Interrupted Sitting For Your Health

Hey, Athletes! Interrupted Sitting For Your Health - Episode of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up! 

• Interrupted Sitting For Your Health

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IN THIS 40-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Jerred and Joe are both back!
• The guys give an update on what's going on in their lives
• They break down a study about getting up and moving through the workday
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper…

If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here is a link to the study for you: 

• Enhanced muscle activity during interrupted sitting improves glycemic control in overweight and obese men

Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week 

Don't forget to watch today's podcast!

Interrupted Sitting For Your Health

Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!

To becoming better!

- Jerred

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: [00:00:00] This is the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast, and we're here to build autonomous athletes and put phenomenal programming into every garage, basement, and spare bedroom out there. I'm Jared Moon, and I'm with Jill Courtney. We are strength and conditioning coaches who have turned over 20, 000 people into Garage Gym Athletes over the last decade.

And we're here to reduce the information overload that exists in the health and fitness industry today. We're going to do that by covering relevant science and give actionable takeaways, not only from the data, but from our years of experience. So let's dive in.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. Jer Moon here with Joe Courtney. What's up, Joe?

Joe: How you doing, man?

Jerred: I'm good. It's always good to get together.

Joe: Yeah.

Jerred: When we can. Been

Joe: a while, I feel like it's always, it's

Jerred: always, it's just always a while.

Joe: Yeah, you're moving. I'm moving and lots of crazy stuff.

[00:01:00] Um, well, I'm not moving anymore. I'm just traveling, which that's where you were moving. Then you were traveling and now I'm moving. But not traveling, but moving sucks. Um, we will get into some updates for those who care about us or our personal lives, uh, talk about our training a little bit, but what I do want everyone to know, who's here listening now, what we're going over today, it's a study, uh, from April, 2024, and the title is enhanced muscle activity during interrupted sitting improves glycemic control and overweight in obese men.

So very cool study. I'm a huge fan. Uh, I can't wait to dive into it and let everybody know about this one. But the funniest thing I think about this, um, is the fact that they use the term interrupted sitting. It's just kind of like a, that's no weird way to party. It's sorry to interrupt your city. I'm [00:02:00] sorry for interrupting your lazy ass, but like we have to have to do something.

But anyway, How's training been man? How have you been? I mean, you have been traveling a lot, um, getting going back to the states, visiting some things in Europe. Like, have you been training? How, how are things going?

Jerred: Surprisingly, I kept up with training pretty well when I had to go back to the states for 10 days.

That was a hell of a jet lag, but I kept with it as much as I could. I actually woke up and went to the gym like first thing in the morning, a couple of times at like four or 5. I am just to kind of keep with. Here's my cycle a little bit, and, um, I had a PT test there, so the Air Force PT test a mile and a half.

I, I think I hit just about the what I wanted. I wanted a sub 10 mile and a half. I got 10 exactly. So I'm still pretty happy with that. Um, it's pretty solid. Yeah. Yeah. And considering I haven't, my running hasn't been as, you know, Intense or as frequent because of my heel issues. But when I have been running, I've really been making it count.

I was, you know, I, my 400 [00:03:00] meter splits were getting a lot better before I left. So I was pretty happy with that. And with, you know, a week of, uh, even though I was, I was there for a week and then I did my test. I feel like jet lag still kind of has an effect on, on fitness. I know I did a run earlier, earlier in the week.

I did 400 meter splits earlier in the week. I only did six and I was just like, Toast completely because they're just just that travel was rough. Um, we got back, went to England and I didn't, we didn't do any workouts there. We rented bikes one day, but came back and hit the gym definitely was sore and kind of feeling it last week.

And then this week, first two days I have hit them hard and I'm really, really, um, really dialing it in. I'm actually feeling pretty good for the most part. I mean, sore as normal, my heels getting a little bit better. I just rained a day. It's going to be tight, but you know, what happens is still good. It's getting hotter here.

Muggy, but not, not as hot, actually still not as hot as Texas. So it's, it's pretty dang nice. My gym is super muggy because the basement and it's humid [00:04:00] here. Yeah, but that's about it. She did a DQ. I got one, but this basement is ginormous. I actually have two of them. Oh, nice. They fill up pretty fast. Yeah, every day I have to change it at least once.

If I come down like in the morning and I change it and then I come back later in the day, I'd have to change it the second time. But either at least once a day, I'll come like when I do my workout, change them out and then go on.

Joe: That's good, man. Well, good on you for maintaining consistency during. All that it is, it is hard and getting a 10 minute, 10 minute mile and a half is no easy thing.

Um, also just, you know, for people to, so people are aware, um, just trying to give you more of a compliment, but I just having done that test so many times, there's a big difference between me right now, just fresh, go running a mile and a half for time versus doing a max set of. Uh, pushups and max set of, [00:05:00] um, sit ups, you know, like right before you run, it makes a massive difference, especially the sit ups, the sit ups.

I don't know if this still happens to you, but it always used to happen to me. Blows out the hip flexors. And so your run, it's, it's different. It's almost like you, you, it's almost like you wearing, it's like, it becomes a weighted vest run. That's like kind of the level of like complexity adds to how tired your hip flexors are from the air force style sit up that you have to do.

So still hitting a 10 minute after that. Is really awesome because I know that when I used to do it, that was my biggest mistake I made early on in the air forces, I would run the mile and a half only trained for the mile and a half. And I'd be like, I'm going to smoke this thing. And then it gets to the PT test and I hadn't trained.

With a little bit of fatigue and the hip flexors, um, are going all out. And cause it's not like you're doing these max effort sets for like 10 minutes or they're relatively small sets, but blowing out the hip flexors right before you run a mile and a half is very difficult.

Jerred: So good work, man. Air Force bases.

Thanks. Air Force bases [00:06:00] are always windy. Um, I felt good about it because, you know, even at. Uh, 36, my, well, 35, 36 later this year. Um, the PT standards have gone down. So like my score is whatever, it just gets a little bit better, but the 10 minute flat marks my third fastest time in the air force that includes, you know, back when I was 19, you're like a fine wine.

Yeah. Getting, getting better with age. I'm hoping that I can still maintain the 10 maybe even a sub 10 next year if I can get some better, more consistent in running, but that's that's basically just what I want to do. Keep that for as long as I can. Awesome,

Joe: man. It's a good

Jerred: goal. So, uh, you have also been dealing with some adverse training stuff.

So what's going on in your I just

Joe: didn't train for the last month. No, I'm kidding. I, uh, so I've been moving. And you and I've talked about it a little bit. Yeah. Again, this should, this should be the last one. [00:07:00] Um, but I mean, it's, it's actually been one of the most difficult moves. And like I was saying, I talked to you about it a little bit already, but it was like, it was such a short move.

There's, it's only a four mile move. And so I underestimated that moving always sucks no matter what. And because I didn't mentally prepare and let's say actually prepare very much for the move. When it came to move it just like. It just knocked me on my ass. It was so much more work than I thought it was going to be.

Um, and yeah, I don't want to move again for a really long time. I did maintain some consistency. Uh, I do think the, like the main week of the move, when things were most turbulent, I only trained like three times that week, but I still got like 25, 000 steps every single day. That of that week that I was moving that just to say like how much you know moving how much activity it actually is Um, but I only trained three times other than that.

I maintained [00:08:00] consistency I had a kettlebell. I was doing some stuff or I would be doing bodyweight stuff doing some runs Um, but now i'm getting back into it and really just trying to jump back into Hard to kill is what I've been doing more recently since things have kind of gotten set up here at my new house with the gym and everything, trying to do the IWTs, the 42 minute moms, the runs like that's what I've been easing myself back into because I just, it was a huge bummer.

Like this cycle that I programmed, I'm like super stoked about. The programming and I just want to do it. I want to do it from day one to the last day for all 12 weeks. But I had all these hiccups where I couldn't follow the training how I wanted to. Um, so I, what I think I'm going to do is I'm just going to finish it out.

Like even if it, even if it goes into the next cycle, I think I'm just, I just love this style of training so much. I think I'm just going to keep at it and do this training, finish out the full 12 weeks. Uh, like I said, even if it bleeds into the next cycle, cause it's so much fun. I just really enjoy the training right [00:09:00] now.

Jerred: Yeah, I did the IWT lower body yesterday. Definitely smoked me a bit. Um, I'll, I'll go with, I'll continue with the cycle. I honestly have no idea what I want to do next cycle. Um, I was thinking about. Honestly, doing a wave of, um, Murph Burner to throw in because I haven't done, I really would like to do some vest stuff and because it's running weather.

Now, I mean, it'll be kind of gross actually, but, um, just kind of been feeling it. Did you do Murph on Memorial Day? I didn't, uh, Liz worked all weekend. So I had Landon all weekend. It was just him and I, so I wouldn't have had an opportunity to do it. Yeah, I did it. It

Joe: was It sucks. Yeah, it's just, I think that's the hardest workout for me mentally now because of how good I was at that once.

And it's not like I'm bad now. My time was actually still pretty good because I still have like the running legs from all that training for the ultra. [00:10:00] So it wasn't terrible. My time wasn't terrible. Um, I was actually pretty happy with that, but it was, it just was, you When you're not doing it frequently, you know, it's painful.

It's painful to go through, but my runtimes were surprisingly good. I was like, Oh wow, that was pretty fast. It hadn't been running with a vest, you know? So when I threw that vest on, I was like, this is probably gonna slow me down quite a bit, but it didn't. Miles were good. Calisthenics sucked. Um, I'm a little bit sore from it, but not, not too much.

I think it was mainly the weather that made it suck. It was just like that morning when I did it on Memorial day, I think it was like. Already 80 degrees and like 95 percent humidity because we've been getting so much rain and it was mainly the humidity. Uh, but it was good. It was good to do that work. I hadn't done it in a while.

Jerred: Yeah. I know whenever it's like, whenever I, if I'm actually planning on doing Murph, I try and do the calisthenics leading up to it at least a little bit, because that seems to be, if you, if I ever just do, do it fresh, like, okay, I haven't prepared at all. The calisthenics would be super slow and the [00:11:00] run, the run would be the run.

But if you actually prepare for it, I feel like. You shave the most time down. If you, even if you do like the, like us, the circuits of the calisthenics, that's where all the, all the, all your time we've made up and the run might improve a little bit, but really it's just the calisthenics to get used to, and I just, I hate going through it and, um, having to rest of like, like pushups and stuff like that.

Joe: I would get asked like a thousand times when Murph is coming up, either, I mean, people in person ask me, people ask me online or whatever, it's like, what do you think of, like, how are you going to do Murph? Are you going to do it the hard way where it's unpartitioned or are you going to partition it? And I always have to explain to everybody that like, you know, what the difference is between the two.

But yeah, if you, if you want to move fast and you partition it, you have to prep for those. And just throwing in reps as much as you can either. Either actually training for it or doing it and warm up, cool down, whatever. I [00:12:00] think those are all great ways to do it. Um, and a great way to do it. It's something that ties in really nicely with the study is push up grid or let's come back to that or squat grid.

Let's let's talk about this study for a minute. So again, this was done 17 April 2024 the title of the article is enhanced muscle activity during interrupted sitting improves glycemic control In overweight obese men. That's the actual full title. Um, so let's just go over what it was. So the study was looking at how taking breaks from sitting or interrupting your sitting, uh, how taking breaks from sitting by walking or squatting affects blood sugar levels.

And this interests me for two reasons. One, I've been talking kind of about my blood sugar lately and how I've been tracking it, um, with a CGM. So that [00:13:00] was one thing that piqued my interest, but also how they did this. Um, so there, the participants sat for 8. 5 hours. And they were divided into four groups.

So, I do think it was randomized, control, all those kind of things. Let me see, hold on, I had it written down. Uh, yeah, it was conducted as a randomized forearm crossover study. Um, so, each participants are randomly assigned to different intervention groups to minimize bias and ensure that groups are comparable.

So, anyway, Participants sat for eight and a half hours. They were divided into four groups. And the first group was where they would sit the entire time, which is crazy. Um, need to sit for 8. 5 hours. That's group one or yeah, group one group two is they would take one 30 minute walk. At some point during this 8.

5 hours, the [00:14:00] third group was they took short three minute walks every 45 minutes. And the fourth group was they did three minutes of squats every 45 minutes, which was pretty awesome. And the goal of the whole thing was to find out if breaking up sitting time with short activities could help control blood sugar.

better than just sitting or taking a long walk. Um, and the study found that taking frequent short breaks to walk or squat was the best way to keep blood sugar levels lower compared to just sitting or taking one long walk. So this means moving around more often can be very important for people who sit a lot.

Um, that's the study basics, but I'd love to discuss it a little bit more with you. Uh, what were some of your thoughts as you were taking a look at this study?

Jerred: So I actually just wanted to clarify something because you mentioned the four different groups, but everybody did the four different protocols from whatever.

Joe: Yes, I think everyone acted [00:15:00] as their own control.

Jerred: Yeah, and they did those in a random order and there was seven days in between each so that there was no crossover contamination of what they did. I thought it was pretty cool. I think it's one of these kind of like creative, um, studies that, that, you know, people, somebody thought of is outside the box, it'd be better to get more people in it, but I think it was really good.

And it's also one that's, uh, what I love is super easy to apply. And for somebody to just do. Because like you don't need anything, you don't need to buy anything. You just, Hey, every 45 minutes do squats. And the squats were, uh, it said three minutes of squats every, yeah, three minutes squats, every five seconds they did one rep.

Uh, so it comes out to 36 squats every 45 minutes. Um, they basically play a song and they would do it to a, a, um, a metronome or, or something like that.

Joe: Yeah,

Jerred: that is, that's exactly what I thought. Not quite the same tempo, but it's basically just think of, [00:16:00] Playing bring Sally up every 45 minutes and doing squats too.

I don't know if you want to do that, but go for it. So it was cool. I don't be that bad with air squats, but no, um, especially holding at the bottom. Um, they did a lot more than I thought that, uh, like measuring wise, uh, which I thought was really cool. They, They took diet logs from two days before, um, they measured a whole, they measured some like taking their blood and measured things.

They measured muscle activity. So I thought it was done pretty in depth. Some of the results I didn't, they didn't share everything with the muscle activity, but, um, so I thought it was really cool. I think it was conducted really well. Uh,

Joe: Yeah, I had some of the same notes, like I thought that how thorough they were was really awesome because with Blood Sugar, as I've kind of talked about in my experience in wearing a CGM, which I'm not currently wearing it, I've taken a short break from it, [00:17:00] but ultimately what I've learned is like Each person is very, is variable and can be very different.

Um, I can be very, I respond differently to different forms of exercise. So the fact that they were looking at, you know, food logs and what was happening in people's lives, I thought was really important. Um, but then, you know, what's interesting about this is like, A lot of us probably, I don't want to say we all sit for eight and a half hours, but a lot of people listening to this, I know you and I, we, we both have desk jobs.

We probably don't sit for that long. I just think that we, we exercise, we probably move around a little bit more than that, but it's good to know that. My preference would be to do something like a short bout of activity every three minutes, as opposed to taking a break for 30 minutes and going to do a walk.

Um, which I've tried, and I've never been able to like, get in a habit of doing that. Like, I've never been able to consistently be able to be like, alright, I just ate lunch, I'm gonna go on a 30 minute walk now, I've, I've tried. I [00:18:00] just can never stick with that habit. I don't know why. Um, I'd just rather get back to work or do something else.

Um, but, and so I love that it's the short minute bouts. Cause if you work from home, like you and I do, and you did want to walk or hop on a skier or a rower for three minutes, um, and, and just do that every 45 minutes, squats are the easiest one. Cause you could just get up from your desk, do three minutes of squatting.

Um, now I do want to point out like. The obvious, right? The, this was a study of 18 obese, overweight men, right? So overweight and obese men. Uh, and so just take that into your frame of reference when you're doing this, but that's why I also like that. There wasn't necessarily like you need to do 15 squats to see the results.

It's, it's three minutes. If I do three minutes of kind of maximum amount of squats, that's gonna be a lot of squats. I can do a lot of air squats. So it's going to be [00:19:00] relatively uncomfortable. And I think that might be the point. In all honesty, I'm not saying that you probably have to go max effort as many, like truly as many squats as you possibly can every 45 minutes, um, for three full minutes.

Cause I think that would be kind of crazy, but I do think it shouldn't be, if you're a fit individual and you want to benefit from this. I think that it shouldn't be a going through the motions. I'm going to get up and do a couple of squats. Like I do think that it should be something that you are a little bit more serious about if you're trying to, you know, regulate blood sugar.

Um, because the, like the theory behind it is like your, your muscles like basically turn into like glucose receptors when they are activated, like when they're being used. And so that helps basically suck some of the sugar, the blood glucose out of your blood, as opposed to circulating your muscles are gobbling it up.

But I think that the obviously the more trained you are, um, I think that the harder, well, I feel [00:20:00] like it could go either way. The easier that is to activate or the harder it is to activate. If that makes sense. Like I think, uh, you know, it might be easier in some regards to get your body in that motion, but at the same time, if you're fitter, it probably, It takes like a significant effort for it to like truly, truly matter.

So I would, I would say, stay focused on that timeframe. If you want to add this into your day, three minutes, uh, of whatever you're going to do, but the, the thing that, Oh, and the last thing on that, the reason I don't think it has to be like crazy amount of squats is because three minute walk is a three minute walk.

Like you can walk at a brisk pace, but just think about the effort. It, it takes to do a three minute walk at a brisk pace. Like Where are we at the squats? You know, like you don't, you don't have to like go complete max effort. That, that was my last point there. The reason I liked this study was one, we're talking about blood glucose control, which is something I'm really interested in, cause I am going to put my CGM back on probably this week sometime, but also to, um, what's something that we've been talking about for [00:21:00] a decade is these grids, right?

These pushup grids, squat grids, pick an exercise, do a grid. While it doesn't perfectly coincide with these three minutes, every 45 minutes, It does coincide with doing some sort of physical activity every 45 minutes to an hour throughout your workday. So if you haven't heard us talk about the, the grid, Joe, I mean, you could easily explain it.

Um, what is the grid here at garage gym athlete? Like how, how would you explain it?

Jerred: You pick an exercise that you want to do. You pick the dimensions of a grid. So think like A tic tac toe board is 3x3, so you pick, you know, 4x4, 5x2, whatever shape you want, whatever size grid you want, and then throughout the day, anytime you'd want to do reps, you do reps, whatever reps you want to do, and you put a number in one of those blocks, and you just have to fill the grid that day.

Um, your reps can be random. How I do them, because of, I don't know, uniformity, my reps are always the same. For every set. So whatever I started [00:22:00] at. So say I do 15 pushups. All of my sets are going to be 15 pushups for the day. Or there's even times where I've done if I really need to, like, especially when we've done this, when we've been like stuck in hotels, I'll do two exercises and on the grid, I'll put a slash in the middle of each box and I'll have two different sets of reps for like a pushup and a squat.

Joe: Yeah, yeah, I'm very similar. I don't like to, um, yeah. I don't like to do random, random sets every single time. I've done that before, but yeah, it's, it feels a little like a little weird. Um, I try to do similar to you. Uh, I do, I try to do 20 every single time, but here's what I recommend for people who are, who want to truly build this into a habit, and this is just kind of like behavioral psych, like one on one start with a small grid.

Possibly just a line and a line, right? Like, so four, that would be like just for like a four grid and, um, just do five sets of five, five, five, five, five. And again, you, you're [00:23:00] probably not getting the blood sugar control. Response there. You're not going all out, but again, we're talking about building a habit.

Start small. If this is something you truly want to add to your day and then every single week change something, add something to it, because I've recommended this to a lot of people over the years, and here's what I've seen people do. I've seen people draw like a 10 by 10 grid on their first day. Cause they, in your mind, you think, Oh, this is so easy.

Like I'll just do it. So they draw a 10 by 10 grid and they do like 10 or 20 pushups and they go all out. They just go crazy with it. And then they're like so sore the next day. Cause you, you, you'll be surprised that this can make you sore. If you're not accustomed to doing like reps like this, you will be sore, uh, almost no matter what time, whatever, whatever you pick.

So anyway, start small with it, start with a small grid, start with small reps after it's been a week, either add more reps to that grid or make the grid bigger until I typically, I [00:24:00] end at probably, um, I think it's a 12 set grid. I think three lines and three lines. I think that's, yeah, three, six, nine, yeah, is it, um, whatever it would be.

So I think I do a three by four. Yeah. I think I, I think that's where I kind of end up is doing 12. Cause that will end up being, uh, if I did 10 pushups, 120 or 240. Yeah. That that's typically where I land on the pushups. Um, and so, yeah, I'd say that's, that's about the max I ever go. So that's not like my common everyday thing.

That's about my backs is a three by four. So I'm doing 12 sets of stuff. Um, and then, and I used to just do this. Like in my notebook, like I would just for that day on a piece of scratch paper, I would draw like whatever I was feeling that day. And I'd kind of change it per day. If I was like, you know what?

I really want to do some crazy stuff. Then I do the three by four grid. If I was like, I'm not really feeling it as much. I might just do a two by two or whatever, something smaller. [00:25:00] Um, but I really enjoy being, having that in my workday. Cause I just feel like it's a great way

Jerred: to put some movement in it.

Yeah. I've definitely done the five by fives and like. Halfway through the day's almost done. I'm like, holy crap. This was, this is a mistake.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I never liked, cause I always want to finish it. So what happens sometimes if I do a grid that big, like what you're talking about is I would just get to the end of my day and I want to finish it.

So I would just sit there and do like six sets of 20 pushups, like with minimal rest, like rest 30 or 40 seconds. And then just do another, like, I would just keep doing, I'm like, this kind of defeats the purpose of what I was trying to do. Like, if I want to work out, I'll go work out. Like, I'm just trying to get a little extra movement into the day.

And so. You know, just know what it's for. And like I was talking about at the beginning of the episode, doing stuff like this is a great way to stay prepped for Murph to some degree. Because if you do it, like say, say you work five days a week, you could easily do, uh, pushups. You could do sit ups, you could do squats, you could do pull ups.

Um, and this is something I used to [00:26:00] do before we called it the grid or whatever. I did this when I was on active duty in the Air Force. Um, when I was, uh, with the Air Force. The operators and special tactics, like there was a pull up bar right outside. Like I'm talking like our area was like here, there was like a desk five feet away from a five, uh, I mean, uh, a door five feet away from us that led to the outside and there was a set of pull up bars.

Um, and I convinced everybody to do this. I was like, let's do it. I think we tried every hour on the hour. And also every 30 minutes, um, on the minute, if you will. And we would go do things like 10 to 20 pull ups. And we were working like nine, 10 hour days. And so we, we would knock out a crap ton of pull ups.

Um, and so that was just, again, if you have access, like you can get a pull up bar, hangs on a doorframe, right? You can do it all sorts of different ways, but this is a great way to get a, get good at calisthenics, uh, without having to [00:27:00] like do a specific training program for you, just throw this into your day.

Cause I'm still going to work out. This is just extra movement that I'm trying to get in throughout the day. So I'm not so sedentary. Yeah. I

Jerred: also plan it on how often you want to do it. Like if you're setting a timer, because I think I have to set a timer sometimes. I definitely forget about it.

Yeah.

So if you want to set a timer, if you wanted to do this 45 minute one, you're probably looking at, um, so it's not a time where 45 minutes, you're probably looking at a two by five, which is just 10 sets.

Which isn't that, which is exactly what they did here. So if you want you to do your 40, every 10 sets, then it's just a two by five grid and that's it. It's not a four by four or something like that. So that's, that's also why I'm starting small.

Joe: Yeah, let's see. I think so. Great. Another like productivity tip here, um, is the Pomodoro technique.

Uh, this is for productivity. And so what you're supposed to do is you set a timer for 25 minutes. And then you're supposed to do focus. No distracted, no distractions work for 25 minutes. After [00:28:00] those 25 minutes, you take a five minute break. And then after you've done that three times, you take a longer 30 minute break.

Um, I've done this like extreme productivity style where I'm like, 25 minutes focused work, five minute break. And every, during every single one of those breaks. I would do calisthenics or something like that. Just some sort of, I would either stretch or do a couple of squats or whatever. And then that longer break, go eat lunch or something like that.

So if you want to like intertwine a productivity technique with also, you know, just getting in some additional reps, that's a great way to do it as well. Because I definitely, if I just don't have a very good plan for the day and I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do a pushup today, I'll forget. Yeah, same. I'll just be like, I only did three of these and then I got busy and then I forgot.

So setting timers throughout the day is a great way to get it done as well.

Jerred: Yeah, I definitely found it harder because even if I start one like on a post it or my notebook, like it's gonna be at my desk, but I'm not always at my [00:29:00] desk. I like go work on my laptop somewhere or go walk around the house or something.

So like, My grid is out of sight, out of mind. So I have to find a better, a little bit better of a technique on how to, how to, how to do that.

Joe: You get like an EMOM timer on your, or just like a timer on your watch every hour, you know, like, and then you have to remember to restart it though, at the end of the, uh, the pushups, but that that's not terrible.

Yeah. I have

Jerred: actually. Forgotten to restart it

Joe: in the past.

Jerred: We were just like staying in hotels and I was, I was watching the kid. I think I sat one for every 30 minutes and I'll sit around like 15 minutes. I go, I wonder when my next set is up. Oh crap. There's a timer.

Joe: I guess I'll go now.

Jerred: Yeah,

Joe: basically.

Awesome. Well, I think that about wraps it up. Is there anything else you want to cover from the study?

Jerred: Yeah, I actually have two takeaways that, um, kind of, that aren't really what the, what the study takeaway would be. I mean, um, Mine were for how to use this to, for you. So did, like I said, I did the young [00:30:00] overweight obese men.

They were young. Um, I, if I wanted to, if, if I actually honestly giving a younger guy, uh, tips or, or some sort of sort of like fitness advice on, on how to do this, I'd probably wouldn't be telling him this necessarily exactly. I'd probably be talking about working out and other habits. Um, and so I would think it makes more sense to encourage this on like, Older people because it's, they're not moving as much, they're sedentary and it's not because of like necessarily their choice.

They're just, they're, they got more wear and tear on their body. They, they don't, they just don't move as much move as well, but to do any sort of movement for, for just older people, not like super old people, like 50, 60, 70, probably 60, 70, 80. It's just, Hey, get up every hour, hour and a half. And just do as just as low as you can go half squat, whatever it is, just a little bit of a squat because they're sitting so much and like, they're just, um, losing [00:31:00] their muscle mass, their lean mass anyway.

So I think to encourage this, like I probably the next time I'll get on the phone with my parents, I'll probably tell them about this study to be honest, um, because I just think it's have really good application. One, the one thing they found with the study is the, um, the walking had more quad activation and the squats had more glute activation.

I think the glutes are a big important part, especially with the comes your back and people having back issues and just not engaging your hips with anything. And like, And like bending over and all of that. So I think that is a big, uh, pro, especially for older people. And then that leads me into the second one, which is for the fit people.

While they did cite a study that this technique doesn't really. affect the, um, the fitter groups because they're, whether blood sugar does really, um, they're getting that from their workouts. I do think keeping your muscles active with something what you were [00:32:00] talking about, but if you're prepping for a workout, if you have a workout later in the day, but you sit all day, keeping your muscles somewhat active and awake will make it easier to go into your workout later, whether it's warming up, whether it's doing something, but if you're just sitting all day, I think I find that that's really, really hard to start a workout, especially if you're doing like some sort of lower body.

So getting your glutes. Keeping your glutes active and awake and your hips, uh, I think will make a big difference for fit for even the fit people and we're not even talking about like max effort sets. We're just talking about, you know, do 2030 air squats every hour. And then that's that. That'll be a good enough.

Just like sort of a primer to keep your muscles awake.

Joe: And what I want to do is come back to the podcast, um, after I'm wearing my CGM and kind of see what doing, uh, grids throughout the day does not necessarily following their exact format, but just like doing a grid and seeing what my, my blood sugar does.

See if it's like really. Stable all day and maybe eat the same foods and then don't do it kind of act as my own experiment. [00:33:00] I definitely want to try that over the next couple weeks and bring that back to the podcast and let people know, um, kind of how it's been working for me. But I do think that's what I've noticed just in, I mean, honestly, I think I wore the CGM for two, almost three months before I took a break, um, right now.

That's what I was noticing is the more movement I had throughout the day, uh, the, the better I was. Um, and the only real reason I'm taking a break, actually, if anyone wants to know, it's like, Oh, why? Why take a break? Um, my mail forwarding is not really working in my, my next set of CGMs are like lost in the mail currently.

So that's, that's the only reason I'm not in my, my last one expired like five days ago. And so it's like, Oh, well, I guess I'll, I'll take a break until my mail finds me again.

Jerred: So you didn't just like four miles away, wait for that one to show up and then switch it or something just,

Joe: well, no, [00:34:00] I just, it was like on auto ship and I had luckily thought to change my address, but I didn't, I don't know.

It's been a weird, it's been weird. Cause yeah, I won't get into all that, but it's like new construction. They like, don't know how to ship things to my house yet. And all this kind of crap. But anyway, um, Yeah, so that's the only reason I'm taking the break, but you had a good point there that I wanted to hit on before we kind of sign off is that I do think the muscle activation is important.

That's another thing when I get my CGM back that I want to test because I don't think a push up grid. While I think that's awesome to do, and I love doing them, I don't think it will be as effective at like blood sugar regulation. I think it'll still get you really good at reps and everything. But the reason I don't think it would be as good is because the muscles you're moving deltoids, triceps, pecs.

Thanks. You know, not as big, right? But like what you're talking about, glutes, quads, hamstrings, that's all squats, right? Um, I also think if you could do pull ups for you to pull up grid, that's got a lot more muscle involvement than. Um, pushups because [00:35:00] your lats are massive. They span your entire, uh, torso pretty much.

And then it's also you're getting some deltoid and bicep and forearm strength. You know, so I do think pull ups would probably have a similar, um, response as squats would, but if you are looking for true like blood sugar regulation, think about that as well. Like what's going to activate the most, but damn, Think about doing burpees, man.

Like if you did burpee grid. I mean, like, how about a burpee thruster, like jump every, you know what I'm saying? Like, just how did, like, let's just involve everything that we possibly can. So what you do is you do, you drop down to your body. When you get up, you kind of get up into a squat and then you jump, you do a thruster jump.

So it's like a, it's like a, an advanced burpee. It's like a hard burpee. Why are you the way

Jerred: that you are?

Joe: Well, just think there's so much, there's [00:36:00] nothing, you got everything there. You're doing a pushup. You're getting off the ground, getting, getting a full squat. You're doing a jump that's dynamics explosive.

It's gotta be,

Jerred: yeah, but you can't, I just being explosive after sitting just doesn't bode well. Yeah, it doesn't feel, and

Joe: that's what I'd always run to run into. When I was like trying to do these. Like at work, if you will, like when I was in the military is like, if you didn't have the group kind of doing it with you, it was just weird to be the guy who's like getting up and doing pushups every 45 minutes or two an hour.

It's like, Oh, that guy, I don't mind being that guy, by the way, I'll be that guy. Like I will be that, uh, that weirdo who brings his, brings his food from home and also does squats every 10 minutes or every hour, whatever. I don't care about being that guy, but you know, I'd rather get everyone else involved to do the same thing that I'm doing.

Jerred: I should do that next time I do my drills. Um, they do now at the, the ones that I go through, a couple of people have treadmills under the desk. They have approved, give some [00:37:00] people. So there's a guy that he's, I mean, he's an ultra guy, so he's always spending time on his feet just because he does ultras.

But there's a few people have, uh, just walking treadmills under their, under their desk, which is pretty cool.

Joe: I don't think I could do it. I don't the walking. I don't think I could walk and work. I could walk and answer emails. That's about it. I think but I couldn't do like any actual focused work walking.

I don't think

Jerred: yeah, it depends on the task for sure. I could probably input programming but like you're moving more. I feel like

Joe: I could

Jerred: podcast

Joe: and walk. I know Ben Greenfield does that now. I've seen lots of videos of. Ben Greenfield does a lot of things

Jerred: that we found that was just. Yeah, I mean, he's doing

Joe: like a coffee in Enema every other day or something too.

I don't, but I do think I could walk and podcast. As long as I prep for the podcast well enough, like I could walk in podcast, but anything focused beyond that I couldn't sit in program or like do anything else.

Jerred: All right, cool. Let's wrap it up. [00:38:00] Oh, actually, I had one follow up question. Now that you're in your house.

Yeah. How long even though you're look, you basically look down into your gym. How long until you install a pull up bar into your office?

Joe: Yeah. Uh, I don't know. I was already looking at the, the rogue jammer. Have you seen that? No, it's it's, I think they call it the rogue jammer bar. So there are those, like, there are those like door jam pull up bars that kind of like hook into it.

Right. This one like drills into it, like this drills into above your threshold, like into the studs or the threshold piece of wood above your door. So I was looking into that. My, I think my door is too small. Um, like it's, I will have to look to see if, if, if, if it's adjustable on the rogue side, you have to go check it out and you'll see what I'm saying.

But like, I think, I think my walkway might be too small. And if that's the case and there's nowhere in here, I can do it. So I only have a pull [00:39:00] apart in the gym. Well, unless you do the,

Jerred: uh, The one you used to do with just straight from the ceiling.

Joe: Yeah, let's see if I can get Emily on board of that.

Jerred: Already making holes in a new house.

Joe: But like, and there's already a gym that she thought was too big and unnecessary to begin with. So you can

Jerred: literally see it.

Joe: Uh, yeah. Well. All right. Well, if you want to check out the study again, um, the title was enhanced muscle activity during interrupted sitting improves, glycemic control and overweight and obese men.

You can also find this study at garage gym athlete. If you go to our blog, uh, we linked to all of our studies. Um, In the show notes, so you can go check it out there as well, but that's it for this one. If you want to be a part of our training, the IWTs, the 42 the podcast, you want to do what I'm doing right now.

Um, and what Joe's doing and a lot of garage gym athletes are doing, then go to garagegymathlete. com. Sign up for [00:40:00] a free trial. Uh, we would love to have you there. And then if you are a current athlete, really appreciate you sticking around, doing the training, um, you know, supporting us, supporting the podcast and supporting the training.

Um, and if you do like the podcast, if you want to leave us a five star view and a positive comment, we'd really appreciate it. Helps the show out, helps to find more people. Uh, but that's it for this one. Remember if you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill you.