Exercise policy

I optimize my exercise to support the restfulness and effectiveness of my sleep, to increase my daytime energy and focus, and to stave off long term cognitive decline.

Subjectively, it feels that exercising every other day is sufficient to maintain the cognitive benefits of exercise. However, when I’m in the habit of exercising every day, it is relatively easy to maintain the habit. It's much more of a slog when I'm booting up from a cold start after a few days of inactivity.

For this reason, I aim to exercise every day. When I miss a day, I'll especially make sure to prioritize it the next day.

I typically exercise early in the day, as a break during my first work block (when I'm doing deep work independently, such as on weekends), or during my organization's lunch time.

Exercise Programming

I alternate between cardio interval training and strength training.

My basic philosophy is to always be doing slightly more than last time, along some dimension: more weight, more sets, more reps per set, longer intervals, etc.

Strength training

I generally rotate between the following exercises:

• Barbell squats
• These are most important. For some reason doing squats seems to have a huge impact on my wellbeing that no other exercise does.
• Barbell bench press
• Deadlifts [no more than 150 lb total]
• Overhead barbell press
• Bent over barbell rows
• Weighted chinups
• Weighted pullups

Usually, I’ll only do one exercise in workout sessions, but I’ll do multiple if I’ve gotten a bit behind, or I just feel like it.

I’m not picky about scheduling. I try to make sure that I do each exercise around once a week and no more frequently than every three days.

Barbell training

For the barbell exercises, I’ll typically do 5 sets of 5, though I'm alright doing fewer smaller sets or fewer reps if I'm really sweating with heavy weights.

I generally focus on the negatives: slowly lowering the weight over the course of about 5 to 10 seconds, and then rapidly pushing up.

My goal is to increase the weight slightly, every session, even if only by 1.25 lbs each side, or to increase the number of reps or the number of sets, from the last time.

If I don’t feel up for pushing my maximum, I’ll sometimes do markedly less weight (maybe 60 or 70% of my maximum), but I’ll do many more sets or reps per set.

I use an interval timer to time the sets. (Otherwise I’m apt to get lazy and spend long minutes between sets, and my workout ends up taking an hour for one exercise). For heavy barbell training, those intervals are:

• 1 minute work
• 3 minutes rest.

Though in practice, I’ll finish the set before the 1 minute is up, so my rest is a bit longer than 3:00.

When a barbell exercise feels really hard, I’ll ask myself “can I do it?”, and if the answer is yes, then I do it. (A pattern I picked up from Duncan Sabien, who I reports it from David Belle).

Chinups and pullups

When I'm doing chin-ups or pull-ups, I usually do at least 40, typically in sets of around 10. If I’m doing chin-ups or pull-ups without additional weight, I’ll do more reps per set. My goal is to build up to being able to do 25 consecutive unweighted pull-ups and 25 consecutive unweighted sit-ups.

I do pull ups and chin-ups on an interval schedule of one set every 4 or 3, depending on how much weight I’ve added.

Cardio Interval Training

I do cardio interval training approximately every other day. Daytime Cardio Interval training has a marked impact on my nighttime HRV.

Most typically, I'll do a series of short, timed, sprints on a treadmill. (I've found it's much easier to do this on a treadmill, where I don't have to push myself to keep sprinting—I have to sprint to keep up with the treadmill and I just have to not stop.)

Using a heart-rate monitor and an interval timer, I’ll alternate exerting myself hard, keeping my HR around 170 bpm, and slowing down, keeping my HR around 140 bpm, for a total of 4 cycles.

(The basic idea here was taken from chapter 16 of Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning, in which he claims that this kind of training boosts momentary recovery, and therefore cognitive performance.)

Targeting 170 bpm

My CIT routine is optimized so that my heart rate is at 170 bpm or above for the whole length of each of the high intensity sprint intervals.

Specifically,

• I set the treadmill speed to 10.6 mph during the high intensity intervals.
• I include a 30 second "ramp up" interval immediately before each high intensity interval, to allow the treadmill to get up to speed, and to allow my heart rate to get up to 170 bps.

For me, those parameters work for getting my heart rate up to 170 bps, as fast as possible, without exerting myself more than is necessary to hit that target, but I'll adjust them as needed. (Previously, I used a 35 second ramp up interval.)

Routine

Over the course of the session, I alternate between a treadmill speed of 10.6 mph (a moderately intense sprint) and 2.5 mph (a brisk walk).

Warm up

I start each session with a 2 minute warm up. I set the treadmill to 10.6, and sprint until my heart rate reaches 170 bpm. As soon as I hit 170 bpm, I immediately drop the speed to 2.5 mph, until the end of the two minutes.

This is just priming. Quickly raising my heart rate like this, and then letting it fall, means that my heart rate is heightened somewhat before the first ramp up interval, so that I get up to 170 bpm by the end of that interval.

Cycles

Then I'll do 3 to 4 cycles of...

1. Ramp up - Set the treadmill to 10.6 mph and keep pace as it speeds up. [My heart rate should be at 170 bpm by the end of this interval]
2. High intensity interval - Sprint at 10.6 mph [My heart rate is typically in the 170-190 bpm range]
3. Lower intensity interval - Set the treadmill to 2.5 mph and slow down correspondingly [my heart rate gradually drops down to around 140-135 bpm]

Over time, I have gradually increased the lengths of the high intensity intervals and decreased the lengths of the lower intensity interval.

I started with 30 seconds of HI and 120 seconds of LI. Over the course of a few months, I gradually extended the HI intervals by one second (each) at a time, until the HI intervals were 45 seconds. When I have extended them to 60 seconds, I'll start shrinking the LI intervals, shaving off a second at a time, until they're only 60 seconds.

Most days I'll do 4 cycles. But if I'm feeling tired or less capable, I'll do only 3.

In-life running

Every time I walk somewhere, run for at least part of the way.

I’ve set myself up to make this feasible. I’m almost always wearing sneakers, and I wear a specialized backpack that was selected to make running as easy as possible.

Other

The above are my staples, but I’ll sometimes end up up physically exerting myself in other ways.

• Especially when I feel unmotivated to exercise, I'll climb up the stairs of the office that I work at three to five times. The building is 13 stories tall (with a standard double story first floor), so that's 42 to 70 floors. This will typically get my heart rate up (into the 130 bpm range), but the exertion is spread out over a long period of time—it isn't as intense as sprinting or weightlifting.
• If I find myself traveling and don’t have access to a gym, I might find a ~knee-high ledge and jump on it and off it 100 times, or I might run up the stairwell of a multi-story building.
• I sometimes spend hours walking around a neighborhood. My rule is that that I’ll count this as my exercise for the day only if I walked enough that my feet are sore, which is typically around 20,000 steps, according to my Oura ring.
• I’ve enjoyed playing Beatsaber and Blade and Sorcery in the past, with weights on my wrists to increase the exertion per move.

Exercise Habits

Pre-exercise

When I feel unmotivated, or exercise feels like a chore (which is not usually the case if I’ve been keeping to the daily habit), I’ll transition into exercise by hyperventilating or doing bellows breathing to raise my arousal.

Between Sets

Similarly, I sometimes use breathing techniques to increase my oxygen intake, or alternatively to reduce my level of arousal, between sets.

Post-exercise

After I exercise, I’ll take creatine and essential amino acids. (If you don’t know, taking Essential Amino Acids or Branch Chain Amino Acids after exercise can prevent soreness the next day.)

If I’m not eating my meal for the day immediately afterwards, I’ll drink huel or a protein shake.