Transcription
You've been lied to about getting fit. You don't need pink dumbbells. You don't need to do a lot of cardio or waste your time in a stale gym with that rubbery, sweaty air, or sweating all over a treadmill. There's an easier way to improve your fitness, and it's backed by science.
The biggest hurdle to either getting fit or staying fit—and I don't really care if you're in your 30s or your 50s, it works the same way—is the belief that you have to work harder. If I work harder, I'm a good person; there will get results. In my 20s, I did this. I went to the gym 90 minutes a day, 6 days a week, for more than a year, and I never lost one of the 100 lbs I had to lose. So you believe working harder gets results. That is not backed by data; it is not backed by science. That's a good thing because it means it's not going to be that hard for you to get in shape.
Your metabolism will slow down starting in about your mid-30s, whether you're a man or a woman; it just happens unless you do something about it. Your testosterone already dropped, no matter how old you are, because of all the microplastics, all the other garbage out there; so that's fighting against you. So someone told you, or you just figured out somehow through osmosis, the only way to fight back is grinding it out in the gym for hours. In fact, maybe a longevity doctor who thinks you can't even live a long time will tell you only two hours a day and you'll live. No, it doesn't work like that.
Although your body will change starting at 20 years old—it starts to change, not in a good way—it's still capable of getting great results at any age. You can still burn fat, you can still build build muscle, and you can stay strong. But the old methods of grinding it out, they don't work anymore. And even worse, they might have worked in your 20s when you had a lot of biological reserve. Well, you don't have that in your 30s and 40s and 50s and hundreds. Doing more time in cardio doesn't mean more results; that means you need a smarter approach, it's designed for your body now; an approach that lets you work less and build more strength and burn more fat and just feel more energized because you're not wasting a ton of energy on exercise that didn't cause your body to change very much.
So if you ever felt like that traditional workout was a bore or waste of time, I want to hear about it. Tons of people work out, and they quit working out because you just don't change that quickly, and it takes so much time that comes out of your career, out of your relationship, out of your parenting, out of your friends. So drop a comment below and tell me what's the most useless piece of fitness advice you've ever heard.
Now there's a way to make your body work for you instead of against you, and it's about getting the right signal into the body in the smallest amount of time in order to make your body change. It's not about doing more work, just enough to say, "Okay, make the changes," and to give your body enough energy so that it can make the changes. But if you burn yourself out with hours of cardio, the body gets a signal, but since you just keep doing the work, it never has a chance to change.
And so by now you've probably heard of HIIT, high-intensity interval training, and I used to recommend this and do it 15 years ago at the start of the biohacking movement. Although now that's not what I do. The good news is that even if you don't know the thing I'm going to teach you that's better than HIIT, just doing high-intensity interval training is good for you at any age, even if you're older. A 2020 study published in the Human Kinetics Journal found that high-intensity interval training significantly outperforms moderate-intensity training, specifically in older adults. The same is true for younger adults. Isn't that weird? They tell you, "Oh, you might be getting old; oh, you're busy, do a moderate-intensity thing; pick up your pink dumbbells." That's just going to make you weak. And it spends so much time going for a walk is good for you; it's just that's not moderate-intensity training. High-intensity interval training, on the other hand, improves oxygen delivery to your brain and to your muscles, and it strengthens your heart function, even if you've been diagnosed with heart failure. That study showed that high-intensity interval isn't just safe, it's more effective and time-efficient for staying strong, and that it works even if you're older than 50 or younger than 50.
Now, because this is the internet, please, before starting any new exercise program, consult with a qualified healthcare professional to make sure it's safe and appropriate for your individual health needs, even if your healthcare professional received one hour of training in medical school about that. But hey, now you know. This is especially important if you have pre-existing conditions or you have concerns about high-intensity training. And I'm serious about this: if you have a cardiac issue, if you have injuries, you might want to talk with a trainer or a physician.
For most of us, you can do this. Throughout all of human history, high-intensity training would happen when you're walking through the jungle and you saw a tiger; either you can do it or you can't. And that's why high-intensity interval training is good for you. But what if you could get the benefits of it—in fact, more benefits—in way less time, with less effort, without sweating? You know, I thought it sounded too good to be true. There are three university studies that back what I'm about to teach you, and it is very real, and it's what I do today. I do it at my company, Upgrade Labs, and it makes such a difference. In fact, it's six times better than what you'll get from doing regular cardio.
This technique is called REHIT, and it stands for Reduced Exertion High-Intensity Training, and it's built on this idea that you don't need long, grueling workouts to trigger the right biological response in order to lose fat, to retain muscle, or to have cardiovascular health. So instead of spending an hour cycling or running—even worse, doing it, breathing stale air indoors, staying in place—all you have to do is just two 20-second bursts within a 10-minute session, and that's it. And even better, between those two 20-second bursts, you're not allowed to push yourself; you have to actually walk slowly or even just lay on your back, and that's it. If you say, "I'm going to push; I'll do 3 20-second bursts," it works less. That's how cool this is. So if you think you could do two, two 20-second sprints in 10 minutes, I think you can do it. This is the smartest way to train if you want results without a lot of wasted effort, and the science behind it really does speak for itself.
A study by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that people in their study who did an 8-week REHIT program improved their VO2 max by 12%, and people who did moderate-intensity continuous training only improved by 7%, and people who did like an hour a day of intense training only improved by 2% in a different study. But that's crazy! You get up to six times better results by spending 10 minutes with only 40 seconds of intense work. You brush your teeth for 40 seconds a day, and I'm only asking to do this a few times a week. It's less time than brushing your teeth to improve your VO2 max by 12%. Oh, a 12% VO2 max improvement is associated with two additional years of life, man. Okay, you brush your teeth to be healthy; you can do REHIT; it's not that hard, and it actually works.
REHIT causes your body to release a compound called AMPK and my favorite compound, which is called PGC1 alpha, and these are two powerful molecules that signal your body to build new, stronger mitochondria, and more mitochondria mean more energy and a better metabolism. You actually use your blood sugar better, too, and that's why REHIT is so effective at increasing VO2 max, which is the number one key measure of cardiovascular fitness. Turns out VO2 max is also a great marker of how long you're going to live.
So to recap: 5 hours on a treadmill or in a spin class per week, 2% improvement; doing moderate-intensity, slower training for hours, 7% improvement; or 40 seconds of hard work in 10 minutes, get a 12% improvement. It's not a small difference; it's a giant difference, and you get your time back. So maybe you can use that time to meditate or to go on a date or to start a business or just to watch whatever TV show you want to watch. Like, it's your time; don't waste it. Higher VO2 max means better endurance, faster recovery, and a body that burns fat more efficiently, and it's just a few minutes per week versus hours a week, and it doesn't feel like a slog.
Most people who get a gym membership, they stop going. In fact, there's $400 million a year of ghost gym memberships, so people who bought it and don't go. The odds are you might be one of them. It's because you don't know about REHIT, and you don't even need a gym to do REHIT. REHIT is better than traditional cardio workouts because it just gives you the results, and unlike those long cardio sessions that really will wear out your joints, REHIT has a much lower strain, so you feel better while you do it. In fact, you'd be so much better off if you have an hour to train, do REHIT for 10 minutes and then take off your glasses and go for a walk outdoors, cuz walk is good for you, and it's not going to break your joints the way logging it out is going to. It just doesn't make sense to do cardio the old way.
So now that you understand REHIT works, here's the exact weekly plan to get you fit, stay lean, and feel amazing at any age. I'm serious: if you're over 50, do it; if you're 20, do it. It doesn't require a lot of cardio. All you have to do is a REHIT session three times a week. You can start with one session a week and work your way up to three, or you could just start going with all three, but each session takes at most 10 minutes, and you can really do it in about 4.
If you live here in Upgrade Labs, the best way to do REHIT is on our AI-powered bike because it's measuring your heart rate to make it even more efficient, and we're opening Upgrade Labs locations across the US and Canada. Go to upgradlabs.com if you want to see if there's one near you. But you can do this in a park, or you can do it with a stationary bike that will allow you to turn up the tension very quickly. First, you warm up by cycling really slowly with no resistance at all. To me, this is the worst part of the workout because it's boring; it's like, "No pedal," really slow. If you're in a park, you would walk really slow, like you're old. Like, if you're saying, "I'm just going to push a little bit," it will not work. You have to be just moving and not simulate. And then you instantly turn the resistance up as high as you can, and if you're on a bike, you have to press buttons; it's not going to work very well. You would actually stop pedaling, turn turn it up, and then push. So maybe you just do it in a park, but you turn up the resistance and go as fast as you can, like a tiger's chasing you, like you're going to die, for 20 seconds. It should really be intense. And then you quickly turn the resistance back down or even just lay on your back, and you move really slowly for 3 minutes. At the end of 3 minutes, or maybe 2 minutes if you really want to push it, you turn that resistance back up and go all out for another 20 seconds, and then you cool down again, sometimes for a minute, sometimes for three. And that's it, three times a week. It's basically: be bored for 2 minutes, sprint; be bored for 2 to 3 minutes, sprint; be bored for a couple minutes; you're done.
And on the days you don't do REHIT, you can stay active and go for a walk or do a yoga class; do whatever you like. But this is enough to improve your cardio and to improve it better than going for a long jog and better than going to a spin class, and that gives you time for recovery. There's nothing like a walk outdoors with nature, that yoga class, or just doing some stretching and just doing something fun; go play tennis or something. The key is to keep your body engaged without overloading it, and the balance between high-intensity burst and low-intensity movement is what makes this plan sustainable. It's the same amount of time as brushing your teeth.
So now you see, working out smarter and not just harder actually gets you better results, and this is just the beginning. If you want more science-backed ways to improve your performance in way less time, hit subscribe now, and I'll give you more videos like this. I spent my life learning how to do this. I've lost 100 lbs, and my total workouts using AI take about 20 minutes a week, and I have never been more lean and ripped in my entire life.
That said, even if you do the perfect workout plan and you do more lifting or you do more cardio, if you're not fueling your body the right way and you're not getting enough sleep, it doesn't matter; you're leaving a ton of results on the table. So you don't have to follow a complicated diet or make extreme lifestyle changes, although if you're going to live to 180, you might have to make a few more tweaks. That's my goal; maybe it's not yours. Your goal, at a minimum, should be to eat in a way that supports muscle retention, fat loss, and having enough energy to handle anything life brings your way. That's table stakes. And to do that, your body has to recover properly.
As you age, your body becomes less efficient at using protein to build and repair muscle, which means you need more protein, and not all proteins are the same. Every meal should include high-quality animal-based protein: grass-fed beef, wild-caught fish, pastured eggs, or a clean protein shake. Plant-based protein doesn't work as well as animal-based protein, sorry.
And next, don't fear healthy fats. Your hormones depend on good fats to function properly, and that means saturated fats: a couple tablespoons of olive oil—good only olive oil is not going to work; you're going to need some butter, you're going to need some animal fats—if you want to make the hormones your body desperately needs. And if you're not sleeping well, you won't burn fat efficiently, you won't build muscle, and you definitely won't feel your best because you get your growth hormone at night. Aim for at least 6 and 1/2 hours of sleep, maybe 8 hours of sleep on the days when you're doing more exercise or have more stress. And if your body wants 8 hours, get 8 hours; don't restrict your sleep, but you need at least 6 and a half, and that can change everything for you. Going to bed earlier gives you better results than going to bed later; I'm sorry to say.
You can also upgrade your sleep environment: keep your room cool, make sure that it is completely blacked out and dark; no light coming around the curtains, no LEDs, no tech. Try some magnesium before you go to bed, and make sure that you spend a little bit of time winding down and dim the lights and just chill for a bit before you lay down, and you'll get better sleep. And don't ignore stress management. If you have chronic stress, whether it's from a diet that doesn't work for you, from toxic relationships, or just a bunch of tech and things like that, it will wreck your metabolism; it'll tank your testosterone, and it makes it really hard to stay in shape, and as you age, it gets even worse. You can do things like breath work, meditation, or just take time to unplug, and it can make a massive difference. And even in that world, some things work better for de-stressing than others. You might want to check out Heavily Meditated, my new book, where I go through all the things that give you more meditation and less time, cuz I feel like you got something to do with your life. And if you spend all day on a treadmill and then meditating for a couple hours, you got nothing left to do the things you're here to do. So it's your job to learn how how to get that work done for your body so you can do the things that really matter in your life.
And if you want the most effective REHIT experience, go to Upgrade Labs, even if you're just visiting a city, and try our AI-powered REHIT bikes, and they'll customize your workout based on your heart rate to your exact fitness level, so you get the best results in the least possible time. Click the link below to find an Upgrade Labs near you and start training smarter today.