There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Don't Let the Tail Wag the Dog: Rethinking Cardio Metrics
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...
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Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name there is a method to the madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412.
Speaker 1:All right, are we ready to talk about some fitness? I mean, I am really ready to talk about some fitness. This topic right here, I think, is so important I've talked about this before important I've talked about this before. If you've trained with me for a while, trained with me for a long while. Whatever, this topic has come up and resurfaces quite a bit, and the topic is don't let the tail wag the dog, all right. So specifically, I'm going to talk about this in regards to cardiorespiratory training, because I see this happened a lot. All right, so we know that the tail is supposed to wag the dog, right? I mean, it's not supposed to be the other way around. The tail isn't supposed to wag the dog. So that's, of course, what that term means, or that sentence means, and oftentimes we kind of get things backwards. So I want to talk about cardio intensity, specifically as it relates to, say, running and cycling and other forms of cardio. You can throw swimming in there too, to where there's a performance element in it, because when there's a performance element in it, all of a sudden trainees have a tendency to go by the performance elements to measure their fitness variables, versus the other way around. Hence they're letting the tail wag the dog. So let me give you some specifics.
Speaker 1:First, let's take running. Ironically, of course, I was thinking of this topic as I was running the other day and I think I've shared this before. That's where I get. A lot of the things that I want to talk about in the podcast come from when I'm out running, or the emails that we write this morning's actually, ellen wrote on massage, but often I'll write those or you know what? I have written so many books. Well, I've written three books. The third one just went to the publisher. The third one just went to the publisher, but I should say these books have been written across so many runs because I get the ideas when I'm running. I get the ideas when I'm working out. That's like my meditation time to really think on things. And then I do my due diligence, I do my homework and I make sure I'm ready to talk about it or write about it. So that's where this came from when I was running on Saturday. I'm like gosh.
Speaker 1:So many times you know we all, including myself, will fall prey to this. If we've run or if we do run and we have like Garmin watches or we have Apple watches or we have any kind of sports watch like that, that's telling us our pace. Too often times we're allowing that number to tell us what we should run at and in reality, pace is a performance objective. It is not a fitness objective. So if you right now go ahead and do this, you'll have fun with this. If you go in to a chat GBT or a meta AI or grok whatever service you use you know um and you or Google I mean Google's using all AI now, whatever and you say I run my 5k at this time or I run my three mile run, typically at this pace or this time, whatever. Or I bike 25 miles. It takes me an hour and a half, you know whatever. Or I swim 60 minutes and I do this many yards. I mean whatever. I mean our watches do all that. But I'm just saying this doesn't have to be confined to just your sports watches and then you ask it to give you the paces to train at. It will. It's going to give you the pace and that's what you asked it to do and that's fine. But it's not fine if you're trying to improve your fitness and I would argue, not even your performance, because these things are not all the same. Because these things are not all the same.
Speaker 1:The way we get more aerobically fit is a balance between duration, frequency and intensity. I mean, it's those things. Duration is how long, and really I could go off on a tangent which I have before, which is why time is so much better than miles, because when we're trying to improve fitness, it's about duration I don't argue this one too much because ultimately, if you're doing the miles, you're doing the time and vice versa. But it's about duration, frequency and intensity. We don't have a perfect formula. We know that it's a balance between overloading those things using the right amount of intensity, using the right duration for you and the frequency that works for you as well. And then we build a program. So pace is not really intensity, even though it is used as intensity, all right.
Speaker 1:So if you go out and you say you're going to run, let's say 10 minute miles, and that, like I mean, maybe the 10 minute miles makes complete sense for you based on your 5k. But let's say you're going to run it when it's January in Florida, at an ideal time of day, and you didn't do anything the day before, so you have fresh legs, you're not stressed, and it's beautiful temperatures, or at least good temperatures. That pace is going to feel way different than 10 minute miles in August, regardless of the time of day. High humidity in August, right, and maybe your legs are tired. But forget the legs part. I mean that's just another variable to add to it. Let's just use temperature. It's not the same thing. I mean that 10 minute mile in January might be like around a 60% of your VO2 max or maximum heart rate, and it might be 85 to 90% in August. It's not the same thing, all right.
Speaker 1:And what about terrain. You don't think terrain matters. So you can be on an asphalt road that's perfectly flat. 10 minute miles is going to feel oh, pretty easy, pretty moderate, whatever, depending on your fitness. Put it on a dirt hill, it's not going to feel the same. So I mean, obviously that's obvious, right, that's like well, of course, the same. So I mean obviously that's obvious, right, that's like well, of course. But what we don't understand is that those variables affect the impact on our body. What we're looking for is changes in the body. So we want the right stimulus to get the right response.
Speaker 1:So if we're going by pace all the time, chances are you are over training all the time because chances are you're going to think you need to run a faster pace than you need to. For example, you know most say running coaches will tell you that like for an easy or easy run not a long run, but an easy run it's going to be like about a minute slower per mile than your 5K average pace. So if you run a 5K at a nine minute mile, an easier run is going to be a 10. So everybody's going to go out that runs the 5K and that and run 10 minute miles. Probably not easy in August. Like, probably you're not allowing enough time or enough pace to change that. So that's not going to work.
Speaker 1:And the same can lapse in the pool. It's not the same. I mean you could be tired one day. The pool water could be hot compared to days that they water it overnight or whatever they do to make it cooler. I mean you don't know how many times I've gone to different pools.
Speaker 1:Different YMCAs have different policies depending on when they're going to start their water aerobics. The, you know, seniors typically do the water aerobics and they like the water warmer. So if they kind of dominate that particular YMCA, then they're not going to cool it off in the morning. So you'll go in, you'll jump in at six and it's going to be 80 something degrees already because they haven't cooled it off. Now, if it's, say, a swimmer dominant pool, I remember back when we had one of the areas better coaches here in Port Orange. They used to, you know, kind of accommodate him so they would have the cooler things on in the morning and you jump in. It'd be 76, 78, something like that. So that makes a difference.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I'm not saying what's best for policy for the Y. I'm just saying that you don't know it's a crapshoot. So you can jump in and the water's nice and cool. You're going to hit your times that you think you should hit. You're going to be like, oh okay, you're going to jump in on other days and the pool's going to be hot and, yes, we get dehydrated when we're in the water and it's not going to feel or be the same. And, of course, the same is true on the bike. Do you have headwinds out there? Do you have a tailwind? Are there hills? Is it a lot of turns? Is there? Is the terrain nice or is there part gravel? I mean, these things matter, okay, and if we only use that, if we only use miles per hour or pace, or pace in the pool, lap times in the pool or interval times in the pool, we are letting the tail wag the dog.
Speaker 1:What we should be doing is using a legitimate form of intensity to measure it, because rarely are these paces going to line up with where you should be. Like when you are training aerobically, which is what the majority of our cardiorespiratory training should be. It should be aerobic. Aerobic is moderate to easy. It is not hard. You start to get a little breathless at the higher end of aerobic but you can still talk.
Speaker 1:But that's just not the only variable. I've heard people say to me over the years I mean I've been doing this a long time and I've written in many, many different running periodicals Florida Running and Triathlon. I had a column and so I've been doing this a long time. So I've heard all of the excuses and all the reasons and people say, yeah, but you know, I can still talk. It's like, okay, but you're still well up above your upper aerobic zone and you're going to over train if you keep it up You're not. Just because you're not getting injured doesn't mean you're not getting over trained.
Speaker 1:So really, using pace like that and it's an ego thing. Runners and bicyclists and swimmers and triathletes it's an ego thing. They think, well, I should be doing this. But in reality, if you really want to train for fitness, whether you're a 5k person, a triathlete or just a fitness person, I don't mean just, I mean that's. I don't mean that at all.
Speaker 1:I think oftentimes people that do endurance events, you know, forget that the whole reason they're doing it is for fitness. Right, I mean, there's a way to measure it, but it's all about improving the fitness you would hope. And if you're improving your fitness, your performance is obviously going to go up. And we improve our fitness by going by frequency, intensity and time right. It is nothing to do with pace. So what is the best method to use for us everyday folk, like there are so many different ways to measure intensity?
Speaker 1:The gold standard has always been VO2 max, but that's not applicable for most people. You can get your VO2 max test done I used to do it but then what are you going to do with that information? It's not like you're going to walk around with a bag on your back. You know that measures everything as you go. Walk around with a bag on your back. You know that measures everything as you go. Oftentimes that was correlated back to heart rate and you were able to do that. That's great. You know some of the pros, some of the top endurance people. They're using what is called OBLA, or onset of blood lactic acid accumulation, or they're using lactate threshold. It's the same thing really, but they're using that and they're coming up with measurements of where it is and then they're checking it periodically or they're drawing that back to heart rate. I mean that's great too.
Speaker 1:But like we got a fitness problem in this country, we don't need to make it so complicated. What I would suggest that you do is simply use heart rate. It's not perfect but it's good. I noticed on my Garmin the other day. You know I didn't set my zones. It sets based on your age.
Speaker 1:So there's a formula we've used forever which is 220 minus your age and then you factor in your resting heart rate and you come up with your zone. So we call that the Carvonin formula or heart rate reserve formula. I mean we can do it by hand. We've been doing it forever. You know our sports watches do it for us and you can simply use that and make adjustments. That would be so much better than going by pace of what you think you should be and if you allow your ego to get involved like, oh, I should be running faster than this, just put the screen purely on heart rate and duration. If you don't have these watches and you're trying to figure it out for yourself, that's fine, just ask me if you don't want to. But basically, it's 220 minus your age, don't worry about the resting heart rate point, but then factor in roughly 0.80. Times it by 0.80, that's 80%. Keep it below that on most runs.
Speaker 1:You're going to find that if you were going by your easy pace running, you're over 80%. Especially in this heat you're probably well over it. I probably like all of us. But we follow people that post their heart rate numbers all the time on social media. I'm not a big fan of that. I think that's pretty like why, like nobody really cares. But some people do that and I always look at it and go. They are training at such a high heart rate for what they're calling an easy day and I know I'm well enough to go.
Speaker 1:They're going to argue and say it was easy, I could talk, and it's like it's not easy, like in this case. Numbers don't lie. It is still stressing the body. It is still stressing the endocrine system. It is still not doing what you want it to do to get the cardiovascular benefits. I mean you talk to any of the elite running coaches. They will tell you the same thing 80% or so of the training should be easy.
Speaker 1:Magic happens in the easier training zones. Magic happens your capillary density improves. Your mitochondria hypertrophy. The mitochondria are what receives the oxygen within the cells. They hypertrophy at lower aerobic intensities. They don't hypertrophy at higher intensities. Those things are happening at the lower levels. And then just the calorie burn. You're getting it already and the ease on the mind like you don't have to push yourself so hard with cardio. I mean you're using slow twitch muscle fibers. You should be. If you're using fast twitch muscle fibers, you're already anaerobic, you're already training too hard.
Speaker 1:Now there is a point to do intervals in anybody's plan I mean I shouldn't say anybody. You can get away with doing your cardio workouts if you're looking for general fitness and never get into that. So don't get me wrong. You could briskly walk every day and be absolutely fine. If you're training for general health and fitness, absolutely. If you are trying to improve your performance because you're going to do a 5k or whatever, then yes, there is a time to do a day or two hard per week where you're doing intervals. But the majority of cardio needs to be moderate to low intensity, and moderate is 80% or lower, lower, lower, lower.
Speaker 1:The cool thing with the Garmin watch is it'll tell you, it'll say you're in your aerobic zone or it'll say you're in your easy zone. I think Apple does all that too. So I'm going to keep this really simple for you at the easiest change you need to make, where you don't overthink it. I know the zones can be off. I know sometimes the watches aren't perfect when they calculate your zones. You can redo that, by the way, but the very least just use the zones they give you. If it says hard or what they might call threshold, that means you're going too hard. I think Garmin uses what they call threshold and then hard. I'm not really sure I have an Apple Watch 2, but it will probably say something like that Okay, then you're going too hard. Keep it aerobic, moderate or easy, whatever your watch says. And remember, if you want to calculate it, that's 80% and that is true whether you bike, whether you walk, whether you run or whether you swim.
Speaker 1:Certain activities are going to naturally drive up the heart rate easier than other activities. Jogging or running is going to drive the heart rate up higher than walking. That's just the way it's going to be. So for most people, most people you're not going to have to run or jog hard at all. Most people, you're going to just break into that pace of jogging and already be in your aerobic zone. I promise you that. You don't know how many times I've trained people and they'll say, I mean, as soon as I start to jog, my heart rate's over 80%. It's like, yeah, I mean it's going to do that and that's fine if you moderate it and pull it back.
Speaker 1:Cycling is always going to take more work to get your heart rate up because you're not weight bearing, you basically are not pushing against the resistance of the body because you're not weight bearing. You're using less overall musculature because you're basically using your quads, your hamstrings, your calves and your glutes and you're only using your core to stabilize yourself. So you're using less muscles and you think, well, when you run you're only using your legs. But that's not true. Your torso's bending, your arms are moving, you're getting your heart rate up higher. So it's going to be harder to get the heart rate up on a bike, but that doesn't mean it's different zones. It's just going to take you more work to, say, get the 70% on a bike than it would if you run. But 70% is 70% of max heart rate or VO2. When you swim, because you're in the horizontal position, the heart rate tends to not climb as fast, just kind of like cycling. Different reasons but same with cycling, so the heart rate's not going to be as elevated because your body is not in a vertical position. So that's why we really need to pay more attention to our heart rate and the true intensity versus our paces.
Speaker 1:Okay, the other suggestion I have, along with heart rate, is use RPE. Use the new RPE, which stands for rate of perceived exertion. In the old days we use the Borg scale rate perceived exertion, which measured from six to 20. And it's kind of funny little story in that people are like six, that's such a weird number. It's like, well, what they did was they figured most people again. It's so crazy when you really hear this. But most people's resting heart rate was around 60 and they were using 20 year olds. So they said you know most well if you're using age prediction. Then all 20 year olds max heart rates were olds. So they said you know most well if you're using age prediction, then all 20 year olds max heart rates were 200. So they use that. And then they took off a zero and made it six to 20. So six was basically rest, nothing, 20 was maximal effort. And then they came up with all these different corresponding numbers like 12 to 16 was moderate, 16 to 18 was vigorous, to hard. I mean it's really kind of silly when you learn that that's how they came up with the Borg numbers.
Speaker 1:But using RPE at least got people thinking about how things should feel. But we have a better version now which is just basically zero to 10. Zero is you're at rest, 10 is you're at a maximum. Aerobic is going to be somewhere between four and six. So if you just tell yourself you know, a 10 is maximum. We have a client that warms up here and he builds as he goes and his final two minutes eight to minute, eight to minute 10, he pushes a sprint. So you know he might feel near maximum. On that he might say, yeah, I'm at a nine or a 10. It's like, okay, so zero, rest 10. Maximum Aerobic is going to be somewhere around four to six. So you go okay, so if I'm running as hard as I can, that's a 10. If I really dial this back a little bit, I should feel comfortable. I'd rather you use RPE than use PACE, because PACE is going to throw you off. Pretty much.
Speaker 1:Everybody is going to overtrain if they use the same numbers in the summer that they used in the winter. If you're training outside, you're just going to Now on indoor training, like treadmills and indoor bikes, can you eventually figure out, like, what levels are equate to the certain heart rate zones you want to be at? Yes, I mean you can. I mean that's common sense. If you've been using a treadmill over and over and you know that, say you're in the one thirties, which for you is aerobic, and you're at 6.0 on the treadmill, it's like, well, yeah, then 6.0 is probably going to work for you. But training outside you're not going to be able to draw those kinds of conclusions. So you don't necessarily have to check it all the time indoors, but I think you're going to have to check it all the time outdoors.
Speaker 1:If you don't have a fancy watch, if you're old school and you don't want to use all that, then use RPE, just four to six. Tell yourself, aerobic just means my heart rate is elevated. I can still talk. I can't necessarily tell a Higgins story, if you remember Magnum PI, but I can talk and it's doable and I don't feel like I need to stop. It's comfortable to an extent. All right, if you just use that, I think you'll be off to a great start on that. You're not supposed to be killing yourself on aerobic intensity. All right, don't let the tail wag the dog. You need to wag your own tail.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to today's program. I ask you to please follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and please select automatic download, because that really helps the show. Now I want to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product. They have the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people with a great company. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a shout at 386-222-3165.
