When we look at things like longevity, wellbeing, quality of life, certain attributes clearly stand out as helpful. This has been studied. For example, Tufts University has shown that lean muscle mass is a fairly strong predictor of longevity.
Here are a few other training or lifestyle factors that make a lot of sense (both anecdotally and scientifically):
– General mobility.
– Strength to an extent (“relative strength” in particular)
– Community, family, or social engagement
– Exposure to sunlight, quality food, environmental enrichment, problem solving, mindfulness practice etc
However, when we look at the athlete (potentially paid for their craft), the specialist – skillsets beyond longevity and wellbeing, the trickster, we have a different set of factors. The more complex the skill, the more time we need to invest. The higher we go, the greater the perceived (and potentially real) “reward,” the greater the cost (time and other), the greater the potential risk.
This means that identifying your intent behind the practice in the first place is key.
From here we not only can establish a minimum dose required – how often do we need to show up – but we also can establish a maximum allowable dose, or upper threshold before we are better off working on other areas.
