19 Comments
Nov 8Liked by Ricky Du Plessis

OMG, you just read my mind! Literally just got in from the gym. I have naturally changed my daily routine to what I call HIIRT, as opposed to the conventional HIIT, i.e. High Intensity Interval RESISTANCE Training - only about 40 mins, including warm up/down, 3 exercises, 3 reps each and plenty of rest (recovery!) in between. I am not well adapted to aerobic exercise, although, I am smashing it nowadays on the rowing machine, as much I think because I am much stronger, rather than just aerobically fitter. Anyway, I digress... I was pondering how I would explain this regime in beneficial terms since people keep asking me how I have lost so much weight in so short a time (over 3 stone - 42 pounds/19kgs - in a little over a year). And here you have done exactly that. Thank you!

Expand full comment
Nov 8·edited Nov 8Liked by Ricky Du Plessis

Good for you! At my advanced years and with both knees replaced I restrict myself to yoga and golf. I still manage to beat my age( gross) fairly regularly.

Expand full comment
author

Any exercise is better than none Sir 👏

Expand full comment
Nov 8Liked by Ricky Du Plessis

I have Stage 4 Metastatic Lung Cancer diag. Nov. 04, 2022. I'm an ex-body builder, 5' 10" weighing 198 pounds, 3% body fat at 45 years old when I stopped body building. Muscle Memory is well known in the peer review and I'm now 69-years-old. After just 3 weeks of intense weight lifting my muscle mass has increased unbelievably. Lift, eat, sleep. I wish I could post a picture here but I'll post a Substack post with pics later today. The increase in pure muscle is not to be believed. Muscle Memory Rocks. This post is absolutely correct. Except, I lost 25 pounds from explosive diarrhea from Keytruda and dropped to 104 pounds. Stopped Keytruda 45 days ago and I'm working with Dr. Pierrick Martinez. Taking 100mg Ivermectin 6 days a week, 1000mg Mebendazole 2 weeks, 1500mg 2 weeks, 2000mg 2 weeks which brings me to my next blood draw and CT scan. Corrected diarrheal weight loss with Loperamide twice a day and began lifting. The results after only 3 weeks are phenomenal. Left tumor disappeared, right tumor reduced 80+% the way tumors are measured. If you have cancer you MUST lift weights. GREAT POST! Thank you. Pics on my Substack later today when the sun comes up. Increased weight to 125 pounds shooting for 155 pounds.

Expand full comment

Better do some eccentric stretching also to prevent injuries

Expand full comment
Nov 8Liked by Ricky Du Plessis

Thank you both! Inestimable how much getting our blood moving to high engagement helps humans' overall health. For me, for decades, distance-running served. https://donpaul.substack.com/p/the-first-running-step-outside

Expand full comment
Nov 8Liked by Ricky Du Plessis

Dancing! Social partnered dancing is even better. I teach various swing dances. If you go out dancing for 3 hours you are doing a whole series of short bursts of different intensities. It's an all over work out, plus you exercise parts of the brain that get dementia - if you are partner dancing that is. This is because you are making a lot of quick decisions about physical movement when working with a partner as it's not a routine - there's a leader and a follower and you interpret the music together. The two best dances for a mental workout as well are swing dances and Argentine tango. The best part of all is that is a social activity - you exercise without the grind of going to the gym, but with all the good physical vibes and it's great fun. Everyone should be taught this sort of dancing from an early age, plus it's never too late to start.

Expand full comment

Frieda Lawrence commended a young companion of hers and David Herbert's, Rolf Gardiner, circa 1926--'A charming youth who wants to save the world by dancing.'

Expand full comment
Nov 8Liked by Ricky Du Plessis

Bravo. Anyone that knows the body systems knows that regular wirking it up activates the metabolic system

Expand full comment

In a few weeks time I'll be 81 years of age, I've never gone to the gym, in fact I've never taking up strenuous exercise. And I've been a smoker since I was 14 yrs old. I don't have high blood pressure, I don't have high Cholesterol, all my limbs are my own, in fact I'm in relative good health.

My wife and I have been married for 56 years, and she makes all our food from scratch. I have a small garden plot which provides vegetables, without any chemical spraying, so I guess we eat healthily. We do eat red meat, white meat prepared in all sorts of recipes that she can dream up. During our early years together we were like a couple of rabbits, that was the only strenuous exercise ;o]

I've led an active life; in childhood playing with my pals on the rocks and cliffs at the seaside and later as a consultant jet-setting around the world on numerous joint-venture assignments. But I've never actually gone in for competitive sports.

I guess I'm an odd ball! I don't trust governments nor government "scientists".

Neither of us have been jagged with their poison, neither covid nor flu.

Probably with the conditions we live in nowadays; pollution, chemicals raining down from the sky and all the rest of man-made negativities then one should follow Ricky's article. When I grew up, post WWII there was nothing but clean, fresh seaside air.

Expand full comment
author

High-intensity exercise does not necessarily mean "hitting the gym" and many who partake in sports, whether recreational or competitive, can fulfill their movement needs as part of their sports, without needing to add gym too... Sure, they won't be "world championship material" without the additional investment, but they can certainly achieve great health outcomes - so don't mistake gym as being the "only solution".

That being said, based on what you have described of yourself, you are most certainly "a unicorn" (so far out of the ordinary, you are basically a 'mythical creature's) because the overwhelming majority of people who do as you have described (smoking & lack of physical activity) have terrible health outcomes...

Long may your run of success continue 👍

Expand full comment
Nov 8Liked by Ricky Du Plessis

Thanks!

A mythical creature......I'll take that as a compliment ;o]

Expand full comment

Ricky, what do you consider to be “high intensity”?

Expand full comment
author

Effort sufficient to get your heart rate up into "zone 4" (80% - 89%) or even "zone 5" (90% - 100%), preferably in intervals 👍

Can be achieved by a number of different exercise, activities & sports - so there's no "one size fits all" and the point is the intensity of effort 👍

Expand full comment

Ok, so I run… my max HR is 175: 80% of 175 is 140. So intervals to get over 140 HR… correct?

Expand full comment
author

Yep, so a good uphill or adding some pace changes to include intervals of sprinting will do the trick 👍

Expand full comment

great post.

what is your view on folks with long covid? the standard view seems to be that PEM/CFS is greatly exacerbated by exercise...but if so, and LC lasts for minimum of months to years, then everyone not exercising is going to be the death knell

Expand full comment

“Hypercarnivores"… until you look at human teeth…

Most of us couldn’t gum a hamster to death.

Expand full comment
author

Yeah, I have addressed the "but we don't have claws & sharp teeth" rebuttal many times and frankly, it demonstrates only a complete and utter misunderstanding of evolutionary selective pressures... 🙄

Here - read this 👇

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ricky-du-plessis-60410aa4_again-this-utterly-simple-minded-arguement-activity-7222819603184320512-59jG?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android

Expand full comment