Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights_ - Alex Hutchinson [25]
Still, the practical message is clear: once you’ve done the crime, you’ll have to serve the time. The pain results from muscle damage, and once the workout is over you can’t “undamage” the muscles, despite the promises of various lotions, creams, and pills. The good news, though, is that the damaged muscle comes back stronger once it’s repaired. In fact, without this damage-repair cycle, you wouldn’t get any benefit from training—so ideally, you want your workout to fall in that sweet spot where you’re doing enough microscopic damage to stimulate adaptation, without doing so much damage that you have to skip the next few workouts. As you weed out the weak muscle fibers, you’ll become less and less susceptible to DOMS. And you don’t have to suffer the full effects of DOMS to get this protective effect—so a little moderation when you’re getting back into working out or trying a new exercise can allow you to avoid DOMS entirely.
What is “VO2max” and should I have mine tested?
VO2max is a term that surfaces whenever feats of great endurance like the Tour de France are in the news. It refers to “maximum oxygen uptake,” the greatest amount of oxygen you’re able to deliver to your muscles when you’re exercising as hard as you can. The more oxygen you can process, the faster you’ll go—which is why many athletes seek out the VO2max testing available at universities and labs for around $100 to $150.
Researchers usually measure VO2max with a progressive test on a treadmill or stationary bike that starts at an easy pace, gradually accelerates, and finishes at “voluntary exhaustion” after 10 to 12 minutes. The amount of oxygen you’re using, measured with tubes attached to your mouth, increases steadily the faster you go and usually starts to plateau shortly before you stop—the plateau signals that you’ve reached your VO2max. Some researchers believe this occurs when your heart is pumping oxygen-rich blood to your muscles as fast as it can; others believe the limit lies in the muscles themselves. A more recent theory suggests that the limits aren’t physical at all and in fact are dictated by the brain’s instinct for self-preservation.
There’s no doubt that elite endurance athletes tend to have higher VO2max values than weekend warriors, but not for the reasons many people think. There’s a common misconception that your heart will be able to beat faster—and thus deliver more oxygen—as you get fitter. In fact, top athletes tend to have lower maximum heart rates than non-athletes. Instead, they have bigger, more flexible hearts that eject more blood with each powerful stroke. The volume of blood pumped by an athlete’s heart might jump from 5 liters per minute at rest to more than 30 liters per minute at top speed—twice the level that an untrained person could reach. (The highest measured cardiac output is 42.3 liters per minute, in a world-class orienteer.)
The differences in VO2max are partly due to simple genetics and partly to hard training. A typical adult male might expect to have a VO2max value of between 30 and 40 milliliters of oxygen per minute for each kilogram of body weight (mL/min/kg), while an adult woman would expect 25 to 35 mL/min/kg. Lance Armstrong, on the other hand, had a VO2max of at least 85 mL/min/kg during his streak of Tour de France victories, according to University of Texas exercise physiologist Edward Coyle. “We estimate that if Lance were to become a couch potato, his VO2max would not decline below 60 mL/min/kg,” Coyle noted in a summary of the research. “Furthermore, if the normal college student were to train intensely for two or more years, his VO2max would not increase above 60 mL/min/kg.”
Despite this high value, it would be a mistake to conclude that Armstrong’s victories were the result of his VO2max,