How should we train as aging FEMALE endurance athletes?

My Mantra: LESS IS MORE.

This past year, I have been taking Dr. Stacy Sims MENOPAUSE 2.0 course as well as re-reading her books ROAR and NEXT LEVEL for how to fuel and train the aging female athlete! We are pre-menopausal then peri-menopausal, menopause (one day) and then post-menopause!

As an endurance athlete, I have been trained as an athlete and coach, to focus 80% of our time in ZONE TWO or MAF (Max Aerobic Function) heart rates – or testing zone two as with New Leaf (back in my day) or now PNOE Metabolic Testing assessment.

I shared my personal story as a high performing athlete and small business owner in my book LIFE IS NOT A RACE – IT IS A JOURNEY. My mission has been to help other similar high performers get their body and vibrant self back again by investigating what is actually going on under the hood with functional lab tests while working on external sources of CHRONIC Stress as nutrition, exercise and lifestyle habits. I don’t want any other high performers go through what happened to me starting in 2013, as we have so many red flags to listen to from our own innate intelligence- then we learn more about how aging females with various hormones changes need to adjust their fueling and training to make up for the lower sex hormones!

Did I experience the peri-menopausal symptoms and Low Energy Availability (LEA) as a competitive low carb female endurance athlete who was striving on MORE IS BETTER…or my “METABOLIC CHAOS” was a result of living life as race… or all of the sources of STRESS accumulated an overfilled my beaker of stress to create imbalances, dysfunction and exhaustion in my daily performance.

Dr. Stacy Sims talks about how to change how we fuel and train as our hormones change for females in different stages of life.

Here is a great example on ZONE TWO training or HIIT Training for improving our performance in endurance sports as an aging athlete plus how to improve our body composition…especially since ZONE TWO training has been all the rage on social media recently for improving VO2max and longevity markers.

Zone 2 training is a hot topic, but like many things, it’s different for females.

If you even remotely follow fitness and training media, you will have seen the buzz around “Zone 2 training”–generally known as steady, conversationally-paced exercise–and how it is the golden child of endurance (and health) training programs. And while there’s no doubt that easy days have an important place in health, fitness, and training, for women specifically, the benefits are being oversold.

When we talk about “zone training”, we mean breaking down our training intensities into heart rate or power ranges that are used to form a structured training plan or workout.

The purpose of stratifying intensities in this way is to achieve specific physiological and metabolic adaptations through our training. In this structure, Zone 2 is relatively easy and long (60 to 70% of max for 45+ min) and you should feel like you can go for hours. The current recommendation is to have the bulk of your exercise sessions–three to four training sessions a week–be in Zone 2.

Why the emphasis on Zone 2?

The thought is that Zone 2 is a low enough intensity to stimulate mitochondrial and other adaptations within the muscle cell that improve the skeletal muscle’s ability to use fat as a fuel, spare carbohydrate; improve metabolic flexibility (the ability to rapidly switch between fat and carbohydrate oxidation), as well as to better clear lactate during higher intensity exercise.

Female Muscle Makeup & Zone 2 Training

To understand what this all means for female athletes, let’s dig into how this works within our specific muscle fibers. We have two primary types of muscle fibers: Type 1 fibers, called “slow twitch” fibers, and Type 2 fibers, called “fast twitch” fibers (which are broken down into subtypes Type IIa and Type IIb). Type 1 fibers have the greatest mitochondrial density (mitochondria are the “powerhouses”of the cell) and are highly oxidative, meaning they are very efficient at using fat as a fuel. As intensity heats up and muscle contractile speed increases, we need more energy than Type 1 fibers can generate using fat, so Type IIa and then Type IIb fibers are recruited. Type II fibers have lower mitochondrial density and high capacity to use glucose for energy.

Because Type I fibers are so efficient at using fat as a fuel to keep going, the concept around Zone 2 training is that by spending more time tapping into Type I fibers, we can increase their mitochondria density and respiratory rates (the metabolic reactions that require oxygen to convert fatty acids into the usable ATP), as well as increasing the transport proteins (MCT-1) needed to clear lactate quickly and efficiently (during exercise, lactate is produced by the Type II fibers, but primarily cleared by Type 1).

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Go long and easy to boost your metabolic health, endurance capacity, and improve your overall performance!

But, hold on a minute.

If the main goal of Zone 2 training is to increase the number and functionality of mitochondria within the skeletal muscle, and increase fatty acid utilization, we need to question the validity of this concept for women.

Yes, you’ve got it.

This conversation around Zone 2 benefits does not take into account sex differences.

Research shows that females (e.g. XX chromosomes), have more oxidative (Type 1) fibers, have greater fatigue-resistant muscles, have greater autophagy activity and a higher reliance on lipid (fat) metabolism as compared to males(e.g. XY chromosomes).

We know that training status does have an impact on muscle mitochondria adaptations (basically increasing muscle oxidative capacity), but when we look at equivalently trained women and men, we see that there are differences, specific to skeletal muscle, in mitochondrial oxidative functional capacity.

Women have approximately one-third greater mitochondrial intrinsic respiratory rates (the amount of mitochondrial respiration occurring for a given amount of mitochondrial protein) and greater mitochondrial oxygen affinity (p50_mito) than men.

What about increasing fatty acid utilization then?

Should women spend time in Zone 2 to increase their ability to use fat?

Again, no.

Research shows, as compared to similarly trained men, women have a greater amount of intramyocellular lipid droplets (aka, fat particles stored in skeletal muscle cells), a greater amount of the plasma membrane fatty acid transporter protein CD36 which increase fatty acid uptake into the cell, and also a greater sensitivity to malonyl-CoA (M-CoA) (a metabolite that can inhibit fatty acids getting into the mitochondria),

What about metabolic flexibility?

Women are already metabolically flexible!

Not only do women oxidize more fat and less carbohydrate during prolonged exercise; women also have greater metabolic flexibility because there is a greater ability to switch between fatty acid and glucose use, depending on what nutrients are available.

Finally, when it comes to improved lactate clearance, it may be more important for men to improve their clearance capacity.

We see that men exhibit greater MCT-4 and MCT-1.

For one, because they have a greater ratio of Type II to Type 1 fibers (remember type II is glycolytic, which produces lactate); men rely more on carbohydrate metabolism than fat metabolism during exercise, and they have higher circulating plasma lactate levels per unit of workload (fitness matched to women).

When it comes to endurance training, men upregulate MCT-1 more so than women, which may look like a bad thing, but in the big picture, it makes sense with respect to sex differences in glycolytic fibers and circulating lactate during exercise.

Should women be concerned about a reduced expression of MCT-1?

The short answer is no. Because women’s bodies fuel exercise differently than men, although we do produce lactate, because we have less overall glycolytic activity, we will have less overall expression of MCT-1.

When women do a block of specific high intensity work, and up regulate MCT-4 (the transporters that pull lactate out of cells) there is also a response to upregulate MCT-1 (to clear the lactate).

Where does all this leave women in the Zone 2 conversation?

For women, Zone 2 training is great for active recovery, a certain amount of base building for endurance athletes, and social exercise.

Yes, there is merit in Zone 2 BUT if you are planning the bulk of your exercise time for Zone 2 training to enhance mitochondria function and fatty acid utilization, you may want to revisit that concept (more on that in a future post).

One final and very important point is that when you do train in Zone 2, really make it Zone 2.

This is really one of the biggest problems I see: women spending too much time going hard or “kind of hard” and not enough time going truly easy. When Zone 2 training enters the conversation, they think they need to spend hours doing this, but it very often becomes hours doing moderate intensity that is harder than Zone 2 and is eventually counterproductive in that it just makes them worn out without the training gains.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I’ll talk about what training scheme works best for women.

https://www.drstacysims.com/blog/what-women-need-to-know-about-zone-2-training

Are you training in Zone 2 80% of the time or less?

How are you changing how you fuel and train each week to improve your body composition, performance gains and future self (metabolic health and longevity)!?

Dr. Stacy Sims explains in her blogs and course the need to add EXTERNAL STRESSORS in our later years to make up for the roles estrogen and progesterone once play for us in body composition, strength, power, speed and bone density.

We need to focus on improving muscle, bone and metabolic health as we age …so why do we get stuck doing the same fitness and training program each month and expect different results?

The keys to creating an adaptive (hormetic) stressor that will help us make up for the flat lining hormones as estrogen and progesterone to help our skeletal, metabolic and bone health include:

Strength -resistance training or as Stacy says “LHS” = low reps with heavy weights (1-6 reps) for neuromuscular integrity and bone health
Power- plyometric training for bone density
Speed- HIIT and SIT training for improved insulin sensitivity

My experiment as I start my 50 something year old time in life is to depend LESS on LONG, SLOW DISTANCE training as I have done for the past 25 years since I started my career as an competitive age group endurance athlete.

As endurance athletes, we need to focus LESS on VOLUME and focus MORE on INTENSITY by swapping out our ZONE TWO LSD/MAF workouts for shorter and more intense sessions as warm up, HIIT intervals (Zone 4/5 to Zone 1) then warm down. We FEMALE athletes, already know how to go long and slow… we have a great base from years of training but also ability to be better endurance athletes from birth over men!

Dr. Stacy Sims teaches us – and I will preach it for her:

External stressors are needed to create ADAPTATIONS that our hormones used to do for us!!!

Find external stressors that help maintain the integrity for muscle contraction – neuromuscular adaptations

Improve our insulin sensitivity via interval training and resistance training to help our bodies take glucose into the cells without the need of insulin for energy and muscle contraction

Focus on more heavy resistance training to stimulate more muscle fibers for building STRENGTH

Estrogen changes and we lose our estrogen receptors – so reasons we need to change how we fuel and train to get the same results

Create the needed external stress to support our body in our second half of our life to stressing our skeletal muscle, metabolic health and bone density to create positive changes.

What changes should you be making into your routine?

Swap out the ZONE TWO endurance workouts for more quality workouts that are focused on creating the needed EXTERNAL STRESS … we need more INTENSITY over high VOLUME to get results.

High Intensity Interval Training – as well as Sprint Interval Training
Heavy Resistance Training (LHS)
Plyometrics & Power Training

AVOID the Metcon Workouts and long duration endurance sessions and instead focus on heavy weights with some plyometrics plus HIIT intervals to maintain the muscle integrity, neuromuscular activation and bone density. We can improve our VO2 Max with key workouts in the pool, on the bike and running by doing real quality interval work (Zone 4/5 down to Zone 1 before repeating for 20 minutes max).

We can improve our METABOLIC CONTROL – which helps us with performance and body composition.

The traditional methods that we have used before to improve performance doesn’t work as much anymore
The periodization blocks with long slow distance work for endurance athletes doesn’t work as well for peri and post menopausal athletes
Our old training plans are not enough “stress” (good acute stressor) to create positive changes in response to the stress to improve muscle, bone and body composition health.

Why do I gain body fat as I age?

With lower progesterone and estrogen, we have changes in our insulin sensitivity and glucose control.
We have a decrease amount the amount of fat we remove or how we use fat
We have a hormonal shift for how we use fat…not how we store fat. It is not because we are lazy!
We have no change in the amount of fat we are storing across tissues.
We have a decrease in the signaling to use fat for fuel

What are our solutions to improve body composition and use fat as fuel?

Increase our metabolism by focusing on lifting heavy weights 2-4 x week
Improve glucose control and insulin sensitivity with high intensity interval training (and increasing lean body mass from lifting heavy weights)
Add more plyometrics or jump training in the workouts as in between resistance strength workout sets
Swap out the endurance workouts for the HIIT workouts and keep your LSD for your typical longer swim, bike and run session each week.
1. My weekday workouts include a swim, bike and run workout with intervals on hills or gradual hills to increase heart rate
2. My weekend workouts easier then finish with harder intervals (hard/easy) on way home since live up a hill!
3. Resistance Training 1-6 reps, 3-5 sets with some plyometric intervals on higher energy days!

BECAUSE… “we have a decrease in the amount that our body removes with regards to using fat.” Dr. Stacy Sims tells us but that doesn’t mean focus on ZONE TWO workouts daily to burn more fat! This doesn’t work anymore for us as our hormones change.

To be continued.

How Menopausal Women Can Improve Power

In my book (and literally now in my actual book, Next Level) there are three pillars of training that are essential for power: heavy lifting (so you maximize your strength); plyometrics (training your muscles to detonate on-demand explosively), and sprint interval training (applying that strength to speed). Each of them is especially good for women in the menopausal transition and beyond.

Lifting Heavy Sh*t.

During menopause we lose the strength-building stimulus from estrogen.

Estrogen is essential for regulating satellite cell function in females; it helps us regenerate muscle stem cells (also known as satellite cells, because they appear to orbit the muscle fiber cells), which help us maintain our muscles.

When scientists take estrogen from animals in the lab, their ability to regenerate these cells drops by up to 60 percent.

The same is true in women during menopause–estrogen levels are linked to the number of satellite cells.

Resistance training is the best way to generate those muscle-making cells, and lifting heavy provides the strength-building stimulus you need as estrogen declines.

Heavy lifting is also good for improving fat-burning metabolism, building bones, and maintaining your cardiovascular health.

Aim for 3 to 5 sets of 6 or fewer reps with full rest (i.e. 2 to 5 minutes) between sets.

Form is everything. You should be able to complete every rep with good form. When you can’t, you’re done.

Heavy lifting is best done on “big lifts” like deadlifts, squats, lunges, and other Olympic lifts that spread the force out among your major muscles, connective tissues, and joints.

Plyometrics

Whether you jump, hop, or bound, plyometrics gives your bones and muscles the extra stimulus that comes when you push off against gravity and land back down. It is those impacts—big or small—that generate important physiological changes.

For one, they help build bone, which we lose during the menopause transition.

Plyometrics also trigger epigenetic changes, or changes in your genes.

When you do plyometrics, you wake up some otherwise very quiet genes inside your muscle cells that stimulate those cells to improve power and even the composition of the muscle itself in a way that improves the integrity of the muscle, its contractile strength, and its response and reaction time.

They also improve your mitochondria function and insulin sensitivity—both of which are important for menopausal women.

You can start with a simple squat jump: stand with feet wider than shoulder-width, feet turned out a little.

Extend your arms straight in front of you.

Squat down, extending your arms behind you, until your butt drops below knee level.

Quickly extend your legs and jump into the air.

Land softly, immediately dropping into another squat.

Repeat 8 to 10 times. Start with one set. Work up to two.

Sprint Interval Training

If you want to maintain your top end, you need to train your top end.

That’s especially true during the menopause transition.

The best type of high-intensity interval training for menopausal women is super short, sharp sprint-style intervals lasting about 30 seconds or less. When you extend intervals past 60 seconds, you can get greater increases in the stress hormone cortisol.

Cortisol is good for a surge of energy, but you don’t want those stress-hormone levels to stay elevated longer than necessary to get the job done, especially in menopause when cortisol can already be elevated.

With sprint intervals, you still get the benefits–improved insulin sensitivity, stronger mitochondria, improved fat burning (especially deep visceral fat), and an ever-important boost of growth hormone after you finish!

Tabatas are a simple way to add intensity to any exercise: After a warm-up, push as hard as possible for 20 seconds. Recover for 10 seconds. Repeat 6 to 8 times. Rest 5 minutes, and work up to repeating 2 to 3 more rounds.

https://www.drstacysims.com/blog/how-to-power-your-way-through-menopause

Coach Debbie Potts

Don’t forget…

It’s important to note that as a woman, your recovery window to take advantage of all these benefits is short—about 30 to 45 minutes (whereas men may have up to 3 hours).

After that point, your insulin sensitivity declines, so it takes your muscles longer to absorb the glucose from your bloodstream, and as a result, your overall glycogen storage is lower.

In fact, just 2 to 2 1/2 hours later, your glycogen storage rate drops by 50 percent.

Eating immediately after hard exercise delays this decline in insulin sensitivity.

That’s especially important for women in the menopausal transition, who may already be more insulin resistant because of the hormonal changes.

Be sure to prioritize protein in that recovery snack.

Women even more so than men need protein post workout, and we need it fast.

The sex hormone progesterone exacerbates muscle breakdown in women.

It makes us more catabolic, especially during the luteal phase of our menstrual cycle.

So, you need more protein to protect your muscles and come back stronger.

Women recover faster with 25 to 30 grams of protein (with 5 to 7 grams of BCAAs) within 30 minutes of a hard workout.

Pair some carbohydrates with that protein.

The two work in harmony to increase your glycogen storage rates.

Research also shows that taking in carbohydrate and protein together postexercise helps to reduce inflammation and can boost immunity.

If you delay calorie intake, you stay in a breakdown state.

Your body won’t start repairing until you take in some food.

Even if you eat enough in the rest of your day to meet what your body needs, not eating post-workout acts the same as not eating enough.

And on days when maybe you’re running around and not meeting your total energy needs, properly fueling before and after working out can help you prevent going into a state of low energy availability.

https://www.drstacysims.com/blog/nail-your-golden-recovery-window-for-optimum-health-and-performance