0:00

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0:02

for you and irresistibly tasty? Grab

0:04

a bag of skinny pop corn.

0:06

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0:08

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0:10

it still delivers all the light,

0:12

airy, and satisfyingly salty flavors you

0:15

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0:17

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0:33

morning. I'm out on

0:35

one of my favorite

0:37

running routes. I'm about

0:40

to start fart-licking. I've

0:42

warmed up with about

0:44

10 minutes of running.

0:46

It's a beautiful cold

0:49

morning. I saw a

0:51

lovely sunrise as I

0:53

was warming up. And

0:55

now I'm about to

0:57

start my regular fart-lick

1:00

route. I'm

1:02

going to be running to

1:05

the next cross street

1:07

here, which is one

1:09

of my longer little

1:11

fart legs. This is

1:13

Gretchen Reynolds. She writes

1:16

about exercise for the

1:18

post. And recently, she

1:20

wrote about a way

1:22

to make your workouts

1:25

more efficient. It's

1:27

called the fartlic.

1:30

Okay. I'm coming

1:32

up to... the

1:34

crossroad and now

1:37

I'll slow back

1:39

down. I

1:41

can feel

1:44

my heart

1:47

rate snowing

1:50

somewhat. It's

1:53

a little

1:56

breast period.

2:00

I will start to run again.

2:02

I'm going to go to

2:04

the next cross street here.

2:06

Bartlett is a Swedish word.

2:08

It means speed play.

2:11

Basically, whether you're walking

2:13

or biking or jogging

2:15

or running, you just

2:17

increase your speed for

2:19

a short period of

2:21

time and then come

2:23

back down. Some of

2:25

my Bartlett intervals are

2:27

longer than other summer

2:29

shorger. It's all fine.

2:31

You do whatever you

2:33

want to do, or

2:35

as long as you

2:37

want to do it,

2:40

or short. And here

2:42

is my favorite marker.

2:45

I'm going to stop

2:47

and say hi to

2:49

some dogs. Can I

2:52

say hi to the

2:54

dogs? What is

2:56

it? Hi, Bugsy and Vacho!

2:59

We're well into February, and

3:01

most studies show that

3:03

the vast majority of

3:06

people have already given up

3:08

on their New Year's resolutions

3:10

by now. But no fear.

3:13

If you started the year

3:15

with some big fitness goals,

3:17

Gretchen says you can get

3:20

back on track, and the

3:22

fartlet can help. Plus, it's

3:24

pretty fun to say. What

3:26

is, is it fart-legging? Like

3:29

how do you say this

3:31

word? Since I don't speak

3:33

Swedish, I'm assuming it is

3:36

fartleck. But that's certainly how

3:38

I pronounce it is fartleck.

3:40

I want all of my

3:43

exercise routines to be

3:45

hilarious. From the newsroom

3:47

of the Washington Post,

3:49

this is post reports.

3:51

I'm Elahay Izadi. It's

3:53

Monday, February 17th. Today

3:56

Gretchen explains why adding

3:58

the fartlet to your

4:00

workouts is so effective.

4:03

Plus, she shares

4:05

some surprising new

4:07

fitness science. Gretchen,

4:09

before we dig into

4:11

the fartlic, I

4:13

have to say I'm very impressed

4:16

at your ability to both run

4:18

and. talk and record yourself, like

4:20

just listening to you, run around

4:23

and narrate what's going on. I'm

4:25

like, what kind of exercise is

4:27

that? Like, what is that call?

4:30

That actually is why I love

4:32

the fartlet is because you can,

4:34

you know, go a little bit fast,

4:36

but then you get to go much

4:38

slower. So, yeah, but talking just adds

4:41

a whole other layer to working out,

4:43

don't you think? It does, although we

4:45

can and should talk a little bit

4:47

about the talk test, which is how

4:49

you could tell how hard. you're going,

4:51

which means if you can still talk,

4:53

then you're right in the intensity zone

4:56

you want to be in. But you

4:58

shouldn't be able to sing. Did you

5:00

try? Did you try to sing? Did

5:02

you try to sing? I don't want

5:04

to hear myself singing, so no.

5:06

Well, if any neighbors hear me

5:09

sing while I'm running around, that's

5:11

why. Well, first of all, before

5:13

we get into the fartlic itself,

5:16

as we said, this is a

5:18

Swedish word. How did your journey

5:20

into finding the best fitness tips

5:23

for people of all ages

5:25

and all levels, how did

5:27

that take you to Sweden?

5:29

In all honesty, I am

5:31

all about making exercise really

5:34

easy and really simple and

5:36

mostly fun because those are

5:38

the things I want out

5:40

of my exercise routines. And

5:42

so I was really thinking

5:45

for our January coverage about

5:47

what kind of workouts anyone

5:49

can do and that doesn't

5:51

mean just runners, marathoners. almost

5:53

anyone could do to make

5:56

their exercise a little bit more

5:58

effective and a lot more fun.

6:00

And that brought me to

6:02

the fartlic. Which I honestly

6:04

started doing during the pandemic

6:07

when I couldn't go to

6:09

a gym. And I realized

6:11

I needed to find a

6:13

way to make my own

6:15

workouts both occasionally a little

6:17

bit harder, but mostly entertaining.

6:19

And so I did start

6:21

fartlicking. So you started doing

6:24

it. Well, can you just

6:26

tell me break down for

6:28

me? What exactly is... fartlegging.

6:30

Fartlicking is a very informal

6:33

version of interval training. And

6:35

anyone who's done any kind

6:37

of sports knows interval training

6:39

and probably dreads interval training.

6:42

Interval training just means you

6:44

really go hard for a

6:46

set period of time, usually

6:49

a minute, maybe two minutes.

6:51

You slow back down, you

6:53

rest for a few minutes, and

6:55

then you repeat that interval. It's

6:57

like highly regimented. too, I feel

7:00

like. Sometimes I'll do Tabata, which

7:02

is like 30 seconds on, 10

7:04

seconds off or something like that.

7:06

Like it's very regimented. It's very

7:09

regimented. Tabatas are... all out intervals.

7:11

That means you go as hard

7:13

as you can until you feel

7:15

honestly like you might throw up.

7:17

That's not fun. It can be

7:20

effective. People who do really serious

7:22

intervals, you will get faster. You

7:24

will get more fit, but it's

7:26

not going to be fun. And

7:28

you also tend to need a

7:30

coach. You need a track. You

7:32

need some experience. You need all

7:34

sorts of things that a lot

7:36

of us do not have. So

7:38

that's the really great thing about

7:40

fartlets is that they are a

7:42

version of interval training that almost

7:44

any of us can do and

7:46

can do where we live we

7:48

can do it right outside of

7:50

your house because all you need

7:52

to do is go out warm

7:55

up for a few minutes so

7:57

that your body is ready and

7:59

then whether you're walking or running

8:01

or biking or whatever

8:03

activity you like, pick

8:05

up the pace. Just choose

8:08

something in the landscape

8:10

like a tree or

8:12

a car or the next

8:14

house or anything that's

8:16

up ahead of you.

8:18

Pick up the pace until

8:21

you reach that marker. Slow

8:23

down again. It doesn't have

8:25

to be a specific amount

8:27

of time or distance. Just

8:29

pick something that's up ahead

8:31

of you, go until you get to

8:34

it, slow down, let your heart

8:36

rate settle, and then pick another

8:38

marker. Go to that one and

8:40

pick up the pace. You're fart-looking.

8:42

So it's almost like the way

8:44

you're describing it makes me feel

8:46

like this is the non-threatening, more

8:48

fun, accessible, cousin to Tabata, basically,

8:51

or any sort of high-intensity interval

8:53

training. It's less intense, it's more

8:55

fun, it's more accessible, and you

8:57

can kind of choose your own

8:59

adventure with it. That's exactly what

9:01

it is. It is the easy

9:03

sort of entry point to doing

9:06

interval training and it will be

9:08

very effective. So Gretchen, I mean

9:10

here we should just talk about

9:12

what does the science say about

9:15

why interval training of any kind

9:17

is beneficial to your health? Like

9:20

why is this a good way

9:22

to move? There does seem to

9:24

be something about intensity. There are

9:26

things that happen when you... push

9:28

your body a little bit that

9:30

do not happen if you always

9:33

go easy. Your heart rate speeds

9:35

up a little bit more. You

9:37

produce a little bit more

9:39

lactate, which is actually a

9:41

good thing. It's good for

9:43

your muscles. It's good for

9:46

your brain. The most important

9:48

thing is that if you

9:50

push yourself a little bit...

9:52

you get more fit faster.

9:54

You will start increasing your

9:56

VO2 Max, which is a

9:58

measure of how you

10:00

are, much faster

10:03

if you occasionally

10:05

do some more

10:07

intense exercise than

10:09

if it's always

10:12

easy. So just

10:14

again, get out

10:16

of your comfort

10:19

zone for a little

10:21

while and your exercise

10:24

becomes so much

10:26

more effective. I'm

10:28

going to go

10:30

from one tree

10:33

to another tree

10:35

and then congratulate

10:37

myself for part-looking

10:39

in public. After

10:41

the break, Gretchen and

10:43

I talk about new

10:45

research into exercise and

10:48

living longer. We'll be right

10:50

back. I'm

10:56

Jessica Contreira and I'm a

10:59

reporter at the Washington Post.

11:01

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Mobile for details. Looking

12:55

for a snack that's better for

12:57

you and irresistibly tasty? Grab a

12:59

bag of skinny pop corn. The

13:01

original ready-to-eat popcorn is made with

13:03

just three simple ingredients. And it

13:06

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13:08

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13:10

Share a bag of skinny pop

13:12

with your favorite people. Or just

13:14

keep it to yourself. For some

13:16

endlessly enjoyable solo snacking that lasts

13:18

and lasts. Deliciously popped. Perfectly

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salted. Popular for a reason.

13:25

Gretchen, did you speak with any

13:27

researchers or scientists who unpacked more

13:29

for you that the science of

13:31

this pretty simple approach to exercise?

13:33

It is a very simple approach,

13:35

but it also is based on

13:37

very good science. I talked, for

13:39

instance, with Dr. Ulrich Wyslov. Yeah,

13:41

so I'm Ulrich Wyslov from

13:44

the Norwegian University of Science

13:46

and Technology, and I'm a

13:48

professor in exercise physiology. And

13:50

he's done a lot of

13:53

research into the benefits of

13:55

intense exercise. And he's a

13:57

huge fan of fartlegs. He

14:00

does fartlets himself.

14:02

I really like to run

14:04

outside in the forest where

14:06

we have, when there's a

14:08

hill, I just go, not

14:11

all out, but I increase

14:13

the speeds. And what he

14:15

told me is that doing

14:17

exercise that does challenge

14:19

you, that does push

14:21

you out of your

14:24

normal aerobic comfort zone,

14:26

has truly unique benefits.

14:28

The reason we are on the

14:30

planet Earth is that it's oxygen

14:32

here and every single cell in

14:34

the body needs oxygen, so it's

14:36

important to have a high capacity

14:39

of taking up and utilizing oxygen.

14:41

And we have shown that to

14:43

have a high maximum oxygen take

14:45

that reduce the risk of developing

14:47

probably up to 30 different diseases,

14:50

so it's super important. It seems

14:52

to be much better for

14:54

our brain, for instance, than

14:56

just doing a jog all

14:58

the time. It does increase

15:00

your endurance faster, and it

15:02

is associated with longevity. It

15:04

does seem to be important

15:06

for living longer. Gretchen, tell

15:08

me a little bit more

15:10

about the increase in longevity

15:12

and what kind of impact

15:14

this kind of exercise can

15:16

have on not just that,

15:18

but things like... Dementia, do

15:20

we know that? Because there

15:22

have just been some new

15:24

studies coming out predicting a

15:26

big spike in dementia cases

15:28

as more of us age. Yes,

15:31

and that makes this type

15:33

of exercise even more compelling.

15:36

Dr. Wysloff has done some

15:38

research into the role of

15:40

relatively intense exercise. The word

15:43

intense can be really intimidating

15:45

to people, but what Dr.

15:48

Wysloff found was that this

15:50

kind of exercise that does

15:53

challenge you a little bit

15:55

does seem to be uniquely

15:57

important for brain health. There

16:00

are lots of reasons why

16:02

that might be true. We

16:04

produce different sorts of biochemicals

16:06

when we're pushing ourselves and

16:09

when not. Some of those

16:11

do seem to go to

16:13

the brain and have effects

16:15

on neuron help, but there's

16:18

a very strong association between

16:20

doing somewhat harder exercise sometimes

16:22

and having a lower risk

16:24

of dementia. There's also a

16:26

strong association between this kind

16:29

of relatively intense exercise and

16:31

as I said, living longer.

16:33

I wrote about a pretty

16:35

big study of about 7,500

16:37

men and women and they

16:40

looked at how they moved

16:42

throughout the course of the

16:44

day using very sophisticated accelerometers.

16:46

And what they found was

16:48

that people who moved more

16:51

often were less likely to

16:53

die, just in general, over

16:55

the next seven to ten

16:58

years. But people whose

17:00

exercise even sometimes was

17:02

a little bit more intense.

17:04

They were moving a little

17:07

faster, a little harder. Their

17:09

risk of dying was even

17:12

lower. than people who exercised

17:14

a lot. So it does

17:17

look like you get more

17:19

benefits out of even a

17:22

little intense exercise than just

17:24

always going easy. One of

17:26

the really interesting things

17:28

to me as someone

17:31

who does often write

17:33

about fitness is the

17:35

increasing amount of evidence

17:38

that Yes, a walk is

17:40

very good for you. You

17:42

will get most of the

17:44

benefits of any kind of

17:46

exercise by just getting up

17:48

off the couch and moving

17:50

at all. You can then

17:53

add to the benefits in

17:55

this really simple way by

17:57

just picking up the pace

17:59

a little. So

18:03

Gretchen, as you said, you write

18:05

a lot about fitness, you

18:07

think about health, and I'm

18:10

wondering in the past year

18:12

whether you have come across

18:15

any research that challenged your

18:17

thoughts and assumptions about fitness

18:20

or just staying active and

18:22

mobile as we age? Actually,

18:25

one of my favorite studies

18:27

of the year is one

18:29

that fits into this conversation

18:32

we're having really nicely, which

18:34

was a very large study that

18:37

looked at a lot of previous

18:39

research about whether it was more

18:41

important to be thin or to

18:43

be in shape for how long

18:46

you were likely to live. And

18:48

what the overwhelming amount of research

18:50

said was, if you want to

18:52

live a long and healthy, relatively

18:55

disease-free life, it was so much

18:57

more important to be in shape

18:59

than to be thin. When you

19:02

say in shape, do you mean

19:04

like, are they to like

19:06

your cardiovascular health, cholesterol? Like

19:08

what does that mean? In

19:10

this case, it was how

19:12

long could you run on

19:14

a treadmill? Because these people

19:16

were getting stress tests. done.

19:18

And so people who were

19:20

in the lowest 25% the

19:22

lowest quarter were two to

19:24

three times as likely to

19:27

die prematurely, to die in

19:29

the next 10 years after

19:31

their testing, then people who

19:33

were in the next quartile,

19:35

and it didn't matter what

19:37

people's BMI was. It didn't

19:40

matter how heavy they were.

19:42

People who were... quite heavy

19:45

but were aerobically fit, had

19:47

a much lower risk of

19:50

dying young than people

19:52

who were thin, but

19:54

had really poor aerobic

19:56

fitness. So to me

19:59

that was real. inspiring

20:01

even if you could

20:03

move yourself from being

20:05

in the lowest quarter

20:08

of fitness to being

20:10

26% that dropped people's

20:12

risks of dying by

20:15

half and that's That's

20:17

really achievable, especially if you fartlet.

20:19

Yeah. Yeah, and it just goes

20:21

to show you can't look at

20:24

someone or look at yourself and

20:26

make an assumption about your health

20:28

based on how you appear. No,

20:31

and it also does mean if

20:33

you are picking your goals, resolutions,

20:35

all of that for the coming

20:37

year, honestly, I mean, I think

20:40

it's totally fine that if anyone

20:42

wants to lose weight, that's great.

20:44

I applaud you. But if you're

20:47

thinking about the one thing

20:49

you can do for yourself

20:51

that will probably improve your

20:53

health and your lifespan the

20:55

most, it is raising your

20:57

endurance by any amount. So

20:59

on that note, Gretchen, before

21:01

we go, a lot of

21:03

people have entered the new year

21:06

thinking about. how they do want

21:08

to make some kind of change

21:10

to their fitness and health. And

21:12

let's say someone does want to

21:14

improve their endurance or tackle any

21:16

other sort of goal, but they

21:18

find it overwhelming or difficult to

21:20

do or sustain because they feel

21:22

busy or, you know, we just

21:24

all get so taxed as obligations

21:26

pile up. We've spent a lot

21:29

of time talking about fart-licking as

21:31

one very actionable way people can

21:33

do this for themselves. Is there any

21:35

other tip or any other tips you

21:37

have that people can try as soon

21:39

as they're done listening to this podcast

21:42

to get healthier? Well, one of

21:44

them that I strongly recommend

21:46

is we recently published a

21:48

seven-minute workout that is based

21:50

on interval training but is

21:52

really simple and that you

21:54

can do in your living

21:56

room, you can do it

21:58

in your office cubicle. popularize

22:00

the idea of the seven-minute workout?

22:03

Isn't this like your thing? It

22:05

is. I actually, I do the

22:07

seven-minute workout whenever I'm really busy

22:10

or when I'm traveling or when

22:12

I am writing, spending all my

22:14

time writing about exercise and not

22:16

doing any, because it is very

22:19

short. And again, this is based

22:21

on how interval training makes even

22:23

a small amount of exercise more

22:26

potent. So in this case, you

22:28

can do seven. minutes of exercise

22:30

and get both endurance and strength

22:32

training. And we published one already

22:35

and over the next three months

22:37

we're going to be publishing several

22:39

more including a gentle seven-minute workout

22:42

for people who might have mobility

22:44

issues and we're also going to

22:46

publish one for people to do

22:48

with their kids. So what's for

22:51

all of that? So there's options

22:53

for everyone, I love it. Gretchen,

22:55

I think I'm gonna fart like

22:57

on my walk home today. I'm

22:59

gonna start right now. No better

23:01

time than the present. I did

23:03

tell all your friends. I always

23:05

tell my husband I'm gonna go

23:08

off to fartlet and he just

23:10

rolls his eyes at me. Gretchen,

23:12

thanks so much for joining me.

23:14

I so appreciate it. Thanks so

23:16

much for having me. Gretchen

23:18

Reynolds is a health columnist who

23:20

writes about exercise for the post.

23:23

We'll include a link in our

23:25

show notes to the seven-minute workout

23:27

Gretchen mentioned. It's really a great

23:29

way to improve your fitness with

23:32

just a very short amount of time.

23:34

That's it for Post Reports.

23:36

Thanks for Listening. This episode

23:38

was produced by Alana Gordon.

23:41

It was edited by Maggie Pennman

23:43

and mixed by Sam Bear. Thanks

23:45

to Anjuman Ali. I'm Elahay

23:47

Izadi. We'll be back tomorrow

23:49

with more stories from the

23:51

Washington Post. Looking

24:00

for a snack that's better for

24:02

you and irresistibly tasty? Grab a

24:04

bag of skinny popcorn. The original

24:07

ready-to-eat popcorn is made with just

24:09

three simple ingredients, and it still

24:11

delivers all the light, airy, and

24:13

satisfyingly salty flavors you love. Share

24:15

a bag of skinny pop with

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your favorite people, or just keep

24:20

it to yourself, for some endlessly

24:22

enjoyable solo snacking that lasts and

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lasts. Deliciously popped, perfectly salted,

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popular for a reason.