December 13, 2024 • 39 mins
🧪 Today in our Lab 🥼 we are going to take a coffee ☕ with Dr. Martin Gibala
Dr. Martin Gibala is a professor and holds the Faculty of Science Research Chair in Integrative Exercise Physiology. He is renowned for his research on the physiological and health benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Author of the Best Seller “The One Minute Workout”, Dr. Gibala has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and has been cited in numerous popular media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Globe and Mail.
His research has revolutionized how we think about fitness, showing how short, intense bursts of exercise can provide incredible health benefits.
In this episode, we’ll dive deep into VILPA—those brief bursts of physical activity that can boost your health, the nuances of PGC-1 alpha as a master regulator of endurance adaptations, VO2 max and its impact on performance, and so much more.
Get ready for a fascinating conversation packed with actionable insights!
Whether you're a seasoned biohacker, a wellness enthusiast, or simply curious about the secrets to living longer and healthier, this episode is not to be missed!
We will talk about: #VO2max #theeoneminuteworkout #longevity #antiaging #hiit #vilpa #pgc1-a #exercisesnacks
Episode Sponsored by ThinkFit https://thinkfit.app/ "Live Intentionally - Combine Productivity with Wellness for a Balanced, Meaningful Life."
Hit LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to support this channel! 😌
www.martingibala.com
Key Publications
Gibala, M. J., Little, J. P., Macdonald, M. J., & Hawley, J. A. (2012). Physiological adaptations to low‐volume, high‐intensity interval training in health and disease. The Journal of Physiology, 590(5), 1077-1084. Gillen, J. B., & Gibala, M. J. (2014). Is high-intensity interval training a time-efficient exercise strategy to improve health and fitness? Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 39(3), 409-412. MacInnis, M. J., & Gibala, M. J. (2017). Physiological adaptations to interval training and the role of exercise intensity. The Journal of Physiology, 595(9), 2915-2930. Islam, H., Gibala, M. J., & Little, J. P. (2022). Exercise Snacks: A Novel Strategy to Improve Cardiometabolic Health. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 50(1), 31-37. Gillen, J. B., Estafanos, S., Williamson, E., Hodson, N., Malowany, J. M., Kumbhare, D., & Gibala, M. J. (2022). Twelve weeks of sprint interval training improves indices of cardiometabolic health similar to traditional endurance training despite a five-fold lower exercise volume and time commitment. PloS one, 17(5), e0259198.
Latest: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-023-01938-6 https://martingibala.com/index.php/publications/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=gibala+m&sort=date
Book
Gibala, M., & Shulgan, C. (2017). The One-Minute Workout: Science Shows a Way to Get Fit That's Smarter, Faster, Shorter. Avery. Other ResourcesLinks Alchimista Podcast Smart Links Un Libro al Giorno ITA https://link.chtbl.com/1lag Sapessatelo ITA https://link.chtbl.com/sapessatelo Caffe' dell' Alchimista (ITA/ENG) https://link.chtbl.com/CDA
Other relevant episodes:
Dr. Doug McGuff [ENG] ☕ Il Caffe' Dell' Alchimista- Coffee with the Alchemist ⚗️ Dr.Doug McGuff, Body By Science [ENG] ☕ Il Caffe' Dell' Alchimista- Coffee with the Alchemist ⚗️ Dr.Doug McGuff, Body By Science
Bryan Johnson ☕ Il Caffe' Dell' Alchimista ⚗️ con: Bryan Johnson, Bioha
Dr. Martin Gibala is a professor and holds the Faculty of Science Research Chair in Integrative Exercise Physiology. He is renowned for his research on the physiological and health benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Author of the Best Seller “The One Minute Workout”, Dr. Gibala has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and has been cited in numerous popular media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Globe and Mail.
His research has revolutionized how we think about fitness, showing how short, intense bursts of exercise can provide incredible health benefits.
In this episode, we’ll dive deep into VILPA—those brief bursts of physical activity that can boost your health, the nuances of PGC-1 alpha as a master regulator of endurance adaptations, VO2 max and its impact on performance, and so much more.
Get ready for a fascinating conversation packed with actionable insights!
Whether you're a seasoned biohacker, a wellness enthusiast, or simply curious about the secrets to living longer and healthier, this episode is not to be missed!
We will talk about: #VO2max #theeoneminuteworkout #longevity #antiaging #hiit #vilpa #pgc1-a #exercisesnacks
Episode Sponsored by ThinkFit https://thinkfit.app/ "Live Intentionally - Combine Productivity with Wellness for a Balanced, Meaningful Life."
Hit LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to support this channel! 😌
www.martingibala.com
Key Publications
Gibala, M. J., Little, J. P., Macdonald, M. J., & Hawley, J. A. (2012). Physiological adaptations to low‐volume, high‐intensity interval training in health and disease. The Journal of Physiology, 590(5), 1077-1084. Gillen, J. B., & Gibala, M. J. (2014). Is high-intensity interval training a time-efficient exercise strategy to improve health and fitness? Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 39(3), 409-412. MacInnis, M. J., & Gibala, M. J. (2017). Physiological adaptations to interval training and the role of exercise intensity. The Journal of Physiology, 595(9), 2915-2930. Islam, H., Gibala, M. J., & Little, J. P. (2022). Exercise Snacks: A Novel Strategy to Improve Cardiometabolic Health. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 50(1), 31-37. Gillen, J. B., Estafanos, S., Williamson, E., Hodson, N., Malowany, J. M., Kumbhare, D., & Gibala, M. J. (2022). Twelve weeks of sprint interval training improves indices of cardiometabolic health similar to traditional endurance training despite a five-fold lower exercise volume and time commitment. PloS one, 17(5), e0259198.
Latest: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-023-01938-6 https://martingibala.com/index.php/publications/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=gibala+m&sort=date
Book
Gibala, M., & Shulgan, C. (2017). The One-Minute Workout: Science Shows a Way to Get Fit That's Smarter, Faster, Shorter. Avery. Other ResourcesLinks Alchimista Podcast Smart Links Un Libro al Giorno ITA https://link.chtbl.com/1lag Sapessatelo ITA https://link.chtbl.com/sapessatelo Caffe' dell' Alchimista (ITA/ENG) https://link.chtbl.com/CDA
Other relevant episodes:
Dr. Doug McGuff [ENG] ☕ Il Caffe' Dell' Alchimista- Coffee with the Alchemist ⚗️ Dr.Doug McGuff, Body By Science [ENG] ☕ Il Caffe' Dell' Alchimista- Coffee with the Alchemist ⚗️ Dr.Doug McGuff, Body By Science
Bryan Johnson ☕ Il Caffe' Dell' Alchimista ⚗️ con: Bryan Johnson, Bioha
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to another coffee with the Alchemist. Today will be
much more effective and efficient than usual. We are going
to spend some time talking about the one minute workout. Yes,
our guest today is no other than doctor Martin Gibbala,
(00:23):
our renow aspert in exercise physiology and the science of
high intensity interval training or high IT. Martin work as
revolutionized how we think about fitness, showing how short intense
bursts of exercise can provide incredible health benefits. We will
(00:50):
talk about the nuances of GC one health as a
master regulator of endurance, view to max and impact on
performance and so much more. But you see the coffee
is almost ready, so get ready for a fascinating conversation
(01:13):
pact with actionable insights.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
With the tour Martin Jibla.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And thanks for being here today. Is very a pleasure
for me to be here with you. And what time
is it in your location?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We are one thirty in the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Ask good, it's seven thirteenth Central European time. We work
offline with a set of questions. I hope to cover
the main points. I know that you've quite recently been
an a Ronda Patrick podcast with quite extensive more than
two hours long. I don't know how how you managed
this load goes straight into the topic of the high
(01:57):
intensity interval training. Why you started working in this direction?
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, so I when I first started out at McMaster University,
I was a busy, young assistant professor. I had a
working spouse, we had two young children, and so quite
ironically for a professor of exercise physiology, I found myself
with very little time to exercise with all the other
commitments of life, so that personal interest dovetailed with a
(02:28):
professional interest. For twenty five years, I've taught a course
called the Integrative Physiology of Human Performance, and my students
are always very interested in the training regimes of high
level athletes, and so I would ask them, why do
these high level endurance athletes practice sprinting in order to
get better at endurance? And so it was a way
(02:50):
to introduce them to teach about some of the biochemistry,
and so it was those two things meshed together and
that sort of led to a person and scientific interest
in interval training that's lasted for many decades.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Now. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Now I have a copy of your book here and
full full of notes that you see you can see
I think that this is twenty seventeen, is it?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The first one is?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Yeah, that that was when the book was published twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So we can talk later if anything has changed or
if you thinking about a revision or just an update.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
What would you change?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
But let's let's start, because I just following your your book,
I read about the wing test that started in two
thousand and four, the first set and then then you
add more more set of this test that there is
a reason why. So can you tell us why you
(03:55):
started and why you changed? Yes?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yes, So the win gate test very common test and
exercise physiology. You know, thirty seconds of all out as
hard as you can go effort, and it's done on
a special bicycle as well, so people think, well, how
hard can thirty seconds be? But it's very, very demanding exercise,
and so it was a model the winggate. Repeated wing
(04:18):
gates had been a model in sprint interval training studies,
and at the time there was some research that was
looking at if people did fourteen sessions of WINDGate training
every day for two weeks, or they spread it out
over six weeks. Some of the physiological responses were the same,
but the performance only got better if they had the
(04:41):
recovery periods. And so that led us to ask the question, well,
what about just two weeks of interval training, but we'll
add the recovery, and so that led to the design
of the initial study six sessions over two weeks. You know,
we opted for four wind gates and we progressed up
to seven. That's still very amending. So but that was
(05:01):
the rational for that first study. Uh, and so we
were you know, the the findings were in the title
that very brief amount was enough to increase mitochondrial capacity
and also markedly improved performance at least in these you know,
non elite individuals. So that that that was the first study.
(05:24):
They got some attention.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So that's why you trigger your curiosity, and then you
started thinking, how far can when we go in reducing
and reducing and reducing and then we will we will
come to the Reheit protocol in a while. So it
is this when you mentioned the recovery, which is now
now we know that exercises stimulus stimulus, so it's something
(05:46):
that that is initiating and triguerting adapt.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Type the adaptation.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So we go back to the general adaptation syndrome, to
the gas theory.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So is this correct?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So this is the reason why we need to recover
after or this stressor to the body.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Yeah, absolutely, exercises a stress. It's an insult. When we
do this very potent, intense work. We have a very
marked disturbance of homeostasis and that triggers responsiveness. So absolutely,
it's a it's a profound disturbance to homeostasis that leads
to adaptation.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
And I'm curious because also I think there is this
theory of this speed. We will talk about the rate
of fuel depletion because we are not talking only about
high intensity but interval training. So just the rate, the
speed of which we go to the full fullest.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And then we go back normal. So this is Is
this correct? So?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I think you do you think that this is the
real one of the key factors in the results.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I think it's an important factor because you're right, you know,
what are the things that trigger or we'll just talk
about muscle. You know, we have more capillarias, we have
more mitochondria, and we know that the triggers for those
growth processes include things like low levels of glycogen increases
in lactate, hydrogens reactive oxygen species. And so I think
(07:19):
it's been traditionally thought or you know, we generally know,
for example, as glycogen goes down during exercise, the muscle
senses that lack of fuel availability that triggers the response
in recovery. And so we thought, well, maybe it's not
only that you get to some critical level you reach that,
but maybe it's also the rate at which it goes down.
(07:41):
You could almost imagine like sensors on an airplane, you know,
they sense the altitude, but a sudden drop in altitude
might be particularly problematic. And so when we have very
sudden drops in glycogen, we know, we've you know, we
and others have shown it. You literally turn on and
activate these metabolic fuel gauges that then trigger these recovery processes,
(08:05):
these signaling cascades that lead to genes turning on mr
and a species being formed to create the new proteins.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Perfectly gets very clear, very fascinating.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
So is this link to the PGC one alpha right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
It is. And so PGC one very important protein you know,
often termed the master regulator, but it's an important protein
that is associated with many different mitochondrial proteins. So if
we can activate PGC one, you're going to stimulate mitochondrial growth.
And you know, many of those triggers we talked about,
(08:43):
reactive auction species lactate hydrogens have been associated with activating
PGC one alpha.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, yeah, perfectly.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
So is this trigger then recovery and adaptation. This is
the short and the and the going back to your
book and then one minute workout. So we discuss about
the efficiency of high intense the interval training, because I
speak a lot with people about the high intensity training.
(09:14):
We are saying this is not the solution, it's one solution,
it's one thing. Then also you talk about what we do,
meaning with the high intensity it is subjective and so
is compared with the traditional endurance. We talk about about
the glycogen storage depletion, which is linear or I mean
(09:36):
it's slowly with the traditional endurance or running or the
treadmill for half an hour, forty five, two hours versus
these spikes of demand. Summarizing the key four or five,
and then the main one benefits of high intense the
interstrending versus the traditional steady state endurance.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
And so you're you know number one, You're absolutely right.
Hit is an option. We're not saying it's the solution,
panacea to solve in activity crisis. It's one more option,
particularly for people who don't have a lot of time,
don't want to spend a lot of time. And so
when we say efficiency, it's really the time efficiency aspect, right,
(10:21):
So you can get somewhere faster, you know, more rapidly,
or with less total exercise, you can get to the
same place. In terms of the main response is you
know the I like to say that the underlying physiology
is the same, it's just we can trigger it in
different ways. And so you know, the major improvements would
(10:43):
be an increase in cardiospiratory fitness. You know that we
measure as VO two max. This is the maximum rate
of auction uptake by the body. It reflects the underlying
capacity of many physiological systems, but mainly the heart, the lungs,
the blood vessels to dilate the muscle's ability to use oxygen.
(11:04):
So it's a very good proxy marker of a lot
of underlying physiology. And so viotwo max we know, probably
our best predictor of longevity our risk of developing chronic diseases,
even certain types of cancers, but certainly cardiovasser disease type
two diabetes. And the other big response would be muscle
(11:28):
oxidative capacity or that measurement of mitochondria capillaries. You know,
we we grow these more in our muscles, and that's
associated with better aerobic energy, less fuel we burn sugars
and fats more efficiently, or we produce more energy when
we burn those fuels. So and we talk about you know,
(11:49):
metabolic fitness is mainly muscle fitness, cardiovascor fitness maniar, heart
and lungs, and so with interval training you can stimulate
those things. You can I like to say you can
get to a similar level with less time commitment with
intervals or for some of them, including cardiospiratory fitness, for
(12:10):
the same dose of moderate or hit hit is going
to give you greater benefits. So definitely the improvement in
cardiospiratory fitness when you do more vigorous interval training, I
think the data is very compelling to say that that's
the best way to optimize the improvement in cardiospiratory fitness.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Fully aligning for it and then we can take into
ACCOUNTO so non responders to the steady state, So this
is another category that may benefit. And then there are
similarities as well with the high intensity resistance training, which
is a different training regime, but again is treagening the
same things in many many places is giving other results
(12:54):
something is very similar. So coming back to the one
minute workout. So I've seen in your and we will
link into the show notes to your page. We did
latest research, something that is still ongoing and something that
you recently completed. So what would you be what you
you add today to this book base from twenty seventeen
(13:14):
to today.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, so I like to think, you know, there's nothing
I would change in the book. I think everything we
wrote is still stands the test of time. If there
was you know, a few things change or update, I
think I would give more context to this whole notion
of what counts as high intensity. You know, in the book,
(13:37):
we opted to use perceived exertion as the indicator because
for most anyone can use perceived exertion and it's highly individualized.
But you know, we recently wrote a review in Sports
Medicine where we talked more about the what counts as
high intensity interval training from a health perspective, from a
(13:58):
performance perspective, and we broke it down more so in
a health perspective, it's vigorous physical activity and there's many
different metrics for that based on heart rate, RPE, other indicators.
In a performance context, athletes talk about training domains and
so we use markers like critical power, maximal lactate, steady state.
(14:21):
And so I think I would give a more fulsome
definition of HIT, including making this point that it's not
one single thing. We can't just say that eighty percent
heart rate max that's it for everyone. And I think
that's a more accessible format then for people, because it
depends on your context, health performance, what you're able to measure.
(14:43):
So that would be a probably the change or the
update that I would make, and then the other updates
would just be There's just more and more evidence coming
out supporting things that we stated in the book. So
we were just getting into this notion of exercise, snacking, stareclaps,
timing exercise, body weight style exercise. There's just more studies
(15:05):
supporting that. So the evidence base is growing. And also,
you know, I know we'll talk or I think we'll
talk about it later, this idea of VILPA. You know,
there's emerging epidemiological data to show that two minutes of
daily vigorous physical activity is associated with marked reductions and
(15:26):
all cause mortality. So I think you're seeing that the
original scientific studies are growing in scope and number, and
you're seeing epidemiological support for this, and it's sort of
starting to converge even more. So the evidence space is
just growing and growing.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I think, yeah, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Again, the basic human physiology is the human physiology. So
and having the support and the more and more confirmation
that this is correct and that are thinks that that
are allging is great. So so and we are already
talk about the impact on health span and longevity from
a cardiovascular point of view, and we will. We are
(16:09):
talking about the minimum effective dose. So and because I
think one of one of the last is in publem
MET now is I don't know if it's still completed,
is perspective or low frequencies intensity interval training once per week,
you know, as as an effective and sustainable energy and
sercise strategy to take all the obesity pandemic. So is
(16:35):
what what's your take in about the minimum effective dose
at this moment with your knowledge today.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Yeah, so we definitely know and we knew even at
the time of the book one. So a single weekly
bout of high intensity interval training is associated with lower
all cause mortality. So there's good data now that bout
is about a half an hour long, you know, it's
(17:02):
the classic Norwegian of four by four with some recovery
in that. So but we know even a single weekly
bout that lasts about thirty minutes in total is protective.
If you will, I think you know, we also know
that two or three bouts a week also totally about
(17:24):
a thirty minute time commitment. So maybe that's ten minutes
of vigorous exercise in a thirty minute time commitment. We
know that's also beneficial. And so now I think we're
curious about these exercise snacks, like literally if people do
you know, two minutes a day, But so minimum effective
(17:44):
dose is probably two minutes a day of vigorous adding
up to fifteen to twenty minutes a week or so
of vigorous you know, maybe as low as ten. That's
about as low as you can go, and there's data
to show health benefits. Now, no one is suggesting I
don't think that that's going to provide you with all
(18:05):
the benefits of the Physical Activity guidelines, but it's certainly
enough to move the needle on certain metrics.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, yeah, perfect, Yeah, because we know that the guidelines
still the guidelines are not talking about high intensity. They
are talking about moderate. We're vigorous.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
But so I think also the more you is not
the better. The more we know. Also for in terms
of resistance training is the same story. So we have the.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Return of investment in terms of time and efficiency is
less and less. It's great to know that one single
session per week is good in terms of prevention. Because
we are talking about the exercises, medicine, the already touched
base a little bit, the high intensity interval training fitting
into the public Health Recommendation for physical activity, and I
(18:58):
had some question because are you already touched a little
bit about the r P RP.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So is it because.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
When people listen to high intensity interval training, they are
a little bit scared, so they feel like a high
intensity is so you please give a little bit of
feeling on what is that link to what you already
said earlier and how people start incorporating high intensity interval
(19:27):
training and today routine.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Absolutely, So I think you know, how is that problematic term?
I think number one, people should think high means vigorous, right,
So vigorous, as we talked about earlier, well defined in
a health context, very clear metrics. So think about you
need to get in that. Maybe you know a better
term would be vigorous intermittent exercise. So that's where you
(19:53):
want to get to and to your point, already well
accepted and recommended in the public Health guidelines, right, we
should all be doing moderate to vigorous and so in
that thought mode, high intensity interval training is currently part
of the guidelines, or it's one option that the guidelines incorporate.
(20:14):
Also importantly vigorous for you, right, And so for a
high level endurance athlete, a hit session might be sprinting
uphill on a steep treadmill incline. For a very deconditioned
person or someone starting out, it's brisk walking on the flat,
(20:35):
So the relative stress can be the same even though
the absolute workloads are dramatically different. And so I think
that's where people don't need to be afraid of interval training.
There's just so much research showing that it's been applied
to individuals with cardiovascar disease, type two diabetes, metabolic syndrome,
(20:57):
older individuals, but again properly scaled to starting fitness and individualized.
That's really the that's really the key.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, you mentioned the older individual because we are talking
about high intensity does not mean applyometrics, so you don't
need to jump.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And do whatever.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Is a cross fitting style, so you can adapt to
the elderly in a way that for them is intense
enough and vigorous enough to reach the goals and the results.
So that that very important point. And we go back
a down way to WILPA because I heard the first time,
(21:40):
I think not so long ago from you about with
built PA, and I was really curious to understand what
what doesn't mean and why is now you mentioned and
there are studies I think in Australia or the Bean
and there are still so can you please give you
give us a little overview of what is built PA?
Speaker 4 (21:59):
And yes, and you know a general problem with this
whole area is lots of acronyms, HIT, mixed anaerobic speeders, VILPA.
You know, please just simplify it. So uh, but but
you can think of vilpa as the non exercise equivalent
(22:21):
of an exercise snack. And so what I mean by
that is vilpa is vigorous. So now we have a
very good understanding of vigorous intermittent, right, so interval based
lifestyle physical activity. So not structured exercise. This is just
activities of daily living. You know, like let's say we
(22:41):
met in person today, I would have had to walk
or somehow get from you know, take the subway to
your recording studio. And I get out of the subway
and I can take the lift or the elevator, or
I can vigorously go up the stairs. That's not structured exercise.
It's just I can choose in that moment, in that
activity of daily living, to pursue some vigorous work. And
(23:05):
so that would be an example. Or you get off
an airplane after a long flight. You can take the escalator,
or you have a heavy backpack and you can climb
the stairs. Choose to engage in the vigorous effort as
you play with your children, you know, you get off
a bus. All of those are examples of vilpa. Carrying
heavy groceries out to the car choosing to engage in
(23:29):
that sort of physical activity within your everyday life and
getting into that vigorous range. That's the type of concept
that we're talking about and in studies, and you're right
this very much. Led by a colleague at the University
of Sydney, Emmanuel Stamatakis, we were able to do large,
(23:51):
a large scale study where followed a large number of individuals,
over twenty five thousand individuals over about six and a
half years, and these individuals had worn accelerometers so you
could try and get a sense of when they were
doing vigorous activity. And all of these people self identified
as non exercisers, so they didn't see themselves as structured exercisers,
(24:15):
but just as they went about their day periodically, many
would engage in vigorous activity and as little as four
minutes a day of VILPA type activity was associated with
twenty five thirty percent reductions and all cause mortality, larger
reductions in cardiovascular disease mortality. You know, that's not cause
(24:39):
and effect evidence correlations, but in large numbers of individuals,
and there's been a number of studies like that coming
to the same conclusion over the last number of years.
And it's because you're able to rely on accelerometry based
data rather than traditional just question answer, you'd ask people
to recall what they were doing, so really compelling data.
(25:01):
I think around VILPA.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, that is great because again people are linking exercise
like I go to the gym, I exercise. If I
don't go to the gym, I am not exercises. This
is the definition. Yeah, and the physical activity. We know
walking is beneficial as well, but is spreading the world
about build pie is very important because myself, you need
(25:27):
to be a little bit more mindful during the day
because yeah, while you walk, you overthinking maybe, but if
you start having this mindset when you see the stairs,
now I take the stairs and I sprint.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
A little bit of it safely. I just work a
little bit faster. So this is built passed.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So and only these little small choices during the day
they are changing in the long run. This is very
important because you don't need just to go. And then
also for sedentary behavior, this is a very bad thing
during the day, sitting the entire day. Breaking with some
vigorous activity is a plus.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Absolutely, and I think VILPA exercise snacks those type approaches.
It may be a double benefit. You're getting the benefit
of the vigorous physical activity. But as you say, you're
breaking up prolonged periods of sedentary behavior, prolonged sitting, which
is also beneficial for us. So you know many people
set a time or on their smartphone or on their
(26:28):
fitness watch to buzz every hour. Give yourself these little
prompts and reminders. You know, as I'm talking to you
right now, we could both get up and do a
series of air squats at our desk and practice an
exercise snack right now, and it would be good for us. Right,
So when we're done the interview, we'll both go and
do that.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, yeah, I will do and I becide that I
develop mobile LAPA will share. But it's completely free, and
it's basically around this concept of the Pomodoro technique for productivity.
And in between these productivity and focused time, you have
this this small exercise even stretching depends, depends excellent and yeah,
this is this is important. And just to clarification, when
(27:10):
when we talk about breaking what I'm talking about breaking
the job, the sedentary job, and to do something this
is exercise neck right. The build pad is more you're
doing something in your daily life and then you integrate
the bigger You're right.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
They you know, they sort of merge or overlap a
little bit, but you're right. The key So, you know,
exercise component of physical activity. But what sex exercise apart
is sort of it's planned and structured, you know, intentional,
you do it, whereas physical activity is you just as
you're going about your day. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
If you have a mindset and mindfulness for the physical
activity you do more often will be just no, you
don't think about it anymore and will be part of
the daily living.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And this is very important, I think.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
So, Yeah, we talk about already, We talked already about
the elderly population, and I will scooters to understand. I
have a question about the chrono exercise because I have
seen a study requite recently controversial, but there are many
so that there is an impact of the power of
when we know that we all have chronotypes and the
(28:21):
effect of time during the day and the exercise.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
What is your what the idea will take about this?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, so I think definitely there's something there. I think,
you know, in an ideal world, we all know our
own chronotype and we align our exercise patterns with that.
So it's it's definitely real, I think, But in a
bigger picture, I don't know that it matters for most
people because you know, let's say I could tell you that,
(28:51):
you know what, if you exercise in the morning after
an overnight fast, you might burn a few more calories
from fat or that aligns with your chronotype better. But
if you're just not a morning person you hate to
exercize in the morning, or you have commitments in the morning,
it doesn't really matter. So I think consistency overwhelmingly is
the key. So find something you like and enjoy, be
(29:14):
consistent with it over the long term, you know, and
if you already get to that point and you want
to further tweak or enhance, Yeah, then maybe try and
align it with your chronotype or you know, a meal
plan around that, right to optimize. But that's sort of
the icing on the cake. It's not, uh, you know,
make sure we're physically active, make sure we're sleeping right,
(29:36):
make sure we're eating right. Those are the big basics,
and then we can tweak or optimize from there.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, for full fully aliging. That's why build PI is
also intet because you still have a life, you still
do what you do until build is very important and
fully fully aliging. For instance, I recently started using VR
build to our reality to work out. Just it says
a novelty is as nice as funding is. It's still
I'm with using my my, my watches, et cetera. I
(30:04):
was not I go into the vigorous. There are different
zones here and then depending on watching the model without
even knowing, use a treadmill for instance, or a stationary bike,
maybe because it's more boring or my mind is focused
on pedaling or running. Yeah, I feel more the debates
(30:29):
that we are going back to RP. So my my
for me is quite okay. It's intense, But looking now
after the data, I see that my heart rate is
going up in almost the same way when I do
other kind of of exercise.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I know, I agree, you know, I'm a I'm a
committed exercise or I'm going to build it in the
by day. But I think my favorite workout and I
don't know if it's a play or exercise. Every Friday,
I have a week I have a weekly ice hot
game with some colleagues and and it's it's fun, right,
so we get out and play and uh, you know,
an hour goes by a very vigorous effort.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
You know, then we we often go to the bar
after and we have a beer together. It's a nice
way to end the week. But you know, I think
that is yes, I'm getting exercise in, but I'm engaged
in play with my friends. It's a mental break. And
so you know, back to this idea of making it
fun and enjoyable. Find something you like. Uh, you know,
dancing can be a form of vigorous physical activity. You
(31:33):
know people don't want to exercise at all, but they
like to dance. Okay, great, right, that's that's your your
your outlet.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
So yeah, yeah, fully aligning and then you you add
this component of social in the in the in ther
end of the week, which is also linked to longevity.
And we know that the part of social life is
is important. So we are almost at the end, and
I must the most recent studies or the most recent
(32:03):
things that that are ongoing if you can tell us
something that is coming soon or is just handed.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So just.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
So, we are very interested in this idea of exercise snacking.
Right now. There's small laboratory based studies where you know,
we bring someone into our laboratory, we sort of control
what they do for six weeks, We motivate and test
them in the laboratory. That's very different from the real world,
and so in these studies, we're.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Trying to.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Examine exercise snack interventions in the real world like you.
So we've partnered with a company that developed an app,
so people get smartphone reminders, Hey, it's time for your
exercise snack. They press what type they want to do.
It takes them through a YouTube video. They can do
these at home or at work on their own. You know,
(32:55):
when we're asking and we have people they're wearing accelerometers
and heart rate monitors at home or at work because
we want to see can they self select to get
into that vigorous range for a minute, because we think
that's very very important. Then we just bring them into
the lab before and after three months to test their
(33:16):
VO two max and their blood. You know, some of
the studies right now, we're doing trials in individuals with
type two diabetes and they're wearing continuous glucose monitors. So
these are we think advancing the field because number one,
these are rigorously designed, multi center, randomized controlled trials, So
(33:37):
you know, not small proof of concept studies in the lab.
These are our cts with colleagues in British Columbia and
also in the real world or at least outside of
the laboratory. So that's one line of research that we
have right now. We're also very interested in the idea
of why do people respond so differently to interval training?
(34:01):
You know, we give one hundred people the same program.
Some thrive, some don't respond at all, and so we're
we're playing around with some of these concepts like critical power.
You know, if if we can identify critical power in individuals,
which is a more metabolic threshold, you know, it can
occur over a very broad range of heart rate and
(34:23):
VO two. That's another issue. We're also interested in the
biological sex differences. You know, we know there's some differences,
but are those just inter individual differences? Are these true
biological differences between males and females. We're we're interested in
(34:43):
that questions as well.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Clear and so where where can we find the latest
researches on your website?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Yeah, so I definitely have a link on my website
to our latest research studies. I try to put up
links to study where we have open access, you know,
so people could read a recent review to get some
updates on this. I have linked to UH media interviews
podcast interviews like this so people could listen UH to
(35:15):
the latest podcast interviews. That would be a good a
good place to start.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Perfect. I wish everything.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I think I have a last last question because it's
more curiosity when when reading your book and UH talking
with people, Because okay, we go back a little bit
with view two max and then your book, there was
somewhere written exercising at one hundred more than one hundred
percent of you, which which people some some ask so
(35:44):
it's view two max.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Why how is possible we go over it? So can
you please give we solve this this?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
No, it's a great question, right bo to max is max?
How can you go about view two max? It's a
very good question. And so what it is? You know,
when we do a progressive exercise test, you know, so
you get on a bike and we increase the workload
gradually over time. At some point when we're measuring your
oxygen uptake, your oxygen uptake will level out. So you
(36:12):
reach a workload where your VO two just can't go higher.
You can't your body can't take up any more oxygen,
and so by definition, that is your VOTWO max. But
you could still exercise for very short periods of time
at workloads above that, right, So you could still go
(36:33):
and sprint very hard for ten more seconds at a
higher workload, even though your VOTWO max will not change.
So what it's really referring to this idea that the
actual workload setting could be higher. You can sprint at
a pace or workload that's higher than VO two max.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
So that's where the confusion comes into into play. You know,
athletes will talk about maximal aerobic speed and maximal's sprint speed,
you know, and there's a big difference between those, right,
So that's where the confusion comes in.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Okay, thanks for clarifying.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Do you think there will be adaptation over time that
YouTube max increase?
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Okay if you absolutely yes, for sure?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Right so yeah, okay, perfect, Thank thanks. Do you think
you want to cover anything else? So? Do you think
we cover the basics? Then we will see in the
future and another Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
No, I really appreciate the opportunity. I was a very
engaging conversation. I think you hit on lots of key points.
I appreciate the shout out for my book, but uh no,
I've I've really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Thanks, thanks so much, Martin. So we will be in
touched when I published as well. They did the podcast,
and uh and I wish you the best, and then
I will link everything into the show notes.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Okay, great, Like I say, man, it's you know, it's
it's a I appreciate your interest in my work. You
clearly did your homework and I so I thank you
for that. A nice engaging interview and conversation. I really
appreciate it. I'll send you because I noticed in the
show notes, I'll send you a link to those recent
more recent papers that are these reviews on various topics.
(38:14):
And again they're all open access, so if people wanted
to read those, and if you need anything else, please
just ask and I'll send it through.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Okay, perfect, perfect, I will.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I will take some time to of course cut and
paste and everything.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
So okay, thank you, no rush, Thank you guys.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Nice to meet you, all right, take care, fine out cheers.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Did you like this episode?
Speaker 5 (38:37):
If so, simple, subscribe comes up and click on the
notification bell not to lose any opportunity in the future,
remember sharing and scaring.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Him A photo Coffee even better
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Next time, See you soon.
Welcome to another coffee with the Alchemist. Today will be
much more effective and efficient than usual. We are going
to spend some time talking about the one minute workout. Yes,
our guest today is no other than doctor Martin Gibbala,
(00:23):
our renow aspert in exercise physiology and the science of
high intensity interval training or high IT. Martin work as
revolutionized how we think about fitness, showing how short intense
bursts of exercise can provide incredible health benefits. We will
(00:50):
talk about the nuances of GC one health as a
master regulator of endurance, view to max and impact on
performance and so much more. But you see the coffee
is almost ready, so get ready for a fascinating conversation
(01:13):
pact with actionable insights.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
With the tour Martin Jibla.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And thanks for being here today. Is very a pleasure
for me to be here with you. And what time
is it in your location?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We are one thirty in the afternoon.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Ask good, it's seven thirteenth Central European time. We work
offline with a set of questions. I hope to cover
the main points. I know that you've quite recently been
an a Ronda Patrick podcast with quite extensive more than
two hours long. I don't know how how you managed
this load goes straight into the topic of the high
(01:57):
intensity interval training. Why you started working in this direction?
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, so I when I first started out at McMaster University,
I was a busy, young assistant professor. I had a
working spouse, we had two young children, and so quite
ironically for a professor of exercise physiology, I found myself
with very little time to exercise with all the other
commitments of life, so that personal interest dovetailed with a
(02:28):
professional interest. For twenty five years, I've taught a course
called the Integrative Physiology of Human Performance, and my students
are always very interested in the training regimes of high
level athletes, and so I would ask them, why do
these high level endurance athletes practice sprinting in order to
get better at endurance? And so it was a way
(02:50):
to introduce them to teach about some of the biochemistry,
and so it was those two things meshed together and
that sort of led to a person and scientific interest
in interval training that's lasted for many decades.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Now. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Now I have a copy of your book here and
full full of notes that you see you can see
I think that this is twenty seventeen, is it?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The first one is?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Yeah, that that was when the book was published twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So we can talk later if anything has changed or
if you thinking about a revision or just an update.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
What would you change?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
But let's let's start, because I just following your your book,
I read about the wing test that started in two
thousand and four, the first set and then then you
add more more set of this test that there is
a reason why. So can you tell us why you
(03:55):
started and why you changed? Yes?
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yes, So the win gate test very common test and
exercise physiology. You know, thirty seconds of all out as
hard as you can go effort, and it's done on
a special bicycle as well, so people think, well, how
hard can thirty seconds be? But it's very, very demanding exercise,
and so it was a model the winggate. Repeated wing
(04:18):
gates had been a model in sprint interval training studies,
and at the time there was some research that was
looking at if people did fourteen sessions of WINDGate training
every day for two weeks, or they spread it out
over six weeks. Some of the physiological responses were the same,
but the performance only got better if they had the
(04:41):
recovery periods. And so that led us to ask the question, well,
what about just two weeks of interval training, but we'll
add the recovery, and so that led to the design
of the initial study six sessions over two weeks. You know,
we opted for four wind gates and we progressed up
to seven. That's still very amending. So but that was
(05:01):
the rational for that first study. Uh, and so we
were you know, the the findings were in the title
that very brief amount was enough to increase mitochondrial capacity
and also markedly improved performance at least in these you know,
non elite individuals. So that that that was the first study.
(05:24):
They got some attention.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So that's why you trigger your curiosity, and then you
started thinking, how far can when we go in reducing
and reducing and reducing and then we will we will
come to the Reheit protocol in a while. So it
is this when you mentioned the recovery, which is now
now we know that exercises stimulus stimulus, so it's something
(05:46):
that that is initiating and triguerting adapt.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Type the adaptation.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
So we go back to the general adaptation syndrome, to
the gas theory.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So is this correct?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So this is the reason why we need to recover
after or this stressor to the body.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Yeah, absolutely, exercises a stress. It's an insult. When we
do this very potent, intense work. We have a very
marked disturbance of homeostasis and that triggers responsiveness. So absolutely,
it's a it's a profound disturbance to homeostasis that leads
to adaptation.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
And I'm curious because also I think there is this
theory of this speed. We will talk about the rate
of fuel depletion because we are not talking only about
high intensity but interval training. So just the rate, the
speed of which we go to the full fullest.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And then we go back normal. So this is Is
this correct? So?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I think you do you think that this is the
real one of the key factors in the results.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I think it's an important factor because you're right, you know,
what are the things that trigger or we'll just talk
about muscle. You know, we have more capillarias, we have
more mitochondria, and we know that the triggers for those
growth processes include things like low levels of glycogen increases
in lactate, hydrogens reactive oxygen species. And so I think
(07:19):
it's been traditionally thought or you know, we generally know,
for example, as glycogen goes down during exercise, the muscle
senses that lack of fuel availability that triggers the response
in recovery. And so we thought, well, maybe it's not
only that you get to some critical level you reach that,
but maybe it's also the rate at which it goes down.
(07:41):
You could almost imagine like sensors on an airplane, you know,
they sense the altitude, but a sudden drop in altitude
might be particularly problematic. And so when we have very
sudden drops in glycogen, we know, we've you know, we
and others have shown it. You literally turn on and
activate these metabolic fuel gauges that then trigger these recovery processes,
(08:05):
these signaling cascades that lead to genes turning on mr
and a species being formed to create the new proteins.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Perfectly gets very clear, very fascinating.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
So is this link to the PGC one alpha right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
It is. And so PGC one very important protein you know,
often termed the master regulator, but it's an important protein
that is associated with many different mitochondrial proteins. So if
we can activate PGC one, you're going to stimulate mitochondrial growth.
And you know, many of those triggers we talked about,
(08:43):
reactive auction species lactate hydrogens have been associated with activating
PGC one alpha.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, yeah, perfectly.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
So is this trigger then recovery and adaptation. This is
the short and the and the going back to your
book and then one minute workout. So we discuss about
the efficiency of high intense the interval training, because I
speak a lot with people about the high intensity training.
(09:14):
We are saying this is not the solution, it's one solution,
it's one thing. Then also you talk about what we do,
meaning with the high intensity it is subjective and so
is compared with the traditional endurance. We talk about about
the glycogen storage depletion, which is linear or I mean
(09:36):
it's slowly with the traditional endurance or running or the
treadmill for half an hour, forty five, two hours versus
these spikes of demand. Summarizing the key four or five,
and then the main one benefits of high intense the
interstrending versus the traditional steady state endurance.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
And so you're you know number one, You're absolutely right.
Hit is an option. We're not saying it's the solution,
panacea to solve in activity crisis. It's one more option,
particularly for people who don't have a lot of time,
don't want to spend a lot of time. And so
when we say efficiency, it's really the time efficiency aspect, right,
(10:21):
So you can get somewhere faster, you know, more rapidly,
or with less total exercise, you can get to the
same place. In terms of the main response is you
know the I like to say that the underlying physiology
is the same, it's just we can trigger it in
different ways. And so you know, the major improvements would
(10:43):
be an increase in cardiospiratory fitness. You know that we
measure as VO two max. This is the maximum rate
of auction uptake by the body. It reflects the underlying
capacity of many physiological systems, but mainly the heart, the lungs,
the blood vessels to dilate the muscle's ability to use oxygen.
(11:04):
So it's a very good proxy marker of a lot
of underlying physiology. And so viotwo max we know, probably
our best predictor of longevity our risk of developing chronic diseases,
even certain types of cancers, but certainly cardiovasser disease type
two diabetes. And the other big response would be muscle
(11:28):
oxidative capacity or that measurement of mitochondria capillaries. You know,
we we grow these more in our muscles, and that's
associated with better aerobic energy, less fuel we burn sugars
and fats more efficiently, or we produce more energy when
we burn those fuels. So and we talk about you know,
(11:49):
metabolic fitness is mainly muscle fitness, cardiovascor fitness maniar, heart
and lungs, and so with interval training you can stimulate
those things. You can I like to say you can
get to a similar level with less time commitment with
intervals or for some of them, including cardiospiratory fitness, for
(12:10):
the same dose of moderate or hit hit is going
to give you greater benefits. So definitely the improvement in
cardiospiratory fitness when you do more vigorous interval training, I
think the data is very compelling to say that that's
the best way to optimize the improvement in cardiospiratory fitness.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Fully aligning for it and then we can take into
ACCOUNTO so non responders to the steady state, So this
is another category that may benefit. And then there are
similarities as well with the high intensity resistance training, which
is a different training regime, but again is treagening the
same things in many many places is giving other results
(12:54):
something is very similar. So coming back to the one
minute workout. So I've seen in your and we will
link into the show notes to your page. We did
latest research, something that is still ongoing and something that
you recently completed. So what would you be what you
you add today to this book base from twenty seventeen
(13:14):
to today.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, so I like to think, you know, there's nothing
I would change in the book. I think everything we
wrote is still stands the test of time. If there
was you know, a few things change or update, I
think I would give more context to this whole notion
of what counts as high intensity. You know, in the book,
(13:37):
we opted to use perceived exertion as the indicator because
for most anyone can use perceived exertion and it's highly individualized.
But you know, we recently wrote a review in Sports
Medicine where we talked more about the what counts as
high intensity interval training from a health perspective, from a
(13:58):
performance perspective, and we broke it down more so in
a health perspective, it's vigorous physical activity and there's many
different metrics for that based on heart rate, RPE, other indicators.
In a performance context, athletes talk about training domains and
so we use markers like critical power, maximal lactate, steady state.
(14:21):
And so I think I would give a more fulsome
definition of HIT, including making this point that it's not
one single thing. We can't just say that eighty percent
heart rate max that's it for everyone. And I think
that's a more accessible format then for people, because it
depends on your context, health performance, what you're able to measure.
(14:43):
So that would be a probably the change or the
update that I would make, and then the other updates
would just be There's just more and more evidence coming
out supporting things that we stated in the book. So
we were just getting into this notion of exercise, snacking, stareclaps,
timing exercise, body weight style exercise. There's just more studies
(15:05):
supporting that. So the evidence base is growing. And also,
you know, I know we'll talk or I think we'll
talk about it later, this idea of VILPA. You know,
there's emerging epidemiological data to show that two minutes of
daily vigorous physical activity is associated with marked reductions and
(15:26):
all cause mortality. So I think you're seeing that the
original scientific studies are growing in scope and number, and
you're seeing epidemiological support for this, and it's sort of
starting to converge even more. So the evidence space is
just growing and growing.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I think, yeah, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Again, the basic human physiology is the human physiology. So
and having the support and the more and more confirmation
that this is correct and that are thinks that that
are allging is great. So so and we are already
talk about the impact on health span and longevity from
a cardiovascular point of view, and we will. We are
(16:09):
talking about the minimum effective dose. So and because I
think one of one of the last is in publem
MET now is I don't know if it's still completed,
is perspective or low frequencies intensity interval training once per week,
you know, as as an effective and sustainable energy and
sercise strategy to take all the obesity pandemic. So is
(16:35):
what what's your take in about the minimum effective dose
at this moment with your knowledge today.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Yeah, so we definitely know and we knew even at
the time of the book one. So a single weekly
bout of high intensity interval training is associated with lower
all cause mortality. So there's good data now that bout
is about a half an hour long, you know, it's
(17:02):
the classic Norwegian of four by four with some recovery
in that. So but we know even a single weekly
bout that lasts about thirty minutes in total is protective.
If you will, I think you know, we also know
that two or three bouts a week also totally about
(17:24):
a thirty minute time commitment. So maybe that's ten minutes
of vigorous exercise in a thirty minute time commitment. We
know that's also beneficial. And so now I think we're
curious about these exercise snacks, like literally if people do
you know, two minutes a day, But so minimum effective
(17:44):
dose is probably two minutes a day of vigorous adding
up to fifteen to twenty minutes a week or so
of vigorous you know, maybe as low as ten. That's
about as low as you can go, and there's data
to show health benefits. Now, no one is suggesting I
don't think that that's going to provide you with all
(18:05):
the benefits of the Physical Activity guidelines, but it's certainly
enough to move the needle on certain metrics.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, yeah, perfect, Yeah, because we know that the guidelines
still the guidelines are not talking about high intensity. They
are talking about moderate. We're vigorous.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
But so I think also the more you is not
the better. The more we know. Also for in terms
of resistance training is the same story. So we have the.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Return of investment in terms of time and efficiency is
less and less. It's great to know that one single
session per week is good in terms of prevention. Because
we are talking about the exercises, medicine, the already touched
base a little bit, the high intensity interval training fitting
into the public Health Recommendation for physical activity, and I
(18:58):
had some question because are you already touched a little
bit about the r P RP.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
So is it because.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
When people listen to high intensity interval training, they are
a little bit scared, so they feel like a high
intensity is so you please give a little bit of
feeling on what is that link to what you already
said earlier and how people start incorporating high intensity interval
(19:27):
training and today routine.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
Absolutely, So I think you know, how is that problematic term?
I think number one, people should think high means vigorous, right,
So vigorous, as we talked about earlier, well defined in
a health context, very clear metrics. So think about you
need to get in that. Maybe you know a better
term would be vigorous intermittent exercise. So that's where you
(19:53):
want to get to and to your point, already well
accepted and recommended in the public Health guidelines, right, we
should all be doing moderate to vigorous and so in
that thought mode, high intensity interval training is currently part
of the guidelines, or it's one option that the guidelines incorporate.
(20:14):
Also importantly vigorous for you, right, And so for a
high level endurance athlete, a hit session might be sprinting
uphill on a steep treadmill incline. For a very deconditioned
person or someone starting out, it's brisk walking on the flat,
(20:35):
So the relative stress can be the same even though
the absolute workloads are dramatically different. And so I think
that's where people don't need to be afraid of interval training.
There's just so much research showing that it's been applied
to individuals with cardiovascar disease, type two diabetes, metabolic syndrome,
(20:57):
older individuals, but again properly scaled to starting fitness and individualized.
That's really the that's really the key.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, you mentioned the older individual because we are talking
about high intensity does not mean applyometrics, so you don't
need to jump.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And do whatever.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Is a cross fitting style, so you can adapt to
the elderly in a way that for them is intense
enough and vigorous enough to reach the goals and the results.
So that that very important point. And we go back
a down way to WILPA because I heard the first time,
(21:40):
I think not so long ago from you about with
built PA, and I was really curious to understand what
what doesn't mean and why is now you mentioned and
there are studies I think in Australia or the Bean
and there are still so can you please give you
give us a little overview of what is built PA?
Speaker 4 (21:59):
And yes, and you know a general problem with this
whole area is lots of acronyms, HIT, mixed anaerobic speeders, VILPA.
You know, please just simplify it. So uh, but but
you can think of vilpa as the non exercise equivalent
(22:21):
of an exercise snack. And so what I mean by
that is vilpa is vigorous. So now we have a
very good understanding of vigorous intermittent, right, so interval based
lifestyle physical activity. So not structured exercise. This is just
activities of daily living. You know, like let's say we
(22:41):
met in person today, I would have had to walk
or somehow get from you know, take the subway to
your recording studio. And I get out of the subway
and I can take the lift or the elevator, or
I can vigorously go up the stairs. That's not structured exercise.
It's just I can choose in that moment, in that
activity of daily living, to pursue some vigorous work. And
(23:05):
so that would be an example. Or you get off
an airplane after a long flight. You can take the escalator,
or you have a heavy backpack and you can climb
the stairs. Choose to engage in the vigorous effort as
you play with your children, you know, you get off
a bus. All of those are examples of vilpa. Carrying
heavy groceries out to the car choosing to engage in
(23:29):
that sort of physical activity within your everyday life and
getting into that vigorous range. That's the type of concept
that we're talking about and in studies, and you're right
this very much. Led by a colleague at the University
of Sydney, Emmanuel Stamatakis, we were able to do large,
(23:51):
a large scale study where followed a large number of individuals,
over twenty five thousand individuals over about six and a
half years, and these individuals had worn accelerometers so you
could try and get a sense of when they were
doing vigorous activity. And all of these people self identified
as non exercisers, so they didn't see themselves as structured exercisers,
(24:15):
but just as they went about their day periodically, many
would engage in vigorous activity and as little as four
minutes a day of VILPA type activity was associated with
twenty five thirty percent reductions and all cause mortality, larger
reductions in cardiovascular disease mortality. You know, that's not cause
(24:39):
and effect evidence correlations, but in large numbers of individuals,
and there's been a number of studies like that coming
to the same conclusion over the last number of years.
And it's because you're able to rely on accelerometry based
data rather than traditional just question answer, you'd ask people
to recall what they were doing, so really compelling data.
(25:01):
I think around VILPA.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, that is great because again people are linking exercise
like I go to the gym, I exercise. If I
don't go to the gym, I am not exercises. This
is the definition. Yeah, and the physical activity. We know
walking is beneficial as well, but is spreading the world
about build pie is very important because myself, you need
(25:27):
to be a little bit more mindful during the day
because yeah, while you walk, you overthinking maybe, but if
you start having this mindset when you see the stairs,
now I take the stairs and I sprint.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
A little bit of it safely. I just work a
little bit faster. So this is built passed.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So and only these little small choices during the day
they are changing in the long run. This is very
important because you don't need just to go. And then
also for sedentary behavior, this is a very bad thing
during the day, sitting the entire day. Breaking with some
vigorous activity is a plus.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Absolutely, and I think VILPA exercise snacks those type approaches.
It may be a double benefit. You're getting the benefit
of the vigorous physical activity. But as you say, you're
breaking up prolonged periods of sedentary behavior, prolonged sitting, which
is also beneficial for us. So you know many people
set a time or on their smartphone or on their
(26:28):
fitness watch to buzz every hour. Give yourself these little
prompts and reminders. You know, as I'm talking to you
right now, we could both get up and do a
series of air squats at our desk and practice an
exercise snack right now, and it would be good for us. Right,
So when we're done the interview, we'll both go and
do that.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, yeah, I will do and I becide that I
develop mobile LAPA will share. But it's completely free, and
it's basically around this concept of the Pomodoro technique for productivity.
And in between these productivity and focused time, you have
this this small exercise even stretching depends, depends excellent and yeah,
this is this is important. And just to clarification, when
(27:10):
when we talk about breaking what I'm talking about breaking
the job, the sedentary job, and to do something this
is exercise neck right. The build pad is more you're
doing something in your daily life and then you integrate
the bigger You're right.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
They you know, they sort of merge or overlap a
little bit, but you're right. The key So, you know,
exercise component of physical activity. But what sex exercise apart
is sort of it's planned and structured, you know, intentional,
you do it, whereas physical activity is you just as
you're going about your day. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
If you have a mindset and mindfulness for the physical
activity you do more often will be just no, you
don't think about it anymore and will be part of
the daily living.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
And this is very important, I think.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
So, Yeah, we talk about already, We talked already about
the elderly population, and I will scooters to understand. I
have a question about the chrono exercise because I have
seen a study requite recently controversial, but there are many
so that there is an impact of the power of
when we know that we all have chronotypes and the
(28:21):
effect of time during the day and the exercise.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
What is your what the idea will take about this?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, so I think definitely there's something there. I think,
you know, in an ideal world, we all know our
own chronotype and we align our exercise patterns with that.
So it's it's definitely real, I think, But in a
bigger picture, I don't know that it matters for most
people because you know, let's say I could tell you that,
(28:51):
you know what, if you exercise in the morning after
an overnight fast, you might burn a few more calories
from fat or that aligns with your chronotype better. But
if you're just not a morning person you hate to
exercize in the morning, or you have commitments in the morning,
it doesn't really matter. So I think consistency overwhelmingly is
the key. So find something you like and enjoy, be
(29:14):
consistent with it over the long term, you know, and
if you already get to that point and you want
to further tweak or enhance, Yeah, then maybe try and
align it with your chronotype or you know, a meal
plan around that, right to optimize. But that's sort of
the icing on the cake. It's not, uh, you know,
make sure we're physically active, make sure we're sleeping right,
(29:36):
make sure we're eating right. Those are the big basics,
and then we can tweak or optimize from there.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, for full fully aliging. That's why build PI is
also intet because you still have a life, you still
do what you do until build is very important and
fully fully aliging. For instance, I recently started using VR
build to our reality to work out. Just it says
a novelty is as nice as funding is. It's still
I'm with using my my, my watches, et cetera. I
(30:04):
was not I go into the vigorous. There are different
zones here and then depending on watching the model without
even knowing, use a treadmill for instance, or a stationary bike,
maybe because it's more boring or my mind is focused
on pedaling or running. Yeah, I feel more the debates
(30:29):
that we are going back to RP. So my my
for me is quite okay. It's intense, But looking now
after the data, I see that my heart rate is
going up in almost the same way when I do
other kind of of exercise.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I know, I agree, you know, I'm a I'm a
committed exercise or I'm going to build it in the
by day. But I think my favorite workout and I
don't know if it's a play or exercise. Every Friday,
I have a week I have a weekly ice hot
game with some colleagues and and it's it's fun, right,
so we get out and play and uh, you know,
an hour goes by a very vigorous effort.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
You know, then we we often go to the bar
after and we have a beer together. It's a nice
way to end the week. But you know, I think
that is yes, I'm getting exercise in, but I'm engaged
in play with my friends. It's a mental break. And
so you know, back to this idea of making it
fun and enjoyable. Find something you like. Uh, you know,
dancing can be a form of vigorous physical activity. You
(31:33):
know people don't want to exercise at all, but they
like to dance. Okay, great, right, that's that's your your
your outlet.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
So yeah, yeah, fully aligning and then you you add
this component of social in the in the in ther
end of the week, which is also linked to longevity.
And we know that the part of social life is
is important. So we are almost at the end, and
I must the most recent studies or the most recent
(32:03):
things that that are ongoing if you can tell us
something that is coming soon or is just handed.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So just.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
So, we are very interested in this idea of exercise snacking.
Right now. There's small laboratory based studies where you know,
we bring someone into our laboratory, we sort of control
what they do for six weeks, We motivate and test
them in the laboratory. That's very different from the real world,
and so in these studies, we're.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Trying to.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Examine exercise snack interventions in the real world like you.
So we've partnered with a company that developed an app,
so people get smartphone reminders, Hey, it's time for your
exercise snack. They press what type they want to do.
It takes them through a YouTube video. They can do
these at home or at work on their own. You know,
(32:55):
when we're asking and we have people they're wearing accelerometers
and heart rate monitors at home or at work because
we want to see can they self select to get
into that vigorous range for a minute, because we think
that's very very important. Then we just bring them into
the lab before and after three months to test their
(33:16):
VO two max and their blood. You know, some of
the studies right now, we're doing trials in individuals with
type two diabetes and they're wearing continuous glucose monitors. So
these are we think advancing the field because number one,
these are rigorously designed, multi center, randomized controlled trials, So
(33:37):
you know, not small proof of concept studies in the lab.
These are our cts with colleagues in British Columbia and
also in the real world or at least outside of
the laboratory. So that's one line of research that we
have right now. We're also very interested in the idea
of why do people respond so differently to interval training?
(34:01):
You know, we give one hundred people the same program.
Some thrive, some don't respond at all, and so we're
we're playing around with some of these concepts like critical power.
You know, if if we can identify critical power in individuals,
which is a more metabolic threshold, you know, it can
occur over a very broad range of heart rate and
(34:23):
VO two. That's another issue. We're also interested in the
biological sex differences. You know, we know there's some differences,
but are those just inter individual differences? Are these true
biological differences between males and females. We're we're interested in
(34:43):
that questions as well.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Clear and so where where can we find the latest
researches on your website?
Speaker 4 (34:52):
Yeah, so I definitely have a link on my website
to our latest research studies. I try to put up
links to study where we have open access, you know,
so people could read a recent review to get some
updates on this. I have linked to UH media interviews
podcast interviews like this so people could listen UH to
(35:15):
the latest podcast interviews. That would be a good a
good place to start.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Perfect. I wish everything.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I think I have a last last question because it's
more curiosity when when reading your book and UH talking
with people, Because okay, we go back a little bit
with view two max and then your book, there was
somewhere written exercising at one hundred more than one hundred
percent of you, which which people some some ask so
(35:44):
it's view two max.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Why how is possible we go over it? So can
you please give we solve this this?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
No, it's a great question, right bo to max is max?
How can you go about view two max? It's a
very good question. And so what it is? You know,
when we do a progressive exercise test, you know, so
you get on a bike and we increase the workload
gradually over time. At some point when we're measuring your
oxygen uptake, your oxygen uptake will level out. So you
(36:12):
reach a workload where your VO two just can't go higher.
You can't your body can't take up any more oxygen,
and so by definition, that is your VOTWO max. But
you could still exercise for very short periods of time
at workloads above that, right, So you could still go
(36:33):
and sprint very hard for ten more seconds at a
higher workload, even though your VOTWO max will not change.
So what it's really referring to this idea that the
actual workload setting could be higher. You can sprint at
a pace or workload that's higher than VO two max.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (36:54):
So that's where the confusion comes into into play. You know,
athletes will talk about maximal aerobic speed and maximal's sprint speed,
you know, and there's a big difference between those, right,
So that's where the confusion comes in.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Okay, thanks for clarifying.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Do you think there will be adaptation over time that
YouTube max increase?
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Okay if you absolutely yes, for sure?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Right so yeah, okay, perfect, Thank thanks. Do you think
you want to cover anything else? So? Do you think
we cover the basics? Then we will see in the
future and another Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
No, I really appreciate the opportunity. I was a very
engaging conversation. I think you hit on lots of key points.
I appreciate the shout out for my book, but uh no,
I've I've really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
Thanks, thanks so much, Martin. So we will be in
touched when I published as well. They did the podcast,
and uh and I wish you the best, and then
I will link everything into the show notes.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Okay, great, Like I say, man, it's you know, it's
it's a I appreciate your interest in my work. You
clearly did your homework and I so I thank you
for that. A nice engaging interview and conversation. I really
appreciate it. I'll send you because I noticed in the
show notes, I'll send you a link to those recent
more recent papers that are these reviews on various topics.
(38:14):
And again they're all open access, so if people wanted
to read those, and if you need anything else, please
just ask and I'll send it through.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Okay, perfect, perfect, I will.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I will take some time to of course cut and
paste and everything.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
So okay, thank you, no rush, Thank you guys.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Nice to meet you, all right, take care, fine out cheers.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Did you like this episode?
Speaker 5 (38:37):
If so, simple, subscribe comes up and click on the
notification bell not to lose any opportunity in the future,
remember sharing and scaring.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Him A photo Coffee even better
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Next time, See you soon.
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