The Importance of Aerobic Base for Lifters

All right. I know we've done a lot of mind-blowing today, but there is just one more thing Luke advocates that is based on science, yet flies in the face of internet bro recommendations. Luke prioritizes cardiovascular training at the beginning of a training program for muscle gain. If we look at even like even with weightlifting, when you lift weights, you're depleting ATP. You replete ATP through either substrate oxidation or oxidative phosphorylation. So substrate oxidation, meaning you're using carbohydrates to make lots of ATP in the mitochondria. Oxidative phosphorylation, you're making a lot of ATP utilizing fat. If you want your weight training to get better, you get better during the rest. So if I do a set of 12 and I go all out to where my spleen is about to rupture and then I rest three minutes, it's the aerobic system that's rebuilding that ATP so that I can do another spleen busting 12 rep max. If I don't have a good aerobic base, I'm not going to replenish that ATP as fast as I could or as completely as I could. So it's not having a good aerobic base makes you a worse lifter, especially in older populations. Now, in somebody who's 21, this might not be a big deal. But when you're training people who are 45 and they haven't trained in 20 years and they're really out of shape because they've been building their family and their career for 20 years, it makes a big difference.