The NEAT and Step Count Debate

So if we go the other way, something that's really popular at the moment is just tracking steps. So we're going all the way the other way. He's out. He's done. He took us off and out. Don't ever get me started on this. Periodizing your fucking walking. Christ almighty. Give me a fucking break. My client's time poor. Go up 25,000 steps a day. And meal prep. And train for an hour. And do your conditioning. And try to save like five minutes for your kids. and another five minutes for your husband. Give me a fucking break. You know? You guys get me all fucking wrong. I'm going to fucking turn this table over. Good effort. So that's it. That's really good. You'll buy a deposit. Next time we're doing this, it's your fucking house. I'll just be like, phoning everybody. Luke's coming over. I'm going to throw Aaron through one of his windows. He's so fucking strong, he'll probably land in a squat, break the concrete, and walk away. Susie here at Lending. So look, yeah, okay. So the neat argument, so we're working on the other end of the spectrum now, just talking about managing neat, which you're prescribing, which technically makes it not neat. Hold on. Neat's very important. Neat's important, but if we're prescribing steps, then it's not neat. It depends. Okay. It depends. Everything depends, right? It could not be neat. So let's think about this. You work downtown, the majority of your people sit at a desk all fucking day. Yeah. Then they walk into your facility and they train, right? Yeah. Cool, I get that. They're not really getting on any, they might get 2,500 steps a day. Yeah. The purpose of NEAT is to make sure it doesn't drop. Yeah. It's not to keep adding more fucking NEAT. If you've got time to add more NEAT, you've got time for another couple of sprints a day. Yeah, yeah. Or you've got time to journal for 10 minutes or you have time for some fucking sun salutation and do some yoga. You've got time to do a lot of other shit than fucking walking for fucking 240 minutes a day trying to get your 24,000 steps. Yeah. Right? The research that we have right now, the largest research on knee says that the minimum effective dose is 7,116 steps. You round that up to eight, 8,000 times seven is 56,000. I failed college algebra three times. I think that's right. I don't know. Is that right? You're the Asian engineer, don't you think? Oh, it's this fucking cracker. So that's the thing, like, you know, 56,000 steps a day. So if you look at, you know, every 1,000 steps is about 10 minutes. I got that from Dean McKillop. Thanks, Dean. You know, that's a lot of time, right? Now, I'm going to tell somebody to double that. So you're going to tell somebody to walk 20,000 steps a day. That's 200 fucking minutes. Get the fuck out of here, right? Because if you've got that time to walk, you've got that time to go take Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. or you got time to go do some hobby shit or run on a trip, something with a higher return on investment that makes you actually happy. I can tell you right now, if you get somebody 8,000 steps, their issue isn't that they're not doing 12,000 more. So that's just a ridiculous. And then now you got motherfuckers talking about, let's periodize their fucking knee. You did 8,000 today. We're going to alternate periodization. So the next phase, I want you to do 35,000 steps. Then we'll bring it back down to 20. fuck off. Sorry, I'm very passionate about this. I haven't heard of it. That's something that some other physique coaches hear. I was talking to a chick the other day. She's walking in my election. I go, what the fuck are you doing? It's where you were. What the fuck are you doing? She goes, my coach said I have to have 20,000 steps a day. Why? So I can eat more. What? Okay, I'll tell you what. Why don't you just train at lunch and eat more and fuck the steps. And then I had to explain to them why. And she went, yeah, my protocol is really fucking stupid. I said, yeah, you should tell your coach to call me. And let me tell him about this. There's better shit for you to do. So, yeah. So in terms of what we talked about in mitochondrial health and that kind of stuff, you've got someone who is limited for time. Do you still see... So something I try and push is like, I mean if it were 10,000 steps for like your office workers, that kind of stuff. So I'm 2,000 over. Did you say, okay, two, okay, that's good. Bring that back down, that's fine. That fine it just 20 extra minutes that fine But where did 10 steps come from That a good question In the early 1960s a Japanese guy made the pedometer And to market it, they said, hmm, how do we sell these? Well, we need to tell people to walk. And he goes, how far? And he goes, well, 10,000 steps seems pretty good. That's your magic. That's fine, you want to walk 10,000 steps, but does your client have time for it? Can they make time for it? it's hard for a lot of people to get 7,000 steps. Yeah, that's it. So even today, the client I was working with was like, sit to the desk all day. So the encouragement is, if you were just able to get up from your desk once an hour and go for a walk, and the way that we measure that is by your snazzy watch and they said you've done 10,000 steps. And the encouragement is along the lines of, when you get home, instead of sitting on the couch, you'll play with your kids. That'll tick up your steps. That kind of stuff. does that still obviously all of that is still positive in terms of energy output, it's positive if he's actually getting out and doing stuff more, it's obviously better does it actually contribute to this one yeah absolutely so again everything is information so the more you move the more glucose transports you activate so you're getting sugar in the right places and also on the other side oxidizing fat in the right places movement is good I'm not going to say That more walking isn't better But it depends on if you have the time But I'll tell you what If I'm training If Susie Muffintop comes to me And she wants to do a fucking physique show Or she just wants to get ready To go sit on the beach And for the first time in 10 years Wear a one piece And that's the reality of general pop I don't want to fucking cover up in a sarong Because I'm embarrassed of my body I mean that's you know most guys like yeah look at these bikini girls man fucking suzy can't even she's embarrassed to go to the beach so that's a valid thing right and suzy's got kids and i've got the choice of telling her you know what you're hitting 8 000 steps i need you to do 12 000 more or go play with your kids which one am i gonna fucking pay yeah go play with your fucking kids yeah keep your kids off the nintendo take them to the park and have fun go swim do something else the walking is not important I can manage it with food and you know exercise do you think it's just easier like people that are adopting that methodology just because it's easier to track when all you have is hammers everything looks like nails when you don't know how to fucking science you just jump on the bandwagon right we've been using neat for forever it was never sexy now to make it sexy let's periodize it now that you hear this you're going yeah it's ridiculous you know and I'll tell you just like I said to be I'll tell you both sides of the coin if you have the time to walk a lot yeah cool it could be magic but you gotta have the time yes it's a play levels advocate there for someone obviously probably not Susie someone who's a little more serious. The suggestions that we had earlier was like jujitsu or something like that. To be fair, you mentioned things like yoga and that kind of stuff, but is it easier to track and measure steps and not affect recovery? If you're doing intense weight training? That's all dependent on your food. You want to eat more food? Train harder. You can train a lot if you're feeding it.