#098 How to Train According to the Experts

1. Define Training Goals

Before starting any training, identify your specific goals, such as becoming an elite athlete, improving health span, reducing disease risk, or maintaining independence with age, as this will determine how you should train.

2. Integrate Exercise as Hygiene

Adopt a mindset where exercise is considered an essential part of your daily personal hygiene, like brushing your teeth, making it a non-negotiable activity rather than a choice.

3. Apply Resistance Training Principles

Adhere to fundamental resistance training principles: prioritize consistency with an enjoyable regimen, implement progressive overload by gradually increasing challenge, ensure adequate recovery (including sleep and nutrition), and focus on consistent execution over perfection.

4. Follow Levine’s Exercise Prescription

Adopt Dr. Levine’s “Prescription for Life” by aiming for 5-6 hours of total training per week, including one HIIT session, a light recovery day after HIIT, one hour-plus base pace session, another 30-minute base pace session, and two or more resistance training sessions weekly, scaling up gradually.

5. Exercise 4-5 Days/Week for Heart

Aim for four to five days per week of aerobic exercise throughout your lifespan to achieve optimal protection against cardiovascular aging and maintain youthful heart structure.

6. Prioritize Heart Health Before 70

Focus on improving and maintaining the youthful structure of your heart through consistent exercise before age 70, as reversing structural changes becomes nearly impossible after this point.

7. Optimize Daily Protein Intake

Increase your daily protein intake to at least 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight (or 2.2 g/kg for muscle gain) to support muscle mass and strength, distributing 25-30+ grams across 3-4 evenly spaced meals, while understanding that immediate post-workout timing is less critical than total daily intake.

8. Supplement with Creatine Monohydrate

Supplement with 5-10 grams of creatine monohydrate daily, without needing a loading phase, to enhance muscle performance, strength, and mass, and potentially benefit brain function, as it is a safe and well-studied supplement.

9. Combine Strength and Endurance

Integrate both strength training and endurance exercise into your routine, as each provides distinct and crucial physiological benefits that the other cannot fully replicate.

10. Prioritize Multi-Joint Exercises

For optimal strength improvement, bone density, and time efficiency, prioritize multi-joint (compound) exercises such as squats, deadlifts, lunges, rows, and presses, as they engage multiple muscle groups and joints simultaneously.

11. Optimize for Body Recomposition

To achieve body recomposition (losing fat while gaining muscle), consistently engage in resistance training (ideally 3x/week), maintain a conservative caloric deficit (10-20% below maintenance), consume high protein (2.2g/kg body weight), and prioritize adequate sleep.

12. Integrate Sauna for Health & Performance

Incorporate deliberate heat exposure (sauna) 2-7 times per week for 20 minutes at ~175°F, ideally immediately after exercise, to enhance cardiorespiratory fitness, endurance, recovery, and reduce mortality risks.

13. Avoid Cold After Resistance Training

Do not engage in deliberate cold exposure, such as a cold bath, immediately after resistance training, as it can blunt muscle protein synthesis and compromise hypertrophic gains.

14. Increase Exercise with Age

Consider increasing your exercise frequency and duration as you get older, especially in middle and later life, to maintain cardiovascular structure and other health benefits, leveraging potentially increased free time.

15. Integrate Exercise Snacks (VILPA)

Incorporate short bursts of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) or structured exercise snacks (1-10 minutes, 80%+ max heart rate) throughout your day to break sedentary time, improve cardiometabolic health, boost cognition, and significantly reduce mortality risks.

16. Short HIIT Boosts Cognition

Engage in short high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts, even as brief as 10 minutes, to acutely improve cognition and enhance brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels.

17. HIIT for Glucose Regulation

Incorporate high-intensity interval training (HIIT) into your routine to significantly improve glucose regulation, as it promotes the translocation of glucose transporters to muscle cell surfaces.

18. Utilize Training Zones

Guide your exercise intensity using a combination of Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE), the talk test, and percentage of maximal heart rate to target specific physiological adaptations from recovery (Zone 1) to maximal effort (Zone 5).

19. Apply Progressive Stress

Continuously stress your cardiovascular system by adding additional challenges or stimuli to your workouts to ensure ongoing beneficial adaptations and avoid stagnation in improvement.

20. Incorporate High-Intensity Training

To continuously improve fitness and overcome plateaus, add high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to your routine at least once a week to provide a greater stimulus for adaptation.

21. Time-Efficient HIIT for Volume

If you are time-limited and your total weekly exercise volume is low (e.g., 1-4 hours), consider skewing your training towards more high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to achieve similar benefits to higher volumes of moderate intensity exercise.

22. Combine Moderate & High Intensity

Combine moderate-intensity exercise (like a Zone 2 run or ride) with high-intensity intervals in the same session, using the moderate intensity as a warm-up, to optimize benefits and manage time efficiently.

23. Vary HIIT Interval Lengths

To stress your system in different ways and avoid stagnation or boredom, vary the length of your high-intensity intervals each week, for example, rotating between 4-minute, 1-minute, and 20-second protocols.

24. Implement Specific HIIT Protocols

Utilize evidence-based high-intensity interval training (HIIT) protocols like the Norwegian 4x4, 10x1, or Tabata to improve cardiorespiratory fitness, mitochondrial density, and metabolic benefits.

25. Train for Hypertrophy (Muscle Growth)

To increase muscle size (hypertrophy), lift weights at 60-80% of your one-repetition maximum for 6-12 repetitions per set, with shorter rest periods of 1-2 minutes between sets, prioritizing multi-joint exercises and those targeting desired muscle groups.

26. Strength Train with Heavy Weight

For strength training, lift heavy weights, aiming for 85% or more of your one-repetition maximum (1RM), which typically involves fewer repetitions per set.

27. Allow Ample Rest for Strength

When strength training with heavy weights, allow for two to five minutes of rest between sets to ensure adequate recovery of phosphocreatine stores and the nervous system, enabling maximal effort for subsequent sets.

28. Train with Reps in Reserve

Optimize strength and hypertrophy by training with one to three “reps in reserve” (RIR), meaning stopping a set when you could still perform 1-3 more repetitions, as this is as effective as training to failure without the added risks.

29. Experience Training to Failure

Train to complete muscular failure at least once per training block to understand what true failure feels like, which will help you more accurately gauge “reps in reserve” in subsequent workouts.

30. Train to Failure on Machines

If choosing to train to failure, do so primarily with machine-based exercises or single-joint movements (e.g., bicep curls) to minimize injury risk compared to free weights or multi-joint exercises.

31. Strength Training is Not Cardio

Understand that while strength training elevates heart rate, it does not provide the same cardiovascular adaptations as aerobic exercise, so it cannot replace dedicated cardio sessions for heart health.

32. Prioritize Muscle Group Training

When structuring your hypertrophy workout, train the muscle groups you want to grow first, as they will receive the most focus and energy when you are freshest.

33. Increase Muscle for Fall Risk

Focus on increasing overall muscle strength and mass through resistance training, regardless of specific exercise type (e.g., barbell squats vs. hack squats), to effectively reduce your risk of falls and improve functional independence with age.

34. Time-Efficient Resistance Training

Maximize efficiency in resistance training by prioritizing multi-joint exercises, incorporating supersets (back-to-back exercises without rest) and drop sets (reducing load and increasing volume), combining strength and hypertrophy within sessions, and using progressive loading as a dynamic warm-up.

35. Utilize Micro Resistance Workouts

If time-limited, perform micro resistance training workouts (e.g., 15 minutes, 6-8 times per week) to achieve similar strength and hypertrophy gains as longer, less frequent sessions, by delegating different exercises to different days.

36. Order Training by Primary Goal

When combining cardio and strength training on the same day, order your sessions based on your primary goal: perform your priority training (e.g., long run for endurance, heavy lifting for strength) first to ensure optimal performance and quality for that session.

37. Minimum Resistance Training Dose

Engage in resistance training at least two times per week for 30 minutes per session to maintain or even build muscle strength, making the most of that time with efficient protocols.

38. Supplement with Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Supplement with omega-3 fatty acids, potentially at higher doses (e.g., 3-5 grams/day), to aid in recovery, reduce inflammation, prevent disuse atrophy during periods of inactivity, and support cardiovascular health.

39. Maintain Glucose Regulation

Prioritize maintaining and improving glucose regulation throughout your life to prevent the stiffening of heart tissues and blood vessels, which can lead to lower cardiac compliance and affect cardiovascular health.

40. Break Sedentary Time with Squats

To improve glucose clearance, break up sedentary periods by performing 10 bodyweight squats every 45 minutes throughout an 8-hour workday, which has been shown to be more potent than a continuous 30-minute walk.

41. Use Interval Walking for Glucose

Improve 24-hour glucose regulation and cardiometabolic risk factors by incorporating interval walking, alternating between higher (75%) and lower (60%) intensities, even if not full high-intensity training.

42. Exercise Snacks Around Meals

Perform short exercise snacks, such as bodyweight squats or burpees, around meal times to improve glucose regulation, particularly beneficial for individuals with metabolic dysfunction or when consuming less disciplined diets.

43. Use Snacks to Meet Activity Minimums

If your main training sessions don’t meet minimum recommended physical activity levels, use exercise snacks as an additive strategy to increase total weekly exercise volume and ensure you hit health targets.

44. Invest in a Chest Strap HR Monitor

For more accurate heart rate data during exercise, invest in a chest strap monitor, as smartwatches can become less accurate at higher intensities, and it’s a relatively inexpensive investment.

45. Beginners Use Talk Test for Intensity

If you are new to exercise, use the talk test to gauge your intensity, as accurately assessing Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) requires more experience and understanding of maximal effort.

46. Combine Intensity Metrics

For comprehensive and reliable assessment of exercise intensity, use a combination of heart rate, Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE), and the talk test, noting how they correlate during your workout.

47. Improve Lactate Clearance

Enhance your body’s ability to clear lactate by incorporating high-intensity interval training (HIIT), steady-state or lactate threshold workouts, and Zone 2 training into your routine.

48. Finish Runs with Sprints

Incorporate very hard sprints or an uptempo pace during the last portion of your run to elevate heart rate and potentially gain additional physiological and cognitive benefits.

49. Use 10-Minute HIIT for Focus

Perform a short 10-minute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout, such as a Tabata, before tasks requiring sharpness or focus to experience an acute cognitive boost.

50. Optimize BDNF with Intensity & Volume

To robustly increase brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), prioritize both intensity (at least 80% max heart rate for 20 minutes) and volume (doubling to 40 minutes for even greater increases) in your workouts.

51. Tackle Hardest Task First

Address your most mentally challenging task, such as strength training, first thing in the morning, as successfully completing it can make subsequent daily tasks feel significantly easier.

52. Avoid PRs Under High Stress

If you are experiencing high psychological stress, postpone attempts at personal records (PRs) in weightlifting, as stress can increase injury risk and compromise performance.

53. Track Caloric Intake for Deficit

To effectively create a caloric deficit for fat loss, track your daily caloric intake for a few days to establish an average baseline before determining how much to reduce.

54. Use Lean Protein Sources

When increasing protein intake for body recomposition, opt for lean protein sources or protein powders to boost protein without adding excessive calories or fat.

55. Choose Enjoyable Exercise

Select enjoyable activities for your longer exercise sessions, such as hiking or dancing, to ensure sustainability and adherence to your “prescription for life” training regimen.

56. Leverage Accountability for Consistency

Enhance consistency in your exercise routine by working with a coach, joining group classes, or exercising with friends to leverage accountability and the fun social aspect.

57. Focus Beyond VO2 Max

Understand that you can still improve speed, strength, and overall exercise performance even if your VO2 max doesn’t show improvement, as other factors like lactate threshold and exercise economy contribute to fitness.