All About Heart-Rate Training: How to Use it to Maximize Your Fitness Efforts

< Full Episode

Transcript: All About Heart-Rate Training: How to Use it to Maximize Your Fitness Efforts

Season 5, Episode 10  | June 21, 2022

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Welcome back to Life Time Talks. I’m Jamie Martin.

And I’m David Freeman.

And we are back with Danny King, a favorite guest of ours on the podcast. And we are talking about heart rate training. Before we get into that, Danny is a master trainer at Life Time as well as the National Manager of PT experiences. He has been working with clients at lifetime and other places for about 15 years. So welcome back.

Thank you so much. Excited to be here. Excited to talk about heart rate.

Yeah. We’re excited about it, too. Like I think my heart skipped a beat just thinking about today’s episode. All right. Danny, let’s get right into it, heart rate training. Why heart rate training is beneficial within health and fitness?

Yeah. So when we think about heart rate training, we’re traditionally thinking about cardiovascular exercise, some type of exercise that our main goal is to get the heart and the lungs moving and working. And when we’re doing that type of exercise, we need something to tell us how hard we’re working.

A lot of people rely on, hey, what is the treadmill telling me? What’s the speed? But that’s only telling you how hard the treadmill is working. So we need to understand how hard our body is working.

And for most people in most situations, heart rate training is simply the easiest way to do that. It is in a lot of ways your body speedometer to what it’s really doing. That’s the, I guess, the way to start this whole thing.

So obviously, it’s a tool for building fitness. But what are some of the other benefits of bringing heart rate training into your exercise regimen?

Yeah. I mean, building fitness is the, I guess, global thing. But whatever we’re looking at, when we go and do an exercise, there’s a purpose behind it, or there’s something we’re trying to do, whether that’s I’m exercising to lose weight, to burn fat, to build health, to do all of these things. And at times, we want to be working at different intensities.

And again, heart rate is just going to help us indicate that we’re at the best intensity to really do the thing that we want to do. So if I’m deciding to train for a marathon, and I’m going for a long run, there’s some really specific intensities that I want to work at to optimize my fitness there.

If I’m doing an interval training workout, and I’m trying to do something I’ve read about the benefits of high intensity interval training, there’s an optimal intensity to get that there. So heart rate allows us to program specifically and get the most out of every workout as we’re doing it regardless of goal.

I want to geek out here just because it’s so much around heart rate training. And when we speak of some of the programs that we do at Life Time, it is a cornerstone for us. So when we look at our aerobic base, when we look at how we now get to that threshold, the benefits of understanding what aerobic base is and then also what threshold is.

Because we associate, a lot of times, to harder is better, or I need to be almost about to pass out for me to get the most out of this. But in the reality, we know in those lower zones is where we’re utilizing fat as one of our primary energy sources. So take us to the aerobic base in anaerobic threshold.

Absolutely. I’m going to add one component in there, and say, aerobic base and anaerobic threshold. And then people probably also heard VO2 max as sort of your maximal intensity.

Yeah.

And since you said you wanted to geek out, I could give you the science keywords for it. So aerobic base and aerobic threshold are– the real names would be ventilatory threshold 1 and ventilatory threshold 2, VT1 and VT2.

Yeah.

And what we’re really looking at these different intensities is as the body goes from resting up to a maximal effort, how much work it takes to get us there is going to change. So that’s going to dictate the fuel that we’re using or the system that we’re using.

So when we hear this idea of aerobic base, or VT1 is the fancy word for it, is it’s really the intensity at which our body has to start speeding up its breath rate. Below that point, we can talk fairly normally and talk very comfortably.

And below that point, we think of fat as our primary fuel source. The exercise is a little easier, and oxygen is primarily fueling. That’s a fairly easy intensity for most people.

So we cross that threshold. And what happens above that first thing, we say, at aerobic base, is it’s not that I can’t talk. It’s just a little bit harder. So I can get a sentence in. I can get maybe two or three sentences, but I definitely have to breathe a little harder.

As we go up more, as we hit that ventilatory threshold to our anaerobic threshold, and that’s the point where I can no longer say more than two or three words at a time, or my body has gone anaerobic. And when we’re anaerobic, we’re using stored sugar or glycogen as our fuel source, right. It’s dominantly there, because that’s the intense we need to work. Sugar is a great fuel when we want to use it at the right time. But we use it when it’s harder work, right? It’s a faster fuel source.

And then above that, we think of this idea of your VO2 max is getting above that point. And that’s the intensity with which my body taps out. And I no longer have any– I can’t utilize any more oxygen. So maybe I can go above that a little bit more, but I’m really on borrowed time.

A lot of athletes will brag about their VO2 max, or you hear about this term all the time. But it’s honestly, for most people in their fitness journey, much less important than these other two, this idea of aerobic base and anaerobic threshold. That’s where we really want to hone in and understand where they are, so we can understand where we’re training in relation to those two things.

Right. So let’s talk a little bit about the zone. So when we’ve talked about a historically, Life Time has kind of been five zones.

Yeah.

So walk us through each of those, and what’s happening, and where the real big base.

Absolutely.

I’ll fed into that.

Yep. So we’ll start low. So we’re going to start at zone 1. And zone 1, for most people, is really easy. We’re going to define that as being not quite at rest, but the minute that we get above what we’d consider at rest. So for some people that could be walking on a treadmill, for some people, it’s a little bit higher than that. And zone 1 is going to kind of work up into– so we consider that your active recovery.

A little light for real fitness improvement for most people. But either, maybe I am doing a recovery exercise day, I want it to be a little more than a walk, a little bit harder all the way to that’s where I’m recovering between intervals or between sets of exercise or something like that.

Then I transitioned into my zone 2. So the transition from zone 1 to zone 2 is where we consider that aerobic base. So we start to get to that point where it just gets a little harder, and zone 2 is really our primary, like aerobic endurance zone.

As you start to talk to a lot of run coaches and a lot of really endurance athletes, it’s where most of us should be spending the bulk of our time. Most of us are not spending the bulk of our time there, because it actually feels a little too easy where we’re tending to kind of actually creep up into what we call zone 3.

So zone 3 is high end aerobic. We’re still using oxygen as our fuel source. But because we’ve gotten above that harder breathing point, right, it started to escalate a little more, we’re aerobic, but we’re probably at least 50% sugar. We’re getting a little more burn, right?

I guess the biggest downside to using sugar for fuel here. There’s two. One, as we use it, it does tend to– like if your body eats it a lot, it kind of wants it, right? But the other thing is it’s almost like a dirtier fuel source. There’s a lot more waste product buildup to sugar. So that burn your feeling when you exercise is byproducts of glycogen or sugar metabolism, right?

So most people like to be in that zone 3 area, because it feels more like exercise, right? They’re feeling the burn, and they’ve been told to do that. But you’re going to get all the benefits of that plus more usually probably working a little bit lower. Or again, when we get above zone 3, so to keep going and cross into zone 4, that’s where we get to that anaerobic threshold.

So crossing above that, the body is going anaerobic. And then we’re above that in that zone, 4 that’s a short burst effort. And I can’t talk for more than two or three words. I’m looking for a way out. I don’t have a lot of effort there. And then above zone 4, there’s zone 5. That’s our maximal effort, right? It’s absolute peak. I can only be there for 30 seconds to a minute.

And so going back is a lot of people are spending too much time in that zone 3 where they should be either spending time below it, or going from below it to above it, right? It’s not quite hard enough, but it’s also not quite easy enough.

And that’s been my exact experience whenever I’ve done heart rate training is that, I’m like, oh, I need to be working harder. I need to feel like I’m sweating more. And zone 2 has been like, I actually need to slow down sometimes to get my heart rate in that zone. At least when I was not trained very well. I was getting into the training.

But it was hard to stay there and feel like, especially after my history of working out over the years. But it was also the most effective. My workouts had been in a really long time.

Yeah. Most people who start training to heart rate, and we ask them to slow down the first three to four weeks. Because I actually feel like I’m a hostage negotiator. Like I promise you– like I’m talking you down. I’m trying to do whatever I can to get you through it. And it’s actually sometimes like I just need you to try, right? Just put your faith in me. We’re going to do this.

And then, at usually it’s about that four to six-week mark, all of a sudden, they’re running faster than they have before they’re going harder than they’ve ever have, feeling better than they ever have, and they’re like, oh, I get it now, right?

I would say we’re not running into this brick wall. We’re developing our fitness without some of that negative pain or without leaving the gym so starving or so kind of sugar craved, that were like the first thing I see, I’m going for it, right?

Yeah. I mean, we’ve all become victims of that perception of reality, because we have such– there’s readily available like material that we’re seeing and we’re associating to great workouts. Or I see the way Danny looks and aesthetically pleasing, so I want to look like that I see what he is doing on his Instagram or whatever social platform.

And what you just said when you– it was a mic drop moment as far as when you’re literally in those lower zones. You’re training your body, so while it’s at rest, to utilize fat as his primary energy source. If you are training at these high intensity levels for long periods of time, then a body wants to probably utilize that and hold on to the fat.

Correct me if I’m wrong there. So if the way you’re training is now going to be a byproduct of how your body responds when it’s at rest, yes?

Yeah, absolutely. There’s this really great concept called metabolic flexibility. And metabolic flexibility is the ability to switch between utilizing fat and sugar for fuel. And we want at rest all the way up, honestly, usually as high as we can, to utilize fat efficiently for fuel.

And there’s a host of benefits there besides just this. People hear that right, or they’ve heard fat burn zone over time. And maybe it’s kind of even fallen out of popularity, because it doesn’t necessarily burn more calories or this. And it’s not about the short term. It’s fat for fuel keeps us in a much less stressful scenario. It preferentially helps us understand which feel to be using.

And so when we get in really stress situations, and I would consider running at that mid zone 3 to be pretty stressful, a lot of cortisol, a lot of stress, is it’s just shoving us into being a sugar burner. And then oftentimes, our diet, right, we tend to be a little bit too much sugar. A lot of people do so they go that way. And then there’s stress outside the gym that’s causing us.

And what happens over time is, honestly, people stop learning how their body shuts down, doesn’t know how to use fat for fuel. And they can be full but yet hungry, because blood sugars, roller coaster, and all these things are happening where when we teach them to utilize fat. And one of the ways, there’s obviously the dietary side of it. And you’ve had some of our wonderful people out here talking about all those benefits.

But from an exercise standpoint is slowing the body down and helping it rebuild and understand how to utilize fat for fuel just carries over into everything else you’re doing. So we’re trying to make our people metabolically flexible. Use what you got.

So you touched on run coaches. And that’s kind of been a primary group of people that have used heart rate training. But what about with strength?

Yeah. I think that the more that we’ve seen– it used to be years ago. You’d say, hey, here’s my cardio, here’s my strength training. And when we stay in those extremes, it’s really easy, because it’s there.

And if we’re thinking about really pure strength training, three sets, 10 reps, one to two minutes rest those types of things actually don’t really use heart rate well there. It’s not overly well-correlated with the intensity that we’re working at.

And in fact, I think sometimes it actually has the opposite effect on people there. They’ll look down, and they’ll see that they didn’t burn a lot of calories, or they didn’t close a ring doing it or something, right? All those things, it can be a little it can be a little negative.

So if we’re talking really pure strength training, that’s where I’m a big fan of track your metrics there. And we’ve got things like weight, or reps, or volume that can be the indicator of how hard you’re working. Now, as we get more to that middle, which has gotten way more popular things like metabolic conditioning workouts where we’re combining them, it works great.

So we can start to use it. And the way I think of it is if I’m trying to target that more aerobic system, or I’m moving fast, I’m not resting, I consider that closer to cardio. And I think heart rate can really work to help us, again, moderate that intensity.

I need do that with your workout.

Yeah.

Start thinking about that more.

You’ll notice.

Yeah. But the strength component to what Danny just said, it is different. Let’s focus on those acute variables such as, let’s say, it is the tempo of the load and how you’re progressing in those spaces. But then when it gets to the metabolic conditioning part, that’s where we start to come in with the heart rate training if it is a sustained, which is more of that lower intensity.

If it is that gain, as far as is going to be a happy medium like a pacer. And then if it is the pain that you love, right, that’s where we’re going to take it to the next level. But let’s go back to we want to talk about a little bit of recovery in this space, right?

So work hard, recover harder. There are certain things out there like heart rate variability. And it comes back to understanding what it means to be metabolically sound what your body is saying from a recovery. If you just had a crazy workout, now the next day do I go at the same intensity. So can you walk us a little bit through how metabolic plays a role in that space?

Yeah, absolutely. So it is a weird thing where, for years, we take rest days, take time off. And there is real benefit at times to taking a full rest day. But for the most part, your body likes to move. It responds really well to it, so that low intensity work.

And this potentially is all the way even down into zone 1 and approaching those zone 2 areas. For most people, most of the time, are going to contribute to recovery. We’re getting great blood flow. We’re seeing some of that oxygen exchange. We’re burning a little bit of fuel. We’re moving well.

So when you think about something that tracking heart rate variability, or this sign of, is my body parasympathetic, which is our nice calm, relaxed– or sympathetic, our fight or flight– almost everybody, if they start integrating low intensity active recovery workouts, we’ll see a spike in their heart rate variability, or they find themselves getting more better into that rest digest category rather than taking a full day off. It’s really wild to actually see.

So I’m a big fan for most people of at least keeping some form of movement every day to get into that world, right? And it is. But it’s so easy. Because especially if I’m going to a club, right, I’m going to work out that, that’s where I do really like heart rate.

Because, OK, on a recovery day, you can’t get above 130 or whatever. You’re particular into zone 2. Yeah. So that it doesn’t turn into– for so many people, active recovery turns into like, I creeped up, and now, it became a zone 3 workout. And now, I’m tired again.

Does it all build on each other, right? Like we’re doing this with such intention. If it’s programmed correctly, it’s working towards something.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And we have this concept. One thing I do when I get is the idea of polarized training or kind of high and low, right? We’ve talked a lot about it, right? I’ve mentioned a lot of zone 1 zone 2. Most people need to spend more time there. Really honestly, for most people 80% of their work, especially aerobically, should be spent in those low zones.

And the nice part is you think of all your warm up and your cool down tends to be there. And about 20% of your time should be at those high intensities. And if you’re doing that right, that’s plenty of time. And the 80-20 actually comes from a lot of studies on pretty elite runners in these different areas of how they train and how they build intensity, but it does carry really well.

And what happens again when I try to pull you down, I didn’t slow you down, is then when I ask you to go hard, you’re actually recovered and ready for it. So I want your hard days to be hard, if you’re thinking about an interval. In the same vein, right?

When I first started programming seemed like harder interval training for my clients, what I found is none of them were working hard enough. Because I said I was using, right away, like RPE, rate of perceived exertion. And say, I want you to add a 9 out of 10. And they beg, I got you.

We’re there, right? This should– and I was like, oh, that’s like a five. I didn’t explain that, right? What I found, though, was when I went to heart rate at the time, right? We started to qualify as these things a little bit. And I would say, OK, Jamie I need you at 165. I wasn’t arguing. It gets there.

Right here.

Yeah. Get there and then recover back down. And then we get how hard. We’re going to make you work hard. We’re going to go. And even on that day, when we think of this 80%, is your interval might be a minute and then you get two to three-minute recovery. That two to three minutes is probably in that low zone, right? So that all contribute to that time.

But I want to just sort of polarize the way to say there’s a time to swing the hammer, right, or go hard. And when we properly polarize our training, it allows us to be ready for that when we’re ready and then recover when we’re not ready and build on each other.

A little bit. Let’s create a hack for our listeners right now. Right now, if I’m not able to get to a place that offers metabolic testing, what’s an easy formula. And obviously, they’re going to probably be some inaccuracies here. But if I want to understand how can I find what my potential threshold is and my base is, what would you suggest there?

Great question. I’m sure a lot of people listening are saying, OK, this is interesting. But what is it? How do I do it? So let’s walk through the ways that we could do it, right? Our gold standard, what would be great, is what we consider an active metabolic test.

In this test, someone’s actually going to put a mask on you, and they’re measuring gas exchange. So they’re measuring oxygen and CO2 out. And that’s telling us exactly what fuel we’re using. And we’re able to accurately measure VO2 max, anaerobic threshold and aerobic base rate.

It’s phenomenal. Not everyone can do it. In fact, some people just maybe have some real serious claustrophobia, putting a mask on or something like that. And I don’t want that to scare someone away, because it’s your best bet, but it’s not mandatory.

On the way other then, you’ll often see age-based equations. If you think about max heart rate, you hear 220 minus age. Or there’s for anaerobic threshold, you might see 185 minus age or something like that. And maybe it’s an interesting spot to start. But those are based on real global averages.

So they’re accurate for the population but not for most individuals. The thing that creates differences a little bit of it is training, there is obviously age, because you look at it. But honestly, one of the big ones that you can’t really change is the size of your heart. And we’re talking really bigger small differences. But that matters on how often your heart has to beat.

And so for instance, I have people tell me I have a really little heart. I have a little hummingbird heart. Because my max heart rate is– I mean, I can see 195 in a workout. And on 220 minus age, that puts me somewhere like 175, 170 in that area. So if I use just pure age-based, I’m weight undershooting everything, right, too low. So when I try to do zone 2, I’m actually way below it.

So our best bet in the middle is what we consider, honestly, it’s called a talk test. So if you’re doing this by yourself, what you’re going to do is you’re going to use some form a heart rate monitor. And I’m sure we’ll talk about that in a little bit what works great there.

But we’re going to start at a low intensity, right, at a walk. And about every two minutes, we’re going to increase the difficulty. That could be incline, that could be speed. Whatever you’re comfortable with. It could be on a bike.

But you want a nice set increase, right? Every two minutes we’re going to increase. And what we’re looking for? The first place we’re going to get to is when we realize I’ve got to breathe a little bit harder is we’re hitting that aerobic base. So I can still talk, but I’m noticing it’s a little different.

That one’s harder to see. If you can’t quite feel that, that’s OK. Because we can estimate from it, easier as I continue to increase that intensity. And it should take about 12 to 15 minutes when we think about picking the right intensities is we know we’ve started to get to our anaerobic threshold.

When I’ve got like two to three-word sentences, I can say them. But then I’m taking a breath in. The other things that we start to see is your effort focuses. So you have to kind of look down, and say, I’m not looking around the club anymore. I’m focused. My mouth opens. My jaw drops. I’m just getting a little more focused. And then again, I’ve got two to three words at a time.

That’s the spot that we’re hitting our threshold. We’re not quite looking for a way out. So again, that’s two to three words. Down below that is probably two to three sentences that we’re looking. And we’re just going to make note of our heart rate at those places. And that’s going to give us a pretty good indicator.

If I know my base, and I know my threshold, then we can, potentially, if we want to go up. If you’re comfortable and, if cleared from a doctor and have no problems with that, let’s go all the way up to that max, and just see what the top heart rate we can see is to sort of qualify those three things. And that would be our max that we can kind of base all those things off of.

I’ve done that mask thing. And I’m just like, oh, I will do it again. It’s hard though. It’s really hard.

Remind you of my son, Bane, little Bane action. It is you, Jamie. No. I’m sorry. All right.

Everybody does the Darth Vader.

Yes.

Put that mask on.

If they’re not able to be on a tread, is there other modalities would you say?

You can do it on anything that allows you to slowly ramp intensity over that time frame. So it could be an elliptical. It could be a bike. When we talk about actual metabolic testing, I’ve done it on a step mill. I had to actually prop a cart up on a box. And we made it work, because you can anything that you can do that.

Where it starts to not work well is something that’s not overly cyclical in nature. So it is hard to do for thinking about, I want to qualify and try some interesting strength training circuits, well, it’s just it’s too hard to control the intensity of it. So as long as we do it.

And in fact, if you’re going to exercise on an elliptical, if you’ve got that favorite elliptical do it there. Because it is, heart rates and VO2 and all of that, is a little bit event-specific. The closer they are together, the more similar there, that obviously the better it’s going to work.

But when you look at going from something like a treadmill to a bike, for most people, there’s an adjustment of 10 to 12 beats, because there’s not as much upper body in that bike. So it’s usually going to just down a little bit.

Interesting. So we kind of alluded to this with our watches. So when I first started heart rate training back in the early 2000s, I had to have a monitor that strapped around my chest, then I had the matching watch. Is that still the best way or do our new devices, our watches, our garments, or all of those things?

It’s still the best way.

OK.

Chest strap-based heart rate monitors are still the most accurate. And it’s great. And now, the nice part though is they do make a lot of Bluetooth chest straps that will just pair to whatever, either your phone or whatever, device you have. So you don’t necessarily need another watch if you have something.

Now, while that is the best, the wrist stuff is catching up. There’s two reasons. That it’s a little less accurate. It uses a light sensor to look at it. And so it tends to move a little more than a chest strap would, right? It wiggles up and down, so the tighter you can get it.

And then light can interfere there a little bit, or especially the modality could change if you’re doing something that allows grip. So if you’re using a rower, you’re going to see that the wrist stuff isn’t going to catch up that well.

Interesting.

If you’re running, especially inside where it’s maybe not that cold, they’re going to be maybe a little off. But honestly, for most people, most of the time, not enough to really matter. I think back to the chest strap days, and I forget it. Or it wasn’t pairing right, and I was getting angry.

Like there were so many things with it that eventually like throw it away and just go to–

Done with it.

Yeah. Then your heart rate’s too high, because you’re just angry. Where the benefit of starting my Apple Watch, if it’s 2 to three beats, for most people, it’s all right. Unless we’re looking at elite performance, or you are doing something where the arm is going to move a lot, it’s not going to work.

I would say, for most of my clients have used the heart rate monitor that you’ve got, and it’ll work great. Right.

That’s good news, and it makes it more accessible for a lot of people, because we know a lot of people are wearing these days.

It’s great, right? We first started convincing someone like, hey, welcome to the gym. I get to buy new clothes and do whatever. Then you’re like, oh, plus you need this watch. And you need this [INAUDIBLE]. It’s so hard to put up such a barrier, where if it’s already on your wrist, great, you’re already doing it.

Now, let’s just put a little bit of thought and a little bit of science behind it, so that you’re even you’re getting the most out of it, right? We’ve most of our people have access to it. So let’s use it.

Can I ask a question about how often to potentially retest or be a re-assessing yourself? Because as your fitness improves, you’re going to see gains and changes. So if you’re starting to do this, let’s say you’ve been doing it for six months, should I be retesting within that window?

Yeah. The more advanced you are, the less they’re going to change. So the newer you are to exercise, the quicker they’re going to change. So for someone who’s brand new to exercise who starts doing some heart rate training, in two or three months, you’re probably going to see some pretty big changes.

One of the things to think when we talked about that idea of doing the test and using this idea of talk test and thinking through it is you’ll start to feel when it changes, right? It maybe it gets too easy. It can do a variety of things.

So for most people, every six months would be the minimum that I would encourage you to check in and retest. Again, maybe that’s actually just, maybe every year, you put the mask on. You do a metabolic test. You really get into it, and then at the six-month mark. Before you even do that, just try doing a talk test to even by yourself to kind of check in. And if it says, hey, maybe I do need to look.

One thing I want encourage with this idea is most people think that their numbers are going to constantly increase over time. And that’s not necessarily the right way to look at it. Or your heart rates could come down, and you could get fitter.

When we talk about these different energy systems, so I train for a variety of different things at different time from high intensity training to low intensity. I’m trying to half marathon right now. And when I switch between them, I see an almost 0-beat variation and things like my threshold.

So when I’m doing a lot of high intensity training, and I’m competing in some fitness things in that world, my threshold moves up, because I’m driving to that. I’m actually using a lot of sugar when I’m driving in that area. Then when I’m like, all right, well, I’m going to do a lot more aerobic base training. I’m going to do a lot lower. My threshold will come down. But I am significantly fitter at those, right, especially within that measure.

The number itself, right, in time test, is not good or bad. It’s just you. It doesn’t matter. And going up or down isn’t necessarily desirable. Or put at an individual number or intensity is really what we’re looking at.

Well, I want to definitely throw this question out there, just because I’m a huge, huge fan of heart rate training. Sometimes, we get a little bit of resistance. So for all the coaches out there listening, for all the members that are out there listening, I’ve achieved results without this.

What would be your response to that? Not to say we’re not acknowledging those results. But how would you coach them up on how this added component can take them to the next level?

Yeah. The first thing I would say is awesome. Congratulations. Right? Because we do celebrate anyone who’s out there working out in any capacity and seeing any sort of result. If something is working perfect, it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

OK.

But what we’ll traditionally see, what most people experience, is when you get started, anything works, right? The broad range of fitness gains you’re going to achieve right away are big. So boom, it happens.

As you get fitter, whatever, however we want to define that, right, being able to run better, whatever that looks like, the harder it’s going to be, the more we’re going to have to pay attention. And we so often see people really hit a wall there.

And where they get stuck is, this worked for me before and this was working, so I’m nervous to change, because I don’t want to lose that. Now, the hard part is it’s the exact opposite of what you need to do, right, which is, hey, this worked. Now, it doesn’t work. Let’s change, right?

So a lot of it comes to just understanding that what got you here won’t necessarily get you there, right? It’s that process. And just, honestly, talking through it with most people. And again, it gets easier to bring in. All right. For what? Just pay attention.

And just look at it, just pay attention, and notice some of the day-to-day variation and some of those things. And that often opens people’s minds a little bit. And then OK, great. Now, let’s get a little more serious with it and try to see what happens when you hold it at this intensity. Or let yourself recover to this point, right? Especially, again, with it on everybody’s wrist, we can dabble a little bit more than we used to.

Yeah. Danny, anything else you want people to know about heart rate training before David puts you through his usual drill?

Let’s see here. I think I mean, you ask some great questions. We’ve gone through it again. For most people, I’ll just reemphasize it. It Is such a great speedometer of how you’re working. It allows you to do things like it.

I think, to me, it might seem like you’re boxing yourself in a little bit, but it’s really freed me up to do things like go outside a little bit better, and just come at so many different things having that anchor back to have heart rate. So again, if you’re not, just try it out and see how it goes.

Awesome. All right over to you.

All right. So five spicy questions coming at you.

All right.

All right. And ideally, now, since we’ve cut it down in half, maybe it’s a minute drill versus two minutes now.

I’m going to just make a place a bet that it’s still going to be two minutes. I’m not no one’s host.

I’m not known for not talking.

I’m just going to place a bet.

All right. It’s pretty simple. Here we go. We’re coming out the gates. All right. Best memory you have about the ’90s.

Best memory I have about the ’90s. I have a lot of great memories about the ’90s. How specific do I have to be with this memory?

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind. I know that’s very broad.

I mean, I think kindergarten was a great year for me. I had a great teacher like– yeah. You know what? I actually don’t remember most of my elementary teachers except my kindergarten teacher. She was great. I can’t remember her name. I feel really bad about that.

But like I can remember the classroom. We had she had a whole Sesame Street theme to it. And as soon as you said like, best, I was like man [INAUDIBLE].

Kind of get your vibe right there. All right. All right. I like that. Favorite subject in high school.

Favorite subject in high school. Odd because I’m sitting here talking science and all of that stuff. But it actually English, reading. I love to read. And I had some really, really, really great teachers there that like tried to teach you how to think.

Those classes were the most open and free where it’s like read a book, and talk about it, or write about it, and that was great so English.

English, OK. If there was a superlative for today for Danny King, what would it be?

That’s–

Yeah, going back to like high school, I know best car, most likely to succeed, things like that. What would be your superlative?

Oh, wow. The hard part of this question is like you’re forcing me to brag.

Just brag for a minute.

Yeah.

It’s all good.

It’s a moment. Take it. Embrace it.

I mean, I starting off the day most informative. You can say.

I like it.

Yeah. I’m just hopefully educating people, teaching them something. And they were like, oh, this is great. I got something. That’s what my hope is.

I like it. Informative. Yeah. Empowering people with knowledge, I like it.

It’s great.

All right. What was the car to have when you were in high school?

What was the car to have that everyone wanted. I can tell you it wasn’t my 1993 light blue two-door Cavalier. I was happy to have one, but let’s be clear. That wasn’t it.

A bunch of kids at my school, I can distinctly remember, had really big trucks like that was kind of a cool thing at the time like that like kind of lifted truck. And everyone would talk about how cool they were. Looking back there, actually, were quite cool. I don’t know that I want one now.

But then, yeah.

Yeah. It seemed like, oh, wow, look at that thing pulling in. Especially, again, maybe because that’s such a tiny car. I was jealous but probably that.

OK.

And honestly, high school like having a car.

But having a car was right.

To even have one.

OK.

All right. Last one here. What do you want to leave as a stamp of impact in the year of 2022?

What do I want to leave as a stamp of impact in 2022? I’m going to go, let’s call it more work-related here. But we’re putting, here at Life Time Training, we’re putting it just really heavy emphasis in session experiences, right?

How do we empower people to be fitter than they’ve ever been to achieve more than they’ve ever been? How do we make the experience you’re getting within our facilities and working with the fitness professionals so powerful you can’t experience anything else?

So I think my hope is that when we do it right, anyone who shows up to one of our locations and works with one of our fitness professionals comes away with so much. That’s how I know I did it right, right? They came away saying, hey, whether it was for an hour or an hour, every day, they were changed by that experience.

Love that. Love that.

Me, too. Well, Danny, if people want to connect with you or follow you, do you have social handle? Where can they find you?

I do. Well, you can find me on the fitness floor at Chanhassen. That’s very specific. That’s a really narrow–

You have to be in Minnesota.

Yeah. That’s a really narrow range of people. I am on Instagram at D training. I don’t post a ton. I’m not super active socially. Maybe this will be my kick off to do so, but you can find me on Instagram. Or yeah, or the fitness floor, I guess.

Perfect. Well, thanks for coming back, Danny. We always love having you.

Thanks so much for having me.

Oh, yeah. Fitness floor, right, at chan– or in Instagram. He’s only a heartbeat away. Thanks, Danny.

Yes.

[MUSIC PLAYING]