Some species of gut-dwelling bacteria activate nerves in the gut to promote the desire to exercise’
OMG…I need that… lol.
I exercise religiously every other day - going in a few minutes…arghh.
Hate it… but do it!
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They don’t do a very good job of defining vigorous exercise vs. very vigorous exercise. And that’s the difference between heart disease and no heart disease. One is good, the other is bad. Fairly important.
I run zone 2, heart rate around 130 for 2 miles. Lift weights for another 10 minutes. Is that vigorous for very vigorous for a 62 yr old man?
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What is the single best strength-building exercise many of us could be doing right this minute but almost certainly are not? Consult enough exercise scientists and the latest exercise research, and the answer would likely be a resounding: squats.
“For lower-body strength and flexibility, there is probably no better exercise,” said Bryan Christensen, a professor of biomechanics at North Dakota State University in Fargo, who studies resistance exercise.
The benefits are not confined to the lower body. “It is really a whole body exercise,” said Silvio Rene Lorenzetti, the director of the Performance Sports division of the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport in Magglingen. “It requires core stability and trains the back.”
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I like this idea of using this to track my fitness:
Epigenetic Biomarker for Measuring Aging Through Fitness
This biomarker is a useful addition to GrimAge.
Research Paper:
Physical fitness is a well-known correlate of health and the aging process and DNA methylation (DNAm) data can capture aging via epigenetic clocks. However, current epigenetic clocks did not yet use measures of mobility, strength, lung, or endurance fitness in their construction. We develop blood-based DNAm biomarkers for fitness parameters gait speed (walking speed), maximum handgrip strength, forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), and maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) which have modest correlation with fitness parameters in five large-scale validation datasets (average r between 0.16–0.48). We then use these DNAm fitness parameter biomarkers with DNAmGrimAge, a DNAm mortality risk estimate, to construct DNAmFitAge, a new biological age indicator that incorporates physical fitness. DNAmFitAge is associated with low-intermediate physical activity levels across validation datasets (p = 6.4E-13), and younger/fitter DNAmFitAge corresponds to stronger DNAm fitness parameters in both males and females. DNAmFitAge is lower (p = 0.046) and DNAmVO2max is higher (p = 0.023) in male body builders compared to controls. Physically fit people have a younger DNAmFitAge and experience better age-related outcomes: lower mortality risk (p = 7.2E-51), coronary heart disease risk (p = 2.6E-8), and increased disease-free status (p = 1.1E-7). These new DNAm biomarkers provide researchers a new method to incorporate physical fitness into epigenetic clocks.
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These types of studies are seriously flawed. There are multiple reasons but let me give you one example. The power an individual generates during short duration intervals is highly correlated to their chronic training load (CTL). CTL is a rolling average of training stress score (TSS) across 42 days.
TSS = IF^2 x Duration (mins)/60 x100
So 1 hour at 80% functional threshold power (FTP) = (0.8^2) x 60/60 x 100 = 64 TSS
2 hours at 70% FTP = (0.7^2) x 120/60 x 100 = 98 TSS
LIT and MIT increase CTL and so provide the ‘base’ that allows you to perform intervals at a higher absolute power… and therefore derive greater benefit. Additionally, most serious athletes understand that you cannot perform more than 2 (perhaps 3 if younger) high intensity sessions per week without provoking symptoms of overtraining. Therefore if you’re training 6 days per week 4 sessions are typically performed well below threshold power. Whether this is LIT or MIT largely depends on the duration of time you have available (see example above) but either way ‘non HIT’ is vital!
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That’s pretty scary for people like me who spend hours per week doing strength training with the understanding it’s improving health, only to see that it may actually be decreasing my life span. The recent studies showing possible increased coronary calcium from strength training could provide a physiologic mechanism. However, I’m still skeptical based on all the limitations mentioned in the full paper (observational studies based on self-reports, etc etc). The results could be skewed by (for instance) anabolic steroid users who spend many hours in the gym and also presumably have decreased life expectancy.
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I guess I can justify the larger percentage of the upper percentile gym exercisers dying of cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke, etc). It may be a simple crossing of two risk curves: “deterioration” vs “stress/hormesis”. If you just sit around on your couch, you will slowly wither away and die, but slowly. When I work out at the gym, my heart rate and blood pressure is substantially raised. Sure, my body compensates for this by building stronger systems, but then the next time I’m in the gym I stress it more again. Does this stress eventually kill me faster than withering and dying? — that’s a fun rates question with a lot of input assumptions.
I was very surprised cancer impacts higher-percentile exercisers more than median exercisers.
I wonder if your suggestion of “unhealthy exercisers” is correct. Seems more likely than highly metabolically fit people dying more often of cancer. And I’d also argue healthy cardiovascular system would promote more longevity than withering away: seems like the study could be suspect.
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Just to see if I understand this correctly…
You can train or do moderate exercise without limits (walking, yoga etc.) where your heart rate is below 60% of max.
If your heart rate goes above 70% of your max the training should be limited to 40-150 minutes a week (HIIT, jogging, running, weightlifting, hiking, cycling etc.)
“Zone 2” training is considered training in 60-70% of your max. HR. Where does that fit?
Would bodyweight strength training be in the limit of 40-150 minutes? Could strenuous yoga training be considered as strength training? What would be the decisive factor? HR?
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This is great information. I think it is important to remember that there is more to being mobile at 80 than strength and VO2Max. Our bodies are great at building physical skills, in fact the more we think about a physical skill the worse we perform and the slower we learn. But we also are great at forgetting how to do things we don’t need…as indicated by not using. So we cannot just go to the gym to lift weights and run on a treadmill. We shouldn’t just add in mobility drills, and balance drills, etc. We should do physical activities that require these skills. Walking on uneven ground, walking backwards, playing pickleball for responding to unexpected shots and using hand-eye coordination. This is the advice of Dr. Scott Grafton of Physical Intelligence (the book) fame who was a guest on my podcast recently.
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I’ve always found it tough to fit resistance training into the cardio bucket, but I’ve heard @ConquerAging say he uses a resistance training circuit approach without rests to keep his HR up for >60 minutes. Perhaps there is a way to combine them to save time.
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