What if aging well wasn’t about losing weight, but building strength? This conversation calls into question everything we’ve been told.
For an important part of how we move through the world, muscles play a surprising role in how we talk about aging. We weigh too much, track our steps, chase metabolic hacks, but often overlook a system that quietly shapes everything.
In this week’s program Longevity. Technology OPENhosts Dr. Nina Patrick and Phil Newman with nutrition and fitness expert J. J. The Virgins sit down to discuss an important question: What if muscle was not just part of the longevity equation, but the foundation?
“If I could leave one legacy, it would be that we never use traditional scales and never look at weight loss again,” says Virgin. “We just look at what your weight is made of.”
It’s a simple transition, but it goes against decades of health messaging. For years, weight loss has been viewed as a universal proxy for health. Virgin’s argument completely defeats this logic: lose weight in the wrong way – by losing muscle – and you may accelerate the decline that you are trying to prevent.
We tend to think of aging as something that happens to us over time, an inevitable biological cycle. However, Virginia returns to this narrative and questions how much muscle decline is actually due to age and how much to behavior.
“I look at this, I go, how old is it going to be, and how much longer will I not use it?” – she asks. This is an uncomfortable question because it implies agency. Muscles don’t just disappear; it responds (or doesn’t) to how we live. Sedentary habits, poor metabolic health, and poor protein intake all quietly break down muscle before we notice visible weakness.
The consequences go beyond the aesthetic. Muscle is involved in how the body regulates energy, manages glucose, and even supports brain function. As Virgin says, “If you’re not metabolically healthy, you can’t have good muscle protein synthesis.” In other words, muscle is about the stability of the whole system, not just about strength.
Why is strength more important than steps? There is a cultural comfort in poor health indicators. Pedometers are easy to track, socially robust, and relatively safe… but they can also create the illusion of progress.
Virgo does not reject movement (far from it), but it draws a sharper distinction between activity and adaptation. Stepping keeps you moving; resistance challenges force the body to change. This change can be measured in unexpected ways. One of the simplest tools he recommends is not a closed or laboratory test, but a hand-held dynamometer, a device that measures grip strength.
“Grip strength is a proxy for overall strength,” he says. “People with the lowest blood pressure … have the highest risk of dying from all causes.”
It’s an amazing insight: something as simple as grip strength can reflect the state of your entire body. Not because opening jars is essential to survival, but because strength itself indicates a deeper physiological ability—muscle quality, neural coordination, and metabolic health all rolled into one.
Rethinking “aging gracefully”
If muscles are central to longevity, then the language we use on aging feels outdated. Virginie is blunt about it. He claims that the idea of ”aging gracefully” often masks a more relaxed acceptance of decline. “As we age, we lose muscle, but we lose more strength, and we lose even more power,” he says.
Strength, our ability to move quickly and strongly, is what allows us to catch ourselves from falling, climb stairs, or react to the world. And that’s the first thing to go.
The danger is both physical and psychological. When people think that aging means slowing down, they are teaching this reality to their bodies: choosing gentler movements, avoiding resistance, and gradually moving from agility to caution.
Virginia’s alternative is what she calls “hardest aging,” a mindset that treats strength as something to be built on, not surrendered. It’s not about chasing young people, it’s about maintaining agency.
The first approach to muscles
This philosophy becomes especially important in today’s instant solutions landscape. The rise of GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, has made weight loss more accessible, but more dangerous when ignored.
Virgin doesn’t completely reject these tools, but she reclaims their place in the hierarchy of health. “You shouldn’t be on a weight loss program if you’re not tracking where the weight loss is coming from,” he says. “If 40% is muscle…you’re going to feel worse.”
His solution is what he calls a “muscle first” approach: Prioritize building or maintaining muscle before cutting calories. It’s slower, less dramatic, but ultimately more stable.
A more extensive critique is posted here. Longevity, as a field, is often involved in biotechnology, supplements, and advanced diagnostics, among others. However, in doing so, it may ignore basic biology.
“I would argue that the most powerful drug out there is muscle contraction,” says Virgin. It’s a line that stretches because it reframes exercise as an intervention rather than lifestyle advice. Each contraction triggers a series of biochemical signals—affecting metabolism, inflammation, and cellular health in a way that no drug can replicate.
Building a different future of health
What emerges from the conversation is not just a case for lifting weights, but a call to completely redesign how we think about health systems. If muscle is indeed central to longevity, then it complicates everything from clinical practice to public health messaging. This shows that gyms and places of movement are the basis for medicine.
Most importantly, it puts the person back into the equation. Muscles are one of the few longevity gears that remain highly responsive even later in life. It can often be built, rebuilt, and strengthened faster than people expect. Opportunity breeds optimism. Aging may be inevitable, but how we get through it is much less defined.
New series Longevity. Technology OPEN is featured every Monday, featuring the founders, researchers and thinkers shaping the future of longevity. A weekly news roundup follows every Friday. Listen Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
