Skateboarding at 91: The Simple Routine Behind His Insane Longevity ft. Lloyd Kahn

This is Lloyd Kahn, who skateboards at 91. And he lives by one clear motto. What did your doctor have to say? You're too old to be skating. I thought, f*** that. But what does it take to stay agile in your 90s? Today, we follow the exact routine that keeps him healthy, strong, and free. Starting with skating. Hello, Lloyd. Thank you. Remind me your age again. 91. 91. Skateboarding at 91. That's so epic. You want to learn? Yes. Would you teach me how to skate? Sure. Your left foot's going to be forward. When did you start skating? What age? 65. Heck yeah. What made you want to start skating at 65? Well, the good thing about skating is there's no crowds. There you go. All right, here I go. Now, do you feel comfortable? I feel kind of comfortable. I'm channeling my inner Lloyd. Are you afraid of falling? Yeah, sure. Who wants to fall on pavement? I fractured my arm one time. Oh my gosh. I kind of passed out, I think, and then I woke up and somehow got into my car and drove from San Francisco to Marin General Hospital. What did your doctor have to say? You're too old to be skating. A few days later, I thought, **** that. I'm not going to quit skating. All right, all right, here we go. Oh, yeah. Grab a hold here. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. What is a myth about aging that you're just like, screw that? They're not myths. They're facts that people give up doing stuff. The thing that stands out about Lloyd is that he's not letting age get in his way. If he wants to do the thing, he's going to do the thing to the best of his ability and have fun doing it. Okay, I'm going to let you go. You're going to go on your own. Yes! All right. Next, it's time to tour Lloyd's incredible home, which he built himself. I'll show you around. I have these little things to remind me when I'm going back and forth to run. If I come in the gate, instead of walking like this, I'll run like this. You just get a little bit of a workout. Why run? Why not just walk back and forth? Because I'm training for a race. I'm training for the Dipsy race, the oldest cross-country race in America. I've done it the last two years. I don't know if I can do it again because of my knees. But you just did the Dipsy, right? Yeah. At 91. Yeah. And that's a pretty intense race. It's very intense. And by intense, he means a brutal 7.4-mile run with hundreds of stair steps, rocky descents, routes, and ravines, essentially charging over a mountain as fast as you can at 91. Okay. So this is where I work. So this is the office. But Lloyd Kahn isn't just insanely athletic. He's also one of the pioneers of the DIY building movement. His book, Shelter, has inspired generations to build their own homes and live more self-sufficiently. That same DIY mindset shows up in how he stays fit with exercise stations all around the house. This is a VersaClimber. A VersaClimber. And this thing, within a minute, I can get my heart rate really pumping. I think it's the quickest way to get your pulse up. Okay. So I'm already out of breath. Want to try it? Yeah. It looks so cool. Put your foot up in there. Okay. It seems like you are moving a lot. Yeah. Whoa. Oh, wow. Interesting. Oh, my God. And so if I do it to music, it makes it more interesting. Okay, and then here is the simplest workout device in the world, a piece of rope and a broomstick. Like this. Like this here. And you can use it for stretching your straps, rubber straps here, for working out. My life is based on Post-its. Paddle, VersaClimber, which is this thing here. So why do you have these little signs? To remind me to do things. Incredible. And what is this room? This is your? This is a production studio. Okay. Is this where you kind of publish all your books? Yeah. Well, I sold my publishing company a couple of years ago, and now I'm doing Instagram and Substack, which I love, and an occasional book. So over here, I do layout by hand. What's layout? Design. Designing a book. Oh, wow. I paste these down with removable Scotch tape, the photos, and I run off the text in two and three columns. But I'm not on a computer, and that's what I do. I drink coffee. I maybe smoke a little weed, listen to rock and roll, get in a good mood, and do this. I put the number of the photo down here and put them in Dropbox for my partner, Rick, who does the Photoshop and InDesign work. So it seems like being creative is a big part of your life. Yeah. Any kind of exercise is good. For over 50 years, Lloyd ran shelter publications, publishing hugely successful books like Stretching, which collectively sold millions of copies. And yet, he never stopped learning new things. What's the next room? I had a friend visit who's an artist, Leo Villarreal, who I just recently met. And so I had all these things out here for him to look at. Hmm. It sounds like you have a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends. Yeah. Like, tell me about that. I have too many friends, actually. Wait, what do you mean? I mean, I've met so many people, a lot of 30-year-olds. I mean, I would say two or three times a week, somebody says, you're Lloyd. I had it happen to me in Berlin one day. Oh, my gosh. Two million people. A guy says, are you Lloyd? I meet these people, and I would like to hang out with all of them, but there's just not enough time. And lately, I've just realized that I need to carve out some time to be alone. At a time when many of us isolate, Lloyd is constantly in community, engaging with life. But he hasn't always lived outside the norm. After Stanford, Lloyd took the conventional path, working as an insurance broker in the family business. Then, after hitchhiking across the country for a month, he came home, quit his job, and became a builder. He stopped following the path in front of him and started building his own. I made these shakes from driftwood when I got to town here in the 70s. I got on the beach. So when did you build this house? In 1971. There was a dome here. I can show you. The dome was in Life magazine. It was really a nice dome. And then I did, for a lot of reasons, I disassembled it and sold it and then built. I discovered rectangles after five years of building circular buildings. So tell me about finding this place and building this place. I came to Bolinas and I bought this land for $6,000. And the building permit was $200. So how much land was that? Half an acre. It's like 100 by 200 feet. I think I was making $300 a month. And we were getting by on that, growing a lot of our own food. We were selling goat's milk for a dollar a quart, honey for a dollar a pound, eggs for a dollar a dozen. You just couldn't make it at that rate. And I needed more land, which I didn't have. And so then I got back into publishing. And that's when I did the book Stretching, which was actually half of my income for 40 years. It sold 3 million copies. Lloyd took us into the main house, where this next exercise is on another level. But first... Lloyd does a lot of things right to be living the life he does at 91. And something I've realized from spending time with people like him is how important recovery is. Which brings me to the sponsor of today's video, Bear Mattress. I have a full life. I am working a ton, I'm traveling and filming constantly, and I train because I want to stay healthy and strong in my 90s, just like Lloyd. And I will tell you that sleep is the foundation that makes all of this possible. Because it's sleep when my body recovers, gets its strength, and when my brain resets after a long day. So I take my sleep setup very seriously. That's a big reason why I love Bear specifically, because they are designed for active people and elite recovery. The mattresses are built with cooling foam and infrared recovery technology. So they are specifically optimized to help cool my body at night and help me recover, so that when I wake up, I'm ready to perform at my best. I've been sleeping on my Bear Elite Hybrid Mattress for about 3 months now, and I love it. I went with the firm option, because I found for my body, the firmer the mattress, the better I feel. But you can optimize your Bear Mattress for whatever specifications are going to feel best for you. Also, safety. Bear Mattresses are Green Guard Gold Certified, have no harsh chemicals, and no fiberglass. Which, for me, is a non-negotiable safety piece. Thousands of people use Bear Mattress for recovery, better sleep, for a good reason. They have a 120-night sleep trial, so you might as well try it and see if you love it. Thank you to Bear Mattress for sponsoring this video. Go to bearmattress.com slash human, and use code human for 40% off your Bear Mattress. Alright, now, back to the story. Lloyd's house is a masterpiece, but his setup is not what I expected. So what room is this? Well, this is the main room, the kitchen. There's my endo board. Oh, yeah. I think as you get older, if I do this, then it helps me, like, say, if I start to fall. I think I've caught myself several times when I would have fallen, but I catch myself because of this. Notice, Lloyd is constantly moving, even when relaxing. Say if I'm watching TV, I can stretch like this. So I'm getting a stretch. But this next piece is key. So a lot of people, they work out, you know, they go to the gym, and then they just work out for an hour, you know? Yeah. But it sounds like you're kind of consistently working out through the day. I find gyms boring, but I would use a gym if I was close to a gym. So how do you think about exercise? Well, I think about it as being essential, and I try to make it fun. I think that's the thing. If you can combine adventure and exercise, instead of just going out and running on the pavement, like, if I go to New York, I run in the park, and I don't run on the paths. I run on the grass and up over the granite outcroppings. Why is having fun important to you? It makes it more interesting. And, you know, life is interesting, and things that you haven't seen before, I mean, maybe that's what adventure is, is doing things that you haven't done before. You seem very curious and interested in the world. Yeah, I am. And after climbing the house tower and trying this contraption... So what does this do? Well, it, you know, reverses the pressure on your spine. Wait, you said something about there's a crystal on the top of... The very top of the tower, there's a crystal from the Himalayas, and you can see it from the outside. And it might produce some good vibes, who knows, you know? Well, we're here for the vibes. It was time to go outside. Why these versus just like... Because they've got better cushion. So where are we going next? The garden. Okay. How often do you come to the garden? Every day. Oh. This is an asparagus bed that's been picked. It's been going for a couple of months now. Do you feel like having a garden has been an important part of aging well? Oh, yeah. In what way would you say? Food, good food, good food, and fresh air, and just everything about gardening is great. And it saves money. True. And it's fun. Here's the other greenhouse up here. What do you think people get wrong about food? Eating food that's been chemically adulterated. Yeah. Chemically fertilized. Well, artificial nitrogen and toxic chemicals. And so, you know, that's what you're eating. If you're eating food that's been like corn that's been fertilized with artificial nitrogen and with Roundup, that's not good for you. I think the thing, though, is it's hard, right? Like, if I don't have a garden... If you can't have a full garden, maybe just grow some parsley on your fire escape in New York. Just do something, you know, whatever you can. Lloyd explained that the quality of the soil and freshness of the ingredients make a big difference. But does he cook? And what exactly does he eat? So when I get up in the morning, here's the supplements I have, and maybe eight or nine of them every day. Wash them down with kefir. And how many of your meals do you cook per day? I pretty much cook all my own food. Okay, so like three meals a day. I might eat out once or twice a week. But most are actually cooked meals, like meals that you make. Yeah. Lloyd eats mostly from his garden, plus local eggs, meat, and fish. He enjoys simple meals like a stir-fry or freshly ground cereal. So this is oat groats, which are the whole grain of oats. And put that in there. And then, um... So I'll grind this just before I make the cereal. Oh, my God. Smells good. Yeah. If you grind the grain just before you use it, you're getting... And you're getting everything. And then I cook that in half milk and half water. Is there anything you don't eat? Well, yeah, non-organic food. These are pretty good. Cookies! Yeah, these cookies are very good. They're not organic. Yeah. But if I have people over for tea or something... So the sweet things, it seems like just in moderation? Well, maple syrup. That's my main sweetener. But what about alcohol? This is my glass of alcohol. I might have this of beer I did last night. But I cut way back on it. I just can't drink. I think you run out of, you know, liver capacity or something with booze. And I'm saving money by not drinking. But I miss... It's fun. It's fun to drink. And it's fun to go in a bar. The conviviality of drinking is... It's fun at parties and relaxes you. But I, you know, I had a... I would have half a bottle of red wine every night, but I don't do that anymore. Right. Lloyd's approach is simple. Eat real food, adapt, and don't overdo it. So what about biohackers who take things to the extreme? I think those guys are weird. You know, there's one guy who's spending a million dollars a year on his fitness, you know, and he's taking all kinds of supplements. Yeah. What do you think about that? I think it sucks. Why is that? I think it's just wrong. How so? I think you don't need to do it. And I don't think you should f*** around with genes, with genetic manipulation, because, you know, life is so complex and so marvelous that I don't think humans have a clue as to how to alter your genetics to make you live longer. It's just so interesting, because I feel like so many biohackers are trying to become you, and yet it seems like the key for you has been to eat well, live a great life, be curious, have lots of friends. Yeah. And eat good food. Yeah, that's it right there. You said it. With food down, it was time for one of Lloyd's favorite adventures. But it did not go as expected. After a drive to the water, it was time to get in. Our plan is simple. Race to the end of the channel. He's flying by me. He really, like, has the energy of a teenager. I think his adventure is key to life. With his super sleek racing paddleboard, I was no match for Lloyd. But aging well isn't just about staying active and eating right. When life gets hard, what does Lloyd do? What point did you meet Leslie? I came to Bolinas, and I finally broke up with my first wife after 18 years. And then we discovered each other. And we discovered that we didn't like to argue. We didn't have an argument in almost 50 years. And you can get a lot done if you don't argue. How did Leslie change your life? Well, she was my life. I mean, yeah. Yeah, well, it was great to have a partner that was fun. We're talking about living together. I said, well, I'm kind of a traveling photographer. And I like traveling. And she said, that's fine. I don't like traveling. And I like to stay home. So, and that's what we did. And she, so I, you know, I traveled alone. When I would travel with her, she was a great person to travel with. I wrote her a little poem one time about when I'd be standing in the kitchen, and I would hear footsteps on the porch, I always hoped it was her. One thing that is very hard for a lot of people as they age is losing their loved ones. Yeah, it's hard. I know you lost Leslie somewhat recently. A couple of years ago. I, you know, I don't know. I see people grieving, but that's just not something that I do. I miss her. But, you know, it doesn't do any good to be depressed about it. So I just get along with my life and do pretty much the same kind of things I was doing before. You know, I mean, she's gone, but she's still there in a certain way. You know, I see a flower bush in the garden, and that's her. Or I'll think of her sometimes. And in that sense, people don't ever die. Despite real loss, Lloyd keeps engaging with life, which today meant trying something surprising and new. Well, how about taking a mud bath after our paddle? Nobody's ever done that with me before. Is that a thing you do? Yeah, it's a thing I do once in a while. I'm down for the adventure. Today is Lloyd Day! Lloyd Day! Oh my God, it's so squishy. So how do you do this? That's it? Okay, easy. So what does this do for you? Bathtreatment. Heck yeah. Why pay $200 when you could just do this? Ah, it's a creature! Oh my God, what is that? It's a prawn. Oh my God. Oh, it's a little crab. It's a baby crab. Oh my God. I almost put that on myself. Wait, okay. Okay, I gotta catch up, I gotta catch up. Okay, three, two, one. It's actually warmer out here. After you do it, you're glad. Yeah, how do you feel now? I feel great. Me too. I'll bet you're the only person that will ever have done that with me. That's amazing. That was honestly the best part of the day. Shocked and refreshed, I had to know the last key to Lloyd's amazing life. What advice would you give to your younger self? Well, I don't think I would do anything differently. Because I wouldn't be where I am now. Yeah. You know, all the mistakes. Is there one thing you wish you'd started sooner? Yeah, skateboarding. Oh yeah? Instead of at 65, I wish I started when I was five years old. Yeah. Any advice that you have for people in general who are trying to live well? Keep active and get beyond your comfort zone somewhat. Because it always pays off. I didn't want to get in the mud then. I didn't want to get in the cold water, but we did it. I feel great now and I'm going to feel great tonight. I'll be hungry. Anything to get circulation going and get everything moving in your body. What's amazing is that the guy who became famous for teaching people to build a life with their own hands is now 91 and still doing exactly that. Building, gardening, paddling, skateboarding, and making the most of every day.