According to Jeff Cavaliere, these five exercises could help you live longer:
- Dead Arm Hang
- Peripheral Heart Action Training (PHAT)
- Hip Shifts
- Med Ball Slams and Box Jumps
- Zone 5 Cardio
Jeff Cavaliere is a certified strength and conditioning coach and physical therapist with experience in counseling elite athletes such as all-star players from the New York Mets. He is also the creator of the most popular fitness and health channel on YouTube, ATHLEAN-X. In a recent video, he described “5 health and longevity hacks” that he says everyone should do regardless of age.
Maximizing Grip Strength
Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. has said that “grip strength is a very good predictor of cognitive ability in later age.” Furthermore, grip strength is a predictor of longevity — increasing one’s lifespan — as a stronger grip is associated with reduced mortality. Cavaliere adds that grip strength is an indicator of overall readiness and recovery. He paraphrases Peter Attia, saying your fall risk increases as you get older, so the ability to grab onto something to prevent your fall becomes that much more important.
To maximize grip strength, Cavaliere recommends a dead arm hang, which he mentions has the added benefit of spinal decompression and improving shoulder mobility. To perform this simple exercise, hang from a secure bar with palms facing away from your body and place your hands shoulder-width apart. Cavaliere recommends doing this for at least 1 minute and upwards of 2 minutes or longer each morning.
Minimizing Heart Rate Recovery Time
Heart rate (HR) recovery — time taken to get back to your resting HR from your maximum HR — can determine overall fitness and be used to detect the presence of cardiovascular disease, Cavaliere says. HR recovery can be trained via peripheral heart action training (PHAT), which involves performing exercises, often alternating between the upper and lower body, with no rest in between to promote consistent whole-body blood flow.
To perform PHAT, Cavaliere says to first measure your resting HR, then perform each exercise for 30 seconds. He gives a sample routine consisting of dumbbell exercises (using a weight that is manageable for 15 reps):
- Dumbbell Push Presses
- Dumbbell Jump Squats
- Dumbbell Curls (1 dumbbell)
- Dumbbell Swing (1 dumbbell)
- Dumbbell Clean
- Sit-up Elbow Thrust (no dumbbell)
After performing these exercises, see how long it takes for your HR to return within 10% of your resting HR. So, if you started at 100 beats per minute, wait until your HR reaches about 110 beats per minute or less before starting the process again. Cavalier recommends performing 5 to 6 rounds of this circuit.
Honing Balance
Author of the book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity Peter Attia, M.D. says that “if you’re 65 or older — you fall and break your hip, there’s a 30 to 40% chance you’re dead in a year.” Cavaliere goes on to say that our balance declines with age which leads to increased fall risk. For this reason, balance training is critical for reducing the chances of falling, especially in the later stages of life.
One way to start improving balance is by performing something called a hip shift. To perform a hip shift, stand on one leg, put your hands on your waist to make sure your hips are aligned, and raise the other leg to the side while leaning your upper body in the opposite direction. Repeat this on the other leg. The goal is to perform this exercise for 30 to 60 seconds without wobbling or falling. To make things more difficult, try doing it with your eyes closed.
Maintaining Power
“Any discussion of aging must begin with some understanding of what’s happening to muscle as it ages. And one thing that’s happening is the type 2 (or fast twitch) fibers are atrophying. This is a significant problem because it’s those type 2 fibers that are responsible for power.” — Peter Attia
Cavaliere emphasizes that the reduction in type 2 fiber size is a more significant consequence of aging than the loss of strength. This reduction in type 2 fiber size manifests in a decrease in power output, which includes both strength and speed. Therefore, Cavaliere recommends exercises that focus on accelerating the movement of weights and removing the eccentric — muscle lengthening — movement.
For the upper body, he gives the example of med ball slams, which are performed by raising a medicine ball over your head and slamming it to the ground. Furthermore, rotational med ball wall slams are performed by holding the ball to your side and slamming it into a wall. For the lower body, box jumps can be performed by jumping onto a box.
Training for Cardiorespiratory Fitness
Cavaliere shows a clip of Peter Attia on the Joe Rogan podcast explaining how smoking or diabetes will increase your risk of death by 2- or 3-fold, while having an elite level of cardiorespiratory fitness will reduce your risk of death by 5-fold. This means that improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, which is usually measured by VO2 max — the amount of oxygen consumed during maximal exercise — is likely to increase your lifespan.
With that being said, while training VO2 max can be uncomfortable, it’s a must when it comes to longevity. Training VO2 max entails doing zone 5 cardio, which is training at 90 to 100% of your max HR. Cavaliere recommends a 3, 2, 1 protocol each week, which involves alternating between zone 2 (60-70% of your max HR) and zone 5 cardio:
- 3 minutes of zone 2 (e.g. slow jogging)
- 45 seconds of zone 5 (e.g. sprinting as hard as possible)
- 2 minutes of zone 2
- 30 seconds of zone 5
- 1 minute of zone 2
- 15 seconds of zone 5
- Repeat 4 to 5 times
The Lifespan Gamble
It should be pointed out that there are no studies showing that any intervention increases the lifespan of humans. So far, measures like grip strength and VO2 max have only been shown to increase the probability of a longer life by reducing the probability of death within a given time. For example, in a study of middle-aged and older adults, muscle weakness, as measured by grip strength, was shown to increase the probability of death by 1.5-fold within 10 years.
Studies like these use statistical methods to account for other factors that may influence the probability of mortality, including age, gender, smoking status, alcohol consumption, and history of disease. However, even after accounting for these confounding variables, a cause-and-effect relationship cannot be inferred. It follows that these types of studies can only show a correlation between a given measure (e.g. grip strength) and mortality rates.
Just Move
While the exercises outlined by Jeff Cavaliere are good suggestions by an experienced physical therapist and strength and conditioning coach, these are not your only options. When it comes to longevity, getting some exercise is better than none. For example, one study showed that just 3 bursts of exercise (lasting 1 to 2 minutes each) can reduce the risk of all-cause death by at least 38%. Still, to maximize the beneficial effects of exercise on longevity, one should partake in both resistance and cardiovascular training on a regular basis.
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