Exercise Experts Reveal The 20-Minute Protocol That Actually Fights Aging

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Neuro Experience

Episode: Exercise Experts Reveal The 20-Minute Protocol That Actually Fights Aging
Host: Louisa Nicola & Pursuit Network | Release Date: March 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into exercise protocols that combat aging and promote longevity. Host Louisa Nicola brings together a panel of leading coaches, trainers, exercise scientists, physiologists, and health experts to dissect the minimum effective dose of resistance training, the science (and myth) behind popular cardio trends like Zone 2, protocols for bone health, and the real-world application of biohacks. The conversation focuses on making health and fitness practical for the general public—beyond the hype—drawing a distinct line between what’s necessary for elite athletes and everyday people aiming for lifelong health.

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Key Discussion Points

The Minimum Effective Dose of Resistance Training

• Muscle Maintenance Requires Less Than You Think

  • Ben: “The minimum effective dose for resistance training to maintain a healthy degree of muscle size and strength is pretty low. Three to six sets per muscle group per week.” [00:00, 02:28]
  • Consensus: One solid session a week per muscle group can be enough to maintain strength, especially for those who dislike resistance training or need to deload.
  • Importance of Effort: Sets should be taken close to “momentary muscular failure” for effectiveness, regardless of weight (80% of 1RM or even 30% for higher-rep sets). [03:12–03:17, 04:47]

• Striving for More: Hypertrophy and Strength Gains

  • For those aiming to increase strength and muscle size:
    • Ben: “People seeking to maximize muscle gains would be doing somewhere between 12 to 20 sets per muscle group per week.” [05:52]
  • Both lighter, higher-rep sets (to failure) and traditional heavier sets work, important for those managing injuries. [04:39, 05:14]
  • Quote: “You can get similar hypertrophic results as if you trained in the classic 60–80% of 1RM if you take lighter loads to failure.” – Ben [05:11]

Muscle Splits vs. Full Body Workouts

• Full Body vs. Splits: It’s About Preference and Practicality
  • Ben: Beginners often start with full-body routines, progress to splits as they become advanced, but you should “do what you like and look forward to.” [07:13–07:41]
  • Frequency is Less Important: Hitting your weekly set volume matters more than how you split your workouts. [07:57]
  • Full body routines are practical for those with inconsistent schedules, may foster higher adherence, less soreness, and flexibility. [13:14–14:18]
  • Personal Trainer: “I’m pretty adamant about, for most regular people that aren’t gym heads, full body training over body part splits…there’s actually a lot of research showing that full body is amazing for both increasing muscle mass and strength.” [13:13]

Internet Trends and Standards: Pushups, Grip Strength, Instagram Culture

• Debunking Online Fitness Standards
  • Standards like “half your bodyweight farmers carries” or “one-minute dead hangs” are inflated and not realistic for most, especially women.
  • Personal Trainer: “I don’t know very many women that could hang for a minute. And I train some badasses. That’s tough.” [15:56]
  • Be wary of correlation vs. causation: Fitness benchmarks like “40 push-ups = longer lifespan” simply correlate with general strength and health, not causation. [16:42–17:46]
  • The danger of online biohacks: Expensive/time-consuming methods (hyperbaric oxygen, red light, etc.) matter little for general population versus fundamentals like strength training and cardio. [20:18–21:13]

Cardio for Longevity: The Truth About Zone 2

• Zone 2: A Cultural Movement, Not a Science-Backed Miracle

  • Exercise Scientist: “The whole Zone 2 movement…it’s a cultural movement and not based on science…when you compare what evidence is available to higher intensities, higher intensities always wins.” [00:12, 29:49]
  • Relative fat oxidation is higher in Zone 2, but total energy expenditure (and fat loss) is greater at higher intensities. [31:51]
  • Many people who think they’re training in Zone 2 are not due to individual lactate thresholds—most are at higher intensities. [36:37–38:43]
  • Quote: “I would rather someone exercise for an hour in Zone 3 than Zone 2…based on how we adapt to exercise in an intensity dependent manner.” – Exercise Scientist [38:31]

• For Adaptation, Intensity > Duration

  • For busy people, push intensity (via intervals, sprints, or harder steady-state) during available sessions for greater mitochondrial adaptation and health benefits. [40:56–44:50]
  • Quote: “Add in resistance training and then, if you only have a few days to do cardio, go hard. You don’t need to deliberately stick to low intensity because someone told you online.” – Exercise Scientist [40:56]

Muscle, Metabolism, and Aging

• Strength Training for Insulin Sensitivity & Bone Health
  • Muscle is a metabolic “glucose sink”—critical for preventing insulin resistance with age; strength/sprint training creates a 24–48hr window of increased glucose uptake. [46:58–49:29]
  • Louisa: “If I’m strength training two to three times per week and I have a 48hr post-exercise rise in my capacity to dispose of glucose, and I’m doing that three times a week, I’ve got myself covered for the week.” [50:51]
  • Bone density declines after menopause—resistance and impact training (like jumping) stimulates both muscle and bone, protecting against falls and loss of independence. [27:22–28:27, 51:07–54:27]
  • Bone Health Expert: “Even if you’ve never lifted a weight in your life, jumping in the water, on a trampoline, that mechanical impact is turned into biochemical signals to build more bone.” [00:33, 27:22]

Biohacks and Recovery: What Matters Most

• Practical Biohacks or Just Distractions?
  • Red light therapy: Data limited, mainly helpful for skin or specific injuries; not essential for healthspan for general public. [24:39–25:30]
  • Supplements (omega-3s, magnesium, berberine): May have adjunct benefits, but basics are paramount.
  • Impact and hormone therapy (HRT): Both play a key role in maintaining healthy bone turnover in women, especially post-menopause. [51:33]
  • Impact over Perfection: “Form first before load. You can completely change your bone mineral density with just your own body weight.” – Physiologist [54:27]

Exercise Protocols for Longevity: Sprints, Intervals, and Weekly Structure

• Simple, Sustainable Exercise Prescriptions
  • Coach/Trainer: “For healthspan and general population…it’s quite general—as long as you stimulate [your glycolytic, high-intensity] system…20, 30, 40 minutes a week, you’re going to be fine.” [55:46]
  • For resistance training, two days/week is likely sufficient, with three being ideal if time allows. One is likely inadequate for long-term maintenance or gains. [57:11]
  • Sprint training (e.g., 4x4 minutes, once a week) offers a potent, time-efficient protocol for boosting VO2 max and metabolic health. [55:27–55:46]
  • Physiologist: “You need to do, like, a few times a week, somewhere between 20, 30, 40 minutes a week…and then leave some time during the week for resistance training…two days a week should be important.” [55:52]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Minimal Training Needs:
  “Three to six sets per muscle group per week—that’s like one session. Basically, yeah.”
  – Ben [02:28]

• On the Zone 2 Craze:
  “Zone 2…is a cultural movement and it's not based on science…higher intensities always wins.”
  – Exercise Scientist [00:12, 29:49]

• On Instagram Fitness Standards:
  “I don’t know very many women that could hang for a minute. And I train some badasses. That’s tough.”
  – Personal Trainer [15:56]

• Practical Training Choices:
  “You should do what you like and prefer and look forward to…don’t just hop around.”
  – Ben [07:36, 18:20]

• Muscle and Glucose Management:
  “Your muscle tissue…is a very efficient glucose sink…as your quality of muscle changes, the amount of insulin you need (to push glucose in) is much higher.”
  – Physiologist [48:50]

• Women, Impact, and Aging:
  “Not an age when lifting weights is not going to positively affect your bones, even if you've never lifted a weight in your life...if you can't jump, let's lift some weights. Let's eat a high protein diet.”
  – Bone Health Expert [27:22, 29:18]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Topic | Speaker | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------|------------------------------|-----------------| | Minimum Dose for Muscle Maintenance | Ben & Louise Nicola | 00:00–03:17 | | Building Strength/Hypertrophy Protocols | Ben | 04:04–06:41 | | Full-Body vs. Splits & Practical Tips | Ben, PT/Coach | 07:13–09:41, 13:14–15:32 | | Biohack Skepticism & Real-World Exercise | Louise Nicola & PT/Coach | 20:18–21:13 | | The Zone 2 Controversy | Exercise Scientist | 29:49–31:51, 36:37–44:50 | | Cardio Intensity, Adaptation, Recovery | Exercise Scientist | 40:56–44:50 | | Muscle, Metabolism, and Aging | Physiologist & Louise | 46:58–51:33 | | Hormones, Bone Health, Impact | Bone Health Expert | 51:33–54:27 | | Weekly Protocol: Sprints, Resistance, Cardio | Coach/Trainer & Louise | 55:27–57:11 |

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Takeaway Summary

• Longevity Through Exercise Is Simple and Achievable:
  • 2–3 resistance training sessions per week: Enough for most people; focus on effort and progressive overload.
  • Higher-intensity cardio (intervals, sprints, or vigorous efforts): More beneficial for adaptation and health than Zone 2, especially for time-pressed individuals.
  • Muscle mass is critical for metabolism, glucose control, and bone health as we age; impact and regular movement are essential, especially for women post-menopause.
  • Ignore hype and fitness “biohacks”—stick to training modalities you will actually do and enjoy.
  • Training should be individualized, practical, and consistent—find what works and stay with it.

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This episode serves as a myth-busting, practical guide for anyone looking to age well through exercise, emphasizing evidence-based principles over fitness trends. The experts advocate for simplicity, consistency, and self-compassion—move often, train with purpose, and focus on the sustainable habits that matter most across the long haul.

Transcript

[Ben]

Resistance training is vital. The minimum effective dose for resistance training to maintain a healthy degree of muscle size and strength is pretty low. Three to six sets per muscle group per week.

[Louise Nicola]

Oh, that's like one session.

[Ben]

Basically, yeah.

[Louise Nicola]

Are you saying that this whole Zone 2 movement was actually built on culture and not science?

[Exercise Scientist]

Yes, it's a cultural movement and it's not based on science.

[Physiologist]

Starting even in your early 30s, you start to lose like 3 to 8% of your type 2 fibers.

[Louise Nicola]

Let me tell you, I feel it mid-30s, but I can't box jump anymore the way that I used to.

[Bone Health Expert]

Even if you've never lifted a weight in your life, whether you're jumping in the water, jumping on a trampoline, that mechanical impact turned into biochemical signals to build more bone.

[Coach or Trainer]

Resistance training, as we know, is key to preserve muscle mass. I think that one day a week is not going to cut it today. So we are pretty good three times a week.

[Louise Nicola]

I'm Louise Nicola and this is the Neuro Experience.

[Ben]

So, yeah, resistance training is vital. And I'm not talking about your classic put on your fluorescent striped tights and string your tank top and then go do the bodybuilding routine, but find some type of resistance training that you enjoy and that you. You can cover the major muscle groups through the course of a workout or through the course of a week, and then just continue that at your own pace progressively to a reasonable degree of whatever the individual goal is. And then that's the way that you fight Father Time. And you can look at the spectrum of goals that people have with resistance training. There's sort of this general population goal of, okay, how much training do I. Can I get away with? You know, how. What's the minimum effective dose for me to be able to do and still be healthy? And then you have another group saying, how can I look freaking awesome? You know, when I'm 50 or 60 or 70 or whatever, how can I. How can I look spectacular? Yeah, I mean, those are two totally different populations. Both legitimate goals, you know, whatever drives you, whatever fires your light and motivates you to go train. But the minimum effective dose for resistance training to maintain a healthy degree of muscle size and strength is pretty low. It's kind of surprisingly low.

[Louise Nicola]

Well, that's maintained.

[Ben]

Maintain, yeah. Right.

[Louise Nicola]

And what is surprisingly low?

[Ben]

Three to six sets per muscle group per week.

[Louise Nicola]

Oh, that's like one. One session.

[Ben]

Yeah, basically. Basically, yeah.

[Exercise Scientist]

Okay.

[Ben]

Yeah. So that. That kind of low. That would be minimum effective dose if you're forced to deload, but you kind of want to maintain or if you're somebody who absolutely detests the idea of resistance training or strength training and you really kind of want to know what's the minimum that in the literature is shown to maintain a certain amount of strength? Well, it would be roughly three to six, three to six sets per muscle group per week with those sets taken relative know failure.

[Louise Nicola]

I was going to say is that like at an 80% of 1 RM, like on the 6th rep you're really

[Ben]

struggling on the 6 rep? Yes. Yeah. You're basically pushing to momentary muscular failure.

[Louise Nicola]

Okay, so what about if we want to increase strength by the way, maintaining even if you've got a loss of 2.5 per decade over the age of 40, that, that doesn't make sense. Does it make sense to you if you're just maintaining but you're also losing so you always want to be increasing?

[Ben]

I think it's meet the rate of loss. It's important to strive to increase. There is an inevitable drop in strength as we, let's say, approach our 80s. It's tough to be as robust and amazing as we are right now. But I agree with you. Striving to increase strength is if you do it safely, I think, I think that's optimal.

[Louise Nicola]

Okay, so, yeah. Okay, so what are we looking at in terms of increasing?

[Ben]

Okay, so the, one of the healthiest ways to train for strength is to train for size. And so what I mean by that is if you take an approach of, okay, my goal is muscle hypertrophy, you're going to gain strength anyway. But you're also kind of getting these metabolic benefits of training in zones that are relatively in the middle of the energy continuum.

[Louise Nicola]

Do you use five zones?

[Ben]

Well, that's more of a cardio.

[Louise Nicola]

Yes, it's more of a cardio training. I know you're not a cardio guy,

[Ben]

I'm fine with that. But in the context of strength training, it's like you can either train like a powerlifter where you are, you know, we're talking like you're spending a lot of time in, in the 80 to 100 of 1 RM of your single rep max, or you can just, you know, really low ball it where you're looking at, you know, 50, 40%, you know, of your 1 RM. But the, the interesting thing with the research on muscle hypertrophy and loading is that you can do sets that are as high as like 30ish reps to failure, which correlate with roughly 30% of your 1rm. But if you take those sets to failure to, you know, momentary muscular failure, fatigue. Then you can get similar hypertrophic results as if you trained in the classic 60 to 80% of 1 RM. So people who are tiptoeing around injuries, people who are incapable, for one orthopedic reason or another, incapable of training heavy, they can still take lighter loads like 20 to 30 reps, but just take it to failure and then you will have a similar growth response to the people who are training in that a little bit sweeter spot, the 60 to 80, 85ish percent of one rep max for training, for muscle hypertrophy and the total amount of sets per week. This was a recent systematic review that was done, I'm forgetting the, the author, unfortunately, but it was done within the last couple years. People who are seeking to maximize muscle gains would be doing somewhere between 12 to 20 sets per muscle group per week.

[Louise Nicola]

And do you, would you suggest when you go to the gym, look, it's like I was mentioning to you offline, like just how crazy my week has been. I'm a bit disoriented because it's, you know, I live on the east coast, I'm on the west coast. It's just driving is a whole new, I feel like it's a whole new skill and so my time is limited. So would you suggest isolating muscle groups at the gym or would you suggest just for the average person who wants to increase muscle mass and strength, go do full body or maybe just do upper body one day, lower body one day.

[Ben]

You know, there's this traditional way that people go about it where they start beginners off with a full body two to three times a week.

[Louise Nicola]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And then as they get a little bit more proprioceptively, neurologically, metabolically oriented with the whole thing, then we kind of start specializing and start splitting things up. I'm cool with that. I think that's a fine way to go about it because as you are able to put more effort into training various body parts, then it can be pretty taxing the prospect of training the entire body in a single training pout. And so what most people settle in on is not necessarily most people. Some people love their full body training things. So I would preface, take a couple steps back and preface this by saying you should do what you like and prefer and look forward to. But some people are not going to love the idea of training the full body in a single workout. They will much prefer doing something like an upper body, lower body, upper body, lower body, sort of alternating type of split, um, and There are other people still who would do even further splits where you isolate the muscle groups even further. And through the course of the week where you're just training one or two body parts in a given workout, almost like, you know, what the bodybuilders in the 90s used to do. Now thankfully, the state of the evidence on frequency of training a given muscle group per week shows that is the least important factor. It's almost the equivalent of protein distribution compared to, you know, hitting the daily total. So hitting the weekly total for volume, for set volume, you've accomplished the cake getting frequency, right? Like how many times you hit that muscle group in the course of the week, that is the icing on the cake. That should be individualized. And kind of by default, people with greater total weekly volumes, they're kind of defaulted to splitting the body up more because for example, most people at the intermediate level and in the working world who have like recreational goals with, with muscle gain, but they're pretty serious about it, they can top out at somewhere between, let's say 12 and 16 sets per muscle group per week. Now it's much easier to hit six to eight sets per muscle group in a given workout than it is to cram all of that into a single session. So they're almost defaulted to it being much more productive for them to hit those and split up in at two different workouts in the week for that given muscle group. Whereas somebody who's just minimal effective dose, you know, 3 to 6ish. I can do all this in a single single workout. So bam.

[Louise Nicola]

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[Health and Supplement Expert]

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[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

I think a lot of people are black and white, so for example, if you wanted to do dumbbell flies, you could do dumbbell flies in a full body workout to backtrack. I think one one thing that I'm pretty adamant about for most regular people that aren't gym heads is full body training over body part splits. So body part splits would be like chest day, back day, shoulder day, arm day, leg day, or it could just be like an upper body day in a lower body day alternating. Or it could be a push pull, leg split. There's a lot of different splits. I tend to focus on full body and there are a Lot of reasons for that. Main me it's based in the fact that I don't have a single client with a 9 to 5 job or a regular schedule with me. And we tend to schedule day to day. So when you don't know when people are coming, a full body split just makes the most sense. And then in my own training I don't like to have, have to stick to a rigid schedule and work out these days I like to just on the days I'm busy I'll skip my own workout and on the days I have more time I'll work out. And I feel like full body just gives me a lot more flexibility in my own life. So it's mainly based in practicality. But I think there's actually a lot of research showing that full body is amazing for both increasing muscle mass and strength because we tend to do best hitting a muscle group two or three times a week. Which full body is more conducive to that than a body part split. And then also, you know, for practical reasons, most men that I know hate doing a full leg day. Just, just doing one or two moves in a full body workout is much more palatable. And on the flip side, a lot of women don't want to do a full arm day or upper body day. And, and so I think full body just lends itself to. Most people seem to like it better once they adjust. And it also doesn't create as much soreness you're not doing in a full body workout. You're really only doing one exercise per body part per workout. So you're creating a good strength and muscle stimulus without a lot of excessive fatigue or soreness.

[Louise Nicola]

Yeah, I agree with that. Generally I get very confused when I see the data that comes out of for example Peter Attia who states that most women should be able to lift half their body weight for farmers carries or be able to dead hang for I think it's around one minute, half

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

your body weight in each hand, half

[Louise Nicola]

your body weight split into two. So yeah, so if you're 100 kilos then that's pretty high.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

I mean the hang thing, I think research based people that don't train clients, the standards are a little inflated. I don't know very many women that could hang for a minute. And I trained some badasses. That's tough.

[Louise Nicola]

Jessica Beals has actually been in the media lately for having the perfect back, the musculature of her back and I've seen it and I envy that. And you mentioned that she's Doing a lot of, lot of pull ups. Correct.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

Yeah. Jess can do pull ups. We've never done those prolonged hangs. I, I see no problem with them. So I don't want to fear monger and say that they're bad or anything. We just don't really do them. But I would say for any women listening to this that feel bad that they can't hang for a minute, that's a really high standard.

[Louise Nicola]

That's me.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

Now I will say, I, I don't know exactly. Anyone specific reasoning? I don't ever like to go after people. I think that a lot of these things that I see when, like I've seen stuff like your grip strength is correlated longevity. I trained this guy for a long time, he was in his early 60s, but he saw this study that if you could do 40 pushups, it's correlated to a longer lifespan. So he was hell bent on being able to do 40 consecutive push ups. I read the study and I thought, well, it's the whole correlation and causation thing. I think that people that can do 40 pushups are probably stronger and healthier overall. But it has nothing to do with the push ups. But then that's the thing as a trainer where I, I like to pick and choose my battles and I thought push ups are a great move. So if he really wants to practice this goal once a week, I'm not going to like die on that hill of saying we can't. So we did it. But I think that a lot of this stuff, talking about grip strength or push ups as a proxy for longevity, have less to do about the push ups and the grip strength and more to do with your overall health and just strength.

[Louise Nicola]

Are you finding that a lot of women are coming to you or men as well with these? I just saw this on Instagram and this is what I think I need to be doing.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

Not in my in person training business but in my online app clientele. Yes. There's a very big disconnect between real world fitness, the people that hire trainers and the people that just live online and get all their stuff online. I feel like the type of people that hire trainers for the most part think I want to be fit, but I don't really know that much about this area. So I'm just going to listen.

[Louise Nicola]

Yeah.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

And just show up and do the work and, and most of my clients care to be fit but they don't care to get into the weeds on the details like we're hashing out. So the way that I talk to you is very different than how I talk to my clients. You could go online and find a lot of other experts that say the polar opposite to what I'm telling you. And so I think as a consumer, it's pretty tricky. I think you just have to find someone's philosophy that jibes with you and. And roll with it. But you can, you know, if you. I think if you, you know, like, when little kids, like, will get, like, one answer from their mom that they don't want, then they'll go ask the dad, like, in training, you could do that. Since I've been around, eggs have been healthy and unhealthy for you, like, 40 different times. You know, I don't really know where it currently stands. It's like, you know, it just kind of the common stuff just vacillates. And I think at a certain point, I always joke in Food World because I'm. I care about nutrition insofar as I want to be healthy and I don't want to get too dumpy, but I just don't really care that much, to be honest, not nearly as much as I care about training. So I always say that when it comes to food research, I just side with whatever studies support the foods I like. And I say that jokingly, but it's kind of true. At a certain point with training nutrition, you just have to find something that jibes with you and just roll with it, because I think you can. You know, it's much better to just have a plan and stick to it than just hop around. And the Internet makes it very easy. If you know somebody that does my app, if they follow 20 trainers, they could just be scrolling and then see, like this. This guy says exactly the opposite of what Ben said, or this woman says something different and should I be doing this? And the answer is a lot of things work. And then I think it's also important online when you're following health professionals, to see who's actually doing it with real people and who's just sitting behind their phone or computer just making shit up for views.

[Louise Nicola]

I think the Instagram culture now when it comes to fitness is people believing that they need to do these certain principles which goes into the biohacking world, right? The hyperbaric oxygen, all of that. And. And I think all of these principles and biohacks and external technology and modalities are fit for a LeBron James, someone who is going to get marginal differences in their gains where 1% really means something. If you really honestly look at it, a who's Got time for hyperbaric oxygen chambers B, who's got the money for that? Because it's really expensive. You have to sit in there and you're stuck in there for an hour, not to mention getting to and from a location. Thirdly, you look at, I love getting into a red light bed. That takes a lot of time. And is that really going to push the needle forward for me in terms of longevity? No. But I'm doing it as an experiment for something specific. Hey everyone, I want to take a

[Health and Supplement Expert]

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[Louise Nicola]

products that are sold online.

[Health and Supplement Expert]

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[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

I'm actually curious, the red light, your thoughts? Because I have one. I have this full body red light. I've used it like one time in ten years because it. I, you know, I read about all these benefits and you know, it's the full length of the door. You're supposed to like stand in front of it, like naked and then turn the other way for 20 minutes. And I'm like, logistically, like, this just feels exactly. I feel fucking stupid standing in front of this. And then also when I am in a room with red light for like 20 to 40 minutes after I see these rings and it just. I'm like, I'm good on this.

[Louise Nicola]

Yeah.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

What does it even do?

[Louise Nicola]

Yeah, it's so. I love that question. Because I'm doing something. I'm actually laying down in a red light bed. So the wavelengths are so much stronger than what you and I have at home. Because I also have a panel.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

Yeah.

[Louise Nicola]

And I'm doing it for two things. So there has actually been human evidence to show that it can cut through the skin and penetrate the superficial organs, which can induce something called mitochondrial biogenesis, which means it's going to help with your mitochondria, help them to function better. I'm not doing it for that. I consider myself very healthy in that aspect. I'm doing it for skin health benefits. Just to see if it's actually going to really stimulate collagen production. Because we've seen it in both human and rat studies. And I think to myself, if I just have. Have that 20 minutes a day where I can just stand there, is my face. Is the skin going to change?

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

So that's, that's compelling to me because I, I will be honest. I. I think as a dude, until probably last year, I didn't. My skincare routine was like, I had a two in one shampoo and conditioner that's also a four in one. Cause it was a face wash and a body wash and I just use it for everything.

[Louise Nicola]

That's such a God thing.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

And then the last year or two, I've started noticing on myself, I think everyone's insecure to some degree, but I've started not like wrinkles on my forehead here. I've worn sunscreen like less than 10 times in my life and I'm yeah, and they're all recent because I'm like I got to start paying attention to this.

[Louise Nicola]

So that's one thing that people are looking at thinking I need to be putting that into my, my, my weekly routine. And it's not most women and men, if they're in their 40s, let's just say most general population aren't training for anything specific. They're just training for health performance. They're not training for a triathlon. So they just need the regular maybe two to three full body strength training sessions per week and throw in some cardio sessions there. They don't need to be particular on my VO2 max training, my zone 2 training, my deltoids, my this, my that. They just need to get it done. And I think there's a lot of noise in that area and it upsets me. It upsets me a lot because I'm actually, I feel like I'm stuck in the middle. As a scientist I see and read the research and I then educate on that and I disseminate the science. But I too am just a regular person as well. At the end of the day, I'm not training for anything specific. I'm not training for body composition, body shows, whatever you want to call them.

[Personal Trainer or Fitness Coach]

Yeah, yeah.

[Louise Nicola]

Not training for just really just training to be the strongest and the healthiest and to feel good. And it actually, if you look at the literature, it doesn't recommend that much for longevity benefits. You don't have to pound yourself in the gym for four hours a day.

[Bone Health Expert]

There is not an age when lifting weights is not going to positively affect your bones, even if you've never lifted a weight in your life. Let's start with body weight. Let's retrain our neuromuscular pathways. Let's progressively overload. I mean there are lots of anecdotal stories all over social media and in my life about people have just picked up weights in their 60s and 70s because muscle attached to bone will pull on bone as will jumping. Whether you're jumping in the water, jumping on a trampoline, jumping on terra firma, that mechanical impact is turned into biochemical signals to build more bone.

[Louise Nicola]

There was a really famous study out of New Zealand, I forget her name, but Beck. Beck. She took a group of middle aged women and she got them to jump for 10 minutes three times a week and she took, I think it was 10 minutes but she took women in 10 weeks who were osteopenic to normal bone density.

[Coach or Trainer]

Yep.

[Bone Health Expert]

Jumping will do it. Beck did a study called the liftmore study that showed that osteoporotic women under supervision, lifting heavy five reps, five sets, could not only lift, but not break.

[Louise Nicola]

What about if there's going to be backlash from women saying, but I had three natural births, and every time I jumped up myself.

[Bone Health Expert]

Yeah, well, then let's address that.

[Louise Nicola]

Right.

[Bone Health Expert]

The pelvic floor is skeletal muscle. Most of us think that a Kegel is just bearing down so hard and squeezing our little sphincter. A Kegel and pelvic floor retraining can be done. I mean, they're actual. I work with a pelvic floor therapist and just this is off topic, but a Kegel well done is like a slurping motion and feeling pulling the muscles up, not just bearing down.

[Physiologist]

Right.

[Bone Health Expert]

So the pelvic floor, can a be retrained? I mean, we could talk about going from postpartum to perimenopause, which is what I did, and what we need to do to get our bodies back optimized. But if you have prolapse, and I get that, but we have to do what we can do. And so if you can't jump because literally everything's falling out, well, then let's lift some weights. Let's eat a high protein diet. 50 of bone is collagen, which is protein. Yeah, let's do all the things.

[Louise Nicola]

So are you saying that this whole Zone 2 movement was actually built on culture and not science?

[Exercise Scientist]

I. When it comes to the general public, like the. The application that we're now taking from endurance athletes and trying to apply it to just everyone for general health, I think that, yes, it's a cultural movement, and it's not based on science. Even in the endurance, we don't have many. So this was a big conclusion from our review was that we really don't have any evidence for Zone 2 exercise or Zone 2 training studies to say that it's eliciting these mitochondrial adaptations that apparently the whole online world thinks that it's doing. And you'll see everywhere, like, oh, you do zone two training to improve your mitochondria? There's very limited evidence for that. And then when you compare what evidence is available to higher intensities, higher intensities always wins. If you're gonna do an equal bout of, like, the same training volume or the same volume of exercise at a lower intensity versus a higher intensity, you're gonna get a more Potent signal for mitochondrial adaptations with that higher intensity.

[Louise Nicola]

Yeah, I've always believed that too. And it makes sense physiologically when you actually understand how are we producing energy. And we'll go into that. But I think one of the main reasons why people, women especially, are somewhat gearing towards Zone two is a. It's effortless. It's been marketed as just get on the treadmill light. You know, you'd be able to hold a conversation with somebody else, generally at that 60 to 65% of your maximum heart rate. Which is in and of itself controversial because who on earth knows what that is without a true VO2 max or VO2 peak understanding what their measurement is. Right. So how do you know when you're on a treadmill that you're going at that pace? So it's generally marketed as, you know, break a switch, sweat, but also maintain a conversation. So a lot of people are doing this because they want to get into that fat burning zone. So Zone two is sold as a fat burning zone. You burn more fat during zone two, is that correct?

[Exercise Scientist]

Relatively, yes. But the energy expenditure of Zone 2 is just absolutely lower than you would be at a higher intensity. And you're still gonna be burning fat at a higher intensity. You're just now contributing more from carbohydrates as well to supplement energy demand. And then eventually you do reach a high enough intensity where fat oxidation goes down and carbohydrate oxidation goes up. But yeah, so relatively, you're burning more fat in Zone 2, but it doesn't mean that you just like shut off fat metabolism when you go into higher intensities. And this is actually something that even within the exercise science community is not really talked about, because at high intensities, you're still actually breaking down adipose tissue. So we think that we reach this certain intensity where fat oxidation goes down and carbohydrate takes over. However, when you look at like glycerol levels in your blood at high intensities, glycerol is a marker that you're breaking down triglycerides and that goes up. And then after exercise, triglycerides go up in the blood because. Or non esterified fatty acids rise after exercise once blood flow resumes to our splenic, like our splenic blood flow, and now they're released into the blood. So all of this is to say is that we're actually still breaking down fat during high intensity. It's just like trapped inside our adipose tissue until we stop exercise and then it enters the bloodstream we think of high intensity as like, oh, we're just burning carbs, but our body is still breaking down fat and releasing it just after exercise.

[Health and Supplement Expert]

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[Louise Nicola]

I mean, you've got different doctors, different

[Health and Supplement Expert]

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[Louise Nicola]

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[Health and Supplement Expert]

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[Louise Nicola]

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[Louise Nicola]

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[Health and Supplement Expert]

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[Louise Nicola]

So I want you to imagine I'm a 15 year old right now. Okay, I want you to explain. So when somebody gets off a treadmill and they say, I just did my one hour of zone two training, what are they actually doing?

[Exercise Scientist]

I mean, it depends on if they're actually doing zone two because there's a high chance that they're not in zone two. So one big observation I've made over the years working in our excise lab is that moderately active, even like recreationally active, semi trained people have very low lactate thresholds. And if they were to get on a treadmill and start running even at like a very low pace, like a slow pace, they may very well be above zone 2. So I actually just don't think people are doing zone two. If they're like running on a bike. It's probably easier to stay in zone two because it's just easier to go at a lower intensity. But so zone two could be just like a brisk walk for somebody.

[Louise Nicola]

Depends on how fit you are for sure.

[Exercise Scientist]

Yeah, yeah.

[Louise Nicola]

By the way, I want to interject here. I consider myself semi fit, right? I, I was very fit back in my day. I was a, I was a triathlete, right? We did a lot of like lactate testing, a lot of zone 2 and a lot of VO2 max testing nowadays. Me, I do, if I was to test my lactate levels getting on a bike, let me tell you, just like it shoots up, my lactate will shoot up to like 2.9 just with one push. I think to myself, how do other people who are less fit than me think they're doing zone two, right? When they're probably theoretically in that domain, maybe two, as you mentioned earlier, or in probably three, zone three and four. And that's, I don't even know what you're doing in those zones, but I know for sure it's not that Zone two.

[Exercise Scientist]

Yeah. And I mean from my perspective, I'm like happy about that because I would rather someone exercise for an hour in Zone 3 than Zone 2, just based on how we adapt to exercise in an intensity dependent manner.

[Louise Nicola]

Okay, so that's so funny that you said that. Now there's a lot of exercise physiologists right now on social media, which is amazing. And there's so much controversy between for some reason the males. Right. And the females, which should not be that way.

[Exercise Scientist]

Right.

[Louise Nicola]

We will go into sex specific differences. However, you've got this, you know, one female exercise physiologist who is saying get out of zone three and four because they are the zones that are producing all the cortisol. And this is why you shouldn't be going to orange theory or doing HIIT classes.

[Exercise Scientist]

Right.

[Louise Nicola]

But you're saying that you'd rather somebody be in that zone three and zone four or domain two, as you said. Why is that?

[Exercise Scientist]

When we look at meta analysis for mitochondrial adaptation specifically. So if we're thinking about mitochondrial content. So we want to grow more mitochondria obviously with exercise and we want them

[Louise Nicola]

to become less dysfunctional, correct? Yeah.

[Exercise Scientist]

Meta analyses show that there might even be a minimum intensity for which you need to accumulate volume over for you to experience like an increase in mitochondrial content. And I fear that Zone 2 might be below that minimum or be in that minimum intensity where like you're just accumulating volume but it's not actually doing anything. And that volume matters when you're at higher intensities. In my opinion, based on these meta analyses or meta analysis specifically, there's one I'm thinking of a lot of women

[Louise Nicola]

are, and, and men, you know, like, let's just say in that age bracket of around 40 to 55 and they've been told you need to train for 20 minutes a week to increase your zone 2, to increase your VO2 max. And then you need to train, you know, in zone two three to four hours. And then you need to do your resistance training. So everybody doesn't understand that you need to be. It's individualized. Like what are you training for? If you're training for a marathon or you're training for fertility. Two completely different training programs. But what you're saying is for overall health and longevity. I think that's what you're talking about, right? Because we're talking about mitochondrial adaptation.

[Exercise Scientist]

Okay.

[Louise Nicola]

Mitochondrial biogenesis. Are you saying that we should be, if that's the whole sole purpose, we should be sticking to more zone four, zone five.

[Exercise Scientist]

I just think that we're over complicating exercise prescription. I for someone in the general public that's exercising maybe 30 to 60 minutes, not even every day. Like think most people are maybe exercising like four days a week and if they're doing 80 of that and like let's say their cardio, maybe they lift two days of those and then they have four days of cardio. If they're doing 80 of that in zone two, I don't think it's going to be doing much for promoting adaptation because that's such a small volume where they would benefit more from having some probably intervals and then supplementing that with if they want to do, if you want to do continuous exercise, I think people need to feel more comfortable with zone three and zone four because I think that that is, people think of it as like this gray zone or like this no man's land because it's like incurring stress without adaptation or something. I don't know, I don't actually know the argument, but I, I think it's a good zone. I do think that it's all just a spectrum. The closer we get to that high intensity, the better. But then we'll have to do intervals. So you have to be, if you want to do continuous exercise, if you want to go for a 10k run, then you're going to have to stay at a lower intensity. But if you're in zone three or zone four, it doesn't matter. Who cares? Um, so I think that we're just over complicating the, in the need for this like period periodization or this training intensity distribution for members of the general public. If you're an elite athlete. I don't think this conversation like applies to you. I, I think we're talking about someone like you and me who care about health and we have like maybe an hour to dedicate to exercise a day. And in that case I think just pushing yourself like one, I think you need to be doing what you enjoy because you're never going to stick to something long term for the rest of your life, which I, I think everyone needs to do exercise for the rest of their life. So you need to find something that you'll actually stick to. Two, we need to add in resistance training into there, in there somewhere. So we're not just speaking cardio. So if we only have like a select few days to do cardio, then go hard. Like don't, I don't think any of that has to be dedicated to zone two. And when I say go hard, it's go hard for how you feel that day. Like don't deliberately stick to a low intensity because someone told you online or you read it in a book that, like, oh, I have to do Zone two training for my mitochondria. I think you should always just go as hard as you can for that day. And if you're only doing cardio, like, three to four days a week, I don't think we have to worry about recovery. Like, you can do Zone three plus every time you do do cardio where people think like, oh, you can only handle one or maybe two hit sessions a week where that's not true. Like, even from a glycogen depletion standpoint and like, recovery standpoint, uh, there was a study that did used to the 3 intensity domain. So there was a moderate intensity, which is like zone two, a heavy intensity, which is the three, four, and then a severe. So that's your. Your VO2 max. Yeah. In zone, um, and they exercised them to fatigue the severe intensity. They didn't even really deplete that much glycogen because you're only exercising for, like, minutes. Like maybe like eight minutes. They could last not even that. In the heavy intensity domain, they fatigued at around, like, 40 minutes and they depleted a good amount of glycogen. But it was really interesting, the zone 2. So in the modern intensity domain, they. They fatigued at, like 240 minutes. So it was like a really long bed of exercise. But they, like, dramatically decreased their glycogen stores, which we think of Zone two as, like, not depleting glycogen, but you do actually deplete glycogen. So I was thinking about this just today, like, on the subway, coming here. I was like, like, we think about Zone two as not really needing that much recovery. But according to that study, like, you're depleting a lot of glycogen.

[Louise Nicola]

It makes sense. Physiologically.

[Exercise Scientist]

Well, yeah, you're exercising for, like, a lot, like, a long time. Like, you're burning mostly fat, but, like, if the duration's long enough, you're still gonna. You're still gonna be burning carbs.

[Physiologist]

I would start off by saying that I completely agree with everything that you put in that Instagram reel. I think that sometimes. Sometimes social media is like, it's a fun. It's a funny neighborhood because. Because they don't have to come up to you in person and be like, louisa, I don't like what you said, and this is why. But people can read that. And I was saying to you off air before we started, they can be. If they identify as a walker or maybe they're wearing a weighted vest and they're walking or maybe they have a walking group that they're a part of and you say hey, walking is not the optimal way to build muscle. Instead of hearing what is just fact, they start to get in their feelings a little bit. So people can get insulted and say, I can't believe that you are insulting my lifestyle. Like, I walk. This is what I love to do. And in your message, I didn't hear or I didn't see the message don't walk. It's make sure that if you are limited on time that you are making sure that the strength training is happening somewhere between two to four times a week. You're sprinting maybe once a week, maybe twice a week. And if you're by the the way, if you're short on time, sprint training, one of the, it's your in and like you're one and done in like 16, maybe 20 minutes, you know, tops. So I think that these are excellent ways, especially if you're short on time, to preserve muscle tissue. Because your muscle tissue, as you age we see a change in volume. So you see a decrease generally if you're not being strategic like doing the strength training or the sprinting, you will see a decrease in volume of total muscle as you age, but you also see a change in, in quality of the muscle. So there tends to be, as we age, we tend to be a little bit more sedentary. And even though you might be walking, you're still more sedentary than maybe you were when you were 25 or 35 or 45. There's fatty infiltration of the muscle. So now the, one of the, I mean there's many functions of muscle and we can get into it. But one of the, one of the benefits from a metabolic perspective is that it is a very efficient glucose sink, meaning that it will almost like a sponge, sop up extra glucose from the plasma. If you've consumed carbohydrates or you know, you've, you've just had a really big workout. For example, like your, your muscles have the ability to take up glucose in both an insulin dependent and independent way. Like this is really what's cool about muscle is the presence of insulin does, is not required. Your muscles can take up glucose insulin independently and dependently. So so as your quality of muscle changes as there's a fatty infiltration, let's say through being more sedentary and not strength training, the amount of insulin that needs to be secreted now in order to shove literally glucose into the cell is much higher. So it is very important that we are engaging in activity that directly impacts. And we can talk about the difference between type one and type two muscle fibers. But for women, we lose. And this is true for men too. We lose type 2 muscle fibers first. These are our fast twitch muscle fibers, the slow twitch or the type one. These are the, you know, when you're going for a walk, or maybe you are gardening or you're doing housework, like, these are the muscle fibers that are active in sort of lower level or lower intensity activities. And so these are gonna be primary. You know, they go through, you know, they will use beta oxidation. So they're primarily using fat as their fuel because the intensity is quite low. So they can afford to dip into your fat stores, break that up through beta oxidation and then. And you're able to do your activities that you're choosing to. When you are doing things like strength training. This is an explosive style for, you know, you get down into a squat, you have to find a way to get back up. So you are utilizing these type 2 muscle fibers. Same is true with sprinting. It's an incredibly explosive activity. And so if you're not careful, starting even in your early 30s, you start to lose like 3 to 8% of your type 2 fibers.

[Louise Nicola]

And let me tell you, I feel it mid-30s, but I can't box jump anymore the way that I used to right when I was 21. So we lose muscle as we age, and muscle is a storage sink for glucose. So basically what that means is as we're eating, let's just say a donut or anything really, when, if we've got more muscle mass, we have a better ability to what's like, get rid of that glucose. Like what?

[Physiologist]

Yeah, so the carbohydrate will break down, you cleave all the carbon bonds, it turns into glucose. And then your muscles are able to essentially sop that up. So they're able to bring the glucose into the cell and then the cell is able to now use glucose as a precursor for energy. Right. So, so producing ATP. So this is done, as I mentioned, insulin in muscle with insulin or without insulin. Right. It's like the U2 song, like with or without you. Right. Which is really lovely because as we age, we just as a natural function of aging, we become more insulin insensitive. So the pancreas has to continuously pump up more or pump out more and more insulin in order to get the glucose to move into the cell. So when you are strength training or Sprinting, literally within hours, you are going to change your muscle's capacity to soak up that glucose, bring it into the cell and make energy. And that lasts for, you know, depends on how well trained you are, but something like 24 to 48 hours. So you can very quickly do a little bit of rough math and say, okay, so if I'm strength training two to three times per week and I have a 48 hour post exercise rise in my capacity to dispose of glucose dose, and I'm doing that three times a week, it's like I've got myself covered for the week. Right.

[Louise Nicola]

And that goes back to the walking, because when you're strength training, you're also increasing bone mass.

[Health and Supplement Expert]

Right.

[Louise Nicola]

Bone density.

[Physiologist]

So, yes.

[Health and Supplement Expert]

What actually.

[Louise Nicola]

So women lose bone mineral density as they age because we have estrogen receptors on the bone. Correct. And that.

[Physiologist]

Correct, yes.

[Louise Nicola]

So obviously as we're weight training, you're pulling on the muscle, which pulls on the tendon, which pulls on the bone, which you create stronger bones, which is, by the way, what we need. If we're building fat for, you know, let's just say we're building muscle for. And bone for when we're 80 is going to help us get up out of a chair, be more mobile and prevent us from falling, which is, I think, what the number one cause of death over the age of 80 or the second.

[Physiologist]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is, it is a major category for sure, for not being able to live independently anymore. And I think just as a point of clarity, when we're thinking about estrogen and its, and its function on bone. So estrogen is generally an anabolic hormone, so it's involved in growth, just like testosterone. They're both anabolic hormones. And one of the things that estrogen does specifically when it comes to bone is it tampers down a certain type of bone cell called an osteoclast. So there's two types of bones. There's an osteoblast, which is a bone builder, and an osteoclast which resorbs the bone so it breaks it down. Estrogen will almost like hammer down osteoclastic activity. So in midlife, as we start to lose our estrogen, the hold, the chokehold, if you will, that it has on osteoclasts begins to weaken. So we start to see a general increase in osteoclastic activity, which is now when we think about the balance between osteoblasts and clasts, we start to see, you know, the scales tipping unfavorably for us, which is why it is so important. This is one of the things that one of the benefits of hrt. Right. So when we are taking estradiol or estrogen as hormone replacement therapy, that can help augment or slow down bone loss. The other thing that I think is really important to pair that with is impact. So as you mentioned, the strength training pulls on the muscle, which is the tendon. The muscle turns into a tendon and the tendon attaches to the bone. We pull in the bone, we have fibroblast growth fact, all these things that are going to help positive bone turnover. And our bones are like full body scales. When you are doing box jumps or sprinting, let's say on a track or on a treadmill or something, your bones can feel that weight and they will pause, they will naturally upregulate osteoblasts. So the bone growing cells. This is why we need impact as well. So you can't do impact every day. Right. This is not, you're not, we're not guys. We're, you know, women are distinct in many ways from men. And we want to be thinking about at least something like once a week where we are thinking about impact. So that might be a weighted vest. If you are a walker with your weighted vest, that might be jumping with your weighted vest.

[Louise Nicola]

Now, do I have to jump with weights? Because there was a really great study that I actually put out there which showed that, that women who were osteopenic just jumped. I, I don't know how they were jumping, but it was calisthenics. It was not probably just body weight. And so women who jumped three times a week for 10 minutes went from osteopenic to normal bone mineral density.

[Physiologist]

How fantastic is that?

[Health and Supplement Expert]

Yeah.

[Physiologist]

How amazing are our bodies? So you don't need to jump with weights. So I would actually, so I would say generally if someone's listening to this, like, oh my God, now I gotta, I gotta sprint with a weighted vest. That's not what I'm saying. We always want to think about, and this is true for weightlifting as well, form first before load. You always want to think about executing whatever activity you're doing, whether it's jumps, sprints, box jumps, squats, lunges, deadlifts, whatever. Form has to be pristine. And then we progress to load, then we can put some weights in your hands, then we might put a weighted vest on, et cetera. But you can, as you just mentioned, with your own body weight, you can completely change the trajectory of your bone mineral density.

[Coach or Trainer]

Chemotherapy, radiotherapy different medications that they're going to make the person much weaker. And so adding sustainability to an exercise program is very important. And zone two is it adds that sustainability for these patients.

[Louise Nicola]

What I personally do is I just maintain my four minutes on, four minutes off protocol by four times once a week right now. And this is more of a maintenance stage of my VO2 max. If I want to increase it, maybe I can do maybe two of those sessions a week.

[Coach or Trainer]

Yeah, I think like in that respect, I mean definitely there are many variations.

[Physiologist]

Right.

[Coach or Trainer]

Of high intensity glycolytic training and depends on which bioner objectives you want to stimulate according to your sport. When it comes to health span longevity, I, I think it as long as you touch that energy system, you're going to be fine. That's what I think. You know, you need to do like a few times a week somewhere between 20, 30, 40 minutes a week. And if you do that in, in whatever different versions of, you know, like as you say, four by four or you can do like you know, like a lower intensity, but maybe 10 minutes of high, of a total high intensity, I think that's as long as you touch that energy system, you're going to stimulate that glycolytic system. And I think it's going to be good for you that with elite athletes we have very specific prescribed exercise intensity in power output or in heart rates and different durations as well. Depends on the event event. For healthspan and general population, I would say that it's quite general as long as you stimulate that whatever you think you, you feel more comfortable with with that 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15. That's my suggestion.

[Louise Nicola]

And, and then resistance training.

[Coach or Trainer]

Yeah. And resistance as we know is key, right. To, to preserve muscle mass. And that's something that, that we all should do regardless of the age. Well, as long as we're adults, of course. But I think yeah, and the research shows that two days a week should be fine. Right. For most people. And I think that, yeah, it's just like as you said at the beginning, Most of the work maybe in zone two, then 20 to 40 minutes or 20, 30 minutes in that high intensity and to leave some time during the week for resistance training that I think two days a week should be important. I think that one day a week is not going to cut it in the long term. I think two days a week are pretty good. And three times a week my take time from other activities in our busy agendas. And I don't think that for general purposes, healthspan in this case or longevity from 2 to 3 is going to be a big jump in my humble opinion. I think two should be enough.

[Louise Nicola]

Yeah.

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