#FindFit – The Best Type of Muscle And How To Build It

So, if weightlifting makes you live longer, then the bigger your muscles, the longer you live, right?

The short answer? No.

There is an unofficial law of diminishing returns when it comes to the amount of muscle mass you can build. I first realized this when one blogger had Paul Jaminet on his podcast, who stated that a smaller muscle that can exert more force is healthier than a gargantuan but relatively weak muscle. He cited a study in guinea pigs showing that less muscle mass with higher muscle force capacity (such as the muscles you’d find on a compact, lean powerlifter or sprinter) could actually be associated with longevity.

For example, consider cardiomegaly, a potentially fatal condition in which your heart is significantly enlarged. When heart tissue is incapable of exerting as much force as it should, the heart grows larger to compensate. Because the heart is having to work so hard to support its own extra bulk, people who have cardiomegaly often die an early death. In the same way, old-school mass-gaining and bodybuilding programs can have major effects on your health because larger muscles take a lot of energy to carry and maintain. They also require more antioxidants to help them recover.

Bodybuilders and super heavyweight powerlifters must also often eat upwards of 5,000-10,000 calories a day. This amount of food can surpass your body’s ability to limit oxidative stress. And the amount of energy your body has to allot to digesting food, building muscle, and maintaining mass is energy that can’t contribute to cellular regeneration or autophagy, critical processes when it comes to anti-aging.

This means that if your goal is to stay strong and lean while maintaining health into old age, then you want to build wiry, powerful, compact muscles, like the recently gone-viral, 90-year-old powerlifter Joe Stockinger, who regularly reps deadlifts over 400 lbs in training and competition, at just 147 lbs body weight.

There are two workouts (each performed once per week) that I recommend for building that wiry, age-defying muscle. Now, it’s important to note that for these workouts to be effective, you don’t have to lift that heavy. In fact, research has shown that you can build significant strength using relatively light weights around 30% of your one-rep max (1RM) of a given exercise, or even by doing bodyweight movements like pushups and pullups.

When participants of one study performed sets at 30% of their 1RM to complete muscle fatigue, they saw the same muscle growth as participants who performed sets at 80% of their 1RM. And in seasoned weightlifters, researchers found that the same muscle growth occurs when performing 20 to 25 reps with a light weight as occurs when performing 8 to 12 reps with a heavy weight.

So, without further ado, here are two workouts that I recommend you perform one to two times each week for the minimum effective dose of longevity-enhancing resistance training.

Longevity Workout #1: Super-Slow Lifting Protocol

This protocol is similar to what Dr. Doug McGuff describes in his book Body by Science. Simply complete 12-20 minutes of a few choice multi-joint exercises with extremely slow, controlled lifts (30 to 60 seconds per rep) at relatively high weights:

1. Upper-body push (e.g., overhead press)

2. Upper-body pull (e.g., pull-up)

3. Lower-body push (e.g., squat)

4. Lower-body pull (e.g., deadlift)

Research done in part by Dr. McGuff shows how this type of training, done to muscular failure, causes the same type of cardiovascular adaptations as running. These adaptations include better lactic acid buffering, increased mitochondrial density, and better blood pressure.

Many people and fitness experts believe that weight training has negative effects on blood pressure, especially for people with heart problems.

But the reality is that while peripheral resistance (blood pressure in your blood vessels) goes up during weight training, central resistance (blood pressure in your heart) isn’t even elevated above resting levels. That means that when lifting weights, your heart isn’t having any more trouble than it would during a leisurely walk. Weightlifting also produces adrenaline, which causes blood vessels to expand, helping to regulate blood pressure and relieve strain on your heart. Be sure to check out what Dr. McGuff has to say about the benefits of weight training in his book and my podcast episode with him.

Longevity Workout #2: High-Intensity Bodyweight Circuit

A pair of researchers from The American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal designed this 7-minute workout (later dubbed “The Scientific 7-Minute Workout” by the New York Times) to maintain strength and muscle in as little time as possible.

Perform each exercise for 30 seconds with 10 seconds of rest in between exercises. Aside from the wall sits, you should do these exercises at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10:

1. Jumping jacks (or burpees)

2. Wall sits

3. Push-ups (or clapping push-ups)

4. Crunches (or knee-ups)

5. Step-ups (or lunge jumps)

6. Squats (or squat jumps)

7. Dips

8. Planks

9. Running in place with high knees (or jump rope or stair sprints)

10. Lunges (or lunge jumps)

11. Push-ups with rotation (at the top of the push-up, alternately raise your arms and point them straight up)

12. Side planks

These two workouts mean that, yes, you can build significant amounts of strength and muscle by doing only bodyweight exercises. And these two workouts provide the ultimate minimum effective dose of exercise. If you follow these two workouts each week consistently, you’ll be right in the sweet spot between strength, muscle, and longevity.