Exercise
by ryan heeney / february 7th, 2024
My idea on exercise has changed quite a bit since I began first learning about it. It’s less important to health than I once thought, but make it still holds a valuable spot in living and aging well.
These days I use exercise as a tool to increase muscle mass, optimize hormones and increase bone density.
Exercise should be also be stress-free and rewarding. Some personal trainers can kill their clients their first day with boot camp-like workouts and give clients a bad taste as far as exercise goes and their likelihood in returning is less than it could be. Exercise should be something you look forward to. Afterward you should feel better, more awake, rejuvenated—and not pooped and couch ridden.
The information given here will not be for professional bodybuilders, marathon runners, people looking to get down to 3% body fat or someone who wants to press 500 pounds over their head. Athletes and those with specific goals should follow training programs tailored to their chosen activity. The outline here is for those who would like to maximize their overall well-being and and improve their metabolism (the basis of health).
The best strategy towards exercise that I know of is Mark Sisson's "Fitness Pyramid". While I don't agree with much of what he says regarding nutrition, I think his exercise advice is very good.
To break this down even further I will give some clarifications and a brief summary of each level.
Move Frequently at a Slow Pace - This is important for circulation, helps maintain a healthy weight, provides a foundation for more strenuous activity and even increases insulin sensitivity. Simply walking is an extremely underrated activity with health in mind, but doing basically anything that isn't sitting on the couch will counts in this category. Housework, gardening or just opting to take the stairs instead of the escalator all count. A cumulative 2-5 hours per week is a good window to shoot for.
Lift Heavy Things - Outside of nutrition this may be the biggest anti-aging factor of all. Becoming proficient in basic human movements with added weights will increase muscle mass (important for immune function), increase bone density, increase insulin sensitivity, increase balance, stave off osteoporosis and osteopenia, optimize hormone levels and improve joint, tendon and ligament health. I like to keep strength training extremely simple and focus on the compound lifts. Squatting, deadlifting, overhead pressing are the cornerstones of a good program and are sometimes all you need. As mentioned above 1-3 days a week is enough with overall well-being in mind.
It is extremely important that you begin to implement this step carefully to avoid injury. Those with preexisting injuries will need to customize their program accordingly as well. For those who are beginners or just starting, a common saying in the fitness community is "the best approach is to get a coach". A good coach when beginning a lifting regimen can make a world of difference and keep you injury free. I will dedicate articles just to strength training in the future.
Sprint - While running all out for short periods of time is great if you are able to do it, "sprinting" doesn't necessarily pertain to running. In this case, sprinting will refer to any activity you can do at high intensity for short periods of time. This can be outdoor biking, the stationary bike, a rowing machine, jumping rope, running stairs, burpees, etc.
The idea here is to due an activity at a high intensity (slightly short of going "all out") for 10-20 seconds and then resting for 30 seconds to a minute or longer. This is then repeated 1 to 10 times depending on your level of fitness.
Sprinting is extremely beneficial with fat-loss in mind. It also is good for increasing muscle mass, increasing insulin sensitivity and good for heart health and lung function. High intensity exercise should be done safely only once week or once every 10 days because of how intense the exercise is. 10 minutes or less is all you need. Along with lifting weights, be extremely mindful and careful when engaging in exercise of this intensity. When intensity goes up, chances of injury go up too. Be mindful, and when in doubt, get a coach.
Also, your exercise session should never be thought of as mimicking something of a montage from some Rocky movie. People who kill themselves in the gym day after day typically end up burning out, not being able to stick to a consistent schedule, or eventually end up injuring themselves.
Your workout sessions should be precise, planned and measured. Think of it a calm lab experiment and not some boot-camp exercise Rocky montage where the action hero has 4 weeks to fight his finale foe.
If you would like to take exercise with metabolic health even further, focus on the concentric movement of the exercise rather than the eccentric. Mitochondria are able to be produced during the concentric phase, creating greater potential for increasing your true metabolism. Whereas the eccentric phase is responsible for lactic acid buildup, the burn you’ll feel the next day and because of this no favors will be done to metabolism in this context. One drawback about this style of workout is you will miss out on the muscle growth and hypertrophy if you ignore the eccentric. So it is a bit of a trade off.
Great examples of concentric only movements are sled pushes and pulls, rowing machines, walking stairs, tire flips, and other that honestly don’t come to mind at the moment.
An added bonus of concentric only exercise though is you won’t feel sore the next day. DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) comes from the eccentric portion of the lift.
One more good rule of thumb is to always have the ability to breathe through your nose during exercise, anything beyond that could be overexertion. After a year of sticking to something that you enjoy and allowing for slow and steady progress, you will be amazed at how far you can go in a years time.