Today, I am delighted to reconnect with Mark Sisson, who last joined me for Episode 218. Mark founded the Primal Health Coach Institute and is well-known as the forefather of the Primal Paleo Lifestyle movement. He has authored several bestselling books and has a prime-ranked ancestral lifestyle blog. His upcoming new book, Born to Walk, will be a must-read for everyone in the new year.
In our discussion today, we explore how the launch of the cushioned shoe in the 1970s led to a running boom. We discuss the difference between having the ability to run and running, looking at why running is counterproductive for fat loss, and how cushioned shoes can restrict movement, especially in the ankles, knees, and hips. We also dive into the benefits of walking and the role of strength training, HIIT, and VO2 Max.
Join us for this informative conversation where Mark Sisson offers invaluable insights for the coming year.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:
How the introduction of cushioned running shows in the 1970s allowed runners to increase their training miles without injury
The consequences of the running boom that began in the 1970s
Why good running form is important
The benefits of walking for overall fitness and health
The science behind VO2 Max
Why a balanced diet is vital to support overall health and fitness.
How thick, cushioned running shoes restrict proprioception and weaken the small muscles in the feet
How minimalist trail shoes and walking barefoot can improve foot strength
Mark shares some practical tips to integrate more walking into everyday life.
The benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT)
Why a balanced approach to health and fitness is essential
“Ideally, we'd be walking a lot- barefoot or in minimalist wide, thin, flat, flexible shoes, lifting weights twice a week, and sprinting once a while.”
-Mark Sisson
Connect with Cynthia Thurlow
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Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com
Connect with Mark Sisson
Pre-order a copy of Mark’s new book, Born To Walk (Coming out on January 7th)
Transcript:
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:00:02] Welcome to Everyday Wellness podcast. I'm your host, Nurse Practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives.
[00:00:30] Today, I had the honor of reconnecting with Mark Sisson. He last joined me on Episode 218. He is widely recognized as the forefather of the Primal Paleo lifestyle movement with a string of bestselling books and a number one ranked ancestral lifestyle blog and the Primal Health Coach Institute. Today, we spoke about the invention of the cushioned shoe launch driving the running boom, the concept of being born to be able to run versus running, why running is actually terrible for fat loss as it catabolizes muscle, the impact of heart rate zones and how that impacts body composition, the impact of cushioned shoes on restricting movement, especially in the ankles, knees, and hips, benefits of walking, which as many of you know is one of my favorite activities, the role of strength training. HIIT, VO2 max and more. This will be an invaluable conversation, especially as we're heading into the new year and his upcoming new book called Born to Walk, which is so well written and I know will be an essential read for everyone heading into the new year.
[00:01:43] Well Mark, always a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Welcome back.
Mark Sisson: [00:01:46] Thanks Cynthia. Good to be here.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:01:48] I'd love to really initiate the conversation today about the advent of the invention of the cushioned shoe launch and how that impacted human beings in the 1970s suddenly adopting a running lifestyle.
Mark Sisson: [00:02:07] Oh my goodness, [Cynthia laughs] how much time do we have? Because it is a long, sordid, drawn-out story. But I think it's very interesting and it's forms the basis of my new book, Born to Walk. So running up until the 70s, running was something that most regular people chose not to do. It was a sport. There was cross country that began in the 1800s and there have been track meets throughout the years. But distance running per se, other than some eccentric events like the Boston Marathon, some of the road races around the country hadn't existed until later, the 1970s, 1980s, and so on.
[00:02:46] When I grew up in a small fishing village in Maine, I was one of those people who was attracted to running, mostly because I was not strong or tall or big enough to play football, basketball, baseball, hockey, any of the regular sports and many like me, gravitated to running, cross country, track and field, again a very esoteric sport, not a lot of people were attracted to it. But starting in the 70s, the US running community started to improve on the world scene. We started to become competitive. We had a lot of world class runners who were genetically gifted, thin, had great running form and liked to run and were good at it.
[00:03:32] But starting with the 1960s, when I started running in early 70s, there were not a lot of shoes available for us to train in. And so we had these thin flat shoes that did not protect you very much. And so the amount of miles you could actually train in a week was dictated by those shoes, by your feet, by how your feet felt, by the wear and tear on your Achilles and your plantar fascia as a result of all of this running on hard surfaces and uneven surfaces and things like that. So starting in the early 70s, this guy, Phil Knight, who later went on to start Nike, and a coach of the Oregon trackman, Bill Bowerman, said, “Look, we've got these great US runners. They want to compete on the world circuit. They can't put enough training miles in because their feet get beaten up in there and they get bone bruises and things from all the mileage they're doing. Can we create a thicker cushioned sole so these runners can go out and put in good miles and bring their cardiovascular health up to the sort of peak levels that the rest of the world was starting to show?”
[00:04:38] So these guys invent this thick trainer that sure enough cushioned your-- it absorbed the shock of running. And the next thing you know, a fair amount of US runners are doing well on the world circuit. But again, all runners who are-- who chose to be runners, who were genetically gifted, who had great running form and now who put on these shoes and were able to run instead of 50, 60 miles a week, could run 120, 130, 140 miles a week? All well and good. And now 1972, Frank Shorter wins the gold medal in Tokyo. Bill Rogers wins the Boston Marathon in 1975 with an amazing time. Bill Bowerman writes a book called Jogging, which talks about the benefits of running. Ken Cooper writes a book called Aerobics which seems to indicate that the more jogging you do, the better it is for your heart. And so at some point, if you jog enough, you'll live forever apparently, that was the message that the world got.
[00:05:36] So even into the 70s, people who were running were runners. They were self-selected to be runners. They were genetically predisposed to running without injury or much injury. They had good form, they had good cardiovascular fitness, and the US did really well on the international competitive running scene. But a lot of people started getting on this running bandwagon. And Jim Fixx writes this book called Running. And next thing you know, people are assuming that running is one of the best choices you can make for your own cardiovascular health, for your own fitness, for your weight loss. And we could talk a lot about that.
[00:06:18] And over the years, more and more people got into running and jogging as this supposed best form of activity that you could do. Well, what happened was it was the thick shoes. Here we go now we're finally getting back to the thick shoes, Cynthia. It was thick shoes that enabled people to go out and run with crappy form. And so millions of people who were running, who should probably not have been running, were able to get through a 3 mile run or a 5 mile run or a 10k because these shoes were so thick and cushiony that it sort offset the pounding that they were otherwise going to get from their crappy form. And by crappy form, I typically mean a heel strike.
[00:07:05] So people who are what we call heel strikers, who are not running appropriately, they're covering the ground and they're doing the work. But for the most part, heel strikers are incurring a fair amount of force and potential damage by heel striking. Initially, this all gets offset by, oh my God, these shoes are so cushioning and so light and airy and wonderful. And I must be doing it right. Well, the answer is no, these shoes aren't basically, they're not causing injury, but they're enabling people now to continue to run more and more miles with no decrease in injuries. In fact, over the last 50 years, with all of the advent of these high-tech running concepts, forefoot motion, rearfoot stabilizers, all of the different bells and whistles they throw onto these expensive and elaborate running shoes. There's been no decrease in running injuries.
[00:07:52] So we get to the point now where 50 years into this running boom, and I'm calling an end to it, I'm saying, “Look, the running boom was one of the greatest misappropriations of information and concept in history.” Then it was buoyed by a marketing wave created by Nike and Adidas and Brooks and New Balance and all the other shoe companies in pushing people into buying running shoes and getting out there running. And then of course, running a marathon, like that's the great life bucket list item for a lot of people, right? Well, running a marathon is one of the worst things that you could do for your health. You can certainly do it. And if you've done one, and if I was, look, I was a marathoner and I get it. But if this is your thing and this is how you sort of think that you're going to improve your health and your longevity and your cardiovascular fitness and your strength, I'm here to tell you there are many, many, many better choices to achieve those goals with much less pain, suffering, sweating, struggling, and sacrifice.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:08:50] I'm sure there are a lot of people listening, Mark, that are thinking, thank God. Because I think there are many people that enjoyed that runner's high and enjoyed running. I ran 800 meters in high school. I played field hockey because there was no lacrosse back in the dark ages. I'm one of those people every single hit on the ground, I hated it. I would count it down. How long do I need to be running? I think a lot of people, and I agree with you that we're not physiologically suited to be runners per se. We did not hit the genetic lottery that were conditioned to be a running body. I'm short as an example. Hearing this information is probably life reassuring. And to your point about injuries, in your book you mentioned that about 50% of regular runners are injured every year and 25% are side-lined at any given time and these rates are higher than the NFL.
Mark Sisson: [00:09:47] Crazy. Crazy.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:09:49] When you think about it's just running. [chuckles]
Mark Sisson: [00:09:50] It's just running. The first objection I will get typically is, wait a minute. There was a book called Born to Run and it came out in 2009 or 2010. Chris McDougall, great guy, great concept and his hypothesis that humans are born to run. Well, my stance on that is we are born to be able to run. We are born to be able to run in life or death situations like running away from something or even a persistence hunt that our ancestors might have tracked a beast down for two hours. But it wasn't metronomic seven-minute miles for two hours of running. It was walk a little bit, track, smell, hide behind a tree, jog over here. Yeah, sprint a little bit to the next tree and track the animal over a period of two hours.
[00:10:38] I have a friend who's not even that fit, he's fit enough for life who went on a two-hour hunt with the Hadza said, “Yeah, it was very doable. I didn't have to train for it. My life trains me for it.” We are born to be able to run, that's great. But we're not born to run every single day metronomically at again, some 8, 9, 10-minute mile pace. The fact that we can is more an artifact of these, again, cushioned shoes, access to carbohydrates. And this is one of the things we talk about with one of the great broken promises of the running boom was that you were able to train for a marathon and lose weight.
[00:11:14] Running is probably one of the worst ways to lose weight because when you run with bad form, when you run at a pace that is faster than your fat max pace, which is the pace at which you burn mostly fat, you burn mostly carbohydrate, and then you burn off glycogen that's stored in your muscles. And yes, you burn calories. Oh my God, I ran five miles, I burned 550 calories, or as my smartwatch says, I burned 1100 calories running five miles. Maybe so but the brain automatically compensates for that decrease in glycogen and glucose. And it says, “Okay, tonight we're going to overeat, we're going to overconsume carbs because we're going to go, I have to do this again tomorrow and the next day and the next day.”
[00:11:55] And so over time you'll see people who have done multiple 10ks and multiple marathons over the years have the same 20 pounds to lose. It's like, “Oh my God, this doesn't work as a weight loss protocol at all.” If it makes you feel great because you're getting the runners high, okay, we can talk about what that means as well because the runner's high is actually the release of some of these life or death fight or flight hormones and neurotransmitters that aren't necessarily regarded in science as a beneficial thing, but they make you feel good. They're like opiates that we release as we're engaging in some very stressful, perceived as a life-threatening activity. Yeah, it's really crazy concept that we would choose to do to engage in this activity that is more catabolic.
[00:12:47] Running is quite catabolic. Let's talk about that. You're hearing a lot about muscle building today. And you know Gabrielle Lyon’s, I saw her the other day at a show, Huberman, probably yourself. Everybody's talking about muscle and strength are the sort of key determinants of longevity. Not so much cardio, it's muscle and strength. VO2 max, maybe a little bit, but we build VO2 max by doing strength training in the gym as much as we do cardio. So what is it about cardio that is-- it's catabolic. Every top runner in the world is skinny. They're skinny partly because of their genetics, but partly because even when those guys go into the gym and lift weights, they can't keep weight on their body because they're literally cannibalizing that muscle tissue when they're out running 100 miles a week or two, you know 150 miles a week. So elite runners look skinny not because they're burning off body fat, they can't keep muscle on and they're real thin.
[00:13:42] The guys that win the New York Marathon are 5’9”, 119 pounds, 122 pounds. Well, what does that mean to the average runner? How is running catabolic for them? Well, it still tears down muscle tissue. So that person that I said couldn't lose 20 pounds over the course of years as a 10k runner and as a citizen runner who enters Turkey Trots and the occasional marathon or half marathon. Over time they're actually catabolizing, catalysing their muscle tissue and adding a little bit more fat so their body composition can literally change while they haven't lost any weight, they've actually increased the amount of fat and lost muscle. They're now what we call skinny fat. And this is happens to a lot of people who are in that no man's land of training where like they think, I'm going to go out, I'm going to run, I'm going to sweat it all off, I'm going to get in the zone and this is my lifestyle and it's good for me.
[00:14:40] Well, unless they're well trained and unless they have good running form and unless they are running at a pace that for the most part is 80% of the mileage they're doing is at or below a certain heart rate. Unless they're doing that, they're in what we call the black hole of training or the no man's land of training where they're actually running too fast to burn fat. And so they're not developing their fat burning capability, they're just continually burning off their glycogen, but too slow to account for a high end aerobic increase. So they're in this no man's land. What we talk about in the book is, okay, there's a heart rate below which you should be doing most of your training, 80% of your training, and that is typically, it's 180 minus your age.
[00:15:25] So this is going to sound bizarre, but I'm 71. That's not bizarre. 180 minus 71 is 109. So factoring in my experience as an athlete over the years, I'll give myself an extra 5 beats. Most of my work should be at 115 beats a minute or less. That's where I'm burning mostly fat. And when I get above that, 115 beats a minute, yeah, I'm burning more calories. But again, now it contribution of fat to that, it diminishes the higher the output is and the higher my heart rate is. So I should be doing 80% of my training at 20 or less, 115 or less. Now, what does that look like for most people? That looks like walking. And this is where we get to the point where the book is about the benefits of walking.
[00:16:13] It doesn't always, it's not always about crapping on running as horrible, horrible. But the true benefit is a walking as much as you can, as often as you can. And so where running is catabolic, walking is, if not anabolic at least anti-catabolic. So walking, anything you do walking, you're going to improve. Now, like when you get injured running, how do you come back from it? You walk, right. So walking is this thing that we are literally born to walk. We humans populated the face of the planet walking, not running, by walking. Most of our ancestors walked 10, 15, 30,000 steps a day in normal course of living their lives. Walking is the quintessential human movement. We are bipedal.
[00:16:58] We need to walk because if we just stood still, just on the two appendages that we call feet, we fall over most of the time. So we need to be moving, we need to be walking, we need to be using this body and putting it through all ranges and planes of motion. So with this book, Born to Walk, I give runners permission to walk again. Now you might say, “Well, Mark, I want to call myself a runner. I don't want to call myself a walker, I want to call myself a runner. I've been running my whole life.” My response to that is, “Well, you've been running your whole life, but you haven't gotten any better, you haven't gotten any faster.” So what does that mean? And I don't want to diss you, but you're not a very good runner.
[00:17:38] You're an okay jogger, and okay, we can talk about what that looks like, but you're not really a runner, you're a jogger. You're not a runner in the sense of you're not competitive, you're not going to set any age group brackets or anything like that. So what does it take for us to get to the point where you could still call yourself a runner? What if I said, I'll let you run, but you have to train at fat max or lower, that is 180 minus your age or lower, which means mostly walking for 80% of your training. When you get to the point where you can start to jog a little bit and be still be within that range, because most of that's going to just be walking.
[00:18:17] When you can start to improve your cardiovascular capacity, your capillary perfusion and your fat burning capacity, all these things that enable you to perform better as a human being and burn fat more, I'll let you start running. But you can only run with good form. So once the form breaks down, you have to walk again. And so we've had thousands of people who've followed this program from years past, become better runners by walking. Then I say, okay, so now if once a week you want to go out and run a 5 miler, and most during that week, most of your work is walking. A lot of it's in the gym, literally just lifting weights, doing building muscle stuff. And now you want to go out and run five miles and now the five miles that you do once a week, you're actually running faster than the six, five mile runs you did six months ago. Does that mean you're no longer a runner? Hell, you're a better runner now than you were. But just because you're not running every single day does not take away your running membership. Does that make sense?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:19:20] It absolutely does. And I think for listeners, if chronic cardio and running are catabolic, so they're breaking down muscle. Most listeners to this podcast are north of 35, so they're in perimenopause or menopause. We know sarcopenia is not a question of if, but when, if we're not actively working against it. I love the message of I'm not telling you to stop running, but I am encouraging you to participate and to embrace the concept of more walking, which if you're doing it right, will preserve muscle mass, will ensure that you improve your running, and ultimately will allow you to burn more fat. Because I think for so many people, we've been conditioned to believe that the chronic cardio piece is going to drive fat loss.
[00:20:08] That's the antithesis of what you're saying. [crosstalk] I think for everyone listening, they're probably thrilled to know that they don't have to go out and slog 10 miles or 5 miles multiple times a week in order to maintain or build or get rid of. Because so many of us don't want to deal with fluff. We want to lose body fat over time. We don't want to be retaining more of it. And I think this is certainly an encouraging message and one that many of us can get behind.
Mark Sisson: [00:20:35] Look, it was forced on me. So I was a career runner, right? I ran seven years, I ran over a hundred miles a week and I was one of the top runners in the country. I have not run a mile in 30 years and I'm pretty damn fit for 71. I had my VO2 max tested about two months ago and again, I don't run at all for distance. I'll do sprints and I'll play ultimate frisbee and I'll have fun running a little bit, sprints. We could talk about that in a bit what sprinting looks like. I lift weights. I ride a bike once a week. I do stand-up paddling. I do fun stuff. My VO2 max I'm in the top 5% of my age group at my age.
[00:21:17] I was in the top 5% of my age group when I was 28 and finished fifth in the US National Marathon Championship in 1980. So I haven't lost any of the VO2 stuff as a result of my not running, even though that was my sport and I fancied myself one of the best in the world. It's the combination of, well, first of all, it's taking a step back and saying, “Okay, why am I doing this? Why do I exercise in the first place?” I'm exercising theoretically to get fit and lean and strong and stay healthy and not get sick and to achieve an ideal body composition and hopefully to have fun while I'm doing it, not to make it a grind. Well, if running doesn't necessarily improve your body composition, I can guarantee you that lifting weights does and walking does. But running does not improve body composition. If it's not a good way to lose fat in general because you're doing it wrong, if you're going to be injured at least some of the time. And the stats that you, that we talked about early on in the show, 50% of runners get injured every year and 25% of all runners are injured at any one time. That's not a good vote of confidence for that choice of you being healthy and strong and fit and lean and pain free and uninjured.
[00:22:38] So it doesn't fill any of those buckets that we're looking for. And if it does fill one or two of them, it's not enough to offset all of the negatives there for most people. Now when I say this, yeah, 2%, 5%, maybe tops of people are genetically gifted enough to begin a running program and to do it well. Those are the ones who do collegiate track and field or cross country or go on to become road racers. But most people, I'm going to give you some stats here. So in the 1970s when runners were runners, I did a race up in Oregon one in 1978. And I don't know if you know Marathon Times. Do you know Marathon Times?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:23:21] I know Good Marathon Times only because there's been so much supported about the New York Marathon that just came out.
Mark Sisson: [00:23:29] So I ran this race and there were 670 people in the race and there wasn't a qualifier. It just people showed up and ran and almost everybody broke three hours in that race. This is not 1970s. Cut to LA Marathon, say five years ago, I think 110 people broke three hours out of 40,000 who started. The average marathon time in the US for an average finisher, 4 hours and 34 minutes. I mean that's like 10 and a half minute miles. It's barely running. And it's a lot of time out there slogging up and down and moving your body and doing it in ways that are putting a lot of stress on your hips, on your knees because your shoes are so comfortable and cushioned.
[00:24:14] When you went to the shoe store and you tried them on and you ran down the aisle 15 paces and ran back and said, “Oh my God, it's amazing. I'll take these.” So much is going on with your feet as a result of choosing these thick, cushioned shoes. All of that information that the bottoms of your feet need to orchestrate your entire kinetic chain from the bottoms of the feet through the toes and arch and ankle and knee and hip. All of that information is lost when you have a thick, cushioned, padded shoe that's also restricting your big toe and keeping your big toe from doing what it's supposed to do, which is your big toe is supposed to be very involved in every push off, whether you're walking or jumping or running.
[00:24:55] Now we take these restrictive shoes and we scrunch them all together. So ideally, we'd be walking a lot and walking barefoot or in minimalist, wide, thin, flat, flexible shoes. We'd be lifting weights twice a week and sprinting once in a while and then calling it a day, saying, “Oh my God, that's like I'm 85% of where I need to be with the least amount of pain, suffering, sacrifice, discipline, calorie counting, portion control, and all the other negative nonsense that we associate with what it takes to be strong and fit.”
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:25:30] It's so interesting because as you're talking about the restrictive nature of these cushioned shoes that so many of us have become acclimated to, we lose out on proprioception, we lose out on the ability to really understand our footing in time and space. And so I'm curious, as someone who is or was conditioned athletic runner, a real runner, when you're watching people's form, when you were talking about good form versus poor form, what are the things that stand out to you as a previous runner and someone who understands body mechanics really well?
Mark Sisson: [00:26:10] Well, I think over striding is a big thing. I think being light on your feet, spending more time in the air than you do on the ground are quick things that I look for. A good midfoot landing, a good midfoot strike, which on a great athlete almost looks like a heel strike just because of where the foot's planting underneath the body. Good arm swing, an appearance of relative ease. When I was a top runner, I used to get this all the time, how easy it looked to be running five-minute miles. How easy it looked when I was competing, not grimacing, not struggling and suffering, but finding a nice rhythm. Breathing is obviously a big part of that as well, but it really comes down to form. Like if you can maintain good form, you won't get injured as much. You'll still get injured. Every runner still gets injured, but you won't get injured as much and it won't beat your body up as much if you have good form.
[00:27:07]. So those are the key characteristics that I look for. And there you can take classes on running form. There are pose method, there are different methods of teaching people how to run. I really take it a walk it way back. See how I use walk there. I walk it way back. And I say, “Why are you even choosing to run when there are better ways to achieve the outcome you're seeking, which is to increase VO2 max, increase fat burning, increase muscle size, mass and strength and power without getting injured. If that's your goal, man, do we have a program for you. If that's not your goal and you say, “Well, I'm an obligate runner, I have to run, it's part of my psyche. I need to run every day because it's my meditation, it's my –"
[00:27:56] Okay, now we need to look at, why are you doing this in the first place? Because if you're not a good runner, why are you beating yourself up every single day and then chalking it and writing down in your logbook? I did 8 miles at 09:06 per mile, day in and day out, getting injured half the time. Look, when I was training, I got upper respiratory tract infections four, five, six times a year because that amount of stress on the body and running is a stressful activity. That amount of stress creates a systemic cortisol release that just it's always with you. And at some point, cortisol suppresses your immune system and you get that cold or that flu or that whatever it is that's going around.
[00:28:43] Again, doesn't have to be that way. Running once in a while with good form, great, go for it. If you're a genetically gifted person who's chosen to run and you love it, great, go for it. But for the masses, for 90 plus percent of all people, probably not your best choice of achieving ideal health and/or fitness by choosing to run. I mean, it's not, I'm not even against the cardio part of it. The cardio is fine. Ride a bike if cardio is your thing, or swim or do elliptical, those don't pound as much as the right. But running is stressful on the body. And yes, we are born to be able to run once in a while, but not every day, day in and day out for years metronomically without a significant price to pay.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:29:37] Well, and I think that differentiator is quite significant. I think that, one blessing of the pandemic was that when we couldn't do a lot of other things, we started walking with our dogs more often. What's amazing to me is what it changed in me now, this is almost five years now, is that every day we get out and we walk quite a distance with, we now have three dogs and that connection to nature. There's not a flat surface in my entire neighborhood, so we're up and down hills. If I were to track my heart rate, it's going up and down, but within that healthy heart rate zone that you were referring to.
[00:30:12] And I think for a lot of people, they don't fully appreciate, I guess that's the way that I would put it, is that, ambulation, walking can be a strong supporter of promotion of fat loss. And perhaps we can pivot and talk a little bit about that because I think that for so many people they've gotten condition, whether it's, I'm going to pick on a couple things, Orangetheory fitness, CrossFit, they all have some attributes that I think are noble, but over time that chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, cortisol spikes can wear your body down. And I think that walking is such a gentle way to not only get in some exercise, but also promote fat loss, which I think for many women in particular is a focus of their training patterns, is that they really have a strong desire that in conjunction with strength training and HIIT.
Mark Sisson: [00:31:07] No, you're right. I would say that people who run on a regular basis, they get tired after their run. They feel like, I probably should take a nap, but I got to get back to work or I have to make dinner for the kids or whatever it is. But running has that it saps you of energy. Walking is invigorating for most people, unless you're going out for a two-hour walk or an hour and a half walk, most people who walk come back from their walk feeling energized, if nothing else. And they're not, oh my God, you know, stumble through the house, slam the door, lean on the door and pant. They're like, “Okay, what's next on my to-do list today?” I think that speaks volumes for the benefit of walking when you are burning mostly fat and like you are covering various terrains. Do you have Peluva, Cynthia?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:31:53] I do. I enjoy them.
Mark Sisson: [00:31:55] Do you walk in the Peluva ever?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:31:56] I do, I do. And it's interesting for me, I have a very high arch. And I was always taught that I needed a really heavily cushioned shoe so that I wouldn't under pronate. And so it's interesting to me when I walk on something where I have, I'm more cognizant of the ground underneath me. I actually get less toe fatigue, if that makes any sense.
Mark Sisson: [00:32:20] Yes, totally. That's the whole point. So now we're doing a little bit of a pitch in a segue to my shoe company, Peluva. These shoes are designed for walking. They're designed to enhance your walking experience by improving ground feel. So when you walk on uneven terrain, you go up and down and over rocks and things, you want to feel everything you step on. And it should feel good, it shouldn't feel like bad, it shouldn't feel icky, it should feel good. As soon as you step on that large rock, your brain has all the information it knows on how to curl the arch around that rock or roll the ankle a little bit out so that your knee doesn't get tweaked.
[00:32:56] Whereas if you're wearing thick-soled hiking boots and you step sideways on a rock the wrong way, your ankle wouldn't roll, it wouldn't know how to roll, wouldn't have the information. And then maybe tweak your knee a little bit. So the idea that walking barefoot, primary for everybody, if you can do it, walk barefoot in the grass, it's you know, we talk about when you go outside and you take your shoes off and you walk in the grass, you can't not have a smile on your face. How does, like when you walking barefoot in grass, it just makes you smile. That's an indication of how important being outside is, being barefoot is and feeling the ground underneath. So if we can replicate that by walking in the appropriate kind of shoes and getting that big toe push off.
[00:33:40] Because with the Peluva, with the five-toed Peluva, you are able to articulate that big toe and now involve it more in that perfect gait, perfect stride that your brain wants you to engage in. And it's a beautiful thing. And then to your point, every step you're taking when you're walking is strengthening your feet. You don't need to be running to strengthen your feet. And the irony here is that in your old running shoes, your thick, cushioned running shoes that are now bound up, you're not using the small muscles of your feet. All of that is being negated by the compression of the shoe, by the shock absorption of the midsole, by the lack of input. And so all of the component dynamic parts start at your ankle and go up the kinetic chain from your ankle. That's where people get a lower back injury or sore lower backs from running or even walking in these thick shoes, because they're not using the small muscles of their feet the way their feet are designed to be used.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:34:40] Well. And it's interesting for me because I have such a high arch and orthopedic surgeon told me this years ago, it's the extremes, the people with flatfeet and the people with high arches that tend to have foot problems as they get older. And what's interesting to me is I was probably guessing maybe in my late 30s, that I started having issues with plantar fasciitis. And what was surprising to me was the more cushioned shoes actually made it worse.
Mark Sisson: [00:35:07] Made it worse, yep.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:35:08] So I had to go to shoes and brands at that time that had a bit less cushioning in them, and that reduced the inflammation in the fascia. So for anyone that's listening, fascia overlays are muscles. But your fascia, ironically enough, in your foot, your foot loses fat as you get older, which is ironic and criminal, I guess, at the same time. So suddenly we strive for more comfortable shoes that becomes an important focus of our adult life. So getting back to walking. So if someone's listening and they're not getting in a certain amount of steps every day, maybe they're not tracking. What are some of your suggestions or recommendations for how to navigate creating a walking program?
Mark Sisson: [00:35:47] First of all, walk whenever you can. As little as five minutes, as much as an hour, whenever you can find time to walk. It starts with a lot of people, like you say, walking their pet, walking their dog is a great way to walk, and then extend that walk. Your dog will love that. So not just do the business and come back in the house, but literally take the dog out for a walk. I love having people make phone calls while they're pacing, whether it's on a treadmill inhouse or outside. Much better to be out in nature. But even if it's down the hall at work, if you're in an office situation, if you can make calls while you're pacing, that's a great way to--
[00:36:23] Again, it's just putting the body through ranges of motion that it wants to be put through. It's not like you're forcing yourself to do something the body doesn't want to do. This is something the body is designed to do and wants to do. A lunch break is very common for people to take. You have a one-hour lunch break at work, you say, okay, it only takes 20 minutes to eat lunch. Let's go for a walk for 30 minutes after lunch. Let's go on a group walk and get outside. Unless it's really, really hot in the summer, you won't sweat, you don't sweat walking. If you went out for a run, you'd probably sweat.
[00:36:53] After work you know the classic ones are, parking a mile from, I think, is it Kelly Starrett who does this with his kids, but they park a mile from school and then they walk their kids to school. It might not be Kelly and Juliet, but somebody like that who, that's part of their program with their kids. It's quality time with their kids. It takes them out of the school line, the drive through line. And they get to walk, a mile each way to the school to drop the kids off and a mile back to the car. Lots of ways to put this into your life strategy, into your daily strategy so that you can rack those miles up. It's not difficult to do. A lot of people who aren't even working would say, but like, what about during the middle of the day? And I'm at home and I'm not feeling motivated to walk, but I'm hungry. I'm like, well, if you're hungry, that's the best time to walk.
[00:37:40] Because I found that a lot of people who think I'm just going to reach in the refrigerator for that snack right now because I can't take it, no, go for a 20-minute walk, your body will start to-- the circulation will increase, heart rate will increase a little bit, you'll start to burn more fat, you'll get that fat mobilization going and the hunger will dissipate. It'll also, if you're interested in achieving some new level of intermittent fasting or some semi-ketogenic programming, another great way to incorporate that to be building the fat burning capacity, what we call the fat burning machinery to be able to thrive on just your own stored body fat.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:38:21] No, I love that. How does high-intensity interval training, how does that factor in to-- we have a walking regimen, we have strength training regimen. When we're talking about high-intensity interval training, where do you like to fit that in? And what does that look like for you?
Mark Sisson: [00:38:38] So if I'm advising other people on it, I'm saying, okay, so now we talked about there's this black hole of training, this no man's land, no woman's land, where your heart rate is too high to be burning fats effectively, but too low to be creating some anaerobic threshold, some VO2 max work. So how do we overcome that? Well, we get out of the black hole by starting with lots of low-level activity. That's the walking and other stuff, that's below fat max. Then very brief amounts once a week utmost, twice a week of high intensity activity. That could look like sprints outside if you're inclined to be a runner. 10-second, 15-second sprints with a one-minute rest in between, certainly warm up 10 or 15 minutes. But it could be on the AssaultBike in the gym.
[00:39:28] Like you get on the AssaultBike and you go hard as you can for 30 seconds and then rest a minute and a half and then go hard for 30 seconds. The intent of each of these sprint activities we did, we generally refer to it as sprinting, is to give an all-out max effort for anywhere from 10 seconds, depending on how well trained you are, up to a minute. Like I'll do up to a minute sometimes and an appropriate rest to get your heart rate back down to some recovery level and then do it again and then back down and do it again. And that's real, that's the concept of sprinting.
[00:40:02] Now how that fits into ancestral movement pattern is our ancestors live their lives day to day in scarcity, on the hunt for food, scavenging, running away from stuff that was going to kill them, lifting heavy things. So I created the Primal Blueprint, my original template and book around those three types of activities. Move around a lot at a low level of output. That's the walking, lift heavy things, that's the gym. But lifting heavy things for our ancestors was lifting rocks and building structures and climbing trees to look out and lugging babies with you across miles at a time or lugging animal back from a hunt, that's number two. And number three is sprint once in a while. And our ancestors sprinted. They didn't, they didn't say, let's just go out for a sprint, let's get a workout. And no, that was antithetical to their existence. Theirs was forced upon them.
[00:40:56] Let me, something's going to come kill me or some tribe is going to, Marauding tribe is coming after me. I got a sprint to run away. So once in a while, our ancestors would have to ramp their heart rate up to max level for some amount of time. Now, you can't hold that for three minutes or four minutes or five minutes or whatever, but this is where the interval training comes in. And the amount of benefit you get from that one sprint session per week is incredible. And if you do it right, that'll improve your VO2 max, that'll improve your anaerobic threshold, your aerobic capacity. It'll improve all of these markers that we look for as evidence of good cardiometabolic fitness.
[00:41:38] And it's like the biggest bang for your buck is found in sprinting. But you got to do the base work and that's the walking, right? So once you do like, I wouldn't even have people do sprinting until they've done-- If they haven't done anything for a while, eight weeks’ worth of base work, just the walking and the lifting, and then throw some sprinting in there at the end.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:42:00] Yeah, I love that. And it's funny, my trainer does. Usually what we've been doing lately is three sprints, all out on the AssaultBike. It is very effective. She loves to watch my heart rate go up and come back down, and then we do it again. With that being said, VO2 max is a relatively new concept for a lot of individuals. I know that we can get changes in VO2 max over time and certainly with age, help listeners understand the importance of it. And how do we actually test for it effectively?
Mark Sisson: [00:42:34] All right, so VO2 max is an indication of your body's ability to put oxygen through it. And oxygen is what's required to combust fuel, whether it's burning fat or glucose. Sometimes glucose burns in the absence of oxygen, but it's a measure of your metabolic rate at your highest level of output. It's an indicator that-- so the higher your VO2 max, the higher your ability to put oxygen through your body. The more amount of oxygen is being used to combust fuel substrates to create energy. The more energy you can put out, the faster you will ride your bike, run, swim, or whatever it is you're doing. So VO2 max is a great predictor of your ultimate potential and ability at, certainly as an endurance athlete, but as other types of athletes as well.
[00:43:26] You can't train VO2 max just by walking, so you have to do lifting weights, will help you train, will help raise your VO2 max. Now, VO2 max, there's a strong genetic component to it, which means some people can train their ass off their whole life and never get above a certain max VO2 for them. You can't train your way out of that and keep getting better and better. There's an absolute limit. Even if you're a great athlete, your intent on spending eight weeks top off your VO2 max will get you 99% of what you're ever going to get. And you'll never be able to train past that. So now how do we determine VO2 max? The best way is there's a machine that you get on in a lab. They have a lot of them around the country now.
[00:44:13] I just did one again a couple of months ago and it charged like 175 bucks for it or something like that, 200 bucks. But you get on a bike or a treadmill, you put on a closed breathing system and so you are able to take in air. And then it measures exhalation of CO2. So there's a, an algorithm that it uses to determine your throughput of oxygen and what your maximum amount of oxygen throughput is. And so on that test they continue you start out easy and then it ramps up and ramps up, it ramps up and it keeps ramping up until you hit the point where you're out of breath, you can't go any harder, you can't go any faster. That is your VO2 max. That's the maximum amount of V is volume, O2 is oxygen.
[00:44:56] So it's the maximum volume of oxygen you can put through your body at the fitness level that you're at. So it's a nice number to know for yourself and it would be good if people really want to check it out, take a baseline number, a starting number today or whenever you do the test, and then train hard in terms of VO2 max-type training for eight weeks and then test it after eight weeks. If you're aggressive about your training, you'll get your max VO2 the highest you'll get or close to the highest you could ever get within that eight-week training window. What does the training look like? Well, you have to do, in addition to the high intensity sprints, the 10 second to -- By the way, how long do you spend at max on the AssaultBike?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:45:42] 30 seconds. Okay, so we go 30-- That's where she started me at.
Mark Sisson: [00:45:48] And yeah. Look, I don't need to tell you, if you do it right, it's tough.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:45:51] You are going to not be able to speak. [chuckles]
Mark Sisson: [00:45:54] Yeah. And so you do some of that. Then there's, as you get better at the high-end stuff now, you'd start to incorporate some of the, what we call the Zone 4 heart rate. So you'd be doing four or five minute all-out efforts. And by all out, I mean you can't go all out for four or five minutes. But whatever your brain can thinks, I only can do this for four minutes and then I have to stop as hard as I can for four minutes. So your body automatically adjusts the pace. Do four or five minutes, rest four, five, six, seven minutes, do it again. So do sets of those if you're a really great athlete, you'd be doing time trials once in a while and all of that contributes to elevating your VO2 max. But you sort of have to do the high-end stuff to really develop the VO2 max here.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:46:37] Yeah. And I think for everyone that's listening, that high end stuff is the stuff that makes you feel kind of crummy in the moment. It's the thing that makes you breathy. It's the thing that really makes like you're putting through maximum effort. It is not just I'm going to run up and down the stairs. It is you're really pushing your body and obviously work with a trainer, work with someone that's knowledgeable, if this is not part of your current exercise program. Mark, you kind of alluded to some of the other things that you're doing personally right now. Where are you nutritionally? I know that you kind of like many of us have, we pivot around depending on what feels good to us, what resonates. I know you have a very protein-centric diet. Where do carbohydrates fit in for you personally?
Mark Sisson: [00:47:24] Well, so I do have a protein-centric diet, but I've talked a lot about this over the past couple of years about the fact that I cannot for the life of me get in 1 g of protein per pound of body weight. I raced marathons at 142 pounds. I weigh 172 now. I weigh 30 pounds more now than when I was a marathoner. That's all muscle, if I do say so myself. My body fat is about the same as when I was a runner, but the percentage. So I have put on 30 pounds of muscle. And again, because I haven't run in 30 years, I didn't cannibalize that muscle tissue. Having said that, I cannot for the life of me get 1 g per pound of body weight.
[00:48:12] So my focus on protein still keeps me at around, I don't know, 100 to maybe a maximum 130 g of protein a day. Now I only eat two meals a day. I find that works for me. So I'm a confirmed intermittent faster, although I don't even call that intermittent fasting. It's sort of a compressed eating window. Partly because I'm so good at burning fat. My fasting insulin is between 1, sometimes it gets as high as 2, so I'm burning fat a lot. I wake up feeling energized. I don't need to eat, I'm not hungry. I do a workout usually around 10:00, 10:30 in the morning fasted, I don't eat until 12:30 PM at the earliest. 01:30 PM maybe usually. Today, I had a leftover steak from a restaurant went to the other night. That's all I had for lunch, was steak and a non-alcoholic beer. And I'll have probably steak or fish tonight and some vegetables.
[00:49:09] I've been talking about metabolic flexibility for a long time. I was one of the guys that pioneered the general use of that term, metabolic flexibility. The ability to extract energy from whatever substrate happens to be available on your body, whether it's stored body fat, fat on your plate of food, glycogen in your muscles, glucose in your bloodstream, the ketones that your liver makes. But you have to have the metabolic machinery, you have to build a metabolic machinery to be able to use these substrates. And that's the real challenge for most people.
[00:49:38] Yes, exercise is a small subset of that, but it's mostly from orchestrating a diet that decreases the amount of carbs you take in and prompts your body to want to rely on fat as a primary source of fuel throughout the day and your brain to be very happy on ketones when there's no food present. So where does that leave carbs in my diet? I don't automatically exclude them, but I certainly don't look to include them in any way, shape or form. So, if it's a matter of-- you know I was in Europe, I spend much of the summer in Europe and I do eat bread there. Not a lot, but I have bites of bread, I have a slice of pizza once in a while. I do eat a lot of fruit when I'm in Europe in the summer because the fruit's so damn good there. Then vegetables. But I don't go overboard on vegetables every anymore. My original phrase, the big ass salad was sort of my quintessential daily meal. I don't have a big ass salad anymore. I have salad once in a while, mostly because I like the crunch, but not because I'm looking for any nutrition from the vegetables that I don't think that I could get otherwise from meat.
[00:50:48] That sort of takes us down to a view that I have of pretty much life. Now, what is the minimum effective dose of anything that's going to get me to my goals? I'm too old for this shit, Cynthia, so I don't need to overwork or overdo or overpay or whatever. So what is the minimum effective dose of protein for me in a day? Well, I've just told you, it's between 100 and 130 g. I do well on that. I feel stuffed. If I try to up my protein so I can build a booty or whatever the kids are doing these days, [Cynthia laughs] what's the least amount of lifting I can do to maintain muscle mass? I'm not going to improve strength but to stem the decline of strength, not get injured, enjoy the workout and then feel refreshed after the workout. What's the minimum effective dose?
[00:51:33] Now, some days it's an hour in the gym. Today, I did it an hour in the gym. But some days it's 35 minutes. What's the minimum effective dose of aerobic activity that I can do? I walk a lot. I almost don't count that because it's good for me. Walking isn't, shouldn't even be considered exercise, it should be considered a mandatory thing that everybody does every single day. But I try to ride my fat bike, my fat tire bike on the beach, on the sand once a week. That's kind of for an hour, hour and 10 minutes. That kind of a minimum effective dose of that. Now I have friends that go out and say let's go out for a two-hour ride or two-and-a-half-hour ride, not interested. At some point I lose interest, I lose focus. It's not fun, now it's hard now it's beyond what I think is even valuable as a contribution to my fitness because it's going to suck energy out of tomorrow and the next day.
[00:52:29] So what's the minimum effective dose of food. Like, what's the least amount of calories I can consume in a day? Not intentionally, but keep thinking about it. What's the least amount of food I can eat, maintain muscle mass or get stronger, never get sick, have all the energy I want all day and not get hungry. It's really interesting because if you look at it from that perspective, you realize, holy crap, I was eating 30% or 40% more calories than I needed to to thrive. Now I got away with it, I didn't get fat, I didn't gain weight, but I felt bloated sometimes. I didn't sleep some nights or whatever. So what's the minimum effective dose of all of these different areas in my life that are going to improve my life? And with shoes, what's the minimum effective dose of sole thickness? So this is our new TRX.
[00:53:15] I don't know if you have these yet. That's the trail shoe. [crosstalk] That's what we got to get you some. That's the trail shoe, five-toed trail shoe. Looks like a real shoe, but it's only 1cm of stack height. But that's just enough to offset walking on concrete or pavement or sharp rocks or things like that. That's the minimum effective amount of shoe that I will wear. I will not wear a thick shoe ever again. It’s antithetical, as we like to say, to health, it's counterproductive to my foot strength and everything else. So as I get into my eighth decade here, I'm looking for an easier time of getting healthy and fit and living longer. I don't need to prove to anyone else or myself that I can struggle and suffer and sweat more than you, to what end right?
[00:54:07] If comparison is the thief of joy, comparing your 3-hour and 40-minute marathon finishing time to somebody who's running 4:30, meaningless to me. That's another thief of joy. Do you really enjoy running? If you do, why are you wearing a headphone? Why are you rocking out to Metallica just to get through the workout?. I never wore any headphones my entire career of any athletic pursuit. I don't get it. I want to be with the sounds and most of my running was in the mountains and whatever. But even on urban settings, I want to hear what. Like if I'm going to get hit by a bike or a car or whatever, I want to hear it coming. So people who say, “Well, I love. It's my meditation and I go out and I listen to podcasts or whatever.” You could do that while you're walking, by the way. Listen to a Joe Rogan podcast, walk for three hours, instead of your 40-minute run, whatever. So my wish is for people to get fitter and healthier and happier by doing less and enjoying it more.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:55:14] Well, I love your pragmatism and I can't think of a better way to end the conversation today. Please let listeners know how to get access to your new book, which I believe is coming out. Is it January, your publication date?
Mark Sisson: [00:55:24] Yes, January 7th. So pre-orders at Amazon right now. It's called Born to Walk and love it if you could pre-order that. And then the shoe company is called Peluva. P-E-L-U-V-A, peluva.com, lots of great styles. Look at this cute little thing we have for the ladies. Get you some of these too.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:55:40] Oh, I love that.
Mark Sisson: [00:55:41] Yeah, that's just casual shoe.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:55:43] The perfect, like house shoe we have all hardwood, so I love having something on my foot.
Mark Sisson: [00:55:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:55:49] I love it. Thank you again.
Mark Sisson: [00:55:51] Thank you, Cynthia. Good to be here.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:55:55] If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating in review, subscribe, and tell a friend.