Rhonda Patrick is a doctor with an independent mind. Rather than follow the usual road, she embarked on a path that’s obviously interesting for anyone health-minded, but also looking to keep fit. As a nutrigenomics promoter, Dr. Rhonda’s food intake is based on her personal genetic needs. Her diet is mainly whole foods, heavily backed by organic vegetables. Her morning diet is well catered through her green smoothie packed with micronutrients.

Dr. Rhonda is also a fan of sporadic fasting. You can tell her exercise routine is a unique routine worthy of unearthing, as highlighted already. The beautiful thing is her routine is not pseudoscience or “gym-bro” science – but something backed by research and proven to work. Dr. Patrick holds a PhD in biomedical science and has extensively researched metabolism, nutrition, and aging faculties. Her approach to aging, nutrition, and longevity is revolutionary.

Rhonda Patrick’s Exercise Routine

Weekly, Rhonda incorporates multiple types of training. Below are the three main training styles Dr. Patrick does.

1. Endurance Training – Prevents age-related decline in mitochondrial respiratory capacity – helping your muscle cells produce ATP similar to your younger self
2. High-Intensity Training – Boosts mitochondrial biogenesis – increasing the number of young, healthy mitochondria your body makes
3. Resistance/Strength Training – Maintains or increases muscle mass, strength & power – all of which decline without training.

According to Rhonda, the three topmost workouts are fundamental in preventing muscle degeneration. According to Dr. David Sinclair, maintaining muscle mass plays a key role in longevity. These workouts include resistance training, endurance training, and high-intensity training. Mainly a large population is comfortable with an exercise routine that offers limited varieties. However, a combination or a wholesome version is more beneficial for a decent achievement.

RELATED READING: Dr. David Sinclair’s Supplement List for Longevity

If you are limited to just a particular training, you are likely to miss out on the benefits of the others. If your training is only cycling and running, the muscle-preserving benefits of weight lifting will be missed. If perhaps you concentrate only on weight lifting, it is evident that you’ll be lacking in the mitochondrial benefits derived from endurance training. Recovery is just as important as exercising, this is why you should also check out Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s Supplement Stack.

Rhonda’s Weekly Exercise Routine

• Endurance Training – Endurance exercises aid the muscle cells in the production of ATP. It also preserves respiratory capacity. On the Joe Rogan Experience, Rhonda mentioned that she aims to do a 3-mile run a few times a week.
• High-intensity training – Spinning classes, Squat jumps.A highly intensified exercise multiplies the load of young, healthy mitochondria made in the body. Examples include spinning classes, CrossFit, and sprinting. Just do a Google search of HIIT training and you’ll be provided with a myriad of workouts.
• Resistance/ Strength Training – Strength training will help in improving insulin sensitivity. It also enhances and maintains muscle power, strength and mass – all keys to longevity and enhancing quality of life.
• Stretching/ flexibility – Flexibility saves you the agony when bending to pick things. In animals, flexibility exercises inhibit the growth of tumors. So try to fit in a yoga class or two per week. Or, just try and do some stretching every morning.

RELATED READING: Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s Diet

Endurance Training

In a week, Rhonda sets out for a three-mile run. This is repeated three times. She notes that this gives her a boost in cognitive. If Rhonda has a great decision to make, she is animated to take that run.

Aerobics or endurance training is proved to enhance the development of new neurons by a dual fold. Whatever time one starts endurance exercise, structural modifications that occur in brains due to age are almost reversed completely.

High-Intensity Training

Rhonda high-rank squat jumps and spinning as great options for high-intensity training. After giving birth to her son, she picked spinning as part of her exercise regime. She feels it was vital in avoiding postpartum depression.

High-intensity interval working out is proved for increased mitochondrial capacity in various generations. The capacity was increased by 49% for younger people, and for older ones, 69% in three weeks. Insulin sensitivity is also improved, and ribosomes and mitochondrial proteins are in the cells.

Mobility/flexibility training

Yoga and ballet are fantastic examples of this that Rhonda does. They help to maintain and enhance her flexibility.

It has also been shown that flexibility slows tumor though in mouse models. Daily stretches delayed cancer cell growth by 50% for a mouse model. This is without using any form of treatment.

Yoga workouts are linked to suppressed breast cancer tumors. Gentle stretches also impact inflammation resolution and immune cell fatigue.

RELATED READING: Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s Fish Oil Protocol

Rhonda Patrick on the Benefits of Exercise

Exercise encourages the growth of new neurons

In the brain, neurons support processing and communication. To keep up with the development pace of this world, the neurons need to be constantly renewed. The signaling mechanism for growth is the BDNF. This is proof that we can apply workouts to maintain and regenerate neurons.

Memory Retention and Improved Learning

The majority of runners and regular runners in aerobics notice that memory dispensation and consolidation are enhanced during exercise. Rhonda noted that those who exercised for 15 minutes after introducing a new skill performed better. The benefit, however, was witnessed after sleep. Sleep is considered among the mechanisms of memory consolidation.

RELATED READING: Dr. Andrew Huberman’s Complete Supplement List

Delayed Biological Aging

This is measured through telomere length. In a study of people’s lifestyles, those who took regular high intensified exercises enjoyed an average of nine-year telomeres. Telomeres are the caps at our DNA strands. They protect DNA from damages. They can be likened to the phone cases that act as phone cases. In the event of worn-out telomeres, DNA remains highly exposed to damage. Rhonda notes that, interestingly, aging cannot be concluded by a single proxy. This is what she likes to compare it to the age of a car. The board or engine cannot comprehensively be a parameter considering other smaller parts that may have severely been damaged or replaced.

Reduction in the Decline of the Immune System

Naturally, with age, the immune system declines. A young person who braved many illnesses at a young age may be somewhat vulnerable in old age. In a study cited by Rhonda, older persons who worked out regularly exhibited immune system functions anticipated for their juniors by 30 years.

Muscle Aging/Degeneration is Slowed

Muscle loss is closely related to aging. This increases frailty and could reduce mobility. Exercising well into old age could delay this. Luckily all types of workouts stave off the aging of muscles.

Endurance exercise improves insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial function, high-intensity exercise boosts mitochondrial biogenesis, and resistance exercise increases muscle mass, strength, and power.

Exercise enhances the proper decline of skeletal muscle. It mitigates muscle mass loss. Aging stimulates physiological advancements in the muscle.

Resistance training has been demonstrated to produce significant enhancements in cardiovascular fitness. The intensity of resistance training, however, has been inadequately outlined. Dr. Rhonda brings into consideration the effect of intensity.

Severe molecular and metabolic reaction to resistance working out to a moment of muscular failure does not disagree with the former native endurance workout. Myocardial function is maintained or boosted in the acute reaction to high-intensity resistance exercise. Contraction strength seems to mediate the acute vascular reaction to resistance workouts. Domino effects of physiological adaptations reveal that strength workouts to temporary muscle failure release many physiological adaptations. These may be responsible for the progress in cardiovascular fitness. The adaptations may have consisted of phenotypic exchange from llx type towards lla muscle fibers and vascular adjustments. This also includes capillarization.

Resistance workouts to instant muscle failure cause enough heightened stimuli to develop constant physiological adaptations to boost cardiovascular health. This review is the first to bring up such a conclusion, if only to motivate a changing paradigm. The paradigm itself is the misnomer that addresses cardiovascular workouts as spirited by modality.

RELATED READING: What Dr. David Sinclair Eats to Live Longer

Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s Exercise Style

Rhonda states that strength training, high intensity, and endurance exercises are indispensable in diverting muscle aging. Here are some tips from Dr. Patrick herself.

Don’t Be Content

For overall healthy cells, different variations of exercises are needed. It is not healthy to follow only one type and leave out the others. Challenge yourself and be sure to mix up your workouts! Shoot for 4-5 days of exercise and allow yourself to rest and recover.

Aerobic Training Compared To High Interval Training

Aerobic exercises are necessary physical actions that accelerate the heart rate and breathing. They encourage overall body health, cardiovascular, and brain.

For Rhonda, all forms are necessary. She, therefore, is all-inclusive in her exercise routine. She runs and cycles. Cycling increases the development of many neurotransmitters. The neurotransmitters are good for memory and learning. A person who exercises in this area has improved recall. Endurance training helps the body to reproduce mitochondria.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Is Eating before Exercises Beneficial Or Detrimental?

Physical activities may be anaerobic or aerobic. A meta-analysis has been conducted to compare exercising in a fasted state or eating before you exercise. It has been concluded that pre-feeding somehow improves an aerobic exercise of durations longer than one hour. However, it seems ineffective for aerobic training of less than an hour. Similarly, anaerobic exercises are improved in that you can run until exhaustion. For high-intensity interval workouts, pre-feeding is less effective.

There is robust development in glucose sensitivity but an extra improvement on the mitochondrial alteration to the use of fatty acids. This is quite sensible, according to Dr. Patrick. Your mitochondria are highly prepared to use fatty acids in pre-feeding. On the other hand, it is observed that in a fasted state, you are depleting available glucose while more fatty acids remain for energy.

A lot of action is available in the genes responsible for the moderation of the metabolism of fatty acids. Upon pre-feeding, these adaptations are suppressed in connection to the uptake of fatty acids. The bottom-line thus though the mitochondria are highly ready for the uptake of available fatty acid, the adaptations that would support this uptake are somewhat oppressed.

As per modern research, proteins or amino acids can be consumed hours after exercise. This has been debatable because they are needed for muscle growth. It is good to note that this is not the same if you are in a pre-fasted state. Logically, if you fasted for about sixteen hours, you have exhausted stored proteins. In this case, then you should take proteins within an hour’s window after exercise.

In Dr. Rhonda’s exercise routine, she considers many factors that are somewhat left out in some other approaches. Just as in the car aging example, one body part cannot be the final determinant of overall body health. On the same ground then, a particular exercise regime may not address a whole body. Combining suitable exercises will give a far better and healthy outcome. Rhonda’s routine is geared towards an overall result rather than the most popular weight loss. It is undoubtedly a brainer and a worthy course.