October 20, 2009
Podcast #65 from https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/2009/10/podcast-episode-65-research-qa-and-how-to-fix-injuries-with-tape/
Introduction: In this podcast episode: understanding your fat-burning zone, how to break sugar addictions, what number of weightlifting repetitions gets you the best results, a new women’s multi-vitamin, mercury in fish, and how tape can fix injuries.
Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield, your friendly host and don’t worry, today is not actually a 90 minute or two hour marathon podcast. We actually may even come in under an hour in today’s podcast so that ought to allow you to plan your listening session accordingly. We’ll have a few short special announcements, a couple of new videos I’ve posted up on the website, a few new resources for you. We have a pretty good Listener Q and A and a glance into this month’s Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and a very interesting interview with a gentleman named Greg from a company called Rock Tape and especially for any of you out there who are weekend warriors, who are triathletes, who are playing in a basketball league or a soccer league and have some nagging injury that’s been bothering you – Greg has some answers so you’re going to want to listen to that and we’re going to go straight into this week’s podcast from www.bengreenfieldfitness.com.
So the first question for this week comes from Listener Todd.
Todd asks: My question this week is around nutrition and curbing sugar craving, especially at night. I’m working hard to control my insulin levels during the day, and for the most part am doing well. However, after a modest dinner I find myself having the strongest cravings for sweets. I am using whole fruits and nuts during the day, and complex carbs before and after workouts. Is my body trying to tell me something with these cravings (i.e. something I’m not getting during the day), or is this just part of breaking the sugar addiction? Is anyone else having this challenge at night?
Ben answers: I am going to raise my hand on that one Todd and say that I have struggled with that challenge before at night and there are a couple potential reasons for that and a couple potential fixes. The first is that I know that because you had emailed me in a separate email that you are in the process right now of changing your diet, and you’re switching to some other more holistic meal plans that I’ve recommended on this podcast. Now one of the consequences of that is you are consuming more lean proteins, more healthy fats, more nuts and seeds as you say. However you’re also curbing your sugar intake. Especially from starches and from processed or what would be called higher glycemic index sugars or sweeter sugars. Now when that happens, your body is going to have a little bit lower blood sugar levels at certain points through the day and your body is also not going to be experiencing the dopamine release that occurs when you do consume carbohydrate. The dopamine release that occurs is different than that you get from a protein. Or a fat. And so if you’re used to that type of neurotransmitter release when you consume a carbohydrate then your body is not going to be getting that fix so to speak that it’s been used to for whatever – a year, two years, three years – and yeah that addiction cannot be broken overnight. I’ve had clients who go through about five to seven days of being extremely grumpy, being fatigued, having cravings like you say. Their families don’t want to be around them. They kind of go through that dark place for a little while but when you come out the other side and you can look at a cookie sitting on a table and not even think twice about wanting to eat it and you can see a bowl of M&Ms and not feel like you have to reach for it and that stuff doesn’t actually appeal to you, it’s a pretty cool feeling and it’s a powerful feeling and so when you make it through those first few days and usually it is anywhere from five days to a little over a week, then those cravings do subside. But you have to re-train your body. It’s just like Pavlov’s dog. When it hears the bell, it drools. For your body, when you finish dinner, your body says ok where’s the sweet thing that I’m used to getting for the past few years? When you take that away, it takes some getting used to. So, if you have gone through that place where you’ve broken the sugar addiction, where you’ve broken the carbohydrate cravings, where you’ve been eating healthy for 15 days or 30 days and you’re experiencing carbohydrate cravings at night and these are the ones that I’ll sometimes experience, typically the number one reason for that and this is something that I’ll see in my clients’ diet logs that they send me, is inadequate post-workout carbohydrate intake, meaning that you finish a workout and you don’t eat within that 20 minute window and not only do you not eat within that 20 minute window, but when you do eat, you don’t put sufficient carbohydrates into your body. So you have a protein bar or a protein shake or a handful of nuts and you’re not giving your body all that glycogen that it’s craving to suck up and put into the muscle. So once you adjust that post-workout meal by adding more carbohydrates than you were doing, you’ll find that later on in the day, your body is not craving those carbohydrates like you kind of suggested in your question, so step one is to make sure that you have already gone through that – basically kind of week long period where your breaking that sugar addiction. Step two if is you’ve already broken it, take your post-workout meal. Make sure that it’s within 20 minutes after your workout and then that you’re including adequate post-workout carbohydrate intake and typically that’s going to mean that depending on the length of the workout, you’re taking in anywhere from 200 up to 400 calories of a carbohydrate. And you’re still going to be combining that with a protein, but really one of the more carbohydrate dense meals of your day should be that post-workout meal. So, good question Todd.
Ace asks: I am an avid triathlete and watch mu nutrition very carefully. However, I am a tuna-fish freak, full-protein-packed food source, affordable and very tasty. However, I have read tons of articles about the potential hazard mercury and maybe other toxins poses via canned tuna consumption. Any thoughts or solid research studies on this? How can one substitute? Also, do you think that that even with 6 cans of tuna per week during lunch, the potential harm of mercury can be hindered if the diet consists of tons of raw fruits and veggies, mainly greens? Finally, are there any tuna species that is less prone to toxins than others?
Ben answers: Great question Ace. So first of all, let’s take a look at the 6 cans of tuna that you are consuming. There is actually a chart put out by the Environmental Protection Agency that talks about how much tuna you should eat based off your weight and if you look at your chart – let’s assume, Ace, for example you’re about a 150 lb man. Now the recommendations on the Environmental Protection Agency’s chart based off mercury contamination in fish for tuna is that you not eat more than one can of white albacore tuna every nine days if you’re 150 lbs or more and that you not eat more than one can of chunky light tuna, which is more often the canned version, every 3 days. Which would mean you’d be down to 2 cans a week if you’re following the EPA’s recommendations on tuna fish consumption. So the whole idea behind this is that in our industrial society, we’ve got coal burning plants, we’ve got municipal waste combustors. We’ve got medical waste incinerators. There’s hazardous waste combustors. There’s all sorts of mercury going up into the air, typically travelling through smoke stacks in tiny particles and then falling down on the ground, on the soil or specifically onto water. And that mercury accumulates very easily in fish and in wildlife and in the case of tuna, what happens is smaller fish are eaten by bigger fish and tuna are a little bit on the bigger side. And the big fish or the fish eating birds, they’ll have higher levels of mercury contamination and you’re also going to get a lot of mercury just basically going into industrial waste water. So tuna is definitely one of the fish that’s higher in mercury. Now regarding your question on research studies, I’m aware of one research study that was done up in Canada where they purchased tuna. The researchers purchased cans of white tuna at nine different grocery stores across Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto and 13% of that tuna exceed Canada’s health guidelines for the amount of mercury in tuna. Now, based off that I would say that if you were a pregnant woman, definitely no tuna at all. Where you’re at right now, let’s say you are right around 150 lb man, 150 plus pound male. I would try and limit it to about two cans of the tuna per week and yes, there are higher levels of mercury in some forms of tuna. You’re going to find the lowest levels in albacore or in yellow fin tuna. And that would be like US, Canada, Atlantic albacore or yellow fin. The canned light tuna, the canned light albacore meaning the non-fresh – the non-steak version that you’re going to get in the fresh seafood aisle, that’s a little bit higher. That’d be considered medium level intensity for mercury levels and then the really high levels would be blue fin tuna or imported internationally caught big eye or yellow fin tuna. So you’re kind of at the midlevel with the canned stuff. Now as far as alternatives to tuna, for fish based alternatives, there are some things out there. Salmon, you can now get canned. You can get that also in those bags. They’re a little bit easier to travel with. That’s going to be a little bit lower in mercury levels. There are two types of fish – one called haddock and one called Pollack that you can also get as kind of more like a flaky version that you could put on a salad or have with a lunch. Again, not in that convenient can version but they’re available. Sardines as a matter of fact which you can get in a more canned, transportable version – those as well as mackerel are still going to be pretty good for you in terms of the healthy fats that are in them and they’re not going to have the same amount of mercury in them as tuna will. Then finally there are some non-fish alternatives to tuna. You can look at the seeds, the nuts for example. Lots of times with a salad, I’ll have pumpkin seeds. I’ll have sunflower seeds. Almonds are another popular one. Brazil nuts. Any number of beans, lentils and legumes are also going to have a good amount of protein in them that will replace what you’re missing if you skip out on all those cans of tuna you’re having during the week. There are actual vegetarian tuna alternatives. Now I’m not completely sure of what the ingredients are in some of the vegetarian alternatives but I’m going to hazard a guess that soy is one of the primary ingredients. But there’s one made by a company called Dixie Diner that’s a vegan tuna alternative. There’s another one called May Wah’s vegetarian tuna and vegetarian tuna steak. There’s one put out by a company called Scott Adams Foods called Vege-tuna and there’s also one called Tuno. A little bit more fringe. You’ll probably find those at your local health food store or Whole Foods type of store. But there are some alternatives out there. What it comes down to though is that – take me for example, I used to eat a lot of peanut butter. I was the college student eating four tablespoons of that when I’d get home after class in the afternoon. And when I finally did some research and realized how many potential toxins and molds are present in commercial peanut butter along with the sugars, the added starches and the added oils that are in peanut butter – I switched to almond butter, cashew butter and completely natural organic peanut butter. And because I use it as a staple, I’m not getting those levels accumulating in my body based on that daily volume of nut butter. Same goes for you with tuna. I’d step back and say, gosh close your eyes. Look at that giant mountain of tuna that you’re probably consuming in one year and think about what you might be doing to your body in terms of the amount of heavy metal that you’re taking on, the amount of mercury that you’re accumulating in your body. So, that’s a really good question Ace and I appreciate the intelligent questions this week. Good job you guys. I also had a call-in comment from Listener Eric who heard podcast number 52 and 63 and decided to go do the Bioletics testing protocol.
Eric: Hey Ben, this is Eric over in Coeur D’Alene. I got your Ironman Triathlon Dominator program and the timing is perfect because I also got my Bioletics results back and I incorporated the results best with your diet recommendations, your food list recommendations and plans and it’s 7 days now and I just wanted to let you know that this fueling aspect of it is making a huge difference in the way I feel. I feel much lighter, I guess. Stronger in my workouts and just feeling all in all very, very good. A lot better than I had been feeling in a long, long time. And looking forward to getting even healthier. So thank you very much for the nutrition plan and recommending Bioletics to have a closer look at how I work so to speak, and looking forward to continuing on with the training plan. It’s fantastic so far and thanks a lot for all the advice. Looking forward to the next podcast. Take care, bye.
Ben: Well Eric, thanks for the feedback. So if you’re a Listener and you have feedback or you have a question, you have a comment – you could do what Eric did and actually call in and leave it. There’s a toll free number, believe it or not, that is 8772099439. Don’t worry you don’t have to memorize that, it’s in the podcast Shownotes. You can also email [email protected]. Now there was one other thing that I wanted to mention before we move on to this week’s Rock Tape interview. And that is that for all of my current clients out there – the triathletes who I coach or the individuals for whom I’m doing online personal training and nutrition consulting with – you can now log on to your online training program right there at www.bengreenfieldfitness.com. You just scroll down the right hand side of the page. It’s kind of near the top, but there’s a little place to type in your user name and password to access your online training program. And if you yourself are a coach or a personal trainer and you’re listening in to this podcast, if you want to see kind of how I manage my clients and the athletes that I coach, you can also go to that same log in box and there’s a little place you can click and see the software that I use to coach the people that I work with, so you can offer your clients a little bit more. So let’s go ahead and move on to this week’s interview.
Ben: Hey podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield and I’m here today with a gentleman on the other line who’s the founder of a company called Rock Tape and I’m going to let him tell you what Rock Tape is all about. But it’s something that in the past I understand that Lance Armstrong has used something similar to this and a lot of professional athletes are using this brand new stuff. So rather than have me try to explain to you exactly what it is, I’m going to talk to Greg van der Dries today and he’s going to really explain everything about Rock Tape. So Greg, thanks for coming on.
Greg van der Dries: Oh my pleasure Ben. Thank you for having me. I’ll be happy… oh go ahead.
Ben: Real quick. If people are sitting in front of their computers, www.rocktape.com is where you’d want to go to actually look at this stuff as Greg talks about it but Greg where do you want to start?
Greg van der Dries: Well, why don’t we just start with a little overview of what Rock Tape is. So Rock Tape is a new type of high tech athletic tape that’s used to treat common sports injuries as well as for performance. So a lot of people know of this type of tape as kinesiology tape which has been around for about 12, 13 years so it’s well proven in the medical world. What we’ve done is we’ve taken that basic concept and we’ve re-engineered it for the endurance athlete of the world. So what we did was we took kinesiology tape and made it withstand competition settings. So we made it stickier so it’s not going to fall off during your race. We’ve made it stretchier so it doesn’t reduce your range of motion. And we made it a little bit tighter in its weave so it just feels much, much more comfortable.
Ben: Now to interrupt you for just a second, what exactly is kinesiology tape?
Greg van der Dries: Right. Kinesiology tape is – it’s a medical grade tape that’s used to treat common sports injuries and post-operative surgeries. So it’s designed to promote blood flow and drain lymph fluid. And that’s really great for sports injuries because typically what you want to do is accelerate the body’s natural recovery capabilities by getting extra blood to that damaged area. And if there’s any edema or swelling, you want to drain that lymph fluid out which is causing the congestion. When you get congestion in a joint or muscle, that typically pinches the nerves and is a catalyst for the pain.
Ben: Gotcha. So the kinesio tape is something that’s been used in the past to assist with injury management and you guys have improved on that concept.
Greg van der Dries: Exactly. And if you think about it, the same clients that helps alleviate common sports injuries like increasing blood flow and draining lymph fluid can also be used for performance advantages. So we all know that getting more blood to a muscle is always a good thing. Why is that a good thing? Well it helps reduce fatigue and if you’re not as fatigued, then you can obviously go harder and stronger or longer as we say in the Rock Tape biz. Additionally, this type of tape reduces muscle vibration which is also a leading cause of muscle fatigue. So just as you might wear compression garments to reduce muscle vibration, you can also wear tape. And in fact, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this or your listeners are – but the WTC, the World Triathlon Corporation recently banned compression socks at Kona this year. In Ironman Kona competition. Subsequently they reversed the ban, because I think all the guys complained. But what we did was we jumped on that, right? Because compression garments are great and Rock Tape works great with compression garments. But a sleeve that fits me may not fit you. And vice versa but with Rock Tape, you can build a compression ring around your calve that is totally dialed in to the exact right amount of compression that you want. So we kind of think of it as a high resolution compression garment.
Ben: And it’s something that you would do yourself at home? Put this tape on?
Greg van der Dries: Absolutely. We’ve sold thousands and thousands and thousands of rolls of this already. Primarily to elite athletes and weekend warriors and they’re taking it and they’re following the video instructions that we have on our website that show you how to tape and they’re doing it in the field before races, at home… it’s really simple to do.
Ben: Really, so you can go online, you can look at this video that shows you how to apply this tape. What about some kind of a manual? Do you get instructions with the tape as well?
Greg van der Dries: Yes you do. You get a small booklet that’s contained in every box of Rock Tape that shows you about seven of the most common taping protocols. And then if you want to explore a couple of other protocols, there are 17 different videos that you can watch online. I also mentioned… this is kind of a scoop for you but next week we’re publishing a book on power taping. And what power taping is a new type of protocol that we’ve developed that shows you how to tape for performance. So while Rock Tape is great for treating these nagging little injuries we all suffer from, from time to time, whether it be IT band, runner’s knee, cyclists knee, Achilles tendon, various sprains, the lower back, shoulder pain – that kind of thing – there’s a whole new area that we’re exploring called power taping which is just putting tape on to promote… for performance. And the basic synopsis is that there’s large muscle groups in your body that are sports specific and by putting a tactical piece of sensation on the largest organ of the body, which is your skin, with tape – what we do is we increase propeoception and that’s a fancy way of saying your brain is better organized the firing and contractions of your muscles because it can feel this tape on your skin so if it’s more organized, it operates more efficiently and economically and of course if you’re more economic in your motions and your movements, then you fatigue less.
Ben: Interesting. So can you give me an example of some of the type of injuries you would actually use something like this for? Just walk me through the process of the athlete getting injured, how do we get the Rock Tape, when it comes how do we put it on and what type of things is it really effective for?
Greg van der Dries: Sure, the most popular taping that we do is of course the knee because that is a joint that takes a lot of trauma during running and a little bit in cycling. The typical problem with knees is they wear out as we age. And you get this cartilage on cartilage problem which is very, very painful and you get a case of tendonitis in your knee and it becomes very painful to run or cycle. So what we do is after you get your Rock Tape, you basically take three pieces of tape about 8 inches long and you anchor one above the patella or knee cap and run it right below and then do the same thing on the other side of the knee and that covers up the IT band and basically creates a basket of support for the knee and then the last piece – the third piece – you put right underneath the knee cap and that basically locks the knee cap into place so it doesn’t float around and you get that grinding that we all have sometimes and that solves 99.9% of tendonitis in the knee. What that enables an athlete to do is get out and perform like they want to without having this nagging pain issue that detracts from their performance.
Ben: Say I wanted to put this stuff on my shoulder and go for a swim, is it waterproof? Does it hold up when you’re swimming with a wetsuit on or in the open water, the chlorine? How does it work with swimming?
Greg van der Dries: It sure is. We’ve taped over 2,000 triathletes and we haven’t had one tape failure and you have to realize it takes a bit of engineering to make a little piece of tape withstand that kind of torture. You guys are jumping in the Pacific, they’re swimming for half a mile… which isn’t that hard on the tape but when they get out and cut through that transition and they’re ripping that wetsuit off over a wet piece of tape, you really have to have the formula right for it to hang and we do. Then they jump on the bike and ride for 40k which isn’t that difficult because that’s a pretty low impact sport, but they go run 6 to 10 miles and that’s a high impact sport and that’s like… each foot follows over 6 Gs worth of impact so over 6 miles that’s like 30,000 G-forces pulling on the tape trying to make it come off. So we really had to engineer it for the endurance athlete and I’m proud to say that I think of the 2,000 odd athletes that we’ve taped… we’ve had one tape failure.
Ben: Wow, that’s amazing. I’m on your website right now and I’m looking at the actual rolls. You’ve got these in all sorts of different colors, it’s kind of cool. Some different designs. But as far as one roll goes, would one roll be something that would get me through taping my knee for a single race or is that a week’s worth of training supplies? How do those rolls work in terms of how much tape you actually go through?
Greg van der Dries: So each roll has 5 meters of material in it which is about 16 and a half feet, and a roll will last about a month for a typical athlete. Usage varies depending on how big you are and of course how much you’re using the tape and which body part you’re taping, but typically it lasts anywhere from a month to two months.
Ben: Interesting.
Greg van der Dries: The one thing I’ll point is that the protocol for using this is a little bit different than your traditional athletic tape. Your traditional athletic tape actually does not stretch. Our tape stretches over 90% and that’s why you have full range of motion and if you’re familiar with the old school athletic tape when you got taped up by your coach or trainer, typically they would just bind you because it was all about stability and basically those things act as a tourniquet. But this neoprene knee brace or old school athletic tape, you’re actually cutting off the blood flow to the damaged area which if you think about it is probably not the smartest thing that you want to do which is why you always took it off about an hour after you put it on, right? Rock Tape is completely different. What you do is you put it on the day before you race, you leave it on during race day. You leave it on the day after the race to promote recovery and then you take it off on your fourth day. So that’s why we’re able to get a month to two month’s usage out of 5 meters versus something much smaller.
Ben: Right. Now what kind of people are using this? I don’t know if you can do any namedropping but do you have any… is this primarily triathletes? Do you have power athletes? Weightlifters? Team athletes? What kind of people?
Greg van der Dries: We’re very, very proud of our athletes that you know and you don’t know. We give a lot back to a lot of the fringe sports and specifically to the kids in the fringe sports. We’re a big supporter of junior cycling. We participated in the junior national cycling competition this year up in Bend, and that was U-23 and juniors as well. And we probably taped 50 athletes and I’d say over 12 were on the podium this year so guys like Ian Moore who just won the US track national championship just a few days ago. He’s one of our rock stars. Young kid, great kid down in Southern California. We’ve got Jackson Stewart who rides for BMC. He’s a pro. Daniel Holloway, Shelly Olds who’s the 2008 national track champion, Terry Higgins – 5 time national track champion. The list goes on and on and on and on. So we’ve got some world class athletes out there. We’re really proud that we just announced that Jenna Schumacher… a top-rated triathlete… we’re doing a custom breast cancer tape for her so it’s black with the pink ribbon and she’s going to be wearing that out on her races and of course we’re donating all the proceeds to the Cancer Society.
Ben: Wow. And www.rocktape.com which is a website I’m actually looking at right now has a lot of information, a lot of really cool pictures of how the tape is being applied and I’m actually pretty excited to have found this just because if it, like you say, can be something a little bit more dynamic and customizable than say a compression sock or a compression tight… so Greg, from www.rocktape.com. Is that the best place for people to go to find out more resources or find out more information on taping like this?
Greg van der Dries: Absolutely. You can go to www.rocktape.com. You can learn about the whole taping protocol. You can of course purchase products there. We’re online at a variety of online retailers as well so it’s great resources to go and familiarize yourself with the concept behind taping and then of course we also do a ton of events, Ben. I can’t tell you… I think we’ve done 60 events over the last 90 days so we’re actually at your local race, your local tri… just look for the Rock Tape sign and tent and come back and say hi.
Ben: Fantastic. I’ll put a link in the Shownotes to www.rocktape.com. You can go check it out if you’re somebody who’s kind of struggling with an injury, you want to figure out if this type of taping is actually something that will work for you… go check it out. So, Greg thanks for coming on the show today.
Greg van der Dries: Thank you Ben.
Ben: Now after we finished that interview, Greg gave me some pretty cool news. What he wants to do is offer anybody that listens to this show a 10% discount on Rock Tape so it’s already – what did he say? $20? So that would make it even less. Looks like $18 for some of this Rock Tape, for a month’s supply of Rock Tape. You have to use discount code Greenfield. So you go to www.rocktape.com, you choose what you want or you call him up on the phone and you use discount code Greenfield to get a 10% discount on Rock Tape. So thanks Greg, that was really generous.
Now before we close out the show today, I know that I promised you that I was going to talk a little bit about fat burning zones and some of the research from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. And I was also going to tell you about the hormonal response to resistance training. So these were probably the two studies in the research journal that just came out this week that I really wanted to bring to your attention. Now the first one that looked at the number of repetitions used during weightlifting was kind of looking at the response when people lifted at about 50% of what’s called their one repetition max, people lifting at 75% of that and people who lifted at 90% of that. And what they were looking at was something called the creatine kinase response as well as the testosterone response after the workout and the cortisol response after the workout. What they found was that the hormonal response to weightlifting or resistance training was most elevated in the group that used about 75% of a one repetition max. So the way you can think about it is not a really light load and not a really heavy load but basically kind of a medium load, the type of load you would use with right around 10 to 12 repetitions and so what that means is if all you’re going after is getting yourself kind of tired out, really working the muscle and getting the maximum hormonal adaptation to strength training or to weight lifting or to lean muscle toning in the weight room – that 10 to 12 rep range is probably going to be a pretty good range for you if you really, truly are using about 75% of your one repetition maximum. That doesn’t mean you have to go do a one repetition maximum test. You can actually approximate about what 75% intensity feels like for you. And then the other study that I wanted to talk to you about was one that looked at the difference in the fat burning zone and what’s called the aerobic zone. There have been many studies that have come out over the years that have literally hooked people up to masks, measured the amount of carbon dioxide they produced and the amount of oxygen they consumed and determine which heart rate elicited the greatest burn of fat. And this study wanted to see whether the fat burning zone in most people was actually high enough to actually get those people aerobically fit at the same time. And so what they did was they tested people on a treadmill, they measured the amount of fat that they were oxidizing and it turned out that most people do reach their maximum fat burning zone at an intensity that’s high enough to actually give them some cardiovascular training adaptations. Now the flip side to that is that this zone varied a lot from individual to individual. It turned out to be between 60 and 80% of your maximum heart rate. That was where the maximum fat burning zone was. And so for somebody like… ok, let’s just say me. If my max heart rate is 190, 60% of that is about 112. 80% of that is about 152. That’s a pretty big range to kind of guess whether my fat burning heart rate zone is closer to 112 or closer to 152. You can get your fat burning zone tested using the identical protocol that they used in this study and that’s where you go into an exercise physiology lab or you go to a metabolic laboratory and you tell them that you want an exercise metabolic test or it’s also known as a VO2 test. And that way you can find out the exact heart rate at which you peak in your fat oxidizing. That would kind of be the gold standard way to make sure that you’re not just doing guess work. Otherwise 60 to 80% is a pretty big range. One of the things that you can do is just monitor your body. If you get to the point where your muscles are burning and you’re breathing hard, then you’re past your maximum fat burning zone. And when I put together the programs for the clients I work with we will use a combination of the fat burning zone, of what I call the fitness zone, of some high intensity intervals, some low intensity aerobic work. So it’s not like the fat burning zone is all that you’ll ever want to work in if you want to burn fat but do understand that it’s highly variable from individual to individual, and that’s this weeks’ news from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
For personal nutrition, fitness or triathlon consulting, supplements, books or DVD’s from Ben Greenfield, please visit Pacific Elite Fitness at http://www.pacificfit.net