Dump your Nitric Oxide

Two Key Strategies to Help Your Fitness Soar in 2017

I still believe HIIT is the most effective and efficient way to reach your fitness goals, but I've further fine-tuned my approach and now use an even shorter routine that I believe is just as effective while being far safer, especially if you're older or just starting out. Below, I'll discuss this new technique, which I refer to as "the nitric oxide dump."

The scientific literature also clearly shows that sitting for extended periods is a major, independent risk factor for chronic disease, even if you exercise regularly, so daily non-exercise movement is likely one of the most important fitness strategies for many — especially if you're currently not exercising on a regular basis.

The reason for this is because sitting blocks a number of insulin-mediated systems, including muscular and cellular pathways that process blood sugar, triglycerides and cholesterol. Standing up — bearing your own body weight on your legs — activates all of these systems at the molecular level. I'll review this below as well.

Exercise Benefits Both Your Body and Your Brain

A number of biological effects occur when you exercise. This includes changes in your muscles, lungs, heart, joints and bones, all of which help keep your body as youthful as possible. Weight-bearing exercise, for example, is one of the most effective remedies against osteoporosis, which is why strength training is so important for the elderly.

Exercise also helps keep your brain in good working order. There are in fact intriguing links between muscle growth and brain regeneration, also known as neurogenesis, which helps slow down or ward off cognitive loss.

Non-Exercise Movement Is Foundational for Optimal Health

All of that said, before you even begin to consider putting together a regular exercise program, take stock of how much you move throughout each day. Do you sit down during work and commuting and then spend most of the evening on the couch? More than 10,000 studies now show sitting takes a significant toll on your health, even if you exercise regularly.

The evidence is quite clear on this: An hour or two of exercise each week simply isn't enough to outweigh the damage incurred by sitting down for 10 hours or more each day. If you think about it, the reason we need exercise at all is to compensate for our modern lifestyles, where inactivity is the norm. Our ancestors didn't have to "exercise" because they rarely sat down. They moved all day long, and research shows this near-continuous movement is absolutely key for biological functioning.

So, non-exercise movement is now recognized as a foundational piece for optimal health — even more so than a regimented fitness routine. Ideally, you'd do them both, but if you're currently sedentary, I recommend you simply start by sitting less. A fitness tracker can be a helpful tool. I recommend getting at least 7,000 to 10,000 steps each day, and limit sitting to less than three hours. I personally sit less than 30 minutes most days and walk an average of 15,000 steps a day.

Recent research6 into the effects of exercise on diabetes in particular really stresses the importance of increasing the FREQUENCY of movement. Research also shows that chronic sitting is particularly hazardous for diabetics.

One such study7 found that taking a 10-minute walk after each meal provided greater blood sugar control in diabetics than 30 minutes of exercise done once a day, lowering post-meal blood sugar levels by 22 percent. So, merely increasing the frequency of your movement is a simple way to maximize the benefits you get from the time spent.

This is the nitric oxide (NO) dump exercise developed by Dr. Zach Bush. NO is an extremely important part of biochemical regulation, and understanding and controlling its formation has the potential for profound influences on your health. Most notably, NO:

• Protects your heart by relaxing your blood vessels and lowering your blood pressure
• Stimulates your brain
• Kills bacteria and defends against tumor cells
• Helps maintain homeostasis in your body

For a demonstration, see the video above. If you have previously watched this video, please review it again as I recently updated it to correct a couple of errors and omissions that sneaked into my previous video. A key component I forgot in my earlier video is to make sure you're breathing through your nose and not your mouth. Your nose actually regulates more than 30 physical processes, including the release of NO, and of course serves to filter the air you breathe.

Compared to a regular HIIT protocol, the NO dump exercise is a far gentler strategy that can be done by just about anyone, regardless of your current level of fitness or age. You'd be hard-pressed to injure yourself doing this. Since you're just using your body to perform simple knee bends and arm lifts, the exercise is more or less automatically customized to your current level of ability.

Yet, despite its simplicity, I'm convinced you'll still obtain most of the benefits you get from HIIT. While I demonstrate 20 reps in the above video, it is best to start at 10 reps and gradually work your way up to 20. Remember, don't do this more than every two hours, as it takes that long for the NO to be generated from eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase).

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