0:27

What's up guys, happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another episode of Eat,

0:29

Train, Prosper.

0:32

Today is Brian, myself, and we have Dr.

0:35

Mike T. Nelson on the podcast with us for the

0:36

first time.

0:39

Mike, can you please give the episode, or

0:39

can you please give the podcast listeners

0:43

a brief introduction to yourself, please?

0:46

Yeah, no problem. I consider myself probably a human

0:47

performance specialist.

0:51

I did an undergrad and a bachelor of arts

0:51

in natural science, master's in mechanical

0:54

engineering. PhD was in exercise physiology, looking at

0:56

heart rate variability and metabolic

1:00

flexibility. And then right now I still coach clients

1:02

online.

1:05

I think I started that in 2012, 13,

1:05

somewhere in there.

1:13

I did the coach people in person.

1:16

for a while at a gym till they filed

1:16

bankruptcy and thought maybe I should do

1:20

something different. And then right now I have the FlexDiet

1:22

certification, Physiologic Flexibility

1:27

Certification. And I teach for Rocky Mountain University,

1:28

Associate Professor at the Kerrig

1:33

Institute. And then I also help out the guys at Rapid

1:34

Health.

1:37

And I'm a scientific advisor to Tecton.

1:40

It creates a ketone ester.

1:45

a lot going on there. So before we dive in, yeah, and this is

1:47

something you reminded me when, cause I've

1:55

been fortunate to meet Mike in person.

1:58

And I remember this is a question I wanted

1:58

to ask you then.

2:01

Yeah. What, as each of your, I can't remember

2:01

what you said your undergrad was in, but

2:07

then your master's was in, I believe you

2:07

said mechanical engineering, and then your

2:10

PhD is in like exercise phase, exercise

2:10

science.

2:13

How, like, take us back just a little bit to your

2:14

thought process or maybe it was just how

2:18

you were kind of evolving as a human and

2:18

your interest shifting to where your

2:22

different degrees are in kind of what we

2:22

might consider like pretty different

2:25

modalities. Yeah, very different.

2:29

I didn't really have a big plan at that

2:29

point.

2:33

I was like, well, I like physiology.

2:35

This is cool. So my undergrad at St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, they

2:37

actually allowed anyone to sign up for

2:41

anatomy and physiology. And you got to use actual human cadavers.

2:44

And they got new human cadavers like every

2:44

quarter.

2:46

So that was pretty rare. So when I signed up there, I initially was

2:48

just doing a dual degree program, Bachelor

2:51

of Arts in Natural Science and a Bachelor

2:51

of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

2:56

And as I started doing it, I'm like, well, I don't know. I just take some physiology classes for

2:58

fun.

3:01

Got to Michigan Tech and they said, Hey,

3:01

if you can do two years of postgraduate

3:05

work, then you can just go in and do a

3:05

master's.

3:07

So I was at Michigan Tech for four and a

3:07

half years.

3:10

You got done with that almost eight years of school. And I'm like, I'm never going back to

3:12

school again.

3:14

That was extremely difficult.

3:17

Screw that. I'm going to go make money and work in the

3:17

industry for a while.

3:20

So I worked in the biomed industry. And then they're like, Hey, you can take

3:22

classes and we'll pay for them.

3:25

I'm like, Oh, really? So I started taking more classes at the

3:26

university of Minnesota.

3:29

And then I did five, it was probably like

3:29

five years in a PhD program in biomedical

3:37

engineering. Although I never did my dissertation or

3:38

anything in that.

3:41

And I remember sitting in a class on MRIs

3:41

and I had completed almost all my

3:46

classwork, but I hadn't done any research yet. It was hard to find funding.

3:50

And I'm sitting in there with PhDs in math

3:50

and physics.

3:54

And the guy walks in, he's like, Hey,

3:54

we're going to learn all about MRIs.

3:58

And we're going to derive all the

3:58

equations that are used in MRIs from

4:01

scratch. I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

4:04

I looked at all these kids are just

4:04

sitting there frantically scribbling stuff

4:07

down and my elbow, the guy next to me was

4:07

a PhD in mathematics.

4:11

I'm like, do you even know what he's

4:11

writing on the board?

4:14

He's like, no. And he's just like, I know this stuff

4:15

down.

4:18

And it was kind of at that point where I'm

4:18

like, OK, I'm either going to somehow

4:23

finish this or I'm going to jump ship and

4:23

go to exercise physiology, which I have

4:28

been thinking about for a long time. But, you know, probably similar to what

4:29

you guys have done to you put so much time

4:32

and effort into something and you get so

4:32

far into it.

4:35

You're like, oh, man, like this to start

4:35

over is to be so horrible.

4:39

I don't know if I want to do that. But I realize at that point, it's either

4:40

go forward or, you know, switch and burn

4:45

the ships and do something else entirely.

4:48

Ironically, I went over to exercise

4:48

physiology that fall, literally walk in

4:52

the first meeting and my advisor is like,

4:52

Hey, we got two new projects, but they

4:56

both involve math. One's on heart rate variability and one's

4:57

on metabolic flexibility.

5:01

And I went over there because I did not

5:01

want to do any more math.

5:03

I mean, I could do it, but it was not very

5:03

fun for me at all.

5:07

And he looks around the table, there's

5:07

only five people there.

5:10

He points at me and he was like, Hey you,

5:10

math boy, these are your projects now.

5:13

I'm like, Oh my God, you gotta be kidding me. Dropout's other program has been five

5:15

years in to come here to avoid math and

5:19

what do I get is math. But the math wasn't nearly as difficult as

5:20

what I had been doing before.

5:25

And it actually worked out really well.

5:30

Very cool. perfect sense when you put it that way.

5:34

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, definitely heart rate variability is

5:35

one of the things that I want to touch on

5:39

throughout this conversation as well.

5:41

But before we get in there, just a quick

5:41

brief background.

5:44

Most of the listeners will be pretty

5:44

familiar with your name, as I've discussed

5:49

throughout the last few months, some of

5:49

our work that we've done together.

5:53

I call you my cardio. Yeah, it was great.

5:55

I call you my cardio coach on the podcast.

5:57

So that's how people know you.

6:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so one of the things we were working

6:03

on really closely was, it was VO two max.

6:08

And, um, it all kind of started just to

6:08

give everyone a brief background before,

6:13

you know, if they're, if they're new to

6:13

the podcast, whatever, uh, we started

6:16

working together in October after I was on

6:16

your podcast and we kind of went down the

6:23

rabbit hole of cardio and discovered that

6:23

all the zone to work that I was doing

6:27

wasn't really going to be super effective

6:27

to increase my VO two max.

6:31

And then we kind of. paired up, started working on some of

6:32

these rowing workouts and specifically

6:37

focusing on the rower and specifically

6:37

even to narrow that down, the 2K row test,

6:41

which is a seven to eight minute kind of

6:41

brutal all out VO2 max effort.

6:48

And so my first question for you is, you

6:48

know, we exist in this world of very

6:55

specialized exercise coaches.

6:58

It's very siloed into different expertise.

7:00

Like you have your, physique coaches and you have your strong

7:01

man and you have your powerlifting and you

7:05

have your crossfit and you have your

7:05

endurance.

7:08

And so we don't often see somebody that's

7:08

kind of a jack of all trades coach.

7:13

And so how did you find yourself in a

7:13

position where you're coaching all of

7:16

these different types of specialized

7:16

athletes?

7:20

Yeah, just kind of give us that background

7:20

there, because I'm very curious about

7:23

that. Yeah, I just sort of like a lot of things.

7:28

You just ran into it because the

7:28

newsletter I write, which I write for

7:32

daily, I still write to mostly, you know,

7:32

Jim bros in their thirties, forties,

7:38

fifties. But even now it's a little bit less.

7:41

But even now, 70 % of my online clients

7:41

are women, even though I write to dudes,

7:47

which is weird, right? So all the marketing people would be like,

7:48

what? That's stupid.

7:52

You should try to write more specifically

7:52

to women.

7:54

But I just found that the women I worked

7:54

with, the female clients liked a different

7:59

approach and were looking for something

7:59

different.

8:02

And with the wide variety of clients I got

8:02

into, it was just, I realized solving

8:06

problems and the clients I've always had,

8:06

there's always something weird.

8:12

It was like something missing, but no

8:12

one's been able to figure it out.

8:16

Whether it's a mechanics thing, whether

8:16

it's a biochemical thing or who knows.

8:21

So fast forward over a long period of

8:21

time.

8:24

And extremely to you guys, you get a

8:24

client and you're like, Oh, that sounds

8:27

good. And then you get into it. You're like, Oh crap.

8:29

I didn't realize this was the issue. And the nice part about being me is I can

8:31

literally call experts on the phone and be

8:36

like, Hey man, I got this client, like

8:36

what's going on?

8:39

Uh, or, you know, go back, read all the

8:39

primary research.

8:43

And so it just sort of evolved with that.

8:46

And from a marketing standpoint, it makes

8:46

like I've hired a high level marketing

8:49

consultant before, and he just kind of

8:49

shook his head at me most of the time.

8:53

He's like, I don't know what you're doing makes no

8:54

sense. Like you need a niche, like you need to

8:55

work with only these people and market

8:59

this way. And I'm like, yeah, but I get kind of

9:00

bored with that after a while too.

9:04

And it's hard to quantify in your

9:04

advertisement of, you know, this person

9:10

had, so a natural bodybuilder guy worked

9:10

with years ago, had a right shoulder pain,

9:15

had MRIs, had everything completely clear,

9:15

passed every physical.

9:19

And I sent him a note just half joking one

9:19

day that I got tired of him bitching on

9:23

all these different boards back in the day

9:23

about his right shoulder.

9:26

And I said, ah, just let me try some

9:26

stuff.

9:29

And long story short, he couldn't do left

9:29

internal rotation with his left lower leg.

9:34

The second we put his left lower leg in

9:34

internal rotation, he could press with his

9:38

right arm with no pain. He's like, what the hell is that?

9:41

That's so weird. So he obviously signed up as a quiet.

9:44

And so you just accumulate this sort of

9:44

weird.

9:47

weird things, metabolic issues, all that

9:47

stuff over time.

9:50

And so for me, what I realized, it

9:50

probably took me a long time to figure

9:53

this out is I just like high level problem

9:53

solving, you know?

9:58

And I also realized that if I'm only doing

9:58

nutrition or I'm only doing exercise,

10:03

unless it's a very high level athlete

10:03

where I can literally call their coach on

10:07

a first name basis and be like, Hey, you

10:07

know, here's what I'm thinking on this or

10:10

that. Generally don't work with them because

10:12

it's a pain in the butt.

10:17

Like, cause it's always the thing you're

10:17

not in control of that becomes your rate

10:20

limiter. You know, someone's like, Oh, I hired you

10:20

for training for body comp.

10:23

And then you realize their nutrition is a

10:23

trash bin fire or the reverse.

10:27

They hire you just for nutrition and their

10:27

training is just a complete poo show.

10:31

You know, and I realized over time that I

10:31

just, I don't, I don't want those

10:35

headaches. So I'm probably one of the weird people

10:36

that does all their warmups, all their

10:39

cool downs, all their, you know, somewhat

10:39

basic neurology stuff and mechanics stuff,

10:44

the nutrition, the sleep, the recovery.

10:46

And doing it long enough, you'll kind of

10:46

realize where your borders are and where

10:50

you definitely need to refer out.

10:52

You know, so I have certain neurologic

10:52

tests where I'm like, Hey man, like you

10:56

definitely need to go see this guy because

10:56

you've been concussed four times and your

10:59

nervous system is just really, really

10:59

goofy.

11:01

And I'm not the best person for that, but

11:01

you know, go see this person or that

11:05

person. Yeah, no, that's really interesting.

11:09

Your breadth of expertise is very

11:09

impressive for sure.

11:14

Yeah, yeah, you accumulated much wisdom

11:14

over the years.

11:21

So in the most endearing way possible, I'm

11:21

gonna call the three of us meatheads.

11:27

And yeah, totally.

11:30

I agree. And so as a meathead,

11:34

I was a, call it a late adopter to cardio.

11:39

Maybe it was because I was younger, maybe

11:39

it was because I just had a bias and

11:42

didn't really want to believe in cardio.

11:44

But one thing that really influenced me

11:44

into that belief system was a article from

11:51

the American College of Cardiology that

11:51

came out in about 2017.

11:57

And so I have a quote from here that says,

12:00

While it is well known that physical

12:00

activity is important for heart health,

12:03

neither research nor recommendation

12:03

consistently differentiate between the

12:06

benefits of different types of physical

12:06

activity.

12:09

New research presented at the ACC Latin

12:09

American Conference in 2018 found that

12:14

while all physical activity is beneficial,

12:14

static activities such as strength

12:18

training were more strongly associated

12:18

with reducing heart disease risks than

12:23

dynamic activities like walking and

12:23

cycling.

12:27

And so I think I used that quote.

12:29

I remember reading that back in, I guess

12:29

it must've been 2018, because that's what

12:32

it said. And being like, this is the reason why

12:33

strength training is more important and I

12:38

don't need to cardio. And I literally started programming

12:39

strength training plus steps.

12:44

That was always my prescription. Just get your eight to 10 ,000 steps, do

12:45

strength training.

12:49

Whereas it seems like you kind of had your

12:49

finger on the pulse of this cardio for

12:54

health movement a little bit earlier. And -

12:56

we're more on board with that. And so what are your thoughts on the idea

12:58

of strength training plus walking for

13:04

general health versus the need to include

13:04

zone two, zone five, and kind of some of

13:10

these more specific cardiovascular

13:10

modalities?

13:15

Yeah, I mean, I started it probably more

13:15

seriously, I'd say almost eight years ago.

13:20

And the thing that kind of put me over the

13:20

edge was at the time I read similar stuff.

13:24

I'm like, I hate doing cardio. And I read some studies about, you know,

13:26

from Vernon coffee about concurrent

13:29

interference, which I'm sure we'll talk

13:29

about.

13:31

And, and at the time I was training for

13:31

strong man and I was like, ah, screw it.

13:36

I'm not doing cardio, but you know, maybe

13:36

60 seconds of work at some point I'll do

13:40

medleys if I want to do cardio. And I remember at the time before I was

13:42

like, man, probably five months out from

13:47

the meat, just the local meat, walking up

13:47

the stairs and made it two flights.

13:52

And I was just severely out of breath

13:52

because I hadn't done any cardio for like

13:56

a year. And I remember thinking, wait a minute, am

13:56

I gotten a lot stronger?

14:01

Like, are my strength gains like

14:01

significantly better?

14:03

And I went back and looked at all my

14:03

notes, like, am I really that much bigger?

14:06

And I realized, no, how do I feel?

14:10

I feel like dog shit lately. Like I'm sleeping all the time and

14:11

recovery sucks.

14:14

Like this is horrible. I just got winded off of two flights of

14:16

stairs.

14:18

Hmm. Maybe this isn't a good idea. Maybe I was wrong.

14:22

And then found a bunch of other people. Um, like my friend, Dr.

14:25

Kenneth J who's done a lot of stuff with

14:25

the Kerrig Institute for rowing.

14:29

And to get back to your question, I, if

14:29

most people in general population just

14:34

lifted and got him a step count, would

14:34

they be better?

14:37

Yeah, no question. Now you will find some genetic freaks that

14:39

VO2 max stays fine just doing that.

14:44

Like I've tested a couple of people and I

14:44

expected their, you know, VO2 max would be

14:49

dog shit and it was not bad really.

14:52

But their training was pretty intense. You know, they may have won probably the

14:54

genetic lottery, et cetera.

14:57

But I think if you are stuck and your VO2

14:57

max is still low or moderate or below

15:02

where you need, you know, just like

15:02

anything else, you're going to need

15:05

specific work in order to bring it up. You know, if you're talking about

15:07

bodybuilding, if your biceps are small

15:10

shocker, you're going to need bicep work. Um, so I don't think it's any different

15:12

than that.

15:14

And I, I do think it's changed over time

15:14

with health and with, uh, with lifters,

15:20

but it's not really that new. If you go back and look like I would do a

15:22

lot of work with Cal Deeds, like, you

15:25

know, a lot of high level. So anything conditioning coaches have kind

15:27

of known this for a long time.

15:31

Um, and have always kind of, you know,

15:31

programmed it that way.

15:34

I think the health. Benefits of it have been highlighted a lot

15:35

more lately, which is also a really good

15:39

thing. Aaron, anything to jump in on on there?

15:45

My only thing that I was gonna add in

15:45

there is it's the one, as you were saying

15:51

that my kind of thought process in, as it

15:51

was explained, is it's like at like your

15:56

gen pop person, you know, probably, but

15:56

for someone who's even going to entertain

16:03

the idea of like actually doing like

16:03

cardio as well, you feel like you're

16:08

actually. you're shifting your the tides of the of

16:09

who the population actually is, right?

16:16

Because if someone's like, if you're like,

16:16

hey, for health, you should probably like,

16:20

you know, lift and do cardio, if they're

16:20

like, oh, okay, I'm going to be receptive

16:25

to that. They're already like, you know, an above

16:25

average gen pop sort of person, most

16:30

people are going to be like, got it. And then it's like, you out of their mind

16:32

sort of thing.

16:36

Yeah, there's a lot of lifters like that

16:36

too.

16:39

And you know, one of things I do is I used

16:39

to argue with people about stuff and over

16:43

time I finally got wiser and now I just

16:43

show them data.

16:47

And I used to argue with people about

16:47

cardio because I went through the whole

16:50

thing. I'm like, man, I know this is your rate limiter. Like, is it going to be amazing?

16:53

And they're like, ah, I just don't like

16:53

doing it sucks.

16:56

Like I made it this far. I'm fine, bro.

16:58

And I just, I would spend weeks and months

16:58

arguing with people.

17:03

Eventually one day I'm like, What's the stupid?

17:05

I should just do an assessment and see

17:05

where they're at.

17:07

So I would do their assessment. I would give it to them either like in a

17:09

population that's athletic or just against

17:13

general population numbers. I'm like, Hey, you know, here's your VO2

17:15

max.

17:18

You are at the bottom 20 % for a general

17:18

population.

17:22

The general population is pretty damn

17:22

unfit.

17:25

And that's all I would do. And I'd send them the graph or I talked to

17:26

them in person. That was it.

17:28

I just shut up. And 99 % of the time they're like, Oh,

17:33

I didn't realize I sucked that bad. Oh, well, how do I make it better?

17:36

Oh, cool. I'm so glad you asked.

17:40

You know, instead of trying to argue with

17:40

people all the time, it doesn't always

17:43

work, but more often than not, if they're

17:43

somewhat like you said, competitive or

17:47

they want to get better, then they

17:47

realize, oh, okay.

17:52

Yeah, okay. I'm on board now.

17:55

Yep, that makes total sense. So similar to kind of the bias that I had

17:57

around strength training and walking and

18:01

kind of the avoidance of cardio, I think

18:01

part of that was supported by the

18:07

literature at the time on concurrent

18:07

training.

18:10

And so it seemed like right around that

18:10

time in the mid 2000 teens, there was a

18:14

lot of research talking about the

18:14

interference effect and how that can be

18:19

problematic if you have, you know,

18:19

specific goals in one or the other.

18:23

And so can you just briefly kind of take

18:23

us through anything that you can reference

18:28

from the literature or your own experience

18:28

regarding concurrent training and how that

18:32

has kind of progressed through over the

18:32

last five to 10 years?

18:40

Yeah, so concurrent training is basically,

18:40

can you do two modalities at the same time

18:46

and get the highest level results? At the high level, concurrent training,

18:48

there is an interference effect, right?

18:53

You don't see pro bodybuilders winning

18:53

marathons, right?

18:56

You just don't see the classic endurance

18:56

athlete competing in strength and power

19:01

sports and doing really well. Vice versa, you don't see the reverse.

19:04

So on some level, it is a true thing.

19:07

And for the listeners, the reason that is,

19:07

is if we take a simplistic view, which

19:13

this is a little bit overly simplistic,

19:13

but you have generally two types of

19:16

fibers. You have your fast -touch fibers and your

19:17

slow -touch fibers.

19:19

And there's all subsets and hybrids in

19:19

between and everything else, depending on

19:23

what classification you use. These slow -touch fibers generally are

19:25

more aerobic.

19:28

My little air quotes here, meaning they

19:28

have to use oxygen in order to create

19:33

energy. These are the ones you would more

19:33

preferentially use if you're doing a lot

19:37

of aerobic training and you're going to go

19:37

run a marathon, et cetera.

19:41

And the reason they're smaller is that

19:41

they're wired differently.

19:44

But one of the main reasons is that you

19:44

have to have oxygen diffuse into the

19:49

fiber, something called the Krogh cylinder

19:49

model.

19:52

If the fiber gets literally too big

19:52

because diffusion is this passive process,

19:57

the inside part of the fiber will

19:57

literally die.

20:00

So there's a hard -coded limit based on

20:00

the diffusion of oxygen of how big that

20:05

fiber can actually get. But because it's using oxygen, it has the

20:06

ability to produce force over a slow rate

20:12

for long, long, long periods of time.

20:14

If you go to your fast -switch fibers,

20:14

those are your classic, my little air

20:18

quotes here, anaerobic fibers. They don't necessarily need oxygen to,

20:19

quote, survive.

20:23

Yes, oxygen is a sort of backup. It does work.

20:26

You do need it. those fibers can get a lot bigger because

20:27

there's no rate limiter of diffusion of

20:32

oxygen into the fibers. So knowing that, I probably over

20:34

extrapolated that early on to be like,

20:38

yeah, that's why aerobic training kills

20:38

all your gaits, man.

20:41

Like it's just gonna make all your fibers

20:41

weak and small and then you don't want

20:44

that. But if you look at the literature, the

20:45

amount of work you would need to do to see

20:50

an effect is... astronomical like you read some of the

20:52

studies where there was a true

20:55

interference effect in people who were

20:55

moderately trained they just literally

21:00

beat the ever -living crap out of them

21:00

with endurance stuff and they did lifting

21:05

on top of it you could even argue maybe

21:05

their sleep wasn't great maybe their

21:09

collars weren't controlled all that kind

21:09

of stuff so at some level there is a

21:14

interference effect will most people

21:14

probably run into that no the caveat with

21:20

that is if your goal is maximal speed and power, would I

21:22

necessarily have you do a 40 % of just

21:28

moderate cardio after your speed and power

21:28

days?

21:30

No. But for most people, you don't really need

21:31

to worry about it.

21:36

Having said that, I do still tend to

21:36

program aerobic stuff in the morning,

21:40

starting training in the afternoon. I will try to separate them a little bit.

21:46

The molecular underpinnings of aerobic

21:46

stuff will last four to six hours in

21:51

general. Strength training stuff, as we know, you

21:51

guys have talked a lot about this, could

21:54

be 24, 48, potentially 72 hours.

21:57

You still see changes in muscle protein

21:57

synthesis, other effects, depending on

22:01

your training status, what you did.

22:03

So my bias is I will program aerobic stuff

22:03

usually earlier in the day, especially if

22:08

it's moderate level stuff and strength

22:08

training later.

22:11

Having said that, if someone is even just

22:11

moderately fit, they're super cramped for

22:16

time, yeah, I have programmed them one

22:16

session after the other.

22:20

Is it? quote unquote, perfect or optimized?

22:23

Probably not. But is it something they really need to

22:24

worry about it?

22:26

If the option was, hey, they're not going

22:26

to do any cardio at all.

22:30

Shit, like doing stuff after your main

22:30

lifting is way better than not doing it at

22:35

all. Right. And that's the part people forget.

22:38

It's like, what are you comparing it to? What is the context?

22:41

So we can, you know, debate stuff about

22:41

moderate or rubby training directly after

22:45

strength training. Yeah, maybe it's not best.

22:48

Like you're pulling the organism a little

22:48

bit too different directions.

22:51

However, if that was your option versus,

22:51

oh bro, I'm not doing any cardio at all.

22:55

Like just do the cardio first. Like do the exercise first.

22:58

You, you're still going to get a lot of

22:58

benefit.

23:01

Yeah. If you scale all that up super high, will

23:01

you run into issues?

23:05

Yes. However, I think usually that main issue

23:07

is people just don't eat enough at that

23:10

point. Um, but if you even, you know, cover all

23:11

those recoveries, good, you max out all

23:15

that. Yeah. At some point you are going to run into an

23:16

interference effect.

23:19

However, It's still a small percentage.

23:22

It's not like you destroyed all of your

23:22

gains and you're never gonna get bigger.

23:27

Again, most people who, especially

23:27

lifters, like if I run into a legit person

23:32

who I think has an interference effect

23:32

who's primarily lifting in like 15 years,

23:39

no, I don't think so.

23:42

Does it exist? I equate it to over training.

23:45

Like is over training a thing? Yes.

23:48

Is overtraining syndrome a thing? Yes.

23:50

Will most people who lift ever have to

23:50

worry about overtraining syndrome unless

23:55

their lifestyle is a complete pooh show?

23:58

Probably not. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

24:01

It's just out of all the things you want

24:01

to worry about, that's like super far down

24:05

the list. Yeah.

24:07

No, that's great. I think that what we're basically hearing

24:08

is that as long as you're not taking it to

24:13

the extremes and you don't have like

24:13

really strong goals in one direction or

24:17

the other, endurance or strength training,

24:17

that you can get 95 % plus of the benefits

24:22

of each by doing them together in kind of

24:22

an intelligent manner.

24:26

And so I also know that there are benefits

24:26

of doing cardio that can actually enhance

24:32

your strength training or your physique

24:32

pursuit.

24:35

So can you briefly touch on kind of some

24:35

of those benefits as well that people may

24:38

experience if they start adding cardio

24:38

into their strength training routines?

24:42

Yeah, and that's the main way I sell it to

24:42

people because a lot of the people I work

24:46

with come in and they're like, Hey, I,

24:46

everything's going good, but I can only

24:51

train like three days a week. I love training. I want to get better, you know?

24:55

And at some point we could argue about

24:55

hypertrophy mechanisms and everything

24:59

else. My bias is you just need to do more high

25:00

quality work up to a point.

25:05

Like if you're only training two days a

25:05

week or three days a week for 45 minutes

25:09

and you're relatively in shape, you've

25:09

been doing this for a while, you're not a

25:12

newbie. I think if you could train four sessions,

25:13

five sessions, as long as you can maintain

25:18

that high quality work, you're going to

25:18

get a better result.

25:21

Is it going to be astronomically better?

25:24

You're definitely on that flattening part

25:24

of the curve.

25:27

And most of the time, I think they're

25:27

limited by their aerobic ability.

25:31

So if you think about in the gym,

25:34

You go in and do a session like you do a

25:34

hard session of deadlifts and you're kind

25:38

of a little bit out of breath. That recovery period is primarily an

25:40

aerobic event.

25:44

You're primarily using more fat for fuel.

25:46

You're primarily trying to get oxygen into

25:46

the fibers themselves.

25:50

You're running your aerobic system to

25:50

replenish the ATP, the energy that you

25:54

spent doing that air quotes anaerobic

25:54

event.

25:57

There is no real true anaerobic or

25:57

aerobic.

26:00

It just makes for an easier explanation.

26:02

And what I find with a lot of these people

26:02

is if we have them rest just based on

26:05

heart rate, which is an okay method, it

26:05

may take them three to five minutes for

26:10

their heart rate to get back down before

26:10

they can do another set.

26:13

So if we could reduce that to say two or

26:13

three minutes or even a minute and a half,

26:18

that's their aerobic system is primarily

26:18

that limiter.

26:21

So one, their density of what they can do

26:21

for training usually goes up by quite a

26:25

bit. So that also then saves them time.

26:27

I got that clients where we equated out.

26:30

the amount of time they were spending

26:30

before and after doing cardio, like

26:35

literally it came out to the same amount

26:35

of time per week, because we could push

26:38

the density of their training better and

26:38

they still were doing some aerobic stuff

26:43

on the other days. And then if you extend that out to day to

26:44

day recovery, what is one of the limiters

26:49

of day to day recovery? Again, shocker, it's your aerobic system.

26:53

Like we're just sitting there hanging out

26:53

having this discussion.

26:55

It's primarily your aerobic system that's

26:55

actually producing the ATP.

27:00

The example I use for clients is that I

27:00

sound old now because nobody remembers

27:03

like the little three cylinder you go cars

27:03

they had for a while.

27:06

Maybe you guys do. Maybe not. So I equate to them like, hey, if you're

27:08

trying to drive around a little three

27:12

cylinder you go all the time. Yeah, you can redline it and get to the

27:14

grocery store faster.

27:17

But the cost to do that is going to be

27:17

pretty high.

27:20

If you've got a fancy Lamborghini, it's a

27:20

V10, V12, whatever.

27:25

You can get to the store really fast, but

27:25

the cost that exerted upon that engine is

27:29

very minimal. Why? Because you have a massive engine.

27:32

So you are literally walking around like

27:32

sub max of everything else.

27:37

Another test is like the NFL combine test.

27:39

So do 225 bench press as many reps as you

27:39

can.

27:43

If your max one RM for bench press is 245

27:43

versus Bob, who's like 405, I don't put my

27:50

money on Bob like all day. Right?

27:52

Because 225, if your max is 405 is way sub

27:52

max than if your max is 245.

27:59

So if your VO2 max you're walking around

27:59

is 25, like everything you're doing is a

28:05

much higher percentage of that.

28:07

So your background stress that's taken

28:07

away from your ability to recover is

28:10

higher. If your VO2 max is 50, now that's way sub

28:11

max, like doing everything else, it's much

28:17

easier for your body to recover.

28:19

Last part is most people generally report

28:19

that their energy feels a lot better.

28:23

And if we look at their heart rate

28:23

variability, we look at other markers of

28:26

stress, they can handle a lot more insults

28:26

in different areas and get back to

28:32

baseline faster or their recovery is a lot

28:32

better.

28:35

So usually when people talk about

28:35

recovery, they talk about great things

28:38

with nutrition and sleep and stress

28:38

reduction and maybe cold baths and sauna

28:42

and everything else, which is cool. But I think the big limiter they miss is,

28:46

Again, if your VO2 max is 25, you know,

28:46

like a field mouse, to me though, a lot of

28:52

those things are just like icing on the cake. Like you just need to build a bigger

28:54

engine first.

28:58

Yeah, do all those other things. It's helpful, but that by far and away a

28:59

lot of times is your rate limiter.

29:03

Once you get that up, then everything else

29:03

is more sub max, just like lifting.

29:07

You know, at some point, even if

29:07

hypertrophy is your only goal, like, you

29:11

know, again, a lot of the natural guys I

29:11

know, they're all pretty damn strong.

29:15

Like are they as strong as, you know,

29:15

power lifters?

29:18

No. Like compared to most people, they're

29:18

pretty strong.

29:21

But at some point getting stronger will

29:21

allow you to do more reps at a higher

29:25

weight, which again will allow you to stay

29:25

in more of that hypertrophy specific zone,

29:29

which is a massive zone at this point.

29:33

Yeah. So it sounds like with better

29:33

cardiovascular conditioning or aerobic

29:37

fitness, you're kind of walking around day

29:37

to day with a more parasympathetic state,

29:42

which allows your body to facilitate

29:42

recovery and adaptation in a more

29:48

streamlined manner than it would if you're

29:48

not as aerobically fit.

29:52

Yep. And the last part, which the literature

29:53

goes back and forth on this, but I think

29:57

it probably is a real event. There is some benefit to capitalization.

30:01

So just, just changing the architecture of

30:01

the muscle to get more blood flow to it.

30:06

If you look at a lot of the old school,

30:06

like Russian stuff on recovery, pretty

30:11

much all of us blood flow based, like what

30:11

are you doing?

30:14

Contrast therapy, sauna, walking, moving,

30:14

Normatec boots, whatever.

30:19

Almost all of it is just based on getting

30:19

more blood flow to the muscle.

30:22

So if you can have more blood flow there,

30:22

you can literally create more vessels and

30:26

structure to the muscle. I think that's going to be a benefit.

30:30

Like when does that happen? How often does it happen?

30:32

I don't know. Literature is all up in the air, but I

30:34

have seen when people start doing aerobic

30:39

stuff, this big inflection point at about

30:39

six to eight weeks.

30:44

Like you won't see a lot of movement like,

30:44

eh, eh, eh.

30:47

And then like the run the week seven,

30:47

they're like, man, I don't know.

30:49

I just feel better. Like everything's moving better.

30:52

Like there just seems to be this weird

30:52

uptick.

30:56

And I can't find the study, which I could

30:56

have completely made it up that there was

31:00

some old Russian research that showed that

31:00

the blood vessels grow from opposite ends

31:05

and that around the six to seven week

31:05

mark, they sort of meet up.

31:08

And then you have this increased

31:08

exponential in blood flow.

31:12

Again, I can't find that study. I could have completely made the entire

31:14

thing up. It's been bugging the crap out of me.

31:17

So if anyone finds that study, please send

31:17

it to me.

31:19

But it kind of makes sense, at least

31:19

mechanistically, what we see at that

31:23

point. It's sometimes hard to get people to that.

31:28

So like, hey man, I'm doing all this work

31:28

and I don't know, I just don't feel that

31:33

much better. But it's like anything else, like

31:33

hypertrophy.

31:36

Like nobody even, you know, people have

31:36

been training for a while, you don't go to

31:38

the gym and start doing more bicep curls

31:38

and go like, hey, week three, my biceps an

31:41

inch up. It just, you know, physiology doesn't move

31:42

that fast.

31:46

Yeah, cool. Aaron, anything before I shift the

31:48

conversation here to VO2 Mac stuff?

31:52

No, I just, I think for the listener out

31:52

there and for myself as well, that was a

31:57

very, very profound kind of segment that I

31:57

hope people don't kind of like skip over

32:02

the fact that like as your VO2 max is

32:02

higher, like everything else you do is

32:08

then less taxing on your body.

32:11

And what I think's really funny, Mike, is

32:11

you use that example of like the three

32:15

cylinder car, you know, going to the

32:15

grocery store versus a Lamborghini back in

32:21

like the, you know, literally dead smacking COVID where all

32:22

the like rental cars were places were out

32:26

of cars and stuff. I ended up with a literally a three

32:27

cylinder.

32:30

I don't even remember what it was. It was like a go -kart sized car and we

32:31

were living in Salt Lake City at the time.

32:36

Oh my God, it was so small. And we took it up into the mountains

32:38

because we'd go up into the mountains

32:41

hiking. And because the engine was like so small

32:41

and we were like up in the mountains, I

32:45

literally had to like redline it to just

32:45

to get up the road.

32:48

And I burned an entire tank of gas.

32:51

just going from like literally 20 minutes

32:51

to the top of the mountain.

32:55

And then I was panicked because I thought

32:55

I was gonna run out of gas because of the

32:57

gas I was on, I had to coast all the way

32:57

back down, but it was like, it was such a

33:01

perfect example. Like because the car's capability was so

33:01

low, I had to push it so hard.

33:06

I literally smoked an entire tank of gas

33:06

just driving up the mountain.

33:12

Yeah, we had a similar situation going to

33:12

my buddy, Dr.

33:16

Ben House's place at Flow Retreat Center

33:16

in Costa Rica, where we put five rather

33:21

large mammals in this small vehicle.

33:23

And this was before he had his place

33:23

there.

33:25

So it was a different place. Same thing all the way at the top of this,

33:27

you know, big mountain.

33:30

And so I'm driving and they're like, why

33:30

are you going so slow?

33:33

And we're doing like 25 miles an hour. I'm like, I have this thing floored.

33:38

And it's like, it's like.

33:41

That's awesome.

33:45

Okay, cool. So jumping into quick section here on

33:47

VO2Max and the training around VO2Max.

33:53

So I assume you're familiar with Steven

33:53

Seiler and some of his research.

33:58

Do you know this guy out of Norway? Yeah.

34:00

So Steven, I've followed a lot of his

34:00

work.

34:03

He's done a lot of... Yeah, he's done a lot of work comparing

34:05

four minute intervals to eight minute

34:10

intervals to 16 minute intervals.

34:12

He has a few studies that actually do

34:12

this.

34:14

And so there was one here, adaptations to

34:14

aerobic interval training, interactive

34:22

effects of exercise intensity and total

34:22

work duration.

34:25

And we have a pub med link for that that

34:25

we'll drop into the notes.

34:29

The conclusion of the paper basically

34:29

stated,

34:31

that the four by eight intervals were more

34:31

effective than the four by 16 or the four

34:36

by fours, which I think is in contrast to

34:36

what most people think of as the four by

34:42

four as like the premier interval to be

34:42

used for increasing VO2 max.

34:49

And his hypothesis was that accumulating

34:49

32 minutes of work at 90 % of max heart

34:56

rate induced greater at a. adaptive gains than accumulating 16

34:58

minutes of work at 95 % of heart rate

35:03

despite lower RPE.

35:05

And then the 16 minute intervals were at

35:05

85%.

35:08

So it was 85 % for 16 minutes, 90 % for

35:08

the eight minute intervals or 95 % for the

35:13

four minute intervals. And of course the four minute intervals

35:14

only allowed 16 minutes of time in zone,

35:18

then 32 minutes of time in zone for the

35:18

eight minute intervals and an hour and

35:23

four minutes of time in zone for the 16

35:23

minute intervals.

35:27

They were all effective at increasing VO2

35:27

max, but specifically the four by eights

35:33

appeared to be the most effective. And so I found that interesting just

35:34

because the four by four seems to be the

35:38

most popular one that people like Peter

35:38

Attia and others are promoting as, you

35:42

know, do this for VO2 max.

35:45

I think it was a Norwegian, they call them

35:45

the Norwegian four by four or something

35:49

like that. But then the other thing that I've noticed

35:50

throughout reading research is that

35:54

there's also a lot of studies showing

35:54

that,

35:56

things like Tabata's or 3030s or 6060s and

35:56

these other like significantly shorter

36:03

intervals are also very effective for VO2

36:03

max.

36:09

So what are your thoughts on that?

36:11

How do we make sense of all these

36:11

different ways that you can go about kind

36:15

of increasing your VO2 max? Yeah.

36:18

So one of the misnomers of VO2 max is that

36:18

people think you just do any cardio and

36:23

your VO2 max goes up. Like, yeah, if you're untrained and your

36:24

VO2 max is horrible, sure, anything will

36:28

work. Right. So newbies can lift soup cans, probably

36:28

get bigger, right.

36:31

But at some point that's going to max out

36:31

pretty fast.

36:33

So once we get beyond that, you need to

36:33

be, in my experience and looking at the

36:39

literature, probably relatively intense,

36:39

like what percentage of heart rate,

36:43

there's other ways to market. 85, 90 -ish percent, you know, somewhere

36:46

around there.

36:50

So I equated to, if you want to get

36:50

significantly stronger, you probably need

36:55

to do a fair amount of lifting above 85%,

36:55

right?

36:58

You probably need to do those low rep

36:58

stuff.

37:00

You need to put some heavy weight on the

37:00

bar in order to get stronger.

37:03

So with VO2Max, I equated it to the same

37:03

way.

37:06

You think of VO2Max like the 1RM for your

37:06

aerobic system.

37:10

In shocker, the same principle holds

37:10

pretty true.

37:14

Now, how much time do you need to spend

37:14

there?

37:16

Oof, that's all across the board, right?

37:20

So in that study, which is cool, I wonder

37:20

if it is as much the effect of intensity

37:25

versus the, like you said, the time in

37:25

that area.

37:29

And what I find is that it's generally the

37:29

amount of time you can accumulate in that

37:34

area. So just like lifting, like how much high

37:34

quality work can you do?

37:39

And the biggest mistake I see people make

37:39

is,

37:41

They just, you know, went out super hard.

37:43

Ah, let my nuts suck on fire.

37:45

I did these two intervals. Woohoo. Look at me.

37:47

My VO2 max is going to be amazing. Maybe not like you need to accumulate more

37:49

work.

37:53

And then also if we look at the output of

37:53

let's say interval one versus interval

37:58

six, if interval six is like 30 % of your

37:58

first interval, like you're not training

38:04

the same thing, right? A lot of people want to do these repeats

38:05

that are very, very difficult with

38:10

incomplete rest. but they're not really recovered back to

38:11

baseline again to start.

38:15

And if you look at the quality of the

38:15

output, it just tanks, right?

38:19

So now you're not working that specific

38:19

thing that you want.

38:22

So when I start programming for people,

38:22

depending on what their level is, a lot of

38:26

times I do almost complete rest.

38:28

Like let's hit two minutes or three

38:28

minutes or four minutes or five minutes or

38:31

six minutes. And we know what percentage you need to

38:32

be.

38:35

We need some output on a bike, maybe

38:35

running, we can get GPS, the rower.

38:39

And then you're going to rest almost completely. We're let your heart rate come down

38:41

probably below a hundred.

38:44

And then you're going to go again. Can you get back to almost, you 5 % of

38:46

that output again?

38:51

Cool. All right. Let's rest completely.

38:53

Could you do a third round? And once your performance tails off in a

38:54

perfect world, you'd actually be done

38:59

right before that. So that allows someone to program without

39:00

knowing your exact capacity.

39:06

That still accumulate that high intensity

39:06

time.

39:10

So you could start with a two minute interval, right? So I, you know, whenever you publish any

39:12

program you've ever done online, it's just

39:16

a disaster. Cause no one wants to talk about the

39:16

context. So I've published some programs in the

39:18

past where I've had someone just do 120

39:22

seconds, two minutes at high output.

39:24

They only did two intervals. And they're like, you're an idiot.

39:27

What are you doing? Haven't you read any literature? Don't you know it's closer to four minutes

39:29

and eight minutes and you need to

39:32

accumulate 32 minutes and all this stuff. I'm like, yeah.

39:35

Then we did the third interval, their work

39:35

output was such dog shit, like there's no

39:39

way they could do it again. And if we went to three minutes, their

39:40

performance dropped off so hard at minute

39:44

two and a half that it wasn't productive.

39:46

So we had to scale them back to their

39:46

current capacity.

39:50

It doesn't mean that we'll never get to

39:50

four minutes or six minutes or longer

39:53

intervals. It's just they, they can't handle it yet.

39:56

And if they do, sometimes we will do

39:56

longer intervals and literally just do

39:59

one. So you want to make sure the quality is

40:00

there first.

40:03

And then over time, you can progress.

40:06

You can actually get to the point where

40:06

you're doing incomplete rest.

40:09

With the really short ones, yes, you can

40:09

see some increase in VO2 max.

40:15

Let's take the Tabata study. God knows I got to write this article

40:16

because this question comes up all the

40:19

time. You look at the actual Tabata study.

40:21

So what did they actually do? So very, very high intensity, literally

40:23

incomplete rest.

40:28

Like they were resting less period of time

40:28

than they were working.

40:31

which for people to do high output stuff

40:31

is incredibly difficult.

40:35

I think they were doing 170 % of their VO2

40:35

max.

40:39

So they are way above VO2 max.

40:41

Did they see cool improvements? Yes.

40:44

The study was set up so that they could

40:44

not complete all the intervals though.

40:49

If you look past about week three, I

40:49

think, I'd have to look at the actual data

40:52

again. Their VO2 max didn't increase any more

40:53

after that.

40:55

So there is, I think, some short -term

40:55

benefits from that.

40:59

However, that study has been completely

40:59

bastardized to like Tabata 1RM pre -truck

41:04

hurls and all this other stuff where

41:04

swimming Tabata's, you know, like run,

41:10

even running Tabata's, most people just

41:10

don't have the sprint integrity to run

41:14

that fast. Like I put people on a rover, we'll

41:15

baseline their 2K.

41:18

I'm like, okay, let's just do one interval

41:18

at 170 % of that number, right?

41:23

Cause you can figure out what that power

41:23

is.

41:25

Maybe they can crank out one interval,

41:25

like even with complete rest, they can't

41:28

even get a second one that's close to it.

41:31

Well, it makes me think that you're gonna

41:31

rest for 10 seconds and be good to go

41:34

again. Again, you have to keep that level of

41:35

output in order to get some of that

41:39

benefit. And yes, I have done, I stole this from my

41:40

buddy, Dr.

41:43

Kenneth J. So if you wanna put like a high end spec,

41:44

what I've done is back of the envelope is,

41:48

if you can do a high output on the rower,

41:48

which is based off of your VO2 max,

41:53

and you can do 30 seconds on and 30

41:53

seconds off and you can hold that high

41:58

output for 10 rounds with only maybe a 5 %

41:58

drop, that is pretty damn badass.

42:05

Now is that a elite level Olympic rower

42:05

status?

42:08

No, but for most people that is incredibly

42:08

hard.

42:12

Now could you suffer your way through 10

42:12

rounds and hate your life?

42:16

Yes, most people have done that.

42:18

Their output is literally half of what

42:18

they started.

42:22

Again, that's kind of what I've been as

42:22

like the high end of the high end, like

42:26

one -to -one work to rest ratio, but you

42:26

can recover within that 30 second period

42:32

to go again and do it again.

42:34

Soccer, what do you need to do that? A high level of aerobic training.

42:38

So you won't see people with a low VO2 max

42:38

pulling that off.

42:41

If they do, their output is like 85 watts

42:41

or something.

42:44

This is like, yeah, who cares, right?

42:47

So again, I remember having this talk with

42:47

Cal Dietz years ago.

42:52

I was helping him write up the Triphasic 2

42:52

book, which we're still working on.

42:55

Story for another day. In his office, he's writing all this stuff

42:57

on the board for like 45 minutes.

43:01

At the end of it, I'm like thinking, how

43:01

the hell am I gonna write an article about

43:05

this? Like, there's no one, you know, this is an

43:06

article.

43:08

I looked at him and I'm like, okay, so

43:08

you're saying do the highest quality work

43:13

first and then repeat that.

43:16

He kind of looks at me and he's like,

43:16

yeah, yeah, that sounds right.

43:20

Oh man.

43:23

You know, then you need to know, that's

43:23

why I love using the rower.

43:26

You automatically know your output of

43:26

everything that you do.

43:29

And some days, if it's not there, maybe

43:29

you go another round and it's still not

43:33

there. Cool. Just, I don't care what it's programmed.

43:36

Just shut it down and go home. Like you're just digging a bigger hole for

43:37

not a specific adaptation at that point.

43:41

It'd just like training. Like how many people do junk reps in the

43:42

gym?

43:45

We could have an argument about what that

43:45

is.

43:47

At some point, the volume you're doing is

43:47

just not.

43:50

helping you reach your goal and you're

43:50

just digging a bigger hole at that point.

43:55

Yeah. It sounds like if you're doing like 30,

43:56

30s or 60, 60s or something like that, you

44:01

really just need to pace them out so that

44:01

your first interval is about the same

44:06

output as your 10th or your 12th or your

44:06

20th or whatever it is.

44:09

And so it might feel easier and you'll see

44:09

that trend line kind of increase in RPE

44:14

across the workout, but you're not

44:14

necessarily having higher output as far as

44:19

Watts go or like, yeah.

44:21

So one of the cool things that you did

44:21

with me,

44:24

on the rower. And I assume this could be extrapolated

44:25

out across different cardio modalities

44:29

too, is the, and I'm going to say this

44:29

wrong, mejolnir intervals.

44:34

yeah, it's Thor's hammer. Okay, well those were incredibly awful and

44:36

they played on this short rest, yeah, they

44:43

played on this short rest sequence. So basically for the listeners we went 30

44:44

seconds hard, 30 seconds rest, 60 seconds

44:51

less hard but still hard, 30 seconds rest,

44:51

then it was like a minute or a minute and

44:58

a half and then 30 seconds rest and then

44:58

it was like two minutes and then 30

45:01

seconds rest and then maybe it was like

45:01

two and a half or three minutes and.

45:04

then you'd rest five minutes or something

45:04

like that.

45:06

But basically only 30 seconds rest between

45:06

these intervals where the effort starts at

45:12

170 % of VO2 max.

45:14

And by the end you're at 75 % of VO2 max

45:14

for the two or three minutes or whatever

45:19

it is. But because these rest periods are so

45:19

short, even the 75 % max of VO2 max

45:25

interval was still super challenging

45:25

because you're already fatigued going into

45:30

it. So I thought that that was just super

45:30

cool.

45:32

I mean, it was miserable by all accounts,

45:32

like one of the worst things that I've

45:37

done, especially when you increased it to

45:37

four rounds.

45:40

So it took me like just under an hour to

45:40

do that.

45:43

But yeah, where did those intervals come

45:43

from and why are they so effective?

45:49

Yeah, so that's all I blatantly stole that

45:49

from my buddy, Dr.

45:53

Kenneth J. He's got a great book called The Cardio

45:54

Code.

45:56

So look up his stuff. He's the one who got me into rowing via

45:57

the Kerrig Institute.

46:00

And I never used a rower much before I had

46:00

played around with it.

46:04

And I was like, but I realized with

46:04

lifters, it's great because you get output

46:09

and it's a full body.

46:12

You can do everything from power to

46:12

aerobic stuff on it.

46:15

It's easy to get data and it's no impact.

46:18

And. most people can figure out how to roll.

46:20

Like, are they gonna be elite level rower

46:20

in two sessions?

46:22

No, but they'll be effective enough that

46:22

they're not gonna really hurt themselves

46:27

or damage themselves. So it's the curve to learn how to do it

46:28

isn't super high.

46:32

So I think that was adapted from some

46:32

Scandinavian research that looked at,

46:38

there's something called, you can do a bio

46:38

-energetic profile.

46:42

I'm blanking on who the researcher is,

46:42

I'll think of it.

46:45

And. You just have people do like a very short

46:46

100 meter the next day.

46:49

You'll do we did this with you, right? So you're 30 second wind gate, 60 second

46:51

wind gate, 180 second wind gate, which is

46:57

a three minutes hard as hard as you can,

46:57

which is miserable.

47:00

A 2K and then a 20 minute.

47:03

There's also the hour of power, which I

47:03

don't do it to anyone to 60 minutes.

47:07

And from that, you can then map out, are

47:07

you really good at the strength and power

47:10

you stuff or this aerobic capacity around

47:10

20 minutes to kind of cap out there?

47:15

And what he's saying is that with that

47:15

specific program, anywhere from a 500

47:20

meter to a 5K, like most people will

47:20

improve.

47:23

So what are you doing? You're stacking the high output, high

47:24

intensity stuff first, but it's very

47:29

short. You're dropping the intensity a little bit

47:30

and you're going a little bit longer,

47:33

dropping the intensity again, a little bit

47:33

longer.

47:36

So you're literally stacking fatigue on

47:36

top of itself, which allows you to use

47:40

these very short recovery periods.

47:44

But then that's a block of five intervals.

47:47

And then you have, like you said, three to

47:47

five minutes off.

47:50

So your goal is we know based on your 2K,

47:50

which is 100%, we can then program these

47:55

outputs that you should hit. So you get everything from high power

47:57

output to moderate aerobic stuff too.

48:02

But you're still doing it in a way that

48:02

you know what your output is.

48:06

And then once you've kind of completed

48:06

those, you've got like a complete full

48:09

rest period after that. And if you scale up to doing, I think I

48:11

did the math one day, like five rounds on

48:15

that, I want to say it's what 7 ,500

48:15

meters, I think.

48:19

And if you just sat down on a rover and

48:19

did 7 ,500 meters, like your overall

48:25

quality will just drop off pretty hard.

48:28

So it's kind of a cool way of, I would

48:28

say, entertaining lifters also, because

48:33

you always got that next thing you're

48:33

looking at, the next thing, the next

48:35

thing. But you end up getting them to do this

48:36

high quality output over.

48:40

the course of time. And like you said, for people who've ever

48:41

done this, you set it up and you're like,

48:45

ah, one round. Now that kind of sucked. That wasn't bad.

48:48

Two rounds. Yeah, you know, it's okay.

48:52

You know, it wasn't that bad. I think this is going to be all right.

48:55

Like round three, you're like, fuck, I

48:55

hate my life.

48:58

You know, round four, you're like, oh,

48:58

look, white buffaloes in the sky.

49:01

I want to die. I hate you. Like the fifth round, you're like, oh my

49:02

God, please make this thing.

49:05

And this is the worst thing I've ever done

49:05

in my life.

49:08

Yep. That's literally how I felt.

49:10

I mean, it was awful. But I do agree that having those kind of

49:12

built -in rest periods and that kind of

49:16

the next thing in sight, and then you know

49:16

you have that like four, three to five

49:20

minute rest at the end. I just love those.

49:23

I mean, I hated them, but I thought them

49:23

extremely effective.

49:26

And so I appreciate you kind of

49:26

introducing me to those.

49:30

Yeah, they work great. And it's a thing where you also have to

49:31

take the psychology of crazy lifters into

49:36

mind. Because if I just programmed you to do 7

49:37

,500 meters in a row where you're like,

49:41

screw you, you're fired, this is dumb, I'm

49:41

not doing this.

49:44

Or if you did do it, your output would

49:44

drop off like so hard.

49:49

Yeah. right, cool.

49:52

I wanna shift into some breathing and HRV

49:52

stuff.

49:54

Aaron, anything on VO2 max before I do?

49:58

No, except for it.

50:01

When, when, when conversations with, with

50:01

this, I'm always like, ah, maybe I'll do

50:04

some of that. And then after the end, I was like, no,

50:05

I'm not doing that.

50:07

I'm not adding that into my life right

50:07

now.

50:10

It's a hard pass. on the bike, bro.

50:12

Do it on the bike. You got it.

50:15

Um, yep. VO2 max was, your 2K and then post and

50:16

then the fact that you did six weeks and

50:21

then you said we need to take a break. Which is very typical.

50:27

Yeah, I, it's mentally, man, it was

50:27

psychologically more than anything.

50:32

It's just, yeah, it's just so hard to go

50:32

there, to get up and go there and do all

50:37

the training that goes into going there. It's just, it's so daunting.

50:42

Yeah, and that so for listeners, we said

50:42

he wanted to increase his VO2 max.

50:47

We primarily use the rower. He's like, yeah, I want to do this.

50:50

So we blasted him for six weeks and I

50:50

don't know.

50:54

What do you cut? What's 15 seconds or something off your

50:54

2K?

50:57

I think, is that right? Yeah, well, yeah, it was a 25 seconds from

50:57

the very beginning to the, to the end, but

51:03

from when we actually started, yeah, it

51:03

was 11 seconds, but those were big 11

51:07

seconds. It went from seven 14 to seven Oh three.

51:10

Yeah, and that's a huge difference from

51:10

714 to 703.

51:15

And then also for the listeners, shocker

51:15

that once we hit the goal, it's like, oh

51:19

my God, I can't handle that anymore.

51:21

Let's go do something else on my own.

51:24

Right. Which same thing with lifting. Like if you've got a big goal you want to

51:26

hit, like, you know, I'd much rather

51:29

people take a six, eight week period and

51:29

just do the best you can and see how close

51:34

you can get. And cool. You got close to the goal.

51:36

We made the goal. Great. You want to shift gears and do something

51:37

else?

51:40

Cool, like I think once you're at a

51:40

moderately advanced level, that's kind of

51:44

what you have to do because the days have

51:44

gone by where you just go out and

51:49

leisurely row 20 minutes and expect to

51:49

shave 11 seconds off.

51:52

Like that's not gonna happen. Right, no, 100%.

51:56

Yeah, it's just, it's very all consuming.

52:00

Cool, so breathing is something I've

52:00

actually been really interested in

52:05

recently. I've been listening to a lot of things

52:06

from Brian McKenzie, Patrick McCown, among

52:11

others. And they talk a lot about breath rate.

52:16

How many breaths are we taking in a

52:16

minute?

52:18

And they specifically talk about breath

52:18

rate during sleep.

52:23

And so this is now something that I've

52:23

been paying acute attention to on my own

52:28

because my Apple watch actually tracks my

52:28

breath rate while I'm sleeping.

52:32

And I'm now keenly aware that I over

52:32

breathe while I sleep, but I don't seem to

52:40

breathe as fast during the day.

52:43

Like just sitting there doing computer

52:43

work, I'm usually in that 10 ish, 10 to 12

52:49

breaths per minute range. But when I'm sleeping, I tend to be

52:50

between

52:53

14 and 18. And the numbers seem to show that when

52:55

you're sleeping, you want to be in that 12

52:59

or less range for the most part, um, to

52:59

kind of control CO2 and all these other

53:04

parameters and stuff like that. And, uh, yeah, so I've just been a little,

53:06

uh, I guess, unsure of why I'm breathing

53:16

so much while I'm sleeping. I mean, I'm, I'm mouth taping, so I'm

53:17

breathing through my nose.

53:20

I'm not sitting there panting and, and

53:20

mouth breathing.

53:23

So it's just been really interesting and

53:23

you know, what are your thoughts on the

53:28

breath rate thing and how impactful is

53:28

that for general human health and also for

53:35

output of cardiovascular ability during,

53:35

you know, aerobic exercise and stuff like

53:40

that. Yeah. The short answer is I think it's super

53:42

beneficial.

53:46

So when I got into this, I read Patrick

53:46

McEwen's book when it first came out.

53:50

I read a lot of early Boutteco research,

53:50

which is what his book is based on.

53:53

And honestly, at that time, I just, I

53:53

didn't get it.

53:57

He's like, yeah, at least people are

53:57

walking around over breathing.

53:59

I'm like, what are you talking about?

54:01

Like the breath rate's fine. You know, and then over time I started

54:03

doing a lot of stuff.

54:07

So I started using the bolt test from

54:07

there with clients.

54:09

And then I realized, I think higher level clients just cheat

54:11

their ass off because one of the things

54:14

you have to, the marker for the end of the

54:14

test is when you first feel the sensation

54:20

to breathe. And so I started doing it with the clients

54:21

in person. I'd seen them like, you know, basically

54:23

almost turned blue and passed out and

54:26

they're like, no, bro, that was like my

54:26

first time I felt the urge to breathe.

54:29

I'm like looking at your face. I think it was like 20 or 30 seconds

54:31

earlier, you know?

54:35

And then Brian McKenzie has his exhale

54:35

test, which I switched everyone over to

54:39

just to take a nasal. Breath and then how long can you do that

54:41

nasal exhale?

54:45

I'm human Andy Galpin to publish some cool

54:45

research on that So that's kind of a way

54:49

to calculate your your baseline and when I

54:49

started doing this clients Got with me

54:54

five years ago when you first came out

54:54

with it six years ago It was weird like

54:59

some clients were really good and some

54:59

were horrible and then with the advent of

55:03

you know aura and a Garmin and the ability

55:03

to look at respiratory rate at night.

55:08

I then realized oh

55:10

Now we have a window into what is your

55:10

physiology doing when it's completely

55:14

unloaded. And I started seeing these high breath

55:15

rates, like mine for a while was 16, 17

55:19

breaths per minute. And if you look in physiology, they'd say,

55:21

well, that's kind of normal.

55:24

But what you realize is that if you're

55:24

breathing really fast at night, the

55:28

question is, why are you doing that?

55:31

And your body is used to a certain level

55:31

of CO2.

55:35

and that CO2 level is plastic because it's

55:35

regulated by certain parts of the brain

55:40

stem, meaning that you can change it over

55:40

time.

55:43

And a lot of people don't realize that CO2

55:43

is a primarily driver of breathing.

55:48

Oxygen is the backup system.

55:50

So when you're holding your breath, your

55:50

CO2 is accumulating because you're not

55:54

breathing, shocker, and then that triggers

55:54

your body in order to breathe.

55:59

At night, you're breathing too fast, meaning your

56:00

body is trying to regulate this level of

56:05

CO2, but it's kind of at the wrong

56:05

setting.

56:08

It'd be like setting the thermostat in

56:08

your house to the wrong setting.

56:11

So you're optimizing, you're trying to

56:11

move around this set point.

56:15

And when I started looking at it closer,

56:15

like people who had a lot of reported

56:18

ADHD, like, oh, look, squirrel, like

56:18

people who were just, you know, completely

56:23

on the sympathetic side, we'd look at

56:23

resting heart rate, we'd look at their

56:26

HRV. Most of the time, but not all the time,

56:30

the respiratory rate would be super high.

56:32

Then we're talking to Andy about this too.

56:34

And the thing that it finally made sense

56:34

to me was the ability to look at it at

56:39

night in a measurement where they're

56:39

unloaded.

56:42

And so they're not having any conscious

56:42

control over it and they're not cheating.

56:46

So we can look at this data and see where

56:46

they're at.

56:49

So if they are over -breathing, what you

56:49

want to do then is you want to change that

56:54

setting of their CO2.

56:56

And what I've realized is the best for

56:56

this, again, this is from Brian McKenzie's

57:00

stuff, Emily Hightower, Andy Gilpin, all

57:00

these guys.

57:05

Some breath control on walking or moderate

57:05

aerobic stuff will make a huge difference.

57:12

So you'll have clients where you'll spec,

57:12

okay, I want you to breathe in and out

57:17

over two seconds, which is pretty easy.

57:19

But you'll hit that point just doing zone

57:19

two stuff where it's hard to stay at that

57:25

area. Like you want to go below it or you want

57:26

to go above it because it's uncomfortable.

57:30

So you're building up more CO2, but you're

57:30

not changing it.

57:34

You're not trying to get rid of that CO2

57:34

right away.

57:37

And over time, what this will do is change

57:37

that setting of those chemoreceptors in

57:42

the brain. And that'll then down regulate your breath

57:43

rate.

57:46

And when that happens, people then report,

57:46

Oh yeah, my sleep is better.

57:49

Like I don't feel as ADD, like I don't

57:49

know squirrels, like, eh, whatever.

57:53

It doesn't matter as much. Mm -hmm.

57:56

I think those people were on that

57:56

sympathetic side.

57:59

The first thing I look at is what is your

57:59

aerobic development, VO2 max?

58:04

What's your resting heart rate? What's your HRV?

58:06

And then I'll look at what is your

58:06

respiratory rate at night?

58:09

Because those things will tell me what

58:09

areas we need to target.

58:12

If your VO2 max is dog crap, any benefit

58:12

in that is gonna be a huge improvement.

58:18

If your resting heart rate is too high,

58:18

yeah, VO2 max probably again.

58:22

If your respiratory rate at night is just

58:22

high, but your VO2 max is good and your

58:28

HRV is okay, then I'm going to definitely

58:28

target some type of breath control with

58:34

walking or zone two stuff, trying to get

58:34

you used to that next level of CO2.

58:41

Sometimes an air quotes, it's called a CO2

58:41

tolerance so that we can down regulate

58:45

that over time. Yeah, that's really interesting because I

58:47

actually fall into that category of

58:53

somebody that has an extremely low resting

58:53

heart rate, like in the low 40s.

58:57

My HRV, which I want to get into next, is

58:57

quite good as well.

59:02

And I've just recently switched to the

59:02

chest strap with the Elite HRV app because

59:07

what I realized was that my Apple Watch...

59:10

was giving me these super high bloated

59:10

readings.

59:13

And I only just realized it's because it's

59:13

calculating it based on SDNN.

59:17

And we'll get into this. Whereas the chest strap is using RMSSD,

59:18

which is pretty much what the Aura and

59:24

every other device out there uses RMSSD.

59:27

So I've had this history of people on the

59:27

internet in DMs and stuff being like,

59:32

dude, your HRV is in the 200s. How's that even possible?

59:35

And I've realized it's because the Apple

59:35

Watch uses SDNN to calculate it, which

59:39

just... gives it a higher number. But regardless of that, my HRV on the one

59:41

to a hundred scale is in the high

59:46

seventies, which is an RMSSD of like 170,

59:46

165, something like that.

59:52

And my resting heart rate is low.

59:54

My VO2 max is, we don't exactly know.

59:57

It's not awful if I'm rowing a 703 2K.

1:00:00

And so yet I'm still breathing.

1:00:03

I'm over breathing at night and I can't

1:00:03

figure out how to stop that because I

1:00:07

think it's also impacting my sleep. And so this was really insightful.

1:00:11

And so I'm gonna actually talk to you off

1:00:11

air at some point about the breath rate

1:00:16

control during zone two and walking and

1:00:16

stuff like that.

1:00:19

So I can start trying to target that a

1:00:19

little bit, but because we only, yeah,

1:00:23

yeah, yeah, go for it. Make sure you go through a period.

1:00:27

So watch your breath rate during your next

1:00:27

deload or your taper because breath rate

1:00:31

will go up based off of a stressor.

1:00:33

And it's one of the first things to

1:00:33

change.

1:00:35

So some people may have a higher

1:00:35

respiratory rate, but they just may be

1:00:39

overreached. I'm not saying this is you, but I'm saying

1:00:40

I've had that with a few clients where we

1:00:43

just deloaded them for sometimes like 10

1:00:43

days, their respiratory rate completely

1:00:47

normalized. So that tells me it was response to an

1:00:48

acute stressor, not necessarily the chemo

1:00:54

receptor stuff we talked about. Second thing, look at respiratory

1:00:56

mechanics.

1:00:59

So I use a lot of RPR, reflexive

1:00:59

performance reset.

1:01:03

Any pickup you can get in respiratory

1:01:03

mechanics and rib cage expansion, most of

1:01:07

the time respiratory rate will go down

1:01:07

also.

1:01:10

If that changes, then you're probably

1:01:10

okay.

1:01:13

So those are the two caveats to look at

1:01:13

too.

1:01:16

Okay, cool, noted. I also had a question on here to discuss

1:01:17

the difference between why you use the

1:01:22

exhale test and the versus the bolt test,

1:01:22

but you addressed that.

1:01:26

So the one thing I just find very

1:01:26

interesting on this is so I've been using

1:01:30

both since you introduced me to the exhale

1:01:30

test, I feel like you can cheat both of

1:01:34

them. Like, yeah.

1:01:38

So the exhale test is interesting because

1:01:38

you can exhale really, really, really

1:01:43

slowly. And eventually you can get to a point

1:01:44

where you're almost doing a bolt test, but

1:01:48

you still can convince yourself that

1:01:48

you're still exhaling, but you don't

1:01:51

actually have much exhale left. So I thought that was interesting.

1:01:55

As far as the bolt test specifically

1:01:55

though, when you talk about the first

1:01:58

desire to breathe, I think it's very

1:01:58

apparent when your diaphragm starts doing

1:02:03

weird things. When you're doing the bolt test and then

1:02:04

you kind of feel this like little, this

1:02:07

little like hitch in your diaphragm. To me, that's the point where I'm like,

1:02:09

oh, that's the end of the test right

1:02:12

there. Yeah, your diaphragm starts spasming like

1:02:13

you may have went too far on the test.

1:02:17

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

1:02:19

But you will find that you generally get a

1:02:19

much higher score on the exhale test than

1:02:24

you would on the bolt test, right? Yeah, they're different scales and they're

1:02:27

just different things.

1:02:30

The exhaled test, you're looking to more

1:02:30

of that eccentric control of the

1:02:33

diaphragm. So you're trying to get at some of the

1:02:34

chemoreceptive stuff, but also some of the

1:02:38

mechanics type stuff too. And, you I've done in -person stuff, hands

1:02:40

-on work on people and their exhaled test

1:02:44

sometimes has gone up by 15 or 20 seconds,

1:02:44

just getting better mechanics too.

1:02:48

So they're all tied to each other.

1:02:51

Gotcha. All right, cool. Well, we have just a few minutes left.

1:02:55

I had two questions to go.

1:02:57

One was on HRV, really to kind of just

1:02:57

parse out the difference between the RMSSD

1:03:05

and the SDNN because of what I discussed

1:03:05

earlier about my HRV being so apparently

1:03:11

so much higher with Apple Watch than what

1:03:11

most people are receiving with their

1:03:15

RMSSD. and then kind of how that plays into

1:03:17

breathing and recovery.

1:03:20

And we don't need to go super down the

1:03:20

rabbit hole here, but if you have just any

1:03:24

kind of thoughts to distinguish between

1:03:24

those two models and what you prefer to

1:03:27

use. Yeah, the short version is I like using a

1:03:28

time domain measurement.

1:03:32

I don't use a lot of nonlinear frequency

1:03:32

based stuff.

1:03:34

People can look up that. A great article called Everything Hurts by

1:03:36

James Heather that covers all that and

1:03:40

excruciatingly detail. Most people need to double check what HRV

1:03:43

method the watch or whatever thing they're

1:03:47

using because everybody wants to go now to

1:03:47

a proprietary method or a different

1:03:51

method. And most of the time you can't compare one

1:03:52

device to the other.

1:03:55

Also devices that accumulate over sleep.

1:03:58

They work, but if you've got a low resting

1:03:58

heart rate like you do, you may not see

1:04:02

that HRV change all that much to something

1:04:02

called parasympathetic saturation.

1:04:07

And then that tends to be a more lagging

1:04:07

indicator.

1:04:10

So somebody really wants to dial in heart

1:04:10

rate variability and they want to use it

1:04:14

to change daily training.

1:04:16

I'll use like, I use the iFleet strap is

1:04:16

what I use in the morning.

1:04:20

Just put that on, do a measurement or some

1:04:20

type of dedicated measurement done first

1:04:24

thing in the morning. That's going to be a lot more

1:04:25

representative and it's...

1:04:28

It is still affected by sleep because

1:04:28

sleep loss is a stressor, but it doesn't

1:04:32

mess up the data accumulation at night.

1:04:35

So if you had a poor night's sleep, yes,

1:04:35

that's going to affect your stress level.

1:04:39

But also the data you gathered now over a

1:04:39

four hour period versus an eight hour

1:04:43

period, it's not as stable.

1:04:46

So one time measurement first thing in the

1:04:46

morning is generally what I like to use.

1:04:49

Yeah, I switched to the chest strap, the

1:04:49

Polar chest strap with the Elite HRV app,

1:04:55

which converts, yeah, it converts the

1:04:55

score, the RMSSD score to a one to a

1:05:00

hundred scale. So it kind of makes it like super obvious

1:05:01

and apparent for you in the morning.

1:05:04

And I've really enjoyed that. I think it's much more consistent than

1:05:05

what I was getting with the Apple watch as

1:05:09

well. All right, yeah.

1:05:11

Apple Watch is the optical will also

1:05:11

affect it.

1:05:14

So skin pigmentation, how tight the watch

1:05:14

is, where the watch is, does it move

1:05:18

around at night? All that stuff can affect it.

1:05:21

So you really have to look at the

1:05:21

literature to see how they validated it.

1:05:25

So the last thing, and I'm just really

1:05:25

curious on your thoughts here, because I

1:05:29

think this is something that I get a lot

1:05:29

of feedback on from people across the

1:05:33

industry is you get all these longevity

1:05:33

experts.

1:05:37

And I'm just going to call out Peter Attia

1:05:37

and Indigo Sanmilaan as the main two.

1:05:42

But they're always talking about how your

1:05:42

quality of life is going to suffer if you

1:05:50

cannot achieve. X VO2 max and they throw out some really

1:05:52

crazy number like in your forties, you

1:05:56

should have a 50 plus VO2 max.

1:05:59

And then they're like for your zone two

1:05:59

work, you know, a bare minimum to not have

1:06:04

metabolic dysfunction is to be able to do

1:06:04

your zone two work at two Watts per kilo,

1:06:09

which I don't know too many people that I

1:06:09

would consider healthy that are out there

1:06:14

doing two Watts per kilo and keeping their

1:06:14

heart rate in zone two.

1:06:18

And so like, I don't know, it seems almost like a scare

1:06:20

tactic in a way.

1:06:23

And a lot of people are freaked out like,

1:06:23

oh my God, I have metabolic dysfunction,

1:06:26

I'm not healthy. And these crazy large numbers that are

1:06:27

being thrown out by these guys, what do

1:06:32

you make of that? And like, how important is it?

1:06:37

To me, the best way I found to simplify it

1:06:37

is like, just go off your VO2 max.

1:06:41

Like I don't really give two hoots as much

1:06:41

about your zone two stuff.

1:06:45

If your VO2 max is 30, you got work to do.

1:06:49

Now, if you look at the research, like

1:06:49

going from absolute complete trash at

1:06:53

like, you know, 15 to even 30, you see a

1:06:53

massive increase, right?

1:06:59

So the biggest change in percentage is

1:06:59

going from absolutely horrible to like

1:07:03

average, you know? Average to elite, do you still see a fair

1:07:05

amount of pickup?

1:07:08

Yeah, you do. What number should you hit?

1:07:11

I know Andy's talked about, you know, 50,

1:07:11

you know, milliliters per kg per minute.

1:07:16

Probably a pretty good number. I would say is that on the higher side?

1:07:19

Yes. But we also know it's going to decline at

1:07:20

some point, no matter what you do.

1:07:25

The, like you said, the zone two range for

1:07:25

that.

1:07:29

Most of that data, you know, from, you

1:07:29

know, Alon's work is in elite level

1:07:33

cyclists. So yeah, should an elite level cyclist be

1:07:33

able to pull that off?

1:07:36

Yeah, absolutely. Do elite level cyclists do more than two

1:07:37

to three hours of zone two work a week?

1:07:41

Yeah, because they're psychotic, crazy

1:07:41

people, right?

1:07:44

And if you don't tell them to do zone two

1:07:44

stuff, you tell them, bro, just chill out

1:07:47

and do a walk, they're going to get on

1:07:47

their bike and ride around the

1:07:49

neighborhood as fast as they can or

1:07:49

something again, right?

1:07:51

They're insane. So does that mean the average person needs

1:07:52

to do two to three hours of zone two a

1:07:56

week? Yeah, there's a time and a place for it,

1:07:57

but I don't, as much as I love Peter

1:08:00

Atiyah's stuff. I don't think you need to do two to three

1:08:01

hours of zone two stuff every week for the

1:08:06

rest of your life. I would much rather see people invest that

1:08:07

time into, yep, a block of zone two stuff,

1:08:12

get a good base, cool. Let's go into a block of seeing if we can

1:08:13

increase your VO2 max, great.

1:08:17

Okay, let's put something else on priority

1:08:17

and let's see how we can hold our VO2 max

1:08:22

at that level that doesn't take that much

1:08:22

effort to hold a certain output.

1:08:27

That's what I would rather do. Again, my big thing is looking at what is

1:08:29

the output.

1:08:33

And again, in what context? If someone's already lifting, they're

1:08:34

eating relatively good, their sleep is

1:08:37

good, they're getting their walks in,

1:08:37

yeah, like their risk of metabolic

1:08:40

dysfunction is incredibly rare.

1:08:43

And I love Peter Atiyah's stuff, I think

1:08:43

it's great, but he's also a crazy person,

1:08:48

right? To him, like he was highly competitive in

1:08:48

the past by his own admission, so a lot of

1:08:53

the stuff he does is to that 90th plus

1:08:53

percentile.

1:08:57

And again, for him, that's great. If it's something you want to do, awesome.

1:09:00

Is it beneficial? Yeah. But, you know, telling the average lifter

1:09:02

that they need to do another three hours

1:09:06

of zone two cardio for like years on end.

1:09:09

Yeah, it's it's some benefit if you're

1:09:09

doing it for recovery purposes.

1:09:13

Cool. But zone two, you know, VO2 max pickups

1:09:14

are just almost nonexistent.

1:09:21

Again, as a good base, I've had people do

1:09:21

zone two.

1:09:24

Absolutely. But you're around that level of movement.

1:09:27

I would much rather have people, you know,

1:09:27

like you guys go ride a bike, go learn to

1:09:31

surf, go kiteboard. At this point, even learn to play

1:09:32

pickleball for Christ's sake.

1:09:35

Like just put your body in a place where

1:09:35

you're going to get movement.

1:09:39

You're going to get increased heart rate. You're actually going to use your brain to

1:09:40

not be a sea slug because you've got to

1:09:44

coordinate all these moving things in

1:09:44

space.

1:09:46

I think we'll realize at some point there

1:09:46

is a detriment to not moving on an indoor

1:09:52

bike for three hours a week. And especially if you can do something

1:09:54

else with that time, like go do some

1:09:58

recreation. That's my bias. Yeah, no, I love that.

1:10:02

So you would not say that mitochondrial

1:10:02

function correlates directly with your

1:10:09

output at zone two.

1:10:12

Yes and no, it's so hard to say is it

1:10:12

mitochondrial only because you've got, you

1:10:18

know, fatigue, you can look at what fuels

1:10:18

are using, are you primarily using fat?

1:10:21

Are you one of these people that is super

1:10:21

high stress?

1:10:24

So you're just burning through

1:10:24

carbohydrates doing zone two, which I have

1:10:27

seen off a metabolic heart. So those are some other things I would

1:10:28

look at.

1:10:31

And if people really want to go to the nth

1:10:31

degree, I don't know who I sold this from.

1:10:35

So I would give them credit. I would much rather see an average general

1:10:37

population lifter.

1:10:41

do zone two stuff in three modalities.

1:10:44

Can you do zone two on a rower? Can you do zone two running?

1:10:47

And can you do zone two on a bike? So for myself, I can probably get by on

1:10:49

zone two on a rower.

1:10:52

I can definitely do it on a bike. Running, I absolutely fricking suck at.

1:10:56

The pace I got, I can't even really run

1:10:56

and stay on zone two if I'm perfectly

1:11:00

honest. So that's something I would probably need

1:11:02

to work on.

1:11:04

I'd much rather see them movement

1:11:04

competency in three different movements

1:11:09

and hit zone two than I would be.

1:11:11

You know, stay on a bike for three hours a

1:11:11

week.

1:11:14

Cool. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that, Mike.

1:11:18

That is all the time we have. You've answered all of my questions.

1:11:21

I really, really appreciate you giving us

1:11:21

your time.

1:11:24

Yeah. Really appreciate it.

1:11:27

Yeah. Can you let us know where everyone can

1:11:28

find you, all that good stuff?

1:11:31

And then Aaron, any thoughts to wrap up? Yeah, best place is the website, which is

1:11:33

miketnelson .com.

1:11:37

Most of, probably 90 % of the content I do

1:11:37

goes out over the newsletter.

1:11:41

So you can just go on there, sign up the

1:11:41

newsletter, tell me you heard me on this

1:11:44

show and I'll send you a cool free gift.

1:11:47

But that's probably the best place. miketnelson .com and then newsletter.

1:11:53

Awesome, wonderful. Yeah, we'll have all that stuff linked up

1:11:54

in the show notes below.

1:11:57

This was very, very cool episode for me

1:11:57

to, I mean, I effectively was almost like

1:12:01

a listener on this episode and it was

1:12:01

pretty cool just to learn some new things.

1:12:06

I have some thoughts swirling around in my

1:12:06

head.

1:12:08

It might turn into, I get like halfway

1:12:08

through one session and I'm like, what the

1:12:13

fuck was I thinking? I cannot do this, but we'll see.

1:12:16

So we'll. Well, keep us updated on the podcast in

1:12:18

future episodes, Traeger.

1:12:21

Yeah. Yep. Thanks for joining us, Mike.

1:12:25

Yeah, thank you guys, I appreciate it. I appreciate all the great questions,

1:12:26

that's fine.