Key Takeaways
-
Strength training is an important healthy-aging habit because preserving muscle supports metabolic, bone, joint, and functional health.
-
Full-body resistance training two to three times a week is ideal, but start at your current fitness level and don’t push too hard at first.
-
The bigger goal is long-term independence: Maintaining strength can help you keep doing ordinary things like getting out of a chair, carrying groceries, and moving through daily life on your own as you age.
Longevity is having yet another moment, to put it mildly. There are , sleep trackers, cold plunges, and enough “anti-aging” advice to turn healthy living into a second job—or worse, a straight-up obsession.
But how you age is often influenced by much more ordinary habits, including how you move or how often you stay To give you a simpler, more sustainable, less expensive starting point for healthier aging, we asked a longevity physician for one truly helpful habit she makes a point of practicing again and again.
Meet the Expert
-
MD, longevity physician and founder of Timmons Wellness
The Healthy-Aging Habit This Doctor Prioritizes
The one habit that longevity physician Jennifer Timmons, MD, prioritizes most for healthy aging is . Dr. Timmons has spent more than a decade practicing in traditional primary care before she persued advanced training in functional and longevity medicine. For her, preserving muscle is about far more than staying strong and looking good as someone hits the golden years.
“We lose about 3 to 5 percent of our muscle mass per year after the age of 35, and maintaining muscle mass is so important as we age,” Timmons explains. “It helps with and regulating your glucose; it helps with and keeping your bones strong to prevent osteoporosis; and it helps with joint health by keeping your joints strong.”
According to Dr. Timmons, the most important benefit is its undisputed impact on independence: “The day-to-day tasks we want to continue doing—being able to get up and down on your own, in and out of a car, and carry your own groceries—along with the activities we want to keep enjoying as we age, all depend on maintaining our muscle mass,” she says.
To help slow her own muscle loss, Dr. Timmons aims to strength-train at least two to three times a week. She also doesn’t believe in designated leg days. “I recommend a where you train the major muscle groups across your entire body, rather than splitting into upper and lower body days,” she explains. “So, whole-body two to three times a week, using a progressive overload method where you gradually increase the weights or reps over time.”
If you lack equipment or don’t want to start a gym membership, Dr. Timmons recommends using your own body with big, full-body movements like or “You can modify as needed, such as doing push-ups from your knees,” she says.
Is Strength Training More Important Than Other Healthy Habits?
Of course, healthy aging isn’t guaranteed by a single longevity-focused behavior. Eating well, and maintaining strong relationships can all matter to your long-term quality of life. Despite that, Dr. Timmons still chooses strength training as her number one habit for healthy aging.
“It really is so important for maintaining independence,” she says, citing one recent meta-analysis on older adults. “The study confirmed that strength training twice a week helped with functional capacity and independence in daily tasks.” More specifically, participants who did resistance training were able to rise from a chair more quickly. That simple chair rise may not seem like a big deal, but it matters! Living until your 80s or beyond is one thing, but being able to stand up, move around, and care for yourself once you get there is another.
For anyone tempted to overhaul their entire routine in the name of longevity, Dr. Timmons recommends starting smaller to best increase strength. “Start with just 10 minutes twice a week, and work up every few weeks by 5 minutes until you reach about one hour twice a week of full-body exercise,” Dr. Timmons advises. “As you get stronger, you can progress the amount of weight you’re using beyond just body weight.”
If you have the mental bandwidth for just one more longevity-focused habit, make sure you’re also Dr. Timmons recommends consuming about 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight per day to help you maintain your muscle mass.