July 2, 2025 • 17 mins
Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS to see exactly how these walking breaks impact your daily calorie burn and support your muscle-building or fat loss goals or go to witsandweights.com/blog/macrofactor
--
Can you immediately increase muscle building by 47%?
It's 3 PM on a Tuesday, and you've been glued to your desk since 8 AM. Your back is stiff, your energy is crashing, and you can feel that familiar tightness setting in from hours of sitting.
But here's what you don't realize: that prolonged sitting isn't just making you uncomfortable. It's actively blocking your muscle protein synthesis, sabotaging your ability to build muscle from the food you eat.
A groundbreaking 2022 study revealed a shocking truth: prolonged sitting can reduce your muscle protein synthesis by nearly 50%, effectively blocking your body's ability to build muscle from the protein you eat.
This happens through multiple pathways we'll discuss, and there's a stupidly simple solution that can have the opposite effect and boost muscle building by 47%!
Main Takeaways:
- Prolonged sitting creates "anabolic resistance" that can reduce muscle protein synthesis by up to 50%
- A simple walking hack can completely reverse this effect and boost muscle building by 47%
- The biological mechanisms: improved blood flow, enhanced amino acid delivery, reactivated mTOR signaling, and better insulin sensitivity
- Compound benefits beyond muscle building include stable energy, better blood sugar control, improved recovery
Study Mentioned:
Timestamps:
0:01 - The hidden cost of prolonged sitting
4:05 - Why sitting blocks muscle gains
8:08 - How 2-minute breaks reverse the damage
11:16 - Practical tips to implement TODAY
14:15 - Compound effects beyond muscle building
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
It's 3 pm on a Tuesday and you've been glued to
your desk since 8 am.
Your back is stiff, your energyis crashing and you can feel
that familiar tightness settingin from hours of sitting.
But here's what you don'trealize that prolonged sitting
isn't just making youuncomfortable, it is actively
blocking your muscle proteinsynthesis.
It's sabotaging your ability tobuild muscle from the food you
(00:23):
eat.
There's a recent study thatuncovered something that's going
to change how you think aboutmuscle building, and it's not
just about what happens when youtrain or even what you eat.
Today, you'll discover exactlywhy sitting blocks your gains,
the surprising intervention thatreverses this effect, and how
to turn every single day into amuscle building opportunity.
(00:43):
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
(01:07):
and today we're looking at amuscle building strategy.
That's probably gonna surpriseyou a little bit and it might be
the missing piece in yourpuzzle.
If you have a desk job, if yousit around for hours on end,
like many of us tend to do thesedays, you know that feeling
when you think you're doingeverything right with your
training, your nutrition, butthen the progress isn't quite
there.
Your metabolism isn't quitewhere you think it should be.
(01:27):
Well, there's something in yourdaily routine that could be
working against yousignificantly, and the solution
is so simple.
You might think I'm making itup, but it's actually from a
study from 2022.
It's not bro science, it's nota theory.
It comes from actual researchpublished in the journal of
physiology that that reveals howtwo-minute movement breaks can
(01:48):
dramatically increase yourbody's ability to build muscle
from the food you're alreadyeating, from the rest of the
lifestyle that you already have.
And I actually learned aboutthis from Dr Bill Campbell's
latest Body by Science review.
He highlighted just howsignificant these findings are
and they kind of are floatingunder the radar.
I wanted to bring them to thefore with this episode.
And this works whether you'rein a building phase or a cutting
(02:09):
phase, whether you're abeginner, advanced.
It doesn't require anyadditional recovery time.
It is so stupidly simple toimplement that I'm going to be
telling everybody about this now, and myself I'm actually
creating reminders and systemsto make sure that I do this as
well.
(02:29):
Now, before we get into thatscience, if you want to see
exactly how these walking breaksimpact your daily calorie burn
and support your muscle buildingfat loss goals in the numbers.
I would recommend.
The perfect tool for you isMacrofactor.
It is the food logging app thatI use.
All my clients use it.
I talk about it all the time.
It adapts to your calorie, or Ishould say it adapts your
calorie and macro targets basedon your actual metabolism.
And when you startincorporating the walking snacks
(02:50):
like we're going to talk abouttoday, you're going to see that
reflected in your expendituretracking.
So the sooner you starttracking, the better, so you can
kind of correlate how impactfulthese changes can be.
And I would love to hear fromyou when you do it, when you
make the change, when you takeaction from what we talk about
today to see how it affects yourmetabolism.
It should make things easier interms of how much you get to
(03:11):
eat and the responsiveness interms of fat loss and muscle
building.
So just go ahead and downloadMacrofactor.
Use my code WITSANDWEIGHTS allone word to try it free for two
weeks.
I'll include the link in theshow notes.
But, honestly, just pause rightnow.
Go grab it and start tracking,because you're going to want to
start tracking this immediatelyafter today's episode.
Now I want to break this episodeinto four segments.
First, I'm going to explainwhat is happening in your body
(03:33):
during prolonged sitting and whyit's blocking your muscle gains
.
Very, very important, becausewe think of it as a health issue
, but it's actuallyphysiologically completely
changing the mechanisms that areoccurring in your body.
That's first.
Second, we're going to get intothe fascinating biology behind
why these simple movement breakscan be so effective.
(03:54):
Third, I'll give you thepractical tips, the protocols
you can implement.
And then, finally, we're goingto look out at some compound
effects that go beyond justmuscle building.
So you want to listen to thewhole episode to get all of that
.
Now I'm going to start withsomething that's probably going
to sound familiar, because it'sa pattern that I see a lot with
folks that I talk to every day,where you are pretty consistent
(04:14):
with all the things right.
You're training maybe three,four days a week, with
progressive overload.
You're nailing your targets,your protein, your calories,
you're getting decent recoveryand sleep.
You know the big pillars, butsomehow the muscle building
progress either has stalled oryou know your metabolism is
lower than you expect it to be,or you just want better results
than you're getting, and themissing piece often is not the
(04:36):
gym or the kitchen.
It's in the eight to 10 hoursthat you are spending sitting at
a desk, hardly getting up.
Yes, being sedentary and notgetting up is its own
independent risk factor forhealth, but also it impacts your
muscle building potential in avery surprising way.
So if you're just getting upfor bathroom breaks, you're just
(04:58):
getting up for lunch and notmuch else, even though you're
going to the gym, even thoughyou might be getting eight,
10,000 steps a day in verydeliberate walks or movement
outside of those hours, theprolonged sitting itself creates
a cascade of biological changesthat directly interfere with
your body's ability to buildmuscle, and that's what I want
to talk about.
(05:20):
So let's start with the actualprocess of MPS, or muscle
protein synthesis, and what itis.
When it's happening.
It's effectively something thatgoes on all day.
Your body's either synthesizingmuscle or breaking it down, and
prolonged sitting creates whatresearchers call anabolic
resistance.
So think of it this way youconsume 30 grams of protein and
(05:42):
normally your muscles will goahead and use those amino acids
and build new tissue.
Right, this assumes you haveenough energy overall, but when
you've been sitting for hours,some mechanisms actually shut
down that process.
The first thing is blood flow toyour muscles drops
significantly.
We know about not only thecirculation of blood, but also
the nutrient delivery slows downwhen you sit too long right.
(06:03):
These amino acids in yourbloodstream then can't get to
your muscle tissue efficientlybecause the blood flow in your
capillaries is restricted period.
That's a huge impact rightthere.
It also has other healthimpacts downstream, but even
just for muscles that's whathappens.
Second, the mTOR pathway.
You've probably heard of themTOR pathway, which we believe
(06:24):
is like the master switch formuscle protein synthesis, and it
gets downregulated when you areinactive for a long time.
So again, even if you're eatingenough protein, your muscles
literally lose the ability torespond to the protein as
effectively or properly as itcould be.
The third thing and this isreally fascinating is that you
develop insulin resistance justfrom sitting right.
(06:45):
This isn't like diabetes level,you know metabolic disease,
insulin resistance but it'senough to impair the uptake of
those amino acids in your muscletissue.
And you know because we talkabout muscle as a sink for
glucose.
Well, you want that muscle todo its job and you're actually
hurting that by sitting too long.
Your muscles become lessresponsive to the anabolic
signals that normally tell themto start building new protein.
(07:07):
And then where it gets reallyinteresting and this is where
we're moving into next is thestudy from 2022 by Moore et al
proved that breaking up sittingtime with brief movement
completely reverses theseeffects, like it just completely
reverses them.
They had participants sittingfor a long time for seven and a
half hours, which is honestly atypical workday for a lot of
(07:30):
people and they measured theirmuscle protein synthesis
response to feeding and theresults were actually pretty
markedly stunning is what I'llsay.
As far as research goes, in thesitting group the continuous
sitting group that didn't takebreaks the muscle protein
synthesis was blunted by nearly50%.
When participants took twominute walking breaks every half
(07:52):
hour, their muscle proteinsynthesis increased by 47%
compared to sitting.
Let me repeat that 47% moremuscle building from the exact
same food, just by walking fortwo minutes every half hour.
So you might be thinking, okay,how is this working?
How is this doing anythingmeaningful?
(08:13):
And it surprised me as well,even though I talk about this
stuff all the time.
We're conditioned to think thatonly intense movement, only
training and only lots ofwalking is going to create these
adaptations.
But what's interesting is thedata's there.
It shows us how our biologyworks.
When you take brief movementbreaks, there are things that
(08:35):
happen at the cellular levelbecause it's yet another signal.
Just like training in the gymis giving you a signal to build
strength and muscle, movingaround instead of sitting is
telling your cells at that levelto do something different, to
adapt, to be a different type ofperson.
And after I walk you throughthe mechanisms, we're going to
get into the protocols for themto maximize that.
(08:55):
But let's just talk about them.
First of all, we have musclecontraction, even light
contraction like walking.
Muscle contraction triggerswhat's called
mechanotransduction and this isthe process where mechanical
stress gets converted intocellular signaling.
Interesting, right, becauseeven if you're strong, even if
you have muscle, if you're justsitting around not using that,
you're not sending that signal.
(09:16):
Even the most gentlecontractions reactivate the mTOR
pathway and its downstreamtargets.
This is why I was asking in ourFacebook group if people have
experience with those ellipticalmachines that you put on the
ground when you're sitting, anda lot of people said, yeah, I
use it just for blood flow, justto keep things moving.
There is something to be saidthere that even that might have
an impact.
They didn't study that, but youwould think logically that just
(09:38):
moving like that could at leastbe a significant improvement
over sitting.
And so what you're doing isyou're literally flipping the
muscle building switch back onright and then you're creating
the conditions for thatsignaling to be effective.
Getting up walking around, it'sgoing to improve your blood flow
.
It's going to enhance thedelivery of those amino acids to
your muscle tissue, right?
Because, remember this muscleprotein synthesis is limited by
(10:03):
amino acid availability at themuscle level, not just your
bloodstream.
So if you have better bloodflow, it means better uptake
into the muscles of those aminoacids.
And then your movement improvesinsulin sensitivity, which is
why we love walking after meals,for example.
It makes your muscles moreresponsive to the anabolic
effects of both insulin and theamino acids.
(10:24):
Right, we know that insulin islike a nutrient shuttling signal
, and so why not?
Wouldn't you want to trigger itmore often?
You can't just rely on havingthe muscle.
You also have got to give asignal so that the muscle can
uptake that dose.
And this is what researcherscall a permissive anabolic
environment.
Basically, your muscles becomeprimed to use nutrition for
building rather than justexisting.
(10:47):
And then something actually blewmy mind.
If this hasn't blown your mindalready all of this stuff, when
I first read this research.
It's not just an acute effect,it's a chronic, cumulative
effect.
These brief movement breaks,these two minutes every 30
minutes, appear to reset yourmuscle sensitivity to protein
feeding for many hours afterward, and so it's like you're
(11:07):
constantly refreshing orresetting your muscles ability
to respond to nutritionthroughout the day.
Another reason to get up andjust take those breaks.
And now this?
This segues us into the nextsegment, where you know it's
great to understand themechanisms, but then how do you
implement this?
And I've already kind ofalluded to it.
And let's be honest, you knowmost of us can't just, um, get
(11:29):
up and do mile or two mile walkson a regular basis, right?
Because if I said that was thesolution, it would probably not
be practical or achievable.
Um, so this is like supersimple.
The beauty of this is twominute walks.
They compared it to sitting.
They also compared it to doing15 bodyweight squats, and the
walking had an edge.
(11:50):
So if you're like, oh no,philip's gonna say do squats
every 30 minutes like exercisesnacks, no, you've actually
gotta do just the walks.
And the way I would put itpractically into place is, I
would first make sure you have afoundation of your training and
walking anyway, right, we wannaactually have the muscle to use
, we wanna have the overallmetabolic support and that
energy flux, and that's why Ilike post-meal walks, walking
(12:12):
after meals, walking afterbreakfast, lunch and or dinner
for five to 10 minutes, becausethose can count as your breaks
and kind of kill two birds withone stone, right, and it
captures really good windows oftime right after you've eaten,
when your muscle proteinsynthesis will even be elevated
further from the feeding.
We know it helps with insulinsensitivity and blood sugar
management as well, and if youcan't do anything else, just
(12:35):
walking after meals is going tomake a huge difference.
And then the second thing is,of course, the movement snacks.
You want to set up movementsnacks throughout your workday,
every hour.
Do something, do something.
It could be the walk, it couldbe going upstairs, it could be
squats.
I mean really something.
The two minute walk, though,around your office or your house
or whatever, or even juststanding and trying to jiggle
around and do some stretching.
(12:56):
I mean something, do something.
But the two minute walk seemsto be a nice benchmark and the
key here is being consistent.
It's not the intensity, it'sjust doing it.
It's just doing it and you canhave.
You can make this systematic.
So that's my third point here isput a system in place.
Don't just rely on rememberingto do this.
You listen to Philip's podcastand you're like, oh wow, I'm
gonna start doing that, and thenyou forget and you're done.
(13:17):
You never get back to it again.
So I'm gonna suggest an iPhoneor whatever phone.
You have alarms or reminders,use an app, use a habit tracker,
put sticky notes on yourmonitor, like whatever it takes,
to make this automatic.
And some people are going to say, oh my gosh, I'm so busy.
I'm constantly working all day.
I'm on my computer 10 hours aday.
I'm a busy parent, I'm workingfrom home.
(13:38):
I can barely find time to eatlunch.
Okay, you got to find whatworks for your specific
situation, be consistent with it.
And I'm literally asking youfor two minutes every 30 minutes
.
It is not that much time at all.
It's kind of like takingbathroom breaks.
In fact, use it to take abathroom break, use it to get a
glass of water, have it stack,use it to catch up on a personal
email or two, or to return aphone call right Go, walk.
(13:58):
While you're doing that stuff,you don't need to overhaul your
entire life.
This is actually one of thesimplest, easiest things I've
ever recommended.
So that's the mechanisms whatto do.
And now here's where things getreally exciting, and I wanted
to save this for the end,because the muscle protein
synthesis piece is just thebeginning.
When you start implementingwalking snacks, you might get
other benefits like more stableenergy levels, no more crashes
(14:22):
in the afternoon, blood sugarregulation improves, fewer
cravings, more stable hungercues, and then sleep quality
usually improves because you'renot dealing with that restless,
tight feeling that comes fromprolonged sitting as well.
You also have the betterinsulin sensitivity, which means
improved nutrient partitioning.
More of your food goes towardwhat you want, including the
muscle building, instead of fatstorage, so it improves fat loss
.
It enhances your blood flowthroughout the day to improve
(14:44):
recovery from your trainingsessions, faster recovery, and
then I think I alluded to thisit appears to enhance the muscle
building response to yourpost-workout nutrition as well.
Your muscles become even moreresponsive to the protein
feeding across the board, notjust when you're doing the
intervention because ofeverything we talked about.
So this could be one of thosethings, just like eliminating
alcohol, for example, or juststarting to train when you
(15:07):
didn't train before.
That can be a huge game changer.
And most people are obsessingover the few hours in the week
that they spend in the gym andthen they ignore the other.
What?
160 waking hours of the weekwhere they can do these simple
things that are actually goingto make a huge difference and
compliment your muscle building,compliment your training, your
fat loss, your food.
All of that Because really whatwe're trying to do is create a
system, create an environmentwhere your body can effectively
(15:30):
use the nutrition to be fit, tobuild strength, to build muscle
throughout the day.
And so these walking snacks, Imean, come on, they're super
easy.
You're not just preventing theblunting of that muscle protein
synthesis, you are enhancing itbeyond normal levels.
That's incredible.
Think about the compound effectof that over time.
It beyond normal levels, that'sincredible.
(15:51):
Think about the compound effectof that over time.
If we were to go with the number, the 47 improvement in response
, which I agree, is going tohave a large fluctuation based
on the individual and based onhow the study was performed, but
if you're doing that multipletimes a day, every single day,
it should have a major effectdown the road before long.
And this requires zeroadditional recovery time, zero
(16:11):
additional training stress.
It can be implemented by anyone, regardless of fitness level or
schedule constraints.
It's a pretty easy hack to dohere.
You're hacking your physiologywith two minute breaks every 30
minutes, that's it Okay.
So we're gonna recap today.
Prolonged sitting createsanabolic resistance that reduces
your muscle protein synthesisby up to 50%.
But brief, frequent movementbreaks, as simple as two minute
(16:33):
walks every 30 minutes, can dothe opposite, can actually
increase it by 47%.
Nothing else changing Training,nutrition steps, and the
mechanisms are pretty clear.
It's improved blood flow,enhanced amino acid delivery,
reactivating mTOR signaling andimproved insulin sensitivity,
and it gives you a permissiveanabolic environment.
We love anabolic environments,don't we?
(16:55):
Take those post-meal walks, adda reminder, do what you need to
do and optimize your system.
And, of course, if you're readyto start tracking how these
walking snacks impact your dailyenergy expenditure to support
your physique goals, downloadMacrofactor.
Use my code WITSANDWEIGHTS fortwo weeks free.
You're going to love it.
You're going to love how itgives you that clarity and gives
(17:15):
you the calorie macro targetsyou need, and then you can see
how these small movements add upto benefits for your metabolism
because it calculates yourexpenditure, your daily
expenditure, and you can see howthat changes, based on the
walking snacks.
So click the link in the shownotes or search Macrofactor in
the app store.
Download, use my codeWITSANDWEIGHTS.
All right, until next time,keep using your wits lifting
(17:36):
those weights and remember thatevery movement snack you take is
a step toward better musclebuilding.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast
.
It's 3 pm on a Tuesday and you've been glued to
your desk since 8 am.
Your back is stiff, your energyis crashing and you can feel
that familiar tightness settingin from hours of sitting.
But here's what you don'trealize that prolonged sitting
isn't just making youuncomfortable, it is actively
blocking your muscle proteinsynthesis.
It's sabotaging your ability tobuild muscle from the food you
(00:23):
eat.
There's a recent study thatuncovered something that's going
to change how you think aboutmuscle building, and it's not
just about what happens when youtrain or even what you eat.
Today, you'll discover exactlywhy sitting blocks your gains,
the surprising intervention thatreverses this effect, and how
to turn every single day into amuscle building opportunity.
(00:43):
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host certifiednutrition coach, philip Pape,
(01:07):
and today we're looking at amuscle building strategy.
That's probably gonna surpriseyou a little bit and it might be
the missing piece in yourpuzzle.
If you have a desk job, if yousit around for hours on end,
like many of us tend to do thesedays, you know that feeling
when you think you're doingeverything right with your
training, your nutrition, butthen the progress isn't quite
there.
Your metabolism isn't quitewhere you think it should be.
(01:27):
Well, there's something in yourdaily routine that could be
working against yousignificantly, and the solution
is so simple.
You might think I'm making itup, but it's actually from a
study from 2022.
It's not bro science, it's nota theory.
It comes from actual researchpublished in the journal of
physiology that that reveals howtwo-minute movement breaks can
(01:48):
dramatically increase yourbody's ability to build muscle
from the food you're alreadyeating, from the rest of the
lifestyle that you already have.
And I actually learned aboutthis from Dr Bill Campbell's
latest Body by Science review.
He highlighted just howsignificant these findings are
and they kind of are floatingunder the radar.
I wanted to bring them to thefore with this episode.
And this works whether you'rein a building phase or a cutting
(02:09):
phase, whether you're abeginner, advanced.
It doesn't require anyadditional recovery time.
It is so stupidly simple toimplement that I'm going to be
telling everybody about this now, and myself I'm actually
creating reminders and systemsto make sure that I do this as
well.
(02:29):
Now, before we get into thatscience, if you want to see
exactly how these walking breaksimpact your daily calorie burn
and support your muscle buildingfat loss goals in the numbers.
I would recommend.
The perfect tool for you isMacrofactor.
It is the food logging app thatI use.
All my clients use it.
I talk about it all the time.
It adapts to your calorie, or Ishould say it adapts your
calorie and macro targets basedon your actual metabolism.
And when you startincorporating the walking snacks
(02:50):
like we're going to talk abouttoday, you're going to see that
reflected in your expendituretracking.
So the sooner you starttracking, the better, so you can
kind of correlate how impactfulthese changes can be.
And I would love to hear fromyou when you do it, when you
make the change, when you takeaction from what we talk about
today to see how it affects yourmetabolism.
It should make things easier interms of how much you get to
(03:11):
eat and the responsiveness interms of fat loss and muscle
building.
So just go ahead and downloadMacrofactor.
Use my code WITSANDWEIGHTS allone word to try it free for two
weeks.
I'll include the link in theshow notes.
But, honestly, just pause rightnow.
Go grab it and start tracking,because you're going to want to
start tracking this immediatelyafter today's episode.
Now I want to break this episodeinto four segments.
First, I'm going to explainwhat is happening in your body
(03:33):
during prolonged sitting and whyit's blocking your muscle gains
.
Very, very important, becausewe think of it as a health issue
, but it's actuallyphysiologically completely
changing the mechanisms that areoccurring in your body.
That's first.
Second, we're going to get intothe fascinating biology behind
why these simple movement breakscan be so effective.
(03:54):
Third, I'll give you thepractical tips, the protocols
you can implement.
And then, finally, we're goingto look out at some compound
effects that go beyond justmuscle building.
So you want to listen to thewhole episode to get all of that
.
Now I'm going to start withsomething that's probably going
to sound familiar, because it'sa pattern that I see a lot with
folks that I talk to every day,where you are pretty consistent
(04:14):
with all the things right.
You're training maybe three,four days a week, with
progressive overload.
You're nailing your targets,your protein, your calories,
you're getting decent recoveryand sleep.
You know the big pillars, butsomehow the muscle building
progress either has stalled oryou know your metabolism is
lower than you expect it to be,or you just want better results
than you're getting, and themissing piece often is not the
(04:36):
gym or the kitchen.
It's in the eight to 10 hoursthat you are spending sitting at
a desk, hardly getting up.
Yes, being sedentary and notgetting up is its own
independent risk factor forhealth, but also it impacts your
muscle building potential in avery surprising way.
So if you're just getting upfor bathroom breaks, you're just
(04:58):
getting up for lunch and notmuch else, even though you're
going to the gym, even thoughyou might be getting eight,
10,000 steps a day in verydeliberate walks or movement
outside of those hours, theprolonged sitting itself creates
a cascade of biological changesthat directly interfere with
your body's ability to buildmuscle, and that's what I want
to talk about.
(05:20):
So let's start with the actualprocess of MPS, or muscle
protein synthesis, and what itis.
When it's happening.
It's effectively something thatgoes on all day.
Your body's either synthesizingmuscle or breaking it down, and
prolonged sitting creates whatresearchers call anabolic
resistance.
So think of it this way youconsume 30 grams of protein and
(05:42):
normally your muscles will goahead and use those amino acids
and build new tissue.
Right, this assumes you haveenough energy overall, but when
you've been sitting for hours,some mechanisms actually shut
down that process.
The first thing is blood flow toyour muscles drops
significantly.
We know about not only thecirculation of blood, but also
the nutrient delivery slows downwhen you sit too long right.
(06:03):
These amino acids in yourbloodstream then can't get to
your muscle tissue efficientlybecause the blood flow in your
capillaries is restricted period.
That's a huge impact rightthere.
It also has other healthimpacts downstream, but even
just for muscles that's whathappens.
Second, the mTOR pathway.
You've probably heard of themTOR pathway, which we believe
(06:24):
is like the master switch formuscle protein synthesis, and it
gets downregulated when you areinactive for a long time.
So again, even if you're eatingenough protein, your muscles
literally lose the ability torespond to the protein as
effectively or properly as itcould be.
The third thing and this isreally fascinating is that you
develop insulin resistance justfrom sitting right.
(06:45):
This isn't like diabetes level,you know metabolic disease,
insulin resistance but it'senough to impair the uptake of
those amino acids in your muscletissue.
And you know because we talkabout muscle as a sink for
glucose.
Well, you want that muscle todo its job and you're actually
hurting that by sitting too long.
Your muscles become lessresponsive to the anabolic
signals that normally tell themto start building new protein.
(07:07):
And then where it gets reallyinteresting and this is where
we're moving into next is thestudy from 2022 by Moore et al
proved that breaking up sittingtime with brief movement
completely reverses theseeffects, like it just completely
reverses them.
They had participants sittingfor a long time for seven and a
half hours, which is honestly atypical workday for a lot of
(07:30):
people and they measured theirmuscle protein synthesis
response to feeding and theresults were actually pretty
markedly stunning is what I'llsay.
As far as research goes, in thesitting group the continuous
sitting group that didn't takebreaks the muscle protein
synthesis was blunted by nearly50%.
When participants took twominute walking breaks every half
(07:52):
hour, their muscle proteinsynthesis increased by 47%
compared to sitting.
Let me repeat that 47% moremuscle building from the exact
same food, just by walking fortwo minutes every half hour.
So you might be thinking, okay,how is this working?
How is this doing anythingmeaningful?
(08:13):
And it surprised me as well,even though I talk about this
stuff all the time.
We're conditioned to think thatonly intense movement, only
training and only lots ofwalking is going to create these
adaptations.
But what's interesting is thedata's there.
It shows us how our biologyworks.
When you take brief movementbreaks, there are things that
(08:35):
happen at the cellular levelbecause it's yet another signal.
Just like training in the gymis giving you a signal to build
strength and muscle, movingaround instead of sitting is
telling your cells at that levelto do something different, to
adapt, to be a different type ofperson.
And after I walk you throughthe mechanisms, we're going to
get into the protocols for themto maximize that.
(08:55):
But let's just talk about them.
First of all, we have musclecontraction, even light
contraction like walking.
Muscle contraction triggerswhat's called
mechanotransduction and this isthe process where mechanical
stress gets converted intocellular signaling.
Interesting, right, becauseeven if you're strong, even if
you have muscle, if you're justsitting around not using that,
you're not sending that signal.
(09:16):
Even the most gentlecontractions reactivate the mTOR
pathway and its downstreamtargets.
This is why I was asking in ourFacebook group if people have
experience with those ellipticalmachines that you put on the
ground when you're sitting, anda lot of people said, yeah, I
use it just for blood flow, justto keep things moving.
There is something to be saidthere that even that might have
an impact.
They didn't study that, but youwould think logically that just
(09:38):
moving like that could at leastbe a significant improvement
over sitting.
And so what you're doing isyou're literally flipping the
muscle building switch back onright and then you're creating
the conditions for thatsignaling to be effective.
Getting up walking around, it'sgoing to improve your blood flow
.
It's going to enhance thedelivery of those amino acids to
your muscle tissue, right?
Because, remember this muscleprotein synthesis is limited by
(10:03):
amino acid availability at themuscle level, not just your
bloodstream.
So if you have better bloodflow, it means better uptake
into the muscles of those aminoacids.
And then your movement improvesinsulin sensitivity, which is
why we love walking after meals,for example.
It makes your muscles moreresponsive to the anabolic
effects of both insulin and theamino acids.
(10:24):
Right, we know that insulin islike a nutrient shuttling signal
, and so why not?
Wouldn't you want to trigger itmore often?
You can't just rely on havingthe muscle.
You also have got to give asignal so that the muscle can
uptake that dose.
And this is what researcherscall a permissive anabolic
environment.
Basically, your muscles becomeprimed to use nutrition for
building rather than justexisting.
(10:47):
And then something actually blewmy mind.
If this hasn't blown your mindalready all of this stuff, when
I first read this research.
It's not just an acute effect,it's a chronic, cumulative
effect.
These brief movement breaks,these two minutes every 30
minutes, appear to reset yourmuscle sensitivity to protein
feeding for many hours afterward, and so it's like you're
(11:07):
constantly refreshing orresetting your muscles ability
to respond to nutritionthroughout the day.
Another reason to get up andjust take those breaks.
And now this?
This segues us into the nextsegment, where you know it's
great to understand themechanisms, but then how do you
implement this?
And I've already kind ofalluded to it.
And let's be honest, you knowmost of us can't just, um, get
(11:29):
up and do mile or two mile walkson a regular basis, right?
Because if I said that was thesolution, it would probably not
be practical or achievable.
Um, so this is like supersimple.
The beauty of this is twominute walks.
They compared it to sitting.
They also compared it to doing15 bodyweight squats, and the
walking had an edge.
(11:50):
So if you're like, oh no,philip's gonna say do squats
every 30 minutes like exercisesnacks, no, you've actually
gotta do just the walks.
And the way I would put itpractically into place is, I
would first make sure you have afoundation of your training and
walking anyway, right, we wannaactually have the muscle to use
, we wanna have the overallmetabolic support and that
energy flux, and that's why Ilike post-meal walks, walking
(12:12):
after meals, walking afterbreakfast, lunch and or dinner
for five to 10 minutes, becausethose can count as your breaks
and kind of kill two birds withone stone, right, and it
captures really good windows oftime right after you've eaten,
when your muscle proteinsynthesis will even be elevated
further from the feeding.
We know it helps with insulinsensitivity and blood sugar
management as well, and if youcan't do anything else, just
(12:35):
walking after meals is going tomake a huge difference.
And then the second thing is,of course, the movement snacks.
You want to set up movementsnacks throughout your workday,
every hour.
Do something, do something.
It could be the walk, it couldbe going upstairs, it could be
squats.
I mean really something.
The two minute walk, though,around your office or your house
or whatever, or even juststanding and trying to jiggle
around and do some stretching.
(12:56):
I mean something, do something.
But the two minute walk seemsto be a nice benchmark and the
key here is being consistent.
It's not the intensity, it'sjust doing it.
It's just doing it and you canhave.
You can make this systematic.
So that's my third point here isput a system in place.
Don't just rely on rememberingto do this.
You listen to Philip's podcastand you're like, oh wow, I'm
gonna start doing that, and thenyou forget and you're done.
(13:17):
You never get back to it again.
So I'm gonna suggest an iPhoneor whatever phone.
You have alarms or reminders,use an app, use a habit tracker,
put sticky notes on yourmonitor, like whatever it takes,
to make this automatic.
And some people are going to say, oh my gosh, I'm so busy.
I'm constantly working all day.
I'm on my computer 10 hours aday.
I'm a busy parent, I'm workingfrom home.
(13:38):
I can barely find time to eatlunch.
Okay, you got to find whatworks for your specific
situation, be consistent with it.
And I'm literally asking youfor two minutes every 30 minutes
.
It is not that much time at all.
It's kind of like takingbathroom breaks.
In fact, use it to take abathroom break, use it to get a
glass of water, have it stack,use it to catch up on a personal
email or two, or to return aphone call right Go, walk.
(13:58):
While you're doing that stuff,you don't need to overhaul your
entire life.
This is actually one of thesimplest, easiest things I've
ever recommended.
So that's the mechanisms whatto do.
And now here's where things getreally exciting, and I wanted
to save this for the end,because the muscle protein
synthesis piece is just thebeginning.
When you start implementingwalking snacks, you might get
other benefits like more stableenergy levels, no more crashes
(14:22):
in the afternoon, blood sugarregulation improves, fewer
cravings, more stable hungercues, and then sleep quality
usually improves because you'renot dealing with that restless,
tight feeling that comes fromprolonged sitting as well.
You also have the betterinsulin sensitivity, which means
improved nutrient partitioning.
More of your food goes towardwhat you want, including the
muscle building, instead of fatstorage, so it improves fat loss
.
It enhances your blood flowthroughout the day to improve
(14:44):
recovery from your trainingsessions, faster recovery, and
then I think I alluded to thisit appears to enhance the muscle
building response to yourpost-workout nutrition as well.
Your muscles become even moreresponsive to the protein
feeding across the board, notjust when you're doing the
intervention because ofeverything we talked about.
So this could be one of thosethings, just like eliminating
alcohol, for example, or juststarting to train when you
(15:07):
didn't train before.
That can be a huge game changer.
And most people are obsessingover the few hours in the week
that they spend in the gym andthen they ignore the other.
What?
160 waking hours of the weekwhere they can do these simple
things that are actually goingto make a huge difference and
compliment your muscle building,compliment your training, your
fat loss, your food.
All of that Because really whatwe're trying to do is create a
system, create an environmentwhere your body can effectively
(15:30):
use the nutrition to be fit, tobuild strength, to build muscle
throughout the day.
And so these walking snacks, Imean, come on, they're super
easy.
You're not just preventing theblunting of that muscle protein
synthesis, you are enhancing itbeyond normal levels.
That's incredible.
Think about the compound effectof that over time.
It beyond normal levels, that'sincredible.
(15:51):
Think about the compound effectof that over time.
If we were to go with the number, the 47 improvement in response
, which I agree, is going tohave a large fluctuation based
on the individual and based onhow the study was performed, but
if you're doing that multipletimes a day, every single day,
it should have a major effectdown the road before long.
And this requires zeroadditional recovery time, zero
(16:11):
additional training stress.
It can be implemented by anyone, regardless of fitness level or
schedule constraints.
It's a pretty easy hack to dohere.
You're hacking your physiologywith two minute breaks every 30
minutes, that's it Okay.
So we're gonna recap today.
Prolonged sitting createsanabolic resistance that reduces
your muscle protein synthesisby up to 50%.
But brief, frequent movementbreaks, as simple as two minute
(16:33):
walks every 30 minutes, can dothe opposite, can actually
increase it by 47%.
Nothing else changing Training,nutrition steps, and the
mechanisms are pretty clear.
It's improved blood flow,enhanced amino acid delivery,
reactivating mTOR signaling andimproved insulin sensitivity,
and it gives you a permissiveanabolic environment.
We love anabolic environments,don't we?
(16:55):
Take those post-meal walks, adda reminder, do what you need to
do and optimize your system.
And, of course, if you're readyto start tracking how these
walking snacks impact your dailyenergy expenditure to support
your physique goals, downloadMacrofactor.
Use my code WITSANDWEIGHTS fortwo weeks free.
You're going to love it.
You're going to love how itgives you that clarity and gives
(17:15):
you the calorie macro targetsyou need, and then you can see
how these small movements add upto benefits for your metabolism
because it calculates yourexpenditure, your daily
expenditure, and you can see howthat changes, based on the
walking snacks.
So click the link in the shownotes or search Macrofactor in
the app store.
Download, use my codeWITSANDWEIGHTS.
All right, until next time,keep using your wits lifting
(17:36):
those weights and remember thatevery movement snack you take is
a step toward better musclebuilding.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast
.
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