## #613 - Dr Peter Attia - The Health Metrics That Matter Most for Longevity
### Metadata
* Author: [[Modern Wisdom]]
* Full Title: #613 - Dr Peter Attia - The Health Metrics That Matter Most for Longevity
* Category: #podcasts
* URL: <https://share.snipd.com/episode/8b32aab3-77fd-45eb-bfc0-ba381c9614d5>
### Highlights
* Why VO2 Max Is So Important And How It Can Be Trained
Transcript:
Speaker 1
How many people listening to us today do you think know their VO2 max? Very few. Yeah, very few. Yet there is no metric that I am aware of that is more highly correlated with the length of a person's life than their VO2 max. Wow. Why? Not even close. Why? Why that particular metric? Well, there's probably two things going on, right? One, it actually does matter a lot. It's an amazing proxy for health.
Speaker 2
If you think about, have you had a VO2 max test done recently? Not recently. I had one done last one was probably four years ago. Okay.
Speaker 1
So you think about how miserable it is, right? Like, what is it testing, right? It is testing your maximal consumption of oxygen. Well, to get to that level, we are stressing you to the highest degree possible. It's it is, as its name suggests, it is a maximal VO2 max test. So the higher that number is, the more oxygen your muscles can utilize, the more fit you are, the healthier you are, the more capacity you have to avoid illness. And so I think there's the biological reason for it. I think the other reason for it, as opposed to say your zone two threshold, which I think would probably be equally predictive, is that it's a metric that is so ubiquitous. It's very standardized. It's easy to test for conceptually, not necessarily physically. And so you have a metric that we can easily capture. So for example, it's better than like a deadlift. In deadlift, there's variability of form. There's too much risk of people getting hurt. It would be a harder metric to track. So you have this metric that you can track. And then the having a high number tells you something about the person, right, to have that number, you must be to have a high number, you must be exercising a lot. And we know the benefits of exercising a lot, right, the person who has a VO2 max at the top 2% of their age. I mean, by definition, they're doing a lot of exercise and exercise has more benefit than probably any other single intervention we can do. So again, it's I throw that out there because I say like, yeah, we know those things. We know exercise matters. But when it comes right down to it, most people don't know if they're fit enough. Most people don't know their VO2 max. Most people don't know their ALMI, appendicular lean mass index. They don't actually know how much muscle mass they have. They don't know where they stack up for other people their age and sex. And yet that's also a highly, highly predictive metric of how long you're going to live. They don't actually know how strong they are. They don't know if they're in the top 25% of their age or sex for strength. So I think it just comes kind of back down to the basics. But like, we have to know these things. What gets measured gets managed. And if you're not measuring these things, I don't know what you're managing.
Speaker 2
What is the best protocol that you have found for improving VO2 max in terms of training?
Speaker 1
It's two things, right? So you want to think of the way I think of cardio respiratory fitness is it's a pyramid. So you have a base to a pyramid and you have a peak to the pyramid. And you want the biggest possible pyramid. So the area of the pyramid is your total cardio respiratory. I but also wide. Exactly. So the width of the pyramid is your zone two. That's your sort of aerobic efficiency metric. So if you and your VO2 max is the height of the pyramid. So if you want a high pyramid, you also need a high base. So you have to do training that widens the base and raises the peak. So the base widening training is what we call zone two training. So again, there's lots of ways to do that. But the simplest way to do it is to train at an RPE that barely allows you to maintain a conversation. So the way I describe it to people is I do my zone two on a bike on a trainer indoors, right? I'm listening to podcasts and audiobooks. It's a it's a pace of training where I'm mostly able to breathe through my nose. But that just speaks to the fact that I have pretty good airways. A better metric is if my wife comes in and talks to me or if the phone rings and it's important and I pick it up, I can carry on a conversation, but it's strained. The person absolutely knows I'm exercising. They're doing something else. But I can speak. If I'm at the point where I can't speak, I'm outside of zone two. I'm into zone three.
Speaker 2
What's a heart rate? Is that?
Speaker 1
Have ([Time 0:53:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f3503f95-7030-40d2-a10a-4f24c837fd8d))
# #613 - Dr Peter Attia - The Health Metrics That Matter Most for Longevity
## Metadata
- Author: [[Modern Wisdom]]
- Full Title: #613 - Dr Peter Attia - The Health Metrics That Matter Most for Longevity
- Category: #podcasts
- URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/8b32aab3-77fd-45eb-bfc0-ba381c9614d5
## Highlights
- Why VO2 Max Is So Important And How It Can Be Trained
Key takeaways:
- VO2 max is a metric that is highly correlated with the length of a person's life,.
- Training to improve VO2 max is important for overall health and fitness.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
How many people listening to us today do you think know their VO2 max? Very few. Yeah, very few. Yet there is no metric that I am aware of that is more highly correlated with the length of a person's life than their VO2 max. Wow. Why? Not even close. Why? Why that particular metric? Well, there's probably two things going on, right? One, it actually does matter a lot. It's an amazing proxy for health.
Speaker 2
If you think about, have you had a VO2 max test done recently? Not recently. I had one done last one was probably four years ago. Okay.
Speaker 1
So you think about how miserable it is, right? Like, what is it testing, right? It is testing your maximal consumption of oxygen. Well, to get to that level, we are stressing you to the highest degree possible. It's it is, as its name suggests, it is a maximal VO2 max test. So the higher that number is, the more oxygen your muscles can utilize, the more fit you are, the healthier you are, the more capacity you have to avoid illness. And so I think there's the biological reason for it. I think the other reason for it, as opposed to say your zone two threshold, which I think would probably be equally predictive, is that it's a metric that is so ubiquitous. It's very standardized. It's easy to test for conceptually, not necessarily physically. And so you have a metric that we can easily capture. So for example, it's better than like a deadlift. In deadlift, there's variability of form. There's too much risk of people getting hurt. It would be a harder metric to track. So you have this metric that you can track. And then the having a high number tells you something about the person, right, to have that number, you must be to have a high number, you must be exercising a lot. And we know the benefits of exercising a lot, right, the person who has a VO2 max at the top 2% of their age. I mean, by definition, they're doing a lot of exercise and exercise has more benefit than probably any other single intervention we can do. So again, it's I throw that out there because I say like, yeah, we know those things. We know exercise matters. But when it comes right down to it, most people don't know if they're fit enough. Most people don't know their VO2 max. Most people don't know their ALMI, appendicular lean mass index. They don't actually know how much muscle mass they have. They don't know where they stack up for other people their age and sex. And yet that's also a highly, highly predictive metric of how long you're going to live. They don't actually know how strong they are. They don't know if they're in the top 25% of their age or sex for strength. So I think it just comes kind of back down to the basics. But like, we have to know these things. What gets measured gets managed. And if you're not measuring these things, I don't know what you're managing.
Speaker 2
What is the best protocol that you have found for improving VO2 max in terms of training?
Speaker 1
It's two things, right? So you want to think of the way I think of cardio respiratory fitness is it's a pyramid. So you have a base to a pyramid and you have a peak to the pyramid. And you want the biggest possible pyramid. So the area of the pyramid is your total cardio respiratory. I but also wide. Exactly. So the width of the pyramid is your zone two. That's your sort of aerobic efficiency metric. So if you and your VO2 max is the height of the pyramid. So if you want a high pyramid, you also need a high base. So you have to do training that widens the base and raises the peak. So the base widening training is what we call zone two training. So again, there's lots of ways to do that. But the simplest way to do it is to train at an RPE that barely allows you to maintain a conversation. So the way I describe it to people is I do my zone two on a bike on a trainer indoors, right? I'm listening to podcasts and audiobooks. It's a it's a pace of training where I'm mostly able to breathe through my nose. But that just speaks to the fact that I have pretty good airways. A better metric is if my wife comes in and talks to me or if the phone rings and it's important and I pick it up, I can carry on a conversation, but it's strained. The person absolutely knows I'm exercising. They're doing something else. But I can speak. If I'm at the point where I can't speak, I'm outside of zone two. I'm into zone three.
Speaker 2
What's a heart rate? Is that?
Speaker 1
Have ([Time 0:53:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f3503f95-7030-40d2-a10a-4f24c837fd8d))