Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast, where Dr. Steven Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone. Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long, happy life.
What we are about is to give you scientifically proven workouts, that give you maximum health and fitness benefits in minimum time.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Ulrich, welcome back to the podcast. We are talking off camera. Are you doing okay? I heard you had a bit of fun on a ski slope.
Ulrich Dempfle:
Yes, I did. I broke my color bone, but it’s healing very well and I’m back to normal almost.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Great. I hope it didn’t interfere with using your bike.
Ulrich Dempfle:
Well, a little bit, but I’m getting back on it now.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
The last time you joined us, we talked about the revolutionary CAROL Bike, which I think if people are watching on YouTube, they can see in the background. And it’s changing the way I think people think about fitness. I’ve been using my own CAROL Bike now regularly and I absolutely love it. For many listeners who missed our first episode together, what the heck is a CAROL Bike and what makes it so unique? Why is it different from competitors like Peloton, for example?
Ulrich Dempfle:
Yeah, sure. CAROL Bike is the smartest and most efficient exercise bike. It’s been properly scientifically proven to give you double the health and fitness benefits in 90% less time. It’s got a simple AI personalized workouts, that are suitable for any agent fitness level. And you only have to work out for two 20 seconds, in a workout that takes as little as five minutes. We’re very confident about that. The most efficient way to improve your VO two max.
Now, Peloton, they’re good company with a good product, but they’re all about great soundtracks, celebrity instructors, and a sense of online community. And if that’s your thing, perfect. What we are about is to give you scientifically proven workouts, that give you maximum health and fitness benefits in minimum time. And that really sets us very clearly apart from them.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
It’s amazing. I don’t think we ever showed it, but I actually did a video of myself in my suit, before I went to work on your CAROL Bike, doing a five-minute workout. And I didn’t break a sweat. The AI said, “This is basically what you’re going to do,” and you’re right. There were two 22nd intervals that I had to work, but the rest of it was a joyride. Now, most people who hear that, this sounds like the proverbial exercise in a bottle. And how in the world can you get me and my listeners to believe that this can actually increase your VO two max? Where’s the science? How did this all come about?
Ulrich Dempfle:
CAROL Bike and REHIT, is really very special amongst all other workouts, amongst all other exercises you can do. CAROL has been optimized to help you push to your limits and to make that as safe and as easy and simple and effective as possible. You momentarily push to maximum intensity and that just triggers a different adaptation pathway, compared to normal long endurance exercise. With this REHIT workouts, you can trigger in mere seconds the release of the same signaling molecules, that normal endurance training would take 45 to 60 minutes.
And so, that is just, it’s a radical, a really radical trade-off of time versus intensity. And we can dive very deep into that. There’s a fairly good understanding of the biological processes behind that, but it is just in essence, you trade time versus intensity. And you push to your limit, for a very brief moment, two 20 seconds, and that triggers just a very, very powerful training stimulus.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Well, that brings me to the introduction to this podcast, endurance training zone 2 training. It’s all a buzzword right now. What the heck is zone 2 training and why is it such a buzzword right now?
Ulrich Dempfle:
It’s a cardio workout at a much lower intensity. A workout where you’re still able to hold a conversation, speak in whole sentences, albeit uncomfortably. And the intention there is that you train at a point, where your body muscles mainly use fat as the fuel for the exercise. Because it’s fairly low intensity, zone 2 workouts have to be quite long to create a training stimulus. The body will only adapt if you push it out of its comfort zone, otherwise it’s just happy with the way it is.
For zone 2 training to work, you need 60 to 90 minutes per workout. And the suggestion is you do that three to five times per week. And then the desired outcome is an increase in mitochondrial function and mitochondrial efficiency, so that you eventually over time be able to work out at a higher intensity, while using predominantly fat for fuel. And you also increase your ability to clear lactate. And that’s important for competitive athletes, because then you can race harder for longer.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
And so I was talking to one of my associates in the personal fitness training industry, and I won’t throw everybody under the bus, but since I’m friends with many trainers, they love zone 2 training for their clients. Because, they either put them on a treadmill or a bike and say, “Go at it for 30 to 45 minutes of our one-hour session,” and they’re on their cell phone or doing other things. It’s wonderful time for the trainer. All the trainer has to do is go, “Oh, let’s go for another five minutes. You can do it.” It takes a long time to accomplish what you want to do, right?
Ulrich Dempfle:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s definitely, and that’s probably our main issue with it, not a very time efficient workout at all.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Why do you think it’s become so hype? I mean, truly a lot of endurance athletes do swear by this, and I think the evidence, whatever there is, suggests that it may be useful for extreme endurance athletes, but why is the gym rat on the weekends trying to accomplish this?
Ulrich Dempfle:
We asked ourselves that too. My explanation is, it is, as you say, it’s a concept that’s very much in use and leveraged by endurance athletes, elite athletes like Tour de France cyclists and the trainers, coaches and influencers look towards elite athletes, what are they doing? And the same concept trickled then into the mainstream and was picked up by some very big, very popular health and longevity influencers, and who in all fairness provide a lot of nuance with it, if you read their full materials.
But then, unfortunately, an unhelpful dynamic develops where, a whole army of other influencers smaller, and your local gym body, picks it up and they only repeat the big bold statements without all the knowledge. And then suddenly everybody’s talking about it and it becomes fashionable. We think clearly every exercise is good, exercise is a good thing, it’s so fundamental, it’s probably the best thing you can do for yourself, but the priorities and the emphasis has really gone a little bit wrong and it’s become now a fashionable topic that might not be the best advice for everybody, or at least you have to be really careful not to fall into certain mistakes and traps.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Now that is a segue into my next question. A lot of fitness devices and wearables I think complicate things a bit for users. A lot of them guide you into, “Let’s get into zone 2 training,” and are we getting the right message from all these devices? I mean, for instance, I have an aura ring hiding under here. I have a whoop band and I have nothing against them. I enjoy them. I actually use them for comic relief sometime because, one may totally disagree with the other. That’s not the point of this podcast. Why are these devices maybe giving us the wrong information?
Ulrich Dempfle:
It’s not even the wrong information, it’s just zone 2 and zone 2 training is not a well-defined term. Almost every device, every wearable, many different types of equipments, have their own definition of what power zones are and heart rate zones are. I’s not necessarily the fault of the devices, but there is just no standard. And that means that, even if you follow the well-meant advice from the local gym buddy or your fitness influencer, you’re at risk of doing it wrong. For example, doing it at too low level because it’s meant to be low intensity, and then you might be really just wasting your time.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Gotcha. Influencers love this. Why isn’t there much scientific data about this? This seems to me something that’s fairly easily studied even in the laboratory setting. Why is there a dearth of studies in this?
Ulrich Dempfle:
I think it goes also back to the lack of definitions. Obviously exercise physiologists do many studies, there’s lots of evidence on almost everything. But if you search on PubMed for zone 2 training, you will find there are very, very few peer reviewed academic studies. And that is because scientists research things like ventilatory threshold, lactate threshold, the VO2 max concepts, where there’s a clear consensus as to what it is, what defines it. And that’s just not the case with zone 2, because it’s a popular concept without a clear definition.
And then, well, if you do look then at the scientific evidence that is there and draw the parallels where you say, “This was a similar level of intensity that people might refer to when they talk about zone 2,” is actually not very flattering. If people followed government guidelines on cardio exercise and did 150 minutes per week of zone 2 training, scientific evidence suggests that 40% of people would not see a benefit in their V02 max in their cardiorespiratory fitness. With zone 2, you can spend a lot of time on it and you are at risk of not seeing particularly amazing benefits.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Is there a way for the average person to literally figure out if they’re getting a benefit or half the people wasting their time, I guess, is the question?
Ulrich Dempfle:
I think rather than relying on a heart rate target from your wearable or so, the better advice would be that zone 2 should take you to a level of perceived exertion, where you can still speak and you can still speak in whole sentences, but it’s uncomfortable. Or another way would be you can still speak but you can’t sing. And zone 2 definitely is not meant to feel completely light and easy. And definitely if you do it 60 to 90 minutes, it’s not a light workout. It’s then also real work and hard work that takes effort.
The other thing would be if you have equipment and, for example, that’s the CAROL Bike does that, that links your zones, your power zones, to your FTP and to your V02 max. Then that could help you at least not train at a too low level and train at the right intensity levels to get the benefits that zone 2 has to offer.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
All right. A good segue back to the CAROL Bike. How does the CAROL Bike know my sweet spot? How does it know where to challenge me? How’d you guys work out the algorithm?
Ulrich Dempfle:
We are in a very privileged position by now, that we have by far the largest database of these reduced exertion, high intensity workouts, with tens of thousands of users and millions of rides. And that means we can run very sophisticated algorithms over the data. And what we look at is your performance in the sprints. You hit your maximum power and because it’s your maximum, you can only hold it for a fraction of a second and then for the rest of the sprint you’re fatigue and that is normal. So your power reduces.
And because we have all this data and can then run reinforcement learning algorithms over it, we can determine and we just then know what optimal looks like, not just for somebody generically, but for somebody just like you. And the bike will then automatically adjust the resistance from right to right, so you always get an optimal workout, an optimal personalized workout that gives you the right level of challenge, for your current fitness level. You keep improving for as long as possible. Or if you had an accident like me, resistance also gets dialed back to your fitness levels and what you can reasonably do now. It gives you always the right challenge.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
I’m glad you said that because, when I’m on the bike, and you’re right, I watch this curve during the HIT period and I hit a maximum and then I’m trying as hard as I can and I can clearly see that I’m falling off. And I’m figuring, “Well, I’m just a wuss and I’m a horrible specimen, but thank you.” Because I’m going, “What the heck do I have to do? Why am I so weak?” But you’re saying that that’s the design. I can only achieve that maximal exertion for literally a few seconds, right?
Ulrich Dempfle:
Exactly that, yes. What we want to achieve is that you push to your limits, even if it’s just for a very, very short moment. But that moment you push to your limits and you create biological response, you force your body to mobilize lots of energy very, very rapidly. And with that, it releases certain signaling molecules, AMPK, PGC1-Alpha, and it does so in seconds. And two 20 seconds sprints are really the minimum effective dose to saturate this signaling pathway. And that makes it a very, very efficient way to improve your fitness and to create such a powerful stimulus, in such short time.
The average lay person, even me, it sounds just too good to be true, but, my job among other things is to study signaling molecules so, I believe you. And where is the evidence that this in fact happens? What will people see? What’s measurable that you’ve found studying everyone?
Every user will see and feel very quickly, is an improvement in their cardiorespiratory fitness. And we see that in our user data and it’s been shown in multiple scientific studies, different universities, different centers, so that the data gets more and more robust. The studies are all quite aligned, and our user data is too, that within the first eight weeks, you can expect on average an improvement of 12% of your VO2 Max, your ability to metabolize oxygen. And that increases further, the longer scientific studies they run up to 20 weeks, and our user data is aligned with that. You see then an improvement of up to 20%. And if you continue, it is not uncommon to see even an improvement of up to 50% in VO2 Max in the first year. This is certainly what I’ve experienced when I’ve started using our bike, I saw an improvement in VO2 Max of 50% within 12 months.
Now VO2 Max is a very, very fundamental and important health marker. It’s the strongest correlate to life expectancy. And, yeah, I think many people would argue it might be the most important health marker. Such improvements, like a 12% improvement in eight weeks, doing only three workouts per week, spending only what? 15, 20 minutes per week on exercising your cardio respiratory fitness, that’s very noticeable. It’s not subtle. You will feel it as you walk up the stairs, just in your everyday life, very clearly, you feel it.
And then the other benefit from having a bike that collects so much data is, we can obviously quantify your workouts very well. You get a fitness score that tracks your VO2 Max after each workout, and so you see your percentage improvement and see how you progress from right to right from week to week, which is nice. It visualizes it, it gives you that additional reassurance, but the main thing is you really feel it.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Gotcha. I want to throw a little curveball at you. There’s, at least in the United States and perhaps over in Europe, a love affair with GLP-I agonist drugs for primarily weight loss. And one of the now known side effects of these drugs is, sometimes a tremendous loss in muscle mass. Teaming up with giving these drugs, but then putting you on a muscle building fitness program, to try to prevent that loss. For a very good reason. Have you looked into the effect of a CAROL Bike, with users of GLP-I? And I’m sorry to throw that at you.
Ulrich Dempfle:
We don’t have any more than anecdotal data on that. We don’t have robust data. What we do know both in our user data and in academic data is that, the forces you create and the power you exert during a rehab ride is so high, that it is also relevant for building strength and muscle mass. Our users see, again over the first eight weeks, an average increase of 14%, in their maximum power. And our academic partners have verified that within… I think they got 15% in leg strength measured as one rep max for a leg squat or for a squat.
Therefore, if you use the CAROL Bike, you definitely also get a strength and muscle benefit for your muscle groups in your thighs, in your-
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Glutes and-
Ulrich Dempfle:
Glutes. Exactly. Sorry. And so, it is definitely I think a helpful strategy. I know people, and I hear that of course as well, have this love affair. And as you say, it’s really important that you don’t only rely on that to seemingly be in good shape. You also have to put on the work and do the exercise to really stay under the surface in good shape.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
I do not prescribe these drugs. I have a number of my patients who get them elsewhere. And it is amazing. Some of them, they basically watch their leg muscles disappear. They were probably never there in the first place, it was just covered up with fat. But, you’re right, 60% of our muscle mass is in our thighs and butt. That’s where it is. And again, I wanted you to chime in. I think if I was ever prescribing these drugs, I’d prescribe a CAROL Bike to go with it personally so, there you go. Not everybody has a access to a CAROL Bike. Good question. Are these available in gyms or do you have to purchase it from Carol Bike?
Ulrich Dempfle:
The CAROL Bike is designed and specified and tested for commercial use. And because it has to be a very robust bike, because you do these very intense, very high power sprints on them. And yes, they are in professional gyms, they’re not in your standard gym. So you won’t find us in Planet Fitness or your standard big box studio, but in the more advanced biohacking facilities, performance studios, you will find CAROL Bikes.
And of course many people purchase them for their own home and you can purchase them in our web store. We’d love to see a CAROL Bike in every home, because we feel that would be actually a really healthy way to make a dent in our inactivity and obesity epidemic.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
For people who don’t have access to a CAROL Bike, are there any ways to incorporate REHIT into anybody’s exercise program?
Ulrich Dempfle:
Yeah. There are some alternatives. There are certain things that I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t try it on a treadmill, on a rower, on an elliptical because the movement patterns are too complex. I think that the injury risk on a treadmill would be way too high. If you don’t have access to a CAROL Bike, there are some alternatives. Very low cost would be hill sprints. If you have a hill and you are physically able to sprint for 20 seconds all out, up a hill, that’s a very effective way. A train slide caution there, not everybody has the joints to do that. There’s a trip risk. And then one thing, this is just a personal observation, we know this also because the CAROL Bike is… Well, some people have it in their office. Many people don’t want to do an all out sprint in public and be seen. Because, yes, you go all out, that’s the thing. And you might look funny. And so people might prefer that more in the comfort of their own home. In my local park, I hardly ever see anybody sprint all out.
The other alternative, if you have access at home or in your gym might be an air bike. Those are very popular with CrossFit athletes and they can basically generate very quickly, very high resistance level through those fans. Now, there are also some disadvantages. They’re quite loud and noisy and they have essentially just one gear. It’s one defined relationship between cadence, how fast you pedal and what the resistance and power is. And so, that might be optimal for one person, like a 30-year-old CrossFit athlete, but not necessarily for another.
My mother is 81, she uses our bike every other day religiously. And for her, that just wouldn’t be the right resistance. And with the CAROL Bike, because we have our AI personalization and a computer controlled brake that has 255 gears, we can just create a workout that helps every person, any Asian fitness level, to perform a safe and effective hit workout. And, yeah, our bike is optimized for that and others just aren’t.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
A few books ago I wrote a book entitled The Energy Paradox, and I actually coined the term, exercise snacking. And that term has recently been picked up by other people, but I’m pleased to say I actually coined the term and the CAROL Bike is just a perfect example of exercise snacking. And that is, a very short, two and a half to five minute workout with a really intensive little bit thrown in there. And I made I think a compelling case that these short bursts of exercise, really equate extremely well with much longer periods of strenuous miserable exercise. And I commend you for exercise snacking on a bike. Please use that term with my permission.
Any other advice for somebody who really only has 30 minutes, a few times a week to get in proper exercise? I’m sure this comes up all the time. Because, perception or not, people don’t think they have time to exercise.
Ulrich Dempfle:
Here, I think, and this is common for the vast majority of people. The truth is just 95% of Americans don’t get enough exercise and the number one perceived reason, and we believe that there’s much to it, is lack of time. That is our main issue with zone 2. It’s not that zone 2 doesn’t have its place, if you have a lot of time for exercise, it does certainly with elite athletes. But for the vast majority of us, who already struggling to find any time for exercise, it just doesn’t seem to be the best strategy.
And certainly if you only have 30 minutes here and there, it would be, may I say, a quite foolish strategy. If you have only 30 minutes here and there, you ought to get the most efficient exercises in first. Do something like REHIT ideally on a CAROL Bike, to cover your cardio. The next thing before I would do zone 2, would be do some resistance training. Very important as another fundamental pillar of exercise that you need. And also some work on mobility, stability, maybe some stretching and yoga, is another important aspect.
And then if you have more time, yeah, by all means do something you love. And for some people that will be zone 2 training. Because it gets them into the right mental state. And then wonderful, CAROL Bike will be a great help for that as well. But get those efficient exercises and workouts in first, cover all your bases, cardio, strength, mobility, and then look to those additions, if you have more time.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
It’s always great to have you on and talk about this. As you know, we always have an audience question, and this one I want you to take first, I’ll follow-up. This is from Richard Hales 4392 on YouTube. He actually watched our first episode and asked, why can’t you do this with a normal exercise bike?????
Ulrich Dempfle:
Yes, I understand the question. And so, we’ve tried. I’ve tried. I’ve bought myself a normal exercise bike, because I wanted to do REHIT. It’s just very, very difficult, almost impossible, to get right. To get an optimal REHIT workout, you want to accelerate to a really high pedal cadence, to a really high pedal speed, at a low resistance. Then you’re pedaling at 150 up to 200 RPM, and then you should dial in your optimal resistance, in a fraction of a second to hit that peak. And if you pedal so fast, you’re hanging on for dear life and you really don’t want to take your hands off the handlebar to change the resistance, find your optimal resistance first. It’s very difficult.
We didn’t think that was a good experience and that’s not how the research was done in the lab. Researchers in the lab, they have bikes that are actually operated by a second person, and that are like 10, $15,000. And what we try to do is, for an affordable price, precisely replicate and actually improve on the methods they use in their lab, to make it an accessible form to do these very, very efficient REHIT workouts for an average person. And I think we’ve achieved that. And that’s actually also witnessed by…
We are working with many of the leading researchers and they do a substantial part of their research now also on CAROL Bikes. Because it’s also for them easier not to have a lab technician next to somebody who’s doing that workout. It’s just an easier way.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
That’s a good point. And I’ll answer Richard as well. I have a Peloton Bike, and I like the workouts and it’s really fun grooving with the tunes with a celebrity biker, whatever we want to call them. You’re right, even if I’m doing a hill climb on a Peloton, number one, I can’t dial in the resistance that I really should be dialing in, to achieve what you are achieving. I won’t force myself to do that, quite frankly. And yet the CAROL Bike, God is watching and saying, “No, this is your resistance.” There’s nothing to handle on the dumb thing, it’s, now, give me your best effort. So, yeah, it can’t be done.
Ulrich Dempfle:
Exactly. And do you know, the CAROL Bike can be used with a number of third party apps, amongst others, also Peloton Digital. And so, we see the workout data, how people use our bike with Peloton Digital, and with the CAROL app. And so even with Peloton of course has also things that they call, interval training or hill training also. The power levels are up to three times higher with our programming and our workouts, than they are with the Peloton workouts. Because it’s just a different thing if you try these really short, but maximum intensity level workouts. It’s a different training stimulus.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
That’s a good point. But that’s a great question and I bet you get it all the time. Well, this has been great. Where can our listeners learn more about the CAROL Bike and REHIT?
Ulrich Dempfle:
Yeah, sure. You can follow us on all the social platforms, and our handle is @thecarolbike. There’s a lot of information on our website, carolbike.com. If you want to go really in depth, there’s all the original research studies and links to the papers. You can even schedule a fitness consultation with one of our fitness advisors. They have like an MSC in Exercise Physiology and can give you real advice whether it’s the right thing.
If you do decide to purchase a bike, we offer really an industry leading, we call it risk-free trial. You have 100 days to see whether CAROL Bike is right for you, whether you see the results, whether you like it, whether you can stick to it. And 100 days is really easily enough to figure that out. If it’s not for you, you get a refund and we take the bike back. We will collect the bike, there’s no issue. You don’t have to explain yourself. And so that’s a very low risk way to just see for yourself whether it is for you.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Well, it’s great to see you. I’m glad to see you survive your skiing trip. I know what you’ve done. But this is great and keep up the good work. I hope we’ll have you back on the program for more explaining this… It’s a remarkable device and congratulations on what you’ve done.
Ulrich Dempfle:
Thank you.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
All right.
Ulrich Dempfle:
Thank you so much.
Dr. Steven Gundry:
Hope to see you next time.
Speaker 1:
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life, when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel, where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.
