Hello wonderful community! I am so grateful for your insights.
I have seen much discussion on rapamycin (temporarily) inhibiting protein synthesis when strength training a hour post the rapamycin dose. However, I did not notice how this relates to Zone 2 cardio exercise (I am sorry, I am sure this was discussed somewhere I just haven’t seen it when I did a search).
I train 6 days a week for ultramarathons. Strength training is twice per week so it is easy to keep it further away from the rapamycin dose. However, endurance training is scheduled all other days, some with high intensity and some straight Zone 2 training.
Rapamycin half life appears to be about 60 hours so clearly I would be training while my rapamycin blood levels are still relatively high.
What would you recommend for a more optimal schedule:
Day 1 strength training
Day 2 rapamycin dose - off from all training
Day 3 Zone 2 training (shorter run)
Day 4 cardio with intensity
Day 5 strength training
Day 6 long endurance training
Day 7 long endurance training
Does this seem like a reasonable approach?
Would you ever recommend doing a long endurance session the day you take rapamycin?
I have a very similar training regimen and I have been taking/experimenting with rapamycin for about 1.5 years now.
A few quick thoughts and anecdotal notes from my own training.
Taking rapamycin the same day as a long endurance effort doesn’t seem to have a harmful effect. I actually enjoyed taking it on my interval days during marathon training, which was my hardest day of the week. Those days built up to 11-13 miles, half of that was zone 2, the intervals were in zone 3/4.
I experimented taking it on several different days, and for my overall fatigue/stress on body I found it personally easiest to take on a hard day.
I’ve tested several dosages, mostly on a weekly schedule. One thing I found is, endurance/exercise also induces autophagy. I think your lifestyle is already giving you great longevity benefits, so I’m still not positive rapamycin helps all that much on a weekly cycle. After a year of taking it I found that I preferred a much lower dose when I was on a weekly schedule. 2-3mg worked great for me as a 40 yr old male. I experimented all the way up to 6mg.
One thing I noticed, is that the benefits seemed to be mostly up front from taking rapamycin. I felt like rapamycin helped me reset a lot of things in my body, but those benefits seemed to mostly go away after taking it for 3-4 months. Because of this, I’ve personally changed my regimen to taking 6mg with EVOO once a month as a reset on my easy week.
To be honest, I don’t think it really matters all that much. I’m not sure if there is an optimal time (maybe there is).
When training 6 or 7 days a week things are a bit different. You want your easy days to be easy and your hard days to be hard. That way your body has time to recover on the easy days so that you can go at it hard again when it counts.
My generalized marathon training week:
Sunday Morning: Easy zone 2 running, 5-8 miles
Sunday Night: Light dinner, take 2-4mg of rapamycin (60hr half life in mind)
Monday: Hard interval day, 8-13 miles total running
Tuesday Morning: Strength
Tuesday Evening: Easy zone 2 running 6 miles
Wednesday: Day off
Thursday: Tempo run day, 7 - 12 miles
Friday morning: strength training
Friday evening: Zone 2 running, 5-8 miles
Saturday: Long run, zone 2, 10-16miles
The miles vary based on where I was on my schedule. There are build periods and rest periods. Keep in mind I had to build my body to get to where it can do this.
The rapa Sunday night led into that normal rapa fatigue we all know about by Monday morning. I usually felt good Monday evening during my intervals and the rapa didn’t bother me. It all stacked together to be the hardest day of the week for me. Tuesday morning is strength training, then really easy miles in the evening for blood flow. Full day off Wednesday allows my body to recover from the stack I just did. By Thursday my body was recovered and the 60hr half-life was over.
Hopefully the above makes sense on why I chose to take it when I did. I experimented taking it several different days of the week before settling on the above.
I’m no longer taking it weekly though. Instead I take 6mg the first Sunday of every month. I view it more as a reset. Looking for that autophagy spike. I suspect I’ll keep experimenting with it and changing it up. I don’t like my body to get normalized to stuff, changing things up forces my body to adapt which I like. As we learn more, I’ll adapt with the knowledge.
Good question. I think of zone 1 & 2 (of 5 zone model) as AMPK boosters that work with rapa. I try to get some of this everyday including my rapa dose day (1X per 14 days).
The harder question is how to mix HIIT and resistance training since both are so tiring as to ensure an interference effect. I worry more about my sleep / recovery in determining whether to stay on my schedule for HIIT & resistance training workouts. HIIT 1X per week. Weights 3X per week.
I restrict:
Calories / meds / supplements — on rapa day
Protein — 24 hours before weight training (extra protein in 24 hours post weight training)
Thanks for your thoughts on this. That’s a good reminder - long endurance training does also trigger autophagy, as long as it’s longer than 60 minutes which you and I seem to engage in often.
And you bring up a good point/question: how much benefit is there from rapamycin when one is already engaging in all the healthy behaviours?
It makes me think of David Sabatini, one of the main researchers in the rapamycin field who personally does not take rapamycin despite being well aware of its benefits. His reason for not taking it was partly inertia and partly that he’s also not sure how much additional benefit rapamycin will give him in addition to engaging in other healthy behaviours.
I personally choose to take rapamycin anyway as a bit of an insurance despite striving to do everything else that is considered to benefit lifespan and healthspan.
I take Rapa as early as I can but wait for gfj to work (2 hours is how long I wait). I have always taken it in the am to avoid interference with sleep (which I was warned about).
@a.kladar, I’m a sprinter who specializes in the 100 meter. I haven’t detected any speed increase that I could attribute to rapa, no matter when I take it. However, it may be working in the background, helping me to keep going in my later years.
What really keeps me going, though, what makes me never want to stop, are edibles and EDM @ 180 bpm. It’s all in the music.
Oh, absolutely, EDM at 180 bpm is magical! Thanks for the response. I agree, improvements might not be detectable if one is already very healthy and fit but it may (and I believe it will) extend our ability to do what we love for longer.
I remember Matt Kaeberlein responding to this exact question and he said that we don’t know the exact answer. However, he suspects that it’s probably best to keep the rapa dose and strength training further away from each other if possible.
@Tim@a.kladar What are you using for EDM 180? I just tried to find some music but can’t find a decent genre. I realize it’s basically dance music but it seems like any genre could be used for this. I prefer rock when I workout. Also, I’m much more novice a runner than you both. I’d probably do better with 170ish bpm. Also, edibles? What brand or dose helps with exercise and motivation? I would have thought edibles would do the opposite.
@stealle, @a.kladar, I listen to trance and progressive house downloaded from YouTube. You can listen before you download. It’s easy to find a converter that translates the music from YouTube to MP3. You can also find your favorite bands on YouTube as well.
Podrunner is another good site. It has a full range of tempos, from 100-185 bpm, and it’s all free. He calls his mixes progressive house, but it sounds like trance to me. I know there are other sites online that allow you to change the tempo of any song you like, but I’ve never used it. I just enter trance, EDM, workout music, uptempo music, or anything like that.
If you are a bit of a newer runner, it’s understandable if you want to start with a slower cadence.
You’ll eventually want to build up to a 180 steps per minute cadence to help prevent running injuries. For now, 160 to 170 bpm is totally fine. In fact, I do a lot of my easier runs at 170 bpm. If you don’t want a “hard beat” which a lot of EDM has (much similar to dance music), below an example of music I find to be more tolerable for most people. It will almost feel like it’s too slow, but it’s definitely 160 and 170 bpm.
160 bpm:
170 bpm:
If you want to try 180 bpm, here are a couple of options:
Pure 180 bpm EDM: YouTube Music
A lot “milder” sounding 180 bpm:
Not sure if any of the above will appeal to you but it gives you a couple of options and platforms you can search for 160 to 180 bpm music.
@stealle For edibles, I take 10 mg, a very moderate dose. Some runners prefer sativa to the indica, but honestly I can’t tell the difference. Stoned is stoned. It takes about an hour to kick in, and then I’m out the door. The THC enhances the music and the music drives me forward. I’m a sprinter, so I go all out. It’s exhilarating.