December 11, 2021

Ever heard of the AI-powered smart bike that gives you the benefits of a 45-minute run in under nine minutes?

Here's the deal: we already know HIIT training is a great way to work out. The bike uses REHIT—Reduced Exertion High-intensity Interval Training—which is HIIT taken to the next level.

With REHIT training, you can get better health and fitness results compared to steady-state exercise, in 20% of the time, just 26 minutes a week—and you’re not putting your body under the kind of stress that you get with chronic cardio, which can actually be damaging to your health and stall your weight loss.

I have a CAR.O.L. bike in my office, and I now use it for my REHIT breaks. You just get on the bike, you start riding, and in less than nine minutes you’ve checked your cardio off for the day. This thing is a game-changer—it was developed in collaboration with fitness researchers and is clinically proven to give you the shortest, most impactful cardio workout you can get.

The CAR.O.L. bike will get you fitter, healthier, and leaner. In eight weeks, you’ll increase your cardio fitness and see a 12% increase in VO2 max, which may add two years to your lifespan. You’ll reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes by 62%, and lower your blood pressure, triglycerides, and blood sugar. And you’re going to burn more fat because the CAR.O.L. workout increases excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, which boosts your metabolism and keeps your body burning fat for hours after a workout.

My guest on today's show, Ulrich Dempfle, is Chief Product Officer and co-founder of CAR.O.L. Ulrich holds degrees in business administration and mechanical engineering, and leads all aspects of product development at CAR.O.L., from data science to software and hardware. Previously, he was the director of PwC’s healthcare AI initiatives in the UK and has a wide range of experience in healthcare, engineering, and startups.

The idea for CAR.O.L. was conceived in 2012 while working on chronic disease management programs for people with diabetes. The team found it very challenging to get people to exercise, and the main excuses they heard were a lack of time and frustration with slow results. The beauty of CAR.O.L. is how REHIT solves these problems, offering a scientifically proven workout in under nine minutes. After discovering REHIT, the team embarked on creating CAR.O.L., the first and only consumer REHIT exercise bike available.

Ulrich practices what he preaches, and uses CAR.O.L. regularly. He says his cardiovascular fitness has improved by 50%, and he has lost about 10 kg and can now easily manage his weight without counting calories. His blood pressure was slightly elevated but is now optimal, and he’s in better shape than ever.

During our discussion, you'll discover:

-HIIT or HIRT?…03:30

• Q&A 426: Does Being Overweight Help You Live Longer?, The Dark Side Of Fasting, The Latest On Caffeine & Exercise Performance, Boosting Nitric Oxide & Much More!
• The Quick And The Dead by Pavel Tsatsouline

-How did Ulrich come up with the idea?…07:30

• CAR.O.L. = Cardiovascular (CAR) Optimization Logic
• The idea for CAR.O.L. was conceived in 2012 while working on chronic disease management programs for people with diabetes
• Excited about how this technology could help people with significant health concerns

-What's unique about the bike…08:43

• Helps people achieve their maximum fitness gains with minimum time requirement using the power of REHIT and AI
• The core REHIT ride using the bike is 8 minutes and 40 seconds
• Every ride is personalized according to each user's data and level of fitness

-How REHIT is different from HIIT…18:58

• A new, improved form of HIIT
• REHIT session with CAR.O.L. consists of two 20-second sprints, separated by a short recovery
• Total workout time – 8:40
• REHIT offers maximum intensity training; pushes the body to new limits, making you much stronger and fitter

-The benefits you can expect with CAR.O.L. and REHIT…21:17

• Partnered with the leading REHIT researchers
• Improve your cardio – 8 weeks to turn around your cardiorespiratory fitness—improve cardiorespiratory fitness (measured by VO2 max) by 12.3%
• Get healthier – lower your risk of Type II Diabetes by 60% in 8 weeks—that’s the same level of change you’d see actually taking Metformin
• Boost your metabolism – burn twice as many calories minute-per-minute compared to traditional exercise, because of the “after-burn” effect, which means you keep burning calories for hours after a CAR.O.L. workout
• Lose weight – in a 15-week study on the benefits of HIIT, participants saw a 2.5kg reduction in total body fat, particularly in the legs and tummy

-How cardio with CAR.O.L. impacts chronic disease…23:35

• MetS-Z score – score measures risk of developing metabolic diseases
• Cardiovascular and Other Health Benefits of Sauna Bathing: A Review of the Evidence

-How cardio with CAR.O.L. impacts longevity…29:26

• 2019 Telomere study in the European Heart Journal – aerobic endurance and HIIT, but not resistance training, increase telomerase activity and telomere length in blood mononuclear cells thus supporting healthy aging
• Working out with CAR.O.L. for 8 weeks adds 2 years of healthy life expectancy to your lifespan, thanks to improved cardiorespiratory fitness; a 10% improvement in VO2 max may add 2 years of healthy life expectancy
• In the general population, VO2 max tends to decline by about 10% per decade after the age of 30—since CAR.O.L. increases VO2 max by 12% in 8 weeks, it effectively turns back the clock on your fitness by a decade

-Does the CAR.O.L. achieve the same benefits as other types of cardio?…30:50

• You’d need to spend a lot more time on it: with other cardio, you would need 2.5 hours per week and more whereas with CAR.O.L. it is as little as 26 minutes per week
• Feedback from users is that CAR.O.L. makes it easy to establish a healthy habit because it is so short and you can fit it easily into your daily routine
• It’s fantastic to see how quickly you can improve your fitness, but the flip side is that you have to stick to your routine to maintain it
• If you stop exercising, you lose much of the fitness gains within a 4-week period
• If you don’t have an extra 2 hours a week for exercise, it’s no good to have a bike with great music and celebrity instructors
• Such external motivation might work for a while, but you ultimately need something that fits into your life and that you can stick to
• CAR.O.L. can be a backstop for longer forms of cardio

-The science behind the bike…38:03

• Pretty much everyone is familiar with HIIT, so REHIT is a specific form of HIIT, developed by Drs. Niels Vollaard and Richard Metcalfe at the University of Bath
• They developed an exercise protocol that is MUCH more time-efficient than both conventional exercise and HIIT, while still providing the same or better health and fitness benefits
• “No pain, no gain” has put a lot of people off exercise; a minimal amount of pain can give you very big gains
• The sprints create a sudden spike in energy demand that’s 100-fold greater than rest
• Sprints tap into your body’s emergency energy reserve as it anticipates and prepares for a “fight or flight” situation
• You don’t have to do more or longer sprints because the mobilization of the glycogen is triggered by the rapid onset of the energy demand in the sprint (why it doesn’t matter so much how long you sprint but how quickly you start)
• Rapid glycogen depletion triggers the release and activation of certain signaling molecules (AMPK and PGC-1α), which triggers mitochondrial biogenesis, i.e., your body develops more mitochondria, which are the “power plants” in your cells, which means you are better at utilizing oxygen in your muscles
• Beyond Training by Ben Greenfield
• New study shows that your body gets better at delivering oxygen to your muscles by improving your cardiac output, your heart gets stronger and pumps more blood through your vascular system
• Two 20-second maximum intensity sprints “saturate” the signaling response mechanism—which is like a switch, so more or longer sprints have no additional benefit, so after those two sprints that’s it, you’re done for the day, and you only need to do it 2-3 times per week

-Why do you need a special bike?…39:43

• The maximum intensity levels during a REHIT sprint are about three times higher than in other HIIT cycling classes
• On a regular exercise bike you’d need to:
  • Apply the correct resistance (just in your sweet spot)
  • At the right time (just after you’ve built up speed at a low resistance)
  • In a fraction of a second (instantly go from very low to very high)
  • In other words, it’s very difficult without an exercise physiologist or an expert personal trainer by your side

-How Ulrich uses the bike…44:33

• He does a ride in the morning,  in a fasted state, and burns 215 kcals straightaway
• That’s more than 10% of his baseline calorie need and it helps him manage his weight with very little effort
• Ulrich finds it suppresses appetite and helps him stay in the fasted state longer

-Can CAR.O.L. be combined with other biohacking tools?…47:40

• This year CAR.O.L. reached 10,000 riders in the community so definitely have lots of feedback from riders on combining CAR.O.L. with biohacking tools
• Fasting
  • One of the exercises that is easier during fasting as it is so short
  • If you do a longer, strict fast, it is probably sensible to be careful with exercise
• Katalyst
• Can work beautifully with time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting
• Cold exposure
  • Very popular but some concern and evidence that ice baths after resistance training blunt the effect
  • However, the same problem is not present with cardio and endurance training
• Some riders love to combine CAR.O.L. with blood flow restriction bands
• Other riders combine CAR.O.L. with LiveO2 trainer with increased or reduced oxygen supply

-How to mitigate the EMF the CAR.O.L. bike produces…52:45

• The bike has an off-line mode automatically activated if the bike is set to airplane mode
• The bike was designed as a connected fitness equipment
• Connect the bike to wi-fi for initial set-up
• Connect once in a while to upload and download personalized data

-How one can get started with CAR.O.L.?…55:06

• Pricing: $2,395 and offers code BEN to get a $250 discount
• 100-day home trial. Research shows you’ll get CAR.O.L.’s health and fitness gains in 8 weeks. Experience it for yourself, risk-free.
• Click here to get a CAR.O.L. bike and use the discount code BEN for a $250 discount and 100-day money-back guarantee until January 14, 2022

-And more…

Upcoming Events:

• Keep up on Ben's LIVE appearances by following bengreenfieldfitness.com/calendar

Click here for the full written transcript of this podcast episode.

Resources from this episode:

– Ulrich Dempfle:

• CAR.O.L.
• Research:
  • REHIT
  • American Council of Exercise (ACE): Acute and Chronic Responses to Reduced-Exertion High Intensity Training.
  • BBC 5-Week Experiment Results.
  • The Effects of High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise Training on Fat Loss of Young Women.
  • HIIT Workouts Are More Effective At Improving Cardio-Respiratory Fitness.
  • Beneficial Effects of Reduced-Excursion High Intensity Interval Training (REHIT)

– Podcasts And Articles:

• Q&A 426: Does Being Overweight Help You Live Longer?, The Dark Side Of Fasting, The Latest On Caffeine & Exercise Performance, Boosting Nitric Oxide & Much More!
• The Powerful Health Benefits Of Fasting (Plus The Top 5 Questions I Get Asked About Fasting).

– Books:

• Beyond Training by Ben Greenfield
• The Quick And The Dead by Pavel Tsatsouline

– Gear:

• LiveO2
• BFR Bands (use code BEN10 to save 10%)
• Katalyst
• Morozko Forge

– Other Resources:

• Dr. Niels Vollaard 
• Dr. Richard Metcalfe
• MetS-Z Score
• Cardiovascular And Other Health Benefits Of Sauna Bathing: A Review Of The Evidence
• Workouts With Fewer Reps Could Yield Better Results

Episode sponsors:

–Kion Coffee: Elevate your daily grind with pure, delicious Kion Coffee. Available in Whole Bean or Ground, our coffee meets the highest standards for health and taste.

–JOOVV: After using the JOOVV for close to 2 years, it's the only light therapy device I'd ever recommend. Give it a try: you won't be disappointed. For a limited time, JOOVV wants to hook you up with an exclusive discount on your first order. Just apply code BEN to your qualifying order. 

–Butcher Box: Delivers healthy 100% grass-fed and finished beef, free-range organic chicken, and heritage breed pork directly to your door on a monthly basis. All their products are humanely raised and NEVER given antibiotics or hormones. 

–Levels Health: Levels is currently running a closed beta program with a waitlist of 100,000+ people, but you can skip that line and join Levels today by using the link levels.link/BEN

Do you have questions, comments, or feedback for Ulrich Dempfle or me? Leave your thoughts below!