Do your fucking cardio

move or die

Do your fucking cardio.

It’s literally that simple. I can’t even begin to fathom the amount of gym bros and regular people alike who have had their lives cut short all because they neglected one of the most basic rules to life:

“Move or die”

Thousands of years ago, move or die was as real as it got.

Don’t want to keep moving? Some sort of predator might tear you to pieces.
Don’t want to keep moving? Cool, you’ll be stranded in a frozen hell hole and be buried beneath the ice.
Don’t want to keep moving? Shit, enjoy dying from starvation if you can’t hunt down some food.

But we’re spoiled now. Living in a golden age of an abundance of food, information and otherwise general slop. We are at the point where the most effort a human needs to make to get food is to break the dopamine drip hooked up to their brain from TikTok for a whopping five minutes so they can order groceries or Uber Eats.

Cardio, simply put, is probably the closest thing we have to anti aging currently. Sure, you can take some peptides, some supplements, or be as neurotic as Bryan Johnson but none of it can do what a steady regime of cardio can provide.

And this is coming from a gym bro who spent the better part of a decade juiced to the gills who thought:

“I dont have the time for this shit, I’m here to lift”

And how did that turn out for me? Shit, dilated cardiomyopathy diagnosis at 26 years old. Sure, there were other factors at play such as stimulant and alcohol abuse, but I’m not one of the delusional gym bros that think steroids come at zero costs. At the end of the day, your heart is a muscle. And just by applying some broscientist logic we can ascertain that muscles get stronger when you work them. How do you work your heart?

Fucking cardio.

One of the main ways I managed to navigate out of that mess and recover from an ejection fraction just one percent above what is considered the starting of heart failure, is cardio. Relentless, painful, but oddly enjoyable, cardio.

Every single person on this planet can benefit from strict, or at the very least, a consistent cardio routine. Even if you’re someone who despises weights and refuses to lift, cardio should still be employed.

The benefits are nearly endless...

Everyone knows (or should know) how harmful high blood pressure is. Sometimes it’s genetics. Sometimes it’s the slop people eat. Sometimes it’s from cramming an extra CC in your Monday morning pin. Regardless of the cause, it can’t be slept on. The conventional wisdom from any doctor will always be to push pills. This is partly because A) most doctors know literal fuck all about health and nutrition and B) a large portion understands how lifestyle changes can bring dramatic health results, but also understands how fucking lazy most people are. The choice between a pill and actual hard work? I’d wager 90%+ take the pill.

Don’t be that person. While BP meds and beta blockers definitely have their place and are great at treating acute issues (i.e heavy steroid cycle, or damage sustained by years of abuse of juice and drugs), you don’t want to sign yourself up for a lifetime of prescriptions unless absolutely needed. The irony here is that I had a cardiologist tell me high blood pressure would nuke my kidneys long term...

Was he right? Yes.

But if you look into the longterm side effects of most ACE inhibitors for example, they wind up nuking your kidneys in the longterm anyways. Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t. So you might as well make the effort to either get off them, or prevent yourself from needing a prescription in the first place. Easiest and in most cases free way to prevent this?

Doing your fucking cardio.

PUT IN THE WORK

Cardio is what took me from a 110+ RHR with 140/90+ BP, rocking a 39% ejection fraction to 60-70 RHR, 120/70 BP and a 53% ejection fraction. Yes, I did use meds as well. And supplements. But I saw fuck all for improvements over the first year. From there, I doubled down on cardio. The result? Year on year improvements to the above. Do I take meds now? Nope. Just cardio and a solid heart health stack.

For all the brothers in the gym, balls deep in a bulk. That bloated, shitty, tired feeling paired with a bloated, shitty looking physique that we’ve all run into at some point in our lifting careers? You know the feeling. Heartburn kicking in. Digestion is fucked. You pull out your third tupperware container of the day, and begin to question how anyone can get morbidly obese. I’ve been there. You’ve been there. You might be there right now. Such is life on the never ending treadmill of body dysmorphia and a mental disorder disguised as a hobby. It doesn’t need to be like that though.

Simply put, your insulin sensitivity is fucked. Being insulin sensitive means your cells respond to smaller amounts of insulin to do the same job. Insulin acts as a shuttle. If you’ve got high insulin sensitivity, this is a good thing. Insulin will help your body shuttle calories towards muscle glycogen and oxidation. If your insulin sensitivity is fucked and you’re insulin resistant you have higher levels of insulin circulating in your body. This is what happens when the cardio is dropped and the greasy food starts coming in on the tail end of most bulks for the average guy. This means the calories you eat are more likely to be stored as fat, and the reason why so many guys wind up adopting the same frame as the fridge they can’t stay out of. Don’t get lazy.

This runs upstream to your brain as well. Your brain runs on glucose. Those glucose receptors thrive in an insulin sensitive environment. That brain fog you probably felt when you were fat and out of shape, or just let the bulk slide into a permabulk? Yeah, all roads lead back to your fucked up insulin sensitivity. Being insulin resistant primes you for brain fog, slower processing, poor memory, and a reduced ability to focus. Something I’ve personally experienced too many times at the tail of one of many dirty bulks. When you’re insulin resistant, your brain can’t properly use the glucose as fuel. There is a lot of research now indicating that this might even be a cause of Alzheimer’s, referred to as type 3 diabetes. If you’ve ever seen a family member struggle with that shit like I have, you understand how painful it is to watch someone decline and lose themselves completely over time. Just some food for thought, literally..

One of the most underrated benefits of cardio is the fucking discipline it will carve out in you. There’s no need to skirt around the fact that cardio can be hard. Agonizing. Soul crushing. I remember puking, too many times to count trying to keep up with some of my Muay Thai classes and sparring sessions. Even if you do truly enjoy it (you will with time), you’ll often find yourself in a miniature version of hell for the first 5-15 minutes until you get your second wind and your body kicks in gear.

But that’s good. Doing hard things is good.

You don’t need to be a David Goggins running on broken bones, but repeated torture sessions on the stair master or Muay Thai class build mental fortitude, and a discipline muscle in your brain. It’s called the anterior midcingulate cortex. A region of your brain that activates and grows specifically when you do something you don’t want to do. That hard shit. The shit that causes mental friction. That 5 AM workout you just couldn’t give a fuck about as you lay cozy in your warm bed, trying to shut off your fucking alarm. Think of it as the brain’s physical wiring for willpower. The more you train and reinforce this wiring, the more capacity you’ll have to override impulses and push through the hard shit that needs to get done. And that spills out in every area of anyone’s life. A muscle worth training, and maintaining.

There is a form of cardio for everybody.

Many people assume that cardio needs to be something like the following:

Muay thai.
Boxing.
Marathons.
Ultra Marathons.
Circuit Training.

But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. While those activities provide incredible benefits to the body and mind, you don’t need to push the limits of human existence to reap the rewards.

Every journey begins with a single step, so get fucking walking.

ANTI AGING AT ITS FINEST

I have an elderly relative. Let’s call him Old D. Old D is a senior. He’s pushing into his 90’s.

What does the average life look like for most 90 year olds these days?

Assisted living facilities.
Canes.
Walkers.
Motorized wheelchairs.
Literal handfuls of pills just to keep their body operating at a very low state.

Old D?

My man Old D lives by himself. Not only does he live by himself, when you open up the door to his townhouse, you’re met with a steep flight of stairs. A long, steep flight. Old D doesn’t take a single pill. No blood pressure meds. No statins. No antidepressants. Old D takes some basic supplements for his health like fish oils and magnesium. He keeps it simple, and eats simple. Old D is sharp as a tack. Fully there, snappy conversations. No issues with his memory. Completely independent, still living life in his 90s. Some people are going to quickly pull the old genetics card here. And sure, maybe Old D was blessed with a resilient body. That might be a factor.

But what does Old D do, every fucking day?

Old D goes out for a jog. Or a walk. He never stops moving. This man loves to exercise. Old D isn’t out there breaking records and throwing heavy weight around. Old D is just going for a nice daily jog, at his own slow pace, for the love of the fucking game. And I truly believe that it’s the single biggest factor in his remarkable health for his age. I remember seeing him at my wedding. This guy danced, all fucking night. While people 20 years younger than him could barely stand for an hour, or had to leave early because they couldn’t hack it.

Do your fucking cardio.
Move or die.