Strength Changes Everything

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about the benefits of doing the right workout...   Amy Hudson and Brian Cygan reveal the truth behind the fitness industry and why you don’t need to spend hours at the gym every week in order to stay fit and healthy. Learn the science behind the 20-minute workout and how you can achieve optimal health benefits by doing the right workout, for the right length of time, just twice a week. Is 20 minutes long enough to have a great workout? Simply put, absolutely. The training at the Exercise Coach is targeting the root cause of usual aging which is the age-related loss of muscle mass, also known as sarcopenia. Research shows that sarcopenia is a function of the loss of and weakening of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Loss of fast-twitch muscle fibers directly correlates to a weakening metabolism, weaker bones, less energy, and worse health as we age. In order to reverse the usual aging process and restore muscle mass you need to do exercises that are focused on building fast-twitch muscle fibers. This means the exercise needs to be intense enough to recruit those muscle fibers. The ideal exercise to target those muscle fibers is science-based strength training. When we work our muscles in exactly the right manner to actually use our fast-twitch muscle fibers, it’s intense and therefore needs to be brief. That’s why the workout at The Exercise Coach is only 20 minutes. The 20-minute workout is not the bare minimum you can get away with, it’s actually the specific length of time you need to optimally recruit, stimulate, and fatigue the right muscle fibers. One researcher looked at a number of studies on exercise programs and concluded that all that was necessary to get the majority of the benefits that people want from a health and fitness standpoint was to perform a strength training workout for about 20 mins no more than twice per week. The best workout with the most health benefits is the one that is necessarily brief. The higher the intensity of the workout, the less time you need to spend doing that workout. No amount of exercise, in volume or minutes, can bring about the most important results from a fitness endeavor that people are after. The key is to work at the right intensity level and engage the fast-twitch muscle fibers to reverse the aging process and restore optimal health and fitness.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about the truth to losing belly fat...   Six-pack abs are what most people think of when they think fitness goals, but how hard is it really to get that washboard stomach and lose the stubborn belly fat? Brian and Amy bust the most common myths around losing belly fat and talk about the incredible results that Exercise Coach clients can get, including reducing their belly fat, by joining the Metabolic Comeback Challenge.  A common goal for many people is to lose weight, specifically belly fat. There are two motivations that drive this goal, the first is achieving an improvement to their figure and the second is that excess belly fat is an indication that their health is not improving. Belly fat, also known as central adiposity, is a health issue and a real risk factor. One study showed that each 10cm increase in belly fat in women increased their risk of death from any cause by 8%, for men it was 12%. We know that belly fat is linked to insulin resistance and systemic inflammation, and those things working together worsen overall health. Belly fat is both a sign and a symptom of those problems. Before we learn the best ways to lose belly fat, we need to learn what doesn’t work. For example, the myth of spot reduction where you exercise particular areas of the body to lose body fat in those areas, is not how it works. The truth is the first area that you put on fat will be the last area you lose it. For men, that’s often the abdomen, and for women, that’s usually the hips and thighs. Doing exercises to shrink your stomach is not going to change this reality. When people start to lose body fat, they will notice the results in reverse. In order to actually lose belly fat, you have to combine whole effort exercise with whole food nutrition. It has nothing to do with crunches or sit ups, or even cardio. Combining strength training with sensible whole food nutrition is the best approach to losing belly fat because it results in focused weight loss, where you are only losing body fat instead of both fat and muscle at the same time. This also translates into the best shape for your body as well. At the Exercise Coach, we see people losing significant amounts of body fat, typically 5%, from a focused program of 30 days of whole effort exercise and whole food nutrition. The first 5% of weight loss that people experience in an exercise program delivers the majority of the metabolic benefits. Within one or two months, nearly everyone can experience results that are life-changing from a health standpoint. Most people will see belly fat reduction within the first 30 days of the Metabolic Comeback Challenge. Seeing a flattening of the stomach will depend on the starting point of each individual but the important thing to keep in mind is the progress you’re making. You need to persevere in order to see those results. It may be that you just need to put in another 30 to 60 days to lose that belly fat and reach your body composition goals. It doesn’t take exercising everyday or joint-punishing cardio to transform your body and hormonal health. Smart strength training and whole food nutrition is all you need to fundamentally change your life.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about preventing the ill effects of aging...   Is it safe for seniors to perform high intensity strength training? The question is actually “is it safe for them not to?” Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson discuss the science behind strength training and why high intensity, whole effort exercise is one of the best ways to prevent the ill effects of aging, even if you are afraid of your joint pain or heart issues holding you back. A number of people are curious whether strength training is an appropriate exercise for them, especially as they get older. But the real question we should be asking is whether it’s safe for seniors to avoid strength training. The science indicates that there are a number of mortality benefits associated with strength training, and individuals who don’t engage in strength training over the long term are at a higher risk of premature death. For people in their 60’s, strength training has cognitive benefits, blood pressure and blood sugar benefits, and even bone density benefits. There are two levels of safety at the Exercise Coach, orthopedic safety and cardiovascular safety. Researchers have concluded that high intensity strength training, when done correctly, is safe for people into their 90’s. The benefits of performing strength training outweigh the risks of not doing so. Even older people with osteoporosis can benefit from strength training. High intensity strength training is safe and addresses directly the most important markers of healthy aging. From a cardiovascular standpoint, high intensity strength training has a positive influence on resting blood pressure. It’s common for Exercise Coach clients with high blood pressure to see their blood pressure normalize. Another study compared the impact of strength training versus traditional cardio in cardiovascular rehab. A large proportion of the people performing the cardio exercise as part of their rehabilitation experienced some kind of angina or chest pain, whereas the people in the strength training didn’t experience any. The slow and controlled nature of the exercises performed at the Exercise Coach is the key to making them safe for anyone to do. It’s possible to increase the intensity of the exercise without increasing undue stress on your joints or your bones with this method. The environment of the Exercise Coach is about as good as it gets from a Covid-19 perspective since it offers private sessions in a studio with a small number of people. Sarcopenia is the age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and is really the root of a number of issues related to aging. It’s similar to the effects of muscle atrophy after an injury, and is linked to a number of the diseases of aging that we are most concerned about. The most effective way to combat sarcopenia is to engage in a meaningful strength training program. The data shows that whole effort exercise can reverse decades of muscle loss in a matter of 10 to 12 weeks. The more deconditioned somebody is when they start, the more profound the results they will see in a short period of time.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about getting toned and lean, rather than bulky...   Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson break down the science of strength training and discuss why you don’t have to worry about getting bulky from exercise, and why strength training is the most effective way to get that toned, lean body you always wanted. Will two 20-minute workouts a week help someone get toned? According to the scientific definition, toneness refers to the level of tension in a muscle at rest, but most people refer to being toned as being lean. In that regard, strength training will absolutely help you get leaner and build firm muscles. One misconception about toning is around spot reduction. Often, when people talk about toning their body they are talking about making a particular area of their body leaner by targeting it with exercise, but that isn’t how the process works. Effective strength training is about getting whole body results that impact your metabolism and decrease body fat throughout the whole body. Toning is the result of lean muscle tissue being added in the body with a decrease in the amount of body fat that may be hiding. To get the toning results you want, the best way is to combine good whole food nutrition and whole effort exercise. Will strength training at the Exercise Coach result in big, bulky muscles? People want better muscles, not necessarily bigger muscles and lucky for them, the majority of people won’t build large muscles even if they try. Genes and the expression of myostatin limits the amount of muscle mass that will grow. The longer a muscle is, the bigger and thicker that it will grow. Most bodybuilders that you see have muscles that are naturally predisposed to growing larger. This means that most people, especially women,  don’t have to worry about getting too bulky. Strength training is the most important thing you can do for health, longevity, quality of life, and reducing body fat. Whole effort strength training is the best way to achieve the best body leanness, definition, or tone that you can. “Biologically speaking, to be able to survive an encounter with a lion that wants to eat you, you need a body that is lean enough to be fast and strong enough that it has the endurance to run away. This describes the state that our bodies want to be in. There isn’t any evolutionary benefit to growing large muscles because it takes a lot of energy and resources to maintain them. Our bodies are better off with building stronger and better muscles, while not necessarily getting bigger in the process. Amy reads a testimonial from a 73 year old woman sharing how she has seen improved muscle definition and tone from her time and sessions at the Exercise Coach. Today, more than ever, we need to maintain our physical and mental health for our overall well-being. The workouts at the Exercise Coach change everything for the clients that enjoy them.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about exercise for athletes vs the average person...   Is strength training enough for longevity and quality of life? That’s the question Brian and Dr. James Fisher explore in the final episode of the What About Cardio? series. Learn about the difference between how athletes and the average person train and why achieving high levels of sports performance and everyday fitness are not accomplished the same way. Can strength training and whole food nutrition be enough to transform someone’s fitness results? Where does cardio fit into fitness and sports performance? Fitness is about our body’s ability to perform a physical task, whether that’s moving a weight or speed or flexibility. Cardiovascular fitness is our body’s ability to move oxygen around the body efficiently, and one of the major benefits of cardio is an increased rate of recovery from exercise. Intensity is key. If you want to perform at a higher level in a sport, long duration and low intensity will not achieve the results you desire. Even with a long duration, low intensity sport, a greater intensity is required to increase performance. There was a study that was published in the late 90’s that showed that the best way to become better at a sport is to practice the sport. A lot of the exercise and training that athletes do to become better at their sport is actually superficial. Specificity of movement is vital. Fisher trains athletes for the positions they are going to play, and the best way to get better at a certain sport is to do exactly that. Resistance training can be a great supplement as a way to prevent injury, but it won’t do much to directly improve someone’s sport performance. The average person shouldn’t be looking to sports training to help prevent the aging process. There are a couple of things to remember: when you are looking at a high level athlete on television, they are genetically gifted. They probably achieved what they have relatively early on in life and with less training than the average person. The second thing to remember is that they are paid to do that and have a short career. The best athletes have a short shelf life. The average career in the NFL is less than 7 years. Are you willing to do all the training and exercise that they put themselves through to perform at that level? Brief, intense strength training can improve cardiovascular fitness. A study by a group of Spanish authors showed a 10% increase in cardiorespiratory fitness over 12 weeks with a program of strength training. If you’re already a Tour de France cyclist, adding resistance training isn’t going to do much to improve your performance. It all depends on who you are. Resistance training can definitely improve our health, improve our cardiovascular fitness, and improve our longevity and quality of life.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about staying strong as you age...   In part 2 of this series with Dr. James Fisher, Brian and James discuss the downsides of cardio and why so many people can’t seem to resist binging after cardio exercise. Learn why cardio is important and useful when done right, and how it can lead to even worse health outcomes if not done properly. While improving heart health is great, it’s not everyone’s goal when exercising or doing cardio. Weight loss is another major focus and cardio can certainly help accomplish that. When doing cardio and exercising at a low enough intensity we are using our aerobic energy system, and that’s reliant on our fat stores as energy. So it’s easy to think that if you do cardio you will burn fat, but the reality is that anything that raises our energy expenditure and increases our metabolism is beneficial for fat loss. Building muscle is great for maintaining a higher metabolism and burning more fat. With a low-intensity exercise, we see an increase in our stress hormones, as well as a fluctuation in our leptin and ghrelin levels. These are the hormones responsible for hunger and they regulate how our body replenishes and restores calories. When we do higher resistance training we don’t get the same hunger response. The big problem is that going for a long run or bike ride may feel great, but the following hunger response may undo all the work you just did. More movement and more steps in a day is a good place to start, but if you go out and start running, cycling, or swimming you are going to swim against the tide and your body will start to resist your efforts. Increasing muscle mass is about increasing the quality of our body composition, and that itself is increasing our metabolism. If you look at the bigger picture, cardio alone doesn’t lay the foundation for long-term weight loss. Studies generally show that the weight loss that occurs from cardio and a caloric reduction is 50% muscle, which is probably the worst possible outcome, especially as we age. Whereas if we perform resistance training and pay attention to protein intake the weight loss is almost exclusively fat. When people say they want to lose weight, they mean they want to lose fat. We need to do something that allows us to hang on to the muscle we’ve got. Starting with resistance training, and then nutrition, with cardio as a tertiary thought is the best method to achieve fat loss and optimal long term health. If we do what it takes to protect our muscle with proper nutrition and strength training, the weight that we lose leads to a better body composition since fat takes up so much space on the body. Start with resistance training and nutrition, then add cardio if you feel like it. When we think of older adults we think of frailty, despite the fact that they are often lean. The reason they are frail is because they are not carrying a high proportion of muscle mass. If we do resistance training and focus on maintaining as much muscle mass as we can when we age, we are setting ourselves up to be lean and functional as we age instead of merely frail. An epoc is Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, it’s also known as the afterburn effect. When performing high effort exercise our heart rate is elevated for a time after the exercise is complete but with low-intensity exercise, there is almost no after-effect. The energy expenditure from prolonged low effort exercise is about the same as interval training or resistance training a third of the duration. A 20-minute high-intensity workout has the same energy expenditure as a 1-hour run.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about strength training versus traditional cardio...   Dr. James Fisher answers the question once and for all, do we really need to do exercises like running, cycling, and swimming to improve our cardio? Find out the truth about cardio exercises and cardiovascular health and why you should get off the treadmill and start doing resistance training right now. The fundamental question is “What is cardio?” Even people who have seen the results of the 20-minute routines delivered by the Exercise Coach still wonder what place cardio has in physical fitness. Historically people have perceived exercise to be going for a run or what we think of as traditional cardio. Usually this takes the form of long duration and low intensity and focuses on aerobic energy production. The accepted wisdom is that cardio is just activities like running and cycling, but the truth is that any activity can become cardio exercise if done at the correct intensity. Cardio also raises the idea that we need to perform prolonged exercise to get the result, but that’s not necessarily the case. The trouble is that duration doesn’t necessarily translate to improved fitness. Someone going for a 4-hour walk isn’t going to see the results they would see from an activity with a higher intensity level. Cardio activities like running, cycling, or swimming improve our heart health because of the sustained elevation of the heart rate. While that’s true and that process also makes the heart and muscles more efficient, but it’s really the act of having the heart rate elevated for an extended period of time that brings those results and it’s not reserved for traditional cardio exercises. It is possible to be fit while still having an unhealthy heart due to lifestyle choices. Studies have shown that it is better to be fit and fat, than unfit. People who are overweight and exercise have better health outcomes than people with a normal Body Mass Index who don’t exercise at all. Exercises that we perform that are a high enough intensity and frequency can more than counteract any of the other lifestyle risk factors. There is growing evidence that shows that effective exercise alone and improving fitness is powerfully prophylactic in terms of health and longevity. Even if you no longer see visible fitness increases from your exercise, you are still catalysing positive changes at a cellular level and prolonging and improving the quality of your life. Traditional cardio exercises are not necessary to become healthy. Strength training exercises have similar results to traditional cardio training with similar cardiovascular health benefits. It also comes with less risk of chronic joint pain. Don’t feel tied to an exercise modality. Studies have shown that people have seen increases in cardiovascular health and efficiency with only a simple 12-week strength training program. Resistance training is the superior choice because, in addition to the cardiovascular benefits, you also improve strength, bone density, and muscle mass. Improved muscle quality is a jackpot outcome because it has a ripple effect that leads to all of the systems of the body getting better when we optimize the health of our muscles.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about how this smart workout program can work for anyone!   Brian and Amy discuss the cutting edge technology that powers the Exercise Coach and makes it possible to deliver the world’s smartest 20-minute workout. Learn the secret to maximizing fitness results in the shortest time possible and how the Exerbotics technology makes exercise more fun and effective, while being more efficient at the same time. There are three things that make the workouts stand out at the Exercise Coach: the workouts are based on the best science, use the best technology, and are delivered by a network of professionals. “The best science” refers to the current understanding of strength, based on research that has demonstrated strength and muscle mass are the primary biomarkers for aging. Losing strength and muscle mass due to aging leads to experiencing the diseases of aging and metabolic decline. Science-based strength training can reverse decades of muscle loss in just a few short months. Focusing on exercises that build muscle contributes to a long, active, and healthy life. Exerbotics is the cutting-edge technology that powers the signature program that Exercise Coach offers. Exerbotics quantifies exercise and helps people understand the exercise that really matters. It also customizes exercise and adapts to any body, making it just right for every fitness level. It also optimizes results in the shortest amount of time and is really the foundation for the 20-minute workout. When someone becomes an Exercise Coach client, their first step is an assessment of their strength levels. This becomes the base for the exercise program and Exerbotics continues to measure and calibrate the effort they put out during exercise. Measuring effort is what matters the most since the current science of strength shows that whole effort is what triggers the results we want to get from exercise. Since the system adapts to the person, it becomes possible for anyone to do. With Exerbotics, the Exercise Coach can provide clients with extremely tailored exercise prescriptions. This ability-based approach makes the program challenging enough to get results, yet is something anybody can handle. Maximizing results while minimizing the time required wouldn't be possible without Exerbotics. There are three possible modes of resistance training: isotonic, isometric, and accommodating resistance. Accommodating resistance is the opposite of isotonic resistance, Exerbotic software controls the speed of the movement so that the muscle loading can adjust in real time through the exercise. An individual’s strength isn’t static and fluctuates throughout an exercise. It varies during a movement as the angles of your joints change. With conventional resistance we run into sticking points and the exercise needs to be tailored to the weakest point in the movement, which prevents the muscles from being fully engaged. Accommodating resistance makes it easier to deeply fatigue muscles in a much shorter time. Exerbotics delivers effective eccentric muscle loading as a part of every exercise that someone does. Strength varies during eccentric and concentric movements as well, which means that people can miss out on powerful muscle benefits when using conventional strength training. Strength varies as muscles fatigue, and conventional resistance doesn’t accommodate this change and limits how efficiently we can deeply fatigue our muscles. Exerbotics also makes exercise safer. The Exercise Coach has run millions of exercise sets with people who have run the gamut of physical fitness. Exerbotics controls the load with real time feedback based on the exerciser. The digital biofeedback makes it easier to see what you need to do in terms of effort, and this makes it easier to dig deeper than you thought you could in order to work the muscle groups that you’re trying to work. Real time feedback is a gamechanger for motivating effort and getting people results. When athletes are provided with digital feedback that quantifies their effort, it’s been shown to increase their motivation, competitiveness, mood, and performance. The Exercise Coach uses the data from every workout to ensure that more work is progressively applied to each workout to keep up with the client’s increasing strength capabilities. Coaches are another key component. Coaches help clients stay motivated and achieve more than they would otherwise. They also provide accountability and keep clients on track each day. Coaches provide clients the confidence and encouragement they need to give it their all during a workout. They also bring a passion for education and dispelling myths about fitness that people may have believed for years. There are five characteristics of a stand-out Exercise Coach. The first is commitment and experience using the Exerbotics equipment themselves for their own training. The second is empathy and the ability to anticipate the needs of a client. The third is energy, since coaches need to bring energy and positivity to the client’s training session. The fourth is professionalism and being respectful, kind, and taking their job seriously. The fifth is instructional skill and being able to deliver the best exercise experience for each client.   Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Brian recently had a friend come into the Exercise Coach and he was shocked to find how quickly his heart rate went up after only 60 seconds of properly calibrated strength training exercise, despite being an avid runner. Discover how the three energy systems of the body work, and why high-intensity strength training is definitively the best way to renovate your muscles, heart, and lungs at the same time and combat type 2 diabetes and the most common age-related diseases people suffer from today.  Brian had the opportunity to introduce a friend to the program at the Exercise Coach recently who was an avid runner, and he was quickly surprised at how effectively the program got his heart rate up despite his extensive cardiovascular training. Your heart and your lungs are pumps that respond to the demands being placed on your muscles at any given moment. Aerobic exercise is usually associated with a high heart rate, but that’s not the only time the aerobic energy system is engaged. In relative terms, the most aerobic thing you can do is sit and do nothing. There are three energy-producing systems in the body, and the aerobic oxidative system uses oxygen to produce energy. When we sit and do nothing, the aerobic oxidative system produces nearly 100% of the energy the body needs! When we start to do something more demanding, energy production shifts to become more anaerobic which is why strength training drives that sort of increased heart rate response. The more demand on the muscles, the greater the cardiovascular response. Many new clients have never experienced that kind of workout before getting started with the Exercise Coach. Strength training is the best kind of exercise you can do for diabetes. Out-of-control blood sugar leads to out-of-control inflammation, which is the root cause of all the major diseases associated with aging. As we age and lose muscle, our body becomes resistant to the effects of the hormone insulin. Insulin is a storage hormone that removes glucose from the bloodstream and insulin resistance becomes a real problem. Without being able to remove blood sugar from the bloodstream, due to our muscles diminishing over time, our insulin levels rise and that causes problems in addition to the issues caused by elevated blood sugar. The Strength Training at the Exercise Coach targets muscles that store sugar as glycogen. It renovates your body’s ability to store glycogen and reverses insulin resistance. This puts the body into a much better metabolic state and makes it easier to lose weight and transform your health. Stronger muscles equal stronger health. Type 2 muscle fibers are only used when they encounter demands that are greater than usual. Taking a walk or jogging won’t activate the type 2 muscle fibers in your body but strength training will. Your muscles get better at storing the glycogen they need to perform the demanding work required for strength training. That type of work needs the heart and lungs to increase their output to support what is happening metabolically. When you feel like you’re breathing hard after an intense exertion, that indicates that you’re doing the kind of work needed to renovate your type 2 muscle fibers. Strength training and whole food nutrition are the best things you can do to ward off the risks of type 2 diabetes and other age related diseases. Runners often find that there is missing muscle mass in their body when they go to the Exercise Coach and that the program allows them to perform at an even higher level.     Link: exercisecoach.com     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Join us for this replay from the archives and learn more about quality over quantity!   Learn about why systemic inflammation is known as the silent killer, why inflammation creates a vicious cycle that very few people escape as they get older, and how you can be one of the few who do. Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson reveal why muscle quality matters more than movement quantity and how strength training for 20 minutes at a time will transform your life, no matter how old you are. Muscle quality matters more than movement quantity. Standard workouts and guidelines in fitness are responsible for more than 85% of people getting frustrated and staying on the sidelines. The Exercise Coach is maniacal about getting people off the sidelines and getting them results in a fraction of the time. Science shows that the ideal form of exercise is strength training, which is safe, efficient, and focused on whole body results. James Timmins, a researcher from the UK, has made the point that no long-term study demonstrates that an inactive individual will become healthier simply by becoming more active. On the contrary, brief, whole effort exercise has been shown to improve outcomes. Whole effort exercise is work that completely fatigues a muscle group in anywhere from 40 to 120 seconds of work instead of hours. Research supports the finding that time and distance are irrelevant exercise metrics. Enhanced muscle tissue and the process that brings about this adaptation is really the key to driving positive fitness and wellness outcomes, not the time you devote to activity. It’s not about spending more time exercising, it’s about applying the guide of work that generates the adaptation, which can be done in a very short period of time. It takes about 20 minutes to get a total body effect. For people who want to lose weight, strength training is still the best bet. A study showed that a simple high intensity protocol amounting to 15 minutes of work each week substantially improved insulin sensitivity. This sensitivity is central to controlling weight. Insulin is a hormone that primarily tells cells in the body to store energy as body fat. The higher the levels of insulin in your body the stronger the signal is to store body fat. Starting at the age of 30 as we begin to experience age-related muscle loss, our muscles become more resistant to insulin. As this cycle worsens with age, the problem only becomes exacerbated and measuring insulin sensitivity is a key indicator for health. Making your muscles more sensitive to insulin is the most important thing you can do to put your body in the hormonal state necessary to lose body fat. Exercise that develops your muscle tissue is the most effective way to do that. Focus on muscle strength and muscle health for hormonal results, instead of the traditional cardio regime. The other issue the majority of people deal with is inflammation, also known as the secret killer. Inflammation is seen as the root of a number of other ailments. Muscle quality has also been shown to positively impact systemic inflammation. Systemic inflammation is more than what happens when you sprain your ankle. Local inflammation is what happens when you get hurt, systemic inflammation is something that you can’t see and exists in every cell in your body.   Links: exercisecoach.com   Extremely short duration high intensity interval training substantially improves insulin action in young healthy males - https://bmcendocrdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6823-9-3   Strength training improves muscle quality and insulin sensitivity in Hispanic older adults with type 2 diabetes - https://www.medsci.org/v04p0019.htm     This podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.