Fitness
Dan Lloyd: Why I’ve decided to change my lifestyle
There’s a strong argument to say that this article shouldn’t be here. This is the Global CYCLING Network, and what I’m about to write is not specifically cycling-related. I’m going to write it anyway, and hope it makes it past the Editor-in-Chief (I’ll choose a slow news week).
I’m 43 now, and largely sat on my arse. Unfortunately it’s now on a couch instead of the 20-30 hours a week I used to perch it on a bike saddle. So, instead of buying a Porsche for my mid life crisis, I’ve made a decision to change a few things in my lifestyle. The aims being to stop the deterioration, to attempt to slow down the ageing process that I’ve recently been quite successful in speeding up, and to extend my life expectancy as much as I can. I’m doing it with the hope that I can inspire, or at least encourage, some of you to do it with me.
My attitude towards cycling over the years
Let me at least get some cycling into this. I LOVED riding and racing my bike – I cannot begin to articulate how obsessed I was with being the best I could possibly be. In that regard I am similar to most current or former pros. It’s not a sport you can excel in unless you have that determination and drive.
Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have the genetics to achieve Mathieu van der Poel level success, but fortunately for me, I had enough talent to turn pro, competing at many of the biggest races in the world. That includes the Tour de France in 2010, which I really made the most of – I got to enjoy it for a full four hours more than the (eventual) winner that year, Andy Schleck.
Fast forward two years and I was no longer a full-time cyclist (not my own choice, but probably a wise choice by team managers at that time). I did, however, remain in the ‘industry’. I’ve been here at GCN since its inception, and over the 12 years since, I’ve also had the privilege of doing a lot of commentary and punditry on the biggest races in the world.
In that time, I’ve learnt a lot about myself, and my relationship with cycling and exercise in general. I love talking about cycling, and watching it, but my love for riding a bike ebbed away immediately after I stopped competing. With a goal, I can push myself very hard, without one, I can’t see the point in doing anything.
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It’s interesting to look at how much riding ex-pros do in retirement. At least it is for me. It’s one of my weird fascinations, along with looking up the age of almost every famous person I see on TV (yes, that is weird, and no, I don’t know why). There’s very rarely any middle ground on this; Frank and Andy Schleck are good examples. Whilst Frank continued to ride more than 15,000km a year in retirement, Andy hung up his wheels and only started riding again quite recently. Most ex-pros either carry on riding a lot or don’t do much at all.
Having thought long and hard about the reasons behind this disparity, my conclusion is that it comes down to why you rode a bike in the first place.
For me, I loved the process of being the best I could be for competition – I loved making a training plan, and I loved sticking to it, ticking the boxes. There have been very few times in my life where I’ve just gone out for a bike ride for the sole reason that I wanted to go out and enjoy a bike ride. Each one had an aim and a plan.
That’s not the same for everyone, though – others just love riding their bikes, but happen to be amongst the most talented cyclists in the world, and end up making a career out of it. I’m not saying they don’t also follow training plans and tick boxes, but their love for riding remains with them even after they’re no longer paid.
That was a very long-winded way of explaining why I haven’t ridden my bike much for the last 12 years. My pro career was another box ticked – I may not have reached the heady heights of a big win, but I got further than I thought I would.
The one time I did get back into some serious riding was when I became obsessed with taking the Strava KOM around a local singletrack trail. It took me about six months to get it, after which I stopped cycling again. Sad, I know. I’ve also dabbled with running, which was great – I had no history with running, so I could be the best runner I’d ever been. I was back to ticking boxes… until I got injured.
So what happens next?
Long story short (maybe long story long by this point), I’ve not done a whole lot of consistent exercise over the last 12 years. What I have done a lot of is working, sitting, drinking alcohol, burning the candle at both ends, and… smoking. I’ve not admitted that last part publicly before. Mainly because it’s embarrassing that I did something so stupid for so long, but I smoked a fair bit between 2012 and 2020, before I finally managed to give up. At least the tobacco part – to this day I am using nicotine replacements.
It was late last year when I realised that I was on a slippery slope. My Whoop – who are sponsoring this series of videos – sleep scores during our Grand Tour coverage in particular were enough to make me want to change. Terrible sleep, an HRV barely in double digits, and a resting HR 10-15 beats higher than it would be without drinking.
At that same time, I’d been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of books on longevity, and all the small things you can do to give yourself the best chance of a very long and healthy life. It’s now time to start implementing some of the things I’ve learned.
And that’s what I am going to document in a new series on the GCN YouTube channel and here on our website. The initial episode (which you can watch at the top of this page) goes through some thorough baseline tests which I was fortunate enough to do at the Nuffield Manchester Institute of Health and Performance. I will repeat those tests towards the end of this year, having made several small but significant changes to my lifestyle. Namely more exercise, better sleep, less drinking (I’m not confident I want to, or even could, completely cut alcohol out of my life), and an emphasis on generally healthier living.
I’m sure there are many people out there, reading this or watching the series, who also have some small things that they’d like to change about their lifestyle for the better, or maybe you just want to learn exactly what you can do to try and ensure you live the longest, healthiest life possible. That’s what this is all about – not living like a monk, or trying to make the perfect choices all day every day, but small changes that we can all implement if we really want to.
The end goal? A longer life, a happier life, and a healthier life. Yep, all the clichés, but I genuinely think that I, and we, can achieve it.
You can keep up to date with Dan’s progress here on the GCN website and over on the GCN YouTube channel. Let us know in the comments below if Dan’s inspired you to make some lifestyle adjustments. We’d love to hear your stories too.
People with high cardiorespiratory fitness were 36% less likely to experience depression and 39% less likely to develop dementia than those with low cardiorespiratory fitness. Even small improvements in fitness were linked to a lower risk. Experts believe that exercise’s ability to boost blood flow to the brain, reduce bodywide inflammation, and improve stress regulation may explain the connection.
Fitness
These 20-Minute Burpee Workouts Replaced His Entire Gym Routine – and Transformed His Physique
While many swear by them, most people see burpees as a form of punishment – usually dished out drill sergeant-style by overzealous bootcamp PTs. Often the final blow in an already brutal workout, burpees are designed to test cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance and mental grit. Love them or loathe them, they deliver every time.
For Max Edwards – aka Busy Dad Training on YouTube – they became a simple but highly effective way to stay fit and lean during lockdown. Once a committed powerlifter, spending upwards of 80 minutes a day in the gym, he was forced to overhaul his approach due to fatherhood, lockdown and a schedule that no longer allowed for long, structured lifting sessions.
‘Even though I was putting in hours and hours into the gym and even though my physique was pretty good, I wasn’t becoming truly excellent at any physical discipline,’ he explained in a YouTube video.
‘I loved the intentionality of training,’ says Edwards. ‘The fact that every session has a point, every rep in every set is helping you get towards a training goal, and I loved that there was a clear way of gauging progression – feeling like I was developing competence and moving towards mastery.’
Why He Walked Away From Powerlifting
Despite that structure, Edwards began to question whether powerlifting was sustainable long-term.
‘My sessions were very taxing on my central nervous system. I was exhausted between sessions. It felt as if I needed at least nine hours of sleep each night just to function.’
He also noted that his appetite was consistently high.
But the biggest drawback was time.
‘I could not justify taking 80 minutes a day away from my family for what felt like a self-centred pursuit,’ he says.
A Simpler Approach That Stuck
‘Over the course of that year I fixed my relationship with alcohol and I developed, for the first time in my adult life, a relationship with physical training,’ says Edwards.
With limited time and no access to equipment, he turned to burpees. Just two variations, four times a week, with each session lasting 20 minutes.
‘My approach in each workout was very simple. On a six-count training day I would do as many six-counts as I possibly could within 20 minutes. On a Navy Seal training day I would do as many Navy Seal burpees as I could within 20 minutes – then in the next workout I would simply try to beat the number I had managed previously.’
This style of training is known as AMRAP – as many reps (or rounds) as possible.
The Results
Edwards initially saw the routine as nothing more than a six-month stopgap to stay in shape. But that quickly changed.
‘I remember catching sight of myself in the mirror one morning and I was utterly baffled by the man I saw looking back at me.’
He found himself in the best shape of his life. His energy levels improved, his resting heart rate dropped and his physique changed in ways that powerlifting hadn’t quite delivered.
‘It has been five years since I have set foot in a gym,’ he says. ‘That six-month training practice has become the defining training practice of my life – and for five years I have trained for no more than 80 minutes per week.’
The Burpee Workouts
1/ 6-Count Burpees
20-minute AMRAP, twice a week
How to do them:
- Start standing, feet shoulder-width apart
- Crouch down and place your hands on the floor (count 1)
- Jump your feet back into a high plank (count 2)
- Lower into the bottom of a push-up (count 3)
- Push back up to plank (count 4)
- Jump your feet forward to your hands (count 5)
- Stand up straight (count 6)
20-minute AMRAP, twice a week
How to do them:
- Start standing, feet shoulder-width apart
- Crouch down and place your hands on the floor
- Jump your feet back into a high plank
- Perform a push-up (chest to floor)
- At the top, bring your right knee to your right elbow, then return
- Perform another push-up
- Bring your left knee to your left elbow, then return
- Perform a third push-up
- Jump your feet forward
- Stand or jump to finish
Kate is a fitness writer for Men’s Health UK where she contributes regular workouts, training tips and nutrition guides. She has a post graduate diploma in Sports Performance Nutrition and before joining Men’s Health she was a nutritionist, fitness writer and personal trainer with over 5k hours coaching on the gym floor. Kate has a keen interest in volunteering for animal shelters and when she isn’t lifting weights in her garden, she can be found walking her rescue dog.
You check your smartwatch after a run. Your fitness score has dropped. You’ve burnt hardly any calories. Your recovery score is really low. It’s telling you to take the next 72 hours off exercise.
The worst bit? The whole run felt amazing.
So why is your watch telling you the opposite?
Ultimately, it’s because smartwatches and other fitness trackers aren’t always accurate.
Smartwatches can shape how you exercise
Using wearable fitness technology, such as smartwatches, has been one of the top fitness trends for close to a decade. Millions of people around the world use them daily.
These devices shape how people think about health and exercise. For example, they provide data about how many calories you’ve burnt, how fit you are, how recovered you are after exercise, and whether you’re ready to exercise again.
But your smartwatch doesn’t measure most of these metrics directly. Instead, many common metrics are estimates. In other words, they’re not as accurate as you might think.
1. Calories burned
Calorie tracking is one of the most popular features on smartwatches. However, the accuracy leaves a lot to be desired.
Wearable devices can under- or overestimate energy expenditure (often expressed as calories burned) by more than 20 per cent. These errors also vary between activities. For example, strength training, cycling and high-intensity interval training can lead to even larger errors.
This matters because people often use these numbers to guide how much they eat.
For example, if your watch overestimates calories burned, you might think you need to eat more food than you really need, which could result in weight gain. Conversely, if your watch underestimates calories burned, it could lead you to under-eat, negatively impacting your exercise performance.
2. Step counts
Step counts are a great way to measure general physical activity, but wearables don’t capture them perfectly.
Smartwatches can under-count steps by about 10 per cent under normal exercise conditions. Activities such as pushing a pram, carrying weights, or walking with limited arm swing likely make step counts less accurate, as smartwatches rely on arm movement to register steps.
For most people, this isn’t a major problem, and step counts are still useful for tracking general activity levels. But view them as a guide, rather than a precise measure.
3. Heart rate
Smartwatches estimate your heart rate using sensors that measure changes in blood flow through the veins in your wrist.
This method is accurate at rest or low intensities, but gets less accurate as you increase exercise intensity.
Arm movement, sweat, skin tone and how tightly you wear the watch can also impact the heart rate measure it spits out. This means the accuracy can vary between people.
This can be problematic for people who use heart rate zones to guide their training, as small errors can lead to training at the wrong intensity.
4. Sleep tracking
Almost every smartwatch on the market gives you a “sleep score” and breaks your night into stages of light, deep and REM sleep.
The gold standard for measuring sleep is polysomnography. This is a lab-based test that records brain activity. But smartwatches estimate sleep using movement and heart rate.
This means they can detect when you’re asleep or awake reasonably well. But they are much less accurate at identifying sleep stages.
So even if your watch says you had “poor deep sleep”, this may not be the case.
5. Recovery scores
Most smartwatches track heart rate variability and use this, with your sleep score, to create a “readiness” or “recovery” score.
Heart rate variability reflects how your body responds to stress. In the lab it is measured using an electrocardiogram. But smartwatches estimate it using wrist-based sensors, which are much more prone to measurement errors.
This means most recovery metrics are based on two inaccurate measures (heart rate variability and sleep quality). This results in a metric that may not meaningfully reflect your recovery.
As a result, if your watch says you’re not recovered, you might skip training — even if you feel good (and are actually good to go).
6. VO₂max
Most devices estimate your VO₂max — which indicates your maximal fitness. It’s the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise.
The best way to measure VO₂max involves wearing a mask to analyse the amount of oxygen you breathe in and out, to determine how much oxygen you’re using to create energy.
But your watch cannot measure oxygen use. It estimates it based on your heart rate and movement.
But smartwatches tend to overestimate VO₂max in less active people and underestimate VO₂max in fitter ones.
This means the number on your watch may not reflect your true fitness.
What should you do?
While the data from your smartwatch is prone to errors, that doesn’t mean it is completely worthless.
These devices still offer a way to help you track general trends over time, but you should not pay attention to daily fluctuations or specific numbers.
It’s also important you pay attention to how you feel, how you perform and how you recover. This is likely to give you even more insight than what your smartwatch says.
Hunter Bennett is a lecturer in exercise science at Adelaide University. This piece first appeared on The Conversation.
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