VO2max and long distance hiking

Lose weight. Consider the definition of VO2max, which is based on one variable over which we have the most control: Body Weight. (VOLUME of Oxygen absorbed PER KILOGRAM of body weight.) Simply losing weight will raise your VO2max. Which is also why carrying less weight on your back is so critical.

Train at about 85% of max heart rate and throw in some intervals to increase heart/lung capacity and stimulate capillary growth. Training with a heavy pack is not necessary.

Hike lots. (Channeling the advice of Eddy Merckx.) ;^)

Hike on rough, uneven trails in order to recruit/train the little "stabilizer" muscles.

Of course, genetics plays a huge part in the fast-twitch-slow-twitch thing. Pick better parents next time. ;-)

You probably already know all this…

"VOLUME of Oxygen absorbed PER KILOGRAM of body weight."

WRONG: I might be missing something implied, but VO2max is raw oxygen utilization. There is no weight component. SEE Bob M. link below.

Power, on the other hand, is often expressed as "power per mass" – watts/kg.

"Everyone I talked to and myself did seem to plateau about 2 to 3 months in and stop making any gains too."

General fatigue prevents you from doing the "challenge intervals" needed to push beyond your current level, let alone maintain a "3 month peak".

Hence "meso cycles" that include recovery before pushing things up the next step.

VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can utilize during intense or maximal exercise. It is measured as "milliliters of oxygen used in one minute per kilogram of body weight."

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/anatomyandphysiology/a/VO2_max.htm

… so I've been mistaken all these years.

No wonder nothing was working.

But in my defense –

"The highest values in absolute terms for humans are often found in rowers, as their much greater bulk makes up for a slightly lower VO2 max per kg. Elite oarsmen measured in 1984 had VO2 max values of 6.1±0.6 L/min and oarswomen 4.1±0.4 L/min.[15] Rowers are interested in both absolute values of VO2 max and in lung capacity, and the fact that they are measured in similar units means that the two are often confused.

I started out rowing.

No problem.

I started out cycling and had this hammered into my skull. Had about 3 or 4 exercise physiologists as riding mates.

Didn't help a lot as I chose parents poorly, at least from an athletic standpoint. Better than average club rider on my best day.

Ralph Burgess' JMT record is safe from me. ;-)

"It seems to me if you start out by training your VO2max before a long distance hike instead of lugging a heavy pack around, you effectively raise the ceiling on your aerobic fitness. If you raise your aerobic fitness higher, hiking uphill and longer distances create less training stress or fatigue, so you can effectively put in more miles per day without feeling over tired and complete your hike faster."

Both training to increase your VO2 max and carrying a pack weighing what you will be carrying in the field are beneficial. Remember, you will be requiring enough O2 to propel both you and your pack over hill and dale. A higher VO2 max will be particularly beneficial when pushing the uphill sections of a trail, or off trail, hike. I incorporate both intervals and pack carries into my training, along with what we used to call tempo training in my running life, i.e. set a pace that puts you just shy of your AT and keep it there on an uphill route for an 1-1.25 hours, allowing for a 15 minute warm up and a cool down return to TH.

Yeah the meso cycles is certainly part of it, I often felt worse after a day of rest so I think when you're that deep in the fatigue hole some kind of long taper out is needed. That seems like it would cancel out most speed gains but I wonder if you were doing 30 mile days whether tapering to 15's for a week might do the trick and not hurt your schedule too hard.

Body weight definitely plays a part too but ideally you reach a healthy weight – say 10% body fat (or some arbitrary level) – and eat enough to maintain it. At that point your performance metrics won't get higher from weight loss so you're stuck with your limits or "training regime".

I think a heavy pack helps some but I seem to schedule my hiking to taper into things at the beginning with shorter days and resupply's as frequent as I can make them. You can't really get the volume needed on weekends alone, so hence this search for a better training method.

"Training for the New Alpinism", by Scott Johnston and Steve House. You might enjoy it!

Note that "Alpinism" is a bit different to long distance hiking, in that upper body strength for vertical climbing becomes important, and they are trying to include that. However much of the book is extremely useful, especially if you are relatively new to reading up on exercise science.

I think people like to over complicate things. As many have said, the best way to train for backpacking is backpacking.

I like to follow Roman Dial's approach to training. I train similar to how he prepared for the Arctic 1000. He started 5 months in advance. Simple and effective.

"Month 1
M-F: 5-10 miles per day on roads and trails, 0-2000 foot elevation gain and a 10
pound pack, average speed ~4 mph
One weekend day: 20 miles in less than 7 hours
• Month 2
M, W, F: 5-10 miles per day on roads and trails, 0-2000 foot elevation gain and a 20
pound pack, average speed ~3.5 mph
One weekend day: 20 miles in less than 7 hours
• Month 3
M, W, F: 5-10 miles per day on roads and trails, 0-2000 foot elevation gain and a 30
pound pack, average speed ~3.0 mph
One weekend day: 20 miles in less than 7 hours
• Month 4
T, R: 5-10 miles per day on roads and trails, 0-2000 foot elevation gain and a 50
pound pack, average speed ~2.1 mph
One weekend day: 20 miles in less than 7 hours
• Month 5
M, W, F: 5-10 miles per day on roads and trails, 0-2000 foot elevation gain and a 30
pound pack, average speed ~3 mph
One weekend day: 20 miles in less than 7 hours"

Taken from the Arctic 1000 PDF. See the PDF for more details.

Yeah that's the volume approach, which works fine if you can spare the time. Interesting he emphasizes speed so much though. Those times/speeds don't work out so well where I like to go hiking in the Whites of NH. Also I think my pack weight will top out at about 30-35 lbs with 1/3 of that being water so training with a 50 lb pack is a bit silly for me.

I'll have to check out that "Training for the New Alpinism" book, I keep hearing about it.

Trail running takes a LOT less time.

Without going into great detail here, most of the current research suggests that vo2 max is not the end all and be all we used to think it was. Will athletes with significantly higher numbers perform better? Yes. But in in homogeneous groups of athletes vo2 max does not correlate to performance. But you are right that any improvement in vo2 max can be reached in about 2 months. The top end is probably genetic. Coaches and researchers now place less emphasis on vo2 max training than in the past, recognizing that oxygen utilization is as important as oxygen delivery. Having a higher vo2 max does get you into a higher performing group, but will not predict success within the group. Best way to see this is to read the following, which is a good compilation and explanation of the recent research in the area.

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2009/12/fallacy-of-vo2max-and-vo2max.html

For years we had success emphasizing vo2 max in training runners at all levels of competition. What we failed to take into account, was that vo2 max was an outcome of other factors that produced performance, and was not the main causal factor in performance. We are seeing the results in this shift in thinking with the resurgence of American runners and the extraordinary performances all elite endurance athletes.

An exciting time to coach, research, and study in the field!

All this precludes any discussion of doping! :(

VO2 average is more relevant to long distance activities than VO2 max.

you do not necessarily increase your average when you increase your max.

Glossary for the Science of Running link –

CGM……………..Tim Noakes’ Central Governor Model

EMG……………..ElectroMyoGraphy – the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles
iEMG…………….Integrated EMG (accumulated over time, the sum of the effort)
.
HR………………..Heart Rate

incremental test….exercise level increases in steps
supramaxial test….exercise intensities above that required to elicit maximal oxygen uptake

RPE……………..Rated Perceived Exertion – how hard it feels, on a scale of 6 to 20

SV………………..Stroke Volume (volume of blood moved per "beat")

VDOT……………the volume of oxygen consumed per minute based on race performance
VO2max………..Historical – maximal oxygen uptake per minute
…………………..Current – max O2 uptake per kilogram per minute

Take a dose of that VO2max theory and then take it to high elevation, like above 20,000 feet. It is still hard to understand how somebody like Ed Viesturs or Rheinhold Messner can function up there.

–B.G.–

Ability to utilize oxygen is why we saw people like Frank Shorter with a lower vo2 max value run faster than others with considerably higher values. It's why the current crop of elite marathoners can run so fast. They have the ability to run fast at relatively low levels of intensity compared to their lesser counterparts.

And Messner and company were just crazy! Clearly his ability to ventilate and the ability of the alveoli to extract oxygen from the air have to be off the charts. Noakes central governor model and the brain research behind it is suggesting a lot about what sets the individual's parameters of performance.

Mike, think of using a heav(ier) pack as the functional equivalent to riding into a headwind. It's a good way to mimick hills when you don't have them nearby. Training with weight is also relevant for the connective tissue and stabilization work it provides.

No question that raising your lactate threshold will help you hike faster, especially in hilly terrain. If Roman had thrown in an interval block or two during months 2-4 he would have seen some impressive results.

I'm not sure how you'd approximate the same data you get from an SRM, but TSS is a very useful concept for backpacking. Given the inevitable volume (and potential psychological demands) overtraining and burnout are difficult to avoid.

"And Messner and company were just crazy! Clearly his ability to ventilate and the ability of the alveoli to extract oxygen from the air have to be off the charts. "

As would be his ability to deliver it to the muscle cells and use it there to oxidize substrate. HR, Stroke volume, very dense capillary networks, and numerous, large mitochondria. All components of VO2 max.

MAX VO2 functionally represents the maximum amount of oxygen that can be removed from circulating blood and used by the working tissues during a specified period. World class endurance athletes generally have high readings. Maximum Oxygen Update (Max VO2) values for selected groups and individuals are as follows:
General Population, Female, Aged 20-29: 35-43 ml/kg/min
General Population, Male, Aged 20-29: 44-51
US College Track, Male: 57.4
College Students, Male: 44.6
Highest Recorded Female (Cross-Country Skier): 74
Highest Recorded Male (Cross-Country Skier): 94
Steve Prefontaine,US runner, 84.4
Frank Shorter, US Olympic Marathon winner, 71.3
Grete Waitz, Norwegian Marathon/10K runner, 73.5
Ingrid Kristiansen, ex-Marathon World Record Holder, 71.2
Derek Clayton, Australian ex-Marathon World Record holder, 69.7
Rosa Mota, Marathon runner, 67.2
Jeff Galloway, US Runner, 73.0
Paula Ivan, Russian Olympic 1500M Record Holder, 71.0
Jarmila Krotochvilova,Czech Olympian 400M/800M winner, 72.8
Greg LeMond, professional cyclist, 92.5
Matt Carpenter, Pikes Peak marathon course record holder, 92
Miguel Indurain, professional cyclist, 88

Absolutely agree Tom. I was just thinking about the lack of available oxygen above 20,000 ft.! Hard to believe what those two guys did.

BJ, can you expand on –

"MAX VO2 functionally represents the maximum amount of oxygen that can be removed from circulating blood and used by the working tissues"

I gather from this that you're saying the blood's capacity to take up and carry oxygen is not usually the limiting factor for VO2max, but the bottleneck occurs downstream in the delivery from blood / uptake by tissue? How does this reconcile with the huge boost to aerobic capacity from EPO use?

"Hard to believe what those two guys did."

Indeed, and with very different physiological capabilities. Viesturs has a VO2 max of 70, while Messner's is a mere 48(See link, below), which all goes to show that there is more to high altitude climbing than VO2 max. Viestur's VO2 max was in the range I expected, but Messner's was a real shock.

https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/176388/185166/Gussoni%20J%20Appl%20Physiol%201986.pdf