Three Updates - October 2025
Before diving into new ideas next month, I wanted to revisit some recent ideas as many of you have been asking lots of (good) questions about them recently. Today we’re going to reexamine the creatine experiment, shoe selection and cardiovascular training.
the Creatine Experiment
If you didn’t get a chance to read the original article about this, click here.
I began taking 10g/day of Creatine Monohydrate on March 12th, 2025. By April I was dealing with some G.I. distress, and I had to reduce my daily intake to 5g/day. In May, I was able to return to 10g/day with 5g in the morning and 5g in the evening; splitting it up helped my stomach issues. By June, I was able to do 20g all at once, every single day. Reminder, 5g daily is enough to saturate muscle stores, the 20g/day target is more for the cognitive benefits. Anyway, since April, I’ve done five Inbody tests to track changes. Muscle mass is up 4lbs and body fat is down 1%.* Now, this didn’t just happen from the creatine alone, I’ve also had to train, and eat, with intention and effort. Lastly, to answer everyone that wanted to know where I buy creatine, I’m simply using the local grocery store’s private label (store brand) and saving myself some money compared to the other better known or heavily advertised brands. If you’re buying creatine monohydrate, and not some other compound with creatine in it, you should be okay.
*A frequent critique of creatine is that it leads to “water muscles,” and I can’t provide concrete evidence that the muscle growth is purely myofibrillar, but I have also seen strength gains. Side bar, myofibrillar hypertrophy (growth) refers to an increase in the size of the contractile muscle fibers themselves, whereas sarcoplasmic hypertrophy means the muscle cells are holding more water. So, while I’m not certain which type of muscle growth has occurred, there is evidence to suggest that they’re growing, and I look/feel better about that. That’s a win in my book.
increase in cardiovascular training
If you missed our recent article about VO2 Max tests, you can find that here
Next, this creatine experiment has run concurrently with an increase in cardiovascular training. I’ve always hit my 150 minutes/week minimum for cardio, but in the last few months I’ve increased that time to 300 minutes/week.** If you’ve heard that cardiovascular training will cause you to lose muscle, this article should be evidence to the contrary. A conclusion derived from older evidence suggested that concurrent training, engaging in both resistance training and cardiovascular training, would result in an interference effect in which both types of training would see minimum improvements if not diminishing returns. However, recent studies have shown that the interference effect is not omnipresent, especially if your exercise selection allows for adequate recovery between training sessions. For instance, say you lift heavy weights on Monday and Tuesday, an easy zone 2 day on Wednesday would probably be a better pick than running hills or riding in an intense spin class with a lot of climbing if you plan on lifting heavy weights again on Thursday.*** So please try to fit in your cardio in addition to your strength training at the gym, your heart will thank you. If you need help structuring your week to fit it all in, we are happy to help.
To provide further evidence that concurrent training can work, I recently put myself through yet another VO2 Max test. The results were good. Despite being a few pounds heavier, from the creatine experiment, a factor that worked against me here, my VO2 max increased 1 ml/kg/min. While that might not seem like a big deal, I have been doing cardiovascular training for 15 years now, gains don’t come as frequently as they did when I was a novice. However, oxygen consumption isn’t the only factor that matters when it comes to cardiovascular training, I saw my anaerobic threshold increase from 132 bpm (beats per minute) to 156 bpm. This is important because a higher anaerobic threshold means that I can work at a higher intensity without fatigue related to the byproduct accumulation that happens once the threshold is exceeded. If you are interested in achieving a better race time, depending on the distance, a higher threshold might be more important than a high VO2 max (A high VO2 max is still very important). Regardless of your goals, we can help tailor workouts to help you get there.
** Of the 5 hours, most of this time (about 70-80%) is spent in Zone 2. Zone 2 is low intensity and rather enjoyable once you get into a rhythm. Also, Zone 2 training is a great way to break up more intense days of weightlifting and cardiovascular intervals.
*** An assumption here is that you’re engaging in full body workouts every time you lift weights, which is what we often do here at Marino’s. We use full body workouts for a good reason; each individual muscle group needs to be exposed to 12-20 fatigue inducing sets each week to see optimal growth. It can be rather difficult to jam all of those sets into a single training session, so we spread them out throughout the week.
shoe selection, not so black & white
If you missed our original discussion on footwear, click here.
Lastly, I’ve only been able to withstand 300 minutes of cardio because I was willing to change my mind about footwear, again. I’ve moved away from black & white thinking to living somewhere in the gray. So, in 2023 I honestly didn’t think about footwear very much, but I had my awakening in 2024. In 2024, I transitioned exclusively to “barefoot” shoes. These shoes offer a zero-drop low profile, wide toe boxes and are often very light weight so they can be extremely flexible. I still think these shoes are great and they have their place, but I no longer wear them in every situation. I recently took the advice I often give to many of you, I went to Road Runner Sports in King of Prussia. There they analyzed my gait, crafted custom orthotic shoe inserts and got me into a pair of “running shoes.” These shoes have thicker padding than my barefoot shoes, but I was selective with the brand to ensure I would still have a wide toe box; I don’t foresee myself ever wearing shoes that don’t have a wide toe box. Here’s a quick video explaining why: https://www.tiktok.com/@squatuniversity/video/7486326267986332959.
The reason I went in this direction is that I was starting to develop a hot spot in my calcaneal (Achilles) tendon. The pain I was feeling in this tendon not only scared me, but the pain seemed to correlate to the extra running I was doing. I’m delighted to say that the “hot spot” by my ankle is not only gone now, but it was detected by the folks at Road Runner Sports during the assessment without me having to tell them. I learned a lot during the assessment and encourage others to pay them a visit too. Another fun nugget I learned was that I have very long arches. I’ve always known that I have low arches, but I never noticed the length of them in relation to the rest of the foot. I was told that this was an important detail because traditional arch support inserts wouldn’t quite work for my anatomy. Getting custom inserts really made a difference as they have been keeping my foot in a neutral position, and my excessive arch collapse is dissipating. So, now I use running shoes for my long runs and weight vest rucks, otherwise, I still stick to my barefoot shoes for weightlifting and other forms of cardio such as the bike or versa climber, I just stick my inserts into each pair of shoes as I change them. So, I’m selective when I decide to use the extra padding and consider that task first. I hope this was helpful for you and perhaps even encourages you to further your training.