Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 220: Cardio Done Right

Episode Date: January 15, 2016

Steady state cardio vs high intensity interval training (HIIT), which one is better? How frequently should you do cardio? What is the best cardio to do when you are training with weights? How much cardio is enough and how much is overkill? Sal, Adam & Justin answer these questions and MORE! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Learn more about Mind Pump at www.mindpumpradio.com

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Gotta yell queen and head it in, hey, hey, hey. I don't know the words. It's the hug just in be there's one. No more love on the run. She's trying. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it.

That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. Yeah, I can't I can't help but it's January it's here and officially what we call the cardio Bunnies are now here in full effect So they have like the little butt wink when they try and walk on I don't know I don't know who thought of that first or where that actually comes so a cardio we have to explain what a cardio bunny is Yeah, a cardio bunny is a it's a typically such a sexist thing to it's typically a woman It was not always a woman could be a guy too. Yeah, he can be yeah I've never heard of a guy it's sexist that you think about that. Yeah, was I just being sexist? Yeah You were being sexist your your suit term is derived from just somebody. Well, you know, I'm a man

I guess I'm always wrong like a like a like a rabbit like a rabbit bunny rabbit bunny on a treadmill or on an elliptical, just going to town on the cardio all the time. I thought hamster would have been a better metaphor. A hamster wheel. Well, so basically it's somebody, it's these people that come in the gym. Let me get on the cardio. Cardio bunnies go together, the words go together,

we would just say cardio hamsters. Cardio hamsters. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster? Cardio hamster. So cardio bunnies and cardio hamsters. Cardio hamsters. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio ham hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio hamster. Cardio ham All they do is cardio, they get on the cardio and they just do their 40 minutes of cardio they leave and they typically don't change, their bodies don't change that much and their progress doesn't really go, because that's what they do. They just go in 30, 40 minutes, I'm out.

But they cannot avoid the sweat, the sweat is what drives them. They have to be really sweaty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough to where you were all the trash bags on you and some of that that was right. He had bands and everything. They get geared up. Yeah, there was this one guy and I know you guys have seen.

I know already know where you going at Hillsdale used to ride the bike used to the way we used to make them put towels down, bro, because he's a sweatshirt. That same guy who was five in the Santa Rosa. Hold on, is it the black dude that was? Yes. Oh my god, the same guy. So he's black dude, we're blue. Blue, kind of like a cut off.

You wore the same gear every time and just drenched, sweat, puddles. We've had to put towels down. There's only one member in my entire career, did we ever do that? It was at Hillsdale, he was a black guy, and he was used to run the right, same bike every day. Super nice guy.

Oh yeah, super nice, super cool. He once, I remember when we talked to him, he just started bringing his towel, you know, like he- But he sweats, like, I couldn't pee that much. Like I couldn't do that much liquid, couldn know, like he, but he sweats like I couldn't pee that much like I couldn't Oh, it's too that much that much liquid could come out of my butt. We have us couldn't be that But it was like someone took a like a five gallon bucket and dumped it on both sides. It was crazy Yeah, you had to just kind of like that kind of money with somebody. I have to pay you to drink that Oh dude

That's all thinking. I was 15 20 bucks max You're cheap. I was gonna say at least a hundred it's salty. You know how I feel about you guys know how I feel about salt I drink the sweat of my my enemies all the time sweating Well, we should talk about cardio. So here's the here's something I got No cardio is a great time. There's so many different so many different things we talk about cardio Well, let's let's talk about that cardio because I get asked all the time, what's the best kind of cardio? How should I do my cardio?

Blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's talk about the benefits first of all, the benefits of cardio. Now, the obvious benefit of cardio is that it's an efficient, effective calorie burner. So 30 minutes or an hour of cardio will typically burn more calories during the movement, during the exercise than the same amount of time of weight training, for example. So an hour of weight training is not going to burn as many calories within that hour as cardio will. So as a calorie burner, it's very effective on that sense.

Of course, that's not the whole story because we know there's lots of other factors, but while you're doing it, it's a good calorie burner. So that's typically why people do cardio, but there's health benefits. Cardiovascular benefits, good for your heart, it's good for your brain because it's repetitive motion and you're just kind of staying the same spot. Just keeping everything moving, you know?

Keeping things moving. That's really the biggest benefit to it. I mean, you could move in all kinds of different ways, but it really is keeping all the systems internally. You know, it promotes, you know, more movement and for everything to fire up. So, you know, it's just like having a car just sitting there forever.

It's gonna, it's gonna crap out on you if it's just sitting there forever. You know, you're not working everything like it needs to be. Do you guys know that cardio lowers myostatin levels? Oh yeah. In the body. Interesting. Does it have to be at a certain intensity level? So here's a deal. Like anything, just lowering myostatin doesn't necessarily mean you're going to build more muscle. You have to be utilizing it properly. It has to match your programming and you can't be overdoing things. But if you're a guy or a girl

and your goal is to just build muscle and strength and you're lifting weights, a little bit of cardio will actually probably help you. And what I mean by a little bit is like 30 minutes of real low intensity cardio a few days a week will probably help you build muscle because it makes you healthier. Cause I think cardio gets put in the

bit burn fat category and that's it it doesn't do anything else that's why I asked that yeah that's not I mean that's the immediate assumption I do it I always you know you guys know on my post I always list you know what where my nutrients are what I'm doing so that and you know I'm notorious for cardio nope never you know and I say never do cardio. And that's not counting. Well, what it's not, what it's not counting is, is that I, that I do, I will go and walk on a treadmill or go take the dogs for long walks and do things that were, you know, are walking a slight incline, but I most certainly don't, I don't get on the treadmill and go balls of wall.

And I'm very active. So in a sense, like that, that can sense, that can be classified as that still too. But people think that you have to get on there and you have to, like, in order for this to be super beneficial and burn lots of calories and burn lots of fat, you've got to get after it. And that's not true. And then the other extreme is the other people

that are the big, you know, fastocardium in the morning, which, you know, I get an experience of doing a lot of that when I was getting ready for my show on competing. So I have my, I have two opinions on things like that too, which I think that's probably one of the biggest things that's argued right now is, you know, what is more effective now for burning fat? Is it more effective for us to, you know, do cardio in a faster state or is it more effective for us to be doing fat cardio?

Well, cardio in a faster state, when they do studies, they'll show that you are utilizing more fatty acids for energy so you are probably burning more fat Is the difference big enough to where you're gonna notice probably not? If if you're fasted to the point where you're tired and you don't have any energy and you're doing cardio and you feel like shit You're getting busy on the treadmill, so you got to go real slow Then you're gonna burn overall you feel like shit and you're getting dizzy on the treadmill. So you got to go real slow. Then you're going to burn overall, you're going to burn less anyway versus, you know, if

you ate and you had energy and you felt good. Because I've seen people do this, they'll fast. They're not doing it properly, you know, because fasting, there's a way to do it. They don't do it properly and they're dizzy and they don't feel shitty and they get on and they don't feel good so the cardio is kind of slow and it's like, well, you're not, you're not doing yourself on a shiver in their body. They're trying to punish themselves.

Yeah, you're not doing yourself a favor. You're not burning as many calories now. So it really doesn't matter that the percentage of calories you burn, you know, more of them comes from fat because the overall calories are lower. For example, 75% of 100% is 75 calories from fat, right? If I do, you know, 85%, but I'm only burning 50 calories, yeah, I'm burning more fat as a percentage,

but overall I'm burning less because my calories are lower. And so that happens sometimes, I think when people go into cardio feeling like they have to do it and it has to be like this death march, you know, type of cardio. The other thing too is the whole high intensity interval training versus low intensity steady state cardio. Which one is better?

I get that all the time. Which one do you think is better? They have, each has their own benefits. High intensity interval training is better for cardiovascular conditioning, if you're an athlete. You'll burn more calories in the period of time that you do it, but it is far more taxing on the body and is not recuperating.

There you go. Well, I don't know why people view cardio is so foreign to the same approach that we have with weight training. And we just, we talked about the philosophies that have to be the similar. Yes, very similar philosophies. It's like, to me, it's like duh.

You don't need to know a lot of science to kind of put that together. And that's what we just talked about programming. I know Doug hates when I refer back to their episodes, but we just talked about that on the last couple episodes about the importance of programming for your weight training. But what do you think about your,

I program my cardio, especially as a competitor for somebody who is, I'm trying to optimize fat burning. You know, it's all complementing to me. And to me, like, you know, I'm not just yet when I'm in compete mode, I'm not the average guy who's just trying to get in shape. We're getting a little bit leaner. It's like, it's important that I get to a certain percentage by the time I step on stage.

So I got to be very precise about this. So I actually have a plan and the way I program my cardio going to a show. And I'm baffled. I'm dumbfounded by all my peers. When I watch what they do, it's just like they're mentality because their coach taught them a certain way of doing shit. It's prep time. Boom, we're automatically you're doing one hour fast cardio every single day. And then as you get in like four weeks in, boom, you go to two hours of facet cardio, and then they start adding hit routines in between all that. And I'm just like, what the fuck? Like why?

Like why would you punish your body for a 12 week process like that to get yours to lose seven percent body fat? You could do that way easier than that way easier, way less stressful, way less work. But they don't they, this is the program. That's the program the whole way through. It was just intensity, intensity, intensity, and more and more and more. It's like, dude, why don't you be strategic about it? Why don't you manipulate your nutrition with your cardio and why don't you pay attention to your activity levels on days where you're more active and less active and there's a much easier approach

to that. There's different ways to get to it goal. You want to dig a hole. You can do it with a teaspoon. I mean, it'll take you long as time and be fucking ruling. Or you could use a backhoe, where you go in one time and boom, there's your hole.

Oh, you love that backhoe. Yeah. Girl. Yeah, so it's the hard way to do things. If you're approaching cardio from an athletic perspective, like I need to increase my... Totally different. My exactly, you know, it's very different.

Different program. Different program. Now my goal is performance space. Right. Now I need you to be able to sprint down 40 yards. I need to be able to do it to the performing on command. I want you to be great at that. I don't know what you look like.

I want you to be great at doing that. Right. Exactly different. But if I'm doing cardio to get leaner and I want to do high-intensity interval training, there's a difference between doing high-intensity interval training to improve VO2 max capacity, to improve my endurance for a particular sport. And then it's different from I want to burn body fat. Here's how you do it for body fat. And Adam talked about this a while ago, and it made wonderful sense to me.

And since then I've now recommended it into people and it's been amazing. When you're doing high intensity interval training, this is where you go at a very high intensity of cardio and then you break it up with a resting kind of slower pace and then you do another interval of high intensity. The best way to do that is to treat it like you do with your resistance training.

You go really hard for 30 seconds, and then you go slow and wait until you recuperate and then go again. Now that could mean a minute, 30 seconds, if you're super fit, or it could be like three, four, five minutes. Well, then you once you adapt to that protocol, like that time length will shorten up.

Naturally, right? Naturally, you don't want to force it. Yeah, you're just trying up. Naturally, right? Naturally, versus someone you don't want to force it. Yeah, you're just trying to bomb it, right? Yeah, exactly. And you just bulky, having actually gave your body a chance to learn that process. And you're not trying to do high end, by the way, high intensity interval training

is not meant to be done for a long time. No. Like, you're doing 15 minutes. It's 15, 20 minutes. 12 to 15 is all I see. Right, so that's always how I start. When I start, that's the, and that's the other thing that's my approach also.

Okay, if I'm, because I'm using hit for fat burning purposes, right? So it's the first bit of cardio that I introduce into my routine, the first bit, because for time reasons, it's only 12 minutes I gotta spend on there and I get some added benefits of cardio, kick up some fat burning,

and it's gonna, my body shock, my body a little bit, and see some response. Run that for about two, three weeks, and then I stood now I start to add some of the fasted cardio in the morning time. And fasted cardio for me, I forced myself to get up one hour earlier than I normally would get up, and I just go, I sleepwalking on the treadmill. So to me, it's not even really cardio, it's just that I'm... It's just being active.

Yes, I'm forcing myself to get up an hour earlier and get on a treadmill move and I don't have anything in my system. So I'm going to ramp up my kill-cals a little bit. I'm going to burn a little bit more fat than I would be if I was just at rest and sleeping because I'm fast and still. But then at the same time, it's just that extra activity level and stuff that it just starts to add up. Yeah, I think the appeal of the the hit style is just that you nailed as far as the the

time length, right? It's very short. A lot of people, they look at their days and they're like, what can I actually accomplish in this day? And then like, I could fit in this little, you know, window of, of hit work out here and then hammer it out. And then, you know, it just gets a little bit, once you like, account for the fact that you're not moving,

you know, this whole time. And then all of a a sudden you're doing this hit work out in the small window And then you go back to sitting on your ass and not moving and all this kind of stuff like you got to be careful with that kind of stuff and You know ramping it super super intense. I mean there's benefits to both but You just got to be careful programming wise like what what is it you're doing throughout your week on top of that? You have to take into account that your cardio will either improve recovery and, you know, make you more recoup, and be more recuperative, or it can compromise recovery and be more damaging.

Okay. And that's, I'm not saying one is better than other. I'm just saying keep that in mind. So if I'm doing, you know, if I'm lifting weights and I'm training with resistance training and that's my main focus of my program, which it should be, even if your goal is longevity, resistance training should be the focus of your routine. And we've talked about this in the past. And you want to add high intensity interval cardio.

Adding that is like adding a little a let's like adding more resistance training in training in the sense of how it's going to affect your body. It's going to compromise recovery. It's not a recuperative form of cardio. So it's not smart to throw in four, five, six days a week of high intensity interval training. You will push your body over the edge with cardio. Do you know what? I'm listening to us right now. And I think Doug gets mad at me when I do this. So I'm going to get in trouble for this.

But again, no, I just feel like this is one of the, I feel like we should run a guide for this because it's cardio guide. Yeah. Well, you know, we haven't talked about it in a long time and I'm listening to it because it's the same thing with like we talked about with Waitrin. I hate to go refer back to the whole program design, but you know, if you stay in any modality, any, any, like, if, let's say, hit your thing, if you're doing that for two or three weeks, the body is already becoming very efficient in depth to that too, which I believe

most people on here, their goals are probably fat loss. That's why you're using cardio or to stay in overall shape, right? So, you know, how, how would you do that strategically and how would you program design for that? Because just picking a type because you read somebody who swears by that philosophy and him preached that, oh, this is the best way you should do it. You should hit. So that you just assume that that's the best way and you like it. So you just stick with it. Well, no, in reality, you should program design it into your routine. It should be something that's free-flowing. You should be doing hit.

You should be doing low-enticity. I think you should be doing, you know, short bursts of high-intensity. You should be just like with weight training, that variation. When you're looking for, when you're looking for change in your physique, if you're trying to change your physique, you're trying to lose body fat, I feel like that becomes something that's necessary. Definitely. Otherwise, you're doing it for overall health and that side only.

That's fine too, because some people are right. That's okay. I typically recommend, typically, and I'm saying this just because it's the majority of people I talk to you and I look at their routines. When people want to do high intensity and real training and they want to do low intensity steady state and ask me which is better, I will typically recommend this. I'll say, okay, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna do two days a week of low intensity, steady state cardio, you know, 25 to 35 minutes. Your choice, you can do brisk walk, treadmill, elliptical, okay.

The goal is to do it. You're not trying to go crazy, beat yourself up, you're just moving, okay. And once a week do high intensity, interval training, and that's 15 minutes. So it's three days a week of cardio, two days of low intensity, one day a week do high-intensity interval training and that's 15 minutes. So it's three days a week a card, you have two days of low intensity, one day a week of high intensity,

and that's what I find myself recommending more often than not. Of course, there's lots of variances in terms of people's routines and how I'm gonna have them train in different ways, but that's usually what I'll tell people when they ask me which is better, and I wanna do both and how do I throw them in. Instead, what I find, what I'm starting to find is I'm starting to see people over

do either one, like, oh, I do 45 minutes of low intensity cardio every single day. Or I do 15 minutes of high intensity interval training every single day. Both for the majority of people will be that they'll be the wrong way to incorporate cardiovascular. And I also want to say this, I want to be very clear. Cardio does burn calories, it burns more calories and resistance training for the time being done. But it does not speed up your metabolism nearly as much as resistance training, not even

close. And you've got to keep this in mind, there's two ways you can burn calories. You could do it the manual way or you could do the automatic way. The manual way is I gotta keep moving to keep burning all these calories. The automatic way is my metabolic rate, my resting metabolic rate has increased by 200 calories a day. Doesn't sound like much, right? 200 calories a day.

Let me tell you some. Add that shit up. 200 calories a day of a fashion metabolism, and you eat the same and do everything else the same. That's pounds of body fat. Well, that's 1400 calories a week, which is roughly half a what a pound a body fat would weigh But just sitting there. Well, it's in there doing nothing. I nerd that down That's so well how you speed the metabolic rate on what you're technically doing is you're adding muscle to the body And the body needs more calories to sustain lean body mass on it than it does fat. So it's between 40 and 60 calories per pound.

So if you add four or five pounds of muscle on your body, you potentially are gonna add 200 more calories a day. Your body is going to need just to sustain it. And by the way, if not, four or five pounds of muscle for the women listening, you're like, I don't wanna get bigger. You're not gonna get bigger with four pounds of muscle. All you're gonna do is get much tighter.

Yeah. Well, and imagine four pounds dispersed from head to toe on your body, too. What's up, sir? That's how it's so it's not visual as much as it is something you're going to feel. And what you'll sort of notice is you'll harden up. I mean, that's, there's more to that.

And there's even more. It's not just the muscle you gain. It's the hormone changes that happen in the body because of resistance training. That increase your resting metabolic rate. Freeze the testosterone. You know, it just balances things out. in the body because of resistance training. That increase your resting metabolic rate. Freisted testosterone levels. Just balances things out. Your body becomes, it wants to, it's looser with its calories. It's not so stingy with its calories. It believes your body believes that you need to be able

to perform. And when it believes that you need to perform, then it has no problem wasting calories and expending them. When your body believes that you don't really need to perform, it becomes stingy with the ones that you eat and it slows down and it says, well, we can store this. This person is obviously not needing to perform that much and need doesn't need to be that strong. Or if the performance you're doing is the same shit every single day, like 30 minutes on the treadmill,

exactly the same every single day, body becomes efficient at it and it's like, we don't need to speed up. They're gonna burn this 30 calories. We've already become efficient at it. Let's just store calories. And you can really impact your metabolism. Well, you started to press your left and level.

So I mean, that's what happens. And then your body just stops responding the way it does. That's why I said, going back to picking all my peers that I see. That's just hammering the shit. And I watch them because I'll be up at the same time. And we're all, you know, it's kind of neat being at the gym. There's so many pros that are there and stuff.

So you see them all the time in there and they're, everyone, they're routine. They're in the first thing, five a.m., you know, four or five a.m. You see the guys in there and they're all body builders and they're walking on the treadmills. And I'm looking over and I'm like, man, do they've been doing this for like 10, 12 weeks and just hammering their body? It's like, you could have like not done half of that and just done it like structured and smarter and way less stress on. And you just keep adding the stress to it. It's just going to slow it down just the push on the body like that.

It's you don't, you're not going to, it's like taking a car and throttling it all the way down on its RPMs and the oils out like the timing's off on it tires or flat you just that thing's gonna explode and you might be able to keep it going but it's just a matter of time before it shuts down. Well, I gotta admit to that like I'm probably the one here that would enjoy it more you know than the rest of anybody in here and I honestly use it specifically to move better. So when I use cardio, I know that like at a certain weight, I've been weight training and I've been eating and, you know, maybe the discipline with the nutrition gets tiresome.

Well, you do badass stuff too, but yeah, like, like, mace bells and fucking sludge hammers. Well, that's what I mean. I'm trying to create the picture that cardio isn't fucking, you know, running on a treadmill. Right. You know, it's running hills. It's jump roping.

It's, you know, running on the field. Mobile basketball. Yeah, multi-planar, you know, aggressive movement. Like, and I'll do it for periods of time. I'm not like doing it till I feel like, you know, aggressive movement, like, and I'll do it for periods of time. I'm not like doing it until I feel like, you know, the world's caving in on me or anything either. Like I actually enjoy it. So, but I periodically bring it into my programming.

So I don't do it very often. Let's be honest, you're your body and your movement speaks for it. If you took out of us all of us in the room, you carry the most weight, but you're the most mobile. It is, you know what I'm saying? That doesn't even make sense. I mean, if you think of it that way,

Sal should probably be the most mobile and then myself and you, but you by far are because you incorporate that, you make that a priority and you're keeping it in there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're all reflections of what we prioritize in our routines and stuff, but that's the point.

The point is that you have a priority. You have a goal. You're doing it for a purpose, not just because you opened up some fucking magazine and somebody who got paid to say, follow this or do this or this is what I do to get in this shape. And so you just do that all the time. Like that's just silly. And that's who I'm talking to.

I mean, there's exceptions in the rule. Like we talked about with athletes. If you're an athlete trying to perform better. So yes, you want to be efficient. You got to you got to use cardio, which is and it's totally different. Man, tell me, but the person I want to think that we got to be talking to at least 75 to 80% of the population that go into the gym and lifting weights. Most people are wanting to feel better, look better, lose weight, add muscle. I mean, and they see cardio is the one that they're gonna use

to drop fat. Yeah, that's the fat burner. Yeah, that's the fat burner. That's the fat burner aspect. No, it's, you just use it properly. Use it as part of your programming. But strategically. But I'll give you an example.

You were talking to Adam about all these bodybuilders in the morning doing their, you know, they're, they're, they're our faster cardio to get leaner. I have personal experience with something similar. So I, this was a few, it's not a member of how many, it's five years ago, we were planning a trip to go to Italy for the summer. And if I know I'm gonna be somewhere at summertime,

I'm like, I'm gonna go ahead and get myself real lean because I wanna be lean at the beach. And I was doing that, I was doing all this cardio. This is before I know what I know now. So I was doing all this cardio, this is before I know what I know now. So I was doing all this cardio, and I remember thinking to myself, there was like this kind of like this aha moment about halfway through, and I said, I wonder,

if I just cut my cardio in half, and then lower my protein intake, and you know what's funny? It sounds crazy, right? Some people are listening, oh my God, you dropped your protein? No, yeah, I did, I cut my protein down, didn't drop my cardio in half,

I got way leaner and kept more muscle than I had before. It's like all those bodybuilders on the treadmill as you were talking about. These guys are in 250, 300 grams of protein a day. If they just went down to 200 grams of protein a day, they wouldn't have to do the frickin' two hours of cardio. Okay, so I literally have had this exact conversation. Whoa, dude, mind blown.

I seriously have had that exact conversation with them walking dude, mind blown. I seriously have had that exact conversation with them walking, that's why I'm saying this is, and I'd say, they'll look at me, they'll be like, hey, you're gonna be here tomorrow morning. I'm like, no, I was like, I think I'll just cut 200 calories today. You know, and they're like, huh? They just, like it doesn't,

and then you're not gonna do, you don't have to be a fast person. You're really solid. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's what I said. I said, you know, actually, I think tonight, I'm just gonna have a be a fat person. You're really salad. That's right. That's what I said. I said, you know, actually, I think tonight I'm just going to have a chicken salad, actually. And then I'm going to cut and do cardio tomorrow. Well, you know what?

Because you tell them this, if you tell them that, they'll be like, cut calories. I'm already at super low carbs. And my fats are already pretty low. And then you look at them like, well, why don't you cut protein? You might as well be telling them, why don't you go kill a baby? Like, what? Cut protein. I'm going gonna lose all my gains. No, you're fucking protein is making it harder for you to

burn body fat. You're taking so much fucking what a beautiful transition in this cardio conversation. So this was actually my topic or my tip of the day over at OTF was getting people to understand how the body you utilizeizes energy, how it uses fat, and how there's this fear of, oh, if I push really hard, that I could burn my muscle. I mean, we use it, I admitted this to my class,

I said, I used to sell a lot of personal training to people because I used to scare them into thinking they needed to know their target heart rate because otherwise they'd burn. Otherwise, it's just burning muscle. Otherwise, you burn muscle, or if you weren't doing it in it, then you wouldn't be burning fat.

So you'd be just using glucose, right? But you needed to be in there if you wanted to maximize your workouts. And of course it was this fancy theorem that nobody knew the math too, except for all of us. What was it, the carbonium? Yeah, carbonium.

Carbonium. And it was, I still remember just through that. That's there in one. I got you on that with 220 minus age, minus your resting pulse times 0.65 and add back 10. That's your range. Oh, you want to talk about boners? Yeah, I still remember that.

You just got one in the middle. No, that just shows you how many times I've used that. Yeah. Because that's what we used to, well, but here's the thing though, back then, you know, we weren't as free. We were taught that's the fat burning zone. Yeah, yeah, we were taught that.

So, I'm gonna put myself out there, it wasn't like I was ripping people off. I really believe that. I really believe that's why I sold it passionately that this was important for you to know and I could teach this to you. But the reality of it is the body doesn't work that way. First of all, it's number one source.

It wants glycogen, which is glucose, which is sugar, right? That's what it wants first. And then if it's run out of that, it's number one source. It wants glycogen, which is glucose, which is sugar, right? That's what it wants first. And then if it's right out of that, it doesn't have that. Then the next source, that's next favorite source is gonna be fat. It does not want to use muscle. It does not want to use muscle whatsoever.

You gotta really, you gotta be, yeah, that's the last case. It is the last case here. And it's normally with somebody which don't give me wrong. If there is anybody that would do that, it would be the body builders or people like that, that are extremely lean already. So they don't have very much body fat on them.

They're malnourished. Yes, they're super bloated. They've been running in a calorie deficit for 12 weeks or whatever. And then they're fucking hitting high intensity cardio. If anyone's burning muscles, that motherfucker. For sure. Now, somebody who is, you know, fed on a regular basis and they're getting after their cardio, you're not going to burn up your muscle.

Now, if you're not doing it longer than 60 minutes, you need to be like a runner who's doing it for three hours. Now, your body will burn muscle if you're malnourished or if your body believes it's in its best interest to have less muscle become more efficient. For example, if my cardio consisted of long distance running, then my body would lose muscle because your body's trying to become efficient at this particular exercise. A bunch of heavy muscles not conducive

for being a long distance runner. That's right, so that's when you'll lose muscle. But if you've got good nutrition, you're doing your cardio properly, you're not gonna burn muscle. If you exercise fasted, you're not gonna burn muscle. We've already, that's already been dispelt a while ago now. These are just things that we were taught.

I think that they taught us these things to be honest with you to give us tools to sell. Because even the science back then was, well speaking, not that good. Not tools to sell, like, as far as heart rate training, man, was I disappointed in that whole genre of heart rate training,

just because of the fact of, everybody is so diverse in like, especially with HRV, I'm so excited about HRV training. And like I'm like finally a way that, you know, we could sort of accumulate or quantify this data as far as like, you know, when I should, you know, apply

a little bit more recovery and implement that because man, that would be so much easier as a coach to dictate. Like, hey, you know, I see this here and this zone here and this, but it just was not there, man. We are not there. You know, the numbers just, they were all over the place. There's too many factors that play a role. That's why because it's stress. Yes. You know, there's something happening, you know, I ate this late at night and then I didn't get much good sleep. And you know, it's still the best factors are, how do you feel?

Yeah, let's let's talk about that. What do you feel like to that? So before that, so I was kind of breaking down the science right today in the class and I kind of looked away and I could tell I got like a lot of blank stairs. I said, okay, well, this is what I mean. We're gonna just, real simple is,

if you come in and you know you haven't been eating a lot of food because you know you've been dieting and you didn't even eat breakfast and you come work out, there's no reason for you to go balls to the wall in this class. You're already in a deficit, you're already depleted, your body's already utilizing fat. It doesn't hurt to push it a little bit but there's no need for you to overdo it, because

if you do do that, that is where you can risk doing some of that. Why? And why do that? The amount of benefit you're going to get from running your heart rate at 145 versus 175 for an hour time isn't that going to be that much of a difference when it comes to burning fat and burning calories in reality. You're talking about burning calories in reality. You're talking about your splitting hairs.

And on top of that, you're putting yourself more at risk. So why do you that? Now, flip the coin now. You're somebody who had dinner last night and you come in here and you're fine. You haven't been living in a caloric deficit for the last week or two. Then yeah, come on, get after it. Have a great workout. Enjoy yourself.

What about that? And push yourself to those limits. But learn how to feel your body. Learn how to listen to how you feel coming into the workout. And too many people I've seen like, oh yeah, I felt like shit today. But I wasn't killed myself to, and I felt better now. It's like, yeah, well, you didn't need to, though. You know, I'm saying that you didn't need to kill yourself like that. That we're going to, your body didn't feel it was already telling you was beat up. But it's not feeling right. So there's no need to push like that so I think people it's a

the self awareness on that aspect it's very difficult people don't usually know how they really feel it's I mean it's it sounds weird but it's true like you ask like how do you really how do your body really feel I'm fine I feel fine no no how do you honestly feel I think I'm okay and then next you know while you're training up my knee hurts. This, you know, I'll have clients while I sit down with them, a new client, and I'll say, okay, give me a rundown of, you know, aches and pains that you have in your body. And they'll give me like two or three. And I know there's more. Then I'll start training them. Next thing you know, they're like, oh, I can't do that one because I had this finger here. It's when I do it this way,

or my wrist tends to bother me. And they didn't even tell me in the assessment. That's how unaware people tend to be of their bodies. I know, it's great. I guess it's very difficult when they're doing this for a long time. So I feel like we've trained ourselves made it do that. Cause it's okay, today, last night,

we talked to, in the days episode earlier, that we, you know, stress a lot of stuff going on in our lives and stuff right now. So a more and down a little bit, just from that, I know that I'm aware the stuff right now. So I'm worn down a little bit just from that. I know that I'm aware of that right away that I'm not going to be my normal 100% self. And then last night I didn't get any sleep whatsoever. I was tossing and turning stuff like that and was up at 4 a.m. working already. And now I'm here and I'm just like, but I, and I was yesterday, I was really looking forward to my lift today.

And I'm scheduled to get a good lift today. I was excited for Bernal that all the Platforms yeah, I'm all pumped to go to my workout But like I know that it's this is I need to take today off, you know I need to take today off and if I do go in it should be it shouldn't be heavy dead lifting day It shouldn't be heavy squad dates, you know, maybe it's a bro workout or maybe I'll just kind of walk on the treadmill You know I'm saying like and that's that's where you see me do that type of stuff That's when I'm gonna if I am gonna on the treadmill, you know what I'm saying? Like, and that's where you see me do that type of stuff. That's when I'm gonna, if I am gonna do, you're gonna, you know,

because I'm sure people hear the radio and they're like, I see that motherfucker in the gym and I've seen him on a machine before, like, absolutely. I was on one last week, you know? Oh no, there's specific ways to do, to utilize all these different tools. If you know how to utilize them. But when it comes to cardio, just pay attention

to the rest of your routine. Are you do you need something recuperative? If so, do your low intensity cardio. Do you have so much energy that you think you should go lift weights, but it's a cardio day? Then go for it, do a 15 minute high intensity interval training. Most people, honest to God, most people will do better with the low intensity stuff, because the chance of injury

and the skill level is much lower. High intensity interval training requires more skill. You gotta know what you're doing if you're gonna sprint under treadmill. Already for people with great movement. Exactly. Well, I love the psychological part of it's much easier and that's another reason why I actually do like fast cardio or I just, me just to wake up or the hearts hard to party Yeah, just to cruise to get out of my bed like I might half asleep headphones on and I'm like like we'll just watch this moving

And to me it's not it doesn't take that much motivation for me to get up to just move But it takes a lot of motivation for me to get up and go I'm gonna go sweat my dick off right now like I don't know if I want I don't know if I feel like that would be horrible if you sweat it Yeah, so. Yeah, no high intensity interval training requires. It requires a mental state similar to when I'm lifting. You know what I mean? Like I got to go into it like I'm about to lift.

Like okay, here I go. I'm going to push myself. Yeah, yeah. But because I put so much energy. You know how demanding it is. Like that's just it. It's the same. It's that same feeling.

Right. And because I know how much energy I put into my resistance training, I don't have the energy to put into cardio with high intensity interval training. So I tend to do the low intensity stuff. I get on and I go and that's why I do social media and I read and whatever. It's more recuperative for me. Yeah. It's good for me and that's why I do it. So yeah. We should let people know what our Instagram handles are. Oh yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to, so we all the three of us post information,

all the time, stuff that has to do with the show, stuff that doesn't have to do with the show, it's deeper, I personally like to write a lot of different topics I wrote about. Camel Mill T, I wrote about stress, I wrote about salt and takes, actually in fat and take, that kind of stuff. The three of us like to do that kind of stuff.

You could find this at, you could find Adam at Mind Pump Adam. You could find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. And you could find me at Mind Pump Sal. And then of course find J-Schwells at Mind Pump. Right, and then Mind Pump is our normal one. And please don't forget to subscribe to Mind Pump. Leave us a five-star rating and review. Two pumps in the air.

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