Exercises For Longevity: The Best Workout To Help You Live Longer, According To The Experts

To paraphrase Liam Gallagher, who’s gonna live forever? Certainly some people fancy it. With billionaires biohacking themselves amid an insurgent wellness boom, growing interest around exercises for longevity proves more and more of us are paying attention to our health than ever before.

You may not be motivated entirely by a desire to improve your lifespan, but there’s no denying that exercise is the key to remaining mobile, disease free, and independent for longer.

Can exercises for longevity really help us live longer?

If you’re hoping for an out here, sorry to disappoint. The answer is a massive YES. Humans were made to move our bodies; we’re designed to do it. In fact, experts believe regular, heart-thumping movement is just as important for a long life as having a healthy diet and cutting out things like cigarettes and booze.

Just ask Dr Alka Patel, longevity and lifestyle doctor, and founder of the Million Hour Club:

“Exercise isn’t just about looking good in the mirror—it’s about keeping your mitochondria firing, your inflammation down, and your heart beating strong for decades to come,” she says. “If longevity is your goal, movement is your medicine.”

Dr Kai Koch, consultant physician at Marylebone Health agrees with Patel, pointing to data from the World Health Organisation which found that almost a third of the world’s adult population are physically inactive. “This has risen by around 5% in the last decade and at current rates is projected to rise to 35% by 2030,” Koch warns.

“Physical activity is now widely accepted as the ‘holy grail’ lifestyle factor that can give the greatest bang for its buck in terms of improving overall health outcomes,” Koch continues, reminding us that “in 2019, the UK Chief Medical Officers stated that ‘if physical activity were a drug, we would refer to it as a miracle cure due to the great many illnesses it can prevent and treat’”.

Muscle mass is important, too. As well as being useful for helping us move about, and look good on the beach, Rhodri Whittaker, a PT at Absolute Body Solutions calls muscle mass the “armour of the body”.

“Muscle has so many functions, but structurally, it provides physical protection to bones and joints, increasing fall survivability,” he says. The more you can maintain as you age, the better your chances. So yeah, turns out exercise is pretty important.

What does the science say?

Before we dive into what you should be doing and when, it’s worth taking a little more time just to appreciate the plethora of ways a good workout can help you – both now and in the future.

There’s a lot of data on the subject.

Research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that engaging in 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity, or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity per week, aligns with optimal mortality reduction, reinforcing current physical activity guidelines.

It also helps slow one of the key markers of ageing. Bear with us here, but experts like Patel think that telomeres – the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes – are the main culprit when it comes to showing signs of age. Our telomeres shorten as we age, and so far, there’s nothing we can do to reverse the process. But we can slow the decline.

“A study in Oncotarget found that adults with high physical activity levels had significantly longer telomeres than sedentary individuals, suggesting a cellular mechanism by which exercise contributes to longevity,” explains Patel.

Telomeres aside, how exactly does exercise promote longevity? “Exercise triggers a cascade of biological benefits that enhance both lifespan and healthspan,” Patel says.

These are:

Mitochondrial Biogenesis: “Exercise stimulates the production of new mitochondria, increasing energy metabolism and reducing oxidative stress, key to slowing ageing at the cellular level,” says Patel.

Insulin Sensitivity: “Regular physical activity improves the body’s responsiveness to insulin, aiding blood sugar regulation and reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, a condition linked to accelerated ageing,” Patel explains.

Inflammation Reduction: “Chronic inflammation is a known driver of ageing and disease. Exercise modulates inflammatory pathways, reducing markers like CRP and IL-6,” notes Patel.

Neuroprotection: “Physical activity increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), supporting neuronal health and cognitive function, essential for reducing dementia risk and maintaining mental acuity,” translation: it’s good for your melon, too.

Can exercise ever be harmful?

We know working out is good for you, on paper. But we’ve all finished a run and felt like an eighty-year-old whose knees and lungs are falling to bits. Is that still an indicator of health? There’s a joke among some athletes – particularly climbers – that your chosen sport advances you ahead of other people. Not in fitness, but in age, with wrists, backs, ankles, elbows all feeling the strain of repetitive movement. Surely none of this is good?

“There’s a paradox,” agrees Patel. “Exercise itself triggers inflammation, and chronic inflammation is a fast-track to ageing.” The key? The Goldilocks spot – finding the just-right amount that stimulates adaptation without excessive wear and tear.

Exercise is meant to cause some muscle damage – it’s how we get stronger, and inflammation is the process by which the damaged areas are sent all of the building materials they need to repair themselves, and are protected whilst this happens. But you’ve probably heard that inflammation is bad, leading to all sorts of worrying things, including cancer. So what’s the solution?

“How do you know if you’re hitting the Goldilocks zone?” asks Patel. There are a few ways. You can send off for a kit to track your biological age, and dial back your workouts if the results are concerning. You can also track heart rate variability, with low HRV indicating poor recovery. Tracking your VO2 Max – a test of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise – works in the same way, with Patel calling it “The ultimate predictor of longevity, indicating cardiorespiratory fitness.”

If your levels in any of these tests are higher than you’d like, scale it back. For best results, you might work with a physiologist to find out what works for you.

Whittaker has a final hack: sleep. “It’s the most important recovery tool by a country mile,” he says, above and beyond cold plunges, red light therapy, Theraguns and all the other trendy gadgets and ‘hacks’. Feeling sore? Sometimes, a good night’s rest is all you need.

How can I become more active in daily life?

Hitting the gym or the running track a few times a week is great, and will have huge benefits for your wellbeing and chances of living a long life. But moving more isn’t just about doing so in siloed time slots. You’ll also want to move more throughout the day. Koch has some recommendations:

Limit time being sedentary
“Consider using a standing desk or exercise ball to replace your chair and regular ‘movement snacks’ to reduce the long hours sitting at a desk everyday,” he suggests.

Exercise snacks
“Find easy ways to incorporate small daily exercises, whether that’s doing bodyweight squats whilst the kettle is boiling, incorporating more of an active commute to work, or suggesting your friends go for a walk instead of sitting to have a coffee,” Koch says.

Be more sociable
On that last point, while not directly exercise-related, Koch says there’s a direct correlation between loneliness and a shorter lifespan. “A recent study by Holt-Lunstad showed that social isolation can increase the risk of all-cause mortality by up to 50%,” he says. Going the extra mile to be friendly could not only elongate your life, but that of the people you interact with, too.

Chill out
Our mental health is tightly linked to our physical health, and our lifespans. “There is a linear relationship between psychological distress and longevity,” says Koch. “The more chronically stressed we are, the higher the risk of our all-cause mortality.” If you’re already finishing your workout with a stretch, why not add in just five minutes of deep breathing to take care of your head, too?

What are the best exercises to help me live longer?

We’ve covered a lot of ground here, but when it comes down to it, all you need to do is move your body.

Jim Pate, senior physiologist, Marylebone Health recommends you aim for three to four cardio sessions per week, two of which should be shorter than 30-45 minutes and more intense, while two should be longer and steadier.

Alongside this, you should aim for two strength training sessions, one of which focuses on individual exercises or body parts, the other of which should be arranged as a circuit of four or five exercises with 15 or more reps of each exercise within the circuit.

Your circuit might look a little like this:

Squats

“Squats make use of the leg muscles and can be adapted to all levels of ability and strength,” says Pate. They involve several major muscle groups and relatively large muscle mass is involved in the movement, resulting in a stronger training stimulus to build muscle.”

Lunges

“A lunge replicates the natural motion of walking,” says Pate. “The asymmetric stance during a lunge creates a stability challenge, improves balance, and works muscles groups differently to a symmetrical stance exercise like the squat.”

Push ups

“These are an excellent way to build and maintain upper body strength and function,” says Pate. “The exercise is relative to body weight making it very functional and it is also easily adaptable to different abilities.”

Pull exercises

“These are a huge part of functional movement,” says Pate. “Grip strength or static hanging time have been shown to be good markers of overall fitness and therefore longevity, while rowing exercises oppose pushing movements helping to maintain good shoulder health and function.”

Plank

“Core strength has become a real focus,” says Pate. “A good plank can be held for about two minutes, and is a sign that the core muscles have endurance required for long duration activity.”

Lastly, Whittaker recommends adding in a weekly yoga session, but done in a small group. “The pilates and yoga trend we are seeing is great for a 20-something individual with supple joints and forgiving muscles and tendons, however, the injuries we are starting to see (in myself included as a PT with my clients) are overstretching in the achilles and hip flexors,” he says.

Smaller classes give the instructor more time to focus on your needs, helping you stay active for longer.

What else do I need to know?

The last thing is kind of obvious: We all age, and although we can try to stay active for as long as possible, time comes for every man. Accepting this and accepting our limitations, alongside regular exercise, is the key to ageing gracefully.

“When we’re younger, we’re often driven by vanity, but our goals shift as we age,” says Whittaker. “The focus changes to staying injury free to ensure freedom of movement for as long as possible. But you also need to enjoy exercise, too. Think of the activities you enjoy; walking is a great option, especially looking to push oneself potentially setting out on a hike along the beach.”

After all, isn’t life just a walk along the beach?