Zone 2 and breathless intervals: how experts build the cardio week

The Short Version

Each plan here combines easy movement with a small dose of very hard work, and the plans differ about how much each part matters and about what goes in between. Andrew Huberman starts from 150 to 200 minutes of zone 2 a week and adds a moderately hard session and an all-out interval session [1][6]. Rhonda Patrick puts the hard part first: about ten breathless minutes a day, which can be three minutes after each meal [2]. Stacy Sims, speaking of women in midlife, and Vonda Wright both say to train at the two extremes, easy walking and 30-second sprints, and to leave the middle out [3][9]. Andy Galpin says the whole range of endurance can be covered in roughly two hours a week, with zone 2 folded into daily life and not counted as exercise [1][7].

Table of contents

What They Said

Andrew Huberman: a zone 2 base, then one moderate and one all-out session

The base. Huberman's foundation for anyone who is not training for a single sport is, in his words, "at least 150 minutes and ideally more like 200 minutes per week" of zone 2 cardio [1]. He defines zone 2 without equipment: movement that raises heart rate and breathing but still lets you hold a conversation, where pushing any harder would make it hard to finish your sentences, and which can generally be done while breathing only through the nose [1]. On top of that base he places two to four separate cardio sessions and two to four resistance sessions a week, and he does three of each [1]. He admits most people will not reach the upper end of all three, for lack of time or discipline [1].

The week. In the week he lays out day by day, three days are cardio [6]:

• Sunday is long endurance: 60 to 75 minutes of zone 2, usually a jog, though he says rowing, cycling or swimming work as well. Some Sundays he swaps the jog for a hike of two and a half to five hours, sometimes wearing a weight vest of 10 to 50 pounds [6].
• Thursday is a warm-up followed by 30 to 35 minutes at about 75 to 80 percent of all-out effort. It is harder than zone 2, requires breathing through the mouth, and spans several endurance categories and fuel systems at once [6].
• Friday is high-intensity intervals, to reach maximum or near-maximum heart rate at least once a week. On a fan bike he goes all-out with arms and legs for 20 to 30 seconds, rests 10 seconds, and repeats 8 to 12 times; the alternative is sprint-jog intervals [6].

He is relaxed about precision in the easy work. It is near impossible to stay exactly in zone 2 even with a heart rate monitor, he says: "So I don't obsess over that" [6]. On hills he simply slows his pace to stay roughly in range [6]. And for listeners who worry about it, he says that if you have to stop because you are out of breath, "That doesn't mean that you blew the workout" [6]. The Sunday session supplies about 75 of the 180 to 200 weekly minutes of zone 2 that he says Peter Attia and others associate with longevity and health, and he walks on other days to reach the rest [6]. Putting the long session at the start of the week means that whatever else happens, the foundation is done [6].

The spacing rules. Any session may slide a day forward or back, and the top-down view is what counts: each week, one long endurance session, one moderate faster session and one all-out session [6]. He never puts the interval day right after leg day and separates the two by two or three days; the long, slow Sunday session, by contrast, does not leave his legs too sore to train them on Monday [6]. He sprints at about 95 percent, not 100, and prefers bikes or rowers, because all-out running sprints can leave him with sciatica or pelvic floor pain the next day [6]. After a poor night's sleep or a very stressful day he usually skips training and slides the schedule forward [6].

What changed after he talked to Galpin. Huberman told Galpin that his Sunday jog or hike did not always reach the weekly zone 2 target. Galpin's reply surprised him: he does not really consider zone 2 cardio exercise at all [1]. It is essential for health, it does not interfere with strength or muscle growth and can even improve other training, and the best way to get it is to move more and walk briskly through the day: carrying groceries, chasing kids, walking meetings, pacing during phone calls [1]. Huberman now aims for a 200-minute minimum spread across daily life, no longer counts his Sunday outing as a workout, and says he enjoys it more [1]. That leaves his structured time for three resistance sessions and two other cardio sessions [1].

Two additions. Once every two to four weeks he replaces his regular interval session with a workout named after trainer Kenny Kane: after a warm-up of three to five minutes, go as far as you can in two minutes and note the distance; rest two minutes; cover the same distance as fast as you can and note the time; rest two minutes; then go all out for that second time, trying at least to match the first distance [1]. He also uses exercise snacks, brief bouts often done without a warm-up, such as 25 to 100 jumping jacks or 20 to 40 seconds of running up and down stairs. He does one three to five times a week and says he has come to crave them, "kind of like the other kind of snack." [1]

Four kinds of endurance. In his solo episode on endurance, Huberman argues that endurance is four things: muscular endurance, long-duration endurance, and two kinds of high-intensity interval training [5]. Long-duration work is one continuous effort of 12 minutes to several hours [5]. Anaerobic intervals use three to twelve sets at work-to-rest ratios from 3:1, such as 30 seconds on and 10 off, to 1:5, such as 20 seconds on and 100 off. The shorter rests suit an assault bike, where sloppy form rarely causes injury, and the longer rests suit movements where form degrades; he suggests starting with about three sets, one to three times a week, and adding one or two sets each week [5]. For aerobic intervals he highlights a 1:1 ratio: run a mile, rest for as long as it took, and repeat, for a total of four to seven miles, two or three times a week at most [5]. Concurrent training works, he says, if four to six and ideally 24 hours separate sessions, and most people benefit from one or two full rest days a week [5].

Andy Galpin: the whole spectrum in about two hours

Galpin, a professor of kinesiology at California State University, Fullerton, frames endurance as two problems, managing fatigue and managing fuel [7]. He lays out a protocol for each kind of endurance, and Huberman adds them up [7].

All-out work. Anaerobic capacity covers all-out efforts of roughly 20 seconds to a couple of minutes, often repeated [7]. Galpin offers three versions: a minimum of about four rounds of 30 seconds on and 30 off, at least one and ideally two or three days a week; 20 seconds on with 40 off for six to eight very high-quality rounds; or one-minute efforts with one to three minutes of rest, building to four to six rounds, resting until you can breathe through your nose and then 30 seconds more [7]. Real benefit requires an effort that is truly near 100 percent. Forty rounds of 20 seconds on and 10 off, he says, usually becomes mediocre moderate work [7]. He would choose a total-body movement you are confident in and that has little eccentric load, such as an assault bike, a rower, swimming, uphill sprints or sled pushes, over box jumps or downhill running [7]. He warns against four to six hard days a week, which can bring hormonal and sleep problems [7].

Hard aerobic work. Maximum aerobic output is the hardest effort you can sustain for roughly 5 to 15 minutes, like a fast mile. One or two such efforts a week is enough, ideally on their own day or after speed or power work and not after leg training [7]. He adds about 40 percent of training time as supporting work below 85 percent of maximum heart rate but above conversational pace [7]. A simple version is to go as far as you safely can in 10 minutes and track the distance weekly [7].

Long, steady work. Galpin says he now believes steady-state work is valuable for almost everyone, at least 20 to 30 minutes once a week [7]. It need not be dull: circuits of farmer's carries, planks, bodyweight squats, jump rope or shadow boxing, or 10 minutes each on a rower, treadmill and bike [7]. Huberman's weighted-vest hikes of 60 to 120 minutes a week qualify [7].

Snacks. He highlights research from Canadian labs in which office workers ran up about 60 stairs, roughly 20 seconds of all-out effort, about once every four hours, three days a week for six weeks, and improved their cardiorespiratory fitness. The mode and the exact timing do not matter, he says; the point is to get the heart rate up quickly several times a day, and he does it himself between Zoom calls with 30 seconds on an air bike [7].

The total. Huberman tallies it: some muscular endurance work, five to six minutes of all-out intervals, about 10 minutes of hard aerobic work, and 30 to 120 minutes of long-duration work, roughly two hours a week [7]. Galpin says this covers every endurance adaptation, handles fat loss without anything extra, and supports longevity, since "one of these strongest predictors of how long you're going to live is your VO2 max" [7].

Zones without a monitor. For intensity he uses Brian Mackenzie's breathing gears in place of heart rate zones. Gear one is nasal-only breathing at a controlled cadence, gear two is nasal-only at whatever rate you need, and gears three and four bring in the mouth; most people cannot stay nasal past about 70 to 80 percent effort [7]. He also removes one reason people choose easy cardio. Low-intensity work burns a high percentage of fat but few total calories, and for most people neither the intensity zone nor training fasted matters for fat loss; total intake and consistency do [7].

Rhonda Patrick: ten breathless minutes

The swap. Patrick, a biomedical scientist and the host of FoundMyFitness, wants to replace 10,000 steps a day with ten breathless minutes, meaning ten minutes of vigorous exercise [2]. The step goal, she says, originated in 1960s Japan with a company trying to sell pedometers: "It didn't come from science, didn't come from medical research." [2] She does not throw walking out, because "walking is better than sitting" [2]. Her point is that intensity matters.

What breathless means. Breathless is relative to your fitness. For a fit person it might be sprinting or running. "If you're someone that doesn't really exercise a lot, maybe you only walk, then breathless for you might just be walking uphill" [2]. Her talk test separates three levels. At light intensity, like walking around the house, you could sing. At moderate intensity, like brisk walking, you can talk but sound breathy. At vigorous intensity, like jogging or running, you can say only a few words before taking a breath [2]. Mel Robbins recognizes it from her four-mile loop with her walking group, where everyone chats until the big hill and then goes silent [2].

The exchange rate. Patrick cites new studies that use wrist accelerometers in place of questionnaires. For reduction in all-cause mortality, she says, one minute of vigorous exercise equals about four minutes of moderate exercise or about 53 minutes of light activity. For cardiovascular mortality, one vigorous minute equals about eight moderate minutes or an hour and a half of light activity. For cancer mortality, one vigorous minute equals about two and a half hours of light activity [2].

Three, three times. The ten can be split. People doing three minutes of breathless activity three times a day had a 40 percent reduction in all-cause mortality, a 40 percent reduction in cancer-related mortality and a 50 percent reduction in cardiovascular-related mortality, she says, even though many of them would say they do not exercise [2]. "This is where I get the 10 from." [2] The everyday version is called vigorous intermittent lifestyle activity, or VILPA: jogging up the stairs to a fourth-floor office, walking or biking briskly to work, playing tag with kids or grandkids. The structured version is a minute of bodyweight squats, jumping jacks, high knees or burpees. Her suggestion is three minutes after breakfast, lunch and dinner [2].

It is not all she does. Patrick does not present the ten minutes as a ceiling. In the same conversation she describes someone doing perhaps 30 minutes a day, adding moderate intensity and brisk walking to the ten vigorous minutes [2]. The Harvard study she describes counted three and a half hours of moderate or vigorous exercise a week among its five lifestyle factors [2]. Her own routine, as she described it to Huberman, centers on 10-minute Tabata workouts on a Peloton, 20 seconds all-out and 10 seconds of rest, about three times a week, followed by about 30 minutes in a sauna, and she describes her runs as essential for her brain [8]. Asked for the single most important action for a listener, she names the ten minutes, and her parting words are "you can do this and you should do it." [2]

Stacy Sims: polarize, and leave the middle out

Her rule. Sims, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist who specializes in training and nutrition for women, tells Huberman that women from perimenopause onward should polarize their training: heavy lifting and true high-intensity work at one end, very easy recovery such as walking at the other, and very little in between [3]. She describes the two ends as very low intensity for recovery and very high intensity for metabolic and cardiovascular change [3]. Of the common advice that women over 40 should avoid high intensity, she says: "It's like well actually they shouldn't do moderate intensity." [3] And for anyone who wants longevity, body composition change and cognition: "you have to polarize your training and that has to be the focus." [3]

What counts as hard. She names two kinds of top-end work [3]:

• True high-intensity intervals are one to four minutes at 80 percent or more, like 400 or 800 meter repeats with variable recovery, or a gym circuit done every minute on the minute.
• Sprint intervals are 30 seconds or less, all out, on a rower, a bike or running, followed by two or three minutes of recovery. She does not want short rests such as 20 seconds on and 20 off, because that is not the intensity she is after: "We want you to go all out and recover well enough to be able to go all out again." [3]

This is done a couple of times a week, not every day, because recovery is what makes the intensity possible [3]. One session she gives women is a 20-minute heavy lower-body set followed by all-out 30-second efforts on an assault bike; most people expect to manage four or five and are spent after two [3].

What counts as easy. "So if you're going to go out and do something long, it has to be very, very easy." [3] Recovery is long, slow walking on another day; she rules out a tempo run, and even an easy 5K jog, because it puts a woman in moderate intensity [3]. She is openly critical of Orangetheory and F45 for marketing to this age group, since their classes leave women feeling smashed but in moderate intensity [3].

Her view of zone 2. Sims says she still enjoys long gravel rides for her mental health, but that zone 2 is not what drives body composition and longevity [3]. For a woman who loves hours on the bike or spin classes, her answer is to look at the big rock first [3].

By age. For women of about 20 to 30 she wants three to four resistance sessions a week, with up to two high-intensity sessions on separate days or a sprint finisher at the end of a lifting session [3]. A woman in her 40s should aim for at least three compound-lift sessions plus sprint or high-intensity work [3]. For women over 50 her big pieces are jump training for 10 minutes three times a week, heavy resistance training, sprint intervals and protein [3].

The simpler version. With Mel Robbins she gives the same prescription in plainer terms. "So cardio is interesting, because it's about intensity." [4] A walk with a friend is good: it improves blood glucose and stress resilience, and it is connection [4]. For the heart she recommends sprint interval training: 30 seconds or less as hard as you can go, which need not be running and can be cycling, kettlebell swings, air squats or jumping lunges, then a minute and a half to two minutes of full recovery. "So you don't want to do any more than five." [4] Even two done properly counts [4]. Sims herself mostly lifts three days a week and adds sprints, often at the end of a lifting session, and spends 45 minutes to an hour in the gym [4]. In the 20s her bare minimum is a couple of days a week of mixed strength and aerobic work, and for a busy woman her one takeaway is consistency, even 10 minutes a day [4].

What she is arguing against. She says women who came up through the 80s and 90s learned to do 90 minutes of aerobics, and that women over 40 who do lots of cardio and under-eat often end up lean-looking but with little quality muscle and poor bone [4]. She also tells women to eat before morning exercise, even before a walk: "Women's bodies don't respond well to fasted training." [4] For cardio of up to an hour she suggests about 15 grams of protein and about 30 grams of carbohydrate beforehand [3].

Vonda Wright: walk for three hours, sprint for four minutes

Wright, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in musculoskeletal aging and sports medicine, puts aerobic work second in the four-part framework she calls FACE: flexibility, aerobic, carrying a load, and equilibrium [9]. On the aerobic part she says "my philosophy on this has changed over the years" [9]. She now favors the two extremes: mostly low-heart-rate work such as walking or easy cycling, plus all-out sprints twice a week [9]. Typical high-intensity classes, she claims, keep people in a middle zone that is not intense enough to stimulate real change yet is a good way to get injured [9].

Her weekly prescription [9]:

• At least three hours of brisk walking, split into four 45-minute sessions. The pace is "not so fast that you're out of breath, but not so slow that you can solve world peace in your conversation" [9].
• Twice a week, after a walk and once walking is comfortable, four sprints of 30 seconds on any equipment, with full recovery between them. On her treadmill she walks at an incline of four to five and a speed of about four, then sprints at 11, which takes her heart rate to about 186; she lets it fall to 130 or 140 over two or three minutes before going again [9]. "You can do anything for 30 seconds." [9]
• Lifting at least twice a week, and balance practice every day [9].

The entry point is walking, even if only around the block. If knees hurt on land, she says, walk in a warm pool; if outside is too much, walk around the kitchen table [9]. Anyone who feels too far gone should start with a daily walk for seven days and let the streak build [9].

Where They Agree, and Where They Don't

Where they agree. Hard work is in each plan. Huberman wants maximum or near-maximum heart rate at least once a week [6], Galpin's plan has five to six minutes of all-out intervals [7], Patrick wants ten vigorous minutes a day [2], and Sims and Wright want 30-second sprints about twice a week [3][4][9]. Easy movement is in each plan too: Huberman's 200 minutes [1], Galpin's daily walking [1], Patrick's walking that is better than sitting [2], Sims's recovery walks [3] and Wright's three hours [9]. Exercise snacks appear in Huberman, Galpin and Patrick [1][2][7]. Huberman, Patrick, Sims and Wright all set resistance training beside the cardio [1][2][3][9].

The middle zone. This is the plainest disagreement. Sims says women in midlife should not do moderate intensity at all, down to an easy 5K jog [3]. Wright says the middle zone neither stimulates change nor spares you injury [9]. Huberman keeps a weekly session of 30 to 35 minutes at about 75 to 80 percent effort, which he values because it spans several endurance categories and fuel systems at once [6]. Galpin puts about 40 percent of training time between conversational pace and 85 percent of maximum heart rate as support for the hardest aerobic work, and for a half marathon he would put about 60 to 70 percent of mileage at moderate intensity to build tissue tolerance and technique [7]. The reasons differ because the people differ. Sims is speaking about women whose baseline cortisol rises in perimenopause; for them, she says, moderate classes raise cortisol without triggering the hormonal responses that bring it back down [3]. Huberman and Galpin are describing general templates and race preparation [6][7].

How much the easy work does. Huberman calls 150 to 200 minutes of zone 2 the research-based minimum for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health [1]. Galpin calls it essential for health and not really exercise [1]. Sims says zone 2 is not what drives body composition and longevity, and treats walking as recovery [3]. Patrick's figures put the gap in numbers: by her account about 53 minutes of light activity matches one vigorous minute for all-cause mortality [2]. Wright makes three hours of brisk walking the bulk of the week [9].

How fast the easy work is. Huberman's zone 2 is a pace at which conversation is still possible [1]. Wright's walk is brisk enough that conversation takes some effort [9]. Sims wants recovery to be very, very easy [3]. Patrick's talk test files brisk walking, where you can talk but sound breathy, under moderate [2].

How long to rest between hard efforts. Huberman's own Friday session is 20 to 30 seconds on with 10 seconds off, 8 to 12 times [6], and Patrick's Tabata workouts use 20 seconds on and 10 off [8]. Sims wants two to three minutes of recovery after a 30-second sprint, or a minute and a half to two minutes in her conversation with Robbins [3][4]. Wright waits two or three minutes for her heart rate to come down [9]. Galpin warns that many rounds of 20 on and 10 off usually turn into moderate work, and lets the rest run until nasal breathing returns [7]. The sides want different things from the session. Long rests keep each effort truly maximal, which is what Sims says produces the response she is after [3]. Huberman's short rests are a way of reaching maximum heart rate [6], and in his endurance episode he says the right ratio depends on whether the quality of the movement matters [5].

Daily or weekly. Patrick spreads the hard work across every day in small pieces [2]. Sims says sprints are not for every day [3], Galpin warns against four to six hard days a week [7], and Huberman has one interval day [6]. The efforts are not the same, though: Patrick's breathless minute may be a hill or a flight of stairs, while Sims's and Galpin's hard efforts are all-out [2][3][7].

Fasted or fed. Huberman usually trains fasted in the morning [1]. Sims says that does not suit women and that he admitted as much: his routine is probably the worst approach for the women who adopted it with him [3]. Galpin says that for fat loss, for most people, it does not matter [7].

Why It Works

What long, easy work builds. Huberman says each long-duration session increases mitochondrial density, so the body makes more ATP and burns less fuel for the same effort, and that the big payoff is new capillaries in muscle [5]. His image is a hose stuck into the dirt against a sprinkler system irrigating a whole yard [5]. Long-duration work also lowers resting heart rate [5]. Galpin says steady-state work builds capillaries too [7].

What intervals build. During hard intervals, Huberman explains, so much blood returns to the heart that it loads the left ventricle, which adapts by strengthening and increasing stroke volume, the blood pumped per beat. More oxygen and glucose then reach muscle and brain, and the same work feels easier [5]. He adds that these forms of training increase capillary beds in the brain, including the hippocampus [5]. Anaerobic intervals push above 100 percent of VO2 max and train the ability to keep engaging muscle when you want to stop [5]. Patrick cites a study in which high-intensity intervals boosted mitochondrial biogenesis in muscle, especially in older adults [8].

Why hard minutes count for more. Patrick's explanation is that the body adapts more robustly to bigger stresses, strengthening the heart, lungs, immune system and brain so that everyday stresses, aging included, are handled better [2]. With Huberman she sets this inside hormesis: short, intermittent challenges switch on stress response pathways that stay active and protect against the everyday stress of metabolism and aging [8]. She adds a reason from the brain. Hard effort produces dynorphin, the opioid behind the feeling of wanting to stop, and pushing through it makes the receptors for endorphins more numerous and more sensitive, so ordinary pleasures register more strongly [2].

Why sprints suit midlife women, according to Sims. Hard efforts create epigenetic changes that increase GLUT4 transporters for glucose uptake and train the body to resolve inflammation, a role estrogen used to play, which helps counter the rise in visceral fat from the mid-40s onward [3]. To Robbins she says the stress of a sprint makes muscles release signaling molecules that tell the body not to store visceral or subcutaneous fat and that improve insulin sensitivity, blood vessel function and blood pressure [4]. Only true high intensity, she says, produces the hormonal responses after exercise that bring cortisol down [3]. Patrick, separately, names vigorous exercise such as interval training among the most effective tools against visceral fat [2].

Why snacks work. In the study Galpin describes, 20-second stair climbs improved VO2 max over six weeks, and a second study found the same kind of burst after a large high-glycemic meal improved blood glucose and insulin responses [7]. Patrick says studies comparing everyday vigorous activity with gym exercise show similar benefits [2].

Why VO2 max is the target. Galpin calls it one of the strongest predictors of how long a person will live [7]. Huberman uses the Kenny Kane workout to drive heart rate up and improve it [1].

Where It Applies, and Where It Doesn't

Single-goal athletes. Huberman says his template is not for the powerlifter or the marathon runner, whose programs will differ substantially [1]. Galpin's half marathon plan carries far more moderate work than his general plan [7].

Women, and women in midlife. Sims argues that most popular advice comes from data on men [3][4]. Her prescription against moderate intensity is aimed at women from perimenopause onward; for women in their 20s she allows up to two high-intensity sessions alongside lifting, and a twice-weekly circuit of mixed strength and aerobic work as a bare minimum [3][4]. Wright's routine is also framed for midlife [9].

Beginners. Wright starts people with walking and does not move them to sprints until walking is comfortable [9]. Huberman tells beginners to start their long session shorter, on flat ground, and to add time, weight or speed as fitness improves [6]. Sims wants women to learn to move first and to build up over six to eight months before lifting heavy and sprinting [4]. Patrick's definition of breathless already scales: for someone who only walks, it is a hill or the stairs [2].

All-out effort has costs. Huberman keeps running sprints at about 95 percent and prefers a bike or rower [6]. Galpin picks movements with little eccentric load [7]. Hard days need room: not every day for Sims, not four to six days a week for Galpin, not the day after legs for Huberman [3][6][7]. Sims's 10-minute rule covers the bad day: give yourself 10 minutes, and if you still cannot hit your intensities, switch to recovery work [3].

Bad nights and illness. After poor sleep Huberman usually skips the session; with a real cold or possible flu he does not train at all until fully recovered, then ramps back up over one to two weeks [6].

Fat loss. Choosing easy cardio because it burns fat does not hold up, on Galpin's account, since for fat loss the total energy balance decides and any style of exercise can work [7].

The numbers are reported, not prescribed. Patrick's minute-for-minute figures and mortality reductions come from the studies she describes [2]. Anyone with a heart condition, an injury or a long break from exercise should take a doctor's advice before starting all-out intervals.

What To Do With It

1. Use your breath as the gauge. In zone 2 you can hold a conversation but would struggle to finish sentences if you pushed harder, and nasal breathing is usually possible [1]. At vigorous intensity you can say only a few words before taking a breath [2].

2. Get the easy minutes from your day. Huberman's target is 150 to 200 minutes a week, and Galpin's advice is to collect them by walking briskly and moving more: groceries, walking meetings, pacing on phone calls [1]. Wright's version is four 45-minute brisk walks [9].

3. If you have ten minutes, make them breathless. Patrick suggests three minutes after breakfast, lunch and dinner: stairs, a hill, squats, jumping jacks [2]. Galpin's office version is about 20 seconds up the stairs a few times a day [7].

4. Once or twice a week, sprint properly. Thirty seconds or less, all out, on a bike, a rower, a hill or a treadmill, then recover fully, about a minute and a half to three minutes, and repeat. Wright does four; Sims says no more than five and that two done properly count [3][4][9].

5. Or use Galpin's menu for the hard day. At least four rounds of 30 seconds on and 30 off; or 20 on and 40 off for six to eight rounds; or one-minute efforts with one to three minutes of rest, building to four to six rounds [7].

6. Add one sustained hard effort if you want the full range. Huberman does 30 to 35 minutes at about 75 to 80 percent once a week [6]. Galpin's test is how far you can safely go in 10 minutes, tracked weekly [7]. Women in midlife who follow Sims would leave this one out [3].

7. Protect the hard days. Keep intervals two or three days away from leg training [6], avoid four to six hard days a week [7], and take one or two full rest days [5].

8. Eat first if you are a woman training in the morning. Sims suggests something small, such as a protein coffee, a couple of tablespoons of yogurt or half a banana, even before a walk [4].

9. Start where you are. Wright's first step is a daily walk for seven days [9]. Patrick's is ten minutes: "you can do this and you should do it." [2]

Sources

1. Science-Supported Tools to Accelerate Your Fitness Goals · Huberman Lab
2. Dr. Rhonda Patrick on 10 Breathless Minutes, Visceral Fat, Sleep and a Daily Longevity Smoothie · The Mel Robbins Podcast
3. Dr Stacy Sims Female Specific Exercise Nutrition For Health Performance Longevity · Huberman Lab
4. The Body Reset: How Women Should Eat & Exercise for Health, Fat Loss, & Energy · The Mel Robbins Podcast
5. How to Build Endurance in Your Brain & Body · Huberman Lab
6. Fitness Toolkit: Protocol & Tools to Optimize Physical Health · Huberman Lab
7. Dr. Andy Galpin: How to Build Physical Endurance & Lose Fat · Huberman Lab
8. Dr Rhonda Patrick Micronutrients For Health Longevity · Huberman Lab
9. Look, Feel, & Stay Young Forever: #1 Orthopedic Surgeon’s Proven Protocol · The Mel Robbins Podcast