Blog With Sally

Most people may think that the reason you begin to fatigue is that you go “anaerobic” or reach an intensity when there is not enough oxygen for your running muscles to contract. That is, that you reach an effort or intensity levels when the demand for oxygen out-strips the available supply of oxygen. This is the fabled concept of “oxygen debt,” and while a convenient way to think of the process, this state doesn’t really ever occur. You simply don’t “go anaerobic”. Watch this quick video.

Compounding this misunderstanding is another non-scientific and dated belief is that it is the lack of oxygen that causes the accumulation of lactate in both the cell and in the blood stream.  These are both old, disproven concepts. You see, there is plenty of oxygen available to your muscles for contraction when you hit the intensity known as threshold #1 or low threshold, the first point when exercise is no longer sustainable. Technically, the problem isn’t getting enough oxygen in; it’s getting rid of the acid and carbon dioxide, the substances produced during hard exercise, out of the cell and out of the blood stream.

It is the accumulation of lactate that causes the excess acid and carbon dioxide. That’s why lactate — not lack of oxygen— is a more accurate way to measure T1 or low threshold. Some background information can help here:

During higher and higher intensity exercise, the body produces greater amounts of  pyruvic acid. (pyruvate is a metabolite, or small molecule that is created by changes or breakdowns in the body’s metabolism.) In order to keep from shutting down one of your metabolic processes, your cell converts pyruvate to lactate, which is then transported out of the cell and used as fuel in other places in the body.

Lactate is a partially broken-down version of glucose, so another cell can convert it back to pyruvate and then go about oxidizing it.  There are three main places that lactate is consumed: the heart, the liver, and non-active skeletal muscles. Your heart never stops using lactate as a fuel, but as you exercise harder, you have fewer non-active muscles and the blood flow to your liver decreases, so your ability to remove lactate declines.  Given that the rate of lactate production is ever-increasing, the failure to be able to remove lactate is why it accumulates in your blood.

So, if lactate is a fuel, why do we see it as such a bad guy in terms of exercise?  When lactate is transported out of the cell, it drags some hydrogen ions (e.g. acid) out of the cell.  It is also, by itself, a weak acid.  So, as lactate enters the area around the cell, the area becomes more acidic.  To protect against an increase in acidity, the body maintains a certain amount of a buffer (bicarbonate) in the fluid around the cell.  When the bicarbonate combines with the acid that comes along for the ride with lactate, it produces CO2 and water.  What do you do with the extra CO2 that comes from this buffering process?  You breathe it out, which leads to a relatively sudden increase in the amount of breathing, which we typically call the ventilatory threshold.

Sally Edwards, CEO and Founder, Heart Zones CYCLING and Heart Zones PERSONAL TRAINING

For the next two months, I am traveling on a national media tour for the Trek Women Triathlon tour with the Series Director and dear-friend, Maggie Sullivan. In a four-city non-stop sweep last week, we engaged in a dialogue about the topic of what every woman wants. I argued that every woman wants to let out her “inner athlete” and she argued no, they want to find inside themselves a fit, happy, and strong woman. I then argued that the two are the same and she disagreed. Maggie claims that she has never wanted to connect with her inner athlete because she doesn’t believe that there is one there. I, Sally Edwards,  disagreed saying absolutely there is in side every woman and athlete who wants to be found and who wants to be just that, an athlete.  After an hour of heated discussion, the winner of the argument was crowned and I went on network television to announce the results – the 7 minute presentation from the television studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin can be viewed, and I highly recommend it by clicking here. Note: this television show is about what I am not, a couch potato. You will see me dressed as a couch potato and talking about how to get women from potato to athlete. Watch to see who won the argument.

Triathlon legend Sally Edwards has published a newly updated edition of the best-selling womens triathlon training book, Triathlons for Women. For over 20 years, Sally Edwards has cheered, prodded, and even pushed hundreds of thousands of women across the finish line of their first triathlon. This newest edition of Triathlons for Women can help any woman rise to the challenge of beginning a healthier, more active lifestyle.

Women make up the fastest-growing demographic in endurance sports, especially in the red-hot sport of triathlon. According to USA Triathlon, women now comprise nearly 40% of participants in the sport. Sally Edwards’s inspiring career and tireless work have been major forces bringing women into triathlon. “Sally Edwards is women’s triathlon!”, says Maggie Sullivan, director of the two largest women’s triathlon series.

In Triathlons for Women, Sally shares her experiences to prepare women physically and mentally for their first triathlon. Sally guides women from the first day of training to race day, with plenty of personal encouragement along the way. Triathlons for Women leaves no question unanswered, from workouts to the transition zone to the most common question of all-what to wear.

Triathlons for Women has everything women need to get started. With this book, women can:
* Begin training with a comprehensive 8-week training plan
* Keep training fun with a wide variety of workouts
* Improve technique with simple drills for swimming, cycling, and running
* Follow Sally’s commonsense advice for better nutrition

Sally Edwards has seen hundreds of thousands of women launch a happier, healthier life by finishing their first triathlon. Triathlons for Women will help women realize their goals, whether they include getting fit, getting fast, or taking on a longer race.
296 pp., $19.95

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Okay, it’s your move!

Right now, make a list of eight (8) different just-move activities that you can do at the workplace. Here are a few of my favorites to help you into the Just Move work style:

• one favorite yoga pose
• ten push-ups
• ten sit-ups
• two minutes of kettle bell or weight swings
• one minute of deep breathing
• 15 chair dips
• a five-minute walk, steady or fast
• a minute of jumping in place
• 3 minutes doing reach-and-stretches
• 10 kettle bell thrusts and if you don’t have one use a thick book

The real beauty of Just Move activities that they take essentially no time. ANY of us can spare one minute out of sixty to just move.

I want to share with you this personal story of someone who just reached out to me to share his story. When he told me that he’s lost and kept off the weight for nearly 3 decades I was impressed and asked him if he would share the story.  So, I asked him by email if he would share his story and the city/state that he lived in. This is what he wrote:
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Dec 2, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Rob Walton wrote:
Dear Sally, It is just great to come across your name while downloading indoor workouts for this winter from the Saris website.I sure have a warm spot for you as your book, Triathlon, a Triple Fitness Sport, was given to me September 4, 1983 and read it overnight, stopped eating meat and started training for triathlons and wound up doing the Ironman four times (once in Florida and three times at Kona) over the next few years. I dropped a lot of weight and for these 26 years since have maintained a variable but high level of fitness. I found I was a better cyclist than runner and with old knees am only doing that now. However, I have finally started bicycle racing pretty seriously, hence the downloading activity. I am‚ planning on a big year this year and am getting off to a good start.Thank you for inspiring me. I am sure my life will be longer and happier for the fitness you motivated me to pursue. I do hope this finds you doing well. Best regards, Rob Walton
Hi, Rob. I appreciate your kind email.I’d like to share it with others…on my blog, as a sidebar in a book, but I need your permission.I am touched by your story – and I want to thank you for it. Others need to hear partiularly about the 26 years of living this lifestyle…they think that it’s just for now and then they can go back to bon-bon lifestyle. Oh yes, would it be possible for you to provide me with a photo? And a city where you live so I can say Rob Walton, xyz city/state. Thanks, SALLY
Dear Sally, You may use the email and even clean it up a bit for clarification if that helps. I try to keep a pretty low profile so would prefer to not provide much more than that. City/State should be Bentonville, Arkansas. I am Chairman of the Board of Wal-Mart Stores by the way. Regards, Rob
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I appreciate Rob sharing his story that one of the best ways to keep weight off is to live the fitness lifestyle. And, you never know when someone reads a book that you have written, a speech, or just meets you, it can, as Rob says, “I am sure my life will be longer and happier for the fitness you motivated me to pursue.

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The age-adjusted maximum heart rate formula (also known as the “age regression formula”) was developed a half century ago, at a time when the science of exercise physiology was in its infancy and the technological means to create a more accurate exercise prescription or testing protocol was scarce. The result was that the “220 Minus Age” formula was neither created nor validated based on supported research or clinical testing. Today, the health and fitness industry continued support of an archaic, unproven formula is (a) potentially hazardous to the public, (b) a severe blow to our effectiveness and credibility, and (c) a tragic undermining of the proven advances and discoveries in exercise physiology over the last half century.
Here ten reasons why “220 Minus Age” gets a failing grade.
1. The formula’s inventor acknowledges its unscientific development.
The equation was created in the early 1970’s by scientists Fox, Naughton, and Haskell who intended it to be a rough formulation and not meant to be representative of the entire population. All subject in the studies referenced were under 55 years of age and male. Although the equation has become accepted and the standard in the literature and is used widely in clinical and fitness settings, its validity is uncertain.
2. There is no scientific research to support it.
There is no scientific validation of this formula. There is simply no research to support it.
3. It is physiologically nonsensical.
There is no physiological reason why everyone of the same age should have the same maximum number of heartbeats in a minute’s time. In fact, we KNOW this isn’t true. For example, as fit individuals age, their maximum heart rate drops very little.4 Research has shown that the maximum heart rate of individuals of the same age can vary by 11 bpm based on many variables especially sport activity.5 Yet this formula claims to scientifically prescribe intensity-based training levels for individuals, even as it ignores their scientifically established individuality.
4. It is useless.
There is a common assumption that any of the equations that predict your individual maximum heart rate will be both reasonably accurate and reasonably useful. Such is not the case with “220 Minus Age.” Intended to guide users to exercise in the right cardiovascular training zones (CVT), in fact, the formula doesn’t accomplish this. “The 220-age formula designed to predict maximum heart rate is useless according to Carl Foster, Ph.D. and past president of the American College of Sports Medicine, “because it simply is not accurate.
5. It is elitist.
Don’t believe Dr. Foster? Well, how about trying to convince pro athletes that they should go back to using “220 Minus Age”, if they ever did. Why do we think that pro athletes somehow deserve more accurate training regimens than fitness exercisers? There is value to increased precision, especially for those seeking weight loss or true aerobic benefits from their physical activity.
6. It may be dangerous.
The formula is built into and displayed on the consoles of most pieces of cardio-equipment. But, if followed, it can be dangerous overestimating maximum heart rate in young adults and underestimating it in older people. Using 220-age forces finess enthusiasts, with the air of scientific authority, to exercise at too high or too low a cardiovascular intensity.
Similarly, the formula also leads some individuals to exercise at intensities too low to achieve needed health benefits. As finess professionals, we need to ask ourselves if we could be at legal (not to mention ethical) risk for using an equation to prescribe exercise intensity which we have ample reason to suspect is inaccurate.
7. It is an embarrassment.
Savvy consumers can prove for themselves that their Max HR isn’t what the formula says it is, so how much credibility do you think they give training professionals who say otherwise? Yet working this formula is a requirement to pass most personal trainer certification tests. And, worse still, the formula is posted in most health clubs. Using dogma, instead of evidence-based science, makes health and fitness professionals appear to be naive at best and, at worst, incompetent in their chosen field.
8. It allows us to be lazy.
In the early 1990s, I created the original five heart rate training zones, each built on 10% of your maximum heart rate. Those zones were first published in my work, The Heart Rate Monitor Book, and have subsequently been adopted as the standard CVT zones programmed into millions of cardio machines. I acknowledge that at that time, almost twenty years ago, I, too, was unwilling to change and to recommend alternative methods for prescribing CVT zones. Accepted by the ACSM, this mythical formula was just too easy, and it was even then a dogma. I have subsequently confessed my error in recommending the formula and apologized for supporting such a simplistic means of determining such an important value.
9. There are scientifically validated alternatives that are safe and effective.
To the best of my knowledge, at this time there is no equation that has been proven accurate enough in predicting maximum heart rate. None whatsoever. This does not mean that we don’t have any proven means of achieving the same end, because we do.
Sub-maximum testing protocols, or “sub-max tests, are a straightforward method of estimating maximum heart rate, based on a physiological response to a safe level of exercise stress. One such test, “The Can-You-Speak-Comfortably Foster Test” is scientifically validated by Carl Foster, Ph.D. There are others.
And, yes, I have a business that promotes these alternative tests and protocols, yet I’m sure there are many other means of setting CVT levels that I haven’t even heard of and from which we would all benefit. Let’s open the doors to actual innovation, and let the best exercise intensity prescription win!
10. We have a responsibility to do our best.
Because the estimation of maximum heart rate comes from a professionally supported mathematical formula, it carries an air of scientific authority. If we health and fitness professionals want to continue to be seen as authorities, we need to do our best for our clients, whether it’s easy for us or not. Supporting the use of this outdated formula is simply not the best we can do.

Sally Edwards, MA, MBA
CEO, Heart Zones USA

This summer I struck out on my annual birthday-celebration backpacking trip with my two hiking partners both who are Seattle marine biologists. The first hiking partner travels with trail names Hi-Fi-Di (she’s a high fidelity gal) and the second, with trail name Aye-Aye-Aye (one of the most positive women I know). My chosen trail name is The Head Heart. We began our ten day and 125-mile adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail excited to be away from our daily lives. Long term, our goal is to hike the 2,600 mile Pacific Crest trail from Mexico to Canada by hiking it 125 miles each summer for however many summers it requires.

On day four, Hi-Fi-Di, age 48 years, opened the conversation and shared that she couldn’t figure out the next step in her life. She said that she is dissatisfied and frustrated with her home life, her work, her relationships. She asked us, her dear and trusted friends, “I thought I’d be further ahead in life than where I am now and it is my birthdayt?” That is one bodacious question. How many think that they should be further along than where they are finding themselves as they head toward the half-way point in life – age 50?

I suggested that we use the Hippocratic method of asking questions rather than giving opinions or solutions to try and solve Hi-Fi-Di’s question. Hi-Fi-Di was suffering from a loss of direction and a frustration with her current life’s location. After a full day of our questioning Hi-Fi-Di as we hiked through nature and mountains, she was able to come to a definition of her life’s problem. That was our first step. The next day and the next step, Hi-Fi-Di brainstormed 25 strategic actions. We helped her prioritize the strategies by selecting which would most help her accomplish her life’s mission. Then, she whittled the list down to five strategies that she believed she could successfully accomplish in the next year.

That’s when it came together that she couldn’t do it alone. Hi-Fi-Di proposed that we form a personal board of directors, a P-BOD to support her. And, as we ticked off 10-15 miles a day of rugged trail hiking finishing each day with a swim in a mountain lake, a hot dinner under billions of stars, and falling asleep happy in our sleeping bags, we repeated the process. In turn, we each spent a day sharing our issue, defining it, creating a mission description, making a list of strategies, and whittling them down to what could be accomplished, and signing up to members of each other’s P-BOD, personal board of directors. We signed up to be there for each other.

The result is that now have a support system and accountability plan with our new P-BOD. We have each written our personal life statements and shared them with each other – and I posted mine in my office so I read it everyday. We have agreed to support each other by checking in quarterly, and to hold a P-BOD meeting to assess quarterly progress. The official annual meeting is next summer as we again hike another 125 mile segment of the Pacific Crest Trail. It is our plan to be each other’s support system and P-BOD members for the next 20 years (well, it probably will take us a bit longer than that to complete 2,600 miles.)

I thought I’d share the final mission statement that I created with my P-BOD during the hike through Northern California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. After six decades of living (yes, I turned 62 years of age) and given my current location and direction, the mission statement is as follows:

PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT – Sally Edwards, August 2009
To be highly successful getting America moving while living a fulfilling and productive life with my loved ones.

Sally Edwards,
trail name “the Head Heart”

Sitting for long periods of time is hazardous to your health. Even if you are active, you still need to get up often and move. That’s because there is a strong association between sitting too much and mortality risks. Exercise does not cancel out the ill effects of too much sitting. Rather, SBAs, or short burst of activity frequently takes you from couch potato to improved metabolic health.
Here are the steps to getting started with daily SBAs:

Step 1. Strap up to get aware. Strap on a training tool like a heart rate monitor or activity counter and use the coutdown timer to alarm you every hour that it is time for your 5 minutes of SBA – short bursts of activity.
Step 2. Fall in love with SBAs, Short Burst Activities. Discover and make a list of SBAs that you can do at the office. There’s a sample list of 8 SBAs at the end of this Activity Tip Sheet.
Step 3. Stand More means Sitting Less. Throughout your day, find ways to stand more.
Step 4. Get NEAT. NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis which is any movement activity that gets you moving that is not exercise. Example: Walking over to another’s office to talk to them rather than calling or emailing them when they are nearby.
8 Short Burst Activities or SBAs:
1. Stand up and get some water.
2. Walk around the room when you are talking on the telephone.
3. Add 5-minute walk break with every coffee break.
4. Stand up and walk the length of the hallway every 30-minutes.
5. Take the stairs to the next floor to use the bathroom.
6. Don’t email office colleagues; instead walk to their desk.
7. On the phone, stand and do the flamingo (balancing exercise).
8. Use your chair as a piece of exercise equipment – dips, etc.
And yes, wear your heart rate monitor and record your data all day.

Sally Edwards, The Head Heart, Heart Zones USA, Exercise Scientist

compliments of Dynastream ANT+ Alliance November 2009

On November 7th in St. Louis (Chesterfield), Missouri, Heart Zones USA is hosting THE SHOWCASE. The event is an opportunity for you to participate in four new programs and certifications. One of them is targeted to provide personal trainers, coaches, and teachers with the tools to lead programs to get kids active. If you don’t believe me, then read these statistics on just how bad inactivity in America’s youth has become:

- An average child spends less than 15 min of vigorous activity per day.
- An average child spends 20% of wake time watching television.
- Obesity and super obesity up 36% and 98% in last 20 years.
- The average child consumes a 20 oz soda pop every day.
- 9 out of 10 parents think their children are fit; 1 in 3 really are.
- 30% of youth 10-19 y/o have negative/neutral attitudes towards physical activity.
- Only 27% of a typical PE class in actual motor activity.
- The average heart rate in a typical 30 minute PE class is 90-129 BPM or very, very low cardio exercise.
- The older girls get, the less likely they are to exercise.
-  Children exercise less as they get older: 3% drop/yr in boys, 7.5% drop/yr in girls.
- The two biggest reasons kids participate in sports and exercise are fun and socialization.
- 54% of students state their PE class is very important to them
- 50% of students want more PE time in middle school.
*Source: Fitness for Youth, University of Michigan

I want to invite you to attend, to learn how to lead programs and activities to get kids cardio-fit and to help them have fun, lose weight, and enjoy a health adulthood. We all need to take part and get trained to help our future, our youth.

Sally Edwards

www.TheSallyEdwardsCompany.com