- Longevity Company CEO Dr. Joseph Antoon has revealed his training schedule.
- Loss of muscle mass after age 40 can lead to a slower metabolic rate, weight gain and health problems, he said.
- To stay healthy, Antoon walks 10,000 steps every day and does cardio and strength training.
The CEO of a longevity-focused nutrition company and physician, who believes exercise is one of the pillars of healthy aging, shared her workout routine with Business Insider.
Amid a rise in pricey “longevity clinics” and luxury gyms like Equinox, which offer longevity memberships for $40,000 a year, Dr Joseph Antoon's approach to fitness is relatively simple and accessible.
Antoon said that as we age, muscle becomes the “organ of longevity.” After age 40, we naturally start to lose muscle, our metabolism slows and our bodies burn fewer calories, he said. This can lead to weight gain and increase the risk of developing related health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, sarcopenia – the age-related loss of muscle, strength and function – is a major contributing factor to increased falls, frailty and fractures in older adults and can lead to loss of independence as people struggle to perform everyday tasks on their own.
That's why Antoon, CEO of longevity-focused nutrition company L-Nutra, works out three to four times a week, fitting exercise into his busy work schedule to build and maintain muscle mass and get his heart rate up.
“I think this is very significant,” he said.
Here's how he trains to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
Walk 10,000 steps a day
Antoon aims to walk 10,000 steps every day. “I've lived in Los Angeles for six and a half years, and I've never owned a car,” he says. He walks to work every day, and he holds many of his meetings outside on his AirPods.
“I have four AirPods so I can walk and talk wherever I go,” he said.
There's evidence that walking every day increases your chances of living a long, healthy life.
A 2023 study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found that walking 4,000 steps a day reduced the risk of premature death from any cause, and the more you walk, the lower your risk (though the study only looked at data for up to 20,000 steps).
One of the study authors told The New York Times that switching from a sedentary lifestyle to an exercise schedule is comparable to “smoking versus not smoking.”
Cardio and strength training 3-4 times a week
Antoon works out three to four times a week, combining strength training with aerobic exercise. A 2022 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine based on data from more than 400,000 American adults found that people who combined aerobic and strength training were less likely to die prematurely than participants who did only one or the other.
To maintain his strength, he lifts weights for 45 minutes three to four times a week, and his cardiovascular exercises to get his heart rate up are more varied.
To really challenge himself, Antoon runs at a fast pace on the treadmill, doing three rounds of 12-minute runs.
Another option is to play 30 minutes of basketball or tennis, which Antoon says is a great way to combine exercise with social connection, another pillar of longevity.
Researchers from the Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a large longitudinal study, found that friendship may be just as important to longevity as exercise.
