I Ran Everyday For 30 Days, It Changed My Life

Running is cool as hell. Problem is, it sucks. And everyone says doing too much of it will kill your gains. But what if I just sucked it up and ran every single day for 30 days, using MRI to measure what actually happens to my muscles, with multiple other tests tracking every change in my body and heart? I hate this, like— But I'm not just testing my progress in a lab. At the end of the 30 days, I am flying to London to compete in a race against some of the best athletes from around the world. Great job, doing well. But first, I need to find out how good my cardio currently is with a VO2 max test. The higher you score on this test, the better your cardio is. The average gym bro typically lands in the mid-30s to 40s, whereas elite athletes can get much higher, with Cristiano Ronaldo rumored to have scored as high as 75. I will see how close I get to that, but I should probably explain why I'm doing this. Nice job. So last month, this small YouTuber named Brownie asked if I would compete in an international race against some of the top athletes and influencers from around the world, where I would represent Team Canada with fellow Canadian YouTuber Will Tennyson. And while I do lift weights regularly, I can't say the same about my cardio. I actually can't remember the last time I went for a run before this test, which means if I don't want to completely embarrass myself in front of a live audience of over 400,000 people, I've got a lot of work to do and just 30 days to do it. Well done! Oh my God. Yeah, it's tough. So your VO2 peak was 58.3. It's really good results. Yeah. So my day 1 score actually puts me into the top 2% for my age, which is a really good sign. And I'll explain later on why I think my results were so high despite not actually doing much cardio. However, when we take a closer look at the data, we found 2 serious problems that I'll need to fix. I heard you talking shit about me. What do you got? I think your respiratory exchange ratio, it's It could start a little bit lower. Basically, my body has become really bad at burning fats for energy. It instead prefers to burn through my carb stores, which are limited and burn out much faster. So even though I have a big engine, it can't last very long. Second, when we tested my blood 20 minutes after, my lactate levels were off the charts. Pretty high. 10.5. That's very high. Right after an adrenal test, your body is still clearing the lactate that you produced during the test. Lactate rises during intense activity, and if your body isn't very good at clearing it, hydrogen ions build up and create a painful burn in your muscles, and in extreme cases can lead to vomiting, nausea, and even death. But even though I was able to push through the burn, that was a 20-minute test, and if I try that same approach during the race day, I am just going to quickly burn out. But luckily there is a type of training that helps my body handle lactate better and makes it better at burning fat for fuel. And that is exactly what I'm going to be doing today. To address these problems, part of my training plan is to force myself to actually slow down and stick to what's called Zone 2 training. This means training just hard enough to get my heart rate up to 60 to 70% of my max, which for me is between 120 and 140 beats per minute. A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to hold a conversation without too much heavy breathing. Now, the downside with Zone 2 is that you got to do it for at least 45 to 60 minutes to get the full benefit. And for me, that is just painfully boring. However, after just my first day of running, I realized my body had a few more weak points than I realized. I just woke up, did my first run yesterday. Every time I take a step on my foot, there's like a super sharp pain right on the outside. Like, it literally feels like I fractured my bone. The worst part, the race I'm training for is called HIROX, known as one of the toughest fitness races out there. You run 1 kilometer, immediately transition to a brutal weights or cardio station, and then go right back to the run and repeat that a total of 8 times. But the hardest station is saved for the very end: 100 wall balls. This is where some people's legs will literally stop working. The goal is to complete the course as fast as possible, with the best athletes finishing in under 60 minutes. But with my foot injury, I can't even run past 60 seconds. So I made an emergency trip to see my physiotherapist Rajang for help. Does it hurt here? Oh yeah, base of the fifth metatarsal. I think you're cooked, bro. Actually? No, no, I don't think you're cooked. Rajan suspects I've inflamed one of the joints or tendons across the bottom of my foot, which is why I've been feeling so much pain ever since my first run. Okay, tell me, tell me what's worst case, best case? Worst case, amputation. Best case scenario, it'll probably get better in a couple weeks with a little bit of rest. That's best case, couple weeks? Couple weeks. That's a pretty good best case, then you got 2 weeks to push through. So with my foot injured after literally my first run, I'm realizing it's not enough to just be in shape. My joints, tendons, and even bones had never been trained for running, and I'm starting to seriously doubt if my body is capable of finishing this race, let alone doing well. Like, I'm feeling really down right now. Like, at this point, I'm honestly considering backing out from the event. Um, yeah, it's not going the way that I was expecting it to, and I just don't want to embarrass myself when it comes to the time of the event. This moment in time, I'm like I'm 50/50 about continuing. I decided I would give myself until the end of the week to make my final decision, but to make sure I was still doing what I could with my cardio, for the first few days, I'm swapping all my running for cycling and the Assault Bike, which are much easier on my joints and in my case, my foot. But I still had one more question hanging over my decision. Is all this cardio going to eat my muscle? And to test this question with the highest scientific accuracy possible, on day 1, I got MRI scans of my upper and lower body and measured the thickness and cross-sectional area of my muscles. And in 30 days, I'm getting a follow-up scan. So if I lose any muscle on this plan, the MRI will not only tell me how much, but where exactly that muscle loss came from. Now, although I have no idea what'll actually happen with my muscles, fortunately for me, a 2021 meta-analysis actually tried answering this question directly. They combined the results from 27 different studies where researchers looked at whether cardio paired with strength training negatively impacted muscle growth. And when they tallied the results, those who paired cardio with weights saw essentially the same muscle growth as those who stuck to weight training alone. However, this was only true for beginners. They actually found a slightly negative effect for trained individuals, which is not good news for me. But luckily, the researchers did find 3 rules that every lifter should follow if they want to prevent muscle loss. Rule 1: No cardio before weights. If it's long or intense, like my sessions are right now, you can tire out your energy and nervous system, which can affect your strength when you go to lift weights. So for me, cardio goes after weights or later in the day. Rule 2: Refuel properly. So I'm already eating enough protein to protect my muscle, but with all the extra cardio, I am burning through way more carbs than usual. It's actually already making me feel empty in my weights workouts. So it's not just about eating enough calories to stop myself from losing weight too quickly. Pretty much all those calories need to come from quick carbs like bananas and rice cakes before my workout and complex carbs like potatoes and rice immediately after. And finally, Rule 3: Protect my leg days. Long runs are one of the most taxing forms of cardio on your legs, and I'd feel it the very next day as if I just did a big leg workout. And since my legs are honestly already a weak point, I need them as fresh as possible when I go to train with weights. Honestly, I have no idea how my legs are going to recover, because in order to prepare for High Rocks, I'll not only be running every day, but I'll also need to practice the 8 brutal stations. Luckily, my foot is finally feeling better, and my physiotherapist Rajan has actually competed in HIROX before, so today he's going to show me the ropes. You want to get super low and bring your head over so that way you have more drive. Oh, my glutes! You're a bodybuilder, you haven't been an endurance athlete before, so you haven't done hybrid training. So I think that transition for you is going to be tough. Is it weird that I get offended that he calls me a bodybuilder? All I'm saying is I'm going to prove you wrong, bro. Okay, okay. I do, I do a little bit of cardio. I stay in shape. And while I'm still not training at 100% just to be safe with my foot, so far my training with Rajan actually felt pretty good. I'm, I'm used to this. I'm not going to lie, it feels great. Feels good? Yeah, dude. That was like only like 10 reps though. So my plan is to use 2 long, easier cardio sessions a week to build up my zone 2 conditioning, whereas 3 times a week I'll be doing more intense training sessions, including what's called the Norwegian Training Method, which has been used to help a small country of just 5.5 million people produce countless of the top endurance athletes in the world, with one of them holding the highest VO2 max score ever recorded. And one of the protocols I swear by is this: using the cardio type of your choice, push yourself as hard as you can for 4 minutes, then take it easy for 3 minutes, and you repeat that a total of 4 times. It is a brutal 30 minutes, but it's actually quite similar to how I've always done cardio. So even though I only used to do cardio maybe a couple times a week, it might explain why my VO2 max score was still so high on day 1. And after my first day of actual HIIT training, I've already won over one of my haters. Honestly, I'm shocked. You did pretty well. Yeah, I'm really surprised. In like one week, like, it was crazy. Are you serious? That was crazy. Although Rajan's words of encouragement did make me feel more hopeful about the final race, That completely changed once I was sent the full list of people Will and I are competing against. Dude, I'm cooked. They just sent me the list of the people who are going. Do you know the show Physical 100? They take the fittest people from every country, they put them in a race to do a bunch of crazy stuff. People that won that show, Team Korea, those are the people that are competing in the race that I'm at. This is insane. Fortunately, my foot was good to go and I was already back to running and training pain-free. Even if I still had a long way to go. But so far, at least from the eye test, it looked like I hadn't lost any muscle. If anything, I'm starting to look a bit leaner and my strength hasn't been negatively affected at all. And there was even one benefit to my cardio work that I never expected. It was tough, but like, I feel incredible. Something about like pushing yourself with cardio, it just like gives you a high that you can't replace with weights. Like, I now know what people mean about the runner's high. Feels incredible. There's a reason, despite running sucking so much, that people love to do it. Turns out your body releases a compound that acts on the same brain receptors as cannabis. But in order to feel that, you need to train a certain way. So when you do cardio, especially at moderate to high intensity, your body gradually releases a compound called anandamide, which is often called the bliss molecule. It attaches to the same receptors in your brain that respond to THC, just like cannabis does. And once you hit about at least 20 to 40 minutes of cardio is when enough of these molecules at least for you to fully experience the runner's high, which is chemically actually quite similar to literally getting high. And the reason you don't get this quite as much from lifting weights is because you're doing short, intense bursts and then resting, so you never actually sustain consistent effort for long enough to feel that effect. And so for me, this healthy way of getting high actually became one of the biggest motivators for my training. If my MRI scans show I haven't lost any muscle, I can actually see myself sticking to running even after the race. But there was still one thing I was struggling with. I always created this pressure in my head that I always had to just like overperform, and there would be moments where I'd have opportunities, but just the fear of failure, you know, not exceeding expectations, it would be enough for me to just like back out. And I think that's what's kind of going on with this event. I don't want to let that fear of failure and embarrassment stop me from experiencing this. I'm a bit nervous today because today is going to be the longest, hardest training session I have done yet. I have not ran this far, this hard ever yet, but, uh, we'll see how I do. So I've asked my friend Jeff to test my conditioning. He's actually competed in the High Rocks 4 times, and I want to see how I'll do running just 80% of a complete race with Jeff as my partner. Let's start at 4:30. Jeff's scared that I'm going to go too hard, crash and burn. For this test, we'll be running 800m immediately followed by a station starting with a SkiErg. Now, my goal today is to get through the full circuit in under 1 hour. That's because if the top athletes are completing HYROX in around 60 minutes, if I can't do 80% of a HYROX in the same time, I'm going to have no shot at performing well on the final race. Now, this is a duos race, and even though each team has to run the same amount, you are allowed to tag team the stations. So Jeff's advice is for Will and I to play to our strengths. Will is a strong dude and he's probably going to have no problem taking on more of the sled pulls and pushes while I'd probably be stronger taking more of the burpees, the ski, and the rower. Come on. But as we were closing in on our final 2 stations, my body was hitting its breaking point. Oh shit. I might drop. I'm not kidding. Jeff's scared that I'm going to go too hard, crash and burn. But for the final stretch, everything just became mental, and I knew all I had to do was to push through the final circuit. That's it. Oh, let's go, let's go! Our final time was 55 minutes and 21 seconds. It wasn't the whole thing, right, to make some swaps, but that was longer and harder than I've ever pushed. And while I was feeling hyped about our first practice run of the course, I was about to get a call that would change everything. All right, I have some bad news, guys. I just heard from Will's team and apparently he has a scheduling conflict and he's not going to be able to make it to the race. I mean, I'm honestly pretty frustrated right now, but I totally understand. It's just that I was really excited to compete with Will because I know he's such a strong competitor, and now I don't even have a partner. To make matters worse, and according to the weight scale, I am down 3 pounds. That is not good. I do not want to be losing weight that quickly because that is most likely going to lead to muscle loss if this rate of weight loss continues. Even though I've been eating roughly 2,600 calories a day, which is normally enough to maintain my weight, with all my extra activity I was now in a pretty big deficit. Fortunately, because I was consistently logging my food and weight into my Built With Science Plus app, it sensed I was losing weight too quickly and it bumped up my calorie target to 2,800 calories per day. And we actually designed our app to be able to adjust your plan based on how your body is changing, just like a real coach would do. And even does the same thing with your workouts every single week, whether your goal is to get lean, build muscle, or just start living healthier. And it's why I've been trusting it every step of the way in preparation for this race. And if you want to try it yourself for 2 weeks completely free, all you have to do is scan this QR code right here or head to BuiltWithScience.com. That said, even though my muscles are starting to look and feel a little bit flatter than usual from all my training and weight loss, something happened in week 3 that's starting to give me hope. Oh, okay. Actually managed to set a PR today. That was a volume PR. So like most reps I've done at that weight, which is totally unexpected given all the extra cardio that I'm doing. How is that possible? Well, remember how inefficient my body was at getting rid of lactate back on day 1? Lactate also builds up when you're strength training with relatively higher reps, and these evil hydrogen ions come with it, which is actually what creates that horrible burning sensation in your muscles as you push closer to failure. Cardio, especially high-intensity cardio, it trains your muscles to clear all that out. And at the same time, it trains your cells to produce more energy, which can help your muscles work harder, recover faster between sets, and ultimately lead to better workouts. Which might explain why some new studies are showing that cardio can actually help rather than hinder muscle gains. But we'll see what actually ends up happening after my final MRI scan. Guys, so I got some really good news. I just heard back from the organization. And they are allowing Jeff to be my teammate for the race, which means Team Canada is my best friend and I training at a local gym. One week out from the competition, I'm realizing that there isn't much left I can do to improve my conditioning, so I need to instead focus a lot more at just building an actual strategy for the final race. What's up, dude? Yo, this is Cole Lern, a pro Canadian high ropes competitor who set multiple records and completed the race over 20 times. The biggest thing for Hyrocs is maintaining your heart rate off of the start. If your heart rate is too high, uh, your muscles are not going to work the way they should. And while I was burning myself out each trial run on the rower, Cole's advice was to actually do the exact opposite. Just think like, this is more of like a recovery station. This is a station where I'm not going to make up a ton of time on my competitors, but I could lose a lot of energy and really skyrocket the heart rate. Canadians have officially touched down. We're about to go see Big Ben. What's up? As we got into the stadium and saw the competition from all 16 countries for the first time in person, my stomach dropped. I'm not gonna lie, the Americans looked stronger than I thought. Yeah, they're not normal Americans. And in addition to Team Korea, Team France has arrived with a HYROX champion on their team. All right, we just got in. It is a completely empty venue just for us. This is insane. But as intimidated as I feel right now, I know that coming to this event today, I am not the same athlete I was just 30 days ago. A few days ago, before catching my flight, I retested my VO2 max. Awesome. Yeah, you're good. You did great. Your VO2 peak was 61.32. Yes! Milliliters per kilogram per minute. So you did a great job. Nice work. I broke 60. I broke 60. You did it. You broke 60. 61 is in the 99th percentile. You did excellent. What's even more promising is my body's ability to burn fats rather than just carbs for energy dramatically improved, which should help me avoid burning out halfway through the race. It's definitely given me a bit of confidence. There was one team that Canada has to beat. It's us. It's just— it's because the hockey's too easy. Alright, bro, you said it. Good luck. Now, as for if I lost any muscle after 30 days of cardio plus weights, based on the MRI scan of my upper body, there was no change. The same was true for my legs. I didn't gain muscle, I didn't lose muscle either. As for fat loss, according to my DEXA scan, my body fat dropped by 1%, which is pretty surprising to me considering this is the most calories I've ever eaten while being able to lose weight. And while I may not be the most jacked guy here, I am hoping all my training will be enough to make it into the top 3. You know, I love you, dude. I love your content, but I have to beat you today. Yeah. Okay. You have to. You have to. Okay. Made the best move. And they are off! Coming out of the first lap and seeing so many racers just take off ahead of me, I honestly thought like, that's it, we are about to get crushed, I am going to get completely embarrassed. And it honestly took everything in me not to just sprint ahead to catch up, but I stuck to the plan. We've got some Some lovely pacing though from Team Canada. That Team Canada is catching up. And the next after this is going to be the sled push. This is really the one where the lactic acid can build up in your legs. This is just mainly just character. Yeah, this is all mental. And the more I stopped worrying about where Jeff and I were in the standings, the better we started doing. Yes, and you can also see the Canadian team moving into 4th now. How's How's it going? How's it going? Better. South Korea, they are going to be champions! There they go, our Anglo-French duo! And with South Korea locking in first, France locking in second, there was only one podium spot left and two countries trying to win it. At this point, my lungs and legs are begging me to stop. But if training for this race has taught me anything, it's that when you're scared of failing, when everything in your mind is telling you to just quit, keep going. Made it better. It was a no rep, but they've got it done, and Team Canada are going to cross the line. Jeremy Ethier for Team Canada! Oh, that's a great job. That is a very good job. Very good.