Transcription
Okay, the next rapid fire question was there were two questions submitted by David and James and essentially I don't want to read both our questions because they're kind of long, but the essence of the questions were how the benefits of zone 2 exercise differ from vigorous exercise and what's the right mix of both for the best results. You know, they're basically asking, you know, is it do you really need to do this zone 2 type of exercise?
And it's kind of funny that this question came up because there was a study that just came out pretty recently. It was using biobank data and essentially a a huge population of people participants were wearing these, you know, wearable devices where you can basically measure people's heart rate. And it was really astounding because researchers found that they could track intensity. So basically like they could see low intensity exercise, moderate intensity exercise, high intensity exercise, all based on this heart rate data. And then they looked at outcomes. So they they correlated this heart rate data with all cause mortality, cardiovascular related mortality, cancer related mortality for example.
And what was so interesting was that when you think about these exercise guidelines, so for example, you you'll hear the guideline of okay, 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise. So essentially the guidelines are well you can either do vigorous intensity exercise for 75 or 150 minutes per week or you can double that amount of time and do moderate intensity exercise. And that's kind of all based on this idea that you burn twice as many calories from vigorous intensity exercise as you do from moderate intensity exercise. And that's kind of where some of these guidelines are coming from.
However, if you look at this new data, this biobank study looking at, you know, heart rate and and exercise intensity and different disease outcomes for all cause mortality for every 1 minute of vigorous intensity physical activity, you had to do 4 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity to get the same percentage reduction in all cause mortality. And for low intensity physical activity like walking, you had to do 53 minutes. So the take-home here for at least all cause mortality is, you know, you're getting a way, way bigger bang for your buck if you're doing vigorous intensity exercise, 1 minute versus four minutes. You have to do four times as much of moderate intensity exercise to get the same effect on all cause mortality as vigorous. And you have to do 53 times as much light physical activity which would be considered like walking as you would vigorous. So I mean one minute of of doing like burpees versus 53 minutes of a walk, right?
For cardiovascular disease for every one minute of vigorous physical activity that was equivalent to 8 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity or 73 minutes of light physical activity. So again, what we're seeing is the the moderate intensity physical activity, you still need a lot more of it to get the same reduction in cardiovascular disease related mortality as vigorous intensity exercise. Eight times more.
And then for type 2 diabetes, similar sort of trend. For every one minute of vigorous intensity activity, you had to do 9 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity or 94 minutes of light intensity for the same risk reduction. So I think you know the the take-home here is vigorous intensity physical activity is actually the best type of exercise that you can do all across the board. Like there's no I I I'm not convinced in any way that moderate intensity activity is better.
Now, that isn't to say that moderate intensity activity isn't beneficial. And certainly if you're an endurance athlete and you like doing that kind of exercise, that's great. Um, you know, there's a lot of, I would say, evidence that this moderate sort of zone 2 physical activity is a really great way to build your aerobic base and you will get improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness by just doing, you know, some kind of aerobic training, some kind of zone 2 moderate intensity physical activity.
Now, with that said, and I discussed this in episode 84, the longevity and brain benefits of vigorous exercise. I also discussed this with Brady Homer in episode 98, how to train according to the experts. You really should check both those podcast episodes out or make sure you've gotten the how to train guide as well because we talk about this as well. We really compare these when it comes to improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, which is also a marker for longevity. You know, vigorous intensity exercise also is the winner. You know, 40% of people don't respond to this type of like moderate intensity exercise unless they add some of that more intense exercise in in with their mix. And so I think that, you know, it's again important even if you do love that zone 2 type of training, if that's your jam, if that's what you're going to be most consistent with, you're going to make sure you're going to be you're going to have a routine and stick to it. That's also very important to consider. Try to at least mix in some high intensity interval training or some kind of vigorous exercise in the mix as well. Even if it's like only once a week, you know, like you really want to try to mix it in there.
Um, with that said, I would say, you know, when it comes to V2 max, when it comes to brain health, and when it comes to all these outcomes I just talked about, all cause mortality, cardiovascular related mortality, um, type 2 diabetes, and then also even cancer related mortality, vigorous intensity exercise wins. It's the best type of exercise to do.
So, at the end of the day, you know, I do think it's important to engage in that type of exercise. Is it important to engage in zone 2? Yeah. I mean, you can Some people get really burned out if they're doing too much vigorous intensity exercise and they don't like it. And I think that's something to consider. I love it. I do mostly vigorous intensity exercise. On my recovery days is when I do zone 2. And my recovery days, zone 2 runs are not long. They're about 20 to 30 minutes long. And really, it's just I love it because it helps get the soreness out. You know, I'm increasing blood flow, so I'm getting a lot of repair factors. And I just like my recovery days. I like doing a sort of, you know, slower run. When I say slower, you know, it's not like super super slow, but I'm just not like charging at it, right? So, um, I I like my I like my zone two days where I where I can kind of have a breathy conversation while I'm doing that run. And those I do those twice a week.
So, I think trying to find something that works well for you is important, something that you will stick to. But also keep in mind that vigorous intensity exercise is the winner. And you know I think all the evidence is pointing to