Christina Fiumara Newport explains how metabolic and lactate testing at the Endurance Edge lab determines your zone 2 training intensity. Zone 2 training optimizes fat burning, builds slow-twitch muscle fibers, and increases mitochondrial density. Testing measures VO2 and lactate levels at 2 mmol/L and 4 mmol/L thresholds to dial in the right pace.
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So if you want an experience that can transform your entire season, we invite you to join us. Head to theenduranceedge.com and click training camp and reserve your spot with just a $100 deposit. Come train hard, learn a ton, and leave stronger than you ever imagined. I'll see you there. Hello my friends and welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. This episode is a little bit of a shorter one, but I just wanted to throw a little tidbit of information out because it is a question that we get all the time with athletes who are coming into our lab. And when I say lab, what I mean by that is our exercise physiology testing facility that is home-based in Cary, North Carolina. So when I— when you hear me say lab, that's what I mean. If you go on to theenduranceedge.com and you look under services for metabolic and sweat testing, you can book a metabolic and sweat test at our facility. The majority of people who we have come in are any— typically anywhere between, I'd say, late 20s to early or mid-60s, and they just want to do something really cool for themselves. Every once in a while we get a professional athlete, but more often than not it's people just like you who just wanna do something awesome for themselves, be a little bit in more intentional and more scientific about their training. So the biggest question that I've been getting lately is, I wanna know my zone 2. So, and I'm guessing that that is mostly relating to some of the other pod— podcasts that you guys are listening to, which is great that we're getting more information and we're trying to understand our physiology better and our metabolism better. So fantastic for that, right? We are totally here for it. So most people when they come in, they say this stupid zone 2 training doesn't work, or I don't know if I'm doing this zone 2 training right. That's what we help them with. And we like to do that specific testing between your substrate use, and that is based on your VO2 or your volume of oxygen. That's why you put the mask on your face, right? Most people, when you say VO2, they assume VO2 max. That is a specific term for the maximum amount of oxygen that you consume to to do work, but VO2 is being taken at every point along the process, right? So when you are walking or when you're at rest, your VO2 is most likely somewhere around 3 to 4. When you are running at your maximal capacity, we typically see people with VO2 maxes in the 30s to the 60s, and every once in a while we get somebody in the 70s. So just so that you have that concept. So VO2 or being aerobic for your zone 2 means that you, you are using fat as an energy source efficiently or as best as you possibly can. There are quite, there are a couple of factors that go into that, but we wanna make sure that your zone 2 training is doing that well. That helps with training your type 1 muscle fibers or what you might know as slow twitch muscle fibers. And it also helps with fatigue resistance. Furthermore, you get increased muscle capillarization. So in other words, capillaries which have blood flow are increasing to your muscles. So thereby where your blood carries oxygen, delivering it to working muscles and increased mitochondrial enzymes in those type 1 muscle fibers. So mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells. And every time I talk about this, I always feel like I'm in back in 9th grade biology and thinking like, when am I ever gonna use this? Well, here we are, friends. So when those within the cell, when we can multiply we multiply our mitochondria and then also make those mitochondrial enzymes more efficient, voilà, we've got tons of energy to be able to help us go for 2, 3+ hours depending on what you're training for, right? So that's where that is really important. We also use lactate in combination with our VO2. So typically lactate occurs if we're doing a graded exercise test in an exponential format. So it should theoretically be low. And when I say low, it's like under 2 millimoles. and then once you hit 2 millimoles, you start to have an exponential rise. And then of course, 4 millimoles, those are kind of our, our key markers, 2 and 4 millimoles, which can be referred to as onset of blood lactate accumulation or OBLA or lactate threshold or LT, um, which in the cycling world you might think of as FTP. So there's a lot of different pieces that I'm not gonna get into too much. Again, so many different podcasts that we could do on this. But this is what we do in order to help people train more effectively and more efficiently. So oftentimes when people come in, they are training at a pace that's way too slow and then they're complaining that it's not working, or they're training at a pace that's way too high and they're just not becoming more efficient. So I at least wanted to just throw that out for you guys to start to think about. There's so many other pieces that go into this, from your genetics to what your training history is, to how you put your training together. But this is one of the pieces of the puzzle to help you train more effectively and efficiently. And like I said, if you are interested in booking a metabolic test with us, whether it be your VO2 max or your lactate threshold or your body composition test, we've got all kinds of, or your resting metabolic rate. Look at all those things that we have. Again, head to theenduranceedge.com and under services, go to metabolic and sweat testing and you can book there. We are excited that we just brought on another exercise physiologist, so huzzah, and you'll be able to have more opportunities for testing times, including on the weekends. So. Yeah, baby. Anyhow, happy training. Thanks for listening, and we will see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And if you're interested in learning more about our endurance coaching, sports and wellness nutrition, metabolic and sweat testing, triathlon training team, or our triathlon training library, be sure to check us out at theenduranceedge.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media at The Endurance Edge. Thanks again, and we'll catch you next time.
