To understand the benefits of threshold training, we have to take a minute for a mini-lesson on how our body turns glucose (blood sugar) into ATP – the energy currency all our cells run on.

Don’t worry, it’ll be a short lesson and there’s no quiz at the end.

The first step of this process is known as glycolysis. Because there are only a few chemical steps and it doesn’t require oxygen, it’s a relatively fast process.

The downside, however, is that it also doesn’t produce very much ATP.

Along with the ATP, the other main end product of glycolysis is another molecule called pyruvate.

The next step is where things get interesting.

When your body has enough oxygen being delivered to your muscles, pyruvate is transported into your mitochondria (the energy power plants in your cells) and sent through a much longer series of chemical steps.

These steps are relatively slow, but they produce a lot of ATP.

When there is not enough oxygen available, pyruvate instead ends up as a different molecule called lactate—often used interchangeably with lactic acidemd .

Though there is some debate within the scientific community as to whether or not lactic acid ever technically forms in cells, it’s universally agreed upon that lactate is not what makes you tired or sore.

Instead, lactate is transported from the muscle cells that don’t have enough oxygen into other muscle fibers and even places like the heart, where oxygen is much more abundant.

With oxygen, lactate is then used to create more ATP.

So to recap:

• When your body breaks down glucose aerobically (with oxygen) you end up with a lot of ATP, but it’s a slow process because there are a lot of chemical steps that have to happen.

 

• When your body breaks down glucose anaerobically (without oxygen), it’s a much faster process, but it only produces a relatively small amount of ATP. At the same time, this process also leads to the formation of lactate.

What is the anaerobic threshold, anyway?

Hopefully you followed along with my little chemistry lesson, because it makes the concept of the anaerobic threshold much easier to understand.

The main thing to know is that at relatively low to moderate intensities, the body is able to generate all, or at least most, of the energy it needs aerobically because it has enough oxygen available to turn both fat and glucose into ATP.
 

 
As intensity and the demand for energy increases, at some point, the body has to start to tap into the anaerobic side.

As an example, let’s say your body can produce enough oxygen to allow you to run at 8mph purely through aerobic metabolism.

When you have to run 9, 10, or 11 mph, your body has to get the extra energy from the anaerobic side through glycolysis.

When this happens, the amount of lactate in the blood starts to increase.

All this really means is that more and more glucose is being broken down anaerobically and the aerobic system can’t keep up.

The faster you run, the more anaerobic energy you’ll need and the faster lactate will start to accumulate in the blood.

The point at which there is a rapid increase in lactate above a certain level is what is known as the anaerobic threshold. Because it’s based on lactate levels, it’s also often referred to as the lactate threshold.

Regardless of what it’s called, the simplest way to think about the threshold is that it’s the tipping point where lactate accumulates because the aerobic system isn’t able to produce as much energy as you need by itself.

As you hit the threshold and above, your body is producing an ever increasing amount of energy from the anaerobic side of the equation.

This is important because the simple and unavoidable rule of our biology is that the more we have to rely on anaerobically-driven energy, the faster we fatigue.
 

 
The anaerobic threshold and performance

All things being equal, if you have a higher anaerobic threshold, it means you have better aerobic fitness and you’ll be able to sustain higher speeds and generate more power for longer.

A person with an anaerobic threshold of 180bpm will generally be able to hold a higher pace than someone with a threshold of only 150bpm, for example.

This is why how fast someone can run at their anaerobic threshold is one of the best predictors of performance in endurance sports. Far better than another common aerobic marker, VO2 max.

An important thing to note, however, is that even though a single heart rate or speed is commonly used to denote the threshold, this is a bit of a misnomer that’s based on older research.

There is not one single heart rate where all of a sudden your energy production shifts dramatically. Instead, it’s more accurate to think of a heart rate range where this occurs rather than at a single point.

Where is your threshold?

The goal of the threshold method is to help improve your aerobic fitness to the point that it requires less energy from the anaerobic energy pathway to produce the same speed or power.

If you start out being able to run 9mph at your threshold for example, you’ll quickly fatigue after a few minutes there. Even faster if you go up to 10mph, 11mph or more.
 

 
If you are able to improve your aerobic fitness and increase your speed at your threshold up to 11mph, then you’d be able to sustain that same 9mph for much longer than before.

One of the most effective ways to train to develop this ability is to train within the range of your anaerobic threshold.

The main challenge with this, however, is that trying to determine exactly where this is requires getting tested in a lab and even then, it’s not as much of an exact science as many people make it out to be.

Your threshold also changes dramatically depending on the exercise that you’re doing.

Fortunately, unless you’re a competitive endurance athlete, it’s not really necessary to get an exact threshold anyway. The Morpheus heart rate zones were designed to help you train at intensities around your threshold without the need for specific testing.

To do this, make sure you’ve selected the right fitness level and either input your max heart rate, or let Morpheus do this for you. In the same settings, you can enter your threshold if you do know what it is, but if not, simply leave it blank.

From there, you can do two levels of threshold training: green and red.

For most people, as long as their recovery score is somewhere between about 85-95% recovery, then training around the top of the green zone will put them just below or at their threshold.

This should be a pace that’s challenging, but one that’s sustainable for up to 10-15 minutes without significant fatigue.

Moving up to the bottom of the red zone should then be just above their threshold. This should be a pace that’s generally sustainable for much less time, more like 3-5 minutes, before fatigue starts to set in and forces you to slow down.

How to incorporate threshold training into your program

As with other higher intensity methods, this type of training is best suited for people that already have a foundation of fitness to begin with. Very generally speaking, this means an HRV in the mid-70s or above in Morpheus.

If you’re below that, just starting out, or coming back from a layoff, lower intensity methods should be used first.
 

 
Threshold training is effective when it’s done 1-2 times per week. This is often the right frequency to stimulate the body to improve, without pushing it to the point that it can’t recover.

When doing green thresholds, a good total range within a workout is typically between 10-30 total minutes. This can be broken up into intervals of anywhere from 5-10 minutes at a time, with 2-3 minutes of active recovery in between.

Because red thresholds are higher intensity, you’ll want to shoot for less total time. Anywhere from about 5-12 total minutes per workout is all you need.

You’ll want to break these up into shorter intervals as well. Alternating 2-3 minutes of work with 1-2 minutes of active recovery is a good guideline to start with.

To understand power-endurance, we need to look at the legendary Usain Bolt.

Most people think of him as the fastest human of all time, which he undoubtedly is.

But what people don’t realize is that it’s not just his top speed that makes him so incredibly unique. Instead, it’s his ability to slow down just slightly less than everyone else.

In the 100m race, athletes hit their top speed well before the finish line. Usually around 7 seconds in or so. After that, it’s a matter of who can slow down the least.
 

 
He wasn’t just incredibly fast. He was also incredibly good at slowing down slower than everyone else. This is what truly set Usain Bolt apart and it’s what defines power-endurance.

It’s not just in sprinting that the difference between winning and losing can come down to the thinnest of margins. The ability to generate that last bit of extra performance when you need it most is what often separates the very best from all the rest.

From a fitness standpoint, the quality that’s often the most important to be able to do this is power-endurance.

This is the ability to maintain your explosive power as long as possible before fatigue sets in and you slow down.

Although there are limits to how much power you can sustain over time due to the nature of producing energy anaerobically (without oxygen), it can still be noticeably improved through training.

One of the best ways to do this is through power-endurance intervals.

Why we can’t be like Superman

Being able to stay in your high gear just a few seconds longer primarily comes down to how well your body can handle the stress that comes with producing a lot of energy anaerobically.

As we talked about in yesterday’s lesson, the body can produce energy aerobically, with oxygen, or anaerobically, without oxygen.

The aerobic system is always producing energy 24/7, from the moment you’re born throughout your entire life. It is incredibly efficient and it can turn proteins, carbs, and fat all into energy.

When it needs to generate more power than the aerobic system is capable of, that’s when it turns to the anaerobic side of things.
 

 
This is what makes the body capable of lifting hundreds of pounds of weight and sprinting at 20 miles an hour or more.

The cost of this, however, is fatigue.

If you think about it, there’s a good reason our bodies work like this.

Imagine if you could run an entire mile at the same speed you can hit in a 10 second sprint. Or if you could squat 100 reps with your 1 rep squat max.

Even if this were possible, the amount of stress you’d put on all your tissues and joints would be immense. The real world isn’t a superhero movie and ultimately, it wouldn’t take long before things would break.

Fortunately, we have a built in safety mechanism that prevents this from happening.

The more we use the anaerobic energy systems and the faster we generate energy, the more rapidly we fatigue and become forced to slow down.

The way power-intervals work is to train the body to slow down that fatigue just enough for us to squeeze out a few extra seconds of performance.

They can’t override how our body fundamentally works, but they can help us generate as much power as possible before we slow down.
 

 
How to do red and green power-endurance intervals

Both types of power-endurance intervals are extremely similar to the power intervals we covered in the previous lesson. The only real difference is in the times that are used for both the work and the rest periods:

• Green power-endurance intervals: 10-15s work @100% : 60-90s rest at the top of the blue zone.
• Red power-endurance intervals: 30-45s work @100% : 90-180s rest at the top of the blue zone.

The overall work to active rest ratio is shifted towards relatively longer work and shorter rest periods. You’ll also notice that the active recovery is at the top of the blue instead of the middle.
This is to focus on training those extra few seconds of power and help the body get used to handling the stress of relying more on the anaerobic energy systems.

Unlike with the power intervals covered in the previous lesson, you should start to feel more and more fatigued with each rep. Pushing yourself towards the edge of your endurance is the most effective way to improve it.

When it comes to choosing exercises, the same guidelines covered in the green and red power intervals apply. You want total body exercises that are capable of driving your heart rate up.

It’s also best to try to avoid exercises that put too much stress on your joints or that are highly technical in nature. Choosing the right exercises will help you avoid developing bad habits as you fatigue and reduce your risk of injury.
 

 
How often should you do them?

An important thing to note is that this type of interval is high intensity, very demanding, and best suited for someone that already has a good base of fitness and movement capacity.

If you’re just starting out or you haven’t done any conditioning for some length of time, power-endurance intervals are not the place to start.

WIth that in mind, you can start off incorporating power-endurance intervals into your workout as little as one day a week, but generally two, spread a few days apart, will be the most effective.

They should only be done as part of your green or red workouts.

They can be done with weights in the same workout, but in that case, it’s best to do the intervals first if your goal is to improve your conditioning.

Doing them after you’re already fatigued from lifting will potentially make them less effective and likely slow down your recovery.

A good number of sets is anywhere from as little as 2 and as many as 5-6 depending on your fitness level.

When you’re first getting started, stick with the lower end of the work times and the higher end of the rest guidelines. Each week, add a few more seconds of work in each rep until you get to the higher end.

From there, start to reduce the rest intervals by a few seconds at a time until you’re on the lower end.

A good amount of time to include power-endurance intervals in your program is typically between 4-6 weeks. Just as with the power intervals, it’s normal to see your HRV decrease a bit when you first start incorporating them.

Look for your HRV rebound back up in the following weeks as your power-endurance improves.

You don’t have to be an athlete to want to increase your power.

Even if you aren’t training for performance, there are a range of benefits from tapping into your nervous system to fire as many muscle fibers as possible.

Being able to do this is one of the key drivers of generating explosive power and it only comes through training.

Although there are many different types of training that can help you develop this ability, interval training has traditionally not been one of them.

The reason is because the way most people do interval training quickly leads to fatigue. For a lot of people, fatigue is a measuring stick of whether or not the intervals are effective in the first place.

The problem with this is that at the simplest level, fatigue is the opposite of power.
 

 
Power comes contracting as many muscle fibers as possible, at all once, in a synchronized manner. It’s driven largely by the anaerobic energy systems.

Fatigue, on the hand, is what happens when your biggest, strongest, and most powerful muscle fibers stop contracting.

That’s the reason you slow down and your power output decreases in the first place. You have fewer muscle fibers firing.

That’s not a recipe for becoming more powerful.

How do power intervals work

There are two different types of power intervals, green power intervals and red power intervals, but they both work in the same way.

Unlike a lot of other interval methods, they use a work period that’s much shorter than the rest period.

The goal is not to become fatigued. It’s to be as explosive as possible in each and every rep. This requires more rest and less work than most people are used to when they do intervals.

This is the only way to tap into your entire range of muscle fibers and train both your nervous system and your energy systems in the process.

The other key to power intervals is to focus on the rest period itself. Rather than passive recovery, where you just sit there and wait to go again, power intervals use active recovery.

This helps speed up your recovery in between reps and maintain your power more effectively.

Green Power intervals

Green power intervals are designed to help develop your top end power output. This is driven by what’s called the anaerobic-alactic energy system.

This is your most explosive system, but it’s also the most limited. It can only produce maximum power for a few seconds at a time before it starts to rapidly decline.
 

 
Because of this, you’ll want to keep the work period to between about 5-10 seconds. The key is that these few seconds need to be at 100% intensity.

If you go anything less than maximum, you won’t tap into the top end muscle fibers that only come into play when you really need them.

As long as you’re doing this, you should see your heart rate spike up into the green during each of the work periods of the interval.

As soon as each 5-10 seconds of max power is over, try to drive your heart rate back down to the middle of the blue zone as fast as possible to start your period of active rest.

During this phase, you can do a variety of things, ranging from a slow jog to jumping on the bike, jumping rope, etc. The most important thing is just being active to keep your blood flow up and speed up recovery between reps.

The middle of the blue zone is where you should get to and stay for a total active rest period of about 40-60s before doing another rep.

Anywhere from 5-12 reps is the recommended range of green power intervals.
 

 
Red Power intervals

Red power intervals use the same principles as green power intervals, the main difference is that they are focused more on developing the anaerobic-lactic energy system.

This means they are a bit longer, around 20-30 seconds during the work period, and 2-3 minutes in the middle of blue during the active recovery phase.

Because you’ll be going at 100% during the work period, you should expect to get up into your red zone.

Although these are challenging intervals because of this, the 2-3 minutes of active rest is designed to prevent you from becoming fatigued to the point that you start significantly slowing down with each rep.

If you feel this happening, increase the rest interval. Remember, fatigue may be a byproduct of training at high intensity, but it is not the goal of it.

You can start with as few as 2-3 reps of red power intervals and work up to as many as 5-8 over time.

What kind of exercises should you use?

Many different types of exercises can be used for both green and red power intervals. The best ones are total body exercises like sprinting because they use the most muscle.

Various pieces of cardio equipment like the Versaclimber or Jacob’s Ladder also provide a great low-impact solution as well.

If none of those are an option, you can do explosive bodyweight exercises like squat jumps, burpees, etc.
 

 
If you choose to use strength training exercises, make sure to use ones that generally do not require a very high level of technical proficiency to do correctly and safely.

Doing a technically demanding lift at 100% intensity for up to 20-30s seconds is a good way to develop bad movement patterns and increase the risk of injury.

If you’re an athlete, sport-specific drills can be used effectively as well.

How often should you do them?

Both green and red power intervals should be included between 1-2 times per week when improving your power is the goal.

Because of their high intensity and the need to go at 100% to get the most out of them, they are most suited for your red workouts.

Although there are exceptions, it’s generally more effective to include either green or red power intervals within a training program, not both. This helps keep your focus on improving one specific area of fitness at a time and is likely to lead to the best results.

When you first start incorporating these types of higher intensity intervals into your program, it’s common to see a drop in HRV during the first 1-2 weeks. As long as you’re allowing yourself to recover, you should then see a rebound in the following weeks.

Today we’re going to dive into a moderate-intensity interval method called Tempo Intervals.

Despite the fact that very few people know about them, Tempo Intervals have been around a long time. They were originally popularized in the track and field world by a world-renowned coach named Charlie Francis in the 1980’s.

So, why would a track coach training some of the fastest athletes on the planet use a relatively low speed, moderate-intensity interval on a weekly basis with all of his sprinters?
 

 
Simple: He wasn’t using Tempo Intervals to increase speed, he was using them to increase recovery.

And anyone can enjoy the benefits of Tempo Intervals—especially when you do them the day after a high intensity workout—which include things like:

• Feeling less tired and sore after a workout
• Being able to train at higher volumes without overtraining
• Decreased rates of lower body injuries
• Reduced soreness and improved mobility

How do tempo intervals work?

The main reason tempo intervals are an effective way to promote recovery is precisely because they are done at a moderate intensity.

This is the sweet spot because it allows you to recruit higher threshold muscle fibers than you would at lower intensities, but they don’t lead to the same level of stress and fatigue as higher intensities.

By hitting this middle ground, they drive blood flow and oxygen to promote recovery, while helping to build your general aerobic fitness at the same time.

The key to doing tempo intervals

The basics of a Tempo Interval are to do 10 seconds of work at a moderate intensity, followed by 60 seconds of active recovery. Then repeat for a total of 10-20 minutes.
 

 
The key to doing them properly is the intensity, and this is where most people get them wrong: ⁣

⁣Too much intensity, and they can actually slow down recovery.⁣

⁣Too little intensity, on the other hand, and they just aren’t effective.⁣

⁣Aim for about 70% of your max level of exertion during the work intervals, and you’ll be right on target.

If you aren’t sure what 70% feels like, the best way to find out is to start with an exercise where you can measure how far you can go in 10 seconds. Start with a max effort test, and then shoot for about 70^% of that distance when you’re doing tempo intervals.

Another good guideline is that you should be able to cover the same distance in your last rep as you did in your first rep. In other words, if you’re slowing down as you’re doing them, then the intensity is too high.

On most days, the majority of the intervals should be in the blue zone.

What kind of exercises should you use?

Part of the beauty of this method is how extremely versatile it is.

From battle ropes to med ball throws, to jumping rope, and everything in between, you can use just about any exercise that will allow you to reach that 70% max exertion mark.

Once you get a feel for what 70% feels like, it’s easy to hit this target in a variety of exercises.

How often should you do them?

How often you should do Tempo Intervals depends on your recovery each day and your program. These are perfect for your blue workout days for either the 2/2/2 or 1/2/3 model we talked about in the Train, Recover, Repeat lesson. They can also be used during the warm up on your green or red days.

It’s particularly useful to do this type of training when Morpheus shows your recovery score dropping below 80% as they can help boost it back up as part of a recovery workout.

Walk into almost any gym at any time, and you’ll inevitably find someone on a treadmill, elliptical, or stationary bike putting in the minutes or miles at a constant, steady pace.

The world of state state training at low to moderate intensities has been a part of training programs and fitness for generations. For groups like endurance athletes, the military, combat athletes, and more, it’s traditionally been the single biggest part of their training.

And yet in the last decade or so, there has been a shift away from the “low and slow” approach to fitness and conditioning towards the HIT model. Miles on the pavement have been replaced by 20 second sprints for only a few minutes of total work.
 

 
Proponents of higher intensity training point to research like the infamous Tabata study to support the idea that if you go hard enough, you only need minutes of hard work instead of hours.

But is this true?

Is high intensity interval training that much more effective than lower intensity steady state work? Is there any reason to do lower intensity work at all?

The answer is that all things being equal, higher intensities absolutely put the body under more stress than lower intensities. This higher level of stress then causes a greater reaction by the body.

So yes, in the short run, more stress does equal faster results.

In the long run, however, nothing is for free. There is also a cost to the higher level of stress that comes with higher intensities.

Both research and the real world show that the faster you get results, the faster you’ll also be likely to hit plateaus.

Even the Tabata paper showed that the high intensity group didn’t see any real improvements in their VO2 max throughout the entire second half of the 6-week study.

The lower intensity group, on the other hand, saw steady and consistent improvements throughout.

And as we’ve already covered, any time you have more stress than you can recover from, bad things happen.
 

 
The truth about the high vs. low intensity debat is that there shouldn’t be a debate at all. It’s not a question about which one is more effective.

They both play an important role no matter what your training goal may be.

The only real question is about how you incorporate them both into your training plan. That’s where the Morpheus blue zone can help you

Training in the blue zone

The Morpheus blue zone is where you’ll spend the majority of time when you’re doing steady state work. This type of training can also be called cardiac output since one of the main goals is increasing how much blood and oxygen your heart can pump throughout your body.

There are several areas that higher volume, lower intensity training in the blue zone can help you with:

• Build your overall aerobic fitness
• Increase your average HRV and
• Lower your resting HR
• Promote faster recovery between workouts
• Create a foundation to support higher intensities
• Help develop more efficient movement patterns

There are two general ranges within the blue zone you’ll want to use when doing this type of lower intensity work.

1. SS1 – Middle of the blue zone
2. SS2 – Top of the blue zone

The middle of the blue zone is where you’ll want to do most of your steady state work if you’re starting with a lower level of fitness and/or your recovery for the day is on the lower end.
 

 
A good guideline is that if your average HRV is below 70, or your recovery score is below 80% for a given day, the middle of the zone is a good target.

This should generally be at what’s called a conversational pace, meaning you could carry on a conversation while you’re training at this level.

If you have a higher level of fitness, average HRV above 70, then you can up the intensity of steady state work a bit by training more towards the top of the blue zone.

Blue zone exercises

One of the things people complain the most about when it comes to steady state work is that it’s boring. Doing the same thing over and over and over again can definitely be that, but there’s no reason that this is how you have to do your lower intensity work.
First of all, even though it’s referred to as steady state does not mean you have to go at the exact same speed the entire time you’re doing it.

You can alternate between the middle of the blue zone, up to the top, and back down, for example. The most important thing is simply getting in enough time at the lower intensity heart rates.

You do not have to make it boring by staying at the exact same pace from start to finish.

The second thing is that you also don’t have to do the same exercise the whole time either. There’s a wide variety of exercises you can do in the blue zone:

• Running
• Jumping rope
• Swimming
• Bicycling
• Sled dragging
• Elliptical
• Rower
• Medicine ball circuits
• Bodyweight calisthenics

There are even benefits to doing different exercises in a circuit, alternating every minute or two, if you like. The benefits come from just spending time at lower intensities, exactly what exercises you do, or how you do them, is less important.
 

 
So if you find jumping on a treadmill or bike for 20-30 minutes boring, then don’t do that. Give yourself a circuit of 4-5 different exercises, spend 1-2 minutes on each, and rotate through until you’re done.

How much time should you do steady state training?

On the lower end, even 15-20 minutes of this type of work can promote recovery.

For general aerobic fitness and conditioning, anywhere from 30-60 minutes or more in a workout can be necessary, depending on where your fitness level is now and where you want it to be.

If you’re on the lower end of the fitness spectrum, 2-3 days per week of 30 minutes can make a huge difference. As your fitness increases, you’ll need to start doing more of it to continue to see progress.

In the big picture of fitness, you should think of lower intensity, steady state work in the blue zone as the counterbalance to the higher intensity work you do in the green and red zones.

Together, training in each of the three zones using different methods will help you build your fitness step-by-step and keep you moving towards your goals without getting stuck at plateaus or being plagued by nagging injuries.

Action step

Starting in your lower blue zone and training until you hit the top of the blue zone is a great way to learn what low-intensity training should feel like. And it’s also an easy way to warm-up before your workout.

Try it out during your next training session.

For the most part, when people start a new training program or diet, they see changes quickly. Their strength goes up, the weight on the scale goes down. Everything feels like it’s working.

The problem is that sooner or later, results slow down. Eventually, they grind to a complete halt.
 

 
When this happens, people usually do one of three things.

1. They double down and up the intensity, cut calories back even more, and keep going.
2. They change to a completely different program or diet and hope it works better than the last one.
3. They get frustrated, start missing workouts, see even worse results, and eventually just quit working out completely.

None of these are recipes for achieving long-term results or goals. They’re a big part of the reason why most people ultimately fall short of looking, feeling, or performing at the level they want to.

The hardest part of fitness isn’t figuring out how to see results for a few weeks, or perhaps a month or two. It’s being able to see results week after week, month after month, year after year.

The Train, Recover, Repeat model

By now, it should be clear that the single most important piece of training, and fitness in general, is finding the right balance between stress and recovery.

The reason the three approaches above most often fail is because they aren’t designed with that in mind.

You can only up the intensity, or jump from program to program, for so long before the limiting factor is not how hard you train, or what exercises you do, but how fast you can recover.

The train, recover, repeat, model of fitness is the answer to that problem because it’s built to work with your body, rather than fight against it.

It’s designed to help you balance the stress of training (and life) with recovery in a way that is sustainable and leads to long-term results.

The core principle of the model is to build your weekly training plan around three different types of workouts.

Red workouts
 

 
Red workouts are where you hit the highest intensities and volumes. If you’re doing conditioning, you’ll push yourself up into the red zone and burn the most calories.

On the strength side, these are the days where you’ll do your lower body and total body lifts that leave you tired and sore at the end. If you’re an athlete, these are your hardest practices and games.

By the time you’re done with a red workout, you know you’re going to be feeling it the rest of the day, and probably tomorrow too.

You should see a decrease in your recovery score on Morpheus of 12-18%, or sometimes more, after a red workout.

Green workouts
 

 
A green workout is a step below red, but still a challenging workout. Here, you’ll get up into the green zone, or maybe even the red zone for a few minutes, but you won’t push yourself to your limit.

You’ll generally stay below 90% of your 1RM if you’re lifting and include more upper body and accessory type exercises. You should expect to feel tired by the end of the training session, but not exhausted.

A green workout will show up with a decrease in recovery score of around 8-12%

Blue workouts
 

 
A blue workout is where all the recovery workouts discussed in previous lessons will fall. Generally low to moderate intensity, usually no more than 30-40 minutes, with the majority of the time spent in the blue zone.

You don’t have to follow the exact template of the recovery workouts, but you should stay within those general guidelines.

You should see an increase in your recovery score from 3-5% of or so on Morpheus after a blue workout.

Building your training week

Using the framework provided by the three types of workouts above, there are endless ways to build your training week.

The single most important principle in the Train, Recover, Repeat model is to alternate periods of loading stress on your body through training, with periods where you allow it to fully recover.

A single period of loading and recovery is called a stress-recovery cycle.

Each week, your goal should be to use 1-2 of these cycles to push your body to increase its fitness, and then give it the time to do exactly that through recovery.

This is how you balance both sides of the equation and create a sustainable way to make consistent progress towards your goals.

Two of the easiest and most effective ways you can build your training week around this concept is the 1/2/3 and 2/2/2. Both have up to 6 total days of training per week, but they vary in how they’re organized and the patterns of the stress-recovery cycle.

The 1/2/3 weekly model
 

 
The 1/2/3 weekly model is a great option for people that are just training to look and feel their best, while staying healthy.

A single red day on Thursday, followed by either blue days, or even days off, over the weekend, makes it extremely flexible for people with busy schedules and stressful daily lives.

The 2/2/2 weekly model
 

 
For people with higher levels of fitness that generally have things like nutrition, sleep, and lifestyle stress managed well, the 2/2/2 weekly model is a highly effective approach.
It allows for two red days spread throughout the week, while still allowing enough time for full recovery before the start of each week.

General guidelines

Exactly what you do for each workout in terms of exercises and training methods is completely up to you and depends on your fitness level, goals, and available equipment.

To help give you some ideas, I’ll cover a variety of Morpheus training methods that can be plugged into the different training days over the next few lessons.

The following guidelines can also help make sure you’ve got your weekly program dialed in:

1. Your average daily recovery score in Morpheus should help you decide how many red days you can do in a week and still recover. Your goal should be to keep your average above 80%.
    
   If you can follow the 2/2/2 model and keep your average recovery score above 80%, then you’re on the right track. If you can’t, then the 1/2/3 or another variation with less overall intensity will be a better fit for you.
2. It’s generally best to avoid more than 2 red days in a row as much as possible. This leads to a high level of fatigue that requires at least 2 days of recovery to prevent the potential for increased injury and burnout.




3. The goal should be to start each new training week without any residual fatigue from the previous week. This prevents the accumulation of chronic fatigue that puts the body into a state of overtraining/under recovery.
    
   A good way to know you’ve done this is if you wake up Monday morning with a recovery score above 85%.

Action step

If you’ve been using Morpheus to track your workouts, take a minute to look at your changes in recovery score after each workout and map it out on a weekly calendar, or even better, turn it into a graph in a spreadsheet.

This is a good way to visually see your daily training stress to get a better idea of whether your weekly plan is effectively balancing your stress and recovery.

While supplements aren’t replacements for quality sleep and movement, they can be useful tools to round out your overall recovery plan.

Because there are many roads that lead to better recovery—from reducing stress, to sleeping sounder, to reducing inflammation, etc.—there are many categories of recovery-boosting supplements to choose from.

In this lesson, we’ll focus on three of the most well-documented in the following categories: anti-inflammatory, adaptogenic, and relaxation-promoting.

Anti-inflammatory
 

 
As we’ve covered in previous lessons, short-term inflammation isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s a necessary part of the training/adaptation process.

But when your body is chronically inflamed, it’s important to turn that pathway off to promote your parasympathetic, rest-and-recovery system.

One supplement that’s particularly effective at this is curcumin, which is derived from turmeric.

Research consistently agrees that curcumin notably reduces inflammation in all bodily systems and reduces osteoarthritis symptoms.

Since curcumin isn’t well absorbed by the body on its own, many brands combine it with ingredients like lipids or black pepper extract to increase absorption.

We highly recommend using examine.com to research and learn more about what doses are the most effective for each brand.

Adaptogenic
 

 
Adaptogens are herbal pharmaceuticals that directly and indirectly affect mood states, cognition, sleep, and brain health—all very important for managing stress and boosting recovery!

One of the most researched adaptogens is rhodiola rosea, and for good reason. Ample evidence supports rhodiola supplementation as a potent way to reduce stress-related fatigue and weariness, and even boost mood.

For preventing fatigue, evidence suggests that doses as low as 50 mg/day of rhodiola can be effective.

If your goal is to actively reduce existing stress and fatigue, doses of 288-600 mg/day are more commonly used in research.

Remember, monitoring your stress levels with the Morpheus recovery score can help you decide if you should preventively protect against stress or more actively manage it.

Relaxation-promoting
 

 
If you’re grappling with mental stress, being able to relax is crucial to shutting down your sympathetic ‘“fight or flight” response and promoting recovery.

We covered several mental performance strategies for releasing stress and refocusing in the lesson on relaxing your brain. That’s one line of defense against mental stress.

Another promising tool for relaxation is supplementing with L-theanine.

Multiple studies support that L-theanine, amino acid found naturally in tea leaves, notably boosts relaxation and has the potential to stimulate deeper, higher-quality sleep.

Common doses for these stress-fighting effects are between 100-200 mg/day.

Because L-theanine promotes relaxation without sedative effects, people often consume it with caffeine to feel alert without the jitters.

So, you don’t necessarily have to skip that coffee to enjoy the calming benefits of L-theanine.

What about other supplements?

Think of this as a well-researched foundation for you to build off of. There are many other supplements that can bolster recovery based on your specific deficiencies, goals, and needs.

An excellent tool to help you personalize your supplementation strategy is examine.com.

Think of it as a supplement encyclopedia. You can search and see how well-supported each supplement’s benefits are by research, what doses are most effective, what downsides, risks or drawbacks supplements have, and many other key details.

Like all of the strategies covered in these lessons, we encourage you to incorporate, adapt, and disregard our suggestions until you’ve discovered your favorite, go-to recovery arsenal.

Use Morpheus as a guide to what’s working as you monitor your recovery score through this process.

Action Step:

Check out examine.com and search for one of the supplements we discussed in this lesson.

If they seem like a good fit for your recovery plan, make sure to order from a high-quality source.

These sources will show scientific validation from a third-party and independent testing for purity and quality.

Some examples include:

• Thorne
• Douglas Labs
• Pure Encapsulations
• Designs for Health

The use of compression therapy generally falls into two categories.

The first is the professional range of boots and pneumatic compression boots, the most popular of which is Normatec.

Although this type of compression has been used in the ranks of professional athletes for many years, the high price tag made them impractical for most people not making a living with their bodies.

These days, their use has become a bit more widespread in the general fitness world, however, due to increased competition and big drops in price. Products that used to cost several thousand US dollars can now be had for between $500-$1000 USD.
 

 
Not inexpensive by any means, but closer to affordable for people that routinely spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on supplements, gym memberships, massages, personal training, and more.

The other category of compression gear is much less expensive and consists of compression garments. You can find compression gear for pretty much every part of the body, ranging from tights, to socks, shirts, arm sleeves, and more.

Though an entire medical-grade range of compression gear exists to treat specific medical conditions, most of the commercial gear marketed towards the fitness and performance market does not deliver the same level of compression.

Does compression therapy actually work?

Regardless of the type or category of compression therapy, the general mechanisms behind how it works are largely the same. Compression of the walls of your veins help them drive blood back to the heart and increase overall circulation.

Boots like Normatec use a pneumatic system to compress your legs in stages as you sit there and relax. Typical sessions range from 15-20 minutes.

Though there has not been an extensive amount of research done on this type of compression, there is enough evidence that they do, in fact, increase blood flow and circulation that can lead to reduced soreness and even increased range of motion.

It’s important to keep in mind, however, that much of this type of research is comparing the use of compression boots to a control group that does nothing to promote recovery.

Compared to being inactive, there is no doubt that driving circulation and blood flow with compression boots will likely have a benefit in recovery.
 

 
What is less well-documented, on the other hand, is whether or not the use of compression boots is any more or less effective than more active forms of recovery and regeneration like we’ve covered in previous lessons.

What about compression garments?

A good amount of research has tried to answer the question of whether or not wearing compression garments can actually improve performance and/or recovery, with mostly mixed results.

The majority of studies done in this area have focused on runners and endurance athletes to gauge whether or not wearing compression gear increases time to exhaustion and/or overall performance.

For the most part, little to no noticeable changes in this area have been seen in athletes wearing compression gear vs. those that are not. A large study funded by Nike showed no difference in fatigue after 30 minutes of treadmill running at 80% of max effort.

So performance… probably not.

For recovery, however, things are a bit more promising.

In this area, there is both evidence and anecdotal support that adding the right amount of compression post-workout can help aid in reducing soreness, reducing the buildup of metabolic waste products, and improving overall circulation.
 

 
The key here is that the right amount of compression is used. Too little has no real impact and too much may actually restrict blood flow.
The level of compression is measured in terms of millimeters of mercury. The level of compression supported in the research is 20-30 mmHg.

More than 30mmHg may be too much and less than 10mmHg is likely not enough.

This is why it’s important to do your homework before spending your money on compression gear. Many of the more popular brands do not post their level of compression.

When to wear compression gear

Although wearing compression gear during a high-intensity workout likely won’t improve performance or make you stronger, some people report feeling better with it on. There’s no real downside, and wearing it in the few hours afterwards may have a positive impact.

A particularly good use for high-quality compression gear is during and after a recovery workout. Here, the overall workout is at lower intensity and the major goal is to increase blood flow and overall circulation.

It makes sense that adding in a compression layer during and in the hours after this type of workout may enhance some of the benefits of this type of training.

Another good use of compression gear is if you have any level of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), a condition where the vein walls and valves don’t effectively return blood back to the heart as well as they should.

This condition is more common than most people think, particularly in populations older than 40 years old. Common early signs include varicose veins in the legs and swelling of the ankles.

There are varying degrees of CVI, ranging from very mild to severe, and even the most mild cases can impact lower body performance and recovery. Research suggests up to 40% of the US population exhibits early signs, such as varicose veins, and somewhere between 2-5% likely have clinic level CVI.

Finally the use of compression socks and tights may be beneficial during long flights and times where you’ll be immobile. This is because they can help prevent the pooling of fluids while you’re seated for several hours or more and combat some of the physical effects of jet lag.

Taken as a whole, garments that offer between 20-30mmHg of compression are reasonably inexpensive, require no additional time or work to use, and likely provide some level of benefit.

This is particularly true when used during and after recovery workouts, when traveling, and/or if you have any degree of CVI that inhibits circulation throughout the legs to begin with.

Action Step

Some people report feeling a noticeable difference when wearing compression garments so if you’ve never tried them before, it can’t hurt to give them a shot for yourself. The easiest way to do this is by wearing a pair of high-quality compression socks.

The brand 2XU is one of the few top brands that allows you to search and sort by the compression level of their products. Less expensive can also be found on Amazon as well.

The use of electric muscle stimulation (EMS) is widely used across a range of health and fitness disciplines, from physical therapy and rehab, to high-level, athletic performance.

Historically, the use of EMS for increasing performance in athletes has been more popular throughout Europe and other parts of the world than the US. The former Soviet Union, in particular, began extensive research into the practical application of EMS to improve performance as far back as the 1970s.

A variety of bold claims have been made about various EMS devices, including that they can:

• Increase muscle strength
• Stimulate muscle growth
• Improve explosive power
• Increase blood flow and circulation
• Decrease muscle soreness
• Prevent muscle wasting
• Enhance recovery
• Improve speed
• Accelerate rehabilitation
• Decrease pain

Before we get to the answer of whether or not EMS can actually do any of those things, it’s important to take a second to talk about how it works in the first place.

How does EMS work?
 

 
To understand EMS, you just have to know that your muscles contract via an electrical signal sent from the brain to your muscles through the nervous system.

EMS hijacks this process and sends an electrical signal through the skin to the muscles directly. This means they contract in much the same way, though not exactly identical to how nature does it.

Different kinds of EMS devices use different types of current, frequencies, amounts of power, and types of electrodes to make contact with the skin and cause the muscles to contract.

Clinical models used in physical therapy clinics can be several thousands of dollars. On the other side, you can find small, low power models for as little as $50 at mall kiosks and retail stores.

In short, all EMS units are not created equal and this is an extremely important thing to be aware of.

What about TENS?

Aside from EMS devices, you may have heard about TENS. Both TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) and EMS use electrical currents through the skin, but EMS uses a stronger current to stimulate muscle contractions.

TENS, on the other hand, targets specific nerves to reduce pain signaling to the brain. It’s most commonly used in physical therapy, surgical recovery, and rehab.

While both TENS and EMS can stimulate nerves to help relieve pain, EMS is what’s most often used in the realm of fitness and performance.
 

 
Does EMS work?

The most accurate answer to whether or not EMS works and is worth using is that it depends.

This is because first of all, there is a wide range of EMS devices out there. Some can be extremely effective, while others are little more than a gimmick.

Expect to pay a fairly high price to get a good EMS system. If you do want to use EMS in your program, my two brand recommendations are Compex and Globus.

Compex has a broad selection of devices that are designed to be user friendly. Their wireless models also eliminate the traditional issue of having to be connected directly to the power units.
Due to FDA regulations, you’ll find the selection of Compex units available on the USA website far more limited than in many other countries. Many of their high end models are not available to order directly, so you may have to get a bit creative if you’d like to get your hands on one.
 

 
Globus, on the other hand, is a less well-known brand from Italy that’s also branched out into athletic performance. They have a range of models aimed at different sports and their prices tend to be on the higher end.

Overall, their devices are not as user-friendly, and they lack a wireless option. That said, they also offer a wider range of options and programs in their devices and they’re also some of the most powerful available outside of the medical industry.

Can EMS speed up your recovery?

How effective a good EMS system is at improving recovery depends on what you’re comparing it against. Compared to being inactive and doing nothing in between workouts, using EMS can have a noticeable benefit.

Compared to incorporating things like recovery workouts, regeneration strategies, and activities that require movement, research suggests that by itself, EMS is generally not as effective.

Stimulating muscles with electric current is better than not simulating them at all and can have benefits, but it’s not really the same as doing it the old fashion way.

Where EMS can be extremely effective is for returning after an injury.

It allows you to get blood and fluids into tissues surrounding the injury, while stimulating the nervous system to active muscles that may have been inactive during the healing process.
 

 
Overall, EMS is probably the most beneficial for people that would otherwise not do anything active for recovery. If you’re not going to incorporate recovery workouts and get in a good amount of overall activity each day, then 15-20 minutes of EMS is a good alternative.

It’s also beneficial if you’re constantly traveling and/or dealing with injuries that prevent you from training consistently. Here, adding in EMS can speed up your rehab time and help you get in some additional muscle activation when you can’t get to the gym.

Finally, there’s no reason you can’t use some EMS as part of your training itself. It can be used pre-workout as part of your warm up, for example. Some models even make it possible to do various exercises at the same time with EMS on.

So while EMS is not a replacement for moving or training, it can still be a valuable tool when used for the right purposes and with the right expectations.

Action step

If you’re going to buy an EMS system, make sure to do your homework. It’s much better to invest in a high-quality system than buy one that’s inexpensive, but also ineffective.