August 5, 2025 • 9 mins
Pro Rehab's Dr. Larry Benz has a solid advice for those who've taken a vacation and are now back home and ready to restart their exercise rituals.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Doctor Larry Bench joins us great executive leader at Pro Rehab. Hey, Larry,
welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, it's great to be back, Terry. It's been a while.
How are you ben coping with the heat?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
You know pretty well, we went away for a while,
took a little vacation and it was like a shutdown
exercise for two weeks, and then came back and then
started up again and actually felt pretty good about it.
I wanted to talk with you about that because you're
a physical therapy expert at this sort of thing. When
people are interrupted at exercise. What what are the basic
(00:36):
rules of reintroducing yourself after a couple of weeks of dormancy.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, it's a good question, and it's vastly different whether
we're talking about strength training or we're talking about aerobic
So strength training is a little more forgiving. You know,
generally you're trying to get high intensity muscular you know,
strength to get stimulistic at muscle growth. And if you
(01:03):
work out a couple three days a week, your body
goes through what they term in science called periodization, which
means there are times where you're more ripe for strengthening
and times where you need rest and so taking a
week or two off from strengthening, you'll get very very
little decline, unfortunately from an aerobic standpoint, which is probably
(01:23):
more the concern for most of us because we want
our heart and lungs to be in good shape. You
could take a little time off, but not much. And
what you ought to do is reintroduce yourself at about
sixty to seventy percent of what you were doing over
a period of one or two weeks. So if you
were doing three miles three times a day, go back
(01:43):
to about two miles and do that for a week
or two. Your body will be much more forgiving and
the balance of that other one there, and this is
where it gets interesting. According to research, you should still
do aerobic exercise, but it should be walking the so
called zone one and ZO two zone two. There's a
lot of good science behind it. And so if you're
(02:05):
again at that three mile stage, do the first two
running in the last one walking, or all three run
walking some aspect of that over a two week period
and you'll be back at that same stage. The biggest
indicators that think called VO two max and VO two
max is a little hard to measure for us normal humans,
even with a garment or an apple watch, but it's
(02:28):
a reliable measure and there's some proxies to measuring in
so you do get a mild reduction, which can get
that to normal in a very short period of time.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And your body gives you some regular signals anyway, when
you've been at rest for a couple weeks, not really
on vacation. We did a lot of walking and there
was a whole lot of that was going on, just naturally,
playing at the beach, that sort of thing. But yeah,
I didn't do any physical like twenty minute intense aerobic work.
But when I came back, frankly, I was able to
(02:56):
jump right back into the same levels but you know,
the same intensity without too much trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's great, that's great, and it really goes to the
foundation and the base that you probably set over many
many year period of time, which is you know, very good.
But you know, it's interesting. I was talking to you know,
prevention cardiologists the other day. Of course, we all know
Henry Sadlo who also is a prevention cardiologist, and we
(03:24):
all conclude the same thing. What we know about getting
your heart in good shape hasn't changed substantially in the
last thirty years, and you at least three times a week.
You need to be at a level that you can
kind of talk to somebody or make jokes with somebody
the majority of times. Maybe stress that heart one time
into about eighty percent of your maximum heart rate, and
(03:45):
you can make it more complicated terry, but you don't
need to. And so even if you took a little
bit of time off, you got a good base. You'll
jump back into it relatively quickly. One of the call
marks that the big time athletes do is the morning
heart rate. And so you'll guess is being on vacation,
and you know in bibing a little bit or eating
food you wouldn't normally eat, which you should. We should
(04:06):
all do. That's what vacations are all about. You're probably
going to see a little difference in your morning heart
rate for about a week or so afterwards if you
measure it.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Oh interesting, which I did not. By the way, my
wife and daughter they're good. They've got the Apple watches
and on. They worry about all the dynamics, all the
numbers on it. I don't. I just figure my lungs
and my legs and my heart will tell me.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Your body will tell you, and I will tell you.
As many people you know. With these aura rings and
all the different sleep monitors, they have trade offs and
there's a bias to them. They're all based on engineering formulas.
They're not all one hundred percent accurate. But if you
start to rely on them for telling you how you
should feel, it's not a good thing. So make sure
(04:51):
your wife and her daughter be careful with that, because
you don't want to have that bias them in some
option or attitude that they don't normally listen to. Your
body is the best advice. What you just said.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
They hang on to that stuff way too much. Okay, well,
we're moving still through another heat period, so it's just
a good time to remind them. Doctor Benn's about our listeners,
just about hydration through this tough stuff. We're still going
to hit nineties and we get all that for the
rest of August and through September, we're going to go
through some rough stuff. So it's always good for people
(05:25):
to be mindful of how much moisture is going in
and what that moisture is beyond water.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
That's right, that's right. So again I try to keep
things you know fairly simple and give what I call
you know exercise snacks and advice snacks around hydration that
people can relate to. And one thing living in a
high humid area if there's a positive to it. You
know how much water you lose by sweat well versus
you know, if you're out in the northwest Colorado right now,
(05:57):
you'll probably have high heat, but you won't feel your
body sweating and it just sucks the water right out
of you. So high humidity again, listen to your body
seeing the sweat, but be proactive would be point number one.
The time to get good hydration is not when you're dehydrated.
It's when you're hydrated. That way, your body has some
sense of reserves as you begin to sweat. Second piece
(06:18):
of advice really is that depending on your body weight,
if you kind of cut that in half in terms
of pounds, that would be a good rule. If I'm
on the number of ounces or half, four to six
twelve to sixteen ounces a day, and you'll be generally
in pretty good shape unless you're a hot exercises. So
if you're training right now over at U of L Football,
you'll notice they take a lot more water breaks. In fact,
(06:40):
they don't even have water breaks anymore. They just have
free flowing water the entire time, not the old days
when you had salt tablets and water breaks. And then
the third piece of advice along that is there's nothing
wrong with electrolytes, but be careful with them. Some of
them have sugar, some of them have caffeine, and there's
so many on the market. They don't replace, you know,
(07:01):
water generally. What they do is they try to keep
water from leaving your body. They're not a bad thing,
but don't don't let them guilt you into thinking that
that can that can replace old fashioned Mother Nature's water
is the as the drug of choice if you will
on hydration. I think the last piece of it is
that it's always a good idea to have some water
(07:22):
before you go to bed and and that will help,
you know, get you in a good setting for the
next day. If you get orthostatic hypotension, if you start
standing up and feeling dizzy at all, you are already
pass due and so you need to rest and relax,
get fluids. There are some cases where people need to
get to you know, get the IV bag and the
(07:42):
electrolytes in them. That's very very few cases, but there
are those. But that would be a good first sign
that you know you're a little bit lightheaded, that you
are dehydrated, and you're exactly right. We go through these periods,
even going in Indian summer in like you know, October
period where you get this false sense of a few
days of coolness. It comes right back atching the news
is your body is probably acclimated a bit, which takes
(08:04):
seven to ten days in the heat and a lot
less than cold. But it's still gotta be careful.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah. Last thing for you too, you mentioned water before bed.
What about the water versus coffee mix first thing in
the morning if you're a morning exerciser.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh, that's a good question. So you know, coffee is
a dehydrator, not a hydrator because it's got generally caffeine
in it, and even decap has some element of caffeine
in it, and obviously water is a hydrator, So definitely water.
What I do think a lot of people do is
they start out even before a run or exercise. I
might have a cup of coffee, nothing wrong with that
(08:38):
and get a little stimulation from the caffeine, but just
don't think that's going to be your source of hydration.
Think of that as your source of stimulant or energy
and early release of endorphins.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Okay, makes sense, Larry, Ben's great, talking to you again,
See you soon. Always all right, He's king of physical
therapists right there, Doctor Larry
Doctor Larry Bench joins us great executive leader at Pro Rehab. Hey, Larry,
welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, it's great to be back, Terry. It's been a while.
How are you ben coping with the heat?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
You know pretty well, we went away for a while,
took a little vacation and it was like a shutdown
exercise for two weeks, and then came back and then
started up again and actually felt pretty good about it.
I wanted to talk with you about that because you're
a physical therapy expert at this sort of thing. When
people are interrupted at exercise. What what are the basic
(00:36):
rules of reintroducing yourself after a couple of weeks of dormancy.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, it's a good question, and it's vastly different whether
we're talking about strength training or we're talking about aerobic
So strength training is a little more forgiving. You know,
generally you're trying to get high intensity muscular you know,
strength to get stimulistic at muscle growth. And if you
(01:03):
work out a couple three days a week, your body
goes through what they term in science called periodization, which
means there are times where you're more ripe for strengthening
and times where you need rest and so taking a
week or two off from strengthening, you'll get very very
little decline, unfortunately from an aerobic standpoint, which is probably
(01:23):
more the concern for most of us because we want
our heart and lungs to be in good shape. You
could take a little time off, but not much. And
what you ought to do is reintroduce yourself at about
sixty to seventy percent of what you were doing over
a period of one or two weeks. So if you
were doing three miles three times a day, go back
(01:43):
to about two miles and do that for a week
or two. Your body will be much more forgiving and
the balance of that other one there, and this is
where it gets interesting. According to research, you should still
do aerobic exercise, but it should be walking the so
called zone one and ZO two zone two. There's a
lot of good science behind it. And so if you're
(02:05):
again at that three mile stage, do the first two
running in the last one walking, or all three run
walking some aspect of that over a two week period
and you'll be back at that same stage. The biggest
indicators that think called VO two max and VO two
max is a little hard to measure for us normal humans,
even with a garment or an apple watch, but it's
(02:28):
a reliable measure and there's some proxies to measuring in
so you do get a mild reduction, which can get
that to normal in a very short period of time.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And your body gives you some regular signals anyway, when
you've been at rest for a couple weeks, not really
on vacation. We did a lot of walking and there
was a whole lot of that was going on, just naturally,
playing at the beach, that sort of thing. But yeah,
I didn't do any physical like twenty minute intense aerobic work.
But when I came back, frankly, I was able to
(02:56):
jump right back into the same levels but you know,
the same intensity without too much trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's great, that's great, and it really goes to the
foundation and the base that you probably set over many
many year period of time, which is you know, very good.
But you know, it's interesting. I was talking to you know,
prevention cardiologists the other day. Of course, we all know
Henry Sadlo who also is a prevention cardiologist, and we
(03:24):
all conclude the same thing. What we know about getting
your heart in good shape hasn't changed substantially in the
last thirty years, and you at least three times a week.
You need to be at a level that you can
kind of talk to somebody or make jokes with somebody
the majority of times. Maybe stress that heart one time
into about eighty percent of your maximum heart rate, and
(03:45):
you can make it more complicated terry, but you don't
need to. And so even if you took a little
bit of time off, you got a good base. You'll
jump back into it relatively quickly. One of the call
marks that the big time athletes do is the morning
heart rate. And so you'll guess is being on vacation,
and you know in bibing a little bit or eating
food you wouldn't normally eat, which you should. We should
(04:06):
all do. That's what vacations are all about. You're probably
going to see a little difference in your morning heart
rate for about a week or so afterwards if you
measure it.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Oh interesting, which I did not. By the way, my
wife and daughter they're good. They've got the Apple watches
and on. They worry about all the dynamics, all the
numbers on it. I don't. I just figure my lungs
and my legs and my heart will tell me.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Your body will tell you, and I will tell you.
As many people you know. With these aura rings and
all the different sleep monitors, they have trade offs and
there's a bias to them. They're all based on engineering formulas.
They're not all one hundred percent accurate. But if you
start to rely on them for telling you how you
should feel, it's not a good thing. So make sure
(04:51):
your wife and her daughter be careful with that, because
you don't want to have that bias them in some
option or attitude that they don't normally listen to. Your
body is the best advice. What you just said.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
They hang on to that stuff way too much. Okay, well,
we're moving still through another heat period, so it's just
a good time to remind them. Doctor Benn's about our listeners,
just about hydration through this tough stuff. We're still going
to hit nineties and we get all that for the
rest of August and through September, we're going to go
through some rough stuff. So it's always good for people
(05:25):
to be mindful of how much moisture is going in
and what that moisture is beyond water.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
That's right, that's right. So again I try to keep
things you know fairly simple and give what I call
you know exercise snacks and advice snacks around hydration that
people can relate to. And one thing living in a
high humid area if there's a positive to it. You
know how much water you lose by sweat well versus
you know, if you're out in the northwest Colorado right now,
(05:57):
you'll probably have high heat, but you won't feel your
body sweating and it just sucks the water right out
of you. So high humidity again, listen to your body
seeing the sweat, but be proactive would be point number one.
The time to get good hydration is not when you're dehydrated.
It's when you're hydrated. That way, your body has some
sense of reserves as you begin to sweat. Second piece
(06:18):
of advice really is that depending on your body weight,
if you kind of cut that in half in terms
of pounds, that would be a good rule. If I'm
on the number of ounces or half, four to six
twelve to sixteen ounces a day, and you'll be generally
in pretty good shape unless you're a hot exercises. So
if you're training right now over at U of L Football,
you'll notice they take a lot more water breaks. In fact,
(06:40):
they don't even have water breaks anymore. They just have
free flowing water the entire time, not the old days
when you had salt tablets and water breaks. And then
the third piece of advice along that is there's nothing
wrong with electrolytes, but be careful with them. Some of
them have sugar, some of them have caffeine, and there's
so many on the market. They don't replace, you know,
(07:01):
water generally. What they do is they try to keep
water from leaving your body. They're not a bad thing,
but don't don't let them guilt you into thinking that
that can that can replace old fashioned Mother Nature's water
is the as the drug of choice if you will
on hydration. I think the last piece of it is
that it's always a good idea to have some water
(07:22):
before you go to bed and and that will help,
you know, get you in a good setting for the
next day. If you get orthostatic hypotension, if you start
standing up and feeling dizzy at all, you are already
pass due and so you need to rest and relax,
get fluids. There are some cases where people need to
get to you know, get the IV bag and the
(07:42):
electrolytes in them. That's very very few cases, but there
are those. But that would be a good first sign
that you know you're a little bit lightheaded, that you
are dehydrated, and you're exactly right. We go through these periods,
even going in Indian summer in like you know, October
period where you get this false sense of a few
days of coolness. It comes right back atching the news
is your body is probably acclimated a bit, which takes
(08:04):
seven to ten days in the heat and a lot
less than cold. But it's still gotta be careful.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah. Last thing for you too, you mentioned water before bed.
What about the water versus coffee mix first thing in
the morning if you're a morning exerciser.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Oh, that's a good question. So you know, coffee is
a dehydrator, not a hydrator because it's got generally caffeine
in it, and even decap has some element of caffeine
in it, and obviously water is a hydrator, So definitely water.
What I do think a lot of people do is
they start out even before a run or exercise. I
might have a cup of coffee, nothing wrong with that
(08:38):
and get a little stimulation from the caffeine, but just
don't think that's going to be your source of hydration.
Think of that as your source of stimulant or energy
and early release of endorphins.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Okay, makes sense, Larry, Ben's great, talking to you again,
See you soon. Always all right, He's king of physical
therapists right there, Doctor Larry
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!