Exercise Can Help You Live Longer! What The Science Says About How To Exercise For A Long Life.
What would you do with 7 extra healthy and active years of life? Spend them with your family and friends? Learn more? Travel? Focus on your hobbies? Earn more professional success?
More time means more possibilities. Time is a resource you can use to do the things you need to do and the things you love to do.
Exercise can give you more of that valuable resource.
Many studies have looked at the link between physical activity and the risk of dying too young. The evidence is very strong that being active can help you live longer.
Overall, people who get enough activity have about a 33% lower risk of death (from any cause) than people who aren’t physically active.
One 2018 study found that your level of cardio fitness is a bigger factor in preventing premature death than smoking or being diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol.
In that study, the fittest people were 400% less likely to dieearly than the least fit people!
It’s not just cardio exercise that can help you live longer. Strength training can also protect your long-term health.
A 2019 study found that doing resistance training one, two, or three times a week was associated with a 40-70% decreased risk of cardiovascular events (like heart attacks or strokes), and a similar decreased risk of death from cardiovascular disease and death from any cause.
Overall, regular activity was associated with an increased life expectancy of up to 7 years. Those extra years tend to be healthy and productive ones, since being physically active helps stave off the frailty and cognitive decline that usually comes with aging.
This is a big deal. It suggests that one of the best things you can do for your long-term health is to be active and improve your fitness.
How Does Exercise Help You Live Longer?
Exercise makes every system in your body work better.
Your cardiovascular system pumps blood around your body more effectively. Blood brings oxygen and nutrients with it and takes away waste products.
Your digestive system and metabolism get better at breaking down food and using the nutrients in that food. Other organs and tissues work better.
Your immune system gets more effective and efficient. Your brain works better and your mental health improves. You sleep better. The list goes on…
Exercise reduces the risk of dozens of chronic diseases, many of which could be life threatening.
Those include heart disease, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancers, chronic kidney disease, COPD, and more. Obviously if you don’t get a chronic disease, you have a better chance of living longer.
Exercise fights aging.
Studies have found that exercise changes cells at the gene level, slowing down the cellular damage that comes with aging.
Exercise builds muscle and bone density, both of which decrease as you age.
The more muscle and bone mass you can hang on to, the better you’re able to continue living your life fully. You can maintain your daily activities and lower your risk of falls or fractures, which can be devastating as you age.
How To Exercise For A Longer Life
While science hasn’t identified the “best” exercise for increasing lifespan, research can point us in the right direction.
Aim for a 150 minute-per-week “dose” of exercise.
The guideline for getting the health benefits of exercise is to do about 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity cardio. Moderate intensity cardio means your heart rate and breathing are increased a little. Brisk walking or slow cardio falls into the moderate intensity category.
If you prefer higher intensity, you can get the same benefits from about 75 minutes per week of vigorous intensity cardio, like fast running, cycling, rowing, or other types of cardio. Vigorous intensity means your heart rate and breathing are increased a lot.
If you reach those guidelines, you’ll get about 75% of the full benefit for longevity.
Do more and you'll get even more benefits. Most studies show that the benefits keep increasing if you do more exercise.
Split it up however you want.
I usually recommend that people split up their sessions so they’re exercising most days of the week,. You can even do short sessions throughout the day.
If frequent sessions work for you, you could split up your weekly 150 minutes of cardio into 30 minute sessions, five days a week, or three 10-minute sessions each day. Also include strength training on three or four of those days.
There are many benefits to frequent exercise. It makes it easier to stick with an exercise program, improving fitness and building strength and muscle more efficiently.
However, if you really struggle to fit in exercise during the week and instead want to do all your exercise on the weekend, that’s almost as effective for increasing your lifespan as doing more frequent sessions.
It’s been found that “weekend warriors” who meet the physical activity guidelines in one or two sessions a week get similar longevity benefits as people who are more regularly active and split their activity into three or more sessions a week.
A 2017 study found that people who did 2 or less sessions a week had a 30% lower risk of early death. Regular exercisers (who did 3 or more sessions a week) had a 35% lower risk compared to people who didn’t exercise at all, as long as both groups reached that 150 total minutes per week.
Something is better than nothing.
The people who get the most benefit from exercise are the ones with the lowest fitness level to start with. In the 2018 cardio fitness study I mentioned at the beginning of this article, moving up from the lowest fitness group to the slightly fitter group represented a 95% decrease in risk.
That’s good news if you’re just starting out on your fitness journey. Basically any increase in fitness will increase your chances of living a long and healthy life!
Up the intensity.
When it comes to longevity, it seems that exercising harder is more important than exercising longer. A 2008 study found that walking pace was a better predictor of a long life. Faster walkers are more likely to live longer than people who walk farther but at a slower pace.
Do both cardio and strength training, and any other type of movement you enjoy.
Studies have found that both cardio and strength training are related to longer lifespan. Since cardio and strength training each have distinct benefits, it’s always a good idea to include both in your weekly activity plan.
Also make room for other types of exercise that make you feel good. If you enjoy yoga, dance classes, tai chi, or any other form of structured movement, do it whenever you can.
For the most benefit, focus on increasing your fitness.
That 2018 fitness study demonstrated that the higher your fitness level, the better chance you have of leading a long and healthy life.
Your fitness level and your activity level, while related, aren’t exactly the same thing.
Your activity level is how much you move each day. You can measure that in the amount of steps you take, or the number of minutes of exercise you do.
Your fitness is about how your body functions. When you’re fit, your body works very efficiently. It’s like a well-tuned sports car.
You use the nutrients in your food efficiently, your brain and body operate seamlessly, and you can easily handle any physiological challenges or changes.
Being active is extremely important and gives you a lot of benefits, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fit.
I think this is why the fitness study showed such a huge difference in longevity (a 95-400% decreased risk of dying too early).
Most other studies that looked at activity level, not fitness level, found risk reductions of somewhere between 20-70%. Simply being active will benefit you a lot, but being fit is even more powerful.
To improve your fitness, you have to train for it, using a progressive system that slowly increases the intensity of your workouts to achieve a specific goal.
Think about training for a marathon. That involves a specific training program that measures performance and builds on itself over time. That’s different than simply going for a jog several times a week.
Of course, you don’t have to train for a marathon to improve your fitness. All you have to do is start wherever you are and slowly increase the difficulty of your workouts over time.
For cardio, something similar to a couch to 5k program is a good way to go. For strength training, increase your weights, reps, and exercise difficulty over time.
If You Need Help
To learn how to create a strength training program, download my FREE Strength Training 101 eBook. This eBook outlines everything you need to know to get started with strength training, including which exercises to do, the right number of sets and reps for your goals, how to progress in your workouts, and more.
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