What Can We Learn from the World’s Greatest Athletes?
How Dedication and Training Applies to Health and Longevity
I was fascinated by the Olympics in Paris this summer and its many athletes and events. I couldn’t get enough of this, partly because, unlike lots of other screen-time entertainment, this is real, not fictional or made-up spin. And I know that behind every competitor is a story of dedication, long hours, going against the grain, seeking to get stronger and better at their chosen craft, and fighting through the many obstacles it takes to get to their level of mastery.
Yet there was something more than just “watching sports” that drove my interest, something inside that struck a chord. Yes, it was a joy to see what these athletes (and human bodies in general) are capable of. But I also felt a subtle inner kinship with them, in my own version of mastery and success, as I pursue health, longevity, and staying fully functional. And then it dawned on me that my journey requires as much dedication, training, and grit as any athlete I’ve watched.
Peter Attia, in his game-changing book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, advocates creating a personalized Centenarian Decathlon to motivate you to keep training for a longer, healthier, and more functional later life. These are things you’d like to still be capable of doing in your tenth decade of life. Instead of track, javelin, high jump, and other Olympic events, he suggests things like hiking 1.5 miles on a hilly trail, picking up a 30-pound child from the floor, lifting a 20-pound suitcase into an overhead airplane locker, and getting up from the floor using a maximum of one arm for support.
How Would Like to Spend This Time?
Your personal list could include anything from hanging from a chinning bar, walking 3-4 miles in an hour, picking up a kettle bell from the floor to over your head, spending the day gardening, opening a pickle jar, shoveling snow, or playing with your grandchildren (or great grandchildren?) on the floor. All these things will keep you independent and functional, so you can lead the kind of life you are used to, not immobilized, sick, or requiring medical care.
If you are serious about living “long and strong,” training for this level of functionality as you get older requires just as much time and effort and dedication as Olympic athletes. And unlike the kind of specialty training they do, it requires “all-around” training, involving endurance, strength, power and stability. Attia started his training for later life in his forties, and he intends to keep going as long as possible. That could be 50 years of steady training, potentially more than any world-class athlete. And remember, you are also working with a body that is not in its youthful prime and doesn’t regenerate itself as well as it once did, which requires levels of patience and recovery after exertion that youthful athletes don’t require as well as more time and patience to overcome any episodes of injury.
The heroics of the Olympics are real and palpable. Yet winning at life, your life, is just as valid and even more urgent. If you want to be the hero of your own life, your health comes first and is a prerequisite for anything else that matters to you—like gardening or shoveling snow with no follow-up visit to the chiropractor! I can’t think of a better goal than to have many extra, healthy, functional years on this planet.
What matters to you? How would you like to spend those extra, functional later-life years? What 10 items would you put on your Centenarian Decathlon list? Take a minute to jot down some ideas. Make it fun—and let your list inspire you!
