Teaching you how to achieve superior health, leanness and performance.
October 11th, 2011 Milan
Anaerobic threshold, also called the lactate threshold – is the level of your body exertion where your body must switch from using/burning energy – glucose, with enough supply of oxygen, to using/ burning energy without enough supply of oxygen.
Lactate (lactic acid) – is a byproduct of energy (glucose) use of the muscles, that stores in muscle cells and can also be traced in blood. It accumulates at higher intensity of exercise (running uphill, catching runaway buss, bicycling uphill, escaping the shark in ocean or grizzly bear in woods) where oxygen is limited.
The most common use of the term “anaerobic threshold” is to describe a phenomenon that takes place mainly in athletes - the maximal speed or effort that an athlete can maintain and still have no increase in lactate. At this speed or effort, lactate levels in the blood remain constant, at about 4 mmol/l.
Any increase in effort or speed above this level will cause lactate and its associated high acid levels to increase steadily. This will eventually force the person to slow down or stop. The time to stopping or slowing down will depend upon how far the athlete is above the maximum steady state effort, the event the athlete is competing in, the type of athlete (strength or endurance) and his cardiovascular conditioning.
The working muscle cells can continue this type of intensity with anaerobic energy production at high rates for some short period, usually 1 – 7 min., depending on intensity. During this time lactate accumulates in muscles to high levels. And you either escaped that bear, or you will have to stop and convince him that he is really not that hungry, and that raspberries taste much better than you.
Anaerobic threshold is in most individuals at 4 mmol/liter of lactate, measured in your blood. This measurement is done by doctor or nurse pinching your finger or ear with tiny needle and taking small amount of blood sample to measure the lactate at certain intensities (speed and heart rate), while you are still running on treadmill, rowing on rowing machine, or bicycling on stationary bike.
I remember going from my VO2 max testings with sore fingers, because they were all pinched by a little needle for taking a blood sample. It usually didn’t hurt at all, mainly because the pain from the intensity on rowing machine I was on was much higher.
Anaerobic threshold is the state of the body, where certain amount of lactic acid is already deposited into your muscles, but you can still keep the intensity and supply enough oxygen to prevent lactic acid build up.
Generally the higher the levels of VO2 max of a person the higher the anaerobic threshold is.
Anaerobic threshold in practice
When you run on the treadmill and start slowly increasing your speed until your lactate reaches about 4 mmol/l, and lets say your speed will be 6.3 miles per hour at this state, you will be able to keep going as long as you want at this intensity. You are just at or slightly below your own anaerobic threshold.
Of course, eventually your back will start hurting, or you will need to visit a bathroom, or run out of energy and you will have to stop. But unless you increase the intensity, you will be burning energy mainly aerobically with oxygen and that means no further lactic acid accumulation.
Now let’s say, that you increase the speed on the treadmill to 6.5 miles per hour and keep running. You will be able to still continue running for extended time, but your lactate will slowly build up in your blood and muscles and finally reaches the point when you have to stop. Let’s say, this happens 10 minutes later.
If you increase speed on the treadmill even higher, from 6.3 miles per hour to 6.7, the lactate will build up in you blood stream much faster and you will have to stop much sooner. Probably in 5 minutes of so.
From this example, your anaerobic threshold will be at around running speed of 6.2-6.3 miles per hour.
This information is very important if you are an athlete and you are trying to increase your VO2 max, and generally your aerobic capacity.
It is important, because training at anaerobic threshold level, or just a little bit below it shows to be the most effective way to increase VO2 max.
So if my anaerobic threshold shows on concept2 rowing machine to be at the speed of 1:45 min per 500 meters, I will try to apply this information in my training. And that would be: Doing few of my training sessions on the water in this particular speed for extended period of time.
To measure this speed, we all had a speedometer in front of us. It is a little monitor that’s connected to the boat with a little propeller under water that measures your speed.
But of course this system has it’s flaws. The monitors don’t know if you are rowing downstream or upstream, or if wind blows into your face or into your back. And constant adjustment is necessary.
Experienced athletes know by just how they feel, if they reached or are close to their own anaerobic threshold. It’s a feeling that’s very uncomfortable, but they still can endure it for a long time. They can apply anaerobic threshold workout sessions without any monitors very successfully.
High anaerobic threshold means better aerobic performance
If we go for a run together and we will run at the pace of 6.5 miles per hour and your anaerobic threshold/ lactate threshold is at 6.7 miles per hour and mine is at 6.3 miles per hour, you will be just cruising, happily smiling and easily leading conversation with me. And I will be barely keeping up with you, not able to say a word. You will be looking at me and thinking: what’s wrong with you buddy?
That’s exactly what athletes are trying to achieve. They are training to increase their anaerobic threshold, so they can be the one just cruising and winning, and their opponents suffering and loosing.
Having a high lactate threshold and high VO2 max levels is a fantastic thing to have if you are a competitive endurance athlete. And if you have it higher than everybody else in your chosen sport, shelves at your home are going to be filled with a lot of trophies, for winning your races.
Lance Armstrong isn’t really suffering more than anybody else on the road as many of us might think. He is actually suffering much less and that’s why he is winning his races.
He has high VO2 max and high anaerobic threshold and that means less suffering and more winning. Just try to do what he does in 1/2 of his speed. You will suffer the most of all and you’ll probably end up finishing your Tour the France stage last.
The main goal for an endurance athlete is to push his anaerobic threshold higher. And higher your VO2 max levels are the higher your anaerobic threshold is at your specific aerobic activity, eater it is running, swimming or rowing.
How do you increase you anaerobic threshold (lactate threshold)?
Like I wrote before: The higher the VO2 max of the person is, the higher his anaerobic threshold is too. That’s why, training plan for maximization of VO2 max level is the most effective way to increase anaerobic threshold.
And that training plan consists of sensitive placements of different endurance kinds of training sessions, like: interval training sessions, anaerobic threshold level long uninterrupted distance endurance training sessions, and long, less intensive uninterrupted long distance endurance sessions.
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October 5th, 2011 Milan
Achieving maximum levels of VO2 max is mainly for athletes and people who compete at certain endurance sports like triathlons, long distance running, swimming, rowing, cycling and others.
Even if you play recreational team sports like soccer, basketball, hockey and other endurance demanding sports (not American football or baseball which are mainly explosive and dynamic power demanding sports).
If you are just a normal person, who is trying to stay fit and healthy, you don’t have to waste your time chasing maximum levels of VO2 max. You are most likely never really need it.
Doing some cardiovascular exercise 3-4 times per week for 20-60 minutes will be enough to keep you fit and healthy.
I competed at rowing for a long time. VO2 max training was a main part of my conditioning.
Below is a weekly VO2 max plan that we commonly used for maximum VO2 max enhancement.
This plan was done by us rowing on the water, but you can do it while running, swimming, bicycling, cross country skiing, or performing other endurance activities.
Warning!
This is a plan for a competitive athlete, not for somebody who is just starting. You need to seriously build up to this level.
And also, it might not be very health beneficial for you, since athletes go to the extremes to get an edge in performance. And sometimes, it’s just too much of an abuse for the body.
Demanding competitive sport training can help you perform on the race, but might hurt you in different way. For example immunity system weakens under such a training load. Making you more susceptible to get sick often. Also, injuries happen more often to over trained athletes.
And there is a time factor too. Not everybody has so much time for training. It can get very time consuming.And when you don’t train, you are so tired, you only eat or sleep. I have been there too.
The science behind this plan is that, you are managing different kinds of intensities and fitting them to your weekly plan in the most efficient way. That means, you want to pack as much as you can into your week, while being very careful about your body’s recovery.
Different intensity activities need different periods of time for recovery. For example after intensive interval workout your body needs from 48 to 72 hours to recover.
And activities like long distance endurance trainings that last 45 min. to 3 hours and more in moderate intensity can work as a recovery workout itself. But, still be very effective for VO2 max improvement.
You shouldn’t take this plan as written to the stone. We are all different. We respond to different loads of training differently.
VO2 max and over-training
Clear communication between an athlete and coach, about how is athlete handling the load and constantly monitoring his health and feelings is very important. And sometimes the extra day off is necessary for optimal recovery. Other times increase in load is beneficial.
Coach – athlete factor is very important. And couch needs to be very sensitive about how is athlete feeling and make individual adjustments if necessary.
I remember in our rowing team, there was a certain kind of macho-ism between coaches and athletes.
We all wanted to do always what was written in the plan. We were also strongly encouraged by our coaches to finish the plan. No matter how tired we were and keep going. Even if we were clearly over-trained.
Showing no emotions and acting like you could handle even more, to show everybody how tough you are was normal in our team.
Saying that you were tired, over-trained and that you needed a day off was considered being weak.
The result of course was substantially decreased performance. And doing more in this case was less. We were training more than others, but we didn’t perform better than them on important races.
It is very important to be very sensitive to the feelings and over-training signs in pursuit of maximum VO2 max.
Being smart and sometimes doing less can seriously increase your performance.
So, I am considering, that you’ll be very cautious about over-training and take it very seriously. If so, there is nothing you should be afraid off. Try this plan and see how it works.
VO2 max plan – for reaching your maximum levels
Monday:
Day off.
Tuesday:
Long intervals training.
Warm up 3000 meters (about 15 minutes) - easy pace.
High intensity intervals, where heart rate goes up to 180 – 200 beats per minute for an athlete. It will vary between individual athletes,
2 x 1000 meters – about 3 min. – high intensity interval/1000 meters between - 5 minutes in light intensity
2 x 15000 meters – about 5 min. – high intensity interval/1500 meters between - 7 min. in light intensity
1 x 2000 meters – about 8 min. – high intensity interval
Finishing training session with 3000 meters cool down rowing – about 15 min.
Wednesday:
Long distance rowing - 21 kilometers on water – 2.5 hours – 50-60% of aerobic capacity. Which in my case used to be at a heart rate between 160- 170 beats/min. This heart rate will also vary between athletes, depending on their fitness level.
Some very short explosive sprints were added to this workout for speed improvement, like 7 x 10 maximum speed strokes with long periods between them – about 5 – 10 minutes.
Thursday:
Long distance- 18 Km on water – about 2 hours at anaerobic threshold intensity, which is about 60-80% of maximum aerobic capacity(it varies between athletes). I will write about Anaerobic threshold for better understanding in my next article.
Friday:
Shorter interval training
Warm up – 3000 meters – about 15 minutes
7×500 meters – about 75 seconds maximum intensity/500 meters between each interval in very easy intensity – 5 min.
Cool down – 3000 meters – 15 min.
Saturday:
Long distance rowing – 25 kilometers – about 3 hours light 50-60% of VO2 maxintensity - my heart rate 145-155 beats/ min. Yours will be different. Don’t forget about that. It depends how aerobically trained you are.
Sunday:
Long distance rowing – 18 kilometers in anaerobic threshold intensity - 60-80% of VO2 max intensity.
VO2 max training and recovery
As you can see, those long distance endurance trainings are fit right between those hard intensive interval sessions. While there are some exceptions, you should never do two hard interval trainings in 2 consecutive days. And you should keep at least 48 hours between them.
The reason is simple: Your body doesn’t have time to recover in one day.
Quite opposite reaction has your body to long distance endurance workout, where you don’t increase your heart rate past 60-70% of your maximum heart rate (that also varies between athletes). Your body is actually recovering faster than, if you were just sitting on the sofa the whole day.
By this point I hope you understand that the recovery in intensive, demanding athletic plan plays a key role for every athlete. VO2 max maximization training is not different.
Achieving higher VO2 max levels takes longer than finishing one week plan. It actually takes forever.
If you are an athlete, and you want to achieve your own maximum VO2 max levels, you have to stick with it for very long time. You have to experiment with it and adjust accordingly. No one plan fits all.
If you are serious about you VO2 max levels and you work persistently and intelligently on it, you will be rewarded with incredible aerobic performance.
So go, work hard at it, be smart about it, and become the best of all. I think, that’s what you really want. I know, I used to be one too. Winning means everything if you are competitive endurance athlete.
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September 27th, 2011 Milan
What is VO2 max? It is a measurement of how much oxygen can your body consume, usually measured per kilogram of body weight in certain period, usually 1 min. VO2 max is the maximum capacity of an individuals body to transport and use oxygen during incremental exercise. Also called maximum oxygen consumption. It reflects aerobic physical fitness of individual.
VO2 max is expressed either in absolute rate in liters consumed per minute (l/min) or as relative rate in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min).
I remember being obsessed with VO2 max when I was competitively racing in rowing. I would go to our sport medicine department and ask my doctor: How can I reach maximum VO2 max levels? How can I increase it? Is it important? Do genes play a role?
Why? A simple answer to that question is that, whoever had higher VO2 max on race track was a winner. Of course in reality, it is not that simple.
Yes, having high levels of VO2 max is a huge advantage, but being able to cross the finish line first takes more than that, like certain technique, pain tolerance, outdoors conditions, nutrition and others.
Interesting thing is, that when I talk to people about VO2 max, and it is the first time they hear about it, they think that having high VO2 max is a bad thing. It is quite understandable. If you really think about it. Having high VO2 max means you consume more oxygen to do certain work than other person. Needing more of something to do something sounds like a bad thing.
But, the opposite is true. Every movement we make is happening by contracting muscles. For a muscle to contract, it needs energy. That energy supply for our muscles is mainly glycogen, which is human kind of carbohydrate, than fat and protein. And our body is constantly using combination of these nutrients for energy.
But nature made this process a little bit more complicated than that. To use that energy we also need oxygen. We actually can do certain movements without oxygen at the moment, but eventually we will have to supply it later.
VO2 max perfect example is 100 yard sprint. In real life it would be you catching a bus or train that’s already on the go. If you sprint 100 yards, it will be fast intensive activity, but it will not seem like a big deal to you. You sprint, you finish, you catch your buss and you breath heavily after that.
What you just did is a very intensive activity for about 15 seconds. And this activity was done, burning mainly carbohydrates, some fat and some protein too. But you burned exponentially more energy and used very little oxygen to cover that energy. That’s why, when you stopped, you were still breathing heavily.
Your body just experienced very intensive burning energy without supplying enough oxygen. And now you are covering that deficit. Maybe for another 3 minutes, maybe shorter or a little bit longer.
If you could supply that oxygen during this intensive sprint in full, you would have incredible ability to do endurance exercises and probably become Olympic champion in several insurance sports.
But there are very few people in this world who’s bodies can do it.
Basically what happened was, instead of burning energy with a presence of oxygen and exhaling the waste (CO2), you were burning it without it and keeping the waste in your body, in your muscles.
This waste is called lactic acid and eventually, if you continue doing this intensive activity for longer period of time, you will have to stop. The lactic acid will not let you go any further. You will have to decrease that intensity and start running a little bit slower, or start walking until that oxygen deficit is supplied.
What is VO2 max in practice?
Many of us will never really experience the true VO2 max in practice. But if you engage in any kind of recreational and competitive intensive endurance activities like swimming, kayaking, bicycling, running or others you will.
In 1998 when I raced at the international regatta in Vienna – Austria, I placed second, behind Croatian rower. This was a singles race, which used to be my specialty. I still clearly remember the race progressing.
We started and immediately I and my competitor from Croatia separated from the the pack and were leading the entire time.
The race is 2000 meters, which takes about 7 – 8 minutes to complete, depending on wind, currents and other conditions. It is a clearly VO2 max dominating activity. That simply means that, who ewers body can consume more oxygen wins.
People often thing, that rowing is about strength. While strength in definitely a part of it, endurance (VO2 max), the ability to consume more oxygen is 90% of a success.
500 meters to the finish line, we were about 11 seconds ahead of the pack and my co racer from Croatia started increasing the intensity and getting slightly ahead of me. I tried to keep up. The gold medal was in stake and I really wanted to win it. But my body said no.
My muscles were already full of lactic acid – the waste, that was accumulating in my muscles. Instead of me exhaling it as CO2. Remember? You can do this only if your body can consume more oxygen and cover that intensity without lactic acid accumulation.
At this point I was overcooked, as we used to call this state. My muscles were full of lactic acid, I was hurting, and it was impossible for me to increase intensity to keep up.
At this point my body wasn’t consuming more oxygen. I reached my VO2 max and the waste (Lactic acid) was deposited and was still depositing in my muscles, instead of me exhaling it by breathing out (CO2).
My counterpart from Croatia still had some reserves left, and I can clearly tell that his VO2 max – maximum oxygen consumption was higher than mine. It probably wasn’t by much but it made a big difference.
I ended up finishing second, 5 seconds after my opponent. I collected my silver medal with a thought in my mind, that I have to keep working on my VO2 max.
For competitive endurance athlete, working on VO2 max never ends. A lot of experimentation is involved in the process. Reaching maximum VO2 max is the name of the game if you want to be a successful endurance athlete.
VO2 max in medicine
VO2 max is also tested in older people and people with serious lung conditions.
If you really think about it, oxygen is the most important thing we need to live. We can live without food and water for several days, but we will not survive without oxygen for longer than 5 minutes.
When people get older, or they have some serious lung condition, their VO2 max substantially decreases. To survive and maintain their quality of life, it is critical for these people to keep their VO2 max the highest possible.
For an older person whose VO2 max is very small, climbing a flight of stairs can feel like racing Olympic final in crew.
Older people will strongly benefit from endurance training, to increase or maintain theirs VO2 max. Walking, swimming and other endurance activities are recommended for older people to do by doctors. To help them to maintain and increase their VO2 max.
Now, that you know what is VO2 max, the question is what to do to make it higher?
VO2 max changes in all of us constantly. It really depends on how much, how often and what kind of cardiovascular activity you do. But generally, for people who are not athletes and don’t care about competing in Olympic Games some day, 30 minutes of vigorous exercise everyday will keep their VO2 max on healthy levels.
If you are a competitive athlete do, that’s a different story. To bring your VO2 max to the maximum levels, you need to do a lot of endurance training. And a different kinds of it. Since we are all different, we also respond to various kinds of training differently. But generally 5-7 endurance sessions of various intensity will bring your VO2 max to your maximum potential.
After my own experimentation with my VO2 max levels, I came up with the training that worked best for me. And generally it could work very well for you too. It was a well thought combination of interval training and a long distance endurance training. I will write about it in my next article.
VO2 max and genetics
When you see athletes like Lance Armstrong or Ethiopian marathon runners constantly winning theirs gruesome long endurance events, their great VO2 max genetics are at play. Yes, some people are more gifted by nature by higher levels of VO2 max than others.
The common rule that hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard still applies at VO2 max levels. If your friend in your running team is more gifted and has naturally higher VO2 max levels than you, you can still be a faster and better runner if you work harder and smarter than him.
Lance Armstrong is a special case. He is a guy hugely gifted by natural with high natural levels of VO2 max. But he also works incredibly hard. In his case, drive, work ethic and talent creates one, if not the most successful endurance athlete in a history of sport. He won 7 Tour de France titles and I don’t think that, we will see anybody beating his record very soon.
VO2 max and health
High, above average levels of VO2 max are also associated with healthy cardiovascular system, and generally with great health.
I think everybody should strive to improve theirs VO2 max levels. To do that, you have to do cardiovascular exercises regularly.
What is your VO2 max?
You can get your VO2 max levels tested in any sports medicine facility. And they will tell you your exact levels. However, if you are not an athlete and you feel physically fit and exercise regularly, you don’t have to worry about knowing your VO2 max levels. They are most likely fine and healthy numbers you can be proud of.
Posted in Aerobic training, Sports medicine | 1 Comment »
March 1st, 2010 Milan
Aerobic activity is critical for your health. To keep your heart, lungs, brain and everything else in your body working efficiently, you have to perform some aerobic exercise at least 30 minutes 5 times per week.
That doesn’t mean, you have to go to gym all the time to do that.
Our ancestors certainly weren’t going to the gym or taking Spin classes. And most of them were fit and healthy.
They derived their physical fitness from sheer labor. You can do that too.
Do your aerobic exercise few times per week just working physically hard if you don’t have a time to get to the gym.
If your work requires some physical labor, you are really lucky and you probably are already reasonably fit.
Here are my favorite unconventional aerobic activities:
- Digging the hole on the beach or in the garden and burring it back for 20 minutes
- Washing windows or floors for 45 – 60 minutes
- Dancing fast for 30 minutes
- Moving boxes and furniture for 30 minutes
- Shoveling snow for 20 minutes
- Racking leaves for 30 – 45 minutes
- Caring groceries or anything heavy home for 30 minutes
- Washing and waxing car for 45 minutes
- Piking wood for 25 minutes
If you haven’t done some of these aerobic labor activities before and want to add them to your fitness program, great! But remember to start slowly, don’t overdo it, keep things lighter and do it shorter in the beginning. Than increase the load and duration.
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