Heart Rate Zone Training Explained: How to Train Smarter and Run Faster | PRG Podcast

[00:00] Today we’re excited to welcome exercise physiologist and long-distance runner Aaron Eskert. Today, Aaron and I have the pleasure of working together with athletes, with me on the coaching side, and Aaron helping my athletes.

[00:12] With metabolic assessments, body composition testing, sweat testing and analysis, and more at Human Powered Health’s Performance Lab in nearby Edina, Minnesota. In addition to having the best name in the world, Aaron

[00:25] also competed at UW Eclair, where he was a five time All American and National Champion in 2013 in the 10K. He has a master’s in kinesiology and now specializes in working with runners and endurance athletes at Human Powered Health. On this episode, we’re going to talk to Aaron about the

[00:42] rate zone training topic and how to harness it to improve your training, recovery, and ultimately your race day performance. We’ll also learn about how you can determine your personal heart rate zones from simple field testing to advanced metabolic assessments that he performs as an exercise physiologist at Human Powered Health. Aaron, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Aaron. Excited to be here. Awesome, and we’re excited to have you. We’ve had

[01:08] This year, two of whom actually completed the Superior 100 this past weekend, and their training was very much aided by some of the data that you worked with them to develop. In particular, this weekend the temperatures got pretty warm for Superior. They did, they did. Athletes

[01:24] through the middle of the day were dealing with like 75 degrees and really intense humidity at the same time, and that electrolyte component.

[01:32] those athletes developed was for sure a big reason why they came into my aid station at mile thirty three looking a lot better than most of the competitors. So thank you. so just a little bit about you. So you worked your runner

[01:46] Before moving into exercise physiology,

[01:49] what drew you from being on the competition side to studying the science behind performance? Yeah, I think as you would agree, Aaron, like you know, just being a distance runner or any athlete in general, you’re you know, a competitive person, of course, and you’re trying to run PRs or you know, throw farther if you’re a shot porter or discus and track or trying to sprint fast or you know, jump, jump high or whatever the your goal is. so I think just as I was kind of going to college, I actually went to college.

[02:17] not knowing what major, you know, I wanted to do. I think a lot of you know kids high school don’t know what they want to do when they’re when they’re all grown up. that was kind of me same thing. So I wanted to you know wanted to run for sure in in college ’cause I, you know, really loved it. My parents were both world c class professional runners in their heyday. So I had a kind of a running

[02:37] love and passion kinda instilled in me when I was young.

[02:41] But I just had always a curiosity of like, how does the body work and how do we get faster? You know, to put it simply. why do some people, you know, run this time in a mile versus this person runs this mile time and they have totally different PRs than like in a 10K versus like a 800. You have your sprint-focused, speed-focused athletes like a you know, like let’s say like a Cole Hawker maybe like in track right now, who can run a good 1500, 800, and 5k, but then you have guys that can still drop down.

[03:11] down to the fifteen hundred and still run well that are more your long distance guys like a Joel Clecker type person or

[03:17] somebody like that. So I guess that curiosity about physiology just really kind of sparked my interest into, you know, studying it.

[03:25] And also not knowing what I wanted to do when I was when I was older, I was like, sure, this this sounds pretty cool and it can help my running out, that’d be

[03:31] even better. So it was kind of just a no-brainer to hey, I like helping people. I love sports, I love running. It just felt like a good place to kind of study and and go into. I’m glad I did. Yeah, that’s awesome.

[03:50] for sure. And that’s what is one great part about the job is that

[03:54] We get yeah, we get your people like Minnesota Distance Elite type runners that are professional elites running OTQs and competing at world championships. in like Dakota, for example, running the Olympics. So, you know, we’re getting athletes that are on the high end. and that’s awesome and and fun to work with. But also what I think is really fun to work with is people that maybe pick up running that are in their fifties or older or maybe they’re

[04:19] middle aged and they’re trying to get in shape and they discover that running is just such a fun

[04:24] sport and then when they grew up they thought that running was you know kind of their sports punishment is kind of the funny saying that we all know about running is you see on the back of high school athletes’ shirts their model, you know, our our sport is your sports punishment, you know, type type quotes. and I think people get kind of a bad rap about like running or endurance sports ’cause they think that it you know it always has to hurt and always has to be painful and it’s not fun. You’re on your own, you’re by yourself.

[04:51] but I think you and me and other runners know that you know once you kind of

[04:54] improved that baseline of fitness and stuff, you just it it feels good to be in shape and you you you can combine that with racing and you’re doing well and getting faster. to me I know I’m biased, but there’s nothing like it I feel like and it’s a true sport. You you put in what you get or you get out of it what you put into it, I should say. versus the other way around.

[05:15] and and I think that’s definitely true. And yeah, you do have injuries and stuff like that that get in the way sometimes.

[05:21] But if it’s easy it wouldn’t be fun, so that’s why I like the sport is you know

[05:25] You put the hard work in and you can definitely can pro progress year to year to year. So seeing those newbies we get into the the lab too that are, hey, I just wanna, you know, get my VO to max test in and see where I’m at, or hey, I wanna get some zones ’cause I’m doing twinsies marathon in, you know, four months or whatever it is. that’s reboarding to see them go from a you know, some five hour marathon to a sub four or a sub four to sub three or go get a Boston qualifier, you know, whatever it is. So

[05:51] Yeah, I just love seeing anybody have success. is kind of my focus and why I’m at HPH. Yeah. Super rewarding and and absolutely that data that you guys work to

[06:01] To generate is so foundational to helping athletes succeed and progress. And it’s been awesome

[06:07] to work together with you guys. So we’re going to talk today about heart rate zones. And this is a topic that I’m pretty passionate about. As you know, me as a coach, I am all about heart rate zones. I love training on heart rate. I think it’s one of the true metrics that just provides a really objective set of data for us to use. So for a runner who’s never trained with heart rate zones, what’s the simplest way to explain what a zone

[06:31] actually represents physiologically? Yeah, that’s a great question. And a great place to start, I would say, is this is a conversation

[06:37] I have with a lot of athletes. We get into the lab, especially especially who’s newer to the sport and doesn’t really know much about pacing or workouts or how to gauge intensity and you know when to push versus when to hold back and and you know all those kind of little things you find out just being in the sport you know for a long time. And the basic kind of summary to keep it short without going on my my tangents or rancid

[07:00] Here on the the you know science behind it is that it’s a way to kind of engage intensity is basically the the the simple way to put it. you know, we can’t be hooked up to an oxygen metabolic cart to measure our oxygen consumption, you know, at all times. Yeah, that’d be awful having to wear a mask every day for every run. so this is kind of a way to kind of engage intensity is you know, can we use something simple like a chest strap hooked up to a watch or nowadays with

[07:26] the you know a wrist heart rate or you know a chorus armband to

[07:30] to

[07:31] give us that feedback right in the moment and also not to wear a mask to to measure those things. So it’s kind of a way to kind of you know kind of give you the idea of what that intensity is and

[07:43] You know, there’s other ways we can get more sciencey with with measuring intensity. You can look at the acidity in your muscles, you know, what’s that intramuscular pH, but that’d be very hard to to study mid-run or you know in the moment. So we can’t do that. We can’t use oxygen consumption because that’s gonna require a cart. So heart’s kind the best way to kind of get an idea of what intensity you’re at that current moment to you know run the best workout possible or to keep your workout at an easy pace or you know, whatever your goal is for that day. Cool. Cool. so everybody when they think of

[08:15] Predicted heart rate formulas, and I feel like when I start with athletes, a lot of athletes that I bring on they don’t like training on heart rate because these formulas have failed

[08:24] them, like they don’t feel right, they don’t match up with their perceived exertion. so tell us about these formulas. What do you think about them? Are there like some that are better than others? Are these ever an okay way?

[08:42] Definitely. So this is a question we get a lot too and and understandably so ’cause there’s so much out there on the on the internet and what people hear from other people about kind of how to get a start with running, especially if they’re new to it. and there is formulas like you know, you know the classic two twenty minus your age, that’s probably the most famous one. there’s formulas like heart rate reserve where you can kinda can use your your kind of predicted heart rate that way for your for your zones, and based off your resting heart rate.

[09:10] And those are all, you know, get you in the ballpark usually for most people. but then there’s a select few people that it’s gonna be way off for. So you know, I’ve done thousands and thousands of tests over the years and have seen the both those formulas, you know, fail quite a bit, and can be by quite a bit. And there’s some that’ll be kind of you know dead on when we do their VO2 max tests and their predicted is right close to their their actual. But I would say the usually the the trend is the older someone is, the more inaccurate the zone.

[09:39] zones tend to be I found that to be super is what I’ve noticed. Yeah, and you get a high school earn here that’s you know sixteen years old and they’re they’re gonna see hearts of you know two four, two five,

[09:50] you know, for the max quite often and pretty consistently, but it does seem kind of

[09:55] After that it kind of gets very wishy washy with kind of the predictions and you’re better off kind of just doing a lactate or a VO2 max test to kind of see what that you know true max heart rate is. Yeah. On that note, so field testing is another option, something that I oftentimes do if I can’t quite convince them to come in and see you for sure. But if if I can’t, usually getting out for a lab test, we’ll have them run you know a max effort on a

[10:25] race or I’ll have them simulate a 10K race or something like that that gets us in the half

[10:33] Take a sampling of that to determine what their kind of threshold heart rate is. How good is that as a predictive strategy? Or what are your thoughts on that?

[10:42] Yeah, that’s a great question, Aaron. And this is kind of a a c convo I have a lot with people is the balance of objective and subjective, you know, like we we measure these values in the lab at at HPH, like your lacte threshold and your VH Max. And it’s great getting the data to really, you know, use some science behind your training to really pinpoint and get accuracy with kind of your direction going forward. but there’s something to be said about being subjective too. I think any runner would agree that there’s some days where you go for a run

[11:12] and you just don’t have the same energy, you don’t have you don’t recover maybe as much as you would like to. And there’s days we have to kind of disregard your zones a little bit. So maybe your zones say to run eight minute mile to eight thirty for your, you know, quote unquote zone two that people like to talk about nowadays, you might need to back off

[11:28] a little bit to kind of, you know, listen to your body.

[11:33] So there is some good things about doing these subjective tests sometimes, especially with someone who’s new who might be a little bit scared to go into a lab. they feel intimidated, they feel like they’re not an elite runner, so why do I need to go get a fancy test done? So it can be a great way to kinda have someone start with like, Hey, we’re gonna try to get some objective numbers here. in a non, you know, kind of stressful scenario, it’s it’s already a race here.

[11:58] If you’re racing, I guess you’re gonna be in a very stressful situation, but at least it’s something you’re they’re used to. if they’ve done a few races, if if they’ve never never done a VO2 max test, that can be a little intimidating. and they’ll wear a mask for the first time and and they make me feel more comfortable in a race setting. So as a coach, that can be a great way to kind of get some zones, at least for the the start, is like, hey, let’s jump in the 10k that you’re already doing for you know, you’re you’re doing the City of Lakes half marathon and you’re wanting to do a 10k six weeks.

[12:26] out to see kind of where you’re at. you can use that race

[12:29] to kind of get a good estimate of like what those heart rates would be.

[12:34] or or a or a five K you can get kind of a

[12:37] better idea what a max heart rate would be. Usually the longer the race is, the less accurate of a max you’re gonna get because you know for a marathon that lasts two, three, four hours, you’re not running your max heart rate. But for a five K, you know definitely gonna be a little closer to your max heart rate at the end of the the race. So there’s you know field tests like that where it’s actually hey just next best thing about getting some physiology is go out and race if you’re not gonna be in the lab. Like that’s gonna tell you physical and mental, you know, kind of balance ’cause you’re you

[13:04] know looking at your fitness level, how fast can you run at that 5k

[13:07] or 10k, but also the the mental the motivation, you know, in a lab you don’t have that same motivation to maybe go that extra ten seconds in the VO2, you know, max test. But in a race setting, if you’re trying to run a sub thirty five, ten K or sub forty, ten K, you know, there’s something to push for mentally and you can you know try to chase down that person in front of you.

[13:29] So obviously next best thing out the outside the lab is getting into the real world and you know, putting the ratios on and going out and seeing what you can do is the next best thing. another way too that people have used in the past to kind of measure like for example VO two max estimates is doing a twelve minute run test or a Cooper test. So basically you just go to a track, you know, usually some are nice and flat and

[13:53] and just run basically twelve minutes and then whatever time are discs. Yeah, most people that

[13:59] Most kinesiology majors, you know, did that in college to, you know, look at ways to estimate VO2. and you just look at what distance you made it in that twelve minutes and that can give you a pretty dang good, you know, close estimate of what that VO2 is. And yes, it can be off by a little bit, but generally it’s a pretty close estimate of where you’re actually at for your VO2. yeah, so there’s ways kind of estimate for sure.

[14:23] And in some people it might be best to start there first and then look at coming to a lab.

[14:28] Others, maybe more your elite population, it might make make more sense to hey, we are we already race a lot, let’s go to the lab, let’s get some update, you know, updated VO2 max or lactate, you know, zone numbers to help us structure our training to figure out what’s you know possible going forward. Yeah, definitely, definitely. So so what physiological markers actually determine somebody’s true zones? Because when you go into the lab, like

[14:54] certain points that are helping you to say, okay, well this is the top of zone

[14:59] two, zone three, et cetera. So help kind of explain everybody’s heard the buzzwords like zone two, three. Zone two, yeah. What does that really mean? Well, you know, what what physiological markers separate zone one, two, three, four, five, et cetera, depending on the model.

[15:14] Yeah, and this is something we get a lot too at the lab is people want to come in to find out what their their zone two is ’cause that’s kinda the craze right now, which we’ll probably get to here coming up in the next few questions too, about further details on that. But the way I like to explain it with

[15:31] you know, kinda why we do these these zones, whether it’s a four zone or a five zone or a three zone model, is that again it’s a way to kinda quantify intensity and we know it’s kinda it’s a spectrum, so, you know, it you go from, you know, a walk to a sprint, you know, that’s a very wide, big spectrum. So it’s nice to kinda quantify, you know, what is considered easy to my physiology, what is considered kind of that next step up, kind of that moderate or that

[15:55] steady effort you might hear runners say, or like a tempo effort, or a threshold in other

[16:01] Another commonly used term. then what’s kind of that divider? So that next one, you know, what’s that kind of that VO2 max area or that, you know, what we call severe domain. so that brings me to my next point here. Basically, we have three domains when it comes to how our physiology kind of works. So if you read any physiology textbook or Google this, you’ll see it. It’s gonna show our first zone is considered moderate. And I kind of call it easy moderate because moderate kind of assumes of more of a steady.

[16:31] year effort, at least to me being a runner. so like calling that zone easy moderate. And that’s usually what kind of groups are zone one, zone two heart rates and paces. So think like your just typical easy recovery run, just going for a nice easy couple miles or you know, for an ultra runner or a marathon, it might be a

[16:51] long run still, but it’s still at an easy pace.

[16:54] And they call that the moderate intensity domain. And the next one up from there is called your heavy intensity domain. And this is what a lot of writers call the steady threshold tempo kind of zone or or your marathon pace typically kind of lies for most people. and there’s something different about that intensity domain than than the one below that, the moderate one, where the body starts to see some changes happening. And then there’s another zone above that called your or domain above that

[17:24] called your severe intensity domain. That’s what we call the VH Max domain.

[17:30] And that’s kind of where the three-zone model kind of came from back in the old days, is that we basically have three zones when it comes to our physiology, moderate, heavy, severe. But now we’ve kind of broken them up into you know five zones or four zones. So now in kind of traditional ways, I would say most people use a five-zone model is most common for for running. And that moderate domain is kind of grouped as zone one, zone two. The heavy is grouped as zone three, four, and then that severe domain is kind of that zone five.

[18:00] area, basically five K pace and and faster for most people. and then past that as kind of that anaerobic kind of capacity once you get past about mile, you

[18:11] know, ish kind of race pace. Yeah. And so correct me if I’m wrong, there’s kind of like within these zones there’s a couple points where things change. And like you said, it kind of really breaks down to three three domains. Yeah, zone one, zone two, like in theory that that’s if I’m understanding right

[18:29] lactate or aerobic threshold one or threshold one, that’s where you’re kind of switching what substrates you’re burning more of, right? And and you’ve kind of reached a point where, you know, zone one, zone two, in theory you should be able to run for an incredibly

[18:41] long duration as long as your fuel

[18:46] What happens? Yeah, that’s a great question. So when we’re kind of and I always kinda think about this as a spectrum a little bit too. We we have these zones, these these hard cutoffs when it comes to our testing we do at the labs.

[18:59] And I always explain to people that it isn’t these exact cutoffs in actuality. You know, our physiology does kind of blend together. We’ve all heard like you know, fast twitch, slow twitch muscle fibers as a runner. and the truth is there’s a lot of inner mixing of those fibers. So there’s you know, endurance fibers that and and that can behave a little more fast twitch and and vice versa a little bit that kind of blend together a little bit. So our zones do the same thing. Your your zone two, for let’s say, for example, if you go, you know, five seconds a mile faster than what your

[19:29] your lab testing says it doesn’t mean you’re gonna totally change the stimulus and you’re ruining your recovery run by going a little bit too fast

[19:39] you know or something like that. There is a little bit of mixing. so my my favorite analogy I’ve I’ve heard is our physiology is more like a dimmer switch than like a light switch, if that makes sense. So like you don’t all of a sudden just from zone two to three, you don’t start like making totally different adaptations. There is some variation going on for sure, which we’ll get to here in a second too.

[20:00] But there’s a lot of kind of interplay going on there and When we look at that first threshold, so basically there’s those those three domains. So there’s two kind of cutoffs, if that makes sense to divide those those three domains. And that first one, as you notice, called that aerobic or that first threshold or lactate threshold one. if you read any any paper on kinesiology on like exercise science, you’ll see papers using different terminology. And that’s where it gets a little confusing because some people might say lactate threshold, but they are referring to your first threshold, not your second one.

[20:36] Yeah, it’s more so an older paper thing in the old research they would use they would call your lactea threshold your first threshold, which we now kinda use that for the second threshold that divides those heavy and severe domains. So I like we like to at the lab we call it lactea threshold one and lactea threshold two to kind of keep it a little simpler. or aerobic and anaerobic thresholds is another one I like to use too. And what kind of happens in those that boundary between the

[21:03] moderate and that heavy domains that your body is still able to steady state. You know, you might run like a zone three workout, a tempo run, for example, at marathon pace, and it’s a a speed can handle for a long time. It’s not like you you are pooped out in 20, 30 minutes. You can go for quite a while at that pace, but your body is now kind of like you noted, switching how it’s making energy. So below that that threshold we’re using a lot of fats as a fuel source to kind of fuel the the

[21:33] running in a fair amount of carbs too, but usually a higher

[21:36] percentage of fat.

[21:38] Just cause we don’t need the energy that fast, our body is going at a easy kind of pace. So your body doesn’t need energy, you know, right now, right away. And once we start getting above that zone two, that first threshold, that’s when our body starts to get s I always like to say, likes to lose its efficiency a little bit. So your solstice fibers get a little bit in less able to keep up. So it starts to kind of recruit helpers to help

[22:03] produce that ATP. And that usually means you’re using more of those kind of hybrid fibers.

[22:08] that are a little bit fast twitch and a little bit slow twitch, but they’re a little more wasteful ’cause they have those kind of fast twitch capabilities, but they help you run faster. So they are needed. and as you know, as a coach in our training we can kind of strengthen those fibers for runners trying to run a faster marathon or a faster half marathon, especially in those races where you’re can can kind of change your physiology to, you know, kind of help you, you know, move that threshold up and and get faster by making your L T one faster over time, which is a key thing we focus on with the testing at the lab is hey, does your L T one or L T two move up from your last test? And as you decide, you’re gonna get better in the marathon or the half marathon distances. So that’s kind of what’s happening there at that that threshold is that instead of being in a nice steady state, as soon as you start, let’s say you’re you’re for you

[22:59] Aaron, you’re Your L T one is a let’s just say it’s a six thirty. Yeah, one fifty six heart rates and then like a six thirty six thirty mile, just to throw a number out there. once you start running that six twenties and six fifteens, your body’s still able to kind of stay state, but it just takes a little longer for the oxygen consumption to stay state, for the heart rate to kind of stay state, for the the acidity in your muscles to kind of stay state a little bit, for the lactate in your blood to come to that that flat line.

[23:29] But we start to lose some efficiency and at some point you run that pace forever, you’re gonna fatigue, at at some point and

[23:40] But not hit a you a VO2 max. There’s other things that limit our fatigue at that at that speed. If you’re running a you know, a three K, for example, right? Your VO2 max, fatigue is gonna happen in a different manner than it will happen running a zone two or zone three-ish pace for as long as possible, like we do in the marathon usually. So that’s why it’s fasting with physiology. There’s there’s different ways or body fatigues for these different races. You know, running a mile,

[24:04] you’re kinda limited by the again, your how much fast twitch can you you kind of you know

[24:10] promote and and use with your your slow twitch fibers ’cause you need that speed, but the marathon it’s a totally different thing where you’re you know a little bit limited by the glycogen stores you have in your body. that’s that’s why the feeling becomes so much more important and you in a marathon obviously.

[24:27] And also the muscle damage that happens on the marathon too, which is a a lot different than a mile race where you’re not gonna get that muscle damage that limits your your potential.

[24:35] So in other words, your resilience on the marathon is really important. You know, how much can you not deteriorate over the two, three, four hours you’re running for? can you sustain a high fraction of your lattice threshold or your your VO two max? So,

[24:50] So yeah, answer your question in the shortest possible way. that was a longer answer than you’re probably looking for, but that’s kind of the the basic science behind what that divider between the moderate and the heavy domains are. Got it, got it. So really it’s kind of L T one is you know, if I understand right, it from what you’re saying, it’s kind of where we’re separating, burning

[25:12] Percentage of fats, being in really kind of a sustainable zone in terms of being able to do it for really, really long hours and hours. We get above LT1, our body’s starting to switch to a higher percentage of carbohydrate building. We’re building up more lactate. We’re kind of on the clock at that point. We’re not able to sustain that forever. There will be limiting factors depending

[25:32] on the person and how much they’ve trained. Yep. And then after that LT2, that’s when our body is building up so much lactate that there is an endpoint. We will

[25:41] the point where we’re we’re gonna fatigue and you know you’re gonna feel that muscle burn it’s literally going to to stop you from continuing that effort. Is that kinda correct? That’s correct, definitely. So that’s that’s that heavy and severe domain dividers that Lt Two and that’s one that you know, you as you noted the lactate really starts to exponentially increase beyond controllable amounts. So there’s definitely something happening physiologically there just from using our common sense. There’s something clearly happening that’s, you know, increasing the the intensity in our body where we can’t handle that for forever and ever anymore, like we could in zone three or zone two or, you know, zone one.

[26:20] And at some point we’re gonna we’re gonna fatigue out if we keep going with that pace your body has to, you know, stop or slow down at least to to get to that that that end goal, whether it’s the marathon or whether it’s a half, you know, whatever the race distance is. and that’s when you’re going from that

[26:37] Again, it’s sustainable but we’re we’re in an elevated state. So your levels are all elevated, your heart rates, your lactate, your oxygen consumption is elevated, but it’s able to still you know kinda reach a steady state, but then after that L T two you you get to that point, that’s when those things are basically out of control. And at some point you’re gonna have to pay the piper and you’re gonna have to slow down or stop, if you don’t make any revisions in your in your pace there. So,

[27:01] The reason why I love like marathons, for example, is you have to really kind of you know, through your training as well you you figure this out, but you have to kind of figure out, you know, how much

[27:11] Can I spend per mile here in terms of my pace and have enough for the end? And how much is too close running to that LT2? If you run within 10 seconds of your LT2, you’re probably running a little too hot. if you’re more of a let’s say a three-hour marathoner, but for a Kipchogee, for example, who’s running a two-hour marathon, they can run a little closer to their LT2 and get away with it because they’re done in two hours versus being done in three or three and a half or four hours. That’s a whole different race for an elite versus a non-elite, which is why I always tell people you can’t use an elite.

[27:40] the athletes program to you know write your own program like they are running a different race than you are if you’re not running, you know, two hour marathons or you know running 120 miles a week and doing their their training volume. So

[27:55] so with our testing at the lab, that’s a huge number to look at as the L T one and and L T two to see where those cutoffs happen. And by knowing those, we can be really pinpoint with like telling that person what’s plausible for them for that marathon coming up.

[28:10] know, can can they run that BQ time or can they PR coming up? That can tell us a lot. So there’s a lot of athletes that come in even a week before their race when they’re kind of tapering up and the workouts, as you know, don’t matter a ton. As long as you’re you’re running a little bit and doing some intensity, we’re gonna be fine, come race doing that last week. So there’s people will bring in the last week or so to see, hey, are we are we there to to go after that that that BQ time?

[28:36] Which can be good for people and bad sometimes, but if they like that motivation, hey, my physiologist sha saying I can do this and hey, let’s go do it next week and then there’s some people that say, Hey, I don’t wanna know. I’m gonna put my trust in my coach that we’re we’re there and I feel good. And sometimes that’s that’s better for that person. It kinda depends on your personality and, you know, kinda what drives that person and what motivates them. So

[28:58] Yeah, that’s that’s a key threshold to kind of improve over training is can we boost that L T two up so that it makes that marathon pace feel, you know, that much easier. and

[29:08] and that’s that’s a key determinant of of performance. Yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, and I that’s something I’ve seen with athletes that I’ve worked with over a longer term is that L T two increase and we have to bring them in and

[29:20] And sometimes I just had an athlete that you know came to you a couple weeks ago who definitely has seen that LT2 improve over the years despite despite getting older and it’s pretty awesome to see that type of of difference and what that means for a race like her marathon and what capacity she can be at. So yeah, really, really cool stuff and cool to have

[29:38] that like real data that shows us these improvements over time. So I’m kind of I’m gonna go off script for a second because I have a question that’s very related that I’m sure a lot of runners are thinking right now.

[29:49] So you there’s this huge movement out there for this eighty twenty. Matt Fitzgerald wrote a whole book about this. Yep, yeah. Eighty percent of our training.

[30:01] This LT1 essentially in kind of moderate, low, moderate zone, and then you know, 20% should be

[30:08] in this higher intensity zone. And obviously, these are not hard and fast rules, but that’s kind of a the general consensus that a lot of coaches go off after, and and I do too, admittedly. I’m curious, what are your thoughts on 80-20? and why why is it either a good thing or what would

[30:25] challenges to that philosophy? Yeah, that’s a great question. And you know, as I always say with a lot of these questions, it depends, is the first, you know, kind of answer that. You know, you look at again a a Kipchogee

[30:38] type type athlete who’s an elite runner, you know, their their ratio of low intensity to high intensity running is gonna look a lot different than somebody who’s running, you know, twenty, thirty miles a week, who’s maybe new to running, who is trying to run their first half marathon or their marathon. So that’s my first answer is that it kind of depends

[30:55] on the person a little bit. but in general that rule is pretty sound for sure. is my answer there. So for most people you look at their training. if if you’re running a decent amount of miles a week, you’re running forty, fifty miles a week for a marathon or a half marathon. And I keep using marathon, half marathon ’cause that’s my bias. I’m more of a more of a road and and track and field guy and you’re more of an ultra guy. So that’s short for for you, but for most people that’s a it’s a long race for most people.

[31:24] In a decent amount of amount of train volume doing forty, fifty miles a week.

[31:28] That’s that’s gonna be a pretty set ratio for sure, the A twenty. because you’re probably running s six days a week in order to run forty, fifty miles a week. And if you take one off day in there, you’re probably doing one day of intervals and then you’re doing four to five days a week of pretty much easy. You might have a long run that has some work in the long run, like a progression run, a fast finish to the long run, marathon pace in the long run. So that’s you know, considered a quality day where you’re doing some intensity. but in general, yeah, that’d be a pretty dang good.

[31:58] ratio to use for most people is you know can you look at your days a week of running and make sure you’re not doing more than twenty percent of those days as kind of interval based runs. So for most people that ends up being like two days a week at most. If you’re if you run every day of the week, you run seven days a week, do two days of kind of interval type workouts, five days of easy. That’s kind of where the A20 rule kind of comes from. But you might get an elite runner that’s doing 120 miles a week and they’re doing two runs a day almost every day. So they’re

[32:28] ratio of how many runs are doing a week that are easy is gonna be way above eight twenty. But in terms I always kinda think about it in terms of the days per week that you run. So if you’re running five days a week, do one day that’s hard, four days that are pretty easy to get that eighty-ish kind of twenty ratio. if you’re running seven days a week, yeah it’s gonna look a little different. You’re gonna have more sessions overall, you know, probably twelve, thirteen, fourteen runs a week. but it’s still kind of that five days of easy, two days of interval based training. And

[32:57] we looked at

[32:58] the research a lot for like this data and these answers a lot, which is good because we want to use, you know, science and experiments and you know, scientific design to to learn things. But I think it’s I don’t know what the right word is, but like I think it’s good to look at what’s happened anecdotally too as a sign of hey, what works and what doesn’t work. And I think over the last, you know, obviously, We train a lot different now than we did, let’s say, back in the early nineteen hundreds, but over the last hundred and some years we have come a long way. If you look at kind of the history of how endurance athletes have trained, it’s kinda funny if you ever have time, it’s kinda funny to look back at what they used to do, you know, in the old days in the early nineteen hundreds, we used to go for like long walks to train for a race. And and actually the science might actually support that. Exactly. It’s so I’m not knocking that, but I think most people would now agree, hey, we gotta run

[33:49] a little more than we than we walk in a in a demands. You’re probably not getting

[33:53] Exactly, exactly. But it’s kinda funny looking at how we’ve you know, in a only a hundred years time, which is a long time, but

[33:59] You know, but it’s kind of funny to look how far we’ve come since even like the nineteen sixties, you know, the running boom really happened around the sixties and seventies when you know the world distance running really took off. You know, the four minute mile of course was was before that, but you know, the marathon running, the half marathon running, you know, really took off with the times and just the popularity after that with kind of modern day periodization and training and progressive overload is kind of that dominating principle that kind of started around then. And the specif as you mentioned, the specificity.

[34:29] of hey, if you gotta get better at running twenty-six miles, you should probably run twenty some miles or so in a couple runs before the race and do some stuff at your you know marathon pace and goal pace or you know close to it and work above above and below that pace to improve your efficiency around it.

[34:46] So I think over time, especially these last fifty, sixty years of just our history of endurance training, we’ve really learned that hey, volume is is king. You gotta, you know, up your volume to a certain amount to have a chance at, you know, reach your potential. And and then from there we know we need some intensity too. but in order to handle a lot of volume,

[35:07] When it comes to you can’t do it all in zone three or four, especially not zone five, otherwise you’re not gonna have very much fun. You might be fit for a few weeks there, but at some point you’re gonna have an overused injury or something’s gonna happen or mentally burnout. so to get a lot of volume in, you need to do a lot of low intensity stuff, and that’s kinda where the hype came in with the zone two stuff. here we’ve seen two is that we’re realizing, Hey, to you know, get fit, you gotta do a lot of biking or running or swimming, whatever it is, and you gotta do a lot of easy to to do it. So

[35:37] So that zone two craze is you know kind of

[35:41] It’s new to some people that aren’t into the world like you and me are, but as runners like you and me, we’ve known this for our whole lives that hey, you run easy a lot and you accumulate mileage and that’s what really gets you to that goal in the long run is that it’s not gonna happen in two weeks where you get fit. We know it’s about progressive overload and this is a sport again where you build on each cycle of training, you build on this cycle you put in and the next one, you know, kind of takes off from that last one and you kinda build and build gradually.

[36:12] and I think as runners, one trait we have is we’re good at delayed graphication. Which is why I think that people should try endurance sports is that it teaches you, you know, some good life lessons that way. and putting the hard work and not expecting results right away. and that’s that’s so true when comes to this sport. So

[36:30] Yes, it’s to answer that question in a long, roundabout way here. eighty twenty is pretty good for the most part, I’d say, but there’s some nuances to that based off your volume, your goals, and kind of where where you’re at with, you know, just your skill level. Are you an elite, non elite, somewhere in the middle of those two? And

[36:49] And then from there we can get even fancier with like the peerization of pyramid type training styles versus you know kind of the Steven Seiler where you’re kind of the polarized model with avoiding the middle ground and doing more zone five

[37:02] or zone zone two stuff. So there’s a lot of fascinating ways we kind of can, you know, go from there when it comes to the peerization behind it

[37:09] and use a run coach know that very very well for sure. For sure. Yeah, yeah. Well awesome. Super interesting stuff. So it sounds like for for the most

[37:18] part 8020 is a good kind of baseline you know not a hard and fast rule but a good baseline for a lot of people to be considering when they’re putting together their training and maybe on those fringes of those highest mileage highest volume athletes and then then also those brand new athletes where to run they’re in zone three the moment they start running yeah there’s where we have to modify things

[37:41] And you know, as a coach I’ve also experienced that different athletes have a different capacity for how much intensity they can do and and oftentimes I’m changing that percentage a little bit. I have some athletes that can handle a little bit more.

[37:59] cases for me, and my athletes that I’m I’m coaching. and then on the other end, yeah, like the brand new athlete, there’s times where you know, like just to run, they’re in zone three, so we’re

[38:09] having to start things off and and at those lower mileages it probably is not as consequential. But

[38:14] That’s that’s yeah, interesting and and good to know. I was I was curious what your thoughts on eighty twenty were ’cause that’s such a pervasive mentality in coaching and it definitely it sounds like it’s generally rooted in real science. Definitely, definitely. We we’ve kinda learned that just by studying what we used to do in the old days, and then you know, kinda what things have just changed to this hey you do two days of pretty much quality and five days of easy and just stack as many miles and and miles you can to to get fit and that’s kind of the the way

[38:44] to kind of in a short summary, you know, go about it.

[38:48] Just a lot of easy with a little bit of hard and very very little, you know, going to the extreme with your races or your you know max heart rate type type workouts like that in a race setting. But that’s kind of the big secret is how much can you handle of volume and with the right delta of intensity. Yeah. And so so essentially the the value brought

[39:07] for understanding your zones is so that you know you’re within this, you know, zone one, zone two for your easy days and on the days that you are at intensity, you know what heart rate zones you should be

[39:17] in for those depending on what the workout is. So that leads us into the next section. I want so I want to talk a little bit about

[39:24] What actually happens when somebody comes into human-powered health and does a a testing session with you? What tests are they doing to determine their zones? And I’ll be completely honest, I think I generally understand the differences between what somebody goes through in a VO2 test versus a lactate test, but I don’t think I could explain it super well to an individual on the podcast. So we’ll let you do that. You’re the expert. So what what are the tests that they go through to determine zones? and what’s the difference between like a lacto lactate threshold, which you mentioned earlier.

[39:54] in a VO2 max test. Yeah, definitely. This is a question we get all the time when people call in and not quite sure, you know, what tests to to do based off their goals. And lactate testing and the VO2 max testing are the most common for runners. That’s what we’re gonna do the most part to figure out what their physiology looks like, you know, what is kind of possible for them, where they’re at right

[40:14] now, and to give them those those heart rate and and train pace zones too. And most often we’ll do them together in the same day. So you’ll do your lactate testing

[40:24] And then take a little break and then do your VO2 max testing afterwards. There’s some labs over the across the country that do it together, kind of. There’s ways to kind of get both done at one time. we like to kind of separate them out in a you know different different segments and let the person kind of recover and get their bearings and you know kind of get focused for the for the VO2. So they they do kind of the goal of the tests, you know, work on different things. Your lactic testing is gonna be to really dial on those those pace and heart rate zones. Because basically what we do for test, you start off at an

[40:53] nice easy intensity, even even easier than like your typical easy pace. Just to make sure we’re hey, we’re for sure in zone one, ’cause as you noted, new runners, you start running, you’re automatically in zone three ’cause you’re just not again, you’re not good at it yet. You’re not fit at it yet. So that’s expected.

[41:09] So we’ll start really easy, like a a warm-up or a shakeout, cooldown type pace. And then generally you progress by a certain amount of miles per hour every stage and we kind of watch again those inflections happen. How does your heart rate inflect up? How does your lactate inflect? And that’ll kind of tell us what those cutoffs are between those moderate, heavy, severe domains are from just doing the lactate testing. And so that’s probably our most common one we do for for runners that are really curious on like their actual zones.

[41:40] because you don’t get that it really in a VO to max test in terms of like your exact paces. but the VO to max does help us also plan those zones because we can measure that max heart rate in the VO to max test, plus give you your VO to max number, which if you’ve been on the internet the last few years, you’ve probably seen a ton of things about VO to max and you know how it’s correlated to reduce all cars cause mortality and generally endurance. Yeah, it’s our longevity metric. Most runners or traathlets have a higher VO to max. ‘Cause they

[42:09] have a big engine from all the years and years and years of training. so that’s what the VO to Max test will do. It’ll give us that actual number itself, and then we can kinda can help, you know, kinda establish that top end of the the zone five, you know, your VO to max zone. And and yes, it is a number and it’s not like you’re always gonna train your change your training based off your number.

[42:32] But let’s say your VO to max is you know kinda limited, you know, we might need to put a phase in where we kinda boost that VO to max up in order to make it possible for you to run a four hour marathon or a BQ marathon, you know, whatever that athlete’s goal is that’s coming to the lab.

[42:48] But the lactate is usually the most common one we do for

[42:50] someone who’s newer to really establish those zones so they can kind of keep theirs themselves injury free as they start ramping up. Because as you noted with the zone three that most people run in when they’re new, it’s not their fault. They’re they’re trying to gauge that intensity, but again, not having the data, not having the numbers, they’re kind of guesstimating. And usually we kind of err on the side of too high, usually is what I’ve noticed as a coach in my my past and and you know at at HPH in the lab.

[43:18] is that you know,

[43:20] it’s really easy to run too fast.

[43:23] Yeah, wanna feel like you got you’ve got a sweat going, you wanna feel like you burn some calories and you might be running with a friend who’s faster than you, so you’re going a little faster than you’re supposed to, and like, hey, yeah, just keep up with me, we’ll get you in shape by by running faster. And that seems to make more common sense. You would think that the faster I run e every day, I’m gonna get in shape better and faster and quicker, but it does a good way to get in injured faster and easier too as well. we know that as you know too, Aaron, this is a sport where it’s heavily high injury rates from the overuse repetitive nature of it.

[43:53] percent every year experience some type of training related injury. Yeah, yeah. And not just new runners but elites too. you know, I’m sure the rates are a little bit different, but that’s the stat I’ve heard a lot

[44:05] is around that ratio in in a year time you’re gonna experience something. I’d make a heavy argument that just getting an understanding of what you’re gonna find out in a lactate threshold test actually dramatically reduces those odds because if you understand where zone one, zone two are and where you should be doing the majority of your training.

[44:22] You’re not going to burn out as fast your bodies, you’re not going to take as much potential for overuse and mechanical breakdown. So people don’t think of a lactate threshold test as an injury prevention strategy, but it absolutely is. That’s a great point. That’s

[44:35] a great point. You can you can draw a graph, you can you know draw you know on your axis, you can draw the running speed and then you know injury risk on the other axis. And basically the faster you run, the more that injury risk percent goes up. So the lactic can help us quantify what’s kind of that cutoff that LT.

[44:52] one so we can keep you below that for most of your easy days so that we can kind of

[44:57] again prevent as best we can prevent injuries. Again, sometimes it’s just kind of you do all the right things and you still have an injury that comes up. you with the proper sleep, proper recovery, proper hydration and eating. but sometimes just fluke things happen in this sport, which is the you know one of the frustrating things about it sometimes. But that’s what makes it feel good when you when you get past that and

[45:19] get on the on the other side of it and you hit that PR, you hit that that time you wanna run and it makes it really rewarding when you kind of put together a good cycle or multiple cycles where you avoid those injuries and you know accomplish that goal. Absolutely. Absolutely. So

[45:35] You mentioned pace is one of the things that they walk away from when they come in and do one of these lactate threshold tests and I I’ve seen this on charts before too, they’ve got heart rate. and then also like like where their their L T one and L T two are, where their zones are from a pace standpoint, where their zones are as well from a excuse me, yeah, where their zones are from pace standpoint, and where their zones are from a heart rate standpoint. where would pace come into play as an intentionity

[46:01] measure and where would it potentially be where would

[46:08] Bringing it to their daily workouts or to the trail or something like that. Definitely, definitely. And and as you know, being the the trail expert here today, pacing doesn’t always make sense when we’re running, you know, different trails, different parks where you have huge degrees of incline and decline and you know elevation gain, you know, from run to run. So for for trail runners, we definitely need to rely more on heart rate on on those days to kind of quantify that intensity. for me, being more of a road guy, you can use more of the pace a little more often.

[46:38] Because most trails, most roads you’re gonna run on are gonna be pretty consistent. Especially if you’re like running lakes or Yeah, there’s not much elevation change there. besides the hill, you know, kind of north of Harriet,

[46:51] right around the lakes there. always gets every run that gets me every time going north. It has something that indicates the big light in the name. It probably is. It’s just a baby, like somebody from California would just laugh at it. Dude, somebody running around.

[47:08] Every time.

[47:13] It’s it’s there. It it is there. but that’s what w we’ll rely more on pace for sure is on the roads and stuff like that. but then you know obviously when it’s hot out, high heat index, we gotta rely a little more on heart rand those days too. You can’t go in the workout if you wrote your client a workout that says, Hey, we’re doing threshold at seven miles today, you know, five by mile at threshold

[47:35] but it’s eighty nine degrees and it’s, you know, super humid. We might have back off to, you know, seven tens, seven fifteens that day. So that’s where we gotta balance the objective and the subjective a little bit with running and that’s why it’s you know kind of challenging sometimes. You gotta figure out kind of like

[47:52] in the moment, you know, what should I do to kinda dial things back and and that’s where having a coach, you know, really helps obviously to, you know, get their feedback as to, hey, what should I do for the workout tomorrow? It’s gonna be this and this. And that’s easy way to kind of revise things obviously. But but then some days just don’t you just don’t have it some days where you’re just like, hey I I just my legs feel heavy. I don’t know that’s that pop, that spring to my legs. So there’s days we just have to kind of revise on the fly and I’ve done that a million times myself and there there’s workouts I’ve had to skip and miss mid workout that was hey

[48:22] just not feeling that we’re gonna move it to tomorrow or hey we’re backing off by ten twenty seconds a mile here because it’s I’m not feeling it or it’s too hot or there’s a huge headwind in in my face the whole time. So that’s where you gotta rely on you can’t just be married to your zones as well why we just tell people at the lab

[48:40] there’s definitely some grey area when it comes to this. Absolutely absolutely so regarding other assessments you do at Human Powered Health, just briefly I know when

[48:51] Go in, they don’t just do lactate threshold or VO2 max. There’s other assessments that they come away with some really good value from. Yeah. What are those other assessments that you recommend for runners that can be of high value when they maybe come in to do their lactate?

[49:06] Yeah, so two I’d recommend for sure for most people is an RMR test, which is a resting metabolic rate test. And as you know, being a runner, we burn a lot of calories running. If you’re running 50, 60, 70, or higher miles a week, I mean you’re burning a lot of calories per day. The grocery bill is it’s high. For a high mileage runner anyway. For sure, for sure.

[49:32] So knowing your kind of calorie burning average per day is I think super knowledgeable and helpful. because there’s so much and again this is a you know kind of a dark subject to to talk about, but you know, eating disorders are a huge thing in this in this sport, unfortunately. is that we know that, you know, the the thinking is the thinner you are, the faster you’re gonna run. And some people take that to the extreme. And we we do know that, you know, being thinner to a degree is probably more helpful than looking like a

[50:02] football offensive linemen out there trying run a a a marathon or or a half marathon, but there is a lower limit as well. so that can be helpful to kinda get some guidance from from an expert of like

[50:13] How many calories do you really need per day? And what does the research show too like on on macros? Like for example, carbohydrates, it’s not uncommon for elite runners to have five to ten grams per kilo of of body weight per day of of carbs. So you’re talking probably, you know, if you’re eating four thousand calories a day, you know, half your your diet is carbs. That’s a lot of grams of carbs a day. you know, five hundred grams a day for two thousand calories, that’s that’s quite a bit to feel your high mileage

[50:40] weeks. So that’s one test I like to recommend a lot because

[50:44] we do see that happen quite a bit where people that one again and that’s called the resting metabolic rate test or we call it RMR to be lazy. but basically lay there, you you lay there for twenty minutes and we measure that metabolism. That’s basically your metabolism, how how many calories your body is burning, you know, just at rest. And then we can add on your workout for that day, how many calories you burn actively plus your resting to get a more of a pinpoint number of like what you’re burning in a day.

[51:09] And I think that’s super valuable. Underrated too. I think we tend to neglect the the diet a little bit. We just kind of it’s an afterthought, like I just get my guy, get my miles in, I’ll just eat whatever want. But

[51:20] if you don’t know that net burn at rest, I think you’re missing out a little bit on on preventing injuries because a lot of runners, again, don’t get enough energy in, hence like the relative energy deficiency syndrome going on right now. Reds, as we call it, women especially, you know, are struggling with this, which leads to you know bone stress injury.

[51:39] a lot higher likelihood. if

[51:41] we’re not getting enough calories in, I think you’re really missing out on the possibility of running to your potential. a lot of it’s due to that that weight mentality of the lighter I am the better. which

[51:53] Yes, like to a point that can kind of be true, but we can’t be under field. Yep, and two lights and you know, that can go the other way for sure. and that kinda leads to my t my next point is the the DEXA scan is a huge one because we think about it as a body comp test, which it is, but it’s also a bone density exam as well.

[52:18] Yeah, definitely. And, you know, it’s kind of two in ones. We get the body compositions we see, you know, again, lean mass, fat mass changes. We can kinda monitor that athlete over time and year to year. are we keeping the the lean mass up to where we need it to support your your running so we’re not losing, you know, too much lean mass as you’re maybe getting more lean with adding more miles and miles and

[52:38] miles to your your training. so making sure that’s at a at a you know good amount. but then also look at the bone density, you know, from the research and I I would say common sense too.

[52:48] The stronger the bone is, the more likely you’re gonna have a more resilient kind of foundation structure to handle those miles and the pounding that we we use with overuse with the same foot strike every step. You know, think of a run, think of a 10 mile run, how many times you step on the ground per

[53:06] run. that’s a lot of impacts. So if your bones are not very, very strong, you’re definitely more likely to have a bone stress injury or a soft tissue injury. so if we’re seeing a low value.

[53:19] On bone density in that DEXA, that’s where our alarms go up a little bit of like, hey, what does your diet look like? How many miles are you doing a week?

[53:26] How long do you take breaks between workouts, you know, cycles of training? if you’re low on your bone density, you’re definitely gonna need to be a little more careful on how you progress, how many miles can you do a week,

[53:40] and really make your nutrition a big focus of you know getting enough calories in to support the running. So those are the two I’d I’d recommend for sure.

[53:49] we do a gain analysis as well, like you guys do here, PRG. And I like to use that as like not a last resort, but a lot of injuries happen to be from people either running too fast too often, which is kind of improper priorization, but not knowing their zones. So I’d rather test your lactate first, you know, get get your zones back, see what the mismatch is, have you been running too fast too often, or raising too much recently, and progressing your your workouts too fast, and then if that’s all looking good.

[54:18] Then we can look at a gate analysis to see okay, are you doing something in your stride that’s you know very off or asymmetrical, that might be caused this injury. So those are kind of the two or three I’d recommend at HPH that we do. Cool. Or at PRG doing the the gate here. Yeah. We can we can share that plug together. Yep, yep. yeah, and then one other one that I’m gonna throw in there that I’ve seen tremendous

[54:41] value in

[54:43] And actually sent people, you know, just to initially do this and then I think they added on some other ones too. But they they came to you for the sweat testing. Sweat testing, yep. For ultra marathoners. I know you probably didn’t bring it up ’cause that’s, you know, maybe not your mentality, but for me that’s mostly who I work with and definitely we talked just a couple weeks ago about, you know, having a mismatch with your electrolyte to hydration ratio and how much hydration you’re taking in. Maybe a minimal issue for a half marathoner, yeah to a marathoner for an elite marathoner. But yeah.

[55:13] somebody’s you know above three hours, three and a half hours, it starts to become part of the equation. And certainly once somebody’s running a hundred miles like my athletes who have worked with you to do testing did this weekend, that data is essential to their performance. So I’m gonna throw in a plug for an additional one I think definitely who’s running you know anything in marathon or beyond

[55:32] Be thinking about sweat testing as well. That’d be the other one for sure. I agree, Aaron. And like you know, especially the long durations, like when you’re running 50k, or if you’re not the fastest marathon, you’re out there for four hours or so, three hours, four hours, that’s when the hydration becomes more of a factor for sure. Like you noted, like your elite runners that are running two hours for the marathon.

[55:53] You can kind of get away with being dehydrated for lack of a better word. there’s something stuff that can happen for sure if it’s a hot day. that we want to be a little more hydrated than other days. But you know, most elite marathons were doing them in the you know right temperatures, like Chicago, like you know, you know, Boston, it’s not as hot a day usually. So the carb intake is a little more important than the hydration if you have to kind of r put a hierarchy to it. but once the duration goes up to those higher durations, sweat testing is super vital and that’s a whole nother world.

[56:27] you they hear these electrolyte companies talking about taking more and more and more sodium as better. And it’s differ I would say just my short summer here with LK2 sidetracked, it’s a little bit different than like carbon take. You know, carbon take we kinda know it’s kinda like a almost like a bank account almost. If you run out, you’re gonna have to slow down. with sodium and and and sodium losses in running, it’s a little more about balancing the the ratio for lack of better word. So it’s your your water and your s your sodium levels have to be in in proper balance. If you

[56:57] have a really low sweat rate and a high sodium, it doesn’t mean you need to take a lot of sodium necessarily in the race because your sweat rate is really low. the sweat rate really dictates the sodium need is what I would just say my short summary here. Ratio based not a melt per hour. Yeah, yeah, it really is. So you’re just kind of balancing the ins and outs is kinda the biggest thing when it comes to

[57:20] Hydration sodium in these ultramarathons or trail marathons. And just because you sweat out a thousand milligrams of sodium per hour doesn’t necessarily mean mean you need to take in a thousand per hour. It really depends on your sweat rate. And that’s where coming to get tested is super huge to see your sweat rates and your sodium losses to get a more of an individualized plan for a superior, you know, trail race or apt to whatever it is that athletes doing around the cities or you know across the country for these bigger races that are

[57:50] Longer in duration. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Super cool. And yeah, I this I worked that I mile thirty three aid station is an aid station that performance running gym operates at the Superior 100,

[58:01] which was this past weekend, and we had a lot of athletes coming in and you know, major hydration issues. It was a really hot section prior, and they common thing that I heard was, yeah, I’ve been taking f five or six salt caps an hour. Like, okay, how much water have you been drinking? I don’t know. I’ve I

[58:19] Some from my bladder. Let’s start there. Because they are not operating on that ratio. They’re thinking in terms of time, and that’s it’s crazy how pervasive that thought process is. And really, like you said, it comes down to this ratio,

[58:32] and doing a sweat test helps you because it helps you understand how much sweat are you losing, and then how much electrolytes per you know liter of sweat that you’re losing do you need to be trying to replenish while you’re out there. So definitely super value. Definitely. I’ll end my plug there because I know that was a long plug. That’s like

[58:49] to send people to you guys for aside from like the heart rate stuff and understanding zones because it’s super valuable. So practical takeaways, so for somebody in the Twin Cities listening right now who’s curious, what would you tell

[59:01] them about taking, what is the first step if they want to link up with you?

[59:06] do some of these tests and get a better understanding for these vital s vital metrics that might help them improve. Definitely. So the first thing I’d say is just book a just free consultation with us. we we are more than happy to talk with people to find out what test works for them because you know you might listen to this podcast and you’re still unsure almost as to what tests you need. sometimes the more you you learn the less you know sometimes, you know, that sort of thing. so we’re happy to kind of clear the air and make sure you’re picking the right assessments for what your needs are, you know, whether you’re running a trail marathon.

[59:36] or a ultra or it’s just a 10k, 5k, or you’re new to running to figure out what test is

[59:42] the most proper and makes sense for you. So go to our website, Human Powered Health. You can look at the book now page and you can book a free console first before you book an actual assessment to make sure you’re booking the right thing. So put together then like a recommendation of like here’s the five that are going to benefit you the most or the three that you know make the