The Best Anti-Aging Exercise

If there is one key to reversing the biological clock, one proven, nonnegotiable anti-aging strategy, it is – drumroll please — exercise.  You knew exercise was important, of course.  You knew exercise was a major component to fitness.  You knew it was the best way to get to and stay at a healthy weight.  But, if you’re like me, you didn’t know how astonishing, far-reaching, disease-preventing and age-blasting its effects were.

Given that build-up, the obvious question is: What is the best anti-aging exercise?

On my year-long counterclockwise journey I asked fitness experts, exercise physiologists, sports lab technicians, medical researchers and dozens and dozens of trainers.  I read everything I could on the subject from studies published in the top research journals to perky articles in mainstream health mags to scam-my come-ons on websites.  And I personally tried just about every form of exercise I could imagine doing.  I hiked, jogged, raced, biked, climbed, rowed, swum, spun, danced, drummed, stepped, boxed, aquaerobicized, hooped and hot yoga-ed .  I pushed enormous bags of sand across gym floors.  I zipped along on 40-mile bike rides and panted through 4-minute Tabata sessions.

Conclusions?

First, the (absolutely true) cliché you get from the experts on this subject:  The “best” exercise” is the one you stick with.  Which is to say, no form of exercise, regardless of how highly touted, “works” unless you actually do it.  That sounds silly, I know, but apparently a significant percentage of people buy gym memberships they rarely use after the first two months, and one survey I read estimated that 80 percent of us have fitness equipment in our homes that is providing exercise only when we dust it.

But second, this (seemingly) contradictory finding:  Sticking with one form of exercise is not a good fitness, turn-back-the-clock strategy.  We all know about (and some of us have experienced) over-use injuries because we’ve consistently taxed the same muscles and joints.  And we know that athletes “cross train” to keep fitness up and injuries down.  What we might not realize – what I personally didn’t realize – is how marvelously, devilishly efficient the body is.  The longer you stay on the EFX machine or the treadmill at the gym, for example, the more your body accommodates to the movement, the less energy you use, the less you tax (in a good way) your cardio-vascular system, the less anti-aging bang for your buck.

And third:  It appears from everything I’ve read – and everything I’ve put my mid-life body through – that some form of high-intensity interval training is the best way to enhance fitness and turn back the clock.  That just means short bursts of all-out effort interrupted by very short rest periods.  You can do this running, walking, cycling, swimming, rowing, boxing – just about any activity you enjoy.  You can also try Tabata (which I love), an Old School (squat, burpee, push-up, sit-up) approach to HIIT.  Or the newly touted “7-minute workout,” which is my current go-to.  Free apps for both keep you moving.

More on the astonishing – and I mean astonishing – anti-aging affects of exercise in next week’s post.