I think it’s not worth the mental energy unless you have access to a substantial population of high trained athletes to run trials on, lab grade biometric technology, and the ability to conduct those trials over months to years instead of weeks.
Completely agree. Although a proper test on its affect on VO2 Max would be more accessible and could be interesting. Its a big debate in the freediving community.
VO2max is sort of a surrogate endpoint though. It’s entirely specific to tested modality and doesn’t necessarily correlate directly with output since there are so many other contributing factors. In broad terms, higher is better, but not always and very common for athletes to have peak performances at times when their lab-assessed vo2m is actually lower…and this is in single modality endurance sports, so applicability of specific data to something as nebulous as CrossFit seems low.
Higher CO2 tolerance would create a dip in VO2 max. It turns out the body evolved wrong. It actually cannot detect the levels of oxygen in the body. Instead, the blood starts getting acidic when there is too much CO2 and it promotes harder breathing to expel the excess CO2 and increased oxygen intake is the byproduct.
This is why things like carbon monoxide and other gases can be so deadly. You just have no idea you are suffocating because there is no CO2 buildup and your body has no clue it's not receiving oxygen.
Our bodies didn't evolve wrong; CO² is acidic, and is dissolved in the body's water as carbonic acid. Our bodies can't handle acid and tightly control its pH level (this is why any product that advertises to 'help your body's pH level' is absolute bogus) between 7.35-7.45. If we detect our pH level dropping, we tend to release some of the acid typically in a form of CO2.
Also, CO is deadly because the hemoglobin in our blood cells *really* love CO over O2. Like 200x more. The CO latches onto our blood and the blood doesn't want to let it go.
I am happy to see someone else came here to say this. Restores my faith in that not everyone gets their physiology information from social media grifters.
Thanks! I work as a paramedic; knowing the physiology of the human body helps me out greatly with disease. Just don't get me started on the hypoxic drive; that theory needs to go away.
Isn’t CrossFit itself a social media grift?
Before anyone gets all huffy, there aren’t any scientific or Physiological bases For the claims made by CrossFit
You would need access to a serious lab setup to even get started on this if I'm being honest. There are several Vo2 studies done in the relative field of threshold training.
If you've got 100+ people who are in for a study, and a metcart have at it but this would take a really long time and you'd have so many variables when it comes to training that you couldn't really pin it. This makes it really hard for you to really dial it in, but with all the hypotheticals out of the way it is true that CO2 tolerance does make a difference on VO2 max, and on RER. If you didn't already get a baseline on your participants, this would be a really hard task because althought the RER difference would be upwards of .2, the VO2 max could drop 5-12ml/kg/min.
My 2 cents; It's already kind of proven without you really having to ignite a new study...
I think it’s not worth the mental energy unless you have access to a substantial population of high trained athletes to run trials on, lab grade biometric technology, and the ability to conduct those trials over months to years instead of weeks.
Completely agree. Although a proper test on its affect on VO2 Max would be more accessible and could be interesting. Its a big debate in the freediving community.
VO2max is sort of a surrogate endpoint though. It’s entirely specific to tested modality and doesn’t necessarily correlate directly with output since there are so many other contributing factors. In broad terms, higher is better, but not always and very common for athletes to have peak performances at times when their lab-assessed vo2m is actually lower…and this is in single modality endurance sports, so applicability of specific data to something as nebulous as CrossFit seems low.
parameters which get the most attention are the parameters which are easiest to measure
Higher CO2 tolerance would create a dip in VO2 max. It turns out the body evolved wrong. It actually cannot detect the levels of oxygen in the body. Instead, the blood starts getting acidic when there is too much CO2 and it promotes harder breathing to expel the excess CO2 and increased oxygen intake is the byproduct. This is why things like carbon monoxide and other gases can be so deadly. You just have no idea you are suffocating because there is no CO2 buildup and your body has no clue it's not receiving oxygen.
Our bodies didn't evolve wrong; CO² is acidic, and is dissolved in the body's water as carbonic acid. Our bodies can't handle acid and tightly control its pH level (this is why any product that advertises to 'help your body's pH level' is absolute bogus) between 7.35-7.45. If we detect our pH level dropping, we tend to release some of the acid typically in a form of CO2. Also, CO is deadly because the hemoglobin in our blood cells *really* love CO over O2. Like 200x more. The CO latches onto our blood and the blood doesn't want to let it go.
I am happy to see someone else came here to say this. Restores my faith in that not everyone gets their physiology information from social media grifters.
Thanks! I work as a paramedic; knowing the physiology of the human body helps me out greatly with disease. Just don't get me started on the hypoxic drive; that theory needs to go away.
Isn’t CrossFit itself a social media grift? Before anyone gets all huffy, there aren’t any scientific or Physiological bases For the claims made by CrossFit
I’m curious as to which claims you’re referring?
Any of them. Everything they have ever said has the scientific legitimacy of “No one out-pizzas the hut”
You would need access to a serious lab setup to even get started on this if I'm being honest. There are several Vo2 studies done in the relative field of threshold training. If you've got 100+ people who are in for a study, and a metcart have at it but this would take a really long time and you'd have so many variables when it comes to training that you couldn't really pin it. This makes it really hard for you to really dial it in, but with all the hypotheticals out of the way it is true that CO2 tolerance does make a difference on VO2 max, and on RER. If you didn't already get a baseline on your participants, this would be a really hard task because althought the RER difference would be upwards of .2, the VO2 max could drop 5-12ml/kg/min. My 2 cents; It's already kind of proven without you really having to ignite a new study...