Sunday Story…Cardio-Respiratory Response

 

Here we are in exercise 3.0 talking about your heart, lungs, and how to get the most advantageous outcome for your work.

There are 3 pathways we want to work here…long slow Zone 2, the 4-8 minute hard and fast in Zones 3 & 4, and the all-out pedal to the metal sprint in Zone 5.

First and where we get the most bang for our buck is in the long slow distance work. 4 times a week for 45 minutes. Yes, you read that right. But this isn’t sitting on your butt on an exercise bike and reading a magazine. No, you must monitor your heart rate continuously in concert with your pace. If your heart rate goes too high, you Must slow down or stop until it returns to zone 2. Then you start again. This is training your heart to work efficiently. It will also train your heart to recover faster. And eventually, you can go faster and keep the heart rate down.

Second, is the place where we work a lot of the time. My heart rate is up but not maxed out. A pace you can keep up for 4-8 minutes. We need to do these 1 or 2 times a week. You can mix many activities here and you don’t need to continuously monitor your heart rate, but you need to look at it when you finish. Then analyze what went right or wrong. How did you feel? Can you remember what you did to stay in control? This is the learning curve you want to ride.

Last is the all-out sprint. Think Tabata…20 seconds of work 10 seconds rest for 8 rounds. All out work for 20 seconds. That means a tongue dragging, head swimming, and legs shaking piece. That will be all there is and there ain’t no more! Once or twice a month on this will do it.

You have now trained all the metabolic pathways. Strengthened your heart muscle, flushed your lungs, and created a more resilient human. A human now designed to live every day with a health span that allows them to enjoy the life they want to lead.

 

John Mariotti
www.crossfitodyssey.com

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

Sunday Story…Exercise 3.0 (more)

I have good news and bad news for you today. The good news is that the absolute best way of improving your life span and your “health span” is through exercise. The bad news is that just any exercise won’t do. Although something is better than nothing, if you really want to affect both how long and how well you live you are going to need to attack your exercise regimen with some attention, intention, and flat-out vigor.

 

Our outlook is no longer focused on this season (beach body!) or even this year. Our focus has now shifted to decades…many decades we hope. The three parts of exercise 3.0 are cardio-respiratory, strength, and stability. Each of these things has different parts, but the underlying truth of the matter is something we have always said in CrossFit…you must train all the metabolic pathways to be fit. Pretty muscles don’t do anything for you if you can’t perform. None of it matters if you can’t maintain spinal stability, balance through time and space, and get up when you fall.

 

The advice we heard is that all you need to do is 30 minutes of exercise 3 days a week. We know that is not enough. That may help your lifespan. But it will not help your “health span” much. Living longer is no fun if you can’t do basic things…get up when you fall, cook your own meals, walk around the block, pick up your grandkids…little things but essential to your health span.

 

Next week…how to train your cardiorespiratory response.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Story…Exercise 3.0

Recently Dr. Peter Attia released a book, “Outlive”. In it, he talks about 3 distinct phases of medicine…1.0 which is basically the world of medicine before germ theory came into being. 2.0 which is where we are now…treating disease, fixing broken stuff, creating vaccines, and some preventative care. And 3.0 which is where we want to be…a proactive, preventative medical outlook that addresses the root causes of diseases and the processes of aging with an eye toward living as well as possible as long as possible. It’s a great book (I’m only 1/3 of the way through), very informative, and information dense.

I’m going to apply the same distinctions to exercise. Exercise 1.0 was where we all started. Think Jane Fonda, the beginnings of the running craze, Arnold’s bodybuilding…if it’s Tuesday it must be Leg Day! 2.0 is where we are now…realizing that we must go hard, lift heavy, prepare for the unknown and unknowable, eat right, and combine lots of different modalities to achieve a broad and inclusive fitness. 2.0, however, left off some important things. That is where 3.0 comes in.

In exercise 3.0 we are now realizing the importance of heart rate training. We already knew that strength training helps prevent osteoporosis and the muscle wasting aging causes. 2.0 showed us the importance of high-intensity and sprint work. But now we are adding in the importance of recovery…in other words, we don’t need to be on the ground gasping for air and wondering what the number of the bus was that just ran over us after every workout.  Just once in while!

More on 3.0 next week! It’s super important for your aging process. Let’s be honest…every one of us is getting older but none of us need to face decay and decrepitude. It isn’t inevitable, it’s preventable.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

Sunday Story…Moving Well

We recently finished the CrossFit Games quarterfinals. In both the quarters and the semis all the workouts must be videoed and posted for submission for your score to count. Here’s the bottom line: there are standards for every movement. You are required to meet that standard. This is one of the ways to maintain a level playing field. If you fail to meet the standard and your onsite judge misses your failure the video reviewer will assess a penalty. The idea is to have everyone meet the same standard.

But you aren’t in those contests so why do I bring this up? Because you are in a contest every time you work out. Your challenge is to hit the standard of movement every time…not 1 in 10 not half the time….every. time. If it’s a squat…get your hip crease lower than your knee. If it’s an overhead movement…lock it out…that means full lockout from your knees to your elbows. What about when you are warming up? That’s when you can work your way in the full range of movement. If you ever see my first overhead squat (even with just PVC) you will see something that is not a squat. But in a few more attempts I will get there. Your warm-up is the time to use light weight and grease the skid for the full range of motion.

It does us no good to use weight or a movement that we can’t do. You aren’t going to improve, and you are risking injury. The movement standards are there for a reason…not just to give the coach something to yell about!

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-story.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

Sunday Story…the 4 Horseman

Barring an accident…getting hit by a bus, falling off a roof, or something along those lines your demise is largely in your own hands. The cause of death most prevalent in our modern world? Cardiovascular disease. Second place goes to cancer and in third is neuro-cognitive diseases. Diabetes rounds out the list. As much as I hate to repeat myself…many of these outcomes can be mitigated by the 3 magical elixirs…Exercise, Sleep, Nutrition.

 

Although many of the cardiovascular problems can be traced back to genetic components, the end of the story is not set in stone. By improving your cardiovascular fitness, you can change or mitigate your outcomes. I know of one family where the male members all died under 50 years of age due to cardiovascular disease. Armed with this knowledge the youngest member (in his 30’s) is a fitness, food, and rest fanatic. Additionally, he is religious about his health checkups. He has taken this bull by the horns and is doing everything he can do to shift the odds in his favor. As we discover more and more there is more and more we can do about these outcomes.

 

In other words, just because your relatives passed on some problematic health problems, you do not need to resign yourself to their poor health outcomes. But you are going to need to be proactive with your medical providers and your fitness. By fitness, I mean your cardiovascular, your strength, your rest and recovery, and your diet.

 

You’ve heard it before…eat right, exercise, and sleep. Now you need to take it on like your life depends on it. Because it does.

 

Remember…to know and not do is to not yet know.

 

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412