Friday 22nd December
VO2 Max Pain Cave
This workout will increase your VO2 max and reduce your chances dying.
Ironically as you both feel like dying and wish for someone to put you out of your misery! 🙂
Warm up/ Tissue prep/ Stability
Do one round if you're in a hurry, up to 3 if you've got the time, don't compromise the main effort to get more stability done
3 mins of gentle cardio, use the same modality you are going to use in the workout:
McGill Sit up 5-30 seconds x 4 hand/ leg combinations
Side plank max duration e/s, scale if needed
Bird dogs x 10
Stability & balance if you have time:
1. Arabesque – stand on one foot, hinge forward until you run out of hamstrings, return to standing. If you want full ninja points, once you're hinged over, balance and rotate your non supporting hip upwards as far as you can without falling over
2. Band resisted ankle inversion and eversion. Attach a band to an immovable object, loop the band around your foot it is pulled out, rotate your foot against the band. Swap foot direction & repeat.
3. Scap push up
4. Squat position calf raises
5. Halos
Main Effort, VO2 max builder
4 minutes of Zone 5 as hard as you can go, 4 minutes recovery
The first round is the worst. Keep going!
Top tip: Find a friend to suffer with.
You can build VO2 Max either by hanging out in Zone 2 for ages, or by going as hard as you can for a few minutes. Going long increases the number of mitochondria (small organelles responsible for generating power in a cell), going hard like we are today increases. the output of the mitochondria and therefore your peak power while using fat as a fuel.
E.g. you can do more and still go for ages because you won't run out of fat any time soon.
We work on both Zone 2 and Zone 5 to increase your VO2 max because your aerobic capacity is the No1 predictor of all cause mortality and fairly easy to influence.
Scaling:
Small: 1-2 rounds.
Medium 2-3 rounds.
Large 4-5 rounds – this is the recommended minimum
XL 6 rounds
If you do fewer than 6 rounds, consider dropping intensity to Zone 2-3 for the remainder of this 48 minute workout if you are not able to do all 6
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash