How Fit Is My Wife?

Can eight weeks of indoor cycling really transform your fitness and health? Dan introduces his wife, Lorraine, to the world of Zwift, starting with a grueling VO2 Max ramp test at Bath University to establish her baseline fitness. Join us as we analyze the results and launch a specific training plan focused on Zone 2 riding to improve longevity and metabolic health.

In collaboration with @Zwift 💥

Chapters: ⏱️
0:00 – Meet Lorraine & Current Lifestyle & Habits
3:47 – The New Bike Day
4:45 – To The Uni & Pre-Test Nerves
5:37 – The VO2 Max Ramp Test
7:03 – Analyzing The Data
09:27 – The 8-Week Training Plan 9:54
10:24 – Why Zone 2 Matters For Longevity
11:21 – Can You Reverse Aging?
11:52 – Join The Ride

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We are really excited to see Lorraine’s progress over the next two months! We’d love to know: Have you ever done a measured VO2 Max test, and were you surprised by the results? Let us know in the comments below! 👇

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This is my wife of 19 years, Lorraine. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever been married to. She works full-time in finance, is mom to our two children, and lives what I would describe as a very healthy lifestyle. I’ve been told I’m not allowed to reveal her age, but nothing was mentioned about year of birth, which is 1973. Uh, the question is, how fit is Lorraine and how fit can she get in 8 weeks of cycling indoors on Zift just twice per week? We’re about to find out. Just before I introduce you properly to Lorraine, I just wanted to chat to you very briefly on my own about why I’m so keen for her to do this. Obviously, I care a lot for her. I love her and so I want to see her stay fit and healthy for as long as she possibly can. And to be honest, she’s already doing almost everything right to achieve that. I think twice weekly cardio session would really just be the icing on the cake. Right, let’s go and meet Lorraine. Uh, so Lorraine, you have featured on the channel GM before, haven’t you? About 5 years ago. We helped teach people how to use clipless pedals. Over 2 million people have watched that video, but you’ve not used clipless pedals since, have you? No. Until today. So, it was wasted on you, but hopefully not on other people. I wanted you to tell the audience where you feel like you’re at in terms of lifestyle and current fitness and health and habits, etc. Uh, so I would say it’s reasonably good. There’s always room for improvement and I could do more. I do walking net ball at least well once a week and I try and go to the gym twice a week and then um I try and walk River as much as I can and I’ve just started doing some park runs with you. Yeah, River I should point out is our dog, not just walks down by the river, is it? Uh what about food and diet and sleep etc. So diet I think we’ve got a good diet. I try and do as much home cooking as possible. Obviously you do as well which is great. And uh drink obviously I do like the occasional drink but I feel as though I do do it in moderation and also I I can sort of limit my intake as well. Yeah. You’re one of those people that has the ability to have one glass of wine and stop. Yes. Aren’t you? Unlike me. Yes. So I think you come from a place where as I said at the start of this video, your lifestyle in general I would say is very very good. Everything from sleep to exercise levels to the diet etc. Always room for improvement of course. So I’ve got a plan and the plan is that you do two sessions on Zift per week for around 8 weeks and we test you at the start and the end to see roughly where you’re at from a V2 max point of view which you’ve heard me banging on about before. Yeah. Um, so I’m going to take you up to Bath Uni to their sort of pain cave is what I like to call it to do that V2 max test. So it is going to be fairly tough I would say because it means you have to go to exhaustion in order to get an accurate score as to what the maximum consumption of oxygen you got your body is. Then we’ll do two sessions per week on the Zift and we’ll retest again in about 8 weeks time. Does that sound all right? I guess so. You’ve sort of relaxed. I don’t think I’ve got much choice. Well, you of course got a choice. I mean, I’d love to see you do it. I’d love this to become a habit moving forward because I think the form of exercise you’re going to be doing is important from a longevity standpoint. I’ve got another piece of good news. Okay. I’ve got you a present. Great. It’s a new bike. Oh. Specifically for indoors. Okay. Come and have a look. Okay. There we go. Ooh, at the moment, as you can see, it is just four boxes, but within the boxes, there is a Zift ride and a Wahoo indoor trainer. Uh, upon which you can suffer for a few weeks. Hopefully, beyond that, actually. Um, should we put it together? Yes. Well, you can actually. You’re not going to help. No, I’m going to go away and celebrate being a Swifty. Whilst I continue to set this bad boy up, let’s go and check in and see how Lorraine gets on with her V2 max test. So, kitted up, weighed in, warm up done. How you feeling? A bit nervous, actually. Yeah. And we just explained that you’re going to exhaustion. That’s obviously what you’re nervous about, right? You see me do them and they look painful and I I only saw the photo of you, I think. So, um yeah, I’m glad I didn’t see the actual video, I think. Yeah, Lorraine does watch GSM videos, just not the ones I’m in. Right, I think we’re ready to get you um masked up. That doesn’t sound wrong. Jonathan at Bath Uni set the ramp test to start at 60 W and increase by 10 W per minute. As Lorraine doesn’t currently do much riding, that should see her reach exhaustion somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes in. Enough to get an accurate reading of V2 max. Great work. It’s good. It’s coming up to 8 minutes. It’s really good. Really good. Well done. Well done. Halfway through this stage. Stick with it if you can. As much as you can. Keep pushing through for this one. Breathe hard. Breathe really good. Well done. Okay. Brilliant. Well done. Brilliant. Well done. Well done. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Did for that last minute was tough. I was okay until that last minute. Yeah. It was the same for everyone. It it Yeah. And I thought I I really don’t think I could do anymore. Yeah. It’s funny how much you think, I’ve got this, I’ve got this, I’ve got this. Yeah. I haven’t got this. So, you probably want to know how that kind of what data that produced and how it came out. Um, so what we’ve got on the screen, the blue dots here are V2, so how much oxygen you’re using, and red is waste product, carbon dioxide. Um, obviously starts easy and gets harder. So, the oxygen consumption gradually increases as we go through and then it’s kind of plateauing out at the end, which is what we spoke about at the start, which proves you did go to maximum. And then the red is carbon dioxide starts to overtake the blue and that means you’re working really really hard at the end. You didn’t need me to tell you that but that meant we can confirm it was really hard at the end. Um so that’s great. But in terms of this we just need some some data in terms of the numbers. So right at the end of the test you were breathing in and out about 86 L of air. Normally just standing there, if you haven’t done anything, you’d be breathing in and out about 10 L. So it’s kind of gone up 8 and a half times. Mhm. From that 8 L of air, you’re using 1 8 L of oxygen. So your VMax would be 1.8 L per minute. But smart watches, W bands, all those things that predict um vax usually give it in a relative score. So relative to your body weight cuz people are different shapes and sizes um and weights. So dividing that 1.8 8 L by your weight, we get a VMAX of 35.3. So that’s 35.3 milll of oxygen for every kilogram of your weight per minute. Um, and you might say, is that good or bad? So looking at kind of the normative data charts for the general population for females, um, that would put you into the kind of good category, um, with there being one more above that, which is kind of excellent, which is above 40. So that’s really good for obviously the first time you’ve done this and you’re not strictly a cyclist either. So um really good result to start off with. Yeah, I’m really pleased for Lorraine and her result. It puts her in the top 15% of females of her age, an age which I obviously can’t disclose. So she’s already in a good place. The question is, can she get into an even better place? With the test now done, it’s time to execute the plan, which is quite a simple one. So, in week one, Lorraine’s going to do two Zift sessions of half an hour each, both at zone 2. From week two onwards, she’ll still be doing two sessions, but they’ll be close to 45 minutes. And one of them will focus on V2 max. If I can, I’ll be joining her for these. And as I’ll explain later, we’re hoping that many of you or people you know will join as well. The idea is to then retest her V2 max after those eight weeks. But I’m hoping that this is sort of habit forming basically for both of us that this becomes part of our weekly routine for years, hopefully decades to come. What is the plan? Well, first and foremost, I obviously want to see Lorraine stay fit and healthy for as long as she can, as I said at the start of the video. And I firmly believe these specific sessions will really aid in that, especially when done on top of the strength sessions he’s already doing in the gym. So zone 2 can play a significant role in longevity because it promotes mitochondrial health. It does so by inducing mitochondrial biogenesis. Mitochondrial decline is unfortunately part and parcel of aging. So strengthening them is central to metabolic health. Zone 2 also helps with fat metabolism. Although Lorraine doesn’t really need to lose any weight, as well as boosting insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake, which can also help counteract the age related decline that can lead to metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes. Then in terms of V2 max, well, we’ve already said a lot on this channel about what it is, so please watch those videos if you want more detail, but in brief, it’s a measure of the maximum rate at which your muscles can extract and use the oxygen you breathe into your lungs. Improving your V2 max from the lowest fitness percentile to just the next level up can reduce your risk of early death by as much as 50%. A V2 max naturally declines with age by about 10% per decade after you turn 30, but consistent training can significantly slow that decline and if you’re untrained, it can even reverse it. Everything that we do in life requires oxygen obviously because without it we would die. So, the decline in your body’s ability to use it is a worry. If you want to be able to walk upstairs, for example, when you’re 90, it’s wise to spend some time working on slowing down that decline in the decades that come before that. Now, this is where you can get involved. We would love for you to join in these sessions if you can, or if you’ve got a husband or a wife or a partner or a relative or a friend that you think you can convince to give it a try, please tell them they are more than welcome and that they will be very inclusive and encouraging sessions. They will mainly be done on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 12 GMT. And as I said, there’ll be 45 minutes each. Uh but because this year Christmas is on a Thursday, we’ll make alternative plan for that week. So keep your eye on the Ging Club on Zift for the days and times that week. Right, wish Lorraine luck. Uh we will check back in with you in eight weeks time. And let’s hope that this is a habit that Lorraine and I and hopefully many of you can keep for years to come. See you soon.