Dr. Kilgore and I did a preliminary case study in 2009 to determine if there was a correlation between oxygen saturation (in this case a lack thereof) and conditioning improvement. Kilgore himself was the subject and we had very interesting pre and post data points. He had been on a strength program for five or six months and the case study was a four week conditioning storm that included one day each of squatting, pressing, and deadlifting per week. We were still active with CrossFit at the time, and there are a couple benchmark workouts we used as tests. However, the four weeks consisted of carefully programmed conditioning workouts that wouldn’t have been possible to do had Kilgore not been so relatively strong.
Kilgore posted about this on his fitness related blog a few weeks ago. Let me know if you have any questions, and if there is a question for Kilgore, then I can probably have him jump in here and answer it. I’ll elaborate in this entry throughout the day if necessary.
“Questioning the Fit” post by Kilgore that includes the pre/post .pdf sheet.
—–
This post is perhaps one of the most relevant and important things to be put on this site, so I guess I’m going to have to explain why.
1. Dr. Kilgore was 50 years old in the first run of this case study. He had zero conditioning adaptation. After having an important surgery that halted other things in life, he was on a strength program for about half a year. Thus, he was as de-conditioned as you can get. We repeated the case study a SECOND time about a year later. Lon was equally de-conditioned (the last time he did conditioning was the first run through of the case study) and he was weaker (hadn’t been strength training up to the second run through as he had the first run through).
2. What we were specifically looking at was trying to bring down his oxygen saturation. The hypothesis was that this is a relevant metric for inducing a stress for improved adaptation. It may not even be an important metric, but there aren’t many that are testable regarding conditioning. The way I have thought about is that if we achieve a significant desaturation of O2 (in this case, we were shooting for at least a 4% reduction, hypoxemia in normal circumstances at sea level), that creates a deficit in substrates. A significant deficit in substrates is something that the body isn’t used to (especially in Lon’s case), so it must go through the adaptation process. In other words, O2 lowers (and whatever else that may be going on that we can’t easily measure), the body freaks out and goes, “Holy shit, we aren’t used to this, let’s improve the relevant physiology so that we can handle this same work load in the future or, god help us, handle a higher work load.” We show that in four weeks this was a very significant method of stressing Lon’s body to hugely increase his ability to do work.
2a. No, we aren’t saying the results are generalized to a greater population. We aren’t stupid. However, there are many people that have attained very good fitness or conditioning levels with high intensity exercise. Most of us have seen this work before, but never really quantified it.
2b. No, we aren’t suggesting that 02 saturation is a giant cog in the metabolic process. However, I think that it should garner relevant attention.
3. The pre/post tests were done in a specific order. I just realized that all of these aren’t in the document, so I’ll do my best to elaborate.
We tested ‘strength only’ with the lifts. We tested ‘endurance only’ with the run and row (although in retrospect, I would have increased the rowing distance from 1,000m to 2k or 2.5k to improve the relevancy of the test). Then we had an assortment of conditioning workouts from CrossFit. One was solely calisthenic based (“Cindy”), one was calisthenic and lifting based (“Diane”), and another was completely implement based. If you look at the first page of the document, you’ll see vast improvements in the tests that are included and Lon did not do worse on any pre/post test.
4. You’ll notice his results weren’t as good after the second run through. Lon and I are of the opinion that since he wasn’t as strong, he wasn’t able to push as hard in the workouts to achieve similar stresses.
5. More importantly, in order to achieve greater stresses strength was necessary. If you don’t have adequate stress, you aren’t able to push as hard or as long, and therefore can’t impose an adaptive stress on the system. Furthermore, if you are weaker, you are going to be a helluva lot more sore than if you were stronger. Lon experienced this firsthand, and during the first case study, he even said, “I couldn’t imagine being able to do this not being as strong as I am.”
6. Yes, Lon go weaker during the first phase, but what do you expect? He was squatting once on Monday, pressing once on Tuesday, and Deadlifting once on Thursday. This case study along, with my observations of the CrossFit class I had on similar programming, clearly showed me that this wasn’t enough strength training to improve strength, let alone maintain it. However, that point is relevant to the person(s) on a given program. If someone required significant conditioning increases and was already strong, they could achieve significant conditioning adaptations in a very short amount of time.
7. This case study has many limitations but it creates many questions. If you look at it from a hard science perspective, then there needs to be follow up research. If you look at it from a practicality and experiential standpoint, you know this kind of thing is already happening. There are certain requirements that will make it so:
7a. The program is very, very carefully programmed.
7b. Each workout must achieve an intensity level that is a ‘significant stress’. Recovery between these bouts of high intensity should be minimized over time. In other words, higher outputs and minimizing recovery are the goals. You can’t do this in workouts that are longer than 15 minutes — you can’t sustain such high outputs that long. Most workouts Lon did here (and what I would program) are under 12 minutes with the majority around the 8 minute mark.
There are many more conclusions and questions that I can draw from all of this, but I won’t spoon feed you any more. I’m open to productive discussion.
29 thoughts on “A Case Study With Dr. Lon Kilgore”
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The improvement in the mile time is remarkable, but is more or less impressive depending on how fast he was running to begin with. It says that he improved by about 2 min. How fast could he run a mile when he started?
What are you even asking me? He ran the mile as fast as he was capable of running it.
–Justin
so basically he can run faster but he got weaker?
Hardly a collective synopsis. Maybe you need to look again.
–Justin
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Interesting. This correlates with the ‘Army Weak’ article posted on the Starting Strength website awhile back. Dropping 3 inches off his waist in 4 weeks is key to scoring high on the AF PT test. As I’m only concerned about training myself, this article provided some reassurance I’m on the right path.
He lost a lot of bodyfat too. And he didn’t change anything with his diet. And it isn’t the best, haha.
–Justin
@Maslow
If you look at Kilgore’s post he has a pdf with all the data. That will tell you his mile times, and everything else.
Justin, I’m still a little confused, but maybe it’s because I’m not of a science/medicle/whatever background.
basically he ran an experiment to see what happens if you train in an environment where oxygen levels are low? Assuming some sort of climate controlled chamber? or am I way off…
We used a pulse oximeter to measure his oxygen. His oxygen desaturated because of the intensity of the workout. It’s a natural thing that happens to all of us. Basically, when you feel uncomfortable, your oxygen is likely desaturated and that’s why you don’t feel good. If you feel like puking, you probably have a huge reduction in oxygen saturation. That’s just my opinion, and while I think it’s likely based on my experience in measuring O2 with the device, it isn’t fact or researched.
A pulse oximeter is a little thing that goes on your finger. You can see Harvey wear one in “The Dark Knight” when he’s in the hospital yelling, “Rachel!”.
–Justin
huh, i didn’t follow from the article that there was that much time between tests. I think Kilgore summed things up well himself witht he line, “stronger is always better”.
This is actually the reason I started training for strength to begin with and I guess I did so just by reading and coming to my won conclusions. It’s easier to increase your conditioning when you are strong to begin with then try and get strong while increasing your conditioning. When Kilgore was just out of peak shape for the first run, he lowered his mile time by over two minutes, and lost some strength, but not much. He didn’t lose a single kg off his deadlift, and 10 kgs off his squat and his PR press. 1 year later when he was out of strength shape his mile time lowered 1:45 and he couldn’t bring his strength numbers up to where they had been, being 10-20 kgs off his lifts when he was in peak condition.
Basically, be strong and the rest comes easy! Don’t run 5 minutes miles and try and get strong.
smithb9 – I didn’t gather that he was in a controlled environment, just measuring the levels of oxygen in the blood I believe, but I’m no scienece/bio major either.
When we did the pre and post tests, we did one each day. The idea is we didn’t want accumulated fatigue to affect the result of the individual test. And he was on a four week conditioning program, so there were four weeks between pre/post.
–Justin
Justin, does this case study change your recommendations regarding strength & conditioning programs?
Well, we did this around March of 2009, so I would say it had an effect. The case study, along with a laundry list of other experiences with and without Dr. Kilgore, has shaped my view of conditioning. It isn’t prolific. Stress –> Recovery –> Adaptation. You just have to create the workout in a way so it does that. That’s the simplified version of course.
–Justin
That’s pretty awesome Justin. I think after reading that I have heard my true calling in life, but… I think I am a few years too late, HA! Anyway, it’s not definitive evidence obviously, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Justin–I was saying that it’s remarkable that his mile time improved by two minutes without doing much actual running.
However, going from being able to run a mile in 12 minutes to being able to run it in 10 minutes in 4 weeks is not nearly as impressive as going from say, 8 minutes to 7 minutes. One is newbie gains, the other is a serious improvement.
Thanks, RoryT. I didn’t notice that url before. Looks like he went from 9:43 to 7:44. Quite impressive. A good anecdotal example of how the body’s ability to quickly adapt to periods of high intensity exercise, where the muscles can’t get as much oxygen as they would like, and how the whole body adapts under that kind of stress.
Seems to me that although he got “weaker” during the experiment, his muscles ability to hold and use oxygen, increased. The ability for muscles to hold ad use oxygen is useful in getting stronger, since it’s what you need when lifting heavy weights.
P. 71-72 of Practical Programming goes over this. “A concentrated dose of high-intensity glycolytic-type work lasting several minutes, utilizing exercises that incorporate a full range of motion for a large amount of muscle mass, which putatively produces significant O2 desaturation, has been shown, in practice, to drive improvement in VO2 max better than low-intensity long slow distance exercises that produce no oxygen desaturation at all. […] Anyone who has ever done a 20RM set of deadlifts knows that there is a cardiorespiratory compontent for the work.” In other words, you can improve your ability to utilize oxygen if you train your body to do so, and that ability will help you get stronger in the long run.
This section also talks about how you guys have done a small scale pilot. Is the above article the same test referred to in PP, or was this a new test done after PP 2009 edition was printed?
Side note to anyone: get this book if you don’t have it.
Kilgore has done many pilots, but I would assume that it’s referencing what we did earlier in the year. I openly admit that I don’t know, though. That comment about saturation would seemingly have to be related to the pilot.
–Justin
It is nice to see some progress in scientific studies in this area. Anecdotally, lots of people have been saying that strength gives you better ability to perform conditioning work, but I haven’t seen much in the literature. It would be pretty cool to see a follow-on study get funded with a larger sample size.
It would be cool to see follow ups, but it’s contingent on a starting adaptation of being strong(er). We didn’t always get proper desaturation when Kilgore was weaker the second time. Furthermore, when I would measure saturation on weak people, they couldn’t do enough work to lower O2. Females almost always indicated this problem because they were weak when they started training.
Since people are going to think it anyway, I will go ahead and say that our little case study with one subject isn’t enough to shatter any barriers. I still am of the opinion that observing it with Kilgore and the other trainees I had is enough to give me practicing evidence of inducing appropriate adaptation. However, if it’s going to be more valid for research types, there needs to be further testing.
–Justin
I second that Dave.
Very cool stuff. You definitely did some solid work there. Impressive.
Have you every thought of doing some research to illustrate the legitimacy of the distinction between novice, int., and advanced lifters? Or has that already been explored?
Anyway, as always, very impressed with the work you guys do here.
What do you mean research on distinction between novice/int/advanced? Relating to strength? Or O2?
If you meant O2 and/or conditioning, this would be one time where I would say absolute strength is relevant. I’d want the trainee to have a certain strength and body type (not overly fat) if I was going to condition them quickly. I think Lon was squatting/pulling around 400 when he did this. I think I’d want a squat of at least 330, and probably over 350 if I was going to put them through a similar program (5 tough conditioning workouts a week). But I don’t have enough information to accurately make an assumption. I would assume someone wanting excellent conditioning would have at least medium strength, and this would be at least a 300 lb squat/pull. This wouldn’t be a problem for most athletic males.
I doubt there is any research on whatever topic you are asking (even though you are being very general in asking the question). Specify and I’ll do my best.
–Justin
Justin, I was referring to whether or not anyone has ever demonstrated that a novice lifter recovers from a lifting session in two days, that an intermediate lifter recovers in two weeks… etc. I was not asking in reference to O2. Sorry that I am off topic. I was not trying to anger you.
Ha, I’m not angry, my friend. I just need and like clarification. I was worried I’d come off that way.
In any case, no there hasn’t been any studies on what you ask about. I think in large part because we see it happening right in front of us. To a practitioner it seems absurd to study something that is easily demonstrated three times a week with all beginners. I’m not sure a study would be needed to “prove” it to a researcher. I certainly wouldn’t want to take the time to do the study.
Again, apologies for the alleged brashness. If you have any other comments or questions, let them fly.
–Justin
I agree, Justin. Doing the study with strong people (as opposed to untrained college-age males, which seems to be what most people use) would be key to a bigger study.
In my own non-scientific experience (which is limited to myself, my wife, a few friends, and a couple of neighborhood kids I train), we all are able to increase our conditioning faster, and to a greater degree, when we are strong(er).
Whoops, you just finished answering me as I wrote that last one. Sorry for not being more specific, but I think that you answered me anyway.
I’m not seeing a clearly stated thesis here. What’s at stake? Are you saying that, in order to achieve a level of oxygen desaturation necessary to cause significant adaptation, you need to have a certain level of strength in order to work that hard?
e.g. based on Kilgore’s results you would expect to see a 275lb Squatter benefit more from a conditioning program than a 225lb squatter, with all things being equal?
I may be misunderstanding you, but it looks like you have a lot riding on oxygen desaturation as the leading stimulus that tells the body to get in better cardiovascular condition. The stronger athlete will benefit more from the same conditioning program than the weaker athlete simply because the stronger athlete is capable of doing more work. An athlete who is equal to his peer in all respects (except that he is stronger) will be able to push harder and create a bigger stimulus.
But to that end, greater strength is not necessary to create the biggest stimulus. Michael Phelps’ squat is probably around half of mine, but if he swims a 200 Butterfly he will have a greater oxygen desaturation than if I swam a 200 Butterfly.
Don’t confuse my generalizations, conclusions, opinions, or thoughts with the actual case study. You’re right, there isn’t a paper explaining the hypothesis or anything, but the purpose of the study was to show that desaturating oxygen (which we defined by at least a 4% reduction) was something that could improve VO2max in a short amount of time. Kilgore may have had another intention related to the oxygen saturation, but I can’t remember. So the hypothesis was that desaturation would have an effect.
Because of the study, there are many observations I have made based on what happened. I’m also drawing from the collective experience of training a lot of people whether they were on a conditioning program or not, and whether I was taking measurements with the pulse oximeter or not. Kilgore and I have made comments/opinions about strength in addition to the actual study, yet strength wasn’t a variable we were manipulating to show an effect.
And the comment about Phelps 200m butterfly compared to you is a little arbitrary since he could probably beat you at a sub-maximal speed. Near maximal intensity would be necessary for a desaturation in the first place, but Phelps is probably so finely conditioned that he doesn’t desaturate very easily.
Did that clear up the hypothesis issue?
–Justin
Justin – Thanks for telling me you put your notes up. Nice synopsis of the project from your perspective. You left out the colorful events associated with our endeavor (thanks). For those following this thread, the perceived difficulty and pain associated with dropping O2saturation >4% through exercise (many exercise physiologists will state that desaturation can only occur at altitude – that is bull) was nasty – worse than any wrestling conditioning I ever did.
The Practical Programming reference data was from my very first trials at dropping O2 saturation with exercise, not this study. I had gotten a few pulseoximeters following my epiphany reported in my Aerobic Paradox article in the CFJ (December 2006).
Penn asks whats at stake. We were simply examining if O2 desaturation might be a relevant indicator of exercise intensity, one that could be used to guide workouts (like some people try to do with lactate and heart rate). Purely exploratory of the idea that desaturation is a marker of disrupting O2 homeostatic conditions. The data is quite interesting and I think promising. The stronger concept is a corollary we derived through comparing the two studies … not definitive by any means but worth consideration.
Regarding follow on research. I shared this data with researchers at the University of Hawaii way back when this was just completed. They contacted me as they were interested in doing a larger study like this relative to an investigation of CrossFit training. I haven’t heard anything since. I personally don’t think that this project will be recreated in an academic environment. Getting volunteer subjects to spend 15 minutes or more in the hell of self-induced desaturation is not likely. Compliance and adherence will be an issue. I always pilot exercise protocols on myself to ensure they are realistic, viable, and survivable before asking subjects to attempt them. I was invested. Finding subjects willing to leave nothing in the tank every day will be difficult. This protocol is also labor invasive – one subject requires one researcher to collect the data, there is no way for a single researcher to do a group of subjects simultaneously. To create a large subject pool will be quite an undertaking.
I was lucky to have Justin on the project, he was critical to the projects training design and in keeping me going when O2 sats were insanely low (or when I had to run).
Any correlation of strength reduction to the period of intense conditioning seems to be suspect. Isn’t it more likely that the subject’s programming demands during the conditioning phase prevent him from peaking and hitting new PRs?
The Post 2 measurements show increases across the board in the strength metrics as well as conditioning, though I realize the numbers don’t get close to lifetime PRs. Still the point is that strength reduction may not always be a consequence of a conditioning program.
It would have been interesting to see what numbers Dr. Kilgore would have thrown up with either significant rest or a shift back to strength programming after the initial conditioning test. If tested again several weeks after the conditioning phase and upon resuming strength training, what would his strength and conditioning numbers have looked like?
Good observation, but it’s very important to note from our end that Kilgore was kinda sedentary before the second trial; I think we were coming off the winter holidays. Look how low his phase two pre-test on squat was (135kg) compared to phase one (170kg). On the other hand, it is noteworthy that I had many people still get decently strong doing squat/press/deadlift only once a week (one guy, a 30 year old in the Air Force who turned out to be a very good friend of mine, had his squat move from 95x5x3 to something like 270x5x3 just by doing it once a week). The strength increase isn’t optimal, and that’s why I eventually dropped this style of program for the one I advocate now (I will release v2.0 of this ‘advocated program’ on Thursday or Friday).
Kilgore had decent strength in phase two, but since he was weaker he didn’t achieve as good results, yet had results nonetheless. His run time and body fat went down (this is important for military guys), but not as much as phase one.
And yes, we didn’t expect Kilgore to hit any PR’s. For some reason I thought he wouldn’t lose as much strength as he did in phase one (maybe I was naive), but in retrospect I understand the tradeoff and he only lost 20 pounds or so. Also, he only lost strength in the squat and press (about 10kg each), and this could be related to the decrease in body weight. Losing a little strength with a few pounds kind of makes sense, but I consider most of his weight loss to be fat loss because of the reduction in body fat.
If he had done a strength-only program after phase one for three to four weeks, I think he could have increased his lifts (at least 5kg on squat and press, maybe a few on deadlift if he was feeling reckless). I think he could maintain decent numbers in his conditioning, but since conditioning is an adaptation that is gained and lost quickly, he may have suffered a bit. He wouldn’t have regressed back to pre-phase-one numbers, that’s for sure.
Alas! Kilgore is not a fan of conditioning. He’s been a lifter since 11 years old, so I wouldn’t expect him to continuing doing it, ESPECIALLY at the intensity of the study. He alluded to it in his post, but he was basically kicked in the face everyday. Hard.
–Justin
Justin,
I like the Dark Knight reference.
Also, after reading all the other comments I think I have a better grasp on what this experiment was all about.
I look forward to seeing your v2.0 program, Justin.
Thanks for responding Justin. Sorry for being so sensitive.
(Laughing) Well I actually am a fan of conditioning, just not when I (emphasis) do it as the main modality of training. An upshot of this project is that I now know I can spend 15 minutes a day bustin’ ass for just 4 weeks and gain a great deal of general fitness and lean out to make my weight class, then I can train to get strong to reach my competition goals. I may actually do a third pass through this program starting later this month. Actually I should start it next week so I can retest in November after I’m 52. Three consecutive years of geezer data along with getting ready to train for powerlifting and Olympic lifting events beginning in April. That could be useful.
Someone was interested in how fast my strength would have recovered once I began straight weight training. Historically, after a period of detraining I have been able to approach 90-95% of previous strength levels with 8 weeks of specialization and equal/exceed previous levels within 12-16 weeks. This links back to a specific muscular adaptation. Recovering strength after developing is likely due to the increase in nuclei present in the muscle resulting in training. When you train to get strong, new nuclei are added to the inside of the muscle cell, adding genetic power – the ability to initiate anabolic events that drive recovery and adaptation. The nuclei are a relatively persistent adaptation, staying in the muscle for a long time. So someone who has gotten strong and has become weak will regain strength faster than when they developed it the first time through.
Thanks for the post, Justin. Could you please clarify point #6 when you say that training each of the big lifts once per week is insufficient to maintain or improve strength? How is it that programs like CFSB or 5/3/1 are so successful when they only involve each of the lifts once per week?
I don’t know what ‘point 6’ is. More importantly, the 5/3/1 is not a beginner program. Yes, a beginner could do it, but if someone is weak novice, they aren’t taking advantage of their ability to adapt quickly. Sure, you can get strong doing a lift once a week, but it’s not optimal. Early in the CrossFit class I experimented on they just squatted, pressed, and deadlifted once a week. They got stronger by virtue of lifting more regularly (one guy went from 95x5x3 to around 275x5x3 while gaining 20 pounds), but it isn’t as optimal as this S&C Program.
–Justin
Thanks for the reply. By “point 6” I meant “6. Yes, Lon go weaker during the first phase, but what do you expect? He was squatting once…”
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anyone has got this KIlgore article? nice post, i always roll myself, but the rest ..;)