Ep 268 – Is 10k Steps Overrated? Your Cardio Questions Answered

In this episode of Muscles by Brussels Radio, Ben and Sawyer take a broader look at the role of movement in a healthy lifestyle. They discuss why staying active is about much more than burning calories, covering everything from daily step counts and intentional cardio to recovery, longevity, and overall health. They explain how movement can improve energy levels, appetite regulation, cardiovascular fitness, and long-term consistency, while also clearing up common misconceptions like the importance of hitting exactly 10,000 steps per day.

The conversation also explores how to balance movement with strength training, especially for those who enjoy running or participate in other sports. Ben and Sawyer share practical advice on programming cardio without compromising muscle growth, why nutrition remains the primary driver of fat loss, and how to choose activities that are enjoyable enough to stick with for years. Whether you’re lifting, walking, running, or simply trying to move more throughout the day, this episode provides a practical framework for making movement a sustainable part of your fitness journey.

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TRANSCRIPT

Ben (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. As always, my name is Ben, and I’m joined on the other side by

Coach Sawyer (00:08)
Sawyer!

Ben (00:09)
Hey Sawyer.

how are things going Albania? I saw you made a post about how the produce is really great there and I thought that was kinda interesting.

Coach Sawyer (00:17)
It is. my god. It it is really good. I haven’t had like bad produce yet. Like in fact I was expecting, just like in the US, to have like some watermelons that were not so great or have some cherries that were not so good or whatever. And like the things that are in season here, I mean it’s it is in season. But like

Everything is so good. I’m just like and so I find myself and it’s cheap too. So it’s like I’m finding myself eating more like fresh fruit and vegetables, which is really cool. So not mad about that at all.

Ben (00:47)
that’s a great side benefit when it tastes really good and you’re enjoying it. It just makes easy to hit your macro goals or hit your micronutrient targets or just kind of eat more nutritiously feel good. I’m starting to get to the point where I don’t know if it’s like an age thing, but certain foods that I ate when I was younger wouldn’t really affect me like nowadays if

Have too much of something in one sitting, it’s like my stomach just gets messed up for the next day. I’ve got gas. I just don’t feel good. And I notice that when I eat more nutritiously, like when I’m eating more fruits and vegetables, and I’m just kind paying more attention to the the quantities of food that I’m eating. If it’s something that is outside of what I would typically eat, I just feel so much better. And it’s still hard, and I catch myself sometimes in the moment or afterwards. I’m like,

Why did I eat that? Like I know I’m just gonna feel like crap the the next day or the next couple hours or whatever. And in one way it’s kind of in in one way it’s kind sad and depressing because I can’t just, you know, can’t just give in to my hedonic ways or whatever. but in other ways it’s like, this I guess this is kind of a good thing because is, you know, you know, I if

Coach Sawyer (01:54)
Yeah.

Ben (02:00)
If I know that I also feel better when I eat better, it’s like an extra kind of incentive for me to do that as opposed to just like, well, I can work these things in because, you know, flexible dieting and that sort of thing. It’s like, okay, I can, but you know, I’d rather just feel good. And honestly, it’s like when I sit down to eat something, if I have some really good fruit versus like a really good slice of cake, for me personally, like obviously they’re both delicious.

Coach Sawyer (02:05)
Yeah.

Ben (02:26)
Most people would probably say the cake more so. I probably would too, but it’s not so much of a difference. And sometimes it’s like I want that fruit instead that I’m just trying to more times than not reach for the thing that is good just gonna make me feel better regardless of of anything else.

Coach Sawyer (02:26)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I have so many things we could talk about with that. But maybe I’ll save it for the flexible dieting podcast I’m doing with Giacomo soon. but yeah, I will say that there there’s a lot of truth to what you’re saying, and it’s always like a psychological versus physiological thing, and there’s always like interplay between those things and also like what kind of body composition and what phase you’re in. So it can change a lot. But

Ben (02:48)
Mm.

Coach Sawyer (03:03)
I want to talk about your strength, dude. I think you you messaged me yesterday and you were like, dude, I just hit some crazy PRs. And I was like, I’ve never even touched weight like that, you know, on some of these things. And I’ve never been able to. So I’m like really genuinely curious and impressed. Like, how have you been able to hit some of these PRs that you’ve been hitting lately? And you’re even leaner than you usually are when you’re hitting PRs. So what what the heck have you been doing? What kind of secret sauce have you been taking? What kind of peptides have you been taking, bro? Just kidding.

Ben (03:29)
Ha ha.

Coach Sawyer (03:30)
No, but what are you even doing? Like what do you think has been led led to your success? What’s been different than you’ve been going about it, like lately?

Ben (03:36)
It’s hard to to pinpoint one thing in particular. I would say that when I look at my training when I was a little bit heavier, so the heaviest I got was like 190 pounds. And since losing some weight, the lowest I’ve maybe seen is like 173, 174. But most days I’m hovering somewhere between 175 and 180. That can kind of fluctuate.

I’m like this morning I was 180. Past weeks I’ve been, you know, on average closer to 175, but it’ll it’ll kind of bounce back and forth. And I notice like, hey, if I’m doing my cardio, if I am really focusing on eating my fruits and veg and prioritizing those, maybe not sometimes I get into the habit of just eating because I feel like it, not necessarily eating because I’m hungry, and that’s something that I’m working

is not always having to even, you know, in like social occasions, like sometimes if I’m even if I’m not that hungry, I’ll just eat because it’s like I’m with other people. They’re eating, I like food, I can always eat, you know, I I have enough of an appetite where it’s like I’m I’m fine, you know, I’m happy to to do but I just know that again, I feel better when I’m actually just listening to my body and my hunger cues and eating according to those. So when I’m doing all of those things, my weight will tend to be on the lower side, you know, closer to that mid to low one seventies. If I’m

maybe less on it with the cardio. if I’m kind of just eating what I feel like eating, which still for most people from an external perspective would look like, you know, a a pretty balanced diet. But maybe being a little bit looser, it might kind of, you know, drift closer up to that that one eighty mark. So it’s it’s kind of been up and down the past maybe couple months. but still for sure leaner than I was at my peak. And

I did notice that when I was starting to come down from my peak, like my training was actually improving a bit. So I don’t really know why why that is. I mean, I’m still holding enough body fat, obviously, to feel good and feel, you know, like my my training is solid. Like it’s not like I’m like, you know, shredded, ready to step on stage. so I think part of it is maybe just taking the deficit slow, and not being so rigid with, I need to be losing this amount by this time.

Coach Sawyer (05:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ben (05:38)
I think another thing is just been more patient with my training and not like trying to force my my progress. being okay with like repeating performance for for weeks, even months sometimes before seeing that plus one. Like I you know, I think the first time that I hit you know, a PR with two twenty five on the incline, you know, Smith bench was months ago.

Coach Sawyer (05:44)
Mm-hmm.

Well.

Ben (05:58)
And I just like I added one rep yesterday from like months ago. So it’s like it’s a PR, but it’s one that took a long time. And I actually was working at lower weights for a while and kind of building my way back up after I had hit that PR. and like yesterday when I was warming up, I just, you know, I could tell in my warm-ups, okay, I just I felt strong. So I was like, okay, I think today’s a good day for me to try for that. you know, to see if I can add an extra rep or two on my you know, on that, on that heavy set.

Coach Sawyer (06:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ben (06:22)
Other

days it’s like, you know what? I feel like I should just go for reps here and not try to hit like a you know a low rep PR. So it kind part of it is just being a little bit more in tune with what I feel like is there on the day, which I think just comes with experience. I would also say with my training, just training, you know, a little bit.

of a way that kind of goes along with what I was just saying a little bit more flexibly. Like I have a kind of slit that I follow, but I’m not so rigid about it that it has to be a certain way. Like some days are lower volume with less exercises or more exercises. Some days are higher volume. It kind of just depends on like what I have time for. Am I training with somebody else? how does my body feel on that day? so I’m, you know, I’m kind balancing this, this pushing and pulling

I know this isn’t really giving people a lot of like practical things to go off of, but I would say in general, my volume has probably been higher than what it’s been in the past. just kind of really leaning leaning into exercises that feel good for me. not worrying so much about, okay, it has to be the most like stretch focused exercise, or you know, I have to you know, start with this and then do this, or I have to follow this sort of training split. I’ve kind of just been doing.

what’s what’s enjoyable for me. And I think the biggest thing has just been not stressing as much about my training. Like not feeling like again, I have to hit a PR every time I go into the gym, not putting this pressure on myself. maybe some of those things. But honestly, if I had to boil it down to to something and it’s going to be a boring answer. It’s just time and consistency, like doing these things for long enough. I’m in my

See, just past like seven years of of training at this at this point. So it’s like the PRs are coming slower. but there’s still so much that I could be doing better. So it’s like continuing to try to find the areas of opportunity for me to improve. you know, like maybe I’ll go through some periods where there’s something about my nutrition that I feel like could be better. Maybe it’s my workouts are gone, my nutrition. Maybe it’s like, my protein’s probably been a little bit lower than.

you know, what I feel like it could be. maybe it’s more related to sleep and I, you know, maybe I can try to get in bed a little bit earlier or, you know, try to fit in a nap during the day, stuff like that. It’s I think it’s just the continued process of trying to to see what are the the small tweaks that I can make to do better in what I’m doing right now. And also just understanding that that may change as my life context and circumstances change.

Coach Sawyer (08:42)
Yeah,

yeah.

Ben (08:43)
And trying

to find that balance between like what is enjoyable and what is going to keep me kind of moving forward. and it’s something that I’m always kind of wrestling with. So I definitely don’t have it all figured out. but it has been encouraging to see that, you know, even when I feel like I’m not holding myself to the standard that I have previously or that I I feel like I could, I’m still able to make that slow, steady progress. And that kind of alleviates some of that stress for

Coach Sawyer (09:07)
Yeah. I I was gonna say that, you know, I think context is really important here because like you being the person that you are dictates the kind of advice or the kind of like perspectives that you’re giving right now. Because like you being on this side of the spectrum, which was like super rigid, super controlled, and then turning it down a notch, you find actually moves you closer to like living in balance and actually being able to listen to your body a little bit more as opposed to being like

No, I always have to do the same volumes and the same amounts of food and all that stuff. Somebody who’s starting from over here probably doesn’t need to move more in that direction, right? They’re not rigid enough. They’re not training frequently enough. They’re not, you know, they’re listening a little too much to their maybe not their body, but their their comfort or their mind, you know, saying this is uncomfortable. So I think context is really important there. But it’s really cool to know that like that’s the kind of like everything’s a spectrum, right? It’s not like it’s

This one way is the gonna be the best way. Like, if we only get more strict, it’s only gonna get better. Now, sometimes it can actually start to shoot you in the foot. And I think I’ve been experiencing some of that too, because I think I default to more the rigidity too. And even when my body’s kind of telling me, like, hey, this joint doesn’t feel so good, maybe take it easy. I’ll wait until it’s really screaming at me before I do something about it. So it’s just like it’s a good reminder for me to like, yeah, I probably need to move in that same direction.

but somebody else listening to this might also need to go a little bit harder and I might need to push themselves a little bit more. And so I think it’s important to contextualize that. But thanks for sharing that with me, ’cause I feel like that’s just a healthy reminder for me and a lot of people who tend to push it a little too hard too, you know.

Ben (10:42)
I’d I guess I would say one thing as well is while we’re kind of talking about maybe little injuries or aches or pains that pop this whole time I’ve had injuries and aches and pains that have popped up. And I think that’s just important to to say because people struggle with these things and they feel like maybe other people don’t or they don’t see it or it’s not talked about. but I’ve had tons of things pop up

Coach Sawyer (10:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ben (11:05)
My knees are an ongoing thing that have never bothered me before and now do. And that’s honestly very frustrating because I’ve had to modify my training significantly. Like there would be nothing there’s as you know, there’s nothing more than I enjoy than like loading up a heavy hack squat and like going crazy on it. But I can’t do that right now. and maybe that’s just something that I, you know, maybe I’ll get back to it eventually. But in order to actually

Coach Sawyer (11:23)
Thanks.

Ben (11:28)
achieve my goal, which is stimulating my quads and growing muscle there. I haven’t been able to do what has worked for me in the past. So it’s required getting creative with exercise sequencing, rep ranges, tempo, range of motion, the way that I’m actually executing the lifts, like my stance. just to give an example, you know, previously heavy squatting has been something that’s worked really well for me, especially on machines.

Where you’re kind of just really locked in and you can apply a ton of pressure. Now, if I apply a ton of pressure, especially kind of through my heel or midfoot, that’s something that tends to aggravate my well, you know, knee, we’ll call it tendinitis or you know, tendinopathy. And so actually coming up onto my my the balls of my feet a little bit more, either during leg press or squat patterns, and kind of t turning my feet a little bit out, that’s been something that I’ve had

Coach Sawyer (12:07)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (12:19)
sort of adopt, which means I can’t use as much load or weight because I can’t, you know, apply as much pressure through my foot. And then it’s like, you know, okay, I’m using half or three quarters of what I typically use on this sort of squat variation. That can be very humbling. You know, the ego can take a little bit of a hit like, man, I used to be doing this, I’m not doing this anymore. And so then sometimes you get in your head about, you know, have my quads actually regressed? Have I gotten smaller?

no, I don’t really think so. But, you know, at the same time it’s just more of that that mental battle. I’ve had some kind you know, my left shoulder sometimes flares up where it, you know, it makes kind of pulling and doing anything with like scapular kind of elevation and depression painful for my contest prep. Like years ago I had this bit of a you know, pec tendon kind of niggle. Thankfully that’s pretty much gone away.

you know, sometimes my sciatica flares up and and that, you know, I deal with that for the last been going on for the past couple of weeks. So I just wanted to say even if I’m having good training and I’m you know, hitting PRs and that sort of thing, that doesn’t mean that I’m without struggle or without challenge or without, you know, dealing with you know working around some of these things. and I just wanted to say that because it’s very easy to like just look at the, you know, the positives and be like, go me, but there’s you know, there’s challenges and struggles that we all face as well, whether people talk about them openly or

Coach Sawyer (13:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I’m definitely in the same boat. I think anybody who tends towards the I mean either w either way actually. Everybody’s just accumulating injuries left to right. Like life is unpredictable. Things happen. It’s a bummer. I remember you used to talk about how bulletproof your knees are and so and then that just happened and I’m sorry about that. But I felt a similar way about my elbows and this right elbow has been bothering me.

off and on for the last couple of months and I’m like, wow, that’s really annoying because I’ve never had to worry about my elbows. So it just kind of happens. And I know we can always chalk it up to like, we’re getting older. But it’s like we’re just doing hard things all the time. And your body just handles those in unpredictable ways. And if you’re not, especially if you’re not listening to your body, it’s gonna get worse.

so it’s good to like know that hey, this happens to everybody, it’s a part of the process. You need to learn how to work around it, work smarter, not harder. And and you should be able to like figure it out eventually with enough, you know, time and energy like put into it. So I think that’s an uplifting message overall because yeah, if you just talked about your PRs and that’s it.

It’s very much like Ben’s a god and he doesn’t experience any kind of setbacks or anything like that. He’s super focused. But what’s more inspiring is that like you have had things come up that have threatened to stop your progress and you’ve found a way around them. And yeah, and then sometimes we just need to be able to do that and like be have a little bit of patience and a little bit of time like spent thinking about these things a little differently than before. Yeah.

Ben (14:56)
Yeah. Well, in the theme of working smarter and not harder, I think that could be a good segue into talking about our topic for today, which is movement. So we’re gonna talk about step counts. Is this something that you should kind of take into account? how do steps fit in versus doing intentional cardio? This something that we asked a lot, I would say, is you know, should I be doing steps? Should I be tracking them? Should I be doing cardio? a lot of people who come to us

also have concurrent goals of let’s say running or they play another sport. So we’ll talk a little bit about how you can conceptualize fitting in some of those things within you know a a lifting program as well and how to kind you know maybe maybe not get the best of both worlds but try to maximize each depending on what your priorities are or you know if your priority is that other sport where does lifting fit in vice versa.

so we’ll get into all of that. But I first wanted to just start with talking about step counts. So this is something that I think is probably the the most heavily programmed in terms of just physical activity and movement. a lot of the reason why this kind of became popular, I would say a lot of things in the fitness industry, at least when it comes to like

Body recomposition, building muscle, losing body fat, it kind of comes from like bodybuilding culture or things that bodybuilders do. So for a while, it would just be like, hey, I’m trying to get strutted for a bodybuilding competition. I’m gonna do all this cardio. and then I think people noticed that there would be certain compensatory behaviors that would then almost be offsetting the cardio that they’re doing. So maybe they would go and do like half an hour, hour of cardio, but then they would get like just sit on their butts the rest of the day because they were so tired.

Coach Sawyer (16:33)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (16:34)
and so it was like, okay, that was a a compensation mechanism because our bodies are very smart. Like as we, you know, as we get leaner, it’s like that we want to conserve energy. We don’t want you know use unnecessary energy if we’re if our body thinks that we’re starving. Even things like being less animated with the way that we talk, fidgeting, these things are you know often referred to as neat or non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So just like the little movements.

That we do throughout the day. Some people do them less or more. You might know people who are constantly kind of fidgeting or moving about. Other people tend to be, you just a little bit more still, for lack of a better and I noticed this when I when I was prepping, like my speech would start to slow down, I’d be less animated in how I spoke, I’d be a little bit more monotone. your voice even starts to like kind of calm down, you’re more low energy, you might drag your feet a little bit more. Like I remember I would just like trip at random times.

So your body really is crazy in how it tries to do this. so step counts were something that started to be introduced into this equation as a way to kind offset some of these compensatory mechanisms. Like, let me make sure that I’m still kind of being active. And so steps are often used as just a proxy for general activity. there is a calorie burn aspect to steps. sometimes people will say, like, for every 1,000 steps, you tend to burn roughly.

40 calories. again, it kind of depends on scales on body weight and that sort of thing. and maybe at the speed of which you’re walking with those steps, but I think that’s kind of a decent general proxy there. and there’s so many considerations when it comes to what you might set for your step count target. you know, are you somebody who works at a desk job? Are you somebody who’s active in your job or your career? So there’s so many different ways that I could

take this or avenues that we could go down. But I wanna, you know, before I just go on this this huge monologue, open it up to you and kind of ask you about your experience, maybe yourself with tracking steps and where that comes into play with you and your clients.

Coach Sawyer (18:16)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think before we started working together, I actually didn’t think as much about steps as I do now. and I realize now it’s it’s a very good proxy for making sure you’re not doing a lot of unintentional kind of rebounding and like not, you know, not having kind of the control you want to have in certain diet phases and and maintenance phases and things. And I think I realized

After a while, that it was probably a reason for a lot of fluctuation in my body weight that I wasn’t trying to have when I wasn’t tracking steps. So it was really cool to have that experience of somebody being like, Hey, I want you to give this many steps today. Cause before I was like a self-coach and I was like, whatever, I don’t want do that. You know, and and after that, it was like, wow, this actually really adds up. And it made it clearer why I struggled with maintenance in the past.

because it was like as soon as maintenance mode was time for maintenance, you know, I found like myself, you know, I would eat more calories than I do now at maintenance because I thought my maintenance was higher. And I probably took, you know, activity less seriously because I was like, I’m not actively trying to burn calories right now. So like what’s the point? And I think what all that amalgamated to was that I was putting on fat.

In a maintenance phase, right? And so that was part of the equation that I needed to figure out. And so now I am that’s one of the things that I really started to understand is like that is a big factor. Actually, how much you move is a really big factor in terms of how much control you have. Now, do most people need to be super, super on top of it?

Probably not. like you it’s only forty calories, like you said. But if you’re noticing that you’re kind of getting into these kind of compensatory patterns or you’re starting to like completely change your habits, switching from one phase or whatever to another, then yeah, it’s gonna make it really frustrating because you’re not gonna feel like you really have anything if variables are changing all the time. It’s just gonna feel like you’re kind of breezing right past things that you wanted to stop at because you couldn’t.

control all variables. So I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind. you don’t necessarily need to like set a super aggressively high one and think that’s going to make your life so much easier. It might make it harder in a lot of ways. But I think being mindful of it was something that I learned is really important. And so I think people should at least be mindful of how much movement they’re doing. That’s not you know, specific to lifting or running, you know, cardio sessions.

But instead just like is how much they’re moving around in a day because it does add up.

Ben (20:48)
I think that the the whole concept of steps to people when they haven’t encountered it before, it it’s almost it can be kind of fun, like gamifying it in a way and having this like target to to shoot for. Whereas for some people, I think the relationship with movement, when they hear cardio, it’s like, I’m gonna run the other way because it’s just something where it’s like you have to drag yourself to to get on the elliptical or the treadmill or the stairmaster.

Coach Sawyer (21:00)
Mm-hmm.

Well.

Ben (21:15)
where steps like, hey, if I am you know, running around the house playing with my kids, or I’m doing chores, or I’m go going grocery shopping, like these are all ways where you can kind of build it into your life and that makes it feel a little bit more seamless. so I think that’s a case in where in which it’s super beneficial. there’s other scenarios where I kind of mentioned this earlier, but maybe somebody works you know, a s a sedentary job where they’re behind

Coach Sawyer (21:30)
Yeah.

Ben (21:41)
desk the whole day. but even with that, you can still find ways like, hey, can you get a walking pad? Can incorporate some steps with that, you know, standing desk and while you’re answering emails or, you know, you’re listening in on meetings. so there are ways that you can find opportunities to get those steps in. Are you taking the dogs out for for a walk? that can, you know, be a way to kind of inbuilt it. So it’s all kind of finding the the path of least resistance for

so so for some people it’s just steps. For some people, it’s some combination of steps and cardio. Danny and I talked about this on a previous podcast. For your heart health, it might not be enough for you to just do steps. It depends. most of the the human outcome data that I’ve seen, the longitudinal data, seems to suggest that like six, seven thousand steps around there, you’re starting to get the majority of the health benefits. I think that is kind of again a proxy.

Coach Sawyer (22:09)
Always.

Mm-hmm.

Ben (22:31)
just for generally active behavior, like the the research would indicate that being, you know, sat for too long period of time for an extended period of time is probably not great for our health. So hey, can you break up that sedentary time throughout the day instead of sitting for six or eight hours straight? Can you, you know, work for two hours, maybe take a 10 minute walk, get up, even just getting up and standing and stretching for like five minutes or something like that. There’s almost no job in the world that I can think of where that wouldn’t be something that you could implement or or do.

Coach Sawyer (22:54)
Yeah.

Ben (22:59)
so just knowing that, and if you’re starting, let’s say you’re starting right now and you’re my step count is abysmally low. It’s like two, three thousand, something like that. I think the average for Americans is like four or five thousand. even just getting that up to six or seven can make a, you know, a marked difference on your health. And people often shoot for this ten thousand step number. So I’m curious, do you know where that comes from? Where the origin of that

Coach Sawyer (23:20)
Yeah, it’s from some like promotional, some kind of marketing thing. and yeah, it’s kind of funny that how well that took, you know, how much we really do, like, at least in America, use like marketing things like really works for affecting our behavior. but do you have a follow-up on that before I kinda weigh in on some of this?

Ben (23:39)
Well, d yeah, I just looked it up to to confirm while you were talking. It’s from a nine nineteen sixties Japanese marketing campaign for a pedometer. and they kind of introduced this ten thousand step goal. And it’s funny how it’s like we don’t even realize how these, you know, things become a part of culture. Part of me just thought that it was like, well, ten thousand is a nice round number because you’re going from the single digits to the double digits, humans, we like round numbers. it makes sense.

so part of it is is that I think it’s a number that for a lot of people, it’s like a little bit of a stretch to get it, but you can do it if you kind of plan it in appropriately. and that’s been something where I feel like people have this perception like they need to be getting 10,000 immediately or there’s nothing they can do. But I often say to people, like, wherever if someone’s starting with me, I’m like, wherever you’re at right now with your steps, you know, if you’re at 5,000, let’s not jump straight to 10.

Coach Sawyer (24:29)
I think that’s great advice. I think that’s really good advice is to get like make it somewhat aspirational, but not so crazy out of reach right now. That’s like trying to cut your calories in half overnight. You know, it’s just not gonna be practical. You’re not gonna have the skills or the lifestyle built around it yet to be able to do that consistently and it’s just gonna end up feeling like defeating because you’re like, I’ve had to put off responsibilities now to go on walks and that doesn’t feel like health. Yeah, it makes sense.

I will say though, anecdotally, when I started doing more steps, I used to have a lot more like like even when I first started doing those steps, I noticed a lot of like low back tightness and like would have to like lean over and like stretch and stuff like during my walks. And then after a while, it just stopped happening. and I do think, you know, some of my training might have changed too, but I feel like doing more walking makes you better at w doing more walking. And

That’s just so useful for so many things, right? There’s certain days you’re gonna have where you just gotta move around more. And if you can tolerate that better, that’s awesome. You know, so there’s some benefits there. And then also, and even things with like feet strength and things like that. People think they’re just flat footed and really the arches of your feet have a lot of muscles that can get trained up, for example. But also I think mental health-wise, too, like just getting up out of your seat and out of like a room every so often.

whether that’s because you want to get more steps or because you have other things to do or whatever is great. But it’s it’s important to I think get outside and like move around if you can because even if you’re not out there that long, it’s just just something about it that that we crave. you know, so leave it at that.

Ben (25:58)
Yeah. Yeah, no, I couldn’t agree more with that. there’s there’s a term for that. I think it’s like biophilia or something, like humans’ attraction towards nature or like desire to to be in nature. And I think it’s something that we don’t always realize until we’re actually out there and we take a time to to disconnect, to take a break. some people I know they like to like listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks on their walks. I think that can be a really nice way to kind of disconnect.

Coach Sawyer (26:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ben (26:22)
cause some people can’t do the thing where it’s just like they’re just alone with their thoughts. Like that’s too scary. So you know, and if you’re one of those people, you know, hats off to your respect. Like I totally get it. Sometimes I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts either. I think that’s a a conversation for a different podcast. But yeah, just having something that allows you to switch off and turn your brain off and focus on something else, like training for for a lot of us is is that thing. but those those walks, you know, that time that you’re getting your steps.

Coach Sawyer (26:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

За

Yeah.

Ben (26:49)
you can be using them to do other stuff. I try to not like, hey, you know, let me like doing work while I’m, you know, taking those those walks and I try to use them as opportunities for you know, presence or mindfulness. But sometimes, hey, that might be the reality of your situation. You might need to kind of multitask and nice that you can kind of do that. whereas maybe with more intentional or direct cardio that could be harder ’cause you’re, you know, you’re you’re, you know, struggling to to kind of keep your your breath and stuff. So that could another reason why

Coach Sawyer (27:14)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (27:17)
The the steps are a nice tool

Coach Sawyer (27:19)
Yeah, a hundred percent. I think the last thing I would say on the walking side of things is that it is a way to burn more calories that doesn’t take a huge toll on recovery, which is really nice. because like you were kind of alluding to at the beginning, like doing a bunch of cardio it can be really taxing, right? Especially the more intense stuff. and it can interfere with training, it can interfere with like life responsibilities, things like that.

I do think doing some amount of cardio is probably good for like, you know, cardio health and and heart health, but it doesn’t need to be your only tool for

you know, burning more calories if that’s what you’re trying to do, or for improving, you know, health markers, because yeah, technically doing a lot of cardio all the time could lead to some more burnout at at a lower threshold than doing more steps could. Like doing more steps is pretty safe bet that you’ll be able recover from it so long as it’s like within reason. and that’s pretty cool to to have that tool available, you know.

Ben (28:12)
Yeah, within reason is key. Don’t be like me and try to do twenty five to thirty five thousand steps during a contest prep. I don’t know. I d I was there is clearly something Your brain does funny things when you’re when you’re coaching yourself and you’re trying to get shredded. yeah.

Coach Sawyer (28:17)
That’s crazy. That’s

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you did with a weighted vest too, right? You were like going nuts.

Ben (28:31)
That’s stupid. But that’s

besides the point. I thought you you kind of reminded me of the last point that I wanted to make, which was yeah, it doesn’t interfere with your recovery as much, especially you know, on your lower body days, a cardio tends to be more lower body intensive. So you might find that you’re able to push a little bit harder and progress faster on your lower body strength training days. and another one is I don’t think it usually tends to jack up your hunger as as maybe traditional cardio does. there’s a study on this, I believe it’s in like Bengali Mill Workers where they looked

Coach Sawyer (28:43)
Mm.

Yeah.

Ben (28:59)
people who are like working on the floor versus managers, basically like different levels of physical activity within this company. And they found that the people who are doing like moderate amounts of physical activity actually managed their appetite and, you basically had better hunger regulation with some physical activity. So actually you might find that you’re more hungry, not moving at all. and then kind of in that middle zone where you’re moving a good amount, you kind of helps to regulate your hunger, keep it appropriate.

Course, once you like, you know, you take that physical activity way to the other end, then of course you’re going to start to, you know, get more hungry as a result of that. to a certain extent, it starts to scale with physical activity. so that’s kind of the last thing that I wanted to say on steps and some of the benefits. I guess we can talk about when somebody might do more intentional cardio versus steps. So they might, you know, I have encountered situations where it’s not feasible for somebody to.

Do steps, you know, while they’re working. and they tend to work a job that is a little bit, you know, that’s more sedentary. They’re just kind of sat behind a desk. So for those people who are sh tight on time, I think more traditional cardio does make sense because steps do take more time. They are more time consuming. That’s probably the main drawback to them. so if you’re to more time limited, you are gonna be able to, if we’re just looking at an energy expenditure perspective, be able to burn more calories in less time.

you can still find ways to do that that are not as hard on your recovery. So, like incline walking on the treadmill, I think is a great way to do that. even you know, going on the bike, I think can be can be good and less because there’s not as much of like an eccentric component, whereas like something like running does have a little bit more of that eccentric component. This is gonna produce more muscle damage, make you a little bit more sore. and so that could interfere with your lower body days a little bit more, and we’ll talk about that.

Coach Sawyer (30:32)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (30:37)
You know, if you do want to run, what are some kind of considerations at what point does it start to be an issue versus not? but I would say again with traditional cardio, you’re getting a little bit more of those those heart health benefits. you know, I would say if you are doing intentional cardio, I’m not an expert in this domain, but from what I’ve heard, maybe having the majority of it being kind of that zone two. I forget exactly the percent heart rate there. but I think generally for most people’s yeah, God. Thank you.

Coach Sawyer (31:01)
It’s I think it’s like sixty to seventy percent of max heart rate is zone two.

Ben (31:05)
Thank you. Yeah. And if you want to calculate your Yeah. I was

Coach Sawyer (31:05)
Yeah. And yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. Go ahead.

Ben (31:10)
just going to say if you want to estimate your max heart rate, usually the equation people use is like 220 minus your age as a general like estimate. So then you can take that and then multiply that by 0.6 or 0.7 to kind of find that heart rate zone. and for a lot of people that ends up being like 120 to 140 kind of beats per minute, I I think.

Coach Sawyer (31:25)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (31:27)
And you could pick whatever modality you enjoy doing. I think that’s an important thing for cardio as well. Like, hey, if you want to do more traditional forms, like I’m on the elliptical, I’m on the bike, I’m on the stairmaster, I’m on the treadmill, that’s cool. But also if you want to, you know, play pickup basketball, if you want to play pickleball, if you want to play ultimate frisbee, whatever it is, like whatever is going to get you out there exercising, enjoying sticking to it, if that’s hiking, whatever it is for

find some some form of cardio that at the very least tolerable. and ideally maybe even a little bit

Coach Sawyer (31:59)
I agree that. I like all those points you said. I think for me the intensity thing was a big thing I realized. I I always said, I hate cardio. I don’t I’m not somebody who likes to get on a treadmill. I’m probably not gonna do it like consistently. I need to distract myself with sports, with things like that. And while that’s still true, that’s the way that I enjoy it the most, is to play sports and

get competitive and forget that I’m doing cardio. that’s just not a reality to be in that situation all the time. Like I don’t have like a pickup regular pickup thing. I’m traveling all the time, you know? And so I realized at some point, like if I wanted to be heart healthy, if I wanted to do my cardio consistently, I was gonna have to find a way. And I think that was a good realization because then I had to keep experimenting until I found a way that worked for me.

Whereas before I think I would just go on there, you know, try to do the most I could and then be disappointed that I couldn’t do as much as I thought I would be able to. Like, you know, like my I think why I hated cardio was because all my previous experience with cardio was like when I was asked for a PE class or something to run a mile and then I wasn’t good at it. And and so I didn’t like it. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s a very, very simple explanation.

And then once I started doing it my way, that I didn’t hate, which for me was a lot to do with the intensity, like staying in that zone too for me was great because it was like what typically happened when I would start doing cardio is like my heart rate would climb, climb, climb. I was like, this isn’t bad, this is bad. And then it would get to a point where it was really uncomfortable. And I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore. This sucks. You know? but if you can just kind of moderate, like look at your heart rate, whether that’s on the machine or your watch or whatever.

And just keep it below a certain threshold if you find that beyond that threshold it starts to get really, really uncomfortable. Like I don’t care how much you really like cardio, there’s gonna be a certain threshold at beyond which you’re like, This sucks, I’m out. Like everybody has a limit. You know what mean? And so knowing where yours is, I think is really important because then you could be like, Yeah, I like to be in here. This feels doable, this feels tolerable.

And it still moves the needle for me. And yeah, maybe that means you have to do a little bit more of it to get to the kind of cardio goals you want to have. because it’s like an intensity versus volume situation, right? Like just so like with weight training. but I think that’s important to like understand and be like, yeah, I’m okay with doing a little bit more to get to this goal if it means I’m more comfortable doing it, if I can tolerate it better and I don’t want to just like jump off and be like, I suck at this, I hate it.

You know, so that was a big thing for me. for sure. so definitely I used to think like intensity moderating wasn’t like a big deal, but I I’ve come to like think, you know what, it’s actually really nice to know where my zone two to three is and stay underneath that threshold so I’m not getting too fidgety or like upset with myself for being tired or whatever. yeah.

Ben (34:36)
And that just comes back to adherence, right? Like what is gonna keep you being able to do it consistently and get the benefits? Cause if you hate it every time and you feel like I never want to do it, then you’re not gonna do it and then you don’t get the benefits. So finding that kind of appropriate zone, like you were saying, I think is really important. something that just popped into my head, because I’m sure people have heard about it or have questions about it, is fasted cardio. Something that a lot of people ask about like, is there a benefit to doing fasted cardio? Should I do it? Can I do

Coach Sawyer (34:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Hm.

Ben (35:04)
my answer would be, you know, there’s some small maybe pockets of indications that hey, there could be something here with with fasted cardio, but it’s not strong enough that it would be something that I would say, you know, I can universally recommend or say is going to 100% be better than regular cardio. I don’t think that’s the case. And I think with anything else, like we were just talking about get it and when you can get it and and when it makes sense. So

If it makes sense for you to just get up and do it first thing in the morning not having like eaten anything, that’s totally fine. Is that gonna like wreck your gains or you know, have some negative detriment? I don’t think so. Not at all. do I think there’s a you know a magical benefit? I also don’t think that that’s the case. anecdotally, this is something that bodybuilders do a lot. Again, is there something to it? Maybe, maybe not, because it starts to get muddled with, you know, drugs that people are taking and how that physiology interacts

not having food in our in our system. so I would say just get it in when you can get it in if that’s first thing in the morning. Great. I would say probably try to hydrate pretty well if you can if you’re doing it kind of first thing when you wake You know, try to get some, you know, some water, some fluids in you so that you’re not dehydrated when when you’re doing that cardio, because that that’s not a great situation to be in. otherwise I think that’s most the the, you

recommendations that I would have for when to implement cardio. If you’re just starting out something like two times a week for twenty minutes, I think is a great place to start. and then you can build that up if you want to three, four times a week. you can get up to, you know, that half an hour, maybe forty five minutes a a session. Some people like, you know, having an hour, you know, maybe an hour long bike session on weekend. It doesn’t even have to be as formal as like,

That, you know, if it’s nice out and you want to go for a bike ride during the summer, hey, that that’s cardio. You know, you don’t have to think of it as this like drudgery or this, you know, this bad thing. It’s just it’s movement, it’s activity. it all counts. there was something that I else that I wanted to say on the kind of prescriptive aspect of it, you know, starting and working your way up. yeah, that was just like the general recommendations for for health, from the ACSM, the American College of Sports Medicine. That would just be a hundred and fifty minutes of like moderate,

Yeah, intensity physical activity per week. and that’s outside of strength training. but a lot of people don’t necessarily know what that might look like. Like oftentimes, depending on the speed that you’re walking, that could just be steps for it’s like getting that getting that amount of physical activity and then you can always build that up over time if you want to get closer to that to that number or beyond that number. Again, that’s just like a general recommendation. So

all that to say, try to get some movement in, try to get some cardio in, some physical activity, whether that’s steps, cardio, some combination of the two. you don’t have to do cardio. you don’t have to do steps. it’s really up to you. So that’s that’s that’s I guess where I’ll leave that unless there’s anything that you want to say before maybe we talk about running or moving it over to that to that topic.

Coach Sawyer (37:51)
Yeah, well I guess what I would say is I mean, first of all, great job summarizing the kind of generalized recommendations. I think that also it’s important to consider having goals is gonna make something more fun, like unless

You know, like like brushing your teeth, you don’t really have a goal other than just like preventing tooth decay, right? And that’s like all well and fine. But if that’s how cardio feels and it’s like a big, it’s a bigger time commitment, it’s more uncomfortable, you know what I mean? Then you have to have more of a reason to do it. And so I think having goals of some kind can really make it more fun. Like if you can be like, okay, I want to be able to do

this speed for X amount of time and keep my heart rate under this amount. Like that would be a really cool goal to shoot for because then you can kind of track your progress there. Just like how we’re talking about, you know, strength training progress and stuff. I think if you have a clear goal to the or like path to the goal and a goal set for yourself, it can make it more fun and more more tolerable to do. Because then you can actually actually feel like you’re gamifying it.

Ben (38:49)
so as I mentioned, a lot of people come to us, maybe they’re dual sport athletes or they want to incorporate running as part of their routine. so oftentimes f from our perspective, you know, a lot of us we’re not like necessarily experts in programming for for running or swimming. Like we can kind of help give general recommendations.

But oftentimes where we come in is programming the strength training around what they’re doing. So I might have somebody tell me, hey, this is what I’m doing for my other fit sport or physical activity, and I’ll program around that. and I might say, Hey, with the amount of activity that you’re currently doing, this is what we can expect from our strength training. If you wanted to get more out you know, the the strength training, then you might need to bring that down. But that’s really once you start getting into high amounts. So it’s like you’re do maybe you’re running three or four times a week. Each time you’re running, you’re running, you

in excess of let’s say three miles or thirty minutes or something like that. Like if you’re running two to three times per week for 20 to 30 minutes at like a, you know, moderate speed, I honestly don’t think that’s really going to impact your progress much at it starts to get once you’re going into those like five, six, seven, eight mile runs and beyond, you’re doing that, you know, three, four, five times per week. that would be where we would maybe start to get some sort of an interference effect in that, hey, we’re not going to maximize the benefits of both

you know, running, well, maybe you could do with running and lifting. So it really becomes like, what’s your priority? is your you do you have an A B and and how are you kind of sequencing those? Or is it kind of I just want to generally be healthy and I want to do both of these things and do them, you know, pretty well. And I think that’s totally possible. even folks who are like training for marathons and that sort of stuff, they could still strength train and get a lot of benefit out of it. So I definitely don’t want to use this as like a discouraging thing to stop people from doing what they want to just understand that there will be

you know, trade-offs if you’re doing a lot of physical activity outside of your lifting, most likely. and that’s totally okay for most people who are not trying to like grow the most amount of muscle possible. in terms of practical considerations, you probably want to have that other activity be the furthest from your lower body training as possible. so you probably wouldn’t want to put them in the same session, you know, you wouldn’t want to do a you know, you would definitely wouldn’t want to

ideally do like a eight mile run and then go in and try and do leg day or vice versa and do them like exactly back to back. so like hey if you can not have them in the same day, that’s great. if you can even have like a rest day in between them. So it’s like you would do a a run, you’d have a rest day, you would do a lower body day and then have a rest day. That’s from lower body stuff. You could have some upper body stuff sprinkled in on those quote unquote rest days. and that would be totally fine. sometimes it doesn’t work out like that and you have to have them, you know, back to back days.

Usually I would say, you know, it’s it’s case specific. If it’s like an easier run day, you could probably it probably wouldn’t matter where you’d be putting the the lower body day. if it’s a harder run day, again, what’s your priority? If running is your priority, I’d probably put the lower body day after that. If the strength training is your pri priority, I’d probably put the strength training before that harder run day.

so again, there’s lots of different considerations here. Your total amount of volume and work that you’re doing will probably have to come down for the strength training in order to accommodate the running. Otherwise, you’re gonna run into recovery issues, most likely. You don’t wanna be going into the gym sore all the time, like that. Likewise, it’s not fun to run on sore legs. so you kind of have to think of recovery as this big bucket and everything goes in there. and if one is kind of, you know, if you’re pouring more, you know, into that recovery bucket from

the running or from the strength training, the other one might have to, you know, you have to take a little bit out so that the bucket doesn’t overflow, which in this analogy would mean that you’re under recovered and then you’re not performing kind of where you would want to be performing or you’re running into maybe some aches or pains or injuries. so that’s kind of where I would start thoughts.

Coach Sawyer (42:24)
Yeah, that’s a great, great summary. And I think this can even be generalized to other things, like say you’re a construction worker or something like that. Like there’s gonna be different lifestyles and different responsibilities that demand things of you and your body that

might you might need to program around. like for instance, if yeah, if you’re a construction worker and you’re spending a lot of the day like bent over. And so you doing hinges is probably you something you want to keep to a minimum because you’re already getting so much stimulus in like your lower back and things like that.

that you could easily overdo it if you’re not careful. Whereas, you know, if you just have a blank slate person, like I might just prescribe, yeah, they should probably do like if I didn’t know that you’re a construction worker, I might prescribe, you know, four sets or something of hinges and then, you know, come to find out later that was too much for that person. So I think it’s really important that we always consider like

what that person is doing on a daily basis. granted most people are pretty sedentary, so it’s you know, it’s usually fine. And the cool thing is like with the repeated bout effect, like we can adapt to quite a bit of like, you know, ability. We can we can start out and do a program and notice for the first week or two we’re like we’re pretty dang sore. And then after a while, like become pretty acclimated to it.

It’s just, but it is a matter of like if you keep showing up sore and keep showing up underrecovered and keep showing up and like noticing like you’re still being affected by the workout you did yesterday or the run you did yesterday, then that’s more of a problem and it needs to be accommodated. So it’s not n necessarily something you can see right from the outset and say, I see this where this is gonna be a problem and blah, blah, blah. It’s something you have to like tinker with.

a little bit until you find the right balance of like, yeah, I’m recovering enough, but I’m also progressing in these areas that I really care about. And so that’s where it can get a little frustrating because it’s like so many variables to control. but yeah, just be aware that like you can’t just keep demanding more and more and more from your body and not have like an upper threshold for like recovery purposes. So I think that’s a really good place to start this conversation for sure.

Ben (44:22)
one thing that I want to say about running is again, this is not something that any of us are experts in when it comes to to programming for. However, if you do want to start running and you’re interested in starting running, my recommendation, kind of similar to when you first start strength running, is start small. Start with like maybe, hey, I’m gonna try running for five minutes or something like twice a week or three times a week or something like that, and keep the speed slow, like slower than you think.

because you will get kind of similar to strength training, a lot of adaptations with submaximal work. So start with small durations, start running slow. and over time you can build up those durations, you can build up your mileage, you can build up your speed depending on what your goals but I would say if you are gonna lean into something, probably just lean into frequency, like you know, maybe running a little bit more frequently, but keep you know, again, keep it slow, keep it small on the mileage or on the time. and you can always kind of build it up from there. So that’s just kind of general practical advice. Don’t start.

you know, trying to run twenty, thirty minutes right off the bat and, you know, trying to PR on your time or anything like I think about like the mile time when people try to do that in middle school and it’s like, you know, I haven’t run, you know, ever or for a long time, but I’m gonna try to, you know, sprint the whole way and you gas out or, you know, you you get hurt or something like that. Yeah.

Coach Sawyer (45:16)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah, that really ruined

my relationship with cardio, I’m telling you. They used to like I would never do cardio and then all of a sudden it was like, Yeah, run a mile and I was like, This is terrible. I’m how I’m horrible at this. I hate it. And I think that’s the relationship to a lot of exercise that people develop early in life is they’re forced to do these things that are totally outside the scope of what they’ve been able to do or consistently done. And so it just feels defeating. It doesn’t feel, you know, like a challenge they can overcome. And so it’s like, This is stupid. I don’t want to do this.

so yeah, I think that’s really good advice. and and especially with the frequency thing too, because yeah, when you don’t have as much like absolute training load to recover from, even though it still like hurts a lot because you’re new to it, your body comes back quicker. It’s only once you’re really advanced that you really need to start stretching out your recovery times because you’re actually doing a lot and your body needs time to recover from it, not because it’s gonna make all these quick adaptations.

But because like you’ve just incurred a lot of damage and it takes a while. Like Alex Leonidas talks about that as like the stronger you get, the more time in between those kind of really high effort sessions you need. Because like he’s talking about these like elite level power lifters and stuff. They’re like, Yeah, that some of these people can only bench like once every other week or something, because they’re so friggin’ strong that they just do a ton of damage to like, you know, connective tissues and things like that.

So, you know, not to say that anybody’s really in that boat, really, but the point is that like when you first start out, you recover pretty quickly, especially once you’re kind of through this soreness kind of phase. And so you can do a little bit more frequently, but try not to go too hard too fast because one, it can be really defeating psychologically, and two, you can beat yourself up physiologically more than you need to to make adaptations, you know, if you’re not careful.

Ben (47:07)
Advice. One last thing that I wanted to talk about when it comes to cardio is the kind of idea that cardio for me is really more about health and it’s a bonus in terms of energy expenditure. really, if your goal is fat loss, you are going to need to focus a lot of your effort, probably the majority of your effort, on nutrition. just when you think about this, like

You can easily eat a couple hundred calories in a few seconds or a few minutes. but the amount of time that it would take to then expend that much energy is way more. And obviously, you don’t want to get into this pattern of trying to, you know, burn off all the calories that you’re eating because that leads to a very unhealthy relationship with food. And it also is just unsustainable and and not not good for our bodies. You’re not gonna hold up physically with

so really think of cardio as an adjunct to what you’re doing with your nutrition for fat loss that can make it a little bit easier. You can maybe eat a little bit more, you’re not as hungry, but you in most cases should not be cart using cardio to drive your deficit or the majority of your deficit. so really think about cardio is for your health, and it can help with fat loss, but it’s really nutrition that’s driving the majority of fat loss. and I also wanted to say cardio doing steps, all these things.

There’s something that you should be doing whether you’re in a fat loss phase, whether you’re at maintenance, or whether you’re in a build. You should be doing them a year round, in my opinion. and that’s definitely a mistake that I’ve made in the past.

Coach Sawyer (48:27)
Yeah, no, those are all good. I think, yeah, just putting a bow on it is like cardio is good for your health. It’s it is fatiguing, so you don’t want to do exorbitant amounts of it, especially if you’re trying to, you know, achieve strength training goals and things like that. But but yeah, the primary reason for doing cardio is to get better at cardio. It’s not to you know, burn extra calories. You could burn extra calories doing a lot of other things that are a lot easier, even though they might take more time.

but yeah, the recovery aspect is is huge with that. if cardio are super easy to burn a lot of calories, I’d be like, yeah, keep like go crazy, go hog wild. But it it does take a toll. And but it’s cool. Like people who are really, really good at cardio and can, you know, recover from a lot of it, they can eat more. You know, it’s cool. Like those people who are like the bikers, you know, they do like, I don’t know, who God knows how many miles a day they can eat whatever they want. Like that’s cool.

But a big part of that is that they’re not eating while they’re exercising and they exercise all day. So when they do finally eat, they can have bigger portions and things like that. So it’s like it’s all in balance. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. You need to be doing the things that balance that equation for you, or slightly skew it in for in favor of weight loss or mil weight gain, depending on what you’re trying to do. But yeah, it’s just important that you kind of understand all the variables and like have a sustainable plan.

in place because if you set the bar too high or you know conversely too low in some ways it it can end up just kind of all falling apart and then you just feel like you’re not good at it and blah blah blah. So you you definitely want to start on like the smaller change side and then use those tools to like build a relationship or build a kind of an understanding, a holistic understanding of like what you’re doing and what direction you’re heading in. And if you wanted to be like see like, what if I did one more running session per week like

You have to go that slow. As much as it feels like babying yourself and whatever, it it really is a better way to than than trying to start it like full throttle because it just doesn’t usually work out when you do that. So, yeah.

Ben (50:25)
Well, I think

I think that’s a great place to leave I think we’ve done a lot of justice to this topic. And if there are any questions that people had that didn’t get answered, please feel free to leave them down in the comments below. if you are somebody who maybe you’re trying to get into running or you already are, or you’re a dual sport athlete and you’re having trouble figuring out the pieces of this puzzle, this equation like Sawyer was kind of talking about, that’s what we help people do here at Vegan Protein. So if you’re interested in

Getting the best physique of your life, achieving your health and fitness goals. That’s what we help people do. We’re the longest running vegan fitness coaching company since 2008. So if you’re looking to get in contact with us, you check out the link in the description below where you can fill out an application to work with us. You can also send an email to

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