62: The Cardio Myth with Dr. Doug McGuff

Since the 1960’s, common belief is that two types of exercise exist -- Cardio and Strength training -- each having separate and distinct purposes. But is this an idea whose time has come and gone? Is there a new, emerging exercise paradigm?
Mike Rogers leads an enlightening discussion with returning guest, Dr. Doug McGuff, a full-time emergency room physician and owner of Ultimate Exercise, a high intensity, personal training facility in South Carolina. They examine the history of Cardio and how it became such a widely misunderstood concept.  We learn how the cardio movement, aka aerobics, began and why many believe Cardio is more beneficial to the heart, lungs and blood vessels than other types of exercise.
What is the actual definition of aerobic and anaerobic pathways and how are they linked?  Can a certain type of exercise be more ‘aerobic’ than another? Does strength training improve the cardiovascular system?   Dr. McGuff answers these questions with such elegance and clarity that even a caveman would understand.

Enjoy, Adam.

In 2008, Doug released the ground-breaking book, Body By Science, and is considered one of the top high-intensity training experts in the world.
You can follow Doug via DrMcGuff.com and on his YouTube channel.

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Inform_McGuff 2_September 10 Transcript

Arlene [00:00:01] The Inform Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman and co-host Mike Rogers is a presentation of Inform Fitness studios a small family of personal training facilities specializing in safe efficient high intensity strength training. On our bi monthly podcast Adam and Mike discuss the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and the urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And to replace those sacred cows with scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We'll cover exercise protocols and techniques nutrition sleep recovery the role of genetics in the response to exercise and much more... On this episode Adam and Mike welcome back Dr. Doug McDuff one of today's leading high intensity experts and author of the bestseller Body by Science. Together they ask can a certain type of exercise be more aerobics than another and is there a new emerging exercise paradigm? 

Doug [00:01:18] The only way to get at the cardiac or vascular system is to do mechanical work with muscle and it turns out that the higher the quality of that mechanical work, the higher intensity of that mechanical work. The greater the benefit to the cardiovascular system. 

Adam [00:01:37] I've known today's guest Dr. Doug McGuff now for over 20 years. He's a doctor he's a practicing E.R. doctor in South Carolina and Doug is one of those few doctors who actually happens to run his own gym. It's called Ultimate Exercise and it's in Seneca, South Carolina. In 2008 Doug co-wrote the groundbreaking book Body by Science. It was and really is a really important book because it comes from a theoretical understanding of basic physiology and for the first time properly applies it to high intensity exercise. I can't emphasize enough what his book has done to our industry and bringing high intensity excise to the mainstream. Doug thanks for joining us again for a second episode with Mike and I. I'm going to let Mike drive this session. 

Doug [00:02:24] OK. 

Adam [00:02:24] So Mike please... 

Mike [00:02:27] Hey Doug... 

Doug [00:02:27] Hey Mike, good to see you! 

Mike [00:02:27] You know, at Inform Fitness you know we say that we are a high intensity strength training program for 20 minutes once a week. And of course in almost every consultation from every new client we get the question 20 minutes once a week. That's it. Don't I need to be doing some cardio. And even in the last decades with all the research and scientific studies available there's still so much confusion about cardio. The word cardio the concept of cardio. What people think it is what it actually is. You know how cardio is still interchangeable with the word aerobic. It's still thought to be very necessary for achieving fat loss cardio exercise what's necessary for a healthy heart. And Adam and I love getting into the weeds of the biochemistry but we also want to communicate clearly with the lay person who just wants to be healthy and doesn't want to doesn't have the time to read all the scientific footnotes. So in the simplest terms what is cardio. How should we be thinking about cardio. What should we be thinking about when we use the word cardio. 

Doug [00:03:32]  You know the honest answer is I don't even know what the hell to do with that term because it's been so distorted and it's in our zeitgeist. But I don't think anyone can actually define what they mean by it. I think they have some sense that there are certain types of exercise that are more beneficial to the heart and blood vessels than other types of exercise. And that's built upon a huge pyramid of mistaken premises that go all the way back to the 1960s. So when exercise was first researched the only measuring tool you had to see about anything the quantitate and exercise effect was to measure oxygen uptake or to do vo2 max testing. And basically you're measuring the amount of oxygen consumed relative to the exercise that's being done that involves wearing a tight fitting mask that connects to some hoses and a box that measures oxygen going in carbon dioxide going out and trying to correlate that with a specific amount of mechanical work that was being done on an apparatus. But you know like the old vacuum tube computers that occupied a whole room this was a big box and the big machine that required the subject being tested to be kind of tethered to it. So as a consequence the only thing you could really do was to have this thing set up next to a treadmill or a bicycle odometer. And because it was set up to measure oxygen uptake it tend to perform better at lower intensities. So the exercise that happened to be tested at that time was a relatively low intensity for long durations that would produce measurable results within the measuring capability of the tool that was cataloging how much oxygen you were using over a span of time. So that became the testing tool to quantitate exercise with and then over time research was done and they showed that people who exercised had fewer cardiovascular events than people who did not. So the type of exercise that was done on this apparatus was measuring predominantly the aerobic or oxygen using subsegment of metabolism because we had a machine measuring oxygen uptake. So we're measuring the aerobic subsegment of metabolism. So that type of exercise became known as aerobics. Because that exercise was linked in studies to ...