Year 9 science taught us that mitochondria are the powerhouse of our cells.

They're like these little factories that take in food and turn it into energy. This energy is a molecule called "ATP". And it's the fuel that our bodies need to move, breathe and function.

Lots of strong and healthy mitochondria give us more energy to handle stressors like cold, heat, altitude, poison, radiation. Having healthy mitochondria is like having a Ferrari engine.

The opposite – unhealthy mitochondria – is a likely cause of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and aging. It’s like having my old Chinese-built $1200 piece of shit moped (good for a breakdown every 2 months) as your engine.

See, (kinda like how an engine blows smoke) when mitochondria turn our food into energy they leak molecules called free radicals. These little fuckers then fly around the body damaging our healthy cells.

Anti-oxidants help neutralise free radicals. But even a bucket of blueberries won’t protect us from free radical damage (i.e. oxidative stress).

What we’re after is more, healthier and stronger mitochondria – they produce less free radicals and (like anti-oxidants) help neutralise them.

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"I am convinced that it is impossible to be healthy without also having healthy mitochondria." – Dr Peter Attia

Righto, things that help build more, stronger, healthier mitochondria:

• 🚬 Avoiding smoking, drinking, eating crap, overeating, pollution, overtraining
• 💤 Sleep‍
• 🌡 Sauna and ice‍
• 🏃 Steady-state endurance training (zone 2) – specifically the mitochondria in our type 2, slow twitch muscle fibres
• 🏋 Power training (short, all-out effort with lots of rest) – specifically in our type 1, fast twitch muscle fibres
  

Note: There's other stuff that's been proven to help our mitochondria. But they come with a cost. For example, fasting (at the risk of losing muscle), caloric restriction (at the risk of being unenjoyable/unsustainable) and high-intensity interval training (at the risk of lactate build up – soreness, low energy, higher free radical release and hormonal imbalances).

So the 5 dot points above are the most bang for your buck.