Exercise Your Hormones with a 5-Minute Workout – with Ulrich Dempfle

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I bring you your lick dimply. He is the founder of an incredible piece of exercise equipment called the Carroll bike. Now, what I want you to hear in this podcast is the science behind exercise in the way that we’re starting to see that it’s not more exercise that matters. It’s actually the type of exercise that matters. And this is really, really important because when we look at fitting exercise into our life, and I don’t know, if you all have this problem, sometimes time becomes the limiting factor. And sometimes it’s so we don’t feel like exercise. And what Alric has created in a carol bike is the absolute most time efficient way to get your daily workout in. Literally, he has five and 10 minute programs on this artificial intelligence, you’ll hear us talk a lot about the AI of this bike, this artificial intelligence of this bike that maps and knows exactly the fitness needs that you have. So think about this for a second. Imagine if you could just hop onto a piece of equipment that reads you and knows what your body needs. You might I don’t even know what your body needs. But this bike knows exactly what you need and gives it to you in a five to 10 minute workout. Now I want to tell you the first time I heard this, I was I was like no way, there’s no way that you can tell me I can work out in five to 10 minutes and get all these benefits that you’re going to hear on over the next hour on this podcast. But I have been using this bike now for months. And I will tell you that my fitness not only my cardiovascular fitness, but the way that my body and the shape of my body is changing is so dramatic from using ORex bike. And in this episode we will talk about muscle glycogen. So fasters I want you to hear this, that this bike could actually make your fasting easier. women, women that are going through perimenopause and menopause, I want you to hear I asked him how this can help our hormones balance. And then brain power and mental health. If you’re struggling with any mental health issues, be sure to listen all the way through because at the end, we talk about what this bike does for moods, how it can improve BDNF, which is like Miracle Gro for your brain how it can prime your parasympathetic nervous system. Literally, this is the most brilliant piece of exercise equipment I have ever seen. And I am so excited to share it with you. So enjoy the Carol bike. This is a game changer. Hey, Dr. Mindy here and welcome to season four of the resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. And I want you believing in your body. I want you believing in your mind, I want you believing in your spirit. If you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy. You know, let me start off by just welcoming you to my podcast. I feel like this is my home. So I feel like I’ve just invited you into my home. So thank you for being here.

Ulrich  

Thank you for inviting me into your home. So thank you.

Dr. Mindy  

You’re welcome. And I also have to tell you, I don’t know if you know this about me. I actually my undergraduate degree is in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. And when I was in my early 20s I was actually a personal trainer. And so I was obsessed with exercise I was obsessed with all pieces of equipment. And when your bike came to my home I you have taken the efficiency of exercise to a whole new level. I have never ever ever seen a piece of equipment like this. And every time I get on it, i Thank you i and i This is months later so you let’s start off by explaining why this is not just an exercise bike. What is the Carol bike because there is something unique there that I want to unpacked on this podcast.

Ulrich  

Yeah, sure. So first of all, thank you so much for the kind words. We put a lot of love and a lot of effort into it is always great to hear. You know such nice and positive feedback. So thank you very much. I’m very pleased to hear that. So the Carroll bike is it is an exercise bike but is this the smartest and most effective exercise bike and it’s been scientifically proven to deliver double the health and fitness benefits in 90%, less time than regular cardio. And it provides simple, safe AI personalized workouts that make that possible for pretty much every age and fitness levels. And what’s really special about our bike is that you can do a very, very effective workout in such short period of periods of times. So you can do a very effective workout in as little as five minutes. And in fact, you really only have to work hard for 2/22, Sprint’s, and that’s been proven to have the same benefit as much longer steady state cardio. And so that’s what we’re about.

Dr. Mindy  

Okay, so you have to explain that because my over exerciser, achiever brain cannot wrap myself like when I get on I look at all the programs you have, like the overachiever, part of me wants to do the hardest one? Yeah. And I look at the shorter ones. And I I’m like, I really would like to understand if that’s how that’s gonna benefit me. So explain why that works.

Ulrich  

Yeah, sure. And I understand like, and this is a question we get a lot. And it’s also quite natural, because for exercise, in general, there’s a clear trade off, you can work longer, and you get greater benefit, or you can work at higher intensity, and you get greater benefit. And actually, the only exception that we know and that the scientists that we work with no is our specific type of workout. That’s called reduced exertion, high intensity interval training. That’s an exception to that rule, where more doesn’t necessarily deliver more benefits. And in fact, it has been shown to deliver less benefit. So if I if I just explain that briefly, what the rehab workout on Carol bike does is it simulates an emergency situation. So you workout four to 22nd Sprint’s so you have a very short warm up, then a first 22nd Sprint where you push to your maximum intensity. And the bike, adjusts the resistance and controls the workout and guides the workout guides you through the workout so that it’s easy to perform, but you push to your maximum intensity. And you can only hold like your maximum power for a fraction of a second, and then you drop off over that 20 seconds. You have a short recovery, second 22nd sprint, and then a cooldown. And the whole thing can be done in five minutes. Most people would probably take six or seven minutes, but it’s very, very short only to 22nd. Sprint’s and in those 22nd Sprint’s two times 22nd Sprint’s your energy demand goes up by a factor of 100 compared to rest, so 100 fold increase in energy demand. And that means you can’t use the your muscles can’t use the energy systems you would use in a longer workout. So, and instead they have to mobilize what’s what’s called muscular glycogen. That is locally that’s a locally stored form of sugar that you can access very, very rapidly. And in those 22nd sprints, you mobilize about 25 to 30% of the glycogen in the muscle. Wow. And that’s an emergency reserve your body doesn’t really like to give that up. And if it does, so, it sends a strong signal to the body that it has to get fitter and stronger. So, with the glycogen, two signaling molecules get released, one is a NPK that is bound to the glycogen and as you take it out of the storage gets released. And then the second one is a molecule called PGC. One alpha which is a master regulator for mitochondrial biogenesis. And that means with those 2/22 Sprint’s you can trigger an adaptation that you’d otherwise only get from a much longer workout and therefore reap all the benefit In a much, much shorter time. And once once you’ve tried those workouts, you also know like, this is the, you know, you push all out. So it’s not, it’s not a free lunch, I don’t want to sell it as an exercise pill, it’s maybe the closest thing to an exercise pill, because it is really, really short, the last few seconds of the sprint hurt, but they’re so short that you can actually do it and it becomes very attainable and achievable. And you can do it in very, very short time.

Dr. Mindy  

So let’s stick on this glycogen thing, because this is really, really interesting because we talk so much about glycogen in the fasting world. And we call it stored sugar. And my community, we were always talking about it, because one of the things that I’ve noticed is that when people come to fasting, and it’s mostly with the women, that when they come to fasting, they struggle to metabolically switch, they can’t get from that sugar burner to that fat burner place because they have too much stored sugar. And so my technique has been to date as you got to fast longer keep fasting, keep fasting. And you’ll start to go after the muscle glycogen and the liver glycogen. So I had never thought until you just said this, that this actually could be a tool for fasters, to start to move through that stored sugar so that their fasting benefits can be they can get there quicker. But my question to you is, if you’re on the bike, you’re primarily working your, your, your, your glutes, your your quads, your hamstrings. So I have my brain was thinking that’s the glycogen that’s been released. But is it like a gem throughout your whole body? And do you think this would be an incredible tool to help fasters get a better result in their fasted state.

Ulrich  

So first, yes, because it’s cycling, the glycogen release happens mainly in your thighs and your glutes, and in your calves. So you those, those are your biggest muscles. And therefore, you don’t only get a localized result, but you get actually a systemic response. So what we measure and what scientists measured in the lab, is the improvement in vo two max. So that’s a measure of your cardiorespiratory fitness and like the most important health marker that increases systemically and it increases very substantially. So you can on average, the increase is about 12% in eight weeks. From doing this exercise focused on the lower body, so very clearly it is like most of it is happening in the legs and in your thighs. And the primary benefit or the first benefit is the improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness measured by Vo two Max and I can go more into how and why that improves. But that’s that’s the first thing you notice. The second thing you benefit is your metabolic health. Yeah. And that’s been also measured and studied. And it’s been shown that doing this exercise for eight weeks, three times a week, reduced your risk of developing metabolic diseases. So like type two diabetes by 62% in eight weeks. And so there’s there’s a range of things that several markers go into, into this compound risk score, it’s called the Met set score. But blood sugar control is an important contributor to that. And what happens if you so you, you ramp up your energy demand so rapidly, and basically you can’t aerobic ly create energy, so you have to run in very quick succession. So there’s there’s first a little bit of free ATP in the cells. Then the next thing is phosphocreatine that lasts for something like 10 to 15 seconds. And then that’s used and you have to then tap into your glycogen stores and the body releases about 25 to 30% of the locally stored glycogen in your thighs and in your glutes. And it’s actually quite surprising because the to 22nd Sprint’s require much less energy than 25. So 25 to 30% of your glycogen stored in your largest muscle muscle groups. That’s a lot of energy. That’s a lot of calories, but you burn only a fraction of that. But because the body doesn’t know you basically signaled to your body this is an emergency situations like fight or flight I need loads and loads of energy and I don’t know whether I need to just for 22nd offers a sustained period. So the body It mobilizes lots of glycogen even though it doesn’t burn through all of it, and the physiological adaptation happens just through the mobilization of the glycogen. And then because those are your energy like emergency energy stores, your body also wants to very rapidly replenish those. And that is regulated by insulin and through like the storage and access of stored energy is regulated by insulin and therefore, your insulin sensitivity improves as well. And what I believe so I’m connecting the dots a little bit myself there, but as you improve your your insulin sensitivity, that certainly fasting weight management just becomes easier because you can actually access the, you know, we have subcutaneous we have we have fat stores, and we can if you if you’re insulin resistant, it becomes really difficult to access that if your insulin sensitivity improves, it becomes much easier to access to that so I found personally weight management with exercise not not just the exercise for for burning calories, but also just to be better at access, storing and accessing stored energy becomes better and therefore also, I found it easier. I find fasting now relatively easy because I feel I can like I’m carrying with me actually the amount of energy that I can access because I have a little bit of fat. I’m not like whatever. 8% body fat nowhere close. So yes, I absolutely think that this type of exercise supports fasting substantially.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, so the way the way I look at it is that there’s a metabolic switch it’s like to go from sugar burner to fat burner you need to be able to make that switch and I can tell you from watching so many millions of people fast is that the the struggle that people have with fasting is that switch is stuck. It’s resting and when you like break down why can’t people switch over as quickly into fasting it all comes back to hemoglobin a one see if it comes back to your fasting glucose all the metabolic markers that you are talking about. So what I’m I literally I didn’t think about this until you said this, that what I’m hearing is because this bike pushes you to push your body to release what you cannot release on your own. That there’s a healing a metabolic healing that happens that now makes probably more than just fasting easier. It probably makes you actually your food you you your integration into of your food, and it makes you probably a better sugar burner.

Ulrich  

I think so. Yes, absolutely.

Dr. Mindy  

So when we look at that, I still struggle, I’m just gonna say with five minutes, five minutes sprinting twice. What, like, if so I’m just looking at my own personal choices. When I come to the bike, I usually pick the 20 minute one, because I like to sweat and I like all that. But what I’m hearing you say is that if you want to be metabolically flexible, if you want to go after the stored sugar, your best bet is to have these short Sprint’s that force your body into a metabolically healthy place. And you don’t get there, if you’re just riding the bike 20 minutes on a joyride.

Ulrich  

Yes. And so I must say, we started building a bike that literally could just do that, because we love the science so much. And there’s maybe just as background. So we’ve, we’ve not created the science behind that we’ve now we’ve worked with and we are working with the leading universities and researchers in that field. They’re doing research on our bikes. But in fact, they did research with no scientific lab equipment before. And we just heard about the research, fell in love. And we built a bike that could do that very, very easily for consumers and home. But most people don’t want just the bike that they can use for five minutes three times a week. They want a bike that can do various things. So it has a lot of other workout structured workouts or you can use it with third party apps so you can use it for a lot of things. However, our recommendation is that everybody should be doing two to three times per week. This re hit workout because it adds something that longer type of cardio just doesn’t add so it’s with very minimal time. gives this extra kick in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness in terms of metabolic health and metabolic flexibility. That, yeah, add something to, to your workout routine. And then, ya know, we see, of course, what our users do, they use it also for longer workouts with third party apps with, like, there’s a variety of workouts on there. But our primary recommendation is, if you don’t do anything else, do at least that for two to three times per week. And that’s, that’s a very time efficient and effective way to get those benefits.

Dr. Mindy  

So it’s like your metabolic workout, it’s like, there’s there, we have to look at working out as having different strategies, just like, if we’re running, there’s a different biological change that’s happening then compared to when we are lifting weights, and they’re both beneficial, but they’re going after different things. So with this bike, what you can do is you can do the five minute re hit, and that’s your metabolic flexibility or your metabolic primer. And, and it’s only five minutes. So I think what we’ve got to do is recategorize, the word working out as having lots of different versions of working out, that will influence your body in different ways. So is that right? Is that right? Would that be the proper way to look at?

Ulrich  

Absolutely. I mean, in fact, if you look at, and this is a sad story, really. But it’s so obvious that exercise is probably the most powerful thing you can do for your health. Maybe next to sleep and and having, you know, a reasonable diet.

Dr. Mindy  

You got in in there.

Ulrich  

Yeah, I love fasting. But clearly, exercise is very important. But then if you look at the figures, how few people actually exercise, right, it’s crazy. Even Even people who had health problems and like the doctor prescribes exercise, they still don’t do it. And if you survey people, that the number one reason why people say they don’t exercise, and that’s their own perception, yeah, is lack of time. And, and so that’s, that’s what we’re trying to address and to overcome and to make that you know, the people have busy lives, distractions or want to do different things. That’s what we try to address. But we would never advocate to, to only do rehab on Carol bike. It’s just if you do nothing else, then do at least that. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

And I think it’s it’s part of its unique factor. I mean, I think that’s the other thing that I that I’m discovering, because I can tell you in doing it, and doing the RE hit and doing it for five minutes, I have more muscle definition. I feel like everything people keep asking me recently, people are like, What are you doing, I’m like, I’m doing nothing, I fast and eat really well. And then I throw some workouts in here and there. But now I realized that maybe it’s been the RE hit that has allowed the muscle glycogen to be released, showing more muscle definition. Because that’s a stretch. That’s I’ve never done that before. I’m like, put on the running shoes, go for an hour run. And then like I said, you know, I gravitate towards the 20 minute workout on the Carroll bike. Is there any other piece of equipment? Or is there any other way to get at that like could you do sprints outside,

Ulrich  

so that there is scientific lab equipment because as I said the research is not just a few years, that’s like literally decades in the making. But that’s quite expensive. So literally 10s like more than $10,000 for for the bikes. That’s very unpractical for home use or gym use. So what we did is basically take and we’ve worked with the leading researchers take what they had and put it into a consumer friendly package that makes it very easy and that is fully optimized to perform rehearse, and maybe just to explain. So what’s really important is like these 2/22, Sprint’s they only work if you push to your limit, and but it has to be your limits, not somebody else’s limits, it has to be your limits, it has to be the resistance that the bike applies in those 2/22 Sprint’s has to be optimal for you if it’s too high, you’re not going to reach your peak. If it’s too low, it’s you’re not going to reach your peak. So, it has to be the right resistance it has to be applied at the right time. So you you basically accelerate at a low resistance to high speed and then the software will apply the right resistance at the perfect time. So you reach your peak power and then it keeps optimizing it As you get fitter and stronger, or if you took a break, also if you if you lost a little bit of your fitness, so it keeps adjusting it to your level. And that makes it very, that makes it very simple to perform, let me put it that way. And you still want to try and times 20 seconds, you have to work hard, but it makes it simple to perform. Now, it’s hard to do the same thing on a normal exercise bike, when we heard about the science, the first thing I did was go to a shop and bought a regular bike and just couldn’t replicate the experience. And like the deficit was big enough for us to basically change what we do and start a company around the bike. I would also not recommend like a treadmill, because I think it’s just it’s too jerky movement not safe enough for explosive Sprint’s that two alternatives that you could try. One is, if you haven’t been in your gym and our bike, I don’t know whether you’ve seen those that like our bikes that you you can also do intervals on them and and get to relatively high power outputs. It’s not personalized, it’s you know, and maybe grateful for somebody like me 40s goes to the gym quite regularly, that might be the right resistance, but it’s essentially a bike with one gear, whereas our bike has, has like 1000 gears, and we can personalize it to everybody and therefore make it suitable for literally every age and fitness level. Yeah. And the other thing, this is a valid thing to do. It’s just a sprint track. So literally, if you go outside and you do gentle run, no very, very gentle jog, and then put in to 20 seconds, all out sprints and really go hell for leather. Again, it’s not for everybody, it might be a trip risk, and so on. But I think that’s possibly also a viable alternative. Again, we’ve we’ve built a bike that’s fully optimized, that personalized, that makes it easy and simple. You get like lots of metrics you can track. But if you if you want to kind of see whether whether a sprint training is for you, that would be something to try first,

Dr. Mindy  

do you talk a little bit about the AI part because what that’s the other piece that I’m finding, like, if I go sprint out like I you know, I love to sprint, by the way, and when I go to sprint, I it’s it’s there’s the it’s the same thing every time, like the ground isn’t adding resistance to me. Whereas if I sprint on your bike, your bike continually pushes me to a next level of fitness because the resistance, it knows who I am, and it knows what I’ve done. And it knows the resistance that I need to get to that next level of of glycogen release. Talk about what that is?

Ulrich  

Sure, sure. So we have, we just have by now the largest database of these types of workouts, we hit workouts. So we’ve got 20,000 Plus users and hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of workouts that we can analyze. And therefore we know what a how the profile of a perfect sprint should look like. So we what happens is you reach your peak power after three, four seconds. And you can only hold that for a fraction of a second. Otherwise, it’s not your peak power. And then you flick TKE throughout the sprint, and basically the rate of fatigue. So how far are you losing, you’re fatiguing, and your power drops off through the sprint tells us whether the resistance was too high or too low for you. And so we and obviously, we know many other things about our users like their demographic, like the age, the gender, their weight, their height, how often they work out, and so on. And so we can, based on this very large data set, our algorithm can determine the optimal resistance of the workout for you. And can also adjust that and keep adjusting it as you get fitter and stronger. So to basically keep you on your toes all throughout, so that you don’t, I mean, look, eventually everybody will reach a plateau. We’re not We’re not becoming all Olympians, and, and so on. That’s that’s not happening, but so that you hit a plateau as late as possible and that you basically continue to be challenged. And that’s what the algorithms and the AI does.

Dr. Mindy  

So it’s kind of like having a personal trainer in the bike.

Ulrich  

That is exactly that’s where our name comes from. In a way. It’s Yeah, exactly. So So Carol stands for cardiovascular optimization logic. It’s the it’s the algorithms to, to optimize and personalize the workouts for you. And that’s something we continually develop further there with it’s a fun thing to develop and to improve. And because the the bikes are all connected, you know, you get whenever we keep developing and adding new workouts and improving the software. So there’s, there’s the bike gets better as you as as it grows older, so to

Dr. Mindy  

speak. I mean, I’ve noticed that because I get on and I think why is it seems so hard today, then like, oh, yeah, because it got smarter. It remembered me from yesterday, or from the two days before, so I totally, I totally feel that. So let’s talk about women. Because one of the the things I have really been teaching women as they go into perimenopause and menopause, is that we have to change our workouts. Because if we are working out and bringing cortisol up to an extremely high level, cortisol, too much cortisol actually makes us insulin resistant. And when we’re insulin resistant, we cannot balance our estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. So I was a collegiate athlete, I love to push my body hard. But I found a dramatically needed to shift my workouts when I went into my Peri menopausal years. And then when I got a carol bike, I was my mind was blown, because I was like, Oh, my God, this is a menopausal answer. Because we can become metabolically fit, we can do it in less time. And we can start to balance our sex hormones in a in a new, unique and new way. So do you have any research on what this has done for women’s hormones?

Ulrich  

Yeah, so I can talk a little bit about it without being a deep, deep expert. But the first thing to say is, if you when you’re talking about cortisol, the workouts aren’t actually because they are so short. While they create a response in the adaptation, they are so short that the overall stress levels for your body is lower than these extended long cardio sessions. And that’s why it’s reduced exertion, high intensity interval training, there we head. So that’s one. The other if you look at the just the ages at the typical age ranges of our users, our main user demographic is actually I don’t want to put off anybody who’s outside of that, but is around 40 to 65. We’re going all the way from like down to 10, if they’re old enough to sit on the bike, to over 80. But our main demographic is probably 40 to 65. We’ve looked at our own data, and looked how women and men use the bike differently. And obviously, I would have loved to have some some fantastic insight because I know that this is of interest to you and your audience. But we actually found and I find that’s insightful in itself. So our users are about 50% women and 50% men and our users, a women or ladies, women use the bike just as regularly as men, they seem the same improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness, and in power as men see. And they also perform as consistently. So I had, because I know from research and from talking with the scientists we work with, I know that obviously men and women are not the same. And for example, the monthly cycle plays an important role in like in elite sports in in sports performance. And that, as far as I know that some elite athletes time the cycle, so that they’re at a particular I think mid follicular phase for certain competitions. But here’s the thing, so that’s not what we see in our data. So wow, women users use the bike as regularly as men and they perform as consistently as men. So it seems to be something that women can do throughout also their monthly cycle without seeing a drop off. So I was surprised to see that. But that is one thing. So it’s definitely not just for men. And we have very many women who use The bike. And then I can tell you one thing. So we there was one paper published by the probably the leading lab in this field from McMasters University in Canada last year. And they found that while men and women benefited to the same degree in terms of fitness improvement, that the ways men and women benefited were slightly different. So there’s there’s different mechanisms, how you can get fitter, you can get greater cardiac output, you can get greater plasma levels, you can have a greater kind of capillary density or greater mitochondrial density. And so there were slight, they observed slight differences there. And over the last year, they have actually on our bike, done a year long study comparing male female differences to back that up, but in fact, now they found those differences weren’t there, and that actually men and women performed and benefited from this exercise in the same way. So in terms of what you get from the bike, it is it’s just the same for men and women. What one difference we see is the types of workouts women do compared to men. So there is a slight difference. They do the same amount of these reheat rights, which I’m very happy about because that’s what we’re advocating. But then we have another category we call them fat burn rights. And those are more high intensity workouts, maximum intensity, but high intensity workouts they have shorter Sprint’s and a greater number, like 2525 minutes. Yeah, exactly. Burn a phenomenal amount of calories. Yes, exactly, because there’s a great level of Afterburn. And women do substantially more of those than men do. Whereas men do more kind of other of the right like free rides and with with third party apps, and so on. So the motivation seems to be slightly different on I don’t know what I should think about that. Whether, whether that’s um, you know, whether whether women just care more about it, or some societal pressure, but so that we see that women, I think this aspect of calorie burning on top of the respiratory fitness, cardio, respiratory fitness, and metabolic health seems to play a greater role for women.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. So you know, it’s so interesting, I’m so many thoughts about this. And this is what I think about what I bought the bike, I’m like, okay, when I look at all the programs you have, my brain goes to the cycling woman, not not the bicycling woman, but the woman who has a menstrual cycle, that I What’s interesting is when estrogen is coming in, we actually should be pushing ourselves cardiovascularly more than ever, our workout should be harder. That’s like day one to day 10 We should be really pushing our workouts then in ovulation we actually have the most amount of testosterone so we should be doing a lot more like resistance training so could we could it this is what I want to come up with is like some kind of more resistance you would go into the bike and you would say what day of the cycle you were on. And the bike would know that hey, you have more testosterone right now. So I’m going to push your muscles more because I can build your muscles more and then the week before our period about day 20 When we need more progesterone we need to be a little bit smoother it might be more of a joy ride could could we come up with an AI version of a look to match a woman’s cycle?

Ulrich  

So yes, we’re obviously we’re thinking about that and we carry on bikes never going to be a finished product because we were curious and excited about adding new things and there’s the beauty you know, same as with a Tesla that you you get the software you can update the software over the air and whenever we find something new or like a scientific partners find something new, we can add it to the bike. So delete something we’d love to do and we will add more functionality also to create kind of custom programs so that we that for example, you know people like you could share with with their audience or with other followers. i Yeah, absolutely love to build that in. I don’t think we’ll have it in the next six weeks. But

Dr. Mindy  

I wasn’t thinking six weeks but thanks for thinking weeks. I love that

Ulrich  

now because obviously now we push out new updates every every two months. Yeah, that’s that’s pretty much and if there’s new science, then obviously we want to include that and involve that and the level of choice we give to our users also increases more and more. So absolutely. Now, previously, we’ve we’ve shied back from asking people about their menstrual cycle. And we have to do that sensitively. But if somebody wants to, yeah, I see no reason why not and why one couldn’t build something around that.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. And then the for the postmenopausal woman, the short re hits, doing that three times a week is brilliant, because the postmenopausal woman who doesn’t have a cycle anymore, she has to still mind two major hormones. So when you’re doing the RE hit, what you’re doing is you’re really priming your estrogen system. But then I would say the free ride, I do it again, for 20 minutes at whatever pace I choose would be more where you were minding progesterone, so one piece of equipment, and now I can teach menopausal women how to pull two different or work on building two different hormones through this one piece of equipment. And then having said that, one of the biggest challenges I was thinking as to why would women go more towards fat, the fat burning programs, and it’s, you know, for women over 40, as estrogen goes down, they become more insulin resistant. And so then what happens is, they’re gaining weight for no particular reason. So they’re gravitate towards the fat burning workouts, because they’re trying to lose weight. But I what I’m going to now educate my community on is that you actually may burn more fat in the rehab, let’s do you feel like like, can we I know, you call it the fat burning stage, state, but the RE hit is also a fat burning state.

Ulrich  

Absolutely. And for metabolic flexibility. Yes, it’s because it’s also so short. So it’s for in our recommendation that we give to our riders, it’s the foundation basically, if you do nothing else do that. If you if you have more time than obviously building also some longer workouts, the the Spread a few people out there advocating for what they termed zone two and zone five, exercise, so spending both time in a, you know, like lower intensity band for longer periods, and then spending a little bit of time in these very high intensity bands. And so that’s absolutely what you can do with the bike and which we think is very sensible to do. It’s just if you Yeah, basic things. If you don’t do anything, do at least that and then obviously add to it if you can, and not not just in terms of cardio, but also you know, resistance training, for example, very important part, I would say of any balanced workout routine, lifting some heavy weights for men for women of any age actually is a very good thing.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Talk a little bit about the difference between this and a peloton because I know a lot of people like the peloton was really like the go to during COVID It was like the go to you go to work out. But can you explain a little bit for our audience? Like why Where do these two differ? Because that’s the other thing I’ve learned is they they vastly differ.

Ulrich  

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Yeah, what’s happening? Because it’s a bike and it has a screen that’s like, people asked Oh, so it’s like a peloton. It’s like no, it couldn’t be further away from me. So peloton is all about, you know, celebrity instructors, great soundtracks, a bit of like virtual community. And and I don’t want to talk them down but they do they’ve done very well. And I wish them well. We are all about scientifically validated, maximally efficient and effective workouts driven by machine intelligence and the bike is fully automated and helps you perform that exercise optimally. Now, as it happens, you can actually use you can do peloton workouts on our bike so you the while while many other bikes are quite restricted in what you can do with them. Were quite open so you can have the peloton digital app on it. And you can have actually, like any third party cycling apps app on it, there’s a range of others like swift what Kinomap Ruby, there’s a whole range of apps that you can use with our bike. We use kind of common industry standard so it gives a great deal of choice need to do a variety because most households don’t have two bikes at home and most households don’t just have one user and and just because, you know, some somebody wants to do this type of workout doesn’t mean that others wouldn’t do wouldn’t want to do other workouts occasionally. So we give a lot more versatility I would say, then then the other systems that are kind of very much just locked up and you can do you can do only that type of ride on them.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, do you think part of the secret sauce to is is the time efficiency because people I know who have a carol bike, say that the the number one thing they love about it is how little time it takes Do you feel like that’s part of the secret sauce too.

Ulrich  

So the results and the time efficiency so you it’s very noticeable results so in eight weeks, you can you can gain on average our users and in many scientific studies by now 12% increase in vo two Max and it that’s such a fundamental health marker and like physiological trait about you it’s not subtle, that’s very obvious is very noticeable. So the result is very clear. And then yes, then you can get it in so little time. And you know, many people even even, like many of our users enjoy exercise and they like to do they like to play sports or they like to do yoga or they like to do lifting I’ve started so I spend a lot of time lifting now because I can do that with my teenage sons and that’s that’s something we like to do together but but I still have with with the Carol bike I get my cardio done very very efficiently and very quickly and don’t have to compromise so I can maintain a fairly comprehensive workout routine I’d say and have to like cover all my bases

Dr. Mindy  

what what do we know about the research on muscle building you just brought this up in my head because you know muscle I really agree with the statement that muscle is the origin of longevity. And I can tell you as a menopausal woman that it’s very important I have to fight for muscle more than ever before as my hormones have shifted. So, do we have any statistics on a you know growth of of certain muscles when you are continuously using the Carroll bike?

Ulrich  

So we do actually yes and so this is not something we advertise as the primary benefits. So we talk about cardiorespiratory fitness and we talk about metabolic health a lot. But in fact the the forces when you do these maximum intensity Sprint’s are also relevant for building muscle. And so we see in our users that their peak power and so that’s force peak power goes also up by some 13 14% over over like an eight week period. So very clearly for your lower body. The stimulus you create from doing rehab rides is relevant for for muscle building, and we’re actually waiting there. So we’re doing a study with Western University Colorado to look at the strength benefit from RE hit. And that would be then measured by one rep max for for a squat for example. And so the early data also can’t seem to confirm that we’re waiting for the final data. And so yes, for the lower limbs. It is an exercise that’s relevant for muscle but you’re obviously you want to do some push ups and pull ups and things for your upper body. On top of that,

Dr. Mindy  

I can totally see that I mean I can see that and I actually feel like so I like to do when I lift weights I like to do upper body weight work. And so I I sort of skipped the lower body work I don’t know why

Ulrich  

that’s the most well no, I can tell you why I suppose brutal part if you if you do weight weighted squats is leg day now. I don’t know how much your audience and listeners are. into into lifting but the drain dreaded leg day is usually the hardest part and so that I usually skip a little bit then for when I’m when we’re when we’re doing weights and I focus on upper body because I can and because I know I get a lot of benefits from the sprint from the rehab Sprint’s also for the lower for my legs. So I’ve got that covered already. And then, you know, kind of work on my benchpress.

Dr. Mindy  

Right. So that’s what I was gonna say, what I’ve noticed is that my, my quads, and my glutes are getting stronger. Yet, I’m not doing the lower weight workout, and I just all of a sudden realized it’s probably from the bike.

Ulrich  

And that would be so that’s reflected in our user data. That’s reflected in that preliminary data I saw from Western University Colorado, and there should be later in this year, a paper out on the strength benefits of rehired. So I expect very much that that is true. And so that, you know, you can, unless you really enjoy it, focus more on your upper body rather than, than doing leg day.

Dr. Mindy  

So you could do three days of Rehat a week, and then maybe two days of upper body. And then, you know, I think everybody should throw Yoga Day and there may be

Ulrich  

some mobility and stability training. Yes, that’s exactly how we think about it, that you you do some something for your cardio, respiratory fitness, some something for for strength and something for mobility. And so what do you suggest that there’s very reasonable and can be done, actually, with very little time if you if you’re not smart about it?

Dr. Mindy  

Right. So then it’s it’s so then the, the rehab workouts, or building muscle, and they’re, they’re helping you get more insulin sensitive. And so they’re really accomplishing two goals, where I like to go run and I’m thinking when I go run, those two goals aren’t necessarily like if you look at the difference between like a marathoners body, and like a weightlifters body, they’re massively different. And one of the challenges that I found with my love for running is it breaks muscle down. And I at 53, I don’t want to break muscle down. So it does sound to me like you actually are killing two birds with one stone.

Ulrich  

That’s, that’s what we’re trying to do absolute.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, and you. I mean, I, again, I hadn’t really thought that all the way through. The other thing I do want to talk about with the bike that I haven’t decided what I think of yet, is the noises that you have on there, like you can have a tiger chase you. And I kind of like it, it’s kind of funny. So like, I get motivated by a tiger chasing me, just so everybody kind of understands you have some very interesting soundtracks that are actually really motivating.

Ulrich  

Yeah. And so I guess this is, as you add new to it. We we thought that’s like an easy way to explain the concept to have somebody talk you through it and kind of put you into this. So we’ve got to a very nice voice. The same woman, that voice is the onboard announcement on British Airways. So you have this very beautiful British voice talking you through the how you’re in the savanna and in prehistoric times, and then kind of there’s a tiger behind you. And then you have to go all out, and the music gets all crescendo. Yes, it’s a playful take on on just trying to get the idea across. But what we want to simulate is this emergency situation, and fight or flight response. And that that just triggers, you know, a different biological response than array, regular workout. We do have normal music soundtracks, as well. And some people also do it without soundtracks or you can watch you know, the the, it’s a choice, but it’s a playful take on on the idea of what the workout is.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, so So as somebody who writes books and creates things in the world, I actually think it’s brilliant beyond the fact that you have to run from the tiger when she tells you to run from the tiger because here’s the difference. And I’m curious, you should do some research on this. If I’m staring at like a peloton, and there’s a picture of somebody leading me somewhere or you know, the peloton can have things where you go through different parts of the world. There’s no imagination in that. It’s actually the way that your brain is working in that moment is not to your benefit. When I’m Otto listening to her, take me through the savanna. I don’t have a picture. So the neurons in my brain actually have to create a picture. So you just actually made me think I’m also developing new neurons because I have to use my imagination. I’m not numbing out to a picture that has taken the imagination out of out of it. I have to think of what the savanna is. I have to think of what the what the tiger is. It’s part of the process of you have to do some research John like neuronal growth that that creates, I’ve been

Ulrich  

we have, because so we’re recording this in May. And it’s Mental Health Awareness Day we have done not not original research, but so like literature research with our partners, and we’re actually we’re looking probably at doing a small study in that. So, what what has been shown or is known is that that exercise and especially high intensity exercise increases your BDNF levels. So brain derived neurotropic factor, which affords a level of neuro protection and neuroplasticity. And so it’s clear that exercise is very good for the brain in that regard. And that high intensity exercise is even better. So there was just a very recent study from a university in New Zealand that found that sprint training releases four to five times more BDNF, then, like long steady state exercise, sprint training has all sorts of marvelous and wonderful benefits. And yes, it’s not just, it’s not just your heart and your muscles, and your metabolic health nodes. It’s definitely also very healthy for your for your brain. Through this BDNF release, it’s good for mental health, it’s been shown to be as effective or more effective in treating anxiety and depression, then then, then medication is so it’s there’s many, there’s so many good things about exercise. Oh, it’s, it’s really, this is one of the, you know, we can argue about loads and loads of things. But with exercise, it is really black and white, that exercise is so fundamentally positive and good for you. And then these high intensity exercises are especially beneficial. So it’s, yeah, it’s a very good thing to pick up. It’s a great habit to build.

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah, and I’ll tell you one way, I am so happy you bring up the BDNF piece, because one way that I’ve been using the Carroll bike is if I have a busy day, and I can tell you as a 53 year old woman, as you lose your hormones, depression, and anxiety become frequent visitors. And you know, I’ve been really working on different ways to naturally handle those moments when I might spirits feel a little low. And what I have found is the most effective thing is to pop on the Carroll bike for 510 minutes, and all of a sudden, my mood has shifted, and I’m back in the game of my work day. And sometimes I’ll actually hop on a couple of times a day, just because it’s five minutes or 10 minutes, because I’m like, Okay, this is this is like my, my exercise Prozac is that I can use it in short spurts to change my mood.

Ulrich  

I love it. I love it. So I I also find it it’s just such a healthy habits and this I genuinely do it first thing in the morning, just like literally get out of bed. I do my five minutes on on Carol. And it’s like, the first when already banked for the like, yeah, it’s the first win of the day. And like that. Yeah, and it’s because of there’s so many things for my health. And yes, it helps for for mood, and for your mental health as well. The other thing do you do the breathing and trying to follow the because that’s that’s I find is a very nice little, you know, making really most of the time. So if you do the to 22nd, the rehab thing, you do have a little bit of warm up a little bit of recovery, a little bit of cooldown. So sometimes people ask us, like, what’s the point of that? Can’t I do just the two transactions and no, there is actually a point to to all three phases. But what you can do, and the bike guides you through that you can do mindful breathing in that time, and it’s actually quite challenging yet to kind of yes, in for for and then out for six. But that’s also a very effective way to basically balance your nervous system and and and get in a calm state again. And so here’s something the heart rate recovery for for when you do exercise. heartrate recovery is an important marker of your fitness. I find if I very mindfully and consciously breathe and I try to control my breathing, my heart rate recovers much faster and comes. So obviously peaks, I really to high level in the spreads. But then when I when I focus on my breath, it recovers much faster, and it has this, you know, balancing effect.

Dr. Mindy  

So, again, I don’t know if you’ve done research on that, because what you’re actually doing is you’re priming the parasympathetic nervous system. Yeah. So when we look at, like what exercise does, and when you’re trying to do it really hard over a significant period of time, you’re locking yourself in the sympathetic nervous system. And so again, I might, you know, my, my passion is helping menopausal women understand how to keep their health at the highest level possible. And what I find is that most men, menopausal women have a very weak parasympathetic nervous system. So you thank you for reminding me of that. Because I think that’s another secret of this incredible bike is that it is a tool to prime that system. If you follow the breathing instructions, Have you have you done any research on like HRV, or anything that would tell us if the that our parasympathetic nervous system is getting getting stronger,

Ulrich  

we have not done original primary research, but we’ve looked at the research. And and it’s very clear that Andrew Bowman’s lab in in California, they’ve published recently a paper where they’ve compared different types of breathing versus meditation and the effects on you know, various metrics, measuring your, your mental state and your calmness and so on. And they found that breathing is amongst the things they’ve looked at the most powerful way to balance your nervous system. And, and they found that the most effective style of breathing was the, so they have the they call it, I don’t know what they call it, double tap or so. But basically, where you have a shorter inhale, and then a long drawn out, exhale. Yeah, and that’s, that’s exactly what we have on the bike that we flew. And it adjusts a bit with your heart rate. So to make it manageable, but that you inhale for four, and then exhale for six. And that is really, it’s a parasympathetic nervous system balancer to get you because the Sprint’s obviously yes, they activate the sympathetic nervous system to get you to rebalance that as quickly as possible, and bring a sense of calm back. And yes,

Dr. Mindy  

it’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. What you created is brilliant. So yeah, I just thank you. I’ve never ever seen a piece of equipment like this. So I really appreciate it. And I love that you’re continuing to update it, and I can’t wait to do some form. Exactly.

Ulrich  

Exactly. Exactly. It’s a journey. That’s yeah, exactly. The hormone impact on that is another thing we’re very. So we were looking into that, and we want to understand it more. And it’s, it’s, it’s, of course, work in progress. And we don’t want it to ever finish. Because also the science moves on and you think we learn new things, and then we want to apply it and make it available. Like, tell it to our users tell it to and make it available for them. So it’s a fun thing to do, actually.

Dr. Mindy  

Absolutely. So let me end on this. This has nothing to do with the bike. But this what I do at the end of every podcast is I love to talk about two things. And this year, our theme on this podcast is self love. And so do you have a self love practice outside of the bike? Because the bike is self love? Do you have a way you give to yourself every day? Take care of yourself every day. And the second question is what is your superpower? If you have like one superpower you bring to the world what do you think it is?

Ulrich  

Yeah, okay, so my superpower I don’t know whether it’s a superpower but I think I’m I’m an engineer I am good at at at problem solving, and kind of turning turning fascinating little project that had problems and challenges into into practical solutions. Like our bike so that is certainly one thing. Whether it’s a super product, I don’t know but that’s that’s what I dedicate myself to and I love what I do. And I you know, if I if I look back at my teenage self, this is actually exactly what I would have wanted to do. I got there with many teachers, but I think that there were As a coordinator and the self love, I think I mentioned that earlier, I’m very much into weight training and being with my, with my teenage sons in the gym. So that’s that’s just very, very high quality time that I gained a lot from them with them, and that I enjoy very much. I would think that is a treat and self love.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh, anytime you’re working on your own fitness level that is self love. And anytime you’re hanging out with people you love that is self love. So I 1,000% agree. So thank you. All right, I really I think of you every time I get on the bike. I’ve been dying for this conversation because there’s something unique here that I’ve never seen an exercise and I just can’t wait to share this with the world so so super appreciate you. And I can’t wait to talk hormones with you and how we integrate that.

Ulrich  

Exactly, exactly. Let’s do that. Let’s do that. Well, thank you so much. It was real pleasure. Being on your podcast being on the show, having this great conversation with you saying thank you so much. Oh, my pleasure.

Dr. Mindy  

Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.