Latest / The You Project / #1976 Exercise: How Much, How Hard, How Often? - Harps

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#1976 Exercise: How Much, How Hard, How Often? - Harps · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: Good day to him. I hope you will welcome to
0:02
Speaker 1: another installing the new project Craig Anthony Harper, reporting in
0:06
Speaker 1: as I do and as I have done faithfully for
0:10
Speaker 1: I don't know years, seven eight, I should know I
0:14
Speaker 1: should just go this many years and this many months.
0:18
Speaker 1: I can't tell you. It's a long time, but it's good.
0:21
Speaker 1: We're stumbling towards two thousand episodes. Marching passionately. Is that
0:26
Speaker 1: better than stumbling, you know, speed skating, sliding in socks
0:30
Speaker 1: towards I don't know, choose your activity, but anyway we
0:33
Speaker 1: get in towards two thousand, which is good. Today is
0:37
Speaker 1: a freestyle. I've got quite a few interviews coming up.
0:41
Speaker 1: I've got three, I think tomorrow, three interviews. I was
0:46
Speaker 1: going to give today a miss because every now and
0:48
Speaker 1: then we're having a week with six instead of seven,
0:51
Speaker 1: or every now and then five instead of seven. Most
0:53
Speaker 1: weeks it's going to be seven. But so today I
0:58
Speaker 1: was going to give it a miss, but I I
1:00
Speaker 1: got asked, I reckon, I got asked three or four
1:04
Speaker 1: times today, remembering I'm not working as an excise scientist
1:09
Speaker 1: specifically or a personal trainer anymore. But also that's my
1:13
Speaker 1: background is owning gyms, working in gyms, training and lead athletes,
1:17
Speaker 1: working with bodies and of all shapes and sizes and
1:20
Speaker 1: types and issues and conditions and challenges. So I'm still
1:23
Speaker 1: regularly asked questions. And so for some of you who
1:29
Speaker 1: may be are fitness or health or wellness professionals, this
1:32
Speaker 1: might be some something that you skip, or it might
1:36
Speaker 1: be something that you listen to see what I think
1:41
Speaker 1: about stuff that you do or how you do it,
1:43
Speaker 1: and whether or not there's any convergence or divergence between
1:48
Speaker 1: our thinking and our practice and our theories. Or you
1:52
Speaker 1: might be somebody who just wants a little bit more
1:57
Speaker 1: insight or information. So I'm going to make this very
1:59
Speaker 1: use friendly, very general, and there's probably nothing. There's maybe
2:05
Speaker 1: one or two things, but most of what I talk
2:07
Speaker 1: about today over the last seven years of course plus
2:12
Speaker 1: has been spoken about on some level. But let's just
2:16
Speaker 1: call this a little kind of fitness or exercise hit,
2:19
Speaker 1: a little installment of me putting my track suit back
2:24
Speaker 1: on and my exercise science and my personal trainer hat
2:28
Speaker 1: back on, and just opening the door to talk about
2:33
Speaker 1: a few fundamentals. Because as you would imagine myself and
2:38
Speaker 1: most personal trainers, I would think, and exercise professionals get
2:42
Speaker 1: asked a lot of the same question, all same questions
2:47
Speaker 1: I should say. And so with that in mind, I'm
2:50
Speaker 1: just going to cover some general stuff I don't have
2:55
Speaker 1: I don't have a plan. I'm sitting here freestyling off
2:59
Speaker 1: the top of my head. And the reason I'm doing
3:02
Speaker 1: that is because I should not need to plan a
3:07
Speaker 1: talk around this stuff, having been in and around Jim's
3:10
Speaker 1: my whole adult life and even before my adult life,
3:13
Speaker 1: and talking about the stuff about talk to you literally
3:16
Speaker 1: for decades. So I think I'm going to call this
3:20
Speaker 1: episode something like training or exercise, how much, how hard,
3:25
Speaker 1: and how often? Something like that, So let's start there.
3:32
Speaker 1: I think people get confused about intensity, that is, how
3:37
Speaker 1: hard they should do something. And there's a thing that
3:42
Speaker 1: we talk about in exercise science and almost I guess
3:48
Speaker 1: more exercise psychology in a way. I guess it's the
3:52
Speaker 1: insection of psychology and physiology in that we talk to
3:56
Speaker 1: people about how hard they think working. And this is
4:02
Speaker 1: a very hard to measure thing, of course, it's it's
4:06
Speaker 1: almost impossible to you know, when we talk about as
4:09
Speaker 1: an individual experience, it's very hard it's very sometimes words
4:15
Speaker 1: come out. What does that mean? It's very hard to
4:19
Speaker 1: objectively measure a subjective experience, which is why we you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: I'll say to somebody when they're doing something, Okay, ten
4:27
Speaker 1: is as hard as you could physic that's that's your
4:30
Speaker 1: absolute physiological human limit is ten out of ten zero
4:35
Speaker 1: one as you just really not making virtually any effort
4:41
Speaker 1: doing this thing. Now, how hard are you working? Like
4:44
Speaker 1: it's called your RPE or your rate of perceived exertion?
4:48
Speaker 1: What's your score zero to ten? What's your rp PE
4:51
Speaker 1: on this? And what that does is it You would
4:56
Speaker 1: think it gives us an insight into how hard people
5:00
Speaker 1: are working, But what it gives us more of an
5:02
Speaker 1: insert And it does, But it gives us more of
5:05
Speaker 1: an insight for the average person anyway, into how hard
5:08
Speaker 1: they think they're working. And that's quite a different thing
5:13
Speaker 1: for most people, because most people don't truly understand how
5:19
Speaker 1: hard they can work. They don't understand their physiological limitations
5:24
Speaker 1: or capacity. Now, don't assume that I'm saying that everybody
5:31
Speaker 1: should train at their limit. I am definitely not that
5:34
Speaker 1: everybody should explore the outer physiological potential. I'm definitely not
5:38
Speaker 1: saying that. I guess what I am saying is that
5:43
Speaker 1: most people And again none of this is individual advice
5:47
Speaker 1: or prescriptions, so don't take it as that this is
5:49
Speaker 1: me generalizing and waxing lyrical about the last forty years
5:54
Speaker 1: of my life helping people. But most people don't train
5:59
Speaker 1: optimy for a range of reasons. But one of the
6:04
Speaker 1: reasons is they just don't train at a level where
6:06
Speaker 1: their body really has to change much. So if we
6:11
Speaker 1: talk about whatever the exercise where, whether or not a
6:15
Speaker 1: strength training or fitness training, or flexibility training or balance
6:19
Speaker 1: or coordination or even a specific individual sport like netball
6:24
Speaker 1: or basketball or football, or I think we can and
6:29
Speaker 1: this is very bro science and layman's terms, but there's
6:33
Speaker 1: some absolute insight and wisdom and truth underneath it all.
6:37
Speaker 1: If we talk about people's training or exercise or workouts
6:42
Speaker 1: in two groups, group one is the progressive group. Group
6:47
Speaker 1: two is the maintenance group. And there's more to it
6:50
Speaker 1: than this, but this is not a bad place to start.
6:52
Speaker 1: So what that means is, if you are a person
6:56
Speaker 1: who works out, whatever that looks like, in a gym,
6:58
Speaker 1: out of a gym, at home, the garage, at the park,
7:01
Speaker 1: at the beach, up and down the hill, you know,
7:03
Speaker 1: in the karate dojo, at the CrossFit box or whatever
7:07
Speaker 1: they're called, or you know wherever yoga pilates, whatever you do,
7:12
Speaker 1: and your goal in that environment, your goal in doing
7:15
Speaker 1: that thing is improvement. That is, you want to get better.
7:20
Speaker 1: You want your body to change, You want physiological adaptation.
7:25
Speaker 1: You want something about your body to be different in
7:31
Speaker 1: a good way, in a positive way. So you could
7:35
Speaker 1: want more strength. You could want more cardiovascular fitness. You
7:38
Speaker 1: could want more power or more speed, or more balance,
7:43
Speaker 1: more muscular endurance, more aerobic endurance. You could want to
7:50
Speaker 1: develop certain skills that are physical skills. You could want
7:56
Speaker 1: to become better at marathon running. You could want to
7:59
Speaker 1: improve through that tennis. Right, So we do this thing.
8:03
Speaker 1: We go to the gym, or we go to the
8:04
Speaker 1: workout environment, or we go to the tennis court or
8:07
Speaker 1: the basketball court, because we want to improve, We want
8:09
Speaker 1: to train, We want to do stuff with our body
8:12
Speaker 1: to make our body either one do something better like
8:15
Speaker 1: a skill perhaps or even a fitness thing or a
8:18
Speaker 1: strength thing. And two we want our body to overall
8:24
Speaker 1: from a health and a wellness and a functional point
8:26
Speaker 1: of view, we want it to for want of a
8:30
Speaker 1: more science y term, we want it to work better.
8:33
Speaker 1: We want it to work better. Now, my observation and
8:39
Speaker 1: my assertion, your honors, is that a lot of people
8:43
Speaker 1: are basically exercising and training and working out, all interchangeable
8:48
Speaker 1: those words, in a holding pattern, in something of an
8:54
Speaker 1: exercise version of a physiological version of groundhog day. That is,
8:59
Speaker 1: the kind of stimulating their body the same way. For
9:04
Speaker 1: many people going to the gym, for example, they do
9:08
Speaker 1: kind of the same exercises, if not exactly the same.
9:14
Speaker 1: They do the same volume, the same intensity, same sets
9:18
Speaker 1: and reps, same speed on the treadmill, same revolutions on
9:21
Speaker 1: the bike, same exercises for their chest and for their back,
9:25
Speaker 1: and for their biceps and triceps and glutes and hamstrings
9:28
Speaker 1: and core and all of that shit. They virtually do
9:31
Speaker 1: the same thing the same way, with the same recovery
9:34
Speaker 1: and the same intensity and the same volume, with the
9:37
Speaker 1: same recovery time between sets or efforts. And then they say,
9:41
Speaker 1: how come my body's not changing. Well, there are way
9:45
Speaker 1: more variables than just exercise, of course, sleep and genetics
9:50
Speaker 1: and nutrition and chronological and biological age and a myriad
9:54
Speaker 1: of things but just talking from an exercise point of view,
9:57
Speaker 1: our body won't adapt. We give it a reason to adapt.
10:01
Speaker 1: So when I build strength, when I build cardiovascular fitness,
10:05
Speaker 1: when I increase my explosive power, when I build my
10:09
Speaker 1: flexibility or range of movement around the joint, that is
10:13
Speaker 1: a physiological response to something that I'm doing to my
10:17
Speaker 1: body to get my body to do a thing. Does
10:21
Speaker 1: that make sense? So? I think that I think that
10:28
Speaker 1: a lot of us are quite emotional and quite irrational
10:33
Speaker 1: and quite a logical about how we work out. And
10:38
Speaker 1: by that I mean I don't mean illogical, irrational, out
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Speaker 1: of control crazy. I just mean that many times or
10:47
Speaker 1: oftentimes we are more concerned with familiarity and even comfort
10:54
Speaker 1: and doing the thing that we've always done. So it's
10:57
Speaker 1: more emotionally driven. I like this exci I like this treadmill,
11:01
Speaker 1: I like this bike, I like this cross trainer, I
11:04
Speaker 1: like this whatever it is. And so the thing that
11:07
Speaker 1: we like and the thing we're quite good at, we
11:09
Speaker 1: do that, right. But the thing that you like and
11:13
Speaker 1: the thing that you're quite good at is going to
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Speaker 1: give you the least potential for change, for growth, for development,
11:21
Speaker 1: for adaptation, for improvement. Guess why because you're already pretty
11:26
Speaker 1: fucking good at it, which means that you've gone from
11:29
Speaker 1: not being good at some stage to being good, well
11:32
Speaker 1: done you. There's been adaptation. But now we turn up
11:35
Speaker 1: to the gym or to whatever the training venue is
11:38
Speaker 1: or environment, and we kind of do the same thing,
11:41
Speaker 1: the thing that we're good at, the thing that we
11:42
Speaker 1: have an emotional attachment to, and we tell ourselves stories
11:46
Speaker 1: like I don't want to left weights because I don't
11:49
Speaker 1: enjoy weights, so I'm not good at weights, or I
11:51
Speaker 1: don't want to do any running because and look, if
11:54
Speaker 1: there are a literal physiological reasons why you're medical or
11:59
Speaker 1: clinical reasons why you shouldn't, well, I understand that. But
12:04
Speaker 1: the problem for me, the problem with that mindset is
12:08
Speaker 1: that we are thinking, I don't want to do that
12:15
Speaker 1: basically because I don't enjoy that. And the underlying kind
12:20
Speaker 1: of thinking for many people is that I want to
12:23
Speaker 1: do the thing that I'm good at because then I
12:25
Speaker 1: feel confident in the gym or that training environment and
12:29
Speaker 1: it gives me a bit of dopamine. It makes me
12:32
Speaker 1: feel great. Now that's important, and that's good. I'm not
12:34
Speaker 1: saying we shouldn't do things. We enjoy. I'm saying we
12:37
Speaker 1: should also insert some things that for us, it's not
12:41
Speaker 1: our wheelhouse, it's not the thing we're great at. It's
12:44
Speaker 1: not where we're most comfortable and most familiar, and it's
12:48
Speaker 1: the place where we're actually a little bit of a
12:54
Speaker 1: fish out of water in that sense, a metaphoric fish
12:57
Speaker 1: out of water. So, for example, let me give this
13:00
Speaker 1: example about let's say running versus swimming. Now, let's say
13:06
Speaker 1: I'm a really good runner. I'm not a bad runner,
13:09
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm not brilliant, but I run quite
13:14
Speaker 1: For my body type and everything, I run quite well.
13:18
Speaker 1: I run quite efficiently. I'm quite biomechanically efficient, and I
13:23
Speaker 1: can run at a reasonable even at sixty one, I
13:26
Speaker 1: can run at a reasonable pace. And I could not
13:30
Speaker 1: that I would, but I could probably not run for
13:33
Speaker 1: six months and then walk out the front of my
13:35
Speaker 1: house and head off and run for five ks with
13:38
Speaker 1: not too many problems after a six month layoff. But
13:42
Speaker 1: that's not a six month layoff exercise, just running. Right,
13:45
Speaker 1: So let's say for me, what would be considered to
13:48
Speaker 1: be a decent run at a decent pace for me,
13:51
Speaker 1: I would do that relatively easily. Versus me going into
13:56
Speaker 1: the pool where now I'm going to swim. I'm going
14:01
Speaker 1: to do the equivalent swim to that run where I'm
14:04
Speaker 1: not a great swimmer. I'm not biomechanically great. I'm inefficient.
14:10
Speaker 1: My body mass is ah h, my body composition, I
14:16
Speaker 1: should say, is quite lean. I've got quite a bit
14:18
Speaker 1: of muscle, quite little fat. So for me to float,
14:20
Speaker 1: for me to keep my body near the surface of
14:23
Speaker 1: the water so I can move through the water, well,
14:25
Speaker 1: for me to not fucking sink. Let's be honest, all
14:28
Speaker 1: of that stuff is difficult. Now, what I'm going to
14:31
Speaker 1: enjoy the most is going for that run. What I'm
14:34
Speaker 1: going to get the most value from, the most benefit from,
14:37
Speaker 1: the most adaptation from, is the thing that I actually
14:41
Speaker 1: want to avoid, which is the fucking swim. Now, I'm
14:44
Speaker 1: not saying you should do this and you shouldn't do that.
14:47
Speaker 1: I'm just explaining to you a principle. We don't need
14:52
Speaker 1: to enjoy everything. And I think this is a psychological
14:57
Speaker 1: and emotional barrier for many people that if there's a
15:01
Speaker 1: kind of exercise that they don't like, they just go
15:04
Speaker 1: I don't enjoy that, so why would I do it? Well,
15:06
Speaker 1: here's the answer. Because it fucking works. That's why it's
15:10
Speaker 1: going to help you. You know, Let's say thirty minutes
15:14
Speaker 1: of me running at a steady pace, quite efficiently, quite
15:19
Speaker 1: biomechanically smoothly versus me swimming with my shitty technique and
15:26
Speaker 1: my bad biomechanics and trying to keep my fucking body
15:29
Speaker 1: from sinking to the bottom of the pool. Thirty thirty
15:32
Speaker 1: minutes of running versus thirty minutes of the equivalent swimming.
15:35
Speaker 1: For me, I'm going to get me personally, I would
15:40
Speaker 1: get way more benefit in terms of cardiovascular benefit, muscular
15:45
Speaker 1: endurance benefit, coordination, and also interesting caloric expenditure or energy expenditure,
15:55
Speaker 1: because here's the funny thing, and this sounds counterintuitive, but
16:00
Speaker 1: the least the less coordinated or skilled I am at
16:06
Speaker 1: a particular physical task, the more energy I'm going to burn.
16:10
Speaker 1: So let's say you had a twin, and let's say
16:15
Speaker 1: your twin was an amazing skipper, quite fit and very
16:22
Speaker 1: good at skipping. Now let's also say you're quite fit,
16:25
Speaker 1: but you can't skip to save yourself, you're shit at skipping.
16:29
Speaker 1: You can do it, but you're not good at it.
16:32
Speaker 1: Like if ten out of ten is world champion skipping.
16:36
Speaker 1: Your twin who's same shape and size and weight for
16:40
Speaker 1: this particular story, as you give or take, they are
16:45
Speaker 1: an eight out of ten skipper, right, So they're really good,
16:49
Speaker 1: really efficient biomechanically, they can do it what looks to
16:53
Speaker 1: be effortlessly. It's not, of course, And then you over
16:57
Speaker 1: there doing the same thing. Now, let's say you and
17:00
Speaker 1: your twin both do fifteen minutes of skipping. You both fit,
17:03
Speaker 1: you're both strong, you're both in good shape, but he
17:06
Speaker 1: or she is way better at skipping than you. Your
17:09
Speaker 1: energy expenditure will be way higher than your twins. Right.
17:14
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying so avoid skill development, of course,
17:19
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, sometimes the things that we are bad
17:23
Speaker 1: at are actually the things that are going to give
17:27
Speaker 1: us the most stimulation and potentially the most value and
17:30
Speaker 1: the most benefit. Right now, So how hard should we train?
17:37
Speaker 1: I can't really answer that specifically, of course, because that
17:42
Speaker 1: answer for every person is different. And you know when
17:46
Speaker 1: we talk about intensity, of course, intensity or how hard
17:49
Speaker 1: something is for an individual is of course relative to
17:52
Speaker 1: the individual. As we just said before, you know, as
17:56
Speaker 1: with the illustrations I've given. So let's say you're really
18:01
Speaker 1: good at something you're fit, I'm fit. We've both been
18:05
Speaker 1: training for a bunch of time. And I do something
18:08
Speaker 1: and for me it's nine out of ten hards. You
18:10
Speaker 1: do it at the same level as me, and for
18:12
Speaker 1: you it's a five. So it's not like the same
18:15
Speaker 1: thing equals the same rate of perceived exertion or intensity.
18:21
Speaker 1: Perceived intensity from person to person, it varies. For some people,
18:25
Speaker 1: fast walking is their absolute upper limit. For some people,
18:31
Speaker 1: to walk for three minutes is for a range of reasons,
18:34
Speaker 1: very difficult. For some people to run for an hour
18:38
Speaker 1: at fifteen kilometers an hour, running four minute k's and
18:42
Speaker 1: covering fifteen k's obviously in an hour would be easier
18:46
Speaker 1: than for some people to go for a ten minute
18:49
Speaker 1: walk fast because it all comes down to the strength
18:54
Speaker 1: and fitness and level of condition and level of function
18:57
Speaker 1: and performance of that individual body. How hard depends. This
19:03
Speaker 1: is why you know we might want to involve somebody
19:09
Speaker 1: personal trainer and excise scientists and exercise physiologist. I was
19:14
Speaker 1: going to say a doctor. Doctors are great, don't get
19:16
Speaker 1: me wrong, I love doctors, but doctors are not really
19:20
Speaker 1: trained to prescribe exercise, although of course they can talk
19:24
Speaker 1: to you about your blood pressure and your resting heart
19:28
Speaker 1: rate and perhaps you're working heart rate and all of
19:30
Speaker 1: these things. So definitely, if you're near your doctor in
19:34
Speaker 1: the next little while and you say you want to
19:36
Speaker 1: think about leveling up your exercise programming or turning up
19:40
Speaker 1: the volume a little bit, definitely talk to them. But
19:42
Speaker 1: in terms of somebody who can assess your fitness and
19:45
Speaker 1: do some kind of an evaluation and get where you're
19:47
Speaker 1: at and then base prescribe a program for you based
19:51
Speaker 1: on your body, your fitness, your strength, your current state,
19:55
Speaker 1: your level of conditioning, taking into account you know your
20:00
Speaker 1: biological age and chronological age perhaps and your injuries and
20:04
Speaker 1: your medication and all of your medical issues and all
20:06
Speaker 1: of that. Then somebody who's very well qualified in the space.
20:10
Speaker 1: Preferably somebody should I say that you're preferably somebody with
20:16
Speaker 1: at the very least a certificate for in fitness if
20:19
Speaker 1: you're an Australian, because honestly, there are some personal trainers
20:23
Speaker 1: who don't have a degree but are brilliant. They're brilliant,
20:27
Speaker 1: and then there are some people with degrees obviously who
20:29
Speaker 1: don't have the same knowledge or skill or experience. So
20:34
Speaker 1: just somebody that is good at it. How do you
20:38
Speaker 1: find that person? Generally through recommendation, But I think that
20:44
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, when you go to like
20:45
Speaker 1: I might go and meet someone who's going to paint
20:48
Speaker 1: my house and I don't know what it is, but
20:50
Speaker 1: I can chat to that person and not always, but
20:53
Speaker 1: about nine out of ten times I get it right,
20:55
Speaker 1: Like I go, I think this is the person for me.
20:57
Speaker 1: I think they know that shit. I think their genuine
21:00
Speaker 1: and I think they care. I think I'm going to
21:02
Speaker 1: get a pretty good product, even though I know fuck
21:04
Speaker 1: all about painting. I know a lot about people, and
21:07
Speaker 1: I think you know a lot about people. Right, So
21:10
Speaker 1: whether or not you know a lot about the body
21:11
Speaker 1: and anatomy and physiology and progressive overload and sets and
21:15
Speaker 1: reps and volume and what's what and all that that
21:18
Speaker 1: that matters a little. But what matters more is that
21:20
Speaker 1: you can have a conversation with someone and clearly articulate
21:23
Speaker 1: what you want, why you want it, where you're at,
21:26
Speaker 1: and then you can you can assess that person as
21:29
Speaker 1: to you, whether or not you think they're full of shit,
21:33
Speaker 1: or they're competent, or they're confident, or they care about
21:37
Speaker 1: you and or you trust them. So we need to
21:43
Speaker 1: give our body a reason to adapt. We need to
21:48
Speaker 1: have a body that have a body, have a program
21:50
Speaker 1: that is developed and designed specifically for our body. So
21:56
Speaker 1: me talking to you now, you need the program that
22:00
Speaker 1: is the best program for you, for you, no one else,
22:04
Speaker 1: based on what you want to do, what you want
22:08
Speaker 1: to change, what you want to achieve, where you are
22:11
Speaker 1: currently at, what is your current status physically, what is
22:15
Speaker 1: your current ballpark level of strength and fitness, balance, coordination,
22:20
Speaker 1: general wellbeing, health, energy, all of these things. And we
22:24
Speaker 1: have a conversation with somebody. If not do your own research,
22:27
Speaker 1: It's never been a better time to do research. But
22:30
Speaker 1: of course you need to you need to be careful
22:33
Speaker 1: because it's not all wisdom, and it's not all actual science,
22:38
Speaker 1: and it's not all actual great information that we're accessing, right,
22:43
Speaker 1: So you've got to look if you can filter through
22:46
Speaker 1: the bullshit and people trying to sell your stuff. Which
22:50
Speaker 1: is why I love it when somebody can, even if
22:52
Speaker 1: they don't use a fitness professional over the long term,
22:55
Speaker 1: even in the short term, or an exercise professional someone
22:58
Speaker 1: who's great just to get the ball rolling and just
23:02
Speaker 1: have somebody involved in the process who does have sound
23:05
Speaker 1: knowledge and skill and experience, so perhaps help you avoid
23:09
Speaker 1: injury and perhaps help you be more productive and effective.
23:15
Speaker 1: So you might get you on your own. It might
23:18
Speaker 1: take you three months to get to a certain point.
23:20
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll do that in you know, six weeks or
23:23
Speaker 1: eight weeks if you've got better guidance. Who knows, though,
23:26
Speaker 1: But that's just me thinking out loud. So what do
23:29
Speaker 1: we want to be So here's a few guidelines. We
23:31
Speaker 1: want to be consistent. Now, no shit, Sherlock. Well, that
23:37
Speaker 1: might seem like the dumbest, most uninformative, obvious piece of advice,
23:47
Speaker 1: but let me tell you. Very near the top of
23:51
Speaker 1: the list of reasons why people don't get in shape
23:55
Speaker 1: and succeed and maintain it over the long term is
23:58
Speaker 1: that they're not consistent. Gyms can rely on the fact
24:01
Speaker 1: that people will sign up, they will pay their money,
24:04
Speaker 1: they will join on a direct debit and it just
24:07
Speaker 1: goes for fucking ever unless they cancel it. They will
24:10
Speaker 1: join unto a direct debit, paying you know, anywhere between
24:14
Speaker 1: eighteen and forty fifty dollars a week, depending on what
24:17
Speaker 1: gym you go to. And many of those people that
24:21
Speaker 1: do that are not going to the gym within a
24:24
Speaker 1: month or two, or they are going very very sporadically
24:27
Speaker 1: at best, they're definitely not living up to the own
24:31
Speaker 1: to their own expectations that they went into that membership with,
24:36
Speaker 1: or that that you know, joining the gym with. Right,
24:39
Speaker 1: So consistency is key, It's absolutely key. Now, what I'm
24:45
Speaker 1: about to give you is very broad, generic. This is
24:48
Speaker 1: not personal, This is not for you. This is me
24:51
Speaker 1: thinking out loud, and I'll rationalize my thoughts as I go.
24:56
Speaker 1: So I think everybody, but I think virtually everyone should
25:02
Speaker 1: do some strength training. But I think definitely people forty
25:04
Speaker 1: and above. The reason that I say that is because
25:08
Speaker 1: while we start to unless we're putting some intervention in place,
25:12
Speaker 1: we're doing something to make it different, we really start
25:16
Speaker 1: to typically lose muscle and bone density and strength and
25:22
Speaker 1: function and fitness and even cognitive function. Really around forty
25:28
Speaker 1: it starts to accelerate or decline more, I guess. And
25:34
Speaker 1: also because I think in the old days, this was
25:38
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago, I wouldn't recommend people, you know,
25:41
Speaker 1: twenty year old's, twenty five year olds do weights because
25:46
Speaker 1: you know, life was so physically demanding one hundred years ago.
25:50
Speaker 1: You know, we walked more, we lifted more, we worked
25:54
Speaker 1: against resistance more. Everything wasn't you know, automated and electronic, systematized,
26:00
Speaker 1: and you know it was. Life was physically harder one
26:04
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. But these days, and again I'm generalizing,
26:08
Speaker 1: some people still have physically demanding lives and jobs, of course,
26:12
Speaker 1: but more than ever, we have people who aren't in
26:15
Speaker 1: that group. More than ever, we have people who spend
26:19
Speaker 1: the bulk of their life either sitting or sleep or
26:24
Speaker 1: lying right, the bulk of their twenty four hours a
26:27
Speaker 1: day are not spent standing and walking. So we need
26:33
Speaker 1: to in my opinion, my considered and pretty educated advice
26:39
Speaker 1: is you need to be lifting shit twice a week minimum,
26:44
Speaker 1: if you're a guy or a girl. Now this is
26:46
Speaker 1: of course taking into account your capacity and medical issues
26:50
Speaker 1: and getting clearance and all that, but in general terms,
26:53
Speaker 1: two times a week, thirty minutes rock bottom. Now, that's
26:56
Speaker 1: not that's not my optimal. That's the if you if
27:00
Speaker 1: you have to just do this, that's my just do
27:03
Speaker 1: this recommendation. If you can't do more, my desirable would
27:07
Speaker 1: be for the average person three or four times a week,
27:11
Speaker 1: for somewhere in the ballpark of forty five minutes. So
27:14
Speaker 1: even if we went the upper limit of four times
27:17
Speaker 1: a week for forty five minutes, we're looking at three
27:19
Speaker 1: hours a week of strength training out of one hundred
27:23
Speaker 1: and sixty eight one hundred and sixty eight hours in
27:25
Speaker 1: a week. Of course, some of those are traveling and
27:27
Speaker 1: sleeping and all of those things, but it's not a
27:30
Speaker 1: big commitment for something that has so many fucking amazing
27:34
Speaker 1: benefits from increased bone density to strength and function and
27:38
Speaker 1: performance and balance and stability and activities of daily living
27:44
Speaker 1: as we get older, and cognitive function. There are so
27:49
Speaker 1: many benefits to strength training. You know, having more muscle
27:54
Speaker 1: also means you're going to have a faster metabolism, your
27:57
Speaker 1: metabolic rate at rest. When you've got more muscle than
28:00
Speaker 1: the equivalent person of your size and weight with less muscle,
28:05
Speaker 1: you burn more calories at rest, which means you stay leaner.
28:08
Speaker 1: And we're not obsessed with how you look, but we
28:10
Speaker 1: know that there's a correlation between body composition and a
28:14
Speaker 1: range a myriad of health conditions. We know that, right,
28:18
Speaker 1: that's not a judgment of anyone. That's science. All right, cardio,
28:23
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I'm thinking more. But if the worst. If
28:28
Speaker 1: you can in some way manage ten to fifteen minutes
28:32
Speaker 1: of conscious movement, that's your rock bottom. I would love
28:38
Speaker 1: thirty minutes a day. I don't know who you are,
28:42
Speaker 1: where you are, what you're capable of. But of course,
28:44
Speaker 1: just modify this to suit. But if you can do
28:47
Speaker 1: thirty minutes a day of something, and also if those
28:52
Speaker 1: thirty minutes are three ten minute sessions over the day
28:56
Speaker 1: or six five minute sessions over the day, tickety boot, great.
29:01
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be consecutive minutes. And in fact,
29:07
Speaker 1: there's some evidence to suggest that three times ten minutes
29:14
Speaker 1: a day, depending on what you're doing and at the
29:15
Speaker 1: rate that you're doing at, it might actually be better
29:18
Speaker 1: than one chunk of thirty minutes. I'm not saying that unequivocally.
29:22
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it ain't the worst thing to do
29:24
Speaker 1: it in installments. So strength a couple of days a
29:28
Speaker 1: week minimum cardio most days if you can. Now also,
29:37
Speaker 1: I'll swing back to that, all right. Stretching flexibility, this
29:41
Speaker 1: is my kryptonite. I am shit at this. I still stretch.
29:46
Speaker 1: I could lie and say every day that is not true.
29:48
Speaker 1: I stretch most days. I did the lead dead lifts
29:51
Speaker 1: tonight at the gym, which I got back from an
29:55
Speaker 1: hour ago, and I spent probably ten twelve minutes stretching
30:01
Speaker 1: lower back, legs, glutes, hamstrings, so that I'd be fine
30:06
Speaker 1: to do that. So most days I'm probably doing minium
30:10
Speaker 1: ten maximum twenty. I would say on average fifteen minutes
30:14
Speaker 1: a day. Probably not enough. I could do more. But
30:17
Speaker 1: if we do this every day or most days, things
30:21
Speaker 1: really happen. Right now, let's talk about walking. We walk
30:29
Speaker 1: less as a species over the evolutionary timeline of three
30:33
Speaker 1: hundred thousand years or thereabouts, depending on which model you're
30:37
Speaker 1: looking at. But let's just go a fuck load of time.
30:42
Speaker 1: We now walk less than ever, and our energy expenditure,
30:46
Speaker 1: typically in first world develop countries is less than ever
30:52
Speaker 1: because our overall movement. So when we talk about or
30:57
Speaker 1: when I talk about movement and expending energy through movement,
31:04
Speaker 1: so we've got structured exercise, lifting weights, stretching, doing some cardio,
31:09
Speaker 1: you know, playing tennis, running a marathon, throwing a javelin
31:13
Speaker 1: bloody whatever, you know, climbing up and down some stairs.
31:16
Speaker 1: So there's that conscious, kind of intentional, structured I'm working
31:21
Speaker 1: out kind of stuff. And then there's the other stuff
31:24
Speaker 1: that is just incidental movement through the day. So some
31:29
Speaker 1: people naturally walk or typically walk fifteen thousand steps a
31:33
Speaker 1: day without trying to walk fifteen thousand steps a day
31:37
Speaker 1: just because they're busy, you know. And it might be
31:40
Speaker 1: somebody also who has what we call high occupational activity
31:45
Speaker 1: high occupational activity level. So what just came to mind,
31:48
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but is somebody like who works
31:50
Speaker 1: at a golf course, like a greenkeeper, who's just all
31:53
Speaker 1: day every day walking around or you know, jumping in
31:57
Speaker 1: and out of his little buggy or whatever. But by
31:59
Speaker 1: the end of the day, he or she has done
32:03
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty thousand steps without actually going for a walk. Right,
32:07
Speaker 1: It's incidental, It's part of their day. So you know,
32:12
Speaker 1: I think overall we need to take into account how
32:16
Speaker 1: much movement are we doing taking into account incidental stuff
32:21
Speaker 1: walking to the shops. You know, I every day I
32:26
Speaker 1: live near a bunch of cafes. As you know, I
32:31
Speaker 1: used to ride to the cafe that was like ride
32:33
Speaker 1: my motorbike that was five hundred meters away, and I
32:37
Speaker 1: know that's disgraceful. And then I had a bit of
32:40
Speaker 1: a moment and realized how disgraceful I was being, and
32:42
Speaker 1: I went, so I'm going to walk. I'm going to
32:45
Speaker 1: always walk, and I've you know, so for not last
32:48
Speaker 1: nine months that's just gone through My incidental and intentional
32:52
Speaker 1: walking has gone you know, through the roof. So these
32:55
Speaker 1: days I walk about two and a half to three
32:59
Speaker 1: times the amount of steps that I did this time
33:01
Speaker 1: last year before I had my revelation. And for me,
33:06
Speaker 1: that just not only is it good obviously from a
33:08
Speaker 1: physical point of view, but there's a bunch of things
33:11
Speaker 1: that have happened to me doing this that I didn't
33:13
Speaker 1: even think about. So one was and I wasn't fat
33:17
Speaker 1: or overweight per se, but I was probably about eighty
33:19
Speaker 1: four eighty five kilos and I'm now eighty kilos and
33:24
Speaker 1: my strength is the same, which is pretty amazing. So
33:27
Speaker 1: over nine months, I've lost around five kilograms and maybe
33:31
Speaker 1: I've lost a little bit of muscle, but definitely not much.
33:34
Speaker 1: And so my strength is the same. My body is leaner,
33:37
Speaker 1: which it means there's less stress on my heart and
33:40
Speaker 1: cardiovascular system. I move better, I feel better, I have
33:43
Speaker 1: more energy through the day, my brain works better because
33:47
Speaker 1: I'm taking all these steps. I would say half of
33:51
Speaker 1: the steps that I take are at the beach because
33:53
Speaker 1: I live near the beach, and it's just trying to
33:58
Speaker 1: figure out how do I cre eight an operating system
34:02
Speaker 1: for me? So I'm gonna ask it to you. For you,
34:06
Speaker 1: how do you create an exercise? Like obviously there's more,
34:09
Speaker 1: but now we're talking about exercise. How do you create
34:11
Speaker 1: an operating system around movement, be that intentional or incidental, accidental,
34:21
Speaker 1: you know, or that which is really structured and programmed
34:25
Speaker 1: and consistent and process driven. Because we need we need
34:30
Speaker 1: both of those, and we need to make sure that one,
34:36
Speaker 1: like I said before, we're consistent too, that we're doing
34:38
Speaker 1: the thing that is the right kind of exercise for
34:41
Speaker 1: us based on our body, our age, our needs, our physiology,
34:46
Speaker 1: and our goals of course, and then we need to
34:49
Speaker 1: make sure we're doing it at the right level. And
34:52
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean it's got to be gung ho or
34:54
Speaker 1: it's got to be you know, intense. Maybe maybe the
34:58
Speaker 1: best intensity level for you for a lot of stuff
35:00
Speaker 1: is low, low intensity, more volume, less intensity. I know
35:07
Speaker 1: for me, most of well most of the just general
35:10
Speaker 1: movement stuff I do is low intensity. It's me walking
35:14
Speaker 1: typically three times a week, I go for a run,
35:18
Speaker 1: and my run is now, this is a kid that
35:20
Speaker 1: grew up running, or when I was a kid running
35:23
Speaker 1: ran I ran a lot. I ran far and wide,
35:26
Speaker 1: and I would consistently run, regularly run ten kilometers a day.
35:31
Speaker 1: For years and years and years, I would run ten
35:33
Speaker 1: kilometers a day. And these days I know that I
35:37
Speaker 1: can walk out at the front of my house. I
35:39
Speaker 1: told you about the five k run before, but I
35:41
Speaker 1: don't do that too much. But I will go out
35:44
Speaker 1: and run two or three kilometers, which takes me around
35:50
Speaker 1: probably four and a half minutes per k. So that's
35:53
Speaker 1: nine minutes for two k's or what is that thirteen
35:56
Speaker 1: and a half minutes for three k's, give or take.
35:58
Speaker 1: Sometimes a bit quicker, sometimes a bit it's lower. So
36:00
Speaker 1: I'm not running like an Olympic athlete. But you know,
36:04
Speaker 1: me and my sixty one year old body, pretty good
36:06
Speaker 1: pace going okay. But when I even when I run
36:10
Speaker 1: two k's, I get home, I feel great. I feel
36:14
Speaker 1: like my blood pressure is low, I feel like my
36:17
Speaker 1: body's just super happy. My brain feels good. I get
36:23
Speaker 1: a bit of dopamine, and even with that nine minute
36:27
Speaker 1: two kilometer run, I literally feel physiologically better. I just
36:31
Speaker 1: feel better for hours. So it doesn't need to be
36:35
Speaker 1: high volume, it doesn't need to be high tech. You
36:39
Speaker 1: don't need a gym. I love gyms, and I love
36:43
Speaker 1: that they are a great resource for not much money.
36:45
Speaker 1: But do you can you get great results without a gym?
36:48
Speaker 1: Of course, of course you can so. But you can't
36:52
Speaker 1: get any results if you're not doing it. So jump in.
36:58
Speaker 1: Send me a mess in the group. If I've inspired
37:01
Speaker 1: you a little bit, or maybe just kicked you in
37:04
Speaker 1: the ass a little bit, and you've decided that you're
37:06
Speaker 1: going to do something about it, how about you go
37:09
Speaker 1: to the new project Facebook page, you project podcast facebook
37:14
Speaker 1: page and just say harps, I'm in I'm doing it,
37:17
Speaker 1: and I'll reply to you. I'll absolutely reply to you
37:20
Speaker 1: and tell me what it is that you've decided. Might
37:23
Speaker 1: be a specific goal, it might be a broad goal,
37:25
Speaker 1: it might be you know what, I'm just going to
37:26
Speaker 1: stop being the one day soon person. I'm going to
37:29
Speaker 1: stop doing that. I'm going to stop stopping and starting.
37:32
Speaker 1: I'm going to stop being the part timer who gets
37:36
Speaker 1: part time results. I'm going to be the all timer.
37:39
Speaker 1: I'm not going to become obsessed I'm not going to
37:41
Speaker 1: become crazy or a fitness addict. But what I'm going
37:45
Speaker 1: to do is I am going to keep doing things
37:47
Speaker 1: for my body that work on a consistent basis because
37:51
Speaker 1: I can't get a new one. So feel free to
37:53
Speaker 1: go to the Facebook page, You Project podcast Facebook page,
37:56
Speaker 1: leave me a message, I'll send you one back, and
38:00
Speaker 1: all the very best kids