Transcript 0:00 Welcome back to another episode here on the Iron Sights podcast, back in the studio with the Red Dot Fitness crew. 0:05 I've got Ryan and CC, and today we're talking heart rate zone training based on lactate threshold heart rate, or LTHR. 0:12 We talk about a lot of things on this show, and today we're talking about one of those things that most people train without understanding how their body is actually doing things. 0:19 And today, hopefully we're bridging the gap for some folks, and you'll learn how to get smarter about endurance, energy systems, and recovery. 0:26 By understanding your heart rate zones and what's happening in your body, you'll know how to train efficiently, recover better, and improve faster. 0:34 Now, we pulled a lot of our information for today's episode straight from our brand-new Heart Rate Zone training guide that you can find by going to rdfguides.com. It's right there. It's free. You can download it. 0:45 It covers a lot of what we cover today in a little bit more detail. We tried not to make it too detailed or too science-y so that you wouldn't get lost in the weeds. 0:54 But one of the things we do provide in there is what we talk about later in the episode, and that is how to test your own lactate threshold heart rate. All the details are there. We walk you through it step by step. 1:05 We even provide you formulas on how to make sure you calculate those things out correctly for you, and even some workouts to train through the zones that we're gonna talk about today. 1:13 So again, go to rdfguides.com and you can download the Heart Rate Zone training guide for free. [rock music] Welcome to Iron Sights. 1:27 This podcast candidly seeks to create opportunities and deliver impact by sharing the experiences and wisdom of successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders who unapologetically aim to win in health, fitness, business, and life. 1:41 I'm your host, Scott Howell. Welcome to old school meets new school, tradition meets innovation, and imperfection meets excellence. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the show. 1:52 All right, you guys ready to talk conditioning? Oh, yeah. All right. Let's talk conditioning. 1:57 [laughs] Uh, we, there was a little bit of delay getting this thing started because we started to nerd out and go into some rabbit holes, maybe even have a little debate on a couple things, but I think we're here. 2:05 We're, we're talking about capacity today, capacity training. We've been talking about strength, we've been talking about power for the last couple episodes. We're getting into capacity today. 2:13 Specifically, we're gonna talk about heart rate zone training. Uh, [sighs] such a powerful thing or tool that can be used. 2:22 I think sometimes it gets over-utilized when we're talking about using, using heart rate monitors, and other times it's just completely misconstrued. 2:29 Uh, there's a lot of value that can come out of understanding your specific heart rate zones for achieving a specific adaptation, but I think the challenge for most people is, is they don't really understand what their body is actually doing, so they don't understand how to actually train it. 2:46 And what's more important for them is the emotional feelings that they get from, "I am sweating today." 2:52 Some people have a little bit more grit so that they like, "My heart and lungs are burning, my muscles are burning, so I am getting conditioned." And while there may be some truth and some value in that, there is... 3:04 Without taking an organized approach to this, it's very tough to know what you're actually getting out of it. And so the question I would be asking is, are you training or are you just fitnessing? Mm-hmm. 3:14 And because I think there's a, there's a very clear distinction between the two. 3:18 So we're talking about heart rate zone training, and we're also gonna, you're also gonna hear us talk about lactate threshold heart rate training, or lactate threshold heart rate, and how to train utilizing that. 3:31 And then we're gonna provide you some information and we'll also give you access to a free guide to where you can kind of dial yourself in. 3:38 But I think on the, on the top side of everything, it's, it's again, let's get a little bit more understanding about these heart rate zones and some of the major components, like energy systems, like intensity levels, and, uh, how those might relate into gadgets that you might be using, like watches, heart rate monitors, uh, what the machine is telling you, what your, your bike computer or your Garmin or your, your Apple Watch or whatever is, is, is, is telling you. 4:05 And then, again, by the end, give you maybe a little bit better perspective on how to examine this for yourself, because there's some, s- actually some, some really easy things you can do to make sure that you're getting the most out of your capacity training outside of just fitnessing. 4:19 Yeah, I, I feel like there's a lot of times in my life and in with clients and stuff, there's, like, themes of things that I start to, like, dive into, and I feel like this has been something that we've been having a lot of personal conversations. 4:29 You d- recently did a workshop on conditioning, um, a couple weeks ago, like maybe a month ago at this point. 4:35 We've been talking about a lot with this with clients, and I think a lot of people, again, just with their conditioning... 4:40 And I even had someone else talking about their cardio, and they just said, "Well, I was tired and out of breath, so I think it was good." Yeah. And I think a lot of people just kind of blur it all of, like, "It's work. 4:48 I'm doing work, and I'm sweaty, and I'm hot, and I'm, you know, I'm out of breath." Um, but I think really trying to break down, and I think it, it's, it's humbling when you actually look at this. 4:57 I think a lot of people look at their heart rate at the wrong times, like when they're trying to lift weights. 5:01 Um, and they don't look at their heart rate in the right times, when they're actually trying to challenge that system. 5:05 And actually, like, understanding what these different variables look like and what the different positions look like and, like, the different intensity and what training in, like, a zone five max heart rate really feels like. 5:15 I don't think most people know what that actually feels like. You know, I'm sitting here thinking, and the majority of our clients are fitnessing. For sure. So they don't necessarily have a performance goal- Mm-hmm... 5:27 I don't think, other than performing in life. [laughs] Yeah. You know, to be able to get up and go and do things on the weekend with their families and their friends and whatnot. 5:35 So I think this is more relatable to the individual who wants to perform in whatever it is that, you know, their goal is to do. I, I, I don't know. Yeah, uh, that could be broad things. Yeah. 5:48 And I think, uh, to, to that point, it's like, where does it show up? Where does this show up for them? Yep. And it usually shows up for them at the worst times. Mm-hmm. Right? 5:55 It's like, again, like they're out Doing something, and that could be a l- uh, any things, but it's something they don't typically do. 6:01 And, and they're challenging their bodies in a way that they wouldn't typically challenge it, and they've certainly not trained for this or even prepared for it. 6:08 So, like, going out for the hike with the family, and the duration and the elevation becomes, becomes increased, and then the next thing you know, you're feeling like garbage. Mm-hmm. Right? 6:17 And what you thought was just gonna be a nice family hike turns into a slog, right? And you're feeling miserable. 6:22 Uh, other things is like, we, we mentioned this quite frequently, because it's seasonal, and I don't think a lot of people think about this. 6:28 You know, they get through the holiday season, and the snow is falling in their, in the area that they're gonna go skiing or snowboarding or whatever, do some winter sport. 6:35 And they get out there, and they recognize at elevation- Mm-hmm... right, at, um, [clears throat] again, for prolonged periods of time, where they're applying this whole different modality to their, to their body. 6:46 They're recognizing, like, "I just paid $400 for this lift ticket, [laughs] and I've only had three runs today, and I'm absolutely trashed." 6:53 And there's a lot of components that can go into that, but capacity is a big one of those. They're just not re- That's a great example... they, they're, they're just not ready for it. We hear that and see that a lot. 7:01 Um, I, for a long... So I had a boat for a long time. Used to take people out, and these were people that would, you know, were friends and family or whatever. 7:08 I got the, the boat that I could fit the most amount of people in to have the most amount of fun in that I could afford, right? And so would just pack it full of people and used to take people out. 7:16 They really used to enjoy, like, wakeboarding, right? It was, it was a big deal. We'd put people behind the boat, like, "Yeah, I can try that." 7:22 And this is a person that's fairly strong, fit, 'cause they, they go to the gym three, four days a week. You stick them back there, and they're back there for two minutes, and they're... 7:28 They can't, [laughs] they can't do it. They're just wrecked. They get back in the boat, and they're, they're huffing and puffing- Yeah... kind of thing was, is another maybe a lame example that people can't relate to. 7:37 But it also shows up in things like, um, for, for a lot of folks, like, on the jujitsu mat. Uh, you know, when they, when they go out there, and that it's an extended roll time. 7:45 Or they're going for, you know, that Saturday open mat or Sunday open mat thing, and now they're getting their hands on people that they don't typically train with, and the intensity dial gets turned up a little bit. 7:55 There's a little bit of ego maybe involved, or somebody teaches them something new, and so they're extending their time. And the next thing you know, skills start to break down, and frustration sets in. Again, it, 8:04 the lack of capacity shows up for people in places that they don't want it. And I think a lo- a, when we look at their training, what they're generally doing is training in a very small window. Mm-hmm. 8:14 Like, they're, wh- when it comes to heart rate zones, it's a, it's a very narrow window. Let's call it that. 8:19 It's not, it's not hard enough to really create the adaptation to get better, right, from the endurance perspective. But it's, it's also so... 8:29 Or it's too hard to get the adaptation that they really want from an endurance perspective. So it's either, like, at one end of the scale, and there's this whole middle area. You know, we talk about zones. 8:40 You'll hear us talk about, like, the zones one through five. Um, and that's what we like to play in, 'cause I think it makes the most sense for the majority of people. We're looking for, like, the 80% solution here. 8:50 But if you look at the literature, and you dig into this, and you start doing some Googling and some research, you'll find as many as, like, 10 zones or these in-between zones, like 6A, 6B, 6C. Yep. 9:00 You know, that kind of thing. 9:01 So without getting too deep into the weeds, again, it's understanding kind of how this thing lines out for you with regard to, like, how narrow is my scope with regard to how I'm currently training. 9:12 And what can I do to make some adjustments to get a little bit more out of what I am putting in? 9:17 And also understand I need to manage this a little bit to get the recovery aspect that also can be included in heart rate zone training. 9:23 So it's very good for recovery, and it's very good for building fitness when applied appropriately. Uh, the, the other thing is, is, um, [clears throat] 9:32 it's, again, going back to that scale, a lot of people just wanna go harder, right? "So I got hot and sweaty." Yeah. Right? Um, "My, my heart rate was up. I felt tired." 9:42 And they think that intensity is the important thing, 'cause it, again, when you, when you relate it to, like, lifting weights as an example, like, intensity's really important. 9:50 I need to have this progressive overload, so it makes sense that I would continually push myself to go to the next level, get at or near failure. 9:57 Eh, when you start looking at heart rate zone training, that's not necessarily the goal. It can be the goal. 10:02 The percentage of time that you spend doing that is actually probably gonna be a lot less than what you'd spend at lower levels, and that's a, I think, a mis- missing piece for that. 10:10 But another part of this that I think people just completely lose track of is the, the metabolic and cardiorespiratory health impacts that you can get from this. 10:19 They don't, they're just thinking, like, performance, right? Well, what are the components that going into being able to perform better? 10:27 And so I think we cover that a little bit, kind of like what's going on at the cellular level as well as what's going on at the muscular level, without getting too far in the weeds, so people maybe have a little bit better connection to it if they're applying this stuff in their own workouts or not applying it. 10:40 And then [clears throat] lastly, we will talk about that lactate, uh, threshold heart rate and how important that can be in understanding what that is so that you are managing these zones appropriately. 10:52 So maybe what we start with is what, what most people have heard, because it's all over, like, the literature when you're starting to learn about heart rate zone training, and that's this old formula of, like, 220 minus your age and what you're getting there versus, well, again, what you'll hear us talk about with this lactate threshold heart rate. 11:11 So there's this, there was, and, uh, this is, 220 minus your age. This is a general formula that was br- well, came into play back, like, in the '70s, or at least I think it was 1971. 11:22 And it was a bunch of cardio- cardiologists, a couple of exercise physiologists that were taking a look at some studies. I think it was across 11 studies. 11:31 And they were basically trying to estimate what somebody's max heart rate was, and then that played into a lot of what happens in clinical stuff with regard to how people are tested for cardiovascular health and, and things like that. 11:44 The reality of it is, at the end of the day, this has been highly researched that it's very inaccurate. It doesn't, it gives you what they would call y- what, what you would call your max heart rate. 11:53 And what do you do with that? Well, you prescribe particular therapeutic exercise. You prescribe medications based on this. There's all kinds of stuff that came out of this. 12:02 They needed some kind of a formula to come up with, and this is what they came up with. And at the end of the day- Over and over and over again, exercise physiologists have come out and said, "This thing is way off." 12:11 It doesn't, it doesn't really give us a lot of value here. 12:14 It gives us kind of a peak, or it kind of gets us in the parking lot of the ballpark, but it's n- it's, there's no way this is individualized for a lot of factors. We're not taking into, into, 12:25 uh, consideration the concept of the individual and where they are coming in at their current level of fitness, uh, what their, what medications they may be on. Genetics. Genetics. 12:35 There's all kinds of stuff that play into that. Yeah, I, I, I think [clears throat] 12:38 why I kinda like, um, working off basically, like, your lactate threshold versus, um, max heart rate is, one, you even, you even taught in school, like, max heart rate, you know, one, based off that formula, it's something that you actually can't change, right? 12:51 You can't improve on, is kinda what you're taught. But lactate threshold is very individual, and it's very... 12:57 The goal, especially if you're focusing on performance, is improving your lactate threshold, um, basically, like, the max work you can do without kinda going over that threshold point and trying to find that. 13:08 And that's kinda what basing all your training is off of that. Um, you know, and I think that's something that a lot of people don't really think about. 13:14 But I think there's almost, there's more benefit to that because, hey, this might be where my lactate threshold, threshold is now, and it kinda helps you auto-regulate the intensity based off of what... 13:23 If you're deconditioned, your lactate threshold, if you can find it, is gonna be lower, and then you're gonna train at a lower intensity until you get improvement to where you can now train at a higher intensity to work based off that lactate threshold. 13:34 Like, your zone five right now may not be your zone five hopefully in a year when you've improved these metrics. And that's something that I think i- i- it gives you this individuality. 13:43 It gives this way that there's actual data into it, and it's not something that you, like, have no way to improve on, and it's always gonna change. 13:49 Because I've been very out of shape, and getting my heart rate when I'm out of shape above 160 and, and trying to spike to that when I'm out of shape is really hard, versus when I'm in a better condition state, I can really spike my heart rate to 160, and I don't feel like I'm dying. 14:02 I'm able to handle that, and I think that's part of where this lactate threshold really interplays with that. 14:07 Yeah, so what are, what are the things that we can improve, that we know we can improve, to get your head wrapped around, like, what are the things that are actually happening here? So we're talking about... 14:15 We're, what basically what we're talking about is making sure we're getting all the blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the working areas of the body that we're trying to get it to work to, and we want it to do that effecti- effectively and efficiently over, over time. 14:25 So the longer I can do that for at the higher output, right, or the higher level of intensity, the more fit, again, I use that in or, in air quotes, I, I technically am, right? 14:35 And I think that's where most people wanna be, right? They wanna be able to do the thing longer and harder, right? Whatever that, whatever that thing is, particularly on the fitness-ing side of things. 14:44 But what are we actually getting out of that? What are things can be improved when this is managed appropriately? 14:48 And it's not to say that if you just went out and you ran the same three miles, you know, every single day, that you don't get some level of cardiovascular benefit, but what's happening there? There's a few things. 14:57 First off, we're talking about heart rate. That is, how many beats per minute does your, does your heart actually pump to, to move all that blood, oxygen, and nutrients, right? 15:07 So effectively, if I could, if I could get that to, to be more effective, right, through what we'll call stroke volume. That is, that's the next thing that can be improved here. 15:17 That is how much blood, oxygen, and nutrients gets moved with each pump. Mm-hmm. So what we're... 15:23 So that is, like, with each beat of the heart, with your heart rate, how much, again, of all that good stuff is getting pumped. Mm-hmm. 15:31 And so if my heart doesn't have to work as hard, then I ha- or it can be more efficient at pumping more at one time, like, I can get more of that stuff to where it needs to go when I'm working hard at those higher intensities. 15:42 More importantly, it means it works, it means it w- has to work less hard when it's not working, so you're not putting that stress on your heart. And then the last thing there is how does all that work? 15:53 Well, that's through contractility. That is through the strengthening of that muscle, which is the heart, and the vascular system, right, in order to be able to handle those ups and downs effectively. 16:03 So, you know, if you're, if you're new to fitness, you kind of know this. 16:06 Like, when you come back in or if you've been out for a while, you come back in, all of a sudden, your heart rate goes way up, and it takes a while to recover, right? 16:12 It's kind of freaking out a little bit, like, "Dude, you're depleting me of oxygen and nutrients in these areas, and I've gotta, I gotta spike this thing way up to keep up," right? Well, that can be improved, right? 16:22 And while that's happening, maybe the heart's a little weaker than it, than it was before when you were w- working out. So again, it's beating more peat- beats per minute, has lower stroke volume. 16:31 So if we can improve all of this stuff, like, I am getting that benefit. And again, the other benefit is, of this is the recovery piece. 16:39 If my, if my heart ha- or my vascular system and my heart have to work less hard when I'm in my recovery mode after a workout, then I am more efficient at recovering. So those are kind of the three major components. 16:52 So when you think about, like, "What am I doing here?" It's not just about getting your heart rate up. It's about, what am I trying to achieve? 16:58 Yeah, I, I think just it's important, like, another understanding for a lot of people, you know, 'cause I think it's super common to hear... I, I think a lot of people know, "I wanna improve my fitness. 17:07 Oh, my, what's my resting heart rate?" and that being lower. And, you know, it kind of feels contradicting a little bit to what we're talking about. You wanna be able to really spike your heart rate. 17:15 But kinda to, just a, another way to think about, like, your heart basically in between beats is doing this filling mechanism, where blood is coming back into it, right? 17:21 And the contractility, what you're talking about, and the stroke volume is based off of, one, the things that you improve at the heart level. Like, there's things we can talk about on more of, like- The cellular level... 17:31 d- distally, like cellular level, and at the, at the actual, like, capillary density at the muscles. Um, but at the heart level, there's a greater filling, so there can be more expansive in what is filling in the heart. 17:42 So it can hold more, right? And then the force of the contractility too. So basically, if you think about in between beats, your heart is filling. 17:49 Like, it's, something's in water, and it's, and when it opens, the suction pulls in more water. And then how hard is it squeezing to what percentage of that liquid or the blood is getting out per pump? 18:00 So that's where that efficient- efficiency and the strength of your heart or the efficiency of that, it's really, it's filling, and then the contractility, the strength of that press, gets the blood out. 18:10 And that's the things you wanna improve. So basically, when someone is less fit, it's inefficient. 18:14 There's a lot more blood left inside the heart, and there's also the, there's not as much blood initially going into the heart b- in between pumps. So that's kind of understanding it more of, like, it's filling. 18:24 You want a greater, uh- Volume... space to fill, volume to fill. But then you also wanna squeeze it harder, it pumps harder, and that pushes more blood out. And that's where you get that low resting heart rate. 18:33 It's very efficient. 18:35 But again, if you, you still spike it to, let's say, 170 beats per minute, but now it's more efficient even in that, and it's, fills quicker and pushes out quicker and pushes out to a greater degree and more volume, then you're gonna be able to only that work horse. 18:48 You're getting more and more nutrients to everything you want in your body, and you're working harder and harder and harder, and that's how you can increase your pace, increase your times, go for longer, all those different things with that, so. 18:58 So once that, all that stuff gets pumped into the system, there's stuff that happens at a deeper level you just alluded to, to, and that is with increase, increasing your cardiovascular capacity. 19:08 You can als- you will also or should also increase your mitochondrial... function, right? Yeah. And that's where the energy, you guys [laughs] heard this in high school- It's the powerhouse... 19:17 the powerhouse of the cell, right? [laughs] That's what's going on there at the mitochondria. So that is basically where the energy systems are taking, taking hold. 19:24 Like, your, ultimately, your ATP, that is, like, the ultimately, that is the energy source that that cell works off of. 19:31 You can increase, you can i- increase your body's ability to, to maintain and, and, and, uh, and, and be- Utilize and maintain... utilize and maintain and regenerate that stuff. So- Yeah... we're getting that going on. 19:42 You also talked about increased capillary density. So that is where this, uh, uh, oxygen gets exchanged into the blood, right? Or, and into the s- uh, from the s- uh, blood into the cells. Yeah. 19:53 So if we've got additional capacity to do that, then now when that blood gets there, it can take the, those working muscles, if you will, will take on, can take on more oxygen. 20:03 That's gonna be important when we're working in aerobic and an anaerobic state, which we'll talk about in a little bit. 20:08 Um, there's another thing that happens enzymatically, and that's the oxidative enzymes [clears throat] can be enhanced. 20:15 And that is, so the efficiency of how things are broken down, converted, and converted back into energy from non-usable energy, let's call it a waste product, into usable energy, can be increased there. 20:26 So again, whether you're, whether you're in a working mode or a resting mode, this is extremely important in terms of recovery and getting the benefit from that fitness to fatigue model that you continue to take yourself through. 20:38 And then lastly, we mentioned this word before, and that is, uh, improved lactate clearance and buffering. 20:44 So that is your body, body's ability, again, to take waste product from this high output that you're, you're giving it when you're working at the higher intensity levels, and turn it back into a usable fuel. 20:55 And so we'll get into that a little bit in terms of the energy systems and kind of what's going on at each zone, and how you can, how you can manipulate your workouts and your, your, your heart rate zone training in order to get better at all of these things. 21:06 So whether the, whether the goal is longevity, right? 21:09 Just having, you know, being a h- a healthier version of yourself where your body has to work less hard at rest, and it's ready to work when you get, you know, into more of a, a, a workout or some type of strenuous activity. 21:20 Whether it's aesthetics, right? You're trying to build muscle and lose fat. Or whether it's performance. 21:26 This is an extremely important concept, uh, to, to kind of conceptualize and understand so that you're getting the most out of the time that you're spending there. 21:33 And again, just going back to the top of the, you know, top of the podcast, I think this is where things get a little bit misunderstood and, and, and often get misapplied. 21:40 Again, it's like I have this time in my workout, I need to do some, quote-unquote, "cardio," and then it's just go as hard as you can for whatever. 21:47 A Tabata, you go for 10 minutes, or you get on the treadmill and you walk for 20, or you go for your 20 or 30-minute run or whatever. But what am I actually getting out of that? 21:56 What ad- what adaptations am I trying to, um- Achieve with that... try, trying to achieve? And to, to Ryan's point, he makes this all the time. 22:03 Every time you're doing something, it's for an adaptation, and you need to be connected with that. What am I actually trying to get out of this? And understanding this a little bit more can help you do that. 22:14 Yeah, and I think it's, uh, finally, before we kind of get into the specific zones, I do, I think it kind of makes sense to lay out, like, what the lactate threshold is. And you'd mentioned it, you know, briefly there. 22:23 To then we can base off of, again, this model that we're using is basing off of, the zones are based off the lactate threshold- Mm... not based off the max heart rate we, we mentioned earlier. 22:31 Which, so you're talking about lactate clearance, right? And I think a lot of people still think that, like, lactic acid is, that's, "Oh, I feel that burn, and I'm fatigued, and that's good," or whatever. Yep. 22:39 But I think it's understanding of your body is trying to basically be efficient in reusing what things it can, what waste products it can, reusing that before it's excreting that. 22:49 And so basically what your lactate threshold is, is it's this point where your body is utilizing, reutilizing the lactate. It's breaking it down, the lactic acid, and it's removing the hydrogen. 22:59 It's doing all these different processes. There's all these other waste products. 23:02 But basically, that threshold is where can your body either reuptake those products and use it back as an energy source or clear those products. 23:10 And the point where you cross that lactate threshold, which if you're an experienced runner, ideally you know where this point is. You know what this point feels like, right? 23:18 A point where you can maintain max effort without kind of bonking over and crashing. 23:23 This is where your body is still clearing and reusing that energy, and reusing those products for energy without crashing over that point. 23:30 And when you, that's again where this can be improved when you b- uh, train based off of these percentages, based off your lactate threshold, is right now it may be at about 160 beats per minute. 23:40 For this duration, you can maintain that, and that's all you can maintain without crashing over. Your body is, um, uh, crashing over from r- um, the reuptake of those, um, those nutrients. 23:51 But again, it's one of those things is that your body, as you train, it can get more efficient at reusing these, um, these cells and these different substances for energy. 24:00 So as you improve those, as you move that mark, now you can maintain 170 beats per minute, and you can still deal with those waste products and still deal with utilizing those substances again back into the cycle for energy or, um, discreting, uh, excreting them. 24:14 Um, and this is the things that you can improve. So again, your lactate threshold in these zones, your heart rates, they're gonna change over time as you improve them. 24:22 And that's where getting the data to know and being able to test this and prove this, and then being able to retest it later is gonna w- is gonna show you where your pr- um, progress is coming from. 24:32 So for the listener, you know, you're talking about being able to improve it, so you'll be able to work harder longer, right? Yep. Without, and you are saying not spilling over, but, um, crashing. Yeah. 24:42 So for the listener, what is the crashing? The crashing would be then feeling the fatigue, right? In whatever, the legs, let's say, if you're running or you're riding. 24:51 But then also it's, um, not being as efficient in your movement patterns. Mm-hmm. So you start to, um, not necessarily hold your form in your movement patterns that would be more movement efficient. Yeah, for sure. 25:04 Movement efficiency, and then I think a, a last part of that is you literally cannot catch your breath. Like, you're- Yeah... so out of breath you cannot stand it anymore. Mm-hmm. 25:10 Well, the, the reason is, is because you've used the, the, the term crash. You could call it spill. I think you just brought that up, too. 25:16 And that is you're going from an aerobic state where your body can utilize and the cells can utilize oxygen- That starts to become very expensive when you start to work up towards higher intensity levels. 25:26 Your body cannot use that anymore. It, it doesn't have enough, right? We're, we're, we're not able to provide it enough oxygen to stay aerobic, so it moves into an anaerobic state. 25:35 Aerobic, if you can continue to, to, to supply your cells with oxygen, it can go longer. Yep. 25:40 But as soon as you start to get to a point where it doesn't have, it doesn't have enough of that to continue to function, that's when we start to move into an anaerobic state and we're starting to use these substrates that you were talking about or these, these... 25:52 And go through these processes where it's like, "Oh, we're running out of gas," and now you're very much on the clock. 25:58 And to your point, for anybody that's really pushed themselves, really pushed themselves to a point where they are reaching that max level of intensity, you know what happens. Like, your lungs start burning. 26:09 You can't catch your breath. Your form does start to break down. Mechanically, you start to become a mess. You are, you know, it... to a point where you have to stop. That's a mechanism that your body has. 26:18 Like, "You need to stop, bro. Like, you're done." 26:21 And that's when the hands go on the knees and you're doubled over, or your hands go over your head, and you're trying to take in that oxygen, clear out all of that, that, the nasties, the waste product that your body didn't have the ability to, to do or to regenerate- Clear... 26:34 and, and process while you were doing the exercise, and recover enough to again, do whatever the, the event or the modality is that you're trying to do. 26:42 And I think the last part with that before we get into the zones is there's a huge s- you know, psychological component to that. 100, 100%. 26:47 I had people on the bikes today, and they were doing a max effort 10-calorie sprint, which should really push you close to that limit, right? 26:53 And a lot of them, the initial output they were doing in our class- Not even close... it, it was- You're aerobic... not, not even close. You're aerobic, right? 'Cause they feel like they're tired. 27:01 And some of them improved their time. They literally almost cut their time in half when I really, really pushed them. 'Cause again, you're still... It's work. 27:08 It feels like it's work, but like, you know, some of them were doing a 10-calorie sprint in, like, close to 40 seconds, where when I really pushed them, I got some of them down to, like, a 13-second 10-calorie sprint on the Assault Bike. 27:18 Right. Right? That's a big discrepancy. So you are not working hard enough. Exactly. Right? So- For, for the adaptation we're trying to create during this particular part of the workout. Exactly. 27:25 So to find your le- you know, your threshold, which we discuss kind of those, those protocols in our guide, um, how do you test and actually find it, but it is something that is not easy and it really does take practice to how to go into the pain cave and stay in the pain cave and actually find it. 27:39 But when you do, and it's something that can really impact your training and get you way more, um, benefit from, out of your time with all these different zones. So... Yeah. Yes. So let's just... Go ahead. Go ahead. 27:49 Let's g- let's get into the zones. So we're, we're gonna talk about a five-zone model here. Or again, you can dig, dig into literature and you'll find zone six. You'll find up to, like, zone 10. 27:59 I think there's even one that goes as far as zone 12. Uh, I, I don't like using that. It's like going back to, like, the s- the RPE scale. Mm-hmm. 28:06 Um, RPE on, you know, when we're talking about rate of perceived exertion. There's the scale of one to 10. There's a scale of one to 20, and I like the scale of one to five, right? Me too. 28:14 'Cause it kinda cuts out all the in-between stuff. I'm a six, isn't it? Yeah. Well, if I went on the s- scale of one to 20, eh, maybe I'm a 14. I don't know. Maybe I'm a 16. [laughs] Right? 28:21 If you're on a scale of one to 10, maybe I'm a six. Maybe it's a seven. What does that mean? What does that really mean? Yeah. When I go a scale of one to five, five is an all-out max effort, right? 28:30 Where I cannot continue this. I'm going to fall down and be, you know, at, literally have to lay down to catch my breath, and I'm gonna feel like I'm dying. 28:37 Like, zone number one or, you know, an RPE of number one is you're sitting on the couch doing nothing. Yeah. So that's kind of how we would- You could do that all day long. [laughs] You could do that all day long. 28:44 So when you're looking at zone one, that's what you could do all day long. And, and zone one is a very low level of intensity. 28:50 And when we talk about LTHR, which will come up again, you're, you're, you're, you're somewhere between, like, 80... Or sorry, you're somewhere between, like, less than 80% of your LTHR. 29:00 Now again, the, the LTHR might not make sense. I don't wanna dig into, uh, how you find this right now. We will get to that. Um, you, you, you're, it's gonna take some work, right? 29:09 It's even gonna take a little practice for you to figure this out. But this is not your max heart rate. This is your lactate threshold heart rate, okay? 29:16 So you're, like, less than 80%, which is gonna feel very comfortable, right? It's what you're doing most of the day if you're just out kind of hanging out, walking, doing very little. Um, what's happening there? 29:28 Great circulation. Good nutrient delivery, right? No problem getting that oxygen to the working places that it needs to go. 29:35 And, you know, if you're training in this, there's some really good benefits that you can get by, by doing some recovery work in zone one. And that would be, like, again, increasing your blood flow, right? 29:44 Just kinda getting the nasty stuff out, getting the good stuff in from a healing or a recovery perspective. Um, it's, it's, it, it's not very stressful. So what's happening there is, is you're not beating up your body. 29:55 You're not beating up your heart, not beating up your lungs, your vascular system. You're not beating up your brain, right? It doesn't take a lot of work to do this. There's no skill. 30:03 Very low level of skill that it takes to walk, right? Most of us can do that. Uh, and then from a psychological benefit, it should be fair, feel fairly relaxed. 30:11 And at the same time, it might even feel like you are, you're, you know- You're down-regulating a little bit... you're down-regulating a little bit, right? So y- exactly. 30:18 So from a mental and emotional perspective, it's like I'm moving and I'm doing something, but I'm not working hard here. So going back to that emotional, um, or psychological thing you were talking about. Yeah. 30:27 And I, and I love... 30:28 I talk about this all the time, is people talk about how stressed they are, and they wanna relax and try to get themselves to down-regulate, but I think a lot of people use those things that are low effort, like laying on the couch or watching a movie or doing, or scrolling on their phone, where that doesn't really give that same response. 30:42 Where something like this, you do need to be intentional. It feels easy, but it really can have a big impact on your emotional and your mental wellbeing because it puts you into that relaxed state. 30:52 It takes a very small degree of effort, but the outcome is way more beneficial than just sitting and watching a movie every night. So- Well, yeah. It includes the, you know, increased blood flow, right? Yeah, for sure. 31:02 So- And, and, and- Versus couch rotting. Yes. And again- [laughs]... when you're sore, a lot of people, I think, are taught, like, "Oh, I'm super sore. I need to rest." 31:08 And there is some component of not over-pushing you back into the fatigue. Mm-hmm. But I think there can... I, I made a post about this the other day, of being active in your, in your recovery, right? 31:17 And I think this is an example of even if you're really sore, beat up, you will get more benefit from going on a light walk and getting things moving and getting that muscle pump going than laying on the couch and doing zero. 31:27 100%. So if your, if your goal is caloric burning, right? 'Cause you wanna lose body fat, right? 31:32 You wanna lose weight, um, however you, however you look at that, this is a, this is a great zone to be working on pretty regularly. So rather than sitting on the couch and couch rotting- [laughs]... 31:42 um, you know, get out and go for a walk. It's very low effort cycling, very low effort lifting, very low effort walking, right? And this is what we call our aerobic oxidative state. 31:51 So we have lots of oxygen coming in, and, and because we're not working so hard, your body can be very efficient at utilizing body fat for fuel. 31:59 We're not asking it to compete with other systems, um, or that central, or with that, that muscular system, which- Primarily just driven off of carbohydrate, right? We are, and, and oxygen. 32:10 We are not, we're not asking your body to work very hard. So it's very effective at bur- utilizing body fat and oxygen for fuel then. But as we move into zone two, now you're, now you're, you're upticking it a bit. 32:21 And it's not a ton, and I think this is where people get a little bit lost. It can be very tough for people to, to train in zone two. That's like 80 to 88% of your LTHR. 32:30 And this is like, uh, this is, this is where, again, you're burning, uh, oxygen and fat for fuel. Um, it's an awesome place to do some recovery work in. You will feel like you're working a little bit. 32:41 And the challenge for, for the high achiever, the person that likes to sweat, get sweaty and feel like they're working hard, is not going beyond that 88%. And there's no perfect number here. We're just giving... 32:50 Again, these are zones. So, you know, if you're at 89, does that mean you're not getting the benefit? No. If you're at, you know, 79, does that mean you're not getting the be- the benefit? No. 32:59 It's somewhere between 80 and 88%. It's just a zone for you to work through to where what we're doing is we are increasing that mitochondrial density, right? So you're starting to uptick. 33:09 Again, now you're, you're, you're putting your body in a position to be able to process things when you move into higher intensities better. And this is, I think, the thing that, that gets lost the most. 33:17 Like people think they need to be breathing heavy and, you know, working hard, um, in order to get a benefit from things, and they don't understand by just ticking up that heart rate enough to get into this zone, into zone two, you're getting tremendous benefit on the cellular level in terms of recovery and health. 33:35 Um, couple other things that happen there. Um, your, again, go back to fat burning. 33:39 If you wanna burn fat for fuel, zone two is probably the best place to do it because you've upticked your, your, uh, your energy demand, but you haven't upticked it so much that fuel becomes unavailable for the body for fuel, 'cause we're not working at a high, in a high, high intensity. 33:55 The other thing about this is, what the great part about zone two is going back to what we were talking about with beating up the body. 34:00 This is very low impact on the body, so it's not enough to really demand much from the muscular system and the central nervous system. So we're not, we're not fatiguing that anymore. 34:10 Um, but it is enough to get these cardiovascular benefits in terms of fuel utilization, your buffering system. 34:17 Again, increasing that circulation so that we can get some of those waste products in and get our, train our body to be better at doing that during the higher intensities. 34:24 So yeah, I think what's important is understanding, I think for the high performer too, is how this impacts your high-performance training. 34:31 Um, 'cause it really, like improving mitochondrial density, even when the main source is more anaerobic, later we'll talk about the zones, is there's still an improvement of, there's basically like a re- or a reuptake or a, a debt that this system will help you recover from those things. 34:47 So later even when we are in different zones that utilize carbs more or utilize more e- even local glycogen or ATP, those systems are still re- uh, restocked from this system. Right. 35:00 So this system helps your general recovery and helps your recovery from those more intense lifting bouts, but also those more intense, uh, anaerobic bouts that we'll kind of talk about in this zone. 35:09 So it's still very vital, even if it doesn't feel as impactful. So I think of this zone as being your base, as your foundation- Uh-huh. It's your engine... for building everything else. Yep. Yep. So- For sure... 35:19 for sure. And, and also I think one of the ways to think about this is you mentioned the recovery aspect, is the flexibility that training in this zone will give you as you start to work to the higher intensity. 35:29 So again, if we have m- a better stroke volume, which zone two will give you, more cardiac output, right? With less work. 35:36 And we're getting that greater mitochondrial density as we start to then move into the higher zones here, where we're working at a higher level of intensity. 35:44 We have now prepared the body to deal better with the transition in, in out of these different energy systems as we go forward. 35:50 So zone two, you'll see it a lot com- It's been very popular to talk about this in the last couple years, and I, it, it, I think there's some confusion that lies around it, like what is it? 36:01 And again, I, one of the things I'll say about it is, is I think it's very hard for people to, to, to, that are, again, are high achievers and like to work hard, to get comfortable in zone two, because it won't really feel like work, right? 36:14 You're just taking, you're just taking that, that intensity up to a level where you're getting these benefits without the intensity to beat your body up. 36:22 So it's really is a recovery and a building zone for the other things that you're gonna be doing. I actually think it's harder to stay in zone two and not go over that zone. Oh, 100% agree. 36:36 I mean, emotionally, but then also the physical component because if you're- You, you have to keep an eye on it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, you have to keep an eye on it. 36:43 So, like for some people, s- running as a zone two workout- Yeah... it's not the right workout for you, man. Too intense. Yeah. Yep. It's too intense. Yeah. Right? 36:51 So you need to pick something that is at a lower level of in- level of intensity, and that's why I love things like the rower or the bike or even just the treadmill, because it's a little bit- At an incline or something. 36:59 Yeah. It's a little bit more controlled, right? Yeah. You can kind of set it, forget it, and that's kind of what you're doing in zone two. 37:05 Now, that's not to say that you couldn't do workouts where you're going from zone two to zone four and back to zone two. M- and you may need something a little bit more intense, you know, in there. 37:12 Maybe a run, uh, run to walk, you know, uh, or hills to flats or something like that is the thing that you need. 37:18 But I get to your point, like I think it's very tough for people to go, "Dude, I don't feel like I'm working very hard." You have to be okay with this. You're not supposed to be working very hard. 37:25 You're supposed to be getting the benefits, the physiological benefits from the work that you're doing, and it's, it's not gonna feel like a lot of work for most people, probably a lot of people listening to this show. 37:34 For sure. So then moving into zone three, we're at 89 to 94% of the LTHR. So this is where things start to tick up a little bit. There's a few things going on here. First off, this is our aerobic glycolytic system. 37:45 So this is when we start moving into fat is not available for us as a fuel source anymore. It just takes too much to break that down and utilize it, right? In, at the cellular level. 37:54 So your body starts to move over to basically sugar, right? 37:57 Uh, that carbohydrate, and this is where carbohydrate becomes very important and it's a much more efficient fuel when we start to work into these intensities, and that's what your muscles and your brain, right? 38:08 And your system is going to be tapping into. So again, oxygen and carbohydrate is basically what we're burning here. And I think this is where most people like to train, right? 38:19 This is where we're starting to, to, to get, uh, when you're, when you're training in this. Now we're starting to, we're starting to impact the muscular system a little bit more. 38:26 We're starting to impact the, the central nervous system a little bit more. There's a little bit more demand here. 38:31 And for that newbie, if you're training in zone three, you can definitely even build some muscle, right, working in zone three if you're new to this because there's a higher, uh, uh, uh, intensity on the muscular system. 38:43 And so for a while you might actually be able to build some muscle in, in zone three. Probably not for very long- Mm... 38:47 uh, depending on the int- the, the type of equipment or the, you know, where you're coming in as far as your training age, where your strengths and weaknesses lie. 38:54 But people get lost here because this is the area where people like to, they feel like they're working now, right? The heart rate is up, right? They are breathing heavy. 39:03 "I came to the gym today to get a workout in, and that's what I'm feeling right now." And so oftentimes this is where people spend a good deal of their training in zone three. 39:13 Because it's an efficient system, they feel like they're working out. They're getting a little bit of muscle fatigue. Their heart rate's up. Their, their, uh, respiratory rate is up. 39:21 And like, "Yeah, I'm working out," right? "I'm working out now." And you should feel good there. That's the idea. The b- this is kind of like your competition zone. 39:28 Like, if you're gonna go out and run, you know, a, a more of a distance type event where you had to keep it up for, you know, m- more than 30 minutes up to an hour or even longer. 39:38 Zone three is where you're gonna be spending most of your time because you can bur- you can utilize that oxygen and that sugar. Again, you're a bit, you're on the clock. Pretty soon stuff's gonna run out, right? 39:46 Your, your, uh, your, your carbohydrate level's gonna start to dwindle down and you're gonna, it's gonna get a little bit tougher. Bottom line is, though, you're gonna feel pretty good in zone three. Yeah. 39:54 I, I love what you're saying here 'cause I'm really thinking about it. I, I think it, it, it can bring up that zone three gets a lot of hate on because, like, there's not benefit. There's still lots of benefit- Tons... 40:04 to do, to training in it. But I think it's one of those things, uh, where it's really overused. If I was just thinking about so many training of, I think it's the perfect spot for zone two feels too easy. Mm-hmm. 40:14 I don't wanna do zone two. That takes too much patience. I don't have that patience. Mm-hmm. But I really don't wanna work hard enough to get into the zone four or zone five. 40:21 And I think what happens a lot, I think a lot of people work in the zone, like, even in our group classes when they're lifting weights. Yep. 100%. I think they, they don't wanna rest. 40:28 They don't wanna push too hard, but then they don't wanna rest in between rounds. It's more comfortable- It's more c-... to be in zone three. It's, it's, it is. It's challenging, but it's more comfortable. Exactly. 40:35 It's r- it's really a, it is a tricky zone. 40:37 And I think it, it, it, it's almost a shame, like, like we were saying, of there is still benefits and you should have some of your training that is based in this zone of kind of this continuous work that has a little bit more intensity than zone two, but you don't need a big recovery period in between, like, rounds of this work. 40:51 You can kind of maintain it, like you said, for a long time. This is your competition work. 40:55 This might even be the zone, like, if you're, I don't know, a HYROX athlete that you kind of want to maintain, if you have a long event, you wanna be able to maintain in this position, right? 41:03 And I, I think I, I, I don't know. It was just really, that was resonating [laughs] with me 'cause I think, like, I was just picturing even in the group classes a lot of people wanna train in that zone. 41:11 There's still tons of benefits. Sure. Like, it helps with that recovery of, um, you know, utilizing the lactate that we were talking about earlier. It helps kind of build your ability to work- Process that... 41:19 with that turnover process that- Mm. Right? And I think it has a, it kind of starts to challenge more of that output of the heart- 100%... 41:25 and can have an impact on that too, while still allowing, uh, oxygen to be a component to help with the recovery, too. And I think where it's not just pure oxygen debt in it any, either way. 41:36 Um, and I think it can be a good way to get more additional work in and kinda... This is where I almost think about as your capacity. Like, this is your ability to do work for a longer duration. 41:44 Yep, this is where it shows up for you. This is where it shows up, right? Which- Yeah. This is where, yeah, this is where your, uh, your, your capacity training shows up for you when you're working at this level. Yep. 41:53 Right? And y- so you realize like, "I can do this longer. I'm not getting- Mm... as tired as fast. My muscles feel like they can hold up. I'm not breathing as heavy." Yeah. And that feels good. 42:01 And again, that, that drives, I think, more time spent there for, for a lot of people, so much so that it's been referred to and kind of demonized as the junk zone. Yep. Right? And it's not a junk zone. 42:11 There's a lot of benefit you can get out of it from a fitness and a physiological, um, adaptation perspective. 42:16 The challenge becomes, like, how much time am I spending there, and do I spend any time in zone two or zones four and five? Which we'll get to next. So zone four, we're starting to work a bit harder. All right? 42:27 And this is where you're gonna start feeling it. This is where we're starting to dump into, all right, that lactate is starting to build up a little bit, right? We're at, like, 95 to 100% of our LTHR here. All right? Um, 42:40 primary energy system here is an- is gonna be anaerobic. So it's, it's a mix of glycolytic and oxidative. So there's a bunch of stuff that starts to happen here when we start to really push our intensity level. 42:53 And so what ends up happening for us is you're, you're starting to create waste product that you cannot filter out, or more specifically we'll call it buffering. Mm. 43:02 Your body is starting to go like, "I can use this for a little while, but I can't do it at the rate to, to sustain this for a longer period of time." 43:10 The other thing with that intensity means you're generally working harder. There's higher impact happening, right? 43:15 Uh, again, on your running, on your bike, you're out of the saddle, you're climbing a hill, or you're starting to sprint or do more tempo work within your runs. 43:24 There's a, there's a, there's a larger demand or impact on the body during this time, and obviously that stacks up over time as we're, as we're pounding a little bit more, for lack of a better term. 43:33 That's why when you're doing this type of work, it's a good idea to mix it up. 43:36 We'll talk a little bit about this between, hey, how much running or high impact ac- uh, activity am I doing, or where can I take away some of the impact and still get the, the, the benefits of this type of training on things that don't beat my body up as much, like bikes and rowers and skiers. 43:52 Swimming. Swimming. You know, those kind of things. Um, so, um, we're, we're, here we're, we're very much expanding the lactate window, right? And, and what your body can do. At the beginning, this is really gonna suck. 44:05 Getting into zone four, you're not probably gonna be able to s- spend very much time there. It's gonna suck. You're gonna... That's when the lungs start burning, the muscles start burning. 44:14 You start to hunch over on that bike, right? And you're, you're kind of leaning on the bike and you're, you're starting to sway back and forth. 44:20 When you're doing the LTHR, uh, assessment or test, which we'll give you access to, um, I- you just mentioned the workshop that I just taught. So I was taking about four people at a time through this assessment. 44:32 And so for me, it wasn't just get on the bike and go and watch your, you know, watch your onboard computer there and, and tell me what it's doing. 44:38 I was going around to each person and checking out, like, where's their tension level, maybe, you know, on the flywheel, but so that I can monitor how hard they were working, but was also watching what's going on with them physically. 44:50 Mm-hmm. Right? You can see it in somebody's face when they start to, start to reach into these higher zones, right? They go, the, the eyes get big, the mouth comes open, right? 44:58 The chin's on the chest, the tongue's hanging out. They're starting to sweat. You can see that they're, they're in a little bit of distress, and that's exactly what's happening. You don't have enough... 45:07 Your, your body isn't able, because oxygen has become very expensive at this point, you're, you do not have the oxygen to maintain this for very long. 45:15 So we are looking, going back to your spilling or crashing, we are looking for, like, what is the edge for you? Mm-hmm. 45:20 How hard can I go with that mouth open and those eyes big and without completely breaking down my mechanics on the bike or the skier or, or my run or whatever it is that I happen to be, happen to be doing, and know where that edge is. 45:33 An experienced athlete or experienced, somebody that's experienced with this will know what that is without even looking at a heart rate monitor. Yeah. They'll know, "Oh, I'm, I'm at the edge. 45:41 I need to dial this back," or, "I have a little bit more juice in the tank. I need to be careful here." 45:47 And that's why, like, knowing your course, uh, your course outlay or whatever, if you're entering a race for something super important so you know when to tick up or tick back, when you can recover. 45:56 Is there a downhill on the other side of this thing where I can, or a flat that I can kind of recover? How much do I actually push? But this is, this one's a little bit more painful. Yeah, for sure. 46:05 I, I really think about this as, like, kind of the showtime, you know, part of it where, like you're saying, like, if you're a competitive athlete, like, I always think this really comes to play with, like, a runner, right? 46:14 'Cause their, their goal is basically doing the event. They're not, there's not a com- competitive component. Anyway, it... What I mean is- [laughs]... their goal is maintaining under the thract- threshold. Right. Right? 46:24 It, the, the, the competition is doing the event, right? It's not trying to score a basket or whatever is what I was trying to say. 46:30 But what I mean is this is where you can really try to find, yeah, like you were saying, of staying just under that where you don't tip over and crash into that. 46:38 Um, but this really has importance, too, on the things we were talking about for l- longevity, too, of this can actually kind of improve. You can always think about, like, the strength of your heart. 46:45 Like, this is a good point, and this is where you start to really push your VO2 max. Mm-hmm. And this is where you really start to improve that. 46:51 So getting to the zone, um, and applying that is where you can really work on the utilization of the, it's g- like, the oxygen debt that you're building in this zone, and then how do you utilize that for recovery and maintaining this output. 47:04 So it really has good impacts for that, not even just for the athlete. So it is still something that is important for longevity. 47:09 Like, we hear a lot about VO2 max being a good metric to see basically how healthy you are and how long of a long, healthy life you're gonna live, and this is where you can really start to move the envelope on that. 47:18 So it's hard to get into, but doing it is important. Yeah. And so the percentage of time that you actually spend here in order to gain those benefits- Mm-hmm... or those adaptations doesn't have to be very long. Yeah. 47:27 But it needs to be metered, and it needs to be managed, you know, over time. 47:31 So in a given workout, you may be doing something where you're taking yourself into zone four and then allowing yourself to recover, right, buffer that stuff out, and then taking yourself back up into zone four. 47:41 You may not get down into zone two the next time around. It might only drop b- drop you back down into zone three because your body is that distressed, right? And the idea is that we get better with this over time. 47:51 But you don't have to be spending long periods of time here in order to get the benefit. 47:56 And again, that's ag- uh, I, I think what some of the misapplication is, is like, if I'm not going at this where my tongue is hanging out and I feel like I'm gonna fall over, like, I'm not getting the benefit here. 48:05 And, you know, this comes up in different modalities when we're looking at, you know, different things. 48:09 Like, CrossFit's a big one, you know, and don't confuse this percentage, but, uh, you know, I've heard, uh, or it, it's been said many times, like, the goal there is to be able to get to and manage your 80% for the entire event. 48:21 Whatever that event, uh, or heat is in that, in that particular competition. And that 80% is probably more related to, like, 80% of your max output, not of your LTHR. So that's why I don't want there to be confusion. 48:33 Yeah. That is how, how hard can I go and how long can I go? The person that can do that is generally the person that's going to be the front runner or the, the people in the front of the pack. 48:44 So capacity becomes a very, very important part of that sport. Or HYROX in this case, if we're talking about that, which is much different than CrossFit in so many ways. 48:52 But the point of that being is zone four is f- you're entering into that probably in those comp- in those competitive states. 48:59 But you also recognize, like, I need to manage this because I will not be able to finish this or the next event that's in front of me for the day or the next day or whatever if I, if I push too hard. 49:10 So it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a matter of managing this. And, and again, if you do, uh, spend time and you're focused in zones three and two, you can improve this, uh, before you even get to zone four. 49:24 And then obviously when you get to zone four, understanding again what your threshold is, how long you can maintain that before you've gotta come back down in order to recover and be good to go for the next push, the next hill, the next sprint, right? 49:36 The next 20 clean and jerks or whatever that you have to do in your, in your particular event. All right. So as we move into, um, zone five, this is, uh, this one sucks. 49:47 This is, you know, just under or, or, sorry, just over 100% of your lactate threshold. This will not last very long. 49:54 You are on the clock for seconds, uh, maybe up to as long as a minute to two minutes, depending on how fit you are and how g- good your body is at doing this. 50:03 If you were able to do this for minutes at a time, you'd be crazy athletic or a crazy athlete with a crazy c- crazy car- crazy cardiorespiratory system. 50:11 Um, this takes time, and where would, where does this show up for people? 50:16 Um, this, this is gonna show up at, at, you know, in your sprinting, your sprint work, where it gets up and then you take time to recover to come back down so that you could do your sprint again. 50:26 This is gonna be, yeah, this is gonna be your 40-yard dash. 50:30 This is gonna be your 15-yard sprint, right, where you are working up, and when you're done, your heart rate's up 'cause you had, you placed that demand on your body at a level that it was not able to regenerate that fuel enough to be able to continue to do it. 50:42 Form is broken down. The form is broken down, your sprint is over, right? You should be done, right? Most people can d- Basically, about 15 yards is what most people can handle, right? 50:53 Olympic level athletes obviously can do that for a much longer period of time. Um, but when you're looking at the realities, like, what's the, what are we really doing there in terms of a sprint, an all-out max effort? 51:03 100 meters is as far as it goes. They do a 400-meter, right, as well, which is wild. If you've ever actually sprinted 400 meters, you're probably collapsing at the end. 51:13 You need to have a high level of cardiovascular capacity in order to do this mitochondrial density, right? And, uh, you need to be recovered enough to do that. 51:20 So again, when we kind of look at what we're doing here, you're gonna be spending a very small percentage of your time in zone five. 51:25 But again, going back to the psychological and emotional things, people think they need to take themselves here frequently in order to get this benefit, and it ends up being overreaching or overworking, right? 51:37 And then if we're not managing the recovery end, you're never really gonna even get the benefit of taking yourself to the pain cave like that if you're not doing the right things, the appropriate things, in order to, again, manage the fitness to fatigue model. 51:48 Yeah. 51:48 And I think, you know, we talk about this a lot with our current program that's out, is this is one that you really need to manage how you apply this into your training block and into your training week because this is a really big stressor. 51:58 And if you're doing this as your stressor and then you're also, like, lifting multiple- You're heavy lifting. Yeah... 52:01 times a week, like, you're gonna g- your nervous system is gonna be super fatigued because this is something that one of the benefits is it really challenges your, your nervous system and it really works on your full body recruitment. 52:11 And it's very anaerobic, and it's very fast twitch, and it... That's one of the benefits of it. But doing all those things is super, super, super taxing. 52:19 So when you do that regularly, you really have to be intentional with that. It challenges a lot of the same systems. 52:23 It's slightly different, but it challenge a lot of the same systems as when you're doing your heavy lifting. Yep. Right? It uses the phosphocreatine system. It- that's your very- Fast twitch muscle fiber... 52:31 fast twitch muscle fibers, right? Your very quick energy source. It's super... depletes very quickly, but it's very readily available. Um, so there's a lot of benefits with that. But again, you have to really be aware. 52:41 Like you said, a lot of these times it's a very coordinated effort. It's a lot of, um, you know, motor control. It's a lot of neurological, um, demand. 52:48 Um, so when you're doing this, again, it really should only be, uh, for most people, I would say, like, once a week, maybe twice a week. Very planned and intentional Very, very planned. Yeah. Like, once or twice a week. 52:57 Yeah. Which again, uh, th- that's where I think this thing gets misapplied. And then again, people think they're working in zone five, and maybe they're not. They're only in zone four. Yeah. 53:06 Uh, so again, like, how do, how do you... So again, going back to the, the, the, the fuels that you're using there and the f- the energy systems, the point being is these are very short-lived. They do not last very long. 53:17 So when you do work in this zone, you need to be very mindful of taking the appropriate recovery- Mm... 53:23 for those energy systems to regenerate, so to speak, so that you can perform that again, either in the same workout, right, if this is how you're applying it, plyometrics, sprinting, max effort work, max effort lifts- Tempo work... 53:37 tempo work, that kind of thing, or between workouts. Like, if I did this on day one, like, on Monday, I'm not likely doing this again on day two on, on Tuesday, right? I'm taking appropriate time in there. 53:49 So how you organize your, your training program for, like, what are my zone two days versus my zone three, four, versus my zone five? That's where, again, I think this stuff gets misapplied. 54:00 It's just like, go, go, go, go, go, go all the time. Or to, to the point made earlier is you're not really working hard enough. 54:06 Like, you're staying, you're g- you're kind of getting into zone three, and that's about where you're going. 54:10 And then the return on that investment isn't, isn't as great as if you were working, again, more of a zone two to four, two and four type of, type of work. All right. 54:19 So integrating this and, and kind of balancing it all out. Just trying to keep this sort of brief, but, um, I, I think the term to look at is this should be polarizing, right? 54:30 And that, that being, like, the way you organize your training. Like, one- it's very specific, and it's in one place or the other. We're not trying to always intermix these zones. 54:39 Now, when we talk about energy systems, you're using all kinds of energy systems at all times, so I don't wanna confuse that. I just want- I'm just talking about, like, the focus of the training. Yeah. 54:47 Very specifically, I'm doing zone two recovery work today- Mm... or aerobic work, if you wanna call it that. Um, on this day, I'm w- very specifically working interval or tempo work, so I am working into my zone four. 54:59 And as the, uh, the intensity increases, the duration of the time that you spend there will be decreased. 55:05 So I can spend longer in my aerobic zone and get the, and to get those benefits, I should be spending a shorter period of time in my, uh, my higher intensity zone, zone four or five. 55:15 If I had to break this down, like, if you just look at kind of the general workout program. So we take that at 100%. Here's all the work that I'm doing in a given week or, you know, workout program or whatever. 55:27 70% of the... And, and I, and I spend 70% of my time on resistance training, strength-based power building type of, and muscle building type of work. 55:35 That leaves me 30% time left over to maybe work on my capacity training. And I think this is, like, for the general exerciser, right? 55:42 Again, if you're a Olympic, uh, cyclist, you know, or something like that, well, this might change a little bit. But, um, so I have 30% of this time. 55:49 Now, I take that 30%, and let's call that 100% of my capacity building time. Well, how am I spending that? 70% of your time should be spent in these zo- lower zones. 30% of your time might be spent in the upper zones. 56:02 And so if you looked at it that way, then you could kind of divide out your week. Like, how much time am I really spending here to get the-... 56:08 the fitness, cardiovascular and health benefits, um, and fitness building benefit that I'm trying to obtain from the work that I'm doing. 56:16 This is where things get cloudy based on how I feel, what I, what k- what level of intestinal fortitude and grit do I have to be working, you know, during that week? 56:26 Or am I just going through the motions of I got my cardio done today, in air quotes. Yeah, and we talked, uh, there's a lot of benefits too, you know, of you can kind of, there's multiple ways you can do this. 56:36 You know, like our current program that we have out, Fit for Action, like that is kind of more concurrent, right? And so you can kind of go back with your conditioning work with all of these, training these zones. 56:44 It can be a little bit more concurrent where you are kind of trying to manage your training volume through the week, where you're trying to work in each zone and have a very specific time, making sure you're not doing too much volume in the more intense zones. 56:54 But another way to kind of manage this overall stress is kind of doing more of a periodized approach where you are having, like maybe you're trying to still keep some baselines up, but you're having more of a focus and you kind of cycle through that focus of maybe you're trying to build more of that, you know, that big aerobic base. 57:09 Then you kind of work into that zone three, zone four, that threshold, and then you kind of really, only for a set amount of time, you are really trying to push that high zone five. 57:17 That's another way to kind of, if you even think of like the training percentage of the entire year, maybe a large percent of that entire year, that 70% of the time is in the lower intensities, but then that, you know, 30% remaining is in the other half, the higher intensities. 57:32 So that can be throughout your training week or- Mm-hmm... throughout your training blocks. Yeah. So you're talking about periodizing it, right? Mm-hmm. 57:37 Whether that's in the, in the weekly program, the monthly program or the annual program. So yeah, you can, you can ramp this stuff up, dial it back. 57:44 There can be different focuses for this if you're doing more of a concurrent style training program where you're trying to c- consistently work your strength, your power and your speed or, or speed and power and your capacity all at the same time. 57:56 You know, if I'm training more speed, I'm probably doing less zone five and four, and, and four work outside of the speed training that I'm doing. 58:04 If I'm doing primarily strength work, I'm, I may be working a little bit more of zone four, zone five once a week or twice a week to make sure that I'm, I'm managing the system. 58:13 And that's where, you know, the, the nuance and the, the art and science of programming comes together. So a couple, couple takeaways. First, everybody can do this, right? 58:24 So all, all fitness levels should have some type of capacity, uh, training going on in their programs. Um, that's gonna be dependent on the individual that's doing it. 58:35 But having some, um, uh, baseline and metrics to be able to manage this stuff I think can be important for people. It's not just the weight on the bar, and it's not just about gadgets, right? 58:45 It's about understanding physiology and your own thresholds, right? 58:48 So if you understand it just even a little bit at the high level, you can get tremendously, tr- a tremendous amount more, uh, benefit by how you're organizing yourself. 58:57 And also from the psychological and emotional part, you can step back and kind of correlate like, "Hey, you know, like, today was a zone two day for me, and I'm good. 59:07 Like, I, I, I understand that it's not gonna be a huge workout for me, and I should feel good about that," right? 59:12 And if you do this long enough and contin- uh, uh, consistently enough, you'll start to recognize those things. 59:18 Um, so again, it's not all about the gadget, but the gadget, the heart rate monitor can be very helpful here and very insightful for letting you know where you're at despite what your emotions might be telling you, right? 59:30 Again, going back to the workshop that I did, like people are freaking out 'cause they're seeing their, their heart rate get up to 150 beats per minute. I'm like, "You, you can go harder. Like I can... 59:39 I'm, I'm, I'm watching you go here. Like, you can keep going. Trust me, you are not gonna die." 59:44 And the, the, the emotional impact that makes w- on them at the end when I was kind of ri- I was right about that, like 30 minutes later, they're still doing the thing that they thought they were gonna die in two minutes doing. 59:54 I'm like, "No, you got more gas in the tank, I promise. Like, just keep moving and keep doing this." 59:58 And they get off, they go, "I had no idea, that's the hardest I've ever worked on any bike," 'cause we did this, we did this, this test on the bike. And like, "I had no idea I could do that." 1:00:05 I go, "Well, now you know," right? Mm-hmm. So now you know what working hard really feels like and what your limits, range of limit is or the, the limit or may or may not be for you. 1:00:15 So when you're doing your next class or your next workout or whatever, you know you've got a little bit more gas in the tank. 1:00:20 So it takes away the fear of I don't wanna be, I don't wanna quit or I don't wanna feel, I don't wanna tip, I don't wanna spill. 1:00:28 Y- having these, having these metrics and having a gadget to help you monitor this stuff can be super helpful. So the question then comes up like, all right, well, how do I know? So go back to the LTHR. 1:00:37 So there's a ver- there's a couple of very simple self-assessments that you can do in order to manage or to, to figure this out for yourself. Um, you're g- you're gonna need a couple things. 1:00:47 I always recommend the bike the first time, uh, because it's the lowest level skill. It's the easiest thing to manage when you're doing this assessment. 1:00:55 And the second thing you're gonna need basically is you're, you're, you're gonna need a heart rate monitor. 1:01:00 Um, whether that's a strap across your chest or a wrist wo- worn device or whatever else, you're gonna, you're gonna want that. 1:01:06 We have the protocols for this all in our heart rate zone training guide, which is now available. If you just go to rdfguides.com, you can see it there. It's free. 1:01:16 Um, it's, it's, it's got some, some good stuff in there, but it w- in, in terms of workouts and maybe how you apply this. If you want zone one, zone two, zone three, four, or five workouts, those are in there too. 1:01:26 But it talks about what we talked about today, but it also gives you the protocol for how to, uh, do this self, self-assessment. 1:01:33 So again, I encourage the, the bike 'cause I think it's the easiest one to practice and get familiar with y- with this on it. It, and it's the least impact. You could do this on a treadmill, right? 1:01:45 If you are a good runner and you have it, but if you don't run, I would not- Mm-hmm... suggest doing this. Mm-hmm. Um, you could also do it in the pool. 1:01:52 And so we give all three protocols, whether that's the run, the bike, or the swim. Swim's gonna be different, right? Um, and your heart rate monitor needs to be a good one for that. 1:02:01 Wearing a wrist-worn device without a chest strap in the pool can be an issue, so just know that. Um, it may not be as accurate. 1:02:06 You may have some breakups in the, in the, in the readouts because of the, the motion that your arm's going through the water could, could, could, uh, could impact that or whatever. 1:02:15 But- The heart rate zone training guide walks you through this on how to do this. It's 30 minutes. You're gonna spend 30 minutes on whatever choice you make there. 1:02:23 We're gonna go through a little warmup period, and then you go through 20 minutes of trying to work to wherever that threshold is. That's as hard as you can go without spilling, right? That is the basic overview. 1:02:33 There's a few more details in there on how to manage it, um, and how to monitor it, and then we give you the breakdown of how to calculate out your zones, and then how to utilize those, again, in, in your workouts. 1:02:43 So it's a really great place to start, right? And to get a little bit more familiar with, like, how hard am I working? 1:02:49 How hard should I be working through these different zones if I'm trying to manage this a little bit more? So a- again, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a good resource. Tried not to... 1:02:57 I tried not to make that too complicated for people. Think it gives you the basic overview, uh, without getting too far into the weeds. 1:03:04 And when you, when you walk away from that, you'll have some, some usable material for you and some personalized information to then make some more informed decisions about how you're applying things. 1:03:14 Uh, cool thing about that is once you've done it, and again, sometimes it takes a little practice. Like, you might get on there and you go, "Man, I could've gone harder." 1:03:20 All right, well, the next time you go and do, you could do it again in a couple of days if you wanted. I wouldn't suggest doing it [laughs]... You're not gonna do it back to back. 1:03:26 But wait a couple days, do it again, and see where you get to. You should see improvements. You'll see that lactate threshold move, right? It, it, you'll, you'll gain more benefit. You should start to feel that. 1:03:36 It should start to show up for you on the weight room floor or on the jujitsu mat or whatever as you're applying this stuff. So I think there's some very immediate feedback that can come from this. 1:03:45 These systems are very quick to adapt if you use them, um, consistently in the right way. They also are, like, the first thing to go when you're not applying them, right? So anybody knows that. 1:03:58 Like, if you're a runner, you take a couple days off and you go out from your typical routine, then you go out, you feel like ass, right? Like, "Oh my God, I've lost all this fitness." 1:04:06 Well, your body just started to adapt back to its comfort zone, which is not where you've been pushing it. And so those are things that you can, you can monitor as well. 1:04:14 So again, the guide is a really great place to, to, to get your own personal kind of numbers here. And then you can take those numbers and you can plug them into your device, right? 1:04:23 For when you're doing your zone two or your zone three, zone four, zone five work or whatever. So you can monitor it. Like, where am I actually? Particularly [laughs] when you're doing your zone two training. 1:04:32 Uh, that's gonna be the hard one for you because you're gonna recognize, "Oh, I, I'm working too hard here." Doesn't mean you're working too hard. You're just working outside of zone two. 1:04:40 You probably are up into zone three, and I think that's the biggest wake-up for most people. Then secondarily, it's like, "Oh, this is what working hard actually feels like when you start to work into, like, zones four." 1:04:52 Um, so go check out the guide. It's easy to get. Again, that's rdfguides.com. It's the Red Dot Fitness, uh, heart rate zone training guide. It's got all this stuff in it. It's free. 1:05:02 Uh, just download it, and then as you're going through there, if you have questions, 'cause r- we recognize that there might be as people are getting into the, to the eval or the assessment, the self-assessment, you can hit us. 1:05:11 It's easy to get ahold of us. There's a link there. You can just, you can just, uh, send over a question for us and we'll do our best to help you out. [upbeat music] Thank you for tuning into this episode of Iron Sights. 1:05:21 If you enjoyed our conversation, you can support our mission by hitting the subscribe button, leaving a review, and sharing the podcast with a friend. I'll see you on the next episode.
