What if I offered you a pill that took your cellular age back ten to fifteen years? This pill also increases mitochondrial numbers (kind of like the number of battery chargers in our cells), increases overall available energy, improves metabolic flexibility, lowers resting heart rate, decreases blood pressure, and improves insulin resistance? This “pill” is yours for the taking, except we call it “zone 2 training”.
Zone 2 training occurs when we perform a steady activity while maintaining a particular heart rate for longer periods of time, say 45 or 50 minutes, twice or three times a week. It can be accomplished while walking, rowing, swimming, or working out on an elliptical machine or stationary bike. It is NOT the 30-minute class with the instructor yelling at you through the screen and leaving you staggering.
At this moderate level of training, you can still talk, watch TV, listen to a podcast, or watch some Tuscan scenery go by on a Peleton screen. Higher intensity has its role, which we will cover in another blog but high intensity done too frequently is a big mistake made by many people resulting in overtraining issues, such as fatigue, overuse injury, poor sleep, declining performance, and loss of motivation.
We also have to keep in mind our goals. If we are training for a specific event, we might push through to higher levels of intensity. But if longevity and optimal health is our goal, overtraining is not our friend.
Endurance exercise is somewhat of a U-shaped curve. Too little or too much is not good for us. Too little allows mitochondrial dropout, increasing insulin resistance with age, and gradually diminishing energy. Too much, especially paired with inadequate recovery and improper nutrition can cause early heart failure, arrhythmias, long periods of high adrenaline, and high cortisol which age us faster.
So how do we find our zone 2 sweet spot? First, we start by calculating our maximum heart rate with this formula: 208 – (0.7 x age). We then take 60% of this number as our minimum and 70% as our maximum (so multiply this number by 0.6 and then repeat using 0.7). For me, at age 60, my calculation is a range of 99 to 116 BPM (beats per minute). If you are on any significant medication for blood pressure, lipids, or any other serious cardiac or pulmonary issue, you might want to lower both numbers by about 10 BPM. If you are a fairly active athlete, you may have to index higher. It’s important to note we can’t study every person in a metabolic lab which is why we have to estimate our desired heart rate.
We then test out this range using a heart rate (HR) monitor (Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin, and others) and see how it feels. You should be able to speak a full sentence, and we often describe this as “I can go all day” intensity. At this level of exertion, you are building an aerobic base, the same way that triathletes and professional bikers do, with 70% of your training time spent at this intensity. You are also reaping the benefits of a level targeted to maximize fat burning over carbohydrate usage. If you follow your nighttime HRV (heart rate variability) on something like an Oura ring or a Whoop or Halo, you should notice a slight increase over months (allowing for day-to-day variations) indicating less strain on your system, and improved nervous system “tone”.
So turn off the spin instructor, and turn on a scenic ride, a podcast, or call a friend and enjoy your workouts again instead of dreading them. Two or three times a month you can still enjoy your 30-40 min sweat session. Longevity is the name of the game!
Here is a Garmin record of a zone 2 day for me:
Please note: elite athletes should consult a professional trainer, and use either Joel Friels LHRT test (https://joefrielsblog.com/quick-guide-to-training-with-heart-rate-power-and-pace/) or use the HRVlogger app and chest strap, shooting for alpha 1 of 0.75 or slightly higher (https://www.marcoaltini.com/blog/heart-rate-variability)
Sources:
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/zone-2-training-for-endurance-athletes/
https://sportsmedicineweekly.com/2020/04/01/want-to-lose-fat-you-need-zone-2-exercise/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2004.00418.x
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What Is Zone 2 Training And Why Is It Important?
What if I offered you a pill that took your cellular age back ten to fifteen years? This pill also increases mitochondrial numbers (kind of like the number of battery chargers in our cells), increases overall available energy, improves metabolic flexibility, lowers resting heart rate, decreases blood pressure, and improves insulin resistance? This “pill” is yours for the taking, except we call it “zone 2 training”.
Zone 2 training occurs when we perform a steady activity while maintaining a particular heart rate for longer periods of time, say 45 or 50 minutes, twice or three times a week. It can be accomplished while walking, rowing, swimming, or working out on an elliptical machine or stationary bike. It is NOT the 30-minute class with the instructor yelling at you through the screen and leaving you staggering.
At this moderate level of training, you can still talk, watch TV, listen to a podcast, or watch some Tuscan scenery go by on a Peleton screen. Higher intensity has its role, which we will cover in another blog but high intensity done too frequently is a big mistake made by many people resulting in overtraining issues, such as fatigue, overuse injury, poor sleep, declining performance, and loss of motivation.
We also have to keep in mind our goals. If we are training for a specific event, we might push through to higher levels of intensity. But if longevity and optimal health is our goal, overtraining is not our friend.
Endurance exercise is somewhat of a U-shaped curve. Too little or too much is not good for us. Too little allows mitochondrial dropout, increasing insulin resistance with age, and gradually diminishing energy. Too much, especially paired with inadequate recovery and improper nutrition can cause early heart failure, arrhythmias, long periods of high adrenaline, and high cortisol which age us faster.
So how do we find our zone 2 sweet spot? First, we start by calculating our maximum heart rate with this formula: 208 – (0.7 x age). We then take 60% of this number as our minimum and 70% as our maximum (so multiply this number by 0.6 and then repeat using 0.7). For me, at age 60, my calculation is a range of 99 to 116 BPM (beats per minute). If you are on any significant medication for blood pressure, lipids, or any other serious cardiac or pulmonary issue, you might want to lower both numbers by about 10 BPM. If you are a fairly active athlete, you may have to index higher. It’s important to note we can’t study every person in a metabolic lab which is why we have to estimate our desired heart rate.
We then test out this range using a heart rate (HR) monitor (Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin, and others) and see how it feels. You should be able to speak a full sentence, and we often describe this as “I can go all day” intensity. At this level of exertion, you are building an aerobic base, the same way that triathletes and professional bikers do, with 70% of your training time spent at this intensity. You are also reaping the benefits of a level targeted to maximize fat burning over carbohydrate usage. If you follow your nighttime HRV (heart rate variability) on something like an Oura ring or a Whoop or Halo, you should notice a slight increase over months (allowing for day-to-day variations) indicating less strain on your system, and improved nervous system “tone”.
So turn off the spin instructor, and turn on a scenic ride, a podcast, or call a friend and enjoy your workouts again instead of dreading them. Two or three times a month you can still enjoy your 30-40 min sweat session. Longevity is the name of the game!
Here is a Garmin record of a zone 2 day for me:
Please note: elite athletes should consult a professional trainer, and use either Joel Friels LHRT test (https://joefrielsblog.com/quick-guide-to-training-with-heart-rate-power-and-pace/) or use the HRVlogger app and chest strap, shooting for alpha 1 of 0.75 or slightly higher (https://www.marcoaltini.com/blog/heart-rate-variability)
Sources:
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/zone-2-training-for-endurance-athletes/
https://sportsmedicineweekly.com/2020/04/01/want-to-lose-fat-you-need-zone-2-exercise/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2004.00418.x
Your Immune System Reboot: Diet & Lifestyle
When the coronavirus SARS-co-v2, a devastating communicable disease, descended upon the global population in December 2019, it became clear early on that there was a wide spectrum of illness, ranging from almost nothing to diarrhea, severe pneumonia, stroke, and death. By May of 2020, it became even more clear that there are particular conditions (“comorbidities”) that markedly increase the disease severity and death rate, and that these conditions had in common an immune system dysfunction with the shared characteristic of chronic inflammation. We have learned that people with chronic inflammation have higher levels of furin and that furin acts as a facilitator to allow better binding of the viral spike protein to our ACE2 receptors. Harboring chronic inflammation turns us into something like Velcro, attracting more virus, secreting more furin, and allowing more severe disease states to evolve. Read more
Polypill vs. Treadmill: Walking Your Way to Optimal Health
My grandfather used to say “Exercise? I get plenty of exercise – pushing myself back from the dinner table every night!” Of course, he walked almost daily on the Coney Island boardwalk in the middle of the winter and lived well into his 90s, so this was really just a way to get a laugh from us. Read more
Why Genomics?
In his masterful book “Lifespan: Why We Age- And Why We Don’t Have To” David Sinclair asks, “What if, in our 60’s, we weren’t fretting about leaving a legacy but beginning one? What if we didn’t have to worry that the clock was ticking? In fact, he makes the case that we are closer than you think to changing what “old age” looks like, feels like, performs like. David Sinclair is an optimist of course, but he’s also a Harvard professor and one of the most prolific researchers in the area of aging, or senescence. His lab has turned out paper after paper, building and transforming our understanding of the aging process. Some of the things he has uncovered have rapidly entered the mainstream, at least the mainstream consciousness of groups willing to act on early information, before it is proven and tested in prospective trials. We have learned that a little bit of stress is good for the body, for example, periods of cold, periods of fasting, eating less volumes of food (even 12% less) than most, exercising daily. He does not preach extremes- a brisk cold walk after dinner will do.
Read more
Barbells: Do We Need Them?
It’s not enough to walk the dog. That is to say, there are several components to a well-executed exercise plan or prescription. For most of us, walking at 2-3 mph would best be categorized as an “activity of daily living” rather than exercise.
One reason to exercise is to improve or maintain cardiorespiratory fitness. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week, or 75 minutes of “vigorous” activity. However, the American Heart Association is now recommending 300 minutes per week, and a JAMA review article in 2015 highlighted that for longevity benefits, while 150 minutes reduced all-cause risk of death by 31%, 450-700 minutes per week resulted in a 39% decreased risk of death. If you are doing the math, that is approximately 1 hour per day. There is no question that moderate to intense cardio-aerobic exercise is a powerful longevity tool, and in fact, fitness is a better predictor of lifespan than cardiovascular risk factors and labs. The heart rate must rise to 60-70% of your heart rate maximum (something we call zone 2 training) in order to count. Read more
Merlot Meets TMAO!
This is a story that starts with some negative publicity for meat, fish, and eggs, but has a better ending, although much controversy remains and science is still working out pathways. Fortunately for us, all sides agree that wine and high-quality olive oil, as well as other high polyphenol foods, emerge as “fixers” of this newly discovered risk factor.
In 2013 there was renewed interest in the compound TMAO (trimethylamine N-oxide), which our bodies (specifically our gut bacteria and liver) make from dietary choline, carnitine, and lecithin. Those primary ingredients are enriched in meat, fish, and eggs in particular. Fish contain the highest amount of preformed TMAO of any food group. Several papers found associations between higher plasma levels of TMAO and increased risk for cardiovascular disease (heart attack or stroke) between 2013 and 2019. The papers caused a small panic in the paleo and carnivore camps, which had been advocating avoidance of grains, beans, and fruit due to the potential inflammatory effects of lectins, sugars, and processing. Also, it was difficult to square this new TMAO effect (risk) with the consistent and strong protective effects of frequent fish consumption. Other studies were published that did not always confirm the connection. The dietary ingredients (or sometimes they were given as supplements) were carnitine, choline, and lecithin. They were converted by the microbes to TMA and then by the liver to TMAO.
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OURA Ring For Sleep Monitoring
Matthew Walker, PhD, is one of the leading sleep scientists in the world and currently a professor at UC Berkeley. He is the author of the book “Why We Sleep” published in 2017, and has written hundreds of papers, spoken at many professional meetings, and made several TED Talks and podcasts…all to get the word out that the right sleep is critical to our health and longevity. In fact, when asked what are the three most important ingredients for a long and healthy life, such as diet, exercise, etc., he usually responds “sleep, sleep and sleep”.
Many people “feel” that their sleep is okay…after all, if they are able to get up reasonably well in the morning, finish their day, and accomplish a few tasks after dinner, what could possibly be wrong? However, what we find when we study people’s actual time in deep sleep, time in dream sleep, and overall sleep quantity, is that as a society we are desperately “sleep deprived” and not optimized whatsoever for the best brain or cognitive outcomes over our lifespan.
Read more