Peter Attia Drive: Exercising for Longevity: Strength, Zone 2, Zone 5

Lift, run slowly a lot, run fast a little

This post summarizes The Drive episode #206: Exercising for longevity: strength, stability, zone 2, zone 5, and more

TLDR

• Strength training is great. Ideally 3x / week

• Zone 2 cardio is great.  Ideally 3x / week

• Zone 5 cardio is great. Ideally 1x / week

Strength training

• Strength is the most important parameter of health

• Deadlifts are especially wonderful. Don’t focus on weight, form matters way more

• Peter strength trains 3 days/week

Zone 2 cardio training

• The exercise intensity at which you’re stressing mitochondria and oxidative capacity the most

• You can carry out a full conversation, not super easy, but not hard either

• About 70-80% maximum heart rate

  • Street running probably is slightly too intense

• Needs to be consistent and not oscillate in speed/effort

• It’s kind of boring...

Zone 5 cardio training

• ‘All-out’ training

• Most people spend too much time in zone 5 and not enough in zone 2

• All-out training is often past the point of optimizing longevity and can be diminishing

• In small doses it’s excellent

• Peter does it 1 day / week

• Great for increasing VO2 max

• Protocol: 4-minute full-effort cardio, 4-minute recovery, 4-5 cycles

  • Running around a track for 4 minutes as fast as you can hold, then walking for 4 minutes, is a good way to do this

V02 max

• Highly correlated with longevity

• the size of your 'engine'; how fast you can take oxygen from air into lungs to use for metabolic processes