The Essential Principles of Training for Enhanced Healthspan and Longevity
Health is considered one of the most important pillars of a good life by the wide majority of individuals (WHO). Ask my grandmother, and she will happily reiterate how good health is paramount in life. Yet, it seems there is a gap between beliefs and actions (i.e., cognitive dissonance) in the wide majority of individuals (Wardian, 2020). What is health anyway? Narrowing down the definitions of health can help us understand better the root of the cognitive dissonance, and parse out the actual necessary actions to get and maintain “health” for a long time, one may believe. As articulated by the World Health Organization, health is "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”
Further, there is a difference between lifespan and healthspan, as outlined by Garmany (2021) and many others. Lifespan is your time on Earth in years. Healthspan is your time on Earth in years and good health conditions (free from disease). These concepts have become increasingly prominent in our current society, also thanks to the highly-praised public work of people like Dr. Sinclair, Dr. Attia, Dr. Huberman, and others. There appears to be a shift in the perception of health, focusing more on health span instead of lifespan, in what Dr. Attia often refers to as “medicine 3.0”. This post focuses on this aspect of health, analyzing the source of protocols and principles for optimizing healthspan and longevity, with an emphasis on physical training (not nutrition, which is just as—or more—important for healthspan optimization).
The longevity trend and discussions around longevity and healthspan
The trend of health and fitness has boomed in the past decade, hypothetically also fueled by the constant status-maximizing games we play via our online personas, which has standardized the way we perceive health and beauty while fostering a race to show one’s prosperity via photos and videos. The inherently mimetic nature of many human beliefs has created a widespread (self) consciousness around the topic of health and fitness, including “clean” nutrition and endless arguments for and against exercising and eating in certain specific styles (e.g., Ketogenic diet, HIIT, Fasting, Resistance Training).
The increased self-consciousness around health and fitness among individuals has fostered controversial theories of health, as well as providing a fertile ground for great-impact research and leaps forward in the field. In this social paradigm, the individual seems to be the fundamental component in the puzzle of personal health and fitness. Armed with the current evidence on best practices for healthspan maximization, each individual can enact or avoid these guidelines, at their own choice and responsibility. One foundational principle seems true when speaking about health and fitness optimization: what is difficult now makes your life easier later. Delayed gratification is a core concept at the basis of the argument for optimizing one’s health and fitness, which is a life-long process that requires attention and mindful action.
Fitness principles for optimizing healthspan
There are some key principles around physical exercise at the forefront of healthspan optimization.
Periodize your training regimen. Without a plan of action, it is very challenging to gain momentum. Especially if you are not an experienced fitness connoisseur, starting your journey in health and fitness optimization without a plan is close to impossible. A plan makes the process real and provides clear actions, which you will then merely execute. This creates a system around your health and fitness. A protocol of sorts that takes your own distorted momentary judgments out of the frame, and puts your choices on autopilot. This approach is valuable especially at the beginning, to ensure you can incorporate the new protocols and routines into your identity, a process that takes repeated practice and mindful effort.
Include stability training, resistance training, zone 2 training, and VO2 max training. These four approaches to training are essential for healthspan optimization. Resistance training means lifting weights or your own body weight to perform functional movements that increase muscle strength and hypertrophy. Zone 2 training is cardio performed at an intensity where you could speak and it feels uncomfortable to do so, prolonged for 30-45 minutes per session if possible (more on the frequency of training later). VO2 max training is all-out cardio. These are short bursts of intense movements, such as HIIT (high-intensity interval training), sprinting, bike sprinting on a hill, or other similar activities where the intensity of effort is extremely high and you can only perform the movement for a few seconds at a time.
Aim to perform several hours a week of training, distributed across the four pillars outlined above and explained in this framework by Dr. Attia. Start by defining how many hours per week you are willing to dedicate to training. Then break down the hours into sessions per week, and provide a duration for each session. This video explains the suggested hours per week to distribute across the four pillars of training.
The next action you take matters - incremental rituals that lead to significant improvements
Small steps are the essential foundation of crafting a new habit, mindset, and identity. No matter your current circumstances in the domain of health and fitness, you can begin somewhere, however small the first step is. This is a key principle of habit formation: take the next, smallest, most actionable step you can to get to where you want to be. That makes your adventure in the arena of health and fitness for healthspan start. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, as a famous mantra from the Stoics remarks. You can worry about optimization later when all the foundations are present. The first step in the journey is to include the principles above in your identity and fitness regimen, starting from setting up a program adapted to your schedule and carefully crafted to get the most benefit for healthspan optimization. The rest will follow, one step at a time.
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