Barbell Shrugged - How to Increase Your Aerobic Capacity w/ Chris Hinshaw - 220

Episode Date: August 3, 2016

How to Increase Your Aerobic Capacity w/ Chris Hinshaw

This week on Barbell Shrug, we interview Chris Henshaw and learn how to increase your aerobic capacity and stay strong. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Alright, in a 3, a 2, a 3, 2, 1, shockabrass. Oh, we're like opposite sides now. I know. It's so weird. Usually I'm on the other side. I'm uncomfortable right now. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. What's up? CTP behind the camera.

Yo! And the mic. He's mic'd up today. Shocker Brass. And we're here with our very special guest at Power Monkey Fitness Camp, Chris Henshaw. Chris, welcome to the show, man. Thank you. Thanks for taking the time to hop on and answer some questions. Yeah, no, thank you. It's nice to be here.

Yeah. So, for those out there who don't know who you are, tell us a little bit about yourself and, you know, how you came to be a coach at Power Monkey Camp. So my main background is in the endurance community. I came originally from the swimming world and I eventually transitioned at the age of 18 into the sport of triathlons. I raced as a professional from around 1982 to 1989. My specialty was longer distance triathlons, Ironman. I've done a total of 10 of those. You've done 10 Ironmans? 10.

Oh, my God. Yeah. But, I mean, that was a long time ago. Yeah. A long time ago. So, really, actually, after a number of years, for me, it almost doesn't count, right? Yeah.

With the exception, I did have some success in the sport. I mean, Ironman distance races were a specialty of mine, and I ended up placing second overall in the Hawaiian Ironman. Oh, wow. And that I'm really proud of. I feel like that accomplishment set me into a tone that has carried with me for the rest of my life. It's really one that you work hard,

and you will have something that satisfies you that you can pull on when times get tough. What is the, like just for people who don't know, what is that? I know what it is. The Hawaiian one? It was sometimes on NBC. Yeah, they showed it. So what's that race?

So that race, it consists of a 2.4 mile ocean swim. And then you get out and you do a 112-mile bike ride. Jesus. And then you get off of that and you do a 26.2-mile marathon. The tricky part of it is that it's done in Hawaii, and when you get off the bike, it's 1130 in the morning. Yeah.

So even though you've done all of that volume, you now have to run in the heat of the day. Yeah. Brutal. I've seen it. I saw it on TV. They used to air it. I don't know if they – do they still air it? They do. Oh, yeah. No, it's of the day. Yeah. Brutal. I've seen it. I saw it on TV. They used to air it. I don't know if they – do they still air it?

Oh, yeah. No, it's a massive event. Yeah, yeah. They would air it like every summer or something like that, and then you'd see it, and then they'd make a big kind of almost like a documentary out of it and cover the people that are in it, and then they follow the people, and you see people like fall out and all this kind of stuff. And so to finish it is like yeah a true test of endurance

oh yeah i uh when you when you talk about doing 10 of them that's absolutely mind-blowing but when i think of that i think of the training volume that has gone into doing prepping for 10 of those like that is a lot of training because i've seen some programs for someone who wants to do an ironman and it is hours of work and that was back in the 80s you said so did you have like a giant ass walkman in your pocket like helping you through all those runs or what no not at all not at all it was a lot of lonely days that's for sure you know and and it shocks me when i think about you know the things that went through my head that i actually thought were good ideas like one time i was in northern california california is a very very state. And when you're sitting in the north and you're

having breakfast and you say to yourself with your buddy, you're like, why don't we ride our bikes down to Santa Barbara? And that from where we were was 1250 kilometers. And we did it in four days. And that to me sounded like a good idea what was even better is is we just brought a backpack and we thought that that wasn't enough volume so we taped our running shoes to our bike frames and we thought we'd actually do some runs after doing a nice easy 250 mile ride oh my gosh that is insane yeah it's nuts and so now now you work with CrossFitters primarily? I do. CrossFit, I really credit it for restoring my health.

All that volume really took its toll on me. I found myself at the age of 45 where I was the guy that was on those moving sidewalks and airports where I was standing off and riding that thing down to my gate. And it was because my body was just banged up. It felt brittle. I was really feeling like a made of glass. And I was destined to just be in that space for the rest of my life. And I happened to be in a business meeting over in Santa Cruz and I ran into Annie Sakamoto. And Annie, as you know, is an incredible human being, very friendly, very outgoing, very intelligent. And she took up an interest in the work that I did. And she said to me, she says, you know, you've done a lot of volume in your day, but it's with the same muscle groups over and over again. And maybe if you strengthen

those neglected muscle groups, you could become functional. Yeah. And for me, that word functional, I mean, it's so ironic that, that, you know, over eight years ago, she says that and it's functional fitness. And, uh, I eventually worked up the courage to go in and I had a great coach by the name of Sherry Keener for three years did one-on-one instruction and brought me back to health and I am immensely grateful for that to think that I am beyond functional today you know my mile time is under five minutes I run a 460 seconds I have a 17 10 5K and I'm 52 years old. That, I will now give back to the community in any way I can.

That's legit. When did you get started with CrossFit? I got started at the age of 45. I'm coming up on my eighth year. I started I did three years at Santa Cruz Central and then I went over to NorCal CrossFit i've been there ever since okay yeah yeah so you've been doing yeah so you've been

in the CrossFit community for almost i mean a while since it's i mean one of the originals yeah you've been a while longer than i have so yeah yeah it's been a long time yeah i know people tell me it's like wow are you surprised at you know how things are going for you in the community and i'm i always tell them i'm like, that eight years went by fast. Well, at what point did you start working more with athletes? Was it, was it just any CrossFit athlete or did you have a focus on higher end games athletes? So what I had done is I had, um, decided to pick a gym that was closer to my home. I didn't know that there, when I signed up for CrossFit that there was multiple affiliates around the world. I only knew Annie Sakamoto.

And so I was driving an hour to her gym and back three times a week for three years. Not running? Yeah. But I did during that time start running. And I noticed the value in my endurance doing small doses of CrossFit training, doing it three times a week, what it was bringing me in terms of quality of my work product on the track, on the open road, I was seeing performance gains that I never even imagined to be achievable.

So you're saying because of your endurance background, it made the performance gains in CrossFit that much easier? No, it made the... His endurance, yeah. My endurance improved substantially because of dosing myself with small amounts of CrossFit, so three times per week. And so when I was at NorCal, I had some friends that slowly started joining me out on the track and doing my track workouts.

And it was just a fun group that we would get together two times a week and run and I was at NorCal for about a year and Jason Kalipa popped into the gym and and I'll be honest that day you know it was Helen and and Helen's my jam it's not a lot of heavy movement it's an aerobic workout right and I never picked up a barbell before starting CrossFit. And so lighter weight, body movements. And a lot of running. And a lot of running. And so I admittedly showed off to the champ.

And he talked to me for one or two sentences afterwards. And that was in November. And then January of 2013, he gave me a call. And he asked me, he said, you know, I'm tired of getting last in every endurance event at the CrossFit Games. And if I can fix that, which I have tried every which way, I think I can get on the podium. Would you be willing to coach me? And I'm sitting there and I'm like, wow, I've never coached a CrossFit athlete.

And here's a 2008 champ calling me. And he then seals the deal by saying, I will never question your workouts. I will always do whatever you tell me. The ideal athlete. And he has been. We talk about coachable athletes all the time, and a coachable athlete is very rare, the one that will listen to you and never question you. And Jason, he's a true soldier.

Yeah. Right. And then we started. And my feeling was is that what would happen if I took a pure CrossFit athlete and dosed him with true endurance programming? What would happen? And so I experimented on him. I next met Garrett Fisher and Neil Maddox.

And at that Games that year, Jason went on to play second. Garrett got fifth and Neil got ninth. And for me, it doesn't mean that you have a methodology now, right? Because you did it with a population of three. And so I went out and I really copied what Glassman did. Glassman, what I felt was so fantastic is he put his workouts out on dot com for free. And it was for the sole purpose to validate a new fitness methodology. He needed a larger sample size to prove it. Yeah. And they came by the hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands.

And pretty soon, you know what? It validated what he was saying. Yeah. So I kind of took the same approach and I took on anybody and everybody and I did it for free. Yeah. I did it for free for, I really didn't start making money until June of last year. So for two and a half years, I did it for free. And, um, now you're just like swimming in cash, right? No, no, it doesn't work that way. Yeah. What, what is, what is your methodology, um methodology that you use? So part of what I realized in talking

with Jason Kalipa is that there was a perception that, Jason, I'm slow. My endurance is weak. And so what do I need to do to fix that? I need to go out and run fast. I need to run fast to improve my endurance. And he was equating speed with his endurance. And those are on opposite ends of the spectrum. And so part of it was, is that, you know, when Jason would go to the track, he would do 400 meter intervals for time. And he would then do a second one for time, take a small amount of rest. And funny story, when I asked him the first time, I'm also, then you go out and you do a third one and he's like, oh, no, no, no, no. I'm too tired. I can't finish the third one. I stop halfway.

And I'm like, well, what's the plan after that? And he's all, no, no, the workout's done. I hop in my car and I go to the gym. And that's the issue that he had is that he was neglecting his aerobic system. He was neglecting the system that contributes more than 50% of your energy on durations longer than one minute. So all of his training was focused on one minute and shorter time domains. Right. Maybe too intense too often for the shorter time domains and maybe less training of the system?

Yeah, he needed actually, his issue was his volume. He didn't have enough time on his feet. He was really focused on high intensity training across the board. Yeah. And so his ability to survive beyond one minute was almost zero. Yeah. And so for me, the initial experiment was, let's slow this guy down and put more time on his feet. And so that's what we did.

We started a program of running two times per week. So what year did you start working with him? I started working with him in January of 2013. Okay, because I remember I competed with him in 2013, and that year they had a lot of long events. Yes. They had the long burden run. If you go back and watch 2013 games, they had the long burden run,

which had a two-mile run in the beginning. And then like this long like pig flip where you like moved it down a football field. And then you had to carry a log. It was like a 30-minute workout. We had the row. We had the half marathon row. We had the Naughty Nancy workout, which was four rounds of overhead squats

and running around the entire stadium. So a lot of volume on longer workouts. And so it was no fluke when this guy was finishing. He won the burden. He won the row. Both rows. Yep, and he was top three, I think, in the Naughty Nancy. And I remember being blown away at his development in that

because I'd always seen him as this very powerful, just bear of an athlete who would just crush the strong power stuff and then kind of hang on the endurance stuff. And I'm like, this guy's winning the endurance stuff now. Something changed. Yeah, I mean, Zaynum passed out that one year. Was that 2009, the year Miko won? He passed out on the run.

Oh, yeah, yeah. So just some control, too. Yeah, I mean, that was another issue that he had, and that's an issue in CrossFit. Here at the Power Monkey Camp, we're lucky enough where True Form came in and provide 12 True Forms. And so we're able to do some real up-close and personal one-on-one coaching with athletes on the True Form, right,

instead of having to chase them down the trail. And part of what CrossFit athletes struggle with is they believe that in order to have a good result, I've got to take it out hard. And then they always rely on hope as their strategy to bring it home. And hope will 100% of the time let them down. It is about pacing and understanding

the workout that you're about to do, understanding and assessing the difficulty of that workout and the time domain and making sure that you actually are, quote, pacing it correctly because you don't have infinite energy reserves. Right. And so you need to manage those. Right. Yeah, actually, I read an article recently written.

It was talking about how high-level CrossFitters, like we say, like CrossFit is high intensity, but really it's so you can sustain that intensity over a period of time to get the work done. Work capacity. Right. And that's what we call it, right? You go to the level one and they call it work capacity. How am I going to improve my work capacity?

Right. Right. So you said that you gave him two workouts per week. That's right. And what kind of training did you mostly have him, have Jason do? So all of my athletes, even today, there's very few exceptions that run three times per week. Okay. The protocol really is two times per week.

And really... That doesn't seem like a whole lot. It's not. I mean, part of it is that we in CrossFit know that because of the number of movements that we are doing in the sport, there is a significant carryover. We've all done it where I haven't bench pressed in two months, and then I go and do a bench, and it's like, whoa, I PR'd.

How is that possible? Right. So these phenomenons are occurring where you don't need to do the volume because of the crossover and different types of movements. The transferability. Yeah. Right.

So part of what I did in taking on athletes for free for so long, matter of fact, so most of my athletes don't charge me. There's not one. So I had 65 at the games last year. I had never received anything from. And that is to hone in on the methodology. Right. games last year I had never received anything from and that is to hone in on the methodology right and what I've learned is two times per week of different intensities is what creates adaptation and we're seeing adaptation in these athletes like you saw Jason Kleep in the 2013 games

where they're improving their mile time like Rich Froning his mile time has gone from six minutes down to sub 525 running two times per week and you work with rich as well yeah yeah so you know we all saw rich walk in the triple three and one of the things that jason laid down the law on early is you're prevented from working with rich but but as soon as jason went team i guess you you know, he called and said, right. And so I got a phone call. And, um, for me, you know, when Rich asked for me to coach him, you know, I'm a fan of the sport and it was awesome to get that phone call. I mean, and I was nervous and, but the thing that I really sat back and thought about is like I knew I could make him

a better runner just because he was training old school way of pure high intensity training and he was neglecting his aerobic system I knew I could make him faster but what if I made him a worse crossfit athlete here's the four-time champ and now what happened to him that would have been my first thought man I hope I don't screw this up. And so it's kind of like a risky move. But because I wasn't making any money, I had no risk. I mean, okay, I'll just go do back, you know, my job and my hobby goes away. And so what's ironic is that I, this week, did my very first workout. I came to Cookville in December of 2014, and I did that workout with Rich two days ago. And what an awesome improvement.

And one of the most amazing things, his running has substantially improved. But Richard's been vocal about it. Every single one of his lifts in his first six months in working with me went up. His vertical leap went up two inches. And here's the four-time champ not only improving his mile time, but all of his lifts increasing and so you can do both yeah i mean the biggest test was matt frazier you know that was the scariest because here is a peer specialist right in weightlifting right what would happen yeah i i was comfortable that i wasn't going to make a worse crossfitter but really the holy grail would be what happens to his lifting

yeah and there was a pretty famous workout that he did with rich froney out here last june and he ran it was uh three rounds it was a series of nine six hundred so it was three rounds of three by six hundred meters with 40 seconds of rest between the six hundreds and four minutes between the rounds and he was holding two twel, which is a six-minute mile pace. Wow. So it was 5,400 meters. Within complete rest. Right.

So three hours later, they went up to the barn, and he cleaned and jerked 375 for PR. Wow. So you said that you'd address that fear that, you know, you obviously don't want to make him worse than that. So for those listening, like, why would that you, you'd address that fear that, you know, you don't, you obviously don't want to make him worse than that. So for those listening, like, why would that be a, like, why would doing aerobic training or endurance training affect the lifting? Like what, what in the past have we learned? And maybe we're learning now that's different that you can do both. Well, so there's not a lot of information on that. And that's the, the fortunate spot of

coaching. A lot of people is if you coach one athlete and you see a phenomenon occur and you've never seen it before, it may just be an anomaly. Right. But where I'm seeing it as, she starts a running program, focuses on her slow twitch muscle fibers, focuses on developing her aerobic system, spending more time on her feet. All of a sudden, her lifts go up. Lindsay Valens-Wayne, I mean, there's dozens and dozens of them that that happens to. And I see that as a huge grouping. And I think that what presents the challenge is that you don't have a large enough sample size to see it as, wow, this isn't an anomaly, it's a pattern.

That to me is what's really exciting is that things that I'm seeing is really unique. That's because CrossFit created something different. They really created a sport for the everyday athlete, right? There's no specialists in our sport. The ones that go to the games, they're great in a broad range of activities, right? And so we're seeing phenomenons that were never thought possible. I mean, how is it possible that Rich Froning can go, or how about Matt Frazier can go from being a weightlifter to running a sub-515 mile?

How is it possible? Yeah. Running two times per week. Sorry, go again. I was going to ask, if you had to, I know you don't maybe necessarily know, but if you had to guess why increasing the aerobic capacity helps in so many areas, what do you think that would be? Why do you think that is?

I don't know. I mean, I've talked to a lot of people about it and, and, you know, there will, we definitely need to do a study on it. Um, because I think that's what makes this sport so unique. I mean, the fact that, that we're seeing these, these phenomenons, we're not asking these athletes to run a substantial volume. Every one of my athletes eventually hits a certain volume in their workout and it causes a muscular stamina issue. How much, how much would that be? Sorry to interrupt. So every athlete's different. So like Camille could do a 12,000 meter track workout and then go in

the gym three hours later and PR. Other athletes may run like Jason Kalipa, his number is about 8,000 meters. And so eventually that number, that volume hurts them. But that's the carryover, right, is the transfer into the everyday athlete, right, the 99% of the population that has zero interest in competing, the fitness enthusiast. For them, we kind of hone in and really have perfected the highest value for their time when they go out and they do a cardio-respiratory endurance type workout. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to ask about the general pop on how this might relate to them because we're talking about these changes in elite CrossFitters, right?

Like Frazier's PR-ing his clean and jerk, but he's also got 12 or however many years of experience in Olympic weightlifting. So getting a little stronger over time could also benefit to that. So for those that are just, you know, been working out for a couple of years, like what kind of carryover might you see and how could you apply this to them? That's the most fantastic thing. It is very difficult to squeeze out that kind of performance in an elite athlete. You know, they've really done an outstanding job in finding areas for improvement. So those large gaps, they're not there. But the everyday athlete, the recreational athlete, the fitness enthusiast,

part of what they're doing, most of the athletes that I coach are just interested in general fitness. Number one, general fitness. Number two, calories. And so for me, what is the highest and best use of their time, right? And I do believe that people's time is going to get more and more precious. And so what is that protocol? And I feel that working on your engine two times per week,

along with doing two to three Crossfit workouts per week is a phenomenal protocol yeah it builds their engine it allows them if they need to you know and they want to go on vacation and do mountain hikes they've got both systems they've got strength and they've got endurance yeah could you give me like an example, like a specific, like let's say for instance, take me, okay. I have no aerobic endurance background. Well, maybe in high school, whatever, but I weightlift. Okay. So what if you wanted to increase my aerobic capacity? Where, how would you start me? Like, where would I start? So if I was onboarding you, what I have to do is I have to look at your prior results and make an estimation on where you need to spend your time to maximize adaptation. So I would ask you of a result of an anaerobic event, something that was high intensity and how well did you perform?

So 400 meter is a good test. And in CrossFit, most people have a max effort 400 meter time. Most weightlifters don't. But do you? No, but i did fran so there's we do the 60 second max cow a lot too yeah so that but that's part of it right is that it's the the level of it's the same thing jason kalipa you know here he did the 08 games and here it's now january of 2013 he never did a mile for time yeah which is incredible but he knows his one rep is three rep is five rep of 500 million lifts right so i would then let's say that you're rich froning you have a

60 second 400 and then i would then pick an aerobic event a mile most crossfitters have run a mile right that's the most common distance that they have run and have you run a mile yeah and i don't know if you have but let's say you're Rich Froning and you ran it in six minutes, right? Both on their own are good. But what I'm interested in is the relationship between those two times. I have an anaerobic event and I have an aerobic event. How much did you slow your speed from 400 meters to a mile?

So we all know that as we extend out the endurance curve, we slow down. But how much did you slow? And that was the number one question, you know, when Rich, I was dying to know what his rate of slowing was. So he slows from 400 meters to 800 meters, then 800 meters to a mile at a rate of 28.7%. You mean his times? His speed. His speed speed his speed does okay so on its own that 28.7 doesn't mean anything but with my work and also the work of beyond the whiteboard we've looked at over 17 000 crossfit athletes who have done a 400 and a mile time

and the average really is for the fitness enthusiast, the non-specialist, right? We're talking non-runners, that running's not their sport, the numbers between 20 and 21. So what that tells you is, is that Rich Froning has a 28.7. His target is 20 to 21. Now I have a choice. I could either make his 400 time slower right move it from 60 to 63 yep or I could drop his mile time down to 520 then he's in the sweet spot yep so that assessment is what I would do for you because I'm trying to define if I only get you two days a week what's the highest and best use of your time right so Rich Froning was so extreme it wasn't saying that his his times were slow.

On their own, they're fast. Right. But his mile time relative to his 400 was terrible. Yeah. It was one of the worst I'd ever seen. Right. And so where did I spend his time? Working volume.

Yeah. And I slowly brought his time down. Matter of fact, in the first 10 weeks, he dropped his mile time from six minutes down to 541. Nice. Can I ask you what numbers you would want to see in an elite level and then like a general pop? And not the percentage, but just give me some like a 400 in the mile time. No, so it's really about percentage. And so most of the people that I work with are in that eight to 10 minute mile range. That's their PR time. And it's always the

relationship because you're trying to define what's the highest and best use of their time. I don't have the luxury. So running coaches, if I'm having you run 80 miles in a week, I can make all sorts of mistakes in my programming, right? Because I have enough volume to catch up on those items. But if I only get you two times a week, I must put you in the direction that's going to bring you the most value. And so that assessment is really important for someone to know, like me, my number's 15%. Now, Grant, I'm 52 years old, an aging population, speed because of reduction in muscle goes away. But I need to spend more time on speed. I should not be doing the same protocol as a Rich Froning when he started.

Right. So that's how it's done. Have you seen any CrossFitters high level or you can say general pop too, but high level that need the 400 to go faster and the mile looks fine? Most of the. They're not powerful enough, I guess. Right. So when an athlete reaches the age of 40 to the

age of 70 their stride length gets cut by 50 and that is because of range of motion and power force and so higher intensity speed work for them because their percentage is lower than 20 becomes the dominant focus so for me my 400 is 60 seconds. My mile is 457. Those on their own sound fine, but I really should be running somewhere around a 57 second 400. And then you talked about that, that volume threshold or that amount that somebody can tolerate. Like, how do you go about finding that? You just, do you put them under, yeah, like, like how do you go about finding that? You just, do you put them under, yeah, like, how do you go about finding that? So that's a great question.

What you will realize is that at some point in time when you get to be at a high volume, your performance in the gym goes down. So I really work for the CrossFit coach. So Katrin and Matt, I really work for Ben Bergeron. I take direction from Ben. Ben is the driver. He's the master of it all. So for example, you know, Camille is working with Doug Chapman. I work with Doug and he knows what I'm

programming in there. And if they see fall off in the gym, then I need to make sure that I'm providing a balance, right? So I'm trying to push their time domain to build up time on their feet, right? They may have a 13-mile run. Wouldn't be surprised. And so my job is to do that. But the priority is what occurs in the gym. So you prioritize what actually goes in the gym. So you would actually cut your stuff before you would say, you know, Ben, you need to cut maybe what you're doing in there.

Right. Because every athlete can run the most common distance that a fitness enthusiast would run and that is 5 000 meter workout in one time per week and another workout would be between 3 000 and 4 000 meters so we're talking a total of six miles in the week yeah that is not a lot no these are across country we ran like seven eight miles a day right right it's like swimming too when i i do some swimming and then the volume that i see myself doing and then when i go and i see like middle school kids up there their warm-up on the board their warm-up is longer than my entire swim workout yeah that the volume that they're doing with that so right that leads

me into a question i have for you um oh it I just went blank on it. Never mind. Come back to me. But I think that you brought up swimming. So that is a very difficult thing for a specialist coming into CrossFit because CrossFitters, games athletes, they swim one time a week and they swim one mile. That's it. So they're going to swim 1,600 meters and that's it, one time per week. I came from the triathlon world. I was swimming 25,000 meters a week. When I was swimming, I was doing 40,000.

And so to adapt to that is a challenge. But what you realize is because of all the other things that they're doing, they can create performance gains on a substantial level with that little volume. Yeah, because it's general. It's general. I was going to ask, do you do any other like modalities like run, like besides running, do you do rowing or anything else? I do. So one of the things that's really important for athletes to understand is that, and this is one of the mistakes that, that, that athletes make when a new runner comes out and they run they have running speed they don't have

any range of gears and part of what they need to do is they need to recognize that if i want to be good at a certain speed i must practice that speed because the way your body recruits muscle fibers the way in which it sequences and the way in which they fatigue are speed dependent if you want to run a six minute mile you've got to practice training at a six minute mile right that's why they do intervals on the track right is that it allows you to train at your goal pace you take a small rest and then you go back to your goal pace right well it's the same thing with different movements you can't just do running because running will develop running right there's a lot of carryover. Right. From what's happening in the engine. But if you want to be well-rounded as a fitness enthusiast, you've got to mix up your work. Yeah. So regular protocols is hopping on the rower, hopping on the bike.

And then, you know what? I strongly encourage all of them to go out and enjoy your fitness. Right. Go on hikes, do yoga, whatever you want. Yeah. Protocols are not just limited to one activity yeah running though is without a doubt the highest value for your time why is that because in running what you're doing is you're supporting your own body weight and part of what you're doing in your running is that you are developing this range of gears essentially intensities and that feel that you're bringing in that feel for intensity is what carries you into all of your other movements what makes crossfit so challenging is you are doing workouts that are in combinations of movements or weights that you've never seen

before so how do you know how to pace that really yeah right it's the feeling yeah right and by supporting your own body weight in a CrossFit workout, it carries over that feeling. And that's where the precision comes in. That's why Games athletes are so incredible because they can look at a workout and then just start and do it by feel. They can look at it and know exactly what pace they need to hold that. By feel.

Hold that workout. Yeah. Does injury, like, pop up in this? If they're adding more, like they weren't doing a lot of aerobic stuff and before, like where does, what do you, what considerations do you have for that? Like injuries? We're very careful on the amount that we ramp in terms of volume. Yeah. But again, for the fitness enthusiasts, the volumes that we're doing is very, very light. Um, you know, when I started with Rich the first 10 weeks, he never ran more than 6.2 miles a week.

And so I was concerned about that, right? And so part of it is building that structure by spending more and more time on his feet. So now he's running three times. I probably shouldn't have said that. It's a secret. Yeah, Rich has openly said that the highest value for Mayhem is running three times per week,

and it is really because of those adaptations that carry over so greatly. Yeah, and how long would you work with an athlete, and how long would they continue like a running program that you would give them? So they continue. I mean, I'm with Camille now we're on four years and, um, it, it just continues as a lifestyle. Part of it is, is that you must create workouts programs that engage them. And what I always try and do is hold them accountable for the knowledge that's

generated in that workout, because that's what brings them back. I always find it interesting that an athlete knows their three rep back squat workout that they did two months ago and the weights they lifted, but they don't know the speeds that they did in a running workout. Right. You need to carry that knowledge from workout to workout so that you improve in the same way that you would do in anything else that you do in the gym absolutely right yeah if you don't know it if you don't if you don't know it you can't you can't manage it you can't measure you're going measured yeah you you can't improve it right going blind and so part of it is is just making sure that the workouts are written in a way where they're engaged and they want to learn right and running is typically done where it's like oh go run five

miles but the problem with that is is that that's not necessarily the highest best use of their time Right. And running is typically done where it's like, oh, go run five miles. But the problem with that is, is that that's not necessarily the highest, best use of the time. And they're going to blow their brains out with boredom. Right. So you've got to create something that stimulates them to want to come back to pick running as their movement that they selected that day for their fitness. And that you don't see much people look at running. They're just like, Oh, running. Really? Well, I mean, I don't personally, I mean, I, and I, you know, the people in my, I don't enjoy running. Yeah. I mean, it's hard for me. Yeah. It really hurts me. But if I'm engaged, then I'll do it. Yeah. Um, we're going to go through some of the questions now that we'd mentioned before. before. We asked on social media. We'd let them know we're interviewing you.

So we've got a big list here. But I'm going to do my best to sort through some of the ones that we've already kind of answered. Because a lot of people have asked that we already covered. So one of them was heart rate training. Are there benefits of training with a heart rate monitor in CrossFit? Who asked? Oh, yeah, sorry. L underscore Campos.

Yeah. L Campos. So heart rate's a tricky subject. You know, coming from my old world in triathlons, we use heart rate monitors all the time. I think it's a tool to measure what's going on. It's a tool. The problem is, is unless you go out and you get a VO2 max,

you're really shooting blind. And what I mean by that is I used to race with a guy by the name of Mark Allen, and he had an incredibly low heart rate. His max heart rate was 40 beats lower than mine. Now, if we're going off of percentages, and most programs that are out there are using heart rate max and going percentages off of that, we would be wildly off in our adaptation and the

stimulus that we're trying to get. Another thing is, is that how do you know that your anaerobic threshold, right? That threshold of where lactic acid starts building up in your body and creating fatigue. How do you actually know where that is off of a percentage unless you get it tested? Right. So would you say that 85%? Well, I'm here at the camp, and I've seen lactate threshold numbers that are as low as 59% of their VO2. I've seen another person here, Julie Foucher. Hers is 95%. So if Julie was training at 59% of her VO2, she would not create any adaptation.

Right. So that's what makes it tough. Yeah. But if you get a VO2, now you're talking. So you're doing a lot of testing here. You're doing what kinds of tests? So we're doing a VO2 max test to test the aerobic capacity, how much oxygen that they could bring in through the atmosphere,

process through their body, and convert to energy. And that is the VO2 number? Yeah, that's your peak. And then what you're doing is you're measuring various thresholds below that to create these heart rate zones. Right. And I guess, so what would be like if someone got a test, what would be kind of a good number for a CrossFitter?

So it really depends on male or female. Men have higher numbers than women because it's dictated by muscle mass. Right. And so as you age, you lose more muscle volume. And so as you age, your number gradually declines. When I was in my 20s, and it's a genetic gift, I was born with a VO2 of, you know, in my 20s, it was 89. That is very, very, very high. Mine today is 62.

Rich Froning is 73. And so it's one of those things that you can train for. You can raise your number to your genetic limit, but the real area of focus is lactate threshold, and that's why people wear heart-mute bonders. Right. So in what relation do you want that anaerobic threshold to your VO2? So for me, a target would be I'd love to see an athlete in the 90s. Julie Foucher is at 95%, and that is a number that is impressive

to anybody in the endurance community. And so what I do with people that do that is I create that as a goal heart rate. I want to improve their work capacity at the same level of pain. So if your lactate threshold today is at a heart rate of 155, what I want to do is in the same amount of pain, right, have it be at 165. Now, when you do that, your speed is the thing that's going to improve, right? Your pain's going to be the same, your heart rate's higher, but now my speed is faster. My body's ability to withstand that lactic acid and to buffer it and to clear it is substantially better. So that is a number one focus for me in my training every week. A hundred percent of my

athletes do a workout that focuses on raising their lactate threshold. In CrossFit, we call that our maximum sustainable pace. Got it. And the ability to flush it too, right? Which could carry over into, you know, recovering after workouts and repeating efforts. So people like Cole Sager, Neil Maddox, these are fast twitch dominant athletes, and their ability to clear that lactate is very challenging because they're fast twitch dominant explosive athletes. It builds up to really astronomical levels,

and then they've got to find a way to clear it. So imagine the games when they're running up that berm and they hit the top, they're through the roof. Yeah. Super hypoxic. They somehow during that jog have to recover. Yeah. That's why you train a fast twitch explosive athlete

different than an athlete like me. How often would you test these measurements? So if you're elite, you would do it every quarter. But if you're doing your programming properly, you would do it every quarter. But if you're doing your programming properly, you really do it by feel. You're going to know when you drop off the edge of the envelope, right? You're going to know. And so proper programming in the workout where you're doing a pacing-based workout, when you near the end of it and you're holding on to the edge of that pace to the end and you're like, oh man, I barely pace to the end, and you're like, oh, man, I barely made it,

then you know you've covered below that threshold, at that threshold, and above that threshold, which is going to guide that number up. Interesting. Yeah, I think one of the best examples I've seen of someone who has a really good ability to flush or to buffer is Samantha Briggs. And I always remember this video.

It was when two years ago, I think, when it was the thruster burpee workout in the open, when everyone was laying on the ground on their back, she got done. She kind of looked around. Of course, they were all in equal pain, more than likely, but her ability to recover from that so much faster was very noticeable.

And that is a developable skill yeah you can develop that skill that is something that with proper training you can raise your number yeah very cool yeah um let's do one more question we're getting a little short on time so i want to be conscious of yours as well um from jd gomez 17 oh nope sorry well i already said the name now i gotta read it all right we'll go and do it real quick how do you determine an athlete's split times when 17. Oh, nope. Sorry. Well, I already said the name. Now I got to read it. All right. We'll go and do it real quick. How do you determine an athlete's split times when training their aerobic capacity CrossFit? Obviously, distances will demand different splits, but it is based on individual's baseline's best mile time. Still with me? Yes.

Okay. Or are there standard times for each distance to develop aerobic capacity? Example, Rich Froning's workout on the recently uploaded Road to the Games video on CrossFit page. So you have to, again, as I said from the beginning, train a multitude of gears. CrossFitters are not specialists, and so we're not targeting one specific distance to be great at. We want to be really good at 400 meters up to 5,000 meters. We want to be good at different time domains. So you practice those time domains. If you're going to be running for 40 minutes, your pace is going to be different than running for 20 minutes. So your workouts are all geared around the stimulus that you're trying to accomplish. So for everybody, what they need

to do is they need to create an independent assessment of themselves. Where when you go out and you do a run, are those 100-meter sprints easy for you? Or is those workouts where I prescribe 5 by 2,000 meters going to present the challenge? Right. That should become your focal point. Got it. That is the area that will bring you the biggest value for your time. Got it. Got it. That is the area that will bring you the biggest value for your time. Got it. Very cool. Is there anything else that you would want to add? Any things you want to recommend? Places

we can find you with more information? Yeah. So most of the questions that I get are about workouts and how do I build my knowledge? On aerobiccapacity.com, my website, that site, I list four different running workouts every single Sunday night. They will be there first thing Monday morning for you. They're on there for free every week. There's four different stimuluses for adaptation. There's also row workout. There's a swim workout and a bike workout. Every week they're on there for free.

I also uh partnered up with crossfit my crossfit aerobic capacity course is now a specialty course part of cross oh cool yeah just that i can't even it's exciting oh my gosh so we've been lucky enough to load 13 courses from now through the end of October. Oh, wow. Awesome. Yeah. So that I'm, I'm, it's so great to have the opportunity to share the information. And, and what I do is in that course, I never hold back. You know, when that course was really created, it was done with Matt Chan and I laid out kind of, you know, these ideas and he's like, you need to share

everything with the community, everything. And don't hold back. If a question is asked, you share it. And I do, I share my methodology, I share my research, I share all of my data. And that's what you learn in that seminar. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Very cool. Yeah. Oh, you got any other questions? No. I am knowledge bomb drop in the face right now. We had a lot more questions on there. So, I mean, on Instagram. Yeah, on the Barbell Shrug Instagram page. Yeah.

There were a lot more. Do you have an Instagram or anything like that? Where can they reach out? So, I do. So, my Instagram is Hinshaw363, H-i-n-s-h-a-w-363 i also uh do some posts on uh the aerobic capacity site as well um yeah i i again i if you're welcome to approach and talk anytime i know there's a bunch of questions i really genuinely share all of that i am a huge fan of crossfit and, um, I can, you

know, I really credit it for saving my life and giving me my health back. Um, and I'm grateful for that every single day. And so whatever I can do to give back to the community, I'm going to do it. Word. Yeah. I mean, we've, we could probably tag you on, on ours at barbell shrug podcast. And if you want to answer any of those questions that we didn't get to, then we should just do that. Yeah. Cause that's how I learned too awesome cool wow thanks thank you so much for sharing your story with us we appreciate your time thanks guys thank you man cool thank you