V02 Max Challenge

[theanimal]

I see. Burpess for me have been all 3. I've done them for up to an hour before. I suppose that's not normal...

I think something could be devised that goes around your back to avoid all the wires getting in the way. I also think that I won't be the one that solves it.

[Scott 2]

I am still at 36, but recently started a new cycle focused on improving v02 max. This time, I've broken out the heart rate monitor. I want to establish baseline data, so I can use it to program progress. Waving volume by zone could offer a significant improvement over my prior approach - trying to lift faster and tugging on the rowing machine for 5-15 minutes.

Along with my heart rate data, I've doing some reading. Yesterday it was Endurance by Michael Hutchinson. He talks extensively about how mindset enters into aerobic performance. Apparently casual athletes have a higher pain tolerance than untrained. Elite athletes are in a completely different tier. They are not just more fit, they are far better at enduring suffering.

Then there's me. I simply don't know how to try hard. I took HR data snapshots today.

First, lifting - essentially an hour of warming my body into movement, then the actual training:



Following that, I walked my weight vest at 30lbs. @Animal suggested I find a hill by my house. Pickings are slim. The local incline never got me beyond 125bpm. I've generally considered this cardio. The zones say otherwise. At about 25 minutes in, I returned home. Frustrated, I wondered if there is something wrong that depresses my max heart rate.

I went into my basement gym and tried to progressively raise my HR - walking the stairs, stepping to a 12" box, then an 18" box. When that wouldn't get me past zone 4, I lost the vest and switched to my 20lb slam ball. I was able to touch zone 5, peaking at 175bpm. I might have had more, but know better than to leave everything on my first try:



So my heart works fine, but I don't know how to use it. Maybe if I adopt consistent cardio training, I can approach the 50+ everyone else here is posting. My nature is clearly not well aligned to this sort of effort.

Once I establish my baseline, I'll add volume, targeting 80% of the incremental work in zone 3 and 20% in zone 5. I'll follow the same effort waves as my lifting cycle, so every 4th week will remain a low intensity deload.

I remember reading about employers with a bias towards hiring collegiate athletes. The argument being they know how to work hard. I always took a little offense to this, but maybe there's something to it. We'll see if I can learn the trick.

[mountainFrugal]

Once I establish my baseline, I'll add volume, targeting 80% of the incremental work in zone 3 and 20% in zone 5. I'll follow the same effort waves as my lifting cycle, so every 4th week will remain a low intensity deload.

That is a good ratio for training. It takes a while to get the hang of it so exploring different workouts and exercises and how they map to HR is a great way to build intuition. The more time you spend in each zone you will get a "feel" for it. You can check with your zone 3 by nose breathing during the exercise that is not labored. After training for a while you can get better at hovering right at that pace where any faster you will have to mouth breath. A check in that you can do with your body. The same will be true for the higher HR zone training. Then you eventually will be able to combine the two for intervals based just on how you are feeling. (note I use a slighty different HR zone definition when discussing my zones where zone 5 is max effort...linked above).

Two example workouts for context-
Left: Varying speed warm up, hill climb (Z3/4), decent (Z1), slow grade climb (Z2 with sprint at end), cool down.

Right: Hard effort Z3/4 (~173 bpm) for 19k with 2 stops to chat in middle. Once you build the aerobic base you can hover right at threshold for increasingly longer periods. It is very uncomfortable, but you get used to it.

[Scott 2]

Those workouts are perfect examples of an ability to endure suffering, especially the threshold ride. The smallest taste of that intensity put some fear into me. It's hard to imagine hanging out there for an hour.

Mercifully, I think I can progress with much less. I did throw the Uphill Athlete book into my reading queue. I am using the zones provided by the Polar app, simply because they are convenient. I already had the heart rate strap.

There is a parallel here with my experience in strength training. One year, I paid a pro strongman to program for me. There was no question the training was good. I made the best progress of my life, but ultimately plateaued at modest levels of strength.

The harsh reality - I didn't know how to do the work. From his perspective, it looked like I was hardly even straining. We tried some tricks to give me a higher gear, but I ultimately was not prepared to dig that deep. I'll be interested to see if the endurance training offers better luck. I am at a much different place in my life. I have more capacity to absorb stress now.

[jacob]

I remember reading about employers with a bias towards hiring collegiate athletes. The argument being they know how to work hard. I always took a little offense to this, but maybe there's something to it. We'll see if I can learn the trick.

We were told this too by our swim coach (who might have had a conflict of interest in that regard ). Based on what later happened to people, I'm not sure there's that much too it. BTW this was about a hundred years ago. After I stopped my VO2max had dropped to 56 after a few years---that is the last time it was measured. I don't know what it is now. Most from that team are still physically active and "didn't let themself go" or adopt the dadbod (or mombod?) excuse that many humans do after age 30. Those who did gained 100lbs or worse and are practically unrecognizable today---being used to eating like an athlete but now burning like a couch potato.

I don't think it's the discipline as much as it's the competitive attitude that athletics self-selects for. That stuff is either addictive or innate. E.g. you'll never run for fun... or rather the fun is in being best or at least setting personal records. Also see the forum's burpee competition. Those with the highest VO2max are those who came back either to beat themselves or beat someone else.

Otherwise, a high VO2max just means you have no effective cardio limits on any normal human physical activity, e.g. lawn mowing, digging holes, stairs, hiking, ... people will comment "Ohh, <pant> <pant> I hate those people who <pant> are hardly breathing after <pant> ... running after the bus." I have personally not felt any transfers of cardiovascular capacity to other capacities in my life. I probably did the hardest mental work in my life in grad school which was also when I was in the worst physical shape of my life. The hours gained from not exercising more than made up for any leverage it may have created. Inverting this, a lack of VO2 might impose limits on other aspects of life insofar one's life includes physical effort, e.g. a 30 minute bike commute leaving people too tired when they show up for work. This was not explained terribly well, but think Liebig's Law.

Another factor is knowing what one was once capable of or having experienced the bodily sensations before. Someone without athletic experience will stop or slow down when it's "hurting". An athlete (or a coach) would distinguish between "pain" and "injury" and work through the pain. Other non-athletes might even advise against pushing too hard or go slower if anything feels "uncomfortable". It's easier to retrain a body that has been trained before due to this lack of "comfort barriers". This is why I'd strongly recommend that children have at least some athletic experience before they ruin their bodies with food and chairs.

I should also note---and this is debatable---that perceived soreness seems to increase with age. Thus there's an incereasing price to be paid for being in fantastic shape as you get older.

[J_]

@Jacob wrote:" I should also note---and this is debatable---that perceived soreness seems to increase with age. Thus there's an incereasing price to be paid for being in fantastic shape as you get older".

I do not perceive (more) soreness to stay in good shape. But I have to train my body more often and more varied ( duration sports combined with yoga/pilatus, kettle bells and high bar) to stay in shape.

And I like to add that to my opinion Jacob's "training schedules" are mostly geared to the extreme side of what a body can reach, where I am more of a not extreme person.

For example: when I train free-style cross country skiing I am glad to be able to do 15 miles over relative flat trajects without pause. I do not train for skating (heavy) hills to conquer as they are too intensive (extreme) for me.
Or when I am rowing I think it is sufficient for me to row the same speed and distance as most rowers 10 years younger with the same years of experience.

[mountainFrugal]

To add a bit to @jacobs post. I think that the high VO2max comes from a combination of putting in the hard physical work and mental attitude. The "planned" hard work, periodization, stretching, recovery, etc. become increasingly important as you age.

Different types of meditation have helped significantly for athletics. For example, body scans while laying still in bed translate directly to being able to do body scans while moving and making subtle corrections of form while out on long runs. Watching emotions and feelings arise in the mind helps to abstract yourself away from them. During this VO2max test for example, there were three times I had feelings of wanting to quit. The first around 5 minutes. This was the easiest "voice to ignore". I welcome him in and we both have a good laugh about it. "You are right, I am going to go get my big brother". More time goes by and more discomfort. Big brother comes back with little brother. Fortunately, I can reason with them. "We have been going for 8 minutes guys. Only 4 minutes more. Besides our current pain is not any less hard than we have already done... there is more behind us in this test than in front...ya know?" 10:30 was when it really started to hurt. The double edged sword of the end in sight. Bring it home! But also...fuck I cannot wait until this is over. Keep it up! This run was mostly zone 4.

The zone 3/4 threshold run above is possible after doing lots of tempo runs spending increasing time in that zone for hard days. So think about it like that. First day is a minute at that HR. Then 90 seconds... build from there.

[guitarplayer]

Great that reviving the thread generated such a lively dialogue!

I might try to improve my score and log in here again, the above was running off the bat after a year when I had only a handful of runs - daily rounds of burpees keep me fit. Also was running in hiking shoes rather than running shoes etc.

[jacob]

Different types of meditation have helped significantly for athletics. For example, body scans while laying still in bed translate directly to being able to do body scans while moving and making subtle corrections of form while out on long runs. Watching emotions and feelings arise in the mind helps to abstract yourself away from them.

Interesting. We never did "sports meditation" deliberately, so I never made this association, but something must have changed during those hours staring at the pool bottom, etc. So I guess maybe the other way around works too. Certain sports (swimming, walking, sailing, swords, ...) generates some of the same skills as certain kinds of meditation.

I recently had an argument over why "check-ins/out" were popular in some circles. I was told it helps people center their attention on the present (presence) by focusing on what state their body is in. This surprised me. I thought this [one's body] was something everybody was continuously aware of---I mean how can one even move if you're not? As such, the check-X exercise feels incredibly weird to me. "What do you want to know?" "Just whatever is on your heart?" "Well, my heart rate is low 60s and the wind is 4 knots from the left due to the central air running."

[mountainFrugal]

I might try to improve my score and log in here again

Get it!

[Scott 2]

More learning. @MountainFrugal has been dropping essential breadcrumbs in this thread. I'm beginning to recognize them.

I want to point out - my navel gazing is an attempt at deliberate practice, credit to Anders Ericsson. While I am this self-centered, there is also pursuit of a broader skill.


I read Eat and Run - an autobiography by Scott Jurek, one of the top ultra runners. The story was fascinating, but I don't know that it informed what I'll be doing. Avoid ultra running, mostly. While running is not in my near term plans, it's also evident my prior attempts were far too aggressive.

I've stumbled along the book to inform my general cardio strategy - 80/20 Running by Matt Fitzgerald. He makes zone training easy to understand. The book highlights shortcomings of using canned zones from the Polar app. Longer term, I'll need to figure out my personal heart rate zones.

He touches on using respiratory threshold, to bound low intensity (80% training). @MountainFrugal suggested that up thread.

He also introduces a concept of cardio lag. When working at high intensities (20% training), it can take the heart a minute to catch up or slow down. So using the heart rate monitor to inform such training may not work well. One can be better served using a high intensity workout template. Cardio lag is less of an issue at low intensities and so may be useful for bounding the 80% training.

He has a good discussion of v02 max. He explains how runners continue to improve, despite hitting peak v02 in their 20's. This concept gets at the essence of my interest. I'd like access to the peak v02 max my body is capable of expressing. Whether that is 36 or 50. I do not have sport specific performance goals.

Jacob mentioned earlier that we have an age constraint upon the trait. As someone who's never been close to my v02 peak, I didn't appreciate the implication. I see now, an accomplished athlete may be better served chasing other metrics. Moving v02 from 54 to 56 might be expensive. Other training could offer greater rewards.

Fitzgerald introduced me to the difference between an open loop and a closed loop v02 max test. Open loop - keep going until you give up. Closed loop - meet a predetermined end state - 2000 meters or 12 minutes. People, especially novices, do much better pushing themselves on closed loop tests. Experiencing a high v02 max via the closed loop activity, makes expressing it in an open loop easier.

Bringing this full circle - one of my self criticisms, is I don't know how to try. I assume it's my own personal character flaw. I am drawn to programming that removes dependence on the lacking trait. Under Fitzgerald's framework, I am simply early on the learning curve of athletic development. It lends credence to Jacob's observation. Developing a high v02 max isn't the lever to become a superstar everywhere.

What's interesting, is my heart rate data confirms specificity of the development curve. I took my sled out Sunday. When I reached my normal stopping point, I kept going. Through all the will I could muster, I accumulated a few minutes in Zone 5. It was rough. The sled is very much an open loop activity, with zero measures for performance.

Sled Workout


In contrast - today I got on the rowing machine with my heart rate monitor. It's only the second time in four months. I happily accumulated minutes in zone 5. It was uncomfortable, but the mental demand was minimal. I found it difficult to row below a zone 4 intensity. My prior closed loop v02 max tests were on the rower. Through them, I learned to express my capacity, with this exercise modality.

Rower Workout


To some extent, that is a disappointing finding. My hope was learning to be uncomfortable could give me a large and immediate improvement. Alas, skill development is not my easy answer. I'll have to get more fit.

One of my takeaways is to recognize an activity for what it is, then dose zones via exercise selection. I find it difficult to row below zone 4. So I won't try to accumulate zone 3 work on the rower. The weight vest plays at Zone 2, so I'll use it to accumulate low intensity volume.

I also have a few more lifting sessions under my belt, using the heart rate monitor. I am leaning towards ignoring them. The vast majority of lifting time is zone 1 or 2. Manipulating lifting parameters will not make a meaningful shift in cardiovascular load. My biggest risk is neurological burnout, from excessive 100% effort sets. I've mitigated that by making half my workouts light pumping at the gym.

Press Workout


Lower Pump Workout


So my biggest immediate hole, is a tool to accumulate volume at the top end of my low intensity band. Call it the bottom half of Polar's zone 3. On Wednesday, I'm going to see if an elliptical will fit the bill.

Bringing it all together - the number of high intensity cardio sessions per 4 week cycle, will be 6-7. Two per active training week, with zero on deload weeks. The final elliptical session on my peak week, I could push as well.

I have 4 low intensity weight workouts per week, and 2 low intensity cardio sessions. That puts me close to an 80/20 split. I can help my joints tolerate the work, by rotating the weight vest, sled, rower and elliptical. I can use CrossFit style circuits as a fall back - inclement weather, gym access, specific joint pain, etc.

[mountainFrugal]

Clipped from a sketchnote on Training for the Uphill Athlete. (note: using uphill athlete HR zones that correspond to physiology)

Example blood lactate concentration vs. heart rate in an untrained individual (top) vs. trained individual (bottom). This shows the effect of training at your Aerobic threshold (~nose breathing, AeT) and lactate threshold (LT, lactate accumulation in blood 2-20). With 80% training at AeT (Top of Zone 1) and 20% at LT (top of zone 3) your thresholds for each of these will increase by shifting to the right. So if you are well trained you can *maintain* a greater output for a lower heart rate because your blood lactate level will maintain a ~2 mMol/L over a much larger range of heart rates. Training this along with higher end HIIT type workouts (Z3/4) will allow for a large dynamic range of relatively fast moderate effort and longer duration hard effort. So the trained person can maintain the same pace for hours that the untrained person might have struggled to maintain for an hour.

These types of training are more important to overall cardio fitness/endurance than just trying to maximize V02max score. You will likely be able to increase it if you train at it, but if you want to really increase your ability to do functional cardio then following the 80/20 or similar is the best way to get there. This will likely also increase your V02max score since you are starting on this journey, but it might become less important as a metric.

I am excited to follow along of course!

If you are generally interested:
https://uphillathlete.com/podcast/

They interviewed this doctor that does lactate threshold testing in an older episode with Dr. Judd Van Sickle:
https://health.ucdavis.edu/sportsmedici ... ctate.html

[Scott 2]

80/20 training mentions the zones shift with fitness level. I had no idea the adaptation was so drastic.

Training for the Uphill Athlete is next in my queue. I'll poke around the podcast as well, specifically the Dr. Judd Van Sickle episode. Lately I've tended to shy away from podcasts, as the signal to noise ratio tends to be low.

There's a bit of a pearls before swine scenario happening here. While I can memorize facts quickly, my lived experience is limited to the 4 sessions per week. Learning how these concepts feel in my body will take awhile. I'm still grokking easy vs. hard. And it's a moving target!

[mountainFrugal]

I happily accumulated minutes in zone 5. It was uncomfortable, but the mental demand was minimal.

One of my takeaways is to recognize an activity for what it is, then dose zones via exercise selection. I find it difficult to row below zone 4. So I won't try to accumulate zone 3 work on the rower. The weight vest plays at Zone 2, so I'll use it to accumulate low intensity volume.

Bringing it all together - the number of high intensity cardio sessions per 4 week cycle, will be 6-7. Two per active training week, with zero on deload weeks. The final elliptical session on my peak week, I could push as well.

I have 4 low intensity weight workouts per week, and 2 low intensity cardio sessions. That puts me close to an 80/20 split.

Great job on the Z5 effort! One thing to consider for the rower is to do fast pulls and very slow back to starting position to get into the HR zone you want if you are currently over. I think your overall plan looks good. If you have more time you can sprinkle in longer single low intensity cardio workouts. This will help that lower end significantly.

[mountainFrugal]

There's a bit of a pearls before swine scenario happening here. While I can memorize facts quickly, my lived experience is limited to the 4 sessions per week. Learning how these concepts feel in my body will take awhile. I'm still grokking easy vs. hard. And it's a moving target!

Yeah! Take your time with it. The nice thing is that putting in the effort you will see results by these metrics.

[white belt]

Those workouts are perfect examples of an ability to endure suffering, especially the threshold ride. The smallest taste of that intensity put some fear into me. It's hard to imagine hanging out there for an hour.

Mercifully, I think I can progress with much less. I did throw the Uphill Athlete book into my reading queue. I am using the zones provided by the Polar app, simply because they are convenient. I already had the heart rate strap.

There is a parallel here with my experience in strength training. One year, I paid a pro strongman to program for me. There was no question the training was good. I made the best progress of my life, but ultimately plateaued at modest levels of strength.

The harsh reality - I didn't know how to do the work. From his perspective, it looked like I was hardly even straining. We tried some tricks to give me a higher gear, but I ultimately was not prepared to dig that deep. I'll be interested to see if the endurance training offers better luck. I am at a much different place in my life. I have more capacity to absorb stress now.

I wish I could find the equivalent of the RPE (rate of perceived effort) scale for cardiovascular training that I stumbled upon awhile back, but I'm not sure where I saw the link. If I recall, it showed the intensity levels based on how one feels, with the top level being unsustainable without vomiting (just like your high school coach said: if you didn't puke at the end then you still had some left in the tank). I think you're trying to get a similar measure by using the heart rate monitor, but that doesn't tell you what the effort "feels" like to you. Most scales are way too subjective so you'll encounter the issue that Jacob talks about if you've never actually experienced a true max effort.

For strength training, the RPE scale is just about the best tool I know to turn subjective intensity into something more objective (it does take some experience so is generally not appropriate for pure beginners). A true RPE 10 on a heavy compound exercise can be an out of body experience. Here's a video that demonstrates this dynamic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77nX_bMe5fA

I will agree that most people have never experienced the type 3 failure unless they competed in a sport and/or military training with extremely high "suck factor". I have met people who thrive in these dark places. To an extent, I get a boost in energy when I see other people who are also struggling with a grueling physical event.

[jacob]

I wish I could find the equivalent of the RPE (rate of perceived effort) scale for cardiovascular training that I stumbled upon awhile back, but I'm not sure where I saw the link. If I recall, it showed the intensity levels based on how one feels, with the top level being unsustainable without vomiting (just like your high school coach said: if you didn't puke at the end then you still had some left in the tank). I think you're trying to get a similar measure by using the heart rate monitor, but that doesn't tell you what the effort "feels" like to you. Most scales are way too subjective so you'll encounter the issue that Jacob talks about if you've never actually experienced a true max effort.

You mean the Borg scale?

It goes a bit like
1 - You're awake.
2 - You can do this all day.
3 - You can still sing.
4 - You can still do a monologue.
5 - You can still carry on a conversation.
6 - You can still speak in complete sentences, but not as a conversation.
7 - You can still speak the occasional short sentence or count out.
8 - You can still speak single but untimed short words. "Okay", "Can't", ...
9 - Your communication if any is reduced to single grunts or contorted head shakes.
10 - "But did you die?"

The RPE scale is great. A good example is an aerobics class where the instructor is still jumping around providing instructions (RPE6-7) while the students are melting on the floor (RPE8-9). Also consider performers who stand and sing vs those who do dance routines and sing. The latter demands a rather better baseline than the former. Also compare to https://xkcd.com/883/

Taking away oxygen by demanding that people sing while e.g. marching is also a way to "pressure" the system selectively.

The scale is also useful to provide some perspective.
Q: "This is the hardest thing ever. I'm sooo out of breath. I feel like I'm going to die!" (RPE6)
A: "If you're still able to talk like that, you're not going nearly hard enough."

It's also interesting that "getting in shape"-type exercisers are generally recommended to fart around at RPE5-6 aka "the fat-burning zone" which is just below the aerobic zone where air begins to matter. This is a good way to remember the scale because standard jogging is more or less in the middle. Another way of seeing the scale is thus:
RPE1-5: fat-burning
RPE6-8: aerobic
RPE8-9: lactic
RPE10: ATP

And as always. If you're part of a group exercise, everybody please remember that if you're gonna puke, puke to your left. Is puking still considered a glorious goal in crossfit?

[Scott 2]

A true RPE 10 on a heavy compound exercise can be an out of body experience. Here's a video that demonstrates this dynamic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77nX_bMe5fA

The video demonstrates exactly the problem I ran into lifting. I go to type 1 failure. If the weight is 100lbs, I apply 100.1 lbs of effort. Subjective measures don't work well for me. My internal governor is an unreliable narrator. Using RPE leaves me under trained.

The strongman emphasized compensatory acceleration as my fix. Speed work. Make the plates ring at the top of a rep. Add bands or chains. Cluster sets. At one point I got a $200 device to output bar speed to my phone - velocity based training. The biofeedback worked the best, until the device bricked.

Sometimes I was tricking myself into type 2 failure. It didn't stick though. I over extended my ability to recover and stopped working with the guy. At the time, I didn't appreciate if I wanted to absorb greater exercise stress, I had to reduce work stress. Recover more.


Without someone looking over my shoulder, those games faded. I'm not an aggressive person by nature. Type 3 failure isn't a choice I know how to make. I'd hesitate to claim I've ever been there. I do find Type 2 failure mentally cathartic, even though I'm bad at visiting. My wife says - "it looks like you are pretending to try."

My lifting comprise has been to run Wendler's 531. I base the main lift entirely on percentages. I use rep weight calculators to establish expectations entering a set, endeavoring to meet or exceed prior performance. I also use what he calls joker sets, to auto-regulate. Essentially, if I want another set, I have to add 5% and guarantee I don't miss the day's target rep count. It feels like winning and tricks me into trying.

Abdicating motivation to the math has been my most consistently reliable tool. I trust the program and do what it says. Hence my interest in doing the same with cardio and the HR monitor. I figure play to my strengths, rather than try to be someone I'm not.

[shaz]

You might look into VBT as a method of exercise prescription. It can be more precise than RPE.

[Scott 2]

VBT holds a lot of appeal. The BEAST tracker I had was great, until it bricked due to a defective firmware. I found the real time feedback rep to rep is what shifted me into next gear. Using a phone camera for delayed feedback didn't have the same effect.

Seeing if I can recover it has been on my backlog for a few years. With entry level velocity devices approaching $400 these days, I'm hesitant to throw money at the problem, unless it's a priority. While chasing v02 max, my lifting goal is simply to minimize strength loss.