Our bodies were made to move and our movement, or lack there of, clearly is a contributor to the downward spiral we are seeing in the health of our country. We all have come to be brainwashed to perceive exercise as a tool for improving our sport, achieving weight loss, or improving our body aesthetic. What we need to understand is that exercise should be viewed as an essential nutrient for our body to fully express health down to the proper expression of our genes.
But WHO has the time to spend 4+ hours a week in the gym? Not me. So does that mean don’t do it? Of course not! So where does that leave us? This was the question I presented to myself before I created the Spyderwall. Exercise has always been a part of who I am and I wasn’t going to let time, or the lack there of, get in the way of my health or my time with my family. So I did some research about what type of exercise would allow me to make the most of my time working out and I found my answer…High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). This research looked at our human ancestors' energy expenditure and determined that we would need to walk at least 12 miles a day additionally to achieve the same daily energy expenditure. Don’t panic, the research goes on to show that this can be lessened by changing your body composition and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), changing insulin sensitivity, and changing the intensity of your exercise.1 What this means is that we need to work out harder, build more lean muscle, and work out for less time. What this translates into is a HIIT workout style that has high reps, lighter resistance, and has your variable heart rate kept over 120 bpm for the 30 minutes. This is what I used to create the Spyderwall system.
Spyderwall workouts are 30 minutes long and consist of a minimum of 27 exercise sets for the workout. The workouts are changed each day so that you could workout 3 days a week for a year and not do the same workout twice. This allows for the body to continue to be challenged, allowing for the most benefit from your workout. You see- when we repeat the same workouts our body and muscles get lazy and find the path of least resistance to complete the task, in turn using less muscle and less energy to do the same task. The research is so clear that spending 30 minutes a day engaging in HIIT is what our bodies need to genetically express health- which is exactly what Spyderwall is designed to do!
-Dr. Jeremy DiMartino
1Cordain et al. Physical Activity, Energy Expenditure and Fitness: An Evolutionary Perspective. 1998 Int. J. Sports Med. (19) 328-335