights and reports on the latest research from his podcast – https://peterattiamd.com/
- I have also drawn some data from his book, Outlive.
- Outlive: #1 New York Times Bestseller. Book of the Year on Bloomberg and The Economist.
- Outlive, page 223
- https://www.ncoa.org/article/get-the-facts-on-falls-prevention