ENDURANCE TRAINING THE SMART WAY

Everywhere I look there is no shortage of content out there that will spark an idea for something to write about.

I thought a video titled HOW TO BUILD ENDURANCE by Dr. Andrew Huberman would be a great subject to explore.

As you would expect from the professor, it is a compartmentalized view of the human body and an over-complicated presentation.

It reminded me of graduate school. There was so much information being thrown at me so rapidly, I felt like I should be taking notes.

I now know most of that stuff I learned back then can be distilled down to something so simple it's almost unbelievable.

Over the past 20 years of observing how people respond to just 20 weekly seconds of maximum isometric effort, I have recognized a pattern that repeats over and over again, without fail, in every individual I work with.

This pattern is increased endurance.

However, it is gained doing the exact opposite of the excessively complicated "protocols" highlighted by Dr. Huberman.

How it really happens is actually quite simple.

(Stay with me here. This is the crux of why isometrics should take over the world.)

When we produce a maximum level of effort isometrically, we are able to achieve the largest increases in Voluntary Activation (VA) - the ability of the central nervous system to drive motor units to generate force.

We raise our "ceiling."

Now trust me when i say this: We don't just raise it once, we can raise it multiple times.

I still continue to see 70-80 year old individuals I have worked with for years occasionally reach new heights in force production.

As I tell everyone, "When you work at your ceiling you are going to have to bite, scratch, and claw to raise it again, and we never know when it's going to happen, but it can happen."

"More importantly," I tell them, " It's the continuous chase of a new record - whether or not we catch it - that gives us the best opportunity to keep our physical capacity as high as it can be as we go through life."

The beautiful thing is, at any level of effort below maximum, VA needed for any activity actually decreases.

Our effort "floor" is lowered.

Think of it this way:

What you are doing is shifting your position on what I like to call the perception of effort scale.

Let's say you hike up a hill today and the trip required 50% of your best effort.

After improving the strength and efficiency of your central nervous system with just a few seconds of isometric effort on the viiiv, your VA at maximum effort increases while VA at sub-maximum levels of effort decreases.

So guess what?

When you hike that same hill at the same pace again, when you get to the top, you notice it felt easier.

We'll say it only required 40% of your best effort.

And I'm sure most people would agree the perception of effort is lower.

Basically, your "gas mileage" is better. Those few weekly seconds of maximum effort that improved the efficiency of your central nervous system reduced how hard your muscles needed to work. Which put less stress on the heart, lungs, vessels and everything else down to the microscopic level.

Fatigue didn't creep in as quickly, and if you wanted, you could continue for a longer duration as well.

So now in order to get to the same perception of effort you experienced at 50% effort, you would need to push your effort up to, say 60%. And if you want to push it even higher, at any point along the scale, you will get the same effect.

With just a few seconds of high level effort on the viiiv you have created endurance.

And make no mistake, the higher the effort, the greater the change in the central nervous system.

It's a pattern that never fails.

Wasn't that easy?

We have been taught that to build endurance we need to endure multiple bouts of various combinations of reps, sets, rest intervals and intensities.

If you want to believe the human body has 4 types of endurance, and would like to follow Dr. Huberman's protocols for Long-Duration Steady-State Endurance, High-Intensity Aerobic Intervals, High-Intensity Anaerobic Intervals, or Muscular Endurance, you will certainly get improvements.

But this takes a considerable amount of time and effort.

Dr. Huberman will also teach that your improvements are a result of adaptations in your heart, oxygen utilization, and mitochondrial function within muscle that allows you to go longer, further, and with greater intensity.

I bought that 30 years ago too.

The truth is, it's all about changes to the nervous system. And, as I have already pointed out, improvement in nervous system efficiency lowers the stress on everything else.

Also, as we have seen in detraining studies, those microscopic changes start to disappear at 7-12 days, while changes to brain connectivity and nervous system efficiency last far longer.

I tested this with a former client who came back after one year off from any isometric effort.

She walked in, sat down on the leg press, and pushed out 1,200 LBS of force. A year prior it was 1,295 LBS.

I'd say that's pretty good retention of strength.

"This is where everyone is going, they just don't know it yet," is what I've been saying for 20 years. Everywhere I look, exercise podcasters and influencers say things that inadvertently admit to moving in the right direction.

So I found it interesting that one of Dr. Huberman's key principles is called The Extra Gear - "accelerating towards the end of a workout allows you to access untapped nervous system resources and improve performance."

Why not tap in at the beginning?

(You're moving in the right direction Dr. H. You'll get there eventually.)

And so will all of you.

It makes perfect sense to me. But rather than building endurance by enduring, a much smarter approach is to create endurance with a few seconds of high level effort.

That’s real endurance training. The smart way.