Importance of muscle mass, strength and cardiorespiratory fitness for longevity
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I got a rowing machine recently. It hits a ton of muscles all at once, and is not bad for cardio. It won't challenge your heart as much as running will, but it gets the blood pumping.
I am no fitness expert, but it feels like a really good solution for me. I hope to work up to 20-30 minutes of rowing at least every other day.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25905467
(Launch HN, not Show HN)
Just to quickly share what worked for me since many of us don't have room for a row machine: a pull-up bar and a 30lb kettle bell. Every 4hrs between 9AM and 9PM my Alexa reminds me to work out. I then do 3 out of 4 of the following: a set of push-ups, 100 crunches, 25-pullup (or 100 row style push ups with my feet on a tall bar stool), and/or 100 kettle bell swings. The routine is usually over in 7 minutes if I stay focused. It's short enough where I don't sweat so no need to change clothes and shower.
To be clear when the workout reminder chimes, sometimes I don't want to do any of it. But then I remind myself "you can do something" and I at least do the push-ups and pull-ups. I couldn't be more pleased with the results especially given how little effort is required.
Of course genetics play a huge role here.
This idea is not founded in science. However, as Dr. Baraki outlines - dosage is very relevant regarding pain and injury
Rowing and squash are the worst :)
I’m suprised how I go to gyms and find they don’t have a rowing machine
One of my biggest complaints about internet health and fitness discourse is how much it exaggerated the time commitment for exercising.
A fitness routine like you described (20 minutes, 3 times per week) is actually plenty of time to make a significant improvement in fitness levels. The key is consistency over the long term.
Too much of the fitness discourse on traditional media and social media revolves around extremes and glorifies the misery component of extreme exercise. Popular programs like CrossFit are all about pushing the limits and the grind. That’s fine for some people, but it’s not even close to necessary.
A basic exercise regimen of 1-2 hours total per week will make a world of difference compared to no exercise at all. Really, you don’t even need to go for intense exercises like rowing. It’s entirely possible to get fit and stay fit by doing mild to moderate weight lifting routines where you may barely break a sweat.
I wish we’d do a better job of normalizing the mild to moderate exercise routines instead of the way the discussions are all about pushing yourself until you’re miserable.
Also exaggerating how much of a chore it is. Find an activity you like and it will never be hard to stay active. Of my 5 favorite things to do, 3-4 are different physical activites.
(I tweaked my hips during 2020 lockdown by overdoing it on my Concept2).
My advice is an app like Keelo, which creates HIIT workouts based on the equipment you tell it you have - including a rowing machine. I have my rower, some dumbbells, a plyo box, a kettle bell, and some rings.
Every workout is different than the last, you can use your own Spotify playlists, and it will kick your ass in all the best ways.
It's just not challenging enough (and I'm not very fit). Running/cycling (on a machine), I can easily ramp up the difficulty enough so that I'm sweating in 10 minutes. Rowing, I barely sweat even after 20 minutes (on max hardness, 27ish strokes/minute).
One of the best "time savers" for cardio is HIIT, and you just can't do that rowing.
But if you want challenging, join the Concept2 challenges. I was doing 10k rows several times a week as a middle-of-the-pack competitor and if that doesn’t challenge you then you should go pro.
But as I mentioned in another comment, you can injure yourself on a Concept2 if you don’t cross-train. It’s not a magic device.
33 strokes per minute. set to 10 resistance on concept2. proper form. go for 30 minutes.
I'm unconvinced this is an easy thing for an unfit individual. I'm fairly sure an unfit individual would only be capable of 2 minutes... at best.
1) 27 strokes per minute is not max. I'm 70 years old and I do 30 to 33 on the rowing machine where I work out. When I was in college, our training sessions were all at 30 to 35 strokes per minute. Training sessions lasted for 1 to 2 hours, six days a week.
2) As for HIIT, during a race we would often do a "power 10", where we would apply maximum power to our strokes for 10 strokes. We only did 10 strokes because at the power levels we were expected to apply, doing more than 10 would burn us out rather quickly.
I still do rowing because it's an aerobic exercise that works most of your muscles; arms, back, legs, stomach. The only exercise I've heard of that does more all around is cross country skiing, and I hate the cold.
Pulling faster/harder will make it more difficult. Try that, I guess?
> One of the best "time savers" for cardio is HIIT, and you just can't do that rowing
Of course you can, something is wrong here, although it might be difficult to diagnose over the internet. "max hardness" might be a clue - you probably shouldn't be setting the resistance to maximum and maximum resistance does not imply more intense workout.
Rowing fast is one of the most demanding movements you can do.
Ramming speed...
However, with fitness, there is so much junk to sort through that even really smart people have no idea what it means to be fit or get fit.
It all depends on your goals, but for the most part you can divide it into cardio, strength, and flexibility - all of which interact with each other.
If you want good cardio, you need to increase your capacity. If you are out of shape and decide to redline your heart with multi-mile runs, you are being inefficient. Learn about the aerobic threshold and find out what yours is. Then, train steadily at that threshold to increase your capacity. Walking on an elevated treadmill or biking are the easiest ways to maintain a steady pace. Also, use a chest-strap heart monitor. When your aerobic threshold is high, then your ability to burn calories goes way up. The difference in the calories burned per hour between a conditioned individual and non-conditioned is something like 100cal vs 600cal. Do you want to be able to burn 100 cal/hour or 600?
With strength, it's all about progressive overload. Don't overcomplicate it. You can't confuse your muscles. You can't take shortcuts. Consistency and avoiding injury are how you get strong.
This is nonsense. A typical person will burn 100 Calories or close to it per mile walked. The set of people who cannot walk more than a mile in an hour is pretty small.
On the other side, an elite marathoner can burn well over 600 Calories per hour. Something like 2600 calories for a race in as little as 2 hours.
An adult individual able to burn only 100 Calories/hours is not merely “unconditioned”, but quite ill.
Someone capable of burning 600 Calories/hour would be considered quite fit by most people (especially if they do this 2-3 times/week), but is also nowhere near maximum caloric burn per hour.
Just started going to a gym after a long break, and I am an absolute beginner in this topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
TL;DW Oulu, Finland is as cold and snowy as any population center in Canada. Plenty of people bike there year round. The issue is municipal infrastructure, not climate.
[1] https://www.boredpanda.com/students-bicycle-school-winter-sn...
That photo, to me, looks like a cloudless sky, so chances are it’s dry, little or no wind, and low humidity.
Even at -17C, that’s easy to dress for and way better than what you get around freezing with wind and rain, when the cloud cover prevents temperatures from dropping very deep (e.g. your typical British/Belgian/Dutch autumn weather)
Even that is quite doable, though, at shortish distances (say less than 5km), certainly with some wind cover, as there typically is in cities.
Also biking is a bit easier on your back and legs. It may harm shoulders and testicles though.
...which means absolutely nothing in terms of either ability or fitness. Sure, if you're time constrained, biking might be feasible where running is not. Otherwise it's just Easy Mode.
2) OP was trying to go back into physical exercise, doing everything by bike is a great way to jump back. Running is amazing but your options are greatly reduced. I can use my bike to commute which means I don't have to allocate time for physical exercise. Aren't we all time constrained ?
have a good day
Not when you actually consider the probabilities of getting injured in a crash/fall.
I can't tell you the number of times I've been injured on two wheels. Once I was run over by an inattentive driver hitting my BMX, knocking me to the ground, driving over my leg. On other occasions I've broken my wrists, broken collarbone, countless instances of road rash and other wounds. Other people here are arguing you can cycle in snow and ice, lololol, been there, done that, have the scars to prove it.
There's just no comparison in the context of "easier on your body". You can run/walk on sidewalks and trails with all the other pedestrians, away from cars. Cycling near massive vehicles driven by people addicted to taking selfies is so hazardous to your body it tends to kill it to death.
If fitness is the goal, running is way more effective in the same unit of time than cycling. I've done both trail running and mountain biking on similar trails. Every time I get really into the trail running mode enough to have the necessary fitness to really execute, returning to my mountain bike feels like easy mode with heaps of unnecessary mechanical wankery thrown in mostly because it entertains my inner gearhead and gives me more things to play consumer whore shopping for and buying.
I wasn't even "comparing" bike / feet. Just showing the potential pain points. I just couldn't jog because of my knees while I could bike (it actually helped said knees). I do prefer running for overall health... it involves more muscle groups and your respiration is also more intense (and so far I never had biking high, while running puts me in the zone.)
Cheeers.
If you bike slowly around cars, bad shit is even more likely to happen.
Have you ridden a motorcycle on roads before? It's infinitely safer than pedaling a bicycle among automotive traffic because you can at least keep up with the flow of traffic and behave in every sense as an automobile, in what is firmly the automobile's native land.
In the US it's exceedingly rare to live in a village with dedicated bike trails you can safely coast along. We have roads full of carelessly driven cars everywhere. Riding bicycles on those roads is quite unpleasant to say the least, based on my experience. We have reported instances of assholes "rolling coal" not only deliberately smoking out cyclists, but in some cases flat out running them over.
And we haven't even broached the subject of cycling being an acquired skill many adults plain suck at. It's complicated if you didn't grow up pedaling everywhere. Have you ever tried introducing an adult to cycling who didn't do it before? The only teaching experience more cringe-worthy I can recall was teaching someone with no manual transmission experience how to ride a motorcycle. All those moments have been hellish "I'm pretty sure I'm just helping this person get on a path leading to more convoluted self-harm" experiences. Getting them to go for a run doesn't even register anywhere on this particular map.
Back when I moved to CA for my first startup job, I had to leave my partner and our pets back in IL for a few months with family while I found us an apartment. When my partner finally showed up she had her arm in a cast, wanna guess why? Bicycle crash. She didn't have much experience riding bicycles growing up in a sea of cycling-hostile 5+-lane Florida surface streets, and crashed riding my old bicycle with my nephew passing time while waiting to relocate. Imagine how annoying that must have been to bring two housecats through TSA alone with a newly broken arm. Yeah, go ride bicycles everywhere everyone!
People that recommend everyone ride a bicycle everywhere seem to have absolutely no perspective rooted in reality. My "man up, run everywhere" comment was intended mostly tongue in cheek, but I'm willing to play devil's advocate in arguing it's obviously safer and more accessible than cycling. They're both ridiculously impractical in a world optimized for automobiles.
Now you have a point if OP never rode a bike before, I'd stay away for a while. Maybe that's why I never had any issues going back to biking .. I basically grew up on a bike. But that's not out of touch with reality. I crashed twice in the last 6 months, but I was far from breaking an arm (even though both time it was a front wheel losing balance so face first to the ground) and that didn't bother me much more (and I have a super weak health these days, I'm not a young stud in mint condition at all)
about practicality, and even safety.. I'd argue it's not as sure as it appears, at least in western european countries.. it's less risky than heavy traffic intersection in a car with crazy drivers cutting you off (with my bike I can chose 20 different routes back to home), and unsurprisingly I get there faster than with my car (no traffic jams).
What are you doing, running ultra-marathons?
Perhaps that is why running injuries are so common ? You can't keep pushing yourself to deadlift more, for example, without it being painfully obvious your form is not right. And you just know that the person looking back in the mirror should not deadlift 315 lbs. But with running there is no obvious indication and the environmental factors keep changing. Then you're spending months stiff and in pain. You feel 20 years old one week and 90 years old the next.
https://obdurodon.silvrback.com/winter-running-part-1
Again, thanks for your help.
It injures people in training (degrading readiness), and often leaves veterans with debilitating life-long lower-body problems that also cost the government a fortune in disability payments.
I've watched several Green Berets on YouTube state fitness goals for SF training of "You should be able to run a 7-minute mile pace, INDEFINITELY, with no preparation." No. That's DUMB. If your leadership puts you in a situation where that is necessary, your leadership is DUMB too.
While I'm mostly inclined to agree with your higher-level point, I think this particular argument hurts more than it helps. Military leaders plan for unexpected situations in the ultimate adversarial environment. They don't mean to put people in this situation, but they plan for it anyway because they want troops to survive even when things don't go as intended. Being able to reach an objective on time is important, and being able to run away from trouble even more so. These are elite units, put into the highest-uncertainty kinds of situations. In that context, at that age, seven-minute miles for an hour or so is not at all unreasonable. It's not even that far from what I could do, despite being 56 and never having been any kind of physical elite. "Indefinitely" and under load might be pushing the idea too far, but the idea that there should be some minimum requirement is fundamentally sound. It's the repetition and the normalization of tactics unnecessarily requiring such high levels of physical prowess that creates problems.
I managed to implement this since july this year. Very good benefits (muscle mass, cardiovascular health) but winter early night makes it a lot less joyful and I'm feeling less motivated. Also I see my thighs are getting thick and stiff .. but maybe I can fix that (jogging session and stretch ?)
Then again, it’s much easier to keep doing something when everybody else is doing it, so if you’re in an area where cyclists are a minority I imagine it’s more of a challenge to convince yourself. The advantages do still apply so I’m sending virtual encouragement!
Very much, and also netherlands bike lane system is a real luxury. I'm lucky to have a long bike lane to bike freely, if most of my area was like this I'd be biking twice more.
Thick and stiff sounds great to me. Regardless, I don't recommend jogging; I do recommend short runs building to max stride directly after completing a ride. I also like glute-ham raises and the reverse sit-ups to balance things out.
The main feature that increases safety seems to be overt bike lane and shoulder markings. So push for those if you have any involvement with local government. Our problem was the snow plows grinding down the paint, so some drivers would do things like try to pass on the right as if it was a multi-lane road. They will not notice a cyclist at all when doing something like that. I've also been hit by red light racers. They are only looking at the light, zero awareness of anything else.
The best thing you can do is probably to just run the brightest flashers you can at all times, front, back, and sides. And this sounds silly, but, think about what you are going to do if something goes wrong. My worst hit was greatly mitigated by just remaining calm and reacting as I had rehearsed in my head, rolling up onto the windshield and tucking into a ball as I flipped through the air. One thing I wasn't quite ready for what what it feels like to get hit by a wall of steel at that speed, nothing like what happens at normal human speeds like playing football.
Starting off by doing compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench press, and OH press is a great way to get your base strength levels up. You can add accessories later to zero in on specific muscle groups that need work. (You'll know which ones need work.)
Best tip is don't be a showoff. Use only the amount of weight you can actually handle while keeping your form correct. Proper technique is better than big numbers. Strength will come with effort and technique.
Oh, and your diet will change. Get ready to sate those cravings you'll get for protein-rich and fatty foods your body needs to repair your broken-down muscles. And get used to delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS); it's the "pain" in "no pain, no gain". Other forms of pain may not be so good.
Edit: clarify "sore" not "in pain" there is a difference.
I would try 1) increasing your protein to 1.5-2g per kg of body weight per day. 2) Cutting alcohol 3) Making sure you get enough sleep to recover properly 4) Drinking more Water (1 gallon / 4L a day)
Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?: Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise by Alex Hutchinson
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11115311-which-comes-fir...
An important thing about resistance exercise is that it's not just about muscles. It also stimulates the skeletal system to make your bones more dense, strengthens your ligaments and tendons, and perhaps most importantly stimulates the central nervous system. The latter is the likely mechanism for cognitive benefits.
[1] It's arguably the better book, but it's out of print and you're going to be looking at about a couple hundred bucks at least for a copy.
Rippetoe, the author of the book, is 65 years old:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rippetoe
It's a book for beginners and anyone can use the linear progression method. Once you've progressed beyond just a beginner, The Barbell Prescription takes the Starting Strength idea and adapts for for people 40 and older:
* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34823846-the-barbell-...
One of the co-authors (an MD) runs the GreySteel YT channel (and he's no spring chicken):
It has advice for how much to increase weight by which varies based on age and gender. (It's basically "slow down if you're not an 18-35 year old man".)
[0] https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/returning-to-the-gym/
In addition, their youtube channel is a great place to start.
ps: I don't know who does the russian trick (30 push ups whenever they have to wait a little .. elevators, mw ovens etc)
It was one of the first books I ever read about fitness and it influenced all the workouts I did after it. IMHO strenght training makes going to the gym a lot more fun, as you can compete with yourself.
spin classes
rowing classes
bodypump (light weights)
yoga
If you do take these classes don't expect a lot of coaching. Instead, remember what the exercise was and look it up on Youtube.
BTW, if you want to get into weight lifting, start with bodypump for a few months. You won't learn anything, nada. But that's not important; basic reps are. Then get a 5x5 app like StrongLifts. The nice thing about StrongLifts is you'll have a routine and it tracks you. Again, you aren't aimlessly wondering around the weight room.
Finally, when you can complain about the difference between StrongLifts vs StartingStrength it will be time for you to leave.
Leave what, and do what instead?
With that said, I would recommend using a trainer in combination with at least one separate resource - like barbell medicine. I've had personal experience with trainers that pedaled pseudo science (or sometimes straight BS) as fact, or recommended methods that weren't aligned with my goals.
That said, if I were new to barbell training, I would pick up the Starting Strength book and read it cover to cover to understand the mechanics of the main compound lifts. Then I would pick up the Greyskull LP program and run it (it's more or less the SS program but with some sanity in the progression and it doesn't ignore conditioning) until I was regularly hitting plateaus on the main lifts. Then I'd transition to the TB protocols starting with base building and going from there based on my goals and other fitness related endeavors.
edit/ I'd also encourage people to read TB I: Strength, TB II: Conditioning, Mass Protocol, and the Ageless Athlete entry. I incorporate pieces of all 4 of these books into my training week.
Additionally, there is another book specific to law enforcement that has interesting information in it. And, on top of that, there are 2 new books being worked on at the moment.
TB just makes so much sense day to day. I think that the fact it is designed around you staying actually fully functional day to day, and not a worn out mess from a crazy amount of lifting is the key. You get serious gains but also still feel human.
The workout “Black on Oxygen” is maybe one of the best all round routines I’ve ever done. I’ve never found anything that tops it.
Ignore everyone here recommending Starting Strength without knowing what your goals are because if your goals are general health or a classic physique, that book will not help you.
imo the book is overrated, contrarian, and cultish, and results in injuries and an unbalanced physique just so you can get kind of strong at a few powerlifting movements.
Nerdfitness - The Beginner Bodyweight Workout https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/beginner-body-weight-workou...
Bigger Leaner Stronger (Book)
in terms of programming: starting strength is ok for beginners but don't stay glued to it for too long. once you start stalling move on to an intermediate program like the texas method, any of the SBS programs, 5/3/1 bbb, or some sort of ppl.
also, while starting strength is fine for beginners (the low volume isn't a problem as in beginners few gains are made the first month due to poor physiological recovery capacity, and beginners respond to basically any volume), mark rippetoe is a stubborn dogmatist who has never broken any records or coached anyone who's broken any records. take a lot of things he says with a grain of salt.
the most important things are: push yourself in the gym, increase weights or reps regularly (or more generally difficulty so you keep adapting to higher demands/build muscle), eat at a slight surplus, and sleep at least 7 hours, preferably 9 if it's possible.
That said, totally agree on those basics: progressive overload + eat right.
As for aerobics/cardio, I've never really picked up a book myself as I've been hiking my entire life. It really depends on what you're aiming for; if it's just baseline cardio, walks around the neighborhood are good enough. Beyond that you have to specialize a bit depending on what you're aiming for, be it endurance, speed, explosiveness, and also terrain and form. Swimming is probably the lowest impact, but requires a pool. I use cycling for groceries, errands and when I used to commute, but that's sort of an absolute bare minimum. At home I got a VersaClimber clone since I rock climb and mountaineer. I recently got into trail running after reading "Born to Run" but that's less a prescriptive/instructive book than an inspirational/entertaining read.
Recently I've gotten into Yoga as I've been neglecting flexibility. Yoga With Adrienne on YouTube has worked well for me so far.
IIRC, he poo-poos assistance lifts such as bicep curls. The one exception is chins, which is in the official program and he insists on overhand because it works more muscle mass, despite overhand being the more practical version. Yeah, if you're bodybuilding get Pearl's "Keys to the Inner Universe" and plan on spending a lot of time just creating a program. But for most average people just looking to maintain, and especially beginners, the basic five lifts are simple, cover pretty much everything you need (for baseline strength) and can be done with a minimum of fuss, including creating programming and actual time lifting.
>which is in the official program and he insists on overhand because it works more muscle mass
I assume this was a typo. But he does advocate (supine grip) chins because they involve more muscle mass (the biceps, specifically). He writes about it in his SS introductory text and also includes chins in his programming section of that book. That book also has a section titled "Ancillary Exercises".
Unfortunately I don't have the book to hand (loaned it out), but I'm pretty sure I remember him saying something along the lines of "you don't need bicep curls, just focus on the five lifts, but since you're going to do them anyway, here's the correct form." I haven't listened to interviews with him.
> I assume this was a typo.
Yes, it was; should have been "underhand", because yeah, they work the biceps more. As a climber, though, it's uncommon to do underclings (basically underhand/supine chins), but pretty common to do overhand pullup type motion, so I tend to focus on that over supine chins. Course, what's really good is hand jam pullups, but those are hard on the tendons and ligaments in the forearms and hands.
I read it and was still lost about frequency, how to minimize injury, etc. It doesn't give you the practical "do this" sort of advice a true beginner needs or at least this true beginner needed.
I really like Julian Shapiro's guide for the first few months of weight lifting: https://www.julian.com/guide/muscle/intro
I'd recommend the trainer part though - I tweaked my shoulder trying to just figure it out on my own.
Since this is a technical crowd, I would suggest firing up YouTube-DL and downloading every video from the channel. The content is so incredibly valuable that I could see them putting it behind a subscription at some point. Once you have it locally you can just sort by filename and watch all the instructional videos on the squat or deadlift etc.
What are you talking about? He lists an example two week program complete with sets and reps in that book, plus outlines exactly how to find the weight you should be lifting with. Form is rigorously specified, to the point I've managed to stay injury free from lifting while never having been coached.
As someone who had done practically no strength training (benching with friends every once in a blue moon), SS:BBT took me from completely ignorant to regular lifter.
His other book “Practical Programming” does. I find his writing needlessly verbose, but he does cover a lot of different programming options.
Also, don’t forget flexibility/mobility work in addition to strength and cardio. Starretts Supple Leopard book is a good resource, as is general yoga classes.
Special Operations Nutrition Guide: https://navyseals.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/special-ope...
After about 6 months you'll see incredible results. Keep going.
The reason there is such a big difference between below average and low is because in the "low" group, there's almost certainly something wrong with that group. A heart/lung condition, cancer, morbidly obese, i.e. issues with major body systems.
10-15min all out 110% of what I think I can do. You push yourself past what you think is possible.
Rest for 5-10 days.
Incredible result, minimum time
Work for cardio, muscle mass, etc.
The idea is to give your body a clear signal that things need to change (like in a survival situation) and then give your body the time and food to do the transformation.
The rest of your week you do physical things you like, walk, tennis, bike, etc
TLDR: training to failure isn't worth it for most people
These guys have world class experience and knowledge regarding health and training, highly recommend.
The idea was to be completely exhausted, lying on the floor after it. For each exercice it was only one/two serie to failure.
I will try for running this week.
I'm not saying yours is a bad idea, but, from everything I know about fitness, this sounds like designing for injury.
You should ease into it, push harder as the weeks go on and you gain more experience in the movement.
The idea is that you body doesn’t require hours and hours of exercise to make change, just enough signal that the your current strength is not enough, and enough time and food for your cells to do the work.
I wouldn’t do it with an amount of weight that is dangerous or with fast movement.
I’m not sure what there’s to discuss about the content itself as I can’t listen to it. Am I doing something wrong?
No, and you're not the only one. I've come to despise podcasts, because they are almost always very badly organized, if at all. I feel that we need a response to them, along the lines of "this could have been an email", except "this could have been a blog post."
Yes, your information might be insightul, but if I have to listen to 90 minutes of a couple of guys shooting the shit about it, it's next to useless in terms of actionable or meaningful content to me.
I really need a "TL;DR" for podcasts. Something along the line of the five minute precis from Gibson's "Count Zero".
last month I focused a bit on oxygen levels and mitochondrial health. Good breathing (and overall cardiovascular system) seems a simple trick to help your body overall. But I lack solid resources on the matter.
Breath is a much better book and very interesting, but is a bit less actionable in terms of real guidance it offers on what to do and practice.
The Oxygen Advantage is a much worse book with lots of hand waving and less evidence to back up all of the authors claims. The instructions on what to practice are much better and more actionable than the Breath book though.
Breathing is autonomic. You obviously can't try to "improve" it all day.
Having a sense of that, and knowing how to allocate some time to reset it a bit (deep breathing to relax arteries, slow down heart rate) is valuable I believe.
Any conscious breathing is short like you mention but I still think it builds a habit of breathing the practiced way. Like exercise or learning a skill.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
"Participants able to complete more than 40 push-ups were associated with a significant reduction in incident cardiovascular disease event risk compared with those completing fewer than 10 push-ups."
That's not to say that if you can't do 40 push-ups you're unfit. I was pretty fit when I did this test myself, and I could only do about 30 (I'm 48 years old, and 30 is still pretty good for my age). Now after doing it daily for a few months I can do 60. But even when I could only do 30 I was still pretty fit...I just didn't have the endurance in my arm/chest muscles to do any more than that.
Here is a chart showing how many push-ups you should be able to do based on your age:
I know this is hand-wavy, but if you're already working up a sweat for at least 30 minutes twice a week, you're doing alright. If you're also lifting heavy things with proper form, you're doing great.
Since then I’ve built up a home gym around kettlebells, a squat rack, and my rollers. I also get out and run 1 or 2x per week. I have never felt better or more fit.
Mix it up. Do something every day. Build slowly to give yourself time to adapt. You will be amazed at what will happen.
A VO2 max test needs a closed air system, whatever estimation Apple's software provides will be for indication purposes only.
Statistically, and regardless of being non-average at 50 or not, the main thing you'll be kicking is the bucket when you're 85.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
"Among physically active vs sedentary participants...at age 85 years, the 3-year mortality was 6.8% vs 24.4%"
It does.
"A significant survival benefit was associated with initiating PA between ages 70 and 78 years (P = .04) and ages 78 and 85 years (P < .001). "