Cardio and Heart Attacks
Did you hear what happened?
-No...
So-and-so is DEAD. It just happened yesterday!
-What happened?
Heart attack.
-Damn...
Ive had the above conversation many times. In fact, one of the unique experiences of my career in fitness is how many people in my network have died prematurely. Charles Poliquin, strength coach legend in the industry, died 2018, heart attack My bodybuilding mentor, John Meadows, he passed away from a heart attack in 2021. A strongman that I followed for years and was a ghost mentor, Bud Jeffries, he passed away from a heart attack in 2022. Gustavo Badell, who was a big bodybuilding star when I first started lifting in my teens, he died in 2023. Heart attack. Every year, I know at least 1-3 people who pass away. Almost always, it is from cardiovascular events of some kind.
That might seem paradoxical being a fitness professional, surely my circle would be exceptionally healthy people?
Some of them are, but my relationship circle also contains many bodybuilders, strength athletes, and men who have pushed the proverbial needle in regards to weight and lean body mass. Combined with anabolic steroids and going for long periods of time with total disregard for their health, they set themselves on a path to a premature death.
This is not say that anabolics are inherently unsafe, BUT being of excessive bodyweight relative to your height (BMI), even if you are exceptionally muscular, it is not NOT healthy. Combine that with high blood pressure, poor lipid markers, high systemic inflation, poor sleep, lack of cardio, and you are not going to live a long time.
How do you avoid a heart attack?
Or a better question, how do you get yourself so healthy that you never have one?
The obvious stuff are subjects Ive talked about many times, but cardio is one I want to discuss today 1. Healthy bodyweight and Bodycomp 2. Diet 3. Lift weights 4. Cardio 5. Supplements
Doing CARDIO is a pillar of health.
Thankfully cardio is undergoing a renaissance in popularity, and justifiably so. Cardio can save your life.
From about 2005-2015, there was anti-cardio trend in the fitness industry. Cardio was declared a waste of time. Anything that lasted longer than 20 minutes would make you lose muscle mass. This was popularized in the powerlifting community, and it filtered into bodybuilding and then general fitness. The outcome was that peoples health got worse What people? Anyone that bought into the trend. From about 2010-2013, I never did cardio. Then around 2014 I started to incorporate more running and incline walking. I got leaner, healthier, I changed my views. At the same time this was happening, Concurrent Training rose to prominence Concurrent training, training cardio and lifting both, it became popular. That evolved in Hybrid Training as its called today.
Additionally, Crossfit was at a peak in popularity. CF athletes were strong and cardiovascularly fit. They helped to break the stigma around cardio.
Cardio is Essential for quality and Quantity of Life, But what actually HAPPENS to your body from Cardio?
This is rarely explained. Saying cardio is good for you is nothing helpful, the real question is WHY. So I will break it down. Cardiovascular adaptations from exercise happen quickly, and the body keeps adapting for a very long period of time. Unlike strength/muscle development, cardio also arguably has less of a genetic ceiling. The limiting factor training becomes training volume. To achieve ELITE cardio requires a lot of hours, upwards of 2+ a day (triathletes do cardio in the double digits weekly). However, thats not to say cardio is not worth doing, quite the opposite, practically ANY amount of cardio has health benefits, provided its of sufficient intensity
Cardio Adaptation Continuum All of these effects continuously happen and begin to compound over time. This is why people can go from barely being able to jog for 5 minutes, to running a marathon a year later. So long as training is consistent, your body will keep adapting.
Acute (immediate) adaptations: these happen during and immediately after a single workout session.
- Increased heart rate (heart beats faster)
- Increased stroke volume, more blood is being ejected with each heart beat
- Increased cardiac output, more blood is being pumped per minute
- Vasodilation of blood vessels in working muscles, which is why total body exercise is always best for cardio
Short-term adaptations (days to weeks): as you train consistently, your physiology adapts further. A single month of training will have you feeling upgraded already
- Improved blood volume (plasma volume expansion): 3-5 days your body is making more blood than before
- Increased mitochondrial enzymes: 3-14 days your mitochondria are producing more energy
- Improved endothelial function: 2-4 weeks your endothelium is improving blood flow and delivering more nutrients to different systems, and immune system is getting stronger
Medium-term adaptations (weeks to months): Similar to lifting weights, at 12 weeks of following a disciplined program, you can be at whole new level of cardiovascular fitness and your body will function better than it ever has.
- Increased capillarization: 2-6 weeks, more capillaries are forming
- Improved VO2 max: 4-12 weeks, you can now use more oxygen per minute and have more energy as a result
- Reduced resting heart rate: 2-10 weeks, your stronger heart now has to work LESS hard to move blood around
- Increased blood volume: 2-8 weeks
- Improved stroke volume: 2-12 weeks
Long-term adaptations (months to years): Reaching elite levels of cardio requires multiple years and is a commitment, but the changes are semi-permanent and so long as you do a baseline of training, you can maintain them for a long time into old age.
- Increased arterial elasticity: 3-4 months, heart muscle are more elastic and less likely to ever become stiff (which leads to high blood pressure)
- Further improvements in VO2 max: Ongoing, the longer you train the better your cardio becomes.
START SIMPLE AND BUILD FROM THERE
Ive been posting often on "30 minutes of daily cardio" Much like lifting, simplicity rules. Find something that elevates your HR, and make it a habit
Dont Go at it Alone, Follow a Plan and have a team of people that support you
The older Ive gotten, the more value Ive seen in hiring a coach/expert. Effectiveness, accountability, and no more lost time trying to figure things out yourself
Ive expanded my coaching team, and we are open to take on more clients now.
The fitness industry is no longer about fitness. It's mostly about hedonistic pursuits of ego feeding. And it's shaping the next generation to have a myopic view of what fitness is that is very different from what it used to be about. The majority of the industry appears to have taken the same equipment and activities for the purpose of feeding their ego at the expense of your health (actually being fit). The larger underlying problem is likely lack of proper information and that there isn't any money in working out with minimal equipment. There is money in protein powders and big fitness machines (gyms). So that's what they sell. Most people aren't even aware death from cardiac issues dwarfs cancer by about 2:1. There's no money in a healthy heart. There is money in cancer, so that's what we know.