Dr. Andy Galpin: Optimize Your Training Program for Fitness & Longevity

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Guest Series,

00:00:02.440 | where I and an expert guest discuss science

00:00:05.120 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:07.320 | I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology

00:00:11.200 | and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:13.820 | Today's episode marks the fourth in the six-episode series

00:00:16.940 | on fitness, exercise, and performance.

00:00:19.080 | And today's episode is all about optimal fitness programming

00:00:22.440 | that is how to design a fitness and exercise program

00:00:25.500 | that can achieve the goals that you want

00:00:27.720 | for fitness and for sports performance.

00:00:30.720 | Dr. Andy Galpin, great to be back.

00:00:33.040 | In previous episodes, you taught us

00:00:35.220 | about the various adaptations that occur

00:00:37.440 | at the level of cells, at the level of organs,

00:00:39.760 | indeed at the level of the entire body,

00:00:41.800 | that underlie things like improvements in strength

00:00:44.200 | and speed, hypertrophy, aka muscle growth,

00:00:46.880 | and the various forms of endurance.

00:00:49.080 | And you laid out beautifully the various protocols

00:00:51.340 | that one can do in order to achieve

00:00:54.400 | each and every one of those adaptations.

00:00:57.440 | Today, I'd love for you to teach us

00:00:59.120 | how we can combine different protocols

00:01:01.320 | to achieve multiple adaptations in parallel.

00:01:03.900 | For instance, how to improve endurance and strength,

00:01:07.200 | how to achieve some level of hypertrophy,

00:01:10.180 | perhaps directed hypertrophy at specific muscle groups,

00:01:12.960 | while also maintaining endurance

00:01:14.480 | and perhaps improving speed, for instance.

00:01:18.780 | And if you would, I'd love for you to tell us

00:01:21.160 | how we can combine different protocols

00:01:22.800 | and vary those across the week, across the month,

00:01:26.000 | across the year, so that we can make regular progress.

00:01:29.400 | And perhaps even you could give us a window

00:01:31.100 | into the ways to make the fastest progress possible.

00:01:34.800 | - Yeah, I would love to do that.

00:01:35.920 | You know, we've invested a lot of time

00:01:37.840 | in the previous episodes covering background

00:01:41.160 | and concepts and detail about the physiology

00:01:44.540 | so you understood why you're making the choices

00:01:46.880 | you're making and why other choices are less effective.

00:01:50.320 | In this discussion, I would actually like to jump

00:01:52.640 | maybe more directly to the answer

00:01:54.600 | and kind of get right into the protocol.

00:01:56.560 | So maybe a little bit less background.

00:01:59.100 | If you're interested in that stuff,

00:02:00.400 | I suppose you have to go backwards a little bit

00:02:02.560 | and watch some of those previous episodes.

00:02:04.840 | But I would love to jump into just some samples,

00:02:07.640 | some case studies, if you will,

00:02:08.980 | and kind of walk through different protocols.

00:02:11.640 | I know that over the course of my 11 years

00:02:14.760 | as a college professor and being in the public space

00:02:18.280 | a little bit, probably the most numerous style of question

00:02:22.720 | I have gotten is exactly that.

00:02:24.520 | So I know the rep range for this,

00:02:26.920 | or I know the style of training for that adaptation.

00:02:29.320 | But how do I put them together?

00:02:31.880 | And I would just like to spend our time today

00:02:34.440 | going through those things.

00:02:35.700 | And the reason I wanna do it is this.

00:02:38.800 | Some people listening at home surely just love exercise.

00:02:43.260 | They're already bought in

00:02:44.160 | and they're gonna train no matter what.

00:02:45.560 | And they're interested in just actually being more effective.

00:02:48.800 | And so the way that you structure

00:02:50.320 | and put your plan together will in large part

00:02:53.440 | determine getting more progress for less effort,

00:02:57.320 | or actually being able to put the same amount of effort

00:02:59.320 | in and getting results faster.

00:03:02.320 | There's also some folks probably listening who are like,

00:03:04.800 | "Okay, I exercise, I do what I can.

00:03:07.680 | "I'm bought into the benefits."

00:03:09.280 | So you've talked so elaborately

00:03:10.760 | over the hundred plus episodes you've done

00:03:13.280 | about the various benefits of exercise.

00:03:16.160 | But you're kind of doing it

00:03:18.920 | because you know it's important, but you're not there.

00:03:21.260 | So for those folks, it's sort of like,

00:03:23.260 | "Okay, how can we actually make this thing more effective?"

00:03:26.200 | So we can make sure you hit the things

00:03:27.660 | you absolutely have to get

00:03:29.700 | for the short and long-term benefits,

00:03:32.200 | to make sure that you're looking the way you wanna look,

00:03:34.680 | you're performing physically the way you wanna perform,

00:03:36.940 | and that you can do that across your lifespan.

00:03:39.160 | So how can we give you all some structure

00:03:41.860 | to where, again, you don't have to turn into

00:03:43.760 | an absolute lover of physical fitness

00:03:46.760 | and it doesn't have to take over your life,

00:03:48.220 | but you can still get more results

00:03:50.200 | for your same time restrictions,

00:03:52.280 | whether that be you have two days a week

00:03:54.000 | or five days a week or only certain access

00:03:56.960 | to equipment or experience, whatever the case may be.

00:04:00.660 | How can we help those folks as well put together a protocol

00:04:03.400 | that will get them closer to their goals

00:04:05.280 | with less restrictions?

00:04:07.280 | - Fantastic, and I'm hoping that along the way,

00:04:09.940 | you'll also point us to how often

00:04:12.680 | to take the fitness assessment for each of the adaptations

00:04:15.760 | that you referred to in a previous episode.

00:04:17.760 | We will also link to that fitness assessment segment

00:04:21.040 | in the show note captions for this episode,

00:04:22.980 | because that fitness assessment for different adaptations,

00:04:25.920 | I think is a really powerful way for people to touch in

00:04:28.340 | and see how much long endurance do they have?

00:04:31.580 | How much anaerobic capacity do they have?

00:04:34.420 | How much strength do they really have?

00:04:36.340 | And then perhaps you'd also be willing

00:04:38.040 | to throw in a couple of additional ways

00:04:40.200 | that we can assess our level of fitness and progress

00:04:43.440 | in this arc of a fitness program across the year.

00:04:46.760 | - Amazing, I can't wait to do that.

00:04:48.720 | I think it is also important before we jump in

00:04:50.500 | to acknowledge a lot of folks maybe thinking themselves,

00:04:54.800 | I don't really necessarily need a plan.

00:04:57.660 | Why do I have to do that?

00:04:58.560 | I don't have a certain goal I'm going after.

00:05:00.400 | I'm not running a race anytime soon.

00:05:02.140 | I'm not a competitive athlete.

00:05:03.680 | I go to the gym and I work out, and that's great.

00:05:06.200 | Well, I would like to try to convince you

00:05:07.720 | that regardless of where you're at,

00:05:10.080 | having a plan will achieve those things we just talked about

00:05:13.400 | which is more success in a shorter timeframe.

00:05:16.340 | There's actually a significant amount of research

00:05:18.420 | to support this.

00:05:19.600 | Those individuals who go on a specific training plan

00:05:22.360 | compared to those who do not will receive better results

00:05:26.900 | independent of the effectiveness of the program.

00:05:29.480 | So we've talked in previous episodes

00:05:32.280 | about tons of different styles and strategies.

00:05:35.460 | And to reiterate, it really doesn't matter

00:05:37.860 | which one you pick.

00:05:39.460 | The fact that you have a plan is always more effective

00:05:42.660 | than not having a plan.

00:05:44.280 | And so again, even if you're not planning

00:05:46.720 | on competing with something,

00:05:48.300 | if you wanna shorten the amount of time you're in the gym,

00:05:51.040 | get more results from it,

00:05:52.960 | I would strongly encourage to put something together.

00:05:56.000 | The two largest reasons why people don't get results

00:05:59.380 | with their fitness training protocol

00:06:00.620 | is number one, adherence.

00:06:02.400 | And then number two, some sort of progressive overload.

00:06:05.860 | Both of those two things are challenging to accomplish

00:06:08.400 | without a plan, right?

00:06:09.960 | So the reason people don't go to the gym, one of them,

00:06:13.480 | and one of the reasons why it takes them so long

00:06:15.440 | is 'cause they don't walk in with a very specific plan.

00:06:18.160 | It's sort of like going to the grocery store

00:06:19.960 | and figuring out what you're going to buy

00:06:22.040 | versus knowing exactly what you're gonna get

00:06:23.820 | in your shopping list, grabbing those things,

00:06:25.120 | and getting out.

00:06:25.960 | You'll notice your time in the grocery store

00:06:26.860 | is half the length.

00:06:28.160 | You're more productive and you didn't waste money

00:06:29.920 | on extra things, okay?

00:06:31.380 | So that alone will drive adherence

00:06:32.800 | because you're now going to think to yourself,

00:06:34.160 | oh, that 90-minute workout I do is actually really just 60.

00:06:37.800 | And so now the next time you go to training,

00:06:39.200 | you're like, man, I don't have 90 minutes.

00:06:41.100 | You realize it's only 60, or 40, or 30, or 20.

00:06:43.400 | Whatever it needs to be.

00:06:44.460 | So that alone will get you there.

00:06:45.780 | The second part of that, which is overload.

00:06:47.620 | It's very difficult to understand and remember,

00:06:50.500 | well, the last time I did lat raises,

00:06:52.360 | I used, I think, five pounds,

00:06:53.960 | and then I think I did like 12.

00:06:55.640 | Well, if you don't have some sort of system of tracking,

00:06:58.480 | and this can be as simple as a notebook,

00:07:00.080 | just writing down what you did before

00:07:02.040 | and doing a little bit more the next time.

00:07:04.520 | That is going to almost guarantee you success.

00:07:08.080 | So having some structure,

00:07:09.620 | and this structure can be fairly loose.

00:07:11.140 | We're going to talk about a bunch of different examples,

00:07:13.820 | is something I strongly encourage everyone

00:07:17.460 | to utilize for their exercise.

00:07:19.420 | - Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize

00:07:21.100 | that this podcast is separate

00:07:22.340 | from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:07:24.540 | It is also separate from Dr. Andy Galpin's

00:07:26.460 | teaching and research roles at Cal State Fullerton.

00:07:29.100 | It is, however, part of our desire and effort

00:07:31.120 | to bring zero cost to consumer information

00:07:32.940 | about science and science-related tools

00:07:34.800 | to the general public.

00:07:36.080 | In keeping with that theme,

00:07:37.180 | we'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

00:07:39.720 | Our first sponsor is Momentus.

00:07:41.720 | Momentus makes supplements of the absolute highest quality.

00:07:45.040 | The Huberman Lab podcast is proud to be partnering

00:07:47.320 | with Momentus for several important reasons.

00:07:49.640 | First of all, as I mentioned,

00:07:50.760 | their supplements are of extremely high quality.

00:07:52.720 | Second of all, their supplements are generally

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00:07:57.480 | If you're going to develop a supplementation protocol,

00:07:59.920 | you're going to want to focus mainly

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00:08:03.480 | With single ingredient formulations,

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00:08:11.020 | In addition, Momentus supplements ship internationally.

00:08:13.340 | And this is, of course, important because we realized

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00:08:22.720 | in particular supplements for hormone health,

00:08:25.080 | for sleep optimization, for focus,

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00:08:28.400 | including exercise recovery,

00:08:30.040 | you can go to Live Momentus, spelled O-U-S,

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00:09:53.940 | So what sorts of things should people be thinking about

00:09:56.480 | when developing an overall fitness program?

00:09:59.880 | - A few minutes ago, we were talking about

00:10:01.500 | how two of the major reasons people don't get as much

00:10:04.200 | out of their training programs as they would like

00:10:06.400 | is because of one, a lack of adherence,

00:10:09.780 | and two, a lack of progressive overload.

00:10:12.440 | So the solution to that is constructing a plan

00:10:15.380 | that lives within your realistic limitations.

00:10:18.440 | So I would like to walk you through my 10 step approach

00:10:22.220 | to how I design training programs.

00:10:24.320 | Now before I do that, I think it is fair and important

00:10:27.800 | for the audience to understand that

00:10:29.480 | this is simply my approach.

00:10:31.640 | I've been doing this a long time.

00:10:33.280 | I played college football,

00:10:34.800 | and I wrote my own training programs back then.

00:10:37.320 | I have and am still working with professional athletes

00:10:39.880 | in PGA Tour, in the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball,

00:10:44.440 | as well as a ton of general population folks.

00:10:46.780 | So this is a combination of the evidence base

00:10:50.460 | that we've been talking about in terms of best practices

00:10:52.960 | for strength and conditioning,

00:10:53.860 | as well as just my years of experience.

00:10:56.000 | So there are many, many ways one could do this.

00:10:58.900 | I'm not even suggesting this is the best.

00:11:00.860 | This is simply how I do it.

00:11:02.720 | This is exactly how I handle it

00:11:04.320 | when a new individual comes to me

00:11:05.860 | and how I teach my students.

00:11:06.900 | So step number one is assessing properly

00:11:10.280 | and identifying a training goal.

00:11:12.100 | Now that's actually sort of funny

00:11:14.540 | because we hear that a lot,

00:11:15.560 | but a lot of people actually never take that step.

00:11:18.740 | Not to call anybody in the room out.

00:11:20.940 | - What's happening here is this morning,

00:11:25.160 | Andy, Dr. Galpin and I were training together,

00:11:27.840 | and he was providing amazing tips on form

00:11:31.360 | and set rep cadence and this sort of thing.

00:11:33.920 | And he said, "So what's your training goal

00:11:36.040 | "for the next 12 months?"

00:11:37.940 | And I paused and it turned into a very long pause.

00:11:40.980 | - Which is an easy, nice way of saying

00:11:43.400 | he didn't have an answer.

00:11:44.360 | - I didn't have an answer.

00:11:45.660 | Of course, I don't just want to maintain

00:11:48.900 | what I've developed in terms of strength

00:11:51.360 | and hypertrophy and endurance,

00:11:53.200 | but I don't have a clear goal.

00:11:56.360 | So I'm hoping that by the end of today's discussion,

00:11:58.880 | I will be on track to a clear set of goals.

00:12:01.340 | - Amazing.

00:12:02.180 | I'm not going to bore you all here,

00:12:04.320 | but really I can't stress enough

00:12:05.820 | how important that step really truly is to getting results.

00:12:09.920 | The analogy we use here is if you left your house

00:12:13.760 | and you were attempting to get to the grocery store

00:12:17.440 | and you just started driving,

00:12:19.720 | and if you drove every possible road,

00:12:21.600 | you would eventually get to a grocery store.

00:12:23.720 | And so yes, that can work.

00:12:25.920 | A better approach is saying here's where I am,

00:12:28.980 | there's where I want to go.

00:12:30.460 | What is the optimal route there?

00:12:32.880 | And that's really what you're doing with goals.

00:12:34.560 | So it is a boring step.

00:12:35.700 | It is not interesting to hear.

00:12:36.880 | I don't have any real hacks or tricks for you,

00:12:40.840 | but it is step number one on purpose.

00:12:43.400 | We have to know exactly where we're going.

00:12:46.040 | You can do this in two ways.

00:12:47.760 | Way number one is to just pick something,

00:12:49.960 | arbitrarily decide I'm going to run a 5K,

00:12:52.300 | or I've done that before

00:12:53.640 | and I want to improve it by 10 seconds.

00:12:56.360 | I want to lose 10 pounds.

00:12:57.840 | You can just pick one, that's great.

00:13:00.060 | Another way is to run through that fitness testing protocol

00:13:02.960 | we described a few episodes before.

00:13:05.760 | And if you do that, you can see which of these areas

00:13:09.240 | that maybe you have the largest lagging in

00:13:11.320 | or what is the most severe performance anchor

00:13:13.260 | is how we refer to it.

00:13:14.840 | And then choose that as your primary goal.

00:13:16.720 | So either option, some people come into training programs

00:13:20.100 | with a very clear goal in mind,

00:13:21.540 | they want to add more muscle or whatever, whatever.

00:13:24.060 | Okay, great.

00:13:24.900 | If you're like, I don't really know,

00:13:27.240 | you know, I just kind of work out,

00:13:29.020 | then run the fitness testing protocol.

00:13:31.340 | You'll see what score is the lowest in,

00:13:33.680 | and then you'll maybe make that a priority

00:13:35.460 | for the next, say, three months.

00:13:37.760 | - So the first step is to identify a specific

00:13:40.680 | or set of specific training goals.

00:13:43.120 | - A really nice tool for helping you set a goal

00:13:45.600 | is a system called SMART, right?

00:13:47.560 | Now there's a little bit of debate

00:13:49.320 | on what those acronyms actually stand for,

00:13:51.460 | but we'll get close enough, right?

00:13:53.120 | So SMART is often specific, measurable, attainable,

00:13:58.120 | realistic, and timely.

00:14:01.100 | So starting off with S, specific.

00:14:04.680 | In general, the more specific your goal is,

00:14:08.360 | the higher likelihood you will have at succeeding in that.

00:14:11.220 | M, being measurable, means it needs to be something

00:14:15.080 | that you can actually put a metric on.

00:14:17.280 | So this can be objective or subjective,

00:14:19.220 | but generally I like to have at least one objective measure.

00:14:23.180 | So remembering objective is something

00:14:25.400 | that is not based on feeling.

00:14:27.000 | It is not up to you.

00:14:27.840 | This could be something simple like your body weight.

00:14:29.860 | It could be how much you can bench press.

00:14:32.560 | What's your one mile time?

00:14:34.820 | And whatever is most important to you.

00:14:36.240 | It actually doesn't have to be a fitness related goal.

00:14:39.040 | For example, if you're using fitness

00:14:40.940 | as a way to enhance your sleep.

00:14:43.300 | The main metric you may be interested in is,

00:14:45.380 | you know, amount of hours slept.

00:14:47.640 | It could be something like efficiency

00:14:49.180 | or whatever is most interesting.

00:14:50.440 | It could be work productivity.

00:14:51.280 | It doesn't really matter.

00:14:52.160 | So it doesn't have to actually be the fitness goal.

00:14:54.740 | But what is the motivation of why you're doing it?

00:14:57.740 | So that's specific, measurable, attainable, or actionable,

00:15:02.740 | as is often described,

00:15:04.040 | is something that is within your capability.

00:15:07.820 | So attainable, a bad example of attainable

00:15:10.600 | is something like my goal is to win more games.

00:15:13.900 | That may not be up to you.

00:15:15.020 | The other team you're playing, it could influence it.

00:15:17.760 | The schedule, et cetera.

00:15:19.800 | So attainable should be something

00:15:21.220 | that is within your control.

00:15:23.140 | Realistic or relevant to you is something that is,

00:15:28.100 | again, something realistic that you can achieve.

00:15:30.460 | You wouldn't want to make a goal that is,

00:15:32.060 | you know, you want to double your body mass.

00:15:34.100 | This is not going to happen.

00:15:35.380 | So think about the constraints.

00:15:37.460 | How old are you?

00:15:38.380 | What's your training experience?

00:15:39.460 | How much time do you really have to invest in this?

00:15:41.640 | And then pick something that is realistic.

00:15:43.180 | And then honestly, my little twist here is,

00:15:45.620 | take that and minus 10%.

00:15:47.820 | 'Cause typically when people put together training programs,

00:15:50.300 | their goal tends to be quite lofty,

00:15:53.180 | and they get some small percentage of the way in,

00:15:55.360 | realize they're never going to get there, and then back off.

00:15:57.980 | We actually, this sort of reminds me

00:16:00.320 | of a classic deception study that we did in my lab one time

00:16:04.260 | where we took people and we had them do

00:16:07.500 | this maximal front raise.

00:16:09.180 | Basically, so you held a dumbbell out in front of you

00:16:11.740 | for as long as you possibly could.

00:16:13.580 | And the goal here was actually,

00:16:15.860 | it's a deception study, so we're tricking them.

00:16:17.660 | And so we said, okay, we want to just get normative values

00:16:20.220 | to see how long people can hold this front raise.

00:16:23.180 | And I think we used something like 5% of their body weight.

00:16:26.520 | And so they came in and they did it one time,

00:16:28.020 | and we timed them.

00:16:29.140 | They didn't get to see the clock, they left.

00:16:31.300 | And then we said, we got to come back in and repeat it,

00:16:33.180 | right, we got to do a couple of tries here

00:16:34.720 | to get a normal value in case it's off or whatever.

00:16:37.920 | Well, the participants were split up into four groups.

00:16:40.920 | So group one actually was told that their time

00:16:44.780 | was 15% lower than that they actually got.

00:16:48.060 | Group two was 5% lower.

00:16:50.260 | Group three was 5% higher.

00:16:52.580 | And group four was 15% higher.

00:16:55.160 | So the second time they came in to do it,

00:16:57.780 | our graduate student "made a mistake"

00:17:00.960 | and left the timer in front of them.

00:17:03.540 | So the first time again, they did the exercise,

00:17:05.100 | they're just holding it.

00:17:05.940 | They don't have any idea how long they're holding.

00:17:07.740 | The second time they had a giant iPad set,

00:17:09.760 | like just a little bit off center,

00:17:11.500 | or they can clearly see it.

00:17:12.860 | So they watched the time go by.

00:17:15.440 | And of course, what happened was,

00:17:17.400 | those folks say who did one minute,

00:17:19.460 | the very first time when they tested,

00:17:21.280 | they came back in to do the second time

00:17:23.220 | and they're holding it.

00:17:24.680 | And we told them they actually got 45 seconds.

00:17:27.260 | When in reality, they had done a minute.

00:17:29.300 | So they're holding it and holding it.

00:17:31.200 | And they think they only did 45 seconds.

00:17:33.060 | By the time they get to like second 40, 41, 42,

00:17:37.180 | they get past 45, they almost all quit like 47, 48 seconds.

00:17:42.180 | 'Cause they wanted to beat their previous score,

00:17:45.220 | but then were like, cool, I beat it and then they quit early.

00:17:49.180 | So they were actually not yet to failure,

00:17:51.000 | but they were just happy enough

00:17:52.540 | to beat what they thought they'd done and then they quit.

00:17:55.340 | The other group on the inverse side,

00:17:57.260 | again, say they got a minute.

00:17:58.740 | We told them they got a minute and 15 seconds.

00:18:01.440 | They got to like 45 seconds, 50 seconds

00:18:04.260 | and started realizing,

00:18:05.100 | oh man, I have 30 more seconds to go.

00:18:07.580 | And they quit way early

00:18:09.140 | because the carrot was way too far out.

00:18:12.360 | They realized I'm never gonna get there.

00:18:14.400 | So I'm just gonna stop now.

00:18:16.420 | Can you guess which group did the best on the post-test?

00:18:19.380 | - Ones that were just within about 5% of.

00:18:21.760 | - Totally.

00:18:22.600 | So they wanted to improve.

00:18:24.260 | And so again, say they got a minute the first time.

00:18:27.980 | We told them they got a minute five

00:18:30.700 | or sorry, they got a minute five the first time.

00:18:33.160 | We told them they only got a minute.

00:18:34.260 | They actually exceeded that greatly

00:18:37.260 | because they wanted the PR.

00:18:38.560 | So making sure that that goal is properly aligned,

00:18:42.440 | it needs to be a little bit scary,

00:18:44.560 | a little bit unrealistic.

00:18:46.740 | Well, you're gonna have to work for this.

00:18:47.740 | If it's too easy, you'll quit.

00:18:50.300 | You won't feel like a challenge.

00:18:51.260 | If it's too hard though, you'll quit early as well.

00:18:53.960 | So you wanna make sure it's that reasonable balance of like,

00:18:57.140 | ah, should I train today?

00:18:58.280 | Or like maybe I'll just go through.

00:18:59.620 | If I do that, I'm not gonna hit.

00:19:00.980 | I gotta get after it.

00:19:03.040 | But not like, oh my God, like there's just no chance here.

00:19:06.820 | So you're gonna walk away early.

00:19:08.480 | - That's a fantastic study, I have to say.

00:19:12.420 | It's very simple.

00:19:13.860 | I think it illustrates a number

00:19:15.340 | of important psychological principles

00:19:17.060 | about goal setting, motivation, self-perception,

00:19:20.260 | but also the dopamine system.

00:19:22.980 | The dopamine system is this universal reward system

00:19:28.520 | that meaning it doesn't only work for food

00:19:31.840 | or only work for fitness goals

00:19:34.100 | or only work for academic goals or relationship goals.

00:19:36.380 | It is the universal substrate for all of that.

00:19:39.400 | And I actually think there's some real gems of information

00:19:42.540 | in the study design that you described.

00:19:45.740 | So just cue that for maybe a potential collaboration

00:19:48.980 | between our laboratories,

00:19:50.100 | because I think it's very important,

00:19:52.480 | but it does cue up another question

00:19:54.540 | relevant to fitness in particular,

00:19:58.020 | which is, what are your thoughts on intermediate goals?

00:20:01.880 | So let's say my goal is to drop 2% of body fat

00:20:05.880 | from where I am now, a year from now.

00:20:10.160 | Roll into the next year from now,

00:20:13.120 | about 2% lower on body fat,

00:20:16.720 | but maintain my lean body mass or maybe even increase it.

00:20:21.720 | How should I assess progress?

00:20:26.920 | Because the dopamine system loves a goal,

00:20:30.260 | it loves anticipation of a goal,

00:20:32.380 | but it responds best to we sort of re-up, if you will,

00:20:35.820 | our dopamine anytime we get a signal

00:20:39.560 | that we are on the right track to that goal.

00:20:41.880 | And that signal could be, okay, I did the workout.

00:20:44.040 | I just trust that these workouts

00:20:45.400 | are going to give me the result I want.

00:20:47.720 | But of course, we know that when people get a glimmer

00:20:50.740 | of the idea or some objective feedback

00:20:54.900 | that they're on the right path,

00:20:56.420 | that dopamine system really fires and provides motivation

00:20:59.300 | for continuing toward the ultimate goal.

00:21:02.180 | And as we've talked about in the strength, speed

00:21:05.500 | and hypertrophy episode, resistance training itself

00:21:09.100 | has this built into it because of the infusion of blood

00:21:11.760 | into the muscles, you actually get a little window

00:21:14.100 | into what you might get in terms of an adaptation

00:21:16.680 | simply by way of the so-called pump.

00:21:18.800 | Whereas endurance type work generally doesn't have that.

00:21:21.720 | You don't see yourself get better, drop back

00:21:23.660 | and then adapting to actually get better.

00:21:25.100 | But that's actually what you see with weight training.

00:21:27.240 | So given all of that contour of the dopamine system,

00:21:31.260 | what sorts of intermediate goals should I set for myself

00:21:34.620 | or should somebody set for themselves?

00:21:36.000 | And I realize it will probably depend on the ultimate goal,

00:21:39.140 | but would you say check in on progress once every week,

00:21:43.900 | every month, three months?

00:21:46.260 | - I can't, I don't know if you can tell the look on my face.

00:21:49.740 | I love this question and this topic.

00:21:52.740 | I spend so much time on it on my senior graduate level

00:21:57.340 | program design course.

00:21:58.820 | I've been fortunate to work with a few athletes

00:22:01.020 | where we've had multiple years.

00:22:03.260 | And if you can really take the time to step back and go,

00:22:05.820 | it's not about optimizing for the next six weeks.

00:22:08.820 | And in this case, it's not the next fight.

00:22:11.700 | It is the championship fight that we need to get to

00:22:14.620 | in three years, or it is the Olympics,

00:22:16.380 | which run a quad program, right?

00:22:17.860 | You're really optimizing for that four year.

00:22:20.100 | If you can have that foresight and really think about

00:22:22.700 | that and then work backwards,

00:22:24.620 | you can see some pretty tremendous things.

00:22:27.300 | The sort of saying that is like we tend to overestimate

00:22:31.740 | what we can get done in a week and underestimate

00:22:34.360 | what can happen in a year.

00:22:36.200 | That can be extraordinarily powerful.

00:22:39.200 | However, you have to have those metrics called out

00:22:42.200 | ahead of time because you will lose motivation

00:22:45.540 | in that short term because you won't see

00:22:47.020 | that result immediately.

00:22:47.920 | But if you remember, I'm on a path to 4% or 2%

00:22:50.820 | or whatever you need to be.

00:22:51.820 | Therefore, I only need to be this far right now.

00:22:54.200 | I need to be that far and then that far.

00:22:56.580 | It's actually quite clear.

00:22:57.540 | And so what we would actually do in that scenario,

00:23:00.160 | not to go like so off track here,

00:23:01.840 | 'cause I can really go on this stuff,

00:23:03.700 | is let's say it was the year recommendation.

00:23:07.860 | You're gonna actually need to go to the last part of smart,

00:23:11.020 | which is timely.

00:23:12.300 | So part of setting this goal is making sure

00:23:14.420 | you understand the time domain responsible.

00:23:17.220 | And it's actually quite great here because

00:23:20.340 | not to go inception on us where we're like list

00:23:22.500 | within a list and Rob kills us over here,

00:23:24.900 | but number one of this program design thing

00:23:27.900 | was assessing your goal.

00:23:28.980 | Number two is identifying your defender.

00:23:32.900 | What I mean by that is what is stopping you

00:23:34.960 | from hitting that goal?

00:23:36.780 | So you wanna lose 2% body fat in the next year.

00:23:41.140 | Okay, great.

00:23:42.500 | What's gonna stop us?

00:23:44.580 | Once we can achieve that,

00:23:45.740 | and we'll go into more of that in a second,

00:23:47.720 | then you just start walking that 2% backwards.

00:23:50.460 | So you might have to go something like this.

00:23:51.920 | Look, every time I start working out really hard,

00:23:55.880 | I always get hurt.

00:23:57.740 | Interesting.

00:23:58.580 | Okay, great.

00:23:59.400 | So maybe instead of jumping really hard

00:24:01.720 | into a high intensity interval training program,

00:24:04.500 | knowing we're likely to hurt something

00:24:08.720 | or get burnt out or quit

00:24:10.320 | or whatever the defender is for you,

00:24:12.800 | maybe we invest something right now,

00:24:15.000 | which is maybe improving your flexibility

00:24:17.300 | or working on movement technique.

00:24:18.560 | Whatever's gonna stop you from getting hurt.

00:24:20.080 | Or maybe we progress slower so we don't get there.

00:24:23.240 | That will allow us to do the work necessary

00:24:25.580 | to hit that goal 12 months from now,

00:24:27.140 | not two weeks from now, not two months from now.

00:24:30.040 | Maybe that's not the case.

00:24:31.020 | Maybe you're like, no, look, hey, I move well.

00:24:33.800 | I feel like I'm in decent shape.

00:24:35.600 | I've got enough muscle mass on me.

00:24:38.060 | We've talked in previous episodes

00:24:39.400 | why having insufficient muscle mass

00:24:41.620 | is sometimes detrimental for fat loss.

00:24:44.240 | So you checked all that boxes.

00:24:45.500 | I don't get hurt very often, right?

00:24:48.400 | I got equipment around, no problem.

00:24:50.540 | I've got the time in my schedule

00:24:52.680 | and I have enough muscle, great.

00:24:54.320 | Well, now we maybe just split it up and say,

00:24:55.980 | look, we got 12 months, we got 2%.

00:24:58.240 | It's as simple as doing a half a percent

00:24:59.880 | per quarter of the year.

00:25:02.360 | And now all we're looking at is that number, right?

00:25:04.120 | I don't have to necessarily get all these things done.

00:25:08.040 | I can go quarter, half percent, half percent,

00:25:11.040 | half percent, half percent.

00:25:12.040 | You're gonna get there, right?

00:25:13.840 | The other scenario that I laid out a second ago,

00:25:17.560 | it maybe needs to look like something like this.

00:25:19.380 | Quarter one is gonna be 0%.

00:25:21.420 | Like, whoa, yeah, yeah, that's right.

00:25:24.300 | You may not lose a pound for the next three months.

00:25:27.300 | We don't care.

00:25:29.100 | That's not the goal of these three months.

00:25:30.140 | I know that's the goal this year.

00:25:31.840 | That's our major macro cycle goal.

00:25:33.380 | We're going to get there,

00:25:34.220 | but to get there most effectively,

00:25:35.780 | we need to invest in working more with your chiropractor

00:25:39.960 | or whatever the thing is, right?

00:25:41.980 | That will allow us to then go half a percent quarter two,

00:25:45.080 | when we can really start training,

00:25:46.340 | but we're gonna ramp into it.

00:25:47.640 | Quarter three, we're gonna go another half a percent.

00:25:50.320 | And now we're halfway there.

00:25:51.760 | Quarter four, we've invested so much.

00:25:54.220 | You're ready to go.

00:25:55.280 | We're gonna go hard.

00:25:56.120 | We're gonna get that last 1%, that last quarter,

00:25:58.680 | and we're gonna get there and you won't be hurt.

00:26:01.520 | - So that makes it very clear.

00:26:03.360 | And I can also envision how the precise structure

00:26:06.800 | of these intermediate goals would vary

00:26:09.240 | depending on what sort of adaptation,

00:26:11.880 | one is pursuing.

00:26:12.720 | And I do remember from our previous episodes

00:26:15.800 | that fat loss itself is not an adaptation.

00:26:17.960 | It is a by-product of other adaptations.

00:26:19.800 | So I just want to make sure that you know

00:26:21.560 | that I was paying attention.

00:26:23.280 | It's committed to memory.

00:26:24.500 | - Absolutely.

00:26:25.340 | - Some goals such as fat loss are very quantifiable

00:26:30.100 | and yet they might not be linear, right?

00:26:32.660 | It's hard to know.

00:26:34.320 | The assumption is if you ingest X fewer calories

00:26:37.360 | than are required per day,

00:26:38.340 | then you'll lose X amount of weight,

00:26:40.080 | some percentage from body fat.

00:26:41.640 | I think that cues up the idea

00:26:44.520 | that we need to build some flexibility

00:26:46.700 | into our thinking about these intermediate goals

00:26:49.520 | in order to just make sure that dopamine system

00:26:51.400 | isn't tethered to exact numbers.

00:26:53.820 | Because after all, a reduction in 2% body fat,

00:26:57.960 | for instance, is really a desire to achieve

00:27:02.120 | a different sort of overall body composition

00:27:04.240 | or re-composition.

00:27:05.680 | I don't know, by the way, that that's my exact goal.

00:27:07.560 | I think one of my goals is to be able

00:27:09.680 | to run a mile faster.

00:27:12.260 | And I'm sort of haunted by this experience

00:27:15.360 | of wanting to run across country in college

00:27:17.120 | and trying to walk on.

00:27:18.700 | We weren't a Division I school,

00:27:20.040 | but the threshold for being considered for the team

00:27:23.660 | was you had to run a sub-10 minute two mile,

00:27:26.180 | which turns out to be very, very fast.

00:27:28.160 | - That's really hard, yeah.

00:27:29.740 | - I did not do that.

00:27:31.000 | I didn't even come close.

00:27:32.400 | And I don't think that I could reasonably do that now.

00:27:39.520 | I'm not interested in committing

00:27:41.880 | to the kind of training required.

00:27:43.520 | The sacrifice isn't meaningful enough for me.

00:27:45.960 | - Fair and honest.

00:27:48.480 | - But lowering one's mile,

00:27:51.240 | time to run a mile by, I don't know, 10%,

00:27:56.040 | seems like a reasonable goal across six months.

00:27:59.480 | - Sure. - Great.

00:28:00.600 | So in the case of a goal like that,

00:28:03.500 | clearly there are specific training programs,

00:28:05.720 | but this raises the issue of

00:28:07.420 | what if I have other goals as well?

00:28:09.760 | And at what point do people having multiple goals

00:28:13.460 | start to set up collisions between goals?

00:28:15.620 | How do we know whether or not something is reasonable,

00:28:18.320 | not just on its own,

00:28:19.900 | but because of the other things

00:28:21.180 | that one has structured into their program?

00:28:23.940 | So being able to reduce a mile time by 10% in six months,

00:28:28.360 | okay, maybe that's doable, maybe it's not.

00:28:30.860 | You can tell me.

00:28:31.760 | But also being able to double the amount

00:28:35.020 | that they can do for a single repetition leg extension,

00:28:39.600 | for that matter, at the same time,

00:28:41.600 | that seemed like incompatible goals.

00:28:44.300 | - Right, so a couple of things.

00:28:46.220 | Number one, the more specific and precise

00:28:51.220 | you can be with a single goal,

00:28:53.580 | the faster you will get there, generally.

00:28:56.120 | So in theory, if you had one thing you wanted to achieve,

00:29:01.520 | the best way to go about it is to focus on that.

00:29:03.520 | Give it the most priority.

00:29:04.640 | That doesn't mean you can't do anything else along the way.

00:29:06.900 | You can, but you would want to focus on that.

00:29:09.280 | The more additional goals you bring in,

00:29:13.080 | the more distraction you're creating for that primary goal.

00:29:16.940 | Depending on what those goals are,

00:29:18.220 | you can actually do them at the same time.

00:29:20.880 | Some other combinations are less effective.

00:29:23.700 | Think about it like this.

00:29:24.720 | We went through those nine adaptations

00:29:26.720 | and we went through them in a specific order on purpose.

00:29:30.140 | The closer those adaptations are together in that list,

00:29:33.620 | the more compatible they are to training each other.

00:29:36.500 | The further away, they become more challenging.

00:29:39.540 | So just to give a few examples,

00:29:41.020 | if you wanted to improve your speed and power,

00:29:43.380 | you could basically train those simultaneously.

00:29:45.540 | They would not interfere with each other at all.

00:29:47.100 | In fact, since power is speed times force,

00:29:51.860 | it would be complimentary.

00:29:53.780 | If you just walk down the line from there to strength,

00:29:55.980 | hey, same thing.

00:29:56.820 | If you get faster, that's gonna aid in strength

00:30:00.100 | because force is mass times acceleration.

00:30:02.760 | So if you improve acceleration,

00:30:03.900 | you're contributing to strength.

00:30:05.920 | Same thing with power.

00:30:07.180 | So speed, power, and strength

00:30:09.260 | are generally very complimentary.

00:30:10.820 | You can absolutely train all three of those goals

00:30:13.700 | at the same time and have no issues.

00:30:15.960 | Getting into hypertrophy.

00:30:18.160 | Now we've got a little bit of distinction.

00:30:20.480 | If you're gonna train strength and hypertrophy,

00:30:23.660 | as we talked about in that episode,

00:30:25.840 | at the base, those are gonna be complimentary.

00:30:29.220 | You add on some muscle, you're gonna get stronger.

00:30:31.740 | You start training for strength,

00:30:32.980 | it's probably gonna help you out on some muscle mass.

00:30:35.900 | As you get to the end of that spectrum,

00:30:38.460 | the overlap between the two starts to go away

00:30:40.940 | such that if you truly wanted to maximize strength

00:30:44.040 | above everything else,

00:30:45.900 | if you continue to train for hypertrophy as well,

00:30:48.100 | that's going to take too many resources

00:30:50.040 | out of your recovery bin and you won't be able to do that.

00:30:52.720 | The inverse would also be the same.

00:30:55.020 | If you're training to maximize strength,

00:30:56.700 | you wouldn't be able to put enough volume on

00:30:59.160 | to get sufficient hypertrophy.

00:31:01.180 | So if you wanted to then combine speed with hypertrophy,

00:31:06.180 | you're going farther away from each other,

00:31:08.420 | which means it's going to be more and more distraction.

00:31:11.060 | So the hypertrophy training would cause a ton of fatigue.

00:31:14.100 | You wouldn't be able to go at max speed

00:31:15.660 | for your speed or power strength.

00:31:17.380 | So you're gonna be compromising those results.

00:31:19.140 | Now, speed training won't compromise

00:31:22.460 | your hypertrophy training because it's non fatiguing.

00:31:25.560 | Right, and so boom, here we have a little bit

00:31:27.220 | of an interference effect one way,

00:31:28.820 | but probably not the other.

00:31:30.580 | Let's move down the spectrum one more time

00:31:32.300 | and get into endurance.

00:31:33.260 | We won't go through all of these things,

00:31:35.580 | but you're getting the idea here.

00:31:37.140 | Oh, a little bit of a high intensity intervals.

00:31:39.740 | Okay, cool.

00:31:41.060 | Now, would that compromise my speed, power or strength?

00:31:46.060 | Probably because there's a little bit of residual fatigue.

00:31:48.900 | If the volume was low enough, then you'd be fine.

00:31:53.300 | All you're worried about there is not necessarily

00:31:54.980 | like some sort of cellular mechanism.

00:31:57.180 | It's just simple fatigue.

00:31:58.820 | It is amount of energy expenditure versus

00:32:00.820 | is that compromising my recovery to come back?

00:32:03.940 | Would those first three or four of those,

00:32:06.100 | speed, power, strength, interfere with your ability

00:32:10.080 | to elevate your anaerobic capacity?

00:32:12.140 | Probably not.

00:32:13.860 | Almost surely.

00:32:14.700 | In fact, if you look at any of the literature

00:32:17.440 | on endurance training, you will see that speed,

00:32:20.180 | power and strength almost always improve endurance.

00:32:26.340 | Endurance training added on top of strength

00:32:29.460 | can be detrimental, can have a neutral effect,

00:32:33.300 | but generally doesn't help one get stronger

00:32:35.220 | by adding additional conditioning.

00:32:37.260 | Unless you're so unfit, you can't get through

00:32:39.820 | the volume needed in the strength training.

00:32:42.700 | One more example here so we don't drag this out too far.

00:32:46.620 | In the case of something like I wanna lose fat,

00:32:49.260 | well hey, we don't have to worry about interference.

00:32:53.900 | It doesn't really matter.

00:32:55.260 | If you're fatigued for your hypertrophy session,

00:32:58.280 | not a big deal.

00:33:00.580 | We're just trying to get some work done.

00:33:01.740 | If your hypertrophy session fatigued you

00:33:03.140 | from your conditioning, it's cool

00:33:04.500 | 'cause you got the work done.

00:33:05.360 | So you don't have to worry about it so much.

00:33:07.680 | So it really kinda depends on the actual goal

00:33:10.140 | and what you wanna pay attention to is actually

00:33:12.740 | what are the chances of overlap,

00:33:14.580 | which means what are the adaptations you get physiologically

00:33:18.740 | that cross over from one to the other,

00:33:21.260 | and then what are the ones that are actually

00:33:22.580 | gonna start interfering?

00:33:23.460 | In fact, in my class, I have this giant matrix chart

00:33:28.100 | of interference effect going from adaptations

00:33:30.740 | through a whole bunch of systems,

00:33:32.020 | everything from handling pH to lymphatic drainage

00:33:36.780 | to bone mineral density, et cetera.

00:33:38.380 | You can walk through these whole things and say,

00:33:40.620 | which ones actually have a positive effect?

00:33:43.300 | Which ones have a massive positive effect?

00:33:45.580 | And then which ones actually have

00:33:46.700 | a little bit of interference?

00:33:47.700 | And perhaps if you guys are nice enough,

00:33:49.980 | we could throw that into a newsletter or something,

00:33:53.800 | some PDF or something.

00:33:55.400 | - I think that would be immensely valuable.

00:33:56.860 | I think some of that more extensive information

00:33:59.140 | when it's laid out in grid form like that

00:34:01.220 | would be really useful. - It's easier to contend with.

00:34:03.820 | - Well, now we've said it.

00:34:05.900 | - I didn't say it would do it, I said perhaps.

00:34:07.440 | - I think it's a great idea.

00:34:09.580 | I think it's a terrific idea.

00:34:11.080 | The idea that items closer to each other on the list

00:34:16.820 | of those nine different adaptations

00:34:18.340 | are going to be easier to achieve in parallel

00:34:20.200 | than items further apart makes perfect sense.

00:34:23.560 | And what I heard was that there's a few caveats

00:34:28.260 | that might seem minor, but they're actually quite important,

00:34:32.900 | such as anything that is relatively low intensity

00:34:36.220 | and doesn't impede recovery can probably be included

00:34:39.820 | as a parallel goal.

00:34:40.880 | So some speed work in conjunction

00:34:43.420 | with some long duration cardio work.

00:34:45.220 | - No problem. - For instance,

00:34:46.060 | even though we're talking about number two on that list

00:34:47.660 | and number nine on that list.

00:34:49.100 | - In that case, the long duration endurance,

00:34:51.060 | even if it's low intensity, may actually interfere

00:34:54.220 | with the speed if the volume gets too high.

00:34:56.860 | If you're talking about, I went on a 30 minute jog,

00:35:00.320 | for most people that it's totally fine.

00:35:03.620 | What we're really talking about here

00:35:04.820 | is when the miles start piling up

00:35:06.960 | or the time really starts getting there

00:35:09.360 | in combination with some of the things,

00:35:11.900 | the factors we've talked about earlier,

00:35:13.100 | which is exercise choice.

00:35:15.080 | So more eccentric landing based exercise choices,

00:35:17.900 | running, for example, is more likely to interfere

00:35:21.440 | than cycling, right?

00:35:23.160 | 'Cause you're not landing.

00:35:24.320 | Swimming is low impact.

00:35:25.400 | So if you're gonna do those things,

00:35:26.640 | you can hedge your bets a little bit

00:35:28.040 | by choosing an exercise choice that is less impactful.

00:35:31.520 | Again, if we're literally,

00:35:32.440 | 'cause there's oftentimes confusing here was like,

00:35:34.540 | oh, don't do 10 minutes on the treadmill before you lift.

00:35:38.120 | You're gonna cut, oh, like timeout.

00:35:40.800 | A warmup is fine.

00:35:42.120 | We're really talking about probably more than 30 plus minutes

00:35:45.720 | at higher than 60% heart rate,

00:35:48.000 | like random numbers, something like that.

00:35:50.120 | Depends on the person, et cetera.

00:35:52.080 | But it has to be a decent chunk.

00:35:54.260 | Again, you can actually fix that

00:35:56.780 | by then just consuming calories.

00:35:59.120 | You can also fix that by making sure everything else

00:36:02.360 | in the hidden invisible stressor bucket is improved.

00:36:05.440 | So this is like one of our tricks that we'll get into

00:36:07.480 | when we get into the recovery,

00:36:08.780 | is you don't necessarily need to reduce your training

00:36:11.720 | if you just ramp up your recovery.

00:36:14.040 | I'd like to take a brief break

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00:37:06.640 | I'm going to take the liberty of assuming

00:37:08.400 | that most people fall into one of either three bins

00:37:12.900 | in terms of their goals.

00:37:14.200 | Again, most people, certainly there are going to be people

00:37:17.720 | that lie outside these bins.

00:37:20.040 | I think if you polled 100 people or 100,000

00:37:24.740 | or a million people as to what their major goals were

00:37:27.880 | in working out, they'd say,

00:37:29.460 | as you so nicely listed out before,

00:37:32.660 | aesthetic changes, functionality, and longevity.

00:37:36.100 | But that one in three really kind of sit higher

00:37:39.300 | than most people would like to perhaps even admit.

00:37:42.520 | They want to look good,

00:37:43.600 | which usually means they want to lose some fat,

00:37:46.100 | gain some muscle in specific places.

00:37:48.020 | I realize there are folks out there

00:37:49.260 | who want to gain a lot of muscle, just muscle everywhere.

00:37:52.860 | But I think most people would like to have

00:37:55.080 | a little more shape here or a little more muscle there

00:37:58.400 | to either balance out their aesthetic

00:38:00.140 | or to accentuate certain parts of their physique.

00:38:02.940 | And they would probably like to shave off

00:38:06.340 | some subcutaneous fat,

00:38:08.180 | although there are those exceptionally lean people out there

00:38:11.340 | and they exist too.

00:38:13.000 | I think it would be gain muscle in specific places,

00:38:15.700 | lose fat and do it in a way that also provides some booth

00:38:19.860 | to their health span and longevity.

00:38:22.100 | I would say that that might even be 50% of people out there.

00:38:26.700 | Again, I'm taking the liberty of guesstimating.

00:38:30.100 | Another bin I would venture is interested in getting stronger

00:38:34.500 | and putting on more muscle.

00:38:36.080 | Certainly there are a number of people

00:38:37.300 | that are interested in doing that.

00:38:38.600 | And that could even be more muscle all over

00:38:41.100 | or more muscle with some accentuation to certain areas

00:38:45.220 | where they happen to be weaker

00:38:47.340 | or less developed as it were.

00:38:49.700 | And then the third bin would be people

00:38:51.300 | that really enjoy cardiovascular work.

00:38:54.180 | Oh, I should say the second bin,

00:38:55.820 | probably care about their longevity also,

00:38:59.080 | but it's not really foremost.

00:39:00.820 | Like, yeah, I feel great now and I'll live to be whatever,

00:39:05.820 | but I only want to do it if I get that much muscle, right?

00:39:08.420 | We know these kinds of folks.

00:39:10.140 | - Yeah, I run a poll in my class every year

00:39:12.540 | when I ask like, "Why don't you guys all lift?"

00:39:14.120 | And of course, I make them put their hand up.

00:39:16.100 | I'm like, "You guys are in my class,

00:39:17.020 | "you're gonna put your hand up, let you lift weights."

00:39:18.960 | And then I ask them like, "Why do you train?"

00:39:20.660 | And like health is, long-term health is like on the list

00:39:23.300 | and they all, I'm like any of you that selected health

00:39:26.360 | are liars.

00:39:27.500 | Like you're 20 to 25, you are not exercising for health.

00:39:30.500 | You're exercising 'cause you want to look a certain way

00:39:33.200 | or get stronger.

00:39:34.180 | Once you get past that undergraduate age though,

00:39:36.840 | the actual desire to live longer and better

00:39:40.900 | actually becomes pretty real.

00:39:42.500 | - Yeah, I think that there are people

00:39:43.720 | who want to feel better.

00:39:44.700 | They know that exercise and the results from exercise

00:39:47.540 | can make them feel better.

00:39:48.780 | But yeah, that second bin tends to be more focused

00:39:50.620 | on the aesthetic change, it seems, or being strong.

00:39:53.280 | And then the third category I think are people,

00:39:56.520 | I know a lot of folks like this, who really enjoy

00:39:59.580 | what are normally considered endurance type activities.

00:40:02.220 | And here, I just want to highlight again

00:40:03.740 | what you so beautifully illustrated in previous episodes

00:40:06.380 | that you can gain a lot of endurance

00:40:08.000 | even using weights or machines.

00:40:09.320 | It just depends on how you use them, right?

00:40:11.220 | It's not about the exercise,

00:40:12.900 | about how you perform them and et cetera.

00:40:15.700 | And you, again, beautifully provided all those details

00:40:18.620 | as to how to create endurance

00:40:20.360 | regardless of equipment standards, et cetera.

00:40:23.400 | But that third category seemed to be people

00:40:25.580 | who enjoy running, cycling, swimming, hiking, dancing,

00:40:30.140 | activities that they can do for long periods of time

00:40:33.340 | that often will involve some sort of skill

00:40:37.260 | that is based on improving motor patterns.

00:40:39.660 | So maybe not so much stride,

00:40:41.340 | but certainly for people that really love tennis.

00:40:45.000 | People that love a sport like golf, right?

00:40:47.900 | Do they want to be able to not just walk, you know,

00:40:50.200 | they want to walk the 18 holes,

00:40:51.620 | they want to have a great golf swing, et cetera.

00:40:53.900 | I'm not a golf player, so forgive me if my nomenclature

00:40:55.860 | is off. - Golfer, golfer.

00:40:57.540 | - Yeah, golfer. - You don't play golf.

00:40:59.000 | - Oh, got it, you don't play golf.

00:40:59.840 | - Well, you play golf, you wouldn't call a golf player.

00:41:02.560 | - I played miniature golf a few times, that's about it.

00:41:05.780 | Although, Stanford does have a beautiful golf course.

00:41:08.260 | I'm told I should learn how to play golf.

00:41:10.220 | - I'll come up and play it for you if you want.

00:41:11.620 | You come up, I'll play it, I'll say how it is.

00:41:13.460 | Get me on that course. - Almost see it from my lab.

00:41:16.520 | So category one, I think,

00:41:18.020 | is a significant fraction of people.

00:41:20.080 | So as we lay out these different ways to assess goals,

00:41:24.480 | and as we approach the structure of a program,

00:41:29.480 | as you'll tell us.

00:41:30.820 | If we could perhaps touch back to those

00:41:32.640 | every once in a while.

00:41:33.800 | Again, I'm taking the liberty of assuming

00:41:36.560 | that we will net about 80 to 90% of people out there.

00:41:40.400 | Again, those categories being people who want to

00:41:42.800 | lose some fat, maybe build some muscle

00:41:45.400 | in specific areas on their body,

00:41:47.000 | and really want to be healthy.

00:41:48.360 | They want to feel great and they want to have

00:41:50.240 | a long health span, AKA end lifespan.

00:41:53.560 | They want to live a long time feeling great.

00:41:55.040 | Second category, people who want to build

00:41:56.760 | more muscle and strength.

00:41:58.040 | Sure, they don't want to damage their health,

00:41:59.720 | but that's not their main focus.

00:42:02.100 | Their main focus is on building muscle and strength.

00:42:04.800 | And then that third category of people who really

00:42:07.640 | want to do more endurance type work,

00:42:09.620 | feel great and strong doing it,

00:42:12.120 | but not because they can carry heavy weights

00:42:15.180 | while they're doing it, but rather they can feel vital

00:42:17.420 | and they can push harder for longer.

00:42:19.460 | And maybe even translate that to some of the more

00:42:22.380 | recreational type activities or sports like tennis

00:42:25.200 | and things that are more long duration,

00:42:26.940 | playing soccer, maybe even softball or things of that sort.

00:42:29.620 | - Yeah, surfing, swimming.

00:42:30.460 | - So those three categories, maybe we could call those

00:42:32.320 | B and A, B and C for sake of today's discussion.

00:42:35.280 | I think if you're willing to embrace that,

00:42:38.600 | I think that will be informative toward our listeners

00:42:41.060 | in a way that simply not assuming what people's

00:42:44.920 | different goals are might not be able to accomplish.

00:42:47.920 | Said differently, hopefully by doing that,

00:42:50.120 | people will derive a lot more from the description

00:42:52.260 | of the program that you're going to give us.

00:42:53.520 | - Love it.

00:42:54.360 | - Now I am certain that I want to let you return

00:42:56.840 | to your list of the five things that people need to consider

00:42:59.720 | when establishing a exercise program.

00:43:02.640 | - Yeah, great, let's do that.

00:43:03.720 | I also do want to acknowledge a point

00:43:06.280 | you've brought up acutely.

00:43:07.580 | Exercise doesn't mean just lifting weights.

00:43:10.360 | That's my background, that's what I spend my time on.

00:43:12.500 | So I sort of default to examples in that category,

00:43:16.060 | but it doesn't have to be that.

00:43:17.620 | You've articulated plenty of other ways

00:43:19.900 | where you can get amazing forms of exercise

00:43:23.580 | that have nothing to do with lifting weights.

00:43:25.580 | So for those folks in, was it Bin C or three?

00:43:29.340 | I can't remember.

00:43:30.180 | - Bin C, we go A is gain muscle, lose fat,

00:43:32.460 | be healthy now and forever.

00:43:33.680 | - Right.

00:43:34.520 | - Bin B is get stronger, gain muscle,

00:43:37.920 | don't damage your health,

00:43:38.940 | but not really focus on health in the immediate term.

00:43:42.080 | And then Bin C is want to play

00:43:46.440 | or do endurance type activities

00:43:50.340 | and quote unquote feel strong doing it.

00:43:52.760 | So have more vigor to be able to do that longer

00:43:55.320 | and maybe with more attention to skill, et cetera.

00:43:58.040 | And of course also want to improve their health.

00:44:00.280 | - What you've effectively done

00:44:01.160 | is you've given us three different avatars

00:44:03.160 | with three different goals, right?

00:44:05.040 | So the next step for each person or group

00:44:08.360 | is going to be to identify their defenders.

00:44:10.360 | But before we get that,

00:44:12.040 | we got to close the loop on this smart thing.

00:44:14.480 | So in each case, they have either chosen that goal

00:44:18.560 | based on their personal preference

00:44:20.160 | or perhaps they did our fitness testing protocol

00:44:23.240 | and realize they need to gain strength.

00:44:25.220 | So whether the reason they chose to be in buckets B or A or C

00:44:30.220 | was because of our protocol or personal preference,

00:44:32.880 | it really doesn't matter.

00:44:34.080 | They still want to go through this process

00:44:37.160 | of laying out their goals

00:44:38.600 | and making sure that again, they are specific, right?

00:44:41.080 | So let's go through BNC, which is a great one.

00:44:44.280 | So you want to have more energy

00:44:46.160 | and you want to feel stronger

00:44:47.440 | when you're doing your kite boarding.

00:44:49.480 | You want to feel stronger

00:44:50.560 | when you finish your round of tennis,

00:44:52.480 | round of golf, game of tennis.

00:44:54.460 | Okay, great.

00:44:55.560 | That's a different strength.

00:44:56.780 | Absolutely.

00:44:57.620 | See, I hear, I know what you're saying though.

00:44:58.640 | Amazing.

00:44:59.480 | So that goal needs to be specific to that, right?

00:45:03.040 | So it would be hard to make a goal like

00:45:05.840 | I want to feel better at the end of my round.

00:45:08.980 | Boy, that depends on too many other factors.

00:45:11.780 | A better goal would be something like this.

00:45:14.420 | I want to be able to run this two mile loop

00:45:18.260 | that I do around my neighborhood

00:45:20.260 | and I want to do it and have a lower heart rate at the end

00:45:25.260 | or I want to be able to get my heart rate back,

00:45:28.340 | my heart rate recovery back faster.

00:45:31.260 | Amazing.

00:45:32.100 | That will probably align with you

00:45:34.140 | feeling quote unquote stronger with it, right?

00:45:36.720 | So I did the same course and either I can do it

00:45:38.640 | at the same speed and it's not nearly as hard

00:45:41.880 | or I can go faster, whichever one, it doesn't matter.

00:45:45.260 | But that would be an example of a specific goal.

00:45:47.620 | The other buckets you laid out

00:45:49.180 | kind of already have specific goals

00:45:50.880 | like I want to get stronger.

00:45:52.580 | Well, that's going to be the goal.

00:45:54.260 | The other one is going to be, you know,

00:45:56.660 | I want to lose some fat.

00:45:57.620 | Okay, that's kind of, the goal is sort of implicit in that.

00:46:00.300 | It's the other people where you're just like,

00:46:01.720 | I don't really care about that.

00:46:02.740 | I just want to be able to surf the great waves

00:46:05.700 | and then not feel exhausted afterwards.

00:46:08.360 | All right, cool.

00:46:09.300 | Well, then you still should pick a metric

00:46:12.040 | that is not that activity maybe

00:46:13.720 | 'cause it won't be within your control

00:46:15.500 | depending on the waves and the temperature

00:46:16.960 | and all this stuff that you can use as a proxy to say,

00:46:20.520 | if I were to do something that represented me

00:46:23.200 | feeling probably better when I surf, what would that be?

00:46:25.220 | And it's not perfect,

00:46:26.060 | but it would be still as specific as you could get.

00:46:29.120 | You still want to make sure it's measurable.

00:46:31.560 | Again, this example might be something like

00:46:33.660 | you're going to go to the pool and time

00:46:36.440 | how long it takes you to swim 800 meters or something, right?

00:46:39.460 | It's attainable and then you'll set a goal

00:46:41.020 | that's realistic and timely.

00:46:42.680 | I'm going to improve by 5% in the next two months.

00:46:47.060 | Okay, cool.

00:46:47.900 | That probably falls into the realm.

00:46:49.500 | And then you're making the assumption that if you did that,

00:46:52.400 | you'll probably feel better when you go out

00:46:54.060 | to do your primary activity, which is say surf.

00:46:57.180 | The reality of it is every time we work

00:46:59.680 | with an actual athlete, that's what we do.

00:47:02.540 | Athletes don't come to us to lift weights.

00:47:05.140 | They don't come to us to get stronger.

00:47:06.520 | They come to us because they want to play better

00:47:09.020 | and they want to stay on the field more.

00:47:10.540 | What we're trying to convince them of is

00:47:12.280 | if you do this thing in the gym,

00:47:14.000 | then that should translate into you being better

00:47:16.060 | at your sport, recovering faster, being less injured.

00:47:19.280 | But it's still just a proxy.

00:47:20.620 | And so that's all you're doing

00:47:21.700 | with these other non-specific goals,

00:47:23.500 | especially when they're performance-based goals.

00:47:25.460 | And we didn't package it that way,

00:47:28.120 | but that's really what you talked about for Ben C there.

00:47:30.400 | It is a performance-based goal.

00:47:31.700 | I want to be able to perform when I'm in the field.

00:47:34.760 | In my brain, that's a sport.

00:47:36.700 | In your brain, it's when you're at yoga class.

00:47:38.640 | It's the same thing.

00:47:40.440 | We've said this earlier in our series

00:47:42.300 | that if you have a body, you're an athlete.

00:47:44.900 | I want to prepare your body

00:47:46.380 | such that it can do exactly what you want it to do.

00:47:49.500 | You then get to have the choice of what you ask it to do.

00:47:52.160 | You call it a sport.

00:47:53.040 | You call it your Saturday hike with your family.

00:47:54.660 | I don't really care.

00:47:56.020 | It's the same thing.

00:47:56.880 | You get control of your body performing

00:47:59.580 | the way you want it to perform,

00:48:01.100 | and that's what this whole thing is about.

00:48:03.060 | Great, so now that we've covered, I think,

00:48:05.040 | as much as we need to regarding assessing

00:48:08.100 | and choosing a goal,

00:48:09.400 | I want to get back to this idea

00:48:11.460 | of identifying your defender.

00:48:13.260 | So you really need to think carefully

00:48:15.040 | about what is stopping you from hitting those goals.

00:48:18.420 | And so you're forecasting a little bit.

00:48:20.740 | You're also going back into your own personal history.

00:48:23.780 | Do you have history of knee pain?

00:48:26.260 | Do you have a history of working too much?

00:48:30.020 | Do you have a history of a lot of travel?

00:48:32.080 | Do you have a history of getting sick a lot?

00:48:33.780 | What are these things that are happening

00:48:34.980 | that are gonna stop you from hitting your goal?

00:48:37.220 | A couple of examples I've already laid out,

00:48:39.900 | so we don't need to go too much longer here,

00:48:41.680 | but in the case of somebody who is in maybe bin A,

00:48:46.680 | which is I want to lose some fat,

00:48:48.800 | maybe gain a little bit of muscle.

00:48:50.220 | Okay, what's stopping you

00:48:51.700 | from the strength and conditioning side?

00:48:54.000 | Is it the fact that you can't train consistent enough?

00:48:56.740 | Is it a fact that when you go to train,

00:48:58.120 | you don't know what to do?

00:48:59.540 | Is it a fact that when you go to train,

00:49:00.820 | you train your ass off and you're not getting results?

00:49:02.480 | Okay, great.

00:49:03.320 | All three of these different scenarios

00:49:05.860 | are going to result in different programs

00:49:07.720 | because they have different reasons you're failing.

00:49:10.920 | And that is really critical.

00:49:12.460 | Instead of just going, I want a fat loss program,

00:49:15.020 | and picking one up off the internet,

00:49:17.140 | it may not actually be addressing

00:49:19.140 | the point of failure for you.

00:49:21.820 | So the sooner you can choose your programs

00:49:24.820 | based on why you're failing,

00:49:28.020 | the sooner you'll start getting results.

00:49:29.980 | You have to run a little bit of a critical analysis there,

00:49:34.060 | and it can be something scientific,

00:49:38.300 | and it could be a measurement.

00:49:39.500 | And it also could just be you thinking about,

00:49:41.380 | you've tried this in the past, and why didn't it work?

00:49:44.640 | I wasn't that interesting.

00:49:46.400 | Okay, tell me more about why it wasn't interesting.

00:49:49.100 | I'm not really into machines, and that's all I had.

00:49:53.700 | Okay, great.

00:49:54.900 | Or I loved it, I loved the gym I was at,

00:49:57.380 | and I was getting results, but it was so far away.

00:50:00.480 | Okay, interesting.

00:50:02.220 | Why did you stop before, why didn't it work?

00:50:04.300 | Or if it did work in the past, amazing.

00:50:07.600 | Let's go back to something similar,

00:50:09.080 | but has your life changed at all?

00:50:10.820 | Is there anything different about now

00:50:12.300 | than when it worked three years ago?

00:50:14.100 | Yes, no.

00:50:15.980 | If not, maybe we run it right back.

00:50:17.140 | If it is, okay, we're gonna sort of predict those things.

00:50:19.280 | And you wanna work, effectively what I'm saying is,

00:50:22.520 | throughout this entire 10-step process is going to be,

00:50:26.240 | you wanna make sure that there are the non-negotiables

00:50:29.380 | that are in your life that you know are going to be ahead

00:50:31.600 | of your fitness program, and you wanna work

00:50:34.100 | with those things, not against them.

00:50:36.180 | 'Cause life will win.

00:50:37.140 | When it comes to your children, when it comes to your job,

00:50:40.180 | life is going to win.

00:50:41.920 | You're gonna have to give up something.

00:50:43.720 | It's gonna take some hard work.

00:50:45.440 | But we wanna fight the right battles for most people.

00:50:48.740 | Even for our professional athletes,

00:50:50.800 | we get this all the time,

00:50:51.640 | it's just like they have nothing else to do but train.

00:50:53.620 | They're like, whoa, hold on now, they're getting traded,

00:50:56.400 | they have agents to deal with, they may not have a contract,

00:50:58.660 | they have families, blah, blah, blah.

00:51:00.340 | Life will get in the way, I promise.

00:51:02.480 | And so you wanna fight the battles that you can win,

00:51:06.160 | not ones that you're going to lose.

00:51:08.160 | And so that's really what this game is about.

00:51:09.820 | So if the battle is, hey, my job is super hectic.

00:51:13.780 | Okay, great.

00:51:14.820 | We're gonna come up with a different strategy

00:51:16.340 | that's more flexible, maybe.

00:51:18.220 | I'm still gonna hold you to the fire,

00:51:19.940 | I'm not gonna be easier on you,

00:51:21.220 | but we're just not going to try to set up a situation

00:51:23.820 | where you have to do this workout Monday,

00:51:25.460 | Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

00:51:27.360 | Because you know your job is on the road

00:51:28.980 | and you provide all the income for your family.

00:51:33.460 | Whatever the thing is, right?

00:51:34.860 | That's what we really wanna identify.

00:51:37.340 | So when I say identify your defenders,

00:51:39.200 | you need to run a little bit of a critical analysis on this.

00:51:42.420 | And a little bit of a tool I'll use for this

00:51:46.520 | is a modification of another system

00:51:48.900 | I stole from Kenny Kane, which is what we call

00:51:51.540 | the quadrant system.

00:51:52.380 | So you can imagine everything in your life

00:51:54.780 | goes into one of four buckets, all right?

00:51:58.020 | Now bucket one, I'm just gonna call business.

00:52:00.740 | And this has anything to do with your job,

00:52:02.340 | income, sort of all those things.

00:52:04.900 | Bucket two is relationships.

00:52:08.120 | So again, this could be family or love life,

00:52:10.660 | like anything that we would call relationships,

00:52:12.420 | social connection, purpose, anything, right?

00:52:17.620 | Bucket three is your fitness.

00:52:20.500 | And bucket four is your recovery.

00:52:22.220 | So one of the first steps we take

00:52:25.360 | is we walk through this and we say,

00:52:26.800 | all right, you have 10 points total.

00:52:30.580 | And you get to distribute these 10 points

00:52:32.580 | across the four areas.

00:52:36.040 | So not 10 each, you get 10 total.

00:52:39.500 | As we walk through and we say, right now,

00:52:42.520 | where are you giving your points?

00:52:44.060 | And we could do this right now for you if you'd like,

00:52:46.000 | or I could make up a scenario.

00:52:48.820 | Do you wanna do it?

00:52:49.660 | - Sure. - Great.

00:52:50.600 | So Andrew, right now in the last month,

00:52:53.620 | if you had 10 points total in those four categories,

00:52:58.300 | where would you be distributing the most points?

00:53:00.760 | Which category and how many points would that be?

00:53:03.660 | - Business, my work.

00:53:05.540 | - Business, work, job, sort of all those things.

00:53:07.880 | And how many out of 10?

00:53:08.940 | - Which doesn't, I should say, ever quite feel like work.

00:53:12.300 | Running a laboratory and doing the podcast

00:53:14.980 | doesn't ever really feel like work in the traditional sense,

00:53:17.420 | but it's career, it's work, it involves relationships,

00:53:22.420 | but it certainly doesn't enhance my fitness,

00:53:26.260 | except of my vocal cords and recovery.

00:53:29.780 | So with those notes there, I would say four to five.

00:53:34.780 | - You pick.

00:53:40.320 | - Five. - Five, fair.

00:53:42.380 | That's the most common number.

00:53:44.620 | - Five, business five.

00:53:45.620 | - Great, once again I'm typical, which makes me happy.

00:53:47.900 | - You nailed it.

00:53:48.720 | - One of the few ways in which I've been accused

00:53:50.420 | of being normal, I picked five for business.

00:53:52.820 | - No kidding.

00:53:53.940 | What's the next highest and what's that score?

00:53:56.180 | - I do invest in relationships, I would say,

00:54:00.740 | does it have to be around, can it be a decimal?

00:54:06.460 | - It has to be a whole integer.

00:54:07.620 | - Oh, a whole integer.

00:54:08.720 | Two.

00:54:13.460 | - Two, all right, we're seven out of 10 here.

00:54:16.200 | So would you say it is fair that you spend

00:54:19.460 | roughly 2 1/2% of your, it's not necessarily time,

00:54:23.100 | it's energy, time, focus, sort of all of these things,

00:54:26.880 | 2 1/2 times as much on your business

00:54:29.260 | as you do in your relationships?

00:54:31.420 | - It varies depending on what's going on.

00:54:33.800 | It feels a little skewed in the direction of business,

00:54:38.320 | so I might want to adjust to a four, three ratio there.

00:54:41.360 | - Maybe not, no.

00:54:42.200 | - I'm gonna hold to five, two business relationships,

00:54:47.200 | and then just for sake of example,

00:54:50.420 | and because this doesn't seem like

00:54:53.240 | a exceedingly precise measure, it can have some slop.

00:54:57.860 | - Of course.

00:54:58.700 | Where would you put fitness in recovery?

00:55:01.560 | - I definitely put energy into fitness,

00:55:05.700 | so I'm gonna give that also a two.

00:55:08.140 | - Yep.

00:55:08.980 | Which leaves?

00:55:12.180 | - Two to one for recovery.

00:55:13.240 | - Great.

00:55:14.420 | That, what you just laid out is, again,

00:55:16.680 | the most quintessential split you could have.

00:55:18.980 | In fact, you run this game on everyone,

00:55:21.240 | they're gonna come up with basically the same answer,

00:55:22.820 | unless they don't work out or whatever, right?

00:55:24.740 | Okay, so a couple of rules here.

00:55:26.700 | Recovery must be at minimum half of your fitness allocation.

00:55:31.700 | In your case, two to one.

00:55:33.520 | You're fine.

00:55:34.360 | - I thought you were gonna say it has to be half,

00:55:35.200 | like it has to be five out of 10 points.

00:55:37.100 | - No.

00:55:37.940 | - In which case, it doesn't leave much for anything else.

00:55:39.660 | - I would like it to be minimum 20% of the total,

00:55:42.540 | which means two out of 10.

00:55:44.580 | Now, and when I say recovery, I don't simply mean muscle.

00:55:48.500 | I mean, you need personal time.

00:55:50.360 | You need meditation.

00:55:51.380 | You need sleep.

00:55:53.960 | You need to go to a concert and get out and see people.

00:55:56.820 | And so, like, whatever the things

00:55:58.140 | that give you energy back, right?

00:56:00.220 | Some folks, that's personal time.

00:56:01.600 | Some folks, that's social time.

00:56:03.360 | Whatever that means to you, right?

00:56:04.600 | - Yeah, I actually get a lot of energy from my work.

00:56:07.340 | And so, that's why some of these numbers are a little bit,

00:56:10.380 | you can kind of cloak the underlying dynamics.

00:56:14.400 | - So here's what we do from this game.

00:56:16.400 | We look at that and we say, if that's our split, Andrew,

00:56:18.820 | five, three, two, one.

00:56:20.620 | - Five, two, two, one.

00:56:22.060 | - Five, two, two, one.

00:56:23.100 | - I'd love to be able to put three in relationships,

00:56:25.480 | just because, but then I need 11 out of--

00:56:27.660 | - Right, so here's the fun game we play.

00:56:30.220 | You're currently at this and you don't get the add to 11.

00:56:32.500 | You have to stay at 10.

00:56:33.740 | Your 10 is different than my 10, maybe, right?

00:56:35.920 | But 10 is 10, or just whatever the maximum

00:56:38.100 | you can actually do, it's you.

00:56:40.900 | So if we went back to our training goal,

00:56:44.500 | whatever that goal was for you,

00:56:46.240 | and we went back to our defenders,

00:56:47.780 | we would look at this score now and say,

00:56:49.980 | is three out of 10, fitness is three, right?

00:56:54.220 | - Fitness is two. - Fitness is two.

00:56:55.140 | - So it's five, two, two, one.

00:56:57.540 | - Is two out of 10 sufficient to hit that training goal

00:57:01.440 | in that timeframe you described?

00:57:03.660 | And let's say you said, I want to hit a new PR

00:57:07.700 | in my mile six months from now.

00:57:09.400 | - Yeah, for simplicity's sake,

00:57:10.860 | and also because it's largely true,

00:57:12.040 | I'm going to put myself in what I referred to

00:57:14.680 | as bin A earlier, right?

00:57:16.680 | My bifat percentage is okay.

00:57:19.980 | It's in the range that I would like,

00:57:22.540 | but I would like to bring it down a little bit,

00:57:24.920 | probably gain a little bit muscle here and there,

00:57:26.560 | keep or gain some endurance.

00:57:28.580 | And certainly, certainly my immediate and long-term health

00:57:32.440 | are extremely important to me.

00:57:33.680 | - Great.

00:57:34.520 | So then the question and then the answer may be yes,

00:57:36.640 | that this is the optimal split for you.

00:57:39.280 | If it is not, then we have to make a choice.

00:57:42.180 | We either alter the goal or the timeline

00:57:44.320 | to make it realistic, or we alter our quadrant.

00:57:49.320 | And then if we're going to alter our quadrant,

00:57:51.360 | the next step is critically important.

00:57:53.200 | We need a list of very specific life actions

00:57:57.200 | that we're going to take that allows that split to happen.

00:58:01.200 | So if you said, for example,

00:58:03.040 | I want to put three into relationships, great.

00:58:07.160 | What specific life actions are you going to take

00:58:10.760 | to pull one from fitness,

00:58:12.840 | you can't pull any from recovery or one from business?

00:58:14.880 | And you don't have to actually answer this,

00:58:16.600 | it's too personal. - Thank you.

00:58:19.080 | - I know you don't like making these things about you 'cause-

00:58:21.180 | - Right, and that's the other reason to do it.

00:58:22.800 | And it is a diabolical trick

00:58:25.520 | to insist that these be whole integers,

00:58:27.800 | 'cause I would have done like a 4.5 for business

00:58:30.940 | and a 2.5 for relationships.

00:58:32.720 | But obviously you write the rules on this, not me.

00:58:35.840 | - So you would just walk through that list, okay?

00:58:37.280 | And the list could be something like,

00:58:39.440 | I promise to not work after 7 p.m. Thursday through Sunday,

00:58:44.440 | or whatever the thing is, right?

00:58:48.160 | I promise I'm going to make sure

00:58:50.800 | that I don't start work before 8 a.m.

00:58:52.680 | or whatever, right?

00:58:54.600 | No more trips.

00:58:56.340 | Just make those things specific and measurable,

00:58:59.040 | not just like I'm going to work less.

00:59:00.920 | That's never going to go.

00:59:01.760 | What is the very specific life action you're going to take?

00:59:04.140 | There's going to be alarm that goes off Tuesday night

00:59:07.000 | at 5 p.m., and no matter what we, at Barbell Shrugged,

00:59:12.000 | we used to have a little shirt that was like D3AT,

00:59:14.740 | which is like drop everything and train.

00:59:16.480 | Which means at 3 p.m. in the afternoon,

00:59:18.060 | no matter what's happening,

00:59:18.940 | we dropped everything and trained.

00:59:20.640 | Because that was like when you start a business

00:59:22.740 | and you're going, things just run away from you, right?

00:59:25.600 | And it's just sort of like, man, it's not my company,

00:59:28.140 | but those guys are like,

00:59:28.980 | we are a strength and conditioning company

00:59:30.600 | and we're not training.

00:59:32.040 | So we had to just make this hard rule

00:59:33.440 | and it was just like a little thing that came up

00:59:34.840 | and it was easy to say, drop everything and train,

00:59:36.500 | three o'clock, there you go.

00:59:37.780 | - I like this drop D, E, everything, A, N, N blank.

00:59:42.780 | Like it could be drop everything and pick your favorite.

00:59:47.340 | - Totally, drop everything and read.

00:59:48.640 | - Pick the relevant, read, yeah, absolutely.

00:59:51.440 | I really miss reading for pleasure.

00:59:53.240 | I would put that under recovery.

00:59:55.160 | - Drop everything and breathe.

00:59:56.440 | - Oh, and breathe, you were saying.

00:59:58.440 | Oh, and breathe.

00:59:59.280 | I was saying read.

01:00:00.100 | - I said that too.

01:00:00.940 | - Yeah, because for me reading is actually

01:00:02.560 | is both recovery and relationship.

01:00:05.380 | Because oftentimes in my relationships I insist,

01:00:09.580 | not insisted, I certainly didn't insist.

01:00:11.580 | We've had a format of reading the same book in parallel.

01:00:15.460 | - Oh, great.

01:00:16.300 | - Yeah, not necessarily side by side,

01:00:17.480 | but the same book in parallel and then discussing it.

01:00:19.280 | It's a wonderful practice

01:00:20.720 | or listening to the same audio book.

01:00:23.060 | - It works well.

01:00:23.900 | You can do drop everything in play.

01:00:25.980 | You're just going to go do something fun.

01:00:26.860 | You're going to play video games.

01:00:27.780 | You're going to go play with your kid.

01:00:28.820 | You're going to do whatever, play with your dog.

01:00:31.420 | It doesn't even have to actually be play,

01:00:32.440 | but play it to you could signify personal time.

01:00:35.220 | It doesn't really matter.

01:00:36.480 | So yeah, that's it.

01:00:39.320 | - I really like this drop everything and blank category.

01:00:42.540 | You probably shouldn't have more than what,

01:00:44.560 | two or three of those overall.

01:00:46.580 | - Pretty much like one is the one to two, maybe.

01:00:49.580 | - Great.

01:00:50.420 | - Is where you want to go after that.

01:00:51.240 | - So the idea is then to redistribute the numbers

01:00:53.220 | on this list, but through a very concrete action.

01:00:55.740 | And I like this drop everything in blank

01:00:57.980 | because it speaks to the non-negotiable aspect of it.

01:01:02.100 | - Has to be.

01:01:03.260 | Life will get pushed.

01:01:04.380 | - It's not a fine time to, right?

01:01:06.840 | - Correct.

01:01:07.680 | - It's not in next year I'm going to.

01:01:09.020 | - Correct.

01:01:09.860 | - I love it.

01:01:10.680 | - Yeah, when you put those things,

01:01:14.060 | those things you might as well just don't even put

01:01:16.740 | on your list, right?

01:01:17.580 | 'Cause it's not going to happen.

01:01:18.420 | - Yeah, you're talking to somebody who loves rules

01:01:21.320 | because when they are non-negotiable rules,

01:01:23.740 | they provide this incredible organizing force for the brain.

01:01:26.980 | It's really a neuroscience thing in my mind.

01:01:29.260 | - Totally.

01:01:30.100 | - And actually we did an episode on happiness

01:01:31.860 | where you find that once people make a decision,

01:01:34.220 | if they eliminate the possibility of other decisions,

01:01:36.700 | literally the hatches close, that is it.

01:01:38.540 | - Burn the boats.

01:01:39.380 | - The rates of subjective happiness,

01:01:44.060 | immediate and long-term happiness over time go way, way up.

01:01:47.380 | And so I'm convinced that the nervous system

01:01:48.980 | doesn't like to keep the valves

01:01:50.740 | on these dopamine circuits open.

01:01:52.300 | I actually think it diminishes from the reward component.

01:01:54.580 | And there are actually some data on this.

01:01:56.340 | Anyway, I don't want to take us off track, but.

01:01:58.220 | - The last part of this, what we do then,

01:01:59.800 | is we take that quadrant and we take that list

01:02:01.880 | and then you're going to print it physically.

01:02:04.720 | And you're going to put it in two places.

01:02:07.260 | This could actually be on your phone.

01:02:08.360 | You don't have to print, you can screenshot.

01:02:09.580 | It can be the background of your phone.

01:02:10.480 | So every time you click on your phone,

01:02:11.640 | you immediately see that quadrant.

01:02:13.300 | Like it's a very clear reminder of like,

01:02:16.540 | what are my priorities today, right?

01:02:18.100 | Just a simple little picture.

01:02:20.140 | I also like to put it in your place of failure.

01:02:23.920 | So for a lot of people, that is like on their laptop

01:02:26.760 | or right above their workstation, right?

01:02:28.020 | It's like the thing that's going to lose

01:02:29.660 | and beat your fitness is your job typically, right?

01:02:33.120 | Or it's on your TV.

01:02:34.880 | It's on your Netflix control.

01:02:36.940 | No, sorry, Netflix, no offense.

01:02:38.260 | But you know what I mean?

01:02:39.100 | Like it's whatever the thing is that you fail for.

01:02:41.180 | I play too many video games.

01:02:42.140 | Great, there, I work too much.

01:02:43.220 | Okay, great.

01:02:44.060 | And you put it there and you put it also,

01:02:45.840 | the last component, it has to also be

01:02:48.540 | in the hands of somebody who can hold you accountable, right?

01:02:52.900 | Wife, training partner, business partner, whatever.

01:02:56.340 | So it's like, hey, Andrew,

01:02:57.260 | like you promised you were going to do X yourself.

01:03:00.180 | Why are you still here?

01:03:01.660 | You committed to this, you got to get out of here.

01:03:03.520 | Someone who will like, be like, no, no,

01:03:05.420 | it's drop everything and read.

01:03:07.220 | It's eight o'clock, you're supposed to be reading.

01:03:08.820 | You got to go.

01:03:09.660 | You're going to get a check back in on that.

01:03:12.000 | Check back in every week, check back in.

01:03:13.780 | It doesn't matter every month.

01:03:15.300 | And then you can adjust, it's fine.

01:03:16.740 | You can always change the system,

01:03:17.900 | but that has to now change.

01:03:19.260 | You got to print a new one

01:03:20.580 | and now it's a whole new promise you've made yourself.

01:03:23.640 | So you've got to be able to hold yourself accountable

01:03:25.820 | to those things.

01:03:26.640 | It's got to be flexible enough to where it's realistic.

01:03:30.320 | It can't be, I'm not going to work

01:03:31.700 | after six o'clock every day.

01:03:34.440 | Maybe it's just three days a week.

01:03:36.620 | Maybe it's on Saturdays I promise to work

01:03:40.400 | for the first two hours so I don't work Saturday night

01:03:42.220 | or whatever, or the inverse.

01:03:43.180 | I'm not going to work Saturday, you get it.

01:03:44.500 | You could come up with a million examples here.

01:03:45.800 | So that's the system we use to make sure

01:03:48.180 | that we have now a properly identified where we're going.

01:03:51.000 | We found a roadmap to that.

01:03:52.720 | And now we know exactly how we're going to stay on track.

01:03:56.180 | I have to take this opportunity to add one more thing

01:03:59.940 | to our drop everything list.

01:04:01.640 | And you gave the example of deer,

01:04:04.300 | which is maybe drop everything and read

01:04:06.220 | or drop everything and relax or another example.

01:04:10.480 | I have to add a deal, which is drop everything.

01:04:13.500 | And this is for you, Lex, love.

01:04:16.600 | - Actually one of the advantages of having a dog

01:04:18.660 | or having children is that the drop everything

01:04:22.180 | and love is often enforced by the faces of those

01:04:27.180 | that you love, they just show up

01:04:30.320 | in whatever space you happen to be in.

01:04:31.700 | - Especially if you work from home.

01:04:33.440 | - I'd like to take a brief break

01:04:34.860 | to acknowledge our sponsor, Inside Tracker.

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01:04:48.380 | for the simple reason that many of the factors

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01:04:55.960 | One issue with a lot of blood tests

01:04:57.300 | and DNA tests out there, however,

01:04:58.700 | is that you get information back about various levels

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01:05:36.400 | - Let's move on to the next one, shall we?

01:05:38.500 | Number three here is going to be what I call calendar

01:05:41.160 | or sort of time frame.

01:05:42.120 | So it's going back a little bit and saying

01:05:44.380 | you've decided on this goal

01:05:46.700 | and you've identified the defenders.

01:05:48.920 | Now we need to come up with a realistic time frame

01:05:51.320 | for how long it's going to take to accomplish that goal.

01:05:54.200 | And when you do that,

01:05:56.640 | you need to look at your life schedule.

01:05:58.640 | And what I mean by that is,

01:06:00.940 | do you have important deadlines coming up?

01:06:02.960 | Do you have holiday?

01:06:04.240 | Do you have a trip?

01:06:05.840 | Do you have travel?

01:06:07.140 | Do your children have something coming up?

01:06:10.400 | You need to take all that information

01:06:12.100 | and I literally lay out a calendar

01:06:14.480 | and I write all those dates in a physical calendar first.

01:06:18.160 | And the reason I'm suggesting this

01:06:19.600 | is you want to work your training backwards around that.

01:06:23.080 | As we've been discussing, life will win.

01:06:25.680 | If you try to plan a training program

01:06:28.740 | that is five days a week, 90 minutes a day,

01:06:31.680 | and all of a sudden you look two weeks from now

01:06:33.440 | and you realize you've got a grant deadline

01:06:35.420 | and then you've got to take two days to go to Austin,

01:06:38.200 | it's just foolish.

01:06:39.160 | You're going to fail and then you're going to quit

01:06:40.880 | and you're going to be like,

01:06:41.720 | "Man, again, my training program failed."

01:06:43.920 | So you need to figure out what are the non-negotiables

01:06:46.680 | are in that business quadrant

01:06:48.960 | and just not be foolish, all right?

01:06:51.100 | So let's imagine you're going to plot out

01:06:54.000 | say a 12-week training phase

01:06:56.540 | and you've decided on this goal.

01:06:59.240 | And then you look and you realize

01:07:01.060 | in the middle of this 12-week span,

01:07:03.660 | week five is really hectic and chaotic.

01:07:07.000 | Or you realize that this is a quarter

01:07:09.240 | in which something important is due.

01:07:11.880 | Maybe we'll want to either adjust the goal

01:07:14.080 | or what we really do in this step

01:07:15.980 | is going on to actually step number four,

01:07:20.060 | which is choose the number of days per week you can exercise

01:07:25.060 | and the length in terms of amount of time

01:07:29.160 | you can truly afford to train.

01:07:31.600 | I would rather you underestimate that than overestimate it.

01:07:35.480 | So again, you look at the calendar,

01:07:37.720 | you put all these non-negotiables,

01:07:39.400 | the deadlines you cannot move in the calendar.

01:07:41.960 | And then you say, "Look, based on this realistically,

01:07:45.520 | I can conservatively train three days a week

01:07:48.040 | for 60 minutes total.

01:07:49.320 | And that includes the time I walk into the gym,

01:07:51.760 | my warmup, my down regulation, breathing at the end,

01:07:55.480 | and then me getting back either in the shower and back."

01:07:57.720 | 'Cause really now it's maybe 90 minutes

01:07:59.400 | by the time you traveled, you transitioned,

01:08:01.240 | you picked back up on work, you showered, you ate, et cetera.

01:08:04.560 | That time just runs away from you

01:08:05.920 | and all of a sudden it was a two and a half hour thing,

01:08:08.480 | even though it was a 45 minute workout.

01:08:09.940 | So you really need to figure that thing out.

01:08:11.660 | If you're a few weeks in and you realize,

01:08:13.140 | "Oh, I actually have a little more time than I thought."

01:08:15.400 | You can always train more.

01:08:16.240 | You can do another thing, you can add up.

01:08:17.240 | But what you don't wanna do is set up a program

01:08:19.880 | that is requiring you to do certain exercises on one day

01:08:24.160 | or certain styles of training on another.

01:08:26.260 | And then you constantly miss one of those days.

01:08:29.920 | I thought I could do four days a week,

01:08:31.880 | but one day a week, something's getting pulled out.

01:08:34.380 | That's just gonna keep you off schedule.

01:08:36.040 | It's gonna make you feel like a failure

01:08:37.800 | and you're gonna run into problems with your training.

01:08:39.480 | So schedule three, if you are sure you can get three

01:08:43.120 | and if there's an extra day,

01:08:44.040 | we can always do other fun stuff, right?

01:08:46.080 | So that's really step three and four.

01:08:48.320 | Figure out your life events over the course of this time.

01:08:51.740 | How many days a week can you train?

01:08:53.680 | And how long in terms of minutes per workout?

01:08:57.000 | Notice we haven't selected a single exercise yet.

01:09:00.880 | We haven't worried about how heavy, rest intervals,

01:09:03.480 | all those modifiable variables.

01:09:05.000 | You don't need to pick those later.

01:09:07.080 | First, where are we going?

01:09:09.040 | Second, how are we going to get there?

01:09:11.080 | Which is the quadrant and identifying of defenders.

01:09:14.180 | And then the third is what are the restrictions

01:09:16.920 | I need to place on myself in terms of program design

01:09:20.400 | based on how often and how long I can work out?

01:09:24.000 | That is going to allow you to go back

01:09:25.920 | to some of the previous episodes and go,

01:09:28.220 | man, you gave us all kinds of ideas.

01:09:30.360 | How do I know which one to choose?

01:09:32.080 | This is your answer.

01:09:33.240 | You're going to choose based upon the limitations

01:09:35.600 | of time and frequency.

01:09:37.520 | So if you've already said, let's imagine we're in bucket A

01:09:41.920 | or bucket C, it doesn't matter.

01:09:43.800 | And you go, look, the most I can afford with where I'm at

01:09:46.520 | with what's going on in my life is three days a week.

01:09:50.160 | Well, we automatically know we're going to have

01:09:51.780 | to start choosing a training style

01:09:54.740 | that's limited to three days a week.

01:09:56.920 | Don't even worry about the four or five days.

01:09:58.360 | Those are off the table.

01:10:00.000 | And so we've placed restrictions.

01:10:02.040 | It kind of goes back to that concept of,

01:10:04.880 | I think it's one of your podcast guests, Jocko, right?

01:10:08.400 | It's just like, hey, structure gives us

01:10:09.780 | actually some freedom.

01:10:11.160 | So by creating some restrictions here,

01:10:13.480 | we're a little more free to go,

01:10:14.620 | I only actually have to choose between A and B.

01:10:16.880 | Rather than sitting down and going, man, there's all,

01:10:19.320 | I'm 20 hours into this exercise podcasting.

01:10:22.520 | There's so many options between a pick.

01:10:23.800 | Well, you create a little bit of restriction

01:10:25.560 | and now it's easier to go, oh, my only option is A or B.

01:10:28.880 | And there we go.

01:10:29.720 | - So that's number four.

01:10:31.860 | That's three and four.

01:10:33.280 | At that point, once we're good there,

01:10:35.380 | now what you want to do is go to step number five,

01:10:37.520 | which is actually select your exercises or your movements.

01:10:41.480 | And this is going to be as simple as selecting

01:10:43.160 | like a kettlebell swing or running or swimming.

01:10:48.000 | It could be your entire exercise mode.

01:10:50.480 | And what you want to do with exercise selection here

01:10:53.360 | is make sure that you're balancing those exercises

01:10:56.420 | across the whole week,

01:10:59.360 | not within necessarily every workout.

01:11:02.220 | So if you have four days a week, five days a week,

01:11:04.800 | you want to look at the exercise selection and say,

01:11:06.700 | okay, I need to have somewhat of a reasonable balance

01:11:09.940 | between movement patterns or muscle groups

01:11:14.640 | or front and back, side to side,

01:11:16.200 | however you're thinking of it, just across that week.

01:11:19.680 | So again, say we're on a three-day program

01:11:22.500 | and we're in either of the buckets,

01:11:25.740 | any of the buckets really,

01:11:28.000 | and we say, okay, great, maybe it's not ideal

01:11:30.680 | if all I select is cycling every day.

01:11:33.480 | That's not a lot of balance.

01:11:35.720 | I don't notice any, there's no upper body work there.

01:11:37.640 | There's no torso work.

01:11:38.960 | There's no other position.

01:11:41.000 | So maybe I'm going to really focus on cycling.

01:11:43.400 | So I will do only cycling two days a week,

01:11:45.300 | but that third day I need to pick something

01:11:47.080 | for the other movement areas.

01:11:48.760 | And that's going to make sure you stay

01:11:49.900 | in a reasonable balance.

01:11:51.620 | If you have an exercise that you like, great.

01:11:54.240 | If you have exercise you have access to.

01:11:56.640 | Again, maybe the gym is a giant pain in the ass.

01:11:59.040 | And so you can say, look, it's too far away.

01:12:02.020 | The closest one is 45 minutes there and back.

01:12:03.900 | So maybe I'm going to restrict myself

01:12:05.520 | to only kettlebell and bands and running

01:12:08.040 | 'cause I can do those in my house.

01:12:10.160 | Awesome.

01:12:11.000 | We've actually created some freedom

01:12:12.200 | because we gave ourselves some restriction.

01:12:14.000 | And now we just have to figure out

01:12:15.160 | how am I going to give some movement patterns

01:12:17.520 | somewhat balanced across my three days.

01:12:20.260 | So really when it comes to exercise choice,

01:12:23.200 | it is selecting the patterns

01:12:25.920 | that you know how to execute,

01:12:27.360 | giving yourself again somewhat of a balance

01:12:30.840 | between the muscles and the joints

01:12:33.440 | and the movement patterns,

01:12:34.740 | making sure that you are specifically targeting

01:12:39.120 | any muscle group or movement that you want.

01:12:41.700 | So making sure you want to improve muscle size

01:12:45.040 | in your glutes.

01:12:45.880 | You better make sure some of the exercises you're doing

01:12:48.760 | at least one day a week,

01:12:50.640 | you feel it in your actual glutes.

01:12:52.600 | So you can check that box.

01:12:53.640 | It doesn't have to be every exercise.

01:12:54.960 | It probably shouldn't.

01:12:56.480 | It doesn't even have to be every single day.

01:12:59.080 | But make sure it's checked off somewhere on that list.

01:13:01.880 | And the last one is,

01:13:04.740 | is there a strategy in which you can progress it?

01:13:08.080 | So if you're like, I'm just going to do body weight exercises.

01:13:10.100 | Okay, great.

01:13:10.940 | Well, how are you going to progress those?

01:13:12.520 | In a case like body weight, it's really hard to add load.

01:13:16.120 | Maybe you can put a weight vest on or something,

01:13:17.640 | but then maybe you don't have that

01:13:18.600 | or that's an extra thing or that can only go so far.

01:13:20.440 | So what's my progression strategy going to be?

01:13:22.400 | Well, in this case, maybe you just increase the complexity

01:13:25.720 | by going from two legs, like say a body weight squat,

01:13:29.260 | to a single leg squat,

01:13:31.400 | or you just increase repetitions,

01:13:33.140 | or you increase time you're going to hold it.

01:13:35.280 | My point is your progression strategy

01:13:36.760 | will be based upon the restrictions that you placed

01:13:39.440 | based on availability and things like that.

01:13:42.080 | The last thing I would recommend here

01:13:44.860 | in terms of exercise progression,

01:13:46.920 | to make sure that you can continue to do these things

01:13:50.340 | while lowering your risk of injury,

01:13:52.040 | both in the short term and long term,

01:13:54.800 | is to progress your exercise complexity in this fashion.

01:13:59.400 | So make sure, number one,

01:14:01.360 | you can do the exercise properly with assistance.

01:14:05.480 | So let's imagine a scenario

01:14:06.800 | where we're going to try to squat.

01:14:09.480 | So give yourself, put your hands on a bench

01:14:12.840 | or something like that.

01:14:13.680 | Now, can you execute that squat perfectly with assistance?

01:14:16.720 | So you're holding onto something.

01:14:17.880 | Okay, great.

01:14:18.720 | If you can't, then don't progress past that.

01:14:22.040 | Don't go now do a barbell back squat

01:14:23.560 | if you can't do it correctly when you had assistance.

01:14:26.840 | But let's assume most people can do that.

01:14:28.720 | Okay, great.

01:14:29.640 | Now you can move on to the next step,

01:14:31.100 | which is can you do it well without assistance?

01:14:34.920 | So this would be body weight only.

01:14:37.000 | Check, cool.

01:14:38.660 | We're good there.

01:14:39.500 | Okay, now you can go ahead and move on.

01:14:41.700 | Can you do it well with an added eccentric load?

01:14:46.000 | So in this particular case, if we're learning to squat,

01:14:49.600 | we can do it well when I hold onto something.

01:14:51.240 | That's great.

01:14:52.080 | Okay, now I can do it well with just my body weight.

01:14:53.960 | Now, if I put a little bit of weight on,

01:14:55.660 | whether it's a kettlebell in the front like a goblet squat

01:14:58.360 | or dumbbells to the side or whatever you want to do,

01:15:00.880 | can I lower it and go all the way down

01:15:02.600 | and stay in perfect position?

01:15:04.040 | If you can do that, great.

01:15:06.560 | You're allowed to go to the next step,

01:15:07.880 | which is can you hold it isometrically?

01:15:10.380 | So can you go all the way down

01:15:12.520 | and then hold that bottom position?

01:15:14.320 | What you don't want to do is start adding load or speed

01:15:19.120 | or fatigue if you're going down to the bottom position

01:15:22.480 | of the movement and you're out of control.

01:15:25.240 | We really want to avoid this.

01:15:26.320 | So I want you to show me you can go down

01:15:28.260 | and you can lower the weight under control.

01:15:31.800 | You can hold it in that position under control.

01:15:35.400 | If we're clear there,

01:15:36.840 | now we can add the concentric portion, right?

01:15:40.460 | You can now go ahead, you can lower it,

01:15:43.500 | you can hold that position of most danger,

01:15:45.680 | now you can move up at whatever speed we want.

01:15:48.040 | We are all good there.

01:15:49.200 | Once you can show me those things,

01:15:50.760 | you can add the last two steps,

01:15:51.960 | which are now speed if you choose to,

01:15:55.320 | and the last one, which is fatigue, right?

01:15:57.880 | I would really discourage people

01:15:59.920 | from doing exercises to fatigue,

01:16:02.960 | especially with a moderate or high load,

01:16:05.760 | unless you can promise me you can do these first six steps.

01:16:09.480 | If you can, you can basically go hog wild

01:16:12.520 | with your training and your chances of injury are very low.

01:16:15.540 | Again, both acute injury, as well as long-term injury,

01:16:19.480 | which is just sort of like my joints ache

01:16:21.560 | and all of a sudden my shoulder hurts

01:16:23.280 | and things like that.

01:16:25.300 | That's really what I'm looking for.

01:16:27.200 | And once you're clear there, you can train pretty hard.

01:16:30.080 | - I really like this because recently I was showing somebody

01:16:32.940 | how to use a, in this case, it was a hack squat machine.

01:16:35.700 | I noticed that they were very timid

01:16:37.840 | of getting into a deep squat position.

01:16:42.000 | And they cited a previous knee injury,

01:16:44.840 | which is long since healed.

01:16:46.520 | - Right.

01:16:47.360 | - But even with proper foot placement and everything,

01:16:49.280 | you just tell they were getting ginger about it

01:16:52.160 | as they approached that bottom position.

01:16:54.960 | But over time, with pauses at the bottom,

01:16:58.120 | they become very comfortable.

01:16:59.480 | And now actually are going well below 90 degrees angle

01:17:03.440 | between femur and lower leg.

01:17:06.840 | So it was clear that it wasn't something

01:17:10.360 | range of motion limited, or it was just,

01:17:12.440 | it was a mental thing, but a logical one for them.

01:17:17.000 | Now, after what you just said,

01:17:18.420 | I think a better strategy that I could have used

01:17:21.960 | would have been to have them get into that position,

01:17:25.120 | just no weight at all, maybe nothing on the sled,

01:17:28.840 | and then slowly working up from there,

01:17:30.580 | as opposed to doing what we did in our case,

01:17:33.620 | which was to just convince them

01:17:35.460 | that they were much stronger than they thought they were.

01:17:37.680 | We eventually got there,

01:17:38.600 | but I'm realizing that there was far too much

01:17:41.000 | mental anguish involved in that process.

01:17:42.920 | - Yeah, this whole progression, by the way,

01:17:45.160 | this can all happen in one session.

01:17:47.800 | If you can check the boxes, like in that example,

01:17:50.080 | you may have been fine to jump there.

01:17:51.760 | It may have just been a, hey, you're fine here,

01:17:53.880 | get through it, oh, okay.

01:17:55.280 | This whole progression might take two years.

01:17:57.840 | I mean, this really depends on your background,

01:17:59.880 | if you actually have injury history,

01:18:02.440 | your comfort, your confidence, like all these things.

01:18:04.300 | So you don't need to worry

01:18:05.520 | about rushing through that progression.

01:18:07.160 | You don't even need to get all the way to the end,

01:18:08.420 | if you don't want, especially with speed

01:18:10.480 | and things like that.

01:18:11.800 | But again, it can't happen.

01:18:13.120 | It doesn't have to be like, well, it's a month of this,

01:18:14.960 | a month, like, but no, if they feel great

01:18:16.720 | and you can go through one to seven in five minutes,

01:18:18.800 | then you're good to go.

01:18:20.520 | - Number six.

01:18:21.400 | - Number six now is just order.

01:18:24.520 | So you know how many days per week you're gonna work out.

01:18:26.600 | You know how long they're going to take.

01:18:28.540 | You've selected all the exercises you need to get done.

01:18:31.280 | You've balanced that across the week.

01:18:34.120 | Now you just need to put them in order.

01:18:35.680 | And the easy answer here is generally,

01:18:38.440 | do what's most important first in the workout.

01:18:41.580 | There is some minor interference effect

01:18:45.040 | or some other things there, but the reality of it is,

01:18:48.560 | if you do the priority first,

01:18:50.840 | you're probably going to be okay.

01:18:52.980 | So whether this priority is a muscle group,

01:18:55.800 | so in the example, you wanna make sure

01:18:57.680 | your glutes get trained, maybe do it first.

01:19:00.500 | If you're trying to maximize your back squat,

01:19:04.180 | you may not wanna do a bunch of glute exercises

01:19:06.580 | to fatigue first, but that's not the priority we picked.

01:19:09.620 | We picked a different one, which is buckets A, B, and C.

01:19:13.580 | Okay, great.

01:19:14.740 | By doing it first, you told me the priority

01:19:16.620 | was to make sure I do something for my glutes.

01:19:18.820 | And then I would also like to get my back squat

01:19:21.200 | a little bit stronger or whatever.

01:19:23.120 | Okay, fine.

01:19:24.060 | The same thing could be done for your endurance training.

01:19:26.600 | You could do your endurance training before your lifting

01:19:29.700 | if you understand that that means you might be compromising

01:19:32.800 | your lifting quality of the workout a little bit.

01:19:36.740 | But you might be fine with that

01:19:37.680 | if you say the endurance work is more important right now.

01:19:40.340 | Amazing.

01:19:41.180 | You don't know the answer to that, though,

01:19:43.100 | if you hadn't gone through steps one through four.

01:19:45.860 | And that's why those things are critical.

01:19:47.400 | So it makes what we call chaos management,

01:19:50.380 | which is things happen in the moment.

01:19:51.940 | I don't know what to do.

01:19:52.780 | What should I choose?

01:19:53.860 | That decision becomes really clear

01:19:55.500 | 'cause you can always go back to the beginning

01:19:56.980 | and go, my priority was this.

01:19:59.640 | Then therefore, that's my choice today.

01:20:01.940 | So it provides a very simple set of instructions

01:20:05.640 | for when the workout gets cut short,

01:20:07.820 | when your workout has to be in a hotel

01:20:09.580 | and any number of things that pop up in real life,

01:20:12.840 | whether again, you're an athlete or non-athlete,

01:20:15.680 | either way, life will get in the way at some point.

01:20:18.560 | So you need to have rules and a system that says,

01:20:21.740 | when this happens, I go right back to this

01:20:23.920 | and that's my choice.

01:20:25.060 | Done, I'm moving on.

01:20:26.540 | No decision to make here.

01:20:27.680 | It's already been determined a week ago, five weeks ago.

01:20:30.960 | We're off and rolling.

01:20:32.140 | So the order again is pretty simple.

01:20:34.380 | Just put the one that is most important first.

01:20:37.380 | Now I know you like to do legs on Monday.

01:20:41.700 | That's great.

01:20:42.580 | I actually love that too.

01:20:43.580 | I do the same thing generally

01:20:45.620 | because to me that's almost always the most important thing.

01:20:48.780 | If I miss a bicep workout, I'm probably fine,

01:20:51.960 | but I really don't like missing the big movement pattern.

01:20:55.380 | So I make sure that those happen on a day

01:20:56.940 | that tend to be more stable for me.

01:20:58.440 | Mondays are generally pretty stable.

01:21:00.780 | Things get chaotic as the week moves along for me.

01:21:03.240 | Others might be the opposite, right?

01:21:05.460 | Others might wanna go, hey,

01:21:06.840 | I'm actually gonna keep Monday as my flexible day

01:21:09.720 | or off day because I like to get a lot of my work done,

01:21:13.300 | get that cleared so I can have, oh sure,

01:21:15.420 | like working around you.

01:21:16.300 | Some people love to train on Saturdays

01:21:17.980 | 'cause it's their most free.

01:21:18.820 | Some people hate it.

01:21:20.220 | Sure, you tell me what is the biggest priority

01:21:22.760 | and when are you the most fresh?

01:21:24.060 | Monday, Tuesday, it doesn't matter.

01:21:26.500 | Depends on your work schedule.

01:21:27.600 | Maybe you work the weekends, I don't know, right?

01:21:29.780 | You decide what day of the week

01:21:32.240 | are you generally the most consistent,

01:21:34.640 | the most consistent schedule and the most consistent energy

01:21:39.140 | and do the thing that is most important on that day.

01:21:41.060 | It doesn't matter Monday, Tuesday, day one, day three.

01:21:43.840 | We were sort of talking about this earlier,

01:21:45.360 | but you actually don't even have to do a week schedule.

01:21:48.300 | Our brains tend to like to go year, month, week,

01:21:51.180 | but a lot of folks will even just run this thing

01:21:53.420 | in terms of like a seven or nine day schedule.

01:21:55.380 | In fact, we ran a nine day training schedule

01:21:59.280 | for one of my major league baseball players

01:22:01.560 | and he's eight or so years into his career

01:22:04.320 | and he's hitting all time PRs in velocity.

01:22:07.360 | He's very, very good.

01:22:08.200 | And it was a nine day training cycle

01:22:10.660 | and we ran that for the entire season.

01:22:13.340 | So it doesn't have to be a seven day split,

01:22:15.760 | but it tends to work for a lot of people

01:22:17.300 | 'cause most people have a fairly consistent schedule

01:22:20.220 | across the seven days.

01:22:21.140 | So pick the thing that is most important and do it first

01:22:23.620 | and do it on the day of the week

01:22:24.980 | that is most consistent for you

01:22:26.740 | in terms of schedule and energy.

01:22:29.060 | I really like what you're describing.

01:22:31.080 | I should just say that one of the reasons

01:22:32.240 | I put legs on Monday is because I tend to get enough sleep

01:22:35.820 | on the weekends.

01:22:36.660 | I generally get enough sleep during the middle of the week,

01:22:38.540 | but oftentimes things will come up.

01:22:40.880 | I can be pretty sure, however, that I've quote unquote

01:22:44.400 | caught up on my sleep on the weekends.

01:22:45.920 | This notion of catching up on sleep

01:22:47.160 | is a little dicey scientifically,

01:22:48.520 | but tend to be pretty rested by Monday morning.

01:22:51.200 | And actually my week begins on Sunday

01:22:54.340 | and Sundays are when I get my long form cardio.

01:22:56.860 | So those two are really non-negotiable.

01:22:59.300 | And the reason that long form cardio is on Sunday

01:23:01.820 | is that it can take many different forms.

01:23:04.080 | It can take a hike with a weighted vest.

01:23:06.220 | It can take the form of a jog.

01:23:08.360 | It can be done with other people.

01:23:09.560 | It can be family time.

01:23:10.560 | It can be time with friends and so on.

01:23:13.220 | And that's pretty hard to do

01:23:14.400 | during the middle of the week,

01:23:15.700 | or pretty hard to ensure, at least for me.

01:23:17.900 | I also find that by bookending the week

01:23:20.060 | with some non-negotiable days of training on Sunday, Monday,

01:23:24.820 | then if the week gets busy Tuesday, Wednesday,

01:23:27.300 | or even sometimes Thursday with travel and things like that,

01:23:30.260 | one can sort of catch up toward the weekend.

01:23:32.220 | It's not ideal.

01:23:33.180 | I mean, ideally it's spaced out,

01:23:34.860 | but really this isn't about what I do.

01:23:37.020 | This is really just to underscore the principle you described

01:23:39.460 | which is I have a very clear sense now

01:23:42.020 | over three decades or so of training

01:23:45.100 | and three decades or so of being involved

01:23:48.020 | in academics and science and work

01:23:50.340 | of when I tend to be most rested,

01:23:52.580 | when I tend to have some flexibility in my schedule,

01:23:55.120 | and also when I'm trying to combine fitness

01:23:57.540 | with some of my social engagements,

01:24:00.060 | which is actually quite fun.

01:24:01.260 | One thing I noticed that the four boxes

01:24:04.180 | that you mentioned before,

01:24:05.020 | work relationships, fitness, and recovery,

01:24:07.400 | some of them do have some crossover.

01:24:09.020 | - They all do.

01:24:09.860 | - You know, a hike with family or friends

01:24:11.380 | is both relationship and fitness and so on.

01:24:15.460 | But I love the principle

01:24:18.040 | because anything that can add consistency,

01:24:20.040 | as you pointed it out,

01:24:21.160 | is going to greatly increase the probability

01:24:23.620 | of reaching one's goals.

01:24:24.480 | That's sort of an obvious one.

01:24:25.980 | But in an earlier episode,

01:24:28.500 | you also said something that I wrote down

01:24:30.260 | and is really still ringing in my mind,

01:24:31.700 | especially now,

01:24:32.540 | which is that consistency always beats intensity.

01:24:35.780 | - Correct.

01:24:37.020 | Yeah, absolutely.

01:24:38.300 | We used to do a thing

01:24:39.780 | when I was training NFL players for the combine

01:24:43.780 | many years ago,

01:24:45.200 | where Saturdays were supposed to be the day they came in

01:24:49.260 | and we did the most regeneration.

01:24:51.280 | So this is when they get bodywork done

01:24:53.280 | and we do hot, cold contrast

01:24:55.480 | and sort of all these things.

01:24:56.800 | And our attendance was like 1%.

01:25:00.220 | Nobody showed up, right?

01:25:01.060 | - For a massage?

01:25:02.300 | - Nobody showed up.

01:25:03.140 | - Wow.

01:25:03.980 | - Seems right, but remember.

01:25:05.220 | - I love a good massage.

01:25:06.420 | - Of course.

01:25:07.300 | But remember, you're 18 years old.

01:25:09.740 | You're likely to be getting millions of dollars

01:25:11.840 | handed to you in the next few weeks or months.

01:25:15.220 | And--

01:25:16.060 | - He's not referring to me, by the way.

01:25:17.160 | - No, no, no.

01:25:18.000 | He's actually quite a bit older than 18.

01:25:19.940 | And I'm not getting handed millions of dollars each week.

01:25:23.540 | - Right.

01:25:25.180 | So I would think that,

01:25:26.940 | but those folks like they recover super fast.

01:25:29.220 | They've never really had that.

01:25:30.240 | And also like Friday night, kind of enticing.

01:25:35.100 | And so nothing was there.

01:25:36.300 | And the strategy then was what if we,

01:25:38.260 | instead of having a important hard training day on Saturday,

01:25:43.260 | we transition and it is only things they want to do.

01:25:47.520 | So we basically identified,

01:25:48.880 | what are the things in training you love the most?

01:25:51.180 | And let's do those Saturdays.

01:25:52.740 | And it turns out for those folks, no surprise here,

01:25:55.020 | it was what we call the gun show.

01:25:56.940 | So they would come into the gym

01:25:58.580 | and we would literally do nothing but biceps and triceps.

01:26:01.820 | They'd just get a pump.

01:26:02.760 | And then the deal was though,

01:26:04.380 | you come in and literally would come in

01:26:05.820 | as we would pick three guys.

01:26:07.640 | So you, you and you.

01:26:08.820 | You pick your favorite bicep exercise.

01:26:10.500 | You pick your favorite one.

01:26:11.420 | You pick your favorite one.

01:26:12.400 | You three over there,

01:26:13.240 | you pick your favorite tricep, tricep, tricep.

01:26:14.900 | And we just run a big circuit.

01:26:15.900 | Like it's just like, how many reps?

01:26:17.640 | I don't know.

01:26:18.480 | I don't care how many reps.

01:26:19.320 | I don't even care.

01:26:20.140 | Just like pump away.

01:26:20.980 | Like I don't even care, right?

01:26:22.240 | We chose small muscle groups.

01:26:24.240 | It's not really gonna interfere with much.

01:26:25.720 | We're training them for the NFL combine,

01:26:27.200 | which is like, it's not a,

01:26:29.040 | it's legs performance basically, right?

01:26:30.820 | So it was like,

01:26:31.660 | if they smash their biceps and triceps on a Saturday,

01:26:33.800 | it's not gonna influence what we did on Monday.

01:26:36.320 | So recovery wasn't an issue.

01:26:38.320 | Once we finished the gun show though,

01:26:40.160 | now you have to go do your regen stuff.

01:26:42.940 | So if you need chiro work,

01:26:44.480 | you need physical therapy,

01:26:45.560 | whatever you're gonna do.

01:26:46.680 | So we would get them in the building

01:26:48.820 | with the low hanging fruit.

01:26:50.480 | And then we would actually get them to do their work.

01:26:52.580 | You can do the same thing.

01:26:53.560 | And I honestly do the same thing.

01:26:55.820 | I tend to do either,

01:26:58.000 | if I'm gonna do an upper lower split,

01:26:59.700 | I'm gonna do that stuff either Friday night or Saturday,

01:27:03.980 | because it's very difficult for me

01:27:05.740 | to do a hard long workout Friday night, right?

01:27:09.680 | Or even Friday morning for that matter.

01:27:11.040 | The same thing Saturday,

01:27:11.880 | I wake up and it's now it's like,

01:27:13.700 | it's family mode, it's kid things.

01:27:15.220 | I wanna do stuff.

01:27:16.060 | I want, man, but I can usually convince myself

01:27:19.100 | to be like, all right, just go in there,

01:27:20.240 | go 20 minutes and get your upper body stuff done.

01:27:22.620 | All right, I can walk myself into that mentally.

01:27:24.980 | It's harder to walk yourself

01:27:26.180 | into your five sets of five deadlift.

01:27:28.600 | It's sorta just like, whoa,

01:27:30.740 | I ain't got that in me right now.

01:27:32.120 | My high intensity intervals, the max of,

01:27:34.840 | I don't have that right now.

01:27:36.140 | So I'll either go for my long steady state stuff,

01:27:38.380 | which is like, I'm gonna, I'm going on the bike,

01:27:40.620 | I'm riding down to the beach or coming back nasal only.

01:27:43.800 | I can get myself to go for a bike ride like that or whatever.

01:27:46.820 | So I picked the thing that I'm likely to do on the days

01:27:50.580 | where I'm probably gonna be my weakest quote unquote,

01:27:53.280 | not physically, but motivation wise.

01:27:56.680 | For a long time, I tried to like,

01:27:58.520 | it just got stuck in a way where my harder stuff

01:28:00.800 | was Friday nights.

01:28:02.440 | And I'm just like, why am I doing this?

01:28:03.740 | I was having like a 50% success rate,

01:28:06.200 | just like we were having like a no percent success rate

01:28:08.540 | with the NFL guys on Saturday.

01:28:10.080 | So you have to be a little bit tough.

01:28:13.140 | You have to grind sometimes,

01:28:14.560 | you have to get some motivation, go after it.

01:28:16.860 | But you also have to be like,

01:28:18.200 | well, this is just stupid planning, right?

01:28:20.680 | Like why put yourself in a position

01:28:22.160 | where you're just failing over and over and over

01:28:24.680 | when I could move it and go, look,

01:28:27.280 | those sessions are going to be things that are easier.

01:28:32.120 | They don't require as much gusto to get up

01:28:35.020 | and get them done.

01:28:35.960 | I get those things done 90% of the time.

01:28:38.920 | 'Cause the worst case I can be like,

01:28:40.320 | all right, we're gonna go do a family thing,

01:28:41.560 | give me 20 minutes,

01:28:42.400 | I'm just gonna run up there and smash the upper body.

01:28:45.040 | And you don't need, I don't need a 20 minute warmup.

01:28:47.600 | It's like, I can just kind of jump into those things

01:28:49.880 | if I had to.

01:28:50.780 | If I feel great, then I can still go do something else

01:28:54.160 | or I could do more, I could do a longer session.

01:28:56.000 | But you're sort of immune to any situation.

01:28:58.760 | So I would bookend those, I guess is what I'm saying.

01:29:02.200 | What's the day you're gonna have the best day

01:29:04.020 | and what's the day you generally have the worst?

01:29:05.820 | And put the programs around those situations.

01:29:10.240 | - I love the idea of identifying the friction points,

01:29:12.720 | the high friction and low friction days.

01:29:14.340 | Friction meaning anything that impedes you

01:29:15.880 | from training consistently or well.

01:29:18.100 | And there are so many factors that ratchet into that sleep.

01:29:21.920 | Other social engagements work.

01:29:24.200 | Friday night, I also find it tough

01:29:26.800 | to do any kind of training.

01:29:28.880 | I do cardiovascular training.

01:29:31.040 | I do interval type training on Fridays typically.

01:29:34.960 | But there's a lot of cumulative fatigue and stress

01:29:37.880 | that happens across the week.

01:29:39.280 | And usually for a long time, gosh, more than a decade now,

01:29:42.960 | I've been telling myself that Saturday is the day

01:29:44.720 | that I try to reduce my cortisol

01:29:48.280 | as much as possible from the week.

01:29:50.200 | And then Sunday is the day that I enjoy

01:29:51.760 | that low cortisol state.

01:29:53.040 | And that's actually what opened up into the long slow run.

01:29:56.440 | I actually like to think of myself as a bit of a mule

01:29:59.320 | during those long runs.

01:30:01.080 | I actually have a shirt that has a sloth on it

01:30:04.200 | that I wear to remind myself to go slowly on those runs.

01:30:07.020 | Not that I ever run that fast,

01:30:09.380 | but there's the whole mindset around it

01:30:11.780 | is to be a bit of a mule, just kind of moving through it.

01:30:15.960 | And the fatigue factor is more one of,

01:30:18.440 | at first there's a little bit of boredom,

01:30:21.760 | but then I've noticed there's a whole different set

01:30:24.460 | of mental escapes that open up

01:30:25.880 | under different training types.

01:30:27.400 | And this is maybe something we get into a little bit

01:30:29.460 | in a future episode or discussion.

01:30:31.240 | When you train really intensely for short periods of time,

01:30:33.520 | one way, your mind goes into a particular state

01:30:36.680 | when you do long duration training,

01:30:38.380 | your thinking and indeed even the way

01:30:41.240 | it affects sleep patterns is also very different.

01:30:43.300 | I think one of the great futures for neuroscience

01:30:45.440 | and exercise science and collaboration

01:30:47.200 | is to identify how different patterns of physical movement

01:30:50.640 | relate to different patterns of thinking and vice versa.

01:30:53.860 | Anyway, that's something maybe to just earmark

01:30:56.320 | for a future conversation,

01:30:57.720 | but there's clearly a relationship there.

01:30:59.580 | - Yeah.

01:31:00.420 | Yeah, well, when we certainly know

01:31:02.360 | of a pretty clear relationship

01:31:04.660 | between even what we would classify as zone five exercise

01:31:08.760 | and deep sleep.

01:31:09.760 | - So a zone five, again, being,

01:31:11.760 | you're breathing a lot through your mouth

01:31:13.000 | because you have to in order to bring in enough oxygen

01:31:16.040 | to offset the acidity created by the carbon.

01:31:19.200 | Exactly.

01:31:20.040 | - Yeah, this is the high heart rate.

01:31:21.280 | So, I mean, if you're going to look at it and hit a number,

01:31:25.640 | looking for something like 30 plus minutes a week,

01:31:29.280 | being in the top 10% of your heart rate.

01:31:32.480 | - That impacts deep sleep.

01:31:34.120 | - Is going to positively impact deep sleep.

01:31:36.080 | As long as it's done very far away from deep sleep.

01:31:38.740 | So you don't want to do that at night.

01:31:40.400 | So in terms of time.

01:31:43.020 | So if you hit those numbers earlier in the day,

01:31:45.600 | oftentimes that will enhance deep sleep.

01:31:48.000 | - Yeah, I was looking at some papers recently

01:31:49.820 | and the number that kind of emerged from those papers

01:31:52.820 | was that unless it's low intensity exercise,

01:31:56.620 | trying to exercise about six hours or more away

01:32:01.240 | from your sleep time would be ideal.

01:32:03.300 | Now that said, for those of you that have to hit the gym

01:32:06.240 | or go for a run in the evening

01:32:07.600 | and then are trying to fall asleep four to six hours later,

01:32:10.060 | I wouldn't want that statement to impede

01:32:11.860 | your regular exercising.

01:32:16.120 | - Yeah, there's an easy trick to that.

01:32:18.020 | Just finish it with down regulation breathing.

01:32:20.520 | So that's sort of one of our things that if you,

01:32:23.340 | 'cause that is a realistic situation, right?

01:32:25.080 | - Finish work at five or even six,

01:32:26.940 | and then by the time you're training or running

01:32:29.180 | or whatever you want to call it, it's a 738,

01:32:31.700 | you're home at nine, you're eating,

01:32:33.380 | and then everyone's like,

01:32:34.220 | you can't eat two hours before bed.

01:32:35.480 | Pretty soon you run into a number

01:32:37.020 | of different collision points

01:32:38.500 | that make you wonder whether or not

01:32:39.440 | you're doing everything wrong

01:32:40.500 | or if it's really worth training at all.

01:32:41.860 | And I would argue it's better to train than not to train,

01:32:45.020 | provided that you can still get to sleep.

01:32:47.100 | - 100%, so you have to walk a little bit of a game.

01:32:49.040 | We run into this issue with the NBA players, right?

01:32:51.300 | You're playing games at six o'clock at night at start.

01:32:53.180 | Major League Baseball is a 705, 710 pitch, right?

01:32:57.180 | And also by the way,

01:32:58.020 | we're changing time zones every five days, right?

01:33:00.860 | UFC fighters and such, we're usually training twice a day.

01:33:04.420 | There is no option to train.

01:33:05.880 | Well, I mean, we are training twice a day always.

01:33:08.420 | So we have to come up with strategies for that.

01:33:10.740 | And there's other like non-athlete scenarios, of course,

01:33:13.140 | where it's like, there is no other option here, cool.

01:33:15.380 | So what we do is a couple of things.

01:33:17.600 | Number one, the further away you can make it from sleep,

01:33:20.740 | the better, if possible.

01:33:22.580 | We do need to train though,

01:33:24.480 | around the same time you're going to be playing.

01:33:27.260 | That has to happen.

01:33:28.340 | So the harder and longer we go in the training session,

01:33:31.900 | the harder and longer we go

01:33:33.560 | in our down-regulation post-exercise.

01:33:35.780 | And that is, in my estimation,

01:33:38.300 | the number one lever you can pull that can help, right?

01:33:42.820 | Now, if it really does start crushing sleep,

01:33:45.380 | you're going to have to make a critical decision there.

01:33:49.260 | In general, it's not a good reason to not exercise,

01:33:53.460 | but maybe you restrict to only a couple of days a week,

01:33:57.140 | you go all the way up in intensity,

01:33:59.000 | and the rest of the days, maybe 70%.

01:34:01.360 | You stay in just kind of a working zone.

01:34:03.300 | Awesome.

01:34:05.500 | Maybe it's a longer down-regulation,

01:34:07.160 | maybe there's other strategies you can do.

01:34:09.260 | But yeah, you want to be careful of,

01:34:12.260 | and we've had this situation a number of times

01:34:14.400 | where it's sort of just like sleep complaints,

01:34:16.460 | sleep complaints, sleep complaints.

01:34:18.280 | We run full sleep studies on them in their house.

01:34:21.020 | We do the whole thing with absolute rest.

01:34:23.300 | We come in, we do the whole thing, eye tracking,

01:34:25.900 | biomarkers, the whole thing.

01:34:27.940 | And it's like, oh,

01:34:29.660 | you just need to stop doing intervals at 8 p.m.

01:34:32.180 | - Right, and I would add to that,

01:34:34.220 | another incentive for being able to train

01:34:36.460 | with or without caffeine is that it's very clear

01:34:39.740 | that even if you can fall asleep after ingesting caffeine

01:34:42.300 | within the preceding hours,

01:34:44.060 | that caffeine consumed in the, gosh, even 12,

01:34:47.980 | but really eight to 10 hours, four hours prior to bedtime

01:34:51.180 | really disrupts the architecture of sleep.

01:34:53.080 | So if you critically rely on caffeine in order to train,

01:34:56.640 | whatever your training might be,

01:34:58.560 | and you know that sleep is important for recovery,

01:35:00.420 | well, then it's pretty obvious where I'm going with this.

01:35:02.660 | So having that flexibility is vitally important.

01:35:06.160 | - Yeah, you've probably also covered this,

01:35:07.460 | but you can actually measure that directly.

01:35:09.900 | So by eye tracking patterns,

01:35:12.440 | you can actually identify the effects

01:35:14.940 | that caffeine has on sleep

01:35:16.560 | independent of a sleep time or not.

01:35:19.200 | - Right, there are never positive effects.

01:35:20.840 | - Correct.

01:35:22.280 | - That said, I am a proponent of caffeine early in the day,

01:35:26.180 | and caffeine does have a lot of, well,

01:35:29.220 | it's anti-neurodegenerative.

01:35:33.220 | As long as you're not getting anxiety,

01:35:34.880 | it's pro-performance, both mental and physical performance.

01:35:37.860 | But of course, if you do not need caffeine,

01:35:39.660 | if you're one of these mutants that do not need caffeine

01:35:41.920 | in order to go about your daily living

01:35:44.580 | with focus and intensity,

01:35:45.840 | then by all means, don't start taking caffeine.

01:35:48.540 | - I'm not the hugest fan.

01:35:50.000 | I am scientifically, 100% I'm bored personally.

01:35:52.640 | I don't do well on it.

01:35:53.880 | - Well, you seem to ride a little bit more

01:35:55.780 | of what we would call sympathetic tone,

01:35:58.480 | kind of shifted towards more alert.

01:36:00.320 | I tend to be naturally a bit more like my Bulldog Costello

01:36:05.320 | was a little bit more on the mellow sleepy side.

01:36:07.520 | And caffeine just puts me right at that alert

01:36:10.320 | but calm place.

01:36:12.480 | And I can get away with drinking it.

01:36:14.280 | I wouldn't say ridiculous,

01:36:16.000 | but a fair amount of caffeine and remain there.

01:36:17.720 | But I do restrict it until the time right up about 2 p.m.

01:36:21.040 | at the latest is really when I'm trying to drink caffeine.

01:36:24.080 | Number seven.

01:36:25.120 | - Great, so number seven and eight are pretty simple.

01:36:27.520 | This is now choose the intensity and the volume.

01:36:31.340 | So we've discussed those at length in the previous episodes.

01:36:35.200 | We probably don't have the time to go back

01:36:36.760 | over all those details.

01:36:38.000 | So remember the adaptation you're training for

01:36:40.200 | and pick the appropriate rep range, total amount of sets,

01:36:45.120 | as well as the intensity to then get

01:36:47.680 | the corresponding adaptation, right?

01:36:49.940 | All you have to do is select those things.

01:36:52.080 | In terms of progression through a week,

01:36:54.940 | the rule of thumb we say for intensity

01:36:57.140 | is something around 3% per week, right?

01:37:01.560 | For volume, it will depend on what you're doing

01:37:04.400 | a little bit, but anytime you cross more than 10% per week,

01:37:09.400 | you're going to start running into problems.

01:37:11.520 | So I like 5% better.

01:37:13.360 | It doesn't need to be as low as three.

01:37:15.600 | You can jump up much more than that.

01:37:17.300 | Five to 7% is better.

01:37:18.680 | So if you are doing, say running,

01:37:22.960 | because the numbers make it easy,

01:37:25.140 | and you're doing 10 miles per week total.

01:37:27.520 | If you were to go up to 11 miles the next week, great.

01:37:32.580 | You're right around 10%.

01:37:33.640 | But what you wouldn't want to do

01:37:35.680 | is say I'm running 10 miles this week.

01:37:37.960 | And I did maybe four, Monday three, Wednesday three Friday.

01:37:43.040 | So four, three, and three, you got your 10.

01:37:45.480 | Then you wouldn't want to add a mile every day.

01:37:47.240 | So Monday, instead of doing four, I did five.

01:37:49.940 | Wednesday, instead of doing three, I did four.

01:37:52.280 | Friday, instead of doing three, I did four.

01:37:53.520 | What you actually did is you went from 10 to 13,

01:37:56.160 | which is a much higher percent jump than the 10% prescribed.

01:37:59.720 | So the same thing would be true for lifting weights.

01:38:02.600 | The same thing is actually true for calories

01:38:04.600 | and trying to add them, et cetera.

01:38:06.320 | So the body tends to not handle those things as well,

01:38:09.640 | jumping more than 10% per week.

01:38:12.320 | So keeping with this idea of increasing progressive overload

01:38:15.720 | being 10% more over some period of time,

01:38:20.120 | am I correct in assuming that I want to identify

01:38:23.360 | one, maybe two meaningful variables

01:38:26.440 | and progressing that or those variables?

01:38:29.600 | - So progressive overload can come in the form

01:38:31.780 | of any of the modifiable variables.

01:38:33.840 | So you could increase the complexity of the movement.

01:38:37.160 | You could increase the intensity or the load.

01:38:39.760 | You can increase the volume by either more sets,

01:38:43.080 | more reps or more total exercises in a day.

01:38:46.500 | - What about time under tension?

01:38:47.820 | - You could also manipulate the tempo of each repetition.

01:38:51.860 | You could also manipulate how many times per day you train.

01:38:55.220 | So you can manipulate frequency.

01:38:57.020 | You can also manipulate rest intervals.

01:38:59.980 | So you can progressively load any of these things,

01:39:03.700 | increase intensity, run a little bit faster,

01:39:07.380 | complete the same amount of work slightly faster,

01:39:11.120 | put 5% more on the barbell or the load or the handle

01:39:14.500 | or whatever you're gonna do.

01:39:15.340 | That's a simple way.

01:39:16.440 | If you want to think about volume,

01:39:17.860 | in the case of endurance work is simple,

01:39:20.040 | mileage, time, whatever.

01:39:22.540 | In the case of lifting, all you have to do

01:39:24.840 | is take the amount of repetitions you're doing per set,

01:39:28.880 | multiply it by the sets, add that all up.

01:39:32.020 | So if you're doing three sets of 10, that's 30 repetitions.

01:39:35.140 | If you did three exercises, you just did 90 repetitions.

01:39:38.100 | Put that number down for Monday,

01:39:39.420 | put that number down for Wednesday,

01:39:40.780 | put that number down for Friday, add that total up.

01:39:43.580 | So say you did 90, 90, 90.

01:39:45.900 | You would look and say,

01:39:46.740 | my total number of repetitions this week is 270.

01:39:51.000 | If I wanna go up 5%,

01:39:53.020 | then I need to go up another 15 or so total repetitions.

01:39:57.260 | Great, that's all we have to do.

01:39:59.780 | That's the increase.

01:40:00.600 | You may keep the load exactly the same,

01:40:02.700 | keep the exercises the same chain, nothing else,

01:40:05.020 | but you wanna add 15 more total reps for your week.

01:40:08.940 | And you may choose to do that

01:40:10.200 | by adding one more repetition per set.

01:40:12.580 | Close enough.

01:40:14.260 | So last week I did three sets of 10,

01:40:15.620 | this week I'm going to three sets of 11.

01:40:18.300 | It can be as simple as that.

01:40:19.980 | Again, it can be complex.

01:40:21.300 | I walked you through,

01:40:22.120 | it can be any of the modifiable variables,

01:40:23.920 | but the progression I just laid out is fairly simple

01:40:26.560 | and it's honestly the one I recommend for most people

01:40:28.540 | just because it will avoid confusion

01:40:31.180 | and it will avoid people taking massive leaps in volume.

01:40:34.260 | So the typical strategy I would recommend here

01:40:37.960 | is increasing load or intensity

01:40:41.200 | or a little bit of a combination slowly

01:40:45.020 | for about six or so weeks

01:40:48.340 | and then taking what we generally call a deload.

01:40:50.800 | So back down to maybe 70%,

01:40:53.700 | whatever that number is you've been doing.

01:40:55.900 | So you did three sets of 10

01:40:57.500 | and you worked yourself all the way up to three sets of 15.

01:41:01.220 | Back that down and maybe we'll do two sets of eight

01:41:04.540 | for the week.

01:41:05.580 | And then we'll come back the following week

01:41:07.820 | and go back and do the highest we've done.

01:41:09.820 | Now all of a sudden we're going to do four sets of 12

01:41:12.460 | or something like that.

01:41:13.380 | So if you get these little deloads every,

01:41:17.260 | depending on what you're doing, four to eight weeks or so,

01:41:20.000 | you should be in a spot where you can continually progress

01:41:22.220 | for a very long time without either burning out

01:41:25.460 | or overloading and overstressing an injury pattern.

01:41:28.360 | So the simple way, pick intensity or volume

01:41:32.720 | and just go up slightly every week

01:41:34.500 | for a short span of time, generally around six weeks.

01:41:37.560 | And then you come back and change your strategy

01:41:39.380 | if you'd like.

01:41:40.440 | - Because you mentioned sets and repetitions here,

01:41:42.960 | just wanted to remind folks that in the episode

01:41:45.540 | that we did on strength and hypertrophy,

01:41:48.740 | and that also included speed,

01:41:50.640 | there was a description of a terrific program for strength,

01:41:53.400 | which is the three by five program

01:41:55.080 | or three to five program as it's called,

01:41:57.560 | which is to select three to five exercises performed

01:42:02.040 | for three to five repetitions, three to five times per week

01:42:05.840 | with three to five minutes rest in between those exercises.

01:42:09.120 | - For three to five sets.

01:42:10.380 | - And if I recall correctly,

01:42:11.540 | the protocol for generating hypertrophy muscle growth

01:42:15.600 | is to perform a minimum of 10 and probably more like 15

01:42:18.960 | to 20 sets per muscle group per week.

01:42:22.120 | And that can be done in a single session per muscle per week

01:42:26.600 | so one could train for instance,

01:42:29.000 | quadriceps one day per week

01:42:30.680 | as long as you're getting that volume of sets per week,

01:42:34.480 | or it could be divided up across two

01:42:36.520 | or three different sessions

01:42:38.600 | for that individual muscle group.

01:42:40.000 | Of course, people are going to target

01:42:41.760 | all their major muscle groups

01:42:43.560 | and hopefully some of them minor muscle groups as well.

01:42:46.080 | And as I recall, the number of repetitions

01:42:48.140 | that can generate hypertrophy is quite broad,

01:42:50.520 | anywhere from six repetitions

01:42:51.780 | all the way up to 30 repetitions,

01:42:53.200 | but by the end of the set,

01:42:55.400 | it should be two failure or close to failure with good form.

01:42:58.920 | Is that correct?

01:42:59.760 | - Yeah, and we would say close to failure

01:43:03.560 | is probably most appropriate.

01:43:05.680 | You can actually reach failure

01:43:07.920 | maybe on a few of the sets, maybe the end,

01:43:10.640 | and probably best to choose that

01:43:13.100 | with the exercises that are safer.

01:43:17.280 | Not that any exercise is particularly unsafe

01:43:19.420 | if you do it appropriately,

01:43:21.080 | but you may not want to go to true failure on every set

01:43:25.360 | for the more complex, larger, riskier exercises.

01:43:30.360 | So, pretty close to failure, but not all the way.

01:43:35.640 | - And I realize I forgot to mention

01:43:37.440 | rest intervals between sets.

01:43:39.200 | It follows that if a large range of repetitions

01:43:43.080 | are performed, that a large range of rest intervals

01:43:47.060 | are allowed, meaning there could be rest intervals

01:43:49.800 | between sets of as low as 30 seconds between sets

01:43:52.160 | or as high of two or three minutes,

01:43:54.040 | depending on the loads that one is using.

01:43:56.240 | And that, of course, will scale

01:43:57.380 | with the number of repetitions.

01:43:59.660 | - Excellent.

01:44:00.500 | In fact, that sort of leads me into step number nine

01:44:04.060 | of designing your own training program,

01:44:06.080 | which is you've decided our goal.

01:44:08.560 | We've worked our calendar out.

01:44:09.960 | We've figured out how many days per week

01:44:12.000 | and how long we're gonna work out in those sessions.

01:44:14.560 | We then went and selected our exercises.

01:44:16.400 | We balanced them across the movement patterns

01:44:18.720 | and the muscle groups that we need

01:44:20.520 | so we're not causing excessive stress

01:44:22.960 | on the same exact joint or muscle group over time.

01:44:26.660 | We then ordered our exercises based on priority.

01:44:29.980 | Because of that, we have identified our goal.

01:44:33.080 | We went back and we selected the volume,

01:44:35.760 | which is the repetitions per set,

01:44:37.640 | the total amount of sets, and the load per set

01:44:40.380 | that matched the goal that we wanted to get

01:44:42.480 | or the adaptation.

01:44:43.720 | Now all we have to do is fill in the rest intervals,

01:44:46.160 | which reflect back again the goal.

01:44:49.200 | So generally, higher rest intervals,

01:44:51.560 | which means time that you rest between your sets.

01:44:55.040 | Higher, somewhere between two to five minutes

01:44:58.840 | for things like speed, power, and strength.

01:45:02.280 | Perhaps a little bit lower, although as you mentioned,

01:45:04.120 | it could also stay high for hypertrophy.

01:45:06.280 | And then for endurance, you follow the rest interval

01:45:08.440 | that reflects the type of endurance training

01:45:10.440 | that you'd like to get.

01:45:12.240 | That's walked us through one through nine.

01:45:14.320 | We're almost done.

01:45:15.160 | We've put together a pretty nice little protocol.

01:45:17.800 | It should be well-rounded.

01:45:19.320 | It should be effective.

01:45:20.160 | We've also talked about how to progress it

01:45:22.040 | from week to week, keeping it within, again,

01:45:24.720 | four to six weeks, maybe up to eight,

01:45:27.560 | before we then take a back off.

01:45:29.000 | The very last thing we have to do

01:45:30.760 | to make sure this training program is customized to you,

01:45:35.080 | your goal, and your situation,

01:45:37.380 | which is then going to enhance your likelihood

01:45:39.560 | of adherence and consistency,

01:45:41.680 | as well as increase the likelihood of effectiveness,

01:45:45.200 | is we just have to do a little bit

01:45:46.520 | of what we call chaos management,

01:45:48.320 | which is take a quick moment to think through,

01:45:51.400 | this program looks great, but if I had to nitpick it,

01:45:55.740 | where are the possible chances of failure?

01:45:58.720 | And you just want to sort of think about

01:46:01.240 | where would I predict things would go wrong?

01:46:04.800 | And if anything pops out to you,

01:46:07.360 | try to come up with your solution at the beginning.

01:46:10.600 | And this could be a number of things.

01:46:13.080 | So maybe you've picked an exercise and you realize,

01:46:15.140 | man, I really actually don't like that exercise.

01:46:17.600 | Or maybe you look at the schedule now

01:46:19.280 | that it's laid out in front of you,

01:46:20.440 | you look at your work schedule and you're like,

01:46:23.380 | ah, maybe that's a bit aggressive.

01:46:25.280 | I don't know, it could be any number of things,

01:46:27.440 | but it is a useful exercise

01:46:29.060 | to just think through everything realistically.

01:46:31.440 | I typically just like,

01:46:32.840 | it's the adage I teach my graduate students,

01:46:35.240 | before we hit submit, we're going to sleep.

01:46:38.080 | So it's there, it's ready, we're going to take 12 hours,

01:46:40.560 | we're going to wake up the next day,

01:46:41.720 | look at it again and go, are we sure we're good here?

01:46:44.760 | Yep, make adjustments if you need.

01:46:46.800 | If not, if you feel confident,

01:46:48.200 | then hit send and cross your fingers.

01:46:50.620 | - Yeah, we were referring to submitting the manuscript.

01:46:53.680 | It's interesting you say that I have a statement

01:46:57.360 | that I always make to people in my lab.

01:46:58.700 | They hit submit and now I say that you realize

01:47:01.540 | you're going to wake up tomorrow morning,

01:47:02.700 | there's going to be an email in your inbox

01:47:04.460 | that something was formatted incorrectly

01:47:06.140 | and you're going to spend tomorrow

01:47:07.520 | reformatting and submitting again.

01:47:09.880 | So I've also learned that every project

01:47:13.320 | is actually two projects.

01:47:14.160 | - I'm sorry, I'm trying to not die over here

01:47:15.920 | and interrupt you.

01:47:16.760 | - Yeah, it's true.

01:47:17.600 | I've done this enough times,

01:47:18.940 | I've done this many dozens of times.

01:47:21.440 | And then there's also another truism of science,

01:47:25.240 | which is that there's the project,

01:47:27.800 | there's a scientific question

01:47:28.640 | and then the paper is yet another project.

01:47:30.660 | And I actually think this is an analogy

01:47:32.320 | that carries over to other domains of life.

01:47:34.980 | I think that anytime we take on something,

01:47:37.040 | if we want to write a book or we want to get a degree

01:47:39.600 | or we want to run a fitness program,

01:47:41.640 | I think it's worth thinking about those decisions

01:47:44.120 | as actually taking on two major things,

01:47:47.160 | because one is the planning and organization

01:47:49.560 | around that thing,

01:47:50.380 | and the other is the actual performance of the thing.

01:47:51.820 | And so I say that because here,

01:47:54.800 | what you just described,

01:47:55.720 | this 10 steps to consider in designing a program.

01:47:59.760 | I think some people who are real list makers

01:48:02.640 | and love the precision and the thoroughness,

01:48:05.080 | and I'm one of these people thinking, this is great,

01:48:08.120 | I just want to check off each one of these things

01:48:10.360 | on the list and figure out the ideal program for me

01:48:12.800 | for a given period of time, et cetera.

01:48:14.760 | And then other folks might be thinking, well, that's a lot,

01:48:17.200 | that's just a lot to do.

01:48:18.480 | But what I know with certainty is that

01:48:20.880 | performing those sorts of,

01:48:23.920 | let's just call them what they are,

01:48:24.960 | those tasks of figuring out what's what,

01:48:27.080 | where the defenders are, et cetera,

01:48:29.200 | without question makes everything go so much more smoothly

01:48:33.360 | once you are into the actual performance,

01:48:36.280 | the action of doing the exercise program or the book

01:48:39.520 | or the podcast or whatever it is that you happen to do.

01:48:41.900 | So I'm grateful that you brought up

01:48:45.500 | both the things that act as conduits

01:48:49.140 | for getting good work done

01:48:51.500 | and this notion of defenders and bottlenecks,

01:48:54.780 | because if we don't consider those,

01:48:56.600 | I would argue that it's a very low probability

01:48:59.380 | that anyone will succeed.

01:49:00.400 | But when one does consider those, even just a few of them,

01:49:03.440 | I think the probability of success

01:49:05.000 | goes way, way up immediately.

01:49:07.160 | - That's actually a very good point.

01:49:08.860 | That is a lot of work for a lot of people.

01:49:10.680 | And I know when I'm consuming information,

01:49:14.680 | it is helpful to hear structure and systems and design.

01:49:18.600 | It's also helpful to hear actual real life examples.

01:49:21.560 | So maybe the next thing we can do here is

01:49:25.100 | I can just walk you through an entire setup in a program,

01:49:29.660 | considering folks that are in bucket A, B and C,

01:49:32.660 | and maybe I'll save a little bit of the explanation

01:49:36.440 | and we'll eliminate maybe some background

01:49:38.340 | and I'll just walk you through what this could look like.

01:49:41.260 | All right, so I created a program

01:49:44.480 | which should run about a year.

01:49:46.900 | And the idea here is that this could be an evergreen system.

01:49:50.580 | So one could check off all the boxes

01:49:54.380 | that we've talked about.

01:49:55.980 | So in general, we wanna have three primary goals

01:49:59.260 | with exercise.

01:50:00.140 | We wanna look a certain way, whatever that means to you.

01:50:03.300 | We wanna be able to perform a certain way,

01:50:05.340 | whether that's for life goals like hiking and energy

01:50:08.100 | or sport goals or whatever.

01:50:10.380 | And then we wanna be able to do that across our lifespan.

01:50:13.340 | Okay, so a program that gives you all the goals

01:50:16.840 | we talked about and a program that covers

01:50:20.300 | that health combine that we referred to way back

01:50:23.480 | in some of our earlier discussions,

01:50:24.860 | which as a little bit of a recap is,

01:50:27.660 | what are the physical fitness parameters

01:50:29.860 | that we know are critical to maintaining both lifespan

01:50:33.100 | and wellness span?

01:50:34.700 | And as a bit of a reminder,

01:50:35.980 | those are things like your grip strength,

01:50:39.160 | your leg strength, your total amount of muscle mass,

01:50:43.020 | your actual speed and power so that you can catch yourself

01:50:46.040 | from a fall, your VO2 max and your physical fitness.

01:50:51.040 | So I wanna program that as a little bit of all that.

01:50:54.780 | It's similar actually, and we're kind of crossing barriers

01:50:57.620 | between our three buckets.

01:50:59.340 | So I need to be able to control my fat.

01:51:01.220 | I need to be able to have enough muscle.

01:51:02.740 | That muscle needs to have enough function.

01:51:05.420 | And I need to be able to maintain range of motion

01:51:09.060 | so that I don't lose flexibility and get hurt.

01:51:11.540 | And then I need to have a good VO2 max,

01:51:13.880 | as well as to be able to sustain energy over time.

01:51:16.800 | So that was the goal of my progress.

01:51:20.220 | Now, a couple of other things that we haven't chatted about,

01:51:22.740 | which are very important.

01:51:24.860 | You have mentioned, I think on a previous podcast

01:51:27.380 | about the importance of seeing light.

01:51:29.460 | Is this something you've covered at one point or another?

01:51:31.140 | - I joke that I'll be going into the grave

01:51:33.980 | and there'll be shoveling dirt onto me

01:51:35.480 | and I'll be telling people what I'll tell you again now,

01:51:38.300 | which is to get five to 30 minutes of sunlight viewing

01:51:42.220 | as early in the day as possible, ideally from sunlight.

01:51:46.840 | That's why it's called sunlight.

01:51:47.900 | Or from bright lights of another kind

01:51:49.380 | if you cannot get sunlight.

01:51:50.860 | And also get that in the evening

01:51:52.300 | and then avoid bright lights

01:51:53.320 | between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.

01:51:54.780 | unless you do shift work,

01:51:55.640 | in which case check out our episode on shift work.

01:51:58.140 | - Amazing.

01:51:58.980 | So we've got a little bit of a juxtaposition

01:52:00.780 | where people are like, I need to work out

01:52:02.340 | and do all this training,

01:52:03.180 | then I'm also supposed to be outside.

01:52:05.340 | Okay, how do I blend those two things

01:52:06.980 | in my training program?

01:52:08.720 | Cool.

01:52:09.560 | So I checked that box as well.

01:52:10.620 | I built that in.

01:52:11.840 | The last thing here is,

01:52:13.420 | we've talked about structured exercise

01:52:15.240 | and just in this episode,

01:52:16.780 | we've really opened up and do non-structured exercise,

01:52:19.700 | hiking, sports, things like that.

01:52:21.640 | Well, one thing that is incredibly clear

01:52:23.500 | and my colleague and friend Tommy Wood

01:52:26.180 | at the University of Washington

01:52:27.360 | published a fantastic paper very recently

01:52:31.560 | on the importance of proprioception

01:52:34.900 | in maintaining and staving off late onset dementia

01:52:39.480 | and Parkinson's.

01:52:40.820 | - Maybe just remind people what proprioception is.

01:52:42.900 | - Yeah, absolutely.

01:52:43.920 | So there's structured exercise and that's very important,

01:52:47.080 | but then there's also things like balance and coordination

01:52:50.820 | and proprioception,

01:52:51.780 | meaning you're adjusting to stimuli

01:52:53.620 | coming in from the outside world.

01:52:55.200 | So the stimuli could be sound,

01:52:57.360 | could be light, could be smell,

01:52:59.380 | or in the physical case of the body,

01:53:00.900 | it is where you are at in space.

01:53:03.180 | So I'm feeling like I'm falling to the left,

01:53:05.360 | therefore I need to correct and move back to the right.

01:53:07.900 | So you don't get this with doing things

01:53:09.880 | like a hack squat on a machine.

01:53:12.220 | You get this typically from being outside.

01:53:15.380 | So now you're smelling and seeing things

01:53:17.140 | and you're also not landing with your foot

01:53:18.920 | in the exact same position on an even platform.

01:53:22.000 | We get this from things like sport.

01:53:24.860 | Now I'm not only exercising,

01:53:26.380 | but I'm reacting to the outside world.

01:53:28.240 | The ball's going over here, my opponent's going over there.

01:53:30.960 | So it's very important in my opinion

01:53:33.760 | to have at least one session per week of exercise

01:53:37.800 | in which you are doing something

01:53:39.240 | that challenges proprioception.

01:53:40.960 | So how do I fold all of these best practices

01:53:45.000 | into one training program

01:53:46.360 | that's not 200 hours a week, seven days a week?

01:53:49.880 | That's what I've laid out to you.

01:53:51.160 | Make sense?

01:53:52.400 | Cool.

01:53:53.240 | Let me walk you through it

01:53:54.060 | and then maybe we'll come back

01:53:56.480 | into each individual category

01:53:58.560 | and you can ask questions about them.

01:54:00.280 | So the way that I think is best is to have a goal

01:54:05.280 | and have that goal be around eight to 10 weeks long

01:54:09.960 | like we've been talking about.

01:54:11.360 | So what I gave you is let's start off

01:54:13.360 | with quarter number one of the year.

01:54:16.120 | So perhaps January through March or so,

01:54:18.360 | and it doesn't have to be this one, but just as an example,

01:54:21.380 | you decide your goal is gonna be to put some muscle mass on.

01:54:23.920 | So we're gonna prioritize adding muscle, okay?

01:54:27.600 | Now within that, you're gonna be bulking up,

01:54:29.800 | adding some muscle, but we're also going to be sleeping more.

01:54:32.960 | We know we need extra recovery in this session

01:54:35.480 | and we need to go up in calories.

01:54:37.240 | Now this happens to work nice for a couple of reasons,

01:54:39.480 | but in that protocol, maybe we're gonna do seven days

01:54:43.520 | or seven sessions a week of physical activity.

01:54:46.240 | Doesn't mean seven days,

01:54:47.640 | but maybe those sessions are something like,

01:54:50.480 | I will do one indoor sport, this could be basketball,

01:54:55.480 | could be any number of things, right?

01:54:57.920 | So I got my sport kicked off and it's indoors, why?

01:55:00.880 | I'm January to March.

01:55:02.480 | The weather's probably not great for most of the world,

01:55:04.960 | so I'm not gonna do as much outside activity.

01:55:07.540 | I'm gonna do weights maybe three or four times a week,

01:55:10.200 | and then maybe two days a week, I'll go for a long walk, okay?

01:55:14.220 | Again, we'll come back and I'll explain to you

01:55:15.620 | why I made all these individual choices.

01:55:18.080 | So you're gonna run that for the first quarter.

01:55:20.040 | At the end of this quarter,

01:55:21.120 | you're gonna take a deload week.

01:55:22.800 | Now this could be fully off.

01:55:24.240 | Maybe this is when you schedule a vacation,

01:55:26.320 | maybe this is backing off,

01:55:27.500 | maybe you just keep your walks in

01:55:29.100 | and you spend the extra time on your family or work

01:55:32.240 | or whatever else you need to do.

01:55:35.120 | So we've bulked up a little bit,

01:55:36.700 | we spent 12 weeks adding some mass.

01:55:39.320 | Now we're gonna transition into quarter two,

01:55:41.460 | which is where we start to actually get lean.

01:55:43.740 | This is actually a pretty standard bodybuilding template,

01:55:47.160 | which is you put on some mass first

01:55:48.980 | and then you get lean after that.

01:55:50.880 | So now we're gonna get lean from April to June.

01:55:54.320 | We're gonna bring calories down a little bit,

01:55:56.160 | so now we're actually gonna play

01:55:57.320 | in a hypocaloric state somewhat.

01:56:00.040 | The days tend to get longer,

01:56:01.700 | so we're gonna have more time to spend in the sun.

01:56:04.940 | So we're gonna shift a little bit

01:56:06.220 | from an indoor sport activity,

01:56:08.080 | like the example I said earlier was basketball,

01:56:10.740 | to maybe stand-up paddleboarding or some other thing

01:56:14.820 | where you're actually getting your sport done,

01:56:16.720 | you're reacting, you're using proprioception,

01:56:18.480 | but now you're getting that sun in there as well,

01:56:20.420 | because you have a greater opportunity to actually do so

01:56:22.500 | and the weather probably is gonna cooperate with you

01:56:25.900 | more often than it would in, say, February.

01:56:29.160 | You then may be gonna pick a fitness or an exercise class,

01:56:32.060 | any number of routines where you're with multiple people,

01:56:37.380 | and then two days a week in addition to that,

01:56:41.260 | you're gonna maybe lift some weights.

01:56:43.200 | All right?

01:56:44.240 | So now we've added some muscle,

01:56:46.840 | now we've got lean, and all of a sudden

01:56:49.260 | we're actually looking pretty good for the summertime.

01:56:52.420 | Hmm, interesting, right?

01:56:54.180 | Quarter three, July to September, we'll transition,

01:56:57.660 | and we'll try to get into great cardiovascular shape.

01:57:00.740 | So we'll transition more into some high intensity

01:57:02.900 | interval type of stuff more frequently.

01:57:04.860 | We're gonna maybe stay at maintenance calories now.

01:57:08.240 | We spent a little bit of time hyper,

01:57:09.900 | then we went hypo, and now we're gonna go back

01:57:11.540 | to maintenance and keep along.

01:57:13.720 | We're gonna continue to choose some outdoor sports,

01:57:15.900 | but maybe you change it up.

01:57:17.160 | Maybe you keep the same one.

01:57:19.160 | Maybe now we switch it out in the golf,

01:57:21.320 | or now we pick a pickleball, or we play basketball,

01:57:23.540 | but now we just do it outside.

01:57:25.300 | Any number of things you can do, right?

01:57:27.540 | So maybe even we do a couple, change it up.

01:57:29.620 | You do that twice a week.

01:57:31.180 | You're spending more time in the sun now,

01:57:33.900 | you're looking outside and you're seeing this great weather

01:57:35.820 | and you're not cooped up in a gym,

01:57:37.980 | but you're getting your physical fitness in.

01:57:39.820 | That's also going to be aiding in your high intensity

01:57:42.040 | or your interval, your conditioning,

01:57:43.460 | 'cause you're doing more stuff like that

01:57:45.000 | rather than lifting in a gym.

01:57:47.300 | And then maybe you're actually

01:57:48.140 | gonna do some track workouts.

01:57:50.220 | Maybe we'll do this on a bike,

01:57:51.620 | or we'll do some hill sprints outside, any number of things.

01:57:55.800 | And then we'll do that maybe twice a week,

01:57:57.900 | and then we'll still lift weights twice a week in our gym.

01:58:02.000 | The last quarter then is gonna be October to December,

01:58:05.540 | and we're gonna transition there

01:58:06.740 | and do more pure cardiovascular fitness, okay?

01:58:11.340 | Because we're doing that, we're gonna be working harder,

01:58:13.420 | and remember, cardiovascular training

01:58:15.740 | is generally expelling much more calories than lifting.

01:58:20.740 | So we're gonna actually go up in calories.

01:58:22.720 | We're gonna return to that.

01:58:23.560 | And that works out kind of well

01:58:25.140 | because I don't know if you know or not,

01:58:27.380 | but people tend to eat a little more calories

01:58:29.520 | from the months of say November through December.

01:58:32.780 | - Yeah, holidays, at least in Northern Hemisphere,

01:58:35.500 | colder temperatures. - Totally.

01:58:37.960 | Maybe even we play with two workouts a day here.

01:58:40.500 | We're trying to get really in shape,

01:58:42.040 | we're trying to improve our conditioning

01:58:44.180 | and our endurance in multiple areas.

01:58:46.300 | We're gonna actually transition back into an indoor sport.

01:58:49.460 | So maybe we're gonna do some kickboxing

01:58:51.800 | or a jiu-jitsu class or something like that.

01:58:55.220 | We're gonna maybe hit the cardio machine once or twice.

01:58:57.140 | Now we're hopping on a StairMaster, a VersaClimber,

01:59:00.180 | more maybe getting an assault bike going,

01:59:01.840 | something like that.

01:59:03.220 | Maybe hit some machines and do our lifting there.

01:59:06.020 | Maybe we had spent the rest of the earlier part of the year

01:59:07.920 | on barbells and dumbbells,

01:59:08.980 | we'll transition to some machines.

01:59:10.940 | And then we'll still try to get outside

01:59:12.560 | and walk twice a week, okay?

01:59:15.600 | And that gives us our outside activity,

01:59:18.180 | but it's not necessarily a structured program.

01:59:21.080 | So you can, hey, we got 15 minutes

01:59:23.000 | where the weather's breaking a little bit,

01:59:24.400 | so let's walk, get outside and get a walk in, all right?

01:59:27.180 | So that's the overall structure of everything.

01:59:29.860 | I would like to actually go back to the beginning now

01:59:32.500 | and kind of walk through each one of these things in detail

01:59:35.300 | and explain why I chose certain things.

01:59:37.780 | I've kind of given some hints already,

01:59:39.620 | but I think it'd be helpful to walk back

01:59:41.180 | to the beginning and start there.

01:59:42.640 | - Great, I love the overall structure.

01:59:45.080 | I have just a couple of questions.

01:59:46.740 | The idea of training mostly for hypertrophy,

01:59:51.200 | January through March, makes sense,

01:59:53.980 | followed by a period from April through June,

01:59:57.820 | focusing primarily on fat loss.

02:00:00.060 | And then from July to September,

02:00:03.260 | speed and interval type work.

02:00:05.260 | And then October to December,

02:00:08.980 | you put to emphasize endurance type training.

02:00:13.480 | I thought for a moment that when we got to October,

02:00:16.300 | December, you were going to emphasize strength.

02:00:19.260 | And I'm wondering whether or not there's any incentive

02:00:23.340 | for training for strength October, December,

02:00:25.720 | so that when one arrives at the hypertrophy training,

02:00:28.220 | January through March, we're that much stronger.

02:00:32.180 | The idea being then there's more muscle to hold onto

02:00:36.320 | as one then tries to lose fat from April through June,

02:00:39.260 | and then July through September is the speed work,

02:00:41.740 | or is July through September

02:00:43.540 | the speed/power phase of the program?

02:00:46.800 | - The July through September would be more

02:00:50.260 | like your higher heart rate,

02:00:52.700 | learning to get all the way up,

02:00:54.200 | maximum exertion, and then recovering.

02:00:56.540 | - And October to December is long-form endurance?

02:00:59.540 | - Moderate to long-form, right?

02:01:01.140 | So it's closer to that aerobic capacity stuff.

02:01:04.220 | It is closer to longer duration

02:01:06.140 | and moving through that spectrum.

02:01:08.140 | You are astute in pointing out

02:01:09.940 | that I didn't have pure strength really in there.

02:01:12.800 | You certainly could fold it in,

02:01:14.960 | but quite literally if you spent three months bulking up

02:01:19.400 | in January to March,

02:01:20.840 | that's gonna bring some strength along the way.

02:01:23.180 | So you should be fine there,

02:01:24.260 | but you absolutely could alter any of these variables

02:01:28.340 | if you wanted to emphasize something more than other ones.

02:01:30.240 | So say you actually felt like you ran

02:01:31.900 | through the fitness testing and you identified,

02:01:34.100 | actually your endurance is pretty good,

02:01:36.280 | but you're struggling maybe with a little bit of strength

02:01:39.460 | and maybe a little bit of lower muscle mass.

02:01:41.780 | You could substitute quarter three or quarter four

02:01:44.760 | and say one of those quarters will be strength,

02:01:47.100 | and then I'll do all of my conditioning in another quarter.

02:01:49.500 | And what you've really done

02:01:51.380 | is the programming is still fairly simple.

02:01:53.420 | You've just altered the priorities a little bit,

02:01:55.660 | and therefore you've altered the adaptation across the year

02:01:58.340 | and why this is really important.

02:02:00.100 | This template is meant to be something

02:02:01.720 | you can just run back year after year after year,

02:02:05.180 | and you make a subtle change like that.

02:02:07.720 | And now over the course of five, 10, 20 years,

02:02:11.160 | you're going to be in a fantastic spot at the end.

02:02:14.200 | So you can make easy adjustments along the way

02:02:16.320 | as priorities pop up, as goals pop up,

02:02:19.780 | but you're going to be in a position

02:02:21.080 | where there's nothing that's gonna be lagging behind.

02:02:24.660 | You'll be in a good spot.

02:02:25.580 | Most of your bases are covered to be pretty lean,

02:02:29.580 | have a good amount of muscle, and to be in great shape.

02:02:32.380 | - Two other questions.

02:02:34.860 | One, just a quick question.

02:02:36.640 | For sake of generating proprioceptive feedback

02:02:40.420 | during the endurance phase, is trail running a good option?

02:02:45.260 | - Absolutely.

02:02:46.140 | - Great.

02:02:46.980 | Thinking back to the days running cross country,

02:02:48.820 | it's October, December, you're trail running.

02:02:50.700 | - Totally.

02:02:51.540 | - Training for endurance.

02:02:52.360 | Okay.

02:02:53.200 | - The ground is not super solid,

02:02:54.040 | which is even better in this case, right?

02:02:55.880 | So you're making more choices

02:02:57.280 | and trying to not fall on your face.

02:02:59.320 | - Absolutely.

02:03:00.160 | And then you mentioned bulking up,

02:03:01.720 | and I just wanted to highlight

02:03:04.220 | that there are some folks, myself included,

02:03:08.560 | while I'd like to add a little bit of muscle here or there,

02:03:11.040 | I'm not interested in overeating to the point

02:03:13.380 | where I lay down a lot of body fat stores.

02:03:15.400 | Along with that, I think a lot of people out there

02:03:17.920 | are not necessarily interested in quote unquote bulking up.

02:03:20.980 | I also, my understanding of the literature,

02:03:24.720 | and tell me if I'm wrong,

02:03:26.820 | is that while there does need to be

02:03:29.540 | some sort of caloric surplus

02:03:31.460 | above what is required to maintain body weight

02:03:34.660 | in order to build muscle,

02:03:37.140 | that many people who try and quote unquote bulk up

02:03:39.800 | basically just end up expanding the size

02:03:42.380 | of their cheeks and face along with their limbs and torso.

02:03:47.380 | I'm not trying to poke fun at them,

02:03:49.500 | but the idea of deliberately overeating

02:03:51.900 | to the point where a lot of body fat stores come along,

02:03:54.700 | I would imagine that would just make the April

02:03:56.180 | through June phase that much harder.

02:03:58.060 | - Correct.

02:03:58.900 | - And I'm not sure it's ever been studied directly,

02:04:01.420 | but I can't imagine it's all that, excuse me,

02:04:03.880 | all that healthy to bring along a lot of adipose tissue

02:04:08.280 | in one's pursuit of hypertrophy.

02:04:11.100 | - You're absolutely correct.

02:04:12.780 | We have not gotten into the nutritional details there,

02:04:15.840 | but yeah, thank you.

02:04:16.680 | Good clarification point.

02:04:17.860 | A couple of things.

02:04:18.840 | You're not going to be doing this very long.

02:04:21.480 | It's 12 weeks, right?

02:04:22.860 | We're not going to be six or eight months.

02:04:24.300 | - You haven't seen me eat.

02:04:25.140 | (laughing)

02:04:26.180 | Number two, just since we're here to clarify,

02:04:29.860 | the literature is ongoing in this area

02:04:32.940 | and there's actually a handful of studies

02:04:35.020 | that I know are coming soon.

02:04:36.740 | But in general, when I say hyper caloric here,

02:04:39.220 | I'm referring to an increasing caloric intake

02:04:42.260 | above baseline by something like 10 to 15%.

02:04:47.020 | So if you normally eat 2,500 calories throughout the day,

02:04:51.020 | you might add another 250 to 400.

02:04:54.180 | I'm not doubling calories.

02:04:56.020 | I don't want you to be stuffing your face,

02:04:58.520 | hating food, feeling awful all day,

02:05:01.680 | and then putting on half of your weight as fat

02:05:03.520 | and half of your weight as muscle.

02:05:05.180 | It is just technically hyper caloric

02:05:08.200 | because you're eating more,

02:05:09.420 | which is an absolute requirement for most people

02:05:12.460 | to add muscle, right?

02:05:14.060 | Some folks who have a high percentage of body fat

02:05:17.420 | and a low level of fitness training

02:05:19.840 | can actually get away with just being

02:05:22.820 | either isocaloric technically or even a little bit lower

02:05:25.420 | and still adding some muscle while losing some fat.

02:05:27.900 | But for most folks, that's going to be challenging.

02:05:29.980 | So you're gonna wanna be in a hyper caloric state.

02:05:33.340 | Another reason I put it in here is because remember,

02:05:37.200 | people tend to make these extra calorie choices

02:05:40.680 | during this part of the year anyways.

02:05:43.340 | And so you're sort of playing into life

02:05:45.860 | is why I chose that, right?

02:05:46.940 | It's like, hey, you can't restrict calories all the time.

02:05:51.060 | It's really, really hard.

02:05:52.180 | So maybe if we can put it,

02:05:54.340 | calorie restriction during the phases of the year,

02:05:56.220 | that's a little bit easier and give you the freedom

02:05:59.540 | to have a little bit more calories

02:06:00.740 | during the phase of the year

02:06:01.620 | when you're probably gonna wanna do that anyways,

02:06:03.780 | just make sure you're doing a style of training

02:06:06.520 | that supports that.

02:06:07.900 | So you're gonna be trying to add muscle

02:06:09.580 | when you know you're going to be adding more calories.

02:06:11.660 | We're gonna be trying to really push the pace

02:06:13.780 | on our conditioning when we know we're going

02:06:15.860 | to be eating more calories anyways.

02:06:17.660 | And so that is actually, in fact,

02:06:19.580 | exactly why I chose those goals

02:06:22.380 | for those times of the year.

02:06:23.980 | It's because we're now playing into life a little bit more.

02:06:27.520 | But we, again, certainly do not wanna be eating

02:06:30.680 | to an excess where it's causing some of the problems you mentioned.

02:06:34.580 | We just need to be eating a little bit more.

02:06:37.420 | The last point here is the next phase, April to June,

02:06:40.940 | we know we're going hypocaloric.

02:06:43.020 | So it's always kinda nice to go, yeah,

02:06:45.140 | we're gonna go on a little bit of a calorie deficit here,

02:06:47.340 | but it's really just these few months.

02:06:49.780 | And it's okay because I spent the last six months

02:06:52.820 | where I wasn't restricting that much,

02:06:54.420 | and then one actually where I got to eat a little bit more.

02:06:57.420 | And now, cool, not hard for me to convince somebody to go,

02:07:00.960 | we're gonna bring the calories down right now,

02:07:03.100 | or in a month, in two months,

02:07:04.500 | and it's just gonna be this 12 or 16 week phase,

02:07:06.500 | or whatever you end up being in there.

02:07:07.580 | So those were some of the rationale

02:07:10.120 | that I was thinking of when I decided to do that.

02:07:11.840 | But thank you, that's a very important point

02:07:13.540 | in terms of the hypocaloric, it's not the dirty bulk.

02:07:17.060 | It's not the excess that a lot of folks will do.

02:07:20.200 | - And just a final point for folks

02:07:23.320 | in the Southern Hemisphere,

02:07:25.300 | Australians and South Americans,

02:07:27.140 | we actually have a large listenership

02:07:29.900 | in the Southern Hemisphere.

02:07:31.180 | Of course, adjust accordingly,

02:07:32.580 | even though the holiday months are still

02:07:34.820 | in November, December,

02:07:36.580 | they're of course holidays all year long,

02:07:38.580 | but many of the major holidays

02:07:40.980 | are around November, December,

02:07:42.300 | but it's summer down there.

02:07:45.780 | Just adjust accordingly, there's nothing wholly

02:07:47.980 | about trying to achieve certain adaptations

02:07:50.100 | at certain times of year.

02:07:51.220 | It's more about trying to eliminate bottlenecks,

02:07:54.180 | defenders, as you mentioned,

02:07:56.160 | and it's really about the sequence.

02:07:57.900 | - So if we go back to that first quarter,

02:08:00.620 | we're gonna try to add some mass

02:08:02.780 | for the reasons I just described, right?

02:08:04.780 | It also tends to be pretty motivating.

02:08:07.540 | You're gonna start the year off,

02:08:08.660 | you're gonna wanna train and get all excited

02:08:10.540 | because of your New Year's resolution,

02:08:12.820 | and you're gonna see results immediately.

02:08:15.020 | We've talked about this in some of the previous episodes.

02:08:16.920 | The nice part about hypertrophy training

02:08:18.500 | is you see your muscles growing right now,

02:08:21.020 | where the endurance stuff tends to have

02:08:23.480 | a little bit more of a delayed gratification.

02:08:25.580 | So I'm gonna give you a win early, okay?

02:08:28.260 | Now, we're also gonna be sleeping more

02:08:30.940 | because we know, and maybe we'll get into this

02:08:33.800 | in a future episode,

02:08:34.820 | that sleep is absolutely critical to recovery

02:08:39.220 | and critical to growing muscle mass.

02:08:40.820 | So you're gonna emphasize sleep more

02:08:42.760 | during this part of the year,

02:08:44.540 | also because the sun is very low.

02:08:46.500 | It's harder to sleep for a lot of folks,

02:08:48.940 | longer when the sun is out for longer,

02:08:50.660 | especially if you don't have a perfect black-out curve.

02:08:52.860 | And so you're just trying to play

02:08:54.500 | with the restrictions life gives you

02:08:57.040 | and optimize your scenario.

02:08:58.220 | So the sun's probably not out very often,

02:09:00.660 | and especially depending on where you live,

02:09:02.660 | if you're anywhere like where I grew up

02:09:04.800 | in the Pacific Northwest,

02:09:06.500 | it's going to be dark and gray and gloomy most of the day,

02:09:08.780 | so it's not hard to convince you to go to sleep

02:09:10.940 | a little bit more often.

02:09:12.680 | So we'll do that.

02:09:14.300 | That's also, again, why I chose an indoor sport.

02:09:16.920 | That activity, you're gonna not shoot yourself in the foot.

02:09:21.280 | Being in the gym when it's cold and crappy outside

02:09:24.460 | is not that hard to convince yourself to do,

02:09:26.500 | so you're gonna be lifting your weights,

02:09:27.780 | say, four times a week.

02:09:29.660 | And then, again, getting some outside time

02:09:32.860 | in the form of a walk,

02:09:34.280 | so that you can do it in the middle of work if you have to,

02:09:36.500 | or catching 20 minutes here or there,

02:09:38.660 | whatever it needs to be.

02:09:40.700 | The chances of you missing that walk are little,

02:09:43.900 | and you'll still get some outside time.

02:09:46.300 | You've talked about the importance of getting sunlight in,

02:09:49.780 | even if it is overcast,

02:09:51.220 | so you can still nail all those boxes

02:09:54.180 | and be in a pretty good spot at the end of that quarter.

02:09:56.300 | Okay, so moving on to quarter two then, April to June.

02:09:59.300 | A lot of people wanna look good during the summer months.

02:10:03.860 | You're more likely to be outside,

02:10:05.360 | you're more likely to have your shirt off because it's hot,

02:10:07.620 | because you're either on vacation or going to the beach.

02:10:09.980 | So let's play into that a little bit.

02:10:11.880 | Let's let people look a little bit better,

02:10:14.520 | if that's what they determined to be looking better,

02:10:18.720 | during the months when they're more likely to have that.

02:10:21.100 | You're also more likely to have things like weddings

02:10:23.700 | over the summertime.

02:10:25.620 | People don't get married often in the winter.

02:10:27.580 | And so people wanna look good for these events,

02:10:29.280 | so let's play into what a lot of people already want,

02:10:32.320 | and let's help you get leaner.

02:10:34.160 | Not a lot of holidays that involve eating during that phase,

02:10:39.160 | and so you're not gonna feel like you're missing out

02:10:41.000 | on a ton of life outside of maybe a few smaller holidays

02:10:44.980 | in that phase.

02:10:46.460 | The days are getting longer,

02:10:47.720 | and so we're gonna choose to get in the sun more often.

02:10:50.000 | We can start getting a tan better,

02:10:51.580 | we can start getting ready for summer.

02:10:53.840 | And so this is why we exchanged our indoor sport

02:10:57.780 | for an outdoor sport, surfing, hiking, cycling outside,

02:11:02.280 | whatever the thing is you wanna do.

02:11:04.420 | There's tons of them, kiteboarding, like I said,

02:11:06.060 | skateboarding, there you go,

02:11:07.540 | start skating a little bit, whatever it needs to be.

02:11:11.420 | So we'll do that once a week or so,

02:11:13.620 | and then I actually threw in a fitness class here.

02:11:17.020 | And there's a couple of reasons.

02:11:19.000 | One, now it's sort of nice

02:11:21.260 | to take the pressure programming off.

02:11:23.340 | It's also nice to, if you've been lifting by yourself,

02:11:27.920 | to get in there and lift with somebody else.

02:11:30.520 | It's also nice to now have some social interaction.

02:11:35.220 | The gamification, the group, the scoring stuff

02:11:38.420 | that happens in fitness classes is very, very powerful.

02:11:41.560 | It tends to be somewhat fleeting,

02:11:43.820 | so it won't last for a long time for some people,

02:11:46.060 | others it does.

02:11:47.380 | And so if you pepper this thing in

02:11:48.620 | and you know you're gonna join this activity class,

02:11:51.580 | even if it's not great

02:11:53.100 | and the program design isn't perfect,

02:11:56.100 | it's fine for 10 weeks.

02:11:58.220 | In fact, you may really, really enjoy it.

02:12:00.220 | And also again, it gives you something new to think about.

02:12:04.160 | Music is on, you're out of your house

02:12:06.600 | if you're lifting at your house,

02:12:07.580 | you're in a different part of the gym,

02:12:09.240 | the schedule's a little tighter.

02:12:10.920 | So you can't just go work out whenever you want.

02:12:12.640 | You gotta sort of show up when the class is going

02:12:14.680 | and you'll probably find that you just love it.

02:12:16.980 | You also get some social interaction, right?

02:12:20.540 | Which is something that's also very important

02:12:22.180 | that we haven't really discussed yet

02:12:23.460 | if you're out playing basketball by yourself or whatnot.

02:12:26.320 | So this is just another thing I'm trying to fold in

02:12:29.740 | that still allows you to check off multiple boxes

02:12:32.940 | of things that are healthy for you.

02:12:35.160 | You've had episodes on the importance

02:12:36.600 | of social connection interaction.

02:12:38.080 | We talked about that in the quad breakdown

02:12:39.860 | of making sure you have relationship time

02:12:41.600 | and things like that.

02:12:42.440 | So throwing in a fitness class

02:12:44.200 | and just doing honestly something quite different

02:12:46.920 | is pretty fun.

02:12:48.480 | But then still keeping two days a week

02:12:50.380 | where you're doing a traditional strength training thing

02:12:52.900 | so you have some quality control there.

02:12:55.260 | Lastly, you can also then make sure

02:12:59.320 | you're hitting any specific movements or muscle groups

02:13:02.560 | that are very important to you.

02:13:03.800 | So you don't get to control that in your fitness class,

02:13:06.620 | but now you can at least do the gym

02:13:07.860 | and make sure you hit that muscle group

02:13:09.640 | that you have an interest in it.

02:13:11.540 | So now we're feeling pretty good.

02:13:13.000 | We're rolling into the summer.

02:13:15.040 | We're pretty lean.

02:13:16.800 | We're getting out in the sun a lot.

02:13:19.280 | We're bringing calories down a little bit

02:13:21.040 | and we probably are feeling pretty happy.

02:13:23.260 | We're also not burnt out.

02:13:24.180 | We've done a lot of fun things

02:13:26.320 | and we've checked a lot of the boxes off

02:13:28.340 | for long-term development.

02:13:30.240 | We had a combination of specificity

02:13:34.200 | with extra nice selection,

02:13:36.500 | but we also folded in just a little bit of variation

02:13:38.920 | so we don't have to worry about overuse injury

02:13:40.640 | of doing the same machines, the same lift

02:13:43.480 | months and months and months after months

02:13:45.240 | and slowly wearing down something

02:13:47.360 | if our technique isn't perfect.

02:13:48.960 | So now we're gonna go into our quarter three

02:13:51.840 | which is the summer months basically up here at least,

02:13:54.240 | July to September.

02:13:55.320 | We'll transition.

02:13:57.800 | It's been a while since we've done some conditioning.

02:14:00.920 | All right, so we may have lost

02:14:02.360 | a little cardio respiratory fitness.

02:14:04.320 | We may have not feeling great anymore.

02:14:06.840 | Maybe energy throughout the day,

02:14:08.040 | stuff is starting to leak down.

02:14:08.960 | So we're gonna get in shape.

02:14:09.940 | We're gonna push our heart rate high

02:14:11.800 | and we're gonna bring the calories back up.

02:14:14.160 | The summertime, 4th of July,

02:14:17.860 | other holidays like this where eating is involved.

02:14:20.360 | Maybe you're going to sporting events and things like that.

02:14:24.400 | Our sport choice is often going to be outdoors.

02:14:28.800 | But in fact, what you'll notice here

02:14:31.480 | is I've ramped the sport choice up to twice a week.

02:14:34.560 | And in fact, I would encourage you

02:14:36.280 | to do two different types of exercise.

02:14:38.580 | And one of the primary reasons for that

02:14:40.320 | is to spend more time outside.

02:14:42.140 | A challenge we often see with people with exercise

02:14:45.440 | is going, man, it's so nice outside.

02:14:47.420 | I can't go sit in the gym for 45 minutes.

02:14:50.080 | All right, I don't have that much free time.

02:14:51.880 | And then Huberman's over here telling me

02:14:53.340 | I need to get direct sunlight more

02:14:54.740 | and like, how am I gonna fit this in?

02:14:56.440 | Well, do your exercise outside, enjoy it.

02:14:59.420 | If you live down here like us,

02:15:01.560 | you take sunshine for granted.

02:15:03.460 | But a lot of people I know it's like,

02:15:04.640 | it's only nice for two and a half months of the year.

02:15:07.840 | Get outside.

02:15:08.900 | So let's push more of our fitness training

02:15:11.300 | to outdoor activities.

02:15:13.080 | These sports can be intense or not, right?

02:15:16.220 | It could be go out there and swim hard, get in the ocean.

02:15:18.900 | You're gonna do open ocean swimming

02:15:20.620 | instead of swimming in the pool indoors

02:15:22.400 | or whatever the case may be.

02:15:23.760 | So we're gonna give ourselves more of a priority

02:15:26.360 | of being outside, looking, we've looked pretty good

02:15:30.240 | or a little tan and we're enjoying all the benefits

02:15:32.600 | of training outside and the lack of structure.

02:15:35.380 | Still we have structure, but not so specific

02:15:38.220 | like the machines and the weights give us.

02:15:41.040 | Maybe even now we're doing some track workouts.

02:15:43.380 | So now we can do something like sprint the straightaways,

02:15:46.500 | lock the corners, and we don't have to again,

02:15:48.740 | do our conditioning on the same stairmaster or machine

02:15:51.860 | or whatever we're on.

02:15:53.360 | So we're gonna enjoy some stuff like that.

02:15:55.260 | We're gonna be athletic, we're gonna run, we're gonna move.

02:15:57.620 | We haven't talked about that yet, right?

02:15:59.160 | Everything has really been about sort of structured exercise

02:16:02.420 | well now we're gonna do some sprint work.

02:16:04.180 | We're gonna get out and see that which is a really important

02:16:06.500 | human quality that I think is important to not lose

02:16:09.260 | is actually ability to sprint.

02:16:10.340 | So we'll do that.

02:16:11.980 | And then we'll still make sure we lift twice a week

02:16:14.980 | for the same reasons I talked about in the previous phase.

02:16:18.260 | So we make sure we have some quality control there.

02:16:20.660 | We maintain some of the muscle that we built

02:16:22.700 | in the quarter before.

02:16:24.060 | We don't lose too much strength.

02:16:25.880 | There is very good literature to suggest strength maintenance

02:16:29.840 | can be done in as little as five sets per week

02:16:32.960 | for a very long time, really up to eight plus weeks

02:16:36.660 | if you do a little bit.

02:16:37.480 | So you're touching it enough

02:16:38.460 | to where you're not gonna get really, really weak.

02:16:40.060 | But what you wouldn't wanna do is go 12 or 16 weeks

02:16:43.940 | where you'd lifted no weights.

02:16:45.620 | And maybe you got in great shape

02:16:46.580 | but you're gonna feel very weak after that.

02:16:48.140 | So maybe that number could come down to one time a week

02:16:50.980 | if you really wanted it to.

02:16:52.780 | But one to two days a week where you're lifting

02:16:54.700 | the big exercises, the muscle groups

02:16:56.640 | and the movements of interest, and you're good to go.

02:16:59.300 | Then lastly, we roll into our final quarter

02:17:01.220 | which is October to December.

02:17:02.780 | And we're gonna really get in great shape.

02:17:05.820 | The sun is starting to come down.

02:17:08.340 | We're rolling into the holidays.

02:17:09.980 | Weather is getting worse.

02:17:11.180 | We may have other outdoor activities we wanna do

02:17:13.660 | like in my case, you're going on a hunting trip,

02:17:16.340 | you have some travel, conferences, whatever the case may be.

02:17:19.780 | And so we're going to choose an indoor sport.

02:17:22.500 | And I love combat sports.

02:17:24.620 | So the example I gave earlier was like jiu-jitsu

02:17:28.020 | or maybe you just transition your basketball to inside

02:17:30.980 | or your pickleball comes inside or whatever it happens to be

02:17:34.860 | and you're still gonna have that twice a week.

02:17:37.480 | Then maybe instead of the track workout outside,

02:17:40.120 | you do that same workout indoors now

02:17:42.420 | back on some sort of machine or something like that.

02:17:46.020 | Our weights are actually now down to once a week

02:17:49.300 | because we're really pushing the pace on cardiovascular.

02:17:52.340 | We're doing it once a week to maintain it,

02:17:54.280 | to not lose and get too far behind.

02:17:56.580 | But we really wanna bring up our VO2 max.

02:17:59.000 | We wanna bring up our efficiency,

02:18:01.300 | our cardiac output and everything like that.

02:18:03.900 | And we're still gonna now walk twice a week

02:18:06.140 | so that we get something outside.

02:18:07.860 | And I talked about why, again,

02:18:09.100 | it's nice to have that flexibility

02:18:11.820 | of not having to train outside

02:18:13.340 | 'cause now you gotta warm up and do all those things.

02:18:15.280 | You just get out and get a walk in.

02:18:17.260 | You still get the outdoor experience.

02:18:18.500 | So we run through that entire thing

02:18:20.580 | and then you just start back the next year.

02:18:23.580 | Ideally, again, at the end of every quarter,

02:18:26.920 | you take a week off, whether that is a true full week off,

02:18:30.200 | which I'm fully in support of.

02:18:31.820 | I mean, friends, we're only talking

02:18:32.800 | about four off weeks a year.

02:18:34.760 | That's absolutely fine.

02:18:37.480 | Or it could even be a slight deload week

02:18:40.040 | if you want it to be.

02:18:41.880 | So we shouldn't run into too many issues of overuse.

02:18:44.540 | We have a lot of variety.

02:18:45.900 | We get a lot of movement patterns in

02:18:47.560 | 'cause we're mixing in sport with machines and dumbbells.

02:18:52.080 | We're mixing in social interaction.

02:18:53.660 | We're mixing in the sun.

02:18:54.740 | We're mixing in enjoyment.

02:18:56.180 | We're mixing in fat loss, strength, hypertrophy,

02:18:59.340 | some cardiovascular endurance.

02:19:00.700 | We're mixing in calories in high.

02:19:03.020 | We're mixing a little bit of calories low.

02:19:05.300 | And we're trying to hit as many of these nodes as possible.

02:19:08.620 | If you also wanted to cut each one of these

02:19:11.020 | a little bit short and repeat your fitness testing

02:19:14.500 | at the end of every quarter, you could.

02:19:16.640 | I would probably recommend doing it at least once a year,

02:19:20.340 | perhaps doing it maybe the third week of December or so.

02:19:24.740 | So you run that testing.

02:19:26.020 | That's your last week of training.

02:19:27.420 | Then you get to go on your vacation break.

02:19:29.960 | You come back at the beginning of the year.

02:19:31.700 | You've got new goals, new targets, and you go.

02:19:34.800 | If you wanted to repeat it twice a year,

02:19:36.400 | do the same sort of thing at the end of June, it's fine.

02:19:39.740 | I know I laid these out as quarters,

02:19:41.940 | which is generally 12 weeks with one back off week.

02:19:45.540 | But if you wanted to make it nine weeks and a testing week

02:19:47.780 | and then a back off or 10 weeks, it's fine.

02:19:50.180 | It's close enough.

02:19:51.060 | So the last little thing I wanna say is

02:19:55.260 | let's assume you're doing the 12 weeks

02:19:57.620 | and you're gonna have a back off week

02:19:59.120 | at the end of the 12 weeks.

02:20:00.920 | I would actually still then recommend

02:20:02.380 | having at least one back off week halfway through.

02:20:06.900 | So it would look like this.

02:20:07.980 | Five weeks hard where you're progressing.

02:20:11.020 | You're going up, up, up, up, up.

02:20:13.640 | Every week you're either increasing volume intensity

02:20:15.600 | like we talked about a few minutes ago.

02:20:17.900 | Then week six, deload.

02:20:20.780 | Go down to 70%, volume and intensity.

02:20:23.340 | Come back, go hard for five more weeks.

02:20:26.600 | And now week 12 is your true off week

02:20:29.340 | where you, again, take the whole thing off.

02:20:32.880 | If you do that, you now have four weeks a year

02:20:35.580 | where you're totally off.

02:20:37.620 | You have four weeks a year where you're really backing down

02:20:41.260 | and you just have five week segments all year round

02:20:44.560 | where you're just gonna push it hard for five weeks.

02:20:47.040 | You're gonna get a break.

02:20:48.500 | You're gonna reset.

02:20:49.320 | You're gonna transition a little bit.

02:20:50.700 | Now, as I started this conversation off with,

02:20:53.260 | there are many ways you could structure

02:20:55.940 | your training program throughout the year

02:20:57.540 | and hit those primary goals we talked about

02:20:59.740 | of looking fantastic, feeling amazing,

02:21:03.100 | and being able to do that your entire life.

02:21:06.200 | All I can tell you, though, is I know this model works

02:21:09.200 | because we've done this a lot with our clients

02:21:12.420 | in our rapid health optimization program.

02:21:14.400 | And this spans everything from 25-year-old folks

02:21:17.200 | who are competing in the Boston Marathon

02:21:20.100 | to a lot of individuals who have never exercised before,

02:21:23.240 | who maybe have done a little bit of exercise.

02:21:25.680 | In fact, it's quite literally

02:21:27.460 | all three of the buckets you laid out.

02:21:29.580 | We've had clients in all of those areas,

02:21:31.860 | both men and women, young and old.

02:21:35.120 | And we've had a tremendous amount of success

02:21:37.700 | transforming their lives using a very similar model

02:21:41.260 | to what I just laid out.

02:21:42.840 | - I find that overall structure to be immensely informative.

02:21:47.360 | And I'll tell you why in the context

02:21:48.780 | of a number of examples of myself,

02:21:52.220 | although that's the least important of them, frankly,

02:21:55.260 | but examples of family members of mine and friends of mine

02:21:58.540 | who've undertaken consistent exercise training programs

02:22:02.180 | but that haven't varied the program so much.

02:22:05.400 | And here again, I think of the person

02:22:08.300 | who really loves to swim.

02:22:10.240 | They have a low barrier of entry to the pool or to the ocean.

02:22:13.260 | They love being in the water.

02:22:14.740 | I am not one such person.

02:22:15.800 | I like being in the water,

02:22:16.940 | but I don't motivate to drive to the pool

02:22:18.840 | or to bike to the pool or to get into the ocean that often.

02:22:21.120 | Once I do it, I enjoy it.

02:22:22.820 | But for me, it's running and lifting weights,

02:22:25.000 | and it has been for a very long time.

02:22:27.540 | I have a family member, close family member,

02:22:29.600 | who doesn't really like "exercise"

02:22:32.280 | but loves dance and dancing.

02:22:33.960 | Going out dancing, yes, but dance classes in particular.

02:22:37.860 | Really enjoys it.

02:22:39.200 | Loves to be distracted from the fact

02:22:41.240 | that she's doing exercise and just really enjoys it.

02:22:43.660 | And actually is a very good dancer

02:22:45.380 | despite the fact that she's related to me.

02:22:48.400 | And on and on.

02:22:49.240 | There are many examples, I think,

02:22:50.960 | of folks that fall into the different bins

02:22:53.920 | that we talked about earlier,

02:22:55.320 | but that also tend to default towards a given structure

02:22:58.480 | of training one way and doing that throughout the year.

02:23:02.060 | I can tell you right now

02:23:02.920 | that I'm personally going to modify my schedule

02:23:05.880 | according to this four quarters per year.

02:23:09.320 | It actually works because I've mostly been

02:23:10.920 | on the quarter system in academics for a very long time.

02:23:13.200 | I was at a university, had a semester system once,

02:23:15.560 | but this quarter system is actually

02:23:17.160 | the one that we follow academically.

02:23:19.480 | So that's one reason why it's a natural fit for me.

02:23:22.480 | I confess that I typically don't vary up

02:23:25.880 | the proportions of endurance to resistance training.

02:23:30.880 | I tend to keep those about three and three across the week,

02:23:33.880 | three resistance training sessions,

02:23:35.360 | three, let's call them cardio sessions,

02:23:37.640 | but each one designed to achieve a different adaptation.

02:23:40.840 | And I've now altered those even further

02:23:43.240 | based on your recommendations in this episode

02:23:46.480 | and previous episodes.

02:23:47.940 | But what I have not done is to really think about deload

02:23:54.280 | and to really stick to the structure that I set out

02:23:58.440 | to accomplish across the year.

02:24:00.220 | On the topic of deload, for me, the deload has been

02:24:03.920 | when I get overwhelmed with work or I've gotten sick,

02:24:07.200 | I don't tend to get sick that often,

02:24:08.460 | but every once in a while I get knocked back with a cold

02:24:11.460 | or a flu, once every three or four years,

02:24:14.220 | I seem to really get hammered

02:24:15.400 | with a fever inducing something or other,

02:24:17.500 | and then I'm bedridden for a couple of days

02:24:19.340 | and then I'm back at it and I tend to come back

02:24:21.720 | rather slowly and that tends to be my week off.

02:24:24.660 | But I'm beginning to wonder whether or not part of the reason

02:24:28.240 | I hit those streaks of being overwhelmed by sickness

02:24:32.360 | or by stress is that I have not done a deload period.

02:24:36.020 | So one of the things that I'm going to immediately implement

02:24:38.760 | is a periodic deload according to the program

02:24:42.240 | that you described.

02:24:43.440 | And I'm also going to start matching my specific goals

02:24:47.720 | for each quarter with time of year.

02:24:50.200 | I don't think I've done that, and it's not

02:24:51.960 | because I live in California.

02:24:54.040 | And by the way, folks, there are temperature variations

02:24:56.300 | and amount of light across the day variations

02:24:59.480 | in California as well, although they are not as dramatic

02:25:01.520 | as they would be near the North Pole, for instance, right?

02:25:04.120 | But of course, some of the listeners are at the equator,

02:25:05.880 | so they have the opposite issue.

02:25:07.420 | In any event, I'm definitely going to do that.

02:25:11.080 | I'm going to start incorporating regular deload periods.

02:25:14.840 | And I am going to be very dedicated,

02:25:19.920 | very disciplined about sticking to a program

02:25:23.160 | for three months devoted mainly to hypertrophy,

02:25:25.160 | then a three-month program devoted to fat loss,

02:25:27.520 | then a program to aerobic output,

02:25:32.000 | and then one devoted to endurance.

02:25:34.460 | Although I must say it's very tempting for me

02:25:36.800 | to do a very specific strength-dedicated portion

02:25:39.960 | because I don't tend to be particularly strong.

02:25:42.040 | I'm not weak, but I'm not particularly strong.

02:25:43.540 | So I might consult with you

02:25:45.640 | as to how I could vary endurance and strength.

02:25:49.040 | In any event, I love the idea of a macro structure.

02:25:52.620 | And I love the idea of deloads in anticipation

02:25:56.600 | of being able to go further in the long run

02:25:59.720 | in terms of results.

02:26:01.520 | I'm hoping this next year,

02:26:03.000 | 'cause we're just on the cusp of a new year,

02:26:05.220 | will be the first year in which I don't find myself

02:26:07.740 | getting some bug or virus or whatever it happens to be

02:26:12.080 | from time to time and having to back off on training

02:26:14.960 | for that reason.

02:26:16.480 | And that prompts a question.

02:26:18.540 | And it's something that I want to get into in more detail

02:26:21.640 | with you when you describe recovery in an upcoming episode.

02:26:26.160 | But a couple of quick questions,

02:26:28.440 | maybe there's some short or shortish answers

02:26:30.520 | you could provide.

02:26:31.380 | If I'm not feeling well,

02:26:34.440 | like I really had a poor night's sleep,

02:26:36.800 | maybe just two to four hours of sleep for whatever reason,

02:26:41.560 | train or don't train, that's the first question.

02:26:44.600 | Second question is if I'm starting to feel

02:26:46.840 | a little bit of a throat tickle

02:26:48.780 | and I'm in that phase of denial,

02:26:50.480 | like I don't get sick, I'm not getting sick,

02:26:52.140 | and would I be better off bundling up some hot liquids,

02:26:56.220 | getting into bed, sleeping a little bit more, et cetera,

02:27:00.260 | and protecting myself against that,

02:27:02.060 | or would I be better off training?

02:27:04.160 | And then the third question is

02:27:06.340 | if I've already succumbed to a bug,

02:27:09.060 | but it's not a severe bug,

02:27:10.540 | I don't have elevated body temperature, so no fever,

02:27:13.960 | I'm not hacking up a not productive cough

02:27:16.180 | or anything like that,

02:27:17.360 | but I'm feeling just kind of not well,

02:27:19.500 | head cold-ish sort of thing comes to mind

02:27:22.580 | and it's not seasonal allergies, train or don't train,

02:27:26.680 | leaving aside the point of whether or not

02:27:30.020 | I'm in a position to get anyone else sick,

02:27:32.320 | 'cause obviously that's a bad idea, okay?

02:27:34.040 | So lack of sleep, I would say 30 to 40%

02:27:38.740 | of one's typical sleep the previous night,

02:27:41.380 | train or no train,

02:27:42.700 | starting to feel like one might be getting ill,

02:27:45.500 | and then the third category is coming back from being sick.

02:27:50.180 | - Okay. - Thanks,

02:27:51.220 | and sorry for the extended question,

02:27:52.500 | but I want to make sure there was enough detail there

02:27:54.060 | because I think these are three common scenarios.

02:27:55.860 | - We are going to cover that

02:27:57.900 | in the recovery conversation that's next in detail,

02:28:02.160 | and I will give you very specific guidelines

02:28:04.460 | and we'll have plenty of time to go into that.

02:28:06.420 | The quick answer is it comes back

02:28:09.680 | to what phase of training you're in.

02:28:11.700 | Now, to walk through each scenario,

02:28:14.380 | if it is a crummy night of sleep,

02:28:16.140 | and I am in a phase of training

02:28:19.660 | in which we are trying to cause adaptation,

02:28:22.900 | I have a lot of space in my schedule,

02:28:25.380 | and I'm really using this time to make progress

02:28:30.140 | because I know coming up soon, my schedule will change

02:28:33.460 | and my time to train will go down.

02:28:36.340 | I'm still training.

02:28:37.940 | I might use a bunch of tricks that we have

02:28:40.260 | for feeling better instantaneously.

02:28:42.180 | We call these little hacks, these are acute hacks.

02:28:45.380 | These are not chronic hacks.

02:28:47.260 | I'm going to push the pace.

02:28:49.140 | If it is really close to a deload week,

02:28:52.240 | say it's Wednesday and I start my deload next week,

02:28:55.780 | or this is not one bad night of sleep,

02:28:59.740 | this has been four bad nights of sleep

02:29:02.220 | in the last five days,

02:29:03.740 | this has been six kind of crummy nights

02:29:05.700 | over the course of the last nine,

02:29:08.060 | and you're starting to see a larger pattern,

02:29:10.140 | then that's a different answer.

02:29:11.460 | So the question we're going to ask ourself is,

02:29:13.420 | is this acute?

02:29:15.060 | Or is this a tendency or actually a chronic thing?

02:29:20.060 | If it's acute and we're close,

02:29:23.260 | we're going to train through it.

02:29:24.820 | If it's acute and this is not a phase of training

02:29:29.460 | where we're trying to really push,

02:29:31.020 | then maybe we back off a little bit.

02:29:33.360 | If it's the opposite though,

02:29:34.920 | we need to probably make some changes

02:29:37.740 | and give ourselves some recovery.

02:29:39.660 | This may include anything from a moderate training session.

02:29:44.660 | Maybe I'm going to go in the sauna and sit through that

02:29:48.480 | and then do some breathing drills and some mobility stuff.

02:29:51.480 | All right, great.

02:29:52.340 | Maybe I'm going to, again, go to the gym

02:29:54.300 | and ride the bike at 50% heart rate.

02:29:58.140 | Something restorative like that.

02:29:59.420 | Gives you a little bit energy, but doesn't beat you down.

02:30:02.200 | That's probably where we're learning.

02:30:04.100 | If you're feeling sick and you think it's coming,

02:30:07.540 | I'm probably going to do option two as well,

02:30:09.340 | which is some sort of restorative training.

02:30:11.780 | So again, this tends to be moderate, could be weights,

02:30:14.820 | could be any of the stuff.

02:30:15.900 | Maybe you're going to go out for your swim,

02:30:17.660 | but we're not going to push past probably about 70%.

02:30:20.900 | We can absolutely induce immunosuppression

02:30:24.480 | with excessive training.

02:30:25.620 | And so you may want to walk out of that.

02:30:27.820 | The last case, which was, I think, phase number three,

02:30:32.380 | you said there, which is sort of like,

02:30:33.440 | I got a pretty gnarly cold right now.

02:30:35.700 | Am I going to train?

02:30:36.700 | Most of the time for most people,

02:30:37.960 | I'm just going to say, just shut it down.

02:30:40.440 | Get out of there, right?

02:30:41.640 | If you're not going to be able to get productivity done

02:30:44.040 | there, you may be better off either going and sleeping,

02:30:47.440 | catching up on work, doing other stuff,

02:30:49.460 | so that the next time we go to train, you don't feel behind.

02:30:51.940 | And we can give a good solid effort for it.

02:30:53.420 | So I know other people who will train right through it.

02:30:56.020 | I tend to not to be totally frank.

02:30:59.400 | If I'm feeling kind of junky, I'm really not going to train.

02:31:01.880 | I may actually probably do some hot water immersion.

02:31:06.800 | So bath, jacuzzi, things like that.

02:31:08.900 | I actually like those better than I like sauna.

02:31:11.720 | - If one is ill?

02:31:12.820 | Or you just like them better than sauna generally?

02:31:14.600 | - Both, actually.

02:31:15.680 | - Oh my.

02:31:16.520 | The first person ever met or come on this podcast

02:31:20.740 | to say you like baths and jacuzzi more than sauna.

02:31:23.240 | - Yeah, absolutely.

02:31:24.200 | I may even do some ice.

02:31:26.880 | Probably not a ton though,

02:31:28.120 | 'cause you got to be careful there.

02:31:29.320 | That's a big stressor.

02:31:30.800 | And if you're already over the line,

02:31:33.120 | you may be adding a pass there.

02:31:34.880 | Or I may go sleep.

02:31:36.960 | If I'm feeling very, very, very sleepy,

02:31:40.080 | and sometimes depending on what kind of a bug you get,

02:31:42.000 | that can happen, I will just sleep.

02:31:43.780 | And that might be the best choice you have.

02:31:45.840 | If that means you kick the cold half a day earlier,

02:31:50.840 | then you just won in the aggregate.

02:31:53.520 | So those are probably,

02:31:57.480 | it's a little bit of insight of the algorithm

02:31:59.240 | that I'm running with those things.

02:32:01.040 | - Those are highly informative answers, thank you.

02:32:03.440 | And I look forward to our discussion about recovery

02:32:06.900 | so that we can go into even more depth on how to recover.

02:32:10.960 | - The last thing I do want to say here

02:32:12.800 | is kind of going back to our quarter system.

02:32:15.840 | The examples I gave with the bulking up, losing fat,

02:32:21.160 | and then getting into better fitness

02:32:23.160 | and cardiovascular fitness at the end,

02:32:25.000 | those were just samples.

02:32:26.360 | Friends, please don't take that literally.

02:32:29.920 | If you want to emphasize strength more,

02:32:32.160 | put in some more strength.

02:32:33.160 | If you want to emphasize a different one

02:32:34.920 | of our nine adaptations, great, do that too.

02:32:37.640 | If you're somebody who has a lot of body fat to lose,

02:32:42.640 | then maybe put that for two consecutive sessions

02:32:45.440 | or every other.

02:32:46.600 | You can modify them.

02:32:48.020 | We've talked about nine very specific training adaptations

02:32:51.580 | as well as in fat loss.

02:32:53.600 | I only gave you four,

02:32:55.240 | which is just meant to be a sample

02:32:57.400 | that you can roll in or out,

02:32:58.840 | but use those priorities to adjust that system

02:33:02.760 | according to what is important for you now,

02:33:05.720 | five years and then 45 years down the line

02:33:08.800 | for whatever that may be.

02:33:09.880 | So if you are absolutely free to modify the order,

02:33:12.760 | you're absolutely free to modify the primary outcome,

02:33:15.800 | and then adjust the specifics within each quarter

02:33:18.960 | based upon what is needed to do to optimize that outcome.

02:33:23.960 | I think maybe one more tool we can offer people

02:33:28.440 | is maybe giving the individual week

02:33:31.680 | a little bit more structure.

02:33:32.920 | So the system I laid out is sort of like month by month,

02:33:35.840 | and maybe we can lay out, say,

02:33:38.440 | a three-day-a-week workout program

02:33:40.500 | and a four-day-a-week program

02:33:42.520 | that would still hit some of the same

02:33:44.360 | well-rounded adaptations that probably covers

02:33:48.000 | maybe not individualized per bucket

02:33:50.540 | that we've talked about, A, B, and C,

02:33:52.120 | but it's gonna cover 75, 80% of what would need

02:33:56.480 | to occur in all three buckets,

02:33:57.640 | and then you can use that last 25%

02:34:00.480 | for your individual goal or specialization.

02:34:02.660 | So maybe we can jump into that next.

02:34:04.960 | - Great, let's hear it.

02:34:06.220 | - The first one I wanna give you

02:34:07.360 | is just a basic three-day split that, again, same idea.

02:34:11.880 | It's a well-rounded exercise program.

02:34:13.860 | I actually wrote this all in an article

02:34:17.300 | that is on XPT's website,

02:34:19.320 | so perhaps we can link directly to that.

02:34:20.880 | I will just jump you straight to the answer.

02:34:22.520 | You can read more about why in details

02:34:24.600 | in that article if you'd like.

02:34:25.860 | But this is day one, day two, day three.

02:34:29.380 | You could do these days where you split them up,

02:34:32.680 | actually having, say, 24 hours in between,

02:34:34.580 | or you could do these back-to-back.

02:34:36.200 | It doesn't necessarily matter.

02:34:37.700 | In this particular case, say day one,

02:34:40.320 | you would start off and do a little bit of speed and power,

02:34:44.000 | and then you may finish that

02:34:45.060 | with a little bit of hypertrophy.

02:34:46.700 | Now, if you wanna gain more speed and power,

02:34:49.420 | you just do more of it.

02:34:51.060 | If you wanna maybe just do a little bit to touch it,

02:34:53.240 | and you really wanna gain some muscle,

02:34:54.700 | you would do more of an emphasis there.

02:34:56.560 | So the template can stay the same,

02:34:58.820 | and you would just increase the amount

02:35:00.720 | of either adaptation, the speed and power stuff,

02:35:03.320 | or the hypertrophy,

02:35:04.160 | based on how high it is in your priority list.

02:35:07.600 | Those are combined together,

02:35:08.860 | because as we talked about earlier,

02:35:10.240 | they don't necessarily interfere with each other.

02:35:12.400 | You would do the speed and power stuff first,

02:35:15.400 | because it wouldn't hamper the hypertrophy.

02:35:17.040 | If you did the hypertrophy first in that workout,

02:35:19.240 | it would probably compromise your speed and power,

02:35:22.140 | and in that case,

02:35:23.160 | you would actually not be getting your adaptation.

02:35:25.080 | So day one, you do that.

02:35:27.560 | And that could be a 20 minute workout total,

02:35:29.660 | or a two and a half hour up to you.

02:35:32.740 | Then you would come back maybe the next day,

02:35:34.500 | or two days later, whatever you'd like to do.

02:35:36.560 | In your second day of exercise,

02:35:38.340 | you would start off with a pure strength protocol,

02:35:42.640 | and you would finish that with,

02:35:44.120 | what I'm calling just a higher heart rate.

02:35:46.080 | So this could be something like our anaerobic capacity stuff.

02:35:49.240 | It could be the aerobic capacity,

02:35:51.640 | something where you're getting up

02:35:52.900 | to close to high heart rate.

02:35:54.380 | It could be those 20 second bursts.

02:35:55.960 | It could be a 90 second burst, five minute mile repeats.

02:35:58.520 | Anything you like.

02:35:59.480 | You could just sort of plug and play this in.

02:36:01.280 | You're getting to a spot now

02:36:02.600 | where you've had a little bit of speed,

02:36:04.740 | a little bit of strength, a little bit of hypertrophy,

02:36:06.880 | and you've touched a high heart rate.

02:36:08.260 | So we've checked off most of the boxes already

02:36:10.680 | in two sessions.

02:36:11.520 | Our last session then would be more of a steady state,

02:36:15.340 | long duration endurance.

02:36:16.840 | And so a three day a week split like that

02:36:19.580 | is gonna be a pretty nice setup for the average person.

02:36:22.760 | - So this could be a Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

02:36:25.040 | Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.

02:36:26.680 | What's happening on the intervening days?

02:36:28.920 | - Totally off if you want it to be.

02:36:30.840 | So I set this up as in the best I can give you

02:36:33.240 | in at least three days.

02:36:34.740 | Okay, great.

02:36:35.580 | If you have more, we could certainly improve it.

02:36:37.760 | But this was my worst case scenario.

02:36:39.520 | I've got other things in my life.

02:36:41.680 | The most I can do for exercise is three days a week.

02:36:44.140 | - And given that it's three days per week,

02:36:46.080 | how approximately how long are each of these workouts

02:36:49.580 | going to last?

02:36:50.420 | - I would do whole body exercises for almost all that.

02:36:53.340 | I would do your full body parts.

02:36:54.880 | And I think you could certainly finish that

02:36:56.440 | in 45 minutes of work time.

02:36:58.400 | Little bit of time to warm up,

02:37:00.240 | some down regulation at the end.

02:37:01.840 | You could be in and out of that gym

02:37:03.480 | in certainly under 60 minutes.

02:37:05.200 | The reality is you could probably be out of there

02:37:06.880 | in under 50 minutes.

02:37:08.660 | The total work time could be 30, 35 once you get going.

02:37:11.900 | - So that's three days.

02:37:14.360 | As you pointed out, probably more work per week

02:37:17.880 | is going to be better in terms of maximizing goals

02:37:21.780 | of aesthetic goals and performance enhancing goals

02:37:25.320 | and longevity goals, right?

02:37:27.400 | I mean, the numbers that I've heard

02:37:29.460 | that is that we should all try to get somewhere

02:37:31.780 | between 150 and probably more like 180 to 200 minutes

02:37:35.080 | of zone two cardio per week minimum.

02:37:37.980 | But as I recall, you consider zone two cardio

02:37:41.240 | so low intensity that just walking around

02:37:45.320 | and is, you know, qualifies as zone one, zone two cardio.

02:37:49.980 | - Yeah, not to take us too far off track,

02:37:52.000 | but I think it's actually useful to differentiate

02:37:55.280 | what I consider to be exercise and physical activity.

02:37:58.820 | So physical activity is out for a walk.

02:38:04.080 | It is using a walking treadmill while you're at work.

02:38:08.240 | It is, you know, parking farther in the parking lot

02:38:11.800 | and taking more steps.

02:38:12.900 | These are all important.

02:38:14.640 | And what's clear, you are not going to reach

02:38:18.520 | likely optimal health by only exercising hard

02:38:22.640 | and then sitting around the other 23 and a half hours today.

02:38:26.000 | So it's very, very important.

02:38:27.120 | Whether you want to do that in the form of zone one

02:38:29.720 | or zone two and hit 30 minutes a day,

02:38:33.520 | various organizations will say things like that.

02:38:35.600 | You need to have 30 minutes a day

02:38:37.780 | of moderate to low intensity exercise.

02:38:40.200 | I don't really care.

02:38:41.040 | You can combine it like that if you want.

02:38:43.560 | What you don't want to do is just physical activity only,

02:38:48.320 | which is almost always going to be like zone one

02:38:50.920 | to maybe zone two.

02:38:53.160 | You also don't want to go the other end of the spectrum,

02:38:55.460 | which is again, like I lift hard three days a week

02:38:58.000 | and then what do you do the rest of the time?

02:38:59.260 | Nothing.

02:39:00.440 | That's not optimal either.

02:39:01.940 | And so I guess the system I've walked you through here

02:39:05.420 | or the example rather I walked you through is

02:39:08.360 | you would need to maybe supplant that

02:39:10.340 | with being physically active.

02:39:11.480 | If you work, say you're a nurse and you're on your feet,

02:39:15.480 | you're moving up and down,

02:39:16.360 | you're probably actually covering a decent amount

02:39:18.680 | of your physical activity

02:39:19.520 | 'cause you might be at 15,000 steps a day.

02:39:22.720 | If you're sitting in front of your computer

02:39:24.900 | and you do this same three day split,

02:39:26.400 | you would probably need to go out of your way

02:39:28.120 | to make sure you're adding a bunch more steps.

02:39:30.520 | And so you might need to add several hours of walking

02:39:33.320 | to hit that 150, 180 minutes a week of physical activity

02:39:37.780 | because the program I laid out is,

02:39:40.320 | if you're doing really 45 minutes, three days a week,

02:39:42.480 | maybe 60 minutes, at best you've hit 180,

02:39:45.640 | in terms of 60 minutes times 380 a week.

02:39:48.160 | So you might actually need to then throw in

02:39:49.680 | maybe some more specific walks.

02:39:51.040 | So you could do that a number of ways.

02:39:54.240 | It could be, again, actual structured exercise.

02:39:57.040 | It could be simply I'm gonna do a 10 minute walk

02:39:58.760 | three times a day.

02:39:59.780 | It could be the exercise snacks that we talked about

02:40:02.680 | in a previous episode.

02:40:03.820 | So there's lots of ways to engage in more physical activity.

02:40:07.960 | But to me, those are different oftentimes

02:40:10.540 | in structured exercise.

02:40:12.940 | - I think many people will appreciate

02:40:14.560 | that you put out there for us a three day a week protocol

02:40:18.960 | because many people simply don't have more time to exercise.

02:40:22.800 | They're putting emphasis on these other bins

02:40:25.320 | in the quadrant.

02:40:26.160 | And frankly, those other bins are very important as well.

02:40:29.860 | So wonderful that people can check off some critical boxes

02:40:34.720 | for aesthetics and performance and longevity

02:40:37.680 | with three days of work or workouts per week, I should say.

02:40:43.240 | What are some other schedules that people can follow

02:40:45.200 | if they're willing to dedicate a bit more time

02:40:47.500 | toward their fitness?

02:40:48.440 | - Sure.

02:40:49.280 | If you wanted to do another sample of maybe a four day week.

02:40:52.760 | And again, to clarify this, I'm really happy you said that.

02:40:55.680 | This is a four day week of structured exercise.

02:40:58.320 | This would not account your physical activity moving around.

02:41:01.840 | - Which everybody should be doing.

02:41:03.100 | - Absolutely.

02:41:04.400 | Maybe this is something like day one,

02:41:07.240 | you're gonna do a strength training session

02:41:08.960 | and you'll stay in the five to 10 or so repetition range.

02:41:13.800 | A little bit of strength, a little bit of hypertrophy.

02:41:16.800 | You've checked off a couple of boxes, probably whole body.

02:41:21.080 | So that you get all the body parts covered or close.

02:41:24.640 | We're looking at generally multi-joint exercises.

02:41:27.280 | Could be a combination of barbells, free weights, bands,

02:41:32.000 | machines, anything like that would be sort of day one.

02:41:35.800 | You could come back the very next day

02:41:37.900 | or you could wait 24 hours.

02:41:39.840 | But the second day of your exercise

02:41:42.040 | would be maybe your long duration.

02:41:43.880 | And this is actually sort of similar to how you set it up.

02:41:46.120 | It's you do a little bit of the inverse,

02:41:47.600 | but what you're kind of saying is I'm probably gonna be

02:41:49.800 | a little bit sore from day one.

02:41:52.160 | And I don't have any free body parts that aren't sore.

02:41:55.120 | So instead of trying to do another lift or something,

02:41:57.480 | I'm just gonna put in some restorative longer duration stuff.

02:42:00.880 | Same exact principles for long duration

02:42:02.760 | we just talked about.

02:42:04.000 | Could be a swim, could be any number of things,

02:42:07.980 | could be your sport.

02:42:09.500 | Could be your out, you know, ride the bike

02:42:11.180 | and go for a jog in the sun, whatever you would like to do.

02:42:15.880 | If you're feeling better,

02:42:17.540 | maybe that's a little harder or longer.

02:42:19.140 | If you're feeling pretty beat up from the day before,

02:42:21.100 | maybe that's a little bit shorter and slower.

02:42:23.340 | You can modify it.

02:42:24.780 | Then maybe you take the next day off or that's open.

02:42:28.980 | Your third day of exercise is now instead of being

02:42:32.220 | that five to 10 repetition range for your lifts,

02:42:35.380 | you do something like 11 to 30 reps range.

02:42:39.940 | Also, this could be exchanged

02:42:41.980 | for something more like body weight,

02:42:44.820 | more muscular endurance type of stuff.

02:42:46.440 | So this is a great day, maybe it's yoga.

02:42:48.800 | Maybe it is a gymnastics thing you're working on

02:42:51.900 | or any of the many other styles of training

02:42:54.040 | that are not in quote unquote lifting weights,

02:42:56.940 | but they're not just walking and hiking.

02:42:58.720 | So it could be a Pilates or equivalent.

02:43:01.620 | Anything like this where you're gonna get

02:43:02.760 | some muscular burn in there,

02:43:03.700 | but it's probably not any additional weight

02:43:06.340 | outside of body weight.

02:43:07.420 | Or if it is, it's fairly minimal,

02:43:09.180 | five, 10, sort of 15 pounds.

02:43:11.180 | Something like that would be nice.

02:43:13.140 | Could also be done in a circuit.

02:43:15.820 | So we could hit our high heart rate

02:43:18.220 | and we could hit some muscular endurance in there.

02:43:21.660 | Group activity class might be nice here.

02:43:24.780 | Even maybe something like a spin class or a dance class.

02:43:28.500 | All these things could be great.

02:43:29.580 | And then maybe you even finish that

02:43:31.780 | with 10 minutes of some light weights

02:43:35.020 | to hit the body part you say didn't get.

02:43:36.640 | So maybe you did the dance class and then you finish

02:43:39.080 | and you do 10 minutes of upper body,

02:43:41.420 | sets of 30 to make sure you get a nice pump there

02:43:44.820 | because your legs probably got some work

02:43:46.540 | during the dance class, but your upper body didn't.

02:43:48.180 | So you balance the system out a little bit.

02:43:50.100 | So all body parts got a little bit of muscular endurance.

02:43:53.460 | Your heart rate got really high, came back down

02:43:56.380 | and you sort of checked both of those boxes.

02:43:59.660 | Now it's important to remember the hypertrophy episode.

02:44:04.660 | Doing sets of say 15 plus repetitions per set

02:44:11.220 | is as effective as doing sets of five to 10 or 12

02:44:15.660 | for hypertrophy, gaining muscle.

02:44:17.800 | It's not effective though for strength gains.

02:44:20.220 | So you wouldn't want to do this only

02:44:22.020 | because you'd really be doing nothing

02:44:23.860 | to improve your muscle strength.

02:44:25.420 | And you want to make sure that that box is ticked

02:44:27.860 | at least a little bit.

02:44:29.340 | Then again, you could take the day off after this

02:44:33.100 | or you could roll right into your fourth exercise day,

02:44:36.080 | which would be your last exercise session of the week.

02:44:38.560 | And you would do something more of like a medium intensity.

02:44:43.060 | So this is a little bit higher intensity

02:44:44.920 | than our second day.

02:44:46.700 | And this could be something like shadowboxing

02:44:50.340 | or hitting a heavy bag.

02:44:51.360 | It could be a little bit of higher intensity intervals

02:44:54.620 | but not all the way up.

02:44:56.500 | So maybe this is, you're gonna do a one minute on,

02:45:00.620 | one minute off on the bike,

02:45:03.540 | but you're only gonna go to like 85, 90% heart rate.

02:45:06.140 | And then instead of going off during that one minute,

02:45:08.940 | you drop it down to 50%.

02:45:10.980 | So it would actually look like 30 minutes of straight work,

02:45:13.820 | but you would have a little bit of rolling intensity

02:45:16.640 | as opposed to staying really nice and restorative.

02:45:19.860 | It's gonna be some work there.

02:45:21.920 | And you would finish it with something like

02:45:24.840 | five to six minutes total of max heart rate stuff,

02:45:28.460 | which lines up perfectly with that number

02:45:30.100 | you actually created in our endurance episode

02:45:34.160 | of hitting six minutes total per week

02:45:36.180 | of maximum heart rate or close.

02:45:39.760 | So you could wrap that all up kind of into one session.

02:45:42.720 | You could do those in the inverse order,

02:45:44.780 | thorough warmup, a few minutes,

02:45:47.640 | whether you wanna do 30 second bursts or a minute bursts

02:45:50.260 | or straight five minutes.

02:45:51.400 | This is a protocol I like to use a ton on the assault bike.

02:45:55.380 | It is simply a good warmup, 10 minutes solid warmup.

02:45:59.500 | Recover, and then I'm gonna go five minutes

02:46:01.820 | and cover as much distance as I can in five minutes.

02:46:04.220 | - Brutal.

02:46:05.060 | - It is brutal and it's amazing.

02:46:06.520 | And you get a lot done in five minutes.

02:46:10.300 | 10 minutes on the back of that is a very gradual

02:46:13.580 | bring back to earth there.

02:46:15.320 | I actually, in that case,

02:46:16.420 | I don't need to do down regulation breathing

02:46:18.220 | 'cause I've spent 10 minutes

02:46:19.900 | actually coming way back down.

02:46:22.040 | And the last two minutes or so of that

02:46:24.680 | is very deliberate five second inhale through the nose,

02:46:28.060 | five second exhale through the nose

02:46:29.520 | while I'm barely just moving.

02:46:31.580 | And you end up being in a pretty good spot.

02:46:32.960 | So that again, time-wise could easily be done in 30 minutes

02:46:37.340 | and you'd be rounded off there.

02:46:39.020 | So the nice part about this four day a week split

02:46:42.360 | as well as a three day a week split

02:46:44.380 | is it does give you a little bit of flexibility.

02:46:46.960 | And so what I mean is maybe Monday your plan

02:46:50.340 | is to do the day one lift.

02:46:53.340 | And then any number of things popped up in life.

02:46:55.900 | You shipped it back to Tuesday.

02:46:58.120 | Rather than saying like Monday is leg day

02:46:59.900 | and then all of a sudden something happened,

02:47:00.880 | you miss leg day.

02:47:01.720 | It's just you're doing these things in order

02:47:03.780 | and you would like to get all four done in a seven day span.

02:47:07.880 | But if it doesn't happen, fine.

02:47:10.180 | The next day you get the workout,

02:47:11.860 | you just go right back into the next workout

02:47:13.860 | and it doesn't matter what day they land on exactly.

02:47:17.560 | For the three day routine that works very nice

02:47:20.640 | because the assumption there

02:47:22.880 | is you really only have time for three workouts a week.

02:47:26.480 | And so that's sort of implicit

02:47:27.880 | is there's probably some chaos happening

02:47:29.480 | in the schedule a little bit

02:47:31.280 | and you don't really have the ability

02:47:32.840 | to lock in three days per week.

02:47:34.600 | If that's not the case, you can go.

02:47:36.720 | But we're trying to listen to the pain points

02:47:40.400 | that people have with exercise

02:47:42.480 | and see if we can give them some solutions for those.

02:47:45.160 | - Several things about this program are attractive to me.

02:47:50.400 | One of them you just mentioned,

02:47:52.000 | which is that by not rigidly attaching individual workouts,

02:47:56.940 | just two specific days of the week,

02:47:58.880 | one in theory could say, okay,

02:48:02.260 | I didn't get that much sleep last night.

02:48:03.620 | I don't feel, I know that a lot of people say what is feel,

02:48:06.880 | but I don't feel recovered

02:48:07.960 | or like I'm gonna get that much out of the workout tomorrow.

02:48:10.980 | So I'm, or today,

02:48:12.560 | so I'm just gonna push it forward a day.

02:48:14.940 | And the ability to slide workouts forward or back by a day

02:48:18.420 | I think is incredibly valuable for the consistency sake.

02:48:22.740 | I also really like this idea

02:48:24.520 | of some of the long duration work coming a day

02:48:26.440 | after hitting the strength and bit of hypertrophy work.

02:48:30.040 | So this would be the day two.

02:48:32.280 | One thing that I've experienced over and over

02:48:35.140 | is that if I'm very sore in a given muscle group,

02:48:38.280 | especially my legs, doing some low intensity cardio,

02:48:41.940 | whether or not it's a jog or on the bike,

02:48:44.220 | typically for me, it's a jog or even skipping rope

02:48:48.060 | and then walking, skipping rope and walking

02:48:50.000 | does seem to dissipate the soreness.

02:48:52.040 | I'm sure there's a mechanism for that.

02:48:53.700 | There's a mechanism for everything, frankly,

02:48:55.500 | but I like that arrangement.

02:48:58.720 | And then I also like this idea of making sure

02:49:02.960 | that there's a workout for muscular endurance,

02:49:07.000 | because I feel like unless I've been stuck

02:49:08.780 | without a good gym,

02:49:10.260 | or I've decided to specifically train body weight exercise,

02:49:14.160 | which I did a few years ago,

02:49:15.220 | I got really excited about some of Pavel Satsoulin's work.

02:49:18.940 | - Great stuff, yeah, amazing. - He has a book,

02:49:21.160 | "The Naked Warrior," which doesn't involve training naked,

02:49:24.200 | although I suppose you could if you wanted,

02:49:25.460 | but it was really about no weights

02:49:26.980 | and involved building up to pistol squats

02:49:29.580 | and one arm pushups and things of that sort,

02:49:32.260 | even doing pull-ups on doors.

02:49:33.860 | And I discovered that some door frames

02:49:35.400 | are much stronger than others in hotels.

02:49:37.720 | I just accidentally caused some damage there.

02:49:41.380 | But in any case, muscular endurance, I think,

02:49:44.440 | is a really interesting one

02:49:46.260 | that I plan to incorporate into my schedule.

02:49:48.700 | But that is, I think, is one that's often overlooked,

02:49:52.900 | unless people really have an aversion

02:49:54.460 | to weights and to machines.

02:49:56.820 | - You're right, and it shouldn't be,

02:49:57.780 | because it's pretty low-hanging fruit.

02:50:00.740 | You don't need a lot of equipment for it, typically.

02:50:03.300 | It doesn't hurt that bad.

02:50:04.540 | You don't often get that sore out of it,

02:50:06.500 | and you're going to feel a nice, wonderful pump afterwards.

02:50:09.360 | So it's a great mode, and as we discussed many times now,

02:50:12.500 | it is quite effective at hypertrophy.

02:50:14.880 | - Yeah, I also, I don't know if they fit specifically

02:50:17.400 | with muscular endurance, but if you look at the physiques,

02:50:21.040 | for example, on rock climbers,

02:50:23.020 | I mean, they have, to me, of course,

02:50:24.880 | they have, usually the experienced climbers

02:50:28.720 | have pretty remarkable body compositions.

02:50:33.440 | They tend to be lean and live and flexible,

02:50:35.260 | all those things that many people aspire to.

02:50:37.860 | The other thing is their development

02:50:39.200 | always looks exceedingly balanced.

02:50:41.500 | You don't really tend to see climbers

02:50:43.380 | that are overdeveloped in the torso

02:50:44.920 | and underdeveloped in the arms,

02:50:46.060 | or overdeveloped in the arms, despite all the climbing

02:50:48.500 | and underdeveloped relatively in the other limb movement.

02:50:51.720 | That's true for women and men.

02:50:53.740 | It's not a sport that I participate in,

02:50:56.700 | but it seems like what they're doing

02:51:00.020 | is essentially muscular endurance training.

02:51:01.300 | - Basically, yep.

02:51:02.260 | - Yeah, so there's really something there to be valued.

02:51:05.080 | So that's a four day a week schedule

02:51:07.880 | with off days or rest days inserted as needed,

02:51:12.440 | and then just continuing.

02:51:14.680 | For those that are a bit more committed to their fitness

02:51:17.600 | and want to do a five or six day a week program,

02:51:21.400 | would you recommend just collapsing some of the off days,

02:51:24.760 | paying more attention to recovery,

02:51:26.080 | and cycling through more quickly?

02:51:28.880 | - Absolutely.

02:51:29.720 | You could combine that and just run that,

02:51:32.000 | either one of those programs.

02:51:33.180 | So you could run that three day a week program back to back.

02:51:36.660 | Do that, get that done in six days.

02:51:38.020 | - Ah, so day one, speed, power, hypertrophy,

02:51:40.220 | day two, strength, work with elevated heart rate,

02:51:43.260 | anaerobic capacity, and day three, endurance,

02:51:45.100 | and then just cycle through again.

02:51:46.660 | - Yep, you take day four off of the week,

02:51:49.980 | and then you go back again.

02:51:51.340 | So you'd be having six days of exercise, one day off,

02:51:55.580 | and you'd be getting every one of those adaptations in

02:51:58.040 | multiple times a week.

02:51:59.140 | That is almost exactly how I would set up

02:52:00.700 | a six day a week program.

02:52:01.880 | - Great, I love the elegance and the simplicity of that,

02:52:04.740 | and the thoroughness of it, because it checks off so many,

02:52:07.500 | if not all, of the nine major adaptations to exercise

02:52:10.660 | that we've been talking about these episodes.

02:52:13.260 | And I suppose the one thing that I want to highlight

02:52:16.660 | and pose this also as a question is that

02:52:19.140 | early in our discussions, in a previous episode,

02:52:23.300 | you mentioned that so much of what people think of

02:52:26.540 | and apply as it relates to resistance training

02:52:30.060 | is borrowed from bodybuilding and hypertrophy training

02:52:33.040 | specifically, which typically involves getting close

02:52:35.880 | to failure or failure, sometimes even involving rest pause,

02:52:38.620 | where you hit failure, then set the weight down

02:52:40.300 | for a few seconds and repeat these high intensity techniques

02:52:42.760 | accentuating the negative, so-called eccentric, et cetera.

02:52:46.680 | In hearing about these protocols of three day a week

02:52:50.680 | or four day a week, six day a week, it's very clear to me

02:52:54.340 | that if one is not careful to omit that kind of thinking,

02:52:59.620 | and suddenly is taking their strength work and speed work

02:53:02.540 | to failure, or is pushing too hard on muscular endurance

02:53:05.780 | to the point where you're just grinding out

02:53:07.220 | that very last push up on every set,

02:53:09.220 | that the amount of soreness and the amount of recovery

02:53:12.360 | that results from these workouts

02:53:15.500 | might start to cause progress issues.

02:53:18.140 | So one thing that's in the back of my mind is,

02:53:19.900 | as you've described these programs is that

02:53:21.660 | even though some of them are very brief

02:53:23.100 | or involve a minimum of time commitment,

02:53:25.260 | in particular the three day a week,

02:53:27.380 | but also the four day a week schedule,

02:53:29.220 | that there is a discipline involved

02:53:32.580 | in making sure that you stick to the workout

02:53:34.860 | that you're supposed to do that day

02:53:36.460 | and not go ham, as they say,

02:53:39.500 | and just throw in a couple extra sets of bicep curls

02:53:42.260 | and tricep pushes 'cause you wanna do that

02:53:43.980 | and you thought maybe you could get away with that,

02:53:45.700 | but you have to come back pretty quickly

02:53:47.620 | and do some serious, meaning devoted,

02:53:50.580 | speed and power work or strength work.

02:53:53.380 | And if you haven't been disciplined

02:53:55.740 | about not doing certain forms of exercise,

02:53:58.500 | I could see how the whole thing could kind of crash quickly

02:54:01.540 | and one could think, oh, this is just too much work

02:54:03.380 | or it's not for me.

02:54:05.380 | So this, I suppose, is now where the question comes,

02:54:08.820 | which is what are some of the key points

02:54:11.980 | that people need to keep in mind

02:54:13.140 | when they embrace a program?

02:54:15.820 | How rigidly do they need to stay attached to,

02:54:19.300 | today's endurance day, I'm just doing endurance.

02:54:21.940 | Today's strength day, I'm just doing strength work.

02:54:24.180 | I'm not gonna take things to absolute failure

02:54:26.340 | or beyond failure.

02:54:27.740 | I am absolutely happy with anyone modifying

02:54:32.740 | any of the sample programs however they would like to.

02:54:37.940 | My only recommendation for the question you just posed

02:54:42.380 | would be set your program

02:54:44.940 | and then if you're going to make a change, fine,

02:54:48.380 | but that is a change to your program.

02:54:50.900 | In other words, don't just make decisions every single day

02:54:54.980 | and make changes.

02:54:55.820 | If you're doing that, you might as well not have a program

02:54:58.460 | and as we described earlier, there is clear evidence

02:55:01.060 | that having a program is better than not,

02:55:03.620 | regardless of the effectiveness of the program

02:55:06.380 | and so my general comment to that is, okay, fine,

02:55:09.580 | a day or two, you made some modifications, no problem.

02:55:13.380 | We're in a situation now where it's like

02:55:14.820 | you're basically changing the workout every day as you go,

02:55:18.060 | then we just need to write a new program.

02:55:20.260 | We need to reassess where we're at

02:55:21.820 | because we need to have some structure.

02:55:23.780 | Look, the reality of it is I change the programming

02:55:27.480 | I'm going to do the day of often

02:55:29.920 | because of any number of situations.

02:55:31.380 | I just don't feel like it.

02:55:33.220 | I way overestimated today.

02:55:35.500 | We talked a little bit in a previous episode

02:55:37.160 | about auto regulation, which is a style of periodization

02:55:40.900 | and program design, which you're adjusting

02:55:42.740 | based on how you're actually feeling that day

02:55:45.180 | but with some specific structures.

02:55:46.980 | So you're gonna take some measurements that day and adjust.

02:55:48.820 | So auto regulation is a very, very effective tool.

02:55:51.960 | You just need to make sure that that auto is dialed.

02:55:54.380 | In other words, is it because your body

02:55:56.660 | actually needed something different

02:55:58.080 | or is it because you're now just getting a little bit lazy?

02:56:01.300 | Now you're just not feeling like it today.

02:56:03.420 | So there's a little bit of an impossible line to draw there.

02:56:06.740 | Both scenarios are real, gray area.

02:56:09.540 | A lot is real in the moment

02:56:11.220 | and so you just need to be a little bit aware

02:56:13.460 | of having some reality check, listening to your body

02:56:17.480 | but then also being like, hey, no, I'm talking to you.

02:56:20.600 | I'm telling you this is the plan we're going to do this

02:56:22.740 | and staying within it.

02:56:24.580 | It is going to be challenging to progressively overload

02:56:28.740 | and therefore get a higher likelihood

02:56:32.460 | of success at your training program.

02:56:34.420 | If you're just making decisions and changing the program

02:56:37.500 | right before you work out, you're probably not,

02:56:40.300 | you're probably going, for most people,

02:56:41.820 | you're probably going to choose less or off

02:56:44.940 | more so than you choose more.

02:56:47.820 | Now having said that, there are more than a few clients

02:56:51.500 | that have come through our programs

02:56:52.800 | where they choose more always.

02:56:56.820 | They add a set, they add an exercise,

02:56:59.200 | they add another workout and that can be okay

02:57:02.740 | but we're going to attract various markers on them

02:57:05.000 | and if we see these things consistently going down,

02:57:07.940 | we're going to identify whether they are,

02:57:09.700 | which phase of this overtraining thing we'll talk about next

02:57:12.620 | they're actually in.

02:57:13.660 | Some phases I'm okay, some of them I'm not.

02:57:16.940 | If we're seeing certain things happen physiologically,

02:57:20.380 | we're going to make a conversation.

02:57:22.060 | We're also then going to really think carefully

02:57:25.660 | about why are you making this choice?

02:57:28.620 | Do you feel like the training isn't enough?

02:57:30.820 | Okay, great, let's modify it then.

02:57:33.740 | Are you not making progress?

02:57:35.180 | Or are there some other reasons why you're doing this?

02:57:38.100 | Obviously I'm not a psychologist or therapist

02:57:40.820 | but there are clearly situations in which folks

02:57:43.420 | dose themselves with far too much exercise for reasons

02:57:46.940 | that are not because it's productive

02:57:49.120 | to their training or goals.

02:57:50.420 | And if such case, we would probably bring in somebody

02:57:53.420 | that specializes in those areas to clear that out

02:57:56.180 | and just make sure it's like we're not doing this

02:57:57.980 | for anxiety issues or energy, things like.

02:58:02.980 | If it's I just don't think the program's enough,

02:58:05.060 | okay, great, let's go back, let's look at our metrics,

02:58:07.260 | let's evaluate our tests and go there.

02:58:08.920 | But if there's other reasons then we may bring in somebody

02:58:11.740 | to have that conversation.

02:58:13.260 | - Yeah, usually when I've seen people deviate from programs

02:58:15.620 | it's because they tend to revert to something

02:58:17.500 | that they've done for a long time.

02:58:18.660 | It just feels really comfortable to them and it worked.

02:58:22.220 | And it was giving them decent results

02:58:24.100 | so they're skeptical to try something else.

02:58:26.060 | Or there is a phenotype of kind of haphazardness sometimes

02:58:30.860 | especially if you get really caffeinated before workout

02:58:32.620 | and just want to throw something in.

02:58:33.660 | Then there's a third category and this is one

02:58:35.220 | that I've had to contend with a lot in my life

02:58:37.580 | which is that I really enjoy training with other people

02:58:40.120 | when I have the opportunity.

02:58:41.540 | And a certain day rolls around where you're supposed

02:58:43.580 | to do something and not do other things.

02:58:45.380 | And people say, hey, do you want to go

02:58:46.580 | for a long ocean swim or you want to train

02:58:48.840 | and you end up doing some, Kenny Kane, this one's for you,

02:58:52.780 | some ridiculous 20 wall ball CrossFit type workout

02:58:56.960 | and I'm not acclimated for that sort of thing.

02:58:59.760 | And then it does tend to throw things off.

02:59:02.060 | Not because, no pun intended, Kenny,

02:59:04.680 | because there's nothing wrong with 20 sets of wall balls

02:59:08.380 | that's part of your conditioning.

02:59:10.060 | But if it's not appropriate for where you are

02:59:11.700 | in your schedule, it really can disrupt

02:59:13.720 | what you're trying to do.

02:59:15.300 | Even as a non-competitive athlete like myself,

02:59:18.540 | the year has been since I've competed

02:59:21.620 | in any athletic program, but as a non-competitive athlete,

02:59:25.020 | I think there's a beauty to and a really strong incentive

02:59:30.020 | to being disciplined about the program that one follows.

02:59:34.840 | As a mentor and professor that I worked with years ago

02:59:37.960 | used to say, come into his office, all these ideas

02:59:40.320 | and things I want to do and he'd say,

02:59:42.540 | let's constrain this walk.

02:59:44.600 | And then the question you always want to arrive at

02:59:47.100 | in a discussion with your students, as you know,

02:59:48.680 | is what's the experiment exactly?

02:59:50.560 | And then you go and you do that specific experiment.

02:59:52.800 | I think I view a workout the same way,

02:59:55.120 | that there are multiple adaptations, goals,

02:59:58.120 | and things that people are trying to achieve.

03:00:00.080 | Really knowing why you're there each time

03:00:02.040 | and really sticking to that,

03:00:03.780 | even if it means not training with other people.

03:00:06.160 | Or I always say, well, you can train with me,

03:00:07.920 | but I'm not going to train with you.

03:00:09.640 | - Selfish.

03:00:10.480 | - Right, so that's one way to do it.

03:00:12.520 | But really sticking to a schedule

03:00:14.120 | is really what allows the progress to emerge,

03:00:16.440 | but that doesn't necessarily mean being antisocial.

03:00:19.200 | You can invite people along, but in this case,

03:00:21.400 | I'm telling people to be the host, not the guest.

03:00:23.760 | - I have a little bit of a rule here.

03:00:25.560 | Maybe I should answer your question this way.

03:00:27.720 | I actually like doing things totally different occasionally.

03:00:32.040 | So I'll do, when I'm traveling, I tend to do hotel workouts.

03:00:35.360 | What I mean by that is I will go down to the workout room

03:00:38.920 | and I will do a set of 10 to 15 reps of every single machine

03:00:42.620 | in the exact order in which they are laid out.

03:00:45.300 | - Whoa.

03:00:46.140 | - Just for the sake of fun.

03:00:47.440 | Like just for the sake of like-

03:00:48.760 | - It's like a tarot card version of workouts.

03:00:50.680 | - Yeah, totally.

03:00:51.520 | - Like whatever comes up, I'm going to make sense of it.

03:00:53.400 | - And you just move.

03:00:54.760 | And those are typically things of like,

03:00:56.400 | I just want to move a little bit for jet lag

03:00:58.880 | and other sort of purposes, right?

03:01:01.420 | That's often like I wasn't going to get to work out today.

03:01:04.040 | And so now I'm going to do something to feel great.

03:01:06.600 | I don't travel that much though.

03:01:08.880 | So it's not really throwing my things off.

03:01:11.520 | I also, I don't get a lot of free time.

03:01:16.000 | And so if I am traveling and I'm seeing someone

03:01:19.120 | I haven't seen in many years or for the first time,

03:01:22.740 | I mean, we got to train together this week

03:01:24.240 | for the first time, I'm not going to burn that opportunity.

03:01:26.900 | My rule is this though, I'm not going to do something

03:01:29.240 | that's going to cost me more than three days.

03:01:31.800 | So I'm absolutely happy to get out there

03:01:35.400 | and maybe tomorrow morning or tonight,

03:01:36.720 | we go do some fun that's off my schedule.

03:01:39.400 | I'm in, I'm in a hundred percent.

03:01:41.320 | I'm just going to downregulate a little bit.

03:01:42.960 | I'm not going to maybe do as much as you

03:01:44.360 | or as hard as you or whatever.

03:01:46.240 | I'll do more than I should.

03:01:48.240 | But if it costs me tomorrow, it was worth the exchange.

03:01:51.960 | I don't have a world record I'm setting anytime soon.

03:01:54.840 | I don't have, I got many years.

03:01:56.920 | I am happy to give up a couple of days of exercise

03:02:00.400 | to be a little sore than I need to be

03:02:02.520 | for the exchange of a lifetime memory.

03:02:05.220 | And this stuff is so important to me.

03:02:07.300 | This stuff lands as like true lifetime memories.

03:02:10.680 | I can look back, many of my fond memories from my life

03:02:13.360 | are training sessions with friends, whatever it is,

03:02:15.480 | like doing jiu-jitsu with somebody who's a world champion.

03:02:19.000 | We just like totally, whatever the thing is, right?

03:02:20.800 | You're like, that was really, really cool.

03:02:22.320 | Absolutely worth missing two days.

03:02:23.720 | If it's going to be more than three days though,

03:02:25.320 | where like I'm going to be so wrecked,

03:02:27.000 | I can't work out for five or six days.

03:02:29.520 | Then I'm probably like, all right, that's kind of nonsense.

03:02:31.760 | Unless it's just like an opportunity where I'm like,

03:02:33.200 | I absolutely can't pass up, you know?

03:02:35.400 | So that's kind of how I think about it.

03:02:38.040 | That doesn't happen too often with me though,

03:02:40.160 | maybe once a month.

03:02:41.120 | And so I'm like, okay, I'm fine, I lost a day.

03:02:43.520 | Reality of it is it's probably more like once a quarter

03:02:45.440 | that that happens, so I don't really care.

03:02:46.680 | So you do want to balance joy and life.

03:02:51.680 | You don't want to be so rigid about your training program

03:02:54.960 | that it ruins and robs those experiences.

03:02:57.040 | Physical activity should be fun.

03:03:01.920 | Your fitness and your training should be something

03:03:03.640 | that makes your life better.

03:03:04.760 | Not some task you have to get done

03:03:08.720 | so that 75 years from now,

03:03:11.560 | you've hit some metric of who knows what.

03:03:14.680 | - Just alone in your room with your training logs.

03:03:16.960 | (laughing)

03:03:18.360 | No, in all seriousness,

03:03:20.360 | I think you point to the richness of life

03:03:22.360 | and you know, you can draw these boxes like work,

03:03:24.540 | relationships, fitness, recovery,

03:03:26.040 | but the boundaries between those boxes are blurry

03:03:28.560 | because, and I should say, I love training with you.

03:03:31.440 | I greatly enjoyed training with you this morning,

03:03:33.360 | not just because I was receiving so many useful tips.

03:03:35.920 | In fact, thank you.

03:03:36.960 | It's the first time I've PR'd in a number of things today.

03:03:39.320 | Thanks to your input in the moment.

03:03:41.440 | That's an irreplaceable kind of gift,

03:03:43.640 | but mostly it's the gift of getting to train

03:03:45.220 | with a colleague and friend.

03:03:46.320 | So I want to underscore highlight

03:03:49.400 | and put an exclamation mark behind what you just said.

03:03:52.720 | Thank you once again and again for giving us

03:03:57.480 | so much interesting, clear, actionable,

03:04:02.120 | and at times somewhat counterintuitive information

03:04:05.200 | in order to build out an exceptional training program

03:04:09.760 | to meet any of, and in some cases,

03:04:12.220 | all of the nine major adaptations that exercise can create

03:04:15.940 | toward aesthetic, performance-related,

03:04:18.440 | and healthspan, lifespan, aka longevity goals.

03:04:23.160 | That's really a treasure trove of information there.

03:04:26.400 | And I look forward to our next discussion

03:04:28.840 | about how to best recover from exercise,

03:04:31.700 | both within the exercise bout and between exercise bouts

03:04:36.520 | and in the more macroscopic structure of a week,

03:04:39.360 | a month, a year.

03:04:41.200 | I can't wait.

03:04:42.480 | - Yeah, I can't wait either.

03:04:43.440 | I love that topic and I've got a lot to cover,

03:04:46.320 | so it'd be fun.

03:04:48.240 | If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast,

03:04:50.600 | please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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03:05:02.080 | If you have questions for us or comments or suggestions

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03:05:19.080 | I'd also like to inform you

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03:05:22.580 | It's called the Neural Network Newsletter.

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03:05:54.340 | Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion

03:05:56.580 | about fitness, exercise and performance

03:05:58.560 | with Dr. Andy Galpin.

03:06:00.060 | And as always, thank you for your interest in science.

03:06:03.020 | (upbeat music)

03:06:05.600 | (upbeat music)

Dr. Andy Galpin: Optimize Your Training Program for Fitness & Longevity | Huberman Lab Guest Series

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