Exercise Expert: The Workout That Reverses 20 Years of Aging
About this episode
Louisa Nicola interviews exercise physiologist Brady Holmer about the effects of marathon running on brain health and VO2 max.
Six days before he sat down for this conversation, he ran a marathon. Then he explained what the race did to his brain. When you run 26 miles and your glycogen runs out, your brain still needs energy, so it starts stripping the fatty myelin off its own neurons and burning it for fuel. MRI scans caught a 20% drop in myelin up to two months after a marathon, and cognitive testing showed real impairment for about a month. In this episode, Louisa sits down with Brady Holmer, exercise physiologist, 2:24 marathoner, and author of VO2 Max Essentials, for one of the most practical conversations on aerobic fitness, brain health, and longevity the show has recorded. They cover why "marathon brain" is real but temporary, the menopause parallel where a starved brain catabolizes its own white matter, and whether pre-loading ketones or omega-3s can protect your myelin through a hard endurance effort. Then Brady breaks down VO2 max the way almost nobody does: not as a heart-and-lung number, but as a five-step oxygen cascade running from your lungs to your mitochondria, and why the bottleneck moves from your heart to your muscles as you age. You will learn the exact VO2 max floor below which…
More episodes of The Neuro Experience
- 78.3% Alzheimer's Patients Are Women: Here’s How to Fix It. (Yes really)
- Growing $20,000-a-Gram Medicine in a Warehouse | Sam Bertram
- This Psychedelic Is Changing Everything Doctors Thought About Depression
- Don't Take Omega-3s Until You Know This | Dr Nick Norwitz
- The True Origin of AI: A 45 Year Old Scientist Took In a Homeless Teen, Then they Changed the World
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Neuro Experience podcast page.