Driving up your MAP isn’t the easiest thing to do - but it’s probably the most rewarding. Here’s how to do it.
Want to improve your FTP? Then you better start focusing on your MAP (Maximal Aerobic Power). After exploring the science of MAP, including why you ought to choose your parents well, Neal and Mac explain why this aspect of your 4DP delivers such fantastic rewards when you work on developing it. To help you get started on that, they also share some of their favorite SYSTM workouts for building MAP. Nine Hammers or Rue the Day, anyone?
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Neal Henderson 0:00
We know from genetics that if you actually have two above average, individuals get together make children
Mac Cassin 0:09
that's a different episode. That's probably different parts very different podcast episode.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the knowledge podcast biwako. I'm Mac Cassin.
Neal Henderson 0:22
And I'm Neal Henderson. And today, this is part three of our talk about 4DP metrics. Specifically, we're going into the Maximal Aerobic Power, aka MAP round of things.
Mac Cassin 0:35
That's good stuff.
Neal Henderson 0:37
It MAP is one of the great ones. We'll talk a little bit more about why this is actually so important in the concept development of 4DP a little later, but let's just go from the beginning and from the top. That map is kind of essentially the power output that you're capable of producing at your VO2 max. What VO2 max is, is the highest amount of oxygen being consumed by the muscles to deliver energy from that aerobic process. So VO2 max is a term that gets thrown around that is the highest rate of using oxygen. It is sport specific. Keep in mind that when you're on a bike, your VO2 max would be specific to cycling. If you were to run on a treadmill or run outside with field you measurement which can be done if you have a nice little portable metabolic analyzer. But when you do a different type of activity, your VO2 max value could actually change in some cases it could be higher like running because we're supporting our entire body weight, we also have a little bit of additional movement in our upper body and through our core and thoracic areas that will allow for more oxygen to be consumed by the greater amount of muscle mass active. Or we could do something like swim and put our body supported partially by the water use smaller muscles as the primary drivers when we swim with our arms, yes, we may use our legs a little bit but not to the same extent as when we cycle or run. And so even though we do something like swimming, where we're using our full body, it's still going to deliver a lower VO2 max then you would see cycling and again lower yet then running Mac, what do you think
Mac Cassin 2:19
anything out there as a associated VO2 max, do I have a typing VO2 max?
Neal Henderson 2:24
You kind of do if you're like sitting at your desk you would have a sitting typing VO2 max at the fastest rate of typing that you could generate. But if you're standing at a desk at a standard sit stand desk, you would actually have a slightly different VO2 max while madly typing at that same maximal rate.
Mac Cassin 2:42
Right? So the whatever muscles you're engaging in, those are the ones that need oxygen, they're taking the oxygen. So again as you incorporate larger muscles or more muscles, that requires more oxygen. And that's why are the reasons that cross country skiers basically all the highest recorded VO2's are pretty much all cross country skiers because they're using their legs, then they're also using their arms to propel their core. So that's about the most whole body exercise you can get and therefore it has the highest associated VO2 max, you can even increase your VO2 max a bit if you breathe through a smaller tube and a VO2 max test you're working your diaphragm harder. And so you can have a slightly higher VO2 max with that restricted breathing which I would not recommend. It's not a good time. But anytime you add more muscles into the mix, you do increase the oxygen consumption
Neal Henderson 3:28
Definitely. And so you can go back to Episode 19. If you need a little bit more of a primer on VO2 and VO2 max. But for this, we're going to now stick back into the 4DP side of things and think about that power, again associated with our VO2 max is really what that maximum aerobic power is
Mac Cassin 3:47
It represents that aerobic ceiling for you. And all of the endurance events, every endurance training zone exists at some capacity below that ceiling. And so raising the ceiling means you can have we've got more room under it to increase the power. And it's not just a matter of just that raw VO2 just that oxygen number. It's how many watts you can produce with that oxygen.
Neal Henderson 4:10
Exactly. And one of the things that we can sometimes do is compare this as a watts per liter of oxygen. So kind of an economy or efficiency measure there we can also look at that watts relative to body weight and watts per kilo is going to be another way of expressing that that will sometimes make more sense depending on what you're doing if you're going up a hill "Oh yeah", that watts per kilo for sure is more important. On the flat road. It's a little bit more watts or maybe watts per CDA if you're trying to go fast.
Mac Cassin 4:39
That is one way to do it. But you need some pretty fancy fancy gear to get what your actual CDA is. So we don't use that one too common.
Neal Henderson 4:45
Yeah, wind tunnel or some of the other aerodynamic calculation thing if we have a Velodrome again, a little bit more equipment and assessments required to have a good good measure there. But if you're a time trial list, or a triathlete doing time trial type events, that's actually probably a little more much more important than watts per kilo. So when we think about this max aerobic power, we do know that there are some limitations here, we sometimes call these, there's kind of central and peripheral limitations. But in combination, you have an aspect of VO2 max and max aerobic power that has a pretty strong genetic component.
Mac Cassin 5:22
Right? Your mitochondrial DNA comes from your mother.
Neal Henderson 5:25
Yes.
Mac Cassin 5:25
And the mitochondria, as we all know, is the powerhouse of the cell.
Neal Henderson 5:29
Exactly. And so again, that's like the some level of science that we we might remember and recall from somewhere along the way, but ultimately, it is that oxygen being consumed in the muscle to break down fuels to produce energy so muscle can contract. So that's why that is so important to think about the best way to have a really high VO2 max is to choose your parents very well, Mac.
Mac Cassin 5:56
Yes, I, I think I did an okay job with that.
Neal Henderson 5:59
Exactly wise choices. So if you do want to go to the Olympic Games in an endurance sport, it definitely helps if both your parents have already been to the Olympics and an endurance sport, because you have that tendency to having that high genetic gift passed down to you again, especially if your mom was really good in the aerobic side of things
Mac Cassin 6:19
It's pretty well established. There's been a lot of studies like the heritage studies is one where he looked at longitudinal stuff over lots of families. And yeah, there is there is a genetic component, but it's like many things, it's trainable. And it's not many people actually reached the peak of their genetic capacity,
Neal Henderson 6:37
Correct. And even we know from genetics, that if you actually have to, above average, individuals get together and make children,
Mac Cassin 6:46
That's a different episode, that's probably a different podcast all together...
Neal Henderson 6:49
A different podcast episode, that actually you tend to have more regression to the mean than an amplification that you don't get to see like, always, it's better and more and better amplified, you would actually see more coming back to like normal rather than the super above normal.
Mac Cassin 7:05
And then you just give random people who just happen to hit the jackpot for for genetics, it's always funny to think about that there's a there's a likelihood that the cyclist with the best capacity to perform the who could be the best scientists in the world might not even know how to ride a bike.
Neal Henderson 7:20
Exactly might be a gamer. You know, watch his videos, something like that has never been exposed to it. So it's kind of cool that occasionally we find those diamonds in the rough who make a rapid rise in the sport we've seen, you know, lots of different examples of those for sure. Which brings me to a little story ...
Mac Cassin 7:40
Anecdote time.
Neal Henderson 7:42
This is this is like reality story. This is like important stuff, Mac. So it goes back to really where 4DP and where some of the ideas of like we needed to have better targets for our training. Because way, way back machine, and somewhere around the 2007 year, I was doing some training with both a guy named Taylor Phinney who chose parents wisely with great credentials, both Olympic medalists in fact, his mom was the Olympic gold medalist in 1984. His Papa was a two stage winner at the Tour de France. Bronze medalist in the 1984 Olympics. So had good starting stuff. And so Taylor Phinney was a junior at this point, he was doing some efforts getting ready for the season. And the specific workout was three sets of 8 x 40 20's. So any of you who have done I think Rue The Day (SYSTM) that's pretty much about this type of workout. Back then we only had FTP as a target and the kind of training software that we were using on our indoor trainers setup which were CompuTrainers again this is way before kicker.
Mac Cassin 8:52
Shoutout to the 10 year anniversary of the KICKR by the way!
Neal Henderson 8:55
Heck yeah. The best out there. So with Taylor just giving you some numbers to put this in the context here
Mac Cassin 9:01
It's time it's math time, Neal
Neal Henderson 9:03
A little bit. Don't Don't Don't freak out though. It's gonna be it's gonna be okay. He had an FTP of around 340 watts and so pretty good. He had a really big Max aerobic power which we had done CompuTrainer testing in the lab use around 480 watts at his VO2 max. I happen to also be coaching a couple professional time trial. They were professional cyclists but time trial specialists to countries they had both been national champions of one from Australia, one from the USA No, it wasn't Rohan Dennis because Rohan was also a junior who I wasn't working with at the time. So different Australian prior national Time Trial champion in that range in the early mid 2000s. Will say those guys both had a pretty similar FTP of around 360 watts. So as an absolute just straight power, they're a little bit more powerful, sustained level than Taylor. Their map power though, compared to Taylor was lower about 440 watts versus Taylor's 480 watts. So Taylor did this workout. And I had set the resistance for the 40 seconds on at 140%. of FTP, because again, we only had FTP as a target, there were no other technologies like 4DP available, which meant the target for the 40 seconds on was 476 Watch, which is basically 99% of his map will say approximately, so about 100% of map, we can round that 99 up to 103 sets of eight times 40 seconds at 100% of map, which was 140% of FTP. Taylor, does the workout start to finish rolls through it no problem. Like he did work, for sure. I'll say it was no problem. But you know, he did work and it was you.
Mac Cassin 9:03
You watched him do it so...
Neal Henderson 10:32
It looked easier from my perspective. But he nailed it literally an hour later had the two pros come in to do the same workout loaded up the exact same thing. 140% for 8 x 40 20s. And those guys did two intervals and cracked on set one, they could not finish a third interval
Mac Cassin 11:01
Right with a with a map of 440 doing efforts. And yeah,
Neal Henderson 11:05
504 Watts was the target when their actual 100% of map would have been 440 watts. So they were absolutely over their limit, even though as the same percentage of FTP, it was a much very much unsustainable percentage of their max aerobic power. So they did those two intervals, I stopped it, I dialed it down to 130% thinking, okay, these guys, you know, maybe they're just tired from the other training because they did do more writing overall than Taylor at that point. So maybe they were just a little more tired coming into it, they did two more intervals and stopped, they could not continue to push the power because at 130%, they were still at a higher intensity relative to their max aerobic power.
Mac Cassin 11:45
Right. So they couldn't produce any more power aerobically.
Neal Henderson 11:49
They are dipping into, oh, maybe their anaerobic capacity, and paying the price of dipping in there, because you get all those non oxidative byproducts, lots of lactate, and a lot of acid, hydrogen ions, increased acidity or lower pH, and they were unable to continue to contract those muscles, it wasn't totally dialed the effort down to 120% of their FTP, which now put it right about that 98 99% of map that they were able to actually complete a set.
Mac Cassin 12:20
So it's almost like if you could just set those targets off of their map?
Neal Henderson 12:24
It would have would have been a more equal situation, and they might have had greater success from the start. And that was the genesis of man, we really need to have appropriate targets for the appropriate system that we're stressing, Mac.
Mac Cassin 12:39
And so Okay, so MAP. So how do you go about finding your MAP?
Neal Henderson 12:43
The classic is kind of related to what we do in a lab exercise physiology lab, the most common thing for determining VO2 max is a one minute ramp test.
Mac Cassin 12:52
The good old Conconi.
Neal Henderson 12:54
Conconi is another one of those, the ramp test has been around even before Francesco Conconi but basically that one minute ramp, you have some sort of an increase. So Conconi used a 25 watt every minute. And if you think about different levels of cyclist, some folks might only get four or five, six stages before they completely fail. Others might be in the 15 or 20 stages before they hit failure. And that broad range of like a five minute to a 20 minute test isn't great.
Mac Cassin 13:23
Right? It's not, it's not appropriate to really nail that bringing the power up gradually to that maximal aerobic power. And so that's why we prefer to do steps that are more individualized. So relative to that person's abilities, one person might be having 33 watt jumps, and some person might be having 18 watt jumps. And it's all aimed at trying to get around a 12 minute ramp duration that's been shown to be the most optimal for the widest range of of abilities, really, anywhere from 10 to 15 steps is going to give you a good accurate value. But that's kind of a catch 22 because you're doing this test to determine your max aerobic power, but you kind of need to know your max aerobic power to do the test well, so it can be a bit tricky at that point, which again, is why that wider range, nine minutes to 15 minutes, that's all it'll give you a good a good value. And it's not, we're not looking at the final one minute or the final stage completed. We're looking at the the average power over the end twos different segments over the end. That's how we go about calculating max aerobic power, because you have to understand when you get to those later stages, you're going to be above max aerobic power
Neal Henderson 14:33
Exactly.
Mac Cassin 14:34
To hit that via to Max, you have to essentially go above the power that you can produce aerobicly, so you can't just take the final one minute and use that as a aerobic benchmark.
Neal Henderson 14:45
Correct. You have that ability of working above that max aerobic ceiling dipping again into that anaerobic capacity and you can complete depending on the individual and their anaerobic capacity, sometimes a couple stages after the point where oxygen consumption or VO2 has peaked and what we call plateaued, where there's been an increase in work or more power produced, but no more oxygen is consumed, the work is being done, there's more watts being produced, but the energy to supply those watts above that max aerobic ceiling are coming from oxygen independent non oxidative, aka anaerobic needs.
Mac Cassin 15:21
With that someone with more I like to say is more anaerobically inclined has a bit better ability there, they can say cheat a ramp test, but they can certainly if they can dig deeper for that they can, they can last longer through a ramp, which again, you want to use longer durations of that ramp to to get a true value for that max aerobic power. And just as a an interesting side note, what we find a lot of the times is that those types of people who are more anaerobically, inclined will will hit their peak heart rate during the ramp, and then maintain that for up to a minute, maybe even two minutes in some instances, those who are less anaerobically inclined, they'll hit their max heart rate, and it's only a couple more seconds, but
Neal Henderson 15:58
Like 20 seconds, in some cases before it starts to drop down and tap out there. One of the other ways we do this is basically a five minute maximal effort. And so if you do our full frontal 4DP test, that's the effort that we use to define your max aerobic power. The ramping value is what we use in our Half Monty assessment, you have two different options, the five minute all out effort is is uncomfortable, and it also requires a little bit better pacing for it to be most effective. If you really overshoot the first minute or two, you actually will probably fatigue and have a big drop off in power, it may not actually be the highest five minute power that you could sustain had you paced it better. Same thing if you start off way too easy. And just keep ramping ramping ramping, the five minute power might be a good value, and you see an uptick in power over it. But it might not be again, a perfect reflection if you don't have a good idea of where that starting point should be. So that's a little bit harder to get right. That's why a lot of times we do recommend using the Half Monty or if you're just getting into training or don't really have any idea of what your max aerobic power is that that ramp isn't something you need to personally pace it's going to automatically especially if you're on a smart trainer in Erg mode, it's going to give you exactly what you need, all you need to do is pedal and breathe.
Mac Cassin 17:11
And we do find instances with again with people who are unexperienced with pacing their their five minute peak from the ramp is sometimes higher than if they just did that five minute effort because they just don't have the pacing quite dialed. And we use a five minute effort because when you're start working, it takes about three minutes for your body to hit equilibrium, you started an effort, it takes a while for your heart rate to come up your breathing rate to increase your ability to take an oxygen and so stretching it out to if it takes three minutes to get there, then, with a five minute effort, you essentially have two minutes at the end there where we're ensuring that you're at your aerobic limit, again at a negative split. So starting a little easier, and building up to it is generally going to give you better values. But again, my suggestion for doing that is you should get to the two and a half minute mark and think I could maybe just about hold on to this. If you're questioning things at minute one, you've you've gone out too hard. And if you get to minute four, and you're like, Oh, let me just increase it a bit. You've not quite dialed in the pacing.
Neal Henderson 18:15
And that's again, very similar to a story that a guy named Chris Boardman told Taylor Phinney about pacing a 4k effort, which isn't quite five minutes long, it was four minutes in change. For some of us, it's five minutes for faster, folks, it's definitely less than five minutes. But he said, if you get the halfway mark to the 2k. And you know, you can go harder, you've gotten too easy. If you get to the halfway point. And you know, you can't maintain that that you've gone too hard. If you get to that midway point, and think maybe I can maybe I can't, then you've faced it just right.
Mac Cassin 18:51
And again, it takes time takes practice, I've now done enough of them that I've got a pretty good I know this sensation, about 30 seconds in whether or not I've gotten out too hard or not quite. And unfortunately, that's just the result of doing it a lot of times
Neal Henderson 19:03
Yeah, and errors are part of learning in that way. So it's okay, like, it's not a failure to have a day where you've over paced it early on and paid a price. It's now you know, for what that feels like, what that's what that intensity was and be able to learn and do it a little bit better than next time.
So speaking of doing it better the next time when you quantify it, you know, just looking at your absolute power is a really good way of just seeing the progress in what you're doing. Again, some of that could be from one week to the next. If you really over paced it and then you pace it better you can see a big improvement. It's not necessarily that physiologically, you're now more capable A week later, it's just that you actually paced it better. Again, we did talk about that there is the power to weight there's map as a percentage of FTP which we'll talk about in our next episode or in a lab if you have oxygen consumption and we can also look at your watts per liter of oxygen consumed
Mac Cassin 19:51
Right so that's where again map is different than your VO2 max because you can have the same VO2 max but increase the amount of power you can produce with that amount of oxygen. So looking in the lab at those oxygen numbers is cool and can give some insights. But in reality, it's just how many watts can you push at that aerobic limit?
Neal Henderson 20:13
Exactly. And one of the things just to note, again, we mentioned that often you're gonna see that peak heart rate or maximum heart rate occurring towards the end of if you do a ramp or in the last 30 to 60 seconds, if you do a five minute max effort. In either case, that's going to be your your peak heart rate for that kind of sport specific task. Note that if you're running, you would see a different value or swimming or different sports, cross country skiing, you're gonna see different so it is specific to your sport.
Mac Cassin 20:42
Yeah, again, that heart rate will be trying your heart rate is indicative of how much oxygen you're trying to deliver. If you're doing a sport that requires more muscle groups, then you need to deliver more oxygen, so your heart rate needs to go up.
Neal Henderson 20:55
Exactly.
Mac Cassin 20:56
Okay, that's how we look at it. How do you go up? Now? How do you actually go about training your max aerobic power?
Neal Henderson 21:01
Yeah, this is an interesting one. So just general endurance riding can create some improvements for those who haven't really trained much. So there are going to be some changes in mitochondrial density occur with just general endurance training. So you know, 50 60 70% of FTP over time and building some volume there can improve your max aerobic power, to some degree
Mac Cassin 21:26
Up to a point, once you get some level of regular conditioning, or aerobic fitness, going riding easy isn't gonna cut it
Correct, that will only get you so far, then you need to go to the next level. And those are going to be harder efforts above FTP, again, we tend to use then your max aerobic power value as your target for these kinds of efforts. So they can be shorter, very hard efforts, these might be two three minute long, sustained efforts right around like 95 to 100% of your max aerobic power 95 to 105%, or repeated shorter efforts that are even potentially above max aerobic power 40 20s being that kind of like doing sets of 8 or 10 efforts in a row 6 8 10 of those 40 seconds on where you're around 100% of max aerobic power plus or minus a little bit, we'll do it even repeated sprint efforts can stimulate VO2 and max aerobic power. That's pretty interesting. Mac ehh?
What you're really trying to do there is accumulate time above 90% of your VO2max. And so there are instances of short sprint efforts where you can get that sort of oxygen demand consumption going on without having continuous intervals. And that's really, you know, that's the, to me the beauty of map and FTP when we get to that, but there's so many different ways to go about making that stimulus of
Neal Henderson 22:50
Creating a stimulus for response.
Mac Cassin 22:52
You can go with those longer three to six minute intervals. Or you can go to what Neal's talking about, like micro intervals, Tabata, 20 20 10s 40 20s anything with a basically a two to one work to rest ratio. And again, those will have targets above map. And again, you can get that same amount of time above 90% of VO2 max a lot of different ways. And in my opinion, the best way to do it is the way that you enjoy doing it. I would rather pull my toenails off than do repeated four minute map intervals. I will gladly do 40 20s or 201 0s. In fact, I'll just does generally what I do if I just want a hard workout. That's basically my go to because when I'm good at it, which you know, makes it easier.
Neal Henderson 23:39
Yeah.
Mac Cassin 23:40
But it's just I find it works for me. I can get through them. Yeah, so I'd rather have a vo two max or map workout that I'd like to do rather than one.
Neal Henderson 23:50
Yep, because these are challenging. And one of the thing I think just making sure we talk about on the longer intervals, making sure your recovery is adequate, like closer to a one to one ratio. Maybe one to two is kinda like where I where I draw the line. If you're not able to recover and repeat the power on those longer intervals, after double the recovery time of the duration of your effort, then it's time to pull the pin and either shorten the efforts or call the session off early.
These sessions. You can't do them successfully at significantly lower power targets. Yep, if you're more than 10% off of your target power after you've increased the recovery time, pull the pin and eject
Mac Cassin 24:29
There's nothing wrong without these are hard sessions. If they are easy, then everyone would do them all the time. But
Neal Henderson 24:35
And knowing the right amount will definitely help you develop and build a higher map over time than just flogging yourself.
Mac Cassin 24:43
I've already said the 40 20s are my favorite. So that's like Rue The Day, Revolver which is one minute on one minute off. And honestly any sort of just Tabata. The invoke one right now is 30 fifteens. There's a lot of studies going on around that. But again, it's just short intervals two to one work to rest.
Neal Henderson 25:01
Yes, does it? Yeah. For me, I like 14 Vise Grips. So those are 30 60 90 sec two minute efforts at 100% a map about Rue The Day those 40 20s And then I mean classic you cannot say you're doing map workout if you if you're not doing Nine Hammers, it's got to be
Mac Cassin 25:21
I can say that.
Neal Henderson 25:23
It's got to be in the mix Mac that you don't have to do it all the time. You don't have to love it, but it is one of the most effective ones there
Mac Cassin 25:29
It is. And that there's a similar one one of our messages decide anecdotally the hardest I think map session I ever did was that track camp, they had us all in the altitude chamber to put us down to sea level. And we had three sets three by three by three so three sets of three minutes. Three times so it ended up being some clarity. So one minute 27 minutes at 100% map and
Neal Henderson 25:59
That's 27 hammers Yeah, that was I mean nine hammers is easy Mac see in retro.
Mac Cassin 26:04
Yeah, cuz that
Neal Henderson 26:04
Relatively speaking,
Mac Cassin 26:05
Relatively speaking, it's all relative, but man, if you want to smash yourself for a few days, that's how we'll do it.
Neal Henderson 26:11
Yeah, make sure you recover after sessions like this. You can't just go out and, you know, carry out upon your training business the day after, and like nothing happened because something did it's going to take 24 48 hours if you do them right, sometimes even 72 hours. So make sure you respect the recovery necessary after these kinds of obsessions.
Mac Cassin 26:29
Well, that is it for this third episode in our 4DP metric series. I hope you're able to take away some useful information about map and utilize it to help make you a better endurance athlete. Thanks for listening to The Knowledge Podcast by Wahoo.