Revolutionizing Fitness: Ulrich Dempler on AI and the Future of Exercise

Transform the way you think about fitness with Ulrich Dempler, co-founder and CEO of Carol Bike, as he joins me, Cynthia L Elliott, also known as Shaman Isis. Discover the revolutionary promise of ReHIT (reduced exertion high-intensity interval training) that shatters conventional workout norms, offering double the health benefits in a fraction of the time. Ulrich's journey from engineering and healthcare innovation to spearheading a fitness revolution provides invaluable insights into overcoming the barrier of time, making exercise feasible for everyone, even with the tightest schedules.

Embrace the future of exercise as we delve into the integration of AI in fitness routines. Learn how smart technology tailors workouts to fit individual lifestyles, ensuring maximum results with minimal time investment. Our discussion extends into the realm of immersive technology and AI-powered health environments, emphasizing the interconnected nature of physical and mental fitness. This episode is a treasure trove of ideas for anyone striving to balance a busy life while still prioritizing their health and wellness.

Meet Cynthia L Elliott, your guide to conscious living, as she introduces you to groundbreaking initiatives at the intersection of technology and wellness. Get ready for upcoming events like Code Queens: The Future of AI and Conscious Innovation, which promises to be a hub of inspiration featuring leading voices in AI from prestigious institutions. With gratitude for your curiosity, this episode not on

Spiritual guru, two-time #1 best-selling author, and higher consciousness advocate Shaman Isis (aka Cynthia L. Elliott) is on a mission to turn the tide of the mental and spiritual health crisis with mindfulness practices, incredible events, powerful content, and motivational storytelling that inspire your heroes journey! Learn more about her books, courses, speaking engagements, book signings, and appearances at ShamanIsis.com.

Ready for a life transformation? Ready to bring your dreams to life? Then you will want Glowup With Shaman Isis: The Collection of inspiring books and courses filled with life lessons and practices that raise your vibration and consciousness. 

Ready for a life transformation? Ready to bring your dreams to life? Then you will want Glowup With Shaman Isis: The Collection of inspiring books and courses filled with life lessons and practices that raise your vibration and consciousness. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Revolutionizing Fitness With Short Workouts
• 13:25 Efficient AI-Enhanced Fitness Workouts
• 18:27 Optimizing Fitness With Short Workouts
• 24:51 Empowering AI and Conscious Living

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

Well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to Citizen Journalist. I'm your host, Cynthia L Elliott, also known as Shaman Isis To some of you who've read my books. Welcome to the show. I am jacked about today's episode because I have been wanting to do a wellness fitness episode for a while and just have not had the pleasure. And today I am joined by Ulrich Dempler of Carol Bike and this product is so amazing and we're going to be talking to you guys about how you can get in the shortest, most powerful workout in the shortest amount of time, and I'm super excited about that. Ulrich, can you share with our audience a little bit about yourself and your company?

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yeah, sure, so thank you so much for having me here. So I'm one of the founders and the CEO at Carol Bike, and Carol Bike is we like to think of it as the smartest, most efficient exercise bike. So we're all about giving you maximum results in minimum time, and we do that through a special workout that's called ReHIT reduced exertion, high intensity, interval training. It's AI, personalized, it's suitable for any age and fitness level and it's been scientifically proven to give you double double the health and fitness benefits in 90 less time compared to regular cardio. So the workouts are incredibly short. As you said, you can do them in five minutes and you only have to work our hard or 220 second sprints.

Speaker 1: 2:36

So that's a bit about I'm going to interrupt you really quick I want to redo the opening um, because I didn't like the way I opened it, but also I want to tease them a little bit more in the beginning.

Speaker 2: 2:45

So I like to.

Speaker 1: 2:47

I'm a course corrector. It's like we can do better. All right, let's try that again. Okay, hey you guys, I'm recording a podcast.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Do you have a party?

Speaker 1: 3:04

Sorry, all right, well, hello, hello, hello and welcome to Citizen Journalist. I'm your host du jour, cynthia L Elliott, also known as Shaman Isis to those of you who've read my books, and I am super excited about today's episode because I don't know about you. I mean, I do like working out, but I like it to occur in the least amount of time often, and today we're going to be hearing about a product and, frankly, the future of exercise that allows you to get your exercise in in the shortest amount. Such a short amount of time. You will find it hard to believe, but it's based in science. Welcome, ulrich Dempler from Carol Bike. I'm so excited to talk to you about your product today and to hear about the science behind what you guys do. Can you share a little bit about yourself with the audience?

Speaker 2: 3:51

Yeah, sure, so I'm the co-founder and CEO at Carol Bike. A little bit more about myself. I'm also very much, at heart, a mechanical engineer. I'm from Germany. I grew up in the German automotive industry, worked there for, I think, all the big brands, but then most of my professional life I've actually worked with hospitals and healthcare systems to make patient care better and more effective, and we did like my company, my co-founders and I we did pretty cool stuff there, like using AI models and methodologies to identify which patients would benefit most from which interventions. And that's all great and good, but the truth is really that for most people, the most powerful intervention is exercise, and that kind of brought us to Carol Bike and that got us to develop an exercise bike that makes it as simple and as easy as possible for a broad audience to get enough exercise in minimum time. So, yeah, that's how that's a little bit personal background.

Speaker 1: 5:13

Yeah, no, I love that. I like this focus on so for the audience and Ulrich and I talked about this recently the number one reason that people give for not exercising is time, and we think it's also a little bit deeper than that. But in terms of bypassing their number one reason, finding a way to get people to move because movement allows people to maintain, have better maintenance over their mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health, getting them to get that exercise in in the shortest amount of time is what you guys really focused on. How did you come to the realization that it didn't take a lot of time for someone to get the right amount of exercise in that would allow them to have better health?

Speaker 2: 6:01

the right amount of exercise in that would allow them to have better health. Yeah, so we're working with the leading exercise scientists in that field globally, so we're obviously building on their work. This is not just something that we've come up from scratch, but we've seen in our work with patients that it was a big problem. And it's not just with patients, it's really the wider population 95% 95% of Americans do not get the recommended amount of exercise each week. So the recommendation is two and a half hours of cardio exercise per week. That's what we should be doing, but 95% of us don't. And so and the same was within, kind of the chronic disease management programs, the patient programs that we set up we saw the same thing.

Speaker 2: 6:57

So, even when the doctor prescribed that you should exercise, people still find it very hard to do it. And then, as you said, scientific survey after scientific survey shows that that lack of time is the main perceived barrier. And you can argue is this real or are we wasting our time? We're in the camp that, yes, shorter workouts will for sure help. So if you find it really hard to stop scrolling, that's because there's a company that's really really good at keeping your attention and keeping you glued to that screen, but you still should exercise. So one solution is to give you exercise that's short and highly efficient, and so in this is a long time ago, this is in 2012, we came across a BBC science program where they had some of the leading researchers in that field and they showcased the science of REHIT. That's reduced exertion, high intensity, interval training. That's an incredibly short workout Can be done in as little as five minutes and you only have to work hard for two 20 second sprints. So that's that's a big promise, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:16

And.

Speaker 2: 8:16

I'm like. I'm like sounds wonderful. Yeah, exactly, and and no, no, it doesn't stop there. The promise was that it would, um, deliver the same benefits as a 45 to 60 minute run. You can do it in five minutes and most people wouldn't even sweat. And we saw this on this science program and I fell in love on first sight, literally.

Speaker 2: 8:41

The next day I went out to a fitness equipment store, bought myself an exercise bike and I had paid close attention as to how to do that workout and I thought I can do that. But then when I tried it at home, it was really nothing like how it was portrayed on the program. It was very difficult to do. I sweated loads and it just wasn't a good experience at all. Didn't know what resistance to put, how hard to work.

Speaker 2: 9:18

And then we didn't just give up, but we called. We found the researchers that were on the show and we called them and they were very happy to talk with us and we asked them what are we doing wrong? And the very first thing they said was well, you need a special bike. And they invited us to their lab and we saw the equipment they used there and those were kind of research bikes. They were like $10,000, $15,000. And they were operated by a second person, so there was always a lab technician next to you that would coach you through the workout and that would apply the right resistance at the right time very rapidly, and all you had to do was pedal hard when he told you and in fact then it was a great experience. It felt simple to do, didn't sweat, it still felt like a good workout and I could believe that, yes, that is so efficient and so effective.

Speaker 2: 10:14

But obviously, if you need a lab technician by your side, then it's not a mass market application yet, and so, since there was no consumer application, we thought, well, maybe that's something we can do. And then, from 2012, over many years, we developed a bike that basically took the principles, the setup from the lab and brought it into the real world. So you have a fully automated bike that's controlled by a computer with algorithms that find your optimal resistance and control the workout, coach you through the workout, and all you have to do is just push when the machine tells you. So trying to get the lab technician and that research bike into something that's relatively affordable and accessible for a broad audience. And, yeah, we feel we've succeeded in that and we've got, by now, something like 30,000 riders. So it seems we found something there.

Speaker 1: 11:20

That's wonderful. I think a lot of people would be excited to hear that you don't have to do long workouts and that you know that you can do a workout that allows you to not end in a sweaty mess and which makes it time is even more. I mean it really honors the time that it takes to put into an exercise program. I know here in America and I think this is as somebody who's worked out for a long time and even worked at gyms several times over my lifetime I noticed, I recognized a couple of things that America, particularly America, has this tendency to glorify incredibly difficult workouts and glorify bodies that require, almost in all cases, nearly a full-time job, as the body is part of their job. You know their fitness, you know models, or actual models, and they glorify these before and after pictures that don't actually show the length of time in the practice, at being healthier, that is required for people to see those kinds of results, and it sets people up for failure. So they go.

Speaker 1: 12:22

You know I would see this time and again. I remember seeing this in college a long time ago people would come into the gym. You know Again, I remember seeing this in college a long time ago. People would come into the gym, you know, after their New Year's resolution. They would work out for a week or two really hard and they would become so incredibly sore and so filled with lactic acid that they couldn't move. They were in a lot of pain and then they stopped working out because they were either injured or in a lot of pain or just feeling, starting to feel overwhelmed, without realizing that you can't create new habits that way.

Speaker 1: 12:51

You can't create new habits by saying I'm going to lose a hundred pounds in three months and and then you know, attacking a gym you haven't been in forever. And it's just this whole sort of system that sets people up kind of for failure. And those workouts that they glorify almost always take a really long time and they're just inefficient or expensive, like yoga. I'm a huge fan of a lot of yoga, but hot yoga here in New York City is like $40 a class. That is expensive. So how do you give people an optimal workout that takes the least amount of time, that challenges their system, that doesn't overwhelm them, doesn't leave them in a sweaty mess and allows them to get on with their life? I think that's what you guys have succeeded in creating yeah, yeah, exactly so, um, you're entirely right.

Speaker 2: 13:33

Many workouts work and many workouts are effective, um, but we're absolutely certain that ours is the most efficient. So, in terms of what you have to put in, in terms of your time and your effort, and what you get back in terms of results, there's nothing that compares. So it's a very efficient workout that saves you a lot of time and therefore kind of respects the realities of most people that they have a job, they have children, they have other hobbies, they have other interests and, yeah, they want to scroll also from time to time and keep up to date with friends on whatever Instagram, facebook, what it is. So that's and that's one side of it that I think we just have to be realistic about that not everybody can put in these mega hours that fitness influencers or so do to achieve their physique no-transcript with equipment and gyms, and then it never seems to like the TVs that are there and the environments and they almost never work out.

Speaker 1: 15:19

So I wonder, like, how realistic is it that AI will be involved?

Speaker 2: 15:24

So I do think there will be like a little bit in waves and a little bit of hype and a little bit of hype and a little bit of disappointment, but the trend will be, I think, more and more involved and that you get more accurate, like workout prescriptions that are tailored to you Maybe not just tailored to you, but to you on this day to help you kind of approach working out in the right way.

Speaker 2: 15:55

And so, with our bike, our application is that and this is because we've done this now for a long time and we have just such a large database that we can run sophisticated AI models over it, can run sophisticated AI models over it that we can tailor an optimal workout for you when you start and then kind of keep adjusting it, keep optimizing it as you get fitter and stronger, or also dialing it back when you had to take a break or you had an injury or so to make.

Speaker 2: 16:25

Basically, you know those five minutes that you spend on the bike with 220 seconds to really make every second count and give you maximum results for that. And I can see how this even just in our journey, how this would go further, and this is certainly something we will be wanting to do, to integrate with more like wearable devices, with your watch, with your tracker and so on to to give you, yeah, like the best workout, or even tell you, maybe not today, yeah, that you're anyway not supposed, but you don't have to do this daily. It's like two to three times a week is enough. But if you, if you haven't recovered fully from a previous workout or you had a terrible night's sleep or so, maybe it's useful to have also hints to say, like today's better as a rest day or so, so yeah, I think this will go further and yeah, it's always a little bit things get overhyped and then, but the I think the trend is very much there yeah, I can foresee I mean, this kind of already exists on some level.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I can foresee like a um, it's almost like a capsule or tube kind of situation where you, you can project, you know and you see this with like the screen, but this is immersive, like you can see an immersive environment with ai telling you you know this and that, adjusting the bike, measuring you know things going on with your mind, body and soul, and that's going to be really interesting for creating optimal bodies and health in the future.

Speaker 1: 18:02

It's interesting that you bring up the taking a break. So I really like to work out every day if I can, simply because it's such a huge part of my mental health program. Mental fitness, you guys, mental fitness is actually as important as physical fitness. Your physical fitness has a direct result on your mental fitness and so vice versa. They're really connected and one of these days we're going to make mental fitnesses and talked about as physical fitness. But I know I took recently some time off, like four or five days, which was really unusual for me, but when I went back into the gym I was able to do handstands and I do like like full handstands where it's completely vertical.

Speaker 1: 18:41

And I was able to not only do them repeatedly, I did them. I did like six or seven in a row where I nailed it and held it for the longest I've held. So I'm doing this program of handstands to help with my upper body and, just to you know, keep to invert my body because it's helpful to change up things. And I was like I remember being upside down on the first one. I was like this is the best one I've done in like a year and I wondered if it was because I actually stepped away from it for a little bit.

Speaker 2: 19:10

So there may well be something about that. So one of the fundamental truths of exercise is that you really don't get fitter while you exercise. You get fitter in the recovery periods in between the exercise. And that's kind of also why the five-minute workout with only two 20-second sprints can be so efficient and so effective, because all it has to do is create the training stimulus. It has to give a signal, a strong signal, to your body that it has to get fitter and stronger, and that you can achieve with two 20-second sprints. And then the act of the actual process of your body becoming fitter and stronger happens in the recovery. And so, yes, it's entirely possible, and I know strength trainers as well that recommend, if you hit a block and you can't advance anymore, rather than increase your training frequency, try to decrease it and give yourself more time to recover and build, rather than just continue, continue, continue with the stimulus.

Speaker 1: 20:22

Wow. So I'm just curious do you demo the bike in public and give people a chance to see it in action?

Speaker 2: 20:33

So we don't operate showrooms. That's just not something we do. We go to a number of shows and our bikes are in not the usual gyms but like high-end personal training facilities or biohacking studios, performance studios, and you can also follow us on the socials. We upload a lot of content there, like at either carolbikecom the website or at the carol bike, and you can also follow us on the socials. We upload a lot of content there, like at either carolbikecom the website or at the Carol Bike. You'll find you can see how people use it and then like. One thing we do do is we have a very generous we call it risk-free trials. If you were to purchase a bike from our web store, you have a full hundred days to see whether well, whether you like it, whether it works for you and whether you can stick to it, so whether you can really build a sustainable routine based on these really short and highly efficient workouts.

Speaker 1: 21:36

Yeah, I like that. I think something that gets missed a lot in conversations about life change because it's something I teach in in my uh retreats and at the events that I do is that you have to practice it being uh different. Uh, it is not something that you you perfect because we're so so much perfection in all of it. We're not showing the hot, sweaty mess and the pain that somebody goes through Is that you have to be willing to understand up front that it takes practice to get to a better place of health and that you're not required to be perfect at it. I think it would help a lot of people if they, um, they understood that you know it can be a little hot messy up front and that's okay, yeah it likes you make, uh, make for you know, just to accept that up front makes it more of an adventure and less of a perfectionism like torture cycle.

Speaker 1: 22:30

Uh. So, uh, if you would, I would love for you to share your, um, your, where people could find more information. I know you mentioned it, but let's make sure they've been able to hear where the website is and your social media handles.

Speaker 2: 22:46

So the website is wwwcarolbikecom. There's a lot of resources about the science, why it works, how it works, referencing the original research papers, and it's always at the Carol bike on all social platforms.

Speaker 1: 23:07

Oh, and Carol. Carol, I have to ask. Sorry, I didn't mean it, right, but Carol, what does Carol stand for?

Speaker 2: 23:12

Yeah, that's our nerdy side.

Speaker 1: 23:14

I love it.

Speaker 2: 23:19

It's cardiovascular optimization logic and we thought of it as the name for our ai that optimizes and personalizes the workouts. So we were inspired by space odyssey 2001, but the is hell, it's heuristic algorithm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is from a time when AI models were not called chat GVT, but they had more like humanoid names, and so we thought of Carol as the person who eventually and she might still become that becomes like your AI fitness coach or your AI personal trainer.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Yeah, I think that's really fascinating. Congratulations, what an accomplishment. You guys, you heard it here Very short workouts, short, powerful bursts that you can fit into any schedule. I mean, if you spend five minutes on your phone scrolling, maybe 10 minutes scrolling, you can get the workout in now with Carol Byke. Thank you so much, ulrich, for joining us today and for sharing your incredible invention and the science behind it. Thank you so much to our listeners.

Speaker 1: 24:25

If you are not already subscribed to Citizen Journalist, what are you thinking? We have flown up the charts and it's been exciting to watch. This is season two, so there's a whole season one for you to go check out and to enjoy lots of interviews about artificial intelligence and politics and the economy, and we really do cover the important topics that affect the human experience. So definitely go subscribe. If you're not familiar with my work, I'm conscious living author and teacher, ai entrepreneur and PR pioneer got to add it all in there because I've been around a while Cynthia L Elliott, also known as Shaman Isis, and you can learn more about my books and all the events that I'm doing at shamanisiscom. And you can learn about my AI foundation to teach AI literacy and skills to underserved communities at soltechfoundationorg.

Speaker 1: 25:17

And before I forget this February I mean, my goodness, if you like technology and if you like the latest advancements in wellness and robotics and things like that, I have Code Queens the Future of AI and Conscious Innovation event here in New York city on February 5th. A lot of amazing sponsors, a lot of incredible people, wonderful speakers. We've got ladies from from Harvard business advisory council and some of the top inventors in the UK coming to speak. I'll be speaking and it's going to be an incredible time, so check it out at code queensorg. And thanks for your patience while I ran down that list of self-promotion stuff, but it's all for the purpose of raising human consciousness so that we can transverse the age of AI with our best mindset. Anyway, you guys have a beautiful week and I'll be back with more. Ulrich, thank you so much again for joining me.

Speaker 2: 26:12

Thank you.