If you want to turn back the clock on aging,
if you want to look and feel like a younger version o f yourself
and you’re investigating various anti-aging strategies,
then you’ll want to take a look at high-intensity interval training.
Now, a lot of you know that I’m a big fan of doing this type of training, also know as HIIT,
and I’ve talked before on the many benefits.
But today, I want to talk about anti-aging and the incredible impact that doing HIIT can have on turning back the clock on aging.
Hi, this is Lance, and if you want to learn how to stop aging in it’s tracks,
how to re-capture a former version of yourself and how to turn back the clock on aging,
then you should consider subscribing to this channel.
Just hit the subscribe button below. And while you’re at it, leave a comment.
OK, if you saw my first video on High-Intensity Interval Training, then you know that in that video,
I listed a bunch of benefits from doing HIIT.
Benefits like weight loss, it triggers the EPOC effect, it increases VO2 max, increases overall energy,
normalizes blood sugar, increases insulin sensitivity, improves sleep quality,
reduces both heart rate and blood pressure,
and it increases testosterone, HGH and nitric oxide levels and improves the libido.
It’s he best form of exercise that I know of for showing the most rapid gains in the shortest time.
Oh yeah, and I mentioned that it has “powerful anti-aging properties”.
And that’s what I want to talk about today.
How HIIT can actually slow down, halt, or in some cases, even reverse the aging process,
and can extend both your lifespan and your health span,
the span of time in which you are healthy and enjoying life.
Now, HIIT is able to accomplish all of this through the effect that it has on your mitochondria.
But before we talk about the impact that HIIT has,
I want to take a real quick look at what mitochondria are and what they do.
The mitochondria are tiny structures inside of most living cells.
Bacteria and single-celled organisms are the exception…they don’t have any mitochondria.
These types of structures are called organelles because the functions that they perform inside of a cell
can be compared to the functions of any organ in the human body.
The cell’s nucleus is also an example of an organelle.
Almost all cells within the human body contain mitochondria, with red blood cells being the only exceptions.
Different types of cells can contain different amounts of mitochondria,
from a single mitochondria per cell, to over 2,000 mitochondria per cell.
So, there’s a lot of mitochondria in the human body.
Mitochondria are responsible for about 10% of a person’s body mass.
The function of the mitochondria is to generate the energy that our bodies require to live and function,
and they do this by burning the sugars that are circulating in our bloodstream,
in the presence of oxygen…consuming both.
All forms of food, whether it be carbohydrates, proteins or fats,
are ultimately reduced to blood sugar, and the mitochondria oxidize that sugar.
And they do this to create ATP. Adenosine triphosphate.
ATP is the universal energy source for all living cells.
ATP is the energy source that fuels our muscles, our brains and our organs.
We can’t exist without it. And we really need the mitochondria to produce a large amount of it.
A mole is a unit of measurement for measuring mass.
The typical average adult consumes between 200 and 300 moles of ATP in a single day.
But there is only a total one-tenth of a mole of ATP in the body at any given time.
That means that every molecule of ATP in our bodies gets recycled between 2,000 and 3,000 times a day.
And it all happens within the mitochondria.
The mitochondria in our bodies produce our body weight in ATP each and every day.
But that’s not all. The mitochondria are also responsible for apoptosis, or the programed death of the cells.
And they act as important signaling molecules for the expression of genes…
which is when genes get activated, or turned on. Or up-regulated.
OK, so that’s what the mitochondria do.
Let’s talk for a moment about mitochondrial health.
Our mitochondrial health is determined by 2 things.
How many total mitochondria we have, and how well each of our individual mitochondria are functioning.
Now, there’s a biological process called mitochondrial biogenesis,
which is the system for creating or producing new mitochondria.
As we age, mitochondrial biogenesis goes into decline, and we have fewer and fewer total mitochondria.
And the ones that we do have don’t function at peak efficiency…
and some of them actually start malfunctioning.
And we have mitochondrial dysfunction. We have mitochondria that are in poor health.
Now, there’s a theory that mitochondrial dysfunction is the driving force behind virtually all chronic diseases,
and it’s gaining a lot of traction. And it’s something that I believe.
It’s a theory that I personally subscribe to.
And this theory also suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction is what drives aging as well.
That aging is a form of chronic disease that can be cured.
That every organ in our body, including the skin, ages because of mitochondrial dysfunction.
Every anti-aging therapy or intervention that I have heard of works as well as it does because,
at the heart of it, at the cellular level, it improves some form of mitochondrial function on some level.
Human beings have two different ages: we have a chronological age,
which is the number of years that we’ve been alive.
And we have biological age, which is the age that we seem to be,
that we appear to be based on our looks, our cognitive abilities, our mobility and our activity level.
It’s calculated on a basis of a person’s physical and mental condition…
and some feel that this is a person’s true age.
Mitochondrial health has a dramatic impact on a person’s biological age.
In my opinion, it may be the only factor that ultimately impacts biological age.
How fast or how slow a person ages is ultimately due to the healthy functioning of the mitochondria.
So if mitochondrial health has such a major influence on the aging process,
what is the single thing that has the most consequences for mitochondrial health?
In my opinion, it’s high intensity interval training.
In study after study, biomarkers for improved mitochondrial health of all kinds rise dramatically,
and in dramatically short periods of time, after doing HIIT.
So, how does this work? How does doing HIIT improve mitochondrial health?
Mitochondrial health improves in three different ways.
First, by increasing the total number of mitochondria in your body.
Second, by improving the function of each and every mitochondria
and third, by getting rid of those mitochondria that are functioning below peak levels, or even malfunctioning.
OK, so mitochondria adapt to stress by creating more of themselves, in the process of mitochondrial biogenesis.
And HIIT triggers mitochondrial biogenesis.
Performing HIIT gets the cellular machinery cranked up to go into the production of new mitochondria.
When mitochondria work harder, one of the side effects is that they make more Oxygen Reactive Species,
which are free radicals.
They work as signaling molecules and one of their functions is to send a signal to the cells to make more mitochondria.
So, your body responds to the stress of intense exercise
by making more mitochondria to keep up with the higher demand for energy…for ATP.
Mitochondrial health is by also boosted by improving the functional capability of each individual mitochondria.
When you do HIIT, the high level of intensity puts huge demands on the mitochondria for energy.
As energy demands go up, as the call goes out for significantly higher levels of ATP,
the mitochondria respond by up-regulating the production of ATP.
And as the production of ATP improves, the function of the mitochondria improves.
The final way that mitochondrial health can be improved is by recycling old mitochondria,
and this is done through the process of autophagy, which is the recycling of cellular materials.
Autophagy is controlled by the mitochondria,
and those mitochondria that fail to meet the needs for higher ATP production…
they’re destroyed and dis-assembled, and their components are used to make new mitochondria.
HIIT triggers autophagy, which breaks down and recycles dysfunctional mitochondria,
and then replaces them with brand, spanking new ones produced by activating mitochondrial biogenesis.
So, to recap, HIIT not only boosts the number of mitochondria in your body,
it also improves their function and replaces old, worn-out mitochondria with new, better-functioning ones.
In tests, subjects who performed HIIT
were able to increase the mitochondrial function by as much as 30% in as little as one month.
I’d like to take a quick break here and remind you guys to leave me a comment.
I’m thinking about doing a video dedicated to the mitochondria.
What they are, how they function, how their function declines with age
and how all of the various anti-aging therapies impact mitochondrial health.
If this is something you guys would like to see, leave a comment and let me know.
So, we know that HIIT improves mitochondrial function, but how do we know this?
What aspect of our performance can we measure, to detect an actual increase in the health and function of the mitochondria?
One way is by measuring our level of aerobic fitness, and we can do that by taking a measurement of the VO2 max.
I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of people working out on a treadmill or stationary bike,
breathing through a face mask hooked up to a machine. That’s the VO2 max test.
And it measures the maximum volume of oxygen that you consume
when exercising at the absolute peak level of performance.
The more oxygen you consume, the better shape you’re in, the more fit you are.
And all of that oxygen consumption happens in the mitochondria.
This is where the oxygen that we consume is combined with blood sugar to release energy…by ultimately creating ATP.
This is where all the oxygen that we breathe in is consumed, and as your demand for energy increases,
you consume more oxygen.
Do this enough, do this long enough, and you get more efficient at the consumption of oxygen.
Improvement in VO2 max is the result of the adaptation of the mitochondria.
Your mitochondria adapt to the increased strain put upon them,
the increased demand for the energy that they provide.
In nature, it’s been shown time and time again,
that when biological systems their are put under a stress of some kind, their function improves.
And this has been proven in the lab.
Remember how I said that one of the functions of the mitochondria
is as a signaling molecule for the expression of genes?
So, there was a study done at the Mayo Clinic.
They took 72 sedentary people and divided them into two group…one aged 30 and below,
and the other age 64 and above.
They then broke both groups into four more groups. One was a non-exercising control group.
Each of the other groups were each assigned 1 of 3 different exercise programs.
One was HIIT, done on a stationary bike, one was a strenuous weight lifting program,
and the third was a combination of moderate steady-state cardio and light weightlifting.
Now, among the younger group of exercisers, those who were under 30,
the heavy weightlifting group had 74 genes that were up-regulated,
meaning that they had 74 genes that were activated.
Next, the moderate combination group had changes in 170 genes.
But the HIIT group had changes in 274 genes.
The changes among the older group of exercisers, those over the age of 64, was even more striking.
Now, both the resistance group and the moderate combination group reported fewer changes than in the younger group…
the resistance group had changes in 33 genes and the moderate combination group had changes in only 19 genes.
But in the older HIIT group, nearly 400 genes were up-regulated.
That’s an increase over the younger HIIT group of about 45%.
The older HIIT group had by far the most impressive gains of any of the exercise groups.
So the signaling function to express certain genes was improved in the mitochondria.
I’m guessing that the reason that the improvement was so dramatically better in the older group
was because they were experiencing more dysfunction than the younger group,
so there was more room for improvement.
And it turns out that the improvements that HIIT can have on mitochondrial health can be observed in the skin.
One reason that skin sags and wrinkles with age is because of the loss of mitochondrial function in the skin.
As the mitochondria become less functional in the skin,
the process for creating new elastin and new collagen go into decline,
and the tissue begins to become dehydrated, thinner, and less supple.
So there was this other test, where they took skin biopsies from a group of elderly people who were sedentary,
and they took them at the beginning and at the end of a 3-month period
during which the seniors did endurance training.
In the before biopsies, the outer layer of the epidermis, which is called the stratum corneum,
this outer layer had thickened,and the dermal layer, the inner layer that causes the skin to look plumb and moist,
that layer had thined and lost elasticity.
In the after biopsies, the stratum corneum had thinned back down again
and the dermal layer had plumbed back up.
The skin samples from the seniors were compared to skin samples taken from people who were up to 30 years younger
and under the microscope, the older samples couldn’t be distinguished from the much younger samples.
The 3 month training program had turned back the clock by as much as 30 years.
Now, the study did say that not all of the wrinkles had vanished,
but the layer of dead skin had thinned, and the layer of collagen fibers had thickened.
I’d be interested in seeing those same seniors a year or two later…if they kept up the endurance training.
Seems to me that if their skin was microscopically indistinguishable from skin that was 30 years younger,
that over time the outward effects of aging should improve.
So there you have it. High intensity interval training can have a dramatic impact on the mitochondria,
and the proof of that has been demonstrated in numerous studies and trials.
And these improvements can be seen in a relatively short span of time…
sometimes in as little as a single month.
So get up off the couch and start doing high intensity interval training of some sort.
It’s one of the shortest workouts that I know of, and only about 15 to 25 % of the workout is strenuous.
Ease your way into it. Start out slow and work your way up.
If you haven’t tried HIIT before, and you’re not sure that you can do it, then watch next weeks video.
I’ll be introducing a new form of HIIT that I now do, called a nitric oxide dump or release.
It only take about 3 or 4 minutes, but you need to do it 3 times a day.
And it’s something that pretty much anyone can do.
So that’s it for me…I’m outta here. If you want to learn how to slow down the aging process,
look and feel better than you have in years, and turn back the clock on aging…
seriously, subscribe to this channel.
Leave a comment and let me know what other topics you’d like me to do a video on,
share this video with your friends and on your social media.
And I’ll see you next time. Thanks for watching.