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Other/Mixed Aerobic Improvement vs Something Else

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Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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The sauna has been proven to have similar cardiovascular health benefits as exercise. What is the effect? I'd wager it's not the peripheral muscles but the heart and the lungs.

Correct.

The German sauna study did not find improvements in muscular work capacity.

BFR training on the other hand, does. Possibly due to some combination of cellular and vascular adaptations in the limbs.
 
and... thus will allow one to develop better cardio...
win-win

If there is room for improvement, yes, potentially.

But if the athlete is already near peak cardio, not so much.

Which is why top level cyclists and rowers do a lot of leg weight training....they have diminishing returns to cardio due to already being so good.
 
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If there is room for improvement, yes, potentially.

But if the athlete is already near peak cardio, not so much.

Why is why top level cyclists and rowers do a lot of leg weight training....they have diminishing returns to cardio due to already being so good.
Correct. Cardio like strength training is certainly not open ended...
 
I've been a cyclist since 2008 so my aerobic base is pretty well established and hasn't changed much over the past 8 years or so.
Where do you feel you are in your physiological potential range? How long do you feel it took to reach it?

This makes me think that an aerobic base is as proportionally wide as the number of hours a person is able to consistently train in zone 1/2 per week.
 
Where do you feel you are in your physiological potential range? How long do you feel it took to reach it?

This makes me think that an aerobic base is as proportionally wide as the number of hours a person is able to consistently train in zone 1/2 per week.
How would one go about defining their physiological potential range? Wouldn’t this be a bit of a moving target due to age and other factors?
I‘ve been a cyclist (competitive at times), runner, and alpine climber since 1975. All pretty much non-stop. My potential ‘back in the day’ is way different than it is today.

I’m not sure how many hours I could cycle in Z1 - Z2 per week, but I expect it might be a lot. (I know that’s relative) If I were to guess I would say I could consistently do 10-12hrs / week in my Z1- Z2 without much thought.
 
Where do you feel you are in your physiological potential range? How long do you feel it took to reach it?

Relative to what I feel is my own physiological potential, I would say on a scale of 1 to 10 I'm probably a 7. My VO2 max tests pretty high and I can keep up with men on the bike (not unusual for women, but definitely not a given, either), so my genetics are pretty good. Being in the military from age 20-40 I always had to maintain at least enough aerobic fitness to pass the tests, so that kept me above a 4 (I'm just making up arbitrary numbers based on this "scale") but I didn't excel during these years and was a smoker until age 33. When I started riding a bike regularly age 39-40 I built up to a 5 or 6... extending to longer road bike rides and continuing to run age 40-45 got me up to an 8... adding strength training these last 6 years has me hovering around a 7 unless I really reduce the effort there and put a lot more time like 4-5 hours/wk on the aerobic focus, then I could be back to an 8. It would take 10-12 hours of riding a week to get me to a 9 (and getting leaner), and 15 or more hours/week to get to a 10.


This makes me think that an aerobic base is as proportionally wide as the number of hours a person is able to consistently train in zone 1/2 per week.

On the arbitrary 1-10 scale, I would agree with this statement relative to the 6-10 range. IMO, a person can get up to a 6, maybe a 7 depending on their lifestyle, with other types of training and a limited amount of cardio, such as HIIT.
 
This makes me think that an aerobic base is as proportionally wide as the number of hours a person is able to consistently train in zone 1/2 per week.
Yes, but it is more than simply the duration. That is a big variable, but it is incomplete without also looking at intensity and distance. There are triathletes who run an 8 min/mile pace at the same Maffetone HR as I train in; even if they and I trained the same duration each week, they would have a much bigger aerobic base.

Have you watched this yet? I highly recommend it.
 
Yes, but it is more than simply the duration. That is a big variable, but it is incomplete without also looking at intensity and distance. There are triathletes who run an 8 min/mile pace at the same Maffetone HR as I train in; even if they and I trained the same duration each week, they would have a much bigger aerobic base.

Have you watched this yet? I highly recommend it.

Their 'intensity' isn't really any greater than yours. They can just 'go faster' because they have expanded their Z1 - Z2 and shrunk their Z3. So maybe this is what we are talking about when we use the term 'bigger aerobic base'
 
Their 'intensity' isn't really any greater than yours. They can just 'go faster' because they have expanded their Z1 - Z2 and shrunk their Z3. So maybe this is what we are talking about when we use the term 'bigger aerobic base'
Yes, in my mind I had equated the duration and intensity, and the difference was their ability to be faster at that, which I attribute in large part to their aerobic base (and to be fair to them probably a fairly significant increase in skill... going back to Bromo's original point).

Also it still boggles my mind that someone could be running so much faster than I am at the same relative level of effort. I can only aspire. :) (I remember when I was in 20 or 21 surprised when a girlfriend said she trained so hard to get to a 5k in 35 min and I was like wait were you walking? Ah how the tides turned against me... :p)
 
This is a great topic!

Back when I was an undergrad I participated in a study on running economy. Basically, you did a treadmill test to failure and based on how far you got there is an estimate for your vo2max. During the test they also recorded your vo2 and at the end compared. I was rowing ~12hrs a week at the time and running maybe twice a year. Unsurprisingly, despite having a relatively high vo2max I did not do very well on the treadmill test.At the end of the day, you can't really isolate any one variable. You need to keep a test specific.

A good example of this is the use of plyometrics to increase running speeds. The current hypothesis is it does so by stiffening joints and muscles so they have more elastic spring. You get faster, but not because of increase in mitochondria, or any usual aerobic adaptation. So say you follow Al's aerobic KB protocol and get faster at running without running. Is it because you got "more aerobic" or because ballistic kettlebell exercises made your muscles into springs?

That's the nice part about keeping the test and training both goal specific. If you get faster at running you don't need to care as much about how and why.
 
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