This is the best way to structure your workouts for optimal health, says longevity researcher

Exercise is one of the daily practices that experts recommend for a long and healthy life. AND Dr Peter Attiaa physician who researches longevity, believes that exercise has a greater effect on life expectancy than other lifestyle factors, such as nutrition and sleep.

“Longevity, both through life expectancy and healthis affected more by exercise than any of the other variables we have,” Attia said on the Wellness podcast, “Ten percent happier with Dan Harris.”

But how often you should exercise each week varies, depending on factors like age and time constraints. “You don’t need to exercise 14 to 16 hours a week” if doing so isn’t feasible, Attia added.

Still, there’s a specific way people should structure their workouts to achieve optimal health, Attia said, regardless of how much time they have.

50% strength training

Half of the exercises you do weekly should be strength, Attia said on the podcast. This means that if she exercises eight hours a week, she should spend four hours building strength and stability.

Strength training focuses on “increasing muscle strength, endurance, and bone density,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can also be called resistance training, and the exercises can improve insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism, the CDC states.

Strength training exercises include:

• Weightlifting
• Lizards
• dead weight
• lunges
• planks
• Body Weight Squats
• burping

50% cardio

The other half of your time should prioritize cardio, Attia said in the episode. And for your cardio workouts specifically, 80% of your training should be low intensity, and the remaining 20% ​​should be high intensity, she added.

Low intensity is when “you can still talk, (but) you just don’t want to,” he explained. If you can no longer speak, you have officially entered high intensity mode.

Cardiovascular or aerobic exercise “makes you breathe harder and your heart beat faster,” which is very beneficial for cardiovascular health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The low intensity cardio exercises that you can do are:

• Walk fast
• Bicycling at a moderate pace
• mowing your lawn
• swimming laps in a pool

High intensity aerobic exercises to try are:

• Run
• jumping jacks
• Bicycling on a hill
• jump the rope

Remember not to worry too much about the number of hours you exercise each week because even a little exercise is better than none, Attia noted on the podcast.

“If you take a person who doesn’t exercise and get them to the point where they’re doing three hours a week,” he said, “you’ll still give them a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality.”

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