James Barry and a guest break down beginner fitness: start with accountability through classes or trainers, alternate 30-40 minute strength sessions with 10-minute HIIT and 45-minute outdoor aerobic work. Hit heart-rate zone 4-5 multiple times weekly, do heavy compound lifts, add a recovery practice like sauna or yoga, and aim for five days a week.
Questions this video answers
30–40 minutes strength training followed by ~10 minutes HIIT (about a 50-minute session).
About 45 minutes (ideally outdoors: hike, run, bike).
If possible, five days out of seven per week.
The guest cites a training volume of three hours per day when preparing for events.
Three to four times per week.
Chapters
I mean, I think the best way for a busy person with a family to be fit physically, mentally and emotionally.
Is what is a good workout for people to start doing? They were, you know, to start going down the path and getting uncomfortable, getting out of the, that off that couch, you know, zone. What's a good way for someone to.
Start first, like have some accountability? Whether that's signing up for a boutique fitness class, that's hiring a personal trainer, joining a CrossFit gym. I think the accountability aspect is crucial in starting your journey and getting you to commit. I mean, I think the best way, way for a busy person with a family to be fit physically, mentally and emotionally is varying your training between one day doing 30 to 40 minutes of strength training followed by some short, high intensity interval training, maybe 10 minutes of that high intensity interval training. So we're talking 50 minute workout and then the next day, 45 minutes, something aerobic, ideally outside. Whether it's a hike, a run, a bike ride, just getting outside in nature and doing something aerobic and just going back and forth between those two for as many days each week that you can do it with your schedule. If you can do that five days out of seven days each week, you're gonna feel damn good. My routine is different than that because I'm training for various things, so my volume is going to be much higher. But if I was just going for I want to feel good, I want to look good, I want to be the best dad, the best husband, the best employee, the best business owner, that, that's the format I would use.
Is it food, discipline around food or fitness that moves the needle the most for you? Now, I know we've put in a lot of emphasis on environment and on fitness. Is that the one that moves the needle the most for you or is it more food for me?
Discipline around fitness moves the needle the most. I'm going to make better food decisions if, you know, I know I have to go for a morning run, you know, I'm not going to eat like shit that day before because I don't want to have to pull off on the trail and shit in the woods. So, yeah, I feel like fitness massively affects my food decisions, where my food decisions wouldn't affect my fitness decisions as much. Is food important? 100%. But I mean, with my training volume of three hours per day, I can get away with eating pretty much what I want. And it's not gonna change my physical aesthetic a ton, but it will change my energy levels, it will change my mental clarity. It will change my emotional well being quite a bit. But yeah, fitness for me comes first and then food decisions are a pretty close second and sleep and recovery are a pretty close third. I mean they all really do go hand in hand. Know you dial one in, the others are all going to benefit regardless of which order you choose to do them in.
Pick three of the health modalities that you currently do daily that you think everyone could benefit from.
Yeah, get your heart rate, I mean, depending on your age, get your heart rate into like zone four, zone five, three to four times per week. You know, assault bike intervals, fast burpees, sprint up a hill, fast clip on a bike ride, just spiking your heart rate. That's really where I think you get the most bang from your buck mentally, physically and emotionally. Lifting something heavy, heavy several times per week, complex lifts ideally. So back squat, deadlift. And then I would say the other thing would be pick one of these recovery modalities blended with a stressor, whether it's sauna, yoga, cold, exposure, just something that's going to help both with recovery. It's going to help your mind be in the present moment and there's going to be some stress adaption to it. I would say those three things. Diet obviously is super important too. It's hard not to factor that in. And sleep to dig even deeper.
Like for the heart rate, do they have to go do a VO2 max to discover what their thresholds are? Or how do you advise someone to discover what the zone four, zone three, you know, the different zones are for them.
You should be pretty uncomfortable for 30 seconds after whatever it is. That's the, that's the barometer of feeling. If I do a 20 calorie assault bike, sprint on an assault bike or an echo bike, you know, I'm generally wanting to lay on the floor for a good 30 seconds afterwards. So just an effort where you are very out of breath after for, you know, 30 to 40 seconds. You don't need a VO2 max test. I mean getting a heart rate monitor, measuring it on most of these watches now they have a heart rate monitor built into it so you can see it. A general rule of thumb is take your age and subtract it from 180 and that's going to be about what your aerobic heart rate is. Your aerobic heart rate is probably going to be about 80% of whatever your max heart rate is.
And then what about. So you mentioned when you travel sometimes things get thrown off so you know you're using your Emotional intelligence. Like, okay, I've learned, learned that this works or doesn't work. And so now I do what works right. So what are you learning for when you travel is working and, and you mentioned you leave a little later so you can get some, you know, a sauna in or a cold plunge or some kind of exercise in before you do it. Do you fast when you travel or do you bring only specific types of food?
Yep. So generally fly out later in the day just to make sure I can get some wellness practices in earlier because I know when I land it's usually going to zap my energy quite a bit. I do try to move that evening or schedule a sauna, sess or even a hot Epsom salt bath. Wherever I'm going. I generally am not eating heavy the day I'm flying. I'm eating my meals prior. I might bring, you know, a chomps beef stick or you know, some kind of protein eggs. That's a great option that you can find in airports are hard boiled eggs, fruit eating. Again, just like simple single ingredient foods that I can find at the airport. I'm, you know, not taking any of the food that they would give out on an airplane. And then I do some homework before I go anywhere. A lot of cities I already have built in routines. I have gym connections, have recovery studio connections. I have friends houses I can stay at where they have saunas and cold plunges. You know, if I'm going to a place I've never been to before, I'll message a gym prior to see if they have open gym hours. If I can pop in when I typically train, I'll see if I can find a recovery studio. I'll see if I can book an Airbnb or a hotel room with a bathtub so I can at least take a hot Epsom salt bath for recovery. I'll look at various restaurants. If I'm in a running phase, I'll try and find a place near running trails. So I'll just put in some effort prior to travel to make the trip as normal to my daily life here at home base as it is where that new place is, I'm going to be okay.
So if you're in a situation where you kind of have to pick one, which sometimes we are, you know, where you, you only have a certain amount of time, I can either pick connection, food focus or fitness focus. How do you prioritize those?
Yeah, I would say fitness is going to be the primary one that is the top of my food pyramid. If I get a morning workout in everything else seems to really fall in place pretty well. That would be the top priority for me, is making sure I can get a morning workout.
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