[balfer]

All,

I’m  “untrained” – never really exercised in my life. Bought the Dr. Peter Attia book and now have gone deep on the podcast, etc. 3 months ago, I started training seriously, 4x “Zone 2” and 1x Vo2Max weekly (Plus strength training.)

To estimate my Zone 2, I used the “talk test” as well as the % heart rate and came up with 130BPM as a guide.

After 3 months, I’ve noticed many positive changes. The resistance on the bike needs to go a lot higher to get to 130BPM than it did before. Less out of breath climbing the stairs. etc.

I strapped on my old Apple Watch to see what it would have to say about my VO2Max increase and, lo and behold, it said I was the same as before- low. (20.2, to be exact.)

Now, I realize that Apple Watch isn’t really measuring VO2Max, it’s just estimating it using heart rate. So, I theorized that while I had made some adaptations to my heart rate at higher BPMs, I had not improved my “walking” heart rate that AW was using to estimate VO2Max. Confirmed that by looking back at previous readings. My “Outdoor Walk” heart rate remained about 105-110, same as before the training started.

That sent me down a rabbit hole of exploring Zone 2 lactate testing, Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome, and other fun topics. I began to suspect that I had (have) a pretty severe case of ADS, thanks to Scott Johnston’s detailed post on UH website.

I purchased my Lactate meter and did the test today. Here are the results:

Pre-Test Resting – .8

15 mins on treadmill at 1.7mph – 100-105 BPM 2.6

20 mins on treadmill at 2.4mph – 115 BPM 3.8

25 mins on treadmill at 2.7mph – 125 BPM 3.4

30 mins on treadmill at 3.2 mph – 135 BPM 2.7

You can see lactate starts really high at a really low BPM. (My resting HR is about 70, so just walking around at a very slow pace gets me to 105.) You can also see the drop at the 130’s where I’ve been training.

So, where would you go from here?

Should I “train” for a few months at 100-105, which would be basically 1.5mph “saunters” and see if I can get the heart rate to go down at that speed? That wouldn’t even break as sweat.

Should I train at 115, since that’s about where I got the 1mmol jump? At least that would feel like a little workout.

Should I keep doing what I’m doing, because it’s clearly doing something?

And if I do have to go all the way down to 100-105, do I need to do more than 4hrs per week, since it’s such a low HR?

All insight and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Scott Johnston]

Balfer:

Sorry to be so slow responding. I thought I responded, but it looks like my reply didn’t post.  So here goes:

First, do not rely on your AW to give you any meaningful estimate of your VO2max.  Besides, what you are exercising for is to improve your aerobic performance, not to move a needle on a measurement that is a proxy for performance.

Your early lactate numbers are not outrageous, but they do indicate someone with what we call aerobic deficiency. While it could be related to metabolic efficiency at 130-135, another contributing factor for the lactate dropping after 90 minutes is that you began to deplete muscle and liver glycogen stores, and your metabolism was forced to switch to more fat for fuel.   Muscle glycogen depletion is one of the most powerful signals to your genes to make beneficial aerobic adaptations.

I would recommend you do a HR drift test as described here.

We have used that test to establish the upper limit of zone 2 with literally thousands of athletes, and it correlates very well with lab gas exchange tests.

As for what to do next:

Do the HR drift test to set the top of Z2.  Do all your endurance training below that HR value.  Drop the VO2 max workouts. They are slowing your aerobic adaptation.  High-intensity training with a large accumulation of lactate and the concomitant hydrogen ions H+ down-regulates the gene expression for the aerobic adaptations you are looking for.  There is a time and place for high-intensity training, and it does have a beneficial effect on cardiac stroke volume, but your limitation is peripheral (muscular metabolism), not central (cardiac output), and you need to focus on the low-hanging fruit. You might want to read this article .

If you choose not to do that, I would continue what you are doing.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  But the way you know your training is working is by measuring performance, not a performance metric.  Do a time trial at 115 or what ever HR you choose. Train using that upper limit and repeat the time trial in 4 weeks.  That is usually long enough to see measurable progress.

You may also find this book a useful resource.

I hope this helps.
Scott

[SlowAndSteady]

Scott is right.

 

also, I made huge improvements to my severe aerobic deficiency thru quitting alcohol and just walking every day for multiple months. Like raised my aet ceiling 30bpm

[Andrew Bollard]

@balfer:

I guess the first question woiuld be: what are your training goals? You sound like you’re just generally trying to improve your aerobic endurance at the moment, but given that most folks are here for mountain sports training advice please correct me if I’m wrong. This will inform the training modalities that are best suited to your goals.

How did the lactate/heart rate figures correspond to your breathing? Did you feel like you were at a conversational, nose-breathing pace throughout, or was your breathing laboured and “mouthy” at e.g. 135 BPM?

The way to cure ADS is to spend a lot of time training at your Aerobic Threshold, slowly building up your weekly volume over several months to whatever is the most you can sustain. Although this will be frustratingly slow in the beginning and it’ll be a long time before you can run or hike and keep your heart rate below your AeT, the good news is that you can make very appreciable gains in the next 6 months if you’re consistent. The higher the weekly volume, the better; 10 hours a week training at AeT will yield much faster results than 4, but of course this is subject to how much free time you have to train.

It’s probably advisable to do a heart rate drift test to give yourself another baseline to work from in addition to lactate testing. I’m not clear from your post if you’ve seen Scott’s latest articles on this site discussing ADS; if not, have a look this article for reference on how to do a heart rate drift test. This article explains what the different heart rate zones are, and this article specifically deals with ADS and how to know when you’ve been “cured”.

Hope this is helpful and fire away with more questions if you have them.

[Author]

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