The Aerobic Secret Sauce of Suffer City
Welcome to Suffer City's Aerobics class, your path toward a richer, fuller, and longer life.
With each newly published article about it, cardiorespiratory fitness, as reflected by VO2max, becomes a stronger correlate for a longer life (Mandsager, 2018).
And it's not so much about becoming the most VO2max-enhanced person on planet Earth. It turns out, the most profound health benefits result from the first several waves of cardiorespiratory improvements.
Nor do you need to attack max effort, Full Send efforts to achieve these benefits. The greatest long-term benefits occur within lower and moderate training zones.
The curve of benefit is steepest at the low end of the fitness spectrum.
Now, you still get a great return on investing in aerobic fitness beyond the initial steep curve. This is where, along with reductions in health risks, you'll enjoy cognitive benefits, enhanced metabolism, more-balanced hormones, and tremendous performance outcomes.
Once you see these data, you can't deny the importance of Aerobics. But then we gotta ask: What qualifies as effective aerobics?
Like, which stimuli, in particular, imposes the demand necessary to kickstart a long-term aerobic adaptation on the cardiovascular, pulmonary, and metabolic systems?
EFFECTIVE AEROBICS
I use effective to draw distinction between just logging steps and actually creating change at the aerobic level.
Your aerobic health requires heat and pressure at certain intensities over specified durations. The pressure component refers to resistance on skeletal muscle.
Without pressure, heat alone will not produce aerobic benefits -- which is to say sitting in a sauna, while it is heat exposure and sweat-producing, will not convert into long-term aerobic adaptations.
In the case of aerobics, heat is produced as a result of continuous, small pulses of pressure over long duration -- greater than 20 minutes.
Now, on the shorter timeline, say around 20 minutes, in order to produce a long-term benefit, a considerable amount of heat must be produced. This suggests that each pressure stimulus -- in the case of running this is per step -- must carry more power, higher intensity, and, thus, greater velocity (speed).
This can be performed in two ways: Steady-State and Interval-Based.
STEADY-STATE
This is to say your heart rate and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) lock-in to a consistent state, elevated from your homeostasis, and is maintained without too much variance up or down for 20 minutes or more.
Think of going on a long, slow distance (LSD) run where your pace sticks around 8:30/mi, your heart rate moves between 70-75% MHR, and your RPE hovers around a 4 or 5 out of 10...That is steady-state.
INTERVAL-BASED
Very common in fitness, but also wildly misunderstood. Most people hear "interval-based" and automatically fill in the blanks with "high-intensity".
I completely understand how so many people can draw the conclusion that "intervals" equates to high-intensity. But, I think a better way to look at interval-based training for me, is through the lens of variable intensity.
Intervals can vary among short-duration, longer-duration just as well as they can be lower-, medium-, or higher intensity. And all that before even getting close to highest intensity.
One of the most effective Aerobics workouts at Suffer City uses both, a steady-state and interval-based approach. And it looks like this:
AEROBIC WORKOUT
5min Echo Bike (legs only) @ Base (70% MHR, 5 RPE)
2min Echo Bike (arms & legs) @ Push (80-85%, 6-7 RPE)
• 2-min Push is optional. Can also do 7min Base.
• Following 7-minutes on Bike, transition to run >>>
5min Run @ Base (70-75% MHR, 5-6 RPE)
2min Run @ Push (80-85%, 6-7 RPE)
• 2-min Push is optional. Can also do 7min Base.
• Following 7-minutes on Run, transition back to run >>>
→ Complete 2, 3, or even 4 rounds of 7 minutes on each equipment.
The Base pace efforts are longer duration at 5min, or you can extend them out to 7 for less intensity. Just as well, you can option for the 2-min Push efforts.
Additionally, at Suffer City, you still have a Hard Push and a Full Send level of effort before reaching anything resembling a max effort. 
And no matter what intensity you exercise this wokrout at, it promotes numerous aerobic benefits from muscle lactate response to air-gas exchange.
This produces the heat-pressure dynamics which correlate to a physiologic and metabolic signature in your body, leaving a lasting imprint which becomes the long-term adaptation.
The graph above isn't suggesting that Threshold & Stroke volume training adaptations are THE ideal zones for everyone. This graph is generalizing where many hybrid athletes benefit when targeting these zones for race readiness.
What’s clear from this article is that real aerobic adaptation — the kind that improves longevity, increases performance, and changes the way your body handles stress — doesn’t come from random workouts or guessing your way through training.
It comes from purposefully applying acute stimuli to specific energy pathways and energizing them with heat and pressure at specific intensities over particular durations.
And that's how you convert your time and energy into results, instead of just expended calories.
When it comes to your health, as well as your aerobic fitness, you don't want to leave everything to chance and you definitely don't want to leave precious benefits on the table.
If you think a structured routine which targets aerobic health and VO2 power could help improve your training and preparation for competitions and races like HYROX then give our 30 Day off a go -- it's only $30.
Get structured, coach-led training designed to help you build aerobic capacity the right way, with weekly guidance, strategic pacing, and performance-focused progressions that accumulate to real results.
Check out the link below to get a full month of training for only $30!
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