In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I break down how to train your cardio without wrecking your strength gains. We’re digging into the real roles of your aerobic and anaerobic systems—why most lifters skip the boring base work, and why that’s a big mistake if you want better performance and recovery. I also share a sneak peek at the upcoming Flexible Meathead Cardio Level 2 course, which covers high-intensity interval training (HIIT), anaerobic power, and how to program it all without turning your training into a dumpster fire. Whether you're a meathead trying to breathe between sets or just want to recover faster and hit harder—this one's for you. Sponsors: Tecton Life Ketone drink! https://tectonlife.com/ DRMIKE to save 20% LMNT electrolyte drink mix: miketnelsonlmnt.com
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I break down how to train your cardio without wrecking your strength gains. We’re digging into the real roles of your aerobic and anaerobic systems—why most lifters skip the boring base work, and why that’s a big mistake if you want better performance and recovery.
I also share a sneak peek at the upcoming Flexible Meathead Cardio Level 2 course, which covers high-intensity interval training (HIIT), anaerobic power, and how to program it all without turning your training into a dumpster fire.
Whether you're a meathead trying to breathe between sets or just want to recover faster and hit harder—this one's for you.
Sponsors:
Available now:
Episode Chapters:
Get In Touch with Dr Mike:
[00:00:00] It's going on and welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things too. Increase muscle, improve performance, improve body composition, and do all of it within a flexible framework without destroying your health. And today is just me yammering at you about cardio fur meatheads.
So this will be a little bit shorter podcast. We've got a ton of great guests coming up in the next couple weeks here, so you wanna stay tuned for that. We've got Dr. Mike Robertson talking all about the molecular underpinnings of hypertrophy. We've got Dan Hunter coming on talking about. Executive fitness and a bunch more cool stuff in the works.
Today I wanted to do [00:01:00] briefly talk about the role of cardiovascular training if you are indeed a lifting meat head. And also wanted to put out the announcement to that, the flexible meathead cardio level two. Which is all around the anaerobic and high intensity interval training will open Tuesday for enrollment, so depending on when you're listening to this, that is Tuesday, July 29th, 2025, and the class will start on August 12th.
It'll be three to four modules. And then once those modules are complete, everything will be online and you'll be able to see everything. Even if you aren't able to make it live within 48 hours after the live portion it'll be a hundred percent online. But what's cool about this is I did this for the level one also and it went really well, is you can ask live [00:02:00] questions and we can make sure we get everything answered.
And then after you enroll. You'll get a little form to fill out of how you are using high intensity interval training, more of the anaerobics, the short version, even everything up through Tabatas and longer, and allow you to semi customize the course because I wanna make it something that's specific for what your needs are.
I've got a ton of information already pulled. I've got a huge outline and everything here. But I need your help to constraining it down to something that's useful, because nobody probably wants to sit through four years of lectures in the cardiovascular system. But will it be the same as before?
We'll have it be principle based. We'll give you the rationale, we'll explain the mechanisms and then I'll give you the exact protocols to also use. So if you are interested, best place to get on to is the newsletter, which is free. [00:03:00] We'll put a link down below at the Mike T. Nelson site, and I'll have a ton of information coming out to the newsletter, along with the link on how to enroll and everything else.
If you're listening to this podcast after the fact it'll probably open again at some point. I haven't decided exactly what that looks like again, but it'll be completely online and we'll have everything already prerecorded for you. To just hop in there and work your way through it. So today's topic is more on the level two material, which is on the anaerobic system.
So if you remember right, the flexible meathead, cardio level one was all on the aerobic system. So the aerobic system is how you use oxygen and primarily fat as a fuel, although you can use carbohydrates, aerobically. For a really good base. And you're probably wondering, well isn't all the anaerobics two stuff?
[00:04:00] Like, isn't that a lot more sexy? 'cause everybody wants to do, you know, intervals and Tabata this and Tabata that. Yes. But what I've realized over time, and this is backed up by actual theology, is in order for you to get the best response in time from shorter interval work. You need to have a big aerobic base to pull off doing multiple rounds of high quality work first.
So for example, on the high end of the spectrum, if you're using the concept two rower or an assault bike, you can do what's called the 30 30 program, which has been written about by many people. 30 seconds of work on, 30 seconds of work off, and then repeat that again. If you can do that at a high output for 10 rounds without much of a drop off between round one to round [00:05:00] 10, in my opinion, that is very, very high level, probably higher level than most lifting meatheads ever really need to get.
Now, if you have enough good adult fortitude and grams of caffeine, could you make it through 10 rounds? Yes, I think most people probably could. However, if we looked at your output from round one to round 10, and it's dropping by let's say 40%, yes, you did a lot of work, but you were not able to maintain the quality of output.
And as you progress and do more rounds, that is more from the aerobic system because you have. A one-to-one ratio. So you're working at 30 seconds, you only have 30 seconds rest. Which is, in my opinion, considered almost incomplete rest. So you have to have an extremely developed aerobic system in order to pull off that anaerobic training, which [00:06:00] I know gets very confusing.
Now, again, if you're an all out anaerobic monster and you can, you only need to do maybe one or two rounds, probably. Okay. But even athletes like that, if you look at say a hundred meter sprinters, they still need to accumulate high quality volumes of work in their training. So even in that case, they still need an aerobic base.
Now, they probably don't need as big of an aerobic base as a, you know, soccer player or maybe. NHL player or hockey or different sports like that. But you still need a pretty developed aerobic system. So that's why we did level one as the baseline, the base of aerobic system, because that is what's going to allow you to do multiple rounds and sessions of the high quality anaerobic work.
And I think this concept gets missed a lot of times because anaerobic work is a lot more sexy. But when I look at training logs of a lot of people [00:07:00] and people, I do one-off consults with many times their drop off between round one to round five. Sometimes it's like 30%. So what they're doing is they're digging a big hole into recovery, but they're not getting the highest level of adaptation they could because in essence, they're almost practicing a slightly different thing.
And the reason they're seeing that big drop off. Is, you know, partially because of the anaerobic system. We'll talk about anaerobic versus aerobic here coming up. But it's usually when we run a vo O2 max test or we test them using a metabolic cart, which I do have a metabolic cart here. I use the Panoi system.
If anyone's interested in info on that, you can email me. Full disclosure, I am an affiliate with them, but you can email me for more info when we test their aerobic system via their VO two max. It is much lower than it should be. And because it's lower, they have a harder time replenishing [00:08:00] that a TP, the energy currency, your body needs to function between those rounds.
So again, all the way back to, that's why level one is all based on primarily the aerobic system. That is a system that is gonna set the base and the foundation for both lifting and also other classically called anaerobic conditions. Now you've all probably heard of aerobic and anaerobic, and simply aerobic is just using oxygen to create energy.
Anaerobic is not using oxygen to create energy, so the main fuel source for aerobic is primarily fat. Although your body can't aerobically used carbohydrates, the main fuel for anaerobic activity is primarily carbohydrates. And when you run the carbohydrates at a high degree through what's called glycolysis, just carbohydrate metabolism, you will spin off what is classically referred [00:09:00] to as the evil lactic acid.
Lactic acid, as it turns out immediately falls apart into lactate plus hydrogen ions. So it's a little bit more accurate to say when you run a high amount of carbohydrates. Through a system to get a high output. So imagine you're gonna do 30 seconds on a rower as hard as you can to get the highest average output over those 30 seconds.
Or what's in the lab, classically called a Wingate test. Then you are gonna produce a ton of lactate and hydrogen ions. So lactate in of itself is actually a great fuel source. Other parts of your body can use it. So some of the non or not as working as much muscles. The cardiac system loves lactate.
Your brain loves using lactate. Lactate is actually a very good high energy fuel source. The downside is when it's produced by your body. It also is producing high levels of [00:10:00] hydrogen ions at the same time. So hydrogen ions are literally the definition of an acid. You're literally dumping acid into. Your bloodstream from the muscles, and that is changing acute levels of pH, which messes up with all the enzymes.
And there's some data to show that may actually directly impair the actin and myosin cross-bridging how the muscle is actually contracting in and of itself. So if you've ever done, let's say, leg extensions and your legs are really burning towards those higher reps that literally is your body dumping hydrogen ions into the muscle.
As a byproduct to try to produce energy at the highest level and rate. So lactate in of itself isn't evil. Lactic acid does not cause prolonged muscle soreness. It doesn't even hang around for very long at all. You're not really doing aerobic stuff after afterwards, or flush runs [00:11:00] or massage work or anything like that.
It's not designed to get rid of lactic acid. All those are myths that just never seem to die. At one point at, I won't say what place I was teaching, but this was many years ago. I got called in by the dean because I was telling the mass massage therapy students that they're not massaging out lactic acid soreness, and they got very mad at me.
And then I asked to see where this had been published in actual published research. Yes, you can find, you know, articles from different sites that still state that. But I've never seen any reputable published research that says that's actually the case. So all the way back to aerobic and anaerobic, it is kind of an artificial division because they do overlap a fair amount.
But when I was designing the course, I realized I had too much stuff to make it all into one course, and I wanted to do due diligence and [00:12:00] cover the theory, the protocols and everything else. So that when you're using these, you'll understand the why and you'll understand the how, and you'll have the exact protocols to use.
Because I think going forward, especially with ai, there's not gonna be a lack of protocol nor a lack of information anymore. But I do believe there is gonna be a massive lack of people understanding the basics even to an intermediate level. And knowing when to apply what protocols and knowing what questions they should ask.
Because you can type anything into the old AI bot now. Pick your favorite one. And it is designed to give you an answer That is what the program is designed because they want you to use it. Again, I use AI for a lot of stuff. I think it's incredibly useful for certain things. But going forward, I don't think right now, or at least for the near future.[00:13:00]
It's gonna replace entirely or gonna be the best at knowing when to use specific things. Now again, if you are familiar with it and you know what information to put in and how to ask specific questions, it can be incredibly useful, but I don't think we're at the point yet where you can just put in and say, Hey, I'm a 45-year-old meathead.
Give me a cardio program. It'll give you a cardio program. And I played with this. And is it the best thing? Eh, sometimes it does get it right and sometimes it's pretty wrong. Again, I don't think it's necessarily wrong per se, but it's not using the right context, so you have to know what to put in for that.
So level one is the aerobic system. Level two is the anaerobic. It is a little bit of an artificial deviation, but it was just the easiest way to separate them. To allow us to get our hands around each one of the concepts. So [00:14:00] number one context is gonna be I important and always gonna be important going forward.
Two lactate and hydrogen ions are the byproduct of high intensity work, which is from primarily glycolysis, which is using carbohydrates. In order to do that on more of the air quotes, anaerobic side of the equation. So in the program, we'll cover everything from like 30, 30 protocols. Very short, high intensity work.
We'll talk about the trainability of those systems, how to set everything up. We'll do a little bit of the biochemistry of it. I'm not gonna beat you over the head with the kreb cycle or go way down in the weeds of, you know, the role of Aceto coa and ve and glycolysis and all that kind of stuff, but.
We will talk about it briefly. We'll talk about how you can play with buffering agents to help with the hydrogen ions. 'cause if you can buffer those [00:15:00] hydrogen ions, again, those are the main issue. It's not necessarily lactated and of itself. So there are ways you can buffer that both in the bloodstream and in the muscle.
Different methods on how to do that. We'll talk about the Tabata study, which. It's super interesting, but has been bastardized to hell back and forth. Side note on the Tabata protocol, if you actually read the study, which most people never do, I believe the high-end component of it was set at 170% of your VO two max.
By definition, there's only a few things. You can even reach 170% of your VO two max if you are a trained individual. Things like a rower, a salt bike, maybe a bike. If you're a cyclist, that's probably about it. Maybe a versa climber. Cross country skiing. I don't know if you could hit it swimming. If you were, you'd probably have to be at a very elite level swimmer to pull that off just because of [00:16:00] the mechanics of being in water.
You are not gonna do tabata, one arm dumbbell preacher curls. So there are limits that are designed to it. And when the Tabata protocol was designed, which is a 22nd non ten second rest, so it is a very incomplete rest period, it was actually designed for athletes not to make it all the way through. So it is very intense.
Again, doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. Again, we're back to understanding the context of what was actually done in the study and how can we apply it in the best fashion. So. The enrollment will open on Tuesday, July 29th, 2025. Just look for the newsletter on that. Those will be the first people to be notified.
The class will start the live portion, August 12th, 2025. Probably go for three to four sessions, and then after that, or 48 hours after each live session has completed, [00:17:00] it'll be in the online learning environment. So future people, when you go through. You will have access to all the content, or even if you're on live and you wanna go back and review stuff, and you'll have access there, we'll give you all the protocols and everything there.
And after you enroll, you'll be able to fill out a form. And I want your feedback on how to design the course. So if you're thinking about waiting, I would argue that now is your time to help form the course specifically to your needs. And again, I'll try to. Address everything as best I can, and I will make sure that no matter what questions you have, if you're in the course, I will make sure to get them all answered.
I think from level one I ended up doing, I think there's a total of almost like two hours of q and a which was great. I'm so glad everyone had questions about it and we're applying how to do it. So look forward on the newsletter is the best place to get all the info. We'll put a link to it down below.
If you have any questions, hop onto the newsletter and just hit reply [00:18:00] and I will get back to you there usually within 24 to 48 hours. So thank you so much. I appreciate it for listening to the podcast. Even if you don't enroll the course, would highly encourage you to do some cardiovascular exercise.
Tons of great things that it helps with from both mortality and just your ability to recover in record time. And I've noticed a huge difference in myself and clients and their ability to be more resilient to stress also. So hop onto the newsletter. Thank you so much. Stay tuned for a bunch more interviews coming up in the next few weeks.
Talk to you later.
Speaker: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The podcast is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not use the information on the podcast for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing any medication or other treatment.
Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health [00:19:00] provider before taking any medication. Or nutritional supplement, and with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it. Because of something you have heard on this or any other podcast, reliance on the podcast is solely at your own risk.
Information provided on the podcast does not create a doctor patient relationship between you and any of the health professionals affiliated with our podcast. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests.
This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to therein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.