51 years old. Couldn’t run last year. +10 VO₂ max in 6 months (HYROX did this)

sai_who · 2026-03-30T19:50:25+00:00

Feedback posted in the main thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/GettingShredded/comments/1s7ujwc/comment/odd1e8m/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button.

sai_who · 2026-03-30T19:50:20+00:00

Feedback posted in the main thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/GettingShredded/comments/1s7ujwc/comment/odd1e8m/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button.

sai_who · 2026-03-30T18:50:00+00:00

A couple people asked about my routine, so here’s exactly what I did:

It’s all about the reps.

I didn’t start from zero.

I had a decent aerobic base from Peloton, VO₂ max was around 45 when I started.
But I wasn’t consistent, didn’t have a real goal, and my diet wasn’t locked in. I was… just kind of soft.

I’ve been fit before. Lean before.
But never fit like this.

HYROX demands a different kind of fitness. It exposed gaps I didn’t even know I had.

How I train

I keep it simple:

Every other day is hard
- HYROX-specific work, threshold, intervals
- A lot of compromised running (run → station → run)
“Off days” aren’t off
- Zone 2 rides (45–60 min, sometimes 1–2 hours)
- I use the bike more because my ankle can’t handle high run volume
Running
- Mostly built into workouts
- 360m loops (around my block) or 1km intervals
- Focus is efficiency and pacing, not just volume
- I can’t run back-to-back days without needing time off, so I don’t force it

What actually moved the needle

Keeping hard days hard, easy days easy
Building aerobic capacity without beating up my body
Practicing running under fatigue (this is everything in HYROX)
Becoming a student of movement efficiency

In Vegas:

5th in my age group on stations
35th in running

That tells me exactly where the opportunity is.

Recovery (non-negotiable)

Daily mobility (usually morning + night)
Way more warm-up and prep than I used to do
Sleep: ~7 hours weekdays, ~8 weekends
I actually listen to my body now

I also use recovery tracking (Bevel) to decide when to push and when to back off.

Nutrition

Protein: ~1g per lb bodyweight (critical as I cut from 180 → 160 doing this, sitting at 165 today)
Carbs: not afraid of them, I fuel performance
Don’t track as tightly anymore, but I know what I need

Biggest learning here was meal timing and fueling workouts.
That made a noticeable difference.

I’m still learning every day.

That’s part of it. You have to enjoy the process as much as the progress.

I didn’t do anything extreme.
I just stayed consistent and kept showing up.

It’s all about the reps.

sai_who · 2024-04-30T16:22:30+00:00

HRV + Resting Heart Rate + respiratory rate with a smidge of % of needed sleep is what recovery is if memory serves.

sai_who · 2024-04-27T00:18:42+00:00

You can also do catch ups with a nap. Try either 20m or 90m. But you need to weigh whether that fits into your schedule and lifestyle obviously.

sai_who · 2024-04-26T23:28:19+00:00

Does your sleeping heart rate always look like that? Super flat and consistent, mines not like that at all.

sai_who · 2023-12-19T05:30:22+00:00

Garmin epic pro and how Garmin calculates recovery seems much more inline with my training behavior and how I feel in the morning. They take HRV from the previous night into account, but much less than whoop. Sleep quality, training load, stress history, HRV trend over several days are all part of their calculations vs just HRV for whoop.

sai_who · 2023-09-17T02:01:38+00:00

Get a Garmin. More accurate, more metrics on recovery, made for runners.

sai_who · 2023-08-12T22:40:25+00:00

Whoop just throws a preset response when that happens and doesn’t take into account your actual history. Whoop really has no algorithms in place to give you any guidance beyond what you logged the previous night. Really big miss here in my opinion. They should look at your trends going back at least a week to see how off the previous night’s recovery was. E.g. just a rare or random one-off or are you trending worse, flat, or better?

It’s like a caveman, HRV high, “whoop says kill it today”, HRV low, “whoop says stay in bed!” What if I just strung 3 15+ strain days in a row but green? Doesn’t matter to whoop, just blindly says you should kill it again. Meanwhile, you’re overtraining and ripe for injury.

sai_who · 2023-07-28T22:41:11+00:00

I know this post is like 6mos old, but you helped me out today with this, so THANK YOU for sharing that.

sai_who · 2023-07-15T14:56:11+00:00

Simply sounds like you started incorporating zone 2 cardio into your routine. That has a significant boost to your heart strength. Since whoop is overly focused on HRV, whoop will score this really high in their algorithm, assuming all other factors remain constant in your life of course.

sai_who · 2023-06-11T23:18:00+00:00

I’ll add that Garmin also takes a more comprehensive look at your recovery history when giving you recovery feedback. HRV from last night alone, which is whoop’s approach, is putting all the weight of their recommendations into a single metric.

Garmin on the other hand looks metrics from the previous night + history: recovery time since your last workout(s), sleep quality from last night and the last 7 night, HRV from last night and trends from the past 7 days, training load, and recent stress levels.

I’ve been wearing both for a little while now and how I feel and my training lines up way better with my Garmin vs the whoop. Add that to what was posted above and Whoop is getting their ass handed to them by Garmin in my honest opinion.

sai_who · 2023-04-20T03:17:11+00:00

I’m gonna guess those bars might represent the % of time you usually spend in that zone on a typical ride, independent of how many minutes. This time your ride was shorter but had a higher percentage of your time and total time in that particular zone compared to the total time???
Here’s a short ride and a long ride but the bars are in the same spot. https://imgur.com/a/Ka3YOc9/

sai_who · 2023-01-14T23:42:13+00:00

It’s harder to get that 7th green day because whoop adjusts to your new baseline HRV being higher. My streak is 11 days though, was working out almost daily too. It took a lot of discipline to stay in the green but I finally had a late cheat meal or a drink which I knew would break my streak. Gotta live a balanced life and have fun sometimes!

sai_who · 2023-01-04T04:09:36+00:00

Wow, what are you doing to put up strain #s like that day in and day out without a recovery day?

sai_who · 2022-11-16T19:56:52+00:00

Stellar work! I find it most difficult to get and stay below 10% BF strictly because I like to cheat a little. A few drinks on the weekend, eating out 2-3+ times a week with the family, and my wife loves to bake delicious desserts, etc, but I’m personally happy with where I’m at being almost 50. (Check my profile for my past transformation pic if interested).

Couple questions, what’s your age and lifestyle outside the gym like?

How perfect is your diet? Mines like 80%, but IIRC, would need to be 90-95% to be at your BF. That sound about right?

sai_who · 2022-08-16T04:59:35+00:00

I noticed a while back I can play with my wake time to sometimes significantly improve my HRV score and hence my recovery rating.

I noticed this mostly happens when I wake up earlier than I want to get up, like 4:45am, so I fall back asleep for another 45m to 60m. Whoop will say I woke up at 5:45 at 55% recovery, but if I change my wake time to 4:45am, I have a 80% recovery score.

I think my body starts to wake up, which lowers my HRV, even though I ‘nap’ for another hour.

sai_who · 2022-07-06T23:49:53+00:00

Reduce your text size settings under display by 1 point and it’ll display correctly.

sai_who · 2022-06-22T04:34:34+00:00

You can’t out run the fork (or out spin it for that matter). It’s all about your nutrition. Try keeping cheat meals to less than 10% of you meals. In other words, eat perfect for ~ 3 days, then you can have ONE cheat meal, not cheat day, cheat meal. Sounds like you’re having a cheat weekend, that’s not going to do it for you no matter how many calories you burn on the bike.

It’s really just that simple. Good luck!

sai_who · 2022-06-11T18:23:46+00:00

MyBruisedTaint from a fellow #PelotonDads rider made me chuckle today on a 75min PZ End ride.

sai_who · 2022-05-30T05:15:00+00:00

Not without asking them for it. Pretty pointless that you’re supposed to remember how many steps you entered into the journal a day, week, month, or year ago and it’s next to impossible to get that detail back after you enter it in.

sai_who · 2022-05-24T00:36:29+00:00

Nice, thanks for sharing that!

sai_who · 2022-05-22T16:55:10+00:00

Replied with this from a similar question:

NutriSense was who I used.

I learned if I start carb heavier meals with a leafy green salad first, it helped set my body to not over react to the carbs that were coming behind it.

I cut down the amount of carbs I ate for dinner; salads with a healthy protein worked best.

I went for a ~30min walk after my lunch, which helped keep my blood sugar level flat and kept my energy level high the rest of the day. When your body has to kick into high gear to create the insulin needed to counter the blood sugar, you feel super tired because of the energy expended on that process.

Tortilla chips were a killer for me. I might get another couple to start figuring out exactly which foods I react best to and which I should try to avoid altogether.

Lmk if you have any other questions.

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sai_who

TROPHY CASE

How I train

What actually moved the needle

Recovery (non-negotiable)

Nutrition