Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Norwegian 4 x 4 high intensity heart rate exercise to make your heart 20 years younger in two months time

  • Warm-up: Begin with a 5-10 minute warm-up at a low intensity.
  • High-intensity interval: Perform 4 minutes of intense exercise, aiming for 85-95% of your maximum heart rate.
  • Active recovery: Follow the intense interval with 3 minutes of light activity, like walking or slow pedaling, to lower your heart rate to 60-70% of maximum.
  • Repeat: Complete this 4-minute hard/3-minute easy cycle four times in total.
  • Cool-down: End the workout with a cool-down period to gradually bring your heart rate back to normal
 Yes, doing the Norwegian 4x4 workout once a week can be beneficial, especially as part of a varied training program, and is a good starting point. Some studies show significant improvements in fitness even with only one session per week, though doing it twice a week is often recommended for optimal results........

A new exercise guru Dr Rhonda Patrick talking about it on a recent podcast appearance, vid on yt claims a study of the Norwegian 4 x4 routine showed the heart becoming 20 years younger for someone in their 50s age. So they have a 30 year old heart after two months of training at least once a week - ideally twice a week. VO2 max vid on the Norwegian 4 x 4

10% increase in VO2 max in 2 months and in 4 months your heart is 10 years younger.... wearing a mask connected to a gas analyzer that measures oxygen consumption

I tried this out while watching a Jane Russell film on the classics movie channel - she gets the heart racing to kick start the training. So the exercise bike reads the pulse but it got too sweaty by the 3rd round and it only read it at 60 bpm instead of the previous 120 to 140 bpm. I think I got up to 155 bpm during the intense 4 minute sessions. 

Then you take a 3 minute slow down session to 100 bpm which is moderate bicycle speed. So when the pulse reading stopped working I relied on bicycle speed with 20 mph being the intense speed and moderate speed being around 10 miles per hour. The resistance was low - I didn't even check it - since I was just focused pulse. I would said resistance was at 4. 

 If you're healthy, you can figure out your approximate maximum heart rate by multiplying your age by 0.7 and subtracting the total from 208. For example, if you're 45 years old, multiply 45 by 0.7 to get 31.5, and subtract 31.5 from 208 to get a maximum heart rate of 176.5. This is the average maximum number of times the heart should beat each minute during exercise in this example. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise-intensity/art-20046887

 I guess I should increase the resistance level so I can increase my heart beat rate! wow. I wasn't working hard enough. hahaha.  But I got too sweaty and hot so next time I have to make sure to wear shorts instead of my overalls. Shorts and a tank top.

 Actually the exercise is supposed to go to just 90% of your maximum or maybe 80%?

 85–95% of your maximum heart rate. This is followed by a 3-minute active recovery period at 60–70% of maximum heart rate between each interval

 Yeah so 90% of maximum for my age is 153 bpm and I did achieve that.... maybe not consistently though. So I should increase the resistance one notch next time...

 Then, slowly build up the intensity. If you're healthy and want to exercise at a vigorous intensity, opt for the higher end of the zone.

 So I started out pretty good....since it felt pretty easy. Difficult but not that bad.

 The goal is to significantly improve your
VO2cap V O sub 2
max...a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen your body is able to absorb and utilize while exercising. It’s not the same as lung capacity (which is the amount of oxygen you’re able to bring into your lungs), but rather the next step in the process, which is how much of this oxygen your body is able to process and convert into energy.

 https://nakednutrition.com/blogs/fitness/the-norwegian-4-4-hiit-protocol

 A good marker for whether your intensity is high enough is that you shouldn’t be able to talk while in the active period.

 Yeah I could still kind of talk....

 The only difficulty is being able to maintain activity for four minutes

 So I kept the resistance low enough that this was not a problem....

 even just once a week can deliver results (especially if you’re doing other workouts in between).

 So this will be my "cardio break" between the upper body and lower body resistance training. Yesterday I did upper body. Day before I did lower body. So tomorrow I do lower body again. Then I take a day off on Saturday (actually I'll do outside work)... then Sunday I work on my "middle splits" or side splits during the football game. I use both the straps and the "one horse" crank machine at the same time to both push and pull my legs apart....

 they had made significant improvements in VO2 max, and reduced the effective age of their heart by 20 years.

 This will be interesting - I used to ride bicycle 10 miles a day every day for 10 years. So that was up till 15 years ago! So if I got back in that level of aerobic fitness that would be fantastic....

 ensure you’re in the 75-80% range, rather than trying to maintain 90%+ of your max HR for such a long interval.

 That's actually what I was doing - the 80% range and not the 90% range... but I touched into the 90% range a bit. So I'll just stick at the same resistance and keep watching t.v. while doing it. No problem.

so the arm is supposed to be "supported at the heart level" (for an accurate blood pressure reading) - wow! I finally found a position where I could do that. I had to sit on the floor with my arm on this table so it was "supported at heart level" and I got the lowest reading yet. hahaha. I took four readings and two were 15 to 20 points higher than the other two. I'm sticking with the proper posture reading. Crazy how sensitive a machine is that determines if you get put on drugs or not!! Wow.
120/63 blood pressure with 63 resting pulse
Generally, a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness. For example, a well-trained athlete might have a normal resting heart rate closer to 40 beats per minute.


 

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