Speaker 1: Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm a little fried. Now I take you back. I'm
Speaker 1: a lot fried, a lot going on. You know what
Speaker 1: you pushed through? You keep moving forward. That's what all
Speaker 1: my racing has taught. When you're tired, when your brain
Speaker 1: is just mush, keep moving forward. So I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 1: It's a great topic. It's a great topic. Can I
Speaker 1: count blank as blank? What do I mean by that? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a question I get all the time, and it's
Speaker 1: a little more complicated just in its format. It's a
Speaker 1: little more variable because there are variables within there, but
Speaker 1: it's essentially, Hey Tom, can I count blank? Is my cardio? Hey? Tom?
Speaker 1: Can I count blank as my strength? Workout? What do
Speaker 1: you think the two words are? Well, it depends, but
Speaker 1: it really doesn't in that We're gonna get right to
Speaker 1: the exercise science here. We can get right to the
Speaker 1: response that your body has to what you just asked
Speaker 1: me about. I mean, that's pretty cut and dried. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to keep this episode short and sweet. A
Speaker 1: tough time doing is and if you have listened to
Speaker 1: prior podcast. No, but you definitely have questions related to
Speaker 1: this topic. And it's a great question because if people
Speaker 1: are asking it, they know that they need to do
Speaker 1: it right. So I want to do strength workout out
Speaker 1: does it count? I want to do my cardio? Does
Speaker 1: this count? And what are specifics here? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: there's so many because there's so many options. But that's again,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. I love this question, but it
Speaker 1: may be the following. Can I count swimming as my
Speaker 1: strength workout? Can I count golf as my cardio workout?
Speaker 1: Now we get into are you walking? Are you in
Speaker 1: a cart? How many holes are you playing? Can I
Speaker 1: count tennis as my cardio workout? That always begs the
Speaker 1: question from me singles or doubles, And if they say doubles,
Speaker 1: they say no, and then they get angry, and of
Speaker 1: course I'm kidding. But again we're gonna go to the
Speaker 1: exercise science. The body's response to that mode that you're
Speaker 1: asking me about. Common question is can I count running
Speaker 1: as my leg workout? My legs strength work out? Oftentimes?
Speaker 1: And then one that is often thrown into both categories,
Speaker 1: and I talk about this and my book Beat the
Speaker 1: gym that was inten wow while back. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to yoga, I'm often asked, can I count yoga
Speaker 1: as my cardio workout? And or can I count yoga
Speaker 1: as my strength workout? And if I'm being totally honest,
Speaker 1: as I always am, oftentimes when it's yoga, I'm not asked.
Speaker 1: I'm told. You know, I'll be having a discussion with
Speaker 1: someone and find out what I do and they'll say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do yoga for cardio. It's my cardio and my strength. Yes,
Speaker 1: but no getting ahead of myself, right, So it does
Speaker 1: come down to the science here, and it comes down
Speaker 1: to this people and jump way ahead. It comes down
Speaker 1: to living our best lives. So I could obviously say yes,
Speaker 1: people say does this count? Sure you can count for
Speaker 1: whatever you want. Sure you want to count your map
Speaker 1: plates as you know cardio and endurance. Sure count for
Speaker 1: whatever you want. But but that would be doing that
Speaker 1: person a huge disservice and that's not what I do.
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna get to the science. We're just
Speaker 1: gonna look at certain elements of this question and break
Speaker 1: it down so that you can start to put together
Speaker 1: your plan. And I want that plan to be as
Speaker 1: varied as possible. I want you to do so many
Speaker 1: different things, but I want you to know and start
Speaker 1: to realize that the response your body has to those
Speaker 1: different things answers this question. That's pretty easy. You don't
Speaker 1: really need any fitness tech to answer the question. Your
Speaker 1: body is really smart, and your respond to it, your
Speaker 1: your perception of it. We'll tell you just about all
Speaker 1: you need to know, alright, quick break, When we come back,
Speaker 1: can I count my strength workout as cardio? And many
Speaker 1: other questions like that, but basically, what is cardio and
Speaker 1: what is strength? And how much should we do? All right?
Speaker 1: And how do we do that so that it works
Speaker 1: for us as individuals? All right? Quick break, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back all right talking about can I count my
Speaker 1: strength to workout as cardio? So that's a specific one
Speaker 1: I have received, and it's pretty specific in this realm
Speaker 1: of this specific question, but it goes to again, the
Speaker 1: real question here is doesn't have the same effect, doesn't
Speaker 1: have the effect? Does it have a cardio vascular effect? Right?
Speaker 1: And so when people ask about strength, can I count
Speaker 1: my strength work out his cardio? And I just received
Speaker 1: a question right along these lines, very specific with circuit training.
Speaker 1: And as I've talked about, my first original fitness videos
Speaker 1: were just that self produced before I did all the
Speaker 1: other ones for other people. But I said, how do
Speaker 1: I give people like you, and specifically my wife at
Speaker 1: the time. If I were designing a workout for my
Speaker 1: wife super busy, you know, works, does it all? What
Speaker 1: would I do it with circuit training? And the first
Speaker 1: video was forty some odd minutes body weight and dumbells
Speaker 1: circuit training format, so that there was a cardio vascular effect.
Speaker 1: But this is such a perfect way to kick this
Speaker 1: off and to start. You know, when you go to
Speaker 1: a doctor, a specialist, and you're deciding on whether to
Speaker 1: do surgery or something, you can often say to that person,
Speaker 1: if you were me, would you do it? Or if
Speaker 1: if you know, if I was your husband or wife,
Speaker 1: what would you recommend? And so the very fact that
Speaker 1: I designed the workouts that way showed that, yes, I
Speaker 1: was trying to build some cardio vascular effect into that workout.
Speaker 1: But would I have said to my wife or would
Speaker 1: I say to my wife that that's all she needed
Speaker 1: to do? Were those workouts as far as cardio goes? No? No?
Speaker 1: So can you get a cardio vascular effect from that
Speaker 1: that type of strength workout. Yes, is that all you
Speaker 1: should do for cardio? No? And that's where we're gonna
Speaker 1: get to here. Okay, So when we talk about cardio,
Speaker 1: we're talking about raising our heart rates. You know, I
Speaker 1: try to keep it as simple as possible on first
Speaker 1: level discussion of this. Cardio exercises raising our heart rate.
Speaker 1: Strength exercise is challenging our muscles. And if we go
Speaker 1: to cardio, our heart is a muscle. We need to
Speaker 1: challenge it. Do we need to challenge it really hard
Speaker 1: every time we do cardiovasco exercise. No, that's the wrong
Speaker 1: way to do it. You don't want to interval train
Speaker 1: every single day. That will be a problem. You will
Speaker 1: get injured, you will get sick, you will overtrain. That's
Speaker 1: not how we evolved. And the same thing holds true
Speaker 1: with strength. We want to challenge our muscles, all of
Speaker 1: our muscles. Do we want to go all out every time? No? No.
Speaker 1: And so when we are deciding on whether something qualifies
Speaker 1: as cardio or something qualifies as strength, we want to
Speaker 1: look at our body's response to it. So let's use
Speaker 1: yoga because that is thrown into both camps now as
Speaker 1: many different forms of yoga. And again I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: this very basic, broad level and I'm gonna just start.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into any studies for this discussion,
Speaker 1: but John Hopkins just a discussion on this very topic,
Speaker 1: the yoga heart connection. Right, So can I count yoga
Speaker 1: as my cardio? Now people will talk about, hey, I
Speaker 1: do this specific form of yoga. Maybe it's hot, yoga
Speaker 1: gets my heart rate up, that's cardio. That should be enough, well, Courney,
Speaker 1: John Hopkins, and many others. It's it's just not is
Speaker 1: there a cardio vascar effect, of course, but if you
Speaker 1: put a heart rate monitor on you would see that
Speaker 1: for the vast majority of these type of workouts, you're
Speaker 1: not getting that cardiovascular effect that you would from other forms. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna quote directly from John to Hopkins, Uh,
Speaker 1: the yoga heart connection. Yoga as exercise. They say yoga
Speaker 1: can improve flexibility, muscle strength, and balance because it's not
Speaker 1: a form of aerobic exercise that raises the heart rate. However,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't count the time you spend doing it as
Speaker 1: a part of your recommended weekly total for moderate to
Speaker 1: vigorous physical activity. Now, many yoga people argue with me
Speaker 1: about this, and that's fine, and listen, I don't need
Speaker 1: to be right. I want the best for you. You
Speaker 1: can count anything for whatever you want. But I'm just
Speaker 1: going by what I read, what I experience the science.
Speaker 1: When you put a heart rate monitor on and you
Speaker 1: see the effects of that form of exercise, what does
Speaker 1: it do? And it doesn't compute the same way. But
Speaker 1: let me just quickly say this, and I'm gonna vote
Speaker 1: again from Johns Hopkins, they say yoga as heart booster.
Speaker 1: Beyond offloading stress, practicing yoga may help lower blood pressure,
Speaker 1: blood cholesterol, and blood glucose levels as well as heart rate,
Speaker 1: making it a useful lifestyle intervention. I'll go away further
Speaker 1: than that. You know, look at those benefits. By the way,
Speaker 1: those are the same benefits you get from cardio vascular exercise,
Speaker 1: but not the only ones, not the only ones. And
Speaker 1: that's a huge part of this question. There's so many
Speaker 1: benefits of exercise, cardiovascular and strength training. That's what this
Speaker 1: podcast and all my books are about. But when you
Speaker 1: limited to just one, you say, yoga is my cardio.
Speaker 1: That's that's my cardio. That's a problem. We want to
Speaker 1: mix up all our forms of movement and hit all
Speaker 1: five components of fitness us and within that do it
Speaker 1: at different intensities. Okay, So that's really a huge part
Speaker 1: of this discussion. You know, people say gardening. You know,
Speaker 1: I garden for five hours. I'm super sore after. Can
Speaker 1: I count that as my strength training part of it?
Speaker 1: Are there strength benefits? Absolutely? Is that all you want
Speaker 1: to do? No? And as I say that, you go, well,
Speaker 1: people have different goals. But the lifestyle we live, our
Speaker 1: modern lifestyle and our weaknesses and imbalances, we need more.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I always go to the evolution two
Speaker 1: Blue Zones type books and things like that. We have
Speaker 1: to look they don't have to. I I believe it's
Speaker 1: a huge problem with so many of the approaches to
Speaker 1: fitness and wellness and nutrition and exercise, is that we're
Speaker 1: not looking at how we evolved. Kind of important in
Speaker 1: my opinion. But you could make that arguments as actually
Speaker 1: many people do, who say we should you know, run
Speaker 1: like certain animals, You go, well, they have four limbs
Speaker 1: and eat a certain way when we really didn't. So
Speaker 1: kind of twisting and perverting the evolution. But it's very
Speaker 1: simple to say, and it's true. You know, people who
Speaker 1: live in blue zones, people who live to be a
Speaker 1: hundred and beyond and thrive generally don't go to the gym.
Speaker 1: But they're also not sitting all day long, not even
Speaker 1: close to sitting all day long. So that's where it's
Speaker 1: a little apples to orange is in regards to what
Speaker 1: we need to do to counter the effects, the ridiculous
Speaker 1: effects of the lifestyle that we have made for ourselves.
Speaker 1: All right, so back to yoga. Yoga's phenomenal on so
Speaker 1: many levels. But what I tell someone like my wife
Speaker 1: that that's all she needed to do, that's that was
Speaker 1: her strength, and that was her cardio not if I
Speaker 1: truly as I do, wanted her to live her longest,
Speaker 1: best life. And that goes to get a little deep
Speaker 1: into the basic exercise science osteoporosis. Right, we need to
Speaker 1: challenge our muscles and our bones more than just that.
Speaker 1: It goes to heart health. Even though you get those
Speaker 1: incredible benefits of yoga, and by no means diminishing the
Speaker 1: incredible heart benefits, but I want more. I want it's
Speaker 1: not enough. And you may have yoga as part of
Speaker 1: your repertoire. And then you may walk, and you may swim,
Speaker 1: and you may do you know, a group exercise class
Speaker 1: twice a week total body. Now you see where I'm
Speaker 1: getting to. Yes, you can and should count these things
Speaker 1: as one of your forms of cardio and or strength.
Speaker 1: But let's go to those recommendations that are so confusing,
Speaker 1: but we have to talk about them real quickly. You
Speaker 1: know what does the American Heart Association recommend, Well, you've
Speaker 1: heard it a million times, get at least a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty minutes of moderate aerobic activity or seventy minutes of
Speaker 1: vigorous aerobic activity a week, or accommodation of moderate and
Speaker 1: vigorous activity. Most people have no idea what that means.
Speaker 1: Most people overestimate there level of activity. In other words,
Speaker 1: low is moderate and moderate is hard. We need to
Speaker 1: mix it up. And so when we're looking at your
Speaker 1: strength and your cardio, does it challenge you? Does it
Speaker 1: challenge your muscles when you do that form of strength
Speaker 1: work that you are trying to put into your routine
Speaker 1: as strength and is it a full body workout? That's
Speaker 1: a huge problem. So let me just go real quickly
Speaker 1: to the question can I count running as my leg workout, well,
Speaker 1: of course, holy smokes, is that going to strengthen your
Speaker 1: legs and be you know, make your legs sore? So yes,
Speaker 1: that is part of your strength workout. But it's not enough.
Speaker 1: In other words, what I said at the beginning, we
Speaker 1: need to mix things up to balance out not only
Speaker 1: our modern lifestyle, but our weaknesses and imbalances individually. So
Speaker 1: in other words, if you just run running in and
Speaker 1: of itself, you're going to build up certain imbalances and
Speaker 1: it's going to be a problem. So we do leg workout,
Speaker 1: specific leg workouts with body weight and machines and free
Speaker 1: weights and bands two fix those imbalances and fix those weaknesses.
Speaker 1: So do you see the theme here is yes, doubles tennis.
Speaker 1: It's a form of cardio and it's fun. And I
Speaker 1: did that podcast on how you Know. There was a
Speaker 1: study that said, well, many studies, group of studies, how
Speaker 1: racket sports. If you look at longevity and sports, people
Speaker 1: will play racket sports live really long lives, no longer
Speaker 1: lives than most and correlation not causation, and many great
Speaker 1: as a great debate, but it's fun, it's social. These
Speaker 1: are the reasons I gave an interview on ABC News
Speaker 1: about this. It's a great topic, but it also goes
Speaker 1: to you're not gonna say, what's the least amount of
Speaker 1: time I can play doubles tennis? Does that count? You
Speaker 1: want to do it because you enjoy it, and doubles
Speaker 1: tennis tennis, you know, racket sports and sports like that.
Speaker 1: Basketball sudden starts and stops. It's aerobic and it's anaerobic.
Speaker 1: And that's where we're gonna bring this all to. We
Speaker 1: want to vary our intensities. We don't want just enough.
Speaker 1: And as I say that, if you think that when
Speaker 1: I say we need to do more, that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's not enjoyable. And that doesn't mean it's an hour
Speaker 1: in duration necessarily at all. It's the totality of the
Speaker 1: overall movement, how many minutes you move, and how you
Speaker 1: strengthen that entire body in different print ways. I do
Speaker 1: body weight exercises, I use machines, I use bands. I
Speaker 1: do a little bit of everything, not a lot of
Speaker 1: one thing. And I will constantly remind you of that
Speaker 1: excessive moderation works. Okay, let me just grab that swimming
Speaker 1: as my strength work out. Another great way to look
Speaker 1: at this swimming awesome form of cardiovascar actors sercise. For
Speaker 1: so many people it means to keep from drowning. For me,
Speaker 1: but I do it because it's different, and for me
Speaker 1: it's a huge flexibility just overall, like body massage as
Speaker 1: I'm struggling through the water, but your body is supported
Speaker 1: by the water. So it is actually not a great
Speaker 1: form of strength. Do you build strength? Of course you do.
Speaker 1: If you just did swim and nothing else, you would
Speaker 1: run into problems strength related. I mean you can go
Speaker 1: to the extremes, you know, NASA and the issues they
Speaker 1: have with space is the body is not being stressed
Speaker 1: in the right way, and that's a huge problem. So
Speaker 1: a lesser example of that is swimming and the body
Speaker 1: being supported in water. So again a phenomenal form of
Speaker 1: cardiovascular exercise. I would throw it into the flexibility category
Speaker 1: as well, But you need to do strength training so
Speaker 1: it doesn't count. All right, quick break, When we come
Speaker 1: back and put it all together and tell you how
Speaker 1: to put together your plan that you can do wearing
Speaker 1: lifetime that you enjoy, we'll be right back. All right,
Speaker 1: we are back talking about can I count my strength
Speaker 1: workout as cardio? It's basically looking at what is cardio,
Speaker 1: what is strength? And how much of it do we need?
Speaker 1: And at what intensities? And this is why I do
Speaker 1: all the different shows for you on why we should
Speaker 1: do hills, why you should do intervals, why you should
Speaker 1: do steady state, why when you read these dopey articles
Speaker 1: on you know, here's the one way to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh, cardio makes you fat one of my
Speaker 1: favorite ones. Hate the term. Don't even you know you
Speaker 1: you aren't fat, you have fat. It's a great way
Speaker 1: to look at it, right. We all want to be
Speaker 1: a healthy weight, but you want to mix up all
Speaker 1: of the above, the intensities and the workouts. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it does come down to
Speaker 1: in so many different ways. Okay, so eighty percent of
Speaker 1: the time you do something you need. The other eight
Speaker 1: percent of time you try to eat healthy. At the
Speaker 1: time you do whatever you want. Right, you can argue
Speaker 1: with me about that simple math and break it down again,
Speaker 1: number of days in the year, blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: most people do it the opposite, eating healthy twenty percent
Speaker 1: of a time eighty percent at a time there they're not,
Speaker 1: and slowly work your way to that then it's eighty
Speaker 1: percent of time your workouts, your cardio should be moderate,
Speaker 1: easy to moderate. That's great news. So you're golfing your
Speaker 1: doubles tennis, that's great and that's enjoyable. And then twenty
Speaker 1: percent of the time you want kind of not kind
Speaker 1: of you want to go anaerobic. You want some breathless
Speaker 1: exercise in there. And that may be singles tennis, that
Speaker 1: may be a hard doubles tennis, that may be you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is for you getting on a piece of
Speaker 1: exercise equipment. And this is the short workout people, this
Speaker 1: is the twenty minutes. Actually, I did a phenomenal thirty
Speaker 1: minute basic workout the other day on the treadmill. Ten
Speaker 1: minute warm up, one minute sprint, one minute walk. I
Speaker 1: repeated that nine times and a four minute cool down.
Speaker 1: I think that was the math. Yeah, four minutes, I
Speaker 1: believe thirty minutes, breathless for sixty seconds, recovered for sixty
Speaker 1: nine times three minutes, three minute cool down with the
Speaker 1: other one. You get my point. So when you're trying
Speaker 1: to determine if something is strength or cardio, just remember
Speaker 1: that this is the long term and you don't want
Speaker 1: to short change yourself and oftentimes you know the answer.
Speaker 1: You know the answer, and when you mix it up,
Speaker 1: you ask the question less often. In other words, if
Speaker 1: you're doing many forms of cardio, if you're doing many
Speaker 1: micro workouts throughout the day, some core workouts five minutes
Speaker 1: here there, some body weight exercises here, they're going to
Speaker 1: the gym maybe a couple of times a week. Then
Speaker 1: you're good. Then you're less likely to ask this question.
Speaker 1: But I want to reiterate one final time. When you
Speaker 1: find the plan you love, you're not gonna ask this question.
Speaker 1: Not in the same way. I mean to understand the
Speaker 1: physiological aspect to it, but oftentimes it's people again trying
Speaker 1: to get around what they need to do, and it's
Speaker 1: prehab versus rehab. As I've said, right, you gotta think
Speaker 1: long term, and that's the hardest thing for so many
Speaker 1: people to do. We live in the here and now.
Speaker 1: We don't think about our health until it's challenged. And
Speaker 1: so let me give you the final simple breakdown. You
Speaker 1: generally want two to three strength specific work outs per week.
Speaker 1: Now you can do more, as many of you listeners do,
Speaker 1: as I know, but that's for the basic looking better,
Speaker 1: feeling better, living longer, being injury free, being able to
Speaker 1: do what you want quality of life. Two to three
Speaker 1: full body strength workouts, and it's got to be where
Speaker 1: it challenges your whole body muscularly okay, And I know
Speaker 1: there's gray areas as I say this, there will still
Speaker 1: be questions, but I think deep down, you know, deep down,
Speaker 1: you know now whether it's machines or bands or free weights,
Speaker 1: body weight, mix of all the above at the same time,
Speaker 1: two to three times a week. All right, three cardio,
Speaker 1: three specific cardio. We can go you know I put
Speaker 1: I pushed that, or you know I went longer. I
Speaker 1: went for that three mile walk, I did that thirty
Speaker 1: minute bike ride. I took that forty five minutes zomba class.
Speaker 1: This is get your heart rate up extended period of
Speaker 1: time or the interval side right, so steady state, longer, intervals, shorter,
Speaker 1: and then one or two other. What do you mean
Speaker 1: by other? For me, that is plots yoga a different
Speaker 1: discipline that works on yes, aspects of cardio and strength,
Speaker 1: but it's also flexibility and cognitive training, meditation. We need
Speaker 1: to be as active as possible. We need to mix
Speaker 1: it up. We need to focus on the five components
Speaker 1: of fitness, body composition, how much muscle and excess body
Speaker 1: fat you have, flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and cardio
Speaker 1: respiratory endurance. We need to do our strength, need do
Speaker 1: our cardio, We need to work on flexibility, and we
Speaker 1: need to eat a healthy diet so our body composition
Speaker 1: is healthy. And this is about being active. So can
Speaker 1: you count your strength workout as cardio? Yes? Does that
Speaker 1: mean that's all you should do? No? No, it can
Speaker 1: be fun. You need to find what you enjoy and
Speaker 1: when you do. As I did as a coach in
Speaker 1: my final years of really coaching people specifically, it wasn't
Speaker 1: making people do more, It was making them do more
Speaker 1: variation and do less of just one thing. And that
Speaker 1: can be you. In other words, that intrinsic motivation where
Speaker 1: it feels good, and that's what it's about. Enough. This
Speaker 1: is more complicated than I thought it would be, but
Speaker 1: it's really not. It's just tough to kind of impress
Speaker 1: upon those of you who think it has to be
Speaker 1: work that it can't be fun. Kennon should be fun
Speaker 1: and not work. All right, Questions comments reach out. Tom
Speaker 1: h Fit is Instagram. Tom h Fit is Twitter Fitness
Speaker 1: Disrupted dot com. Can email me through the site, follow, subscribe,
Speaker 1: whatever way you can follow. This show greatly appreciated. The
Speaker 1: Micro Workout Plan is my most recent book, and thank you.
Speaker 1: These these things topics are tough, but they're rooted in science.
Speaker 1: And again I think, deep down you know, deep down
Speaker 1: you know. And the final thought is this with whatever
Speaker 1: your plan is, is it working. Whatever you're counting is
Speaker 1: your cardio, whatever you're counting is your strength? Is it working?
Speaker 1: Do you feel good? Are you relatively injury free? Are
Speaker 1: your numbers when you go to the doctor good, Then
Speaker 1: you're good. It's your plan, it's your mix. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. I am Tom Holland this is Fitness Disrupted,
Speaker 1: Believe in Yourself. Fitness Disrupted is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.