Put me down as another long standing skeptic wrt. massive athleticism. Yes, you are nominally cutting down your mortality risk, but doing nothing for biological longevity. I personally have adopted a rather imprecise strategy for exercise, more out of necessity than desire. Quite simply there are no biomarkers which tell me that at a given level of “X”, I’m at optimal rate of aging (slowest - VO2Max only tells me of mortality risk). So what can I do? I can look at the various studies and statistics and government recommendations and then adhere to the 150 minutes of cardio per week and 2-3 weight sessions or whatnot. But this doesn’t mean much when it comes to an individual. What is best for you?
Well, I have structured an exercise program for myself, based on my best understanding of the data. But now I must apply this in a way that takes the totality of my circumstance into account. And here comes the “imprecise” strategy - very regrettable: namely “how do I feel”. This I acknowledge is laden with confounders, subjectivity, placebo, nocebo, chance, prejudice, misunderstanding etc. But in the absence of objective criteria, that’s all I have, and so I try to do the best I can, trying not to be swayed by all those confounders. And therefore, I have done things like modified my regimen based on age - I used to do the weight lifting sessions 4 times a week. But I noticed that I am not recovering as well. So I modified it to 2 sessions a week - doesn’t matter what the “official” guidelines say. At 67, I’m only doing 2 weight lifting sessions a week (though pretty heavy duty). If I feel exhausted or for some reason under the weather - shock! - I will skip my jogging session (I jog 4 times a week, 50 minutes each). Sometimes I might deload and skip a weight session or even two. I really try to FEEL my body. It’s totally subjective - I fully plead guilty. But I try to be as “objective” and “fair” as possible (accounting for my bias against exercise).
I go by feel. Most of the time I feel good enough to do all my weekly sessions. But if for some reason I feel my joints can use a longer break - I do so. I do not keep fanatically to a schedule.
Steven Austed likes to work out until his energy is spent. I understand that approach - there’s nothing left over to cause mischief like unnecessary growth, cancer etc. But my approach is different. I try to prevent excess growth with mTOR inhibitors such as rapamycin, and for energy, I like to keep a small reserve for other pursuits, like, ahem, living life. I don’t want to be so exhausted that I fall asleep watching a movie, reading or listening to music. Or have no energy for my creative pursuits. I am alive to live enjoyably, not vegetate to extend sheer length of life by a few more months at the cost of draining all enjoyment. I don’t enjoy exercise, so I do only what I feel is necessary in the cost/benefit analysis. Huge athleticism is a laughable ambition for me, if someone enjoys it, well, a completely different calculus applies. I want to have enough muscular reserve for comfortable ADL without limitations, and that’s it - or a little more for some low hanging fruit wrt. metabolic health. I have zero interest in the Peter Attia approach to exercise, which for me (not others!), is entirely useless. And I don’t care if more exercise would make me look better (i.e. bulging muscles, sixpack etc.) - I’m lean and that’s enough for me, because I move better when I’m lean.
