Home › Heart & fitness

Heart & fitness

How do I build a fitter heart?

Cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 max) is one of the strongest predictors of a long, healthy life, and it responds to training at any age.

What the experts agree on

  • Build a base of easy aerobic exercise most weeks: a pace where you can still talk. Guidelines suggest 150–300 minutes a week.
  • Add one or two harder sessions a week, such as intervals, to raise your top-end fitness.
  • Short bursts count: a few minutes of vigorous effort, like fast stair climbing, adds up.
  • Hard sessions need rest days between them; more is not always better.

Where they disagree

  • How hard: Attia and Levine build a large easy base with one hard session; Patrick and Sims put more weight on intervals.
  • How long: Gibala shows short interval sessions can match longer steady ones for some measures, in younger adults.

General education, not medical advice. Our plans adapt this to your age, time and health screen.

The specialists

HeartBenjamin LevineExercise and the ageing heartThe 2-year heart-rejuvenation programmeIntervalsMartin GibalaShort, time-efficient interval trainingThe 10-minute workout (3 × 20 seconds all-out)

What the core experts do

Peter Attia

  • Zone 2 cardio (a steady pace where you can still talk) about 3 hours a week, for example 4 × 45 min. Start with about 2 hours if new to itStrong evidence
  • VO2 max intervals: 4 min hard, 4 min easy, repeated 4–6 times, once or twice a weekSome evidence

Rhonda Patrick

  • Norwegian 4 × 4: four 4-minute intervals, hard but not all-out (the original protocol uses about 85–95% of max heart rate), with 3-minute recoveries, 1–2 times a week; build up graduallySome evidence
  • Keep daily walking too: step benefits level off around 6,000–8,000 steps a day for older adultsStrong evidence

Bryan Johnson

  • About 150 minutes a week of moderate cardio (Zone 2, a pace where you can still talk)Strong evidence
  • About 75 minutes a week of vigorous work such as high-intensity intervalsStrong evidence

Brad Stanfield

  • Cardio: 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week. His template: two interval sessions and three brisk 30-minute walks.Strong evidence
  • Intervals: 4 rounds of 4 minutes hard and 3 minutes easy, after a 10-minute warm-up, twice a week and never on consecutive days.Strong evidence

Build this into your plan

Choose “Build my mix” and pick the expert you trust most for heart & fitness. Your plan fits it into your week, alongside training, eating and sleep.

Build my mixBrowse all experts