Cardio!

The one you love to hate, or hate to love, or actually hate. I just hate it.

Not true. I hate doing what we think cardio is but real cardio? That's actually sweet, I love it.

First up. Cardio training is not as tangible as something like strength training. But just like strength training and mobility training live in the same house, cardio holds a room there too. Try not to think of them as separate. All three are always happening. We just lean into the goal a little more to make it the preference of the session. Want to build more VO2 max? We work lighter with higher volume. Want more mobility? We work for slower reps at longer end ranges. Want strength? We work heavier reps for less volume. None are mutually exclusive, just one is a focus over another.

Secondly, cardio is not punishment. It is not the thing you do because you ate too much. It's really just living. Energy, mood, brain, sleep. Your heart has been working for you every second of your life without being asked. Training the cardiovascular system is paying back the favour.

What is it

The cardiovascular system is the heart, blood vessels and blood. That's it. The heart is a pump, the vessels are the pipes, the blood is the delivery truck. It carries oxygen and nutrients to every cell in the body and takes waste products like CO2 back out.

The heart is a muscle

Your heart is a muscle. And just like every other muscle it adapts with progressive long term consistent training. Hence why going out and killing yourself in a sweaty mess doesn't do anything. Consistency is more important than intensity.

As your heart adapts to the demands placed on it, it begins to pump more blood per beat. That's why trained people have lower resting heart rates.

Effects of strength training

Strength training has multiple effects on the cardiovascular system. First off, building more muscle means more blood vessels to feed it. In order to supply those vessels with blood and oxygen the heart has to grow stronger to pump the goods.

Secondly, during heavy strength training blood pressure spikes very high for a brief moment. This pressure builds the strength of the heart walls, effectively building a thicker heart. And while that might sound scary, stronger heart muscles are more resilient to cardiac events and are generally better able to handle the high blood pressure associated with stressful events, both emotional and physical.

The thicker heart walls are also able to push more blood around the body with less effort. Meaning strength trained people will generally feel a lot less tired when asked to use their muscles, climbing stairs or helping a friend move, than someone who just runs.

An all round more robust ticker.

Another effect is the extremely high heart rate reached during a heavy set. Although the heart rate only achieves that height momentarily, heart rate variability improves. The heart gets practice recovering quickly from high demand back to resting. That recovery speed is itself a marker of cardiovascular health. The faster your heart rate drops after intense effort the healthier your cardiovascular system is.

That is why rest between sets is so important. It is not dead time, you are actively trying to get that heart rate down through breathing techniques and conscious thought. You know you have worked at the right intensity when you need that rest and aren't bored by it.

Traditional training and the two goals

When we think of traditional cardiovascular training, we think running, biking, the stairmaster or some such. However, what we choose depends on what we are trying to train.

Stroke volume and aerobic base

Stroke volume, the amount of blood you push out with each beat. The body needs a set amount for the activity it's doing. If it needs 5 litres of blood to boot around the body in a minute it has options. Beat fast pushing out a little blood or beat slow pushing out a lot of blood. The stronger the heart the less it beats.

As we mentioned above, strength training helps stroke volume but so does exposure to long periods of the heart pumping blood at slightly faster rates. Unlike strength training that thickens the walls so they can push more blood through pressure, long exposure to the heart pumping a little faster, like we see in steady state cardio training, expands the left ventricle which allows more blood into the heart. More blood in, more blood out.

VO2 max, the longevity number

VO2 max is a giant beast. It essentially means how much oxygen your cells are receiving for a certain task. The research says it is the single strongest predictor of long term health and longevity. More than cholesterol, blood pressure, ripp'n darts, it's a big one. It can be trained and the less trained you are the greater effect training has on your VO2 max. So that's cool. Also remember you're not trying to be an athlete here who needs more and more as a competitive edge, you are just trying to maintain a good standard for as long as possible.

What's a good standard? Can you go up four flights of stairs in less than a minute without being winded? If so, you're probably good.

The zones, the nitty gritty

You may have heard of cardio zones when training already. They refer to heart rate zones and choosing which ones you spend time in is key.

Zone 1 — 50-60% max heart rate Very light activity. A gentle walk, moving around the house, a slow cycle. Active recovery basically. It increases blood flow without stressing the body. You hear almost nothing about it in fitness because it feels like it doesn't count, but it does. This is life and living. Get out there and be active. Garden, hike, stroll round town, bike. Move. Never feel guilty about not "working out" on a day you spent moving all day long!

Zone 2 — 60-70% max heart rate The one we talked about above in stroke volume. Brisk walk, moderate cycle, light jog, whatever gets your heart rate up but you can still hold a conversation is Zone 2 cardio. It's the aerobic base builder and super important. Three or four times a week for about 30 to 60 minutes.

It seems like a lot but if you live in NYC you are probably getting this every day. Ten blocks here and ten blocks there throughout the day. I cycle everywhere, 30 to 45 minutes at least three or four times a week. A hike on the weekends. This doesn't need to be seen as "extra." Like above, get out there and live.

Zone 3 — 70-80% max heart rate This is the interesting one, the one I said I hate in the opening. Sometimes called the grey zone or the junk zone. You are working hard enough to feel like you are doing something but not hard enough to get the specific adaptations of Zone 2 or the powerful stimulus of Zone 4 and 5. You are too fast to build the aerobic base and too slow to build real intensity adaptations. This is where a lot of group fitness lives without knowing it. People go out for a run and settle into a medium hard pace that is not easy enough to be Zone 2 and not hard enough to be genuinely high intensity. They get tired, they feel like they worked hard, but the training stimulus is suboptimal. This is also my major gripe with group fitness. The music blaring, the lights flashing, the heart pumping, but too hard for the base to build and nowhere near enough for the intensity to build VO2 max or strength. A waste of damn time. Hence our conditioning classes are short and intense.

The research suggests avoiding Zone 3 as much as possible and spending time at the extremes instead.

Zone 4 — 80-90% max heart rate Hard. You can speak only in short broken sentences. This is threshold training. It raises your lactate threshold significantly, meaning you can sustain harder efforts for longer before the wheels fall off. Tempo runs, hard sustained efforts. Valuable but taxing on the nervous system. Can't be done every day.

Zone 5 — 90-95% max heart rate Maximum effort. Unsustainable beyond very short bursts. Tabatas, sprints, the last round of an EMOM when everything hurts. Powerful hormonal response, fast VO2 max gains, builds power and speed. Small doses only.

First build your base with Zone 2. Then build your strength and mobility. Then introduce plyometrics to prepare your body for impact and force. Then when you're ready, hit the intense stuff.

What this looks like at Uptown

Our whole philosophy is to use the gym to live life outside it, not in it. Get strong, get mobile and get active. Your active life is that Zone 2. Do you love to dance, hike, swim, jog? Whatever it is, the more you do it the bigger your base, the less effort it takes and the more fun it becomes.

That is what our strength and mobility classes are all about.

Our conditioning classes are at the top of the pyramid and should be used sparingly. No more than once a week. They are designed for short highly intense bursts. Use them to build a VO2 max and your tolerance to fatigue, which all ties into the above. Go live.

So part four is done. A really technical one but don't let the science scare you. Trust me, if you are walking these city streets, doing your damnedest to lift some heavy weights and trying to touch those toes two to four times a week, you are doing great. Better than most in the world. You're doing enough, despite what capitalism and the gram tells you.