Paul Laursen (00:00)

We are living in a world of stress and go, go, go. And often when we live in that, unfortunately that comes with a dose of cortisol and other stress hormones that mean your heart rate tends to be quite high. And you haven't quite developed that aerobic efficiency or you've lost it along the way.

But the good news is it can totally be retrained and retuned.

Paul Warloski (00:47)

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Are you leaving speed on the table? Most endurance athletes focus on building their aerobic capacity, their VO2 max, but there's another physiological lever that might be even more important for long-term performance, aerobic efficiency.

Today we're breaking down the research and the science on how efficiently your body uses oxygen, why it matters more than you think, and what the science says about training it. So let's get right into it. Paul, what is aerobic efficiency and how does it affect our endurance performance?

Paul Laursen (01:29)

ultimately looking at, how much speed or power that you're getting per unit of oxygen.

So how efficient can you be with processing that oxygen from chemical energy into mechanical energy? That's really what we care about performance at the end of the day. And this is one way we can kind of look to optimizing that. So you don't want to be inefficient at processing oxygen and then

not necessarily moving that oxygen into mechanical energy. So this is, yeah, this is ⁓ a bit of a marker on how efficient that process is.

Paul Warloski (02:07)

Okay, so let's, let's take a step back and kind of get into the science of that a little bit. And give us the the one on one version of what happens in the muscle cells when someone improves their aerobic efficiency, what changes mitochondria capillaries fiber types, all the above.

Paul Laursen (02:08)

So let's take a step back and kind get into the science of that a little bit and give us the 101 version of what happens in the muscle cells when someone improves their aerobic efficiency, what changes, mitochondria capillaries, fiber types, all of the above.

Yeah, you got it. mean, all of those things. So when you train,

And we've done lots of podcasts on training and there's a signal that goes to the muscle and that signal, you know, if we get, if we geek out, it's, it's actually has a chemical name called PGC one alpha and it signals for more mitochondria. know, we often talk about mitochondria. Those are the organelles, the powerhouses in any cell and it signals to make more of those. you get more mitochondria and those are the guys that are basically processing that.

that oxygen, they're converting the chemical energy from the food that you eat, carbs, fats, protein into the energy molecule ATP, the chemical energy, and then that converts to, movement in the muscle, and that's the transfer into the mechanical energy. So the more of those...

powerhouses that you have, the more mitochondria that you have, or even the better those mitochondria are formed, the greater improvement you can get in that aerobic efficiency and in that whole process of turning chemical energy into mechanical energy. And like you said, Paul, that comes with greater capillary density. That comes with this fiber type shift from type two

type 2A's to type 1 fibers or type 2X to type 2A's. And yeah, and more oxidative enzymes at the same time. So all these things are happening in synchrony. we're not actually able to quantify these. The laboratory studies tell us that that's all the things that happen. What we see is we're looking at our dashboard. And we are looking at how

a couple of markers in Athletica might be changing. And one of those are your efficiency factor. And that's really looking at ratios of heart rate to power in the cycling or rowing context and the ratio of heart rate to pace in the running context or swimming context. And we're going to see changes in that ratio. You want to have faster speeds or higher powers for the same

heart rate, say the same submaximal heart rate. And then if we look at a session, we break up a session into, we can split it in half. We look at the efficiency factor in the beginning half, and we look at the efficiency factor in the latter half, and we compare those two, then we now have our aerobic decoupling number. And you also see this on your dashboard. So you look at any session, and you've measured heart rate and power, or heart rate and pace in it.

Paul Warloski (05:08)

you

Paul Laursen (05:11)

you can scroll down, click on it, and see what your aerobic decoupling number is. And typically when we're not too trained, that aerobic decoupling number is a little bit high. We might see it like, you nine or 10, and for a submaximal zone one, zone two type of effort. And then as we develop our fitness and we look at that same session,

repeated over a month or two later, you might see that number going from say 910 down to 45. And then when we look to our elite athletes, we actually see the number going negative, amazingly enough. So if you have like a negative aerobic decoupling number, that means that you're basically becoming more aerobically fit and efficient the longer the session goes on, which is

crazy, right? So you're less, like you're actually, the heat of your muscles, et cetera, they actually start being even more efficient the longer you go, the more fat that you burn. And ⁓ this is like the super elite athletes, right? If we look at like a Christian Blumenfeld, whatnot, they would, guarantee you, they would all have negative aerobic decoupling numbers.

So yeah, long-winded answer there, but we've got this across all the physiology and even right to your dashboard in Athletica.

Marjaana Rakai (06:38)

So I would add that the efficiency factor EF, when somebody starts to train, especially running, their number might be 0.5 or 0.7, something like that. And then as they get fitter and fitter, that number starts to increase towards one. And I bet...

Paul Laursen (06:41)

efficiency factor EF when somebody starts to train especially running their number might be 0.5 or 0.7 something like that and then as they get fitter and fitter that number starts to increase it works one and I

Paul Warloski (06:47)

you

Marjaana Rakai (07:00)

have a lot higher efficiency factor so those kind of are like

Paul Laursen (06:59)

the super crates have lot higher efficiency factor so those kind of

Paul Warloski (07:03)

you

Marjaana Rakai (07:05)

I don't know if they're correlated but the more efficient you can be the lower the aerobic decoupling I guess because you're just so efficient.

Paul Laursen (07:07)

but the more efficient you can

Yeah.

That's right. Yeah, you got it. No, that was a perfect example, MJ

Paul Warloski (07:20)

So does it matter? How do I ask this question? I mean, you talked about a nine or 10 for submaximal for one or two for aerobic efficiency for decoupling rather. Should it be just the...

slow rides, the zone one, zone two, can we do that also with threshold or VO2 max intervals?

Paul Laursen (07:38)

the zone 1, zone 2, can we do that threshold or VO2 max intervals?

Yeah, so what happens, so the answer is no, it should only be zone 2 rides and below where we can accurately get this number. Maybe zone 3 as well, like we might be able to look at some, how that number looks on zone 3, but the problem when we start to look at zone 4,

zone five, so threshold and above efforts, you develop what's called the VO2 slow component, and there's this increased cascade of lactate use and heart rate kind of has to go skyward to meet up with the demand. So it kind of violates the validity of anything assessed above that marker. So we tend to look at this at

Zone Zone 2, maybe Zone 3 for tempo kind of efforts. But that's really where, that's the only valid place where you can kind of accurately detect these ones. In the super elite, that might be an exception. So if we've got a super elite, maybe we might even look at these in Zone 4. Like they might even be kind of on a Zone 4 threshold.

If they're the super elite, might also still, you might still be able to look at this marker and that would be, know, wow, this person's even got, aerobic efficiency at that zone four kind of threshold efforts.

Paul Warloski (09:05)

So the research suggests, and I say suggests because there's conflicting research that polarized training works best to improve aerobic efficiency. Time crunched athletes tend to use tempo and threshold workouts to make up some of that time. Does that affect aerobic efficiency? mean, what is, let's maybe take a step back and talk about what is the best way to train aerobic efficiency.

Paul Laursen (09:05)

So the research suggests, and I say suggests because there's conflicting research that polarized training works best to improve aerobic efficiency. Time crunched athletes tend to use temple and threshold workouts to make up some of that time. Does that affect aerobic efficiency? mean, what is, let's maybe take a step back and talk about what is the best way to train aerobic efficiency?

Well, so for me, I think the

It's probably a polarized or a pyramidal approach, but classic Norwegian method. But the key factor you've got to have in there, in my opinion, is the so-called adaptation energy, the development of your aerobic base or your zone one, zone two work. You really have to have that going because a lot of that is fundamental to...

creating all the adaptations that we spoke about from the, increasing the capillarization, capillary density, mitochondrial development, fat burning, all these sorts of things are, they're affected by all the training, the whole entire polarized approach, but the probably the bigger, the bigger hammer to create that movement and that change is probably your.

zone one, zone two work and having ample amounts of it.

Marjaana Rakai (10:30)

I'm going to throw in strength training to increase output.

Paul Warloski (10:34)

Yeah.

Paul Laursen (10:37)

Yeah, I'm so glad you did So if you're somebody who hasn't done any strength training, just doing a lot of base training, zone one, zone two, maybe some vo2max like a polarized training mehod if you add in the same content, then can actually do more power

Marjaana Rakai (10:39)

Like, so if you're somebody who hasn't done any strength training, just, just doing a lot of, you know, base training zone one, zone two, maybe some of VO2 Max like a polarized training method. If you add in the same component and you can actually use more power

that will affect your efficiency factor.

Paul Laursen (11:03)

Yes, absolutely. So, and that comes down to ultimately raising the ceiling of your strength, right? And that's, you know, you're able to ultimately, make ground contact and ⁓ more efficiently create force against the ground. And you do that more efficiently and it's less of your, you know, total capacity to

lift yourself back up and ultimately creates a shorter contact time with the ground and therefore a greater flight time. And so you're again more efficient. There's not necessarily anything happening from the aerobic efficiency standpoint at the mitochondrial level, but absolutely MJ to your point, this is gonna be reflected in your

in those markers in Athletica. So we don't really care where it comes from. We just want to move faster, right? We care about performance. But you're absolutely right, and you're going to see changes in efficiency factor and aerobic decoupling in the positive direction.

Marjaana Rakai (12:07)

And now let's take the aging into the picture. So what happens as we age, if we don't do strength training, our strength goes down, our output goes down and that then decreases our efficiency, Or if you're thinking about stress, our heart rate or any kind of stress like heat stress, altitude stress,

psychological stress, our heart rate is very easily triggered to be higher. So maybe you're going through something and at any given normal aerobic session, your heart rate is higher. Then that will affect your efficiency factor negatively, right?

Paul Laursen (12:47)

Yes, absolutely for sure because you've just changed the heart rate one of the you change the denominator on the variable right so yeah

Absolutely. Does it matter what kind of strength work we have? So you, yeah, it does, Paul. So I mean, you're, you know, if you're, if you're just doing pushups and sit ups, you're probably not going to see anything here. Like we're talking specifically, you know, squats and lunges and, you know, compound movements ultimately that are going to be similar to the vertical force,

Paul Warloski (12:55)

Does it matter what kind of strength work we have?

Paul Laursen (13:18)

kinetics that you're experiencing for running. So we're specifically talking about running. You are going to also get benefits in cycling and rowing, because those are the primary movements in those ones as well too. But we really see this one really improve in the running more than anything, I think. Because that's what you actually have to do, right? You have to exert a force on the ground, and you have to do it in a short

a short time, like you wanna have a reduced contact time with the ground when you have that, like a quick snap. Good runners and coaches call this the pop factor. When you have good pop off the ground, you have this short contact time and then you increase your flight time in the air, because running is a series of jumps at the end of the day, that's all it is. And that's really what strength training does for this metric.

And that's why you see it in your athletic plans. And that's why you should, yeah, we should do strength training if we care about our ⁓ endurance performance.

Marjaana Rakai (14:26)

Let's talk about the aerobic decoupling for a second and the heart rate. so I used to live in Dubai, riding my bike there and we left like 5 a.m. when it was a little bit cooler, but eventually when you're doing six hours, you're going to hit that heat at some point. So aerobic decoupling would be definitely affected by the heat at the end, plus, you know, the fatigue and, ⁓ all that, but.

Paul Laursen (14:31)

So I used to live in Dubai, riding my bike there, and we left like 5 a.m. when it was a little bit cooler, but eventually when you're doing six hours, you're gonna hit that heat at some point. So aerobic decoupling would be definitely affected by the heat at the end, plus fatigue and all that,

Marjaana Rakai (14:54)

Definitely, heat was pushing the heart rate up.

Paul Laursen (14:54)

but definitely heat was pushing the heart rate up.

Absolutely. So for an acute session like that, you've got to expect a poor aerobic decoupling session or like acutely. if you are just looking at that one session and you've just arrived in Dubai and you go out there for your training session, you're going to have a really bad number. You should expect that. But what, of course, is going to happen is you do that same session next week, you've adapted. You have an increased plasma volume expansion.

Paul Warloski (15:24)

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (15:25)

you know, all of a sudden now you've got more water component in your cardiovascular system, heart rate goes down for a given power output or pace, and now the aerobic decoupling number is improved, it goes a little bit less. And then, and again, we continue to repeat that stimulus and that's the training effect on specifically the heat adaptation, component of that training adaptation. So,

This is also where we sort of, we see that improved number as well. So yeah, really good point and something to be aware. Altitude's the same, no different there with altitude. So less oxygen available. We're also gonna see a higher heart rate because heart rate has to beat harder to accommodate for the reduced ⁓ oxygen availability. So it's gotta beat faster to ⁓ meet the.

Paul Warloski (15:53)

Thank

Paul Laursen (16:14)

the aerobic demand. But again, this is why we go to altitude sometimes on training camps to get that benefit. yeah, important, as we always say, like context is so important. So all of these contextual considerations must be considered when you're reflecting on that marker.

Paul Warloski (16:33)

Marjaana brought up age and older athletes. there, is a 50 year old cyclist able to actually improve their aerobic efficiency or are they just hanging on to what they have? Asking for a friend.

Paul Laursen (16:45)

Yeah, nice one. Well, so interesting, so timely

that you asked this question. So I literally got off my last call with Dr. Andrea Zignoli who he's been on the podcast multiple times. Many will know him. He's our back-end developer.

And he is currently, I'll release this to our listeners, this might not be out if you just check this and you just come grab this podcast and you go on, but this is, tell you what's being developed because he just used me as an alpha tester for this whole innovation. ultimately, and I am 55, so yes, this does happen. The AI coach is actually able now,

in future versions of Athletica to look at historic levels of aerobic decoupling and detect similar sessions and then look at the aerobic decoupling progression. And in my example, again, remember in the context I'm coming out of, the winter in Revelstoke, British Columbia, lots of snow. only now just starting to increase the number of sessions out on the road as the snow melts away.

And I'm starting to get more data. And the AI coach was able to notice and reflect and say, Paul, are, like Andrea asked on my behalf, is Paul improving in his aerobic efficiency? And sure enough, it was picking out the aerobic decoupling numbers over the last couple of months. And I'm making these small subtle changes. And the AI coach even said, Paul, these

these changes are modest but significant and continue to get out there and make your progress. yes, Paul, you can still at any age, you can continue to make gains. I think it's cyclical though, right? We are gonna have to look at what was last year or the year before, but certainly within the cyclical nature of a Northern

Paul Warloski (18:29)

Yes.

Sure.

Paul Laursen (18:47)

Northern hemisphere person living in a snow-filled environment where I'm not training, I'm doing a lot more outdoor downhill skiing compared to cycling, we can definitely see changes on a weekly basis. And those are now detectable by the Athletica AI coach.

Paul Warloski (19:04)

There's

Paul Laursen (19:05)

There's hope for all of us. For all

of us. Just keep going team. We got this.

Marjaana Rakai (19:11)

Yeah.

Paul Warloski (19:13)

So back to strength training for a moment. There was some research and I will include that in the show notes from Matthew suggesting that women gain more aerobic efficiency from resistance training than men. What's going on there? Do you have any idea?

Paul Laursen (19:33)

Well, I don't really, but I mean, kind of comes back to the conversation we were having with MJ where she was, emphasizing the importance of that resistance training. We were talking about, that improves the, you know, the impulse factor that you can make onto the, onto the ground or into the, onto the pedal stroke if we're a cyclist. But then I also reflect

on the, we had Dr. Rebecca Robinson on the podcast last, and she was talking about the importance of estrogen as a hormone in women that is very supportive for health and of course also aerobic efficiency. We know from much of the research in the sports sciences that women tend to be better fat burners.

than men, if we're looking on average, and that's probably an estrogen-influenced variable as well. So yeah, if a woman starts training and she's probably within the, before perimenopause, with AMPA levels of estrogen, she's probably, possibly advantaged, but I'm, I'm.

I'm hypothesizing here as we go. I'm speaking on the fly. This is kind what I'm thinking. Maybe MJ knows.

Marjaana Rakai (20:47)

I wonder if, I have not read this research study by the way, so I don't know how the study was done, but I wonder if it's the fact that women tend to strength train less than men, so we have more to gain when we first start to strength train. So could be that.

Paul Laursen (21:09)

That's a good guess. As always, we often say context first, right? So, yep. Have to look at the context of the study.

Paul Warloski (21:10)

Mm-hmm.

So what's the timeline here for us? If someone starts a polarized program when with lots of zone one, zone two kind of work, when can they expect to see some reasonable, measurable improvements in efficiency?

Paul Laursen (21:35)

Yeah, so that's a super question. It kind of goes back to the conversation I was having with Andrea. you know, we, the AI coach was able to detect changes in me in aerobic efficiency.

⁓ in a single month. So I'm back training after a month and doing repeated sessions and more and more on the road. And there are these modest, to quote the AI coach, modest improvements in aerobic efficiency being changed. we talk about this so often. Luke Evans was a great podcast who really said this, where Luke Evans was really basically

coming off the coach as a hockey player, but then he wanted to sort of do this whole Ironman journey. again, for the listener who doesn't know Luke Evans, he's the guy and the poster boy is on the Athletica front page who won Ironman Canada and it's notes to us. you know, Luke said that just the changes are just so subtle, but there, as long as you're training consistently, you continue to signal and make those subtle changes and they're.

and they build one after the next after the next. So as long as I keep going out there, Paul, and keep up my consistency and stay on the plan, I'm pretty confident I'm going to continue to build those changes out. And again, same goal as last year is really just to keep the VO2 close to the age. That's the goal.

Paul Warloski (23:10)

The perennial goal, yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (23:13)

would say like, if you're trying to improve your efficiency factor and focusing on strength training, allow yourself plenty of time, like would say three months before you will start seeing a meaningful effect.

Paul Laursen (23:31)

Yeah, possibly relates to like, training is in my blood and I've done it before, right? So

There's also the whole concept of plasticity of response. So I have a really strong muscle memory and the changes that I make when I go back to, I return to certain training, the changes in me due to my history are very quick. So I think they are very individual. So to MJ's point, you're absolutely right. Be patient because it might not be quick for everyone.

Paul Warloski (24:00)

Yes.

Marjaana Rakai (24:03)

Mm Yeah.

Paul Warloski (24:07)

So we've got ⁓ efficiency factor and aerobic decoupling in Athletica. Other platforms have the same. Are there other metrics we should be looking at or can look at in order to help us gauge whether we're making progress?

Paul Laursen (24:07)

So we've got the efficiency factor and what would decoupling and Athletica and other platforms have to say? Are there other metrics we should be looking at or can look at in order to help us gauge whether we're making progress?

Well, just acutely, mean, even if we kind of take a step back, if you know you've got a standard session, any standard session could be high intensity or low intensity, but look at the heart rate response relative to the power or the pace, you know, or the

the hill repetition distance, whatever it might be. And you should be able to see, if you're seeing changes, if you're seeing improvements, or if you're seeing a lower heart rate relative to the same thing, power or pace, that has to be aerobic efficiency that's improving. You have to be, the whole oxygen aerobic cascade has improved from when it was before. yeah, those are the big ones to kind of keep an eye out.

Threshold changes as well, right? Again, back to Athletica. If you're getting the AI coaches hammering you for noticing these changes, these positive changes in threshold, it's probably mostly a replica efficiency that's responsible for those changes.

Paul Warloski (25:23)

All right, so we've got aerobic efficiency, meaning how much speed or power per unit of oxygen. What else, how can we wrap this up in terms of what we can offer our listeners in terms of practical advice and how to improve it and how to notice it?

Paul Laursen (25:32)

What else, how can we wrap this up in terms of what we can offer our listeners in terms of practical advice and how to improve it and how to notice

it.

Marjaana Rakai (25:42)

I think,

Paul Laursen (25:47)

speaking from my own experience, I was chasing like I have this same loop that I would cycle in Dubai and I would always try to be a little bit faster, a little bit faster, a little bit faster which meant that I was always going towards zone 3 and not staying in the lower intensity so I

Marjaana Rakai (25:47)

from my own experience, I was chasing, like, I had this same loop that I would cycle in Dubai and I would always try to be a little bit faster, a little bit faster, a little bit faster, which meant that I was always going towards zone three and not staying in the lower intensity.

I would encourage if you feel like you might be chasing the.

Paul Laursen (26:12)

would encourage if you feel like you might be chasing her

Marjaana Rakai (26:17)

it's a little bit faster route to turn off your music, turn off your podcast. Don't listen to anything. Just be in the moment and just try to like, learn how your body is working at those low intensities and like forget about the time.

Paul Laursen (26:18)

always a little bit faster around to turn off your music, turn off your podcast, don't listen to anything just in the moment and just try to like learn how your body is working at those low intensities and like forget about the time.

Maybe even turn off all the data.

Marjaana Rakai (26:40)

maybe even turn off all the data.

Paul Laursen (26:43)

I'd say, yeah, spot on. But the big rock for me in this, and I'm not sure if we've really addressed it adequately, but it's almost like the, one way you can really blunt your development of aerobic efficiency might be too much high intensity training, right? And that's the biggest mistake that most endurance athletes make, right? Is they think that,

Paul Warloski (27:01)

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (27:07)

More is better, harder is better, no pain, no gain, all that kind of old school philosophy now, I really feel. that's the biggest change you can make that's going to have a big impact. That's why the heart rate variability guided training works. Because if you're ready, if you have that really solid aerobic base, a stable heart rate variability, then it shows that your body is ready to accept that.

⁓ except an adapt to that high intensity stimulus. So if you, if you're not ready for that, and if you don't have that, that solid base there and every session is always hard, you've got to slow down first. So you gotta, yeah, you gotta go easy first and make sure that you've, you've got a really, really good, solid aerobic base that's, ⁓ that's beneath you before, before doing the hard stuff. So that's probably number one, thing you should check in your.

in your overall training strategy going forward. That is so true because often you see people who are new to running they post their garmin data on Facebook groups or whatever and say hey my heart rate is always 175. What's wrong? I'm never getting better. And that exactly, that they are focusing on the wrong data.

Marjaana Rakai (28:07)

That is so true because often you see like people who are new to running, they post their, their, uh, you know, garming data on Facebook groups or whatever and say, Hey, my heart rate is always 175. What's wrong? I'm never getting better. And that exactly that they are, they are focusing on the wrong data.

They're focusing on trying to get their heart rate as high as possible instead of like just walk run. Guys, you know what? I am back at running, but I'm walk running. So I like doing two minutes walk and three minute run, but at least I'm running.

Paul Laursen (28:43)

Good

job MJ. Yeah, it's the biggest one and it's the biggest, complaint or customer service message that we often receive

People can't understand why their zone two heart rate is just so high. there's a reason behind that often. We are living in a world of stress and go, go, go. And often when we live in that, unfortunately that comes with a dose of cortisol and other stress hormones that mean your heart rate tends to be quite high. And you haven't quite developed that aerobic efficiency or you've lost it along the way.

But the good news is it can totally be retrained and retuned. And we see this time and time again in, just look at the Athletica Forum stories of people doing this, where they slow down first to go faster. Classic Phil Maphotone's been on the podcast multiple times. Start going easy first to go fast later. And it's hard, it takes patience.

doesn't necessarily feel good, you feel like you're wasting your time. But, you know, we sound like a broken record, but this is what we do to make people healthy and fit. You got to do that first and then develop that aerobic efficiency, develop your maximal aerobic function and boom, it's like performance, man.

Paul Warloski (30:12)

I'm working with a woman right now who just started, we just started working together and that's been our biggest challenge is getting her to run slowly. And cause it's, cause it feels slow and it's, it's like, know, but it just, takes time. It just takes time. And all of sudden the one day you're going to see your efficiency factor improve and you're going to be flying and it's, you know.

Paul Laursen (30:26)

The one day you're going to see your efficiency factor improve, then you're going to have to fly.

Yeah, well, had one of our ambassadors. You guys were on the call, think. Frank, gosh, he's great. So he comes sort of from the, I'm sure you wouldn't mind me saying, but he comes from the hockey background. And he was really questioning, politely questioning this.

Paul Warloski (30:39)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (30:54)

this philosophy, right? Because he wasn't sort of seeing, but then he was hearing enough stories, know, Luke Evans, I think, might've been on the call and convinced him. yeah, it's, he's, and then, you he did it for the next month he came back and he's like, oh yeah, no, I'm seeing the changes now. And this is really nice. So, you know, we see it, we hear it all time and time again. We love it when we hear it.

Marjaana Rakai (31:15)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (31:21)

and we very rarely don't, right? So it's changeable in all of us and it's so exciting and fun when you do.

Marjaana Rakai (31:28)

Yeah, you know, like I'm living it. I'm living that. Like I had to take a long break where I was just like walking. And now I'm just trying, I'm trying, I miss running. So I'm trying to get back to running and I'm starting with two minutes walk and then three minutes run. And I'm running so slow. I'm running seven minutes per K, which is like two minutes, almost two minutes slower than

would I use your run just, two years ago. So it is frustrating and I feel like a turtle but at least I'm running, right? Three minutes at a time. So I'll keep you guys posted how it goes. Hopefully in a couple of months I'll be fully running on and a little bit faster.

Paul Laursen (31:57)

It is frustrating and I feel like a turd off. But at least I'm running, right? Yeah, for sure. I'll keep you guys posted how it goes. people will be running a little bit faster.

Paul Warloski (32:04)

Yeah.

Please do.

Paul Laursen (32:21)

Yeah, I mean, this is really, you we're talking about the ability to adapt to your training, right? So, the last training science podcast, I just had Dr. Lawrence van Lingen on, who's, you know, he's coached, movement with, Andy Boucher. That's really how I knew him. He's one of the athletic ambassadors, but also, you know, Taylor Nibb.

Marjaana Rakai (32:44)

Rinny Mirinda Carfrae? Rinny?

Paul Laursen (32:44)

What's that? Right, right.

Yeah. And many others, right. So it's, he's an absolute legend there. But the key thing that he teaches and he says, and he said this in the podcast, is you need to work towards inducing vagal tone. So we're talking here about the vagus nerve. We're talking about the parasympathetic nervous system. Rest and digest, not fight or flight. Like you've got to be

You got to induce calm. And those are really all the things that he kind of teaches. It's the old adage. not just all about the training. You've got to accept and absorb properly the training that you did. So really, he's just focusing on the other side of the equation. But no one else really does. And that's kind of what is all of his methods are there to help induce that vagal tone.

And it makes all the difference, right? Because we're really, if you're just focusing on the training, you're just getting that training set and not focusing on the recovery, then you don't absorb the things that you do. And all the HIV guided training studies support that. You just don't adapt if you can't accept the training. So yeah, it's a cool one.

Marjaana Rakai (34:00)

It's a cool one, but nobody quite understands or it's a little bit like vague because you can't measure it. We all love data. We want to measure it. Like how do we, how do we measure what we can absorb? Right. Like it's so

Paul Warloski (34:00)

you

Paul Laursen (34:04)

It's a little bit like they can't measure it. We all love data. We want to measure it. How do we measure what we can absorb, right? Yeah. But

I think we can. I think we're getting better. I think the HRV guided kind of metrics that you get with Whoop or Aura or Garmin systems that measure that overnight do a not bad job of getting at least insight into that.

Paul Warloski (34:19)

Mm-hmm.

Paul Laursen (34:34)

You could couple those with the comments, you know, RPE and feel. I think we're, maybe we're not there yet and it's not mainstream. I completely agree with you MJ but we're starting to make inroads into that. Vagel tone is HRV, right? Like that's what RMSSD is trying to get an insight into. I know it's not perfect. I know all the limitations, but at least it's a start.

Is everyone doing that? No, definitely not. There's a lot of room for us all to grow in that space, but we're starting to get there. We're starting to have an impact.

Marjaana Rakai (35:16)

it's great. But when we are busy professionals, we have families, we have dogs to walk, we have busy schedules, and then we throw in training plan there. When we are stressed out and we want, we have that race, so we have those goals that we want to get fitter, that

Paul Warloski (35:16)

Cool. Yeah.

Paul Laursen (35:19)

When we are busy professionals, have families, have dogs to walk, we have busy schedules, and then we throw in training plan there. When we are stressed out and we have that phrase, or we have those goals that we want to get fitter, that

Marjaana Rakai (35:42)

element of letting our bodies absorb and taking a break and resting and

Paul Laursen (35:42)

element of letting our bodies absorb and taking a break and

Marjaana Rakai (35:48)

you know, sometimes it takes a long time for me it has like this the whole heart issue has taken so long and I'm By nature very impatient. I want things to happen It's so hard to believe in this ⁓ Whole vagal dome

Paul Laursen (35:48)

you know sometimes it takes a long time for me it has like this the whole heart issue has taken so long and i'm by nature very impatient that it's the topic it's so hard to believe in this

Marjaana Rakai (36:09)

and like you just need to let your body heal and you know what I mean? Like it's so hard to put those little pieces in your schedule and then we listen to these you know go hard and go get this done and the messaging that we get from society it's really hard as our age for pathway

Paul Laursen (36:10)

You just need to let your body heal. You know what I mean? It's so hard to put those little pieces in your schedule and then basically go hard and get that. The messaging that we get from society, it's really hard as our age for pathway.

if we're not doing this, you're not gonna adapt, you're not gonna tell those mitochondria to be better and make more of them. You might give the acute signal, but if you don't also allow for the autonomic balance to occur. I mean, this is classic. This is like.

a Seiler and Kurgin 2004, they put this out there. When Stephen Seiler was on the podcast, he basically came up or invented the polarization theory. He said, really, I know why the North Americans, Texans going over to Norway. And he says, I think I figured it out why they're going so well here. Somehow the Norwegians are finding a way to optimize molecular signaling with autonomic balance.

So we've been talking about the molecular signaling to make those mitochondria, but in the second half of the podcast where we got a little bit woo-woo, we're talking about the autonomic balance. You've got to have the autonomic nervous system, your central nervous system, the parasympathetic side of it, the vagal tone to be able to build it up and create those adaptations. So.

Even though we were going woo-woo, we were still talking about aerobic efficiency.

Marjaana Rakai (37:52)

I feel like there needs to be to this whole Norwegian autonomic nervous system stimulation. I have some ideas.

Paul Laursen (37:54)

We are a sequel to this.

Yeah.

Spin off at Paul's. Paul's always the one that is creating the topic for us and does an amazing job. But

Paul Warloski (38:11)

Yeah, it's written down.

It's a big exclamation mark. So we got it going.

Paul Laursen (38:13)

Awesome.

Marjaana Rakai (38:15)

Hahaha.

Paul Warloski (38:17)

Thanks for listening today to the Athletes Compass podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science-based training platform, Athletica, and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum. For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Larson, I'm Paul Warlowski, and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

Paul Laursen (38:17)

Thanks for listening today to the Athletes Compass podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science-based training platform, Athletica, and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum. For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski And this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thank you so much for listening.