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

30. active would be between 33 and 36.9

and then very active

you know roughly on average it’s like

77. 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