APRIL 2016 MEN’S FITNESS 81fundamental question: What limits the
body’s ability to uptake oxygen?
Wisløff knew skeletal muscles weren’t
the principal problem — they can handle
more blood than they can possibly get. He
also knew that the lungs, while crucial,
couldn’t be dramatically altered with
training. But the heart is highly trainable,
and increasing the heart’s pumping
capacity — the amount of blood it can
pump in a given amount of time — directly
increases the body’s ability to uptake
and distribute oxygen. In other words,
a more efficient, more powerful heart
leads directly to a higher VO2 max.
But how exactly do you train your
heart to be more efficient and powerful?
Two factors govern pumping capacity:
maximal heart rate and stroke volume.
Your maximal heart rate is inborn.
(What’s the best formula? 211 minus your
age multiplied by 0.64.) No matter how
hard you train, that number will tick
down throughout your life. But you can
do a lot to increase the stroke volume of
your heart. “The heart is like any otherSO DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?
To calculate your fitness age, visit
worldfitnesslevel.orgto fill out Wisløff ’s
detailed online questionnaire (and be sure
to read “How to Calculate Your Fitness
Age,” on the next page, for our analysis
of the questions). Once you’ve got your
fitness age, you can supplement your
training program with a scientifically
proven fitness-age-reducing intervention.
Even if you don’t calculate your exact
fitness age, you can still follow these six
tips to boost your body’s cardiorespiratory
fitness, bulletproofing your health
while leaving plenty of time to do all the
activities you love: pick-up hoops, distance
running, or improving those max bench
and squat numbers inside the power rack.
Whatever your goals are, here are the six
ways to keep your body young.STAY YOUNG TIP NO. 1:
SUPERCHARGE YOUR HEART
When Wisløff began to design a training
program that could boost VO2 max andGrooming by Corey Tuttle/Honey Artistsreduce fitness age, he asked himself one
muscle,” Wisløff says. “It must be loaded
to get trained. And the only healthy way to
challenge the heart’s pumping capacity is
to fill it with maximal amounts of blood for
long periods of time.”
The heart achieves maximum stroke
volume when it’s pumping at 85–95% of
its maximum beats per minute. (For most
people, the 85–90% range is sufficient.)
So if you want to boost your VO2 max,
Wisløff says, you’ll want to work out within
that range of cardiorespiratory intensity
for as long as you possibly can. If you do
it right, you’ll end up with an “athlete’s
heart”, one that’s bigger, contracts more
forcefully, and relaxes quicker. As Wisløff
puts it: “You’ll have a better motor.”STAY YOUNG TIP NO. 2:
FOUR MINUTES IS YOUR INTERVAL
SWEET SPOT
So how exactly do you get your heart rate
to the 85% threshold, and how long can
you (and should you) keep it there?
It usually takes more than a minute
of vigorous exercise before you reachThere are a lot of factors that go
into calculating your fitness age —
by far the most important of them
is cardiorespiratory fitness,
says Dr Ulrik Wisløff.