From the August 6 2007 issue of Early to Rise:

I always had a heart rate of 70 to 80. I'm now in my third week of "formal" interval training using the Tabata protocol and when I took my heart rate this morning while reading that article, it was less than 60! (59 to be exact :wink: ) And I was even out of bed and sitting in front of my computer. (I say "formal" because previously, I was already doing some form of interval training while bicycle commuting.)

I think interval training is a quick way to increase cardio-respiratory reserve and capacity, and the Tabata protocol, while possibly extreme, is something which gives quick results in only a 4-minute workout (not including warm up and cool down). We can all start in it, doing workouts that we can handle, and increase gradually.

Presently, I approach my max in the Tabata protocol by simultaneously doing Hindu squats and punching or isometric Bullworker contractions with my arms. But with each workout (I'm doing it every other day), I find myself needing more stress to reach my max. The protocol sure is making my body adapt really quickly.

Those starting out can just use a workout which they can handle, even if it's just rising from a chair several times. In a few workouts, you could be finding yourselves needing more stress to fulfill the protocol. :wink: And you might just see your resting heart rate drop as well.

Gerry

Thanks Gerry!
I'll try to test mine, but I figure just pulling myself up
out of my bathtub reaching for and using the pull-up bars
might work enuff for me!
Plus, I've been using a swimming pool almost daily. 8)

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May you always have..Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends that Care!

That's good Earlybird.

I think it's how we apply our workouts. Try applying interval training to your swimming. Or even to your getting out of the tub. You might be just as surprised as I am to see heart rate drop.

I've been exercising on and off in various decades of my life, and commuting by bicycle as well. But I don't recall ever having a heart rate below 70 beats per minute. So it's really surprising to find out about this in only 3 weeks of "formal" interval training.

I think it's just like applying progressive resistance to our heart and lungs. Just like our muscles, the heart must be pushed to near max for it to improve. Aerobics doesn't really do that.

I just did another round of Tabata before writing this. I'm afraid my previous method is (again) no longer enough to make me approach my max. I never saw my body improve this quickly. And I'm approaching 51 years. I now have to formulate another method of stressing my body (actually, to hit my heart and lungs) for those 20-second periods. Sprinting or cycling would be excellent choices, but I prefer working out inside our house.

Gerry

Here's a similar story from Jean Carper's "Stop Aging Now".

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For now we see through a glass, darkly.... 1st Corinthians 13:12

So, this idea of stressing the body for short intervals, makes sense, but for folks like me who have adrenal problems, you arent suppose to stress.. does this sort of exercising put too much stress for those with adrenal problems...
I sort of like the idea of just punching a punching bag as an exercise, but is it really that simple??

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God is and all is well
~John Greenleaf Whittier~

I really would not know the actual effects would have on you. However, I think our bodies adapt if given the chance. Everything and anything is stress, and it's really whether our body can take it, or has adapted to it, or not. I don't think anyone is completely stress free.

So I think it's just a matter of pushing the limits little by little. Just start with something you can easily do, or are already doing. Then just add more stress little by little (increase speed, resistance or reps). The key is gradual but progressive resistance/stress. Once one stops adding stress, then progress/adaptation stops. I think this is where many err -- getting into a plateau and just maintaining something, with no more additional stress.

It can be, if done with interval training principles, which involve approaching the max in each workout, and progressive resistance. If one can do twenty punches in 20 seconds (or even less), then increasing stress can be by adding more and/or stronger punches. Pretty soon, one can be punching 40 strong punches or more in the 20-second max cycles of the Tabata protocol. Eventually, even this may no longer be much stress, and one might have to add kicks, knees, elbows, and headbutts. :wink: The simplicity ends when you find yourself needing newer ways to approach your max, which, in my case, comes in almost every workout.

As for adrenals, if you still have not done so, you may consider vitamin C, protein and fats/cholesterol. Adrenaline is from hydroxylation (needs vitamin C) of amino acids (from protein) phenylalanine to form tyrosine to form adrenaline. Cortisol is made from cholesterol skeleton (from fats or cholesterol itself). This should help us handling stress.

Gerry

Does taking my garbage outside to the cans, in this
100* heat and high humidity, count as a positive for
Anything?
If not, I can let it pile up until cooler weather

__________________
May you always have..Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends that Care!

It definitely would. But you should apply progressive resistance. If it takes you 2 minutes to do, work up to 1 minute, then 30 seconds. :wink: Another way of increasing resistance is to maintain the same time but make sure the amount of your garbage keeps getting more and more. Then of course, you could do both. 8)

Gerry

In other words, you have finally been given permission, (its healthy for ya) to throw away all those boxes of stuff that have been cluttering your closets since the kids have moved out. You know what Im talking about, surely every mother has at least one box of stuff being stored for each child.... I think I might actually have a closet full for each child!!! Now I can say, Hey, Dr. Gerry said I needed the exercise so I could get rid of it!!!!

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God is and all is well
~John Greenleaf Whittier~

Not I, just me, I got rid of those years ago.
Told each kid after they moved out to come get their
stuff!
I'm even doing better with my daily mail, reading it the
same day, writing out the check the same day a bill arrives.
I hate to brag, but I've become very efficient

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May you always have..Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends that Care!

Brag on lovely lady.. wish I could get even just a little efficient... maybe you need to come live with me for a while and be my teacher!!!!

__________________
God is and all is well
~John Greenleaf Whittier~

With my first post in this thread, I was pleasantly surprised that my resting heart rate was below 60 in only three weeks of formal interval/Tabata protocol training.

Ten days ago, I again saw another welcome surprise. On my homeward bicycle commute after classes, I decided to put in some intervals, thinking to simply reach my max heart-lung capacity, coast a few seconds, and repeat those cycles until I reached home.

Well, I failed.

Why?

Because cycling as fast as I could to approach my heart-lung max, my legs got exhausted first! I didn't reach my heart-lung max!

This has never happened for decades!

The last time this happened, I was still young and my cardio-respiratory system could take on anything. In those days, my workouts stopped because of muscle fatigue, not cardio-respiratory fatigue. Well, it seems those days are coming back, and it's interval training that's bringing them back. :wink:

Now I'm changing my bike route so that I do intervals on a steep uphill climb. I still do the "formal" Tabata protocol I described, but find opportunities to do intervals (though not approaching max all the time) throughout the day. For example, in walking, I no longer walk at a steady pace. I vary my pace to vary the loads on my heart-lungs. At every opportunity, I run up stairs, even going 2 or three steps at a time, instead of simply walking up the steps. As Dr. Al Sears pointed out, what our heart needs is the ability to handle sudden demands of work, not the endurance type brought on by aerobics. So I keep looking for opportunities to go into such bursts of exertion.

For now, these are working for me:

Easiest way to build muscle: isometrics. (Well, I never really lost much muscle strength that I developed in my teens and twenties.)

Easiest way to build cardio-respiratory fitness: interval training (particularly the Tabata protocol).

I'm glad I never even considered getting into the aerobics craze.

So how about it, gang? How are YOU exercising? 8) :wink:

We only need four minutes a day, three times a week!
(Well, it's hot in the Philippines, so I don't bother with warm-ups or cool-downs.)

Gerry

From the Sep 18 issue of Early to Rise:

I've been a relatively regular exerciser since my teens, so I don't know about muscle age reversal. But if I count in my heart muscle and lung capability, as in cardio-respiratory capacity, I sure have experienced reversal these past few weeks with my interval training/Tabata protocol. And in only 4-minute workouts!

I still do various resistance exercises, but my cardio-respiratory capacity has been declining over the past decade or so, and I would say that it has deteriorated quite a lot. That is why I am really astounded by the progress I have with the Tabata protocol. :wink:

Gerry

Gerry, have you ever figured out your maximum heart rate?

and.. let me get this straight.. you warm up for 5 minutes.. then you repeat this 8 times:

1. do something at max capacity for 20 seconds.
2. then walk for 10 seconds? or just rest?

this will total 4 minutes of exercise.. I think I'm going to try it. jump roping.

but, don't know aerobic exercise. I've always looked at runners and thought.. I want to do that. but.. never could, I think because I didn't really know how to build up. I would run and run.. then be so pooped out at .. a few minutes.. and wonder how anyone ever ran.. 30 minutes. that seemed impossible.

but I saw a couch to 5k program and I am up to 20 minutes. I'm going to stay here until it becomes really comfortable.

but what I'm leading to here, is I run on a treadmill at the gym, where I can see my heartrate. and I've seen a lot of improvement. improvement in that my heartrate doesn't go as high for the same speed, and my heartrate goes down to normal much faster than it did when I first started.

but this sounds like it would be more bang for the buck.

thanks, Gerry.

Nope. But if I remember right, it's 220 minus age. For me, that would be 169.

But no, I don't bother with maximum. I think I would "feel" my maximum well enough.

I've been using loose terms, but yes, that's how intervals are done, and I think the technical terms are exertion phase and recovery phase. Tabata intervals are indeed 20 sec exertion phases with 10 sec recovery phases in between, for 8 cycles. What one does in the recovery phase may not really matter. When you start doing the protocol, you'll find that 10 seconds pass very quickly. With what I'm doing (squats with isometrics for arms using the Bullworker), I just remain standing, catching my breath, and soon enough, time's up.

Also it's not do something at max for 20 seconds. I think it's enough just to reach max in 20 seconds, without the need to maintain it for 20 seconds. (It would be quite difficult to maintain max for 20 seconds. If one can do so, it's probably not one's max.)

Jump roping is a good option. But you might be surprised at your progress. In just three workouts, you might need to find another way of maxing out, just as I did.

Of course, Tabata protocol is only one form of interval training. Other forms may have longer rest periods, and for such, the important thing is not to reach resting level. So the recovery phase can be that of slowing one's speed, or just walking about.

Well, running itself has its variations. Joggers are in the aerobic zone, so they can last long. But their heart-lung capacity may not be improving. My bicycle commutes were actually aerobic in nature, but my heart-lung capacity deteriorated over the years. Now I make my commutes interval style (in addition to strict Tabata protocols I do at home).

If I would use running, I wouldn't be jogging (aerobics). I would be sprinting in interval fashion. It's not aerobics that develops our heart-lung capacity, but anaerobics done several times, which is what interval training is all about.

You can apply interval training, or even Tabata protocol itself, with your treadmill workouts. I'll bet that you'll be surprised at your progress. I would think that in 6 workouts, you'll have to be sprinting to approach your max. Of course, your heart-lung capacity is only one aspect of a run, and you might have to train your legs separately.

As for the heart rate, I would expect it to go down as well. But it may not be so obvious during exercise. Try to see how your resting heart rate is, and see how it is affected by whatever protocol you embark on.

Definitely. I was really so surprised as well! Tabata intervals will definitely be one exercise I'll be keeping till old age.

The way I started, I did not concern myself much with maxing out, but rather, on completing the 8 cycles. Only when I felt what I could do for 8 cycles did I start increasing my efforts to approach max.

Happy training!

Gerry