#13 Cardio
'You're going to need a bigger engine'
This month, the Healthy Humans newsletter is going to start getting more specific. So far, I’ve talked generally about why it’s a good idea to stay functionally fit as we age and how that can improve your healthspan. Last month, I covered how getting some support and guidance from a coach might help you with developing healthy habits for the rest of your life.
So it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of Exercise and Training. In this newsletter, we will look at Cardio Training - your pump, pipes & pistons. Along with Strength training, these are the two foundations of fitness. So next time I will dive into the strength side of things.
Cardio training is otherwise known as CV (Cardio-Vascular) or Aerobic training. It is all about delivering Oxygen to the working muscles via the blood. There are loads of different activities that you can do to improve aerobic fitness, not least walking. Any sustained activity that increases your breathing, heart rate and body temperature is aerobic exercise. Running, cycling, swimming, rowing, nordic skiing, skipping, dancing and hiking to name but a few.
When starting from scratch, cardio training isn’t fun. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hard. But it’s the hard which makes it good. Going through the discomfort is what will make it slightly easier next time. Imagine if you could take your 1.0-litre Nissan Micra for a thrash down the motorway, revving the b@ll@cks off the poor thing with Thrash Metal blaring out of your speakers. When you get home you just replenish the fuel and check the oil then leave it in the garage for a few days to cool down and settle. Then next time you go to take your car out for a spin, it’s transformed into a 1.5-litre Ford Kuga with some classic Yacht Rock coming from your speakers, and this keeps happening until one day you find yourself cruising down the motorway in your Audi RS6 Avant 4 litre V8 with relaxing classical music playing on your sound system. Of course, cars don’t work like this. Imagine the nightmare of having to ring your insurance company every week to tell them your engine got bigger again. But this is how the body works. Expose it to the right kind and amount of stimulus and it adapts. It doesn’t like being out of its comfort zone so it makes itself better to cope with the increased demands. Remember the triangle of Training/Recovery/Nutrition? Get these 3 things right in the correct doses and your engine will start to grow.
The engine is just an analogy for your aerobic capacity or VO2max. This used to be a term only heard in elite sports circles or by coaches trying to sound a bit sciency. But these days, every podcast about health, fitness and longevity espouses the benefits of improving your VO2max. V=Volume and O2 = Oxygen. It is a measure of how much Oxygen your body is actually using during any given activity. You don’t need to know your VO2max score to get fitter, but some fit watches and wearables can give you estimates. It decreases with age and is slightly lower in females than males. The average for general population is somewhere between 30-40. This number represents ml of oxygen per min per kg of body weight (ml/min/kg). Some of the highest numbers ever recorded are amongst nordic skiers and cyclists with scores in the 90’s.
When I was in the Fire Service, we used several tests to predict VO2max. The required score was 46 for entry and 42 for operational staff. The dreaded 20 metre Bleep test was always my favourite but we stopped using it as an entry test as there was evidence that it was biased against female candidates. If you have access to a treadmill you can try one of the other tests -
Chester Treadmill Walk Test (42ml/min/kg)
Chester Treadmill Run Test (46ml/min/kg)
Read the safety advice before attempting either test. They are not supposed to be maximal and you should stop if you feel overly tired or light-headed. Also note these tests are only predictions of your minimum VO2max. If you complete the test, then your VO2max is probably somewhere above 42/46. To get a true measurement you would need to do a maximal test in a lab environment (unpleasant).
It is also worth noting that VO2max scores are specific to the activity being tested. So if you are a good rower, you may get a good score in a rowing test but not so good in a running or cycling test.
So how do you improve your VO2max? This is a big subject and I’m already aware that this newsletter is reaching critical attention span. So in a nutshell, there are two things you should work on to improve your aerobic capacity, Central and Peripheral. The first is how much oxygen-rich blood you can transport to the working muscles. This is done by raising your heart rate to an unsustainable level for a short period. Try doing short(ish) high-intensity intervals. These are efforts longer than sprints (a few minutes) that get you breathing hard. Recover for a few minutes and then repeat several times. If you are on a walk, try marching uphill a few times and recovering as you walk back down. This should have the desired effect. After doing this sort of session for a while, your cardiac output will improve, meaning you are pumping out more blood per minute as your heart gets bigger and stronger (like any other muscle). As this improves, you may notice your resting heart rate getting lower.
The other thing you should work on is your utilisation. This is how much of the oxygen delivered to the muscle is actually used. This is improved by doing longer duration, sustainable exercise at a lower intensity than your HIIT sessions. These longer sessions will increase the number of mitochondria in the muscles. These are tiny ‘furnaces’ in the cell where oxygen and fuel are converted to energy. So the more mitochondria you have, the bigger your engine will be. Longer workouts also create more tiny blood capillaries in the muscle which increase blood flow and increases oxygen diffusion into the muscle. For this reason, your long workouts should be specific to the sport or activity that you are trying to improve - for example going for long swims won’t improve your cycling much.
I hope this makes sense. As with everything else I’ve talked about so far, if you don’t maintain this kind of fitness it will decline with age and will get harder to reclaim with every passing year.
Cycle Coaching
It’s an exciting time of year for me and my cycling clients. We’ve been doing the work over the winter out on the road and in the gym. The green shoots of spring are just around the corner, and the racing and events calendar is starting to fill up.
The indoor bike sessions have been a godsend with all this crap weather over the last 2 months. I can’t even contemplate the old days when we used to go out in bobble hats and woolly jerseys to get the miles in whatever the weather. These days if there is any sign of ice or a howling gale then it’s the Wattbike and Zwift for me. This is where I do the High-Intensity sessions described above. I see the indoor sessions as putting the car in the garage for some engine tuning and then when the weather is more conducive, I can get out and get some steady miles in the bank. Modern cycling kit and more reliable weather apps also help with planning your training week.
Remember, you reap the benefits in the summer of the hard work and miles you are doing now. Don’t wait until you are getting your head kicked in to start thinking about structured, progressive your training.
There have been several tragic cycling accidents and fatalities out on the road both here and abroad recently involving vehicles. It’s always sobering when you read about these incidents and makes you wonder at what point the risks will outweigh the benefits. I think that, because the consequences of these accidents can be devastating, our perception of risk increases. All we can do is try to protect ourselves with bright kit, flashing lights and a helmet. After that, we just hope that drivers see us as humans and not just obstacles to get past as quickly as possible.
Let’s all stay safe out there.
In my next newsletter, we’ll look at the other foundation of fitness - Strength. How it helps with sports and why everyone should be doing resistance exercise.
If you are interested in some coaching or just want to chat about training, contact me through any of the channels below -
Email - Andy@fit360.co.uk
Txt/Whatsapp 07779 705971