And welcome back. Today we're going to be talking about exercise. So, exercise is a necessary component for a true lifestyle change, workouts and nutrition can be powerful tools on your road to better health. Many people unfortunately begin an exercise regimen and effort to maybe drop a few pounds. And more often than not, once they reach their goal, they just stop. And then slowly the weight comes back on.

And then you set a new goal start up again and it becomes this repetitive cycle here. Some people may never even reach that initial goal. And this can be due to multiple reasons it could be due to lack of direction it could be due to not being properly informed on how and when to train, or it could just be intimidation and these leads to sedentary lifestyles that in turn negatively affect ourselves in a big way. Today, many health professionals are saying sitting is the new smoking and Americans are sitting on average 13 hours a day. So getting And being active has many advantages. And as long as you start taking advantage of them, they're yours for the taking.

So let's talk about some of the benefits other than weight loss that come with increased physical activity. So you'll have increased energy levels, it'll put you in a happier frame of mind. To increase your focus. It'll give you a more positive attitude. It'll make you stronger and it can boost memory and thinking skills. Regularly working out can lead to the creation of new blood vessels in the brain, especially in the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory.

And the more blood supply to the brain means a better functioning brain. Working out also releases endorphins and these are chemicals in the brain that are responsible for happier moods while dampening stress hormones like cortisol. exercise can help control cravings as well as increased physical activity leads to the release of hormones that are responsible Over feeling satiated and the major one for that is known as Gremlin. Eye Sun is known to resume to reduce stress levels. Regular exercise can also help extend your life. One study found that routine exercise can increase your lifespan up to four and a half years.

Regular physical activity is associated with better decision making and executive function which can be helpful because we're making hundreds of decisions every day. exercise can help improve sleep quantity and sleep quality. So a 16 week study found that those who consistently exercised had better quality of sleep and slept on average 75 minutes longer than those who didn't exercise at all. So let's look at exercise from a prehistoric perspective a bit. So movement and exercise have always been linked to survivability and today, survivability would mean more longer lifespan. Regular exercise has also been linked to things like improved well being and decrease morbidity Throughout the history of human human existence, in ancient times, humans needed to feet flee, fight, forage, migrate and punt, and this was just for survival.

But today, we don't have those same worries on a day to day basis. So today, many of us aren't going to die of hunger and food is just a short drive away to get to your closest supermarket or grocery store. So because this is so convenient, it actually limits the amount of energy we need to expend to survive. And one of the biggest modifiable risk factors today for both mortality and morbidity is obesity. And 66% of Americans are either considered overweight or obese. So as a result, the need of exercise.

Many of our hunter gatherer ancestors did not experience many of the chronic diseases that are commonplace today, things like obesity, chronic illnesses, type two diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases and others these were not commonplace. In the times of our earliest ancestors, metabolism and exercise are still heavily imprinted into human physiology. It is now on us the modern humans to restore that balance. So again, the earliest days of humans we were always moving and the majority of early humans predominantly did some sort of low intensity exercise. And this included just walking and carrying tools and weapons, babies food clothing, about 10 miles a day, it's estimated the average baby might have been carried almost 1000 miles over the first two years of life. They also did some forms of moderate intensity exercise.

And this was not in the form of say like a daily jog or run on the park, but it was instead runs after game trying to Animals are dancing and dancing in many of these prehistoric cultures were known to last somewhere between one and four hours. High Intensity exercises also happened a few days a week in the lives of hunter gatherers, and they were in the forms of hunting, lifting and hauling large objects. And due to the variety of activities they need to perform to just survive, you can say that our ancestors participated in something of their own kind of cross training per se. So all this hiking and walking, running, jumping, lifting, hauling, throwing, all these things were necessary for survival. And now we look at today after accounting for body weight. It's estimated that the modern day human expense 38% of the energy our hunter gatherer predecessors did on a daily basis.

So let's put this in perspective. Today, the average human would have to walk an extra 12 miles per day on top of what they're already doing. To reach the energy expenditure of the early hunter gatherers. Additionally, leaders who recommend people reach certain levels of activity someone like some group, like the American College of Sports Medicine recommends roughly 44% less exercise than the average hunter gatherer on a day to day basis. So the times the needs of humans have changed over time, obviously, we are not in a threat of dying from famine anytime soon. So when we're looking at the data presented on our ancestors, the modern day humans are left in a little bit of a conundrum.

So how are people motivated to perform an activity that is not required for survival, and is both time consuming and not enjoyable too many. Time is actually the main reason that many people do not exercise on a regular basis. But once you're able to carve out an appropriate amount of time and this is going to be discussed later on. How can you exercise in an efficient enough manner to see results and mimic the crowd? training, nature and caloric expenditure of our ancestors. But first, we need to gain a new perspective on movement and exercise in the framework of the modern day.

If you have been inactive for a while, it would be wise to get some direction. So working with a fitness trainer can be helpful because he or she is gonna create a program that will be challenging but appropriate based on your level of fitness. proper guidance early in the process will help you put your best foot forward. And it'll also help you prevent potential frustration or injury which will again lead to that cycle stopping. For some people, baby steps may be the best way to start. And in some cases, it may just mean taking a daily walk.

So it may be wise to invest in a pedometer. And all these things do is count the amount of steps you take per day. There are many of these now that you can link to your smartphone and there's very easy and straightforward to set up. Now when you're starting, it's important to remember goal setting is key, you want to set goals, schedule the time into your day. And then the best part is obviously just making it happen. And like we said, you could start with short walks, and then add time making them longer walks.

And it's really important that you stay consistent. consistency is key when it comes to exercise. Now, interestingly, there's a kind of irony that comes along with being busy and creating time to exercise. So oftentimes, when we get really busy at work or or with family life, the first thing to get tossed to the wayside is actually exercise. Now, the irony is that when we exercise we tend to be much more efficient and therefore less busy in the long run. So this is actually a new kind of way to think about exercise that if you are more active you, you'll be able to be more efficient and then create the downtime.

If you could block out even 30 minutes a day to fit in an exercise routine. You're going to be to reap the benefits of boosted efficiency both in your home and work environments, regular exercise improves quality sleep, which means you're gonna wake up more rested and less groggy. Therefore, it's time to for you to reverse your way of thinking because the busier you are, the more active you actually need to be. So when we're talking about exercise, there's four main pillars. There's muscle strengthening, aerobic activity, flexibility and mobility, and then proper timing, and we're going to break each one of these down. weight bearing exercises or other forms of muscle strengthening are obviously a crucial part of an exercise regimen.

But why why are they so important? Well, of course, there's an aesthetic reason, but there are actually metabolic advantages to carrying more lean muscle mass. So think about this. One pound of muscle requires six calories of energy a day just to sustain itself. So that's not even using it for some sort of extracurricular purpose which This requirement is three times faster than that of that of that tissue. So therefore, we put it that way the more muscle you have, the more calories you can actually burn and this increases your ability to maintain a healthy weight.

Having more muscle tone also helps prevent insulin resistance within the muscle itself. And muscle is actually the primary area affected by insulin resistance. So free weight exercises when you go to the gym, they shouldn't be limited to people like football players or bodybuilders. Women, if you're a woman, please don't be discouraged because you should be doing free weight exercises and those are there for everybody to do. Again, muscle strengthening is a key component of a proper exercise regimen. Things like running hiking, jumping rope, climbing stairs, using resistance bands, calisthenics, polities yoga, these are all forms weight bearing exercise and what weight bearing exercise means it means you're forcing muscles to work against gravity and this work against gravity means you're building muscle.

So let's move on to aerobic activity. So, aerobic activity is defined as an activity that uses large muscle groups perform continuously in a rhythmic pattern. So the goal of aerobic exercise is to cause the heart and lungs to work harder than they normally do at rest. So things like jumping rope, running, biking, dancing, and cross country skiing are all examples of aerobic exercise. So if you consistently use aerobic training in that set, it will help you condition your body to a point but you're going to reach a plateau and the results will not continue unless you add variety to what you're doing. So mixing up the types of aerobic exercise will help you mitigate this effect.

Without varying exercises often enough muscles begin to lose some of that conditioning. This can lead to things like muscle atrophy and decreased muscle tone. So the bottom line if you're consistently doing the same thing, it is to your benefit to switch up your routine or increase the intensity or do both. And I suggest both. Additionally, you can switch your exercise to interval training, alternating between periods of higher intensity movements and lower intensity ones. So an example would be a 20 to 62nd bursts of an intense effort exercise somewhere between 80 to 100% effort followed by 30 seconds of complete rest.

And you can do this with a bunch of different exercises. So I encourage you to try a few and see which one's work best for you. So let's talk a little bit about flexibility and mobility. joints and muscles should be limber enough and able to go through their full ranges of motion pain free and this takes some effort. So in the case of athletes and those who live active lifestyles, it's crucial in helping prevent injuries. The best times to stretch are after a proper one.

And after you've completed your exercise routine for the day, some forms of yoga polities incorporate stretching into their routines already, along with mobility, aerobic and strength training. So these are great options. Being more mobile and flexible can ease many burdens of everyday life. So aside from increasing range of motion, which we talked about improved flexibility is also associated with balance and circulation improvement, and it can also help reduce stress levels. So there's a few things to keep in mind when stretching, you want to stretch to the point of mild tension and you definitely don't want to force a stretch, this could lead to injury. Stretching should be fluid and gentle.

You don't want to bounce or push yourself way too far into a stretch because again, this could lead to injury. You don't want to hold your breath while stretching either. Instead, you want to try to take long, controlled, deep belly breaths. It's also important to stretch throughout the day, especially if you work in This job and you want to stretch before bed at night. So the final pillar here is timing and timing is a crucial part of exercise. And an important element of timing is frequency.

Now this is important, it is far better to be active on a daily basis even if it's for shorter times each day, than to just exercise once a week or twice a week or just on weekends, something like that. consistency and frequency are paramount when it comes to building a successful exercise regimen. Working out sporadically is not going to get you the results you want. You want to build time into your daily schedule, and consistently stick to your program. This is the best way and the most efficient way to reach your goals. So to do this exercise must become a habit.

But when do you schedule it into your day? Well, research actually states that those who exercise in the morning are much more likely to keep it part of their schedule and stick with it long term. Being active in the morning also boosts material ableism for the first hours of the morning, and this puts you in a better mood at the beginning of the day. This might be a reason that many people who exercise in the morning tend to stick to their exercise protocols long term. If you can't exercise in the morning, just make sure that you don't exercise too late at night, because it can keep you up and prevent you from getting a deep quality sleep. So another important thing to talk about is the quality of your exercise.

So, without interpreting the data properly, one can easily come to the conclusion that just more is better, the more exercise you do is better. However, it's even more important to understand the benefits of proper quality and the quality of the movement is determined determined by the balance, range of motion and stability associated with the movement in an efficient manner as efficient as possible. We must start to look at the body as a chain of parts fully integrated into one unit. Individual exercise may be seen as an isolated movement, but actually, it's a complex and highly appropriated pattern and it consists of many neurological connections that are then translated into muscle action. So these movement patterns are the basis of exercise and the foundation for more complex patterns. So, if you don't have the appropriate Foundation, then you might not be able to reap all these benefits and it increases the chance of injury potential pain and dysfunctional movements.

Therefore, it is paramount proper form is used when exercising to gain the maximum possible benefits. You or your trainer are doing yourself a disservice if the plan focus more on immediately imposing an exercise plan with a high metabolic demand something known as a high intensity style workout without first developing a strong foundation of mobility and stability through basic movement patterns. So in other words, if you train too hard, too fast You can harm yourself in the long run, and you should be taking your time to develop proper technique. So it's really important that you take the time and develop these proper techniques. doing more movements may not necessarily be better if they're performed with poor mechanics, and in fact, they will only reinforce poor mechanics and increase the chance for injury down the road. So instead, we must learn to move properly before increasing the intensity of movement patterns used during exercise.

Throughout human development, neurologic and muscular systems are built as a single unit, and they're unable to be separated, they work in conjunction with each other. So movement should not be thought of in the form of an isolated anatomy, but rather an integrated system of movement patterns. So Gary cook, who's the physical therapist and the author of movement functional movement systems, compared computer hardware and computer software. To muscles in the nervous system so the software the neurological firing patterns informs the computer, the muscles, joints and ligaments, the hardware of what it is doing. So therefore, when we exercise, the focus should be placed on movement patterns and more importantly the quality of them as opposed to the quantity, the brain does not see exercises in the form of individual muscles working. Instead, it interprets movement as a combination of muscles contracting and relaxing to perform a specific pattern.

Each pattern consists of thousands of neurons firing in specific ways to perform coordinated actions resulting in the desired movement. Each pattern can be considered what's known as a movement program and movement programs determine movement quality. Now, there's something out there know that known as the functional movement screen. This is a method to measure the quality of movements in every person. It allows you or your training To determine potential movement deficits or deficiencies you might have, it also gives a trained professional an idea of what needs to be addressed before moving on to more challenging exercise protocols. So once we've assessed the qualities of movement, it's now time to address what protocol to put together to be most efficient and reasonable for the limited timeframe allotted here.

So traditional theories on weight loss and health are still based on the training in the aerobic or low intensity zone. And unfortunately, this is a very narrow minded approach. So let's look at two different types of people. Let's look at sprinters and marathons. Each group has a very low body fat percentage. But sprinters tend to have an even lower body fat percentage and higher percentages of lean muscle mass.

Sprinters engaging in activities that are in the anaerobic window and they're usually consist of moves that are short bursts of intense activity and they only last a few seconds at a time. marathoners on the other hand train in that aerobic window and they train for hours at a time using large amounts of caloric energy. So, if the aerobic exercise regimen is truly best for fat loss, why is there a discrepancy between these two groups of athletes? A common misconception today among many people is exercising the aerobic window is the best way to burn fat per unit time. So per minute per hour, whatever you're wondering. Again, aerobic activity is defined as activities 65 to 80% of the maximum heart rate.

However, this isn't the case. Exercise at lower intensities do burn a higher percentage of fat with sugar. However, exercise beyond the aerobic zone in that anaerobic space is more efficient at burning fat and it includes other metabolic benefits as well. So a 2009 systematic review done by Melanson at all focused mainly on moderate intensity exercise aerobic activities, including things like swimming, jogging, biking, but also included a small amount of anaerobic exercises in that higher threshold. The study showed aerobic exercise did not provide a significant advantage to weight loss over diet by itself. The study did show moderate exercise was helpful in maintaining weight loss but not as effective as a tool to evoke fat loss on its own.

So there are three categories that account for the total numbers of calories burned during exercise. There's cow calories burned during aerobic exercise, there's cow calories burned aerobically after exercise which is defined as excess post exercise oxygen consumption, otherwise known as epoch. And epoch is defined as the amount of energy needed to recover following exercise, regardless of the type its effects differ depending on the intensity of the exercise performed. The third way that calories are accounted for is the ones burned during anaerobic exercise and this will be the basis of what we go over the next few slot. So Dr. Christopher Scott of the University of Southern Maine, pointed out the multiple facts in which anaerobic high intensity exercise benefits metabolism and the ability of the body to use calories as energy. And to do this he set up a study that compared two types of workouts.

One was a three and a half minute aerobic style workout, and another was a three work equivalent 15 second, Sprint's and these were done in the anaerobic window. Now, approximately 29 calories were burned during the aerobic exercise, and only four were burned during the sprinting. Now this is where it begins to get interesting. When including for the effects of epoch, the total amount of energy used rose to 30 36 calories for the aerobic regimen and 39 calories for the sprinting. But that's not all, when you take into account the anaerobic effects of sprinting, when they were also accounted for the total number of calories burned rose to 65 versus 39 for the aerobic regimen, so when accounting for epoch and the anaerobic affects anaerobic activity far outperform performed, the aerobic exercise in terms of calories burned, and the anaerobic exercise took a fraction of the time to actually complete.

There are also hormonal effects when it comes to anaerobic exercise. So hormonal messengers are directly responsible for signaling that burning during exercise and this also plays a role in the epoch phenomenon we talked about earlier. Certain hormones respond differently, depending On the exercises being performed, hormones behave differently during aerobic and anaerobic exercise. For example, hormones do not work in isolation of each other. So they can have synergistic effects under the right circumstances. And we're going to take a look at that going forward.

So when we look at the moderate exercise the aerobic exercise, this triggers the release of stress hormones, things like cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine and this, these trigger the onset of glucose metabolism, we start using glucose for energy and this is due to the stress response or the fight or flight response that's built into us as humans. We look at a high intensity exercise. On the other hand, it includes the benefits of the aerobic exercise, but on top of that, the body begins to produce lactic acid, or otherwise known as lactate. And some studies suggest that lactate is correlated with the release of testosterone and human growth hormone known as HGH and these are two anabolic steroids. With the release of these two anabolic steroids, they work together to help increase both fat loss and lean muscle production following high intensity exercise bouts. So, high intensity interval training also is known as hit will allow you to train and stay in the anaerobic zone of exercise.

So, performing high intensity exercises followed by complete periods of rest. These are usually performed in a circuit, maybe in multiple exercises or they can be performed as a single exercise. And those same exercises are repeated through multiple bouts until the entire routine is completed. That is the general protocol when you are doing some form of hit training. So, some advantages hit exercise is actually less time consuming. Generally they, the bouts last somewhere between 25 and 40 minutes.

A 2008 study on hit training group women into three groups I hit group that did 20 minutes of bike sprinting for eight seconds at a time followed by 12 seconds of rest in aerobic zone of bike pedaling for 40 minutes. And then there was a no exercise group, and they track these women over 15 weeks. Now the hit group was 2.5 pounds of body fat compared to point six pounds of fat by the sustained aerobic group, the bike pedaling for 40 minutes group. Now, now it's even more astonishing is the fact that the hit workouts took half the time. So you were being more efficient in terms of burning fat but also more efficient in terms of the time spending exercising. Now, cortisol is seen as a fat storing hormone due to its effects desensitizing insulin now, when combined with the HGH and testosterone during anaerobic window exercises cortisol affects muscle breakdown becomes inhibited and its ability to store fat especially in the torso regions.

The belly region is depressed. And this also may assist in burning fat. While these other hormones around testosterone HDH. Cortisol behaves differently during lower intensity aerobic exercise routines. So during an aerobic exercise routine, cortisone levels still rise because again, it's that stress it's that fight or flight response, but without HGH or testosterone present, present to oppose the rise in cortisol levels. This is what is now being thought of as the difference in the physique between someone like a marathoner compared to sprinter.

So let's talk a little bit about weight loss and weight training, which I'm sure is a big reason why most people get started in working out to begin with, but let's look at it through the lens of weight training. So, high intensity resistance training weight training may also provide benefits when it comes to weight loss. Circuit style training routines have been shown to have The benefits of aerobic exercise while seeing improvements in strength and we talked about how earlier how muscle tissue takes more to to maintain than fat tissue does. resistance training has been shown to have benefits in combating diseases involving insulin resistance such as type two diabetes, but at the same time, you're still reaping the benefits of fat loss and an increase in overall fitness level. So, weight training has been shown to actually stave off the natural loss of muscle mass accompanied with aging and dieting when compared to a Robic exercise.

And again, as we get older, we begin, muscles begin to atrophy and this is just due to the normal aging process, but weight training actually mitigates the muscle atrophy. Now most benefits are seen when you combine the effects of resistance training and cardiovascular exercise the aerobic window training. So So where do we go from here now that we've seen all these different things, Well, we've seen to this point that exercise can be helpful in improving bone density, increasing muscle tone and minimizing atrophy, improving brain function improving overall mood. it lessens anxiety and improves memory and improves not only sleep quality, but also sleep quantity. It improves our efficiency in our day to day lives. And there are other dental benefits as well.

But the question still remains how do we fit exercise in our daily routines? Well, let's start from the beginning. So you should try to walk as much as possible. Walking has been shown to not only have relaxing and restorative effects, but it also helps burn calories. So little changes like taking the stairs at work or even at home, skipping, skipping a cab and walking, enjoy an afternoon walk. Take a break from the desk job and just just get up every half hour just to walk around for a few minutes.

Take a walk with a friend walking As part of your commute, and again, trying using a pedometer where you can set goals is a great thing to invest in to keep you honest. Another thing we need to do is get that old perspective of exercise out and incorporate a new perspective when it taught when we think about exercise. So the older perspective, you want to work out somewhere between 20 to 60 minutes for three to five times a week that would be optimal. But the time spent during about an exercise can be markedly decreased, and have even greater benefits if you're exercising at a higher intensity as we have seen. Weight Training also plays a role and it should be a focal point for anyone trying to lose weight and increase their health and fitness levels. So this newer perspective would incorporate using three full body weight training workouts a week, and this should be incorporated into the ideal workout plan since time is the limiting factor Then you can incorporate weights into 30 to 60 minutes sessions of interval training.

And this would be ideal if it was done three to five times a week. Resting is also really important and it's appropriate during bouts of intense intense exercise as well it allows the next vowel the next set to be of similar intensity. So think about it. If you were told to run for 10 consecutive minutes, you can only run so hard because you're going to tire out. But if you sprint for 10 seconds, you can run at a much faster pace. So incorporating circuits and exercising with cues allows the participants you to focus on what you're doing instead of how you're feeling during these sessions, now, focusing on rest is important when incorporating interval training as well.

It gives the exercises more control over when they rest and for how long so long as the intervals are being performed at the appropriate intervals. During the work periods so we have learned that exercise is both beneficial and necessary to improving your overall health. When performed properly, one can dramatically increase the chance of developing many of the diseases that plague millions of Americans today, these things like diabetes and heart disease, and high blood pressure, and in conjunction with proper nutrition and better food choices. These can have huge, long lasting benefits for the rest of your life as long as you are consistent and stick with it, not only through this program, but for the time beyond it as well. So understand that the benefits of functional movement based exercise routines, is one of the steps that are necessary to making a difference in your life. So get out there and get started.