Last week's article focused on how the backbone of Joe Friel's book, Fast After 50 - that periodic intense exercise is the best way to delay the diminished athletic performance associated with aging - also applies to aging in general and to people as young as 30. After I proofread that article one final time, I saw Patty Zanowski.

No, I didn't have a date.I needed to begin the research to pick a topic for this week's column, and there she was, gracing the cover of one of the many periodicals I read every month, John Parrillo's Performance Press. I estimated her age to be between 50 and 52.The surprise of reading she was 64 spurred me to read on and make a connection between last week's and this week's columns.The article explained that Kanowski had "battled her bodyweight" over the years while she "dabbled around the edges of fitness" and only started lifting weights four years ago. The gym where she lifts is run by a John Parrillo disciple, so that means Zanowski's workouts are "harder than anything she had ever experienced." That's because Parrillo preaches that both aerobic exercise - whether it be walking, running, or something done on a machine inside - and weightlifting need to be "intense and difficult" for either muscle gain or fat loss.Zanowski has gained enough of the former and lost enough of the latter to not only be featured in a magazine dedicated to optimal athletic performance but also enter a Figure Competition, an offshoot of competitive bodybuilding.In the question-and-answer column of the same issue of JPPP, Iron Vic Steele berates a reader who asks why Parrillo's prescription has to be "so hard and harsh" and wonders why it couldn't be "less severe" and "initially easier." These sentiments, by the way, come from someone who is a professional life coach.Steele's answer is as lengthy as it is gruff. What he stresses most in his harangue, however, is that "the human body does not build muscle or shed body fat in response to mild exercise."Does creating such an intro mean I'm going to pull an Iron Vic Steele on you? That I'm going to consider you a panty waist and unworthy of my respect if you don't work out with two thirds of the intensity I do?No way.But I hope you come to realize the way: that to age well - whether you're male or female, 35 or 65 - you should exercise one or two days a week where your effort, at least for brief periods, approaches and occasionally reaches your maximum.As support for "the way," consider the following research published online in September by the journal Biology Letters. Two engineers from Ohio State University placed volunteers on treadmills and asked them at times to walk faster or slower than the set speed of the treadmill. This was the difference from studies in the past that determined the difference in energy output for the increase in speed by increasing the speed of the machine, not the subject.In other words, when asked to walk faster, the volunteers increased their pace so that they moved to the very front of the treadmill. When asked to walk slower, they moved to the back.By changing speeds this way, the volunteers expended as many as 20 percent more calories than in a one-pace workout. Keep in mind that the fluctuating speed walk was designed to not necessarily be as taxing, just equal in effort to the one-pace workout, and that prior studies have found well-trained athletes burn up to seven times more calories exercising intensely as opposed to when they are sedentary.Clearly, alternating the pace and/or intensity of your workouts is a sound strategy for burning more calories in the same amount of workout time. Combine that with the other health benefits highlighted in last week's article from increasing workout intensity and it's hard to argue against this article's title.Engaging in more intense exercise will keep the accumulating years from being as unkind to you as they are to others - even if that increase in intensity is nothing more than walking four single blocks out of your moderately paced four-mile walk as fast as you can.Those who exercise and increase intensity even more than this should experience even greater benefits.Coincidentally, the saying that I created years ago and kept taped to the wall in front of my indoor bicycle as the way to make the transition from off-season training to in-season racing also works for those who want to use exercise to delay aging. My saying: "Make the hard rides harder and the easy rides easier."Borrow mine if you want or create a similar saying that specifically addresses your goals. It could provide the guidance and motivation you need to work out a bit harder and age a little slower than before.