Dr. Vonda Wright

So if we talk about sprint interval training, the 30 seconds on and the two to three minute recovery, the reason why we want that super high end stress of our heart rate is

is it then creates eventual epigenetic change.

So it's that environment that's going to create a change within the muscle that's going to allow that GLUT4 protein that I mentioned earlier to open up and have glucose come in, reducing insulin resistance.

Also, with that really high, high heart rate, we're having a lot of stress on the muscle that's going to release some myokines, which are

little hormone signals that then will go to the liver and say, wait a second, we don't need to store visceral fat.

We need to create non-esterified fatty acids, which can then go into our skeletal muscle to be used in the mitochondria as fuel.

So we want to have the stress that's strong enough to create these cascades of feedback mechanisms to improve our overall health.

If we stay in that moderate intensity zone, we aren't creating a strong enough stress to create that signaling.

What are we doing?

We are exacerbating inflammation.

We're exacerbating cortisol.

Now, cortisol isn't the demon, but when we have an elevation of it, and especially in perimenopause, when we're sympathetically driven and we already have a higher level of baseline cortisol, if we are continuously in this moderate intensity zone, we never get a signal to allow that to drop.

So if we're looking at polarizing, which is top, top end and low recovery end, then with the top end, we get the signal cascade of improving body comp, improving insulin sensitivity, as well as getting growth hormone and testosterone responses, which then feed back to drop cortisol.

So we look at the quality of the training, not the volume of the training.

So if we're in our reproductive years, then yes, you can do the moderate intensity stuff because you have estrogen and some of our other hormone feedback signals that are going to drop cortisol.

It's going to allow your body to recover and repair.

So this is your polar.

So you have a very specific session that you're going to do.

So for Vonda, it's your 30 seconds on as hard as possible, two to three minutes recovery.

Do that four times at your session.