Train Long Or Train Hard

Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
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• 13:36 [Ad] Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
• 14:23 (Cont.) Train Long Or Train Hard

Transcript

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Welcome to There Is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's fitness programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and most importantly why things work. Hence the name, There is a Method to the Madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilden of the Gilden Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. You can go long or you can go hard, but you can't go long and hard. All right, so we're talking about some intensity today regarding fitness. That's a uh a rule that I've always told people about for the uh 30 plus years. I've been a uh personal trainer and exercise physiologist trying to explain uh intensity and duration and the relationship between the two. And uh there's a lot of science behind it, but that sentence right there, or those two sentences right there, really kind of sum it up. So I'm going to talk about that today. The first thing I want to cover is the recovery element to all of this. So basically, what happens when we are training to get in greater physical shape or mental shape or spiritual shape or you know, any kind of shape when we're trying to improve? It's always going to come down to how much can you take in, how much can you do, and then how much can you recover? It is always going to come down to that. That doesn't mean that you need to be walking that fine line all the time, because it really depends on the goals. But we do have to understand that really all of this comes down to how much can your body, your mind, your spirit, so to say, take and then be able to recover. So this is where steroids come in. And I think this is not a podcast about steroids because I have done that before. And um, you know, I'm not an advocate of them at all, especially when you are taking them, you know, for basically vanity reasons or whatever, um, illegally, whatever, however you want to call it, it's probably not the smartest decision a person can make. But I'm going to talk about just briefly why people take them and why they air quote work unair quote. So what they do is the kind I'm talking about anyway, the anabolic steroids, they promote recovery. So when people say things like, well, you know, that guy's huge and jacked, and he's on steroids, and he would never be that way if he wasn't taking steroids. So there is a lot of truth to that, but it's also kind of a false statement. So steroids won't do anything for a person's physique that doesn't already have the genetics to get that way. So what they do is they fill facilitate recovery so that person can train a lot more than most people could take and get the benefits from it. So that's what they do. So if you take somebody who is a classic ectomorph, and that is the body type that's not going to grow or promote a lot of muscularity, and they take them for whatever reason. I mean, maybe they take it for recovery from injury. Okay, that could potentially benefit them, but they're not going to get big muscles. So you have to have the base to be able to take advantage of those things. You have to be basically of a certain body type, genetic type for these things to benefit, at least as far as the muscularity goes, the hypertrophy goes. You have to be more of a fast-twitch muscle fiber person, larger muscle bellies, uh medium bone size to larger bone size. Um, you know, so we have to be in the right somatotype, so to say. So, you know, now not just because they're taking them, they got big. That's not true. They did work and they do have genetics, and they did take them. To say that they wouldn't have gotten that big, that might be possibly true because there's no way a person's body can take that kind of training without having the recovery behind it. So that's what anabolic steroids do. It's just like if you take cortical steroids, right? They're a massive anti-inflammatory, which saved the lives of asthmatic and other people that are um having issues with severe allergic reactions or whatever, they're lifesavers. So it's kind of basically the same thing. It's a massive anti-inflammatory and it facilitates healing, and that's why these people, mostly men, take them. All right. So that's that. What that means essentially is that everybody has a breaking point. So the people that are going to take these steroids are basically trying to maximize every bit of training that they do, and they want to be able to train maybe an additional hour to 90 minutes in a day or something like that. And the only way they can do that is if they have the extra help of the anabolic gains, and then, of course, hopefully sleeping a lot and uh having proper nutrition. Now, I will say that like there's no such thing as a free lunch. So eventually this does catch up. You know, it's like you're speeding everything up, you're kind of like speeding up the life of a lot of these cells as well. And rarely does somebody go through a lot of usage or even a moderate amount usage of anabolic steroids and not have pretty severe consequences later in life or shortly thereafter. So, you know, there's no such thing as a free lunch. I mean, a lot of the times the joints are wore out by the time they reach a certain age because they've been abusing themselves, recovering, not really recovering, but being able to train and being able to let the muscles recover. It doesn't mean the joints recover. So you see that. You see a lot of cardiac myopathy, which is enlarged heart. You see increased organ sizes. I mean, it's just not the smartest way to go about it, especially unsupervised by a physician for non-medical reasons. So, medical reasons, that's a whole different ball game. That's not what this program is about. All right, so it's gonna catch up. But the point is that they take them because it speeds up recovery. If people could basically push their body beyond certain limits, they wouldn't have to take it. That's why there are certain limits with that. So I want to cover how we can go and get the most out of our training without going into that area where we're training too much and getting into overtraining. So, a buddy of mine years ago, he's a great guy in the industry. I've known him for a really, really long time. You know, we used to talk about the orthopedic threshold. And um, you know, we never really coined that phrase, you know, uh maybe somebody else has coined it, but we always talked about it and talked about doing more with it, writing more papers, but we never did. But at least we agreed and understand the concept. So basically the orthopedic threshold means that, you know, an endurance athlete, a runner, cyclist, trahlete, they are going to be able to get better with more intensity and more volume. They're going to be able to improve their VO2 max and improve their slow twitch muscle fibers and their onset of blood lactic acid accumulation and all that good stuff with more volume. So a lot of these endurance athletes really need a lot of volume to get better. I mean, you know, they're training at least the Iron Man got people are doing like maybe even up to 20 hours of training a week. I mean, a ridiculous amount of volume in training. So the slow twitch muscle fibers aren't going to really break down. I mean, that's the whole essence of what they are. They're aerobic fibers, so they really don't break down. They can keep going and going and going. And, you know, the heart's not going to beat itself out of submission or into submission and out of beating anymore. That's not going to happen. So it can keep taking it. You know, the other organs can continue to do what they need to do to help produce the more blood volume. But really, what can't keep going is the skeleton. I mean, that the joints are going to break down. So we talked about what is that point where the person is getting maximal benefits before their orthopedic system, their skeletal system and their joints and their soft tissues start to break down. Like, what is that point? Now, I don't know that there's been anything invented or created yet that can give us that point. But the concept is if a person wants to improve and become the best endurance athlete that they can be, then they have to like get right up to that point, to the point where they're getting maximal benefit before their skeleton and soft tissues start breaking down. Again, we don't know what that point is, but we know everybody is different. So when we see those things out there, you know, those training recommendations, whether they be on social media or whether they're in books or magazines and they say this is the ideal template for a person training for a blank triathlon or blank marathon, it's like, well, it really depends. I mean, if somebody's really prone to injury, and there could be a lot of reasons why that is. Oftentimes it's prior injury. When we injure a joint, we are more likely to injure that same joint in the future. So it could simply be that. They can be really small boned and more ectomorphic, so they're more prone to stress fractures. They could have kind of an awkward gait, like their gait isn't ideal for whatever reason. When their legs were forming, maybe they had a tendency to adduct their knees a little bit more than the person next to them. So we don't know, but we do know that everybody's different. And some people can take a ton of training, they continue to get better, and their body doesn't break down. Other people can't. So we call that the orthopedic threshold. At what point does your body start to break down? Train just before that point. Very hard to find that point, very hard. You have to keep a journal, I think. You have to really pay attention, you have to really know your body very well, what we call kinesthetic. You have to kind of be a kinesthetic learner, which means you can really feel your way into things, which is really, really hard for a lot of people. So that's what we're talking about when we talk about the orthopedic threshold. But it's not just the orthopedic threshold that happens when it comes to this. That was an example for endurance training. This is true for every kind of training and for every kind of person training for fitness, trying to get better. There's a point where the body starts to fight back. There's a point where your body produces more cortisol, which is the stress hormone. And when we produce cortisol, we tend to get more inflamed. We can maybe carry more belly fat. We are not sleeping as well, we are flat out not recovering as well. So it's not just the orthopedic threshold we have to pay attention to when we exercise on a regular basis, but we also have to pay attention toward the hormonal imbalances. That's really, really important. We have to pay attention to the central nervous system. Like maybe, just maybe, you have a really good, strong skeletal system that takes a lot. But maybe you also have a lot of stress in your life. Maybe you work full-time, maybe you have young kids at home. So those things we have to consider because that's going to affect your nervous system, which is going to affect your endocrine system, which is your hormonal system. And so the more that you do, the more that you're going to potentially stress it and not see the results. All right. So this applies to cardio and strength training. So this is all really important because there are basically two styles of people out there and like two styles. Like if I'm going to really, really, really just divide people here, a lot of people will fall in the middle somewhere. But there's like two kind of extremes when it comes to thinking about volume and intensity. And that's why I open this with you can train long or you can train hard, but you should never try to train long and hard. All right. So you kind of have to pick your poison, so to say. So there are people that train with a lot of volume. They do really long walks or runs. They might go to the gym and uh, you know, they might wait train six days per week and they're in the gym a really, really long time. I mean, that could work. When it comes to cardio, there was always this big argument about that. And I'm going to break that down for you really quick. This is a lot of information today, I know, but I'm going to break that down for you really quick. So there's the people that say if you want to get into your fat burning zone aerobically, you need to go for longer periods of time and keep the intensity low. Now, they get that from basically the fact that at lower intensities, heart rate intensities or VO2 max intensities, you are burning more fat for fuel. That's true. When we start to get more anaerobic, we tend to burn more carbohydrates and less fat. But it's a little bit deceiving because the higher intensity that you go, you're burning more total calories. So if you're burning more total calories, the end result still might be more fat burned, although you might burn more fat per minute when you're doing the longer, slower distance. So it's kind of deceiving. So the bottom line is on that is it's both misleading and it's both true. What it really, really means is that you have to find that duration that and and intensity, because there's a big psychological profile to that, and time, how much time do you have that works best for you? Ultimately, both styles of cardio can work. Now, if you want to be more cardiorespiratorily fit, which is very important, you know, raising that VO2 max, lowering that blood pressure, all those things, you're gonna get benefits if you just move. So I don't want you to get too preoccupied with that. But you're probably gonna get a little more benefit at the higher intensities with that. But having said that, if you are gonna go at the higher intensities, and I know that's kind of vague, you don't have to go for as long a period of time, because that is going to create more metabolic stress and harder to recover from. So you would keep those workouts a little bit shorter. But if you really like those longer cardiorespiratory workouts, like you like to go for hour or longer walks, that's great. But you should keep that intensity pretty moderate, no more than say, a brisk walk. Again, it's a lot of it depends on your fitness levels and things like that. But it's a myth to say that one is greater than the other when it comes to the fat burning effects. So there are people that are high volume people, they love to do a lot, a lot, a lot. Um, if you're that person, you probably need to watch your intensity because if you push higher intensity and do a lot of volume, you're kind of asking for possible injury and burnout, and then you're not going to want to do it. And, you know, years ago, the ACSM, they've always used the F I T T frequency, intensity, time, and type to help us exercise professionals write exercise prescriptions. But then they added the E to it, F-I-T-T-E. And the E stood for enjoyment, because they know that if you don't relatively like that form of exercise that you're doing, you're not going to do it. All right, so now let's take the flip side to this. About, I don't know, 10 years ago, maybe a little bit longer, all the professionals, at least all the influencers, got heavily into HIT, high intensity training. And they're telling everybody, I mean, a lot of these, you know, more famous fitness physicians that are out there, you know, they're out there talking about their stuff all the time. And for some people, people really listen to that because, you know, they do have their MDs or whatever. But, you know, and it's not that they're wrong, but like they were saying, oh, you know, you need to do hit, hit, hit. Like you're wasting your time if you're doing these long, moderate workouts. And, you know, they had all these people, a lot of the bodybuilders were doing that. So instead of doing their long jogs or walks to burn fat, as they got closer to shows, they were doing like 10 to 15 minutes of hit intervals because they were essentially burning less total energy, which some people want to burn more energy, but they didn't. They wanted to, you know, be able to maintain their muscle mass. So they were doing these HIT workouts. And the belief system was that the harder you work, the more afterburn there is. So you're burning more calories later. And there's some truth to that, but like ultimately everything comes out in the wash. So they were pushing that big time. And look, I'm a fan of interval style training because for me, mentally, I'd rather do something pretty hard for a bit and then rest and do it again and do it again. Like that just works for me mentally. And you're gonna see at the end that that's what this all comes down to. So that's fine. But there are other days I also like to just do really long walks or long bike rides. And I know when I'm gonna do that, I keep the intensity down because thankfully I know better. All right. So they were pushing that, and that's fine. But what we found was a lot of people don't like that. Like they may not overly love exercise anyway, and they were really starting to enjoy their three or four mile walks, and then they heard that they have to do these intervals, and you know, they have these people out there that were sedentary maybe a year ago, and now they're like running these 30 second little sprints and then walking in between and doing it again, and they hated it and they dropped out. So, you know, we have to remember that not all of these things are for everybody, and you don't necessarily have to go all to one side, you don't have to go all to the other side. You can kind of do a little bit of both and figure out what works for you as long as you remember that little rule. You can go long or you can go hard, but you can't go long and hard. Like if we can remember that. So in the gym, it was happening too. So with weight training, it's kind of the same thing. You had your high-volume guys, you know, that were telling people they needed to do 20 sets per muscle group. I mean, crazy, crazy stuff in the 70s and 80s regarding bodybuilding. And, you know, they failed to tell people that all of those guys were taking steroids, so they were able to recover and do two-hour workouts every day on different muscle groups. And then you had your total counterculture to that, and they were doing the bare minimum, but at a super high intensity. And again, everybody's a little right and everybody's a little wrong. It comes down to your ability to recover, how much you're willing to spend in the gym, how much time you're willing to spend, and what kind of enjoyment do you get out of it? I mean, consistency is always going to rule the roost on that, you know, and we always, I use science here when I prescribe workouts for people. I know that the ACSM states that if people will just strength train two to three days per week, if they're gonna hit all of their major muscle groups, if they're going to keep a rep range somewhere around anywhere from five to 30 works, but anywhere from 10 to 20 reps is really reasonable and try to bring the sets as close to failure as they can, they're gonna get massive benefits. So then some people say, you know, but I like to do more days in the gym. Like I like to split it up. Is that wrong? It's like, no, it's not wrong. It's understanding how much you can recover and what are you going to do. So you're spending a little more volume in the gym. So if you're spending a little more volume time in the gym, then you need to watch that intensity and make sure that you split it up right. So, like for me, I like to do that because I come from a bodybuilding background in my 20s. I've you know competed as a master's athlete. It's kind of like how I grew up in the workout world. So I know not to do these super long marathon workouts of millions of sets at high intensity. There was probably a time in my life when I didn't know better than I did. And we're going to the gym and we're doing a ridiculous amount of time in the gym and being young always push, push, push, push. But you know, that was the other key. I mean, when you're young, you are going to recover that much sooner, that much easier, that much faster. And again, I'm not just talking orthopedically, I'm talking about central nervous system and hormonally, which is huge. I mean, if you take somebody who is over-trained, an athlete that is overtrained or overstressed, you know, maybe they they don't consider themselves an athlete, but they're going to the gym and pushing really hard or they're doing running and traphlons and they're pushing really hard and they think they're blowing off stress. But what they're finding out is that they're not sleeping very well. They don't have a very good appetite, they actually have almost signs of depression. I mean, they've shown that in the medical world. People can literally, literally put themselves into a depressive state by overtraining. So it really can bring you down and beat you up hormonally. So it's not just about the orthopedics, it's about how much can you recover. So now I know it takes me about 30 minutes to work out, just like everybody else. I do split it up. I probably strength train between five and six days per week. I do a little bit of different muscle groups each time, no more than three sets or so per exercise. I don't do more than six sets per muscle group, and I finish in 30 minutes. I do tend to keep it a little more intense, but I keep the volume down. So the strength training workout is maybe 30 minutes. It's going to work just fine. Like that's, I like to do something every day. So I like to do a little bit of cardio and a little strength, or I'll do a little strength and then a little cardio. But I like to keep it in that window. And personally, I really like 20 to 30 minute runs or uh, you know, cardio because for me, I don't like to go out for really long periods of time because I like to do a lot of different things, right? And that's kind of what like motivated me to do this because I know like for me how to make it work. So I'll do again 20 to 30 minute workouts at a at a you know an upper intensity, but that's not too much because I'm keeping the duration down. And I know people that will go out for 90-minute runs and go like way harder, and it's like, man, that is really beating the system up. Now, granted, they might just be able to take it, whatever, but you know, the point is that we don't have to go super hard when we're going longer, and we don't have to go super long when we're going harder. And it really comes down to what is your preference? You know, what do you like to do? I'll tell you a kind of a funny little story to wrap this up, something I learned. So I used to teach the ACSM workshops of how to become a personal trainer. And to do that, even though I had the education and qualifications, they're a good organization. They wanted to make sure that all their uh people that were teaching the workshops, and I would go all over the place, you know, University of Miami, whatever, um, different colleges to teach these things. So, and I got paid pretty good to do that. So they wanted to make sure that we weren't going to go off the cuff and educate people the wrong way. So I definitely respect that. And um, I went up to Boston and was being trained by them and was listening to their master trainer, so to say. And a woman was telling a story that kind of was illustrating this. And she told this story about how a woman came to her years ago and uh told her like why she wanted to exercise, you know, she wanted to be able to uh, you know, train with her. I think it was her daughter. Yeah. She wanted to be able to exercise with her daughter. So like she wanted to be put on a training plan so she could basically keep up with her when she walked or whatever it was. So the lady, the trainer put her on this program, and uh it was really intricate. It was like, do this, do this, oh, stay back in this zone, make sure you don't go too high here, you know, make sure that you're you're not uh exceeding this heart rate. And the lady's like, okay, okay. And it was a deal where she'd like, would give her the homework and they'd meet once a week and they'd come back and check in. It was that kind of training. And she said that like the first week she came back and she, you know, checked in, said she's doing okay. And then the next week she kind of didn't show up. I mean, I might be messing up the timeline, but you'll get the point. And then when she didn't show up, she finally called her. She says, Hey, you didn't come do our check-in session. You know, what's going on? And the woman said, Well, you know, I don't think this is for me. I'm gonna drop out. She said, Why? What's going on? She said, Well, you know, when I came to you, I told you the whole idea was I wanted to spend time with my daughter and keep up with her. But all this training has me training behind her, so what's the point? And, you know, the trainer was like, oh man, I blew it. She never said how she fixed it, but she seemed nice. And so I imagine she probably, you know, redid the program. So the whole point was like, you know, what difference does it make how scientific and all that is if you're not going to do it? Like, what's the point? Like, if everybody's out there doing HIT training, really intense, and you hate it and you're not going to do it because you really like to do your walks with your friends. I mean, do your walks with your friends. Or maybe maybe it's the opposite, and you're like, you know, I hear I have to do all these really long workouts, but I only have 10 minutes before I go to work. And, you know, I guess I'm I won't do it because you know it's not long enough. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. For you, go out and do some intensity for 10 minutes. So, this rule hopefully really helps you understand how to break this down. So much comes down to your personality and what works for you. So, if you can just remember that rule, this will really help you. You can go hard or you can go long, but you can't go long and hard. Thank you for listening to today's program. I ask you to please follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and please select automatic download because that really helps the show. Now I want to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product, they have the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people with a great company. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a shout at 386 222 3165.