Podcast 3

Why Muscle Quality Matters More Than Movement Quantity

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SHOW NOTES

Learn about why systemic inflammation is known as the silent killer, why inflammation creates a vicious cycle that very few people escape as they get older, and how you can be one of the few who do. Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson reveal why muscle quality matters more than movement quantity and how strength training for 20 minutes at a time will transform your life, no matter how old you are.

• Muscle quality matters more than movement quantity. Standard workouts and guidelines in fitness are responsible for more than 85% of people getting frustrated and staying on the sidelines.
• The Exercise Coach is maniacal about getting people off the sidelines and getting them results in a fraction of the time.
• Science shows that the ideal form of exercise is strength training, which is safe, efficient, and focused on whole body results.
• James Timmins, a researcher from the UK, has made the point that no long-term study demonstrates that an inactive individual will become healthier simply by becoming more active. On the contrary, brief, whole effort exercise has been shown to improve outcomes.
• Whole effort exercise is work that completely fatigues a muscle group in anywhere from 40 to 120 seconds of work instead of hours. Research supports the finding that time and distance are irrelevant exercise metrics.
• Enhanced muscle tissue and the process that brings about this adaptation is really the key to driving positive fitness and wellness outcomes, not the time you devote to activity.
• It’s not about spending more time exercising, it’s about applying the guide of work that generates the adaptation, which can be done in a very short period of time. It takes about 20 minutes to get a total body effect.
• For people who want to lose weight, strength training is still the best bet. A study showed that a simple high intensity protocol amounting to 15 minutes of work each week substantially improved insulin sensitivity. This sensitivity is central to controlling weight.
• Insulin is a hormone that primarily tells cells in the body to store energy as body fat. The higher the levels of insulin in your body the stronger the signal is to store body fat.
• Starting at the age of 30 as we begin to experience age-related muscle loss, our muscles become more resistant to insulin. As this cycle worsens with age, the problem only becomes exacerbated and measuring insulin sensitivity is a key indicator for health.
• Making your muscles more sensitive to insulin is the most important thing you can do to put your body in the hormonal state necessary to lose body fat. Exercise that develops your muscle tissue is the most effective way to do that.
• Focus on muscle strength and muscle health for hormonal results, instead of the traditional cardio regime.
• The other issue the majority of people deal with is inflammation, also known as the secret killer. Inflammation is seen as the root of a number of other ailments. Muscle quality has also been shown to positively impact systemic inflammation.
• Systemic inflammation is more than what happens when you sprain your ankle. Local inflammation is what happens when you get hurt, systemic inflammation is something that you can’t see and exists in every cell in your body.

And our core belief is that the production of enhanced muscle tissue and the process that brings about this adaptation is really the key to driving positive fitness and wellness outcomes, not the amount of time you devote to activity.

Welcome to the Strength Changes Everything podcast. I’m Amy Hudson. Joined by my co -host today, Brian Sagan. And today we’re going to talk about a very important phrase. If you’ve ever walked into an exercise coach facility, you’ve probably heard us use the phrase, muscle quality matters more than movement quantity. It’s like our tagline.

It’s a catchphrase or a motto that encompasses our paradigm. It really guides our entire approach at the exercise coach. At the exercise coach, we’re maniacal about our mission to be the perfect fit for people that standard workouts don’t work for. Standard workouts and the associated guidelines are responsible for keeping 85 % of people frustrated and on the sidelines. So Brian, today we’re going to flesh out the idea that muscle quality matters more than movement quantity and what that really means. So what does the science show us about the best way to exercise for those who are currently unengaged to start to get fit and to enjoy better health?

Good question.

Hi, Amy.

First, I’m just getting through processing. We’re maniacal. That one caught me off guard, but you’re right.

We are.

And I’ve probably said that before. And we’re, we are pretty obsessed with helping people get off the sidelines and get those results that matter most to them because we’re so excited and passionate about what people can accomplish in such a small amount of time. And so are people you think people are still interested in that getting great results changing their health and fitness and doing it in a fraction of the time that conventionally? require. Still relevant?

Oh, yeah.

Most people I know want the benefits that exercise delivers, but don’t want to spend all their free time working out.

Exactly. And that’s why we’re so focused on the unique value that we create at The Exercise Coach. So what does science show? I would say that when you look at the preponderance of scientific evidence, I would say really we see that the ideal form of exercise, especially for adults and adults that are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond, the ideal form of exercise based on the preponderance of scientific evidence is strength training, science -based strength training. which means it’s going to be safe and highly efficient and completely effective for whole body results. And I’ll talk a little bit more specifically about what I mean.

And there’s interesting work that’s come out of the UK by a researcher named James Timmons. And he points out that even for those individuals that really commit themselves to the rigors of conventional recommendations, So lots of time every week, hours a day, multiple days per week. There’s no real guarantee it’ll actually get them the outcome they want. That’s why I really love James Timmons’ research. And Professor Timmons makes the point that no long -term study has actually demonstrated that an inactive individual will become healthier by simply getting more active. And he goes on to make the point that studies focused on

specific wellness outcomes have demonstrated the production of similar or superior results when brief whole effort exercise is used rather than standard exercise activities. Now, whole effort exercise is really actually our term, right? My term. We use it at the Strength Changes Everything podcast. We use that inside the exercise coach studios, but it fits. When we’re talking about whole effort exercise, we mean exercise that is high enough quality or intensity that it will render the targeted muscles sufficiently stimulated or sufficiently fatigued within about 40 to 120 seconds of work.

So it’s work for a muscle group that really completely fatigues it in anywhere from 40 to about 120 seconds, not 30 minutes or 60 minutes or hours and hours. And this is why we say that muscle quality matters more than movement quantity. Research supports what I’ve known and taught for 20 years, and that’s that time and distance are really irrelevant exercise metrics. It’s not about, minutes exercising or miles covered, or even the number of reps or steps that you complete. And our core belief is that the production of enhanced muscle tissue and the process that brings about this adaptation is really the key to driving positive fitness and wellness outcomes, not the amount of time you devote to activity.

That is right.

amazing to think of it. 40 to 120 seconds of work is all it takes. When you describe that brief, intense exercise being more effective, it’s actually sounds so, so great. That seems like great news, right? For the person who isn’t exercising due to the barrier of time. What you’re saying, Ryan, is that The research shows that it’s not about spending a lot more time exercising.

It’s about doing that.

And that 40 to 120 seconds is for a single muscle group, a muscle or a muscle group. But even working on that one muscle group in this way, stimulate systemic total body results. But when you combine multiple muscle groups or the majority of the muscle groups in the body and apply the kind of work that optimally stimulates the appropriate muscle fibers. in 40 to 120 seconds. And we do that for the majority of the muscles in the body. Then we get the maximum whole body effect.

And that takes about 20 minutes to complete a whole body workout where we work the majority of the muscles in this manner.

Anybody who has experienced the Exercise Coach 20 Minute Workout can attest to what that feels like.

That’s right.

The whole effort, right?

Absolutely. But like our clients say all the time, They came up with this phrase, you can do anything for 20 minutes. That’s what they say all the time. Yes. It’s intense. It’s exhilarating, but I can do it because what can’t you do for just 20 minutes?

Absolutely. We love that. So that’s great news. And now Brian, I want to ask you about weight loss. The research you shared about brief intense exercising being effective for building fitness for those who aren’t currently engaged. What about the person who wants to lose weight?

What does the research show about the best type of exercise for that person? who wants to maybe lose body fat, worried about weight or interested in weight loss?

Great question.

Yes.

This is obviously a focus for many people, the results in the area of weight loss or weight control that can be brought about through a combination of diet and exercise. But what is the best approach to utilizing exercise to impact weight loss results. There’s really two things I’d like to share today that would really support the belief in the statements that I’ve just made that muscle quality, the production and the pursuit of optimal muscle fitness actually is what we should engage in to bring about the best results from exercise for weight loss. So let me share just a couple findings to support this belief. Weight loss results in long -term wellness, I think these will be of interest. And first of all, I would share that there was a study done at the University of Edinburgh that involved just 15 minutes of whole effort exercise over a period of two weeks.

Okay, so just a few minutes at a time that added up to 15 total minutes of exercise now whole effort exercise. So brief, intense, designed to bring about deep muscular fatigue in just very few minutes, but over a two week period, just 15 minutes of total work. Now the conclusion of these researchers at the university of Edinburgh, I’ll go ahead and read this. They say the efficacy of a high intensity exercise protocol involving only 250 calories of work each week, they’re just pointing out that this total amount of work that they’re doing didn’t add up to hours worth of activity in what might add up to thousands of calories burned. They’re actually pointing out that metric isn’t important.

So involving only 250 calories burned each week, to substantially improve insulin action in young sedentary subjects is remarkable. This novel time -efficient training paradigm can be used as a strategy to reduce metabolic risk factors in young and middle -aged sedentary populations who otherwise would not adhere to time -consuming traditional aerobic exercise regimes. You got that? I’ll just summarize saying this is a really big deal. These were young, healthy individuals that did several minutes of whole effort exercise a couple times a week, added up to 15 minutes over a two week period, and significantly, substantially improved insulin action. Now, insulin action or improved insulin sensitivity is central to the maintenance of healthy body fat levels.

The impact of exercise focused on improving muscle quality is even more profound. Okay, so improving muscle quality, and therefore improving insulin sensitivity is even more profound for older individuals or individuals that are more out of shape. But these were young individuals, and there was a substantial improvement to their insulin sensitivity.

So that is really cool. And for those people who are new to the topic of insulin and understanding the connection between fat storage in the body or fat loss in the body and the role that insulin plays, let’s flesh that out a little bit more. What does increasing one’s insulin sensitivity do related to that person’s proclivity to store body fat? Can you flesh that out for us?

Yeah, that’s the right question. Yes. And so I’m saying insulin sensitivity. That’s what the research study showed improvement in insulin sensitivity, which is the opposite of a problem. And the problem is known as insulin resistance. So insulin is a hormone.

Hormones are chemical messengers in the body. They send signals. They signal tissues in the body to function in certain ways. And insulin’s primary signal is one that tells cells in the body to store energy. It’s a hormone, which when released, signals the body to store energy as body fat. And the more insulin you have in your body, in your body.

The higher your blood levels of insulin, the stronger that signal is to store body fat. Now, as we lose muscle because of age -related muscle loss, starting really as early as 30, we develop resistance. Our muscles become more resistant to the hormone insulin. As they become less fit, they become more resistant to insulin. And so what they do is when our body, our pancreas secretes insulin in order to get blood sugar out of your bloodstream and store it, our pancreas actually has to secrete more insulin than is ideal.

because our muscles and other tissues in the body don’t respond as well to that signal. It’s like insulin comes and knocks on the door. Blood sugar is stored in the body as glycogen in muscles and in the liver. But when we lose muscle or they become less fit, I should say, as we age, they’re not as good at responding to insulin and very readily storing that blood sugar as glycogen. So insulin knocks on the door of the muscle cells and they don’t answer. So our body responds powerfully and our pancreas secretes more insulin to knock harder on the door because elevated blood sugar is toxic.

The problem is this cycle and these elevated levels of insulin in the body are sending a powerful signal to the body to actually store body fat. So insulin sensitivity is a measure on the effectiveness of our effort to reverse this situation, to make our muscles more sensitive to insulin so that our body doesn’t have to secrete as much insulin. And this is about the most important thing you can do to put your body in the hormonal state necessary to actually lose body fat. That makes some sense.

Yes.

And I think that is huge. That is a big bomb of knowledge. And thank you for dropping that bomb on us. Because if you’re a person who is seeing some additional fat stories, your body or concerned about adding some body fat as you get older, and there’s a lot of us who, as we age, we just notice more and more body fat accumulation that we haven’t maybe done anything majorly different with our nutrition, but we’re just getting older and we’re seeing this accumulation of body fat. When we think about what type of exercise to engage in to help us counteract the storage of additional body fat, you’re saying that exercise that really develops your muscle tissue and your muscle cells is the type of exercise that will help you do something about that.

Is that right?

Absolutely. Yes. But don’t so many people haven’t people been conditioned to turn to more conventional cardio type activity movement and an hours a week of activity to burn calories. We just looked at one study. that just totally debunks that. Absolutely.

It’s focusing on muscle strength, muscle health for hormonal results that matters the most.

Really food for thought for that person who’s considering what type of exercise to engage in for that outcome.

What else?

Is there other science that you have to share with us or other research that you have to share related to somebody who’s just looking to manage their weight or just contribute to overall health?

Yes.

The second point that I wanted to make is related to another what we call villain at the exercise coach. We just talked about insulin, but the sort of twin villain here we’re going to talk about is something called inflammation. And so I’ll point out some work by researchers from Tufts University, and we can put the links to these studies in the notes. But researchers at Tufts University performed a strength training study that found improved muscle quality leads to not only decreased insulin resistance or improved insulin sensitivity, the flip side of that coin, but also decreased systemic inflammation. Inflammation has been called the secret or the silent killer. That was on the cover of Time Magazine a few years back.

And it’s seen by many in the medical community as the root cause of heart disease, stroke, and all kinds of other ailments. It’s seen at the root of Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline and all kinds of other conditions or diseases of aging. Now, we have evidence that muscle quality is not only important for weight control, but also can help us mitigate arguably the most significant threat to one’s overall health, which is systemic inflammation.

Wow. So that is interesting that you mentioned kind of the connection between systemic inflammation in the body and then the risk of things like heart disease, stroke. If you’re a person who maybe that runs in your family and that you’re, possibly at risk for developing some of these things or these diseases. Inflammation is really something to pay attention to, but, and the inflammation gets decreased in our body through strength training. Let’s go a little bit more into what inflammation means. A lot of people think of when they think of inflammation, Brian, like it’s, it’s what happens when you spring your ankle or something.

And is that what you mean by your it’s swollen?

And is that what you mean by stomach inflammation? Yeah, thanks.

Yeah.

Okay. Thanks for asking Amy. So no, not exactly. Yes, that is inflammation occurs when you sprain your ankle. So it’s important to point out there are actually two kinds of inflammation that exists. Classic inflammation, otherwise known as local inflammation.

And that’s what happens when you sprain your ankle. or something gets hurt, this process of inflammation occurs, and you have noticeable pain and swelling, and that ankle might actually get red and warm, and it hurts. That’s classic inflammation. The reason that systemic inflammation has been called the silent killer, the secret killer, is because it is silent. You don’t feel it. You don’t see it.

You don’t know you have it, but for working with medical professionals to actually see in blood tests and other diagnostics that you actually have silent inflammation. So this is inflammation that exists in every cell of your body. And the reason that inflammation is there is because of damage that is occurring to your cells throughout your whole body and that systemic inflammation is actually causing essentially damage throughout your whole body. Another interesting point is that systemic inflammation interacts with insulin resistance. It actually makes insulin resistance worse and insulin resistance actually fuels systemic inflammation. So this is a really vicious negative

that exists between these two that we actually break when we engage in brief whole effort exercise, which research has shown can improve insulin sensitivity and also directly improve insulin sensitivity and also directly improve systemic inflammation, reduce systemic inflammation. But then there’s this virtuous cyclical impact that occurs also. As we’re directly improving each of these, they’re not negatively impacting each other.

And so we just see such life transforming health and wellness results from just a 20 minute workout done once every three or four or five days or so. And yes, there are so many benefits associated with improving our muscle quality. Like you said today, increase in metabolism. Another one is improved bone health, overall energy and mood just to name a few. Brian, thank you for sharing these studies with us that inform the paradigm of the exercise coach that muscle quality matters more than movement quantity. Muscle quality matters so much more than movement quantity and the time barrier to exercise can be completely eliminated with are cutting -edge methods.

At The Exercise Coach, our personal training clients experience optimal results with just two 20 -minute workouts a week. And in addition to breaking down the time barrier, minimum fitness level requirements are lower with an approach that emphasizes effort over activity. In fact, there’s really not much of a requirement. I just want to share this to encourage you that you are not disqualified. Don’t let traditional guidelines of focused exercise that promote longer duration exercise and activity, miles and miles of movement, keep you on the sidelines.

I encourage you to find a professional that is committed to safe, brief, whole effort exercise like we talked about today. And we would love to help you with the exercise coach. Visit exercisecoach . com and submit your request for two free sessions and visit a studio near you to experience this world -class approach fueled by the paradigm that muscle quality matters more than movement quantity. We will see you next week at the Strength Changes Everything podcast. Have a great day.