 First question is from lean queen. Is the fat burning zone a real thing? Oh, man This thing's still around. Yeah, I was queen busy as a trainer and in the You know the late 90s right when I first started one of the first things that we were taught was that there was a Target heart rate zone and the target heart rate zone you want to stay in so that you burned God forbid you like move a little bit Yeah, you want to burn body fat if you go under the target heart, right? You're not doing much and if you go over it you're burning muscle. Yeah. Yeah, and so we would see it was really just a sale Yeah, I'm guilty of using that like crazy. Well, I didn't know though. I believed everything. Yeah. Yeah, exactly I didn't I didn't trainers over adamant about that. No, I'm totally 100% and so I remember one day I was like, you know, I was preaching this and this is how I talked to people on cardio This literally had approached people and be like, oh, hi miss. Yo, are you in your target heart rate zone? What's that? Oh, it's the fat burning zone. You burn more fatty acids. I Thought I felt like you die. Yeah, and I'd sell you know, whatever Later on I actually did some math. This was like maybe a few years later And I said hmm if I train in my because target heart rate is not super high intensity. It's not low intensity It's it's also so moderate It's kind of somewhere in the middle, right? Yeah And what the when you look at the studies what they show is a greater percentage of calories come from fat In a particular zone by the way, it's a super general because it's very different from person to person But within a certain zone you burn more a greater percentage of calories from fat now the percentage difference isn't that big It's like five more percent, right? But we sold it anyway, but then I went and I did the math and I said if I train at moderate intensity and I burn 300 calories and 50% I'm making up a number. Let's say 50% came from fat That's a hundred and fifty calories from fat if I trained at a higher intensity and I train at and I burn Let's say 450 calories, but only 49% or 48% of my calories come from fat Still burning more fat right and then of course when you really learn about calories in versus calories out doesn't matter In fact if you fast and do cardio a greater percentage of your calories will come from fat from stored fat But then if you eat later, it doesn't matter all balances out. So really at the end of the day Doesn't make a big difference now. What is your theory on somebody? Let's say let's take like a competitor for example who is you know hovering and they're coming in there They're final three or four weeks. They are sitting around four or five percent body fat extremely lean and They are being low calorie for the last three four weeks. So they've been in a debt They're constantly in a deficit right now because they're leaning out for a show Is it more advantageous for this person to do high intensity cardio for 30 minutes to an hour versus like walking for 30 minutes I think you know I would love to hear your opinion Adam because you're obviously you competed But but you know instinctually what what I would say is it depends on how depleted and how Stress the person is if they're going into competition. They're probably Super dieted. They've been dieted for a while. They're 4% 5% body fat Yeah, a lot of high intensity cardio probably would overwhelm their system and wouldn't make them look or feel good And here's a thing with 4% body fat a couple pounds of water Looks like you gain 3% body fat. It's such a big difference. So I mean, what's your opinion? So that's my my theory and that I would walk right so I was you go low Yeah, because I'm already the only time that you would catch me doing any sort of intense cardio Is if I was coming from a very fed state if I was high calorie and I was still trying to burn off a lot of Calorie so I didn't put on a bunch of extra body fat or any you have additional calories I'm trying to burn additional calories But when I am in that much of a deficit and I've been that low and I know that I'm that high as stress Meet my theory is okay if the body's got so low of body fat percentage as it is and I'm trying to shave the last bit of it I have no I have no stored energy because I've been depleted for the last three or four days in a row if I go out and do Something extremely intense This is where my body would probably tap into and utilize muscle because it doesn't have a lot of resources And I'm stressing the fuck out of it. So my thought process is okay in that state It makes sense for somebody to use like low intensity or target heart rate type of training and only in that Anybody else you got a client who's 20 pounds overweight or above which is most people that's trying to lose weight It's a calorie game where we want to get as low kids burn as many calories as we possibly can during this period I just look at as another one of those gimmick things that they're gonna hold on to just like we mentioned earlier about epoch I've actually seen a lot of circuit training type of Franchises like back in the day of trying to organize their entire Workouts and everything around this fat burning zone and really trying to make sure everybody kept You know their heart rate down and they didn't want to go too rigorous They wanted to kind of pull people back up and and just maintain this but yeah, it for the most part it was like You know at the end of the day like like you'd said it's a wash like whatever You know your calorie intake is and then your calorie burn at the end of the day It is for everybody else it is for most people for the average person right like everybody like you're talking about the 1% Yeah, when you get down to 4% body fat like every little thing can make you look different This is the big difference is how is it gonna make you look and feel on stage and again? If you're 4% body fat, I've gotten down as low as 5 and I know that I could look like I gained 3% body fat just because my body was holding water right that doesn't happen at 12% body fat Right, you can't tell and my theory is this is that you the body always wants to utilize You know sugar first as fuel right it wants to use that first as the primary source But if you've been running low and you don't have any of that as a source the next primary source is fat Mm-hmm if you don't have very much of that and then in addition of that you push the body really hard My thought is the body will adapt and pair down muscle in that situation Right, so in that situation you are stressing the body. You don't have very much You have no stored energy and fuel you've got very little fat as fuel in there You're already in this thin line and then you're pushing the body addition. It's going to pair down muscle I know a lot of people that think that you know deplete it or they'll do a fasted cardio and then like they'll eat a lot later Yeah, and it's just like it's a wash. No, here's the way you should view cardio View cardio the two different ways one in for health. So okay, I'm gonna do this for health in which case Do the form of cardio that you enjoy the most because you're the most likely to stay consistent doing the one you enjoy the most Don't worry about all these nuances and splitting hairs if you're doing cardio for health, which is a great reason to do it Just do what you enjoy. So if you like hiking, there's your cardio. You like swimming. There you go You like to row. There's your cardio. You like to do, you know, salsa dancing. There's your cardio If you're here's the other way to look at it. It's for athletic Performance if cardio is for athletic performance if you're an athlete and you're doing it to improve your vo2 max or your Performance then you can start to really program it, right? If I want to maximize my vo2 max, then it's much I got to be much more Specific with the kind of training that I do other than that. That's it. That's pretty much it for 99.9% of people listening Everything else don't worry about if it's for health just do your favorite type and you'll be totally fine Well, this is for performance gets this is another reason why I'm like a fan of like, you know You know a slow jog or a walk for your source of kind of cardiovascular training is because that it's more sustainable Yeah, if you or somebody who gets into the like, I'm gonna go get the stairmaster for an hour and just be drenched in sweat and kill yourself Yeah, you might have some motivation for a few months leading up to Vegas or that wedding or whatever like that But the likelihood that you're gonna maintain this Stairmaster for an hour really intense every single day for the rest of your life is very low But you know what I can most certainly discipline myself to walk for an hour like that's whatever you enjoy right exactly