Build Your Ticker to Get Thicker

Hello everybody. I got a question from a

subscriber

asking me how he can recover faster

between the brutal sessions that he's

putting himself through. Apparently, he

can only handle about 2 to 3 weeks of

good hard training and then needs about

a week of hibernation to heal all his

battle scars.

And it's pretty it's a good thing I will

say that he's able to push himself to

that degree. Most people can't. Um, but

recovery is certainly an issue. Um, most

people completely neglect it. They don't

realize that they're neglecting it. And

it is the yin to the yang. If you

neglect the restorative part, you don't

have any fire. There's no oil to to

stoke the flame.

And he asked me this question and

immediately all these ideas came

flooding to my mind. And I was like,

this is going to be a a 2hour,

three-hour video. It's going to take

forever. So, instead of making you guys

sit through all that, I'm going to make

this into little bite-size videos, one

topic a piece, uh, make it a little more

digestible,

and I'm going to put it all together, a

nice little bow, into a playlist, and

I'll call it something clever about

recovery. Maybe mention something about

a Wolverine, who knows? But something

good, something that'll get the clicks.

And anyhow, I figured for the first

video, it'd be a good idea to touch on

something that most lifters neglect. And

I think it's something that if you

implement, you will have positive

effects almost immediately. And it also

kind of goes beyond lifting as well. The

thing I'm going to mention in the

tidbit, it's cardio.

For whatever reason, uh they're all in

water.

Cardio and weights, they just don't mix.

If you love lifting heavy iron, you

absolutely despise being on the

treadmill. And I don't blame you. I'm in

the exact same boat. I do it because I

have to because I know the merits of it.

And with maturity, you implement these

things. So hopefully you guys will do

the same.

I think the best way to break down why

you should be doing it is to understand

how big a role uh the aerobic system

your you know lungs and ticker actually

play in basic things.

For example, within a set suppose you're

doing uh a good hard set of 10 on back

squats. Most people think that it's all

glycogen, ATP, just anorobic.

In reality, about a third of the energy

that is produced to help you squat, all

that pounds,

um, that actually comes from the aerobic

system.

And when that is trash, you wind up

getting less reps than you should.

That means you're going to be getting

less stimulation per set.

Not only that, uh, in between sets, so

once you're done with that hard set, you

should be noticing your breathing is a

little elevated. That's your air aerobic

system, right? Air breathing it in. Uh,

your body is trying to recoup all the

energy it just spent.

If your aerobic capacity sucks, that

means you're going to have to spend

quite a long time to recover in between

sets. And if you decide to rush that

process, you're going to wind up with

your next set not being nearly as

effective as it should have been.

So neglecting cardio so far is reducing

your reps and it is either making your

rest times way longer than it needs to

be or it's short changing the next set

and making it less effective.

The next thing, and we'll go bigger and

bigger as we go. The next thing is

during the workout.

During the workout, as it goes on,

believe it or not, it actually starts to

become more and more aerobically

dependent.

Um, it's basically like um it's kind of

like you start walking and you start

hitting more and more hills as you go

along and you start noticing that heart

rate, that breath keeps going higher and

higher. Same thing happens in a workout.

You're shifting. You're running out of

glycogen. You're running out of um you

know, maybe an ATP, although you'd be

dead, but you're it's coming it's

becoming harder to come by. But as the

session goes on, the aerobic needs

continue to climb set after set after

set to where by the end of the session

um I think it's approximately 50 to 60%

of the energy being produced that's

helping you perform set after set is

actually coming from the aerobic system.

So let's add on to that. You skip

cardio. Suddenly you can't handle as

much volume and maybe even worse, you

push yourself and those extra sets you

did are almost not even effective.

You're basically just piling on fatigue.

The going beyond even the workout. So

right now what you've done so far if you

have a poor aerobic system is you've

gotten less reps than you could have.

You either underreovered between sets or

are taking forever in the gym which has

its own problems.

And during the workout, your sets are

becoming less and less effective no

matter what, even if you rest longer or

not.

And the fatigue is piling up because as

your body has to pull from the glycogen

system, so if your aerobic system can't

keep up, your body's going to have to

keep pulling more and more from the

anorobic system. When you deplete

glycogen, especially from the liver, you

bonk. You basically hit a brick wall and

can't go any further. And there's huge

caveats to this as well because when you

start depleting glycogen, that requires

cortisol to free that up.

When you produce cortisol, there's an

inverse relation between cortisol and

testosterone.

So, as you're pumping out all this

cortisol, you're left with less and less

raw materials to produce your own

natural testosterone.

This means less anabolism, less muscle

building, as well as the session being

way more stressful than it needed to

because cortisol is the stress hormone

or the ready readiness hormone. So, by

having a poor aerobic system, the entire

session is not only less stimulating,

it's actually way more stressful.

We can go further because once you're

done with the session, you're in

recovery mode, or at least hopefully you

should be.

One of the things not many people know

is that lifting stimulates the

sympathetic nervous system which is the

fight or flight and cardio steady state

aerobics actually builds up your

parasympathetic rest and digest uh

nervous system.

So what ends up happening is if you skip

your cardio you end up being much more

sympathetically dominant, much more

fight or flight. It's harder for your

body to turn off

calm down and begin actually restoring

itself.

You'll see this as having a much higher

heart rate just as the days go by in

actually uh you know post session your

heart rate remains elevated. Um and I'll

also add this too. You do cardio

obviously your heart rate will drop

which means you're in a more

parasympathetic state but we can't

forget circulation

blood flow. I mean blood is it's

everything. You can't heal without it.

The slowest healing tissues don't have

blood flow.

Cardio has an unusually good ability at

building capillaries and increasing

blood flow because your plumbing is

better. You got more capillaries running

through everything and your ticker is

way stronger than it used to be. So that

means better blood flow and better

channels for the blood to go through. So

already we're seeing some problems here.

You're really shooting yourself in the

foot by neglecting this aspect. Um,

there is one that I will mention. Um, I

think it is pretty important, I'd say,

and it's probably something that you

should avoid at all costs and cardio

kind of helps you do that. Um, if you

don't, I mean, this is notoriously bad

for building muscle. Um, you know, the

people that experience this, they

atrophy at quite a rapid rate. Um, and I

mean, gosh, the strength loss is

unimaginable.

And, uh, that's not being alive anymore.

If you skip cardio, the odds of you

being alive anymore start to go down. We

see tons and tons of studies uh, that

show that it it decreases all cause

mortality. And I think it might even be

more than weightlifting. So honestly, if

you had to think about it, I hate to say

it, but cardio might actually be the

most important thing. It might even be

your foundation. And it kind of makes

sense because without your heart,

nothing really works. Uh without blood

vessels, nothing really heals. Um so

it's worthwhile to invest in um if you

know, not for life. Uh just for better

performance in the gym, better gains,

faster recovery.

Um, just so you know, you need about 150

minutes of moderate intensity steady

state uh cardio per week. And that's

minimal. Just to let you know that is

minimal. Uh, ideally you get a little

bit more, but that's the absolute rock

bottom. You have to hit that number. I

looked it up and unfortunately lifting

does not contribute towards this to any

meaningful degree. you're going to

actually have to get your heart rate

elevated and for a long enough period of

time to actually get the results.

I will recommend that when you do it,

you know, a lot of people think you got

to be on a treadmill or running through

the streets or, you know, doing

something crazy. It's really not that.

All it really is is just go at an

intensity where you can still make short

sentences. You're puffing, you know,

having uh some higher breathing and

heart rate, but you can still form a few

sentences. you're not dying.

Um,

and I would pick something that is

concentric only. That means something

like stair climbers, uh, incline

walking, um, you know, the the rowing

machine. I think there's even a rope

pull. Um, but anything where there's no

negative, there's no lowering phase is

ideal. That means probably don't do any

downhill running. Um, jogging is mostly

out because it pounds the joints so

much. And this will also save you a lot

um in terms of recovery because when you

pick stuff that's

high eccentric like you're just running

non-stop running a marathon what winds

up happening is you rack up muscle

damage which is going to pull from the

protein synthesis. So whenever you

consume protein that's going to repairs

instead of growth to your biceps and

chest or whatever.

Um as well as you're getting super

inflamed. Muscle damage is highly

inflammatory and that takes some time to

to clear out. Um, and it also, by the

way, when you have high inflammation,

uh, it actually tells your nervous

system to tone down. When inflammation's

high, your body turns the dial back and

stops putting out so high an output. So,

your strength actually goes down. And I

think there's actually some research

coming out now that shows uh the

decrease in strength post session

actually isn't uh much to do with the

damage or you know lactic acid and all

those kinds of things. It's actually

inflammation

and this is further proven um with old

people. Old people get inflamed

extremely easily from activity. um they

typically suffer from a lot of

inflammatory uh issues and it slows down

their recovery massively. So that might

be a hint for what the next video could

be. Wink wink. Um but anyhow, avoid

those and the basic recommendation is,

you know, 20 30 minutes a day. Uh get on

something that's mostly eentricless.

try to make it as less, you know, least

pounding as possible, at least damaging

as possible on your body and just get

out there and move. Um, I personally

find it easiest after a workout to just

go for a I have a stair climber, so I

climb that or I go for a really brisk

walk. Um, I know not everybody can do

that right now. They don't live in a

warm enough climate, but if you can

afford it, you know, walk briskly, go

through your neighborhood, hit some

hills at a good clip. I sometimes even

jog up the hill. But you you're supposed

to be getting 10,000 steps a day anyhow.

So if you can swing it, you know, walk

briskly, get a good move on, take a

buddy with you, that's always fun. You

know, have somebody you chat with and

you're making them healthy or they're

making you healthier. You're getting the

the social benefit, you know, if you're

all about the longevity maxing and

whatnot. But um just enjoy it. If you

could walk, I'd say for sure do that.

Get some sunlight, fresh air, move

around, see some things, talk to some

people. Um, but walk briskly, get your

heart rate up, and if you find a hill,

you know, maybe sprint up it a little

bit, take a little hustle to it. And,

uh, you do that every day, that also

covers it. Um, one last thing I'll add,

if you really do just absolutely despise

cardio

is

endure it for the short term. There's no

real getting around the initial suck of

it where you got to just put your time

in. But the nice thing is once you've

built a nice aerobic base,

the effort it takes to maintain that is

almost nothing. Um I mean there's some

stuff I've seen where you can do one

hard session once every two weeks, I

think, and maintain your aerobic base.

Um so it's a pretty good asset to have

because it sticks around for a long

time. Um, it's relatively easy to build

and it has just so many benefits there.

There are countless benefits. I only

name just the ones for, you know,

lifting and bodybuilding, but they go

well beyond that. Um, but once you build

up a base, let's just say your resting

heart rate becomes 50 beats per minute,

you know, something nice and low, you

should see your heart rate increasing

week to week, month to month. Um, once

it's down there, it's nothing to

maintain. Uh, literally just walking. uh

even more leisurely and just having one

burst here and there is enough to

maintain it. It takes so little to

maintain it. So just think of it like

you're investing like really good

investing and once you've stockpiled

enough it's so easy to sit back and just

rest on the interest. Um I'll tell you I

spent probably

two months

maybe three months just stair climbing.

I was a stair climbing fiend. It

absolutely sucked. I hated every minute

of it. It got better. I got mentally

tougher with it. And my heart rate now

is like 49, maybe 50 beats per minute.

And I haven't done much stair climbing

at all recently. Um, but it's

maintained. All I got to do now is when

I go on walks, I just sprint up a couple

of hills, get my heart rate up. Sticks

around. I haven't had any issues

whatsoever. Um, I can do high rep

squats, recover like that, no issue. I'm

almost never out of breath when I'm

lifting. And I got to tell you, the

recovery has been night and day. Um, I

have had other people ask me about this

same exact issue where they having

issues recovering. I told them to get

their cardio in, just knock it out as

wherever you can, and

it worked. Worked like an absolute

charm. Uh, pretty immediately, too.

After a couple of weeks, I started

noticing massive benefits.

Um, one last thing I'll add, something

that I did when I was doing my cardio

base was

you don't need much volume to grow. I

don't think um you don't have to be in

the gym every single day. And if you

built up uh a nice base of muscle, you

can kind of take it a little easier.

Reason I'm saying that is I hated cardio

so much

that I decided the only way I was going

to get it done is if I pulled back my

training frequency and volume and just

made space for the thing that I hate and

I prioritized it. So suddenly on I got

you know I started training twice per

week instead of you know three times or

four times per week. Dropped it down to

twice per week and I filled in the rest

of the time with cardio and then even

after a session you I kept the volume

low. I'd go out for a nice walk or climb

more stairs or whatever. Um, but I just

prioritize cardio for a little while.

And by doing that, it built up a base

and now I can kind of do whatever I

want. So, it's definitely worth it. Um,

I guess just to wrap it all up, don't

skip your cardio. If you have trash

cardio, it is going to tank the amount

of reps you get per set, which is going

to make each set less effective. It is

going to wreck your recovery in between

sets, which again either going to make

your workout super duper long, which if

you love that, you know, by all means,

super duper long, or it's going to

impede the next set because you didn't

recover long enough. It's going to make

every subsequent set throughout the

workout less and less effective because

you cannot produce enough energy.

Uh, it's also going to make the session

way more stressful than it needs to be

because you're having to pull from

glycogen. And to do that requires

producing more cortisol, which means

less testosterone, uh, and much more

difficult recovery.

Um, having trash cardio means higher

resting heart rate, means more

sympathetic tone, which means you're not

going to be resting quite as well in

between sessions.

And if you care, it also shortens your

life by skipping it. So, not that hard

to implement. Pretty straightforward.

20, 30 minutes a day. Just get it in.

It's only 150 minutes per week. It's not

that hard, I promise. Just get it done

and then you can go into maintenance

mode if you really hate it. But I'm

telling you, this is probably one of the

greatest bang for your buck implements

you could possibly have. So that's it.

Hope you guys enjoyed and uh until next

time.