Mobility

Jack LaLanne said“Exercise is king and nutrition is queen: together, you have a kingdom.”

The science saysStrongly supported. Decades of large studies tie regular activity and whole-food eating to longer life. Only the juicing he sold outruns the evidence.

Verdict: The kingdom checks out. The science would just decline the juicer.

Mick Jagger said“Jagger says daily dancing and gym work, drilled for weeks before a tour, are what keep him fit enough to perform two-hour shows at 80-plus.”

The science saysStrong and consistent: regular physical activity, including aerobic dance, robustly lowers all-cause mortality and supports healthy aging, even when started later in life.

Verdict: The grind he says he dreads is exactly the kind of habit the mortality data rewards.

Helen Mirren said“Mirren says a free 12-minute daily calisthenics routine has kept her fit for 60 years without a gym.”

The science saysRegular physical activity, even in short daily doses, is among the best-evidenced interventions for healthy aging and lower mortality.

Verdict: A short daily routine is real exercise, and the longevity data are firmly on her side.

Sanjay Gupta said“Gupta argues that physical activity, even something as simple as walking, is the single most effective thing you can do to protect your brain as you age.”

The science saysLarge prospective cohorts and meta-analyses consistently link higher physical activity to lower rates of cognitive decline and dementia.

Verdict: The walking-for-your-brain link is real and well replicated, but it is association, not proof that walking alone prevents dementia.

Cameron Diaz said“Diaz says there is no secret to aging well beyond living well, resting on five pillars: nutrition, movement, sleep, stress release, and loving relationships.”

The science saysDecades of large cohort studies confirm that regular physical activity and strong social ties are among the most reliable predictors of a longer, healthier life.

Verdict: Unglamorous but true: the boring basics remain the best-supported longevity tools we have.

Mark Wahlberg said“Wahlberg says whole-body cryotherapy is great for recovery, removes inflammation from the body, and helps him sleep.”

The science saysThe best available review found insufficient evidence that whole-body cryotherapy reduces muscle soreness or speeds recovery, with little quality data on sleep.

Verdict: Cold, dramatic, and largely unproven: the chamber may feel invigorating without doing much measurable.

Sting said“Sting says a near-daily morning yoga practice gives him more energy, a calmer mind, and the fitness to keep performing into his 70s.”

The science saysModerate: randomized trials show yoga improves balance, mobility, and vitality in older adults, but nothing about it has been shown to extend lifespan.

Verdict: The flexibility and balance gains are real and well-measured; the fountain-of-youth part is his, not the data's.

Cher said“Cher says working out is simply part of who she is and that regular exercise keeps her feeling strong and youthful.”

The science saysStrong and consistent: regular physical activity and muscle-strengthening work are reliably associated with lower mortality and better aging.

Verdict: The science backs the habit, not the headline: lifelong movement tracks with healthier aging, even as good genes and survivorship flatter the picture.

Pink said“Pink says she values being physically strong and trains hard, including multiple daily workouts on tour, as part of who she is.”

The science saysStrong and consistent: regular physical activity and muscle-strengthening work are reliably linked to lower mortality and healthier aging.

Verdict: The strength habit is one of the best-supported bets in this whole series, even if a touring pop star's training volume is more than most people need.

Dick Van Dyke said“Van Dyke credits staying physically active, doing a full circuit at the gym several days a week into his late 90s, for keeping him mobile and feeling well as he ages.”

The science saysWell supported: regular physical activity in older adults is reliably linked to lower mortality and less mobility decline.

Verdict: One of the better-evidenced habits in the series, and one of the few where the studied population is people his own age rather than gym-going twenty-somethings.

Kate Hudson said“Hudson says the more collagen she can get, the better, to replace what her aging skin loses.”

The science saysShort randomized trials suggest oral collagen peptides can modestly improve skin hydration and elasticity, but the data are small, short-term and often industry-funded, and nothing shows collagen extends life.

Verdict: Low-risk and maybe nice for skin, but 'more is better' overstates what thin, short-term trials actually show.

Gisele Bündchen said“Bündchen says she stays fit and clear-headed by doing exercise she enjoys outdoors, such as horseback riding, biking and skiing.”

The science saysStrong and consistent: regular physical activity of almost any kind lowers all-cause and cardiovascular mortality and also supports mood and cognition.

Verdict: Choose the movement you will actually keep doing: the data rewards the habit, not the venue.

Kaley Cuoco said“Cuoco says doing hot yoga five times a week transformed her body and does everything for her, mentally and physically.”

The science saysYoga is well supported for flexibility, balance, back pain and stress, but it is not an established stand-alone tool for reshaping body composition.

Verdict: Great for a supple, calmer body: not a proven physique-remodeler on its own.

Michelle Obama said“Obama says she stays fit by mixing weights, kickboxing and lots of cardio, plus some yoga, to keep it fun and avoid boredom.”

The science saysCombining strength training with regular aerobic exercise is among the best-supported strategies for lower mortality and healthier aging.

Verdict: A textbook mix: strength plus cardio is about as evidence-backed as fitness advice gets.

Al Roker said“Roker credits daily walking, alongside a lower-carb diet, with keeping weight off and supporting his health.”

The science saysRegular walking, measured by daily step counts, is consistently linked to lower all-cause mortality and better cardiometabolic health.

Verdict: Sensible and well-supported: walking is one of the most reliably beneficial habits a person can keep.

Naomi Watts said“Watts argues that women should lift weights through menopause to hold on to muscle as estrogen drops.”

The science saysResistance training reliably preserves muscle mass and modestly improves bone density in postmenopausal women.

Verdict: On the money: for women past menopause, lifting to keep muscle and bone is one of the best-evidenced moves available.

Charlize Theron said“Theron says doing exercise you actually enjoy keeps you fit almost without noticing, and she pairs regular movement with honest eating.”

The science saysStrong and consistent: regular physical activity, at almost any intensity, is repeatedly tied to lower premature mortality in large pooled analyses.

Verdict: Her 'pick movement you enjoy so you actually keep doing it' advice is exactly what the adherence and mortality data reward.

Denzel Washington said“Denzel Washington says staying physically active, mainly through years of boxing, is key to keeping his body in shape as he ages.”

The science saysStaying physically active is one of the most robustly evidence-backed ways to lower the risk of early death.

Verdict: The science is squarely in his corner: keep moving.

Brooke Shields said“Brooke Shields says building and toning muscle as you age doesn't require lifting heavy: small, targeted movements can activate the smaller stabilizing muscles.”

The science saysStrong, consistent evidence supports resistance training for preserving muscle, strength, and function and lowering mortality in older adults, though the largest strength and bone gains come from progressively loaded, not just light, training.

Verdict: Right that lifting matters as you age; the science just adds that gradually adding load, not only 'teeny' moves, drives the biggest gains.

Angela Bassett said“Bassett says it is important to keep moving, and that prioritizing movement and health now shapes how well we age.”

The science saysStrongly supported: regular physical activity is one of the best-documented ways to lower all-cause mortality and preserve function with age.

Verdict: Keep moving: the science backs her plainly.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said“Abdul-Jabbar says yoga is a major reason he played 20 NBA seasons with unusually few injuries.”

The science saysYoga measurably improves flexibility, balance, and mobility, but no trial has ever shown it prevents athletic injuries, and yoga carries its own injury rate.

Verdict: The flexibility is real and measurable; the 20-season injury shield is a story told backwards from a great career.

Lenny Kravitz said“Kravitz says the muscle he carries at 62 was built with training and food alone, without peptides, growth hormone, or testosterone, and that the drug-free route is harder but fully attainable.”

The science saysResistance training reliably builds and preserves muscle and strength well into later life, so the habit behind the claim is on genuinely solid ground, even though no outside party can audit whether any individual is actually drug-free.

Verdict: The training science is about as settled as it gets: the 'all natural' half is a claim only he can audit.

Bruce Springsteen said“Springsteen says he stays in touring shape with light weightlifting to stay toned and treadmill walking, having given up running.”

The science saysStrong and consistent: both light resistance training and regular walking are independently linked to lower all-cause mortality, including in older adults.

Verdict: A low-key routine that happens to line up almost exactly with what the longevity data rewards.

Idris Elba said“Elba says he defines fitness as combat readiness: enough conditioning and strength to last five rounds in a ring.”

The science saysTraining that combines cardiorespiratory conditioning with muscle-strengthening work is among the best-supported lifestyle predictors of lower mortality, even though nobody has studied five-round readiness as an endpoint.

Verdict: A vivid benchmark wrapped around a genuinely well-evidenced habit.

Michelle Yeoh said“Yeoh says she exercises every single day without exception, treating daily movement as the reason her flexibility and stamina have held up in her sixties.”

The science saysDaily physical activity is one of the best-supported longevity habits there is, with consistent dose-response links to lower mortality and strong trial evidence for maintaining function and preventing falls in older adults.

Verdict: Boring, repeatable, and better evidenced than almost anything else on this site.

Eric Topol said“After decades of prescribing mostly aerobic exercise, he says resistance training is the piece older adults should not skip, and he took it up himself in his seventies.”

The science saysStrong and consistent: muscle-strengthening activity is linked to lower all-cause mortality in pooled cohorts, and resistance training reliably improves strength and physical function in older adults in randomized trials.

Verdict: One of the few longevity habits where the trial data and the cohort data point the same way.

Harrison Ford said“Ford says he stays in shape by doing almost no formal exercise and eating a deliberately plain diet of vegetables and fish.”

The science saysThe diet half of his answer is one of the best-supported eating patterns in nutrition science; the 'practically nothing' half is not how the exercise evidence reads.

Verdict: The plate is well-supported; the shrug about exercise is the part that does not survive the literature.

Alan Alda said“Alda says doing a lot of specific exercise can hold back the progression of Parkinson's disease.”

The science saysStructured exercise reliably improves motor symptoms, balance and quality of life in Parkinson's disease, but evidence that it slows the underlying disease is still weak.

Verdict: Right about moving, ahead of the evidence on stopping the clock.

Willie Nelson said“A small amount of daily movement, walking or jogging or a light workout, is the daily price of staying functional in old age.”

The science saysLarge pooled cohort studies consistently link modest daily activity to substantially lower mortality in older adults, and the biggest gains come from the first small increase, not from high volumes.

Verdict: One of the few celebrity habits where the science is less impressive than the person and still agrees with him.

Rebel Wilson said“Wilson says she set herself a daily target of 10,000 steps as her main form of exercise, in preference to running.”

The science saysMore daily steps clearly track with lower mortality, but the benefit curve starts well below 10,000 and largely flattens before reaching it, especially in older adults.

Verdict: The walking is well supported, the number 10,000 is a marketing figure that outran the evidence.

Smokey Robinson said“Robinson credits his condition in his eighties to training almost every morning and to a daily yoga and breathing practice he has kept up for decades.”

The science saysRegular yoga and general exercise reliably improve balance, mobility and physical function in older adults, though the measured gains are modest and no trial links decades of practice to longevity.

Verdict: The habit holds up, the attribution does not: decades of daily movement help function, they do not explain one man's eighties.

Tony Hawk said“Hawk says that once you reach his age, simply staying in motion in any form is what helps your longevity.”

The science saysLarge pooled cohort data consistently link more daily movement of almost any kind to lower all cause mortality, with the steepest benefit at the low activity end.

Verdict: Unusually well supported for a soundbite: the sport is optional, the motion is not.

Alice Cooper said“Cooper says he beat alcoholism by replacing it with a near daily golf habit, and credits that swap with saving his life.”

The science saysGolfers show lower mortality in large cohort studies and golf delivers real moderate-intensity activity, but no study has tested golf as a treatment for alcohol dependence.

Verdict: The activity is doing real work. The rescue story is the part nobody has measured.

Gary Player said“Player says the daily gym work that keeps his core and legs strong is the reason he does not fall at 90.”

The science saysRandomised trials do show that resistance and balance training builds strength in older adults and reduces how often they fall, so the mechanism he names is a real one.

Verdict: The mechanism holds up. The dosage is his alone, and nobody needs to match it to get the benefit.

Jack Nicklaus said“Nicklaus says the stem cell injections that eased his chronic back pain point to a wholesale change in how orthopedics will be practised.”

The science saysSystematic reviews of injected regenerative therapies for chronic low back pain rate the supporting evidence as limited and low quality, well short of what the forecast assumes.

Verdict: One man's relief is a story, not a result, and the trials that would make it a result still have not been run.

Ernestine Shepherd said“Getting fit at any age comes down to four habits: eating well, drinking enough water, doing some strength training and doing some cardio, and it is never too late to begin.”

The science saysThis is one of the better supported statements a public figure has made about aging: resistance training plus aerobic activity improves strength, physical function and mortality risk in older adults, including people in their nineties.

Verdict: Unglamorous, specific, and about as close to settled as exercise advice gets.