Fitness Toolkit: Protocol & Tools to Optimize Physical Health | Huberman Lab Podcast #94

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- Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast

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where we discuss science and science-based tools

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for everyday life.

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I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

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of neurobiology and ophthalmology

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at Stanford School of Medicine.

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Today we are discussing fitness.

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Fitness, of course,

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is vitally important for cardiovascular health,

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for strength, for endurance, for lifespan, for healthspan.

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I can't think of anyone out there that wouldn't want to

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have healthy hormonal function,

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healthy cardiovascular function, to live a long time

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and to feel vital,

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that is to have a long healthspan as well

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as a long lifespan.

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Fitness and fitness protocols are tremendously

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powerful for developing all of that.

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However, despite there being an enormous amount

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of information out there on the internet and in books

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and elsewhere, it can be a bit overwhelming.

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So today's episode is really designed

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to synthesize science based tools that we've covered

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on the podcast, some with expert guests like

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Dr. Andy Galpin or Dr. Peter Attia, or world

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renowned Movement specialist Ido Portal,

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or physiotherapist and strength

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and conditioning coach, Jeff Cavaliere.

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We've had all of them as guests on the podcast,

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and each and every one of them provided a wealth

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of knowledge in terms of the various things

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that you can do to optimize very specific

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or multiple aspects of fitness.

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Today, we're going to do something a little bit

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different than usual.

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Typically on the Huberman Lab podcast,

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I offer mechanism upfront or first,

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and then we talk about protocols that you can use

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that really lean on those science

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and science based mechanisms.

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Today I'm going to describe a specific protocol

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that serves as a general template that anyone, in fact,

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everyone can use in order to maximize all

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aspects of fitness.

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So that includes endurance, strength, flexibility,

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hypertrophy, aesthetic changes, et cetera.

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However, this general framework can also be modified,

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that is customized to your particular needs.

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So if you're somebody who really wants to build

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more strength or bigger muscles,

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you can change the protocol and the overall

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program according to that.

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And I'll talk about very specific ways to do that.

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Or if you're somebody who really just wants

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to maintain strength, but you want to build endurance,

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we'll talk about that.

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And of course, we will cover real life issues,

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such as should you train if you are sleep deprived,

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what about food?

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When should you eat?

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What if you haven't eaten and you're hungry?

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Should you still train? Et cetera, et cetera.

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We're going to cover all of that, again,

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in the context of this,

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what I would call foundational template of fitness.

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Now, this foundational template of fitness

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is something that I personally use.

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In fact, I've used it for over three decades,

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hard to believe that I'm that old,

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but I just recently turned 47, and I still use

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this basic protocol or template across the week

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and modify it according to what my particular goals

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are that year, that month, even that day,

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because I, like you, live in the real world

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and sometimes I've been traveling or I miss a workout, yes,

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it does happen, or life isn't organized in exactly

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the way that I need to in order to have everything

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go according to the protocol that's on paper.

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So we're going to discuss real world issues

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and how to work with the real world issues in order

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to get the most out of your fitness program.

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And again, by the end of today's program, I can assure you,

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you will have a template protocol that you can build

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up from, build out, change and modify,

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and that will really serve your fitness goals according

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to the science and what peer-reviewed studies

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and the experts that appeared on this podcast

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and other podcasts really tell us is best and optimal

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for our fitness.

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I'm pleased to announce that the Huberman Lab podcast

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has now launched a premium channel.

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I want to be very clear that the Huberman Lab podcast

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will continue to be released every Monday at zero cost

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to consumer, and there will be no change in the format

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of these podcasts.

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The premium channel is a response to the many questions

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we get about specific topics,

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and it will allow me to really drill deep

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into specific answers related to those topics.

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So once a month, I'm going to host and ask me anything,

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so-called AMA, where you can ask me anything

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about specific topics covered on the Huberman Lab

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podcast and I will answer those questions.

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Those of course will be recorded.

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They will also be other premium content available

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to premium subscribers such as transcripts

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and short videos of new tools and unique tools

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for mental health, physical health and performance.

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If you want to check out the premium channel,

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you can go to hubermanlab.com/premium.

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There is a $10 a month charge or $100 per year,

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and I should mention that a large portion

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of the proceeds from the Huberman Lab Premium Channel

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will go to support scientific research that develops

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the very sorts of tools that we talk

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about on the Huberman Lab podcast.

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The rest of the support

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for the Huberman Lab Podcast premium channel will go

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to supporting the regular Huberman Lab podcast.

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Again, that's hubermanlab.com/premium.

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Before we dive into today's content about fitness

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and fitness protocols, I want to tell you about a brand

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new study that is very exciting and frankly very unusual.

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This is a study that was published

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out of the University of Houston, examining

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what I would call a micro exercise or a micro movement.

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It's a very small movement of a very small portion

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of your body, in fact, just 1% of your musculature,

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that when it's performed continuously while seated has,

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at least what they report, are very dramatic

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positive changes in terms of blood sugar

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utilization and metabolism.

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So the title of this study

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is "A potent physiological method to magnify and sustain

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soleus oxidative metabolism improves glucose

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and lipid regulation."

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This study was published in iScience,

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and as I mentioned earlier,

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it is getting a lot of attention and it's very unusual.

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Without going into all the details of this study,

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let me just briefly give you a little bit

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of the background.

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First of all, you have a muscle called the soleus.

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The soleus muscle is a more or less wide flat muscle

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that sits beneath what most people think of as their calf,

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although it's part of the calf muscle.

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The other portion of the calf is called the gastrocnemius.

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The soleus sits below that.

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Now, the soleus muscle is a unique muscle

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because it's largely slow twitch muscle fibers.

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It's designed to be used continuously

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over and over again for stabilizing your body

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when you're standing upright, for walking.

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This is a muscle that's designed to contract

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over and over and over again.

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In fact, you could walk all day on this muscle

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and most likely it would not get sore.

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You probably done that and it did not get sore.

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In contrast, a muscle like your bicep or your tricep,

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if I were to have you perform hundreds or thousands

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of repetitions, even with a very lightweight

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one pound weight or a two pound weight,

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eventually it would fatigue.

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You would feel a sort of a burn there.

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It's a very unusual set of muscles to use repeatedly.

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But the soleus is an unusual muscle in that it really

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is designed to be used continuously.

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Now, this study was focused on how people who sit a lot

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of the day and don't have the opportunity for a lot

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of physical movement or maybe who don't even exercise

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at all can improve their metabolism

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and glucose utilization.

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Without going into a deep dive about glucose utilization,

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because we've done the deep dive on this podcast,

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episodes such as metabolism, et cetera,

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you can look those up at hubermanlab.com.

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They're all timestamped and available there.

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Anytime you eat, your blood sugar goes up to some extent.

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So your blood glucose, as it's called,

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goes up to some extent.

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And then insulin is a hormone that's used

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to essentially chaperone and sequester and use

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that blood glucose or it's basically the idea

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is you don't want blood glucose to go too high.

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Hyperinsulinemia is something associated

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with blood glucose that's too high because insulin goes

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up to essentially match the level of blood glucose.

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You don't also don't want to be hypoglycemic,

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you don't want to have blood sugar that's too low,

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and insulin is involved in both regulating peaks

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and troughs in blood sugar, blood glucose.

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So we can basically say, and this is very simple,

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but we can basically say that you don't want blood

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glucose to be elevated too much or for too long.

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That's not good.

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In fact, people who have diabetes because they don't

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make insulin, people who have type 1 diabetes do not

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make insulin at all, their blood glucose

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is so high that they actually have to take insulin

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in order to regulate otherwise their blood glucose can

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go so high that it can damage cells and damage organs.

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It can even kill people.

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People who have type 2 diabetes are

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so called insulin insensitive.

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They make insulin, but the receptors to insulin are

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not sensitive to it,

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and so they make more insulin than normally would be

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made and blood glucose isn't regulated properly,

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et cetera, et cetera.

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The take home message about blood glucose

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is that you want your blood glucose levels to go up

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when you eat, but not too high and you don't want them

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to stay elevated for too long.

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This study looked at how people who are largely

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sedentary or at least sitting can increase the utilization,

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the clearance of glucose from the bloodstream after eating,

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and they also looked at overall metabolism.

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For people, get this,

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that were using just that 1% of muscle, the soleus,

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by doing what they call a soleus pushup.

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So the soleus pushup can be described very simply

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as if you're sitting down with your knee bent

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at approximately right angle, like a square corner,

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and pushing up, or I should say lifting your heel

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while pushing down on your toe and contracting

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the calf muscle as it were,

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and then lowering the heel and then in lifting

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that heel again, lowering the heel, lifting the heel again,

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each one of those is what they call a soleus pushup.

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This study had people continuously do soleus pushups

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and they looked at things like blood glucose utilization,

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they looked at metabolism and so on.

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Now, a couple of important things about this study

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before I tell you what they discovered,

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which was frankly pretty miraculous,

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almost hard to believe,

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and yet I believe the data looked to be collected

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quite well, and there are a lot of statistics

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and the study looks to be quite thorough.

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First of all, they used an equal number of male

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and female subjects.

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There were a wide range of body mass indices, okay?

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So this wasn't just super fit people or people

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that were purely sedentary and not fit.

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They used a wide variety of ages, time of day,

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people who tended to walk a lot or not walk a lot.

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They measured changes in metabolism and blood

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glucose utilization and people that had done

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these soleus pushups while seated in the laboratory,

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and I must say,

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they had them do these soleus pushups for quite

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a long while, continuously.

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So they had them do it for as long as 270 minutes

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total throughout the day.

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So if you divide that, that's four and a half hours,

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you might say, well,

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four and a half hours of lifting the heel and putting

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the heel down, lifting the heel, putting the heel down,

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that's a lot.

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But they didn't always do it continuously.

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They had some breaks in there.

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So this is the sort of thing that you could imagine

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you or other people could do while seated,

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while doing Zooms or while on calls or maybe

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even while eating, doing that sort of thing.

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Although I'm not suggesting that you constantly

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be focusing on soleus pushups throughout your life.

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The point is that people who did these soleus

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pushups experienced dramatic improvements in blood

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sugar regulation and in metabolism despite the fact

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that the soleus is just 1% of the total musculature.

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So here I'm going to read from the abstract

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about what they found,

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people who did these soleus pushups,

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despite being a tiny muscle and using very

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little local energy...

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In fact, they measured muscle glycogen,

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the burn or essentially the utilization of fuel

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within the muscle, and there was very little

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utilization of fuel within the soleus itself,

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and that's because the soleus has this unique property

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of needing to basically keep you going all day,

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walking all day or moving all day.

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What they saw was a large magnitude, for example,

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52% less postprandial, that's after a meal,

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glucose excursion,

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So 52% less increase in blood glucose and 60%,

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six zero less hyper insulinemia,

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so reduced levels of insulin.

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They also, miraculously, observed that despite this being,

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again, a small muscle, 1% of the total muscle mass,

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so very small oxidative use,

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they saw big improvements in systemic metabolic regulation.

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So this is interesting and I think something

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that we should at least know about.

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I'm not aware that anyone's replicated this study yet.

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I know there's a ton of excitement about this study

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in the popular press, and if the data turn out to hold up,

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which I like to imagine they will,

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I can understand why there's so much excitement.

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What this means is that if you're somebody who cares

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about blood glucose regulation,

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you want to keep your metabolism running,

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please don't stop exercising,

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the other ways that you exercise.

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But if you're somebody who wants to maximize your health,

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doing these soleus pushups fairly continuously

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while seated is going to be beneficial.

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And in addition to that,

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I know that there are going to be people out there who,

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for instance, might be injured or you're traveling

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and you're stuck on a plane or you're in the classroom

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and you're forced to study all day or take notes all day.

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You're just not getting enough opportunity to get

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those steps that you want to take,

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whether or that's 10,000 or fewer or more,

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getting enough steps or movement.

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Maybe you don't have time to get out and do your run,

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or maybe you're also running,

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weightlifting and doing yoga classes and things

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of that sort, but you want to further improve your fitness,

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at least in terms of your metabolic health.

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This seems like a terrific,

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very low investment way to do it.

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Certainly zero cost.

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It does take a little bit of attention,

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so you have to divert your attention from other

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things you're doing to make sure that you're still

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doing these soleus pushups.

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I'm sure that many of you are going to have a lot

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of detailed questions such as how high did they lift

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the heel and did they contract the muscle very hard or not?

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Couple of things about that,

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they did not have subjects really contract the muscle hard.

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They did measure the angle of heel raise

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and it was anywhere from 10 to 15 degrees

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so they didn't have to go way, way up on their tippy toes

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or things of that sort.

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In any event, 270 minutes,

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four and a half hours of doing these soleus pushups

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is a lot, but by my read of the data

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and the rather significant,

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or I should say very significant effects

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that they observed on blood glucose regulation

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and metabolism, et cetera,

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seems to me that doing less would still be beneficial

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and that you don't necessarily have to do the full

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270 minutes in order to get the benefits

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that they observed.

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More about the study includes the fact

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that the benefits they observed were very long lasting,

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as long as two hours after a meal,

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they could still see this improved

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blood glucose utilization.

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I don't know because I wasn't able to find

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it in the methods whether or not they were doing

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the soleus pushups while they were consuming blood

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sugar in this study.

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The point being that if you're somebody who cares

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about their fitness, this study is interesting,

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because what it means is that, again,

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if you are forced to be immobile or sitting longer

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than you would like,

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if you're stuck in a meeting or Zooms

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or class or on a plane, et cetera,

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or if you're simply trying to add a bit

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more fitness and metabolic health to your overall regimen,

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soleus pushups, at least to me,

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seem like a very low investment, simple,

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zero cost tool to improve your metabolic health.

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For those of you that want to peruse the study

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in more detail, we will provide a link

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to this paper published in iScience

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in the show note caption.

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Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize

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that this podcast is separate from my teaching

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and research roles at Stanford.

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It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring

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zero cost to consumer information about science

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and science related tools to the general public.

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In keeping with that theme,

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I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

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Our first sponsor is InsideTracker.

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that analyzes data from your blood and DNA to help

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One issue with a lot of blood tests and DNA tests

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in order to bring those numbers related

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when I work or when I drive,

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and I wear sunglasses during the day.

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I don't wear sunglasses when I get my morning

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sunlight viewing, a practice that I'm absolutely

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religious about every single morning,

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In fact, most of the time I can't even remember

Time: 1014.78

that they're on my face, they're so lightweight.

Time: 1016.37

However, they also can be worn anywhere, to work,

Time: 1018.86

to dinner, et cetera.

Time: 1019.91

They have a terrific aesthetics.

Time: 1020.99

Unlike a lot of other performance eyeglasses

Time: 1022.67

out there that you can only find in designs

Time: 1024.65

that really make people look like a cyborg.

Time: 1026.131

ROKA makes the cyborg versions, some people like those,

Time: 1028.55

but they also make versions of their eyeglasses

Time: 1031.04

and sunglasses with frames that you can wear out to dinner,

Time: 1033.455

to work, et cetera.

Time: 1034.815

If you'd like to try ROKA eyeglasses or sunglasses,

Time: 1037.31

go to roka.com.

Time: 1038.817

That's R-O-K-A .com and enter the code Huberman

Time: 1041.51

to save 20% off your first order.

Time: 1043.49

Again, that's roka.com

Time: 1045.74

and enter the code Huberman at checkout.

Time: 1047.72

Today's episode is also brought to us by Helix Sleep.

Time: 1050.33

Helix Sleep makes mattresses and pillows

Time: 1051.913

that are customized to your unique sleep needs.

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Now, sleep is the fundamental layer

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that is the most important aspect of mental health,

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physical health and performance.

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I've said that before on this podcast,

Time: 1062.66

and I'm going to be saying it over and over again.

Time: 1064.34

If you're sleeping well, everything else is better,

Time: 1066.92

and if you're not sleeping well,

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everything else gets far worse.

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and sleeping on the correct mattress is absolutely vital.

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and they match you to a mattress that's ideal

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you go to helixsleep.com/huberman

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for up to $200 off and two free pillows.

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The Huberman Lab podcast is now partnered

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with Momentous Supplements.

Time: 1117.98

To find the supplements we discuss

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on the Huberman Lab podcast,

Time: 1120.56

you can go to live Momentous spelled O-U-S,

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livemomentous.com/huberman,

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and I should just mention that the library

Time: 1127.13

of those supplements is constantly expanding.

Time: 1129.32

Again, that's livemomentous.com/huberman.

Time: 1132.38

Let's talk about fitness and let's talk

Time: 1134.36

about how you can develop the optimal fitness

Time: 1136.34

protocols for you.

Time: 1137.5

So that includes what to do each day of the week

Time: 1140.39

and your fitness protocol across the week,

Time: 1142.61

and indeed across the month and the year

Time: 1144.68

and even year to year.

Time: 1146.63

When we had Dr. Andy Galpin on the podcast,

Time: 1149.12

he said something very important that we want to keep

Time: 1151.16

in mind today, which is concepts are few, methods are many,

Time: 1155.66

that is there are an infinite number of different

Time: 1158.285

programs and exercises and set and rep schemes

Time: 1161.3

and different runs and burpees and pushups, et cetera,

Time: 1164.54

et cetera that one can follow.

Time: 1166.04

However, there are really just a few basic concepts

Time: 1170.12

or principles of muscle physiology,

Time: 1172.875

of cardiovascular function, of connective tissue

Time: 1175.88

function that provide or set the basis

Time: 1178.76

for the adaptations that we call fitness

Time: 1181.7

or that lead to fitness.

Time: 1183.17

So I'm going to list those off now.

Time: 1185.12

We can talk about a fitness protocol that's really

Time: 1187.85

aimed mainly toward developing skill.

Time: 1190.61

That's one. Or speed.

Time: 1192.74

That's another.

Time: 1193.88

Or power, which is speed times strength,

Time: 1197.12

or specifically strength, or hypertrophy,

Time: 1200.72

growth of muscles, or endurance such as muscular endurance.

Time: 1204.8

Muscular endurance is, for instance,

Time: 1206.48

your ability to stay in a plank position or to do

Time: 1210.08

a wall sit, to sit on an invisible chair against a wall,

Time: 1214.64

or other forms of endurance like near

Time: 1217.58

pure anaerobic endurance.

Time: 1219.02

So a one minute sprint or less or a one minute all

Time: 1223.37

out cycling on stationary bike, this sort of thing,

Time: 1227

or endurance that occurs in the kind of 3 to 12

Time: 1230.69

minute total duration range.

Time: 1233.18

So that might be sprints or high intensity

Time: 1236.51

interval type training.

Time: 1237.83

It could be an all out swim, it could be all out row.

Time: 1241.85

That's another form of endurance,

Time: 1243.08

taps into different fuel systems,

Time: 1244.85

different aspects of muscle physiology, et cetera.

Time: 1247.727

And then endurance that lasts 30 minutes or more,

Time: 1250.73

which is typically what people think

Time: 1252.05

about when they think about endurance.

Time: 1253.79

But of course, the other forms of endurance matter.

Time: 1255.65

So we've got skill, speed, power, strength, hypertrophy,

Time: 1259.07

muscular endurance, anaerobic endurance,

Time: 1263.33

what I would call 3 to 12 minute endurance,

Time: 1265.61

although it goes by other names as well,

Time: 1267.56

and 30 minutes or more endurance type

Time: 1269.641

exercise and adaptations.

Time: 1272.54

Each and every one of these requires different principles,

Time: 1276.47

different concepts in order to improve,

Time: 1280.1

say your muscular strength or your hypertrophy or both.

Time: 1283.34

However, there's a general theme that sits beneath

Time: 1286.55

all adaptations leading to fitness,

Time: 1289.28

and that's what we're really going to set down

Time: 1290.99

as the base layer,

Time: 1292.22

the foundation of everything we talk about today.

Time: 1294.56

And that's that we need to think about what are

Time: 1298.25

the modifiable variables?

Time: 1299.81

Again, I'm borrowing directly from the episode

Time: 1302.03

with Dr. Andy Galpin.

Time: 1303.05

He was the one that said,

Time: 1303.883

modifiable variables are the key thing to think about.

Time: 1306.32

What are you going to modify?

Time: 1307.55

What are you going to change in order to increase one

Time: 1310.744

or some of the various things I listed off before, skill,

Time: 1316.07

speed, power, strength, hypertrophy, endurance,

Time: 1317.9

et cetera, et cetera.

Time: 1319.31

And some of the key concepts that emerge

Time: 1322.13

from that discussion are that we need to think

Time: 1324.02

about progressive overload.

Time: 1325.46

Normally when people hear about progressive overload,

Time: 1327.32

they think about adding more weight to a bar or picking

Time: 1329.57

up heavier dumbbells, but that could also be

Time: 1332.36

progressive overload in the context of running up

Time: 1334.46

a hill of steeper incline or running a little bit

Time: 1336.86

faster or a little bit further and so on and so forth.

Time: 1339.508

Now, as I promised earlier,

Time: 1341.03

today we are not going to drill into each and every one

Time: 1343.43

of the mechanisms that underlie the different

Time: 1345.44

adaptations that are going to develop speed

Time: 1348.17

and strength and endurance, et cetera,

Time: 1350.06

because that was covered in the podcast

Time: 1351.56

with Dr. Andy Galpin and the other podcast

Time: 1353.388

with experts that I mentioned earlier.

Time: 1355.37

And we again, will provide links to those podcasts

Time: 1357.41

if you want to drill into those mechanisms.

Time: 1359.75

Instead, what we are going to do is we're going to start

Time: 1362.3

with a program that essentially is designed

Time: 1365.9

for you to maximize all aspects of fitness

Time: 1369.74

to the extent that you can simultaneously maximize

Time: 1372.8

all aspects of fitness,

Time: 1374.3

but then to change or modify that protocol

Time: 1377.96

so that if you want to build up more, for instance,

Time: 1380.54

strength and you want to just hold onto the endurance

Time: 1382.91

you have, you don't want to build endurance,

Time: 1385.67

at least not in that week or that month, you can do that.

Time: 1388.76

Or if you want to improve your endurance

Time: 1390.02

while maintaining your strength, you can do that.

Time: 1392.75

And so on and so forth.

Time: 1394.73

Most people, I do believe,

Time: 1396.29

would like a combination of strength and endurance

Time: 1399.86

and flexibility and maybe even hypertrophy,

Time: 1402.5

particularly for certain muscle groups that maybe are

Time: 1405.62

not as well developed as other muscle groups.

Time: 1407.36

They want to bring balance to their physique,

Time: 1409.1

both for sake of aesthetics and for sake of health

Time: 1411.224

and for sake of general functioning,

Time: 1414.32

to maybe even to eliminate pain,

Time: 1416.39

the protocol that I'm going to describe really works

Time: 1418.85

as a foundational template for that as well.

Time: 1421.43

So let's drill into that foundational protocol

Time: 1423.92

and I'll keep referring to it as the foundational protocol,

Time: 1427.25

not because it's the one that I use,

Time: 1428.6

although it is the one that I use,

Time: 1429.797

and not because it's the one that we're talking

Time: 1431.36

about today, although it's the one we're talking

Time: 1432.89

about today, but because we need some general

Time: 1434.93

framework from which to build out the more

Time: 1437.21

specific protocols that we'll get into in a bit

Time: 1439.25

more detail later.

Time: 1440.72

So in this foundational protocol for fitness,

Time: 1442.88

what you'll notice is that on any one given day,

Time: 1446.24

you're going to focus on one particular aspect of fitness.

Time: 1449.36

Maybe it's endurance, maybe it's strength,

Time: 1451.13

maybe it's hypertrophy, in particular,

Time: 1453.59

it might be hypertrophy for a particular muscle group

Time: 1455.75

or muscle groups.

Time: 1457.43

That said, across the entire week,

Time: 1460.1

it's designed to bring fitness and different forms

Time: 1462.89

of fitness to all aspects of your body.

Time: 1466.49

So this particular protocol begins

Time: 1468.704

on Sunday, although that's simply the day that I happen

Time: 1472.55

to begin the protocol.

Time: 1473.72

And again, this protocol is not important

Time: 1476.12

because it's the one that I follow.

Time: 1477.301

I follow it because it is important.

Time: 1479.419

In other words, it's a protocol that's really gleaned

Time: 1482.15

from the scientific literature and the experts,

Time: 1483.991

that is for you.

Time: 1485.12

So this fitness protocol is really about you.

Time: 1487.16

I just may refer to it as the one that I follow simply

Time: 1490.1

for ease of communication.

Time: 1491.36

And for me, my week begins on Sunday.

Time: 1493.82

So I do my very best to get a workout in on Sunday.

Time: 1498.08

And for me, that workout is that of a endurance workout.

Time: 1502.28

It's designed to either maintain or increase my endurance,

Time: 1507.5

and the endurance type that I'm referring

Time: 1509.6

to is endurance of 30 minutes or more.

Time: 1511.82

In fact, for me, the goal is always to get either 60

Time: 1516.63

to 75 minutes of jogging.

Time: 1518.9

So this would be so-called zone two cardio,

Time: 1521.69

people probably have heard of zone two cardio,

Time: 1523.7

but if you haven't, that's okay.

Time: 1524.75

Zone two cardio is something that you could measure

Time: 1527.36

with a heart rate monitor or other device,

Time: 1529.37

but you don't need to.

Time: 1531.05

Zone two cardio is the kind of cardiovascular exercise

Time: 1533.591

in which you're pushing yourself to move

Time: 1537.874

such that you're breathing faster than normal,

Time: 1541.4

your heart is beating faster than normal, however,

Time: 1543.86

you are still able to sustain a conversation.

Time: 1546.56

But if you were to push yourself any harder,

Time: 1550.01

that is move faster or go up a steeper incline

Time: 1552.89

at the same rate you happen to be at any one moment,

Time: 1555.26

you would lose that ability to speak,

Time: 1557.66

you wouldn't be able to complete sentences,

Time: 1559.04

you would be out of breath or you'd have

Time: 1560.36

to pause mid-sentence.

Time: 1561.83

Now, it's near impossible, even with a heart rate monitor,

Time: 1564.62

to stay exactly in zone two unless you're very,

Time: 1567.92

very skilled at that.

Time: 1568.76

So I don't obsess over that,

Time: 1570.35

and in fact I don't wear a heart rate monitor

Time: 1572

when I do this exercise, but for me,

Time: 1573.585

the goal is to head out on Sunday and get 60 to 75

Time: 1576.98

minutes of jogging in zone two.

Time: 1579.83

Now of course I like to jog,

Time: 1581.177

but that doesn't mean that you have to jog.

Time: 1582.77

You could replace jogging with rowing on a rowing machine

Time: 1587

or maybe even rowing an actual boat

Time: 1588.71

if you have access to that or cycling or swimming,

Time: 1591.765

something that allows you continuous movement for 60

Time: 1594.34

to 75 minutes at that zone two threshold

Time: 1598.67

we talked about earlier.

Time: 1600.68

For me, that can include some hills, and when I say hills,

Time: 1603.92

they could be very steep hills,

Time: 1604.97

but I simply slow my pace down in order to stay

Time: 1608.111

in that roughly zone two range.

Time: 1611.39

Or it could be that they are more low grade hills

Time: 1615.14

and I might just slow down a little bit or I might

Time: 1617.42

even push myself a tiny bit that day.

Time: 1619.46

But really I'm just trying to build that long endurance.

Time: 1621.83

I'm trying to build up my capacity or maintain

Time: 1623.84

my capacity to go a long distance without fatiguing.

Time: 1627.5

Now some days, meaning some Sundays, since I tend

Time: 1630.89

to do this almost always

Time: 1632.15

on Sunday, although there are exceptions,

Time: 1634.13

instead of doing the 60 to 75 minute jog,

Time: 1636.45

what I'll do is I will head out for a long hike

Time: 1640.16

that could be two and a half hours or three hours

Time: 1642.38

or maybe even a four or five hour hike.

Time: 1644.27

Sometimes it's very long.

Time: 1645.89

And I'll do that sometimes simply to mix up the routine,

Time: 1650.63

because sometimes jogging and jogging the same routes

Time: 1653.187

gets boring to me.

Time: 1654.71

I do enjoy running,

Time: 1656

that's something I've been doing for a very long time,

Time: 1658.07

but sometimes it just gets a little bit tedious

Time: 1661.94

and I want to do something different.

Time: 1663.238

Also, sometimes I want to be social on Sundays.

Time: 1665.81

I want to head out on a hike with my partner or I want

Time: 1668.93

to meet up with friends and hike with them.

Time: 1670.82

And so taking a long hike on Sunday is something

Time: 1673.01

that also could be quite social.

Time: 1674.36

And then I don't have to worry about also getting

Time: 1676.25

in my workout when I'm heading out on a hike

Time: 1678.77

with my partner or going out to meet with friends

Time: 1681.391

or things of that sort.

Time: 1684.11

I will say that there's a specific tool

Time: 1687.47

or a specific change that you can make to this Sunday

Time: 1690.453

long endurance, or at least what I consider long for me,

Time: 1693.62

I mean it's by no means a marathon

Time: 1694.498

or an Ironman, but this long endurance training,

Time: 1698.51

and that's the use of a weight vest.

Time: 1700.64

So something that I've really started utilizing

Time: 1703.04

more recently, and by more recently,

Time: 1705.29

I really mean within the last year or so,

Time: 1707.45

is I purchased one of these weight vests that can

Time: 1709.736

be anywhere from 10 to 50 pounds.

Time: 1713.06

What I use in the weight vest is irrelevant.

Time: 1715.43

But it certainly changes the level of effort required

Time: 1719.33

when taking a hike or even a walk.

Time: 1721.01

Now there's an additional benefit of the weight vest,

Time: 1722.81

which is that if you are going out for a hike

Time: 1725.66

or even for a walk for social reasons

Time: 1727.49

and you're with somebody that's not quite

Time: 1728.69

at the same fitness level that you are,

Time: 1730.7

frankly it's a little bit rude to just keep walking

Time: 1733.152

ahead of them and running back or running ahead

Time: 1735.29

and running back.

Time: 1736.31

Oftentimes you really want to spend time with the person

Time: 1738.26

and you don't want them to feel

Time: 1739.28

as if they're holding you up.

Time: 1740.57

And so the weight vest is a terrific way to get

Time: 1743.18

some additional work, then,

Time: 1744.86

as you'll find if you wear a weight vest,

Time: 1747.14

it is additional work on, say, a shorter hike.

Time: 1750.5

So maybe the person you're with only has time

Time: 1752.9

for an hour long hike,

Time: 1754.04

or maybe they just don't have the fitness to do a two hour,

Time: 1757.01

three hour hike.

Time: 1757.94

So I'll throw on the weight vest and I'll head

Time: 1759.92

out for a walk with them or a hike with them,

Time: 1761.99

or sometimes I'll go out on a long hike

Time: 1763.67

with a weight vest myself.

Time: 1765.38

So again, the point of this, for me,

Time: 1767.87

Sunday, although it could fall on any day for you, workout,

Time: 1770.72

is really to build up that long form endurance.

Time: 1772.997

And this fits well

Time: 1773.96

with what Dr. Andy Galpin and Dr. Peter Attia referred

Time: 1777.5

to as the real need to get in some long endurance

Time: 1780.8

type work at some point or even multiple points

Time: 1783.882

throughout the week.

Time: 1785.03

For me, this long Sunday jog of 60 to 75 minutes

Time: 1788.482

or long Sunday hike or weighted walk or weighted hike

Time: 1792.89

really accomplishes that goal.

Time: 1794.69

Sometimes leads to a little bit of soreness,

Time: 1798.02

particularly in my calves or if I'm wearing

Time: 1800.6

the weight vest, sometimes my midsection will get

Time: 1803.84

sore because I'm trying to remain upright.

Time: 1805.82

So I think it also builds up some muscular endurance,

Time: 1809

not just cardiovascular endurance, but again,

Time: 1811.28

throughout the entire time that I'm jogging or hiking,

Time: 1814.34

what I'm trying to get to is a place where I can feel

Time: 1816.98

that my pulse rate is definitely elevated,

Time: 1819.62

but it's not so elevated that I have to stop

Time: 1821.81

because I'm out of breath.

Time: 1823.16

And because I know some people out there might be

Time: 1825.23

really neurotic about this sort of thing,

Time: 1827.09

if you have to stop because you're out of breath,

Time: 1829.1

that doesn't mean that you blew the workout,

Time: 1830.747

that you now aren't getting endurance.

Time: 1831.98

Of course, you're getting benefits from it.

Time: 1834.35

So I'm not absolutely neurotic about always

Time: 1836.48

staying exactly in that heart rate zone.

Time: 1838.73

I might stop and have a conversation for a moment

Time: 1840.92

if it's a longer hike,

Time: 1842.09

although I really try and keep moving and I try

Time: 1843.8

and push myself just a little bit further

Time: 1845.562

than where I'm exceedingly comfortable.

Time: 1848.69

And so for me,

Time: 1849.523

doing this long Sunday hike or jog really provides

Time: 1853.366

a foundation, a base for endurance that then

Time: 1856.49

the other endurance workouts that I'll describe later,

Time: 1858.95

that take place later in the week, can build on.

Time: 1861.77

Now, as I mentioned earlier,

Time: 1862.94

we will get back to the mechanisms that this taps

Time: 1865.16

into and why this is so useful.

Time: 1867.62

There are multiple benefits to doing these kinds

Time: 1869.66

of endurance type workouts in zone two cardio.

Time: 1873.08

But by putting it at the start of my week, again,

Time: 1876.05

my week starts on Sunday, I'm sure that regardless

Time: 1879.303

of how the rest of the week goes,

Time: 1881.412

that I got my endurance training in,

Time: 1884.03

and of course I'm going to want to,

Time: 1886.25

and I will do endurance training other days

Time: 1888.05

during the week, but if something comes up or I happen

Time: 1890.18

to get sick or I'm really behind in terms of work

Time: 1893.24

and I can't get other workouts in, this Sunday long jog

Time: 1896.46

or hike really provides that fundamental,

Time: 1899.495

I can honestly say foundation,

Time: 1902

for cardiovascular fitness and endurance that I can

Time: 1905.15

hang my hat on and say, okay, I've got that one in the bag,

Time: 1907.85

and I can then look to other days of the week to focus

Time: 1910.58

on other aspects of fitness.

Time: 1912.17

Now, a really important point to make

Time: 1913.85

about this Sunday endurance workout is that allows

Time: 1917.21

you to check off a box and that box is 75 or so minutes

Time: 1922.37

of zone two cardio, because as you may have heard,

Time: 1926.33

either in this podcast or from others out there like

Time: 1928.52

Dr. Peter Attia, getting 180 to 200 minutes

Time: 1931.516

of zone two cardio per week has enormous positive effects

Time: 1936.23

on longevity and enormous positive effects

Time: 1938.34

on general health, again,

Time: 1941.27

in terms of cardiovascular function,

Time: 1942.8

but also metabolic fuel utilization,

Time: 1945.71

also in terms of your musculature and your ability

Time: 1948.35

to use your body over long distances for long

Time: 1950.96

periods of time.

Time: 1952.01

So while it doesn't complete all 180 to 200 minutes

Time: 1956.12

per week, it certainly gets you a good distance,

Time: 1959.15

pun intended, toward that goal.

Time: 1961.25

Now, I want to acknowledge that some people might

Time: 1963.14

be starting a fitness program,

Time: 1964.73

and so 60 to 75 minutes of jogging might be too long

Time: 1967.97

or a three hour weight vested hike,

Time: 1970.46

or some people might even do what's called a ruck,

Time: 1972.44

like you wear a rucksack, that might be too much,

Time: 1975.26

in which case certainly start with less and go

Time: 1979.43

on flat ground and go at the rate that allows

Time: 1981.44

you to get into zone two,

Time: 1982.605

but that is not excessively difficult for you.

Time: 1984.83

And then as you build up fitness,

Time: 1986

you can add time or you can add weight

Time: 1988.43

through a weight vest,

Time: 1989.33

or if you don't want to buy a weight vest or can't

Time: 1992.12

afford one, there's a simple solution to that,

Time: 1994.353

I actually have a good anecdote about that.

Time: 1996.53

One time I was heading out for a hike with a friend

Time: 1999.17

of mine, he was a former SEAL team operator,

Time: 2001.54

I'll never forget this, and he said, oh yeah,

Time: 2003.167

"I'll bring you a sack."

Time: 2005.59

And I thought he meant like a sack lunch,

Time: 2006.97

like he was going to bring lunch.

Time: 2007.81

And I showed up and he basically gave me a backpack

Time: 2009.52

that was loaded with a bunch of stuff

Time: 2010.93

and the backpack weighed about 40 pounds.

Time: 2012.58

And then we took a hike.

Time: 2013.6

So I was thinking lunch, he was thinking weighted backpack,

Time: 2016.96

and weighted backpack or even just any kind of strong

Time: 2019.87

sack that you can put over your shoulders or even carry

Time: 2022.03

in your arms, it's going to work exceedingly well to build

Time: 2025

in some extra requirement for effort.

Time: 2026.74

So you certainly don't have to purchase a weight vest

Time: 2029.295

in order to get the benefits of bringing additional

Time: 2032.87

weight along with you on these long cardiovascular events.

Time: 2037.06

But again, build up over time, you can add time,

Time: 2039.82

you can add weight,

Time: 2040.87

and that's also a really nice feature of adding weight,

Time: 2042.88

which is at some point your schedule might be such,

Time: 2045.989

or you just don't really want to keep adding more

Time: 2050.35

and more and more time on this long endurance Sunday,

Time: 2054.46

in this case, workout, in that case add weight.

Time: 2058.42

You can also, as you build up fitness,

Time: 2059.86

you can add speed to it,

Time: 2060.91

your zone two and what zone two is won't shift,

Time: 2064.03

but what work is required from you in order to get

Time: 2066.85

into zone two will shift.

Time: 2068.44

That is as you get more and more fit,

Time: 2070.03

you'll have to move faster and or bring more weight

Time: 2072.37

in order to stay in zone two and that will simply tell

Time: 2075.19

you that you are indeed improving your endurance.

Time: 2077.8

Okay, so then Monday rolls around and I, like

Time: 2080.62

most everyone else out there,

Time: 2081.91

I work on Monday, I get right into my emails

Time: 2085.81

and preparation for podcasts and running

Time: 2087.55

my laboratory, et cetera.

Time: 2089.05

However, I make sure that at some point

Time: 2092.05

on Monday, and for me that some point is typically

Time: 2095.507

and ideally early in the morning, so 7:00 AM or so,

Time: 2099.228

I train my legs on Monday, so that includes quadriceps,

Time: 2102.64

hamstrings, and calves.

Time: 2104.26

Why do I do that workout on Monday?

Time: 2105.91

And what is that workout designed to do?

Time: 2107.41

Well, that workout is really designed to make sure

Time: 2110.59

that I'm either maintaining or building strength

Time: 2113.65

in my legs.

Time: 2115.18

And this is not simply for aesthetic reasons.

Time: 2118.15

This is not simply to grow bigger calves or grow

Time: 2120.7

bigger quadriceps and hamstrings,

Time: 2122.35

although it can accomplish that as well depending

Time: 2124.72

on how you train.

Time: 2125.62

We'll talk about details of training.

Time: 2127.12

The reason for training legs on Monday is several fold.

Time: 2129.22

First of all, they are the largest muscle groups

Time: 2132.07

of the body, and by training your legs

Time: 2134.29

on Monday, it sets in motion a large number

Time: 2137.11

of metabolic processes that carry you some distance

Time: 2140.62

even through the whole week in terms

Time: 2141.88

of elevating metabolism, in terms of amplifying

Time: 2145.42

certain hormonal events in your body, et cetera,

Time: 2148.66

that are really beneficial.

Time: 2150.91

In addition to that,

Time: 2151.81

I'm of the belief that the legs are the foundation

Time: 2154.24

of the body, and provided you can train legs safely,

Time: 2157.751

that training legs is vitally important,

Time: 2160.15

not just for strength of the legs,

Time: 2162.49

but also for strength of your entire body.

Time: 2164.74

Again, some of that is through systemic hormonal

Time: 2166.72

effects because if you're going to train the large

Time: 2168.82

muscle groups of your body under substantial loads,

Time: 2171.28

you will get systemic release of hormones,

Time: 2173.29

not just testosterone, although certainly testosterone,

Time: 2175.75

but also things like growth hormone...

Time: 2177.528

You get increases in all sorts of so-called

Time: 2179.804

anabolic hormones that even if you're somebody

Time: 2182.38

who's not trying to increase muscle size,

Time: 2184.24

because I realize a lot of people are not trying

Time: 2185.86

to do that, these are hormones that shift

Time: 2188.47

your metabolism and your overall tendon strength

Time: 2191.32

and ligament strength and overall musculature

Time: 2193.308

into what I would call a strong foundation.

Time: 2196.96

So for me, Monday is leg workout.

Time: 2198.85

It also just feels good to get the leg workout

Time: 2201.34

out of the way earlier in the week,

Time: 2203.26

and it accomplishes another goal,

Time: 2204.97

which is that I sometimes will take one or two days off

Time: 2208.87

of a leg workout because they can be very intense

Time: 2210.91

and they are large muscle groups,

Time: 2212.47

and I'll explain what I do on the off days,

Time: 2214.24

they're not pure off days,

Time: 2215.47

they actually include some recovery type training

Time: 2217.87

or even some all out training.

Time: 2220

But by training legs on Monday, I'm able to get

Time: 2224.35

what I consider the hardest strength

Time: 2226.87

and hypertrophy workout out of the way, and, again,

Time: 2230.02

set all those positive physiological effects in motion

Time: 2232.48

for the entire week.

Time: 2233.86

The other thing is that no workout exists in isolation.

Time: 2237.16

What you do one day is going to be determined

Time: 2239.62

by what you did the previous day.

Time: 2241

And even though the previous day I may have taken

Time: 2242.68

a three hour weight vested hike,

Time: 2244.69

never are my legs so sore from that long slow

Time: 2247.207

endurance work, because it is long and slow,

Time: 2250.45

that I'm unable to train legs.

Time: 2252.37

Contrast that with a, say,

Time: 2254.32

high intensity interval training workout,

Time: 2256.84

which comes later in the week, and my legs might be sore.

Time: 2260.11

In fact, they might not even be recovered such

Time: 2261.97

that I'm able to do a real legwork,

Time: 2264.34

I want to say a real workout.

Time: 2265.51

I'll describe what that means in a moment.

Time: 2267.34

So legs come on Monday, and I think

Time: 2268.873

that for those of you that are using or interested

Time: 2271.87

in using resistance training,

Time: 2274.03

I suggest getting your leg workout done early in the week.

Time: 2277.03

And for those of you that have heard the phrase,

Time: 2279.48

don't skip leg day, I will go a step further and say,

Time: 2282.94

don't skip leg day, in fact,

Time: 2284.53

make leg day your first day of strength

Time: 2286.51

and hypertrophy training.

Time: 2287.74

Put it on Monday.

Time: 2288.64

Okay, so now that we're talking about resistance training,

Time: 2290.53

the question is going to come up about sets and reps

Time: 2293.08

and all of that business.

Time: 2294.146

That was covered in a lot of detail on the podcast

Time: 2297.13

with Dr. Andy Galpin, and I'm going to get into some

Time: 2298.959

of that detail now,

Time: 2300.76

but I'm going to wait until I describe the entire set

Time: 2306.04

of workouts for the week before I go into even more detail,

Time: 2308.757

because there's a way of what's called periodizing

Time: 2311.712

that is changing the sets and reps, et cetera,

Time: 2314.511

across the week, and indeed from month to month,

Time: 2318.34

that's really optimal.

Time: 2319.69

But I don't want to make it seem as if all

Time: 2322.18

of that just pertains to the leg workout.

Time: 2324.49

It actually pertains to all of the resistance training.

Time: 2327.22

So I'll just give you a couple of teasers

Time: 2329.428

about the key principles of resistance training

Time: 2332.21

that I think are almost universally, if not universally,

Time: 2336.88

then generally accepted in the strength training

Time: 2339.79

and physiology community.

Time: 2341.44

And then later I'll get back to some

Time: 2343.84

of the overarching principles that apply to all

Time: 2347.068

strength and hypertrophy workouts across the week,

Time: 2350.83

including the ones for the torso, the arms, et cetera.

Time: 2353.26

Okay, so legs fall on Monday, I should say

Time: 2356.2

that leg workouts, like all resistance training workouts,

Time: 2359.89

for me, consist of about, again,

Time: 2363.19

I'm not neurotically attached to this,

Time: 2364.57

but about 10 minutes of warming up and then about 50,

Time: 2367.98

five zero, to 60 minutes of real work.

Time: 2370.99

Now, of course, some of that is going to be rest between sets,

Time: 2373.36

but by real work, I mean really hard work,

Time: 2375.94

not necessarily to failure,

Time: 2377.41

we'll talk about failure in a little bit,

Time: 2378.88

but hard work where I'm struggling to complete

Time: 2382.053

the final repetitions, if not going to failure

Time: 2385.15

to continue to move the weight repetitions.

Time: 2388.03

And again, the entire work portion of that workout

Time: 2391.21

is about 50 to 60 minutes.

Time: 2393.22

Why?

Time: 2394.053

Well, past 60 minutes,

Time: 2395.17

you start getting increases in cortisol

Time: 2396.82

that really impede recovery.

Time: 2398.05

And I personally am somebody that does not recover

Time: 2402.1

very well from high intensity exercise.

Time: 2404.62

I realize that within the literature, it is believed,

Time: 2409.24

and I think generally accepted,

Time: 2410.92

that when you stimulate muscle hypertrophy

Time: 2414.01

or strength increases, it impacts the nervous system,

Time: 2418.055

it also causes things like protein synthesis, et cetera.

Time: 2420.33

There are a number of different forms of adaptation

Time: 2422.98

that occur to give you muscle strength and size changes.

Time: 2427.15

And these days people talk a lot about needing

Time: 2429.61

to stimulate muscle growth or muscle strength

Time: 2432.07

at least every 48 hours.

Time: 2433.93

But I can tell you that I recover route there slowly,

Time: 2436.6

and I benefit from working the same muscle group

Time: 2439.66

about twice per week, with longer,

Time: 2442.93

or I should say more days of rest

Time: 2445.63

in between those workouts.

Time: 2447.13

So if I train legs on Monday, believe it or not,

Time: 2449.89

I'm only training legs on Monday.

Time: 2452.08

I do not have a second leg workout during the week.

Time: 2455.08

However, on Friday, I do a high intensity

Time: 2459.1

interval training session that serves two purposes.

Time: 2462.4

One is it serves the purpose of triggering a certain

Time: 2465.37

type of endurance and getting my heart rate

Time: 2467.881

very, very high.

Time: 2469.54

And in addition to that,

Time: 2470.68

because of the way I do that workout,

Time: 2472.84

it acts as a sort of supplement or a more

Time: 2475.57

moderate intensity workout for quadriceps, hamstrings,

Time: 2480.4

and calves, such that I at least never lose strength,

Time: 2483.97

and in fact, generally build strength from one leg

Time: 2486.43

workout to the next, provided I'm doing things correctly.

Time: 2489.76

So what I'm not referring to is the kind of classic

Time: 2493.72

super high intensity training once per week and then

Time: 2496.253

not actually training that muscle group again.

Time: 2498.79

For me, it's really training each muscle group twice

Time: 2501.13

per week, once directly and then once indirectly,

Time: 2504.94

either during another weight training workout

Time: 2507.04

or during a cardiovascular,

Time: 2509.17

I should say endurance training workout.

Time: 2510.61

So again, legs on Monday, the workout is 50 to 60 minutes,

Time: 2514

after a brief warmup.

Time: 2515.83

I generally pick two exercises per muscle group.

Time: 2518.95

So again, I'm doing calves, I'm doing quadriceps,

Time: 2521.89

and I'm doing hamstrings.

Time: 2523.33

You should pick the exercises that work for you.

Time: 2526.36

So that's why I'm actually not going to share

Time: 2527.92

which exercises I use.

Time: 2529.06

I'll give you a couple suggestions about the ones I do use,

Time: 2531.7

but really, exercise selection,

Time: 2533.38

as Dr. Andy Galpin pointed out,

Time: 2534.78

is a very important variable.

Time: 2537.052

And the key thing to emphasize for that variable

Time: 2539.62

is that you need to be able to perform the movement safely.

Time: 2542.26

So I know there's a huge debate out there,

Time: 2544.21

and people love to argue about whether or not one

Time: 2546.16

can squat or deadlift for long periods of time,

Time: 2548.8

or should or should not.

Time: 2549.94

Some people say you absolutely should.

Time: 2551.59

I personally do not squat and do not deadlift.

Time: 2554.89

I've actually never done much squatting or deadlifting,

Time: 2557.53

and I know some people out there are probably

Time: 2559.54

rolling their eyes or switching the channel at this point.

Time: 2563.29

But I can say that for me,

Time: 2565.87

I've been able to achieve the strength

Time: 2568.42

and hypertrophy goals that I've been seeking,

Time: 2570.973

doing things like leg extensions and hack squats

Time: 2574.69

or for hamstrings, doing things like leg curls

Time: 2576.61

and glute-ham raises or for calves doing standing

Time: 2578.89

and seated calf raises and so on.

Time: 2580.99

I think a key principle that everyone should pay

Time: 2583.18

attention to is one that was taught to me

Time: 2585.4

by an excellent strength coach years ago,

Time: 2588.88

and I still use this and at least it works for me.

Time: 2591.43

For each muscle group,

Time: 2592.81

try and find an exercise in which you get that muscle

Time: 2596.2

into a weighted stretch position.

Time: 2598.51

So this would be, for instance, the standing calf raise,

Time: 2600.97

down at the bottom,

Time: 2601.803

it's weighted and you're in a deep stretch provided

Time: 2604.36

you're doing the movement correctly.

Time: 2606.64

As well as another exercise

Time: 2608.673

where you're getting contraction in the shortened

Time: 2611.56

position of the muscle.

Time: 2612.58

So for the hamstrings, that would be the leg curl,

Time: 2614.68

for the calves, it would be a seated calf raise,

Time: 2617.5

for the quadriceps, the leg extension is,

Time: 2622.03

if the machine is designed right and you're doing

Time: 2623.98

it correctly, the peak contraction is largely going

Time: 2625.902

to occur at the legs extended position,

Time: 2629.14

but then another exercise for each muscle group

Time: 2631.529

that puts the muscle into more of a stretched

Time: 2634.201

or at least a larger range of motion or compound

Time: 2638.752

type movement,

Time: 2639.7

but ideally where there's some stretch there.

Time: 2641.65

So I guess I will tell you what exercise I do,

Time: 2644.35

for the quadriceps is going to be leg extensions

Time: 2646.18

and hack squats.

Time: 2647.013

I use hack squats because I don't do free bar squats

Time: 2649.36

for safety reasons, and I like the hack squat machine.

Time: 2651.85

I'll do leg curls and glute-ham raises for hamstrings,

Time: 2655.87

and I'll do standing calf raises and seated calf

Time: 2657.94

raises for the calves.

Time: 2658.773

Again, those are the movements that I use

Time: 2660.55

because I can perform them safely in the repetition

Time: 2663.31

ranges and with the weights that are required for me

Time: 2665.77

to either maintain or build leg strength and calf strength.

Time: 2668.86

But you might decide that for you, dead lifts are

Time: 2671.59

absolutely essential and terrific,

Time: 2673.33

or squats free bar squats are absolutely terrific

Time: 2676.51

or front squats.

Time: 2677.95

I'm not here to tell you which exercises to do or not do.

Time: 2681.37

I am telling you that it's probably wise

Time: 2684.19

to at least consider doing at least two exercises

Time: 2688.81

per muscle group, probably three maximum,

Time: 2691.57

if you ask me if you're doing your entire legs

Time: 2693.49

and calves in one day.

Time: 2694.6

But to think about doing one exercise

Time: 2696.34

where the muscle's brought into that shortened

Time: 2698.05

peak contraction position,

Time: 2699.64

like leg curls or leg extensions or seated calf raise,

Time: 2701.83

and then another exercise for each muscle group

Time: 2704.05

where there's more of a elongation and maybe

Time: 2706.09

even a stretch on the muscle group.

Time: 2708.01

In fact, that's a principle that you'll hear me talk

Time: 2709.93

about later when I talk about training other muscle

Time: 2712.6

groups for strength and hypertrophy.

Time: 2714.43

So now you know approximately how long to train,

Time: 2717.37

you might be somebody who can get away with training

Time: 2719.29

for an hour and a half,

Time: 2720.85

and that won't impede your recovery.

Time: 2722.65

For me, that really starts to impede my recovery.

Time: 2724.555

Also, if I'm staying on task,

Time: 2726.861

that 60 minute limit really works well for me.

Time: 2729.97

Do I occasionally train for 75 minutes?

Time: 2732.94

Yes, because if I'm waiting for a piece of equipment,

Time: 2735.07

sometimes I have to just wait longer.

Time: 2737.08

So that happens.

Time: 2737.913

But I really try and keep the total duration

Time: 2739.87

of the workout shorter.

Time: 2741.64

How many sets and reps and rest intervals?

Time: 2743.47

Well, that was covered by Dr. Andy Galpin as well.

Time: 2745.84

Without getting into the total science,

Time: 2747.79

here's a brief summary of how to structure that.

Time: 2752.44

It's pretty clear that if you're going to do

Time: 2755.95

lower repetitions and heavier weight,

Time: 2760.3

that you're going to want to do a bit more volume.

Time: 2763.45

I know that this spits in the face of what a lot

Time: 2765.61

of people think, but so if you're going to do five sets

Time: 2768.31

of five, and I would consider five repetitions

Time: 2770.029

low repetition range, heavier weight,

Time: 2774.13

and if you're going to train with higher repetitions,

Time: 2776.41

you can do fewer sets.

Time: 2777.61

That certainly works for me.

Time: 2780.73

I generally follow a program where for about a month,

Time: 2783.85

so three to four weeks,

Time: 2785.38

I will do all my resistance training

Time: 2787.51

in the repetition range of about four to eight repetitions.

Time: 2791.71

So that's rather heavy. A few more sets.

Time: 2794.83

So it might be anywhere from three to four

Time: 2797.71

sets per exercise.

Time: 2799.84

Again, still just two exercises.

Time: 2801.43

And longer rest between sets,

Time: 2803.41

anywhere from two minutes to maybe even four minutes

Time: 2806.62

if it's really heavy leg work.

Time: 2808.72

And then for the next month,

Time: 2810.46

switch to repetition range that's closer to 8 to 12,

Time: 2815.05

maybe even 15 repetitions per set,

Time: 2817.69

but do fewer sets overall,

Time: 2819.91

so maybe just two to three sets per exercise.

Time: 2821.98

Again, just two exercises per muscle group typically.

Time: 2825.28

And shorten the rest between sets so that it's more

Time: 2829.42

in the 90 second,

Time: 2830.59

maybe even as short as 60 second rest between sets,

Time: 2833.29

but typically 90 seconds to about two minutes or two

Time: 2836.17

and a half minutes.

Time: 2837.003

So basically it's one month heavier,

Time: 2838.734

the next month, slightly lighter,

Time: 2841.06

although I wouldn't say lighter,

Time: 2842.26

I would say moderate weight and moderate rep range.

Time: 2846.1

That tends to work well for me.

Time: 2848.11

It also adheres to a principal that came up

Time: 2851.05

during the discussion, again,

Time: 2852.31

with Dr. Andy Galpin, that for hypertrophy,

Time: 2854.59

you really can use repetition ranges anywhere

Time: 2856.51

from 5 to 30, three zero, reps.

Time: 2859.81

But he emphasized changing the repetition ranges

Time: 2862.93

in order to offset boredom.

Time: 2864.85

Frankly, I like to train heavier.

Time: 2866.53

I enjoy training in the four to eight rep range.

Time: 2868.57

However, I notice that if I do that for more

Time: 2870.76

than four weeks in a row and I don't switch

Time: 2872.62

over to training in the 8 to 12, maybe in 15

Time: 2875.62

repetition range for about a month,

Time: 2877.39

well then I can't make continuous progress.

Time: 2879.28

I start to actually lose ground.

Time: 2880.96

But by switching back and forth,

Time: 2883.15

I actually can make continuous progress at least

Time: 2886.12

across the year.

Time: 2887.56

So I hope that that principle,

Time: 2889.48

or I should say that protocol was communicated clearly.

Time: 2893.565

It works very well, I assure you.

Time: 2895.18

Does that mean that I never get 10 repetitions

Time: 2897.91

on a week when I'm supposed to train in the four

Time: 2900.49

to eight repetition range?

Time: 2901.54

No.

Time: 2902.574

Occasionally I'll venture up into the 10 repetition range,

Time: 2904.93

but I really try and cluster the low repetition work

Time: 2908.23

for about a month, again,

Time: 2909.55

across all workouts and all exercises

Time: 2911.53

and the slightly higher,

Time: 2913.12

I would even say moderate repetition work across

Time: 2915.49

to the next month.

Time: 2916.63

One thing that you'll notice since we are talking

Time: 2918.52

about total fitness programming

Time: 2920.2

is that during the months where you are doing

Time: 2923.95

moderate repetitions, you'll notice

Time: 2925.54

that your endurance work will actually be facilitated.

Time: 2929.98

And I do not think that's a coincidence.

Time: 2932.14

In fact, it's not a coincidence.

Time: 2933.49

It's because when you are training very heavy

Time: 2935.543

or in the heavier range, lower repetitions, et cetera,

Time: 2939.22

you're tapping into different processes in those muscles.

Time: 2941.56

So when you head out for that long Sunday hike,

Time: 2943.42

or as you'll soon hear,

Time: 2945.22

whereas on Friday you're going to do high intensity

Time: 2947.17

interval training, what you'll notice

Time: 2949.09

is during certain months of weight training,

Time: 2951.49

when you're training more heavy, those workouts will feel,

Time: 2955.24

literally will feel different than they will

Time: 2957.7

during the months when you're doing

Time: 2958.66

moderate repetition work.

Time: 2961.3

I am not a competitive athlete.

Time: 2963.22

I'm not running races or triathlons like some

Time: 2965.47

of my friends.

Time: 2966.46

I'm very impressed by them.

Time: 2967.69

I'm really just trying to get overall

Time: 2969.61

cardiovascular fitness, overall strength,

Time: 2972.07

overall hypertrophy where I need it, maintain muscle size,

Time: 2975.409

et cetera,

Time: 2976.51

in muscle groups where I'm just trying to maintain.

Time: 2978.37

That's really my goal.

Time: 2979.84

So I'm not trying to optimize any of these workouts

Time: 2982.66

for any one performance feature, but in a little bit,

Time: 2985.6

we'll talk about how you can change various aspects,

Time: 2990.16

that is, variables of these protocols, in order to say,

Time: 2992.26

for instance, really emphasize hypertrophy

Time: 2994.57

or really emphasize endurance.

Time: 2996.7

Okay, so with what I would call a standard

Time: 2998.56

endurance workout done on Sunday, and I say

Time: 3000.57

standard because most people, when they hear endurance,

Time: 3002.52

they think of the ability to endure,

Time: 3004.26

to continue in a repeated movement or exercise

Time: 3007.92

over some period of time,

Time: 3009.12

with that workout done on Sunday, and then

Time: 3011.28

with the leg workout done on Monday, you can feel

Time: 3014.22

really good about how you're heading into the week.

Time: 3016.41

However, after training legs on Monday, I experience

Time: 3020.279

that doing cardiovascular workouts the next day

Time: 3023.737

is either inefficient or at least doesn't really allow

Time: 3028.5

me to completely recover from my leg workout.

Time: 3030.72

Now, I realize that some people are going to

Time: 3031.95

immediately scoff at that, and in fact,

Time: 3034.8

there are really beautiful papers out there talking

Time: 3037.26

about how one can actually do a fair amount

Time: 3040.41

of cardiovascular exercise without interfering

Time: 3042.718

with their strength and speed and hypertrophy

Time: 3045.96

improvements and vice versa.

Time: 3049.2

In fact, there's a terrific review that was mentioned

Time: 3051.281

on the podcast with Dr. Andy Galpin.

Time: 3053.7

This is a review that we'll provide a citation to,

Time: 3056.847

and a reference and a link to,

Time: 3058.83

which is the review by Murach and Bagley, which talks

Time: 3062.01

about whether or not there's interference

Time: 3063.69

between strength and endurance workouts.

Time: 3065.52

Really interesting review if you want to peruse that.

Time: 3068.49

But with all that said,

Time: 3069.9

I like to take Tuesday as a no endurance,

Time: 3072.72

no resistance training day,

Time: 3075.21

but that doesn't mean that I'm not doing anything

Time: 3077.64

for my overall health and fitness.

Time: 3080.28

On Tuesdays, I do a series of heat cold contrast.

Time: 3085.56

In other words, I get really,

Time: 3087.42

really warm and then I get really, really cold,

Time: 3089.46

I get really, really warm and I get really,

Time: 3090.81

really cold repeatedly.

Time: 3092.43

And the way I do that is by getting into a hot sauna.

Time: 3096.3

So for me, that's really hot,

Time: 3097.74

but I've built up my heat conditioning,

Time: 3099.3

so please don't do this unless you've built up

Time: 3101.04

your ability to withstand heat.

Time: 3103.38

And I'll get in for about 20 minutes.

Time: 3105.84

Sometimes 15, but usually 20 minutes.

Time: 3107.97

Then I get out and then I will get into an ice bath

Time: 3110.76

or a cold water bath

Time: 3112.62

that's about 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Time: 3116.37

Again, don't get into water that's so cold

Time: 3119.34

that you go into shock.

Time: 3120.63

I'll explain what a good cold stimulus could be

Time: 3124.65

for you and how to determine that.

Time: 3125.982

Or if I don't have access to my sauna and my ice bath,

Time: 3130.98

what I can do if I'm traveling is I will take a hot

Time: 3133.86

bath and then alternate with cold shower,

Time: 3135.87

hot bath, cold shower.

Time: 3137.61

It's hard to do hot bath ice bath

Time: 3139.71

unless you have two baths.

Time: 3140.67

I don't know any hotel rooms,

Time: 3141.81

at least I've never stayed in one that has two baths,

Time: 3143.43

although I'm sure they're out there.

Time: 3145.08

But for me, this is heat cold contrast.

Time: 3148.466

And really what this day is about is two things.

Time: 3151.59

First of all, I'm trying to accelerate recovery

Time: 3154.05

from the leg workout I did previously.

Time: 3156.18

Also, if you listen to our episode

Time: 3158.534

of the Huberman Lab podcast about deliberate heat

Time: 3161.16

exposure or you listen to our episode

Time: 3162.87

of the Huberman Lab podcast about deliberate cold exposure,

Time: 3166.62

I talk about some of the benefits of heat and cold,

Time: 3169.62

and I get into a lot of details

Time: 3171.48

about how you can access heat.

Time: 3172.617

You can do baths, you can do saunas,

Time: 3174.6

you can even take hot showers.

Time: 3176.16

If you don't have access to any of that,

Time: 3177.51

you could even wrap your body from the neck down

Time: 3179.91

in a garbage bag, plastic garbage bags, believe it or not,

Time: 3182.61

wrestlers used to do this,

Time: 3183.51

put on some sweats and go running.

Time: 3185.04

That'll get you warm.

Time: 3186

Again, be careful not to overheat and then you can

Time: 3188.623

get into a cold shower.

Time: 3190.14

So there's a lot of ways,

Time: 3191.19

depending on your budget and what you have access to.

Time: 3193.558

I don't use cryo, these cryotherapy chambers,

Time: 3196.56

they're hard to find.

Time: 3197.393

They're expensive.

Time: 3198.33

Again, I use sauna and ice bath and I will do

Time: 3201.119

anywhere from three to five rounds, which is a lot,

Time: 3204.3

anywhere from three to five rounds of heat

Time: 3206.49

for about 20 minutes and cold for about 5 minutes.

Time: 3209.79

How cold should the cold be?

Time: 3211.29

We covered this in the episode on deliberate cold exposure.

Time: 3214.23

Here's a general rule of thumb.

Time: 3215.79

It should be cold enough that you really want to get out,

Time: 3219.69

but not so cold that it's unsafe.

Time: 3221.88

And that will vary from person to person.

Time: 3223.68

So I cannot give you a simple prescriptive there.

Time: 3226.26

Same thing with the heat,

Time: 3227.31

hot enough that you're sweating and that you want

Time: 3229.38

to get out, but not so hot that you're running the risk

Time: 3231.87

of injuring yourself or killing yourself.

Time: 3234.51

And again, that will vary from person to person.

Time: 3236.34

So you have to build up slowly,

Time: 3237.57

be careful and build up empirically.

Time: 3240.03

I do that on Tuesdays again as a way

Time: 3241.86

to accelerate recovery and because it's very clear

Time: 3243.778

that there are cardiovascular benefits,

Time: 3245.79

maybe even benefits for the brain related

Time: 3249.42

to the cardiovascular benefits because of course

Time: 3251.34

the brain needs a lot of blood flow and needs a lot

Time: 3254.04

of nutrients and other things flowing

Time: 3255.761

into and out of there,

Time: 3257.61

debris out and nutrients and other things into the brain.

Time: 3262.38

Heat can help accelerate that or improve that.

Time: 3265.11

And so I'm doing that to improve cardiovascular function,

Time: 3267.18

improve brain health, and then the cold contrast

Time: 3271.44

provides a sort of accelerator on that or an amplifier

Time: 3274.35

I think is the better way to phrase it

Time: 3275.85

on that process because in the cold

Time: 3277.53

you get vasoconstriction and then in the heat

Time: 3279.69

you get vasodilation.

Time: 3280.523

And so you're maximizing that process,

Time: 3282.33

which is actually a neural process.

Time: 3284.82

Nerves actually innervate the blood vessels

Time: 3286.47

and capillaries and even the arteries

Time: 3288.93

in order to allow that constriction and dilation

Time: 3290.97

process to occur.

Time: 3292.44

So Tuesday is really about recovery,

Time: 3294.2

but my recovery day isn't necessarily

Time: 3296.849

about just laying around and not doing anything.

Time: 3300.21

I might still also take some walks that day.

Time: 3302.31

Remember, I want to try and get that 200 minutes

Time: 3304.2

of zone two cardio across the week,

Time: 3306.03

and sometimes, not often,

Time: 3308.31

but sometimes I'll get in a few minutes or more

Time: 3310.95

of walking quickly that day.

Time: 3312.66

But generally I'm working a lot on Tuesday as I do

Time: 3315.06

on Monday, and I'm a little bit tired and maybe

Time: 3317.58

even a little bit sore from my leg workout

Time: 3319.65

the previous day Monday.

Time: 3320.73

So I try and get that hot cold contrast.

Time: 3323.22

There are other benefits to hot and cold contrast.

Time: 3325.412

We have a description of the different protocols

Time: 3328.95

for hot and for cold and their contrast

Time: 3331.65

at our Huberman Lab newsletter.

Time: 3333.15

You can find that by going to hubermanlab.com.

Time: 3335.25

Go to the newsletter tab under the menu

Time: 3337.05

and you can sign up.

Time: 3338.176

You can actually download those protocols very

Time: 3339.42

easily without even signing up if you just want to

Time: 3341.792

access them straight off.

Time: 3343.451

So Tuesday is really about recovery and about getting

Time: 3345.54

some additional cardiovascular benefits

Time: 3347.76

from heat cold contrast.

Time: 3349.14

One other thing that's built into the rationale

Time: 3350.793

for doing a lot of heat and cold on one day as opposed

Time: 3353.94

to doing it every day...

Time: 3355.08

Well, in addition to it being a little bit more

Time: 3356.64

convenient because certainly some people don't access

Time: 3358.794

to heat and cold sauna and cold dunks et cetera every day.

Time: 3363.6

So maybe getting to do that one day is more

Time: 3366.03

accessible or feasible.

Time: 3367.56

But in addition to that,

Time: 3368.61

it's very clear that while there are benefits

Time: 3372.12

to doing sauna often,

Time: 3374.1

and we talked about this in the deliberate heat

Time: 3375.54

episode and the episode

Time: 3377.04

with Dr. Rhonda Patrick when she was a guest

Time: 3378.72

on this podcast, it's also clear that if you do

Time: 3382.23

sauna seldom, that is once a week,

Time: 3384.72

but you do a lot of it on one day, so in this case,

Time: 3387.51

it's an hour, if it's, remember, it's one more,

Time: 3390.57

it's three to five rounds of 20 minutes of sauna

Time: 3392.76

followed by about 5 minutes of cold or so,

Time: 3396.03

by doing that all on one day,

Time: 3397.799

the peer reviewed research that's covered

Time: 3399.87

in the episode on deliberate heat,

Time: 3402.12

this is a study out of Finland,

Time: 3403.74

showed that you get massive,

Time: 3405.27

even 16 fold increases in growth hormone,

Time: 3407.61

which are extremely beneficial for metabolism

Time: 3409.65

and for recovery.

Time: 3411

So these massive increases in growth hormone are seen

Time: 3413.49

when you are doing these sessions of sauna

Time: 3415.689

that are repeated on the same day and you're only

Time: 3419.04

doing that about once a week.

Time: 3420.24

Whereas if you do sauna more often,

Time: 3421.86

there are certainly benefits to that,

Time: 3423.66

but it's time consuming and you need access to sauna

Time: 3427.088

more often than one day a week if you're doing

Time: 3428.97

it more than one day a week.

Time: 3430.32

But if you do it one day a week and you're doing a lot

Time: 3432.09

of sessions within that day, as I've detailed here,

Time: 3435.519

you see these massive increases in growth hormone

Time: 3437.805

that are not observed if you're doing sauna more often

Time: 3440.94

for the other benefits of sauna.

Time: 3442.86

Now the effects of cold are many,

Time: 3444.6

it's not just vasoconstriction,

Time: 3446.73

but the effects of cold are also counterbalanced

Time: 3449.73

by some of the problems with deliberate cold exposure

Time: 3452.91

that maybe you've heard about on this podcast and a lot

Time: 3455.52

of other podcasts and seem to be a kind of a buzz theme

Time: 3459.716

on Twitter and elsewhere.

Time: 3461.73

And the point is this,

Time: 3462.63

there are a number of quality studies showing

Time: 3464.7

that if you do deliberate cold exposure,

Time: 3466.62

in particular ice baths or getting into very cold

Time: 3468.87

water immediately after an endurance training session

Time: 3473.13

or a strength and hypertrophy session, it can indeed, yes,

Time: 3478.17

it can disrupt or prevent some of the adaptations

Time: 3481.632

that you are seeking with strength and hypertrophy

Time: 3484.53

and endurance workouts.

Time: 3486.21

Okay, so you heard that right.

Time: 3487.86

And I believe that to be true based on now several

Time: 3491.79

quality peer-reviewed studies.

Time: 3493.32

So by doing your deliberate cold exposure

Time: 3494.85

on Tuesday, you're not going to get those effects,

Time: 3497.784

that is the blocking of hypertrophy or the blocking

Time: 3501.926

of strength improvement or the blocking or prevention

Time: 3505.11

of improvements in endurance that would occur

Time: 3507.12

if you immediately got into the ice bath

Time: 3508.699

after a hypertrophy strength or endurance workout.

Time: 3512.34

Now the caveat to that is if you are somebody who likes

Time: 3515.55

to do cold showers,

Time: 3516.581

I am not aware of any data that says that cold

Time: 3520.41

showers cannot be performed after a strength

Time: 3523.29

hypertrophy or endurance workout.

Time: 3525.75

Cold showers are different than submersion up

Time: 3529.29

to the neck in an ice bath or another cold body

Time: 3532.29

of water for a number of different reasons.

Time: 3534.09

In fact, they tap into different aspects

Time: 3536.91

of the nervous system entirely.

Time: 3538.26

We don't have time to go into that now,

Time: 3539.46

it's covered in the episode on deliberate cold exposure,

Time: 3541.98

but the simple point is by doing your heat

Time: 3544.83

and cold contrast, or hey, listen,

Time: 3547.56

if you're somebody who doesn't have access to sauna

Time: 3549.12

or you don't like hot baths and you just do

Time: 3550.62

some deliberate cold exposure on Tuesday, you are

Time: 3554.07

doing that separate from your strength and hypertrophy

Time: 3555.837

and endurance workouts such that it will not impede

Time: 3558.896

the benefits of those workouts.

Time: 3561.21

Okay, so long endurance on Sunday, leg resistance training

Time: 3564.6

on Monday and on Tuesday, heat cold contrast.

Time: 3568.23

That brings us to Wednesday.

Time: 3569.85

And on Wednesday we get back

Time: 3572.16

to a resistance training workout.

Time: 3574.62

And the resistance training workout that I emphasize

Time: 3577.98

on Wednesday is one in which you train your torso.

Time: 3581.46

Yes, literally your torso.

Time: 3582.66

I know this is counter to this so-called bro science

Time: 3585.69

of bro splits.

Time: 3586.62

I don't know who originated that term,

Time: 3588.24

it's a terrible term.

Time: 3589.26

It essentially alienates anyone who's not a bro

Time: 3593.28

or considers themselves a bro.

Time: 3595.17

But in any case,

Time: 3596.55

this is not about training chest or back or shoulders.

Time: 3599.67

In fact, it's really about strengthening the muscles

Time: 3602.91

of the torso and of course includes the chest

Time: 3605.73

and the shoulders and the back.

Time: 3607.29

And I'm sure, as I say this,

Time: 3608.73

a number of people out there who are obsessed

Time: 3610.23

with hypertrophy and muscle growth and filling

Time: 3612.27

out their shirts or whatever it may be, are thinking,

Time: 3615.09

oh no, this is just kind of all around fitness.

Time: 3617.85

But no, the point is,

Time: 3619.62

on Wednesday you train your torso and that's going to

Time: 3623.7

involve some pushing, so that's,

Time: 3625.248

for you that might include some training of things

Time: 3629.04

like bench presses or incline presses as well

Time: 3631.08

as shoulder presses or lateral raises,

Time: 3633.18

things for the shoulders as well as for the back,

Time: 3634.89

some pulling exercises.

Time: 3636.24

These could be bent over rows or chin-ups or pull-ups.

Time: 3638.61

Again, there are enormous number of exercise for each

Time: 3641.91

and every one of these muscle groups.

Time: 3643.35

Now, I believe there's a clear benefit to training

Time: 3645.9

all these muscle groups together on the same day,

Time: 3649.02

because much in the same way that training legs all

Time: 3651.07

on one day can lead to these systemic effects

Time: 3653.7

because they're large muscle groups,

Time: 3655.29

working both the pushing muscles and the pulling

Time: 3656.88

muscles of the torso on one day,

Time: 3658.68

at least in the context of this program,

Time: 3660.21

is very time efficient, and tends to wick out

Time: 3663.81

into a number of different dimensions

Time: 3665.37

of health that at least I'm interested in and I think

Time: 3667.8

a lot of other people are interested in.

Time: 3669.03

What are those?

Time: 3669.863

Well, let's think again,

Time: 3670.696

I want to be strong in not just my legs, but my upper body.

Time: 3674.04

I also may want, may want to engage some hypertrophy,

Time: 3678.6

to grow certain muscle groups in order to create

Time: 3680.91

a sense of balance.

Time: 3681.743

I could be for aesthetic reasons,

Time: 3682.71

but also for balancing strength and for health of,

Time: 3684.81

and the integrity of the joints, et cetera.

Time: 3687

And in addition to that,

Time: 3688.62

by training a bunch of different muscle groups together,

Time: 3691.38

you have the opportunity to get the more systemic

Time: 3693.93

hormonal effects and metabolic effects that occur

Time: 3697.8

when you're not just training one muscle group

Time: 3699.57

and isolating that one muscle group,

Time: 3700.95

but rather training a bunch of muscle groups together.

Time: 3703.65

So Wednesday I train torso and I do that in push

Time: 3706.05

pull fashion just for kind of time efficiency.

Time: 3710.07

Sometimes that means doing a pushing exercise and then

Time: 3712.44

a pulling exercise.

Time: 3713.305

Sometimes it might even mean doing a set of pushing

Time: 3715.581

and then a set of pulling and going back and forth.

Time: 3717.72

However, if you're in a gym,

Time: 3719.37

in particular, a crowded gym,

Time: 3721.32

please don't be one of those people

Time: 3722.4

that colonizes multiple pieces of equipment and says,

Time: 3724.95

I'm working there, I'm working there,

Time: 3726.3

and that can be quite a dance and it can be hard

Time: 3728.25

to orchestrate a workout like that.

Time: 3730.11

So sometimes it will be starting off with a set

Time: 3732.75

of shoulder presses and then doing all your sets

Time: 3735.391

of those and then moving to your chin ups and then

Time: 3738.39

moving perhaps back to shoulders and realizing, ah, oh,

Time: 3741.63

someone's on the machine that I wanted,

Time: 3743.13

or using the equipment that I wanted,

Time: 3744.45

so I'll just finish up the pulling,

Time: 3745.77

I'll finish up the back work and then go in to the push.

Time: 3747.93

I don't obsess over the alternation in any kind

Time: 3750.69

of strict way.

Time: 3751.62

I really just try and get the muscles of the torso trained.

Time: 3753.96

And again, it's two exercises per muscle group.

Time: 3756.39

And one of those exercises is going to be something

Time: 3759

where there's, I realize this isn't

Time: 3760.929

physiologically accurate, but a shortening

Time: 3763.47

of the muscle or where they, at the end of the movement,

Time: 3766.616

the muscle is under maximal contraction.

Time: 3770.07

I could throw out some names of exercises

Time: 3771.75

just for purpose of understanding.

Time: 3773.52

So this would be like cable crossovers for the chest,

Time: 3777.27

the peak contraction is at the end,

Time: 3780.03

whereas something like an incline press,

Time: 3781.83

there's more of a stretch provided it's done

Time: 3783.39

over a full range of motion at the beginning

Time: 3785.61

of the movement.

Time: 3786.443

So again, something where there's a stretch

Time: 3787.38

and something where there's a peak contraction.

Time: 3788.88

For the shoulders, it's a little bit harder to do,

Time: 3790.71

although there are ways to do that.

Time: 3791.73

And Jeff Cavaliere has excellent workouts available,

Time: 3794.654

zero cost, on YouTube.

Time: 3796.35

He also has excellent programs on his athleanx.com site.

Time: 3799.62

but certainly has a lot of excellent protocols

Time: 3802.68

on his YouTube and Instagram.

Time: 3804.24

But on YouTube you can put in his name and any

Time: 3808.65

muscle group that you want to train.

Time: 3809.82

And he has some terrific videos describing exercise

Time: 3813.123

choice and other features of exercise parameters.

Time: 3816.36

Again, a peak contraction or shortening of the muscle,

Time: 3820.95

peak contraction exercise and a stretching exercise.

Time: 3823.047

And so for the back, one might say, okay,

Time: 3826.53

a seated row or a bent over row or a dumbbell row

Time: 3830.46

where the elbow is brought behind the torso

Time: 3832.32

for a peak contraction movement.

Time: 3834.15

And then for more of a stretching movement might

Time: 3836.4

be something like a chin up or a pull-up.

Time: 3838.95

And as I say this,

Time: 3839.79

I understand that stretching and peak contraction

Time: 3843.09

aren't the exact terms that one would use if they were

Time: 3845.755

a physiotherapist or a strength and conditioning coach,

Time: 3848.67

but I think for the typical person who's trying

Time: 3851.13

to generate strength and hypertrophy in those muscles

Time: 3853.53

or maintain strength and hypertrophy in those muscles,

Time: 3855.717

this kind of nomenclature way of describing

Time: 3858.18

it at least should be clear and even efficient.

Time: 3861.9

And just to remind you, as with the leg workout,

Time: 3865.41

the total duration of the torso workout is going to be

Time: 3868.71

50 to 60 minutes after a brief warmup.

Time: 3871.47

The sets and repetitions are going to be dictated

Time: 3874.95

in the same way that I described earlier.

Time: 3876.48

So for about a month it's going to be more sets.

Time: 3880.62

So anywhere from three to five sets

Time: 3882.39

in the lower repetition range,

Time: 3883.89

so four to eight repetitions,

Time: 3886.17

so that's going to be heavier weights and longer rest

Time: 3888.6

as I described earlier, the rest intervals.

Time: 3890.52

And then for the next month it's going to be

Time: 3892.13

moderate repetitions, fewer sets,

Time: 3894.504

the same way I described earlier.

Time: 3896.049

And if you want more details on all of that,

Time: 3898.8

you can find that in the newsletter related

Time: 3901.56

to the optimal or foundational fitness protocol

Time: 3904.47

that you can access at hubermanlab.com.

Time: 3906.42

One thing I should note about the Wednesday torso

Time: 3908.46

workout is that I am a big believer in training

Time: 3911.224

the, what I believe is the highly avoided,

Time: 3915.21

or at least overlooked but vitally important aspect

Time: 3918.366

of total body stability, strength and safety, really,

Time: 3922.11

safety, which is the neck.

Time: 3923.547

Now I realize a lot of people don't want a large neck,

Time: 3926.07

and I totally understand for aesthetic reasons

Time: 3927.99

why they don't want that.

Time: 3929.28

It's kind of interesting actually, if you think about it,

Time: 3931.05

that people who have a large neck are often told

Time: 3933.15

they have no neck.

Time: 3934.26

People say that guy has no neck or they have no neck

Time: 3937.11

when in fact they're referring to the fact

Time: 3938.58

that they have a very large neck.

Time: 3939.66

I don't know how that came to be.

Time: 3940.5

Somebody put in the comments why that is,

Time: 3942.24

how come when people have a big neck they refer

Time: 3944.13

to it as no neck.

Time: 3945.6

So why do I train the neck?

Time: 3946.59

I train the neck for a couple of reasons.

Time: 3948.27

One is years ago I had an accent where I actually fell

Time: 3950.46

off a roof and I'd been training my neck at that time

Time: 3955.08

for a sport that I was involved in and I walked

Time: 3957.36

away from it with a sore neck but not a broken neck.

Time: 3959.37

And I thought, wow, it's really great that I have

Time: 3962.67

been training my neck.

Time: 3963.81

In addition to that,

Time: 3964.77

I was once in a car accident where I was parked...

Time: 3968.012

I just bought the car, was my first new car purchased,

Time: 3971.49

parked in that car with my mother,

Time: 3973.98

my grandfather in the backseat at the red light

Time: 3976.89

and someone rammed into us at full speed.

Time: 3978.84

Now fortunately, none of us were hurt. We were all rattled.

Time: 3983.43

And once again, I was very sore in my back and in my neck.

Time: 3987.51

But I think one of the reasons why I was able

Time: 3990.21

to essentially walk away from that,

Time: 3991.71

I didn't have any sustained damage was

Time: 3994.32

because I trained my neck,

Time: 3995.43

but I started training my neck for sport and I continue

Time: 3998.43

to train my neck because I notice when I don't train

Time: 4000.38

my neck I start getting shoulder issues.

Time: 4002.21

And if you talk to an excellent physiologist like

Time: 4005.69

Dr. Kelly Starrett of The Ready State,

Time: 4008.54

is an excellent channel,

Time: 4009.938

you can find them on all the social media

Time: 4010.91

and standard channels or you talk to anyone

Time: 4013.796

out there who really understands the strength

Time: 4016.52

of the torso and the upper body and even the back.

Time: 4019.01

What you learn is that, of course,

Time: 4021.2

being the upper portion of the spine,

Time: 4023.24

stabilizing your neck is very important.

Time: 4025.4

Now, training the neck can be a little bit detailed

Time: 4027.74

and specific and even dangerous if you do it wrong.

Time: 4030.29

Again, Jeff Cavaliere has a terrific set of videos

Time: 4032.6

on training the neck properly.

Time: 4033.8

I know a lot of people out there might think neck

Time: 4035.66

bridges and I used to do neck bridges.

Time: 4037.73

I occasionally still sneak in a neck bridge here or there,

Time: 4041.24

although I don't recommend it because in discussions

Time: 4042.848

with Jeff, he will tell you, and it's true,

Time: 4045.885

that the discs eventually go and you can run

Time: 4049.34

into serious issues from doing bridges

Time: 4051.26

and it doesn't happen gradually so you can't

Time: 4053.18

notice it happening.

Time: 4054.013

It just happens suddenly.

Time: 4055.22

So I might occasionally do a neck bridge,

Time: 4057.59

but in general I'll train neck by wrapping a plate

Time: 4060.2

in a towel so that I don't end up with an imprint

Time: 4062.09

of the weight value on my head or face.

Time: 4064.538

And then moving the neck from side to side or front

Time: 4067.43

or back, and again, we'll provide a link to those videos.

Time: 4070.61

It's a terrific set of videos that describe

Time: 4072.26

how to train your neck properly and safely.

Time: 4074.3

So even if you're not trying to grow your neck,

Time: 4076.276

you definitely want to make sure that you use

Time: 4077.93

some light weights to make sure that your neck

Time: 4079.88

is stable and upright.

Time: 4081.647

And I say stable and upright because it's very clear

Time: 4084.8

that for reasons related to texting and staring down

Time: 4088.25

at computers and related to weak neck relative

Time: 4091.67

to the rest of the muscles that stabilize the spine,

Time: 4094.012

a lot of people,

Time: 4096.14

their default stance or their default posture

Time: 4098.45

is with chin forward and that's not good.

Time: 4101.54

Not only is it aesthetically not good,

Time: 4104.54

but it also can create all sorts of issues related

Time: 4106.67

to back pain and headaches and things of that sort.

Time: 4108.74

This is a real thing,

Time: 4109.91

training your neck allows you to stand

Time: 4111.32

upright, sit upright.

Time: 4112.67

I even believe that it allows you to do things like

Time: 4114.77

public speaking or have conversations with people

Time: 4116.6

on the street in a way where you are front facing

Time: 4118.97

as opposed to looking down.

Time: 4120.35

So Wednesday is torso and neck and then comes

Time: 4124.43

Thursday and that means another cardiovascular

Time: 4128.24

exercise session, although it's a brief one.

Time: 4132.08

Unlike the endurance training

Time: 4133.82

on Sunday, the cardiovascular session

Time: 4135.95

on Thursday, and again,

Time: 4138.11

for me it falls on Thursday, but for it could fall

Time: 4140.21

on a different day depending on when you started

Time: 4142.04

this protocol, is going to be about, again,

Time: 4146.39

about 35 minutes of, for me, running,

Time: 4150.122

although it could be rowing or it could be cycling,

Time: 4152.75

it could be something of that sort.

Time: 4154.67

The goal of this workout is what's important.

Time: 4156.68

The goal of this workout is to tap into,

Time: 4158.81

remember that long list that we talked about earlier

Time: 4160.49

where you've got skill and speed and power

Time: 4162.08

and strength and hypertrophy, et cetera,

Time: 4163.37

different forms of endurance,

Time: 4164.6

is to get into that range of endurance

Time: 4167.27

where your heart rate is elevated quite a bit more

Time: 4170.54

than zone two,

Time: 4172.04

but that you're not really going all out sprint.

Time: 4174.95

So what that means for me is warming up for about 5

Time: 4177.65

to 10 minutes.

Time: 4178.483

That could be jogging, a little bit of light calisthenics,

Time: 4180.71

might even be hopping on a stationary bike,

Time: 4182.45

although to be honest I loathe the stationary bike,

Time: 4184.67

and then setting a timer and doing about 30,

Time: 4188.75

but ideally 35 minutes of what I call

Time: 4193.43

75% to 80% of all out.

Time: 4196.16

Okay, now I realize this spits in the face of all

Time: 4199.01

you heart rate monitor wearing super techy exercise types.

Time: 4204.47

But when I think of all out sprint, I think of 100%.

Time: 4209.357

And what is that?

Time: 4210.35

In my mind that's somebody is chasing me

Time: 4212.48

with a needle full of poison and I am sprinting

Time: 4215.63

away at maximal speed.

Time: 4217.73

That for me is 100%.

Time: 4219.5

So after a brief warm up,

Time: 4220.76

what I'm going to do is go out, typically outside,

Time: 4223.55

although sometimes it has to be on a treadmill

Time: 4225.23

if I'm traveling, and move, run for about 30 to 35 minutes

Time: 4230.54

at about 75% or 80% of that all out.

Time: 4234.11

What that means is that I'm striving to keep a steady pace,

Time: 4237.449

but in reality I don't.

Time: 4239.905

I sometimes have to stop at a stoplight, there are cars,

Time: 4242.6

please don't run into traffic just to maintain

Time: 4244.134

that speed and that timing,

Time: 4245.93

that would be terribly antagonistic to fitness,

Time: 4250.61

in particular, lifespan.

Time: 4253.04

That running tends to be running

Time: 4254.93

in which I'm breathing hard so I'm not able

Time: 4256.97

to restrict myself to purely nasal breathing.

Time: 4259.07

And I should have mentioned earlier,

Time: 4260.39

on the Sunday long ruck or weighted hike or jog,

Time: 4265.55

if I'm alone, I try and do pure nasal breathing.

Time: 4267.934

If I'm with other people or I'm talking,

Time: 4270.38

obviously I'm not going to do pure nasal breathing

Time: 4272.63

because I'm talking, although I'm sure that sometimes

Time: 4275.3

they wish I was doing pure nasal breathing.

Time: 4277.01

That Thursday workout accomplishes a number of things.

Time: 4279.35

First of all, it really gets my heart rate up

Time: 4282.071

and it improves multiple aspects of endurance,

Time: 4285.32

because as you recall earlier,

Time: 4287.12

the different bins of endurance that include

Time: 4289.22

muscular endurance, anaerobic, that 3 to 12 minute range

Time: 4291.71

and then 30 minutes or longer,

Time: 4293.42

none of them really precisely match what's accomplished

Time: 4296.06

in this 35 minute or so cardiovascular session

Time: 4300.32

where I'm pushing hard but not all out.

Time: 4304.37

But that's exactly the reason to do it,

Time: 4306.08

which is that it taps into multiple fuel systems

Time: 4309.05

for the muscle and multiple aspects of the heart

Time: 4312.95

and capillaries and arteries and veins that are

Time: 4314.51

involved in generating that movement.

Time: 4316.16

So it really cuts a broad swath into multiple

Time: 4318.26

categories of endurance.

Time: 4319.49

And also just keep in mind what this foundational

Time: 4322.58

or optimal fitness protocol is really designed to do.

Time: 4326.06

In my mind, a foundational fitness protocol is one

Time: 4329.54

that leaves you or has you in a state where if you need

Time: 4333.68

to walk really far and carry a bunch of weight,

Time: 4335.69

you can do it.

Time: 4336.71

If you need to lift a heavy object with your legs,

Time: 4338.87

you can do it.

Time: 4339.86

If you need to run really fast for two minutes,

Time: 4343.97

you can do it.

Time: 4345.02

And if you need to run a little bit further,

Time: 4348.86

like maybe in 10 minutes for whatever reason,

Time: 4351.11

you can do that.

Time: 4351.943

So it's a really kind of all around fitness program

Time: 4354.56

and that 35 minute run, again,

Time: 4356.6

could be swapped with a 35 minute erg row.

Time: 4359.27

Or sometimes if you only have access

Time: 4361.1

to a stationary bike, you could do that.

Time: 4362.865

I suppose if you didn't have access to any equipment

Time: 4365.24

and running is not your thing, one thing that I have done,

Time: 4368.42

especially if I've been stuck in a hotel 'cause

Time: 4369.98

I arrived late someplace and I really want to get

Time: 4371.69

this workout in, you could do the dreaded burpee.

Time: 4374.54

I know there are a lot of opinions out there,

Time: 4376.04

some people think burpees are downright dangerous,

Time: 4377.78

other people love burpees.

Time: 4379.37

You could do that.

Time: 4380.557

Or you could do really fast but full jumping jacks.

Time: 4384.292

I know that's a little PE class, right?

Time: 4387.53

Physical education class-ish.

Time: 4389.265

But sometimes if I need to get the workout in,

Time: 4391.64

what I'll do in a hotel if I've arrived late

Time: 4394.07

in particular day of travel is I will find the stairwell,

Time: 4396.98

the fire stairwell, I'll make sure by the way

Time: 4398.69

that I can get back into the building 'cause I've been

Time: 4400.61

locked in those stairwells before.

Time: 4402.29

And I will simply walk really fast up the stairwell

Time: 4405.14

as many flights of stairs as there are,

Time: 4406.88

or maybe even jog it, not quite sprint,

Time: 4409.353

but a run up those stairs over and over and over again

Time: 4412.67

in order to get that 35 minutes of 75% to 80%

Time: 4415.551

of max output cardiovascular work done.

Time: 4418.97

And if I'm really just restricted to my hotel room,

Time: 4421.562

I'll just do jumping jacks for 30, 35 minutes,

Time: 4424.22

sometimes while watching something on TV.

Time: 4425.9

And believe me, if you're doing full jumping jacks,

Time: 4427.79

like really extending your legs,

Time: 4429.41

really getting arms overhead and really doing

Time: 4431.167

the full movement, by the time you hit five or six

Time: 4434.043

minutes you are going to be sweating and your heart rate

Time: 4437.75

is really going to be up.

Time: 4438.74

I also sometimes will travel with a jump rope.

Time: 4440.45

I always try and travel with a jump rope and skip rope,

Time: 4444.02

much to the dismay of the people who are housed

Time: 4445.94

below me in the hotel room.

Time: 4447.29

Skipping rope, I should mention,

Time: 4448.58

can be a very effective way of getting

Time: 4450.59

cardiovascular training while you're on the road.

Time: 4452.93

But in all seriousness,

Time: 4454.07

if you're in a hotel room or an apartment

Time: 4455.87

and you can't really jump high and you're very good

Time: 4458

at jumping rope, what you'll find is it's not going to

Time: 4459.86

get you into that higher elevated heart rate zone.

Time: 4464.09

Okay?

Time: 4464.923

It can be great for zone two type training,

Time: 4465.98

but if you're really good at skipping rope,

Time: 4467.414

and I wouldn't say I'm really good at it,

Time: 4469.43

but I've done enough skipping rope that I can just kind

Time: 4471.2

of cruise and talk and it, it's more zone twoish,

Time: 4474.11

even feels like walking at times.

Time: 4475.61

Now you can do double unders

Time: 4476.72

where you're really jumping and putting the rope

Time: 4478.85

under you twice each time or crossovers, et cetera,

Time: 4481.4

depending on your skill level.

Time: 4483.14

But again, if you're in an apartment or you're in a hotel,

Time: 4485.06

that's going to be harder to do.

Time: 4486.061

And because there's some skill involved,

Time: 4488.74

sometimes you're stopping more often

Time: 4490.76

than you're continuing.

Time: 4492.14

By the way, and I just have to mention this,

Time: 4493.819

a really terrific Instagram channel is @anna.skips.

Time: 4496.97

This is a teacher, a science teacher,

Time: 4498.89

or I believe it's a math,

Time: 4500.66

maths as they say in the UK 'cause she's in the UK,

Time: 4503.39

maths teacher.

Time: 4504.223

I don't know Anna, but I know she skips 'cause she has

Time: 4506.75

this amazing Instagram channel called Anna Skips.

Time: 4508.85

And what's really cool

Time: 4509.78

about her Instagram is she shows you her progression

Time: 4512.9

from not being able to skip rope at all

Time: 4514.28

to the absolutely incredible types of rope skipping

Time: 4516.98

that she's doing each morning while getting sunlight,

Time: 4518.78

which of course is essential health protocol.

Time: 4521.48

So check out Anna Skips on Instagram, really inspiring

Time: 4524.34

and made me want to get better at skipping rope.

Time: 4527.36

I'm still working at it.

Time: 4528.5

Okay, so with that Thursday cardiovascular,

Time: 4530.93

let's call it endurance,

Time: 4531.92

but cardiovascular training workout done,

Time: 4534.56

around roles Friday and on Friday I'm going to do

Time: 4537.664

another cardiovascular training session,

Time: 4540.53

and I alluded to this earlier,

Time: 4541.7

but this cardiovascular training session is also

Time: 4544.01

designed to tap into some of the ability of hard,

Time: 4551.017

I should say high intensity interval training,

Time: 4553.85

to tap into strength and hypertrophy increases

Time: 4557.48

for the legs.

Time: 4558.313

'Cause remember, we train legs

Time: 4559.88

on Monday and what the science tells us

Time: 4563.75

is that protein synthesis in a muscle group can

Time: 4566.18

be stimulated about every 42 to 72 hours.

Time: 4569.51

And so we've had Tuesday off,

Time: 4571.88

Wednesday off and Thursday off and you don't want to

Time: 4575.9

lose progress that you made from that terrific

Time: 4579.02

Monday leg workout.

Time: 4580.7

But in order to make sure that you can do the other

Time: 4583.37

things that follow in this program and pick back up

Time: 4585.766

on Monday with another leg workout,

Time: 4588.38

at least for me with my recovery abilities

Time: 4590.48

and my work schedule,

Time: 4591.83

I'm not going to do an entire other leg workout

Time: 4594.41

because it's going to set the whole thing out of whack.

Time: 4597.2

That is, I won't be able to consistently do

Time: 4598.91

the same workouts on the same days of each week.

Time: 4601.01

Now with that said,

Time: 4602.03

a little bit later I'll explain what happens

Time: 4603.44

if you have to miss a workout and how you can combine

Time: 4605.197

days, et cetera.

Time: 4606.35

But I really strive to get certain workouts done

Time: 4610.16

on certain days consistently at least as best I can.

Time: 4612.74

So Friday is high intensity interval training,

Time: 4615.566

and that can take a variety of different forms.

Time: 4617.665

For me, the ideal thing to do, for me, again,

Time: 4621.65

you could do something completely different.

Time: 4623.75

Exercise choice, again, should be governed

Time: 4625.97

by what you can do safely so you don't injure yourself

Time: 4628.538

and that you can perform effectively and that gets

Time: 4631.19

you or provides you the stimulus that you want.

Time: 4633.71

And what I'm trying to do on Friday is get my heart

Time: 4636.23

rate way, way up.

Time: 4637.58

Talked about this in the episode with Dr. Andy Galpin.

Time: 4640.07

In addition to the benefits of getting 180-200 minutes

Time: 4643.88

of zone two cardio per week, minimum,

Time: 4647

it's a really good idea to get up to that max or near max

Time: 4650.57

heart rate at least once a week.

Time: 4652.283

And you're not going to do that for very long periods of time.

Time: 4654.68

You're not going to do that for 30 minutes.

Time: 4655.88

You can't sprint all out for 30 minutes

Time: 4657.77

unless you're Steve Prefontaine.

Time: 4659.63

If you haven't seen

Time: 4660.463

the movies "Without Limits" or "Prefontaine,"

Time: 4662.297

you should absolutely see those.

Time: 4664.04

He was able to go out and run 12 laps,

Time: 4667.34

what seemed to be an all out sprint or close to it.

Time: 4670.94

Incredible.

Time: 4671.773

But most people are not going to do that or going

Time: 4674.78

be carried away on a stretcher if they try.

Time: 4677.54

These high intensity interval training for me

Time: 4679.76

ideally would be on so-called assault bike or Airdyne bikes.

Time: 4682.91

So these bikes that have the fan, which might seem like,

Time: 4685.61

oh, just cools you off,

Time: 4686.99

but actually there's a lot of resistance there.

Time: 4688.88

So what I will typically do is a 20 to 30 second

Time: 4693.02

all out sprint using arms and legs and then 10 seconds rest

Time: 4697.79

and then repeat all out sprint for 20

Time: 4700.83

to 30 seconds, 10 seconds rest, repeat.

Time: 4704.12

And I'll do that for anywhere from 8 to 12 rounds, which,

Time: 4709.46

trust me, even if you start out a little bit less,

Time: 4712.76

or I should say not all out intensity or effort,

Time: 4715.4

by the time you hit the fifth or sixth one,

Time: 4717.08

you will be certainly headed into if not near

Time: 4721.16

your maximum heart rate.

Time: 4722.33

Now what is your maximum heart rate?

Time: 4723.47

Do you need a heart rate monitor? No.

Time: 4725.06

If you like using that sort of thing, great.

Time: 4727.28

But again, Andy Galpin beautifully supplied us

Time: 4730.43

with the information.

Time: 4731.42

He said if you take the number 220 and you subtract

Time: 4734

your age, that for most people, most,

Time: 4736.94

is going to be your maximum heart rate.

Time: 4738.41

Although for certain people who are very fit

Time: 4740.12

or certain ages, that's not going to apply.

Time: 4742.07

So it's a little bit too crude to measure,

Time: 4744.2

but it's a good starting place and you can look up

Time: 4745.847

other information or see that podcast episode,

Time: 4748.25

we provide the link to it in the show note captions

Time: 4750.05

if you want to get more details on that.

Time: 4752.09

I don't use a heart rate monitor.

Time: 4753.38

What I'm trying to do is get to that point

Time: 4755.24

where I quote unquote feel like I want to die.

Time: 4758.24

Now I don't want to die, and please don't die, right?

Time: 4761.36

If you're not in good cardiovascular health,

Time: 4763.04

do not just jump right into this fitness protocol.

Time: 4766.07

But I want to get to the point where I really feel like

Time: 4768.32

I could not pedal any faster or pull any faster

Time: 4771.924

on the assault bike, the Airdyne bike,

Time: 4774.8

or if I'm doing this workout in a place or at a time

Time: 4778.25

or because I choose to not use a bike or a rower,

Time: 4781.88

'cause you could also use a rower,

Time: 4783.17

I will simply do sprint jog intervals.

Time: 4786.44

I will sprint for 20 or 30 seconds,

Time: 4788.408

then jog for 10 seconds, sprint for 20 or 30 seconds,

Time: 4791.72

and then jog for 10 seconds and just repeat.

Time: 4793.97

I used to have a big field next to my laboratory,

Time: 4796.49

my old laboratory, and I used to bring my bulldog

Time: 4798.56

Costello out there.

Time: 4799.393

He was really good at the first sprint part and then

Time: 4801.655

he would just lie down and watch.

Time: 4802.85

he didn't even do the jog part.

Time: 4804.2

I would just go back and forth, back and forth,

Time: 4805.61

back and forth, panting like a bulldog nonstop,

Time: 4808.88

barely able to recover before sprinting again.

Time: 4811.817

And the basis of this workout again is several fold.

Time: 4814.46

First of all, it's to get the heart rate really high,

Time: 4816.74

up towards maximum heart rate at least once a week.

Time: 4819.95

So you accomplish that this Friday.

Time: 4821.21

Also, if you are sprinting and then jogging

Time: 4824.27

or you are really pushing hard on an assault bike

Time: 4826.61

or an Airdyne bike, or using a, for instance,

Time: 4829.13

a skier or a skier machine or any number

Time: 4831.89

of different cardiovascular training tools,

Time: 4836.12

you are going to get activation of the legs,

Time: 4840.74

of course not to the same degree as you would

Time: 4842.48

with squats or dead lifts or leg extensions or leg curls.

Time: 4844.94

That's simply not the case.

Time: 4846.44

But you're going to trigger strength and hypertrophy

Time: 4849.738

and other types of adaptations in those muscle groups.

Time: 4852.77

So this for me also represents the second leg workout

Time: 4856.25

of the week where I'm not touching any weights.

Time: 4858.83

One important point that I don't think I've heard

Time: 4860.48

mentioned anywhere else, but that I hope to have

Time: 4863.69

Dr. Kelly Starrett on the podcast to discuss

Time: 4865.58

and that I've discussed with him one on one,

Time: 4868.28

which is be careful with all out sprints or all

Time: 4872.12

out anything cardiovascular exercise,

Time: 4874.01

you can get injured doing those.

Time: 4875.523

So for instance, if you go out and you just sprint

Time: 4877.91

across a field, all out,

Time: 4879.71

20 or 30 seconds and then walk back and can do

Time: 4881.87

it again and again,

Time: 4883.19

don't be surprised if the next day you have some

Time: 4885.41

sciatica or even some pelvic floor pain.

Time: 4888.68

I don't recommend going all out on any movement

Time: 4892.25

that you can't perform with perfect form.

Time: 4895.46

Okay?

Time: 4896.293

So for me, I really try and stay away from all out sprints.

Time: 4899.24

I'll sprint it about 95% of what I can do

Time: 4901.88

because I find if I go all out sprint,

Time: 4904.4

I don't know what the reason is,

Time: 4905.45

but it might be an over extension of a limb

Time: 4907.43

or something like that, I'm not a sprinter,

Time: 4909.11

I'm not a sprinting coach.

Time: 4910.22

I do hope to get Stu McMillan on here or Dan Pfaff,

Time: 4914.32

who are excellent sprinting coaches,

Time: 4916.13

at some point they were world class sprinting coaches,

Time: 4918.92

but I'm not a pro sprinter,

Time: 4921.77

I'm not even a amateur sprinter, I'm a fitness sprinter.

Time: 4924.857

So the Airdyne or assault bike or the rower is really

Time: 4928.13

a safer option for me.

Time: 4929.39

And if I'm running or I'm doing some sort

Time: 4931.033

of movement where I'm unconstrained, really,

Time: 4933.83

in terms of how far my stride is,

Time: 4935.48

I mean I'm obviously constrained by the musculature,

Time: 4937.61

I'm really careful to not overextend or do

Time: 4940.37

something like that.

Time: 4941.203

And the only way to do that is to not go all out.

Time: 4942.83

So again, the goal for this Friday workout

Time: 4944.28

is to really get the heart rate high,

Time: 4946.13

do high intensity interval training...

Time: 4948.387

A number of different ways you could do that.

Time: 4949.46

You can look up HIIT, HIIT workouts online,

Time: 4952.52

find the one that's best for you and really pick

Time: 4953.99

something that's safe that you can do consistently,

Time: 4956.45

and I believe that ideally will also trigger a bit

Time: 4959.238

of either strength and hypertrophy and speed

Time: 4962.66

power maintenance or even give you a little bit

Time: 4965.18

of a stimulus so that by the time you roll around

Time: 4967.97

to that leg workout on, again, on Monday, you've got

Time: 4970.61

a little bit of an additional boost to your leg strength,

Time: 4973.64

hypertrophy, speed and power.

Time: 4975.59

So we've covered Sunday through Friday, and then

Time: 4978.414

Saturday rolls around and Saturday is when you train arms,

Time: 4984.77

calves, and neck.

Time: 4985.82

So this may sound as if you're training a bunch

Time: 4988.52

of small muscle groups, biceps, triceps, necks and calves,

Time: 4991.7

and that's true, but I should mention that you are

Time: 4994.28

also training your torso a second time and you're doing

Time: 4998.21

it indirectly, or sometimes not indirectly.

Time: 5001.021

Why do I say this?

Time: 5002.17

Well, keep in mind, again,

Time: 5003.134

that for strength and hypertrophy,

Time: 5004.989

you're going for that once about every 48 to 72 hours,

Time: 5009.31

you want to stimulate that,

Time: 5011.32

on Wednesday is when you train your torso, right?

Time: 5014.11

Chest, shoulders, back and neck.

Time: 5016.96

You've had Thursday to rest, Friday to rest.

Time: 5019.87

I know a lot of people are going to want to emphasize

Time: 5021.76

those body parts and they're going to think,

Time: 5022.75

oh, you have to train it twice a week.

Time: 5024.25

But if you have modest recovery ability

Time: 5028.99

or low recovery ability, such as I do,

Time: 5031.66

and you're doing these other cardiovascular

Time: 5033.34

training sessions, et cetera,

Time: 5035.08

well then, on Saturday is when you will train arms,

Time: 5038.38

calves and neck directly.

Time: 5039.67

But included in that,

Time: 5041.2

remember, two exercises per muscle group,

Time: 5043.06

one with a peak contraction,

Time: 5044.35

one with somewhat of a stretch in there.

Time: 5046.6

Included in that, I suggest doing some sort

Time: 5049.343

of dip movement, which I think it was Pavel Tsatsouline

Time: 5053.35

said the dip is synonymous

Time: 5055.33

with or at least similar to an upper body squat.

Time: 5057.7

Excuse me, Pavel if I got that wrong.

Time: 5059.32

Maybe it wasn't you that said that,

Time: 5060.52

but big admirer of his work,

Time: 5062.83

and certainly the dip is a great exercise to hit

Time: 5065.35

multiple muscle groups, chest, shoulders, and triceps,

Time: 5069.049

maybe even some back to some extent depending

Time: 5071.14

on how you do it.

Time: 5072.19

So doing some dipping movement will indirectly

Time: 5076

stimulate strength hypertrophy, et cetera,

Time: 5078.58

in the chest and shoulders and including some sort

Time: 5081.91

of pulling movement for the bicep,

Time: 5083.71

like a chin up or palms facing movement,

Time: 5087.79

pulling up from to the bar,

Time: 5090.25

especially if it's a close grip type movement.

Time: 5092.05

But even if it's a wide grip type movement,

Time: 5094.09

will of course trigger strength

Time: 5096.22

and hypertrophy, maintenance or improvements in the biceps,

Time: 5100.06

but will also trigger strength hypertrophy in the lats

Time: 5105.37

in the back.

Time: 5106.33

Okay, so Saturday is this arm workout

Time: 5108.49

that I'll just give an example of a potential

Time: 5110.86

workout where you might do a few more exercises

Time: 5113.317

and maybe not just two,

Time: 5114.25

but maybe three to make sure you get

Time: 5115.48

the torso indirect stimulation.

Time: 5117.55

So what would this look like?

Time: 5118.9

Well, this might be your sort of classic dumbbell

Time: 5121.27

curls for the bicep and maybe incline curl

Time: 5124.66

for the bicep because it has more of a stretch

Time: 5126.22

on an incline bench,

Time: 5127.72

and then you might finish with two sets of chin ups.

Time: 5131.292

So palms facing you, chin ups,

Time: 5133

or three sets of chin-ups depending

Time: 5134.32

on whether or not you're in a heavier load month

Time: 5136.48

or a more moderate weight month.

Time: 5138.73

Again, activating the biceps muscles 'cause arms day,

Time: 5142.45

but also activating strength and hypertrophy

Time: 5145.21

in the lats or at least maintaining it

Time: 5146.74

so that, because you're not training

Time: 5149.35

those torso muscles again

Time: 5150.67

until Wednesday, you're not allowing the hypertrophy

Time: 5154.18

and strength gains that you generated

Time: 5156.029

on Wednesday to atrophy, to disappear.

Time: 5159.76

Then, thinking about triceps,

Time: 5162.67

it might be some sort of triceps isolation

Time: 5164.62

or peak contraction movement.

Time: 5165.85

So that could be tricep kickback or some

Time: 5167.746

overhead extension would be more of a stretch

Time: 5170.08

type movement than a kickback.

Time: 5171.37

But then also doing regular old dips.

Time: 5173.68

You might even start with dips, which again,

Time: 5175.24

are going to activate those torso muscles and the triceps.

Time: 5178.6

And then calf work in the same way that you did on Monday.

Time: 5182.53

And neck work...

Time: 5183.61

Again, I am a believer in training neck multiple

Time: 5186.01

times per week.

Time: 5187.003

And if you are able to finish all of that in 45

Time: 5190.97

or 50 minutes, great.

Time: 5192.13

Most people will find when you're doing a lot

Time: 5193.69

of small muscle groups,

Time: 5194.523

it actually takes longer because you have to go around

Time: 5196.6

to more exercises.

Time: 5197.95

But again, just adhere to the same principles

Time: 5199.75

we talked about before,

Time: 5201.04

about 50, five zero, to 60 minutes of real work

Time: 5203.8

after a warmup with an asterisk next to that,

Time: 5206.35

that if someone's on the equipment or you can't find

Time: 5208.12

the dumbbells you need, et cetera,

Time: 5210.31

then maybe 75 minutes max.

Time: 5212.29

But really trying to not extend that workout too long,

Time: 5215.44

making sure that you activate the arms directly,

Time: 5218.77

but also activating the torso muscles indirectly,

Time: 5221.83

and again, I won't repeat it this time, again,

Time: 5224.95

but following the same weight and repetition

Time: 5227.384

and rest interval scheme that we talked about earlier,

Time: 5229.733

a bit heavier, lower reps,

Time: 5231.646

more sets and longer rest for about a month.

Time: 5236.05

And then alternating to more repetitions

Time: 5239.08

yet fewer sets, right?

Time: 5242.65

Shorter rest intervals and do that for about a month.

Time: 5245.56

This carries through for all the resistance

Time: 5247.21

training workouts regardless of the day of the week.

Time: 5249.67

So we've completed the total arc across the week

Time: 5251.86

and we can summarize it as saying Sunday is,

Time: 5254.92

let's just say long endurance,

Time: 5256.36

Monday is leg resistance training,

Time: 5258.82

Tuesday, heat cold contrast,

Time: 5261.07

Wednesday, torso training plus neck,

Time: 5264.85

Thursday, I would call it moderate intensity

Time: 5268.78

cardiovascular exercise, so that 35 minute

Time: 5271.42

moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise,

Time: 5273.28

Friday, high intensity interval training of sprinting

Time: 5276.79

or some variation thereof and Saturday, arms, calves,

Time: 5280.18

neck and torso, indirect work.

Time: 5282.88

That's the total structure.

Time: 5284.62

But I want to emphasize again,

Time: 5285.7

you do not need to start this on Sunday.

Time: 5287.17

That is, you could make the long endurance work start

Time: 5290.83

on Tuesday and then just fill in the rest

Time: 5293.246

as described before.

Time: 5295.48

It's really up to you.

Time: 5297.4

There's another important point I want to make,

Time: 5299.14

which is that neither I nor anyone is going

Time: 5303.07

to be successful in doing the exact workouts

Time: 5305.87

on the exact same days of every week because of travel,

Time: 5308.89

work, illness, other demands, et cetera.

Time: 5311.68

The thing about the schedule that I like so much

Time: 5313.48

that I do believe that will benefit you as well

Time: 5316.407

is that you have some flexibility there.

Time: 5318.52

What's the flexibility?

Time: 5319.45

Well, let's say you train your typical Sunday workout

Time: 5322.33

of endurance, then you train legs on Monday and then

Time: 5325.84

you don't manage to do your heat cold contrast

Time: 5329.56

on Tuesday for whatever reason.

Time: 5331.12

Well, you can put it on Wednesday.

Time: 5333.94

Just make sure that if you're going to do

Time: 5335.38

the cold stimulus, that you don't do it too close,

Time: 5338.74

not within four, ideally eight hours after the training

Time: 5344.08

of torso, but you could do it before or you could do it

Time: 5347.23

just heat and skip the cold that particular week, right?

Time: 5351.13

Not ideal, but better than not doing anything.

Time: 5353.477

Let's say, for instance,

Time: 5354.64

the leg workout was particularly brutal,

Time: 5356.2

you don't sleep that well on Monday night or Tuesday night.

Time: 5359.41

Well then should you do the torso workout on Wednesday?

Time: 5363.13

Well, I would say,

Time: 5365.02

why not move the heat cold contrast

Time: 5367.15

to Wednesday and then push that torso workout

Time: 5370.93

to Thursday and maybe also try and do that 35 minute

Time: 5374.89

run on Thursday every once in a while rather than lose

Time: 5378.67

the total control of the program and let

Time: 5380.44

everything shuffle forward.

Time: 5381.67

Here's the basic principle.

Time: 5383.47

I do believe that any one of these workouts,

Time: 5386.53

whether it's for endurance or resistance training,

Time: 5388.27

can be shifted either one day forward or one

Time: 5390.56

day back, right?

Time: 5392.89

You could delay it by a day or you could accelerate

Time: 5395.104

it by a day in order to make sure that you get

Time: 5398.53

everything done across the week.

Time: 5400.93

In fact, I would say the best way to think

Time: 5402.97

about this foundational fitness program is not

Time: 5406.342

from the details up, but from the top down,

Time: 5409.93

from the big picture down to the details,

Time: 5412.15

and say to yourself,

Time: 5413.29

once a week you're going to get some long endurance in,

Time: 5416.35

another day during the week,

Time: 5417.43

you're going to make sure that you get a kind

Time: 5418.72

of moderate faster endurance workout in,

Time: 5421.78

and then one other day during the week,

Time: 5423.94

you're going to get an all out sprint,

Time: 5425.56

high intensity cardiovascular exercise workout in.

Time: 5429.1

You're going to get those three workouts in somehow.

Time: 5431.95

And then in addition to that,

Time: 5432.97

you will also do resistance training

Time: 5435.34

for every muscle group in your body.

Time: 5437.47

And that means doing your legs hard at least once a week,

Time: 5441.43

your torso hard at least once a week and your arms hard

Time: 5445.81

at least once a week.

Time: 5446.643

And of course you are also paying attention

Time: 5448.39

to training your calves.

Time: 5449.61

And I do, for reasons I described before,

Time: 5452.26

believe that you want to train your neck at least

Time: 5454.48

to keep it strong.

Time: 5455.41

You may not want to generate hypertrophy there.

Time: 5458.14

People vary in terms of how quickly their neck grows.

Time: 5460.42

Some people grows very, very fast.

Time: 5461.65

Other people, for the life of them,

Time: 5463

they can't get much hypertrophy in their neck.

Time: 5464.56

But keeping that neck strong,

Time: 5466.12

at least through some very light work to moderate

Time: 5469.06

weight work, very, very important,

Time: 5471.91

for reasons I stated earlier.

Time: 5473.59

If you set out those goals,

Time: 5476.44

then the specific days that you do each workout isn't

Time: 5479.849

as critical, but the specific spacing is.

Time: 5482.83

So for instance, you're not going to want to do

Time: 5484.57

your high intensity interval training the day

Time: 5486.91

after you train your legs,

Time: 5488.59

because if you're doing

Time: 5489.423

that high intensity interval training correctly,

Time: 5491.56

you're going to be

Time: 5493.21

taxing your legs and eating into their recovery.

Time: 5495.97

And so you want to space them out by two or three days.

Time: 5498.31

So I think you'll notice that the point is really

Time: 5499.845

to optimize everything on the whole rather than any

Time: 5504.4

one specific aspect of training or adaptation.

Time: 5507.88

Now that said, I do realize that some people might

Time: 5511.12

be hyper focused on things like strength

Time: 5513.46

and hypertrophy and the aesthetics that come with it.

Time: 5515.993

A key point about strength hypertrophy

Time: 5517.87

and weight training, and this is something

Time: 5519.64

that has been covered on multiple podcasts,

Time: 5521.59

certainly the one with Jeff Cavaliere

Time: 5522.91

and with Dr. Andy Galpin and the one

Time: 5524.86

that I did on building muscle strength and hypertrophy,

Time: 5528.88

the solo episode.

Time: 5531.07

And that is the following,

Time: 5534.01

it is the rare individual who has perfectly

Time: 5536.77

balanced musculature, right?

Time: 5538.75

Most people can be a bit quad dominant

Time: 5541.6

or hamstring dominant, or they have trouble

Time: 5543.55

activating their glutes or somebody has a terrible

Time: 5546.58

time trying to activate their chest muscles,

Time: 5548.86

but they're very strong in the back, et cetera.

Time: 5551.53

It's very clear that we can know that not just based

Time: 5555.7

on aesthetics, right, but based

Time: 5558.64

on deliberate contractibility of those muscles.

Time: 5561.94

So I don't want to get into this in too much detail

Time: 5563.65

for sake of time,

Time: 5564.61

but this is something that has peer reviewed research

Time: 5567.22

to support it and was also discussed extensively

Time: 5569.71

with Jeff Cavaliere when he was a guest.

Time: 5572.05

And that actually he's really popularized this notion

Time: 5574.57

and it's absolutely true,

Time: 5575.71

which is that if you can contract a muscle very hard

Time: 5578.35

to the point where it almost feels like it's cramping,

Time: 5580.06

if you can do that even when there's no weight

Time: 5582.07

in your hand or there's no resistance against it,

Time: 5584.86

so you're just using your mind muscle connection

Time: 5587.05

to contract that muscle hard and isolate it,

Time: 5588.82

chances are you'll be able to generate hypertrophy

Time: 5591.64

and strength gains pretty easily in that muscle

Time: 5594.28

compared to muscles that you have a harder time activating.

Time: 5597.91

So during all resistance training, that mind muscle link

Time: 5600.43

is really important, so much so that some people will

Time: 5604.06

even try and emphasize contraction of the muscles

Time: 5606.28

in between sets, et cetera.

Time: 5607.626

I personally, because I'm not somebody who likes

Time: 5610.63

a mirror when I work out, and I'm not somebody who wants

Time: 5613.84

to spend time in between sets flexing muscles

Time: 5615.847

and et cetera for whatever reason,

Time: 5618.34

I want to actually rest between sets,

Time: 5619.78

and I'm more concerned with performance

Time: 5621.76

during those sets and really putting my mind

Time: 5623.26

into the muscle during the set,

Time: 5625.27

I really try and emphasize deep relaxation between sets.

Time: 5628.15

And so here's a tool that again is built

Time: 5630.49

out of science and I should say peer reviewed studies,

Time: 5633.55

some of which are being done in my lab,

Time: 5635.11

but other labs as well,

Time: 5636.31

which is that in between sets what I really strive

Time: 5639.01

to do is to bring my heart rate down as much as possible,

Time: 5641.92

calm myself down as much as possible,

Time: 5643.81

and I'll do the so-called physiological sigh in order

Time: 5646.42

to do that.

Time: 5647.253

That's two inhales through the nose, back to back, [sighs]

Time: 5651.94

and then long full exhale through the mouth.

Time: 5654.37

I just did it partially there for the sake of time, again.

Time: 5657.13

So a big deep inhale through the nose and then sneak

Time: 5659.83

in a little bit more on a second inhale

Time: 5661.3

to maximally inflate the lungs and the alveoli

Time: 5662.88

in the lungs, and then a full exhale of all your air

Time: 5666.79

via the mouth to empty your lungs.

Time: 5668.38

That's the fastest way that we are aware of to calm

Time: 5672.206

your nervous system down.

Time: 5674.02

And really, in between sets you can use

Time: 5676.21

that to calm yourself down and conserve energy.

Time: 5678.34

But then as you move into the weight training set,

Time: 5682.18

you really want to ratchet up your focus and attention

Time: 5685.18

to the muscles that you're going to be using.

Time: 5686.74

Now, I'd like to acknowledge that there's a huge range

Time: 5688.6

of parameters in terms of how to actually perform

Time: 5691.27

during the set.

Time: 5692.103

You can focus on a particular muscle and try

Time: 5693.958

and really isolate from the beginning of the movement.

Time: 5696.76

Some people will really try and isolate it only

Time: 5698.65

during the peak contraction.

Time: 5699.64

Some people accentuate the negative.

Time: 5701.05

There's speed and cadence.

Time: 5702.123

There are, again, remember, concepts are few,

Time: 5705.91

methods are many.

Time: 5706.75

And if you're interested in the various methods

Time: 5708.46

of eccentrics and concentrics and all the different

Time: 5711.52

ways of changing up cadence and so forth during sets,

Time: 5715.03

there's an enormous amount of quality information

Time: 5717.13

out there, far too much for us to get into detail now.

Time: 5720.19

But what I describe the general principles

Time: 5721.75

of how to set your mind, if you will, during the set,

Time: 5724.96

you should be focused on the muscles that you're using

Time: 5726.82

and or moving the weight.

Time: 5727.87

If movement of the weight is more important,

Time: 5729.43

you can either focus on moving the weight

Time: 5731.29

or challenging muscles, right?

Time: 5733.6

You can either try and isolate muscles and make

Time: 5735.31

specific muscles do the work or simply moving the weight.

Time: 5738.76

Moving the weight is going to be more geared

Time: 5740.92

towards strength improvements, but focusing

Time: 5744.88

on the muscle, so called mind muscle link is going to

Time: 5746.77

shift that very same set more toward hypertrophy.

Time: 5749.62

I realize I'm painting with a broad brush here,

Time: 5751.48

but nonetheless this is grounded in the way

Time: 5753.67

that the nervous system governs muscular contraction.

Time: 5756.91

And while I think most people are familiar

Time: 5758.449

with the number of different variables associated

Time: 5760.75

with the resistance training, sets, reps, rest intervals,

Time: 5763.81

cadence, et cetera, there are also a tremendous number

Time: 5767.335

of very important variables for endurance in any kind

Time: 5770.23

of cardiovascular training.

Time: 5771.94

And there are a lot of excellent resources

Time: 5773.74

out there about that.

Time: 5775.63

I think the most important one,

Time: 5777.97

in fact I will go on record saying what I believe

Time: 5780.4

to be the most important variable for any endurance

Time: 5784.69

or cardiovascular training

Time: 5785.77

is that because it's a repetitive movement,

Time: 5788.56

that you are able to complete the movement safely,

Time: 5791.5

meaning you're not putting your body into range

Time: 5794.02

of motion or into positions that can damage joints

Time: 5797.83

or put you in any kind of compromised state.

Time: 5800.44

And some people might think, well,

Time: 5801.273

that seems kind of silly.

Time: 5802.42

But if you've ever set the, for instance,

Time: 5804.25

the seat too high on a stationary bike and then

Time: 5806.14

done Airdyne or assault bike type interval training sprints,

Time: 5810.25

if it's set too high and you're over-striding, as it were,

Time: 5813.7

the next day, you can really pay the price in terms

Time: 5816.16

of some back pain or sciatica.

Time: 5817.69

And sometimes that pain can extend for quite a while.

Time: 5820.3

So of course you don't want to approach any exercise

Time: 5822.19

with so much caution that it's neurotic and preventive

Time: 5824.198

and yet you don't want to approach any exercise in any way

Time: 5827.53

that's so cavalier,

Time: 5830.29

forgive the pun, Jeff, that you're also going to

Time: 5833.35

compromise the integrity of your joints

Time: 5835.54

and musculature and connective tissue.

Time: 5837.28

Let's talk about some real world practical variables.

Time: 5840.64

For instance,

Time: 5841.9

let's say you get a poor to terrible night's sleep.

Time: 5845.56

Should you train the next day or not?

Time: 5847.72

Well, that really depends.

Time: 5849.16

I can honestly say I've had some of the best

Time: 5851.35

training sessions, resistance training

Time: 5853

or endurance training sessions after a really

Time: 5854.89

poor night's sleep.

Time: 5856.27

But that's the rare event.

Time: 5858.31

More often than not, if I'm not sleeping well,

Time: 5862.15

I've had a terrible night's sleep,

Time: 5863.35

the next day I will just skip training that day.

Time: 5866.92

I know that will shock a number of you out there,

Time: 5868.87

or perhaps you're already calling me names,

Time: 5870.88

weak, et cetera.

Time: 5872.23

But I find that if I've slept really poorly or I've had

Time: 5875.11

a very stressful event the day before and I don't

Time: 5877.958

sleep well, training the next day sets me up

Time: 5880.75

for getting ill and getting ill sets me up for not

Time: 5882.76

being able to train for multiple days.

Time: 5884.98

So it is my preference in that case to skip a day

Time: 5888.4

and really focus on recovery.

Time: 5890.432

And then, as I mentioned earlier,

Time: 5892.81

slide that workout to the next day and rarely double

Time: 5897.58

that workout up with another workout,

Time: 5899.26

but then just slide the schedule forward by a day.

Time: 5901.69

But I really try and strive,

Time: 5903.46

that is, I really try to double up at least some

Time: 5906.73

workouts later in the week in that case,

Time: 5908.83

so that I can get back on schedule of starting

Time: 5912.1

the seven day protocol again on the same day.

Time: 5914.86

I don't want to be excessively vague there.

Time: 5916.75

What I'm trying to say is I try and adhere

Time: 5918.37

to the same schedule, but if I get a poor night's sleep,

Time: 5920.5

I'll just simply skip the workout the next day,

Time: 5923.41

slide the workout forward.

Time: 5924.88

There is one exception to that,

Time: 5926.14

and it's an important exception,

Time: 5927.4

which is there are times when I've not slept well

Time: 5930.88

or I've had some particularly stressful event

Time: 5933.37

the day before and haven't slept well,

Time: 5936.58

but I'm able to do so-called NSDR,

Time: 5938.53

non-sleep deep rest the next day.

Time: 5940.3

So there have been times when I've only got three

Time: 5942.73

or four hours of sleep the night

Time: 5944.08

before and I'm feeling really behind the ball

Time: 5946.42

the next morning, but I really want to get my workout in.

Time: 5948.88

So instead what I will do is a 10, but ideally

Time: 5951.94

in that case a 30 or even 60 minute non-sleep deep rest.

Time: 5955.63

And there's a 10 minute

Time: 5956.83

non-sleep deep breath protocol read by me.

Time: 5960.879

But it is a non-spiritual, non-mystical,

Time: 5964.93

science-supported non-sleep deep breath protocol

Time: 5967.96

available on YouTube.

Time: 5968.793

You can simply put my name, Huberman, put NSDR,

Time: 5971.517

and Virtusan, V-I-R-T-U-S-A-N,

Time: 5975.58

into YouTube and you'll find that script.

Time: 5977.23

There are other NSDR scripts that you can find now

Time: 5979.66

on Spotify and on YouTube.

Time: 5981.64

And if you fall asleep

Time: 5982.63

during those non-sleep deep rest scripts, that's great.

Time: 5985.21

And if you don't,

Time: 5986.05

you will also find that it will restore your ability

Time: 5988.54

to perform mental and physical work.

Time: 5990.73

So there are times when I haven't gotten as much sleep

Time: 5993.757

as I would like,

Time: 5994.66

or I'm feeling a bit more stressed for whatever reason,

Time: 5997.48

and I'll do NSDR, and then I will go train.

Time: 6000.84

And that often works fabulously well for me.

Time: 6003.33

And then I don't have to skip a workout entirely

Time: 6005.43

just because I didn't get a good night's sleep.

Time: 6007.11

A lot of people ask whether or not you should train

Time: 6009.81

fasted or fed, and this is a very controversial area.

Time: 6012.57

I personally prefer to do my cardiovascular work

Time: 6015.047

not having eaten anything

Time: 6018.18

in the previous 3 to 10 hours.

Time: 6021.21

And typically that's because I wake up and I'll do

Time: 6023.64

the cardiovascular training within about an hour

Time: 6026.19

of waking up, sometimes later,

Time: 6028.23

because my first meal generally falls, generally,

Time: 6030.51

not always, falls around 11:00 AM.

Time: 6032.49

I don't do any kind of formal intermittent fasting,

Time: 6035.01

but typically my meal schedule somewhere between 11:00 a.m.

Time: 6038.82

and my last bite of food is around 8:00 p.m.

Time: 6040.98

but I'm not super strict about that.

Time: 6042.45

I might eat in as late as 9:00 p.m. and I might

Time: 6045.496

eat something at 10:00 a.m. if I wake up really hungry,

Time: 6048

I might have something before 11:00 a.m., I'm not

Time: 6049.8

neurotic about it.

Time: 6051.12

But in terms of training,

Time: 6052.5

I like to train fasted and that includes

Time: 6054.96

the resistance training workouts and those come early

Time: 6056.97

in the day for me.

Time: 6057.99

And typically if I'm going to train legs

Time: 6059.73

on Monday, for instance, which is when I train legs,

Time: 6062.303

I'll make sure that the night before I'm ingesting

Time: 6064.86

some starch, some carbohydrate,

Time: 6066.93

like rice or pasta or something of that sort to make

Time: 6070.013

sure that when I do that morning leg workout,

Time: 6072.33

I have enough glycogen in the muscles, et cetera.

Time: 6074.43

Again, nutrition is a somewhat controversial area.

Time: 6076.71

In fact, it can evoke very strong feelings 'cause

Time: 6079.89

I know we've got vegans and we've got omnivores

Time: 6081.474

and we've got carnivores and people who are keto.

Time: 6084.15

This isn't really the format for us to get

Time: 6086.01

into all of that.

Time: 6087.72

I think the rule to follow is figure

Time: 6089.91

out what optimizes your training

Time: 6091.86

for your particular training goals.

Time: 6093.87

For me, that most often means training fasted

Time: 6096.78

and then eating pretty soon after I train.

Time: 6098.76

And if it's a high intensity resistance training workout,

Time: 6102.622

and frankly, all of my resistance training workouts

Time: 6104.592

are pretty high intensity,

Time: 6105.9

I'm not going to failure on every set, but at least, say,

Time: 6108.51

about 30% of those sets I'm going to failure.

Time: 6111.42

And the other sets I'm working very hard nonetheless,

Time: 6114.21

well then I eat some starches after I train

Time: 6115.98

and I also ingest some protein in the form

Time: 6117.6

of a protein drink or a meal that includes

Time: 6119.73

some protein food.

Time: 6121.2

But I don't like to eat before I do resistance training

Time: 6124.47

or at least not within the hour or two

Time: 6126.15

before I do resistance training.

Time: 6128.25

There are exceptions to that,

Time: 6129.147

and I should say that the same basically applies

Time: 6131.49

to endurance work.

Time: 6132.54

If I'm going to head out for a run,

Time: 6134.28

typically I don't want my belly full of food or any

Time: 6137.28

food at all, but there are times where I wake up

Time: 6141

hungry and I very much need to eat something

Time: 6143.25

or I have something scheduled socially like

Time: 6145.26

a breakfast and I'll have that breakfast and then

Time: 6148.14

an hour or 90 minutes later I'll do my workout

Time: 6150.356

because I want to make sure that I finish the workout.

Time: 6153.48

I, again, am not neurotically attached to training

Time: 6155.656

fasted or fed.

Time: 6157.38

For me, fasted is preferred, but if I have to train fed,

Time: 6160.32

better to train than to not train at all.

Time: 6162.45

We haven't talked so much about flexibility yet,

Time: 6164.55

but we did an entire episode of the Huberman Lab podcast

Time: 6167.19

on flexibility and I encourage you to check

Time: 6170.1

out that episode if you're interested

Time: 6172.47

in increasing your flexibility.

Time: 6173.984

But the basic takeaway from that episode

Time: 6176.82

is that if you look at what I like to call the center

Time: 6178.95

of mass of the research,

Time: 6181.2

that is most of the studies and what the conclusions

Time: 6183.45

of most of the quality studies point to,

Time: 6185.22

so not the exceptions,

Time: 6186.21

but the kind of general rules that have been gleaned

Time: 6189.12

over time from multiple labs over multiple

Time: 6191.34

decades, et cetera.

Time: 6192.393

What you find is that static stretching,

Time: 6195.18

that is, holding a stretch and in fact exhaling

Time: 6198.69

and relaxing the midsection and torso and relaxing

Time: 6203.37

into the stretch as opposed to staying full of air

Time: 6205.496

and tense, but mentally and physically relaxing

Time: 6209.04

into the stretch, but not stretching maximally,

Time: 6213.03

that is not extending as far as you possibly can go,

Time: 6216.09

but more like 60% or even less.

Time: 6218.55

And then holding those static stretches for anywhere

Time: 6222.24

from 30 to 60 seconds and then repeating,

Time: 6225.15

doing that two or three times throughout the week

Time: 6227.22

for multiple muscle groups,

Time: 6228.21

so it could be for your quadriceps,

Time: 6229.59

could be for hamstrings, for your lats.

Time: 6231.78

There are protocols out there.

Time: 6232.77

In fact, we have a newsletter that is focused entirely

Time: 6235.913

on protocols for flexibility and stretching.

Time: 6238.2

You can find that again by going hubermanlab.com.

Time: 6240.69

You don't even need to sign up for the newsletter,

Time: 6242.34

although we invite you to if you like,

Time: 6244.2

but you can simply go there,

Time: 6245.331

scroll down to the flexibility newsletter and all

Time: 6248.52

the protocols are there for each of the muscle

Time: 6250.62

groups, et cetera.

Time: 6251.79

But what I typically try and do is some stretching

Time: 6254.04

in the evening, because I train in the morning,

Time: 6256.52

as I'm perhaps getting ready for bed or if the TV is on,

Time: 6261.93

which in our house doesn't typically go

Time: 6264.36

on because we don't have a TV, but of course

Time: 6266.34

there are computers and people are

Time: 6268.11

on their computers, et cetera.

Time: 6269.422

Well, I'll try and do some stretching while I do that.

Time: 6272.01

I also have a standing desk, so during the day at work,

Time: 6274.74

regardless of whether or not I train that morning or not,

Time: 6277.17

or I'm going to train in the afternoon,

Time: 6278.34

I'll try and do some static stretching for my hamstrings,

Time: 6280.83

my quads, my lats, my shoulders, my back,

Time: 6283.484

really doesn't take much time and I really try

Time: 6285.57

to space that out throughout the week, which,

Time: 6288.48

if you look at the peer reviewed research,

Time: 6290.34

matches well to what's known to be most effective,

Time: 6292.59

which are going to be short,

Time: 6293.67

repeated sessions ideally every day.

Time: 6295.89

But truth told, I fail. I categorically fail.

Time: 6300.21

I was about to think of whether or not I ever

Time: 6301.8

stretch every day.

Time: 6302.79

I fail to do it every day,

Time: 6303.84

but I get about three or so stretching sessions

Time: 6306.667

in per week.

Time: 6307.68

And again, it's just static hold,

Time: 6309.12

trying to really relax into the stretch.

Time: 6311.61

Now the relax into the stretch is something

Time: 6314.22

has been talked about in martial arts circles

Time: 6317.22

and Pavel Tsatsouline has an excellent book on stretching,

Time: 6319.68

we can provide a link to that, talks about this,

Time: 6322.47

has a lot to do with relaxation of the nervous system

Time: 6325.35

and the way that the nerves innervate muscles

Time: 6327

and allow for stretch, if you will.

Time: 6329.01

Also, the way that the tendons and ligaments

Time: 6330.6

are innervated by nerves.

Time: 6333.18

The converse is also true.

Time: 6334.62

And here, again, this is a principle that Pavel has

Time: 6336.733

put forth, I believe he calls it irradiation,

Time: 6339.93

meaning irradiating out or emanating out from a source,

Time: 6343.56

which is that while exhaling and relaxing the torso,

Time: 6347.192

the midsection, some people call it the core,

Time: 6351.09

although some people don't like that term,

Time: 6353.55

can facilitate relaxation and stretching

Time: 6356.79

through a larger range of motion.

Time: 6358.53

So too can contracting the core, the midsection,

Time: 6363

or gripping very tightly with the fist can

Time: 6366.15

facilitate muscular contraction because of the way

Time: 6368.82

that the nervous system heavily,

Time: 6371.19

we can even say over-represents the fists in the brain.

Time: 6375.45

And so how would you apply

Time: 6376.71

this to your overall foundational fitness protocol?

Time: 6379.347

Well, it turns out that, let's say,

Time: 6381.15

you're doing a movement that involves one limb moving

Time: 6385.59

and then the other, let's say it's bicep curls,

Time: 6387.51

just for sake of example,

Time: 6388.95

turns out that you will actually be stronger

Time: 6391.47

in moving that dumbbell with the arm that happens

Time: 6394.443

to be moving if you grip the handle very tightly,

Time: 6398.76

but also grip the handle of the opposite

Time: 6401.37

dumbbell very tightly.

Time: 6402.96

Now that said, in between sets,

Time: 6404.67

I encourage you to do the opposite.

Time: 6406.32

To try and completely relax in between sets,

Time: 6408.18

combine that with the physiological sigh,

Time: 6409.83

and then when the set, the next set commences,

Time: 6413.16

employ that very strong grip, both, again,

Time: 6415.47

of the weight that's moving and the weight

Time: 6417.138

that at that moment might be stationary

Time: 6419.34

or in isometric position.

Time: 6421.2

So the nervous system, of course,

Time: 6423.51

is what controls muscles and that operates

Time: 6426.57

in both directions.

Time: 6427.403

If you want to relax, try and use long exhales,

Time: 6429.87

maybe even physiological sighs and really concentrate

Time: 6432.48

on mentally and physically relaxing,

Time: 6434.01

in particular your core and your fists.

Time: 6437.19

And if you want to generate force, right,

Time: 6439.74

you want to move a heavy barbell or dumbbell,

Time: 6442.44

you want to do a chin up with the maximal force,

Time: 6444.72

that's when you can employ the opposite,

Time: 6446.04

which would be to grip the bar or dumbbell,

Time: 6447.75

et cetera, very tightly.

Time: 6449.22

And you want to contract your core or even fill

Time: 6452.46

your body with air as a, say,

Time: 6453.96

plug all the leaks, et cetera.

Time: 6455.82

So this gets into kind of form and movement,

Time: 6457.758

which is an extensive near infinite landscape

Time: 6461.34

of discussion, again, that we don't have time to go into.

Time: 6463.71

I just want to mention those two nervous system related tips

Time: 6466.38

because I suppose as a neuroscientist, they appeal

Time: 6468.78

to me because they're grounded in fundamental

Time: 6470.43

principles of how the nervous system innervates muscle.

Time: 6472.77

And I know that they will benefit

Time: 6474.18

you the first time you use them and every time.

Time: 6476.43

Speaking of grip and nervous system and fitness

Time: 6478.38

and longevity, Dr. Peter Attia, who is a medical doctor,

Time: 6481.176

was a guest on the Huberman Lab podcast and provided

Time: 6483.75

an enormous wealth of information on that podcast episode.

Time: 6486.42

I really encourage you to check it out when you have time.

Time: 6489.3

And of course has his own spectacular podcast,

Time: 6491.61

The Drive with Peter Attia.

Time: 6493.29

Peter, Dr. Attia, I should say,

Time: 6496.56

often talks about certain movements or exercises

Time: 6499.597

that you should perform not just to improve your fitness,

Time: 6502.11

but also to touch into or measure how fit you are

Time: 6505.56

and how well you are progressing toward a long

Time: 6507.777

lifespan and healthspan.

Time: 6509.46

And one of those includes the ability to hang

Time: 6511.92

from a bar for a minute or longer.

Time: 6514.08

And there are a number of different expectations

Time: 6517.68

that one can have of how long they should be able

Time: 6520.2

to hang from a bar depending on their age

Time: 6522.15

and their fitness level, et cetera.

Time: 6523.5

Please check out Dr. Attia's podcast

Time: 6525.96

and his various social media sites to get more

Time: 6528.15

information on that.

Time: 6529.26

But what I can tell you is that if you're going to hang

Time: 6531.36

from a bar and you want to hang from that bar as long

Time: 6534.09

as possible, which turns out to be a interesting

Time: 6536.52

and important metric of your health,

Time: 6539.01

then gripping the bar very tightly will actually help.

Time: 6541.53

Earlier we talked about whether or not to train

Time: 6543.6

if you're sleep deprived and how to recover

Time: 6546.39

from what I would say is moderate sleep deprivation

Time: 6549.69

by doing NSDR as opposed to total sleep deprivation

Time: 6552.87

like being up all night or having a truly

Time: 6554.52

miserable night, which case,

Time: 6556.173

I think you should just skip training the next day

Time: 6558.75

and slide it forward.

Time: 6559.89

Now, a similar issue comes up from time to time

Time: 6562.74

where people wonder whether or not they should train

Time: 6565.44

or not if they're sick.

Time: 6567.24

And here there's all sorts of crazy gym lore

Time: 6571.77

and sport specific lore.

Time: 6573.546

For instance, I used to hear this,

Time: 6576.39

when I ran cross country,

Time: 6577.35

there was this adage that if the symptoms were

Time: 6582.78

from the neck up, you could still train.

Time: 6585.15

That is if you were really congested and you had

Time: 6586.86

a headache, you could still run.

Time: 6588.66

Whereas if it was in your chest and in your lungs

Time: 6590.73

you couldn't run.

Time: 6591.563

I don't think there's any data whatsoever

Time: 6593.82

to support whether or not that's true

Time: 6596.07

or whether it's not true.

Time: 6598.028

For myself, and because my general goal is to be

Time: 6603.951

training and fit over time,

Time: 6606.33

but also to include general health in the fitness equation,

Time: 6610.41

that is to not be sick or chronically sick

Time: 6612.69

and certainly not to get other people sick.

Time: 6615.33

If I have a little tiny sniffle,

Time: 6617.97

like I think I might be getting sick, even then,

Time: 6621.21

I'm a little cautious in the sense that I'm not going

Time: 6623.61

to do my typical workout.

Time: 6625.8

I might stop at about 15 minutes earlier.

Time: 6628.47

And I would do that not by neglecting any body parts

Time: 6631.77

or anything of that sort.

Time: 6632.67

If it's a weight training workout,

Time: 6634.824

by simply reducing the total number of sets,

Time: 6636.75

I probably wouldn't do any sets to failure, if I did,

Time: 6639.72

I might reduce the total number or percentage of sets

Time: 6642.21

to failure from about 30% of sets to maybe closer

Time: 6645.36

to 10% of sets, something like that.

Time: 6647.721

And if it was endurance work,

Time: 6649.32

I might throttle back by 10 or 20%.

Time: 6651.84

And I will shorten the total duration of the workout.

Time: 6654.33

And I often find that because of the known, yes,

Time: 6658.38

peer reviewed known immune system enhancing effects

Time: 6661.26

of exercise, sometimes that alone will allow me

Time: 6664.006

to avoid getting sick.

Time: 6666.06

But of course I'm also careful to get home,

Time: 6668.13

take a hot shower, not stress myself out,

Time: 6670.89

if I can avoid getting myself stressed out and focus

Time: 6673.44

on sleep, NSDR, other forms of recovery,

Time: 6675.87

good nutrition, et cetera.

Time: 6677.7

If however, I have a real sniffle, a cold,

Time: 6679.783

I'm not feeling well or I think I might be coming

Time: 6682.95

down with a flu,

Time: 6683.783

I absolutely do not train and I don't get back

Time: 6685.265

into training of any kind until I'm completely recovered.

Time: 6689.73

So what I'm basically saying is that, no,

Time: 6691.89

I don't believe you should train if you're sick.

Time: 6694.44

And perhaps equally importantly,

Time: 6697.23

when you come back from a layoff of any kind,

Time: 6699.72

whether or not because of illness or for whatever reason,

Time: 6703.47

I do believe that because your body is a bit untrained,

Time: 6706.093

it's not ideal to jump right back into maximal

Time: 6708.87

training and to take one,

Time: 6710.79

maybe two weeks of ramping up to the full duration

Time: 6714.27

and intensity of workouts that then I would continue on

Time: 6716.73

going for however many cycles I can complete

Time: 6721.11

before I hit another sickness or I hit another gap

Time: 6725.31

in my schedule due to family obligations

Time: 6727.71

or other obligations, et cetera.

Time: 6729.09

So we've covered a lot of tools and protocols

Time: 6731.43

and variables related to fitness,

Time: 6733.65

but we have by no means covered all the available

Time: 6736.11

tools and protocols and variables.

Time: 6738.75

Before we wrap up, I do want to emphasize one tool.

Time: 6741.75

It's a very easy, in fact, zero cost,

Time: 6744.66

very low time commitment tool.

Time: 6747.21

And this was one that was provided, again,

Time: 6749.16

by Dr. Andy Galpin when he was on the Huberman Lab podcast.

Time: 6752.61

And it's a tool that there is excellent research

Time: 6755.13

to support the effectiveness of,

Time: 6757.8

and that I do believe should come at the end

Time: 6760.35

of every training session.

Time: 6762.09

And that's to do three to five minutes

Time: 6765.03

of deliberately slowed breathing.

Time: 6767.67

It sounds so simple,

Time: 6769.05

three to five minutes of deliberately slowed breathing.

Time: 6772.32

So this could be while you're in the shower

Time: 6774.3

or when you arrive at your car,

Time: 6776.04

you might sit in your car quietly and do

Time: 6777.6

that if you have time or maybe

Time: 6778.83

even while you're driving back to,

Time: 6781.38

or onto your next destination,

Time: 6784.71

just to really slow down your breathing,

Time: 6786.84

to really look at the recovery period that has

Time: 6789.93

to follow each training session.

Time: 6791.73

And of course, during which the adaptations,

Time: 6793.65

the changes that make you more fit than you were

Time: 6796.32

going into the exercise occur.

Time: 6798.96

And that three to five minutes of deliberately

Time: 6801.15

slowed breathing has been shown in Andy's group

Time: 6803.88

and in related experiments,

Time: 6806.01

not exactly the same, but related experiments

Time: 6807.96

in our laboratory, in other laboratories,

Time: 6810.12

to really so-called downshift the nervous system

Time: 6812.73

and really set you up for maximal recovery, rapid recovery,

Time: 6817.2

and allow you to lean into the next training session

Time: 6819.57

with full intensity

Time: 6820.59

when that training session eventually arrives.

Time: 6822.51

So it's a very simple tool,

Time: 6824.01

but a very potent tool for your overall fitness.

Time: 6827.4

So thank you for joining me for this discussion

Time: 6829.35

of what I'm calling a foundational, or yes,

Time: 6832.56

we could even get bold and call

Time: 6833.91

it an optimal fitness protocol.

Time: 6835.38

Although the word optimal is a tricky one.

Time: 6837.87

There's no real optimal fitness protocol.

Time: 6840

And today what I've really tried to focus on

Time: 6842.01

is this foundational protocol because it does allow

Time: 6845.7

you to check off most,

Time: 6847.56

if not all the boxes related to strength, endurance,

Time: 6852.42

hypertrophy, speed, power, flexibility.

Time: 6857.76

It will also teach you how to regulate your nervous

Time: 6859.5

system up and down.

Time: 6860.67

That is to ramp up and focus, mind muscle link, et cetera,

Time: 6864.63

and then quickly calm down, physiological sighs,

Time: 6867.24

three to five minute decompress breathing

Time: 6868.77

at the end of training, et cetera.

Time: 6870.54

Really, even though I talked about the protocol

Time: 6872.52

that I follow, and again,

Time: 6874.05

that we will provide as a newsletter at hubermanlab.com

Time: 6876.979

if you want to look at it in more detail,

Time: 6879.36

even though we talked about it in the context of what I do,

Time: 6882.15

again, I really want to emphasize that this protocol

Time: 6885.36

and the description of this protocol and all

Time: 6887.43

its variables is really for you and for you to tailor

Time: 6890.64

to your specific needs.

Time: 6891.81

So please, take the protocol into consideration,

Time: 6895.38

but do not treat it as holy,

Time: 6896.67

treat it as a starting point from which you can adapt it

Time: 6899.82

to your specific fitness needs.

Time: 6902.16

If you're learning from and or enjoying

Time: 6903.57

the Huberman Lab podcast,

Time: 6904.95

please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Time: 6906.66

That's a terrific zero cost way to support us.

Time: 6909.24

In addition, please subscribe to the Huberman Lab

Time: 6911.31

podcast on Spotify and Apple.

Time: 6913.74

And on both Spotify and Apple, you also have

Time: 6915.72

the opportunity to leave us up to a five star review.

Time: 6918.72

If you have questions for us or comments

Time: 6920.25

about the information we've covered or suggestions

Time: 6922.117

about future guests, please put

Time: 6923.999

those in the comments section on YouTube.

Time: 6926.25

We do read all the comments.

Time: 6928.08

Please also check out the sponsors mentioned

Time: 6929.64

at the beginning of today's episode.

Time: 6931.29

That's the best way to support the Huberman Lab podcast.

Time: 6934.14

Not so much today,

Time: 6934.973

but in many previous episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast,

Time: 6937.41

we talk about supplements.

Time: 6938.7

While supplements aren't necessary for everybody,

Time: 6940.92

many people derive tremendous benefit from them

Time: 6942.96

for things like enhancing sleep and focus

Time: 6944.91

and hormone optimization.

Time: 6946.59

The Huberman Lab podcast has partnered

Time: 6948.03

with Momentous Supplements.

Time: 6949.23

If you like to see the supplements

Time: 6950.31

of the Huberman Lab podcast has partnered

Time: 6951.81

with Momentous on, you can go to livemomentous,

Time: 6954.27

spelled O-U-S, so livemomentous.com/huberman.

Time: 6957.75

And there you'll see a number of the supplements

Time: 6959.7

that we talk about regularly on the podcast.

Time: 6961.62

I should just mention that catalog of supplements

Time: 6963.6

is constantly being updated.

Time: 6965.19

As mentioned at the beginning of today's episode,

Time: 6966.99

the Huberman Lab podcast has now launched

Time: 6968.64

a premium channel.

Time: 6970.05

That premium channel will feature monthly AMAs

Time: 6972.57

or ask me anythings where I answer your questions in depth

Time: 6975.095

as well as other premium resources.

Time: 6977.007

If you'd like to subscribe to the premium channel,

Time: 6979.29

you can simply go to hubermanlab.com/premium.

Time: 6982.86

I should mentioned that the proceeds

Time: 6984.3

from the premium channel go to support

Time: 6986.1

the standard Huberman Lab podcast,

Time: 6987.69

which will continue to be released every Monday per usual,

Time: 6990.99

as well as supporting various research projects done

Time: 6994.14

on humans to create the sorts of tools for mental health,

Time: 6996.84

physical health and performance that you hear

Time: 6998.52

about on the Huberman Lab podcast.

Time: 7000.38

Again, it's hubermanlab.com/premium

Time: 7002.81

to subscribe, it's $10 a month or $100 per year.

Time: 7006.56

If you haven't already subscribed

Time: 7007.76

to our zero cost newsletter, we have what is called

Time: 7010.31

the Neural Network Newsletter.

Time: 7012.05

You can subscribe by going to hubermanlab.com,

Time: 7014.51

go to the menu and click on newsletter.

Time: 7016.34

Those newsletters include summaries of podcast episodes,

Time: 7018.698

lists of tools from the Huberman Lab podcast.

Time: 7021.201

And if you'd like to see previous newsletters

Time: 7023.529

we've released, you can also just go to hubermanlab.com,

Time: 7026.12

click on newsletter in the menu,

Time: 7027.47

and you'll see various downloadable PDFs.

Time: 7029.72

If you want to sign up for the newsletter,

Time: 7031.4

we just ask for your email.

Time: 7032.51

We do not share your email with anybody.

Time: 7034.4

And again, it's completely zero cost.

Time: 7036.68

If you're not already following me on social media,

Time: 7038.69

it's hubermanlab on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram.

Time: 7042.14

And at all three of those places,

Time: 7043.57

I cover topics and subject matter that are

Time: 7046.94

sometimes overlapping with the information covered

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on the Huberman Lab podcast,

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but that's often distinct from information

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on the Huberman Lab podcast.

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Again, it's hubermanlab on all social media channels.

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So thank you for joining me today for our discussion

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about building your optimal toolkit for fitness.

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And last but certainly not least,

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thank you for your interest in science.

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