What is it?
Let me start off with the non-controversial idea that if there is a drug out there that keeps you young, it’s exercise. The adaptations driven by exercise can change you on the cellular level and slow down certain processes of aging. In addition, when we exercise we drive up a series of biomarkers associated with long lived animal models (e.g., klotho, irisin, glpd 1). There are various objective assessments of fitness that are highly correlated with lower risk of mortality (grip strength, VO2Max, etc.). But really exercise is something that lowers (or delays) rather than eliminates the risks of certain chronic diseases of aging. But lowering and delaying is not eliminating and that proverbial bus could hit you tomorrow no matter how hard you work.
So to me the even more important outcome of exercise is its impact on active longevity, rather than longevity itself. Active longevity is the maintenance of health and activity levels as we age. It is our ability to continue to partake in the activities we enjoy. It’s Richard Branson kite surfing at 74. It’s Sylvester Stallone at 78 hitting more weights than most young people could even imagine lifting. It’s going on a walk with your great grandkids or traveling the world in your late 70s. How or when we die is largely out of our hands, but we can control how well we live.
Why do I want it?
Sure we want to live a long life, but at some point we lose more and more of what we love to the inevitable slings and arrows of old age. The longer we can put off the circumscribing of what we love, the higher the quality of our lives. That’s the pursuit of active longevity.
How do I train it?
We believe in a three pronged approach.
First, we need to address problems we have in the present day, because those problems only grow as we age. This is deeply individual. Let’s say you have high blood pressure in middle age. This will only get worse over time. What’s more alarming is that high blood pressure causes cumulative damage to the cardiovascular system. It isn’t something to solve later, it’s something to stop immediately. There are pharmacological ways to manage this, but exercise and nutrition can provide additive benefits. For someone with high blood pressure, it may not impact their daily life now, but after a first heart attack or stroke it will drastically degrade their active longevity. We want to tackle a problem like this right here, right now.
Second, we build for what we want to be when we “grow up”. Just like every other program it starts with an assessment. What do you love to do? What activities would you be most saddened by losing the capacity to do as you age? What are the necessary capabilities to do those activities? We start a training program that targets those capabilities. The goal is to make them better for as long as we can and then to maintain them for as long as we can and then to slow the rate of decline for a long as we can. By doing this we hope that you are still leading a full and meaningful life when your proverbial ticket gets punched.
Third, we train aerobic capacity. Aerobic capacity is a separate training facet, but it is literally the foundation of everything we do and it declines as we age. If you do not have a well functioning aerobic system, you will find it difficult to get out of the chair, much less do the activities you love. The good news is that this decline is at the very least something we can delay. Richard Branson and Sylvester Stallone aren’t still doing the things they love to do with the vigor of youth because they are rich and famous, they are able to do them with that vigor because they have a highly trained aerobic capacity.