The Cardio Myth That Keeps People Doing Too Much with Ulrich Dempfle

Can you share with us a little bit more about why you see people who are training harder but not getting better? And talk to us about the minimum effective dose and where people are getting this all wrong.

Yeah. So the belief is you have to work for an hour, for 90 minutes. You have to do a really long workout to see health and fitness benefits. And that has just been very rigorously, scientifically, academically, independently, multiple times been proven wrong. And the surprising thing for most people is that if you push your body, even for very, very brief periods to its limits and increase intensity, you can achieve the same health and fitness benefits in much, much less time. And so they have shown that you can get the same or greater health benefits as you would get from a 45 to 60 minute run in a short workout that can be done in as little as 5 minutes. And that's where people then shake their head and don't believe us.

All right, my new friend Ulrich, welcome to Rooted in Wellness.

Thank you so much, great to be here.

So happy you made the trek to join us up looking at the mountains. It's been a long journey for you, so I'm really honored for people who take that journey.

Thank you, thank you for the invite.

So I was sharing with you a little bit about my background and the intention of this podcast, and ultimately the end goal is to help as many people as possible feel more rooted in themselves and their happiness and what I believe is this inner awareness that we all have to heal ourselves. So to kick things off, tell me, what are 2 or 3 things that help you feel more rooted in who you are or your happiness every day?

Yeah, yeah, of course. So, um, one, and you won't be surprised, exercise. Exercise helps me a lot. Um, it helps me to start a great morning and to, to get off to a good start. So having a fixed morning routine with exercise part of that, I think is wonderful to get started. The other family, children, that is so, so important to me. And I try to spend as much— I've got 3 kids, I try to spend as much time as I can with them, meaningful time. Also part of that in the gym. So I spent quite a lot of time with my son in the gym. So that's, that's great.

So good.

Yeah. And otherwise, trying to— I think we are on a mission trying to help people with what we do from 9 to 5 or from 8 to 11. Yeah, 8 AM to 11 PM to improve health and fitness and happiness for, for many people.

I agree. On the flip side, you know, a lot of people think that whoever sits in these chairs, we've arrived at optimal health and we've cracked the code and we figured it out. Do you notice, are there certain rituals or habits in your life that cost cause you to feel uprooted when you drift? And do you notice what those things are? What are those things for you?

Rabbit holes. I'm way too often going down some of them. So I have to lift myself into a high-level perspective very, very intentionally because I can focus so much on the detail. I think you can see that in what we do, that there's a lot of love for the detail. But sometimes it's more important to keep the overview. And so that is a thing I have to do. And if it doesn't work out, yeah, that can cause feelings of uprootedness.

Absolutely. Thank you for that honest answer. The rabbit hole. No one's ever said that. And it's such a hard truth today. There's so many distractions that can really get us going deep on something that really has no value. Right. Such a waste of time. Thank you for that. All right. So let's dive into some rapid-fire questions. We're going to go deeper into everything, but whatever comes to mind. True or false? If you're not sweating, the workout didn't count.

Oh, absolutely false. You can have wonderful workouts and not sweat at all.

Rate your own VO2 max journey from 1 to 10. Where did you start and where are you now?

I started at maybe 3 to 4. And I would say I'm now 8, maybe a 9.

We'll understand why soon. All right. The best time of day to exercise: morning, afternoon, or evening?

Oh, that really depends on preference. For me, it's morning because it sets you up for a good day. And I think one of the most important things about exercise is routine and habit and adherence. And so that's easier in the morning, I find, for top performance, maybe early afternoon, just more alert, more awake. And there's also just a bit of observational, like, experience. Yes. Like if I look when I lift my heaviest weights or when I get the highest power output on, on, on our bikes, That's early afternoon. So there's— so for performance is slightly different than for adherence, but I would always prioritize adherence over performance. It's more important.

It becomes more non-negotiable if it's ritualized in your morning. But what's funny in the afternoon, yeah, I do feel like my output is typically better in the afternoon, but there's no way that it would happen with consistency. So that's a good one. All right. What's the worst fitness advice that you keep hearing that needs to disappear?

The old belief like no pain, no gain, and that you have to do long workouts to see benefits. I think that's something, yeah, that's been proven wrong, but just stays around in people's minds and in, in kind of our collective consciousness. And that really we have to tackle that.

Yeah, that. And I don't know about Europe, but there's been this narrative I feel like in the past year, maybe two years, actually that cardio doesn't matter as much as weightlifting, and that has to stop. Cardio is so foundational to optimal health. Oh my gosh, I'm getting excited just talking about it. This is why I wanted to have you on. All right, next, one thing that matters for longevity more than people realize. That's not what they think.

VO2 max.

Yeah.

Is not only more important than people think, but it is the most Well, it is the strongest correlate. It's the strongest predictor for life expectancy. So VO2 max, your ability to, to burn oxygen, to metabolize oxygen, is probably the most important health metric if you had to pick one. Now, there are other important ones as well, but this is probably the most important one and people might not be aware of it and As you said, if people think cardio doesn't matter, think again.

It's interesting because I think a lot of people hear it trending, but people don't understand it, or we think that we need to go somewhere special to be able to train for it. So we'll break that down. Last one here is rate your confidence from 1 to 10 that someone listening right now could actually transform their cardiovascular fitness in 8 weeks.

Obviously depends on the starting position. If you have like the super athlete listening, we, we don't all get to be Olympic marathon runners and athletes. So it depends a little bit on your set point. But the vast majority can make a very, very significant improvement, something like 10 to 15% in 8 weeks with minimal time requirement. I've hedged my statement there a little bit. In truth, I wouldn't really have to because 95%, 95% of Americans do not exercise enough if measured precisely. So with fitness trackers, if you really measure how much people move, not just the questionnaire, it's 95% that do not meet the recommended amount of exercise.

Insane. Despite everything that we know. Right. Yeah.

So there's a massive knowledge-action gap. And that's, that's really hard to understand because exercise is so profound and so beneficial. Like the list of health and wellness and fitness benefits you get from it is very, very long. Now, knowing that, why do we not do that more? And that's really— that's a big question. If you ask people, and this is one scientific survey after the other, they will tell you as a number one reason, lack of time. So lack of time is the number one barrier to exercise. There's a question around, is this, is this an excuse for being lazy? Is this just something people say because they're too ashamed to, to say, oh, I'm actually just a bit lazy? But if you ask, that's the number one reason people state. And we have chosen to believe people when they say that. And in fact, as we've said earlier, there's so many distractions. There's trillion-dollar companies that fight for your time and attention. And they're worth trillions of dollars because they're so good at it.

Yeah, they're winning. Yeah.

And so, Yeah, I think the Netflix CEO once said that their main competitor is now sleep. And sleep is another so profound thing. And still people don't get enough of it. So, so the time plays a major role. And so we've set out to think, well, how can we, how can we help people to have enough time or to fit the exercise into a short enough package so that they can actually do it.

You nailed it. Obviously, you've built an entire foundational company around this, but we really have gotten it wrong. As a nutritionist, I'm really an investigator. I'm looking at what's happening in people's lives, what they're eating, how they're actually moving. And I think a lot of people are under the impression that they do move or that they do eat well. I notice a lot of people think that they do eat enough fiber and veggies and stuff like that. But when I really fine-tune with someone, They're not. It's like, oh gosh, I guess I worked out last week, or unless we're looking at data or things like that. And life is really busy. But I think to your point and around your research is that we were sold this idea that we had to do more, that workouts had to look really hard. We have to get more steps, be more challenged, sweat more. And if it's not, if we're not doing those things, then it's not working. So you actually talk about what the body actually needs to stay healthy in a cardiovascular state and the science that comes around that. Can you share with us a little bit more about why you see people who are training harder but not getting better? And the data— what was it around? Oh, what is the minimum effective dose? Yeah. Talk to us about the minimum effective dose and where people are getting this all wrong. Yeah.

So the belief is you have to work for an hour, for 90 minutes, you have to do a really long workout to see health and fitness benefits. And that has just been very rigorously, scientifically, academically, independently, multiple times been proven wrong, that there are different ways to achieve this. And the surprising thing for most people is that if you push your body even for very, very brief periods to its limits and increase intensity, you can achieve the same health and fitness benefits in much, much less time. So the workout is called REHIT, Reduced Exertion High Intensity Interval Training. And it is actually— so the leading university is a Canadian university in that field, McMaster University, and wonderful near Toronto. And so they have shown that you can get the same or greater health benefits as you would get from a 45 to 60 minute run in a short workout that can be done in as little as 5 minutes. And that's where people then shake their head and don't believe us.

But no way. Exactly.

No, we have the scientific proof. So that has been really comprehensively demonstrated and proven. So, and it's 5 minutes, has a very gentle warm-up and then 2 20-second sprints. And those are intense. Yeah, they're pushed to your limits. But it's very, very short. And so there's, there's a little bit of truth in the no pain, no gain, of course, because those 20 seconds you push hard and you push to your limits. But what helps me is you see the light at the end of the tunnel immediately. So from the start, you know, okay, I'm going to push 20 seconds hard., then a gentle recovery. I push again for 20 seconds hard, a short cooldown, and then I'm done. Then I've done the most efficient cardio workout possible. And, and I've done a fantastic thing for my cardiorespiratory health and cardiorespiratory fitness. And so that's something that I— yeah, we'd like more people to understand and engage with that. Because we think it would be so beneficial, or is so beneficial for everybody.

So I'm one of those people who, no time. I thought when we moved up to Tapang, I thought, oh my God, we're going to be so active all the time. But to go for a walk means we have to go for a walk up the steepest hill possible. So even that, I felt like my fitness was dropping. And I did have another bike previously, but I— my adrenals are just tapped. Like, I'm aware of high-intensity interval training and I'm aware of the benefits, but I'm one of the people who's conditioned to thinking that I need to work out for an hour to get the results. And I used to push really hard, and I'm A-type, so I really like being at the top of the game and really pushing. But I was finding myself more drained and more drained. And especially after the last 2 years here, um, with the fires and everything, those types of workouts I just realized would completely. I'd have to take a nap after working out. So when I heard about CAROL Bike, I was really intrigued. It sounded too good to be true. But then after my first 2 rides, do you know what I love most about it? Not only the short period that I was told that I needed to do, but the guidance around breath and breathing. And the first, despite it being 5 minutes, it was really challenging for me to breathe the way that I was being guided in a very gentle way., in the 5 minutes. Yeah. Until I kept up with practicing. Yeah. So can you share a little bit about this with us? So as you go through a 5-minute sprint, I'll just share with listeners, you have a screen in front of you that's guiding you with how to breathe, and it's inspirational breathing as though you've got a breathwork instructor right there with you. And it's cueing you to inhale and exhale at specific moments when you have to increase your intensity and then lower your intensity again. So can you share a little bit more about the inspiration there and maybe how that ties into VO2 max training? Yeah, sure.

So in these sprints, we essentially simulate an emergency situation, a situation where you have to run for your life or fight for your life, but where you momentarily, so for a very short moment, you push your limits. So that is obviously very sympathetic nervous state. And you go in alert and fight for your life. Your heart rate shoots up. And there's, in that very short moment, there's lots of things that happen that make it so effective. But then to balance your nervous system again, breathing and to stimulate and activate your parasympathetic nervous system, breathing is just so, so effective. And so I see that, we see that in the data. So your heart rate recovery is just much faster if you follow a specific breathing pattern. So more exhale-focused. So first, mindful breathing and then exhale-focused breathing helps bring the heart rate down much faster and yeah, come back into a parasympathetic state because you don't want to kind of come stressed off the bike. You want to coming calm.

Yeah.

And feeling accomplished, feeling good that you've done your workout. And so that helps a lot, the breathing.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And it also showed me maybe that my capacity was not where it could be, and that felt really motivating. But although you're going through this really intense period, the guidance around the breathwork is really calm, soothing, and inspirational. I'll say that. So for people who are listening who might be like me, who are doing all of the things at the gym, but likely aren't getting the results that they want to see. And look, we even have data to show that something's not working, right? Like cardiovascular disease is on the rise. It's the number one killer amongst women especially. So we're doing something that's foundationally wrong. And it's a hard pill to swallow. A lot of us are— we think that we're working out effectively, but maybe in the same way that we've been sold the wrong information around dieting, we've been sold the wrong information around what it means to work out this physical body effectively and what we need. What would you say is the number one reason why people aren't getting the results that they think that they'll get? Where's the disconnect? Yeah.

So one is knowledge about how you can effectively and efficiently train and then helping you overcome the barriers. So we've tried to design our bike to make the barriers as low as possible. So it's really, really short. The workout can be done in as little as 5 minutes. Only have to push hard 2 times 20 seconds. You don't have to dial in your own resistance. The bike is fully automated. It coaches you through the workout. It adjusts the resistance for you. It optimizes the resistance as you get fitter and stronger. So you just don't have to worry about that. That's all taken care of. You have to do it, or we recommend to do it 2 to 3 times per week. And that becomes then a very doable workout that's easy to adhere to and easy to build a routine around it. Yeah. So that's why— so our bikes are used in performance studios, biohacking facilities, so that they're fully built for commercial use. But many people have them in their home, and I think that's actually the way to do it, because then you can just make it part of your—

Who doesn't have 5 minutes? Yeah, exactly.

So that falls away. And if you, you know, there are certain things you don't have to think about anymore. You brush your teeth in the morning. I shave, I shower. There's kind of certain things you do, you just do them. And if exercise becomes one of those little things that you just do, then that's a major victory. Whereas if it's kind of a really time-consuming load on your mind, then, then that's much harder and you'll need a lot of energy just to get yourself to do it and to complete it. So I do go for a run from time to time, and this is if I want a decent time or so. I kind of have to negotiate with myself every single step. I have to— I need mental energy every single step. And what we've tried to do, and I think we've succeeded, is something that takes that mental load away and makes it very, very easy to get. Yeah, I mean, I can say with confidence the most efficient cardiorespiratory fitness workout that you could get.

So yeah, and this isn't to say I love running, I love fitness classes, I love strength training, but ultimately when I'm thinking about this, even through a longevity lens, when we look at the Blue Zones, none of the people, the centenarians, are talking about the hours at the gym, the hours of cardio, the hours of lifting. It's really about daily movement. And this is where VO2 max gets very exciting. So you said something important around the guidance around it and tracking performance moving forward. So yeah, when I first started the 20— the 5— the 5 minutes, did it feel challenging? Yeah, I guess I didn't break a sweat or anything, but it definitely was more challenging if I was going to maintain the capacity of the guided breathwork. And then with practice, I'm noticing that my exhales, even after a sprint, can kind of— I can endure them a little bit better, and it keeps me a little bit more motivated to do more. And to your point, like, who doesn't have 5 minutes? So It was intentional for you to have this like AI backing to it then, right? And how far along did you get before you recognized that that was kind of essential to what you could offer?

So we, we came across the, the science of re:hit, oh, back in 2012. So this is quite a long time now. And, um, this was on a BBC science program. And I, I fell in love with it. Very first time I texted my co-founders like, oh, you have to watch this. I went to an exercise equipment store the very next day to buy myself a good exercise bike, good stationary exercise bike, because I wanted to do this. They had showcased the effectiveness, explained the science, and it was like, oh my God, I must do this myself. And then when I tried it at home, it was unfortunately nothing like what they've described.

What they talked about? Yeah.

So they had presented it as something that's really easy to do. You don't even break a sweat. And which we— so this is true for about 9 out of 10 people.

Yeah.

So you're clearly, from what you've just said earlier, amongst the ones that don't sweat. We don't give a written promise and guarantee on that because some people just sweat very, very easily.

Exactly.

But most people don't sweat. And that it was generally just a very effective, yeah, easy to do workout. And it was just nothing like it. And we called the scientists and they said like, what's happening? And they invited us to their labs and said like, oh no, we can show you. And literally the first thing they said was, well, you need a special bike.

Oh, little detail.

Little detail. I wish you would have said that before I went. And so in their labs, they had bikes that were research equipment, $10,000, $15,000 each, and that were operated by a lab technician. So you had somebody doing the workout and a lab technician operated the bike, making sure that the optimal resistance is applied. At the perfect timing very rapidly.

Yeah.

And that's just not practical for mass market. So if you want to make a difference for many, many people, you can't try to sell bikes that require a technician next to them.

Right.

And, and so it was literally just a necessity that we thought, oh, if we want this in a consumer-friendly version, it has to be fully automated and it has to be personalized and it has to adjust because people are not like— if you work out, you can make massive gains. You can. So the average improvement in VO2 max in the first 8 weeks is about 12%. And that's very, very significant for such a fundamental health marker. Over 20 weeks, around 20%. And then people go on some 30, 40, even 50% if they stick with it for a year.

Wow.

So you, you get very significant improvements. So the bike also has to adjust as you get fitter and stronger. And so that was fascinating. There was just an issue that needed a solution and that's, that's how it came about. And we can do that with algorithms, we can do that with AI, with neural networks. Because we have, yeah, millions of rides from tens of thousands of users, we can then tailor each workout so it's optimal for somebody just like you. Yeah, in that moment. And so that, that makes it just as simple as it can be and as effective and as efficient as it can be.

Yeah, that's what's so cool about it too, because you can track your performance right after ride. But let's be honest, if I didn't have that AI-generated aspect to it. It's kind of like when, you know, if you used to go to the spin classes with the instructor and 30 people in a class and they say to put it up to get to a certain cadence, most people would never go as hard as they possibly could, right? So this having a cadence that's set to meet you where you're at, but progressively gets more intense over time without you having to move a dial or think about it, is something that's pretty spectacular.

And I would say I mean, there's— deceptive is the wrong word, but to some extent our bike makes it very, very easy to push to your limit. And I would say initially you don't even notice you're there. So it works. You accelerate at a really low resistance to a high pedal speed, high cadence. Then your personalized optimized resistance kicks in and you hit your peak power after 3 or 4 seconds.

Yeah, yeah.

And at that time everything feels still completely fine. The first 10 seconds actually feel, at least in my experience, and that's what I hear from, from our users, first 10 seconds feel entirely fine.

Yeah.

And then 10 to 15 seconds, it gets harder and then the last 5 seconds I really have to push. And that, that does get hard and your heart rate races. But it's 5 seconds where you, where you have to push through and you, you, you know, it's going to be over in a second and you feel the benefits and you feel it's a workout. And so that's— I think if you are on another bike, you, you would find it virtually impossible to actually push to that intensity level unless you're tracking it.

But with this, what's— to your point, knowing that even there's— if there's one more interval to go, you push yourself a little bit harder because you know it's going to be finished faster. Yeah. So can you share more for people who just want to go know more about the science? There's obviously like this adaptation period that happens. What is that? Adaptation. Like there's something happening at a cellular level that you discovered. Sure. To only have these 3 intervals in that ride, right?

Yeah. So the— and this is actually— so the endpoint is quite similar both for an hour-long run and these 2 20-second sprints. So you want to— or you activate a certain adaptation pathway and release certain signaling molecules. And there are different ways to do that. In REHIT on a CAROL bike, we activate the AMPK pathway. So what happens is in the sprints, you, you create this emergency situation or you simulate it and the energy demand versus rest shoots up by about a factor of 100. So you create very, very short term, a really acute energy crisis. Your body is like, oh, I need loads of energy. And so in response to that, this aerobic system could not provide that level of energy that quickly. So your body releases it's emergency energy reserve. That's glycogen. So storage form of sugar stored in the muscles and it releases, it mobilizes lots and lots of them. So in your biggest muscle groups, your glutes and your thighs, you mobilize about 25 to 30% of the stored glycogen. That's in— that's a phenomenal amount of energy.

Absolutely.

That's, that's much more than you actually burn through in those to 20-second sprints. And this is partly because your body doesn't know what hits him in that sense. Yeah. Whether it has to prepare for— it just sees this massive increase in energy demand and it wants you to be ready. So it releases, it mobilizes lots and lots of glycogen and bound to the glycogen and then mobilized with it is AMP.

Yeah.

And that gets activated to AMPK, which then activates what's called PGC-1α, which is your body's master regulator for mitochondrial biogenesis. And so this is how two 20-second sprints can trigger a really strong signal to your body to build more larger and more efficient mitochondria. And so that gives you mitochondria, the powerhouses of our cell, what helps us burn oxygen. That gives you just so much more energy and increases your VO2 max.

It's so important because we talk about these modalities through, you know, things like fasting for hard, long, and challenging times. And this is another way to prove to us, I guess it's almost like you're igniting mitochondrial function to be more productive long-term, right? Which is essentially what we want to do in a world where mitochondrial function is going down the tube because of our modern-day practices. Here's a way of movement to ignite that. And what's, what's really interesting too is, as you were speaking, I'm just thinking about like nervous system regulation too, which is another hot topic. We would never associate cardiovascular exercise with nervous system regulating, but you're training your nervous system to go through these periods of intensity and then to relaxation. And as I think of that also, do you know that's actually the entire inspiration around yoga, the type of yoga that I grew up with? In hatha yoga, if anyone's ever been to the Sivananda Ashram, we don't go through like a flow series where we go, go, go, go, go for 50, 60 minutes. We do a pose, we hold it, it feels challenging, and then we go into shavasana. Shavasana, and then we do another pose and then we go into shavasana. And the reason the teachers of the swamis told us that we did that is that we have to train our bodies to go out into the world when we have intensity, but to not get stuck in that dysregulated state. So my cheeks are very happy learning about this. Okay, so you're merging that wisdom then, which I guess is something kind of ancestral, like our bodies were never meant to go through long periods of intensity. It causes a really high stress response over time at a time where most of us are feeling too much stress.

Exactly that. Exactly that. So, or let me put it this way, our bodies at least also react very, very strongly to having these hormetic stresses. So short adverse situations where your body realizes, oh, I have to grow fitter, I have to grow stronger. And important is just that you don't overdo those because then it's— it becomes a negative stimulus and it becomes stressful and becomes overtraining. But with these 2x20 seconds all out, it's actually— I mean, it's the— it's in the name, reduced exertion, high-intensity interval training, because the overall load is so low. It's very well tolerated and you recover really quickly, but it's enough to trigger and in fact saturate this adaptation pathway. And there is some fascinating stuff, some of which is not 100% understood. But so naturally many people think like, oh, more is better. And now I'm going to be good. I'm going to be— do not I'm not going to do 2 20-second sprints. I'm going to do 4. I'm going to do 6. And I'm not going to do 20-second sprints. I'm going to do 40-second sprints. Now, so the science is clear that doing more and longer sprints does not lead to better results. Wow. And the data is indicative. So that's slightly lower confidence levels, but that's what the data seems to suggest, that doing more and longer sprints actually gives worse results.

Wow.

And so what our academic partners, the researchers we work with, presume is that psychology kicks in there. So if you know you have to do two 20-second sprints, that's actually short enough to really push yourself to your limits, especially if you have a bike like Carol bike.

Yeah. Yeah.

That, that makes it really easy to push yourself to your limits. If you know you have to do 6 sprints and there are 6 intervals and they're like 40, 50, 60 seconds long, you pace yourself, you know, you dial it back. You don't go 100%. Intensity, you go 80% or 90%, and the overall exertion and the stress you put your body under would be much higher. You definitely sweat. Yeah, but because you're not getting that same powerful signal in, you actually get less benefits from it. So that's, yeah, a curious and really quite fascinating finding that, yeah, I like to emphasize and like to tell because that's really counterintuitive. People would naturally think, oh no, I'm going to do 5, but that's not how you get optimal results. Optimal results is here. You do 2, but you push really hard.

I was one of those people. I just thought, I wish I could just extend it and I'll get more bang for my buck and I'll get results faster. But this is what I mean. This is part of the, like, the deep conditioning that we all have towards doing more, going harder, going faster, going longer. It's wild. It's so not good.

But you can retrain yourself. Of course. So, of course, just, just pick a different number if you want to hit a new whatever peak power every time you hop on the bike.

Yeah.

Go for intensity. Don't go for, oh, I want to do like more and more intervals or sprints or work out for longer. No, that's not— do like short workout sessions, but really purposefully and with maximum intensity. And then that is a way to get like most efficient workout. Now, there are effective other workouts. So there's, of course, there's many ways how you can go about it. There's other effective workouts and there are people who love long endurance sports, who love going for a run, who love to go hiking. Like here, if I look out the window, it's wonderful. That's— but then you also satisfy other needs. And so if you're— if you want optimal cardiorespiratory and metabolic health benefits from your workout in minimal time. So if you, if you want maximum efficiency, this is the way to do it. If you enjoy being with your spin instructor and having fantastic music and, and the— yeah, there are other reasons why longer exercise very clearly has its, its place. And everybody who enjoys that, I commend them. It's wonderful. Keep doing it. Unfortunately, That's very, very few people. Most people in Western countries sadly don't, or I agree, somehow it falls by the wayside. And so for those people, for, yeah, the majority, we needed a different solution.

Look, I'm sure if I were to ask every listener right now if they're experiencing consistent daily stress, most people would probably say yes. And yet we think that we have to go attack ourselves at the gym, and that just leaves us depleted going out more depleted into our day-to-day lives. And there are settings on the CAROL bike that— other settings that you can use, which is great. I have a beautiful view, so I love being on it, and I put my nightclub on my music on my— but for me, going back to the power of the breath, when I'm doing my VO2 max training 3 times a week, I'm genuinely curious at how I can progress, because that, for me, I don't know, it's like I'm proving to myself that I'm, I'm gonna add— I have the capacity to add years to my life. When you first started, do Remember how long it took you to be able to acclimate to the breathwork and the full exhales? The first ride I was—

So I shall say, and even today. Yeah, because the, the breath pacer is adaptive. It adjusts to your heart rate.

Yeah.

And it's meant to be slightly challenging. So I find it even after many, many rides also still challenging to follow. Because we want to give the direction and get people to focus on mindful, regular breathing with long, with an exhale focus, because that helps. So therefore it is slightly challenging. I don't, I'm not surprised.

I'm so happy you said that. I was like, am I doing it right? That's great. But to your point, yeah, I'm taking these audible sighs to try to regulate faster. Which is really inspiring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It feels really special. Okay. So let's talk about VO2 max and why it matters so much. I have a full confession. I thought that when we started seeing people on social media with VO2 max training trending and putting the mask on, I thought that there was oxygen coming through the mask, that people were breathing in oxygen. I thought, oh my God, that sounds great. I get to oxygenate my runs while I push myself. No. It was restricting my capacity to breathe in. So can you tell us a little bit how this is important for longevity? And you've touched base a little bit on it, but why should this be a part of our day-to-day life or 3 times a week life? Where is this? What is the data saying?

Yeah, sure. So first, VO2 max. If you just look at all the different health markers and correlate them to life expectancy. VO2 max is the strongest predictor of life expectancy. It's the strongest correlate to life expectancy. And that's— so a lot goes into VO2 max that's really foundational for your health, for your fitness, for your wellness. So there's, there's two sides to it. There's One side is oxygen delivery. So that's having strong lung, having a strong heart that the heart is able to beat, to pump a good amount or like more blood with each heartbeat, having good capillarization of your muscles. So that's all getting oxygen to the muscle. One important Oh, that's, that's one half of VO2 max. And the scientific studies show that Rehit and the workouts on Carrow Bike improve that, improve the cardiac peak flow. So your heart gets fitter and stronger and is able to pump more blood with each stroke. One side. The other side is, is oxygen consumption. So That is how our cells are able to burn, to metabolize oxygen. And that happens all in the mitochondria. And that's— yeah, those are the powerhouses of our cells that help give us energy and not just energy for exercise, but energy for life, for everything. Yeah. And so Rehitt and these very short workouts are very, very effective and efficient to send a really powerful signal to build more larger and more efficient mitochondria. And that, yeah, improves VO2 max. It gives you then the ability and, and has this profound effect. And there are a few other things just to illustrate or describe the importance of VO2 max. There's one, and those are studies with tens of thousands of participants that have shown that there are more avoidable deaths from low cardiorespiratory fitness, so low VO2 max, than smoking, obesity, and diabetes combined.

Oh my goodness.

Combined.

The top three.

Yeah. So, and that's where I think sometimes we collectively get it wrong why we exercise. Because if you ask people why they exercise, it's probably, oh, because I should lose some weight, I exercise. Yes, that's important. And I totally understand and totally get it. But the benefits are so much beyond just weight loss or weight management. And if you want to lose weight, it's really all about nutrition and Exercise is a helpful adjunct to that, but it's, it's really food first.

Yes.

And the other thing is, so a 10% improvement in VO2 max for the vast majority of us would equate to gaining 2 years of healthy life expectancy. And now, now think about that. You can achieve that in 8 weeks with 2 to 3 workouts that can be as short as 5 minutes. You get that on average 12%. So more than that. Now, one thing that— that's why adherence is so important.

Of course, right?

You have— that's, that's a routine, a habit you have to build and stick to. And that's why it's so important to have something that you can adhere to that fits into your daily life. But so with, with very minimal time investment, you get, I mean, really quite fantastic returns.

Yeah.

So, so 2 years more healthy life expectancy and higher, like just greater fitness that, that you feel. So it's not a subtle thing.

It's massive rewards.

Yeah. It's something very, very something you can very clearly feel.

You are talking my language, and I love that you've got the science to back this up, because here's what I think we're missing the mark on when it comes to overall health. No one's talking about cellular health, and mitochondrial health is like starting to come online. There's some fabulous mitochondrial companies that are out there, but when we think about this being such a massive marker for optimizing our cellular health, our mitochondrial health for aging— so 5 minutes, 2 to 3 times once a week, capacity to add 2 years to your life. Who doesn't have that time, right? And so one is the cellular health. I can't wait for the day we can see what's happening inside of our bodies. Like, if we see the mitochondria as we're going through VO2 max training, it'll be so cool. People will be so engaged to want to optimize, right? But also, when we're thinking about the why behind health, life happens. We're all going to go through periods of intensity where we fall off this elusive wagon. I hate that expression, but life happens. But to know that this is a capacity that you can come back to over and over again. And if this 5 minutes— gosh, you could do 5 minutes and then whoever else is in your household, get them to do 5 minutes right after you. And all of a sudden it becomes a ritual for your entire family that you're working towards something together. So we get to that why. We talk about longevity, but who the hell wants to live a really long life if we don't have our loved ones around us, or if we're not feeling our best, or if we're filling the nursing homes and the hospital beds and the breaks and the fractures, like, no thank you. But that's the reality of our healthcare system today. We have a sick care system. And here's a really simple modality, like, can we get Carol Bikes in hospitals? Can we? Like, what's next?

I mean, that's where we came from. That's in many ways, that's our origin story. Because we were at the time. So I'm a mechanical engineer.

A little bit, I heard about your story. So let's share a little bit about that for the inspiration.

So I'm by training a mechanical engineer and initially worked— I'm from Germany, I live in London, but stereotypically I worked for German carmakers. I think all the big ones. And but then most of my professional life before founding and developing CaroBike was spent in healthcare. So working with hospitals, working with payers, how to make patient care better and more effective. And the number one thing is prevention there, like preventing people from getting sick has the biggest impact. And so we, we did lots of things, quite advanced things at the time, using machine learning and AI to identify which interventions would benefit which patients most. And developed programs for people with heart disease, with diabetes, and so on. And despite all the, you know, cutting-edge technology and analytics, the truth was just the number one intervention that would benefit most people most was exercise.

Exercise.

But we couldn't get them to do it. So this is literally even if the doctor prescribes it, and says you have to exercise more, people don't do it. And that's why coming across the science of Rehit was such, such a lightbulb moment because I thought, oh my God, this could actually work. This could make a real difference to the question, why don't people exercise more? We know all the benefits, but why are we not doing it more? And yeah, so that's where we came from. And over time switched our focus entirely towards developing interactive AI-powered exercise equipment rather than trying to work with our healthcare system to, you know, prescribe the right medications at the right time and just kind of intervene more upstream and try to prevent Prevent more rather than treat later.

I think a lot of people, especially the second they get to a hospital and they're told that they could spend 5 minutes on a bike in front of them, would be way more motivated than maybe the conditioning that they have around having to go to the gym or do something they don't like or move for 30 minutes to 60 minutes. Like, yeah, just the education happening at a different level, right, would be fascinating.

Yes. There is something. If I look at our users, at our customers, so our sweet spot is 45 to 65. Now, they're younger users. There's no lower age limit. My kids use it. That's— and there's no upper age limit either. But I think there's something around 40 or so that happens where people approach exercise just in a completely different way. So in your 20s or in your teens, exercise is all about looking good in a swimsuit. Yeah, I think that's what it is. Yeah. Or if you're an athlete to compete, that's obviously the other thing. So I don't know, sometimes mid-30s, 40, it happens earlier or later for different people. You start to think about exercise in a more purposeful way and you have clearer, like, health improvement goals, really.

Yeah.

And then having, having scientifically backed workouts that are really efficient because you care about the results you're getting, is just more relevant. And that's where I think there is a good match between what we do and what people actually need and want.

I agree. I think about two parts as you're speaking. One, your kids hopping on. I grew up in the kill it with cardio generation and, you know, it started with a 20-minute workout, but then it was all cardio, cardio, cardio. And to think about, you know, younger girls and boys growing up to think that, like, to really just know how to crack the code on this thing, right? They're seeing a world where diabetes and obesity and cardiovascular disease is on the rise. My kids going to visit my mom in the hospital, um, you know, after major reconstructive surgery was like, wow, what is happening? This is old age. And I was like, no, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be this way. We do things differently now. So I think that's the awareness there. But I think also, you know, We're living in an era now where there's a push towards strength training and weightlifting, which is valid for sure. But again, no centenarians are benching their body weight, right, to stay alive. Um, find me one person who doesn't feel better after doing some cardiovascular exercise, right? Because it also works on your endorphin system. And to now have the science to back it in such little time, I think is so fascinating. It's really changing the trajectory of the future with with movement and health and preventative healthcare. Coming from Germany, that's probably a term that they use a little bit more often than here. Even in Toronto, where I'm from, I don't know that I would call it healthcare. It's a lot more sick care than healthcare.

I, I think many Western societies share that. I don't think you, you can— I, I've not seen one that gets it perfect, right? So that doesn't exist.

We're getting there. That's why we're having these conversations. Yeah. So tell us, everyone wants to know then, what is your routine like on a weekly basis? Are you doing just the 5 minutes 3 times a week? What do you— what does it look like for you?

So that's the anchor point. Yes. And in fact, for me, that's in terms of cardio, largely it. And I think that's a very— it's a very efficient, very effective baseline. And if people think about what they should be doing and how they allocate their precious time. I don't think there's any other activity that gives greater ROI, greater return on the time spent. So that's the first. Now you've mentioned I am a believer in strength training as well.

Of course. So it also feels good.

So there's, there's two elements to it. One is Yes, having good muscle mass and good strength is actually also really— yeah, it's an important thing. And not just for men, for women as well. So I would try to just do alternating days. One day a short cardio session, the other day a slightly longer, but trying to keep it also to not more than 15 minutes strength session. 5 different whole body exercises where you move multiple joints. And I would— my advice, what works well for me is just single rep, but then also trading intensity for time. So trying to really do that, that not single rep, sorry, single set.

Single set.

I got my words mixed up there. To really do that single set to failure.

Right.

That's, that's how I like to train. And I think it's a very efficient way to, in that single set, choose the weights so that, yeah, you really push until you can't anymore. Yeah. And then occasionally, not all the time, every time I go for a run because I think it's also good for the joints to put some, some load on them. And then more, I guess, like hiking. Hiking is something I love and would do as much as I can. Holidays for sure. So I'm from the very south of Germany. We love hiking in the Alps. It's wonderful. And there. So here's the thing. Obviously going for a day hiking, that's a relatively low intensity. But you being in nature, being with family, there's so many other benefits. Yeah, that— and it's really joyful. So that's where I totally get that. Yes. Long, low-intensity workouts have their place if it is something you enjoy. And then, yeah, wonderful. That's a win-win too.

You just said it, what you enjoy. I hope that's a big takeaway for people today. And also, if you know that you're getting these VO2 max benefits with just 5 minutes, 3 times a week, it gives you a lot of time to commit to other things, right? Exactly that.

Like, you get a lot of time back to spend on the things you love and with the people you love. And that's, that's, I think, a big win.

I typically will walk my dog. That's my warm-up, getting up this mountain, up and down this mountain, hop on my Carol bike. And on those days, 3 days a week, I'll go and I'll do some heavy lifting as well. But again, only for 30 minutes or so. Nothing that really kills me, but it feels really good for for me. I really enjoy it, and I hope that listeners find the movement that you love to do, because then you'll be consistent. You're not going to become sedentary. And more than anything, you fall in love with how it makes you feel afterwards, and that's when the consistency game comes in, which is exactly what you started with. Can you shed some light a little bit on— I know you've got a nice story about your mother and aging. What does her movement look like now? I want to share this.

Yeah, I mean, she— my mom is— she's sold. Yeah, she's, she's, she's just turned 83 and she, she might be one of our most frequent users.

Wow.

So because so one, it's a, it's a great way to get efficient cardio workout in little time. So, so the results, but also just the routine. So She probably does it more than every other day and hooks really onto— I would have not thought that in the beginning— getting her metrics and pushing herself. Then she texts me almost after every ride, kind of, that she got a new power, a best power or so. And so that's, yeah, something for every age group. And we can do that because it's so personalized and, and we have the AI to make it a very efficient, very effective workout. Yeah. For, for rugby players and, and athletes in their prime and for somebody who's in their 80s and, and not anymore in, in their prime, but still wanting to have a really efficient workout.

And with everything that we're learning around mitochondrial function at that age, to do whatever you can to be optimizing the health of your cells, like you're creating more years of vitality versus years of illness. I'm so happy you shared that story. Gosh, at 83, that's incredible. Yeah.

And she's not our oldest user. We have older users.

Wow.

For sure. But she's definitely very committed.

Yeah. Incredible. Is that part of your forecasting? I don't know. I'm getting so excited just, I guess, because my parents are aging as well. And after seeing the hospitals, hospitals, nursing homes, you know, I just wondered if they knew about the science. One bike that somebody could use for 5 minutes and how many people could get on that for a day would just be so, so powerful.

So we have bikes in hospitals. And in fact, this type of workout has been also studied with really at-risk populations.

So we—

our advice is if you have preexisting conditions, of course, to— and to some extent we have to give that advice. There's no way around it. Yeah. To check with your doctor whether it's suitable for you. But we have our bikes with universities, with hospitals where it is used with at-risk populations and to good effect. So where it's shown that it's well-tolerated and safe and improves cardiovascular fitness, even if you have other health conditions. So yeah, I think and I hope that we'll have bikes like ours in those facilities. Yeah, there's still— so we're— there's a long journey behind us and there's still a long journey in front of us. Very clearly and telling people about it. That's so you're doing a really important mission here in a way to help us communicate this because it's such a great misconception and so entrenched long-held beliefs that we have to overcome that it is possible to get these profound fitness benefits in such short amount of time that many people come with a great deal of skepticism.

Of course. It's an honor. And look, I researched so much into the bike because I needed the evidence as well to commit to it, but also it felt too good to be true.

Oh my God. That's what we hear so much. I mean, this is— we talk to our customers and this is almost parody. I spoke to one gentleman who was like, oh, I've heard about your bike, but I didn't believe it. It was too good to be true. Then I went to your website and read all the science pages on it. Yeah, but I was still skeptical. And then I read all the scientific papers, like the primary sources. I still couldn't quite believe it. So I bought one.

Yeah.

To see it for myself. And it works.

And it works.

So there's, there's, there's really quite a threshold to come over.

It's, but it's also just It's like turning a switch on the second you get it, you get it and you're fully enrolled. When we speak so much about, you know, waking up and feeling our best and optimizing our health. And as we've talked about just the why behind why we want to do this well and how we want to age. I think a CAROL bike should be the number one investment for everyone's house. Get it as a gift for somebody that you love. You met my husband Craig. It's such a ritual for us now that makes us feel very empowered. And when our kids see us riding the bike, we tell them that it's because we want to be around for when you guys have kids, and then they're inspired to kind of get on. It is purpose. Yeah. So I think it's a really big deal and we're going to link out everything in our show notes for people to tap in. I think we came up with code Mona so people can log on and do some, some more research and get a discount on their order. Check out carolbike.com because the studies are there and the data and the testimonials and how to use it and the video. Like, it's all there for you. So it's an incredible product. After this conversation, having this conversation at the studies, you know, looking at the studies that you look at, I love that you said earlier, for somebody who wants to lose weight, you know, it's food first, right? More than movement. But when I think about longevity goals health goals, cardiovascular goals, metabolic health goals. It's movement. It's movement first before I would even like nutrition obviously is very important. But I think sleep, movement, nutrition is the order that it has to go in. And that's exactly how I work with my clients on.

I think you're entirely right. I think you're entirely right. And that's, it's great to hear that from a nutritionist. And sometimes the simple things are the hardest. So I think I'm okay. No, I'm good on movement. Yeah, I'm good on nutrition. Sleep, I could do a lot better. And that should be the simplest thing.

I know.

And it's still— that's for me the hardest one to work on. And then traveling.

Of course. Gosh, you were just in a different time zone yesterday. You're going to a different one tomorrow.

Yeah, exactly. That messes up. Up things.

Absolutely.

And it's unhelpful. But yes, often it is the simple things that have the biggest impact. And think about it.

Yeah.

But I can— and to be honest, I don't understand myself that well either. But sleep is something that has like a very immediate feedback loop. Bad night's sleep, you feel terrible the next kind of pray that the day passes and that nighttime arrives. And somehow we still manage to get that wrong. With exercise, it's the feedback loop is a little bit longer. So you have to— there's obviously like an endorphin kick and you feel that sense of accomplishment once you've done it, but it needs like 2, 3 weeks, 4 weeks. And then once you've done it for like a period, that's absolutely— you feel it. But the feedback loop is slightly longer. So, and I think that's part of the reason why 95% of people don't get enough exercise because it's not like if something as immediate as sleep doesn't— isn't strong enough to change our behavior, then something with like slightly delayed feedback loop is even harder.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And it's even harder to overcome all these things that have like instant gratification and instant dopamine hits, be it, be it the junk food that's like hyper well-tasting.

Yeah.

Or the apps and, and whatever.

The distractions.

Yeah, exactly.

The rabbit hole. Yeah, that we talked about. Yeah, it's a good point. You know, the reason why sleep and movement, I'm putting them first, because if somebody's feeling better or if they have that endorphin rush from movement, they're more likely to make better decisions.

Absolutely.

But here's where my job is so important, because if my client has accountability with me, and I'm saying this, everyone listening can have accountability with someone. You don't have to hire a coach. You can find someone to be accountable with. Using your schedule like it's your boss is the greatest predictor of long-term health, right? You schedule your Carol bike rides Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you know that it's scheduled and you've got the time in there, you will make the time for it, especially if the why is big enough to commit to it, right? After about week 2, you start to feel a difference from having that as a ritual, and all of a sudden you're moving a little bit more. You're more inspired to maybe pick up some weights. You're, you're going to make a better decision. You're not going to have the burger. You're going to get, you know, something else to eat at lunch. So it's a cyclical effect. And this is something that I think that our ancestors knew of. They knew the power of movement, right? Can you share maybe as we wrap things up, you know, you must see customer reviews all the time. Are there reviews that surprise you? Like maybe about the psychological benefits or stories around clients, like something maybe that was unexpected?

A story from a customer, um, which I think ties in with what we discussed earlier. He told us, he wrote to us, and it's like, oh, I love my Carol bike and I can feel it, but I'm having a really hard time to explain it to my friends and to explain it to my siblings. The one person who got it immediately was my cardiologist because he could see the results. Wow. Yeah. So, and that was a gentleman well into his 70s who sent us that. Exactly. That, that he, and he didn't have kind of at his fingertips all the studies and statistics that we can discuss here. So, so when he tried to explain it to his friends, he hit a barrier, but his cardiologist saw it. He saw the results.

Incredible.

And so was sold on it immediately and convinced. So yeah, that was a good story. And we're obviously working on it. And that's why we're having these conversations to spread the word and spread the message.

It's incredible. The number one biomarker that I see come back with inflammation are cardiovascular markers, right? Small dense particle sizes, triglycerides being high, family history of heart disease that can be prevented, right? Heart disease can be prevented. We have a cardi— there was a cardiologist on here a few days ago and he just said like most cases are preventable. Here you are with the science around VO2 max with reduced exertion HIIT training, which everyone can commit to. Everyone has 5 minutes, 3 times a week. I'm such a big fan. I'm so grateful for you to come out here. I'm so grateful that I found you guys. And it's funny that, um, that story, I'm going to do my labs and see what my cardiovascular scores are as I was trying to get my best friend in Toronto to understand it. She's like, what? What do you mean? It doesn't make any sense to me because she still thinks she has to push herself really, really hard. All right, Ulrich, thank you so much. Tell me, what is something about the future either around, you know, the stats that you're seeing or in the science or around Carole Bike? What are you most excited about right now?

One thing I am excited about is how, you know, AI and our more quantified self can bring things together and help us get better workouts, better routines, better health and wellness. So I think technology and how we— what we know about our bodies and how it's brought together to deliver highly personalized workouts, be it cardio training, be it strength training, be it mobility training, stability training. There's some really cool stuff on the horizon. Like, I've seen some first things, like where people develop, you know, shoes that can track what you do and kind of new wearables that, you know, not rings, not watches. And that can all then help make it easier and hopefully get us there. That it just becomes simple and relatively effortless to do.

AI for good, right? More of that. I would have loved to integrate Carol Bike into the Mona Health AI platform as well. So let's have a conversation around that. Please share this episode with a loved one, somebody who you want to live a really long, beautiful life full of vitality and optimal cellular health. Carolebike.com, lots of research there. Code Mona Sharma. My audience never really hears me get excited about, you know, products like this, but I genuinely have a deep love affair with the Carole bike. So thanks for being here.

Thank you so much. Yeah, that was a real pleasure.