#464 Exercise Roundtable with Dr Greg Potter and Dr Nicolas Verhoeven (Physionic)

Dr Greg Potter (0:00)

I think a lot of people, they worry too much about their nutrition and micromanage it, and they should take some of that mental energy and focus it on improving their exercise.

Nicolas Verhoeven (0:09)

Once you have pushed into those reserves, you've actually created those reserves, the level of exercise that you actually need to maintain those reserves tends to decrease substantially.

Siim Land (0:20)

My takeaway from that was that yes, both matter, right? If you combine both, you see additional benefits on your mortality risk. With strength, there appears to be a smaller ceiling or like a lower ceiling where you get the maximum benefits. Nick, Greg, welcome to the show.

Nicolas Verhoeven (0:37)

Thanks.

Dr Greg Potter (0:39)

Thanks Siim.

Siim Land (0:40)

Yeah, this is our second round table. First of one was hosted by Greg about supplements. We got pretty positive feedback on it. So we decided we'll do a follow-up and do this one on exercise, which is a bit more, let's say powerful than supplementation as we would all agree on, is your supplements get a lot of more attention and they're very popular. But exercise, in our opinion, I think would be 10X more powerful than all supplements out there when it comes to health outcomes. Do you agree?

Nicolas Verhoeven (1:11)

I know I do for sure. I don't even know how much I would quantify it as, but 10X even seems too small for me. But yeah, the overall point, absolutely completely agree.

Dr Greg Potter (1:22)

Yeah, I think it's hard to put a number to it. And I think the reality is that all dimensions of lifestyle matter, and how much they matter varies a bit between people. So just to give an example, if someone's doing manual labor, then they're already very physically active. So for that person, they might gain relatively more by optimizing their nutrition, whereas a sedentary office worker is going to benefit massively from exercise. And as a general comment, I think a lot of people, they worry too much about their nutrition and micromanage it, and they should take some of that mental energy and focus it on improving their exercise.

Siim Land (2:04)

Yeah, I think like if you're not able to, let's say, do even a few pull ups or over 10 push ups or something like that, or you got wind at walking up the stairs, then that's the most important thing you need to focus on when it comes to improving your health. And if you just improve your fitness, especially from a low level of health or low baseline of health, then you're going to expect to get the most return to your health compared to some other things. Like people, it's kind of a meme that, you know, biohackers spend hundreds of dollars in supplements, but they're not exercising regularly and they can't run a mile without dying. So, you know, it's definitely one of the biggest priorities, in my opinion, when it comes to health. And physical health fundamentally starts with a degree of a physical fitness, at least like moderate physical fitness.

Nicolas Verhoeven (2:53)

Yeah, I think it also scales up, right? I mean, exactly to your guys' point. When you put in a little bit of effort, you get a massive benefit from it. And as you continue to put in more and more and more and more effort into it, it gets diminishing returns. And it can actually be, you know, to a point where you start, it becomes detrimental. But I think for 99% of people, that is not going to be the case. So it's probably not something to worry about.

Dr Greg Potter (3:22)

I think how we frame exercise is interesting too, because nowadays we speak about it as an intervention, when for 99% of the time that humans have been on the planet, it's been a normal part of our existence. And so really it's only in the last few decades or perhaps in the last couple of centuries that we've systematically engineered it out of our lives. And when we add it back in, really we're just adding in a normal part of human existence that we need for our bodies to function well.

Siim Land (3:52)

Yeah, I guess that that's a good way to put it. That exercise is a modern invention in that sense that people in the past didn't exercise because they were physically active due to living. But nowadays you kind of need it to replace that physical activity with some form of exercise. Most of us aren't going to go work on the field or cut our own lumber or those kind of things, milk the cows or something like that. We will need to incorporate this physical movement or physical stress into our life to prevent our bodies from breaking down with age and to not increase our risk of other chronic diseases that are caused by this modern lifestyle and the modern food environment.