Endurance Training is a Safety Net for Metabolic and Heart Health
Not intended for enthusiasts only, endurance training is a built in mechanism that makes us innately human
Warning: this is long, read it anyway.
To Health Advocates—
Gone are the days where endurance training was reserved as a modality for marathon enthusiasts, road junkies, and the lay man’s “I dont know what to do for a workout, so I guess I’ll just go for a jog.” Reborn are the days where access to information has bred a well-balanced understanding on the role of cardiovascular endurance on human physiology among many health and fitness professionals. Coming off the modern trend that everything must be high intensity all the time, the scales are tipping back towards the low intensity crowd where it belongs. There is still work to be done, but the fact that “aerobic base” seems to be a more common phrase in my day to day interactions is proof enough for me.
Ironman events, triathlons, and marathons have drawn in scores of people from all over the world into its ecosystem. The longer you stay in this ecosystem the more likely you are to end up with a correct understanding of physiology, and its application into training and its effect on your overall health. Some of the world’s most renowned exercise physiologists, data scientists, and clinical researchers obsess over the intricacies of different energy systems, cardiovascular zones, training methods, and exactly what is happening at a chemical level to our body at an exact moment in time during training. Due to this understanding and progression of scientific research, these scientists coordinate the training and schedules of professional endurance athlete’s all over the world looking to gain fractional amounts of a competitive edge against their opponents.
Despite this ever-narrowing accuracy and precision, it is my opinion that the application of these methods and this precision has largely not gone mainstream. There can be numerous reasons for this, but one glaring misunderstanding that I seek to rectify is that it must be hard. Fitness culture glorifies exceptional workouts and the “no pain no gain” mantra that it has hijacked basic science and understanding and has acted as a deterrent for many people to begin a very enriching journey, that is quite frankly, not intended to be hard. Not to discredit the hard work of endurance athlete’s all over the globe, but what if I told you that a main driver of their sensational fitness was actually patience, and not pain? Not only is the barrier for entry to see exceptional outcomes very small, but cardiovascular and muscular endurance is innately a superpower of humans that is deeply embedded into our physiology.
Below you will see a brief history of why cardiovascular and muscular endurance is a prime feature of modern humans, and a beginners guide to training if you are looking to excel in this area, or just reap the lifespan benefits of participating.
Spoiler alert: It’s easy, it’s supposed to be easy, and if you’ve been told otherwise, they probably had incorrect information and that’s ok, it happens.
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Not fast, not strong, but relentless
To spare you a long winded journey back in time, and to avoid having this newsletter shift from physiology to anthropology, I will preface by saying that humans are not a fast species and they are not a strong species. This is in comparison to other mammals who can easily gain speeds up to 30-40 mph+ (dogs and antelope to name a few), and have striking forces 3-10x greater than the strongest humans (bears and gorillas)—Mike Tyson, wouldn’t stand a chance. It is suggested and researched that it is our exceptional endurance and ability to learn that was a key factor in the development of humans, and that which sets us apart. Simply put, early humans learned to run down their prey or scavenge over long distances to the point that their pursuit succumbed to exhaustion, all the while learning to expertly track and predict movements of animals.
The history lesson is now over. If you are interested in reading a bit further on this topic I highly suggest these articles and research to gather a brief history into our evolutionary superpower.
Endurance running let us evolve to look the way we do.
Endurance running and the evolution of homo
What exactly does this early evolutionary feature have to do with humans in 2022?
Simple, and we all know the answer, cardiovascular endurance training is the most effective way to ensure heart health for a long life. Additionally, cardiovascular endurance training can be a safety net for metabolic health and a primary outlet for healthy fat loss. In order for this to be an effective outlet for fat loss and in order to develop exceptional endurance (for endurance enthusiasts), we must simply understand a few guiding principles.
1) We can develop and improve our body’s ability to burn fat.
First, let’s create the specificity needed to understand how this is possible. Cardiovascular training is most recognized on a five zone model. The model is determined by using percentages of your max heart rate (more on that later). This may look familiar to you, from third grade health class, and yes, we used the same model in undergrad for Exercise Physiology. Within these percentages we can find intensities at which we can exercise. Certain zones use different body fuels, and different physiological adaptations happen in these areas. Not being told about this model, or understanding this model, or not caring, or not having the discipline to piece-it together is where people make their first misstep. Let’s look at this, and a few examples. Keep in mind, variations of this five-zone model exist online with most having a very similar overlap. I believe this one to be efficient for general health, and memorization purposes.
The most important understanding that needs to happen is that your heart rate determines what you are accomplishing when you go out to exercise.
If a 200 pound, not very well trained (possibly even an averagely trained), male goes out for a “light jog” he will quickly bypass zones 1 and 2 and enter into zones 3 and potentially 4.
If a 115 pound female with a background in running goes out for a “light jog” it’s very possible she enters into zone 2, stays there, and runs there for an hour.
If a 145 pound female who wants to train for her first marathon starts her running program, it’s very likely she bypasses zone 2 on her first training session, and never develops the capacity to work down in this zone. This would mean her endurance is being built on a house of cards. Not in the sense that it wouldn’t quantify as exercise, but in the sense that metabolically it would be of little use to her. Additionally, it would fail to develop the skill of endurance, which was no doubt, her intention.
There is now a huge difference between the signals we are sending our body between these three people. We can play this game all day, by taking different demographics of people and anticipating what will happen from different exercise modalities. What is helpful to know is that “going for a light run” is a subjective opinion of what “light” actually means based off of skill level, mental toughness, prior training history, demographics, current stress levels, etc.
All you need to know, is that understanding how to calculate your heart rate, and having the discipline to stay in the zones is what actually matters. The modalities and adjectives “light run,” “hard run,” “easy bike ride,” are all just subjective measurements of intensity, and in my experience, are not even remotely close to being good indicators of what is actually happening.
Zones 1 and 2 are what we are after for lifespan, metabolic improvements, and most importantly, leisure.
The main point of this article is to solve a huge issue for two types of people
Group 1 - Regular people, like ourselves, who want to reap the benefits of cardiovascular training to be very lean, live a long life, and maximize overall health.
Group 2 - Any endurance training enthusiast who has yet to hear this information and doesn’t understand why their training consistently falls short. Or they’ve heard it, and it was not emphasized in a way to have them emotionally connect to it to change their behavior.
Calculate your max heart rate
In order to peg yourself to this model going forward, you will have to know the formula to calculate your heart rate max and each zone. You can briefly look at this math and come back to it at the end if you’d like.
[Heart Rate Max] = 211 - (0.64 x your-age)
If you are a person from group 1 listed above, like myself, just a regular person trying to reap the benefits of exercise on your overall health, lifespan, and waistline then it is very important to understand zones 1 and 2.
In zone 2, our body exercises its ability to burn fat. It uses fat as a source of fuel during the work, and if you spend enough time here, the adaptation starts to take hold into everyday life. (I am going to keep this article light on the science so we can talk about processes. If you want an article heavy on the science in an approachable way, then please read this article, zone 2 training for longevity and performance.) Anyway, in zone 2, we can find highly desirable adaptations for longevity and performance. People from group 1 often times haven’t been told this information, which is unfortunate, because deeply understanding this principle would expedite anyone’s goal pursuit. People from group 1 also sometimes have an awkward area where it is hard to bridge the gap. What usually goes wrong for group 1 people like myself?
Most people exercise above zone 2, sometimes on accident and sometimes on purpose because natural running intensity would bring them beyond this zone.
Running at this intensity usually requires slowing down significantly and it then feels too slow to be effective (this is a misunderstanding). This is the anxiousness that is created around the “no pain no gain” mantra.
People’s current circumstances of demographics do not assist in their pursuit. A quick example: A 200lb. male would need 25% more fitness than a 150lb. male to run at the same intensity when heart rate is the guiding factor. Sometimes the quickest way to improve running economy is to ensure health across the spectrum (sleep, nutrition, weight loss, etc).
People from group 1 aren’t really interested in running or biking and just want to be a little healthier and leaner. Enter zone 1:
Zone 1 training is also not glorified as it feels too easy and not sexy enough to be considered real work. In zone 1, however, we see many of the same benefits of zone 2, and the beauty of it is that it is 100% inclusive to all. What it lacks in overall intensity, you can make up for in time. Pacing at zone 1 could go on all day long (actually pacing at zone 2 should also feel like it can go on all day long). You are much more likely to feel slightly achey from pure duration, then ever be limited by your heart or endurance capabilities. Because of this, it is an excellent outlet to elevate overall metabolism and improve fat burning ability.
Let’s discuss the process
Below are a few examples of different people and how this would work for them. I will do my best to speak on behalf of as many common scenarios as I can. If you don’t relate, just comment below or email me (michael@crandallperformance.com) to discuss a better understanding of your specific situation. I would suggest that even if you are not one of the scenarios listed below, still read about it, as gaining a better understanding will have transference to your situation.
You want weight to lose, or have weight to lose, and are not interested in endurance training.
The quickest way for you to reap the benefits of endurance training to improve metabolic health and lose weight is to hammer out zone 1. With zone 1 training, what it lacks in intensity compared to zone 2 it makes up for in duration. Step 1 - Go for very, very long walks as often as you can and just breathe through your nose (an article for another day). Step 2a - accumulate total capacity on any given day. Simply put, someone who figures out how to walk 15,000 steps per day is going to have a much higher metabolism than someone who consistently walks 5,000 steps per day. Step 2b - Ditch the taxis, subways, Ubers, short car rides whenever possible and walk to your destination. Ditch the escalators, ditch the elevators, walk your dog, walk on the phone, walk with your spouse. Accumulation is the name of the game. Not only that, but accumulation of zone 1 work is fun, easy, burns fat, and increases your chances of a long lifespan with little likelihood of building up orthopedic issues. It’s not hard, and it’s not supposed to be. Recall our world record octogenarian who only worked out 90 minutes per week, but accumulated 2 hours and 30 minutes of zone 1 work per day!!
You are happy with your weight but want to increase or maintain a high quality of life.
Both zones 1 and 2 work for you. Occasionally participate in zone 2 training each week in the form of light running, easy biking, being on the elliptical, difficult hiking and learn to gauge your heart rate to 65% of your heart rate max (use the formulas above). If this is you, I would highly recommend reading this article I already posted above. If longevity is your goal, then finding the specificity of zone 2 would really help that pursuit. Additionally, much like the scenario above, just an accumulation of total effort will be valuable. In fact, just like the world record holder posted above, some of healthiest populations in the world are just great accumulators of total unstructured activity, and they never once busted out a calculator.
You are interested in improving at endurance training, whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or consider yourself well-seasoned.
Grasp the concepts of zone 2 as soon as you can, put your head down, and get to work. A heart rate monitor is not really negotiable in 2022 and will expedite the process for you. If you go out for a run or a bike and your heart rate jumps past zone 2, slow down, be patient and enjoy the process. It’s not hard to complete this type of work, in fact it’s easy. What is hard is being patient enough to complete this type of work. Many famous running programs typically give subjective terms to gauge your runs, e.g. “on Monday, do a light run.” In 2022, we don’t need to use subjective terms to have success anymore. We all have access to the tech once reserved for world class athletes, and we should take advantage of it.
The only difference between world class endurance athletes and laymen and women endurance athletes is that they have accumulated an incredible amount more hours in zone 2 than we have.
Closing remarks and why zones 1 and 2 create the foundation for overall health and all other athletic endeavors.
To briefly touch back on my opening tangent, I think it’s important to understand that this type of work is meant to be easy. Developing fitness at these intensities requires a dedication of time or total accumulation. It requires discipline and patience to restrain yourself and slow down. In the interim, that can feel annoying, but the goal can span a lifetime when we exercise a little patience. Not only that, but this is socially friendly fitness, leisure based fitness, and actually expedites the results without building up the pain/orthopedic issues common in marathon or century ride pursuits.
This type of training exercises our ability to shuttle lactate, and improve the function and quantity of mitochondria in our body. This is a keystone point when discussing longevity as a goal. The high intensity fads and “no pain no gain” toughness that litters the fitness world fails to understand the bigger picture of health and has tunnel vision on a few fit celebrities or health influencers online. An easy example: if I spend 30 minutes in the gym lifting weights, slamming medicine balls, and doing plyometrics, a workout like that would be glorified online as being a necessity to peak fitness. What that would fail to take into consideration is that everyday I’m on my feet for 15,000 steps. The 15,000 steps is boring to talk about, but it’s a necessary prerequisite for further levels of fitness that can be achieved in the gym.
Cardiovascular endurance training is innately human. It extends our lifespan, it improves our metabolic health, effects our waistline, and it changes our body at a physiological level to be better able to endure different types of stressors that we encounter frequently in 2022. Not only that, but it’s supposed to be easy. The difficulty is in showing up, not in performing.
What does a schedule look like for me on a week to week basis?
*This doesn’t have to be your schedule, but just showing an example that has really worked for me*
Sunday - Long walk or hike in zone 1 with my fiance
Monday - Resistance training
Tuesday - Zone 2
Wednesday - Resistance training
Thursday - Zone 2
Friday - Resistance training
Saturday Zone 2
Sometimes I miss a workout, but each day I average 15,000 steps because the underlying belief for me, based on science, is that accumulation in a healthy way is the name of the game. In reality, everyday is a zone 1 day.