ATC 315: Preconception and Postpartum Fitness Guidance, and ‘Rapid Fire’ With Lucho: Altitude Masks, Run Power Meters, and More!

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Announcements

• Check out our fabulous EP Gear at enduranceplanet.com/gear – we have fresh, new athletic T-shirts that are comfy and breathable, beanies, visors and variety of baby and children’s clothing.
• Also head over to our Shop page where we have some updated offers for you guys, including the wonderful products by Mt. Capra who have top-of-the-line goat-based protein powders, goat milk ghee, colostrum all sorts of good stuff for you and your little ones, as Mt. Capra also has a fantastic goat-milk based formula recipe and kit.

Redaction from ATC 314:

• The book mentioned in the last ATC (Your Kids Suck and It’s Your Fault) doesn’t exist… oops!
• But check out this podcast (the first 30 minutes) on early child hormonal development.
• Lucho also recommends this podcast from Christian Thibaudeau on neurotyping.

Lucho Rapid Fire Questions:

• Altitude masks: are they actually effective and worth it to adapt to high altitude conditions?
  • From a physiological standpoint, no.
  • In Lucho’s opinion, though, they can have a beneficial psychological effect. The masks make it more difficult to breathe, so training with it allows you to get more comfortable with this feeling (which is similar to what you experience at altitude).
  • Side note: do not use a mask if exercising while pregnant!
• Running power meters: are they accurate/reliable/valid data, and worth the investment? Useful as another metric, and/or as an alternative to HR? What about prescribing “target power ranges” for run workouts as you would watts on the bike?
  • Lucho thinks they have the potential to be just as useful as a power meter on the bike.
  • If you’re not a data person, don’t worry about using it (Lucho doesn’t).
  • From a data guidance and tracking perspective, they’re incredibly useful.
  • The devices will probably continue to get more accurate over time.
  • FeetMe and RPM2 measure force at the foot level. This is similar to an SRM, and should be more viable than an algorithm.
• Sub-max fitness tests to predict max HR: What do you think about using the sub-max HR tests (like this from Sally Edwards) to predict max HR? Looks like she recommends doing 4 of the sub-max and averaging them, and also doing her calc.
  • Lucho isn’t a fan of using max HR to set your zones; there’s not really a correlation between max HR and LT.
  • HR is a variable datapoint, so take it with a grain of salt.
  • Rather than using a max HR test to set your zones, do your long run, keep it chill, and use your average HR to set your zone 2 (+/-5).
  • Joe Friel’s 20-30 min LT test is another effective way to set your zones.
  • Keep in mind that energy systems are on a spectrum and you switch over gradually. You don’t suddenly shift from LT to VO2 the second you go over LT.

Anonymous asks:

Preconception fitness and health

Hi Tawnee and Endurance Planet Team!

My short question is: how can I build my aerobic base based on my SLOW progression with MAF, and push my aerobic endurance, in a healthy way as we begin to try to conceive?

Context: The longer version is that I have run on and off – VERY slowly and with poor training techniques – since 2012, but never much stuck with it besides perhaps a once yearly training for a 10k. I broke my femur in December 2018, and by June 2019 began Orange Theory, where I built up from walking on the treadmill to finally being able to run for short bursts again. This got me hooked on heart rate monitoring, and I ran my first post-break 5k in October 2019; I also took a MAF test. I’ve done a few 5ks since then – my time varies between about 38-45 minutes for a 5k. (I don’t run at my husband’s pace!! I’m more of a completion ribbon gal).

It’s been my goal to get in good physical fitness to recover from the break/build strength, be generally healthy, but also to build a good base for pre-conception health; we want to begin trying for a baby this summer, and know this can be such an unpredictable journey.

But while Orange Theory was pushing my fitness and I was improving quickly, I realized in April when the world shut down that my aerobic fitness was not increasing. I ran a 3 mile MAF test in October 2019 at a target heart rate of 146 (I’m 34) with an average pace of 16:18 min miles. In April 2020, my average was 18:54 min miles.

After I saw in my April MAF test that my times increased, I began training with 30-45 minute runs 6 days a week, expecting my fitness to improve; it did not (at least much – I went to 18:17 min miles in May, and just today did cut down to a 17:31 minute mile average.

So: the last few weeks, I’ve been sticking to many MAF runs with a few others worked in. I’m so slow on MAF runs (18-20 min miles) that I feel like I’m walking backwards, and I’m being patient anyway, but it feels like I could lose fitness? I’m trying 3-4 MAF runs a week, with some sprints at the end. I’m maintaining 2 5k runs a week in which I just run at a fun pace, which results in an average heart rate of between 170-180. My 5k heart rate averages are beginning to decrease by just a touch, and I just ran my fastest 5k time since my leg break at 36 min. I did a long MAF warmup and a MAF cooldown as well.

The longer version of the question

Is it beneficial to mix in some MAF training with other runs like this? And — as we begin trying for a baby, and if I get pregnant- would it be best to train purely at MAF so that I’m keeping my heartrate down? This past year has been the most intense physical “training” of my life – I’ve never done long endurance running or played sports, so I can’t quite tell if I have a “baseline” of fitness, like other more intensely trained athletes do. I’m just wondering about the best approach for building/maintaining fitness in a healthy way during a possible pregnancy, given my context.

YIKES what a wordy question/essay.

Thanks for all of the great podcast episodes!

What the Coaches say:

• If your MAF isn’t improving given how much training you’re doing, you might want to look at other aspects of your life.
  • How’s your diet and blood sugar levels? Consider tweaking calories and macros.
  • Don’t be extreme in either dietary direction… don’t eat too many carbs and don’t be keto.
  • What’s your stress like? If you’re in a chronically stressed state with high cortisol then your body might not respond well to training.
• 170-180 is definitely an intense place to be, even if it feels fun.
  • HIIT and infertility
    • There are no published randomized controlled clinical trials on this to my knowledge.
    • There was a Norwegian study from a number of years ago that looked at reported exercise frequency and intensity and did find a link to lower pregnancy rates in the group with the highest frequency of intense exercise. This was a longitudinal retrospective study and does not show cause and effect. And I believe that group of women eventually did get pregnant, it just was later on………
    • “The biggest impact of exercise on fertility, whether it be endurance or HIIT-type workouts, is that if a woman is getting her period regularly every month that’s a great sign of hormones likely in balance and should increase chances of getting pregnant (all other factors taken into consideration of course).
    • If she is struggling with infertility already she might want to cut down on the high intensity workouts (to once or twice per week max) to do everything she can to improve her chances. But if just starting out and no signs of problems, no need to modify things (as long as her periods are good and she’s eating enough!)
  • On HIIT in pregnancy
    • Again, no randomized controlled clinical trials.
    • I personally tell women they can continue doing the type of exercise they are used to doing, but the intensity needs to be modified during pregnancy.
    • Keeping the HR <150bpm is an outdated rule written by men who don’t exercise, so I don’t go by that.   Your browser does not support the audio element.

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