A longevity test you can do at home

Hello there,

Today, I want to open with some shocking stats for you:

• A 70-year-old exercises less than half of what he did at age 40. And beyond 70, inactivity decelerates (Fit people in their 70s are the exception, not the rule).

• The main cause why people at this stage stop moving is injury.

• More than 27% of Americans over the age of 45 report suffering from chronic pain, and 10-12% recognize that this pain limits their day-to-day activities.

• Back pain is the leading cause of disability in the US and drains an estimated 635 Billion in medical costs and lost productivity.

Now let’s dive into this test, which again, is just an indicator and at the least, it will help you to start working on your stability (I am also giving you a solution if needed at the end of this email).

• A flamingo-style balance test should be introduced in routine health checks for older adults as it could be a key indicator of how long you will live, researchers say.

• The inability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds in mid to later life is linked to a near doubling in the risk of death from any cause within the next 10 years, a study has suggested. A fifth of those studied failed the test.

There are other tests which are correlated to longevity; one of them is the grip strength test:

“Grip strength is closely linked to mortality in people of all incomes and may be a better indicator of life expectancy than blood pressure.”

According to longevity physician Dr. Peter Attia, a 40-year-old man should aim to be able to farmer carry their own body weight (total combined weight across both hands) and dead hang for at least 120 seconds, and females of the same age should aim for 75% of their body weight and a 90-second dead hang.

Modern lifestyle is like an all-out assault on our spine (lumbar, thoracic, cervical); radiologists see so much degeneration on the cervical spine that they call it tech neck.

My favourite exercise to help this is the Cat Cow (slow version).

The slowed cat and cow help reconnect with the spine if you aim to feel and mobilize each vertebra. This is not about how much extension or flexion you can achieve, but how much segmental control you can attain from one extreme to the other. By feeling the position of each vertebra, you will be able to distribute the load across the spine.

This is just one of the must-dos from my repertoire. If you want my go-to mobility routine and the one that has helped thousands of executives reconnect with their bodies in less than 30 minutes per week, reply to this email with the word LONGEVITY and I will send it your way.

That’s it for now,

See you!

Diego Carrete

Chief Executive Officer @ FIT LIFE FZCO

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