Rhonda Patrick

And we can talk a little bit more about this when we get into that part.

I mean, it's very hard and there's a lot of surprising aspects of it that I didn't quite expect after I really started engaging in that.

But it helps to have a coach or certainly even just going to a class, right, where there is a coach.

It doesn't have to be a personal trainer, but whatever it is that you have decides best for you.

With that said, I would like to move on to some of the metabolic effects and adaptations that occur with aerobic exercise.

So fundamental to metabolic health is mitochondrial health and mitochondria.

For most people who aren't aware of what these are, they're little tiny organelles that are inside of our cells.

Most of our cells, with the exception of red blood cells, that are creating energy from the food that we eat, carbohydrates, fatty acids.

They're very important for a variety of metabolic functions and everything from neurotransmitter synthesis, brain function, to muscle function, to cardiac function, or mitochondria at the center of everything.

So you really want to do what you can to preserve and improve mitochondrial health.

There's a lot of interest in improving mitochondrial health and what types of training protocols are best for improving mitochondrial health.

And when Dr. Martin Kabbalah was on the podcast, I was asking him about high-intensity interval training and how that compared to more of a Zone 2-like continuous exercise type of training in terms of improving mitochondrial health.

And he basically said that when the volume of exercise is kept the same,

That mitochondrial density, so this is mitochondrial biogenesis, which is the creation of a new mitochondria, was actually better after high-intensity interval training than more zone 2, low to moderate-intensity type of training, when the volume of exercise was the same.

Now, again, as we mentioned earlier, you're most of the time going to be doing a larger volume of exercise of the zone 2 type of training versus high-intensity interval training.

So it becomes a more time-efficient way of getting some similar benefits, metabolic benefits and mitochondrial benefits, as a Zone 2 type of training would get.

So with respect to mitochondrial biogenesis, mitochondrial density, also a process known as mitophagy.

So this is the...

clearing away of damaged mitochondria.

As we age, our mitochondria become damaged.