How to improve “stamina”
The VO2max
VO2max the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can utilize during intense exercise. It is measured by a incremental workload test (or graded or step test) that goes to maximal exhaustion.
VO2max reflects cardiorespiratory fitness and endurance capacity. Other submaximal indicators of aerobic performance such as physiological thresholds are as important to know for training programing specific for each event duration.
VO2max: represents your overall endurance capacity. How big is your engine?
Anaerobic threshold: it is the capacity to sustain high-intensity effort for less than 40 minutes. How efficient is your engine?
Aerobic threshold: it is the capacity to sustain moderate intensity for really long period of time. How efficient is your engine?
Sprint & anaerobic capacity: capacity for repeated sprints and sustained high power. How powerful is your engine?
Wrongly, people often interpret as VO2max being exclusively related to long distance aerobic performance like marathons. It goes beyond that. The VO2max is the ceiling of endurance performance. If VO2max is low, shorter performance capacities cannot be further improved.
Figure 1. The energy bucket layers
Training considerations
The VO2max intensity and aerobic/anaerobic threshold intensities are the gold standard values to be used for training programing and control. Other indexes like Rate of Perceived Exertion or Heart Rate are not always reliable, specially when used to control interval training sessions.
For example, HR values can disproportionally increase depending intensity and number of repetitions, weather conditions, hydration status etc (i.e cardiac drift, Figure 2).
By knowing your maximal and submaximal physiological intensity thresholds you have the precise recipe to optimize and plan your training programing (figure 3).
Figure 3. The training cycle. Testing should be done constantly to re-adjust training loads.
If your VO2max is poor, that is the first thing you should work on. If your VO2max is good and you are still not performing well, you might need to look at your anaerobic threshold intensity. If it is around 70% of your maximal, that means that it can be improved a lot (up to 90% of maximal, depending on the exercise), without having to work on your VO2max.
Figure 4. Improvement in Anaerobic Threshold and Maximal intensities after individualized training.
Use short and intense intervals to improve sprint & anaerobic capacity.
Use intervals of around 45sec to 2 minute to improve VO2max & endurance.
Use longer intervals to improve your anaerobic threshold. Recovery
**Interval training blog coming up soon!
