Video
Transcript
today I’m going to talk about one of the
best measurements for longevity I mean
I’m constantly trying to find out what
can I personally do to live longer and
one of the best tests that you can get
done is called VO2 max okay so that’s
what I’m going to talk about today I’m
also going to talk about how to increase
this VO2 max first of all what is VO2
max well it’s the volume of oxygen or
capacity of oxygen your body can consume
for a certain amount of time and it’s
measured in milliliters
per kilogram per minute and it is one of
the best tests for aerobic capacity or
aerobic fitness and the capacity of
consuming oxygen and it’s a test that
you can get from
certain doctors that specialize in
sports medicine and so if we look at the
values of this VO2 max we have um three
categories like sedentary active and
very active so if we look at these three
categories for men an average VO2 max
for someone who’s sedentary would be
roughly about 35 to 40. and then when
you go up to active it goes like roughly
on average 42.5 to 46.4 and then if
you’re really active right you’re super
athlete it can go up to like 75 or 85
and then for a woman it’s a little bit
lower sedentary would be between 27 and
- active would be between 33 and 36.9
and then very active
you know roughly on average it’s like
- but what’s interesting if we look at
some of the best scores for VO2 max out
there by top athletes the top three
scores apparently which is interesting
they’re all from Norway one is a cyclist
and he’s the top of course he’s 18 years
old but his VO2 max was like 97.5 that
is crazy high and then the other two
were cross-country skiers from Norway
very young and both of their scores were
like 96. so I like these numbers because
it always gives us a chance to kind of
find out where we are compared to where
we potentially maybe someday could get
to but probably not if you’re getting
older like me but I like the game of it
I like um to know the values and I’d
like to always improve my VO2 max so
when you’re burning fuel in your body
you need oxygen and to increase your VO2
max you also need to look at a couple
other things like your your CO2 your
carbon dioxide as well as your lactic
acid which is is generated as a
byproduct because CO2 allows the oxygen
to actually go in deep into the tissues
so it’s not just about oxygen and then
also the lactic acid if that builds up
too much it’s not cleared that can
prevent you from exercising and
breathing because of the ph and what it
does to your muscles so top athletes
that have developed their mitochondria
and made their mitochondria really
really
efficient and have increased and
stretched the capacity or using
absorbing oxygen and getting rid of
lactic acid kind of bulletproof
themselves against disease and so it’s
good measurement to see where you are in
evaluating your overall health you know
when you go to a doctor
you don’t go to your doctor to get
healthy it’s to go there to get rid of a
symptom but that doesn’t necessarily
increase your health in fact it could
worsen your health you’re put on a
medication in fact it camouflages some
underlying cause and they just don’t
look at improving your health so today
let’s just run down the list of all the
things you can do to increase this VO2
max which is a great measurement of your
health as well as your capacity to live
a long time number one just doing more
exercise more exercise training will
increase your VO2 max specifically when
you do high intensity interval training
there’s a really good book it’s called
Making Waves
by Irving dardic now this book is based
on a really great principle of working
with nature nature or the universe works
on Cycles okay rhythms everything is in
a cycle you have the night and day sun
cycle you have seasons I mean everything
in nature everything in your body from
pulse rate blood pressure hormones
temperature so you want to align your
exercise with this pattern of a cycle
versus a sustained type
exercise which apparently is not as
healthy especially because it raises
cortisol versus an interval type of
exercise where you do these sudden
bursts of high intensity with this rest
back and forth cycle that works with the
body and it’s very very therapeutic and
that’s also why intermittent fasting is
a great cyclic thing too versus
constantly snacking and eating all day
long I mean this might be hard to
believe but there are some people
who get so hungry in the middle of the
night they have to get up and go eat
something
I mean that is just to be extreme bad so
the more we can actually look at nature
and work with nature uh the better we’re
going to be so number two increasing our
CO2 tolerance okay that can increase our
VO2 max so we can do that with nasal
breathing because when we restrict air
through our sinuses we increase more CO2
which actually helps increase more
oxygen we need this CO2 to alter the pH
just slightly to acidify and allow the
oxygen to be released this is why
there’s so many complications with just
pure
oxygen itself and to increase CO2
tolerance
you can also do various exercises
holding your breath number three
increasing your lactic acid tolerance
just by exercising high intensity
interval training you can increase the
clearance and tolerance of lactic acid
but there’s also something else and that
is taking or making sure you have enough
B1 thiamine thiamine helps get rid of
lactic acid this is why when someone is
deficient in B1 they can develop lactic
acidosis or their body tends to hold
lactic acid and I had that problem when
I was consuming so much fine carbs I
started getting restless leg syndrome I
couldn’t sleep at night and that would
be a perfect example of filling up too
much lactic acid in the muscle and
number four hypoxic training and this is
also kind of a version of what I just
mentioned with the CO2 tolerance or
improving that but hypoxic training is
you can do that through restricting air
breathing while you’re exercising or
exercising at higher altitudes
athletes that do that generate much
greater capacity for holding oxygen and
their white blood cells are much larger
all right number five respiratory muscle
training so this is just training to
strengthen the muscles that are involved
with breathing like your diaphragm you
have inspiratory muscle training which
is uh training breathing in your
capacity of expanding your lungs then
you have expiratory muscle training
which you’re doing exercises to get rid
of all the air in your lungs so this
type of training can be done with a very
inexpensive device that restricts your
air this restrictive mouth device which
allows you to do this training and start
to strengthen your lung capacity which
can greatly help
um people with weak lungs whether they
have COPD chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease or they even had a past lung
problem and they need to strengthen
their lungs this can help all right
number six plyometric training this is
where you’re doing short bursts of
exercise like maybe you’re jumping on a
platform back and forth like explosive
short burst of exercise and I like to do
this with um just with an ax chopping
down a tree or chopping a log in half
it’s explosive it’s a great plyometric
Works your upper body and then also
hopping on a platform there’s many
different types of Plyometrics you can
do I’ve done videos on this that’s
another way to greatly increase your VO2
max then you also have something called
Fart lick training which involves while
you’re running you’re speeding up your
pace or you’re slowing down your pace
throughout this exercise so it’s kind of
like interval training but you’re you’re
doing it sporadically you’re just
increasing and decreasing the intensity
of that workout will run then you also
have something called cross training
right that’s like combining swimming
running and biking and just changing it
up that’s really good to build up this
VO2 max now there are three additional
things that are don’t involve exercise
that can help your VO2 max and that is
sleeping right because if you’re not
sleeping I don’t care how much exercise
you do you’re not going to be able to
increase your VO2 max because your body
is too tired and it can’t repair
so more sleep eight or even nine hours
greatly help you making sure you never
over train making sure that you recover
from your workouts which is
so important and so many people neglect
that and in fact I neglected that for
years because I didn’t understand the
importance of this recovery I didn’t
understand it you’re going to kind of
level out at a certain amount of Fitness
if you don’t recover so letting your
body recover between exercise and also
from a genetic level some people
um a problem with inflammatory genes and
so if they over train they naturally
just are going to take longer to recover
and if they exercise too quickly they’re
not going to get anywhere they’re going
to minimize their progress so make sure
that you fully rest and get to a point
where your body
no longer sore before you start another
exercise but in the meantime you can
always do um hiking and low level type
things like walking and of course 11
your diet which can greatly improve your
vot max because if you’re eating the
wrong Foods you’re going to limit Your
Capacity to hit that geek performance
and I’m talking about
ketogenic diet and what ketones can do
for the efficiency of your mitochondria
which is where it all happens okay as
well as doing intermittent fasting which
I also mentioned now since we’re on the
topic of VO2 max
if you have not seen my video on the
high intensity interval training
workouts you should check that out I put
it up right here