Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / The Adaptive Cardio Pyramid That Maximizes Fat Loss in Minimum Time | Ep 374

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The Adaptive Cardio Pyramid That Maximizes Fat Loss in Minimum Time | Ep 374 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: If you've been doing hours of cardio every week, expecting it to help with your fat loss, and you're either not seeing the changes you want, you're always feeling exhausted, or you're watching your strength training suffer, this episode will change how you approach cardio.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: Many people treat cardio as punishment for how much they've eaten.
• 0:16
  Philip Pape: Or they chase meaningless calorie burn through cardio, or they avoid it completely, thinking it destroys their muscle gains, and all three approaches honestly waste time and energy.
• 0:27
  Philip Pape: I'm going to show you the Adaptive Cardio Pyramid, a three-layer framework that tells you exactly how much movement you need for fat loss, muscle growth and longevity, without wasting time.
• 0:38
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 0:56
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, certified nutrition coach, philip Pape, and we're going to talk about cardio today because you're either spending lots of time on cardio an hour a day, maybe on a treadmill or some sort of machine.
• 1:06
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're sweating through HIIT interval classes, peloton F45, crossfit style boot camps.
• 1:13
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're tracking all the calories you burn using your wearable, but after weeks or months or maybe you've been doing this for years it doesn't seem to be affecting the scale or, more importantly, your fat loss and body composition, maybe it's causing your lifting performance to decline, and maybe you're always exhausted and it's stressing you out.
• 1:33
  Philip Pape: Anyone or all of these things could be happening when it comes to cardio.
• 1:37
  Philip Pape: And you're not alone, because this is what happens when we treat cardio as kind of this sledgehammer for losing weight, for metabolism, for fat loss, instead of the precision tool that it's meant to be.
• 1:51
  Philip Pape: Now, cardio can definitely accelerate your results and the results we are looking for on the show, which is an improved physique and performance, function, strength, leannessess.
• 2:02
  Philip Pape: It could also extremely undermine those results and those goals, and so the difference between them comes down to having a strategy rather than just showing up and treating cardio as kind of an afterthought.
• 2:14
  Philip Pape: Right, if we're going to have a strategy for our lifting and our strength development, why wouldn't we do the same for all the other forms of movement we have in our lives now?
• 2:24
  Philip Pape: Now, before we get into this framework that I've put together for you it is a three-layer framework that I think will be very time efficient and very adaptive to your needs I want to let you know about something happening.
• 2:35
  Philip Pape: Tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, I am hosting a live workshop called the Adaptive Cardio Workshop, where I'm going to show you exactly how to build your own personalized cardio plan using the pyramid we're discussing today.
• 2:49
  Philip Pape: We're going to set up your starting metrics.
• 2:52
  Philip Pape: We're going to identify what you're capable of, what your schedule allows, and help you map out how to fit cardio into your life in an enjoyable way that gets you the results, and this is in theory.
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: I'm a big fan of workshops being step-by-step, actual work that you get done and come out of it with a plan that is tailored to your goals, your schedule, your recovery capacity, what protocols, what the timing is, how to layer it with your strength training to get the maximum result.
• 3:17
  Philip Pape: You'll also, in that workshop, get a download called the adaptive cardio guide, only exclusive to people who show up for the workshop, and our eight straight training templates as well, so you can fit that in along with your lifting in an efficient way.
• 3:32
  Philip Pape: Workshop attendees also get a month of access to Physique University included in the price of $27, and a custom six-month nutrition and training transformation plan that I put for you together for you Again, all included in the $27 for everything.
• 3:49
  Philip Pape: This is tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, at 12 Eastern.
• 3:53
  Philip Pape: It also includes the replay, so if you cannot attend live, you're still going to get all of that stuff and including the replay.
• 4:00
  Philip Pape: You can register at livewitsandweightscom and if you're already in Physique University, you get this included.
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: So, again, another bonus to people who are in there is that these workshops are free.
• 4:09
  Philip Pape: You can register at livewitsandweightscom for tomorrow's Adaptive Cardio Workshop.
• 4:15
  Philip Pape: If you're hearing this episode after it's done, the link will still work.
• 4:19
  Philip Pape: You can still get the replay and all the bonuses I just talked about.
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: All right, let's build an understanding of why most cardio approaches don't work so well, and then what actually works and how we can put this together.
• 4:31
  Philip Pape: So let me start by destroying some myths.
• 4:34
  Philip Pape: We love busting myths.
• 4:35
  Philip Pape: These are things that are just wasting your time.
• 4:37
  Philip Pape: They are wasting your energy.
• 4:38
  Philip Pape: Okay, myth number one that cardio is the key to fat loss.
• 4:43
  Philip Pape: It's just not.
• 4:45
  Philip Pape: You know, if you go into the gym in January, new Year's resolutions, what do you see?
• 4:49
  Philip Pape: You see people spending all their time on cardio machines.
• 4:53
  Philip Pape: In fact, most big box gyms that's what I see.
• 4:56
  Philip Pape: I see tons and tons of cardio machines.
• 4:57
  Philip Pape: You know a lot of people using those very few people using the free weights or even the machines, and people are convinced they're going to lose weight, they're going to lose fat, they're going to get the result they want improve their physique doing cardio and the research just does not show this to be the case.
• 5:12
  Philip Pape: Let alone experience an anecdote from working with hundreds of clients.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: Studies are consistently showing that cardio-only interventions okay, where you just do cardio underperform by 20 to 50% compared to predictions.
• 5:30
  Philip Pape: And the big reason why is because your body compensates Metabolic adaptation occurs and endurance adaptation occurs and you get hungrier.
• 5:41
  Philip Pape: You actually move less throughout the day, so you're neat.
• 5:44
  Philip Pape: Your non-exercise activity thermogenesis actually compensates and comes down.
• 5:48
  Philip Pape: So all of these things your metabolism, your hunger, your compensation through movement it doesn't create the calorie deficit you're looking for, whereas nutrition absolutely does this.
• 6:03
  Philip Pape: Now, cardio can 100% support your fat loss, but it is not the driver of fat loss, and this is where the nuance is important and treating it like the main thing is what's going to make you extremely frustrated and you're going to burn out.
• 6:16
  Philip Pape: And this is often the crux of so many people who find this podcast.
• 6:20
  Philip Pape: And then they're like oh, I see, the missing piece is actually lifting weights.
• 6:24
  Philip Pape: No wonder it's not working for me and no wonder I move more and more and seem to eat less and less and I don't get the result, and that is why Cardio is not the key to fat loss, but it can definitely support it.
• 6:37
  Philip Pape: We're going to talk about that in a bit.
• 6:39
  Philip Pape: Myth number two is that cardio kills gains.
• 6:42
  Philip Pape: So this is kind of the other side of it, where you have people who say I don't have to do any cardio.
• 6:47
  Philip Pape: You know, and I've even used this messaging to a degree where I say you know you can get the result you want, you can build muscle, lose fat and not have to do any cardio.
• 6:56
  Philip Pape: And that's kind of a little bit of a puff word in the sense that cardio can refer to multiple things.
• 7:04
  Philip Pape: It can also refer to walking.
• 7:05
  Philip Pape: So if you're going to include walking in there, then absolutely you want to do cardio.
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: But I'm talking about more intense, metronomic, stressful cardio.
• 7:13
  Philip Pape: People avoid any cardio because they think it interferes with strength gains, are missing out on lots of forms of cardio that can work.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: That's where I want to separate the two.
• 7:23
  Philip Pape: And this all comes from research on what's known as the interference effect, the idea that cardio blunts the muscle building response, the adaptation that you get from lifting weights.
• 7:34
  Philip Pape: Right, but the key word is excessive.
• 7:38
  Philip Pape: The interference effect only shows up when you're doing high volumes, very, very high volumes of intense cardio that compete with your recovery resources.
• 7:48
  Philip Pape: Now, a lot of you are doing what would be considered excessive, so I don't mean to downplay it either, but some people think an hour a week of running or something is going to just kill all your gains, and it's not.
• 8:01
  Philip Pape: I'm not a huge fan of running.
• 8:02
  Philip Pape: I'm just saying as an example, it's not going to kill your gains.
• 8:04
  Philip Pape: If you're an endurance athlete, if you're a runner, you could still train concurrently and have a hybrid approach to lifting and training that still works.
• 8:14
  Philip Pape: We've talked to some people on the show.
• 8:16
  Philip Pape: Minimal, intelligently programmed cardio is going to actually enhance your recovery.
• 8:22
  Philip Pape: It's going to enhance your performance in several different ways related to health markers, related to your lifting recovery, related to your athleticism.
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: We're gonna talk about it, but, again, it's not gonna just kill gains, right.
• 8:33
  Philip Pape: There was a meta-analysis in 2012 by Wilson and colleagues and it found that low-dose cardio, for example, can improve blood flow, nutrient delivery and recovery between lifting sessions.
• 8:44
  Philip Pape: It is the dose that makes the poison, as with many things.
• 8:49
  Philip Pape: Myth number three is that more cardio more cardio equals better health.
• 8:53
  Philip Pape: This is an important one and to understand why it's a myth.
• 8:56
  Philip Pape: We see people doing lots of cardio, thinking that that is the thing that's gonna optimize their health, their blood markers, their resting heart rate, et cetera, their VO2 max.
• 9:06
  Philip Pape: Whatever they're thinking, they're trying to improve cardiovascular health, quote unquote.
• 9:09
  Philip Pape: But the research consistently shows that it's the volume of your movement, not the intensity, that predicts longevity, and so, if you think about what that means, you can have lots of volume.
• 9:21
  Philip Pape: That's very low intensity, whereas people are hammering home this message on social media that you need to do interval training, even sprinting I love sprinting and we're gonna talk about that but it's not necessary to have really, really great cardiovascular health, like far superior than the average and more than sufficient to have a great health span.
• 9:41
  Philip Pape: Studies tracking hundreds of thousands of people show that around eight to 10,000 steps per day is linked to the lowest all-cause mortality.
• 9:49
  Philip Pape: I think you can go as low as, say, 7,500, but 8,000 to 10,000 is a good round number or range.
• 9:54
  Philip Pape: And then adding high-intensity work on top of that provides only marginal benefits and that you need to have that foundation of the steps.
• 10:05
  Philip Pape: Now, steps can be metabolic equivalent.
• 10:08
  Philip Pape: It doesn't have to be just walking Again one of the nuances we can talk about but it's general movement, low-intensity movement.
• 10:16
  Philip Pape: So if cardio does not drive fat loss, if it doesn't interfere with muscle gains unless it's overdone, and if it doesn't require extreme intensity to get the health benefits, then what is the right approach?
• 10:28
  Philip Pape: And that's where the adaptive cardio pyramid comes in.
• 10:31
  Philip Pape: All right, so I want you to think of cardio as a hierarchy, just like a nutrition pyramid.
• 10:36
  Philip Pape: Or, if anybody's familiar with the muscle and strength pyramids by Eric Helms, same idea.
• 10:40
  Philip Pape: It's the most important things at the bottom and until you do those, you don't worry about the things higher up in the pyramid.
• 10:45
  Philip Pape: You start with the foundation that supports your health and metabolism and then you add layers only as needed for your specific goals.
• 10:53
  Philip Pape: So let's start with the base layer, what I call minimum effective movement.
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: And, by the way, in the workshop tomorrow, we're going to give you a diagram, we're going to give you specifics for each of these, we're going to help you map it out.
• 11:03
  Philip Pape: We're going to give you a week by week plan for the next eight weeks.
• 11:06
  Philip Pape: All of that.
• 11:06
  Philip Pape: But I just want you to understand the concepts today.
• 11:10
  Philip Pape: So the foundation, minimum effective movement is walking and low level movement.
• 11:15
  Philip Pape: So that includes walking, of course.
• 11:17
  Philip Pape: Just normal walking also includes brisk walking, rucking, which is where you add some weight.
• 11:23
  Philip Pape: It could be a backpack, a rucking sack or even a weighted vest, which are all the rage right now.
• 11:27
  Philip Pape: I understand it could be inclined treadmill work, walking on hills, basically anything that keeps you moving at a conversational pace.
• 11:35
  Philip Pape: And we're not even gonna talk about heart rate zones or anything today.
• 11:39
  Philip Pape: That is, in my opinion, unnecessary when it comes to having a totally optimal minimum effective dose cardio plan for yourself.
• 11:46
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 11:47
  Philip Pape: We want to keep it simple.
• 11:48
  Philip Pape: So your target for the minimum effective movement is going to be measured in steps, because that's one of the easiest proxies to measure with a wearable, with your phone, with time, there's lots of ways to do it.
• 11:58
  Philip Pape: You don't have to have a pedometer, although most people have them today.
• 12:00
  Philip Pape: 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day are equivalent, is really the target, and this works because it raises your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, your NEAT.
• 12:14
  Philip Pape: Neat is the energy that you burn from all the movements.
• 12:15
  Philip Pape: That isn't formal exercise, and I want you to be clear here that formal exercise represents less than 5% of your calorie burn.
• 12:19
  Philip Pape: It's insignificant, whereas NEAT can represent anywhere from 25% to 60%.
• 12:26
  Philip Pape: I mean it can represent a huge amount depending on how much you move that lever.
• 12:30
  Philip Pape: I guess the British say lever, I say lever, so this also includes fidgeting, standing, walking to your car, taking the stairs, going for walks.
• 12:38
  Philip Pape: Neat has the biggest impact on your long-term energy expenditure and fat loss, right?
• 12:44
  Philip Pape: In other words, you're able to increase your metabolism and eat more food or lose more fat, lose more, you know, be in a bigger deficit because you're moving more in the low stress way.
• 12:54
  Philip Pape: Low level movement.
• 12:55
  Philip Pape: And low level movement is incredibly stackable.
• 12:58
  Philip Pape: You can walk while taking phone calls, listening to podcasts, running errands, being on, you know, zoom calls.
• 13:05
  Philip Pape: It supports digestion when you do it after meals, improves your glucose control right, your blood sugar.
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: It enhances your sleep quality when you do it in the evening, and the research is crystal clear.
• 13:17
  Philip Pape: A 2019 study following over 16,000 people found that mortality risk drops significantly at 8,000 steps and plateaus around 10,000 to 12,000.
• 13:27
  Philip Pape: So you don't need marathon runners.
• 13:29
  Philip Pape: In fact, running is extremely stressful.
• 13:31
  Philip Pape: I don't even know why I use that as an example.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: To get longevity benefits, you just need to be getting off your butt and walking right.
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: And there's lots of corollaries to this, having to do with looking at your day, how sedentary you are, how much you walk today.
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: Actually getting to 8,000 if you're currently at three, could seem like a big request, a big challenge, and so I am a big fan of that 0.1% a day improvement.
• 13:55
  Philip Pape: If you're getting 3,000 steps a day now, get 3,500 steps a day next week, inch your way up there, and eventually you'll get there successfully in a sustainable way.
• 14:03
  Philip Pape: So that's the base layer, and I have a lot of other examples that we're going to talk about in the workshop tomorrow.
• 14:15
  Philip Pape: The middle layer is what I call adaptive enjoyment.
• 14:16
  Philip Pape: This is for sustainability and adding extra movement that you wouldn't add if it weren't, for it being something you like, if that makes sense.
• 14:23
  Philip Pape: So once you have that movement foundation and look if you're still getting 3,000 steps a day, you shouldn't even be thinking about this stuff other than you know you do it already anyway.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: This is the cardio that you enjoy.
• 14:35
  Philip Pape: This could be hiking, cycling, dancing, pickleball, swimming, martial arts right, bjj whatever keeps you coming back, being athletic, moving your body.
• 14:46
  Philip Pape: It helps with other areas that your strength then complements, and when you're doing this, it's usually one or two sessions a week, maybe 20 to 40 minutes.
• 14:54
  Philip Pape: We're not talking about a lot of time, right?
• 14:56
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're in some sort of league.
• 14:57
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's bowling, whatever.
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: Did I say pickleball?
• 15:00
  Philip Pape: Yeah, that's popular today.
• 15:02
  Philip Pape: So the key word here when I say adaptive enjoyment is the word adaptive.
• 15:06
  Philip Pape: Your enjoyment and life circumstances are going to change, so your cardio should adapt with it.
• 15:12
  Philip Pape: So maybe it's tennis in the summer, maybe it's indoor assault biking in the winter, or Peloton or something like that.
• 15:18
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's hiking on the weekends and then yoga when you're really busy and you could just need to throw it in.
• 15:24
  Philip Pape: And this layer is really important.
• 15:25
  Philip Pape: It serves multiple purposes that are intentional.
• 15:29
  Philip Pape: First, enjoyable activities have very high adherence rates.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: You're going to do it.
• 15:35
  Philip Pape: So, even if you've established your step count foundation and one week you just happen to get so busy, you just don't get a lot of steps in.
• 15:42
  Philip Pape: But you're like I got to go to that basketball game Friday.
• 15:45
  Philip Pape: I mean I'm looking forward to that.
• 15:46
  Philip Pape: Think about it.
• 15:47
  Philip Pape: You're going to do it.
• 15:48
  Philip Pape: It's going to reduce your stress, it's fun, it's social.
• 15:51
  Philip Pape: In many cases, a 2018 study by Reljic and colleagues found that adherence to HIIT protocols drop significantly over time compared to moderate activities that people actually enjoy.
• 16:02
  Philip Pape: So, again, you don't want to punish yourself with cardio.
• 16:05
  Philip Pape: I think the base layer we talked about.
• 16:07
  Philip Pape: Most people would agree that, like low grade walking and things like that is pretty sustainable.
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: It doesn't feel like punishment.
• 16:12
  Philip Pape: But once we start getting into the more intense versions of cardio, like even medium intensity cardio, some people feel like it's an obligation, that they hate, that they don't want to do, that it's exercise.
• 16:23
  Philip Pape: We don't want to get your head into that space.
• 16:25
  Philip Pape: So again I'm setting up the argument here that you never have to do high intensity training ever if you don't want to and still get fantastic results.
• 16:34
  Philip Pape: And then the second thing is, besides, having high adherence is fun.
• 16:39
  Philip Pape: Cardio provides variety.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: It provides psychological benefits beyond just supporting the health and metabolism piece.
• 16:47
  Philip Pape: All the social activities that are out there team sports, group fitness classes I'm okay with those if they are reasonable in terms of time and intensity and they don't stress you out.
• 16:58
  Philip Pape: They add those community elements that can improve mental health, that can improve your stress management.
• 17:04
  Philip Pape: Some people just love to go into the environment of the gym to have other people around them.
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: So that's the middle layer.
• 17:10
  Philip Pape: And then only then, once you've got the step count, once you've got some fun activities, now you can say, okay, let me add in some deliberate cardio sessions.
• 17:20
  Philip Pape: Now you might be surprised and say, wow, philip really like puts this to the end.
• 17:24
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I do.
• 17:25
  Philip Pape: Because, going back to the argument that you do not even quote unquote need cardio other than walking to get great results, including fat loss, low resting heart rate, low blood pressure, good blood sugar control, all the things you really don't.
• 17:39
  Philip Pape: You really don't.
• 17:40
  Philip Pape: But if you're into optimizing, if you're into performance, if you want to push the needle a little bit more, if you want to improve your VO2 max or, yes, even get a little extra boost with some calorie burn during a fat loss phase or not, then this is where the top of the pyramid is important.
• 17:56
  Philip Pape: It's called precision, precision cardio, and this is where performance matters, where sprint intervals, some structured, high intensity interval training Again, I'm not a huge fan of HIIT, so it's gotta be very intentionally recoverable, let's say.
• 18:14
  Philip Pape: Or more longer steady state sessions, which I'm okay with, medium and low-intensity steady state.
• 18:19
  Philip Pape: That's a little bit more intense than the walking.
• 18:22
  Philip Pape: So for this I would say no more than two sessions a week.
• 18:24
  Philip Pape: One or two sessions a week, start with one.
• 18:25
  Philip Pape: I would say no more than two sessions a week.
• 18:26
  Philip Pape: You know, one or two sessions a week, start with one.
• 18:28
  Philip Pape: Maybe add into again sustainability only if your schedule in your recovery allow, right, don't force it in because that defeats the purpose.
• 18:36
  Philip Pape: So this layer is going to improve specific aspects of cardiovascular conditioning.
• 18:42
  Philip Pape: So this is the the principle of specificity.
• 18:44
  Philip Pape: Just like we train to build muscle and lift weights, if you sprint you can improve your VO2 max, your anaerobic power, your aerobic capacity, your work capacity.
• 18:54
  Philip Pape: I will say a lot of that gets improved just by lifting and walking.
• 18:58
  Philip Pape: Probably 90% of what you need.
• 19:00
  Philip Pape: But if you want to get that other 5% to 10%, that's where this comes in.
• 19:03
  Philip Pape: 5 to 10%, that's where this comes in.
• 19:08
  Philip Pape: Sprinting is particularly powerful for lifters because it is anabolic, it recruits your fast twitch fibers, it helps you preserve your muscle mass because it's very little work to a lot of restroom recovery and it triggers favorable hormonal responses.
• 19:18
  Philip Pape: That's very complimentary to lifting adaptations and you feel like a superhero when you sprint.
• 19:25
  Philip Pape: It doesn't.
• 19:25
  Philip Pape: It's not running.
• 19:26
  Philip Pape: Let me, this is the argument I'm going to make.
• 19:28
  Philip Pape: Sprinting does not feel like running.
• 19:29
  Philip Pape: I am not a big fan of running.
• 19:31
  Philip Pape: I'm not going to say I hate it.
• 19:32
  Philip Pape: Well, you know, I try not to use the word hate, but I kind of almost do.
• 19:36
  Philip Pape: I think most people.
• 19:37
  Philip Pape: But sprinting feels totally different from running, in my opinion, whether it's flat ground or on a machine, because you just it's just like all out power for a very brief moment of time.
• 19:47
  Philip Pape: It is much more closer, in my opinion, to something like doing a deadlift, one RM.
• 19:51
  Philip Pape: You know it's this all out effort just for a brief period of time.
• 19:55
  Philip Pape: So the critical thing I think with the precision layer is that it's like the sprinkles on the top of the pyramid.
• 20:01
  Philip Pape: It is that small of a triangle or a piece of the pyramid.
• 20:06
  Philip Pape: It is not required for fat loss.
• 20:08
  Philip Pape: It it's just not.
• 20:13
  Philip Pape: It's not required for your metabolism.
• 20:14
  Philip Pape: All that meaningful stuff happens in the first two layers, but this last one can add a little extra oomph to the equation.
• 20:22
  Philip Pape: And so many people are flipping this pyramid upside down.
• 20:25
  Philip Pape: They really are there.
• 20:25
  Philip Pape: They skip the walking.
• 20:27
  Philip Pape: You know they might lift weights but then they skip walking.
• 20:29
  Philip Pape: They they don't do anything enjoyable because they're like, focused on getting all the regimented fitness lifestyle stuff in their schedule.
• 20:38
  Philip Pape: They jump straight to suffering through HIIT classes and then they wonder why they burn out or they don't get the results.
• 20:46
  Philip Pape: So I think this framework gives you this big picture.
• 20:48
  Philip Pape: Implementing it is where people get stuck right.
• 20:51
  Philip Pape: How much walking is enough for your situation?
• 20:53
  Philip Pape: When do I do it?
• 20:54
  Philip Pape: How do I do it sustainably?
• 20:55
  Philip Pape: How do you time cardio around your lifting sessions?
• 20:58
  Philip Pape: What if you hate traditional cardio but you want the precision layer because you've done all the rest and you want to get your performance goals right?
• 21:05
  Philip Pape: And these are the questions we're going to answer tomorrow in the Adaptive Cardio Workshop.
• 21:09
  Philip Pape: I'm going to show you how to assess your current baseline, how to build your plan from the bottom up.
• 21:13
  Philip Pape: You're going to get eight training templates from Physique University that take all the guesswork out of programming your lifting, if that's what you are interested in.
• 21:21
  Philip Pape: And you're going to get the downloadable adaptive cardio guide that has all the protocols and troubleshooting strategies.
• 21:27
  Philip Pape: Workshop attendees get a six-month nutrition plan from me and a full month of access to Physique University.
• 21:35
  Philip Pape: All of that for $27.
• 21:36
  Philip Pape: I mean, you can't, I'm not making this up.
• 21:38
  Philip Pape: All of that is included, no strings attached, just $27.
• 21:42
  Philip Pape: So it's tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, 12 Eastern register at livewitsandweightscom.
• 21:50
  Philip Pape: Make sure you get a spot before we run out and you will get the replay if you can't make a live but you have to register to get the replay.
• 21:54
  Philip Pape: Again, that's livewitsandweightscom for the Adaptive Cardio Workshop tomorrow.
• 21:58
  Philip Pape: All right, so I want to give you the scientific backing for why this research, or I should say why this pyramid structure, works so well, and that will set us up to talk about all of the common mistakes.
• 22:10
  Philip Pape: So that's what we're going to cover after this.
• 22:11
  Philip Pape: So, real quick on the science, and then we're going to get into the mistakes that people make and what you should do instead, and then some final I'll say tips on building this up.
• 22:20
  Philip Pape: Even if you can't make the workshop tomorrow, okay, I don't want to leave you hanging.
• 22:23
  Philip Pape: So, going back to the base layer, we know that walking and low level movement work through multiple mechanisms.
• 22:28
  Philip Pape: They increase your daily energy expenditure, but do not trigger hunger, the same hunger that high intensity causes.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: I think there was a review in 2021 by Helms, and colleagues found that moderate cardio has minimal impact on appetite hormones compared to intense training.
• 22:41
  Philip Pape: Second, walking improves insulin sensitivity and glucose control, especially 15-minute walks after meals, and they tend to have better outcomes than a single longer walk that are not after meals, let's say, although you should walk whenever you're able to walk.
• 22:57
  Philip Pape: Third, there's the muscle protein synthesis angle.
• 23:00
  Philip Pape: Recent research shows that prolonged sitting reduces your body's ability to build muscle, and we're gonna talk about that at tomorrow's workshop in detail, about how you can break that up and improve your muscle protein synthesis through movement.
• 23:11
  Philip Pape: But the moral of the story is don't sit around for hours at a time.
• 23:15
  Philip Pape: So that's the base layer.
• 23:16
  Philip Pape: That's just some of the basic science.
• 23:18
  Philip Pape: The middle layer, the enjoyment layer, the research here is actually pretty surprising and sobering to a lot of people.
• 23:23
  Philip Pape: But we're going to start with a sobering fact Most people quit their exercise programs within six months period.
• 23:30
  Philip Pape: But if it's enjoyable, the adherence rates are significantly longer.
• 23:35
  Philip Pape: Right, and this isn't just up here in the mind.
• 23:39
  Philip Pape: This isn't just psychology.
• 23:40
  Philip Pape: There are physiological benefits to doing activities you enjoy as well.
• 23:43
  Philip Pape: They lower your stress, your cortisol levels more effectively than forcing the exercise.
• 23:48
  Philip Pape: It improves your mood, you release endorphins, it creates positive associations with movement rather than punishment mindsets.
• 23:55
  Philip Pape: And then at the precision layer, the science really depends on your goals.
• 24:00
  Philip Pape: So if it's VO2 max, interval training can be very efficient.
• 24:03
  Philip Pape: But we again are talking about a specific way to do that Very few sessions, very short sprints, lots of recovery, and it doesn't take that long and you can get your conditioning really quickly.
• 24:13
  Philip Pape: When I was in CrossFit, I remember if I had taken off time for a while and then came back to it, the conditioning came back very, very quickly just within a few weeks.
• 24:26
  Philip Pape: For accelerating your fat loss, sprints can be helpful as well, and that's why I think it's not the solution to fat loss.
• 24:28
  Philip Pape: But if you're already doing all the other things, which are, I'll say, the biggest return on investment, sprinting is a nice thing to add in.
• 24:36
  Philip Pape: They create what's called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, where you burn additional calories for hours after the session because it's just so intense, but in a short, recoverable way, that you get this added benefit to it.
• 24:48
  Philip Pape: They also improve insulin sensitivity and help you preserve muscle mass.
• 24:51
  Philip Pape: Right, there's no real risk there.
• 24:53
  Philip Pape: So that's kind of the basic science.
• 24:55
  Philip Pape: I don't want to get too too nerdy on this.
• 24:57
  Philip Pape: I know you guys love that, but I don't want the episode to be too long.
• 25:00
  Philip Pape: So that leads us to try and understand okay, what mistake are people making that?
• 25:06
  Philip Pape: The science gives us the rationale for these, right, and the first big mistake is skipping that foundation, like, hopefully you've been convinced that you need that in there.
• 25:15
  Philip Pape: You know, I see people doing like the boot camp classes, but then they get 3 000 steps a day.
• 25:20
  Philip Pape: So they're like building that pyramid upside down and it's just going to create new problems.
• 25:25
  Philip Pape: It's going to stress you out more, cause you to adapt and not do the thing you want, which, at is very basic.
• 25:29
  Philip Pape: It's not going to even burn the calories you want to burn.
• 25:32
  Philip Pape: Mistake number two is Confusing hard effort with effectiveness.
• 25:37
  Philip Pape: Now, that might sound sacrilegious, because when it comes to lifting weights, training hard is important.
• 25:41
  Philip Pape: When it comes to cardio, there's more nuance, because I know lots of clients who came to me doing spin classes, for example.
• 25:50
  Philip Pape: Those are very popular, right 90-minute spin classes and they like feeling wiped when they would go to their lifting sessions.
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: They weren't getting the result, their metabolisms were lower and I said let's just eliminate that for a while, see what happens and all of a sudden they have a much, much less stress, the metabolism increased and they're able to hit more reps in the gym, more weight in the gym and able to progress, and then they can layer in cardio in the right way.
• 26:14
  Philip Pape: Mistake number three is not listening to your recovery signals Very important.
• 26:19
  Philip Pape: Your body's gonna tell you when cardio is helping you and when it's hurting you, if your strength is plateauing, if your sleep feels disrupted, if you're always fatigued, you're probably doing too much or you're doing the wrong type, and so this pyramid concept, this adaptive cardio, should enhance your other goals and not compete with them.
• 26:39
  Philip Pape: Again, we're not talking about endurance athletes that might require some extremes that you have to make trade-offs for.
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: We're talking about people who are prioritizing body composition, fat loss, muscle building.
• 26:48
  Philip Pape: And then the last mistake is more mental than anything, and that is the all or nothing thinking that you have to choose between cardio and lifting, like like I'm a lifter or I'm an endurance person, and that's not really the case.
• 27:01
  Philip Pape: I think what I'm trying to demonstrate today is that you can get the benefits of both without the downsides of either extreme.
• 27:07
  Philip Pape: So I'm going to give you just some tips, just to close out the episode, that are going to help you move the needle forward.
• 27:13
  Philip Pape: I want you to pick one tip today from what I tell you and move it forward Now.
• 27:17
  Philip Pape: If you want to come up with your plan, join us at the workshop tomorrow, livewitsandweightscom.
• 27:22
  Philip Pape: But you want to start by tracking your steps.
• 27:24
  Philip Pape: Very simple.
• 27:25
  Philip Pape: If you're not already doing that it's like tracking your food.
• 27:27
  Philip Pape: You might be shocked by how little you actually move.
• 27:30
  Philip Pape: And then you're going to gradually increase by 500 to a thousand steps a week.
• 27:34
  Philip Pape: I mean 500, 500 to a thousand daily steps each week until you get to the target you want.
• 27:41
  Philip Pape: And you want to use movement stacking, you know.
• 27:44
  Philip Pape: Or movement snacking and stacking, I should say so.
• 27:46
  Philip Pape: Stacking is walking while you do other things, snacking is taking breaks, right.
• 27:51
  Philip Pape: And then there's all the other ways to get more movement outside the scope of today's episode.
• 27:55
  Philip Pape: And of course, you can add a little bit of challenge to your walks, if you want, with something like a weighted vest or rucksack.
• 28:01
  Philip Pape: Then the enjoyment layer.
• 28:03
  Philip Pape: This would be just genuinely fun, like if you dread it.
• 28:06
  Philip Pape: I want you to pick something else.
• 28:07
  Philip Pape: Don't let your spouse or friend or whatever force you into a sport you don't look forward to.
• 28:10
  Philip Pape: The goal is the long-term sustainability.
• 28:13
  Philip Pape: The goal is the long-term sustainability.
• 28:14
  Philip Pape: So for this, if you're not doing anything right now, enjoy doing the research and looking around your neighborhood and the town where you live, wherever, to see what's going on.
• 28:26
  Philip Pape: Talk to friends Maybe you already know of things at the local gym or whatever and schedule it in like a very important appointment, but at the time you feel like you can do it reasonably without stress, that you're going to be consistent and you you're gonna enjoy it.
• 28:35
  Philip Pape: And it could be just free form, like a bike ride or going for a hike, right, it doesn't have to be a scheduled activity.
• 28:42
  Philip Pape: And then, finally, we'll get to the top layer.
• 28:44
  Philip Pape: The tip I have for you here, again, only once you've mastered the first two layers is to check out my sprinting episode, which is episode 293, seven benefits of sprinting to Lose Fat.
• 28:55
  Philip Pape: And that episode will give you a good starting protocol to work from.
• 29:00
  Philip Pape: And, speaking of that, we did do an entire workshop on that sprinting protocol in Physique University.
• 29:06
  Philip Pape: So if you want to join tomorrow's workshop, even if it's afterward, to get the replay, you could also get access to all of those replays, including the one on sprinting.
• 29:13
  Philip Pape: And the total time commitment for sprinting once or twice a week is about five minutes each session.
• 29:20
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 29:20
  Philip Pape: So the adaptive cardio pyramid is a framework.
• 29:24
  Philip Pape: I love frameworks, I love systems.
• 29:26
  Philip Pape: It's a way to think about movement strategically instead of emotionally or randomly.
• 29:29
  Philip Pape: You're not punishing yourself, you're not making up calories, you're not trying to out-train a bad diet.
• 29:35
  Philip Pape: You're going to use the minimum effective dose of movement to support your physique goals, your health and your performance.
• 29:39
  Philip Pape: Again, most people are looking at this backwards.
• 29:41
  Philip Pape: They start with the hardest, most time-consuming options, the most high-intense.
• 29:44
  Philip Pape: They think that the most intensity is going to burn the most calories in the shortest amount of time.
• 29:49
  Philip Pape: Therefore, it's sustainable and it's not.
• 29:52
  Philip Pape: It is not Walking.
• 29:54
  Philip Pape: Think about it.
• 29:54
  Philip Pape: Is it easy to walk or is it easier to constantly do HIIT sessions?
• 29:57
  Philip Pape: You know the answer.
• 29:58
  Philip Pape: Is it easier to go do something you enjoy play with your kids or do a sport or is it easier to force yourself to go for an hour-long bike ride?
• 30:08
  Philip Pape: Right, you kind of understand the trade-offs here.
• 30:11
  Philip Pape: And yet it's not just that there are more or less benefits to each.
• 30:17
  Philip Pape: It's that you're going to do one and the other one you're not.
• 30:18
  Philip Pape: You're gonna stop doing it, and that alone is worth the price of admission here and I want you to remember this that low-level activity improves your metabolic health tremendously, but does not trigger the stress response.
• 30:29
  Philip Pape: Enjoyable movement enhances your adherence and your psychological well-being, again without triggering the stress response, and precision cardio gives you specific adaptations when you properly dose it once you've done the other two.
• 30:43
  Philip Pape: So the beauty of this system is in the name.
• 30:46
  Philip Pape: It's adaptable.
• 30:47
  Philip Pape: If you have a busy week at work, you focus on the base layer.
• 30:50
  Philip Pape: Of course, below that base layer, in my opinion, is your strength training, but that's outside the scope we're saying.
• 30:55
  Philip Pape: On top of that is the cardio pyramid, right?
• 30:58
  Philip Pape: So, movement snacks, walking meetings, going for simple walks after a meal, even if it's 10 minutes long you can't do 20, do 10.
• 31:04
  Philip Pape: You can't do 10, do 5.
• 31:05
  Philip Pape: You can't do 5,.
• 31:06
  Philip Pape: Take a break every now and then and do one minute.
• 31:09
  Philip Pape: Your cardio should serve your goals.
• 31:11
  Philip Pape: That's what we're all about here.
• 31:12
  Philip Pape: That's the efficiency, that's the engineering approach.
• 31:15
  Philip Pape: So if you want to take this from concept to implementation, I want you to join me tomorrow for Tuesday's Adaptive Cardio Workshop, where we are going to work together and build your personalized plan using this exact framework.
• 31:26
  Philip Pape: And, yes, if you can't make it, you get the replay and you get the guide anyway, so you can walk through after the fact and put it together as well.
• 31:31
  Philip Pape: You're going to learn how to assess your current movement baseline, set realistic targets for each of the layers.
• 31:36
  Philip Pape: We're going to talk about troubleshooting common problems, and I'm going to share the protocols that I like to use, as well as a whole bunch of examples.
• 31:44
  Philip Pape: I've got some bonuses for you, including a plan for a busy person who has a desk job.
• 31:50
  Philip Pape: What does your day look like to make this all work?
• 31:52
  Philip Pape: So that's live tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, at 12 pm Eastern.
• 31:56
  Philip Pape: It's just $27 for all of that, including the replay, whether or not you can attend live Livewitsandweightscom.
• 32:03
  Philip Pape: Looking forward to seeing you there and thank you so much again for listening to Wits and Weights.
• 32:08
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that your cardio should serve your body composition goals, not dominate your life.
• 32:16
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.