The Exact Weekly Longevity Workout Plan You Need to Live Forever

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These days, longevity is the name of the health game: how are you treating your body now so that it can treat you well as you get older? Part of maximizing a long, healthy life—and making sure you can adventure outdoors long into your later years—is exercise. And if you’re exercising to live longer, just about every kind of workout (and every intensity) can help. That’s not hyperbole. Here’s just a smattering of the gobs of science on moving your body and dialing back your death date:

• A study in the British Journal of Medicine found that “muscle strengthening” activities twice per week, performed for 30 total minutes per week, reduced all-cause mortality (science-speak for “early death”) by 10 to 17 percent.
• A 2020 study looking at information from 26,000 Americans found a correlation between walking, stretching, aerobics, stair climbing, weight lifting, and volleyball reduced the risk of death between 7 and 12 percent.
• When scientists followed almost half a million adults for 8 years, they found that just 13 minutes of daily exercise reduced people’s risk of death by 14 percent.
• Adults with higher levels of strength in a knee extension test had a 14 percent lower risk of death compared to weaker adults.
• A study looking at 23 years of data found that playing tennis regularly added almost 10 years to a person’s lifespan.
• And, of course, there are steps: walking 7,000 steps per day is associated with a 47 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to taking just 2,000 steps per day.

The latest, greatest finding is that the biggest longevity lever you can pull in the gym is intensity, says Matt Laye, a physiologist and ultra running coach with Sharman Ultra Coaching.

“We have all these recommendations that are based on moderate to vigorous activity, and we typically think that one minute of vigorous activity is worth two minutes of moderate,” he says. But a new study, published in Nature Communications in October, says vigorous activity is even more valuable than that. “When it comes to mortality outcomes, one minute of vigorous [exercise] is worth four to nine minutes of moderate.”

Strength, overall movement, and high-intensity efforts—these are the ingredients for a long-life exercise stew, Laye says. If you’re looking for a manageable longevity workout plan to get all these in each week, he says, focus on three things.

The Three Ingredients You Need for a Longevity Workout Plan

Ingredient 1: Two Days of Strength Training, Hard

If you’re not an acolyte of iron, you may just go through the motions when strength training, Laye says. Doing the same weight for the same number of repetitions in the long term won’t help with longevity. It just wastes your time.

Instead, try to take each set of each exercise until you could only do one or two more repetitions before failing. This method, called “reps in reserve,” has been shown to be almost as effective as going all the way until you fail at the exercise, but it’s less unpleasant and easier to recover from. Doing all of your sets this way, and trying to increase your weight and reps over time while continuing to shoot for two reps in reserve, can help you gain strength and reap the gym’s longevity benefits.

Ingredient 2: Two Days of Breathing Hard

This is your vigorous activity. But what does “vigorous” mean? In some algorithms, it’s walking (or jogging) at 130 steps per minute. In others, it’s activity that puts your heart rate in Zone 4 or Zone 5, rates that are basically just “really high.”

Laye suggests using a rate of perceived exertion (literally, how hard something feels), or RPE, of 9 or 10 out of 10. At this level, he says, you could say a word or two while doing the activity (but probably wouldn’t want to).

You don’t need to work on this for long periods of time. Studies have found that just a few minutes of this level of vigorous movement can make a big difference. In the workout below, one of the vigorous sessions only has you working for 7.5 minutes.

Ingredient 3: Lots of Steps, with at Least One Bout of 15 Minutes

Vigorous movements give lots of bang for the buck, but low-intensity steps still add up. The National Institutes of Health says that taking 8,000 per day can cut your risk of early death in half. Taking one walk per day that’s 15 minutes or longer has been shown to have the most potent effects on cheating death—and if you go for that walk 10 to 15 minutes after eating a meal, it can provide bonus benefits for your insulin sensitivity, fighting off type 2 diabetes.

Laye’s got one more suggestion for your walks: to help maintain agility and keep you from getting frail (and eventually falling), make sure one of your weekly walks is on an uneven surface, like a trail. This, he says, can keep your feet and ankles nimble.

With Laye’s help, we’ve built a week of workouts that mixes all these ingredients together into a four-day-per-week longevity workout plan that takes around 30 minutes per session.

Your Weekly Longevity Workout Plan

With this plan, you’ll perform two strength workouts and two vigorous cardio sessions—one that’s cardio cardio, and the other as a power-building exercise circuit that keeps your heart pumping while strength training.

Do the workouts in any order you want. But rest at least one day between strength sessions, and one day between the vigorous sessions. Your schedule might look like:

• Monday: Strength 1
• Tuesday: Vigorous Cardio 1
• Wednesday: Rest
• Thursday: Strength 2
• Friday: Vigorous Cardio 2

Every other day of the week, get your steps: aim for 8,000 per day, with at least one bout lasting 15 minutes or more. For extra credit (and extra agility), try to do at least one of those sessions on a trail or uneven surface each week.

Strength Workout 1

In this workout (and in strength workout 2), you’ll choose exercises from a series of categories:

• Pushing Exercise: this could be a push-up, dumbbell or barbell bench press, incline bench press, overhead dumbbell press, military press, or any other “push” move (instructions for these exercises can be found at the bottom of the page).
• Pulling Exercise: this could be pull-ups, dumbbell or barbell rows, a cable or other row machine, lat pulldowns, or any other “pull” move.
• Leg Exercises: choose a squat variation, like a goblet squat or barbell squat, a deadlift, like a Romanian deadlift or single-leg deadlift, the leg press machine, a lunge, step-up, or any other leg move. Pick two.
• Accessory Exercises: These can be just about anything else. Choose an abdominal move like a plank or hanging leg raise, arm or shoulder moves like curls or lateral raises, or any other moves you’d like to incorporate.

Before starting this workout, warm up: pick a cardio method of your choice and go for 5 to 10 minutes to get your heart rate moving. Then, during the workout, perform a warm-up set of each exercise with a lighter weight.

After your warm-up, perform four sets of each exercise you’ve chosen. In each set, aim for 8 to 12 reps, finishing when you feel like you could only do one or two more repetitions. If that’s too easy at your current weight, increase the weight (or, in the case of bodyweight exercises like push-ups, keep going).

Sample Strength Workout

• Push: Dumbbell Bench Press
• Pull: Lat Pulldown
• Leg 1: Goblet Squat
• Leg 2: Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift
• Accessory 1: Hanging Leg Raise
• Accessory 2: Biceps Curl

Vigorous Cardio 1: VO2 Max Countdown

You might have heard of your VO2 max. It’s basically the hardest you can work while your body can still deliver oxygen to your muscles to make more muscular fuel. Raising this max capacity for effort can make you live longer: For every unit of VO2 max you go up, 45 days are added to your expected lifespan.

To bump it up, you’ve got to work at or near this level—working at a 9 or a 10 out of 10, even just for short bursts. In this workout, you’ll choose a cardio modality of your choice, like a bike, rowing machine, jump rope, or other for of heart-pumping work, and go as hard as you can muster for the prescribed period. When you’ve finished, you’ll rest until your heart rate comes back near normal, a level coaches call “composed, but not completely rested.”

Here’s the good news: each effort gets shorter, which is why the workout’s called a “countdown.” Try to go a little harder on each shorter effort. How to do it:

1. After warming up, go as hard as you can maintain for 3 minutes.
2. Rest until you’re composed. This can be as long as the effort, or even longer.
3. Go for 2 minutes, then rest.
4. Go for 90 seconds, then rest.
5. Go for 1 minute, then rest.
6. Go for 30 seconds. You’re done!

Strength Workout 2

Same format, different exercises. For each category, choose an exercise that’s slightly different than what you used in Strength Workout 1. So if you did a dumbbell bench press for your “push,” maybe do an overhead dumbbell press. If you chose a lat pulldown for your “pull,” try a horizontal seated cable row.

Then do the same thing: After your warm-up, perform four sets of each exercise you’ve chosen. In each set, aim for 8 to 12 reps, finishing when you feel like you could only do one or two more repetitions. If that’s too easy at your current weight, increase the weight (or, in the case of bodyweight exercises like push-ups, keep going).

Vigorous Cardio 2

For vigorous session number two, we’ll do a strength circuit that gets the heart pumping and also moves weights fast. When you do that, you build muscular power, a measure of not just how much force you can create, but how quickly you can create that force. Muscle power is a better predictor of longevity than absolute strength. In this workout, build it by aiming to move the weights (and your body) fast, creating force quickly.

The exercises:

1. Kettlebell Swing or Dumbbell Swing
2. Push-Up
3. Squat of choice (like a Goblet Squat)
4. Bent-Over Dumbbell or Kettlebell Row
5. Step-Up or Lunge

How to do Vigorous Cardio Workout 2:

1. Perform one set of 10 to 15 repetitions of each move, going from one exercise to the next with minimal rest.
2. When you’ve finished all five exercises, rest for one minute.
3. Continue in this way for 20 to 30 minutes.

Exercises for the Longevity Workout Plan

The beauty of this plan is that you can mix and match all types of pushing, pulling, leg, and accessory exercises. But if you’re not sure where to start, here are some great building block moves and how to do them.

Pushing Exercises

Push-Up

1. Assume a classic push-up position, with hands directly beneath your shoulders, your body forming a straight line from head to heels.
2. Maintain this rigid body line as you bend your elbows to lower your chest toward the floor.
3. Press back to start, maintaining the straight body line.

Dumbbell Bench Press

1. Lie face-up on a bench and hold dumbbells over your chest with an overhand grip.
2. Bend your elbows to lower the weights to the sides of your chest. Your elbows should stay close to your sides, forming a 45-degree angle.
3. Pause for a beat, then press back to start.

Dumbbell Shoulder Press

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, and brace your core and squeeze your butt. Bring the dumbbells up to your shoulders, palms in.
2. Maintaining an upright posture, press the dumbbells overhead until your elbows are almost straight.
3. Return the weights to your shoulders, and repeat.

Pulling Exercises

Resistance Band–Assisted Pull-Up

1. Tie a looped resistance band in between the handles of a pull-up bar so that it hangs down.
2. Place one foot inside the band and grip the bar with an overhand or underhand grip, with your hands about shoulder-width apart.
3. Before you start the move, pretend you’ve got jeans on: Imagine tucking your shoulder blades into the back pockets of your jeans. This can help keep your shoulders back and down.
4. Pull your breastbone toward the bar by bending your elbows. To help engage your back, concentrate on bringing your elbows down to touch your lats instead of thinking about bringing your chin over the bar. This can help you keep from reaching your head forward, which can cause neck strain, and can keep you from rolling your shoulders forward or back.
5. Slowly return to the start position, and repeat.

Dumbbell Bent-Over Row

1. Hold one dumbbell in each hand with a neutral grip (palms pacing in), feet hip-width apart, knees slightly bent.
2. Push your hips back like you’re opening a door behind you with your butt. This starts the hip hinge.
3. Keep pushing your hips back so that your back remains flat until it is nearly parallel to the floor with the weight hanging straight down from your shoulders.
4. Maintaining this flat back position, pull the weights toward your chest, bending at your elbow and keeping your upper arms in line with your back.
5. Lower the weights back to the starting position, and repeat.

Lat Pull-Down

1. Sit in the lat pull-down machine (a cable machine with a bar attachment would also work great for this) with your feet flat on the floor and an upright torso. Reach up and grab the handle with an overhand grip, arms slightly wider than shoulder-width. Tuck your shoulder blades back and down, imagining you’re tucking them into the back pockets of a pair of jeans.
2. Keeping a proud chest, bend your elbows to pull the bar down until it touches your breast bone, just below your collar bones.
3. Control the weight to return to start. Repeat.

Leg Exercises

Goblet Squat

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, toes pointed slightly out from parallel. Cup one end of a dumbbell in both hands in front of your chest with your elbows pointing down—in this position, the dumbbell and your arms will look like a goblet.
2. Push your hips back to initiate the squat. Bend your knees to descend until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor, keeping your chest up and your weight on your heels.
3. Keep the weight of your body in your heels and press back to standing.

Forward Lunge

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.
2. Take a large lunge step forward with your right leg, descending as you step until your knees both form 90-degree angles.
3. Press through your right foot to stand back up.
4. Once you finish all the reps on your right side, do an equal number on your left side.

Tip: If you feel like lunging forward is too challenging on your balance, try reverse lunging, where you step back into the lunge instead of forward.

Step-Up

1. Stand with a bench or other sturdy surface in front of you, dumbbells at your sides, palms in.
2. Keep your torso upright as you place your right foot on the bench and press through your heel to bring your left foot up so you’re standing on the bench.
3. Return to the ground under control. Do all your reps on this side before switching sides and repeating.

Single-Leg RDL

1. Stand on your right leg while holding one dumbbell in each hand, at arm’s length at your sides.
2. Keeping your right knee slightly bent, perform the deadlift by bending at the hip, extending your left leg behind you for balance. During this movement, make sure your hips remain square: both hip bones point forward and to the floor the entire time.
3. Continue lowering the dumbbells until your upper body is parallel to the ground.
4. Keeping your back flat, return to the upright position.
5. Repeat on the opposite side.

Accessory and Circuit Exercises

Dumbbell Biceps Curl

1. Stand holding dumbbells at your sides, palms in.
2. Squeeze your butt, pull your shoulders back, and flex your triceps. This will keep you from thrusting with your hips.
3. Now, maintaining an upright torso, bend your elbows to lift your hands up to your shoulders, your palms facing the cap of your shoulder. Squeeze your bicep at the top.
4. Lower your arms and repeat.

Forearm Plank

1. Assume a forearm plank position, with your elbows directly beneath your shoulders.
2. Form a straight body line from head to heels, squeezing all over.
3. Maintain this position for the time prescribed.

Hanging Leg Raise

1. Hang at arm’s length from a pull-up bar with an overhand or neutral grip.
2. Set your core, and then use your abs—not your back—to raise your legs straight in front of you. If this is too hard, bend your knees and lift them up towards your waist.
3. Control your legs back down, and repeat.

Kettlebell Swing

1. Stand holding the handle of a kettlebell with both hands, using an overhand grip. The bell should hang down between your legs. Set your feet a little wider than shoulder-width, and soften your knees.
2. Maintaining a flat back, push your hips back to drop the weight between your legs. Note: this is a hip hinge-and-drive exercise, not an arm exercise, so don’t focus on using your shoulders to swing the weight back.
3. Forcefully thrust your hips forward to return to standing so that the bell swings up in front of you.
4. As it swings back down, hinge forward again so the weight goes between your legs.
5. Thrust your hips forward again, and keep swinging for the prescribed time or reps.

Bent-Over Single-Arm Kettlebell Row

1. Stand with a firm bench (or coffee table or other sturdy piece of furniture) on your left side. Place your left knee on the bench, then bend your torso forward and place your left hand on the bench to support your body. In this position, your upper body should be parallel to the floor.
2. Reach down and grab the kettlebell with your right hand, returning to this position where your body is parallel to the floor, with the weight hanging straight down from your right shoulder.
3. Maintaining that upper body position, pull your right arm straight up until your hand reaches the side of your chest. Lower the weight back to the starting position, and repeat. Do all your reps on this side, then switch sides and repeat.

Tip: If you’re feeling strong and well-balanced, you can skip using the bench and try this with both feet on the floor, as shown in the photo above.