Cardio is for your mind, not your body

You do not need cardio to look amazing and be as strong as you want. But before the runners in the comments attack me, I am not saying never do cardio. I’m saying most people are doing it for completely the wrong reasons. I’ve been in elite shape for years doing almost nothing other than my 40 minutes a week of strength training and dialling in my nutrition. But if you are not doing any activity outside of that and you don’t feel your best, you’re restless, you can’t concentrate, you have low mood, you’re anxious, or you feel stuck in a cardio routine that feels more like a chore than the best part of your week, then hopefully this is about to change your life. There are lots of very real benefits to cardio, but I think we’ve been massively misled as to what they are and what’s actually required to achieve them.
It is so much easier to get these benefits than most people make it on themselves. So in this video, I’m going to show you why cardio is overrated for most goals. The real reason that you need it that almost no one talks about and the exact exercise routine that I use outside of strength training to stay strong and healthy as well as lean and strong. Cardio in isolation will not change your body, get you leaner or build strength. I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m not saying it’s never worked for anyone. It can indirectly, like any activity is better than none. Your body likes to move, but using cardio as a means of trying to improve your physique or lean out is kind of like going vegetarian. Yes, you might get results. No, you’re not guaranteed to, because the effects are indirect and they’re not likely to last once the beginner gains phase is over.
And past a certain point, it is likely to start negatively affecting your progress, handicapping you without you even realising it. If you want to lean out, get more muscular, look better naked. Then there are literally only two things, strength training and diet. And by diet, I mean a daily protein intake and hitting a calorie deficit until you are lean. That is all. Let’s take running as an example. This has become a huge phenomenon in Australia, at least in the last five years. And I have friends who have reached an exceptional level with it. Is it because it makes their body superhuman fit strong and lean? No. I would wager that the popularity of this sport is not to do with any physical benefits whatsoever. Sure, you can increase your ability to run long distances at pace, but high volume long distance running is brutal on your joints and not particularly conducive to high levels of muscle mass.
So why is it so popular? With running, I think the reason people get so hooked has nothing to do with how it changes their bodies, but with how it makes them feel. The runner’s high is a completely valid reason to pursue running. And while I don’t teach any special cardio hacks or prescribe a set routine to my students, unlike with strength and mobility, I think cardio is essential, not for strength, not for your physique, but for your psychological wellbeing. Here’s the model that I use and hopefully this will make things work so much better for you. Strength training is for your body. Cardio is for your mind. And I think I first stumbled on this truth in lockdown when for the first time you didn’t need to be doing any incidental exercise. Previously, I would walk everywhere around Melbourne where I live, but when 2020 rolled around, suddenly there were days where I would just study and work out and eat and socialise and not move outside of that.
And it felt utterly awful, like restless, anxious, bad sleep, generally unhappy. And when you don’t know what’s causing these things, it’s infuriating and kind of scary. I thought I had fitness dialled because I was in such good shape, so I didn’t really see this blind spot. And I feel stupid now seeing how long it took me to put the pieces together and see that what was missing for me was exercise. And I’m not talking about running or anything high intensity, just walking. When I realised what a difference eight to 10,000 steps per day did for my mood, my energy, my sleep, my overall wellbeing, I thought this was the biggest hack ever discovered. Now there are a few principles that arise out of this discussion that I want to share with you to make implementing this seamless and effective. The first is to do what you like.
In reality, it matters very little what activity you do outside of your strength and mobility training. As long as it’s there, you’re good. So why on earth would you do things that you don’t want to do if the idea of it all is to make you feel better? Anything from a walk in a park with an audiobook to swimming, to playing basketball is going to give your body the movement that it needs. For some people, one of those activities will be like the funnest thing ever. That’s me and basketball. For others, it would be a chore that you wouldn’t find me dead doing, like swimming. And others are so convenient and can be combined with other activities like socialising or listening to audio books, but they are almost zero cost while netting enormous benefits, and that’s me and walking. The second principle is to just do an amount that feels good.
There’s no science to this. Actually, there probably is. But like with most things, your intuition is genius and this just doesn’t need to be over complicated. Eight to 10,000 steps a day seems to work brilliantly for most people. 60 to 90 minutes as a ballpark range of any sort of physical activity is going to probably work really well. If you can make it social or outdoors or productive in some other way, then you’re going to get huge bang for your buck and it would never feel like a drag. And the third principle is you do not need intensity. Intensity with strength training is the most important thing. We’re trying to signal to our bodies to adapt, so we need to make that signal really strong. For cardio, for wellbeing, it matters very little. In fact, even if you want to do some high intensity work to improve specific cardio capacities, ideally the large majority is still really low intensity.
And the beautiful thing about that sort of activity like walking is that one, it has very little impact on your recovery, meaning your body can put its energy into building muscle, getting stronger and progressing with your training. And two, it actually uses a lot of energy without impacting your appetite, which if you’re trying to get leaner, is brilliant. It means it speeds up that fat loss process with no extra cost. So if all you do every week is 40 minutes of intense strength training and eight to 10,000 steps a day, don’t feel lazy. In fact, that’s kind of perfect. And that’s the model I’ve run for a long time now to great success with my physique, with my strength, and with how I feel. As for what my actual routine looks like on a whole, I know it can be useful to see what other people do.
I’m busy, like anyone. I’m focused on work and my social life. And so while there are lots of things I like to do for activity that light me up in a fun and social, often I just don’t have time to organise them. And so my default on these days is just to walk. As for what that looks like, there are no rules, but my favourite time is either in the morning or after dinner, if it’s summer, especially. What I do depends on the mood. Often I just love it as a chance to have space and be mindful and let my thoughts sort themselves out, let the dust of my mind settle. Sometimes I walk with a friend, sometimes I listen to something, an audio book, a podcast. Often I just enjoy being with my thoughts and looking around me. And like with training, I’m very much just listening to what my body wants.
I will walk for as long as it feels productive and stimulating and fun. When I’m tired and want to lie down, I know I’ve done what I need to do. But like with training often fitting into two or three minutes of work by the time I’m satisfied, eight to 10,000 steps for the day generally feels excellent when I can hit that. When possible though, there are lots of things I love to do, playing tennis, playing pickup basketball, surfing, golf, parking whenever I’m anyway cool. All these things can give me easily a couple of hours of the most stimulating, fun, social exercise that doesn’t feel like exercise. It just feels like living. And I think that’s the whole point. Don’t make life harder on yourself than it needs to be. If you’re blessed with the body that can move, just enjoy it. Get your 40 minutes a week of strength training in, get your body growing bigger and stronger.
Dial in your diet, get lean, love what you see in the mirror, and then go and relish what you’ve built. Life’s too short to be spent suffering just because you think you should. Let me know what your favourite non-strength activities are in the comments. Hope this helps.