The Adaptive Cardio Pyramid That Maximizes Fat Loss in Minimum Time | Ep 374
Join the Adaptive Cardio Workshop tomorrow (Tuesday, September 16) at 12 PM Eastern for only $27 (replay included). Get Philip's complete system for losing fat while personalizing your "minimum effective" cardio, plus the replay, 8 workout programs, and a custom 6-month nutrition plan. Register at live.witsandweights.com
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If you've been doing hours of cardio every week expecting fat loss results, but you're either not seeing changes, feeling exhausted, or watching your strength training suffer, this episode will transform your approach.
What if there was a smarter, more efficient way to incorporate movement that actually supports fat loss, preserves muscle, and enhances longevity?
That's exactly what the Adaptive Cardio Pyramid delivers – a 3-layer framework that prioritizes what truly works while eliminating what doesn't. It tells you exactly how much movement you need for fat loss, muscle growth, and longevity without wasting time.
Main Takeaways:
Why "cardio only" underperform by 20-50% and the 3 big cardio myths
The Adaptive Cardio Pyramid to "layer" your cardio in a sustainable (and enjoyable) way
The 4 common implementation mistakes that cause people to burn out
Practical tips to start building your pyramid from the bottom up
Episode Resources:
The Adaptive Cardio Workshop - Tuesday, September 16, 12 PM Eastern. Grab your spot at live.witsandweights.com
Related Episode: 7 Benefits of Sprinting to Lose Fat (And Why It Beats Cardio, Especially for Lifters!) | Ep 293
Timestamps:
0:00 - The 3 biggest cardio myths
10:10 - The Adaptive Cardio Pyramid framework
22:23 - The science behind each layer
25:32 - Common mistakes when "doing cardio"
27:22 - Tips to implement the pyramid for fat loss and recovery
The Adaptive Cardio Pyramid for Fat Loss Without Wasting Hours
Cardio is one of the most misunderstood tools in fitness. Some people hammer away on treadmills for hours expecting fat to melt off, while others avoid cardio completely because they fear it will kill their gains. Both approaches miss the point. Cardio is neither a magic bullet nor the enemy of muscle. It is a tool. Used strategically, it can support fat loss, muscle growth, and long-term health without draining your energy or eating up your week.
That strategy is what I call the Adaptive Cardio Pyramid. Like a nutrition pyramid, it has three layers. Each layer builds on the one below it, and the foundation always comes first. When you flip the pyramid upside down—as most people do—you waste time, stress your body, and stall progress.
Myth-Busting Cardio
Before we break down the pyramid, it helps to clear up the three biggest myths:
Cardio is the key to fat loss. It is not. Nutrition drives fat loss. Cardio can help, but it compensates for itself by making you hungrier and less active during the day.
Cardio kills muscle gains. Excessive cardio can interfere with recovery, but moderate, well-programmed cardio actually improves blood flow, nutrient delivery, and recovery.
More cardio means better health. Longevity is more closely tied to overall daily movement, not endless hours of intense training.
Layer 1: Minimum Effective Movement
The foundation is low-level movement: walking, rucking, light cycling, or any activity at a conversational pace. Aim for 7,000–10,000 steps per day. This improves insulin sensitivity, supports digestion, reduces mortality risk, and burns more total energy than formal exercise because it raises your NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis).
If you are at 3,000 steps now, do not jump to 10,000. Add 500–1,000 daily steps each week until you reach your target. Layer this into your life with walking meetings, post-meal walks, or short breaks from sitting.
Layer 2: Adaptive Enjoyment
Once you have the foundation, add cardio you actually enjoy. This could be hiking, pickleball, martial arts, swimming, dancing, or group classes. The point is sustainability. Two sessions a week of enjoyable activity provide variety, reduce stress, and improve mental health.
The “adaptive” part matters because life changes. Maybe it is tennis in the summer and rowing indoors in the winter. Pick activities you look forward to, not ones you dread.
Layer 3: Precision Cardio
Only after building the first two layers should you add deliberate conditioning. This is where sprints, structured intervals, or longer steady-state sessions come in. One or two short, focused sessions per week are plenty.
Sprints are especially powerful for lifters because they recruit fast-twitch fibers, improve VO₂ max, preserve muscle, and create an “afterburn” effect that increases calorie expenditure for hours. Think of this layer as the sprinkles on top. It is not required for fat loss, but it can optimize performance and conditioning.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Skipping the foundation. If you are doing HIIT classes but averaging 3,000 steps per day, your pyramid is upside down.
Confusing hard effort with effectiveness. More sweat does not equal better results. Walks and movement snacks often beat endless spin classes.
Ignoring recovery signals. If your lifting stalls, your sleep suffers, or you feel drained, scale back cardio.
All-or-nothing thinking. You do not have to pick a side. You can lift and do cardio. The key is balance.
Putting the Pyramid Into Practice
Track your baseline steps. Increase gradually until you reach 7,000–10,000.
Schedule enjoyable cardio. Treat it like an important appointment. If you hate it, choose something else.
Add precision cardio if needed. Short sprints or intervals once or twice a week are enough.
Prioritize strength training. The pyramid sits on top of lifting, which is still the main driver of physique change.
Cardio should support your goals, not dominate your life. Start with daily movement, layer on enjoyable activities, and only then add targeted sessions if they make sense for you. This pyramid is adaptive, meaning you can scale it up or down depending on your schedule, recovery, and goals. When done right, cardio becomes a precision tool for fat loss, performance, and health—not a punishment or a crutch.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:00
If you've been doing hours of cardio every week, expecting it to help with your fat loss, and you're either not seeing the changes you want, you're always feeling exhausted, or you're watching your strength training suffer, this episode will change how you approach cardio. Many people treat cardio as punishment for how much they've eaten. Or they chase meaningless calorie burn through cardio, or they avoid it completely, thinking it destroys their muscle gains, and all three approaches honestly waste time and energy. I'm going to show you the Adaptive Cardio Pyramid, a three-layer framework that tells you exactly how much movement you need for fat loss, muscle growth and longevity, without wasting time. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
Philip Pape: 0:56
I'm your host, certified nutrition coach, philip Pape, and we're going to talk about cardio today because you're either spending lots of time on cardio an hour a day, maybe on a treadmill or some sort of machine. Maybe you're sweating through HIIT interval classes, peloton F45, crossfit style boot camps. Maybe you're tracking all the calories you burn using your wearable, but after weeks or months or maybe you've been doing this for years it doesn't seem to be affecting the scale or, more importantly, your fat loss and body composition, maybe it's causing your lifting performance to decline, and maybe you're always exhausted and it's stressing you out. Anyone or all of these things could be happening when it comes to cardio. And you're not alone, because this is what happens when we treat cardio as kind of this sledgehammer for losing weight, for metabolism, for fat loss, instead of the precision tool that it's meant to be. Now, cardio can definitely accelerate your results and the results we are looking for on the show, which is an improved physique and performance, function, strength, leannessess. It could also extremely undermine those results and those goals, and so the difference between them comes down to having a strategy rather than just showing up and treating cardio as kind of an afterthought. Right, if we're going to have a strategy for our lifting and our strength development, why wouldn't we do the same for all the other forms of movement we have in our lives now? Now, before we get into this framework that I've put together for you it is a three-layer framework that I think will be very time efficient and very adaptive to your needs I want to let you know about something happening.
Philip Pape: 2:35
Tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, I am hosting a live workshop called the Adaptive Cardio Workshop, where I'm going to show you exactly how to build your own personalized cardio plan using the pyramid we're discussing today. We're going to set up your starting metrics. We're going to identify what you're capable of, what your schedule allows, and help you map out how to fit cardio into your life in an enjoyable way that gets you the results, and this is in theory. I'm a big fan of workshops being step-by-step, actual work that you get done and come out of it with a plan that is tailored to your goals, your schedule, your recovery capacity, what protocols, what the timing is, how to layer it with your strength training to get the maximum result. You'll also, in that workshop, get a download called the adaptive cardio guide, only exclusive to people who show up for the workshop, and our eight straight training templates as well, so you can fit that in along with your lifting in an efficient way. Workshop attendees also get a month of access to Physique University included in the price of $27, and a custom six-month nutrition and training transformation plan that I put for you together for you Again, all included in the $27 for everything. This is tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, at 12 Eastern. It also includes the replay, so if you cannot attend live, you're still going to get all of that stuff and including the replay. You can register at livewitsandweightscom and if you're already in Physique University, you get this included. So, again, another bonus to people who are in there is that these workshops are free. You can register at livewitsandweightscom for tomorrow's Adaptive Cardio Workshop. If you're hearing this episode after it's done, the link will still work. You can still get the replay and all the bonuses I just talked about.
Philip Pape: 4:22
All right, let's build an understanding of why most cardio approaches don't work so well, and then what actually works and how we can put this together. So let me start by destroying some myths. We love busting myths. These are things that are just wasting your time. They are wasting your energy. Okay, myth number one that cardio is the key to fat loss. It's just not.
Philip Pape: 4:45
You know, if you go into the gym in January, new Year's resolutions, what do you see? You see people spending all their time on cardio machines. In fact, most big box gyms that's what I see. I see tons and tons of cardio machines. You know a lot of people using those very few people using the free weights or even the machines, and people are convinced they're going to lose weight, they're going to lose fat, they're going to get the result they want improve their physique doing cardio and the research just does not show this to be the case. Let alone experience an anecdote from working with hundreds of clients.
Philip Pape: 5:18
Studies are consistently showing that cardio-only interventions okay, where you just do cardio underperform by 20 to 50% compared to predictions. And the big reason why is because your body compensates Metabolic adaptation occurs and endurance adaptation occurs and you get hungrier. You actually move less throughout the day, so you're neat. Your non-exercise activity thermogenesis actually compensates and comes down. So all of these things your metabolism, your hunger, your compensation through movement it doesn't create the calorie deficit you're looking for, whereas nutrition absolutely does this. Now, cardio can 100% support your fat loss, but it is not the driver of fat loss, and this is where the nuance is important and treating it like the main thing is what's going to make you extremely frustrated and you're going to burn out. And this is often the crux of so many people who find this podcast. And then they're like oh, I see, the missing piece is actually lifting weights. No wonder it's not working for me and no wonder I move more and more and seem to eat less and less and I don't get the result, and that is why Cardio is not the key to fat loss, but it can definitely support it. We're going to talk about that in a bit.
Philip Pape: 6:39
Myth number two is that cardio kills gains. So this is kind of the other side of it, where you have people who say I don't have to do any cardio. You know, and I've even used this messaging to a degree where I say you know you can get the result you want, you can build muscle, lose fat and not have to do any cardio. And that's kind of a little bit of a puff word in the sense that cardio can refer to multiple things. It can also refer to walking. So if you're going to include walking in there, then absolutely you want to do cardio. But I'm talking about more intense, metronomic, stressful cardio.
Philip Pape: 7:13
People avoid any cardio because they think it interferes with strength gains, are missing out on lots of forms of cardio that can work. That's where I want to separate the two. And this all comes from research on what's known as the interference effect, the idea that cardio blunts the muscle building response, the adaptation that you get from lifting weights. Right, but the key word is excessive. The interference effect only shows up when you're doing high volumes, very, very high volumes of intense cardio that compete with your recovery resources. Now, a lot of you are doing what would be considered excessive, so I don't mean to downplay it either, but some people think an hour a week of running or something is going to just kill all your gains, and it's not. I'm not a huge fan of running. I'm just saying as an example, it's not going to kill your gains. If you're an endurance athlete, if you're a runner, you could still train concurrently and have a hybrid approach to lifting and training that still works.
Philip Pape: 8:14
We've talked to some people on the show. Minimal, intelligently programmed cardio is going to actually enhance your recovery. It's going to enhance your performance in several different ways related to health markers, related to your lifting recovery, related to your athleticism. We're gonna talk about it, but, again, it's not gonna just kill gains, right. There was a meta-analysis in 2012 by Wilson and colleagues and it found that low-dose cardio, for example, can improve blood flow, nutrient delivery and recovery between lifting sessions. It is the dose that makes the poison, as with many things.
Philip Pape: 8:49
Myth number three is that more cardio more cardio equals better health. This is an important one and to understand why it's a myth. We see people doing lots of cardio, thinking that that is the thing that's gonna optimize their health, their blood markers, their resting heart rate, et cetera, their VO2 max. Whatever they're thinking, they're trying to improve cardiovascular health, quote unquote. But the research consistently shows that it's the volume of your movement, not the intensity, that predicts longevity, and so, if you think about what that means, you can have lots of volume. That's very low intensity, whereas people are hammering home this message on social media that you need to do interval training, even sprinting I love sprinting and we're gonna talk about that but it's not necessary to have really, really great cardiovascular health, like far superior than the average and more than sufficient to have a great health span.
Philip Pape: 9:41
Studies tracking hundreds of thousands of people show that around eight to 10,000 steps per day is linked to the lowest all-cause mortality. I think you can go as low as, say, 7,500, but 8,000 to 10,000 is a good round number or range. And then adding high-intensity work on top of that provides only marginal benefits and that you need to have that foundation of the steps. Now, steps can be metabolic equivalent. It doesn't have to be just walking Again one of the nuances we can talk about but it's general movement, low-intensity movement.
Philip Pape: 10:16
So if cardio does not drive fat loss, if it doesn't interfere with muscle gains unless it's overdone, and if it doesn't require extreme intensity to get the health benefits, then what is the right approach? And that's where the adaptive cardio pyramid comes in. All right, so I want you to think of cardio as a hierarchy, just like a nutrition pyramid. Or, if anybody's familiar with the muscle and strength pyramids by Eric Helms, same idea. It's the most important things at the bottom and until you do those, you don't worry about the things higher up in the pyramid. You start with the foundation that supports your health and metabolism and then you add layers only as needed for your specific goals. So let's start with the base layer, what I call minimum effective movement. And, by the way, in the workshop tomorrow, we're going to give you a diagram, we're going to give you specifics for each of these, we're going to help you map it out. We're going to give you a week by week plan for the next eight weeks. All of that. But I just want you to understand the concepts today.
Philip Pape: 11:10
So the foundation, minimum effective movement is walking and low level movement. So that includes walking, of course. Just normal walking also includes brisk walking, rucking, which is where you add some weight. It could be a backpack, a rucking sack or even a weighted vest, which are all the rage right now. I understand it could be inclined treadmill work, walking on hills, basically anything that keeps you moving at a conversational pace. And we're not even gonna talk about heart rate zones or anything today. That is, in my opinion, unnecessary when it comes to having a totally optimal minimum effective dose cardio plan for yourself. Right? We want to keep it simple. So your target for the minimum effective movement is going to be measured in steps, because that's one of the easiest proxies to measure with a wearable, with your phone, with time, there's lots of ways to do it. You don't have to have a pedometer, although most people have them today. 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day are equivalent, is really the target, and this works because it raises your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, your NEAT.
Philip Pape: 12:14
Neat is the energy that you burn from all the movements. That isn't formal exercise, and I want you to be clear here that formal exercise represents less than 5% of your calorie burn. It's insignificant, whereas NEAT can represent anywhere from 25% to 60%. I mean it can represent a huge amount depending on how much you move that lever. I guess the British say lever, I say lever, so this also includes fidgeting, standing, walking to your car, taking the stairs, going for walks. Neat has the biggest impact on your long-term energy expenditure and fat loss, right? In other words, you're able to increase your metabolism and eat more food or lose more fat, lose more, you know, be in a bigger deficit because you're moving more in the low stress way. Low level movement. And low level movement is incredibly stackable.
Philip Pape: 12:58
You can walk while taking phone calls, listening to podcasts, running errands, being on, you know, zoom calls. It supports digestion when you do it after meals, improves your glucose control right, your blood sugar. It enhances your sleep quality when you do it in the evening, and the research is crystal clear. A 2019 study following over 16,000 people found that mortality risk drops significantly at 8,000 steps and plateaus around 10,000 to 12,000. So you don't need marathon runners. In fact, running is extremely stressful.
Philip Pape: 13:31
I don't even know why I use that as an example. To get longevity benefits, you just need to be getting off your butt and walking right. And there's lots of corollaries to this, having to do with looking at your day, how sedentary you are, how much you walk today. Actually getting to 8,000 if you're currently at three, could seem like a big request, a big challenge, and so I am a big fan of that 0.1% a day improvement. If you're getting 3,000 steps a day now, get 3,500 steps a day next week, inch your way up there, and eventually you'll get there successfully in a sustainable way. So that's the base layer, and I have a lot of other examples that we're going to talk about in the workshop tomorrow. The middle layer is what I call adaptive enjoyment. This is for sustainability and adding extra movement that you wouldn't add if it weren't, for it being something you like, if that makes sense. So once you have that movement foundation and look if you're still getting 3,000 steps a day, you shouldn't even be thinking about this stuff other than you know you do it already anyway.
Philip Pape: 14:34
This is the cardio that you enjoy. This could be hiking, cycling, dancing, pickleball, swimming, martial arts right, bjj whatever keeps you coming back, being athletic, moving your body. It helps with other areas that your strength then complements, and when you're doing this, it's usually one or two sessions a week, maybe 20 to 40 minutes. We're not talking about a lot of time, right? Maybe you're in some sort of league. Maybe it's bowling, whatever. Did I say pickleball? Yeah, that's popular today. So the key word here when I say adaptive enjoyment is the word adaptive. Your enjoyment and life circumstances are going to change, so your cardio should adapt with it. So maybe it's tennis in the summer, maybe it's indoor assault biking in the winter, or Peloton or something like that. Maybe it's hiking on the weekends and then yoga when you're really busy and you could just need to throw it in.
Philip Pape: 15:24
And this layer is really important. It serves multiple purposes that are intentional. First, enjoyable activities have very high adherence rates. You're going to do it. So, even if you've established your step count foundation and one week you just happen to get so busy, you just don't get a lot of steps in. But you're like I got to go to that basketball game Friday. I mean I'm looking forward to that. Think about it. You're going to do it. It's going to reduce your stress, it's fun, it's social.
Philip Pape: 15:51
In many cases, a 2018 study by Reljic and colleagues found that adherence to HIIT protocols drop significantly over time compared to moderate activities that people actually enjoy. So, again, you don't want to punish yourself with cardio. I think the base layer we talked about. Most people would agree that, like low grade walking and things like that is pretty sustainable. It doesn't feel like punishment. But once we start getting into the more intense versions of cardio, like even medium intensity cardio, some people feel like it's an obligation, that they hate, that they don't want to do, that it's exercise. We don't want to get your head into that space. So again I'm setting up the argument here that you never have to do high intensity training ever if you don't want to and still get fantastic results. And then the second thing is, besides, having high adherence is fun.
Philip Pape: 16:39
Cardio provides variety. It provides psychological benefits beyond just supporting the health and metabolism piece. All the social activities that are out there team sports, group fitness classes I'm okay with those if they are reasonable in terms of time and intensity and they don't stress you out. They add those community elements that can improve mental health, that can improve your stress management. Some people just love to go into the environment of the gym to have other people around them. So that's the middle layer. And then only then, once you've got the step count, once you've got some fun activities, now you can say, okay, let me add in some deliberate cardio sessions. Now you might be surprised and say, wow, philip really like puts this to the end. Yeah, I do.
Philip Pape: 17:25
Because, going back to the argument that you do not even quote unquote need cardio other than walking to get great results, including fat loss, low resting heart rate, low blood pressure, good blood sugar control, all the things you really don't. You really don't. But if you're into optimizing, if you're into performance, if you want to push the needle a little bit more, if you want to improve your VO2 max or, yes, even get a little extra boost with some calorie burn during a fat loss phase or not, then this is where the top of the pyramid is important. It's called precision, precision cardio, and this is where performance matters, where sprint intervals, some structured, high intensity interval training Again, I'm not a huge fan of HIIT, so it's gotta be very intentionally recoverable, let's say.
Philip Pape: 18:14
Or more longer steady state sessions, which I'm okay with, medium and low-intensity steady state. That's a little bit more intense than the walking. So for this I would say no more than two sessions a week. One or two sessions a week, start with one. I would say no more than two sessions a week. You know, one or two sessions a week, start with one. Maybe add into again sustainability only if your schedule in your recovery allow, right, don't force it in because that defeats the purpose. So this layer is going to improve specific aspects of cardiovascular conditioning. So this is the the principle of specificity. Just like we train to build muscle and lift weights, if you sprint you can improve your VO2 max, your anaerobic power, your aerobic capacity, your work capacity. I will say a lot of that gets improved just by lifting and walking. Probably 90% of what you need. But if you want to get that other 5% to 10%, that's where this comes in. 5 to 10%, that's where this comes in.
Philip Pape: 19:08
Sprinting is particularly powerful for lifters because it is anabolic, it recruits your fast twitch fibers, it helps you preserve your muscle mass because it's very little work to a lot of restroom recovery and it triggers favorable hormonal responses. That's very complimentary to lifting adaptations and you feel like a superhero when you sprint. It doesn't. It's not running. Let me, this is the argument I'm going to make. Sprinting does not feel like running. I am not a big fan of running. I'm not going to say I hate it. Well, you know, I try not to use the word hate, but I kind of almost do. I think most people. But sprinting feels totally different from running, in my opinion, whether it's flat ground or on a machine, because you just it's just like all out power for a very brief moment of time. It is much more closer, in my opinion, to something like doing a deadlift, one RM. You know it's this all out effort just for a brief period of time.
Philip Pape: 19:55
So the critical thing I think with the precision layer is that it's like the sprinkles on the top of the pyramid. It is that small of a triangle or a piece of the pyramid. It is not required for fat loss. It it's just not. It's not required for your metabolism. All that meaningful stuff happens in the first two layers, but this last one can add a little extra oomph to the equation.
Philip Pape: 20:22
And so many people are flipping this pyramid upside down. They really are there. They skip the walking. You know they might lift weights but then they skip walking. They they don't do anything enjoyable because they're like, focused on getting all the regimented fitness lifestyle stuff in their schedule. They jump straight to suffering through HIIT classes and then they wonder why they burn out or they don't get the results.
Philip Pape: 20:46
So I think this framework gives you this big picture. Implementing it is where people get stuck right. How much walking is enough for your situation? When do I do it? How do I do it sustainably? How do you time cardio around your lifting sessions? What if you hate traditional cardio but you want the precision layer because you've done all the rest and you want to get your performance goals right?
Philip Pape: 21:05
And these are the questions we're going to answer tomorrow in the Adaptive Cardio Workshop. I'm going to show you how to assess your current baseline, how to build your plan from the bottom up. You're going to get eight training templates from Physique University that take all the guesswork out of programming your lifting, if that's what you are interested in. And you're going to get the downloadable adaptive cardio guide that has all the protocols and troubleshooting strategies. Workshop attendees get a six-month nutrition plan from me and a full month of access to Physique University. All of that for $27. I mean, you can't, I'm not making this up. All of that is included, no strings attached, just $27. So it's tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, 12 Eastern register at livewitsandweightscom. Make sure you get a spot before we run out and you will get the replay if you can't make a live but you have to register to get the replay. Again, that's livewitsandweightscom for the Adaptive Cardio Workshop tomorrow.
Philip Pape: 21:58
All right, so I want to give you the scientific backing for why this research, or I should say why this pyramid structure, works so well, and that will set us up to talk about all of the common mistakes. So that's what we're going to cover after this. So, real quick on the science, and then we're going to get into the mistakes that people make and what you should do instead, and then some final I'll say tips on building this up. Even if you can't make the workshop tomorrow, okay, I don't want to leave you hanging.
Philip Pape: 22:23
So, going back to the base layer, we know that walking and low level movement work through multiple mechanisms. They increase your daily energy expenditure, but do not trigger hunger, the same hunger that high intensity causes. I think there was a review in 2021 by Helms, and colleagues found that moderate cardio has minimal impact on appetite hormones compared to intense training. Second, walking improves insulin sensitivity and glucose control, especially 15-minute walks after meals, and they tend to have better outcomes than a single longer walk that are not after meals, let's say, although you should walk whenever you're able to walk. Third, there's the muscle protein synthesis angle. Recent research shows that prolonged sitting reduces your body's ability to build muscle, and we're gonna talk about that at tomorrow's workshop in detail, about how you can break that up and improve your muscle protein synthesis through movement. But the moral of the story is don't sit around for hours at a time. So that's the base layer. That's just some of the basic science.
Philip Pape: 23:18
The middle layer, the enjoyment layer, the research here is actually pretty surprising and sobering to a lot of people. But we're going to start with a sobering fact Most people quit their exercise programs within six months period. But if it's enjoyable, the adherence rates are significantly longer. Right, and this isn't just up here in the mind. This isn't just psychology. There are physiological benefits to doing activities you enjoy as well. They lower your stress, your cortisol levels more effectively than forcing the exercise. It improves your mood, you release endorphins, it creates positive associations with movement rather than punishment mindsets. And then at the precision layer, the science really depends on your goals. So if it's VO2 max, interval training can be very efficient. But we again are talking about a specific way to do that Very few sessions, very short sprints, lots of recovery, and it doesn't take that long and you can get your conditioning really quickly. When I was in CrossFit, I remember if I had taken off time for a while and then came back to it, the conditioning came back very, very quickly just within a few weeks.
Philip Pape: 24:26
For accelerating your fat loss, sprints can be helpful as well, and that's why I think it's not the solution to fat loss. But if you're already doing all the other things, which are, I'll say, the biggest return on investment, sprinting is a nice thing to add in. They create what's called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, where you burn additional calories for hours after the session because it's just so intense, but in a short, recoverable way, that you get this added benefit to it. They also improve insulin sensitivity and help you preserve muscle mass. Right, there's no real risk there. So that's kind of the basic science.
Philip Pape: 24:55
I don't want to get too too nerdy on this. I know you guys love that, but I don't want the episode to be too long. So that leads us to try and understand okay, what mistake are people making that? The science gives us the rationale for these, right, and the first big mistake is skipping that foundation, like, hopefully you've been convinced that you need that in there. You know, I see people doing like the boot camp classes, but then they get 3 000 steps a day. So they're like building that pyramid upside down and it's just going to create new problems. It's going to stress you out more, cause you to adapt and not do the thing you want, which, at is very basic. It's not going to even burn the calories you want to burn.
Philip Pape: 25:32
Mistake number two is Confusing hard effort with effectiveness. Now, that might sound sacrilegious, because when it comes to lifting weights, training hard is important. When it comes to cardio, there's more nuance, because I know lots of clients who came to me doing spin classes, for example. Those are very popular, right 90-minute spin classes and they like feeling wiped when they would go to their lifting sessions. They weren't getting the result, their metabolisms were lower and I said let's just eliminate that for a while, see what happens and all of a sudden they have a much, much less stress, the metabolism increased and they're able to hit more reps in the gym, more weight in the gym and able to progress, and then they can layer in cardio in the right way.
Philip Pape: 26:14
Mistake number three is not listening to your recovery signals Very important. Your body's gonna tell you when cardio is helping you and when it's hurting you, if your strength is plateauing, if your sleep feels disrupted, if you're always fatigued, you're probably doing too much or you're doing the wrong type, and so this pyramid concept, this adaptive cardio, should enhance your other goals and not compete with them. Again, we're not talking about endurance athletes that might require some extremes that you have to make trade-offs for. We're talking about people who are prioritizing body composition, fat loss, muscle building. And then the last mistake is more mental than anything, and that is the all or nothing thinking that you have to choose between cardio and lifting, like like I'm a lifter or I'm an endurance person, and that's not really the case. I think what I'm trying to demonstrate today is that you can get the benefits of both without the downsides of either extreme. So I'm going to give you just some tips, just to close out the episode, that are going to help you move the needle forward. I want you to pick one tip today from what I tell you and move it forward Now. If you want to come up with your plan, join us at the workshop tomorrow, livewitsandweightscom.
Philip Pape: 27:22
But you want to start by tracking your steps. Very simple. If you're not already doing that it's like tracking your food. You might be shocked by how little you actually move. And then you're going to gradually increase by 500 to a thousand steps a week. I mean 500, 500 to a thousand daily steps each week until you get to the target you want. And you want to use movement stacking, you know. Or movement snacking and stacking, I should say so. Stacking is walking while you do other things, snacking is taking breaks, right. And then there's all the other ways to get more movement outside the scope of today's episode. And of course, you can add a little bit of challenge to your walks, if you want, with something like a weighted vest or rucksack.
Philip Pape: 28:01
Then the enjoyment layer. This would be just genuinely fun, like if you dread it. I want you to pick something else. Don't let your spouse or friend or whatever force you into a sport you don't look forward to. The goal is the long-term sustainability. The goal is the long-term sustainability. So for this, if you're not doing anything right now, enjoy doing the research and looking around your neighborhood and the town where you live, wherever, to see what's going on. Talk to friends Maybe you already know of things at the local gym or whatever and schedule it in like a very important appointment, but at the time you feel like you can do it reasonably without stress, that you're going to be consistent and you you're gonna enjoy it.
Philip Pape: 28:35
And it could be just free form, like a bike ride or going for a hike, right, it doesn't have to be a scheduled activity. And then, finally, we'll get to the top layer. The tip I have for you here, again, only once you've mastered the first two layers is to check out my sprinting episode, which is episode 293, seven benefits of sprinting to Lose Fat. And that episode will give you a good starting protocol to work from. And, speaking of that, we did do an entire workshop on that sprinting protocol in Physique University. So if you want to join tomorrow's workshop, even if it's afterward, to get the replay, you could also get access to all of those replays, including the one on sprinting. And the total time commitment for sprinting once or twice a week is about five minutes each session. That's it. So the adaptive cardio pyramid is a framework. I love frameworks, I love systems.
Philip Pape: 29:26
It's a way to think about movement strategically instead of emotionally or randomly. You're not punishing yourself, you're not making up calories, you're not trying to out-train a bad diet. You're going to use the minimum effective dose of movement to support your physique goals, your health and your performance. Again, most people are looking at this backwards. They start with the hardest, most time-consuming options, the most high-intense. They think that the most intensity is going to burn the most calories in the shortest amount of time. Therefore, it's sustainable and it's not.
Philip Pape: 29:52
It is not Walking. Think about it. Is it easy to walk or is it easier to constantly do HIIT sessions? You know the answer. Is it easier to go do something you enjoy play with your kids or do a sport or is it easier to force yourself to go for an hour-long bike ride? Right, you kind of understand the trade-offs here. And yet it's not just that there are more or less benefits to each. It's that you're going to do one and the other one you're not. You're gonna stop doing it, and that alone is worth the price of admission here and I want you to remember this that low-level activity improves your metabolic health tremendously, but does not trigger the stress response. Enjoyable movement enhances your adherence and your psychological well-being, again without triggering the stress response, and precision cardio gives you specific adaptations when you properly dose it once you've done the other two. So the beauty of this system is in the name. It's adaptable.
Philip Pape: 30:47
If you have a busy week at work, you focus on the base layer. Of course, below that base layer, in my opinion, is your strength training, but that's outside the scope we're saying. On top of that is the cardio pyramid, right? So, movement snacks, walking meetings, going for simple walks after a meal, even if it's 10 minutes long you can't do 20, do 10. You can't do 10, do 5. You can't do 5,. Take a break every now and then and do one minute. Your cardio should serve your goals. That's what we're all about here. That's the efficiency, that's the engineering approach.
Philip Pape: 31:15
So if you want to take this from concept to implementation, I want you to join me tomorrow for Tuesday's Adaptive Cardio Workshop, where we are going to work together and build your personalized plan using this exact framework. And, yes, if you can't make it, you get the replay and you get the guide anyway, so you can walk through after the fact and put it together as well. You're going to learn how to assess your current movement baseline, set realistic targets for each of the layers. We're going to talk about troubleshooting common problems, and I'm going to share the protocols that I like to use, as well as a whole bunch of examples. I've got some bonuses for you, including a plan for a busy person who has a desk job.
Philip Pape: 31:50
What does your day look like to make this all work? So that's live tomorrow, tuesday, september 16th, at 12 pm Eastern. It's just $27 for all of that, including the replay, whether or not you can attend live Livewitsandweightscom. Looking forward to seeing you there and thank you so much again for listening to Wits and Weights. Until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that your cardio should serve your body composition goals, not dominate your life. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.
