-: Welcome everybody.
Give people just a minute to get in here.
Hope everybody's having a good week.
Getting ready to finish off month two of 2021,
which still feels like 2020, does it not?
All right.
We got a fan of the white, not practical
but it does look nice when it's clean.
It does.
All right.
Looks like we got most of the people in queue,
so we will get started.
There we go.
Now I'm appropriate hobbit sized.
Well, welcome everybody, today we are gonna talk
about assessing cardiovascular
and cardio-respiratory markers
and how those are gonna impact our decision-making process
and when we look at cardiovascular cardio-respiratory,
a lot of times people over simplify this
to just the heart and just heart rate.
And while those are definitely important factors,
hopefully by the end, you kinda see the overall system
that makes up our cardiovascular cardio-respiratory
and how there can be a lot
of multifactorial things going on.
So as usual context will be king.
And as we go through this, we'll focus more on principles,
less on rules, looking for patterns and talk about
how we incorporate this into the other aspects
of assessment, your sleep and your performance, et cetera.
So without further ado, here we go.
So we gonna start with
a kind of journey of blood
and oxygen through the body.
'Cause the whole purpose
of our cardiovascular system is to help us move
oxygen, carbon dioxide, substrate, waste
throughout the body to get them from where we attain them
to where they need to go and then to get things out.
So a great analogy for that
and what's gonna be kind of be a theme
for this journey is the There and Back Again.
A hemoglobins is tale cause essentially it's all gonna,
it's all gonna start at the heart and lungs
and that's where we are going to pump the blood
into the lungs, get it oxygenated
and then it's gonna make its way through the body
and then guess what?
It's going to come right back there.
So literally, there and back again at the lung tissue
when we're talking
about our cardio respiratory and cardiovascular system.
So let's start here, the heart and the lungs.
Okay. So we have the vascular journey of oxygen.
Basically, we're going to break this down into the blood.
That's where we're going to have
what I'm calling the fellowship of the heme.
You know, what actually is making up
our blood and these red blood cells
and their ability to hold this oxygen.
And those are going to be the guys that are
carrying this stuff all throughout the body.
Then we're going to talk about the battle of getting things
from the blood, into the tissue and vice versa
which I am dubbing that as the battle of Heme's Deep.
And then after we have made that exchange
at the local tissues, it is time to get back to the heart
and lungs where we can expel CO2, get oxygen again.
So we are classifying that as The Return of the Heme.
So right there,
if that alone doesn't give you your money's worth
of just having, you know, all of those analogies
then I'm just going to throw the big one on there.
We're going to call the heart and lungs,
The Fires of Mountain Doom
because only, where it has been made, can it be unmade?
I probably butchered that, butchered that quote
but that's essentially what we are doing.
So basically only where we can, you know
oxygenate the blood is the place where we can get rid
of the deoxygenated blood or the byproducts of that as well.
So let's move on forward.
The fellowship of the heme.
So when we're talking about cardiovascular
cardio-respiratory, the main thing that we're focusing
on is the red blood cells.
Because that's what's going to be carrying
the oxygen around the body.
It's, you know, the only thing that can actually help us
with this gas exchange and the reason
for that being is the hemoglobin that we hold
within those red blood cells.
Now, in order to have enough hemoglobin,
properly functioning hemoglobin,
you need to have adequate protein,
iron, zinc, B6, B12, and vitamin C.
And that's if we're looking pretty much
at the close context of it.
So as you get deeper and you start looking
at other things, you could find, you know
you could look at those biochemical pathways
and you could extend out
to other possible micronutrient limitations and stuff there.
But if we're looking closely at the manufacturing
and functioning of the hemoglobin,
those are going to be your main ingredients.
So essentially, we have to have sufficient of all
of those things so that we can have sufficient hemoglobin.
And then of course, we need to have enough red blood
cells full of that hemoglobin.
And that's what's going to allow us to carry the oxygen
which in this case is the analogy
of the ring around the body.
And then back to the fires of mount doom
as the carbon dioxide form of it,
where we dispose of it
and recycle back to oxygenated hemoglobin.
All right.
So then once essentially, if we have enough of that,
then we have to figure out what is going
to affect our ability to take that oxygen that is bound
to the hemoglobin, and then get that into the tissues
where I want to be able to use that for metabolic energy.
Cause when we're looking at cardiovascular
cardio-respiratory demand, it's all about how much
and how fast we can get things to the tissue level.
And that doesn't mean just getting the blood there.
That means I have to get this stuff into the tissue.
And, you know, if you aren't versed with biology
or any of these things, like we don't like,
you don't push blood into the muscles,
in the sense that like,
like blood does not go in the muscle cell.
What we do is we push blood into narrower
and narrower vascular tissue to eventually we get
down to capillaries, which is the smallest
like the smallest, narrowest aspect of our vascular system
where then hopefully there's enough surface area of all
of these little small capillaries that the oxygen
and the nutrients that I need to be able to diffuse
out of the vascular tissue.
So it literally goes out of the wall of the vascular tissue
and then it gets absorbed into the cells of the muscle.
So it's not like you have this muscle.
And like the arteries and capillaries are
literally pouring blood into the muscle cell.
You have a, I'm sorry,
a capillary next to a muscle cell.
And then basically you need things
to diffuse between those two.
So it's got to leave the capillary through its membrane
and then it's got to absorb
into the muscle cell through its membrane.
So concentration gradients are going to be a big factor
in how much transfer we have.
Now that's important
because otherwise like your blood is flowing
throughout your whole body.
how would you get it, like, how would you get more
of the oxygen to the working muscle?
If we didn't have a way of somewhat controlling how
much we were absorbing the oxygen out of the blood.
So for instance, right now, I'm sitting here talking
to you guys, the muscles that are holding up
my posture are going to have
a greater concentration gradient.
They're going to be absorbing more
of the oxygen to fuel me
holding up my body weight against gravity.
Whereas the muscles that
aren't doing anything right now are going to take
up less because they're using less.
And that's because the concentration gradient
is mostly driven by the metabolites
from energy production or energy usage by those cells.
So basically the more I am actually metabolically
using a tissue, the more likely it is going to
be to pull oxygen out of that blood.
And then also as a by-product,
get rid of carbon dioxide, protons,
lactate, all those things.
So basically concentration gradient is the main driver here.
And that's an important thing to understand is because
you know, having healthy
local cellular metabolism and local function there,
as well as healthy vascular tissue
that's important for us to get the, we'll say the handoff
or the, you know, the two towers portion of this.
We have to win that battle there.
Otherwise, all we're going to do is just
keep carrying that oxygen around to somewhere else.
We're not going to get it to where we need it.
So this is from a local performance perspective.
This is often a big limiter in terms
of your performance there.
It's not usually at the lungs.
It's not usually like how much air you can breathe in.
The limiter is usually how much you can absorb and get rid
of at this local tissue, especially when we're talking
about the metabolic type exercises
where we're consuming a ton of energy.
Where we would need a lot more oxygen,
we would need to get rid of a lot more waste, right?
Now another aspect of this, and you guys may have seen this
in some of the research that we're talking about
is the actual compression.
So the capillaries, you know,
allow us to get the blood flow there
but we have to be able to push the blood flow
into those capillaries in order for this to occur.
As we are creating contractions,
you have the capillaries and they're sitting
around all of these muscle fibers and all of this tissue.
And so as that squeezes, it's going to be harder
and harder to push blood further down
through those capillaries.
So what ends up happening is
our muscular tension actually serves as an occlusion force.
So when we are doing exercises at higher intensities,
basically anything that's like worth doing
from a hypertrophy perspective, in terms of load,
you are going to get some level
of occlusion here and that can affect
whether or not we can get more blood into the tissue.
It can affect more blood leaving the tissue.
And so the cliff notes of that is
is that when we're creating
like when we're doing something light,
so we're we're walking, for instance.
It's a low amount of tension.
And essentially it's like
the squeeze release, squeeze release.
That's so light that it really doesn't affect our ability to
deliver sufficient fueled and oxygen to that tissue
or get the waste and substrates the byproducts of that away.
When we start adding intensity,
the first thing that happens is we reach a level
of compression where the hardest, the hardest pushing right?
It's a push muscle.
So the pump is a push.
It doesn't really have a suck function.
It has a push function.
So it's constantly pushing the blood to the tissue
but it's our muscle contractions that really
kind of bring the blood back to the heart.
Now, in the case of intense exercise
what ends up happening is that first level
of like the first level of compression or occlusion
actually prevents the blood from leaving.
So the heart's still shoving blood into this tissue
but the blood can't really leave.
And so what happens is that
even though we're getting oxygen there,
we're getting a buildup of the metabolite as well.
And as that metabolite builds in that pooling blood,
the exchange of the oxygen,
the concentration gradient shifts, and it becomes harder
for us to actually get that oxygen
into the muscle cell where it can be utilized.
And it gets harder for the muscle cell to get rid
of the waste so it can function.
And we will eventually approach failure
at this level of intensity.
Now at higher levels of intensity,
we can actually create so much, so much pressure
that the heart can like, our blood pressure can't
even push the blood flow into the tissue.
And therefore we just cut off the supply of oxygen.
In which case, now we are
neither delivering oxygen or getting rid of the metabolites.
So there's a lot that goes into the system.
We have, okay, we have how many red blood cells do we have?
The quality and concentration of those.
The respiratory, how well we were able to oxygenate that
and our heart rate and whatnot,
how we're able to deliver it.
How pliable our vascular tissue is.
So are we able to deliver it there?
Are we able to deliver it smoothly?
What type of vascular adaptations do we have?
Because you actually like you grow more capillaries
and then dig them deeper into the tissues
when you do exercises that is more metabolically demanding.
That's one of the things that we get
vascular adaptations that's you know,
and that happens with drugs too.
You know, that's why some
some people have like garden hose looking veins
and then, you know, your normal people don't have those
cause certain drugs push the stimulus
or a lot of these vascular adaptations
but training does this as well.
And so you put all that stuff combined, and then you add
on top the compressor or the pressure component.
Basically, the better your cardiovascular system is
at managing pressure,
it means that you're going to be able to fuel higher levels
of activity before you reach one
of these points where it's like, okay
now can't get the metabolites
out or can't get the oxygen in.
So essentially you're kind of looking at the
as neurological efficiency goes up,
and you can create more pressure
which means you can restrict blood flow more
but as you do metabolic adaptations
you kind of bring up the other side
that you have a greater capacity to push blood flow in
and also get it out.
So this is just one more reason why periodization
is going to be key, you know,
utilizing the appropriate stimulus to promote potentiation
and performance and recovery is huge.
Because not only does an AMPK phase
bring up glycogen levels, it also gets you local adaptations
in terms of the vascular tissue
as well as buffering and transferring of these metabolites.
So moving out of hemes deep.
Then we have the return of the heme.
So basically once that happens, right?
We've dumped the oxygen into the muscle tissue
and we have taken up CO2 into the blood
likely some protons, maybe some lactate
all kind of depends on the intensity
of which we're working out and the stimulus whatnot.
Now the goal is we have to get rid of that.
Now our blood pH has to be very tightly regulated.
So that means the capacity for us to take on those.
The protons was essentially like lactic acid is a lactate
and a proton or a hydrogen ion, right?
And so the more of that we're dumping into the blood,
the more I have to be able to buffer the blood
but also then the faster I need to get rid
of that because I have to maintain a certain pH, right?
If our pH of the blood changed a lot, we would die.
So there's multiple factors that are going on.
Some of this blood is going to go into the kidneys
and the kidneys can buffer some of that.
Some of this can then be metabolized
or like the lactate for instance,
can go to the liver where it can be recycled
or it can go to other tissues
where there's a lot of different tissues that can take
up lactate and use it as fuel.
They can return it back into pyruvate
and then use that to make ATP that way.
Lots of different things that we can do with a lactate
but the hydrogen ions, we pretty much kidneys,
you know are going to be one
of the main place that we get rid of that.
That's why, you know, rhabdo comes from basically
like over exerting exercise to the
basically the point where we're creating that acid burden.
So, kidney health is going to be huge
for the clearance of protons.
And this is one of the reasons that I like a little bit
of intro workout glutamine
during these like high metabolic phases, because one
of the big co-factors that the kidneys use to get rid
of hydrogen ions is glutamine.
Now the main way that we're going to get rid
of the CO2 and the hydrogen ions
is by actually taking the carbon, the carbon factors,
the by-product of that and the hydrogen ions.
And we're going to turn it into CO2 and exhale it, right?
So a big part of the way that we get rid of acid
is simply exhaling off CO2.
So because the, at the local level, we might be getting rid
of more carbon monoxide,
or we might be getting more rid of more CO3.
And so with hydrogen basically present, what we can do is
we can turn a CO3 and some hydrogens into water and CO2.
Obviously we can use the water
and then we can breathe breathe off the CO2.
And that's essentially the complex portion of it simplified
but essentially we don't, the muscle doesn't give
off the CO2 itself, right?
The muscle gives off mostly CO3 and then hydrogen ions.
We convert that into water and CO2, breath off the CO2.
Water's obviously fine for us.
And then we are good to go.
So let's move to the fires of mount doom.
So there was it made, only there can it be.
In this case, we'll say remade.
So, cause this is where the
CO2 slash, O2 exchange is happening.
We're trying to get rid
of the CO2 and bring back in the O2.
So this is where lung health
is going to be part of the equation.
This is also going to be, you know
cause essentially think of it this way
is that the way we were looking
at the concentration gradients
at the local tissue to be able to get the oxygen
in the muscle and get the waste into the blood.
It's the same thing happening at the lung tissue, right?
So these capillaries around the lung tissue
in terms of their ability to get rid
of the CO2 and get the CO2.
So basically, you know,
this is why when you start exerting yourself,
your respiration goes up, right?
And that's basically to be able to breathe more
so that at that capillary level of the lungs
you're doing that gas exchange work.
We're basically,
we need to be creating the concentration gradient
at the lungs so that we can be expelling more CO2
and absorbing more oxygen at the blood level.
So it's just like the concentration gradient is exercise
or metabolic demand dependent at the local tissue.
It's the same at the lung tissue
or basically the more metabolite,
the more CO2 I have built up into the blood,
essentially the greater O2 exchange is going to occur there.
So this will always be concentration dependent as well.
And if we look at the factors of this,
we have lung capacity in terms of like,
like it's not literally long, it's more like
we'll say lung volume.
Like the it's the,
it's not the volume of the tissue itself.
Well, that matters, but it's the volume
of the air pocket in my chest that lung cavity, if you will
that really kind of matters.
And my ability to move that
because it's the the expanding and contracting
of that cavity that pulls air in and out on that.
So how fast that happens and how much that moves,
affect how much gas exchange I can get.
So the, basically the more lung capacity I have
means the more air I can breathe
and the more air I can push out.
And that means that I can essentially
create a stronger concentration gradient
as I breathe, right?
If I don't have that
then I'm going to have to breathe more frequently,
and breathing more frequently
because when you're thinking about this,
like it's not like when I exhale,
that it's a hundred percent of like used air
that goes out and then I inhale a different amount.
So it's just this gas flowing in and out.
Obviously when you exhale you're blowing
more CO2 concentrated airway.
And then when you inhale
you should be inhaling lower CO2 concentration air.
But if you're breathing really fast, these shallow breaths
and you're not moving that much air,
you're essentially not getting as big of a change.
Like you're not getting rid of as much old air
and getting as much new air in short, shallow breaths.
So having good lung capacity is going to
improve your ability to get more CO2 expelled,
and better oxygen exchange here.
And that's why, you know,
respiration has become a popular topic
in the fitness industry
and respiratory muscles and whatnot.
So all these muscles around the rib cage
affect my ability to expand and contract my rib cage,
to get deeper breaths,
to be able to breathe more efficiently, expend less energy
to be able to breathe better
under different external resistance forces
whether that be running, whether that be bracing, et cetera.
There's a lot to do when it comes down to just the mechanics
of how these muscles are affected in the rib cage
that is going to affect my current lung capacity
under those conditions.
And this is why looking at training some of those muscles
like your abs, your obliques, you know,
everything that, you know, works around the rib cage,
actually doing exercises for those.
And while they may not have a physique goal,
may have a performance and recovery based goal.
Cause obviously if the muscles
around my rib cage function better
then I can breathe better, which means I can perform better.
But also it means that I can recover better
because I'm likely to be able to be more
parasympathetic dominant when I don't have to
expend as much energy or effort to breathe
and to maintain a good oxygenation.
So let's look at this aerobic fitness thing.
And now that you guys have kind of seen the journey,
if you guys have questions on that
make sure you put them in.
I want you to kind of think
about how this is an all encompassing thing,
meaning that I'm going to my heart rate,
my respiration rate, my local fatigue,
all of that is going to come into play.
And it's all going to be effected
by the other things right?
Now, in some scenarios, one, you know
certain aspects will be more likely to be a limiter
than others, but essentially all this stuff has to
be working properly to have the most efficient system.
So let's just kind of recap and go through what is involved
in this whole cardio vascular respiratory system.
We have the red blood cell quantity and the quality.
We have my respiration volume, my respiration rate,
and then how efficient I am from a muscular perspective,
in terms of what's the actual cost of me breathing.
So if you have certain muscles around your rib cage,
that aren't functioning very well,
you don't ever train them.
And all of a sudden you're under high demand
and you have to use a bunch of compensatory muscles,
just like compensatory muscles
aren't as good at force production and exercise,
compensatory muscles are not as energy efficient
or as good at helping you breathe.
So the more compensation you have
in your respiratory patterns, the more energy costs you get
and likely the less volume,
therefore the more rate, therefore, even the more cost
of simply just breathing.
Vascular surface area, density and depth.
Okay, so you got your vascular tissue.
Okay surface area is going to be like,
okay, capillary adaptations,
like literally growing capillaries
like roots of a tree is deepened.
And as broad into those tissues as possible
is going to affect how well you can oxygenate
that local tissue, right?
And then the number of those capillaries through that,
that's going to be the density, right?
And then also the depth.
So basically it's like how many capillaries?
How deep do they go?
And you know, that whole, basically that whole net of,
how much capillary to actual
metabolically active tissue is there.
That gives me my total like surface area ratio.
Then we have blood flow.
So blood flow is going to be impacted
by heart rate and the stroke volume.
So the stroke volume is essentially, you know
how much blood the heart can pump
in a single pump if you will.
But think of it as like range of motion for the heart,
that's essentially what it is.
So your heart, like when we do a aerobic activity,
the heart gets more efficient
by being able to better utilize its full range of motion.
Just like any other muscle.
So that's one of the adaptations that we get
with cardiac activity and that's why
the better condition our cardio is
the lower our heart rate is
because we are literally getting more stroke volume
because the heart is actually improving its range
of motion and its efficiency through that range of motion.
So essentially it's like, you know, if you're out of,
if you're out of shape, cardiovascularly,
likely your heart's doing all partials
and you know me.
Partials are still good, keeps you alive, you know?
And there may be times where
like in high blood pressure situations
where we may need to be able to use that
but overall I want to have still access
and utilization of full range of motion.
So that applies to the heart muscle as well.
And then we have blood pressure.
Now, blood pressure is going to be effected
by volume of blood, right?
So if you're dehydrated,
if you're making a lot more red blood cells
not enough red blood cells, et cetera,
basically we have just the volume
of liquid that's blood and plasma combined
that are gonna affect blood pressure.
Viscosity which is essentially how thick your blood is.
So that's going to be a big,
or diet's going to be a big factor there, so is stress.
Tissue tension.
So that's the, you know
the occlusion thing that we're talking about.
So obviously the more things under tension,
the higher blood pressure I need to be able
to push blood flow out.
The greater the tension anywhere
the more blood pressure I need to push that in.
So in general,
higher intensity activities require higher blood
pressure to sufficiently deliver oxygen and blood to them.
Lower intensity activities do not require as much.
So you could look at, you know
high intensity work like resistance training
or very high intensity like intervals like HIIT
or something like that,
is essentially like high intensity training for the heart.
The heart has to basically work against more tension
where as lower intensity activity would be more kind of
like metabolic work for the heart
where the heart's mainly working at, you know
it's increasing its stroke volume and being more efficient.
More of a coordination phase for that.
So if we're thinking of like neuro phases,
like an intensity versus coordination,
the same thing's kind of happening for your heart.
Like if you're doing a lot of high intensity work,
your heart's getting better at you know, contracting harder.
If you're doing lower intensity work,
your heart's gonna adapt by utilizing a more efficient
higher range of motion stroke volume.
So then we have a heart rate
and then the stroke power as well.
So basically the stroke power
is just what I was just talking to.
And then also then the heart rate.
So basically blood pressure, the more your heart is beating
like it's pushing every one of those times, right?
Higher heart rate, higher blood pressure,
harder to squeeze,
more blood pressure, thicker blood, more blood pressure
more blood volume, more blood pressure.
Now, blood pressure,
when it's not supposed to be high is very bad.
The ability to increase blood pressure acutely
is very necessary for performance.
So this is one of those things where
you know, we don't, we want blood pressure to
be low when we're not under the demand.
So basically the majority
of the time we want low blood pressure,
the problem from a health perspective
is when blood pressure is higher
than it should be chronically.
But as athletes, as trainees,
we need the ability to regulate blood pressure, heart rate
respiratory rate, to be able to deliver oxygen
and blood to those tissues under tension, under load, okay?
And then we have the exchange rate at the capillaries.
That's also going to be a part of this.
And so that's a combination of not just the vascular system
but also the local tissues themselves, right?
So we have transporters for some of this stuff.
Some of this stuff works via diffusion
but it's the net ability of that.
So basically having the right co factors at the local level
is going to be a part of this process as well.
And also the more efficient you are
at that local tissue metabolically,
the less waste it provides or produces,
decreasing the overall systemic demand, right?
That's why, you know, you can do an AMPK based program
and also get a systemic, you know, boost,
not just because like, well, is there a little bit
of a systemic demand from AMPK training?
Maybe when you're doing quads.
Probably not when you're doing biceps,
but still doing AMPK biceps
might decrease the systemic demand of training biceps
because you have better local metabolic stuff going on.
Like in terms of like you'd not producing as much waste.
Also, you've likely improve the efficiency of that exchange
and maybe gotten some of those capillary adaptations
making that exchange process more efficient
and having greater capacity.