104 years old, and a competitive archer, in amazind shape not just physically, but mentally (see interview).
Regarding reaching such an old age: “I have no secret. I don’t know” - refreshing.
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Of course, its a Norwegian guy… He’s probably average for his peer group there.
Ah - sorry this is a repeat, Siim is posting on X some of his older videos…
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The Mick Jagger guide to longevity
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Mel Brooks Turns 100. His No. 1 Tip for Long and Happy Life
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Regardless of who you identify as, longevity is accessible to all.
101-Year-Old Goes Viral at Pride, Shares Simple Tips for a Long Life: ‘Be Yourself’
" Clement follows a pescatarian diet, which is a vegetarian eating plan that incorporates seafood. Dietitians call it one of the best diets for overall health. It’s also particularly healthy for the heart when combined with the Mediterranean diet, studies have found.
He eats vegetables and fish, plus dairy and eggs, but avoids red meat. “It’s one less poor animal killed,” he recalls thinking as a young man. “I was not enamored of meat.”
The inclusion of fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids supports heart health, reduces inflammation and promotes brain function, dietitians say. The plant-based part of his diet delivers lots of fiber, vitamins and other nutrients for good health.
Clement no longer drinks alcohol.
Treat Yourself Once in a While
“I’m a sucker for sweets,” Clement says.
One of his favorite desserts is vanilla ice cream with sliced and mashed strawberries.
Genes Aren’t Everything
Longevity doesn’t run in Clement’s family, other than one of his great-grandmothers who lived to be 98. His parents lived into their 70s.
When asked what has helped him live so long, Clement is stumped.
“I honestly don’t know. I just lived, and I’ve kept on living for this extra length of time, and you just live into it. There you are,” he says. “I feel very healthy, very normal.”"
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The only exercise you need, is exercising your brain.
Woman, 101, Who Still Works as a Journalist and Lives Alone, Shares Her 3 Longevity Tips
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Robert Clement… I honestly don’t know. I just lived, and I’ve kept on living for this extra length of time, and you just live into it. There you are,” he says. “I feel very healthy, very normal.”"
It’s the Descovy he’s been taking for years. 
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How do you know he’s been taking it? or he’s said so?
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That was meant as humor… him being an.outted gay senior… jokingly, he has been getting the benefit of anti-HIV virus .medication Descovy unaware of its life extension potential.
FDA-approved antiretroviral regimens—emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (FTC/TAF, known as Descovy )
A PhenoAge clock showed a reduction of 6.33 years (a reduction of 22% from the mean chronological age of the participants).
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have you seen videos of Dale - looks quite spry did the Appalachian trail at 90
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74 is nothing - I’m nearly 74 and do much more and am better shape
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I know that this thread is “70 is the new 30,” but how about “100 is the new 70.”
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Kim Emmons has been skydiving since 1962. She is still skydiving at almost 87. The picture shows her at an event at Grand Haven, MI where she made a tandem jump.
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“Worst diet on earth”, but spry and crazy at 100.
Woman, 100, Who Is Viral as ‘Gangster Granny’ Has 6 Simple Tips for a Long Life
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Wow - 87 years of lifting in the gym is pretty impressive!
I. Executive Summary
The video profiles nonagenarian triathlete and physicist Lew Hollander, detailing his training ethos, dietary habits, and personal longevity philosophy. Hollander, who completed the Kona Ironman World Championship at age 82 and sustained an ultra-endurance racing career into his 90s, frames his functional preservation through an evolutionary biology perspective. He argues that human physiology evolved to reproduce and decline around ages 35–40 due to endocrine deceleration and attenuated cellular repair—a colloquial framing of the Disposable Soma Theory (Kirkwood, 2005). Hollander asserts that individuals can override this evolutionary trajectory through deliberate, high-intensity physical stress, whole-food nutrition, and persistent mechanical loading.
Hollander’s personal longevity framework emphasizes daily anaerobic threshold training (sprinting uphill until breathless), midlife lifestyle consistency, avoidance of ultra-processed foods, and strict caloric control. While Hollander represents a remarkable case study in the compression of morbidity, his claims must be clinically separated into robustly validated physiological principles versus extreme, uncurated protocols that present substantial translational hazards.
Clinical evidence demonstrates that cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is an exceptionally strong, dose-dependent predictor of reduced all-cause mortality, with no observed upper threshold of benefit (Mandsager et al., 2018). Furthermore, structured High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) has been validated in large randomized trials of older adults to lower mortality risk and sustain peak aerobic capacity more effectively than moderate continuous exercise alone (Stensvold et al., 2020). Hollander’s dietary avoidance of ultra-processed items similarly mirrors clinical trials showing spontaneous energy regulation and reduced cardiometabolic risk (Hall et al., 2019).
However, Hollander’s specific prescription of daily unperiodized maximal anaerobic threshold exertion ignores essential recovery kinetics, cardiac remodeling considerations, and age-related declines in tissue compliance. Master athletes who accumulate extreme endurance volumes face elevated incidences of atrial fibrillation and myocardial fibrosis (Eijsvogels et al., 2016). Consequently, Hollander demonstrates the upper boundary of human functional preservation, but his regimen must be modified into a periodized, clinically screened protocol for broader application.
II. Insight Bullets
- Survivorship Bias and Genetic Outliers: Lew Hollander’s capacity to finish 70 Ironman triathlons and run ultra-marathons past age 80 reflects an extreme demographic outlier shaped by innate biomechanical resilience, favorable genetics, and survivorship bias rather than a universal standard.
- Evolutionary Aging Framework: Hollander’s assertion that human biology is programmed to decline after age 35–40 directly reflects evolutionary theories of senescence, specifically that natural selection shadow begins post-reproduction (Kirkwood, 2005).
- Endocrine Deceleration (Somatopause): The video correctly identifies age-related pituitary and gonadal declines (reductions in growth hormone, IGF-1, and sex steroids) as primary drivers of reduced tissue turnover, slower protein synthesis, and impaired recovery.
- Midlife Habits Predict Late-Life Independence: The premise that routines established at age 40 govern physical capability at age 80 is corroborated by 21-year prospective data demonstrating that regular midlife running delays functional disability by over a decade (Chakravarty et al., 2008).
- Compression of Morbidity in Practice: Hollander exemplifies the clinical model of “compression of morbidity,” wherein lifelong vigorous physical conditioning postpones severe functional decline to a brief window immediately preceding death.
- Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF) as a Survival Marker: Cardiorespiratory capacity is inversely associated with long-term all-cause mortality across all age groups, with elite cardiorespiratory fitness providing maximum longevity benefits (Mandsager et al., 2018).
- Anaerobic Threshold Stimulus: Hollander attributes his lack of physical decline to frequently pushing past his anaerobic threshold, forcing cardiovascular and metabolic adaptation under high lactate and respiratory stress.
- Efficacy of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) in Aging: In older adults (ages 70–77), five years of supervised HIIT produces an absolute risk reduction in mortality and superior cardiorespiratory adaptations compared to moderate continuous training alone (Stensvold et al., 2020).
- Translational Hazards of Daily Maximal Exertion: Daily maximal anaerobic threshold sprinting without rest days is clinically contraindicated for the broader population due to the risks of autonomic overreaching, delayed tendon repair, and acute cardiovascular events.
- Neuromuscular Motor Unit Preservation: Master endurance athletes in their eighth and ninth decades of life maintain significantly higher motor unit numbers, superior neuromuscular transmission stability, and greater excitable muscle mass than sedentary age-matched controls (Power et al., 2016).
- Collateral Reinnervation and Sarcopenia: High-frequency physical activity mitigates denervation-induced muscle atrophy by stimulating surviving motor neurons to reinnervate orphaned muscle fibers, preserving strength in advanced age (Piasecki et al., 2016).
- Incline Running Biomechanics: Daily uphill running minimizes joint impact forces and knee eccentric shear stress compared to level or downhill running, while placing maximal demand on the aerobic system and posterior muscle chain.
- Running and Joint Health (The Osteoarthritis Paradox): Meta-analyses confirm that recreational running does not cause knee osteoarthritis; recreational runners demonstrate a lower prevalence of hip/knee osteoarthritis (3.5%) compared to sedentary individuals (10.2%) (Alentorn-Geli et al., 2017).
- Dose-Response of Extreme Mileage on Articular Cartilage: While moderate recreational running is protective, competitive elite-level endurance running exhibits an increased osteoarthritis prevalence (13.3%), indicating an upper threshold for joint tolerability (Alentorn-Geli et al., 2017).
- Cardiovascular Trade-Offs of Chronic Ultra-Endurance: Lifelong extreme endurance exercise is associated with superior longevity, but can paradoxically increase the incidence of coronary artery calcification, myocardial fibrosis, and atrial fibrillation in master athletes (Eijsvogels et al., 2016).
- Elimination of Ultra-Processed Foods: Hollander’s dietary rule—refusing to consume unrecognizable ingredients—is supported by randomized inpatient trials showing that ultra-processed diets drive ad libitum overeating and metabolic dysfunction (Hall et al., 2019).
- Caloric Moderation and Cardiometabolic Protection: Intentional caloric regulation and the prevention of excess adiposity in aging humans enhance insulin sensitivity, reduce systemic inflammation, and optimize resting metabolic biomarkers (Most et al., 2017).
- Unspecified Supplementation Pitfalls: The video references consuming dietary supplements without detailing active compounds, dosing, purity standards, or blood-verified deficiencies (“Source unverified in live search”).
- Objective Body Composition Monitoring: Hollander’s practice of daily mirror-based physique tracking serves as a low-cost, practical compliance mechanism to detect subtle shifts in adiposity and muscle loss.
- Late-Career Exercise Initiation: Hollander began competitive ultra-endurance racing at age 55, proving that physiological remodeling and profound cardiorespiratory conditioning can be achieved even when aggressive training begins in midlife.
- Progressive Overload Principle: Hollander’s strategy of running “a little farther each time” embodies mechanical progressive overload, preventing plateauing of cardiovascular and muscular adaptations.
- Psychological Self-Efficacy and Resilience: The mantra “persistence is key” reflects high cognitive grit and self-efficacy, behavioral factors consistently correlated with long-term lifestyle intervention compliance.
- Omission of Autonomic and Structural Recovery: The video’s narrative fails to address autonomic recovery metrics (e.g., heart rate variability, sleep architecture), presenting an incomplete picture of total athletic management.
- Unsubstantiated Lifespan Targets: Hollander’s stated goal of living to 120 years represents an aspirational boundary condition exceeding current validated human clinical life expectancies.
- Rejection of Sedentary Institutionalization: Hollander’s determination to avoid being “warehoused” reflects a deliberate resistance to the rapid physiological deconditioning that occurs when older adults are placed in sedentary, low-stimulus environments.
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Can’t say this is an “inspiring” story exactly, but it certainly is instructive.
Can there really still be any doubt, that the incessant mantra of “diet and exercise” or stress avoidance is just plain inadequate? That there are far more powerful determinants of longevity, likely centered around genes?
Here we have a man who spent 70 some years in prison, was almost executed 8 times(!), was a lifelong criminal. How low stress do you think his life was? Apparently he had no family and was a petty criminal until at 25 was convicted of murder. So much for social connection and the four pillars of health. Prison chow is not exactly a model diet, he wasn’t an exerciser and sleep in prison is famously disrupted.
It’s not for no reason that research has repeatedly shown that prison massively accelerates aging by decades. All this to show that you can certainly shorten life by poor conditions, but not prolong it by “optimal lifestyle”. It’s mostly genes at some point. If you have lucky genes, you need make no effort and you’ll live beyond a century, even if your life was full of the most extreme stress like war time Jewish ghetto and subsequent concentration camp (the 112 year old man in Israel), or death row in an American max security prison, or being a severe alcoholic and smoker for decades (Dick Van Dyke) or… and so on. Diet and exercise? LOL.
Spared execution eight times, oldest inmate in US dies at 101
“Research shows that imprisonment can lead to “accelerated ageing”, and that conditions such as dementia may arrive “significantly earlier” than they would for people not in prison.
“We frequently say that a person coming from a long period of incarceration can be 60 but have the health status of a 90-year-old,” Skoczulek said.“
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I wouldn’t be surprised if these people have never thought about “health”. They know about people going into the hospital.
But they’re just living life, not knowing what “protein”, “carbohydrates” is, except that protein is in meat, and that carbohydrates are like french fries.
They just eat a regular standard american diet, maybe home cooked and frozen in time (50’s-60’s), no exercise except standard living.
To first try to “optimize health”, there is a lot of requisite knowledge required, and I don’t think many of these have necessarily sought it out, they’re just average people in lifestyle that become centenarians, I guess. When there’s no difference in lifestyle by much, genetics played a role – polygenicity (thousands of genes if not more in the direction of longevity, probably).
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