Even with all the medical advances we have made in the last century, living to 100 is extremely rare.  Studies show that centenarians make up a tiny fraction of the global population—about 0.02% in developed nations.  The number of people that are truly thriving at that age is even smaller. 

My vision of longevity is a person who is self-sufficient, vibrant, and “kicking ass” well past 100.   Someone who can live independently, walk miles daily, cook, clean, and tackle household tasks with ease. Maybe even hit the slopes, mountain bike, surf, play pickleball, or go out for a jog.  While rare in today’s world, I believe thriving at 100+ will become prevalent over the next few decades.  Let’s break down how we can make this vision a reality and some common misconceptions that I see in today’s current health landscape. 

Rethinking Fitness and Longevity

As a former CrossFit gym owner, I once thought high-intensity workouts were the holy grail. While great for performance, I’ve seen the cracks in this philosophy when it comes to longevity. High-intensity exercise often elevates cortisol, accelerates aging, and prioritizes complexity and raw strength over essential elements like balance, mobility, and injury prevention.

Don’t get me wrong, high intensity workouts are effective and can be beneficial.  But those benefits probably peak around 1-3 days per week, instead of the 5-6 workouts the typical CrossFitter or endurance athlete will undergo. 

There’s a common misunderstanding in the fitness world that greater performance = greater health.  While certain foundational levels of performance will correlate with better health, higher levels of performance will begin to take away from it.   

• Many powerlifters wake up in pain every single day
• Many endurance athletes struggle with overuse injuries and digestive issues
• Many CrossFitters have overtaxed nervous systems that require the next hit of caffeine and high intensity workouts to get them back to baseline each day.

The elite athletes you see on TV are generally competing despite lots of body distress.  Yet we still put these people on a pedestal and borrow a lot of our longevity advice from them. 

The aesthetics-driven culture of bodybuilding has significantly influenced how we think about health. Bodybuilders emphasize muscle size and definition, often promoting high protein consumption, regimented eating, and the belief that more muscle automatically translates to better aging. While muscle and strength are vital, many bodybuilders, even those who avoid steroids, don’t age gracefully or make it to their twilight years in optimal health.

On the other hand, endurance sports like marathons, triathlons, and ultramarathons are less about aesthetics and more about mental grit and the challenge of pushing physical limits. While these athletes often have strong cardiovascular systems and immense mental toughness, the toll of constant high-impact activity, repetitive stress, and overuse injuries can leave their bodies battered as they age. Both extremes—whether performance-focused or aesthetically driven—don’t align with the long-term goal of thriving at 100+.

As someone who has been entrenched in these communities for most of my life, I’ve seen the dark side of these approaches.  You see the injuries, the stress levels, the disrupted sleep, the digestive issues, and accelerated aging up close.  I’ve experienced many of those issues myself before crossing the 40 yr old milestone.  It was personal experience with myself and so many other athletes that made me take a pause and say…maybe there’s a better way. 

Lessons from the Blue Zones

There are areas of the world where the people who live there have a much higher chance of living to 100+ and thriving.  Where the rates of disease are far below that of our standard American culture.  Those areas of the world are called Blue Zones.

The Blue Zones teach us that health isn’t just about diet and exercise. It’s about holistic well-being centered around real food, consistent movement, strong community, time spent in nature, low stress, and fun.  There’s a connection to food, nature, God, and others that feels different in the Blue Zones than we are used to in most parts of western culture. 

Many of the people trying to solve for longevity right now are trying to take a cold and calculated approach to solving aging.  Its an approach rooted in pharmaceutical based solutions to mitigate disease and aging.  It’s also one that continues to confuse performance with health at the margins and sometimes misses the forest for the trees. 

My belief is that much of the wisdom we seek regarding aging is already prevalent in the blue zones.  Western medical breakthroughs will have a compounding effect on these principles, but they will be almost useless without the principles. 

Here is what I believe is necessary to thrive at 100+. 

The 11 Principles of Longevity

            1.   Purpose and Mission: We all need a reason keeping us alive and excited to get out of bed each day.

            2.   Relationships and Community: The people we share life with are what gives our life juice.  Laugh and connect with others every day. 

            3.   Effortless Activity in Nature: Set up your life in a way where you are naturally drawn to a variety of movement throughout the day, as opposed to only working out formally in a gym setting.  Ground yourself in nature. 

            4.   Real, Unprocessed and Local Foods: Nourish your body with the best fuel.  Eat slowly and mindfully.  How you eat is just as important as what you eat.

            5.   Lifelong Learning and Curiosity: If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.  Read, write, solve puzzles, and challenge the mind regularly. 

            6.   Avoid Catastrophic Injuries and Events:  Optimal health doesn’t guarantee that life won’t take us out in other ways.  Be smart in mitigating risk from high stakes events.

            7.   Optimism, Gratitude, and Low Stress: Stress will age us faster than almost anything else.  Gratitude is the antidote to stress. 

            8.   Deep Sleep: Prioritize rest as a cornerstone of recovery and healing.  Nothing can replace the benefits of deep sleep. 

9.  Functional Fitness and Posture: Cultivate flexible strength, balance, and pain-free movement.  Avoid sitting or staying in one place for a long time.    

10.Minimize Toxic Load: Decrease physical stress on the body via chemicals, pesticides, EMFs, microplastics, and pathogens like mold and parasites. 

            11.Modern Optimization: Use supplements, testing, and tools to compound the other 10 principles.