Hi Friend,
Which Team Are You:
Team Strength,
Team Cardio,
Team Both
Team Other Exercise
Team All of The Above
Team Anti-Exercise
I ask because (1) I was inspired by the innumerable experiences my grandfather who died recently at 95, had in his his lifetime and (2) because I saw a study that showed behaviors as they relate to living a long time.
When you you get to live to 95, you have way more experiences than many people who've passed before you. I mean, for one, my grandfather just missed out on meeting his great, great grandson. That's crazy.
When I reflect on my Pepé's life and all the lessons he's taught us, the single most important thing, I think he did to live a long life was to have such an active social life.
He was in the army, owned a local business, played in a cribbage league, was a member of local organizations, was a weekly church goer, was super social and had a large loving family. He was married 63 years, had 3 siblings, 8 kids, 24 grandchildren, 23 great grandchildren and now 1 great, great grandchild. He was always engaging with people.
If you have a long bucket list, an active social life may help you to live longer and check off more experiences.
2. A 2018 study by Youngwon, Kim, et. al., showed that "improving both cardiovascular fitness and muscle strength, as opposed to either of the two alone, may be the most effective behavioral strategy to reduce all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk". Doing one or the other was good at reducing risk, but doing both was even better.
When I think of the ironically named, Youngwon study, it reminds me and reinforces my personal self-care practice and exercise program model, that if I and/or anyone else wants to increase their chances of living a long life and having a lot of experiences, that our weekly exercise routine needs to include both strength and cardio.
3 Key Ingredients to Live Longer and Have More Experiences
So if we want to learn from my Pepé's and Youngwon's lessons for having more experiences and living a longer life what were the key ingredients?
Active Social Life
Weekly Strength Training
Weekly Cardio Training
Simple to understand and agree with, yet not always the easiest to practice.
Tortoise and the Hare
Thankfully every time you read the book, the Tortoise wins the race. We don't have to be perfect, we just have to #KeepGoing.
Make it count,
Mike Alves
p.s. what Team # from above were you?
p.p.s. Group Personal Training helps people set it and forget it by addressing all 3 key ingredients by providing the social piece outside of home and work through weekly group personal training (strength) and tracking each person's cardio minutes.
If the thought of outsourcing the thinking and simply showing up to train appeals to you, when you're ready, reply with subject line of "group" and let me know.
p.p.p.s. if you prefer 1-on-1 training or program design consulting, when you're ready reply with subject line "private" or "program design" and let me know.
