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/ subscribe. So without further delay. Here's today's sneak peek of the ask me anything episode. Welcome to ask me anything episode 57 and once again joined by my co-host Nick Stenson in today's episode. We dive deep into the topic of hit high intensity interval training visit topic we get asked about a lot and it seems that there is a lot of confusion around both the semantics of this and perhaps more importantly.
The data so in today's AMA we cover what exactly hit is and what the different types are.
When is hit beneficial and when is it not especially if you're looking through the lens of
longevity the importance of broadening your portfolio of exercise training and we talked about the best protocol. If you're going to
use hit throughout this conversation. We also speak about
vo2max and what a person can do to increase their
VO2 max, which is something we know is a very important metric for longevity. And of course how
Has hit training factor into that
if you're a subscriber and you want to watch
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page. So without further delay. I hope you enjoy am a number 57
Peter. Welcome to their am a how you doing
very well. Thank you.
Awesome. Well today's episode is going to be exercise related, but kind of on a topic.
We get asked about a lot and we haven't really covered which is hit or high intensity interval training and it's something that people see everywhere. It's marketed a lot people talk about it. And so we see a lot of questions come through around people who are wondering more about it. What are the different types? How does interval training fit in where can it be used? Where is it limited? What's the quote unquote best protocol and I think we gathered a lot of those questions which will cover today and through it. I think will also hopefully talk a lot about how
One can increase their VO2 max as well, which is something that we've talked a lot about the importance of VO2 max and a lot of people who are thinking about their longevity at something that they'll want to increase. So we'll hit on that and then also no surprise to people will also I'm sure talked about the importance of having a broad exercise program and training and not just specifically focusing on one thing. So we have a lot to do with that said anything you want to add before we hit the first question no pun intended.
I think that's great. I think there's a lot to cover here. This was a subject matter that we had been kicking down the road a little bit because we couldn't wrap our head around the right way to present it and I feel like it really kind of came together in the last couple of weeks. I feel much better about this subject matter. So I'm glad we waited until we had the data that we've got the studies that we've been able to look at and then obviously the implications so that we make this much more
Or rooted in what do you need to do is opposed to making sure you understand every molecular pathway of hit. Yeah, I think that's correct. And I think it would help to start off with just talking about the word hit because hit is such a commonly used word when people talk about exercise. Can you maybe set the stage of where it even comes from? Yeah. This is something I was kind of curious to learn about as we were getting ready to prep for this because I learned a little bit of this stuff when I was writing out live and it actually didn't make the Final Cut.
In the spirit of half the stuff you end up writing in the first draft is on The Cutting Room floor. So it's kind of fun to go back to some of this stuff but
this stuff gets documented
as far back as the 1800s which you know in some ways seems like a long time ago in some ways is not obviously but given the relative paucity of time that we have serious training. I would say that this is a long time and basically what it comes down to is some documentation of athletes having
altered their
Bo between running and walking for their training but it wouldn't really be until kind of the early 1900's that it would be codified more. Seriously you would originally go back to kind of the Finnish Olympic Runners that first employed this type of training and many one who's done any running or interval training might be familiar with the term fartlek. Fa R TL e k which I believe was coined in the 1930s it comes or is derived from the Swedish language, and I think it refers to playing
Speed play or something like that. So when I was actually growing up we
referred to it as speed play
so alternating fast and slow.
I would suspect that a bunch of people listening to us are probably familiar with a type of
interval known as Tabata training. So a Tabata Interval is a
very specific type of interval. This was first described
in the 1990s
where a guy by the name of Tabata was the first author on a paper that first presented this I think it was in the mid
90s interestingly though the
Protocol seems to have been developed by a guy named ear Sawa and the interval
was eight sets of 20 seconds on a bike all out interval with 10 seconds
of rest. So you're 20 seconds on 10 seconds off
eight times which gives you a four minute duration.
And anyway, so I didn't
learn about a Tabata probably until 10 years later when it was something that
one of my cycling coaches.
Floyd many many years later, so that's kind of the very
very short abbreviated version of how these interval trainings have come along. Another follow-up to that is there seems to be a lot of different programs classes gyms that call themselves hit tracking and we see a lot of questions from people who are confused by this and so I think it'd be helpful is can you speak a little bit about what hit training actually is and is there a way for people listening or watching to be able to
Differentiate between the different types of forms that they may see out there.
Yeah. It definitely has a bit of a brand issue. By the way when we're saying hit I should clarify its HIIT so high intensity interval training and I think part of the problem with everything we're about to discuss today at least a big part of it stems from the fact that there's no uniform definition in what constitutes hit. Now. What I'm going to try to suggest today is that we be a little bit more specific and we
Date between for example high intensity interval training or hit versus Sprint interval training
or sit or things like
Tabata training which kind of are a bit of a subset of sit. The
reason for that is they produce very different metabolic effects. They're obviously carried out very different
intensities and by
extension, they have some sort of different pros and cons. So given that the majority of the literature is
on what is called
Hit we're going to kind of start with that. But again,
If you remember nothing else from this podcast remember that when someone is talking to you about hit ask them to stop using the language and just be
specific which is
what is the effort level? What is the duration of work? What is the duration of rest? How often do I repeat at how many times we do it? It's really getting specific that's going to be relevant. And obviously that's what we want to cover today. Nevertheless hits are typically defined as submaximal efforts.
So
submaximal would be generally 80 to 95 percent of a person's maximum heart rate, but I will just tell you right now out of the gate. I think that definition is not that helpful because for example when I do my zone 2, I'm doing it at
80% of my max heart rate not because I'm targeting that but because
that's the heart rate I end up
being at when I'm in zone 2. Well that's clearly far from submaximal and conversely 95% of Max heart rate is truly.
A huge effort
these efforts cover very different Energy Systems. But again, the purpose of hit is generally to put you in your maximum aerobic training Zone, but clearly the
duration of the interval
and clearly the intensity will speak to
how much anaerobic training you're getting in there as well. Well unpack this a lot more but let me just move on and I'll talk about Sprint interval training. So Sprint interval training in some ways I think is easier to
And because it is Supra maximal,
so these are efforts that would exceed the output of your
VO2 max. So again, if we think about what VO2 max is VO2 max
is the
maximal consumption of oxygen. So this is typically performed at a very high
level but not a peak
level. So an all-out 30 seconds Sprint does not produce maximal 02 uptake. It's typically going to need to be a duration. That's
Longer than that. So let's just assume you've achieved the level of VO2 Peak or
vo2max. You would then say well,
what was my power at that level or what was my speed at that level
and then Sprint interval training is done at an effort that
exceeds that so it's a higher power or a higher speed. Now, here's what's interesting. It's not necessarily a higher heart rate. And the reason for that is that if you
imagine what your heart rate is doing at a VO2 max you've taken
A while to get up to that speed or that power whatever it is you're using and you're holding it for a couple of minutes. It really
gives your heart rate a chance to peek. So when I'm doing vo2max intervals on the bike, which I'm only doing once a week, I'm almost hitting max heart rate
by the end. I'm probably within five beats of Max heart rate. That's actually a higher heart rate than if I'm doing 22nd all out on a Tabata because in that short period of time and again the Sprint
Ervil,
Protocols are typically 10 second 22nd all outs. In fact, I think they're defined as up to 60 seconds, but you can't do anything all out at nearly that duration. You typically don't get your heart rate is high. And so they're
typically done pegged to a power level or a speed level that is in excess of your Peak VO2 max. Hopefully that kind of provides the right amount of clarity on maybe some of the distinction between hit and sit. Yeah, and I think we'll get
To like you said a lot of the other stuff on the details with the later upcoming questions, maybe
one of the thing I want to say Nick, do you remember when I had Alex Hutchinson on the podcast two years ago three years ago.
Now there's something very interesting that Alex Hutchinson wrote about in his book indoor which is around the science of endurance. And I find this to be completely
true for me, which is
the only effort in which you can truly go all out is an effort up.
Up to about 10 seconds
and that might sound crazy because I'm sure there are people listening to this
you say what are you talking about man? I do 60-second all outbursts. I do 22nd all outbursts 32nd all outbursts. I don't think you do. I think if you're doing anything over 10 seconds, you are consciously or subconsciously applying some Governor to that activity that keeps you from absolutely blowing up and I know this Alex goes through the
Science of this but I can just tell you personally
that there's a very big difference in how hard I'm able to push when I
do a 10 second on 22nd off repeat versus a 20-second on 22nd off or 22nd on 10-second off repeat and I'm
very attentive to how much am I pushing without a limit and anything above 10 seconds. I seem to be just holding back slightly. So keep that in the back of your mind.
When people talk about the term all out, that's a very misleading term real quick. You want to know a fun fact about the Alex Hutchinson podcast sure. It was the very first podcast we've ever done on video outside of one or two random ones before but when we made the switch to video Alex was the first person that we did that with very interesting another thing real quick before we move on you mentioned max heart rate. So I think kind of how you define all out was really good. Can you let people know how they would know their max heart rate is
Well, because I think it is going to be a metric that if anyone's kind of looking at this they're going to want to know to really fully understand how this works. Yeah, max heart rate is pretty literal term. It's the maximum achieved heart rate. Now, there are different ways to
predict at the most simple formula that is generally used is the 220 minus your age formula. So if you're 50 your maximum heart rate, would it be expected to be 170 beats per minute but a lot of factors play into it, and I don't think
Think that the formula is sufficient and therefore I think the only way to really know it is to actually push yourself in submaximal efforts until you get to maximum heart rate. So this will be typically be seen if a person does a VO2 max test and certainly will be seen if a person does a stress test if they're pushed to failure but nevertheless it is a good heart rate to know if you want to base any of your training on heart rate. I don't personally pay attention to it because
Everything I'm doing is either based on our
PE or W
and I'm using the W to drive the sort of training interval. But some people do use heart rate don't think there's anything wrong with that but I don't think it's as robust frankly as
speed or Mets or W moving on. I think it'd be helpful to just maybe cover why we probably see so many questions about hit and I think the reason is you often see it touted as like a more efficient way to
exercise or more effective way to exercise. So do you maybe want to talk about why people are out there kind of making that claim as it relates to
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