What gets measured, gets improved.
If you want to improve your longevity, then we should know our VO2 Max level – as per Peter Attia!
I offer PNOE Metabolism testing which finds out YOUR current five heart rate training zones and VO2 Max (as well as a long list of other markers) – but just giving you a number as your VO2 Max without working together to create a plan HOW to improve YOUR VO2Max based on your current program, training levels, time, goals and GENETICS – it doesn’t really help you improve the aging process.
PNOE Training zones and physiological adaptations
Each training zone elicits different physiological adaptations on the human body.
- These physiological adaptations include improved cellular fitness, heart fitness, lung capacity, VO2max, and more.
- Each zone has specific effects meaning that spending time in it will improve only a specific set of these systems and not everyone.
- As a result, when one is looking to get the most out of their cardio training by targeting specific weaknesses their body faces, following a training program with accurate training zones is essential.
For example, spending a specific period in zone 2 is the essential part of a training program if one is looking to improve their fat burning efficiency.
If this person hasn’t measured their personalized training zones and instead of training in Zone 2 they’re actually training in Zone 3; they may be getting as much as 40% less positive adaptation in enhancing their fat burning capacity.
The five zones system is the most frequently used one, accurately capturing the difference in metabolic states while remaining practical enough for everyday usage.
Each zone is used for a different purpose as it inflicts different metabolic adaptations on your body.
Here are the adaptations each heart rate training zone will affect:
Zone 1
Training intensity is typically used for warmup or active recovery (i.e. recovering from intense exercise while moving).
Zone 2
Zone2 raining will develop your mitochondrial function and improve your fat-burning efficiency. It’s highly recommended for long-range endurance sports and individuals suffering from metabolic syndrome (e.g. Type II Diabetes). The improved mitochondrial function will also significantly support recovery capacity helping you to recover faster after intense bouts of exercise.
Zone 3
Zone 3 training can help strengthen your pulmonary muscles and improve cardiovascular function. It’s an ideal intensity when suffering from a lung or heart problem since its moderate- intensity offers a solid stimulus to the heart and lungs without being exhausting or overly strenuous.
Zone 4
Zone 4 training will help improve your VO2max and ability to sustain high-intensity exercise for prolonged durations by improving lactate shuttling. Lactate is a byproduct of anaerobic metabolism, which can also be used as fuel by your muscles. For as long as your body can clear fatigue byproducts faster than their being produced, the exercise intensity remains sustainable. As a result, the greater your lactate shuttling capability the greater your ability to sustain high exercise intensities for long periods.
Zone 5
Zone 5 training will improve your VO2max and peak power output capability (e.g. maximum speed or cycling wattage). This exercise intensity is sustainable for 60 to 120 seconds and requires one to train at full potential.
Key takeaways
Regardless of age, gender, and fitness level, every person has one or more systems that limit fitness or health. Targeting these limitations effectively requires the precision that stems from focusing your cardio and interval training in the zone(s) that will bring about the adaptations needed to overcome them.
The metabolic analysis provides gold-standard accuracy in determining your training zones and the plan that puts them to effective use. Understanding how your body responds metabolically and building your program around your metabolism is a foundational step toward maximizing your workout’s efficiency and achieving your health or performance goals faster and with less effort.
Training Zones and their importance in Health and Performance
How to you improve your VO2 Max level?
Let’s review some articles and research on VO2 Max workouts….
Training at or near VO2max — the exercise intensity at which an athlete reaches his or her maximal rate of oxygen consumption — has long been known as an effective way to increase aerobic capacity (which is what VO2max measures).
That’s important because aerobic capacity, or the ability to use oxygen to power muscle contractions, is a major contributor to endurance performance.
In recent years, scientists have become interested in designing interval workouts that maximize the amount of time an athlete spends at or near VO2max, without simply making the workouts harder and harder.
The idea is that such workouts will yield a bigger boost in aerobic capacity. As an athlete, you might be interested in knowing which of these workouts is most effective for increasing VO2max. Let’s take a look at a few candidates.
1. Variable-Intensity Intervals
- Traditional interval workouts focus on a single, uniform intensity.
- But in 2019, scientists at the University of Kent and Inland Norway University created and tested a workout that featured work intervals of variable intensity, believing it might enable athletes to spend more time at or very near VO2max.
- The workout consisted of six, 5-minute intervals ridden at 85% of maximum aerobic power (or MAP, which is the highest power output an individual cyclist achieves in a ride to failure at increasing power levels) separated by 2.5-minute active recoveries.
- The added wrinkle was the insertion of three, 30-second surges at 100% of MAP within each interval, with the baseline effort lowered slightly to 77% of MAP to make the intervals feasible as a whole.
- The new workout was tested on 14 trained cyclists, who completed both it and a more traditional constant-intensity interval workout on separate occasions.
- On average, the cyclists spent 6:50 of cumulative time above 90% of VO2max during the variable-intensity workout compared to just 4:46 above 90% of VO2max during the traditional workout.
- After each session, the cyclists were asked to rate how difficult it was, and despite the discrepancy in physical demands, the two versions were judged about equal — 6.0 vs. 6.6 on a 1-10 scale of perceived effort.
- These findings, which were reported in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, indicate that the variable-intensity interval workout is more physiologically stimulating without being harder.
2. 30-15 Intervals
One year after this study appeared, some of the same researchers tested a different workout intended to serve essentially the same purpose. The 30-15 workout, as I call it, consists of large numbers of 30-second intervals punctuated by 15-second active recoveries. The reasoning behind this design was that the shorter-than-normal intervals would allow athletes to do lots of them, while the even shorter active recovery segments would ensure that the rate of oxygen consumption remained high.
The 30-second efforts were done at 94% of MAP, which is sustainable for about 15 minutes in a time trial, and the 15-second active recoveries at 77% of MAP. The complete workout comprised three sets of 13 intervals with 3 minutes of easy pedaling between sets. This format was tested against a traditional VO2max workout (4 x 5:00 @ 85% MAP/2:30 active recovery). Eighteen cyclists were separated into two groups, one of which did the traditional workout three times per week for three weeks with supplemental low-intensity riding, while a second group did the 30-15 workout thrice weekly alongside the same amount of low-intensity riding as the first group.
All of the cyclists completed performance tests before and after the three-week intervention. On average, members of the 30-15 group experienced a 4.7 increase in power output in a 20-minute time trial, whereas performance actually decreased slightly in the other group. Rønnestad’s team attributed these disparate outcomes to differences in mean power output and cumulative time spent above 90% of VO2max between the two workouts. Again, though, the subjects rated the two sessions about equal in perceived difficulty.
3. Decreasing Intervals
Not to be outdone, researchers at the University of Udine, Italy unveiled their own innovative VO2max workout in 2020. This one featured high-intensity work bouts that steadily decreased in length throughout the session, a design based on past research showing that longer intervals at high intensity allow athletes to reach VO2max quickly, whereas short intervals allow them to continue longer before reaching exhaustion. Would a set of decreasing intervals offer the best of both worlds, comparing favorably to a set of long intervals and a set of short intervals in these respects?
To find out, the researchers had 12 cyclists complete the following three workouts:
Short Intervals Long Intervals Decreasing Intervals 0:30 @ high intensity/0:20 @ low intensity repeated to exhaustion 3:00 high/2:00 low repeated to exhaustion 3:00 high/2:00 low2:00 high/1:20 low1:00 high/0:40 low0:45 high/0:30 low0:30 high/0:20 low repeated to exhaustion In all three workouts, the high-intensity efforts were performed at the highest power output each individual cyclist could sustain for five minutes and were repeated to exhaustion. Each subject completed all three workouts in random order on separate occasions. On average, the cyclists lasted 13:20 and spent 5:12 above 90% of VO2max in the decreasing intervals workout, compared to 11:54/3:02 in the short intervals workout, and 11:04/2:59 in the long intervals workout.
In a paper published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, the researchers concluded that “despite the higher stimulation of VO2, the rate of perceived exertion and the other physiological parameters at the end of the exercise were not different compared with long- or short-interval HIIT, suggesting that (the decreasing intervals format) was not more demanding. In light of the favorable or similar physiological and/or perceptual responses to (decreasing intervals) compared to the other protocols and given the improved capability to prolong the time close to VO2 peak, it could be used as a preferable method to elicit similar or greater physiological adaptations.”
And the Winner Is . . .
We’ve now seen three good candidates for designation as the best workout for increasing VO2max. So, which one truly is the best: variable-intensity intervals, 30-15 intervals, or decreasing intervals? You probably knew all along that the question posed in the title of this article was a trick question, and indeed it is.
Science is great, but it has certain limitations. The conditions that scientists are required to create in order to make head-to-head comparisons between workouts are artificially simple compared to the real world. If one workout increases VO2max more than another in a study lasting three weeks, who’s to say the opposite wouldn’t be true over nine weeks? And who’s to say that the greater increase in VO2max that one workout confers compared to another will translate to a bigger improvement in real-world competitive performance? It’s impossible to properly assess the effectiveness of a given workout type outside of the context in which its benefits are manifested, and that’s exactly what studies like the ones just described lack: context.
The question addressed in this article also assumes that, once the most effective workout for increasing VO2max has been identified, athletes should do that workout exclusively going forward. But this would be inadvisable. Whether your goal is to increase your VO2max, your lactate threshold, your endurance, or any other facet of overall fitness, it’s best to use a variety of workout formats to get the job done.
In the specific case of aerobic capacity, it’s important to keep in mind that this fitness component itself is multidimensional. It has numerous distinct physiological underpinnings, each of which responds differently to different types of training. Even long workouts done entirely at low intensity develop certain components of aerobic capacity in ways that do not entirely overlap with the body’s adaptive response to high-intensity training. For a similar reason, you should never limit yourself to a single high-intensity workout in your quest to boost your VO2max.
On a psychological level, mixing up your workout formats keeps the training process interesting, and the more engaged you are in your training, the more you’ll get out of it. Finally, different types of workouts present different pacing challenges. In learning to master a variety of VO2max workouts you will get better at finding your limit generally, a skill that will translate to better race performance regardless of your VO2max.
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/what-is-the-best-workout-for-increasing-vo2-max/
Individualized exercise program benefits & the importance of testing.
- Achieving someone’s goals requires an individualized exercise program that will combine all three exercise modalities, namely resistance, cardio, and interval training.
- VO2max testing is the gold standard for individualized exercise prescription based on tailored training zones.
- All people, irrespective of their fitness level, may be eligible for all types of exercise, with the adequate adaptations that will allow for progressive overload.
Exercise not only maintains physical and psychological health but also helps our bodies respond to the negative consequences of several diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Exercise is also a valuable adjunct to diet for people trying to lose weight and, in general, combat overweight and obesity. However, most people opt for the most effortless methods of diet (a few days of fasting, detox diets) and exercise (electrical muscle stimulation, body therapies) because they do not want to bother that much. Such an approach mostly leads to the opposite outcomes because they are not fruitful, cause frustration, and eventually impede any weight management endeavor even more.
Exercise as an integral part of weight management
In a previous Blogpost about weight management in terms of weight loss and maintenance, we focused on energy balance and the fundamental pillars of a sustainable weight loss program, one of them being exercise. It was acknowledged that although energy restriction is the most vital part of the weight loss process, exercise can have additional benefits when combined with an adequate calorie deficit.
In particular, weight loss efforts are typically subsumed under the adaptive biological mechanisms that forcefully fight against them. As a result, these mechanisms sooner or later lead to weight loss plateau and subsequently weight regain. This is where exercise could act as the lifeline to attenuate these devastating effects.
Most health organizations have highlighted the importance of exercise. Specifically, the American Heart Association (AHA), for disease prevention, improved quality of life, and overall health and well-being, recommends that we get at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or a combination of both in combination with resistance training on at least two days per week.
However, these recommendations are pretty generic. Someone who enters a weight loss program should remember that to achieve their goals, they should aim for an individualized exercise program from an exercise specialist that will combine all three exercise modalities.
Training zones
Three distinct types of exercise can all be valuable tools for a dieter’s quiver. Therefore, all should be involved in the appropriate amounts in an individualized exercise regime for weight loss. These are a) Resistance training, b) Cardio training, and c) Interval training.
Resistance training involves exercises designed to improve muscular strength, endurance, and muscle size.
Cardio training is any cardiovascular exercise that will increase your breathing and heart rate and involves using oxygen for energy supply to the working muscles.
Interval training involves alternating short high-intensity aerobic exercise bouts interspersed with low-intensity or rest recovery periods.
Cardio and interval training are governed by some training principles, which are reduced to the training zones.
The gold standard method to determine someone’s training zones is implementing cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET), also known as VO2max testing. VO2max is the maximal rate of oxygen uptake during exercise. It is the gold standard for individualized exercise prescription. The training zones determined through such an approach are five and are described based on two variables; the maximum heart rate (HRmax) during a VO2max testing or the anaerobic threshold (VT2). VT2 is where during VO2max testing, your body must switch from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism for energy supply.
VT2 differs from VT1 (ventilatory threshold), which can also be determined through VO2max testing and refers to the point during exercise where ventilation increases faster than oxygen uptake.
The training zones are described as follows:
Zone 1 (recovery/easy):
-
- 55%-65% of HRmax or 75%-80% of HR at VT2.
- This zone is used to get your body moving with minimal exertion.
- It may be appropriate for an easy training day, warm-up, and cool-down.
Zone 2 (aerobic/base):
-
- 65%-75% of HRmax or 81%-89% of HR at VT2.
- This zone is used for longer training sessions, such as endurance sports.
- Subjects working in this zone can improve their mitochondrial function and fat-burning efficiency.
Zone 3 (tempo):
-
- 80%-85% of HRmax or 96%-100% of HR at VT2.
- This zone can be used to build up speed and strength.
- It can also be appropriate for people who suffer cardiopulmonary limitations since it can help them strengthen their pulmonary muscles and improve their cardiovascular system.
Zone 4 (anaerobic threshold):
-
- 85%-88% of HRmax or 102%-105% of HR at VT2.
- This is the zone where lactic acid, as a by-product of the anaerobic metabolism, builds up, and thus fatigue kicks in.
- Training in this zone helps your body improve its VO2max and efficiency when working at its maximum sustainable pace.
Zone 5 (aerobic-anaerobic):
-
- 90% plus of HRmax or 106% plus of HR at VT2.
- This zone can only be maintained for a minimal time (60-120 seconds).
- It can improve your VO2max, your peak power output capability (e.g., maximum speed or wattage), and increase your fatigue threshold at maximum intensities.
- 90% plus of HRmax or 106% plus of HR at VT2.
As demonstrated above, each training zone elicits different physiological adaptations to the human body, and training zones may vary significantly from person to person.
This is why it is strongly recommended that zones be determined through VO2max testing and not using predictive values.
Exercise modalities in a nutshell
a) Resistance exercise
It’s a form of exercise that increases muscular strength and endurance by exercising a muscle or a muscle group against external resistance. This external resistance might be resistance bands of different weights, dumbbells, machines, barbells, kettlebells, and even bodyweight.
Different adaptations associated with a resistance training program include muscular endurance, muscle size (hypertrophy), and strength (explosive training). All types of resistance training contribute to muscle mass increase and enhanced metabolism since muscle mass is the primary metabolically active tissue. Each of these adaptations is characterized by a group of variables, namely the number of sets, the number of reps, tempo, time of rest, and intensity (in terms of 1RM).
Anyone at any fitness level can perform resistance training. It’s all about finding the right exercise variations and the proper resistance that will allow you to progressively overload and complete all reps with good form. However, compared to a muscular endurance program, the number of sets and the intensity increases, whereas the number of reps decreases for the hypertrophy and maximum strength phases of a resistance training program.
Maximum strength/Explosive training can significantly improve VO2max, power output at VT1 and VT2, and movement economy, namely an enhanced caloric burn during low-level movements (NEAT). It can also increase the fatigue threshold at maximum intensities and improve the rate of force development, namely, an athlete’s explosive strength.
On the other hand, hypertrophy training can significantly increase muscle size and enhance force development. However, it can reduce VO2max and the formation and development of blood vessels in the muscles trained.
Muscular endurance training can significantly improve VO2max and power output at VT1 and VT2.
Irrespective of each different type described above, resistance training can increase bone density and boost metabolism through increased muscle mass, which is the primary metabolically active tissue in the body. A well-rounded resistance training program could encompass all its different adaptations in separate exercise sessions, depending on the subject’s training goals and the restraints identified through VO2max testing.
b) Cardio training
Cardio training, also known as aerobic endurance training, is the most basic form of exercise since it can be as simple as walking. It is a continuous steady state exercise that can contribute to building cardiovascular endurance and weight loss when used wisely and not excessively. It is the main form of exercise recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA) for overall health and well-being.
Cardio training can further be categorized into base-long, base-medium, moderate, and heavy continuous, based on the %HRmax intensity of the exercise.
- Base-long cardio training or zone 2 (65%-75% HRmax) may last 120-240 minutes and can improve movement economy and fat-burning efficiency. It can also secondarily enhance the speed at VT1 and lower the heart rate at submaximal intensities over time.
- Base-medium cardio training between zone 2 and zone 3 (70%-79% HRmax) may last 60-120 minutes and can significantly improve the speed at VT1 and lower the heart rate at submaximal intensities over time. It can also secondarily enhance movement economy and fat-burning efficiency.
- Moderate cardio training or zone 3 cardio training (80%-85% HRmax) may last 40-60 minutes and will chiefly improve the speed at VT2. It can also secondarily enhance movement economy, fat-burning efficiency, and speed at VT1.
- Heavy continuous cardio training or zone 4 cardio training (85%-90% HRmax) may last 20-40 minutes and can significantly improve the speed at VT2 and VO2max.
Cardio training is the simplest form of exercise and can be used by anyone, irrespective of their fitness level and medical history. Deconditioned people and/or those with cardiorespiratory limitations should start at lower cardio training intensities (base-long and base-medium) and progressively move to more intense cardio training workouts. However, it should be noted that all categories of cardio training may be useful for different training goals that a subject may have. Therefore, they can coexist in a cardio training program.
c) Interval training
Interval training involves repeated workout periods (intervals) at an intensity between 83%-100% of your maximum heart rate. In terms of training zones, such intensities correspond to zone 4 and zone 5. It can further be categorized into short, medium, and long based on the duration of each interval.
- Short interval training encompasses 10 seconds to 1-minute intervals and may last 8-12 minutes in total. It can mainly improve VO2max.
- Medium interval training encompasses 1- to 4-minute intervals and may last 12-24 minutes. It can mainly improve VO2max and, secondarily, the speed at VT2.
- Long interval training encompasses 4-minute to 10-minute intervals and may last 20-30 minutes. It can significantly improve VO2max.
Short interval training is highly mechanically demanding and is recommended to be mainly performed by well-trained subjects. Medium and long interval training is also aimed at subjects with lower fitness levels. A less trained subject may start with the lower time limits and progressively reach 10 and 4 minutes, respectively.
Interval training can either involve a single exercise, i.e., running on a treadmill or biking or rowing, or multiple activities of different levels of difficulty, i.e., free or lightly-to-moderately weighted squats + lifts with an empty barbell or lifts with a lightly or moderately loaded barbell + jumping ropes, etc. All these parameters are determined by the subject’s goals, fitness level, and potential limitations identified in the VO2max exercise testing.
HIIT training, like cardio training, is considered a cardiovascular exercise where subjects can improve their cardiovascular and respiratory function and lose fat. Its main advantage compared to cardio training is that it can be completed in a maximum of 30 minutes, including the warm-up. In other words, it can save a considerable amount of time for those whose argument for not working out regularly is the time constraints.
Interval training can essentially be used by anyone who wishes to reap the benefits of this type of exercise. However, for severely deconditioned subjects who at the same time suffer metabolic, cardiovascular, and/or respiratory limitations and their doctor has advised them not to participate in vigorous exercise, it’s more prudent that they embark on base-long and base-medium cardio training, namely low-moderate intensity cardio training first, and gradually proceed with more intense interval workouts.
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET)
As stated above, the gold standard for exercise prescription is CPET. It should be performed by anyone who wishes to enter a congruous exercise program and achieve their weight loss and/or training goals as efficiently as possible.
Generally speaking, a well-rounded exercise program should involve all three exercise modalities since they serve different training goals and result in various training adaptations. However, CPET can precisely determine the level of exercise performance of the subject that undertakes it through the combination of multiple variables, including ventilatory, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and metabolic characteristics. Based on those, it can provide a tailored exercise prescription with a specific workout breakdown and define contraindications to an exercise program.
For example, the exercise prescription will promote hypertrophy training if someone has a low metabolism. If cardiovascular limitations (e.g., low VO2max) are found, the exercise prescription will promote long intervals and base-long cardio training. The exercise prescription will promote base-medium cardio training if low movement economy and/or low-fat burning efficiency are found.
PNOE Key takeaways
- Exercise can help people struggling with weight loss plateau and tend always to regain the lost weight, accomplished through diet programs alone.
- All three types of exercise, i.e., resistance training, cardio training, and interval training, should be involved in an individualized exercise regime for weight loss.
- The amounts for each exercise modality should ideally be determined through cardiopulmonary exercise testing, which is the gold standard for exercise prescription.
- The exercise prescription should not only be in line with the person’s exercise and weight goals but also with their limitations, which are distinctly defined through CPET.
Other Resources to review:
- https://www.healthline.com/health/exercise-fitness/how-to-improve-vo2-max#supplements
- https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/fitness/tips-for-improving-faster/
- https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a32448565/cardio-fitness-level-vo2-max-lifespan-study/
8-Week Science-Based Workout Plan to Maximize Your VO2 Max
Based on the latest research in exercise physiology and cardiorespiratory fitness, an 8-week workout plan designed to improve VO2 max should incorporate a combination of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), tempo runs, and long, slow distance (LSD) runs. This approach is designed to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of VO2 max improvement within a limited timeframe.
In addition to these cardiorespiratory exercises, strength training plays a crucial role in enhancing VO2 max. As highlighted by Chtara et al. (2005), strength training, especially when combined with cardiovascular exercise in a circuit training format, can significantly improve VO2 max. This improvement is attributed to the increase in muscle mass and improved muscular efficiency resulting from strength training, both of which contribute to a higher VO2 max (Chtara et al., 2005, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 19, 667-677).
Moreover, the importance of high-intensity workouts in improving VO2 max is underscored by Helgerud et al. (2007). In their study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, they noted:
“Aerobic high-intensity workouts can lead to a significant increase in VO2 max, more than moderate training” (Helgerud et al., 2007, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 39, 665-671).
Weeks 1-4: Building a Strong Foundation
Monday: HIIT + Strength Training
- 5-min warm-up (brisk walk or light jog)
- 6 x 1-min high-intensity sprints (85-95% max effort) with 1-min walking recovery
- 20-min circuit training (bodyweight exercises like push-ups, squats, lunges, etc.)
- 5-min cool-down (slow walk)
Wednesday: Tempo
- 5-min warm-up (brisk walk or light jog)
- 20-30 min steady-state run at a challenging pace (70-80% max effort)
- 5-min cool-down (slow walk or light jog)
Friday: LSD (long, slow distance) + Strength Training
- 45-60 min easy-paced run (60-70% max effort)
- 20-min circuit training (bodyweight exercises like push-ups, squats, lunges, etc.)
Sunday: Active Recovery
- 30-45 min light jog or walk, yoga, or stretching
Weeks 5-8: Increasing Intensity
Monday: HIIT + Strength Training
- 5-min warm-up (brisk walk or light jog)
- 10 x 1-min high-intensity hill sprints (85-95% max effort) with 1-min walking recovery
- 20-min circuit training (bodyweight exercises like push-ups, squats, lunges, etc.)
- 5-min cool-down (slow walk)
Wednesday: Tempo
- 5-min warm-up (brisk walk or light jog)
- 30-40 min steady-state run at a challenging pace (70-80% max effort)
- 5-min cool-down (slow walk or light jog)
Friday: LSD + Strength Training
- 60-75 min easy-paced run (60-70% max effort)
- 20-min circuit training (bodyweight exercises like push-ups, squats, lunges, etc.)
Sunday: Active Recovery
- 30-45 min light jog or walk, yoga, or stretching
Laursen and Jenkins (2002) in their study published in Sports Medicine emphasized the importance of high-intensity interval training, stating,
High-intensity interval training is a potent time-efficient strategy to induce numerous metabolic adaptations usually associated with traditional endurance training.
Low Impact Version for Individuals Over 50
This low-impact workout plan incorporates interval training, steady-state cardio, and active recovery to improve VO2 max while minimizing stress on joints. It’s particularly suitable for individuals over 50 years old. Additionally, strength training is included to increase muscle mass and improve muscular efficiency, contributing to a higher VO2 max.
Weeks 1-2
- Monday: Swimming – 30 minutes of interval training (1 minute at 85-95% max effort, 1 minute at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Wednesday: Cycling – 30 minutes of steady-state cycling at moderate intensity (65-75% max effort)
- Friday: Rowing – 30 minutes of interval training (1 minute at 85-95% max effort, 1 minute at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Sunday: Active recovery – yoga, stretching, or light walking for 30 minutes
Weeks 3-4
- Monday: Swimming – 35 minutes of interval training (1.5 minutes at 85-95% max effort, 1.5 minutes at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Wednesday: Cycling – 40 minutes of steady-state cycling at moderate intensity (65-75% max effort)
- Friday: Rowing – 35 minutes of interval training (1.5 minutes at 85-95% max effort, 1.5 minutes at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Sunday: Active recovery – yoga, stretching, or light walking for 40 minutes
Weeks 5-6
- Monday: Swimming – 40 minutes of interval training (2 minutes at 85-95% max effort, 2 minutes at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Wednesday: Cycling – 50 minutes of steady-state cycling at moderate intensity (65-75% max effort)
- Friday: Rowing – 40 minutes of interval training (2 minutes at 85-95% max effort, 2 minutes at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Sunday: Active recovery – yoga, stretching, or light walking for 50 minutes
Weeks 7-8
- Monday: Swimming – 45 minutes of interval training (2.5 minutes at 85-95% max effort, 2.5 minutes at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Wednesday: Cycling – 60 minutes of steady-state cycling at moderate intensity (65-75% max effort)
- Friday: Rowing – 45 minutes of interval training (2.5 minutes at 85-95% max effort, 2.5 minutes at 50-60% max effort) followed by 20 minutes of strength training (exercises like leg presses, chest presses, and seated rows)
- Sunday: Active recovery – yoga, stretching, or light walking for 60 minutes
Billat (2001) in her study published in Sports Medicine, highlighted the importance of interval training for performance, stating,
“Interval training, particularly at high intensities, is a powerful tool to improve performance.”
Additional science-backed ways to increase your V02 max can be found here.
Reasoning Notes
This optimal and effective plan incorporates various types of training that focus on cardiorespiratory fitness, as suggested by high-quality sources. Combining HIIT workouts, which improve oxygen efficiency during intense exercise, tempo runs that train the body for sustained faster paces, and LSD runs that build endurance, these methods synergistically improve VO2 max. The plan gradually increases intensity and duration over 8 weeks, allowing adaptation and improvement, while active recovery days maintain fitness and reduce injury risk.
https://modernmedlife.com/blog/vo2-max-longevity-where-to-get-it