unCoachJasonTM
VO2max
The monthly newsletter of RunCoachJason.com
Dr. Jason Karp, running & fitness coach, consultant, freelance writer
Director & Coach, REVO2LT Running Team™
March, 2008
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In
this issue:
Coach Jason to Speak at ACSM Health & Fitness Summit
Personal Training
VO2max Training
What’s the Best Cardio Equipment?
Training Programs
In Press
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Coach Jason to Speak at ACSM Health & Fitness Summit
This
month, Coach Jason will be
speaking at the American College of Sports Medicine Health & Fitness Summit at the
Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center and Hyatt Regency Hotel on
March 25 & 27, 2008 in Long Beach, CA.
His two presentations will be on periodization
training. The ACSM Health
& Fitness Summit bridges the gap between the science of sports
medicine and practice for fitness professionals. For more information and to
download the event brochure and conference schedule, go to:
http://www.acsm.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Education/Conferences/HealthFitnessSummit/Summit.htm.
In addition to their coaching services, RunCoachJason.com is doing more personal training since moving offices to San Diego. If you’re looking for a personal trainer, live in the San Diego area, and want a great workout on the beach or in the park, contact Dr. Jason Karp at jason@runcoachjason.com. For personal training gift certificates, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/merchandise.
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VO2max Training
While increasing your weekly
running mileage will increase your VO2max if you currently run less
than 40 to 50 miles per week, as the increased volume attends to the many
biochemical characteristics that influence oxygen extraction and use by the
muscles, high-intensity interval training at or near VO2max is the
most effective stimulus to improve it, especially for trained runners.
While long intervals (2-5 minutes) provide a greater load on the
cardiovascular system, short intervals (<1 minute) can also increase VO2max,
as long as they include short, active recovery periods to keep VO2
elevated throughout the workout.
In lieu of a laboratory test to tell you the velocity that elicits VO2max
(vVO2max), you can use current race performances or heart rate. vVO2max
is close to 1-mile race pace for recreational runners and 2-mile race pace (10
to 15 seconds per mile faster than 5K race pace) for highly-trained runners.
You should be within a few beats of your maximum heart rate by the end
of each interval.
Examples of workouts are: 1) 3 x 1,000 meters (or 4 minutes) at vVO2max
with a 3 minutes recovery, 2) 4 x 800 meters (or 3 minutes) at vVO2max
with 2.5 minutes recovery, and 3) 16 x 400 meters (or 1.5 minutes) at vVO2max
with 45 seconds recovery.
Want
to learn more? In my popular CD collection, The
3 Players of Distance Running, you’ll get all the info you could ever
want on VO2max as well as running economy, and lactate threshold, including
specific workouts to improve your running performance, all
presented in colorful slide presentations!
To order, just go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/merchandise
or e-mail jason@runcoachjason.com.
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What’s the Best Cardio Equipment?
(excerpted
from Karp, J.R. Show Me The
Treadmill: The Best Types of Cardio Equipment. Fitness
Management, Jan. 2008).
Being
a lifelong runner and coach, people think I’m biased when I say that running
is the best aerobic exercise. Well,
they’re right. I am biased.
But that’s only because running is
the best aerobic exercise. If you
were to choose one aerobic exercise to do or choose one piece of cardio
equipment to use for the rest of your life, that exercise should be running
and that piece of cardio equipment should be the treadmill.
Running is the single best exercise you can do.
Weight-bearing activities are associated with a significantly greater
caloric expenditure than non-weight-bearing activities, even when the two
types of exercise are performed at the same level of intensity.
Among weight-bearing activities, running burns more calories than most
everything else, being equaled only by cross-country skiing and sports that
require a lot of running, like soccer, squash, handball, and racquetball.
However, while these other activities use lots of muscles and burn lots
of calories, they also require a high degree of skill, which limits your
ability to perform the activities for long enough or at a high enough
intensity to fully realize the aerobic development or energy expenditure
benefits. By contrast, running
requires little skill, so people are limited only by their fitness level.
All
studies that have compared energy expenditure between different modes of
exercise have found that the treadmill yields the highest oxygen consumption
and caloric expenditure. Taking
together the research on caloric expenditure and the amount of skill needed to
acquire a cardiovascular and caloric-burning benefit, the treadmill would have
to be considered the best piece of cardio equipment, followed by the cross-country
skiing machine (e.g., NordicTrack), rowing machine, stair
stepper, and stationary bike.
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Training Programs
Know someone who wants to improve his or her running or train for a marathon? With RunCoachJason.com, you’ll get a specific, science-based training program suited to your needs. To purchase Dr. Jason Karp’s popular customized training programs for beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/customprograms.
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In
Press...
Strength Training and Resting Metabolic Rate, my
article that discusses the contentious issue of the effect that weight
training has on resting metabolic rate and weight loss,
appears
online at Personal
Training on the Net, an online education resource for fitness
professionals.
Carbohydrates and Distance Running: A Scientific Perspective, my
research-based article on the role that carbohydrates plays in distance
running, with recommendations for maximizing muscle glycogen
synthesis, appears in the
March, 2008 issue of the United Kingdom’s
Ultra-Fit magazine.
Training
Characteristics of
The 7
Habits of Highly Effective Triathletes,
my article that includes advice from some of the top triathletes in the world,
appears in the March, 2008 issue of Atlanta
Sports & Fitness magazine.
The
Three Players of Distance Running: An In-Depth Look at Running Economy, Part
3 of
my series that explores the physiology of
distance running, appears in the Winter, 2008 issue of Track Coach, the
official technical publication of USA Track & Field.
My
Love Affair With Lactate, my article that explores the many myths and
roles of lactic acid, appears
in the
Winter, 2008 issue of The Coach, the
United Kingdom’s track and field coaching magazine.
Magic Muscles, my article that
describes the physiology of muscles and how
they work, appears in the Winter, 2008 issue of Duke
City Fit.
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To
view past newsletters, go to http://www.runcoachjason.com/newsletter.
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unsubscribe from this newsletter, e-mail jason@runcoachjason.com
with the word “unsubscribe” on the subject line.
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©2008
Dr. Jason Karp.
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