Long-duration Exercise, Once A Week

Long-duration exercise is what Andrew usually calls ‘Zone 2 Cardio’. It’s low-intensity work. A jog, hike, etc. He used to say you need 180 minutes of deliberate exercise. But he revised that. It’s much lower.

To be clear, if you want to maximize VO2 max and stroke volume, you should do the aerobic and anaerobic stuff at high intensities (10 minutes once for aerobic and 4 rounds of bursts for anaerobic). Long-duration training works on other parts of the body - your lungs and diaphragm.

You could even say it’s a breath & heart training. Because of that, it’s so important for overall health, longevity, and mental clarity.

How to do it: 60 minutes at a slow pace once a week. Or, 30 minutes twice a week. If you’re too busy, you can do 30 minutes a week but with a bit more intensity.

Should it be on its own separate day? Nope. You can do this before or after high-intensity stuff. So, let’s say you can only train on Sunday mornings because of time constraints. You can do the 10 minutes of all-out aerobic training, then the hour of steady endurance. 2-in-1 ✅✅

Alternatively, don’t see this as ‘training’. It’s more like ‘activities’ that we did as kids. A light sport. Like rock climbing, swimming, outdoor biking, gardening, etc. So, allow me to change “60 minutes of zone 2” to “get outside and active once a week”. You can literally dance and that’ll count as this exercise.

The point is to challenge your breath. But not too much. For an hour a week.

If you’re trying to be optimal, okay be deliberate and block out the time. But if you want better overall health, use the other ways.

Okay, wow. You’ve lasted long reading all these tips :) Please try to get active this weekend, even if you’re busy.

Alright, Bye !