Why are you trying to stay healthy? What should you be doing in the gym if you’re a regular gym goer? For those of you who’ve ever trained for a marathon, especially as part of a group, you’ll know it’s much easier to go to the gym, or eat healthy, when you have a reason to go. You can visualize yourself finishing the race, or perhaps the pain and embarrassment of giving up halfway round when your friends and family are all urging you on.
Wellness focused doctor Peter Attia, on Tim Ferris’ podcast, suggests that one way to think about life is to work backwards from what you want to be able to do when you’re 100. Among other things, if you live that long, as more of us are now doing, you’ll want to be able to play with your grand children, or great grandchildren. This will require a lot of getting down to the ground (where they spend most of their time), lifting them up and basically being fit enough to look after an energetic and moving small person. His scorecard listed in the shownotes for being an active and healthy 100 year old is:
Get up off the floor under your own support, walk up and down a flight of stairs carry groceries, lift ~30 lbs. over your head, and do a 30-pound goblet squat
Peter Attia MD, on Tim Ferris’ blog, posted Nov 27, 2019
The goal for your gym sessions then will depend on your age and current level of fitness. A well-performed 30-pound goblet squat is no mean feat for a 90 year old, and given the inevitable decline in performance over time, that means as a robust 30 or 50-year old, you’ll be wanting to be working up to considerably more, based on your own personal goals.
It’s unclear whether Dr Attia is planning to make this into a personalised coaching service business, but he should give it a go. I would sign up in an instant. And just think of ‘the customer lifetime value’ metric in the business model for when a 30-year old signs up.
Picture credit: Johnny Cohen on Unsplash
