How To "Hack" Your Cardio

Or Rather, How I Hacked My Cardio

Justin Noppe

Sep 09, 2024

Transcript

I kept reading study after study about the benefits of cardio for your health, longevity, and brain function. Just one problem: I HATED CARDIO!!

Thanks to sheer willpower I spent the last 3 years trying stuff out to see what stuck!

1 year of 80/20 approach (80% of the time in zone 2 on a stationary bike, 20% of the time getting into zone 5). No significant result.
1 year of running. outside. a lot (by my standards). about 20kms per week. An average of 3-5kms per run. Mostly trying to stay in zone 2 and occasionally taking it to zone 3. No significant result.
About 6 months of HIIT training. Specifically on the assault bike doing the Norwegian 4x4 method (4 rounds of 4 mins on, 4 mins off, at the highest intensity possible). Vo2 Max result of 50.8

(my apple watch reading for this exact same workout was not as gracious)

So I made a video about it too. Check it out here.

A slight complication happens when you consider that zones aren’t a thing!

There are a few ways to determine your heart rate (HR) zones, including:

Karvonen formula
This formula is [Maximum heart rate – resting heart rate] x % intensity + resting heart rate = training zone.
HRR percentages
This method calculates your HR training zones using percentages of your heart rate reserve (HRR). There are typically five zones, each representing a different intensity level.
Age-based formula
This classic formula is 220 - your age, but it may be inaccurate for older people. A revised formula is 208 - 0.7 x your age.
Maximal exercise stress test
This is a more accurate way to determine your maximum heart rate (MHR) by undergoing a test with a healthcare provider.

“Your body and your heart couldn't care less about minor variances between calculators or formulas. Forget what those things tell you or what "some say." Do whatever feels right to you.” - Reddit User

zone 1: You could be talking on the phone and the person on the other end wouldn't know that you were exercising.
zone 2: You can converse mostly normally on the phone but the other person would be able to tell that you were exercising.
zone 3: You can't converse without really obvious breaks in talking.

The unfortunate thing about this is that I can, under my current routine, be in zone 4 according to my max heart rate test results, and still speak like the zone 3 listed above, but also be in zone 2 according to the calculation methods above.

My Current Routine

Based off this youtube video, I decided to make some changes.

The basic idea is that we have only 2 things to truly train: delivery and utilization of O2. Below are the intervals.

So of course you need to know your threshold! When do you flip from burning fat and using aerobic respiration to burning carbs as fuel and anaerobic respiration? Well, according to my assessment, it is 153bpm for me!

Therefore, I now do 3x 30 minute sessions per week.
All on the assault bike.

Twice a week I do:

30 mins of 5 mins on, 2.5 mins off (ratio of 2:1), typically between 129bpm - 152bpm.

Once a week I do

30 mins of 20 secs on, 200 secs (3min20s) off (ratio of 1:10), typically pushing my HR above 162.

Results?

Recently, my apple watch rated me at 52.8!!

I’ll keep going and in October, I’ll do another metabolic assessment to see if it agrees with my apple watch.
I’ll also do another garmin watch test (minimum of 10 mins of running outside to get a measurement).
I’ll also do vo2 max tests with walking and running to see what each of them estimates my vo2 max to be.

Thank you for subscribing, a bit of an unusual post today as I don’t normal like to talk about physical training too much, but I’m really enjoying myself at the moment.

As you can see, I have started uploading Premium Audio Courses to this substack, these are courses available on Insight Timer too, under the premium membership, but I decided that I wanted to make sure they are here too. Feel free to start a FREE 7 DAY TRIAL and check them out to see if they are helpful. I will potentially open up the premium subscription here to also include monthly coaching calls, and also add an option for 1-2-1 coaching calls.

Check out the Premium Courses here