> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.scottsemple.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # "When can I stop easy training?" - URL: https://www.scottsemple.com/aerobic-capacity-when-can-i-stop-easy-training/ - Published: 2020-01-15T08:01:30.000Z - Updated: 2025-05-03T19:10:45.000Z - Author: Scott Semple When I introduced an allowance to our oldest son, I used three jars: Spend, Give, and Save. The three jars represented three big-picture elements of managing money. After describing the first two, I got to the one that I was most excited about, the Save jar. “And with this jar,” I said with glee. “This money you keep forever.” “FOREVER…?” my son said, horrified. “But I don’t want to save forever…” His 5-year-old face fell. He looked dejected. It was my fault. I did a bad job of explaining the concept. And for young kids, the idea of building toward self-perpetuating wealth is too hard to grasp. But for adults, the advantages of building and maintaining wealth should be obvious. Watching the first few dollars add up is a long, slow slog, but it’s worth it in the end. And building [aerobic capacity](https://www.scottsemple.com/how-to-destroy-aerobic-capacity/) works the same way. ## Building aerobic capacity is saving. Using capacity is spending. Michael Phelps’ coach Bob Bowman uses [a capacity versus utilization model](https://swimmingcoach.org/capacity-vs-utilization/?ref=scottsemple.com). The idea comes from [Jan Olbrecht](https://www.amazon.com/Science-Winning-Planning-Periodizing-Optimizing-ebook/dp/B009JTJ676?ref=scottsemple.com). In any training session, you can either build capacity or use it, but not both. **You can “save” your aerobic money by building up mitochondria. Or you can “spend” your money by using it up.** ## So when can you spend everything you’ve saved? How many people do you know that spent their way to wealth? **You can blow your bankroll whenever you want to be poor.** Or if [delayed gratification is too much of a challenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX%5Foy9614HQ&ref=scottsemple.com). When you no longer care about being as fit and fast as you can be, then aerobic capacity doesn’t matter anymore. Spend at will. But who wants to be poor?[1](#fn-316920-1) ## If you don’t want to spend it all, how much can you spend? Let’s jump back to the wealth example. Based on the historical annual gains of the S&P 500 index, a sustainable withdrawal rate is only 3-4%. So on a nest egg of a million dollars, you can only take out $30-$40,000 per year. That’s not a lot, is it? **The good news for your fitness is that you can make bigger withdrawals on aerobic capacity. The bad news for your ego is that it’s not bigger by much.** - For events of 90 minutes or more, high-intensity training shouldn’t exceed 5% of training time. So in a 10-hour week, you’d want to keep the minutes of high-intensity training to 30 minutes or less. In a 500-hour year, high intensity should be 25 hours or less. - For shorter events, you can stretch the high-intensity up to 10% of training time.[2](#fn-316920-2) So a good rule of thumb is [3-6 minutes of intensity per hour](earn%5Fyour%5Fburn) of aerobic capacity training (applied on a weekly or longer basis). ## So most of my training will be slow forever? No. There’s good news after all! The more “savings” you have the more “spending” you can do. A deca-millionaire can spend ten times as much as a millionaire and still maintain her wealth. The ratio is the same for both–3 to 4%–but the deca-millionaire has ten times the disposable income. Saving is tedious when it starts, but more and more gratifying as the amounts get bigger. The same is true for aerobic capacity. **It’s slow to start, speeds up, and gets fun when it’s fast.** ## How does aerobic capacity work get faster? Building aerobic capacity happens in two stages; one short, one long: 1. **In the first phase, the athlete’s aerobic threshold heart rate will start to rise**. The [the sugar/fat fuel mix](hybrid%5Fcar%5Fanalogy) improves. And then the aerobic threshold heart rate gets closer to the anaerobic. How fast it changes depends on three things: - [individual response](genetic%5Fpotential); - [the density of aerobic training](time%5Favailable); and - [the discipline to avoid high-intensity training](smart%5Flike%5Ftractor) during this period. 1. In the second phase, the aerobic and anaerobic threshold speeds [rise and converge](arrowhead%5Fendurance). With the right training, the first phase can happen in weeks or months. The second can [persist for years](https://www.scottsemple.com/vo2-max-a-14-year-retrospective/). ## So get saving. > *“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”* At the start, aerobic capacity training is tedious and slow. And it can be lonely. With all your friends [chasing KOMs](https://www.strava.com/?ref=scottsemple.com) and getting weaker, it can be hard to hold back and get stronger. When I started proper endurance training, I was always the slow guy. I was way off the back with almost everyone I went out with. After years of proper training, what I used to think was hard is a pace that I can maintain all day. I don’t have [the genetics to be world-class](https://www.scottsemple.com/genetic-potential-but-excuses-matter-more/), but the gains I’ve made have transformed my experience. As my performance has improved, my days in the mountains have expanded. I have a wider menu of terrain to choose from. It was a long road, but it was worth it. --- 1. Some may argue that religious mystics are quite happy being poor, but that’s only in the material sense. I don’t see a difference between a monk and a millionaire. The monk is other-supported, living off the generosity of others. The millionaire is self-supported, living within his means (which has to be a small part of his net worth). Both are wealthy in their own way. [↩](#fnref-316920-1) 2. The “80:20 rule” is common when it comes to recommended volumes of low- and high-intensity training. That ratio comes from a “session goal” approach to quantifying training time. It counts intensity by the goal of a session rather than the actual minutes of low- or high-intensity. So if you had two high-intensity workouts in ten, that would qualify as an 80:20 split for a session goal approach. But that doesn’t reveal the actual training ratio. In a world-class program, minutes of high-intensity are a much smaller proportion. [↩](#fnref-316920-2)