Dr. Rhonda Patrick Explains How To Design an Exercise Routine for Longevity  – Fitness Volt (2024)

Dr. Rhonda Patrick continues to shed light on intriguing topics relevant to the fitness industry. In her latest undertaking, she opened up on how to design a workout routine for longevity, underlining her use of vigorous training and high-intensity interval workouts.

As a successful cell biologist and expert in nutritional health, Dr. Patrick has quickly gained notoriety online, thanks to her easy-to-understand information filtered through a simple scientific lens. Her knowledge of wellness and health is unrivaled, which has led to her amassing over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.

She regularly collaborates with other big names in fitness and health such as neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Peter Attia, ‘The Hypertrophy Specialist’ Dr. Brad Schoenfeld, and has even made appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience. With longevity highly coveted, Dr. Patrick is back offering insight into crafting a workout routine for living a longer healthier life.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick Lays Out How to Build an Exercise Routine Tailored for Longevity

Dr. Patrick believes the success of an exercise routine boils down to habit.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is habit. Like, what are you going to consistently do? Right, you’re going to consistently do some sort of physical activity and it needs to be that, whatever it is that you will do. Otherwise, you can talk about what’s going to be the best but if you don’t do it it doesn’t matter.”

Specifically, Dr. Patrick prefers to include ‘a lot’ of vigorous-intensity exercise which she described as 80% of your max heart rate.

“I try to get a lot of vigorous-intensity exercise in. That would be 80% max heart rate. The reason for that is because I’ve been pretty convinced that if you are not an athlete doing more than 10 hours a week or 10 or more right, of endurance training.

So, if you’re not that person, I think that it’s more beneficial the data suggests it’s more beneficial to engage the majority of the time in more vigorous-intensity exercise versus zone two training or a lower intensity I guess it’s more of a moderate intensity.”

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In addition, Dr. Patrick believes high-intensity interval training is crucial to a workout routine as well as improving one’s overall Vo2 max.

“If you can step it up to being a little bit more vigorous if you can still do that and habitually do it, incorporate some high-intensity interval training in there as well, I do think it’s very beneficial. It’s also beneficial for the Vo2 max improvements.”

Patrick emphasized the need for vigorous exercise by citing a study that found 40 percent of those who engaged in ‘moderate-intensity’ exercise did not improve their Vo2 max.

“There have been studies done of the people actually meeting the requirements for aerobic exercise per week, it’s like two and a half hours a week, and even if they are doing moderate-intensity exercise, there’s like 40% of those people will not improve their Vo2 max.

“They are called non-responders. We don’t really know why they don’t respond. But it’s thought because improvements in your cardiorespiratory fitness as measured by Vo2 max, it’s an adaptation. In order to have that adaptation, a stronger stressor will produce a little bit more of a robust adaptation,” said Dr. Rhonda Patrick.

To remedy the issue, Dr. Patrick shared that these subjects improved their Vo2 max with high-intensity training.

“There are studies that have identified that people that don’t respond if they then engage in more high-intensity training, they can get those Vo2 max improvements.”

Dr. Patrick also underlined that Vo2 max is the most important indicator of longevity.

“The thing I love about it, it’s something you can measure, it’s a biomarker, I think it’s one of the most important things [to longevity] absolutely.

There is evidence that doing this vigorous exercise is important but it’s got to be a longer-interval type of exercise.”

This hasn’t been the first time Dr. Patrick has advocated for high-intensity interval training. She recently delved into how HIIT benefits mitochondria and heart health, stressing that the fitness regimen can also have a positive effect on glucose control and insulin sensitivity.

From her Norwegian ‘4×4’ workout for enhanced heart health to her thoughts on training intensity, Dr. Patrick aims to offer fans useful and effective advice they can apply to better their lives through physical fitness.

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