ALLSET Gazette

The Fat-Loss Numbers No Other Test in Singapore Measures

ALLSET — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 04:11:01 GMT

This article is part of our physiological assessment series.

Last quarter, I launched the first physiology test of its kind in Singapore.

In a single effort, you measure your VO₂Max, thresholds, fueling metrics, etc.

Since then, I have received multiple enquiries.

Surprisingly, some were aiming to understand their fat metabolism for weight loss purposes.

Often, I ask the client why he/she would want to do a test usually done by athletes.

Here are some of their answers:

They are already exercising but not losing weight
They did other tests, but the results do not feel right/are not useful
They want to find out what happens to the body during exercise, in order to fuel properly

And my company’s unique test gives them what they want.

Of course, it helps that our test protocol is suitable for unconditioned individuals.

But even so, many of them did not expect the number of insights they would derive from the test.

Overview of The Test’s Value

In this article, I go through sections of our test report that are useful for weight loss.

The following table provides a quick overview.

Typically, my team walks clients through these metrics after the test because it can get technical.

Hence, feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Otherwise, let me elaborate on the five terms mentioned in the table.

VLaMax: Why Some People Stall on Programmes That Should Work

VLaMax is a measure of your anaerobic engine.

i.e. how quickly you can break down carbohydrate for energy without relying on oxygen.

A high value indicates you rely more on the anaerobic system at all intensities.

In other words:

You burn more carbohydrate and less fat even when going easy
Your fat-burning peak arrives at a lower intensity
Your easy pace and your hard pace move closer together

The tangible effect here is an extension of the final point; it becomes difficult for you to execute light-intensity workouts, which is key for exercising sustainably.

Workouts simply turn into high-intensity sessions way too quickly.

Hence, you are technically unable to do the exercises you were told to do, e.g. the WHO exercise recommendations which include moderate and high-intensity workouts.

Losing weight at this stage is consequently less about being disciplined, and more about addressing your physiology.

What to do with your VLaMax result:

If your VLaMax is high, it can be worth lowering it first.

This is so that your gap between ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ gets bigger.

As a result, your easy pace quickens, your fat-burning peak moves up, and clocking in hours of training becomes possible.

On the other hand, if it is already low, there is less to gain from pushing it lower.

It is a sign that you will get the bang for your buck somewhere else, e.g. raising your aerobic ceiling or filling the range of exercise intensities you can already target.

LT1: The Line Where Fatigue Starts to Bank Up

LT1 is the first point at which your lactate rises above its resting level.

In plain terms, it marks the top of your genuinely easy effort.

From a weight loss perspective, the LT1 mark is important because it affects your recovery.

Below LT1, recovery is easier. And above it, you start accumulating fatigue.

E.g. the next session feels slightly worse, the one after that worse again, and a few weeks later, you start having trouble keeping up with your weight loss plan.

Sometimes, people unknowingly think it’s a motivation problem.

But again, it’s physiology at play.

Essentially, knowing your LT1 for fat loss is important because volume is a key factor for success, and you need your effort to be sustainable.

Some supporting evidence from a recent paper:

The review of nineteen trials put the sweet spot at roughly 2,446 minutes of training in total, about five hour-long sessions a week for eight weeks, with the benefit tailing off beyond that (Jiang et al., 2026).

My take is the exact number of minutes might be arbitrary.

But it helps bring the point across.

If you are constantly exercising above LT1, it can be hard to accumulate effective hours.

What to do with your LT1 result:

Most of your exercises across the week should be below this intensity.

The common finding is that the brisk walk or easy jog someone has done for months is just above it, so they have been accumulating training fatigue without results.

Slowing down usually adds hours to the week without anything feeling harder.

Energy Expenditure: Why the Deficit is Usually Wrong

Many people plan their eating around what their watch says they burned.

However, that number might not be meaningful.

Across seven wrist devices tested against laboratory equipment, heart rate held up well — mostly within 5%, but not one measured calories with less than 20% error, and the typical miss ran from 27% to 93% (Shcherbina et al., 2017).

Simply put, if the watch says 900, but the truth is 450, and you eat for 900, your weight loss plan will not work.

The test replaces that guess with a measured figure: how many calories you burn per hour at each intensity.

Multiply by the hours you train, and you have your weekly training cost.

What to do with your energy expenditure result:

Work your weekly figure out from the curve, then aim to hit it consistently rather than to maximise it.

For reference, the trials that produced meaningful fat loss did so at fairly modest weekly totals; around 860 to 1,100 kcal of total exercise energy expenditure per week (Chávez-Guevara et al., 2023).

Carbohydrate Combustion: Why Exercise Sessions Undo Themselves

Your report shows how fast you burn carbohydrate at each intensity.

Multiply that by how long you train, and you have the carbohydrate cost of the session in grams.

Why should you calculate it?

That number matters after the session.

For instance, a session costing 40g of carbohydrate is quite different from one costing 120g.

If you didn’t know your number, you might refuel excessively.

The tricky part is that many people cannot tell the difference between the 40g and the 120g efforts by feel; the session you felt was the hardest might not be the one that cost the most carbohydrate.

What to do with your carbohydrate combustion result:

Use the number to decide which sessions need feeding and which do not.

The aim is not to replace everything you burned. That simply cancels the deficit you just created.

Instead, feed your genuinely depleting sessions conscientiously, so that hunger does not make the decision for you six hours later.

FatMax: A Helpful Training Target

FatMax is the intensity at which you burn fat fastest.

Scientists have found that training there works.

Across nineteen trials in 644 adults with overweight or obesity, it produced average losses of 3.66 kg in body weight and 2.86 kg in fat mass (Jiang et al., 2026).

However, there are two key things to note.

Firstly, it is a range and not a fixed intensity.

For example, when men with obesity actually walked for an hour at their measured FatMax, the test had overstated their fat burning by about 46% (Chávez-Guevara et al., 2024).

And eating carbohydrate beforehand can lower the measured value by as much as 30% (Chávez-Guevara & Amaro-Gahete, 2025). The number moves for reasons that have nothing to do with your fitness.

Secondly, more studies are needed to better understand its nature.

All nineteen of the aforementioned trials compared FatMax training against doing nothing. None compared it against training at another sensible intensity (Jiang et al., 2026).

In other words, while it beats sitting still, whether it beats the alternatives has never been tested.

What to do with your FatMax result:

Use it as a pace guide for your easy aerobic work.

If you want to, you can also confirm it with a longer steady session rather than trusting a single ramp test; your VO₂/VCO₂ measurement will stabilise at the intensity.

Quick Details About My Company’s Test

The test my team runs gives you the above metrics, and you can use retests to track your physiological change over time.

However, I want to be clear that it does not replace dietetic assessment or medical management for weight loss, and it is not diagnostic.

The way my team typically conducts the test is, in sequential order:

Body composition analysis
RMR test
Lactate Threshold + VO2 Max test

The entire process takes around 2.5 hours, and I will explain the reasons for adding the RMR test in a separate article, just like how I explained the need for body composition analysis previously.

Once again, feel free to contact me if you have questions on the topic.

Conclusion

All in all, physiological metrics matter for ultrarunning, and you can now test for them and learn how to best optimise your performance.

If you would like to know more, please get in touch.

For more of such content, consider subscribing to the newsletter.

References

Barnes, K. R., & Kilding, A. E. (2015). Running economy: Measurement, norms, and determining factors. Sports Medicine - Open, 1(1), 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-015-0007-y

Bassett, D. R., Jr., & Howley, E. T. (2000). Limiting factors for maximum oxygen uptake and determinants of endurance performance. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 32(1), 70–84. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005768-200001000-00012

Beneke, R. (2003). Maximal lactate steady state concentration (MLSS): Experimental and modelling approaches. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 88(4–5), 361–369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-002-0713-2

Billat, L. V., & Koralsztein, J. P. (1996). Significance of the velocity at VO₂max and time to exhaustion at this velocity. Sports Medicine, 22(2), 90–108. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-199622020-00004

di Prampero, P. E., Atchou, G., Brückner, J. C., & Moia, C. (1986). The energetics of endurance running. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 55(3), 259–266. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02343797

Jones, A. M., Burnley, M., Black, M. I., Poole, D. C., & Vanhatalo, A. (2019). The maximal metabolic steady state: Redefining the ‘gold standard’. Physiological Reports, 7(10), e14098. https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.14098

Jones, A. M., Kirby, B. S., Clark, I. E., Rice, H. M., Fulkerson, E., Wylie, L. J., Wilkerson, D. P., Vanhatalo, A., & Wilkins, B. W. (2021). Physiological demands of running at 2-hour marathon race pace. Journal of Applied Physiology, 130(2), 369–379. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00647.2020

Joyner, M. J., & Coyle, E. F. (2008). Endurance exercise performance: The physiology of champions. The Journal of Physiology, 586(1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2007.143834

Mader, A. (2003). Glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation as a function of cytosolic phosphorylation state and power output of the muscle cell. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 88(4–5), 317–338. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-002-0676-3

Rapoport, B. I. (2010). Metabolic factors limiting performance in marathon runners. PLoS Computational Biology, 6(10), e1000960. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000960

Saunders, P. U., Pyne, D. B., Telford, R. D., & Hawley, J. A. (2004). Factors affecting running economy in trained distance runners. Sports Medicine, 34(7), 465–485. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200434070-00005

Venturini, E., et al. (2022). Factors influencing running performance during a marathon. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, 9, 856875. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2022.856875

ALLSET Gazette #48

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:48:05 GMT

Hi there!

This is Jing, founder of ALLSET.

Top Three Healthy Ageing Insights

👋🏻 A quick introduction if you’re new here.

In each newsletter, I share key insights on improving your health in record time.

I also share projects my company is working on.

On that note, if you are aware of any related news that I should include, please email me. 🙏🏻

Otherwise, here goes:

1. Singapore’s Most Insightful Lactate Threshold Test

I recently launched Singapore’s first lactate threshold test that, in a single effort, measures your lactate threshold, VO2 max, economy, fuelling, and more.

The insights are useful for both health and sports.

Here are a few relevant articles I’ve written on the topic:

2. BIXEPS: Latest Research and Collaboration

You can now use the BIXEPS machine at my 26 Evans Road gym because I commenced a collaboration with them last month.

Here’s an article on how the NUS invention is useful for fat loss, seniors, and runners.

3. Overview of Minimal Effective Dose Research

Many clients have doubts when I say it takes one workout per week to see results.

Some asked why the doctor’s recommendations differ.

This article, which includes a research overview of the minimal effective dose of exercise, is my response.

From The Team

My focus for the rest of 2026 is building community.

Hence, you might see a common theme in updates below.

Contact me if you’d like to learn more:

[1:4 strength training group class for seniors] We now have three time slots: Mon and Wed at 7pm, and Fri at 9am. More time slots are opening up this quarter.

Sneak peek of our senior-specialised group classes.

[WhatsApp community] If you are an existing client, I will be reaching out to invite you to our community. If I missed you out, please let me know.

[Exclusive club for our favourite clients] Club A is a by-invite-only community with private events, where joining criteria will remain undisclosed; it is my social health reward for clients who are great to work with.

[Botanic Garden Walks] My team is commencing regular walks for all clients and friends this quarter, amongst other community events.

[Strength Training Fundamentals for Seniors Course] I successfully conducted my first run of the course last month. I’m currently expanding the course through partners, including seniors’ communities, organisations supporting seniors, etc.

[Return to Running for Seniors Course] Many clients are looking to go from crippled to abled or to stay mobile. Hence, in my next course, I’m teaching seniors how to walk, jog, and run.

[Most Improved Anaerobic Threshold Challenge] Part of a running club? I’m running a health challenge you might be interested in. >$10K in prizes up for grabs (if your club gets invited).

[Swim Bike Run Seniors Club] I’ve partnered with TriFactor to organise triathlon training and race events customised for seniors. Our first event, a triathlon relay, is on 13 Oct; group training has started.

[Personal Training] 90% of our personal training clients are seniors. They come to us because our training is safer, more effective, and health-oriented.

[Featured on CNA 938] Tune in to my recent chat with Susan Ng on how to exercise for seniors.

[Featured on The Longevity Project] A big thank you to Aaron de Silva for an extensive feature on ALLSET on his new platform.

Have a Chat

Have a recommendation for our newsletter?

Want to work with us?

Simply email me.

If not, till next time, take care! 💪🏻

Kindest,

Jing

#healthyageing 🤍

Singapore ‘Most Improved Anaerobic Threshold’ Challenge: Why I'm Organising It

ALLSET — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:44:35 GMT

I spent 2015–19 coaching national marathoners and triathletes.

After that, I switched to personal training, and more than 90% of my clients have since been seniors.

When I compare the two experiences, something becomes clear.

Better fitness is not better health.

Many “active individuals” and athletes have health issues they thought they wouldn’t get — osteoporosis, heart conditions such as high blood pressure and stroke, and more.

On the other hand, I see doctors prescribing general exercise guidelines or even performing VO₂Max tests for their clients but failing to tell them exactly what workout to do.

I use the same toolkit as many other providers, but provide a more insightful test.

It’s one of the reasons I set up my sports and healthy-ageing lab:

To provide not only biomarkers and metrics but also exercise strategies.

For health, sport, or both.

It’s also why I’m starting a “Most Improved Anaerobic Threshold” challenge.

To help:

Runners better understand the test’s health benefits
Non-active individuals see how aerobic activity affects mobility as they age

Why I Chose the Anaerobic Threshold Metric

Firstly, what is anaerobic threshold:

In simple terms, it is an effort you can sustain.

Technically, it is the highest intensity at which your body still clears lactate as fast as it produces it. Push past that point, and lactate builds up faster than your body can clear it.

The result? You can’t hold the effort for long before you’re forced to slow down.

On the other hand, if you stay below it, you can keep going comfortably for longer.

I chose it as the challenge metric for three simple reasons:

It’s a number you can actually change through training
The number change meaningfully impacts your sports/health
Improving the metrics aligns with what my company represents

Lactate is measured via finger pricks and a lactate analyser.

How Anaerobic Threshold Matters for Runners

Simply put, velocity at threshold is one of the best predictors of run performance.

The two other key metrics that determine your run are VO₂Max and running economy (Joyner & Coyle, 2008).

And here’s how all three metrics interact:

VO₂Max sets the ceiling on how much oxygen you can consume
Your threshold decides how much of that ceiling you can actually use for an hour
Your economy translates it into pace

I picked anaerobic threshold because of its critical role among the three metrics.

Research Overview on Anaerobic Threshold on Run Performance

In 1979, Farrell and colleagues tracked eighteen distance runners from 3km to the marathon; the pace at their lactate turn-point predicted finishing times more closely than VO₂Max, economy or muscle-fibre type — and runners instinctively settle on a race pace that sits just below it (Farrell et al., 1979).

More recently, Jones et al. (2021) measured 16 world-class Breaking2 athletes running at 2-hour marathon pace and found their lactate turn-point sat at 92 ± 3% V̇O₂peak — close to their aerobic ceiling.

Bassett & Howley (2000) succinctly summarise: The gap between a good and a great marathoner is often found at anaerobic thresholds rather than in the VO₂Max ceiling itself.

In a nutshell, raising your threshold improves your timing in every long-distance race.

Relevant article: The Metrics That Matter in 5K vs Marathon

How The Anaerobic Threshold Test Matters for Health

Strictly speaking, the evidence linking a higher threshold to better health is less extensive than for cardiorespiratory fitness (VO₂Max) — though, as the studies below show, it is far from absent.

i.e. a greater increase in VO₂Max is associated with lower all-cause and cardiovascular mortality (Kodama et al., 2009), and the association is strong enough that the American Heart Association argues that fitness should be treated as a clinical vital sign (Ross et al., 2016).

So why do I use threshold pace for a health-related challenge?

It is because of three questions:

Does it give you a useful action plan?
Does it matter for your health?
Will you suffer without the test’s insights?

I elaborate below.

Our Threshold Test is More Actionable

A key consideration is that doing a VO₂Max test only gives you a number, but not how to improve it.

Our anaerobic threshold test, the first of its kind in Singapore, tells you how to do both.

The table below summarises the differences between a typical VO₂Max test and our threshold test.

Here’s a relevant article on the topic.

Threshold Also Matters for Health

Your threshold is also an indicator of health adaptations that matter — more mitochondria, greater oxidative capacity, more fat burned and less lactate at any given pace (Holloszy & Coyle, 1984).

In 548 older surgical patients, the anaerobic threshold predicted who died after surgery — almost every death from heart or lung causes occurred in someone below an AT of about 11 mL/kg/min (Older et al., 1999).
In heart failure, a VO₂ at threshold below that same mark flagged a far higher risk of early death — and did so better than a maximal VO₂Max test, because the threshold is submaximal and doesn’t need an all-out effort (Gitt et al., 2002).
In the general population, following 1,663 men for 25 years, a higher VO₂ at threshold meant lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality (Kunutsor et al., 2017).

More importantly, health improvements that come with a higher threshold might be overlooked if you are just aiming for a higher VO₂Max.

Hence, I believe improving your threshold, not just your VO₂Max, is important.

Especially if you consider the point below.

Threshold Affects Seniors’ Mobility

As mentioned earlier, it is hard to sustain effort above your threshold for long.

For many of my senior clients, this effort can be something they experience in their daily lives, like walking up a slope or even crossing at a traffic light.

Research shows that everyday tasks can indeed occupy a large share of one’s capacity.

When 29 adults aged 70–92 were measured performing a battery of daily tasks, they used approximately 32%, 43%, and 50% of their VO₂peak for the low-, moderate-, and high-workload tasks, respectively (Arnett et al., 2008).
Where a trained individual can typically sustain around 87% of their VO₂Max for an hour, a deconditioned one may manage only around 50% (Bassett & Howley, 2000).

When you put the figures side by side, you can see that the heavier daily tasks are close to a deconditioned older adult’s sustainable effort.

That is possibly why the stairs and the shopping feel hard.

Raise the threshold today and the same daily tasks become more manageable.

How it Aligns With ALLSET

There is an inherent bias to the challenge: it favours the less conditioned.

i.e. it’s hard to raise your anaerobic threshold significantly if you are well-trained.

I believe that health is the foundation for mobility and sports performance.

I wanted to emphasise this bias because my company is focused on health, and the largest health returns do not happen at the top of the range but at the bottom.

In other words, the biggest drop in death rate is not from good to elite. It is from the bottom rung to the one just above it. (Blair et al., 1989).

This aligns with my company’s aim of getting beginners to run better and get healthier.

Conclusion

All in all, I hope to see more individuals:

Realise the importance of thresholds for their health
Strategically test their physiology
Stay healthy for longer

The prize for the most improved anaerobic threshold, year-on-year, is worth at least $600, and this figure is likely to go up as I court more sponsors.

Organisations/clubs are welcome to participate too.

Both internally among members and with other clubs/organisations.

I see the challenge as a great way to achieve these aims because it builds a community around those goals.

Contact me if you’re interested in being part of it.

References

Achten, J., Gleeson, M., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2002). Determination of the exercise intensity that elicits maximal fat oxidation. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 34(1), 92–97. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005768-200201000-00015

Arnett, S. W., Laity, J. H., Agrawal, S. K., & Cress, M. E. (2008). Aerobic reserve and physical functional performance in older adults. Age and Ageing, 37(4), 384–389. https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afn022

Blair, S. N., Kohl, H. W., Paffenbarger, R. S., Clark, D. G., Cooper, K. H., & Gibbons, L. W. (1989). Physical fitness and all-cause mortality: A prospective study of healthy men and women. JAMA, 262(17), 2395–2401. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.262.17.2395

Farrell, P. A., Wilmore, J. H., Coyle, E. F., Billing, J. E., & Costill, D. L. (1979). Plasma lactate accumulation and distance running performance. Medicine and Science in Sports, 11(4), 338–344. https://doi.org/10.1249/00005768-197901140-00005

Gitt, A. K., Wasserman, K., Kilkowski, C., Kleemann, T., Kilkowski, A., Bangert, M., Schneider, S., Schwarz, A., & Senges, J. (2002). Exercise anaerobic threshold and ventilatory efficiency identify heart failure patients for high risk of early death. Circulation, 106(24), 3079–3084. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.CIR.0000041428.99427.06

Holloszy, J. O., & Coyle, E. F. (1984). Adaptations of skeletal muscle to endurance exercise and their metabolic consequences. Journal of Applied Physiology, 56(4), 831–838. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1984.56.4.831

Joyner, M. J., & Coyle, E. F. (2008). Endurance exercise performance: The physiology of champions. The Journal of Physiology, 586(1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2007.143834

Kodama, S., Saito, K., Tanaka, S., Maki, M., Yachi, Y., Asumi, M., Sugawara, A., Totsuka, K., Shimano, H., Ohashi, Y., Yamada, N., & Sone, H. (2009). Cardiorespiratory fitness as a quantitative predictor of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events in healthy men and women: A meta-analysis. JAMA, 301(19), 2024–2035. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2009.681

Kunutsor, S. K., Kurl, S., Khan, H., Zaccardi, F., Rauramaa, R., & Laukkanen, J. A. (2017). Oxygen uptake at aerobic threshold is inversely associated with fatal cardiovascular and all-cause mortality events. Annals of Medicine, 49(8), 698–709. https://doi.org/10.1080/07853890.2017.1367958

Mandsager, K., Harb, S., Cremer, P., Phelan, D., Nissen, S. E., & Jaber, W. (2018). Association of cardiorespiratory fitness with long-term mortality among adults undergoing exercise treadmill testing. JAMA Network Open, 1(6), e183605. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.3605

Maunder, E., Plews, D. J., & Kilding, A. E. (2018). Contextualising maximal fat oxidation during exercise: Determinants and normative values. Frontiers in Physiology, 9, 599. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2018.00599

Older, P., Hall, A., & Hader, R. (1999). Cardiopulmonary exercise testing as a screening test for perioperative management of major surgery in the elderly. Chest, 116(2), 355–362. https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.116.2.355

Ross, R., Blair, S. N., Arena, R., Church, T. S., Després, J.-P., Franklin, B. A., Haskell, W. L., Kaminsky, L. A., Levine, B. D., Lavie, C. J., Myers, J., Niebauer, J., Sallis, R., Sawada, S. S., Sui, X., & Wisløff, U. (2016). Importance of assessing cardiorespiratory fitness in clinical practice: A case for fitness as a clinical vital sign: A scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 134(24), e653–e699. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000461

Seiler, S. (2010). What is best practice for training intensity and duration distribution in endurance athletes? International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 5(3), 276–291. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.5.3.276

Stöggl, T., & Sperlich, B. (2014). Polarized training has greater impact on key endurance variables than threshold, high intensity, or high volume training. Frontiers in Physiology, 5, 33. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2014.00033

The Metrics That Decide Ultra-Distance Running

ALLSET — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:21:37 GMT

This article is part of our physiological assessment series.

In an ultramarathon, some physiological metrics are substantially more important than others.

This article discusses the ones that matter.

Similarly, this article helps you interpret your report from my company’s lactate threshold test, the first in Singapore with all these metrics in a single run.

Summary: The Metrics, Ranked

Here are the metrics in general order of importance for ultrarunning racing and training:

1. Lactate Threshold 1 (LT1)

LT1, also known as aerobic threshold, is the lowest exercise intensity at which there is a measurable increase in blood lactate concentration (compared to resting lactate concentrations).

For ultrarunners, there are two numbers to look out for here:

LT1 speed: the pace at which most of an ultramarathon is run (especially the longer ones), and also where most of your easy volume is built around
LT1 heart rate: on trails, in heat, and late in a race, this is often more reliable, once pace degrades on terrain and fatigue

Another thing to look out for is the spread between LT1 and Anaerobic Threshold (the next metric I’ll explain), which can be represented as a range of speeds, heart rates, or %VO₂Max.

A wide spread reflects a deep, well-developed aerobic range.

On the other hand, a compressed spread — the two thresholds sitting close together — points to a more glycolytic engine.

For an ultra runner, you do not want that because it means your sustainable pace is low and close to your easy pace.

This also means that every climb or surge can tip you into lactate-accumulating territory, which, in practice, forces you to keep slowing down just to keep the effort feeling sustainable.

Also, any time spent above it has to be repaid later with heavy legs and further slowing.

To compound that, because carbohydrates are burned earlier at unsustainable rates, glycogen is depleted faster, bringing depletion forward.

In gist, an unoptimised LT1 has snowballing effects.

To raise yours, focus on aerobic volume.

i.e., easy running is the most reliable way to push your LT1 up.

Do a large share of your weekly volume at or below LT1 (the roughly 80% low-intensity pattern typical of endurance athletes), with long, steady runs and progressively increasing volume (Seiler, 2010).

If you do a lactate threshold test with us, you will get specific guidance on your training intensity, like pace and heart rate ranges, in the ‘training zones’ section of your report.

This can be vital because LT1 is the most volume-dependent and slowest-responding of these adaptations, built over months rather than weeks, so easy days must be kept genuinely easy (capped near LT1 heart rate) for the low-intensity stimulus to accumulate.

2. Anaerobic Threshold (AT)

AT, sometimes known as LT2, is the highest intensity at which lactate production and clearance are still in balance (Billat et al., 2003; Heck et al., 1985).

The numbers to look out for are:

The AT velocity and AT heart rate: the ceiling of sustainable pace and effort, and the anchor for threshold and tempo work
AT as a percentage of VO₂Max: a high value is the signature of a well-developed endurance system

For an ultrarunner, AT is the race day ceiling and a central training target; the longer the event, the further below it the race sits, toward LT1 (metric 1).

Using the example earlier, a higher AT equates to a lower chance of every climb or surge tipping you into lactate-accumulating territory.

In other words, a higher AT makes it easier for you to hold a sustainable pace.

So, how do you raise your AT?

You can do so by anchoring one or two weekly threshold or tempo sessions at or just below AT speed — sustained efforts or longer intervals in the heavy-aerobic domain.

If you have your report from our test, we are referring to the AT pace.

Another way to lift AT, albeit indirectly, is by increasing aerobic volume, which builds LT1, and by lowering VLaMax (discussed in point four).

A practical perspective is to let the LT1-to-AT spread guide your emphasis: a narrow spread argues for more base volume to widen the bottom, a low AT relative to VO₂Max for more threshold work to raise the top.

If you do your lactate threshold test with my company, we will be able to share with you which metric, LT1 or AT, you need to work on more. Regardless, LT1 and AT are the most-used numbers in your training and racing, which is why I placed them at the top of this list.

3. Running Economy (Oxygen Cost per Unit Speed)

Running economy is how much oxygen it costs to run.

There are various ways it is measured.

For example, our report presents it as oxygen uptake per kilogram per minute divided by speed — ml·min⁻¹·kg⁻¹ per m·s⁻¹.

A cost expressed per unit of speed.

Regardless of the units used, lower is better: a more economical runner uses less oxygen to maintain any given pace.

For an ultrarunner, running economy is one of the most consequential metrics, as the cost of fuel is borne over every kilometre of a very long day (Joyner & Coyle, 2008).

A lower cost means less fuel burned at race pace — directly easing carbohydrate demand and lengthening the glycogen runway (both below).

Therefore, improvements here translate almost directly into either a faster sustainable pace or a longer runway at the same pace.

By extension, your run economy also affects your threshold speed:

Two runners with the same metabolic capacity but different economy will post different LT1 and AT velocities, so reading economy alongside threshold speeds shows how much of the sustainable pace is due to your efficiency rather than your engine.

It is something that my company’s report can surface.

Sample of calculated run economy in our report.

As a general anchor, a value around 12 in these units corresponds to a trained runner’s oxygen cost.

Very economical and elite runners sit near 11 or below, and values past about 13 are comparatively uneconomical (di Prampero et al., 1986; Barnes & Kilding, 2015).

Note that these benchmarks are drawn from applied coaching practice rather than peer-reviewed norms in these specific units, so treat them as orientation points rather than hard thresholds.

However, note that this value can also be affected, for example, by the treadmill’s model.

Hence, something perhaps more important to track is your run economy curve.

3.5 Run Economy Curve

In typical run economy reports, the metric is reflected at every tested pace, so it can be read as a curve across speed rather than as a single figure.

Likewise, for my company’s test.

Because a fixed metabolic cost is spread over more ground as pace rises, cost-per-distance typically starts high at very slow paces, falls to a minimum — the athlete’s most economical speed — and often climbs again at fast paces as demand steepens and form breaks down.

Two features carry most of the information: where the minimum sits, and how deep or flat the curve is around it.

Sample of run economy curve from our report.

In this context, there are four things to note:

The economical speed, and whether it coincides with your goal race pace: if the sweet spot sits at 5:30/km but the race demands 5:00, every kilometre carries an efficiency tax.
The flatness: a flat curve means it does not cost you extra to run across a wide range of paces, which is good on variable terrain and during surges, while a deep, narrow curve means one efficient pace and a steep penalty for deviating, so pacing discipline matters more
Which end is costly: a slow-end penalty matters if you spend hours power-hiking climbs and shuffling late in a race, while a fast-end penalty bites on descents, surges and finishes
Link to the rest of the profile: because your run economy sets VO₂ at a given pace, it converts directly into the % of VO₂Max that pace demands (its sustainability) and into the total energy demand (its carbohydrate burn and glycogen runway), so a more economical pace is at once more sustainable and cheaper to fuel

The next question is then what to do with your findings.

Here are some recommendations based on your curve:

Pacing: where the course allows it (rolling flats), bias toward the economical speed and put a number on the cost of running off it.
Training specificity: Because economy is partly speed-specific, a hole in the curve at goal pace is an argument for prescribing volume at that pace.
General economy: strides, hill sprints, plyometrics and strength work raise tendon stiffness and elastic return, lowering the whole curve and pushing the degradation point to faster speeds (Saunders et al., 2004; Barnes & Kilding, 2015).
Terrain: a costly, slow end argues for deliberate power-hiking and efficient slow-gait practice, a costly, fast end for downhill (eccentric) running and turnover work.
Fuelling: re-run the carbohydrate-burn and glycogen-runway numbers at the actual segment paces of the target course using the curve — even a small economy gain lengthens the runway noticeably at the same pace

Just a word of caution, though.

For ultra-distance, how the economy decouples under fatigue over many hours matters too, and a single test will not show that (Maunder et al., 2021). A fatigued re-test is the only way to see the drift.

4. VLaMax (Maximal Glycolytic Rate)

VLaMax, also known as the maximal glycolytic rate, is reported in mmol·L⁻¹·s⁻¹ (Mader, 2003).

One thing to note: VLaMax is not measured directly. It is estimated from the peak rate of blood-lactate accumulation in a short, all-out sprint, so it is best read as a modelled value rather than a direct reading (Meixner et al., 2026).

Loosely put, VO₂Max is a measurement of your aerobic capabilities, and VLaMax is the anaerobic equivalent.

Although not as popular as VO₂Max, it is the most-leveraged number on your physiological profile.

Theoretically, at the very least, a low value shifts your substrate mix toward fat at any given intensity, raises and delays the carbohydrate crossover, tends to raise both threshold speeds above, and slows the rate at which glycogen is drawn down (Mader & Heck, 1986) — though direct experimental confirmation of this full chain in humans remains an active area of research.

Almost every favourable reading elsewhere in the report can be traced back to a low value here.

(It sits below economy here only because economy ties more directly to the ultra outcome; the two are close.)

Look for a low value, but note there is no peer-reviewed cut-off here — the figures industry practitioners use come from coaching practice.

As a rough guide, below about 0.4 mmol·L⁻¹·s⁻¹ is treated as favourable for ultra-distance, and below 0.3 as a strongly fat-adapted metabolism.

To lower VLaMax (the usual aim for ultra), cut the short, maximal-glycolytic efforts — sprints, very short hard intervals, explosive work — and replace them with aerobic volume and longer sub-threshold efforts.

Fasted or carbohydrate-restricted aerobic sessions are often added and reliably improve fat oxidation (Impey et al., 2018), though the specific effect on VLaMax remains less well established.

The good news is that VLaMax is the most malleable of all the listed metrics on a short timescale, shifting within weeks.

And because it sits upstream, lowering it is often the most efficient route to a higher AT and better fat oxidation — not only training VO₂Max.

If your VLaMax is already low, the task is simply to protect it by not over-prescribing anaerobic work.

To find out how you fare, you can do a VLaMax-specific test, or the lactate threshold test at my company.

5. Maximal Fat Oxidation Rate (FatMax)

FatMax is the peak of the fat-oxidation curve.

There are two numbers to look out for here:

Rate relative to body mass (g·min⁻¹·kg⁻¹) for comparison between athletes
Where the peak sits: a FatMax occurring at a high % of VO₂Max means the athlete is still strongly fat-fuelled at brisk paces, sparing glycogen at race intensity

For ultrarunners, the thing to optimise for is the latter, i.e. the placement of the peak (Meixner et al., 2026).

You want it as high as possible.

As to how high it can reach, the good news is that it might not really matter.

This is because it is a downstream effect of VLaMax, and FatMax is less a metric to optimise directly than a read-out that rises as VLaMax falls and aerobic volume builds.

Hence, simply follow the actionable targets below, track your FatMax, and address it only if it does not shift despite optimised training.

To improve your fat oxidation, work on building a high aerobic volume and doing long, steady efforts.

Again, you can amplify them by periodically training with low-carbohydrate availability — fasted easy runs or “sleep-low” sessions — which upregulates the fat-oxidation machinery (Impey et al., 2018).

Used judiciously (a portion of sessions, train-low and race-high rather than chronic restriction), this raises the FatMax rate and shifts its peak toward higher intensities, so the athlete stays fat-dominant closer to race pace.

If FatMax already sits at or above race pace, the priority shifts from building fat oxidation to protecting it and fuelling the carbohydrate gap.

6. Carbohydrate Combustion Rate at Threshold

The carbohydrate combustion rate in g·h⁻¹, read off the fuel-contribution curve at the expected race intensity (or at AT), is another metric that matters. It is how much carbohydrate you oxidise per hour at that pace, and therefore how much you must take in to avoid depleting glycogen stores.

The value to look out for is whether that rate sits within what the gut can absorb, which is broadly 60–90 g·h⁻¹ (Jeukendrup, 2014).

And the number can reach about 120 g·h⁻¹ with trained absorption and multiple transportable carbohydrates.

The fat oxidation rate at the same intensity (g·h⁻¹), derived from the fuel curve, completes the full substrate split at race pace, and the carbohydrate side is the part that intake must match.

When oxidation at race intensity exceeds sustainable intake, you fall into a deficit that ends in depletion, regardless of fitness — the classic ultra blow-up.

So, what do you do if your value needs optimisation?

You can attack the deficit from both ends.

On the burn side, we are looking at the same fat-side work that lowers VLaMax and raises fat oxidation.

High aerobic volume, plus carbohydrate-restricted or fasted easy sessions.

They shift the substrate mix so that you reach a given threshold speed while oxidising fewer grams of carbohydrate per hour, sparing glycogen.

On the supply side, you can train the gut to tolerate and absorb more per hour, so intake can keep pace with the burn; absorption itself is trainable, which lifts the ceiling from around 60 g·h⁻¹ toward 90 g·h⁻¹ and higher with multiple transportable carbohydrates (Jeukendrup, 2014).

Because your fuel depletion is the gap between the two, narrowing it means burning fewer grams at race pace and taking in more.

7. Time to Glycogen Depletion at Race Intensity

Most lactate threshold test reports are not able to tell you the time to glycogen depletion at your race intensity.

Fortunately, it can be derived in some tests, like ours.

Essentially, your time to depletion is the glycogen store ÷ net carbohydrate burn at race pace (carbohydrate burned per hour at that intensity minus carbohydrate taken in per hour).

If this step sounds complicated, my recommendation is to feed your report into an AI model. It can help you with maths.

The reason for doing so is that the answer is important for ultrarunning.

It measures how long your glycogen tank lasts.

Your target value here is a number longer than the intended finish time at the planned fuelling rate.

If your modelled answer is shorter than the race, you must slow down, fuel more, or expect to bonk.

Nevertheless, note that the metric is a modelled output and not a measured one.

It depends on the estimated glycogen store and on the fuelling assumption fed in, so treat it as a planning figure to stress-test rather than a fixed fact.

It is partly why the metric is so far down this list.

Even though it is critical, it can be hard to grasp accurately.

The other reason it is near the bottom of this list is that there are three ways to extend the glycogen runway, and only one is new.

By following the aforementioned recommendations, you would have already addressed two of them by lowering VLaMax and raising fat oxidation, which cuts the carbohydrate burn rate at race pace.

The third way is by addressing the store-and-intake balance: carbohydrate-load in the days before the race to maximise the starting glycogen store, and train the gut in advance to tolerate and absorb more carbohydrate per hour during the event.

Intake is trainable, and every gram absorbed offsets a gram burned.

Pacing then has to err on the cautious side of your model’s assumption: run above the intensity it was built on, and the runway shortens faster than the number suggests.

8. VO₂Max

VO₂Max, the maximal rate of oxygen uptake in ml·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹, is the aerobic ceiling.

It is often a key determinant of your performance, but in this list, it sits last.

This is because, for ultra-distances, it is possibly a weaker race predictor than the rest — though this is not always the case. For athletes whose VO₂Max ceiling is genuinely limiting (for example, early in their training development, or at shorter ultra distances), raising it can still be a meaningful priority.

i.e., the threshold speeds, economy, fractional utilisation, and substrate profile separate; often, these factors matter far more than peak uptake does (Joyner & Coyle, 2008).

With that said, it is still one of the metrics to consider because a low ceiling caps your racing and training capabilities.

It is just that a high value here does not guarantee much over, for example, 100 miles.

If VO₂Max is an area you need to work on, aim for high-intensity intervals near VO₂Max — three-to-five-minute efforts around 90–100% of VO₂Max or of velocity at VO₂Max — and, underpinning them, aerobic volume.

And to find out whether it is an area you should work on, you can consider a test that compares your VO₂Max’s impact against other metrics, similar to the one my company offers.

Conclusion

All in all, physiological metrics matter for ultrarunning, and you can now test for them and learn how to best optimise your performance.

If you would like to know more, please get in touch.

For more of such content, consider subscribing to the newsletter.

References

Barnes, K. R., & Kilding, A. E. (2015). Running economy: Measurement, norms, and determining factors. Sports Medicine - Open, 1(1), 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-015-0007-y

Joyner, M. J., & Coyle, E. F. (2008). Endurance exercise performance: The physiology of champions. The Journal of Physiology, 586(1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2007.143834

Rapoport, B. I. (2010). Metabolic factors limiting performance in marathon runners. PLoS Computational Biology, 6(10), e1000960. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000960

Venturini, E., et al. (2022). Factors influencing running performance during a marathon. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, 9, 856875. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2022.856875

The Metrics That Matter: 5K vs Marathon

ALLSET — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:59:10 GMT

In Singapore, you couldn’t measure the top physiological determinants of your endurance performance in a single test.

I’m referring to your VO₂Max, threshold, and run economy (Joyner, 1991; Joyner & Coyle, 2008).

But that’s no longer the case.

Now, you can.

And in the same effort, you get additional metrics that are helpful for your training and racing, too.

Things like FatMax, CarbMax, VLaMax.

On top of that, you even get in-depth training zone recommendations.

Training zones for specific training use cases.

More about these technical terms in my series of articles on the topic, because in this latest piece, I apply them to run events for easier understanding.

In gist, I highlight a few key metrics in my company’s testing when optimising for the 5K versus the marathon.

Fun fact: The same number that makes you a better 5K runner can have the opposite effect for the marathon. Or the reverse.

Let’s get into it.

The Two Races at a Glance

Here’s a snapshot of differences for each distance.

VO₂max carries the 5K; AT, fractional utilisation, and fuel carry the marathon; economy works at both ends; and VLamax is the one trait that genuinely changes sign between them.

I break down each comparison in the following paragraphs.

1. VO₂Max

VO₂max is the maximum rate at which you can take in and use oxygen. It sets the absolute ceiling on your aerobic power (Joyner & Coyle, 2008).

It is also important for your health, and recent technology has made measuring and estimating it more accessible.

In the 5K: You race close to your maximum VO2 — a well-trained runner covers 5K at a high fraction of V̇O₂Max, on the order of 95%, at or near the velocity that elicits V̇O₂Max (Billat & Koralsztein, 1996).

In the marathon: You race well under your maximum value — around 75–85% of V̇O₂Max for recreational and sub-elite runners (Venturini et al., 2022), and higher for elites. Two runners with identical V̇O₂Max can finish far apart, and the reason lives below the ceiling rather than at it (Bassett & Howley, 2000; Joyner & Coyle, 2008).

2. VLaMax

VLaMax is glycolytic power: the maximum rate your muscles produce energy by burning carbohydrate without oxygen (Mader, 2003).

Loosely put, V̇O₂Max is a measure of your aerobic capabilities and VLaMax your anaerobic one.

In this case, it is the most event-specific physiological metric.

As a 5K runner, you would value the number; as a marathoner, you would actively try to suppress it.

In the 5K: A high VLaMax is preferred. Part of the race is run above threshold, and you need glycolytic flux to cover the mid-race surges and the closing kick. If your VLaMax is low, you could possibly fare worse in the last 400 metres.

In the marathon: A high VLaMax is a liability. It burns carbohydrate faster at every pace, brings glycogen depletion forward, and pulls your anaerobic threshold downward (Mader, 2003). For the marathoner, lower is almost always better — the lowest VLaMax compatible with the top-end they still need.

Role of VLaMax in different sports.

3. Anaerobic Threshold (AT / MLSS)

The anaerobic threshold, also known as your maximal lactate steady state (MLSS), is the highest intensity at which lactate production and clearance still balance (Beneke, 2003; Jones et al., 2019).

In other words, it is the ceiling of a genuinely sustainable pace, and it is a byproduct of the V̇O₂Max–VLamax interaction rather than a fixed trait.

In the marathon: This is a key metric to look out for. Race pace for a well-trained marathoner sits just below AT — not down at LT1, which is the recreational marathoner or ultra-runner’s territory — but right under the sustainable ceiling (Bassett & Howley, 2000; Joyner & Coyle, 2008). More than any single number, AT is what a marathon training plan is trying to optimise for.

In the 5K: You race above AT; hence, it is a line you cross early and stay above for most of the race. Consequently, its exact position matters less than how far beyond it you can tolerate, and for how long.

4. Fractional Utilisation

Fractional utilisation is the percentage of V̇O₂max you can actually sustain at race pace, and it explains why the runner with the bigger engine does not always win.

In the marathon: This is a key metric. Jones et al. (2021) measured world-class Breaking2 athletes running at 2-hour marathon pace and found they required 94 ± 3% of V̇O₂peak — close to their aerobic ceiling; the gap between a good and a great marathoner is often found here rather than in the ceiling itself (Bassett & Howley, 2000).

In the 5K: It separates runners far less, because the distance forces almost everyone up near the roof anyway. The 5K compresses the usable range of fractions, so the lever loses most of its leverage.

5. Substrate Metabolism

Substrate metabolism is how the body splits its fuel between fat and carbohydrate, and how fast it burns carbohydrate at race intensity.

Metrics we look at here include your FatMax, fuel curves, and carbohydrate combustion rate.

It is also where the two races differ the most.

In the marathon: It is an area which can break your race. The event is long enough that carbohydrate availability becomes a hard limit on the back half. Where FatMax sits, how much carbohydrate you oxidise per hour at marathon pace, and how aggressively you fuel to cover that draw, together decide whether the last 10 km holds or falls apart. Carbohydrate stores, not fat, are what run out, and the distance at which they run out depends on pace (Rapoport, 2010).

In the 5K: It is almost a non-issue. The race is over long before glycogen is meaningfully threatened; you run carbohydrate-dominant the whole way, and it never costs you.

6. Running Economy

Running economy is your oxygen cost of running at a given speed: the converter that turns physiology into pace (di Prampero et al., 1986; Saunders et al., 2004).

It is best read as a curve across various speeds rather than a single figure, because the speed at which you need to be economical is determined by the event (Barnes & Kilding, 2015).

Sample of run economy curve in our report.

In the 5K: You need to be economical fast, i.e. efficient at the high, near-V̇O₂Max speeds you actually race at. A runner whose economy curve is optimised at 5K pace gets more race out of the same engine.

In the marathon: You need to be economical at marathon pace, where small per-stride savings compound over 42 km into minutes. Economy matters at both distances; what changes is the point on the curve that counts.

Conclusion

In general, you look at different metrics for each event.

Numbers like the % V̇O₂Max you race at, whether you are a well-trained runner or a beginner, etc., will affect how relevant the article’s pointers are to you.

Regardless, your ideal physiological profile will look distinct when you are optimising for a 5K, a marathon, or other races.

If you would like to learn more, please get in touch.

For more such content, consider subscribing to the newsletter.

Till next time, take care!

References

Barnes, K. R., & Kilding, A. E. (2015). Running economy: Measurement, norms, and determining factors. Sports Medicine - Open, 1(1), 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-015-0007-y

Joyner, M. J., & Coyle, E. F. (2008). Endurance exercise performance: The physiology of champions. The Journal of Physiology, 586(1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2007.143834

Poole, D. C., Burnley, M., Vanhatalo, A., Rossiter, H. B., & Jones, A. M. (2016). Critical power: An important fatigue threshold in exercise physiology. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 48(11), 2320–2334. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000939

Rapoport, B. I. (2010). Metabolic factors limiting performance in marathon runners. PLoS Computational Biology, 6(10), e1000960. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000960

Venturini, E., et al. (2022). Factors influencing running performance during a marathon. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, 9, 856875. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2022.856875

The Metabolic Test Longevity Seekers Should Be Doing

ALLSET — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 09:29:43 GMT

This article is part of our physiological assessment series.

If you are training for longevity, you most likely already know about VO₂Max — the maximum rate at which your body can use oxygen.

However, you might not know of the different ways to test for it.

For instance, I recently launched an advanced testing method, the first of its kind in Singapore:

A two-in-one VO₂Max and lactate threshold test, run in a single session.

It has multiple advantages over a standalone VO₂Max test, and here is how the two compare.

How Our Test Compares to a Standard VO₂Max Test

Here’s a table to summarise the key differences:

Of note, our test requires the same effort as a standard one.

Everything in that right-hand column comes from a single visit rather than the separate sessions you would otherwise need to measure thresholds, fat-burning and zones.

Since every metric is read from the same effort, they describe one consistent snapshot of your physiology, not numbers stitched together from tests done on different days.

You also spend no more time and do no more work; you simply come away with much more to act on.

Metabolic Health a VO₂Max Test Misses

A VO₂Max test only reflects your aerobic capacity.

Our report, however, also shows you how you use fuel: how much fat versus carbohydrate you burn at each intensity, the intensity at which fat-burning peaks (FatMax), and your maximal fat-oxidation rate.

These matter for longevity.

The broader ability to switch cleanly between fuels — metabolic flexibility — is a feature of metabolic health, and its loss is a hallmark of insulin resistance, obesity and type 2 diabetes (Goodpaster & Sparks, 2017).

Training that builds fat-oxidation capacity, improves your fuel-switching (Maunder et al., 2018; Romijn et al., 1993; Achten et al., 2002), and is foundational for your health.

The fuel-use curve mapped out in your report is therefore useful for health tracking.

Sample of a fuel curve produce in our report.

As intensity increases, everyone shifts from burning mostly fat to burning mostly carbohydrate; the point where carbohydrate takes over is the crossover point (Brooks & Mercier, 1994).

Where yours sits and how steeply fat oxidation falls away around it are highly individual.

Optimised workouts push that crossover to higher intensities, so you draw on fat further up your range and spare carbohydrate for when it counts.

Another way to see this is by comparing professional endurance athletes, moderately active people and individuals with metabolic syndrome.

The same pattern separates them:

The fitter and more metabolically healthy the person, the more fat they oxidise at a given intensity and the later their lactate climbs, while metabolic inflexibility shows up as an early switch to carbohydrate and higher lactate for the same effort (San-Millán & Brooks, 2018).

Although our test does not diagnose anything, the fat-oxidation and lactate responses it captures lie on the same spectrum that separates metabolic health from metabolic inflexibility — making them worth tracking over time.

Get a Plan That Optimises Your Health

A standard VO₂Max test gives you your number, but not how to raise it.

Our test does both.

In your report, you get a full physiological profile that pinpoints your actual limiter — aerobic ceiling, threshold, fat-burning, etc.

And that matters, because the best way to train is different for each.

Additionally, knowing your physiological profile enables us to optimise your training intensity recommendation rather than relying on generic age-based percentages, which can place the right intensity well off the mark for any given individual (Iannetta et al., 2020; Jamnick et al., 2020).

Sample training intensity recommendations in our report.

On the same note, the recommended amount of time to work out at each intensity would also vary based on your results.

For instance, improving your VO₂Max does not always mean prioritising your VO₂Max intervals.

Such workouts do not address the aerobic base that supports a long, capable life — capillary supply, fat-oxidation capacity, and the cardiac and blood-volume adaptations of endurance.

And such a base, which can raise your VO₂Max, is developed through a high volume of lower-intensity work.

To give you a general idea, in people who already train, a polarised mix of roughly 80% low-intensity and 20% high-intensity work raises VO₂Max and other endurance markers more than interval-only, threshold-only or volume-only training (Seiler, 2010; Stöggl & Sperlich, 2014).

That said, your exact ratio can vary greatly.

Variables include your recent exercise history, sporting background, etc.

Another point is that with our test, you get recommended exercise intensities with both pace and heart rate targets, along with the energy cost.

Such extensive, actionable information is uncommon in physiological tests.

But they are valuable for getting the most bang for your buck when it comes to training.

And to top things off, these metrics serve as checkpoints for physiological changes and for updating training recommendations whenever you do a retest.

How a 12-Lead ECG VO₂Max Test Compares

Before I conclude, I want to make a quick comparison to VO₂Max testing performed alongside a 12-lead ECG.

They are included in many longevity-oriented health screens, and many cardiologists also offer them.

My key message is that they are a different tool for a different job — our test does not replace it, and those tests remain important in their own right.

By adding the ECG, the session turns into a concurrent cardiac stress test:

It monitors your heart’s rhythm and electrical signals during maximal exertion to screen for arrhythmias or signs of reduced blood flow.

Here’s a table to summarise what each test looks into:

Again, I emphasise that nothing in my company’s test replaces a medically supervised cardiac screening.

In fact, if we deem it more suitable for you, we would make a referral.

Is there, in that case, still value in taking my company’s test?

Well, the main considerations surround clear training recommendations.

Part of the reason is the protocol – the standard clinical version is typically run on the Bruce protocol, where the treadmill steps up in three-minute stages, with both speed and incline rising together, starting at a brisk uphill walk at a 10% grade.

That is an efficient way to drive the heart to its limit for diagnosis, but the early and middle stages are walking and jogging up a steep hill.

Steps, speed, and incline in the Bruce protocol.

They are different from the flat running you actually train and race on.

On the other hand, our test maintains a constant 1.0% incline throughout, while the speed increases.

That 1% gradient is the established convention for matching the energy cost of running on the flat outdoors, since the lack of air resistance indoors otherwise makes it slightly easier (Jones & Doust, 1996).

Because you are running close to flat the whole way, the paces it produces — your threshold pace, your FatMax pace, your zone paces — are the paces you will actually run on the road, so they carry straight into your training.

A Bruce-protocol test can still give you a sound VO₂Max, but its uphill, walk-to-run speeds do not translate into “run at this pace” the way ours do.

The other difference between the two tests is frequency of testing.

An ECG is usually a baseline or as-needed cardiac check rather than a routine re-test, and how often to do one is a decision for your doctor.

The metabolic profile, by contrast, is the part you repeat every few months to watch your training pay off and check for new training recommendations.

All in all, the two can be seen as complementary: an ECG test is built to read your heart, ours to read your metabolism.

Conclusion

A standard VO₂Max test gives you a number, but ours gives you a roadmap for improving the score and, more broadly, other areas of your health which are typically missed in health screenings.

If you would like to learn more, please get in touch.

References

Brooks, G. A., & Mercier, J. (1994). Balance of carbohydrate and lipid utilization during exercise: The “crossover” concept. Journal of Applied Physiology, 76(6), 2253–2261. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1994.76.6.2253

Goodpaster, B. H., & Sparks, L. M. (2017). Metabolic flexibility in health and disease. Cell Metabolism, 25(5), 1027–1036. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2017.04.015

Iannetta, D., Inglis, E. C., Mattu, A. T., Fontana, F. Y., Pogliaghi, S., Keir, D. A., & Murias, J. M. (2020). A critical evaluation of current methods for exercise prescription in women and men. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 52(2), 466–473. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000002147

Jamnick, N. A., Pettitt, R. W., Granata, C., Pyne, D. B., & Bishop, D. J. (2020). An examination and critique of current methods to determine exercise intensity. Sports Medicine, 50, 1729–1756. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-020-01322-8

Jones, A. M., & Doust, J. H. (1996). A 1% treadmill grade most accurately reflects the energetic cost of outdoor running. Journal of Sports Sciences, 14(4), 321–327. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640419608727717

Romijn, J. A., Coyle, E. F., Sidossis, L. S., Gastaldelli, A., Horowitz, J. F., Endert, E., & Wolfe, R. R. (1993). Regulation of endogenous fat and carbohydrate metabolism in relation to exercise intensity and duration. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism, 265(3), E380–E391. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.1993.265.3.E380

San-Millán, I., & Brooks, G. A. (2018). Assessment of metabolic flexibility by means of measuring blood lactate, fat, and carbohydrate oxidation responses to exercise in professional endurance athletes and less-fit individuals. Sports Medicine, 48(2), 467–479. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-017-0751-x

7 Upgrades I Offer on a Standard VO₂Max or Lactate Threshold Test

ALLSET — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:11:31 GMT

I recently started offering advanced physiological testing that measures your lactate threshold, VO₂Max, and running economy in a single effort.

Consequently, I have been getting questions on the test protocol, advanced metrics, etc.

Some of those are about how my company’s tests differ from conventional ones.

It’s a huge topic, and I have written articles in this series that discuss it from various perspectives, but here’s one that answers the question directly.

1. Get More Useful Results for Less Cost and Effort

A conventional setup often means two separate assessments:

VO₂Max test using a metabolic cart/analyser
Lactate threshold test

Each of these needs equipment, time and a visit, and each returns only one or two numbers.

Typically, your VO₂Max, thresholds, and heart rate zones.

Our test replaces all of that with a single session.

The savings are not only time and money.

From that one session, you get a more comprehensive physiological profile — on top of VO₂Max, thresholds, and training zones, you also get run economy, VLaMax, CarbMax, FatMax, etc.

More about the value of these metrics from the next section onwards.

From a precision standpoint, a single test is also advantageous because every metric comes from the same effort; the parts of your profile are internally consistent rather than stitched together from results gathered on different days, in different states of freshness.

2. Identify Your Areas of Greatest Growth Potential

This is arguably the most valuable difference – getting an overall picture of your physiology rather than just your VO₂Max or thresholds.

It allows you to strategise your follow-up actions rather than make tactical changes.

I.e. because our test maps out your body composition, VO₂Max, VLaMax, threshold fuel, etc., it shows you where your limiter actually is — and therefore what to do about it:

If your threshold is being held down by a high VLaMax, the answer is work that lowers your glycolytic rate, not more threshold grinding
If your aerobic ceiling is the limiter, VO₂Max intervals are what move the needle
If durability and fat oxidation are the gap, easy volume and long runs might help you the most

Etc.

Here’s a table of metrics we provide that are related to your physiology and training.

Without the metrics from our test, you might, for example:

Invest in VO₂Max intervals when you need to do more threshold work
Focus on mileage when attention should be on lactate clearance
Overdo anaerobic work and dampen your fat oxidation capabilities

Knowing your overall metrics allows you to run sessions aligned to your overall goal.

The typical standalone lactate threshold or VO₂Max test misses out on all of these.

3. Get Extensive Pace and Heart Rate Zones for Training Optimisation

There are, broadly, two ways to prescribe training intensity, and they sit on opposite sides of the same cause-and-effect chain (Impellizzeri et al., 2019).

One works from the outside in: you set an external load, a pace or a power output, and that work drives the internal, metabolic response.

This includes oxygen uptake, lactate production and clearance, and the fuel mix.

In this case, external load is the cause; physiology is the effect.

The other works from the inside out, using heart rate — a downstream cardiovascular response that moves only once the physiology has already shifted.

In this case, physiology is the cause; heart rate is the effect.

Both external load and heart rate are useful for prescribing training intensities, and both are imperfect — they are simply good at different things.

Pace and power are direct, instant and fully under your control.

These characteristics make them the better choice for hitting a precise target in the moment: intervals, threshold reps, surges, and efforts near maximum, where heart rate cannot tell threshold, VO₂Max and sprint work apart.

Their weakness is that they say nothing about the internal cost, and pace in particular is thrown off by terrain, wind, gradient and fatigue.

Sample training zones from our report.

Heart rate’s weaknesses are the mirror image: it lags changes in effort by tens of seconds, drifts upward over long efforts at an unchanged work rate (Wingo et al., 2012), and is pushed around by heat, hydration, sleep, caffeine, stress, illness and altitude, so the same heart rate can mean different things on different days (Achten & Jeukendrup, 2003).

But it is comparatively more useful for steady aerobic work and long-session monitoring, especially for athletes training without a power meter or in sports where external work is hard to measure, and as a safety ceiling.

For example, one set by a cardiologist for an athlete returning after a cardiac event.

The thing is, a standard test usually gives you just one of the two training intensities — often only heart-rate zones, or a single threshold pace number.

Our test, however, provides training zones for both heart rate and external load.

It also comes with additional details such as target pace, upper and lower limits, and corresponding energy expenditure.

The result?

Your workouts are optimised.

4. Measure Your Anaerobic Capabilities (VLaMax)

Loosely put, VO₂Max is a measurement of your aerobic capabilities, and VLaMax is the anaerobic equivalent (which is why they are sometimes called sister metrics).

Specifically, VLaMax is the maximum rate at which your body can produce lactate and energy via anaerobic glycolysis.

Also known as ‘maximal glycolytic rate.’

It is the underlying metric behind your thresholds and explains why two athletes with identical VO₂Max scores can perform completely differently.

For instance, a high VLaMax indicates a fast rate of carbohydrate breakdown, which increases carbohydrate use and lowers the threshold.

A low VLaMax does the opposite.

Crucially, VLaMax is not fixed—it responds to training and detraining, and the direction you want it to move depends on your event.

Most endurance athletes want it lower: a lower VLaMax burns less carbohydrate at any given pace, raises the threshold and shifts you toward fat as fuel.

To lower it, you can emphasise a high volume of aerobic, sub-threshold work, including longer sessions and, for cyclists, lower-cadence or higher-torque efforts that recruit fast-twitch fibres without strongly firing the glycolytic system, while limiting frequent short, all-out, glycolytic efforts.

Sprinters usually want the reverse, and raise VLaMax with short, maximal, explosive efforts and anaerobic-power work.

The typical VO₂Max or lactate threshold test does not tell you your VLaMax. Hence, you will need additional tests to find out your numbers.

On the other hand, our test includes VLaMax in the report, and knowing your number helps you identify which area to improve.

You can then use retests to help confirm whether you physiologically adapted as intended.

5. Track Your Fuelling and Train Your Fat-Burning

FatMax is the intensity at which you burn fat fastest; CarbMax is the intensity at which your carbohydrate combustion reaches about 90 g per hour (Achten et al., 2002).

Between them, they map how your fuel mix shifts across the whole intensity range — from mostly fat at easy efforts to almost entirely carbohydrate at the top.

Sample of a fuel curve produced in our test report.

A standard threshold test, however, does not report your fuel curve.

In our test, because your curve gets modelled, you can turn it into two kinds of action.

The first pertains to fuelling.

You can use the fat and carbohydrate illustrated across intensities to estimate fuel demand in grams per hour at any given pace.

For example, roughly how much carbohydrate you will be burning at your target race intensity.

That gives you a meaningful starting point for your race nutrition plan, a sense of:

How many grams of carbohydrate per hour to target
Where your fat stores can carry the load
Where you risk running short if you under-fuel

Having said that, also note that FatMax and CarbMax can vary day to day depending on your diet.

Hence, take into consideration the modelled figures are well-informed estimates rather than precise measurements — gut tolerance, heat, pacing variance and individual metabolic responses mean real-world needs will differ.

Nevertheless, the figures help you reach a more informed starting point than, for example, working from a heart-rate number alone.

Additionally, the fuel curve is also useful in helping you craft smarter training.

Here’s some underlying science.

Carbohydrate is often a limiting fuel for your activity, and even a well-stocked athlete stores only enough muscle and liver glycogen for roughly 90 minutes to two hours of hard effort, while body fat carries many hours of energy.

As intensity climbs, you draw proportionally more on carbohydrate and less on fat (Romijn et al., 1993).

Hence, the higher your rate of fat oxidation at a given pace, the longer you can hold that pace before glycogen runs low and the later you hit the wall.

That’s where your FatMax-related metrics come in.

If you raise your maximal fat oxidation (MFO) and the intensity at which it peaks (FatMax) with it, you widen the range you can cover before carbohydrate becomes the bottleneck (Maunder et al., 2018).

MFO, Relative MFO, and FatMax are among the insights in our lactate threshold report.

Such information is valuable because MFO is independently associated with performance in long-course events such as the Ironman, where carbohydrate availability is limiting (Frandsen et al., 2017; Maunder et al., 2018)

And, like VLaMax, it is trainable.

The biggest lever in this case is a high volume of lower-intensity, longer aerobic sessions.

These sessions help build mitochondrial function, oxidative enzymes, and capillaries that promote fat burning and shift the whole fuel curve to the right.

You can also catalyse the stimulus by occasionally training with low carbohydrate availability — an easy session done fasted or with glycogen already depleted — which amplifies fat-oxidative adaptations (Bartlett et al., 2015).

(But if you are doing so, keep it to easy days, not hard ones.)

Lowering VLaMax, as aforementioned, pulls in the same direction.

Before I end this section, I think it is worth stating:

A sustained low-carbohydrate, high-fat, or ketogenic diet sharply increases fat oxidation, but in trained endurance athletes it has also been shown to worsen exercise economy and blunt high-intensity performance (Burke et al., 2017).

Hence, note that there is a trade-off.

Either way, your fuel curve shows whether building fat-burning capabilities is worthwhile for your event, and a retest shows whether it has shifted.

6. Measure How Efficiently You Turn Energy Into Speed (e.g. Running Economy)

So far, we have mostly discussed VO₂Max and your threshold, but they are only two of the three physiological determinants of endurance performance.

The third is economy — the energy cost of moving at a given speed (Joyner, 1991; Joyner & Coyle, 2008).

For example, two runners can share the same VO₂Max and the same threshold yet race differently because one spends less energy at a faster pace.

Sample of calculated run economy from our report.

And the longer the activity, the larger the role of economy, because its effect compounds over the distance.

Hence, it can be an important metric to optimise.

The thing is, VO₂Max and your threshold tests rarely quantify it.

Consequently, you miss out on actionable insights such as which type of strength training to do and which types of runs to focus on.

Our test, on the other hand, reports it.

You get your economy as a number across a range of speeds.

And you also get an energy-demand curve, so you can see exactly how efficiently you convert oxygen into speed.

Your energy-demand curve directly drives several training and racing decisions.

Why this matters in practice:

It sharpens your race-pace prediction: economy is one of the inputs behind the speed–duration model in the next section; a more economical runner sustains a faster pace for the same physiological cost
It changes your fuelling plans: the less oxygen and energy you spend per kilometre, the lower your carbohydrate demand at race pace
It is trainable: running economy responds to high training volume and, in particular, to heavy strength and plyometric work, which improve tendon stiffness and elastic energy return.

With that said, a caveat.

Economy is sensitive to how it is measured — footwear, surface, treadmill versus track, and whether each stage is genuinely at steady state — so it is most trustworthy as a longitudinal, like-for-like comparison rather than an absolute number to rank yourself against.

It is also worth remembering that a sustained shift toward fat as fuel can carry a small oxygen-cost penalty at a given pace — the same economy trade-off flagged in the low-carbohydrate research above (Burke et al., 2017).

Either way, knowing your economy turns it from an invisible variable into something you can monitor and train.

7. Predict Your Race Pace and Set Pacing Targets

Your race pace depends on how long you can maintain it, taking into account the three determinants mentioned earlier — your VO₂Max, thresholds and economy.

If you plot the hardest pace you can sustain against the duration of the effort, it traces a curve — the power–duration relationship, or speed–duration for runners.

Pace/power is high for short efforts, then falls steeply before flattening out on the floor as the effort lengthens.

That floor is your critical speed (critical power on the bike): the fastest pace you can hold in a steady state, a boundary that sits just above your threshold.

And everything above the floor is paid for from a finite reserve — your anaerobic capacity.

Such dynamics explain why you can run far faster for three minutes than for an hour, and why that reserve, not the threshold, governs your pace in short, hard efforts.

It also explains where a typical VO₂Max or lactate threshold test falls short in helping you predict your race pace and set pacing targets: they provide you with just one of these determinants — your VO₂Max, or your threshold — which is incomplete information if you want to plot the curve.

For example, a single threshold number marks roughly where the floor lies but says nothing about the size of the reserve above it (Poole et al., 2016).

Although it is still possible to turn the incomplete information into a target pace for a 5 km, a 10 km, or a marathon, those require extrapolation, and the model gets rougher the further the event is from the intensity at which you were tested/the more the anaerobic contribution counts.

On the other hand, our test captures all the graph’s inputs — VO₂Max, VLaMax, threshold, economy and fuel use — and uses them to model the maximal pace you can sustain for any given duration.

Effectively, it maps how that sustainable pace changes across the full range of race durations, rather than leaving you to extrapolate it from a single benchmark.

From there, you can then factor in other variables, such as weather, terrain, etc. and more accurately deduce your plausible race times.

Conclusion

All in all, you can derive strategically different training insights from my company’s test because it provides a more comprehensive profile of your physiology.

In comparison, a conventional VO₂Max or lactate threshold test gives you a number or two and only tactical suggestions for your training plan.

If you would like to learn more, please get in touch.

For more of such content, consider subscribing to the newsletter.

Till next time, take care!

References

Achten, J., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2003). Heart rate monitoring: Applications and limitations. Sports Medicine, 33(7), 517–538. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200333070-00004

Bartlett, J. D., Hawley, J. A., & Morton, J. P. (2015). Carbohydrate availability and exercise training adaptation: Too much of a good thing? European Journal of Sport Science, 15(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2014.920926

Burke, L. M., Ross, M. L., Garvican-Lewis, L. A., Welvaert, M., Heikura, I. A., Forbes, S. G., Mirtschin, J. G., Cato, L. E., Strobel, N., Sharma, A. P., & Hawley, J. A. (2017). Low carbohydrate, high fat diet impairs exercise economy and negates the performance benefit from intensified training in elite race walkers. The Journal of Physiology, 595(9), 2785–2807. https://doi.org/10.1113/JP273230

Frandsen, J., Vest, S. D., Larsen, S., Dela, F., & Helge, J. W. (2017). Maximal fat oxidation is related to performance in an Ironman triathlon. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 38(13), 975–982. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0043-117178

Harnish, C., & Swensen, T. (2017). Reliability of the 15-s maximal lactate accumulation rate (VLamax) test for cycling. International Journal of Exercise Science, 10(4), 552–560. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2252&context=ijes

Impellizzeri, F. M., Marcora, S. M., & Coutts, A. J. (2019). Internal and external training load: 15 years on. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 14(2), 270–273. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2018-0935

Joyner, M. J. (1991). Modeling: Optimal marathon performance on the basis of physiological factors. Journal of Applied Physiology, 70(2), 683–687. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1991.70.2.683

Joyner, M. J., & Coyle, E. F. (2008). Endurance exercise performance: The physiology of champions. The Journal of Physiology, 586(1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2007.143834

Wingo, J. E., Ganio, M. S., & Cureton, K. J. (2012). Cardiovascular drift during heat stress: Implications for exercise prescription. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 40(2), 88–94. https://doi.org/10.1097/JES.0b013e31824c43af

Wolpern, A. E., Burgos, D. J., Janot, J. M., & Dalleck, L. C. (2015). Is a threshold-based model a superior method to the relative percent concept for establishing individual exercise intensity? A randomized controlled trial. BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 7, 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13102-015-0011-z

Explained: BIXEPS for Fat Loss, Seniors, Runners

ALLSET — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:12:40 GMT

The BIXEPS machine and the team behind it.

Three years ago, I featured Associate Professor Alfredo Franco-Obregón on my podcast.

Since then, I have been recommending BIXEPS to my clients.

Earlier this month, I started offering the service at my Evans Road location.

Hence, in this article, I will summarise how the device helps you if you belong to one of these groups:

People who want to lose visceral fat
Seniors
Runners

But first, let’s quickly introduce what the device does.

Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) Therapy

The Straits Times succinctly states how it works:

“New tech helps build stronger muscles - without needing to exercise”

The technology is developed at the National University of Singapore, and you simply rest your leg in it for a few minutes to get health benefits.

Carefully tuned magnetic pulses (about 1 millitesla at 15 Hz) activate calcium-sensitive pathways in muscle cells. This engages the mechanism that exercise also relies on, the PGC-1α signalling pathway and the muscle’s mitochondrial network.

Assoc Prof Alfredo Franco-Obregón (standing, right), Principal Investigator at NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology, and Ms Sharanya Venugobal (standing, left), Clinical Research Coordinator at QuantumTX, with 79-year-old BIXEPS user Mr George Teo. (Source: NUS)

In other words, the muscle receives a signal that mimics, and in some cases amplifies, the cellular benefits of a workout.

This has multiple use cases, including benefits for three groups of clients I often see.

1. People Who Want to Lose Visceral Fat

Visceral fat is the kind that wraps around your organs deep inside your abdomen.

E.g. liver, pancreas, and intestines.

It is metabolically active, inflammatory, and strongly linked to diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Of note, many Southeast Asians carry comparatively high body fat — and visceral fat in particular — even at a normal body weight.

A Singapore study by Deurenberg-Yap and colleagues documented this ‘low BMI, high body fat’ paradox across Chinese, Malay, and Indian populations.

Reducing it meaningfully usually takes sustained, vigorous exercise rather than light activity alone.

That’s where BIXEPS comes in.

In a community study published in Aging in 2023 (Venugobal et al.), 101 participants in Singapore aged 38 to 91 underwent 10 minutes of weekly BIXEPS therapy.

Over 8 to 12 weeks, participants saw mean reductions of about 3.7% in visceral fat and 3.9% in total fat, with the largest reductions in older participants.

Supporting this, a 2025 mouse study (Wong et al.) found that even the gut-bacteria profile of magnetically treated animals, when transplanted into others, raised fat oxidation and mitochondrial activity.

2. Seniors

Most of my clients are seniors, and their common goal is to stay strong, mobile, and independent for as long as possible.

Aptly, this is where BIXEPS has its most direct human evidence.

Pain Perception and Mobility

For instance, here are the findings in the aforementioned Singapore community study in Aging (Venugobal et al., 2023):

The vast majority of participants completed all 12 sessions, and improvements were seen across all three functional mobility tests, with the greatest gains in older and more frail participants.
Mean Timed Up and Go improved from 11.25 to 9.31 seconds (oldest group, 76–91 years: 15.35 to 13.14 seconds)
Pain perception improved significantly, including for those with severe chronic pain

Osteoarthritis

Another example is that using BIXEPS to strengthen muscles can also be helpful for seniors facing chronic knee impairments.

Two trials exploring the applications of the technology found it helpful.

Firstly, in an end-stage knee OA randomised controlled trial (Wang et al., 2024), BIXEPS combined with home-based exercise significantly improved knee muscle strength compared with exercise alone.

In particular, the greatest muscle strength benefit was observed among female patients over 70.

Separately, a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in milder knee OA (Lau et al., 2026), which also used BIXEPS, replicated the muscle-strength gain.

3. Runners

The last group of clients I often recommend BIXEPS to are runners.

This is because BIXEPS targets muscle mitochondria and recovery — the same systems that endurance training taxes.

It is therefore plausibly useful for the running population.

Achilles Tendinopathy

For example, in a sports-injury-related study, researchers sought to determine the usefulness of BIXEPS.

65 patients underwent 12 weeks of eccentric calf-strengthening — the standard, evidence-based treatment — and one group additionally received biweekly 10-minute BIXEPS sessions for the first 8 weeks in a randomised controlled trial of BIXEPS for the condition (Ko et al., 2024).

For the main outcome, both groups improved substantially and almost equally: pain and tendon scores fell across the board, and adding BIXEPS did not outperform eccentric exercise alone.

However, Achilles tendinopathy comes in two forms: midportion — the thickened, painful stretch a few centimetres above the heel — and insertional, right where the tendon anchors to the heel bone.

The midportion is by far the more common type and the classic overuse injury in runners.

And in that midportion subgroup, the BIXEPS group came out ahead of sham at 12 weeks: less sport-related pain, lower ‘worst’ pain, and more time back on their feet doing sport.

General Recovery From Injury and Surgery

A Southeast Asian randomised-controlled pilot trial (Stephenson et al., 2022) found that magnetic field therapy applied to the thigh after ACL reconstruction improved muscle mitochondrial bioenergetics and lowered systemic ceramide levels — treating rehabilitation as a whole-body metabolic event, not just a localised knee fix.

Upcoming Studies

My team has previously conducted pilots to assess the device’s effectiveness and found increases in VO2 max in a small participant pool (n=7) after 8 weeks of BIXEPS use.

There has also been anecdotal evidence that BIXEPS may improve resting lactate and anaerobic threshold levels, although more research, such as the ongoing study at Singapore Sports, is needed to confirm these findings.

Conclusion

My take is that there is early evidence that BIXEPS is useful for certain populations.

However, more research is needed for it to be included in standard clinical and high-performance protocols.

The company has also clearly stated that BIXEPS devices are intended to improve overall well-being and maintain a healthy lifestyle; they are not intended to be used for any medical purpose, management or treatment of any medical condition or disease.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the company has obtained FDA and HSA clearance for BIXEPS models under different device names.

Perhaps most importantly, it provides a valuable option to many of my clients who are looking for results beyond what exercise can typically deliver, e.g. mobility-impaired seniors, the oldest old, time-crunched individuals, etc.

If you would like to learn more, please get in touch.

References

Begum, S. (2023, November 20). Magnetic pulse therapy strengthens muscles and prevents frailty, especially for elderly. The Straits Times.

Deurenberg-Yap, M., Schmidt, G., van Staveren, W. A., & Deurenberg, P. (2000). The paradox of low body mass index and high body fat percentage among Chinese, Malays and Indians in Singapore. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, 24(8), 1011–1017. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801353

Ko, V. M.-C., Chen, S.-C., He, X., Fu, S.-C., Franco-Obregón, A., Yung, P. S.-H., & Ling, S. K.-K. (2024). Short-term effects of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy for Achilles tendinopathy: A randomized controlled trial. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 12(11). https://doi.org/10.1177/23259671241284772

Lau, K. K. L., Chen, A. S. C., Fu, C. H. Y., Ng, J. P., Ong, M. T. Y., Yung, P. S. H., & Lui, P. P. Y. (2026). Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy for mild-to-moderate knee osteoarthritis: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle, 17(1), e70199. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcsm.70199

Stephenson, M. C., Krishna, L., Pannir Selvan, R. M., Tai, Y. K., Kit Wong, C. J., Yin, J. N., Toh, S. J., … Franco-Obregón, A. (2022). Magnetic field therapy enhances muscle mitochondrial bioenergetics and attenuates systemic ceramide levels following ACL reconstruction: Southeast Asian randomized-controlled pilot trial. Journal of Orthopaedic Translation, 35, 99–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jot.2022.09.011

Tseng, F. S., Lim, G. H., Bee, Y. M., Lee, P. C., Tai, Y. K., Franco-Obregón, A., & Tan, H. C. (2025). Investigating the metabolic benefits of magnetic mitohormesis in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 14(18), 6413. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14186413

Venugobal, S., Tai, Y. K., Goh, J., Teh, S., Wong, C., Goh, I., Maier, A. B., Kennedy, B. K., & Franco-Obregón, A. (2023). Brief, weekly magnetic muscle therapy improves mobility and lean body mass in older adults: A Southeast Asia community case study. Aging, 15(6), 1768–1790. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204597

Wang, Q.-W., Ong, M. T.-Y., Man, G. C.-W., Franco-Obregón, A., Choi, B. C.-Y., Lui, P. P.-Y., Fong, D. T. P., Qiu, J.-H., He, X., Ng, J. P., & Yung, P. S.-H. (2024). The effects of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy on muscle strength and pain in patients with end-stage knee osteoarthritis: A randomized controlled trial. Frontiers in Medicine, 11, 1435277. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2024.1435277

Wong, J. K. C., Patel, B. K., Tai, Y. K., Tan, T. Z., Khine, W. W. T., Chen, W. C., Kukumberg, M., Ching, J., Lee, L. S., Chua, K. V., … Franco-Obregón, A. (2025). Fecal microbiota transplantation from mice receiving magnetic mitohormesis treatment reverses high-fat diet-induced metabolic and osteogenic dysfunction. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 26(12), 5450. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms26125450

Yuen, S.-Y. (2020, November 29). Protein activated by magnetic field-generating device can strengthen muscles without exercise. The Straits Times.

Why I Tell My Clients to Train Just Once a Week

ALLSET — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 03:59:49 GMT

New clients often ask me, “How often do I need to do your exercises?”

My standard reply: “Once a week.”

Their usual response: “Is that enough?”

To which I’ll say, “Yes, and you’ll get to see the improvement for yourself through our data, because we do strength re-assessments every session.”

Often, the answer is met with doubt and disbelief.

But many end up staying long term.

Why, then, do doctors still dispense exercise recommendations that go beyond five sessions a week?

This article answers that question.

How the WHO Guidelines Are Developed

It helps to first understand how exercise guidelines come about.

The latest of which is the 2020 WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour.

In short, they were developed through an analysis of scientific evidence and in accordance with the WHO Handbook for Guideline Development (2nd edition).

The people behind it?

A committee called the Guideline Development Group (GDG), which comprised 27 physical activity experts from selected disciplines (epidemiology, physiology, health behaviour, etc.), as well as policymakers and end-users.

To develop the guidelines, the GDG reviewed evidence to assess associations between physical activity and sedentary behaviour across an agreed set of health outcomes and population groups, using recent relevant systematic reviews.

What the WHO Guidelines Actually Recommend

The recommendation is that all adults should undertake 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity, or 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity, or some equivalent combination per week.

This is because there is moderate-certainty evidence that 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity or equivalent per week reduces risk for multiple health outcomes, and risk reduction continues, but starts to plateau, beyond 300 minutes per week.

In other words, there is evidence that more physical activity is associated with larger effects on health outcomes, although the relative benefits level off at higher levels.

A point to note is that, even though the guidelines are explicitly framed as a population-level floor, they do not state that lower levels of exercise are not recommended.

In fact, quite the contrary.

They state that lower exercise levels are better than none at all.

And the guidelines themselves recognise gaps:

“More evidence is needed to further describe the dose–response relationship between volume and/or intensity of aerobic physical activity and muscle-strength training and specific health outcomes — information that is key to establishing minimal effective doses and maximum safety thresholds for different population subgroups.”

Research on the Minimum Effective Dose for Strength

Instead of looking at WHO’s exercise recommendation, which is based on a population-level floor, my team looks at the minimum effective dose.

Specifically, as a company, our aim is to increase the effectiveness of the minimum dose exercises, as illustrated by the green dotted line below.

However, to be clear, the concept of ‘minimal effective dose’ is not new.

Multiple studies have found that minimal-dose exercise with volumes below WHO thresholds has been impactful for health.

Mortality and Cardiovascular Health

As Little as 15 Minutes a Day (≈90 min/week)

The Wen et al. (2011) prospective cohort study followed over 400,000 Taiwanese adults and found that exercising just 15 minutes per day (approximately 92 minutes per week — well below the WHO 150-minute threshold) was associated with a 14% lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 20% reduction in cardiovascular disease mortality, translating to an estimated three extra years of life expectancy compared to inactive individuals.

Every additional 15 minutes of daily exercise beyond this minimum further reduced all-cause mortality by 4% and all-cancer mortality by 1%, with no upper harm threshold observed in the study range.

10–59 Minutes per Week

A national cohort study of 88,140 US adults (Saint-Maurice et al., 2019, British Journal of Sports Medicine) found that even 10–59 minutes per week of physical activity was associated with an 18% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to inactivity. This represents roughly 7–40% of the WHO minimum aerobic recommendation.

As Low as 15–20 Minutes per Week

A 2022 European Heart Journal study of 71,893 UK Biobank adults using wrist-worn accelerometers found that just 15–20 minutes per week of vigorous physical activity (VPA) was associated with a 16–40% lower mortality hazard ratio across all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality endpoints. The dose–response nadir — where the steepest gains occur — was observed around 53 minutes per week, still below the WHO VPA threshold of 75 minutes per week.

Resistance Training and Strength

30–60 Minutes per Week for Mortality Reduction

A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis (Momma et al.) found that any muscle-strengthening exercise was associated with a 15% lower risk of all-cause mortality, 17% lower cardiovascular disease mortality, and 12% lower cancer mortality. Crucially, maximum benefit was observed at just 30–60 minutes of resistance training per week, with no further significant mortality reduction beyond 60 minutes per week.

Single-Set Training Produces Significant Strength Gains

Androulakis-Korakakis et al. (2020, Sports Medicine) confirmed in a systematic review and meta-analysis that performing a single set of 6–12 repetitions at 70–85% 1RM, 2–3 times per week for 8–12 weeks produces significant increases in squat and bench press 1RM strength in resistance-trained men, with an estimated overall 1RM increase of 12.09 kg.

A narrative review by Fyfe, Hamilton & Daly (2022, Sports Medicine) further supports that meaningful improvements in muscle mass, strength, and function are achievable with minimal-dose resistance training, and notes that reduced volume may improve long-term adherence by limiting discomfort associated with higher training loads.

A 2023 BJSM systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis of 178 RCTs (Currier et al.) confirmed that all resistance training prescriptions — including low-volume approaches — are superior to no exercise for both muscle strength and hypertrophy.[8]

New Evidence: 90–120 Minutes per Week as the Optimal Ceiling

A 30-year prospective study of 147,374 individuals (Zhang et al., published in BJSM, 2026) found that 90–120 minutes per week of strength training was associated with a 13% lower all-cause mortality risk, 19% lower cardiovascular mortality risk, and 27% lower neurological disease mortality risk — with no additional benefit beyond 120 minutes per week. Even lower doses of 1–59 minutes per week still yielded a 7–11% lower mortality risk.

Reconciling the Difference

So why do WHO guidelines and findings on minimal dose differ?

The contradiction resolves when you realise that they are answering different questions:

a) Different Outcomes Measured

The WHO guidelines primarily target population-level risk reduction across multiple outcomes — cardiovascular mortality, cancer incidence, diabetes, depression, cognitive decline, and bone health.

Minimal-dose studies typically measure a single performance outcome, for example, maximal strength (1RM).

In this case, a single weekly set may grow your squat without delivering the same protection against cardiovascular disease that 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity provides.

b) Population Heterogeneity and the Precautionary Rationale

Much of the existing evidence relies on observational studies, and measurement of physical activity has been shown to be a significant challenge.

Guidelines are calibrated to be achievable and protective across highly diverse global populations — including sedentary, elderly, and chronically ill individuals — not just subjects for whom minimal-dose studies are often conducted.

c) “Some Is Better Than None” Is Acknowledged

As mentioned earlier, WHO does not claim that 150 minutes is a threshold below which nothing happens. A number of studies have shown that getting less than the recommended level of physical activity still provides health benefits compared with being completely sedentary.

d) Adherence and Public Health Design

Compared with traditional approaches, minimal-dose resistance training may also limit negative affective responses, such as increased discomfort and reduced enjoyment, both of which are associated with higher training volumes and may undermine exercise adherence.

The WHO guidelines aim to specify a meaningful protective dose that is sufficiently actionable at scale — not necessarily a floor for every individual.

e) Acknowledged Evidence Gaps

The WHO itself is transparent about this limitation. There is still insufficient evidence to fully describe the dose–response relationships between physical activity or sedentary behaviour and health outcomes, or to determine whether the associations vary by type or domain of physical activity or sedentary behaviour.

Conclusion

The WHO guidelines and minimal-dose research cater to different needs.

I believe it’s wiser to recommend a weekly session to clients, both for safety and to keep the routine sustainable over decades, and to use data to optimise the training, than to recommend the WHO guidelines.

Therefore, I have designed my company to enable such training, making it possible for clients to consistently see health improvements in one session per week.

References

Ahmadi MN, Clare PJ, Katzmarzyk PT, et al. (2022). Vigorous physical activity, incident heart disease, and cancer: how little is enough? European Heart Journal, 43(46):4801–4814. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehac574

Androulakis-Korakakis P, Fisher JP, Steele J. (2020). The minimum effective training dose required to increase 1RM strength in resistance-trained men: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 50(4):751–765. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-019-01236-0

Bakker EA, Lee DC, Hopman MTE, et al. (2021). Dose–response association between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and incident morbidity and mortality. PLOS Medicine, 18(12):e1003845. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003845

Bull FC, Al-Ansari SS, Biddle S, et al. (2020). World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 54(24):1451–1462. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2020-102955

Chaput J-P, Willumsen J, Bull F, et al. (2020). 2020 WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour for children and adolescents aged 5–17 years: summary of the evidence. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 17:141. PMCID: PMC7691077. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-020-01037-z

Currier BS, Mcleod JC, Banfield L, et al. (2023). Resistance training prescription for muscle strength and hypertrophy in healthy adults: a systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 57:1211–1220. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-106807

DiPietro L, et al. (2020). Advancing the global physical activity agenda: recommendations for future research by the 2020 WHO physical activity and sedentary behavior guidelines development group. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 17:143. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-020-01042-2

Fyfe JJ, Hamilton DL, Daly RM. (2022). Minimal-dose resistance training for improving muscle mass, strength, and function: a narrative review of current evidence and practical considerations. Sports Medicine, 52(3):463–479. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-021-01605-8

Momma H, Kawakami R, Honda T, Sawada SS. (2022). Muscle-strengthening activities are associated with lower risk and mortality in major non-communicable diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 56:755–763. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-068605

Saint-Maurice PF, Troiano RP, Matthews CE, Kraus WE. (2018). Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and all-cause mortality: do bouts matter? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 52(20):1–6. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-099713

Wen CP, Wai JPM, Tsai MK, et al. (2011). Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy: a prospective cohort study. The Lancet, 378(9798):1244–1253. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60749-6

Zhang Y, Lee DH, Rezende LFM, Ma Y, Giovannucci E. (2026). Long-term resistance training with all-cause and cause-specific mortality: assessing dose-response and joint associations with aerobic physical activity. British Journal of Sports Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2025-110503

Singapore’s First Lactate Threshold Test for Menopausal Weight Management

ALLSET — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:34:25 GMT

There is a weight management test for women going through the menopause transition that doctors in Singapore have been missing out on.

Perhaps because it wasn’t available in Singapore until my company recently started offering it.

I’m referring to an advanced lactate threshold test, which provides insights that a typical one does not.

E.g. FatMax, CarbMax, VLaMax

These metrics, in short, help you formulate what exact cardiorespiratory exercises you should do, inform you how your diet is affecting your physiology, etc.

Results aside, the test protocol my company uses is also friendlier for non-athletes, making it valuable to the general population.

For more educational content about my company’s advanced lactate threshold test, check out this link.

With that said, let’s dive into how my company’s test will benefit your weight management journey.

1. It Measures the Fat-Burning Capacity the Menopause Transition Erodes

Before menopause, women rely more on fat as a fuel source during exercise than men at the same relative exercise intensity (Tarnopolsky et al., 1990; Venables et al., 2005).

This is because estrogen promotes fatty-acid uptake and oxidation in skeletal muscle (Isacco et al., 2012).

As those levels decline, that advantage fades.

Research shows that this shift is measurable:

Postmenopausal women had approximately 33% lower whole-body fat oxidation during exercise than premenopausal women. Importantly, correction for lean body mass (LBM) reduced this difference to approximately 23%, indicating that much of this difference is attributable to lower lean body mass rather than to a direct hormonal effect alone (Abildgaard et al., 2013).

A separate longitudinal study also found fat oxidation fell by 32% in women who became postmenopausal over a four-year follow-up.

Quantifying fat oxidation early, therefore, matters, so you can use exercise interventions to better optimise your fat oxidation capacity.

That’s where my company’s test comes in.

It can tell you your maximal fat oxidation (MFO) and the exercise intensity at which it peaks (FatMax) — giving you a clear baseline for the metabolic system the transition affects most, and a way to track whether training is preserving or restoring it.

2. It Helps You Better Manage Your VO₂ Max — One of the Most Important Health Numbers at Midlife

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death globally among women (Vogel et al., 2021), and one way to track your cardiovascular health is to measure your VO₂ Max — how much oxygen your body can utilise during maximal exercise.

A meta-analysis of 33 studies pooling data from over 100,000 participants found each 1-MET (3.5 ml/kg/min) increase in aerobic capacity was associated with a 13% lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 15% lower risk of cardiovascular events (Kodama et al., 2009).

For reference, here’s the VO2 Max Chart for women, in units of ml/kg/min.

Source: Association of Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Long-term Mortality Among Adults Undergoing Exercise Treadmill Testing (2018)

VO₂ Max declines with age — at roughly 10% per decade after age 25–30 — and the rate of decline can accelerate in sedentary women after menopause (Fleg et al., 2005).

In the context of weight loss and exercise recommendations, however, knowing your VO₂ Max from a VO₂ Max test alone often falls short, as the results may not be fully actionable on their own.

They do not tell you whether optimising for your VO₂ Max should be a priority, or whether other metabolic parameters warrant more urgent attention.

That’s where a comprehensive lactate threshold test comes in — to provide you with a clearer picture of what exactly happens when you exercise at different intensities, and consequently, what your action plan should be.

3. It Informs You About Your Maximal Glycolytic Rate (VO2 Max’s Sister Metric)

Not all lactate threshold tests measure maximal glycolytic rate (VLaMax), but my company’s does.

The metric is important for women undergoing the menopausal transition because a higher VLaMax shifts fuel use toward carbohydrate and lowers fat oxidation at submaximal intensities — thereby suppressing the very fat oxidation that the estrogen decline is already eroding (Mader & Heck, 1986; Randle et al., 1963).

So deliberately raising VLaMax makes sense only if you are training for a genuinely glycolytic event (such as HYROX, a team sport, or high-intensity interval training).

For most women in the menopausal transition, the aim is to keep VLaMax moderate to low so fat oxidation stays high — and knowing where you stand lets you train toward that.

4. It Customises Your Cardiorespiratory Exercise Recommendations

Cardiorespiratory exercise recommendations are often prescribed in the form of varying training intensities, also called training zones.

One way to define these zones is to base them on percentages of your maximum heart rate.

However, the method poorly reflects any individual’s actual physiology, and research has demonstrated that it routinely misclassifies exercise intensity (Iannetta et al., 2020).

To add to that, heart rate can also be an unreliable guide in midlife women — affected by hormonal fluctuations, sleep disruption, hot flushes, or medication.

This also means that typical lactate threshold tests that give you training zones based on heart rate fail to address relevant pitfalls.

These are the areas where my company’s differentiation matters.

We set your training zones from actual metabolic events: the lactate threshold, the maximal lactate steady state (MLSS), FatMax, and the fat-to-carbohydrate crossover point.

This means your training recommendation will be time spent at the intensity (e.g. pace) that actually delivers the intended physiological adaptation — whether the goal is building aerobic base, improving metabolic flexibility, or improving cardiovascular fitness.

5. It Tracks Body Composition — and Whether Resistance Training Is Working

During the menopausal transition, fat mass gain accelerates — the rate of fat gain approximately doubles at the onset of perimenopause (Greendale et al., 2019) — with the increase directed predominantly toward visceral abdominal fat (Lovejoy et al., 2008).

Simultaneously, lean mass begins to decline during the transition. Both trends continue for approximately two years after the final menstrual period, after which fat and lean mass trajectories stabilise (Greendale et al., 2019).

Resistance training is an effective tool to counter these changes. Evidence shows combined resistance plus cardiorespiratory (aerobic) training tends to produce the broadest benefits for cardiovascular health and body composition (Ioannidou et al., 2024).

Again, this is where my company offers something that other providers typically do not.

Body composition reporting is included in my company’s lactate threshold test (because it should be).

And the test serves as a check to ensure your muscle health is properly addressed whenever you come in for an assessment.

Sneak peek: one of my company’s upcoming upgrades is a body composition analysis more accurate than the current gold-standard DEXA (and physiological testing clients will get to use it for free, i.e. a $300+ cost saving)

6. It Creates a Baseline and a Feedback Loop

Establishing MFO, VO₂max, fat-free mass, and lactate thresholds now, then retesting every few months, shows you whether the current training and nutrition strategy is working — and allows for course correction before months are lost.

For example:

A rising or stable VO₂max, with preserved fat-free mass and improved fat oxidation capacity, is a signal that the plan is on track.
A decline across those markers is an early prompt to adjust training load, nutrition, or recovery — well before symptoms or standard health markers signal a problem.
A mix of rising and declining markers might indicate that you are, for example, doing well in your HYROX training but not as optimised in your long-term health.

The list of examples goes on depending on your preferred lifestyle and exercise goals.

In the context of weight management, such a feedback loop is useful to point you in the right direction.

7. It Can Surface Issues Worth a Medical Conversation

My company’s lactate threshold test requires you to produce a maximal effort, and that can sometimes reveal something worth following up on:

an unusual heart rate response
symptoms of cardiac irregularity
unexpectedly low fitness for age

Etc.

While such cases may not be entirely related to weight management, these observations can prompt a timely conversation with a physician or cardiologist.

Conclusion

With everything said, it is key to note that perimenopausal symptoms — hot flushes, sleep disruption, mood changes, brain fog — and any decisions about hormone therapy belong in a clinical conversation with a doctor.

My company’s metabolic profiling, while advanced, provides no guidance on these, despite some clients asking.

Lastly, I want to point out that the research base for training prescriptions specific to perimenopausal and postmenopausal women is still developing.

This article will be updated for accuracy if new evidence emerges.

These limitations aside, if you have any questions on the topic, please get in touch.

For more of such content, consider subscribing to the newsletter.

Till next time, take care!

References

Abildgaard, J., Pedersen, A. T., Green, C. J., Harder-Lauridsen, N. M., Solomon, T. P. J., Thomsen, C., Juul, A., et al. (2013). Menopause is associated with decreased whole body fat oxidation during exercise. American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism, 304(11), E1227–E1236. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.00492.2012

Carter, S. L., Rennie, C., & Tarnopolsky, M. A. (2001). Substrate utilization during endurance exercise in men and women after endurance training. American Journal of Physiology — Endocrinology and Metabolism, 280(6), E898–E907. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.2001.280.6.E898

Fleg, J. L., Morrell, C. H., Bos, A. G., Brant, L. J., Talbot, L. A., Wright, J. G., & Lakatta, E. G. (2005). Accelerated longitudinal decline of aerobic capacity in healthy older adults. Circulation, 112(5), 674–682. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.105.545459

Greendale, G. A., Sternfeld, B., Huang, M., Han, W., Karvonen-Gutierrez, C., Ruppert, K., Cauley, J. A., Finkelstein, J. S., Jiang, S.-F., & Karlamangla, A. S. (2019). Changes in body composition and weight during the menopause transition. JCI Insight, 4(5), e124865. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.124865

Ioannidou, P., Dóró, Z., Schalla, J., Wätjen, W., Diel, P., & Isenmann, E. (2024). Analysis of combinatory effects of free weight resistance training and a high-protein diet on body composition and strength capacity in postmenopausal women — A 12-week randomized controlled trial. The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging, 28(11), 100349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnha.2024.100349

Isacco, L., Duché, P., & Boisseau, N. (2012). Influence of hormonal status on substrate utilization at rest and during exercise in the female population. Sports Medicine, 42(4), 327–342. https://doi.org/10.2165/11598900-000000000-00000

Isacco, L., & Boisseau, N. (2021). Sex hormones and substrate metabolism during endurance exercise. In: Hackney A.C., Constantini N.W. (eds), Endocrinology of Physical Activity and Sport. Humana, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33376-8_11

Kodama, S., Saito, K., Tanaka, S., Maki, M., Yachi, Y., Asumi, M., et al. (2009). Cardiorespiratory fitness as a quantitative predictor of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events in healthy men and women: A meta-analysis. JAMA, 301(19), 2024–2035. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2009.681

Loe, H., Rognmo, Ø., Saltin, B., & Wisløff, U. (2013). Aerobic capacity reference data in 3,816 healthy men and women 20–90 years. PLOS ONE, 8(5), e64319. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064319

Lovejoy, J. C., Champagne, C. M., de Jonge, L., Xie, H., & Smith, S. R. (2008). Increased visceral fat and decreased energy expenditure during the menopausal transition. International Journal of Obesity, 32(6), 949–958. https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2008.25

Mader, A., & Heck, H. (1986). A theory of the metabolic origin of ‘anaerobic threshold.’ International Journal of Sports Medicine, 7(S1), S45–S65. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2008-1025802

Ponce-González, J. G., et al. (2018). Reduced fat oxidation during exercise in post-menopausal overweight-obese women with higher lipid accumulation product index. Medicine, 97(18), e0557.

Randle, P. J., Garland, P. B., Hales, C. N., & Newsholme, E. A. (1963). The glucose fatty-acid cycle: Its role in insulin sensitivity and the metabolic disturbances of diabetes mellitus. The Lancet, 281(7285), 785–789. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(63)91500-9

Tarnopolsky, L. J., MacDougall, J. D., Atkinson, S. A., Tarnopolsky, M. A., & Sutton, J. R. (1990). Gender differences in substrate for endurance exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology, 68(1), 302–308. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1990.68.1.302

Venables, M. C., Achten, J., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2005). Determinants of fat oxidation during exercise in healthy men and women: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Applied Physiology, 98(1), 160–167. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00662.2003

Vogel, B., Acevedo, M., Appelman, Y., Bairey Merz, C. N., Chieffo, A., Figtree, G. A., et al. (2021). The Lancet women and cardiovascular disease Commission: Reducing the global burden by 2030. The Lancet, 397(10292), 2385–2438. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00684-X

Can You Trust a Lactate Threshold Result That Ignores Body Composition?

ALLSET — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 03:28:47 GMT

At the start of your lactate threshold test, my company does something that many fellow providers do not – measure your body composition.

This article covers our rationale.

For context, there are other articles in this series where I explain my decision to offer an advanced lactate threshold test in Singapore’s market; you can find them here.

With that said, let’s dive in.

Quick Walkthrough: How Lactate Threshold Tests Are Done

The first thing to know is that lactate threshold analysis is typically done using mathematical modelling.

Various science-based models exist.

For example, the framework underlying most contemporary lactate analyses was developed by Alois Mader and the Cologne sports medicine group (Mader & Heck, 1986; Mader, 2003; Wackerhage et al., 2022).

A common thread among these models is that they use multiple lactate measurements recorded at various intensities to derive physiological metrics.

The lactate measurements recorded at each stage, in units of mmol per litre, are as reflected on the lactate analysers.

With this understanding, let’s dive deeper into what this ‘litre’ refers to and how your lactate distribution space affects the reading.

Lactate Distribution Space: Why Your Body Composition Affects Your Threshold Results

When your blood sample is taken at the earlobe or fingertip, readings show up because lactate is produced inside contracting muscle.

Between its production and the time it’s measured, lactate distributes through the body’s water and lean-tissue compartments — and, importantly, not into fat, which is essentially metabolically inert in this exchange.

This process underpins the importance of understanding your body composition.

I.e., to convert a measured rise in blood lactate into a true rate of production, a model ideally identifies a volume into which the lactate spreads.

(Skip to the section below for an example if you need help with grasping the concept.)

Mader’s model, which we mentioned previously, addresses this by treating a fraction of total body water as the dilution space for blood lactate outside muscle cells (Mader & Heck, 1986).

Likewise for the method my company uses.

As for the test providers that do not take your body composition as part of the test process?

It is because not all methods take body composition into consideration.

Commonly practised threshold-detection methods — the modified D-max, or reading the workload off at a fixed 2 mmol/L or 4 mmol/L — simply apply a mathematical rule to the blood-lactate-versus-intensity curve to locate a threshold intensity, and they need only the lactate values and their matching workloads; there is no model of the underlying physiology for body composition to feed into.

As a result, such models can miss out on physiological nuances unique to individuals.

A logical follow-up question is then – does it really matter?

To me, it does, and you might concur;

Researchers in 2024 found that lactate dilution space scales with lean mass rather than total mass. As muscle mass rises, both the capacity for total lactate production and the lactate-distribution space — approximated as a fraction of body water — increase in proportion to fat-free mass (Meixner et al., 2024).

In other words, the same blood lactate reading means different things in a lean, muscular athlete and in a lighter or fatter one because the volume into which lactate was diluted differs.

The same applies if someone has gotten leaner or fatter.

More evidence in later paragraphs.

And the following section from INSCYD makes the concept easier to understand.

Example Case Scenario: Cyclist

Imagine a small-sized athlete riding a stationary bike at 200 watts. The leg muscles produce lactate, and the measured lactate concentration is 4 mmol/l.

Source: INSCYD

Now imagine we could put the exact same leg muscles into another – in this case, a larger athlete. We then ask the athlete to ride at the exact same intensity. Results? You’ll see a blood lactate concentration below 4 mmol/l. Simply because the athlete is larger, the lactate will be diluted in a larger volume.

In other words: the exact same muscles produce the exact same amount of lactate, but you will measure a (totally) different blood lactate concentration.

It is therefore possible that your lactate threshold shifts just by changing your body composition.

Consequently, if you’re working with lactate measurements and want to compare results over time (within an individual) or between individuals, it’s essential to understand body composition and the lactate dilution space, especially if the goal is to provide better training recommendations and to understand training effects.

What Research Says About Body Composition and Lactate Threshold

Scientific evidence aligns with the aforementioned.

For example, researchers had 50 cyclists perform a 15-second all-out sprint — the standard study used to quantify the maximal glycolytic rate — and paired it with bioelectrical impedance body composition measurements.

Fat-free mass alone explained about 79% of the variance in sprint work between individuals. The product of fat-free mass and the lactate rise explained about 82%.

Combining both predictors accounted for roughly 93% of the variance (Meixner et al., 2024).

Notably, differences in sprint work between men and women disappeared once total lactate production was expressed relative to fat-free mass.

These findings are bolstered by additional peer-reviewed evidence.

A study in 21 male runners by Buresh et al. (2004) found that body mass explained 58% of variability in velocity at lactate threshold, with significant negative relationships also found for fat mass and body fat percentage.

This directly links compositional variables to the lactate threshold velocity, independently of aerobic capacity.

Lastly, a 2025 study by Kettunen et al. in 52 elite endurance athletes confirmed that decreases in fat mass were significantly correlated with improved peak running speed and relative VO2max, while increases in lean mass were positively associated with performance gains in female athletes.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I chose to offer a differentiated service because I believe body composition is ideally addressed during lactate threshold analysis, as it can make a distinct difference in tracking your progress and in formulating training recommendations.

If you have any questions, please get in touch.

For more of such content, consider subscribing to the newsletter.

Till next time, take care!

References

Buresh, R. J., Berg, K. E., & Noble, J. M. (2004). Relationship between measures of body size and composition and velocity of lactate threshold. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 18(3), 504–507. https://doi.org/10.1519/13273.1

INSCYD. (2025). Body composition in performance testing: Stop ignoring it. https://inscyd.com/whitepaper/body-composition-in-performance-testing/

Kettunen, O., Mikkola, J., & Ihalainen, J. K. (2025). Associations between body composition and performance in elite endurance athletes. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 20(11), 1530–1537. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2024-0506

Mader, A., & Heck, H. (1986). A theory of the metabolic origin of “anaerobic threshold.” International Journal of Sports Medicine, 7(S1), S45–S65. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2008-1025802

Meixner, B. J., Nusser, V., Koehler, K., Sablain, M., Boone, J., & Sperlich, B. (2024). Relationship of peak capillary blood lactate accumulation and body composition in determining the mechanical energy equivalent of lactate during sprint cycling. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 124(11), 3399–3407. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-024-05529-9

Wackerhage, H., Gehlert, S., Schulz, H., Weber, S., Ring-Dimitriou, S., & Heine, O. (2022). Lactate thresholds and the simulation of human energy metabolism: Contributions by the Cologne sports medicine group in the 1970s and 1980s. Frontiers in Physiology, 13, Article 899670. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.899670

Why I Rejected Typical Lactate Threshold Testing

ALLSET — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:04:19 GMT

I just launched my lactate threshold testing service, and it looks different from what other local providers offer.

Consequently, I have received many questions.

I am therefore writing a series of articles to show how these differences lead to drastically superior outcomes, starting with this piece.

Upcoming articles in this series include:

Reasons Heart Rate Zones Are Deprioritised in Your Lactate Threshold Report
Better Menopause Weight Management Through Advanced Lactate Testing
Why Body Composition Matters in a Lactate Threshold Test

Etc.

With that, let’s get started.

How Typical Lactate Testing Is Done

In Singapore’s market, this is the most common testing protocol you’ll see:

Drawing blood as you run at increasing intensities
Plotting a curve of the lactate readings
Identifying the point where lactate began to rise — usually set at 2 and 4 mmol/L.

You will then receive your training zones.

However, this is a flawed process, and many world-class organisations, such as national sport federations, have already moved away from it.

Below, I list three easy-to-understand explanations.

(Let me know if you’d also like me to deep-dive into the more technical justifications.)

1. How the Typical Process is Physiologically Flawed

The first reason revolves around the two pre-determined points, 2 and 4 mmol/L.

They were originally proposed by Mader et al. (1976) to define the aerobic and anaerobic thresholds, respectively.

A typical lactate-workload plot, with the aerobic-anaerobic transition as a framework for deriving endurance training intensities across different intensity zones (Faude et al., 2009).

However, this approach has limitations.

A fundamental problem is that blood lactate responses are highly individual.

Endurance athletes, for example, often have an anaerobic threshold above 4 mmol/L.

For non-athletes, who are likely less conditioned, this anaerobic metabolism may occur at 2.8 mmol/L.

Applying universal cutoffs of 2 and 4 mmol/L ignores this physiological reality (Heck et al., 1985; Faude et al., 2009).

Consequently, the training zones you derive using such methods may be skewed.

The protocol may also lead to advice that makes you slower and/or misguides your health training priority — more on that in the ‘incomplete training guidance’ section of this article.

2. How the Typical Process Costs More

Yes, you read that right. The typical process is more expensive, less comprehensive, and still the most frequently practised.

For instance, you might realise these common limitations in the local market:

1. VO2 Max and lactate threshold tests require separate effort

2. Doing both tests means additional costs

3. The training zones derived from clinical-grade VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold tests differ

From a protocol perspective, you might also have to compromise if you want to do both a lactate threshold test and a VO2 Max test concurrently.

The typical testing processes are not optimal in terms of cost, effort, and results.

It is partly why I opted for a testing service that lets you get VO2 Max and advanced Lactate Threshold metrics in a single effort, at no additional cost and with fewer compromises.

3. How the Typical Process Provides Incomplete Training Guidance

An important health and sports metric that is often missing from typical lactate assessments is VLaMax.

i.e. Maximum Lactate Accumulation Rate

It reflects how quickly your muscles produce lactate.

Loosely put, VO2 Max measures your aerobic system’s capabilities, and VLaMax is the equivalent for your anaerobic system (Quittmann, 2026).

Analogy of VLaMax and VO2 Max and their respective relation with glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation (Wackerhage et al., 2025).

Knowing your VLaMax changes how you train for your health and sporting goals.

For example,

Case 1: Someone focused on health might train for a higher VO2 max, but after understanding their VLaMax, the training focus might shift to tweaking the latter instead.
Case 2: An athlete training for HYROX would want a higher VLaMax compared to a marathon runner, even though both would train for a higher maximum lactate steady state.
Case 3: Both general classification cyclists and classic specialists might aim for higher VO2 max and LT2, but have differing VLaMax goals due to the nature of their event.

The list of examples goes on to include other activities, such as triathlon and team sports.

Without advanced metrics like VLaMax, your training recommendation from a typical lactate threshold test might distract from your training priority and, in some cases, even lead you away from your goal.

And VLaMax is only one of the many metrics that typical tests miss.

I will cover more of such cases in a future article; you can then better understand how VLaMax and other metrics, such as FatMax and CarbMax, more accurately inform your health and sports fuelling recommendations.

For now, I hope it is clear to you that the typical lactate threshold test provides incomplete information for tweaking your training compared to the one my company offers.

Conclusion

My next article focuses on why heart rate zones, typically used in lactate threshold reports, are deprioritised by my company.

If you are interested in learning more, please consider subscribing to the newsletter.

Get in touch for a chat if you are interested in my team’s physiological testing services.

Till next time, take care!

References

Benítez-Muñoz, J. A. (2025). Factors influencing blood lactate concentration during exercise: A narrative review with a lactate shuttle perspective. Acta Physiologica, 241(12), e70131. https://doi.org/10.1111/apha.70131

Buchfuhrer, M. J., Hansen, J. E., Robinson, T. E., Sue, D. Y., Wasserman, K., & Whipp, B. J. (1983). Optimizing the exercise protocol for cardiopulmonary assessment. Journal of Applied Physiology: Respiratory, Environmental and Exercise Physiology, 55(5), 1558–1564. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1983.55.5.1558

Faude, O., Kindermann, W., & Meyer, T. (2009). Lactate threshold concepts: How valid are they? Sports Medicine, 39(6), 469–490. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200939060-00003

Heck, H., Mader, A., Hess, G., Mücke, S., Müller, R., & Hollmann, W. (1985). Justification of the 4-mmol/l lactate threshold. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 6(3), 117–130. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2008-1025824

Mader, A., Liesen, H., Heck, H., Philippi, H., Rost, R., Schürch, P., & Hollmann, W. (1976). Zur Beurteilung der sportartspezifischen Ausdauerleistungsfähigkeit im Labor [Assessment of sport-specific endurance capacity in the laboratory]. Sportarzt und Sportmedizin, 27, 80–88, 109–112.

Mavroudi, M., Chaouachi, A., Chaouachi, M., & Haddad, M. (2023). Blood lactate and maximal lactate accumulation rate at three sprint swimming distances in highly trained and elite swimmers. Sports, 11(4), 87. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports11040087

Pacitti, L. J., Shikaze, K. E., Simpson-Stairs, N., Stringer, J., & Gurd, B. J. (2025). Individual variability in lactate response to cycling prescribed using physiological thresholds and peak work rate: A crossover within-participant repeated measures study. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 125(7), 1797–1807. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-025-05711-7

Quittmann, O. J. (2022). Lactate thresholds and the simulation of human energy metabolism during exercise. Frontiers in Physiology, 13, 899670. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.899670

Quittmann, O. J. (2026). Maximal lactate accumulation rate (ċLamax): Current evidence and future directions for exercise testing and training. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 126(1), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-025-06022-7

Wackerhage, H., Kabasakalis, A., Seiler, S., & Heck, H. (2025). Is the VLAMaX for glycolysis what the VO2 Max is for oxidative phosphorylation? Sports Medicine, 55(8), 1853–1866. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-025-02259-6

ALLSET Gazette #47:

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 04:00:53 GMT

Hi there!

This is Jing, founder of ALLSET.

Top Three Healthy Ageing Insights

👋🏻 A quick introduction if you’re new here.

In each newsletter, I share three key insights on time-efficient healthy ageing.

i.e., Improving your health in the fastest time.

This is the first instalment of 2026, mainly because I have been overwhelmed by operations at my new location.

On that note, if you are aware of any related news that I should include, please email me. 🙏🏻

Otherwise, here goes:

1. New Articles from My Team

My team has been doing some writing over the past few months.

This is because we couldn’t find detailed answers to the questions we frequently get.

These topics might therefore be relevant to you:

2. Ten Equipment to Help You Shorten Exercise Time

In my latest video, I feature ten pieces of equipment my team uses for our personal training service.

I also summarise service improvements at my new space.

It took me three months to produce the content; I hope it is insightful for you!

3. Research: Exercise Effects on Mitochondrial and Capillary Growth

This LinkedIn post by Healthspan founder, Daniel Tawfik, caught my eye.

In gist, a meta-analysis of exercise training studies revealed that all training intensities—endurance, high-intensity intervals, and sprint work—increased mitochondrial content by roughly the same amount: 23–27%.

But only one modality meaningfully expanded the capillary network surrounding muscle fibres - endurance training.

I found the insight useful because high intensity training alone can improve your VO2 Max and cardiorespiratory fitness, and it’s something I have been doing.

His post, however, is a good reminder that it is important to balance out high intervals training with endurance training even when you are time crunched.

Paid Tier Research Summary Preview: Can Devices Improve Your Health?

Our team sifts through key studies to uncover insights that may not be on your radar.

This week, we summarised a paper on whether electronic and mobile health interventions can improve lifestyle behaviours.

Learn more in our paid tier research summaries.

You can also find more work from our team below.

From The Team

💪🏻 [Popular] 90% of our personal training clients are seniors. They come to us because our training is safer, more effective, and health oriented. Learn more here.

🚀 [Launched] We have introduced 1:5 group classes so that you reduce session costs, increase social bonds, and still get customised workouts. See schedule here.

🙂 [Upgrade] An upgrade to our exercise library is coming soon; I have flimed the exercises I typically recommend, and will be pushing them to your training plans by the end of this quarter.

🏃🏻 [Pre-launching soon] Our lactate testing kit has arrived, and we will be introducing the service to our clients within the next weeks. More details here.

👀 [June Preview] We are partnering QuantumTX to bring you BIXEPS therapy at our Evans Road location. Stay tuned for more information.

🗓️ [Launching in July] We are rolling out our half-day course, ‘Strength Assessment for Seniors’ in Q3. Reach out to join our waitlist.

🎙️ [Story time] A big thank you to Michael Smith and Raz Kotler for having me on their show, where I shared about my journey; check it out below.

Have a Chat

Have a recommendation for our weekly healthy ageing highlights?

Want to work with us?

Reply to this newsletter or email us at hello@allset.sg.

If not, till next time, take care! 💪🏻

Kindest,

Jing

#healthyageing 🤍

Can Devices Improve Your Health?

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 15:28:37 GMT

Hi there!

This is Jing, founder of ALLSET.

In this newsletter extension, I summarise the healthy ageing research that the ALLSET team is scrutinising.

Featured Study

A systematic umbrella review and meta-meta-analysis of eHealth and mHealth interventions for improving lifestyle behaviours

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-024-01172-y

Key Finding(s)

Is Red Light Therapy Effective Among Seniors?

ALLSET — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 05:04:27 GMT

I recently started red light therapy for selected personal training clients.

The session is optional, takes 10 minutes at the end of the workout, and is free.

Many clients have asked:

How red light therapy works
How it benefits them
Does it work for seniors (>90% of my clients are seniors)

Hence, my team wrote this article on the therapy, also known as PBM (photobiomodulation), to summarise research on the topic.

Disclaimer

I use the brand Lumaflex.

However, they are not sponsors of this article in any way.

I picked the device because, among other options on the market, it offers a blend of portability, effectiveness, and ease of use.

However, there are many brands in the market for red light therapy, each with its pros and cons.

Hence, my recommendation, if you are interested in getting a device, is to understand each option’s advantages before making a purchase decision.

What is The Purpose of Red Light Therapy

The purpose of red light therapy is to accelerate your body’s healing process using red and near-infrared light.

Researchers have detailed how it works, and, in broad terms, the red light provides your cells with energy.

It does so by penetrating your skin and reaching deep into your cells without causing any heat damage.

This light then stimulates your mitochondria - the “energy factories” inside cells that produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fuel your body needs to function.

This energy boost helps to:

reduce harmful inflammation and cellular damage,
increase blood flow
trigger natural repair and healing processes

Etc.

Reduce Exercise Fatigue

Researchers found that seniors who applied PBM before resistance training were less fatigued than those who did not, although there wasn’t always a difference in improvements of strength, functional balance and capacity.

i.e., There remains a need for standardised protocols to optimise the application of PBM.

On the other hand, PBM showed positive effects on fatigue, increasing the number of repetitions, and reducing drops in strength during a resistance training session.

Osteoarthritis and Joint Replacement

Another systematic review done in 2024 found that PBM improves pain and function in seniors with musculoskeletal issues.

Some of these effects lasted up to 6 months when used consistently.

Hence, if you have knee osteoarthritis, PBM could be especially helpful in reducing knee pain and improving knee function and exercise tolerance, according to a meta-analysis.

This is seconded by recent evidence that also shows promising effects on pain and swelling, and on increasing knee range of motion, after total knee replacement surgery. These may help with early functional recovery.

Wound and Ulcer Healing

To date, research shows some positive effects of PBM in promoting healing.

For example, two out of three studies from the aforementioned systematic review reported the efficacy of PBM.

One of them showed accelerated healing of venous leg ulcers when used alongside a traditional dressing. A specific wavelength of PBM (658nm) can help heal pressure ulcers, although standard wound care can also achieve similar results.

As such, PBM is no better than standard methods, but you can use it as a complementary treatment to speed up healing.

Conclusion

Ultimately, research evidence shows that red light therapy is beneficial for seniors for training recovery, pain management, and wound healing.

If you would like to give it a go, feel free to contact me.

References

De Fatima Cordeiro Petz, F., Félix, J. V. C., Roehrs, H., Pott, F. S., Stocco, J. G. D., Marcos, R. L., & Meier, M. J. (2019). Effect of photobiomodulation on repairing pressure ulcers in adult and elderly patients: a systematic review. Photochemistry and Photobiology, 96(1), 191–199. https://doi.org/10.1111/php.13162

Degerman, M., Öhman, M., & Bertilson, B. C. (2022). Photobiomodulation, as additional treatment to traditional dressing of hard-to-heal venous leg ulcers, in frail elderly with municipality home healthcare. PLoS ONE, 17(9), e0274023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274023

Godaert, L., & Dramé, M. (2024). Efficacy of photobiomodulation therapy in older adults: a Systematic review. Biomedicines, 12(7), 1409. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines12071409

Hamblin, M. R., & 02139, H. D. O. H. S. a. T. C. M., USA. (2017). Mechanisms and applications of the anti-inflammatory effects of photobiomodulation. AIMS Biophysics, 4(3), 337–361. https://doi.org/10.3934/biophy.2017.3.337

Kumar, P., Umakanth, S., & N, G. (2024). Photobiomodulation therapy as an adjunct to resistance exercises on muscle metrics, functional balance, functional capacity, and physical performance among older adults: A systematic scoping review. Lasers in Medical Science, 39(1), 232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-024-04177-x

Li, B., Zhang, C., He, J., Liu, Y., Bao, X., & Li, F. (2023). The effects of photobiomodulation on knee function, pain, and exercise tolerance in older adults: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 105(3), 593–603. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2023.06.016

Shetty, S., Vijayan, S., George, B. M., Rao, K. M., Arany, P., Bensadoun, R. J., Houreld, N., Laakso, E., & Maiya, G. A. (2025). Effect of photobiomodulation on pain and clinical outcomes after total knee arthroplasty in individuals with knee osteoarthritis: A scoping review. Journal of Orthopaedics, 72, 133–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jor.2025.11.009

Three Types of Exercises For Weight Loss (Part 1): Resistance Training

ALLSET — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:56:34 GMT

Many seniors have asked me about weight loss.

My usual response is that, for most people, fitness matters more than fatness as you age.

Nevertheless, weight management can provide health benefits, and it helps to know which exercises are best for weight loss.

In general, you can consider the three following workout types:

Resistance training
Aerobic training
Anaerobic training

In this mini-series, I elaborate on the differences among these workout types.

Resistance Training

Firstly, we start with resistance training (RT), which refers to a category of workouts with a variety of methods:

using bodyweight
elastic bands
free weights
machine equipment

These exercises are suitable as entry-level weight-loss methods because they can be done safely and sustainably.

This is compared to the other two methods mentioned earlier, aerobic and anaerobic training, which might require strength and conditioning to sustain.

The good news:

It is also a great standalone strategy.

According to a recent meta-analysis, RT alone can help with weight loss in older adults who are overweight or obese.

Another meta-analysis reports that, even without a weight-loss diet, RT can reduce body fat in older women with sarcopenic obesity, i.e. excess fat mass with age-related losses in muscle strength, mass and function.

Consequently, I often recommend RT as the first step in a weight loss exercise strategy.

Weight Loss Mechanism

Despite many studies, there is currently no definitive explanation for how RT reduces body fat.

The strongest evidence, as noted in this meta-analysis, indicates that greater muscle mass may improve resting energy expenditure, thereby increasing calorie burn over time.

Therefore, a common question I get is whether the workouts I prescribe help increase muscle mass.

This is because my training methods mainly involve isometric exercises.

i.e. exertions without movement.

These exercises are not typically utilised by other trainers, especially those who specialise in body transformation.

However, the answer is yes, as found in a 2018 meta-analysis.

There is also early evidence that isometric training may be even more beneficial than isotonic training (i.e., non-isometric exercises) for building muscle mass.

Additionally, I provide Resting Metabolic Rate tests as part of my personal training service if you want to track whether your resting energy expenditure has increased with strength training.

Why RT May Not Lead to Weight Loss

Nevertheless, these do not address the research gap between RT and weight loss.

This is because weight loss results from a balance between energy intake and energy expenditure.

Research also shows that appetite responses after RT may differ among people (suppressed, increased, or no change) and with RT programme (e.g., frequency and intensity).

Hence, RT is more often associated with body recomposition (i.e., gaining or maintaining lean muscle mass while reducing body fat) than with weight loss.

Conclusion

I often recommend RT as a great first step toward weight loss.

However, it is merely the first step.

Often, more is needed to manage your weight sustainably.

The next articles in this mini-series will cover how aerobic and anaerobic exercise lead to weight loss and whether weight loss is as straightforward as the energy balance equation suggests.

Subscribe to our newsletter if you would like to learn more.

References

Guo, C., Dai, T., Zhang, H., Luo, M., Gao, J., & Feng, X. (2025). Effect of resistance training on body composition and physical function in older females with sarcopenic obesity—a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 17, 1495218. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2025.1495218

Kelley, G. A., Kelley, K. S., & Stauffer, B. L. (2023). Effects of resistance training on body weight and body composition in older adults: An inter-individual response difference meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Science Progress, 106(2), 368504231179062. https://doi.org/10.1177/00368504231179062

Lopez, P., Taaffe, D. R., Galvão, D. A., Newton, R. U., Nonemacher, E. R., Wendt, V. M., Bassanesi, R. N., Turella, D. J. P., & Rech, A. (2022). Resistance training effectiveness on body composition and body weight outcomes in individuals with overweight and obesity across the lifespan: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Obesity Reviews, 23(5), e13428. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13428

Ortega, F. B., Cadenas-Sanchez, C., Lee, D., Ruiz, J. R., Blair, S. N., & Sui, X. (2018). Fitness and fatness as health markers through the lifespan: An overview of current knowledge. Progress in Preventive Medicine, 3(2), e0013. https://doi.org/10.1097/pp9.0000000000000013

Panissa, V. L. G., Cardoso, L. K., Rossi, P. A., Fukuda, D. H., & Rossi, F. E. (2023). The impact of acute and chronic resistance training on appetite and energy intake: A scoping review examining resistance exercise and comparisons with other exercise modalities. Appetite, 193, 107155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2023.107155

Varovic, D., Zganjer, K., Wolf, M., Androulakis-Korakakis, P., Schoenfeld, B. J., & Mikulic, P. (2025). The effects of long muscle length isometric versus full range of motion isotonic training on regional quadriceps femoris hypertrophy in resistance-trained individuals. Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism, 50, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2025-0238

Strength Assessments For Knee Osteoarthritis/Total Knee Arthroplasty

ALLSET — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 06:28:18 GMT

Hi!

Welcome to ALLSET’s first article this year!

It’s the latest addition to my strength assessment series, where I previously wrote about:

Etc.

In this article, I cover strength assessments relevant to knee osteoarthritis (OA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA).

The following is mostly a summary of a 79-page guide by assessment equipment provider, VALD.

To make the article more useful, I have also added content from relevant research and context from my practice.

This brings me to the following disclaimer.

Equipment Manufacturer Overview

The article contains demonstrations from assessment equipment manufacturers VALD and Beyond Power, both of which I use.

However, they are not sponsoring this article, and there are other options in the market to help conduct these tests.

The common theme among manufacturers is that the equipment’s sensors measure precise metrics, e.g. rate of force development to the millisecond, to provide actionable insights.

Why I’m Writing This Article

I wrote this guide because I realised ALLSET offers the most complete suite of strength assessments for knee osteoarthritis and knee joint arthroplasty in Singapore (as per information provided by the relevant equipment providers at the time of writing).

Many clients who benefited from our assessments asked for information that they could share with their contacts, but could not find anything concise.

At the same time, many medical professionals remain unaware of improved processes and are being left behind.

Hence, this serves as an educational piece for both clients and partners.

Clinical Milestones in Total Joint Arthroplasty Recovery

Source: VALD

The diagram above shows relevant assessments at various stages of rehab following total joint arthroplasty.

Starting here gives you an overview of the assessments.

The orange icons also indicate the equipment used for the assessments, which I will feature later in the article.

Having said that, the diagram misses out:

The nature of knee OA strength weaknesses
Gender differences
How to leverage assessments for non-operative knee OA management

I will hence touch on these topics before covering the assessments involved in the operative approach.

Knee Osteoarthritis Strength Deficit Overview

Knee OA is a systemic disorder that spans beyond your bones and joints.

However, it is also affected by many musculoskeletal reasons, including cartilage degradation, subchondral bone changes and synovial inflammation.

With that said, researchers have found a few general trends:

Quadriceps weakness is a well-established risk factor for both the development and progression of knee OA, even in asymptomatic individuals
Hamstring weakness has been recently identified as a risk factor for the development and progression of knee OA
After TKA, strength deficits in the knee, hip and ankle often worsen and may persist for years

You can track your strength progress through assessments. (Source: VALD)

Strength assessments inform you how you are faring at these common deficits, therefore helping you better manage your condition.

Gender Differences

Research has also revealed gender differences among TKA populations.

Anatomical: Women often have decreased cartilage volume compared to men
Biomechanical: Women tend to show greater hip adduction during walking and slower walking speeds
Physiological: Hormonal transitions, pain processing and joint homeostasis are often different in women

Strength assessments that come with gender norms, which are available in the equipment my team uses, are hence invaluable, since they contextualise your recovery progress.

In other words, they help you understand your progress based on gender-specific data, giving you a more accurate picture of where you are.

Overview of Non-Operative Approach

The non-operative approach consists mostly of mobility, balance and resistance training.

These can help you improve:

Physical performance metrics (e.g., strength, power and balance)
Symptom management without pharmacological intervention
Self-reported daily function

For example, strength assessments can pick up nuanced week-to-week improvements.

You can thus leverage previously inaccessible data points to assess whether strength, function, and symptoms are improving, and whether surgical intervention is required.

In some cases, these assessments can help delay or prevent the need for surgery.

Progress is usually non-linear, making regular tracking useful.

At the same time, seeing progress week to week can also be a powerful motivator, regardless of operative or non-operative approaches.

Lastly, it is helpful to start assessment if you have had a previous traumatic joint injury (e.g., ACL rupture) and/or are obese, since they are both known to accelerate knee OA development.

Non-Operative Approach Strength Assessments

Non-operative management of knee OA focuses on identifying and addressing strength and movement deficits across the entire lower limb – not just the knee – before surgery is considered.

This is because, as your muscle capacity declines, knee OA often offloads the joint by relying more on the ankle and other areas, particularly during higher-demand tasks.

Hence, my team not only assesses your knee strength but also your hip and ankle functions.

For example, assessments like sit-to-stands or squats can be used to monitor overall function, and isolated tests, such as seated plantar flexion, can be used to monitor joint-specific function.

In the video above, the ForceDecks from VALD detect the force you exert and provide metrics such as the wattage produced, the time taken for each repetition, etc.

Mobility assessments add further value by revealing altered joint angles or compensatory strategies during movement, supporting targeted re-education.

Real-time biofeedback can be achieved using technologies such as VALD’s motion-capture system, the HumanTrak.

Another area typically assessed is your hip strength.

This is especially crucial for women, who, as mentioned previously, commonly have deficits such as slower gait speed, reduced ankle and hip force and poor knee load absorption.

For example, we might use tools like VALD’s ForceFrame (shown below) and Force Decks (shown previously) to monitor hip strength and balance in tandem, to ensure progress through the exercises we prescribe.

Otherwise, we will modify your prescribed exercises to improve your assessment results and overall function.

Source: VALD

The ForceFrame can, for example, measure your inner thigh strength when you squeeze against the padded sensors.

It also helps that the assessment tools can also help improve training efficiency.

For example, the tools add value to isometric training, i.e., exertions without movement, by allowing you to set training targets based on percentages of pre-op strength.

My team has consequently seen strength improvements among seniors with just once-a-week training, specifically by pairing isometric and plyometric exercises.

Our experience aligns with early research evidence suggesting that such pairing is more beneficial than isometric-dynamic exercise pairing or dynamic exercises alone.

As an additional step, my team makes plyometric exercises safer for seniors with the help of another training tool, the Beyond Power electronic cable unit, which has many features that enable safe exercise progressions.

Such training is also relevant if you opt for the TKA approach, which I will now cover.

Pre-Operation Assessments

Collecting pre-op data through strength assessments is valuable if you want to:

Quickly resume activities such as sport, community mobility or recreation post-op
Identify the level of pre-op capacity and function to guide post-op expectations and timelines
Increase post-op motivation for exercise interventions

Etc.

For example, weight-bearing asymmetry has been linked to post-operative function. High pre-op squat or sit-to-stand asymmetry, or eccentric peak force asymmetry in the squat, can be highlighted as key post-op function indicators.

Another example is your quadriceps strength, which is a key contributor to squat performance.

Full recovery of your quadriceps strength after TKA may take up to two years.

Therefore, tracking and comparing objective strength measures to pre-operation benchmarks can help you gauge progress and ensure strength is improving, even if squat performance stalls.

Ultimately, your goal is often to surpass, rather than return to, pre-op levels of function.

Without an assessment, such tracking would not be possible.

Objective monitoring allows for comparison of pre- and post-op data with age-matched baselines, which can further help guide your progression, identify plateaus, and support more informed decision-making throughout rehabilitation.

Types of TKA (Source: VALD)

Last but not least, in relevant cases, your rehabilitation providers can use strength assessment data to assist you with targeted pre-op strengthening.

This is especially true if you would like to improve and maintain the structural integrity and strength of tissues affected by a given surgical approach.

Post-Op Management: Phase 1

Your early post-op phase focuses on restoring safe mobility, initiating joint motion and reintroducing low-load muscle activation.

The priorities during this phase are to:

protect the surgical site
restore range of motion
begin isometric strength training and muscle recruitment when appropriate

For TKA, early post-op intervention is also widely acknowledged as a critical factor in the recovery of physical function.

Criteria-based rehabilitation ensures you progress based on your capacity – not arbitrary timelines. This approach supports safer, more effective recovery by aligning clinical decisions with objective measures of function, strength and movement quality.

List of criteria for progression to next phase of TKA rehab (Source: VALD)

These criteria for progression can be measured using the strength assessment devices covered in this article.

For instance, your range of motion post-op can be safely and consistently monitored using VALD’s DynaMo, which provides standardised joint angle measurements and helps identify early gains or losses in mobility.

In comparison, traditional range of motion assessments often rely on goniometers, practitioner-applied overpressure and verbal cues to guide improvements, which can be less accurate, less engaging, and on the whole, less beneficial.

You can track your range of motion by strapping a Dynamo unit to your limbs. (Source: VALD)

Following TKA, early strength and range-of-motion losses are common and difficult to recover without targeted intervention.

Tracking your knee extension and flexion with tools like DynaMo not only helps you mitigate the risk of stiffness and contracture but also provides a clear, measurable roadmap for progress.

At this training phase, you can also benefit from isometric strength testing or light muscle activation, performing them within tolerable pain limits and in line with surgical guidelines.

Tools like ForceFrame have low-load training parameters which can help you safely begin building strength post-TKA and support early gains in functional capacity.

Early testing might lead to improved recovery process in the early weeks. (Source: VALD)

An area to focus on, for instance, is knee extension strength.

It is typically assessed around 6-8 weeks post-op using traditional methods, but this may delay intervention if most strength gains occur by 12 weeks post-op.

When appropriate and within surgical guidelines, we provide you with earlier testing options which may offer greater functional benefits.

Post-Op Management: Phase 2

Once your foundational activities of daily living – such as normalised gait and basic mobility – are restored, you can shift your focus to:

progressing strength
restoring range of motion to pre-op or higher levels
incorporating more advanced assessments and exercise programming

In this phase, your primary goal is force production.

This can be done through progressive:

isometric exercises (exertion without movement)
isotonic (i.e. dynamic) exercises
isokinetic exercises (moving at a constant controlled speed with a machine matching your resistance)

Or a mixture of the above.

Strength-measuring devices enable these exercises in many ways.

For example, ForceDecks allows you to monitor limb asymmetry, squat depth, and mechanical power during these tasks, while comparing your results to age- and sex-matched norms to provide better context.

The devices can also detect your rate of force development (RFD), providing more insights into your training outcome, i.e. how well you can translate strength gains to functional performance.

Another area you should not neglect in this phase is balance; following TKA, it can remain impaired for at least four months.

Using ForceDecks, you can accurately detect your:

centre of pressure (CoP) excursion
specific directional biases (mediolateral and anteroposterior)
total amount of sway (area of CoP ellipse)

Strength assessments can quantify your balance, which enables better tracking. (Source: VALD)

Motion analysis complements these by capturing compensatory strategies like pelvic drop, trunk lean or excessive sway, particularly during single-leg stance or reaching tasks.

These help you understand how your balance is progressing, along with other relevant tests/training, such as the big toe strength test.

With that said, effective balance testing requires more than static assessments – it is about identifying how you manage load and control movement across tasks.

Exmaple of criteria checklist for this stage of rehab. (Source: VALD)

Therefore, the next phase of training includes combining static balance tests (e.g., quiet stand) with dynamic tasks (e.g., squat or sit-to-stand) to uncover compensatory patterns that single tests alone may miss, and if relevant, the corresponding training recommendations.

Post-Op Management: Phase 3

As you regain strength, mobility and confidence, you can transition to late-stage rehabilitation, where you bridge the gap between general rehabilitation and meaningful activity.

This can be your goal of returning to daily tasks, hiking, pickleball, golf, recreational running, etc.

Your assessments and training are hence tailored to the specific biomechanical and physical demands of your goal activities.

This includes incorporating the directional forces, loading patterns, endurance requirements and joint-specific stressors inherent in each task.

Some context on what you can and cannot do:

In the past, patients who had undergone TKA were traditionally restricted to low-impact, low-intensity activities for sport and recreation.

While recommendations remain variable, there is a growing trend toward permitting greater activity levels for patients recovering from lower-extremity arthroplasty, particularly as the durability of implant materials improves.

Is jumping safe post-TKA? (Source: VALD)

Healthcare professionals, in general, remain concerned about the risk of aseptic loosening with high-impact activities like running, jumping or rapid changes of direction.

From a strength assessment standpoint, we do not have robust long-term data to confirm or refute this risk.

Hence, clear guidelines for post-arthroplasty participation in high-impact activities – or the use of high-impact assessments such as jump or sprint testing – have not yet been established.

If you are deliberating whether high-speed, dynamic activities are safe for you after TKA, the following areas should be considered:

Prior Activity Participation: The strongest predictor of success in moderate intensity activities after surgery
Pre-Op Strength: A proxy measure for activity history and post-op success
Physical Capacities at Time of Discharge: A measure of an individual’s physical ability to perform demanding tasks

A key concern when returning to higher-level activity is joint contact forces. Hence, it is critical to assess your joint capacity before progressing.

Isometric assessments are a way to do so.

It helps you evaluate different aspects of your physical qualities, such as maximal strength and explosive strength.

Pushing isometric muscle actions are also particularly useful in post-op care, as they are self-regulated, allowing you to apply force based on capacity and tolerance.

You can also consider applying varying loads to your joint using different isometric test setups.

For example, closed kinetic chain assessments like isometric mid-thigh pulls (IMTPs) or isometric squats may increase compressive joint forces, whereas open kinetic chain assessments like a seated knee extension may generate higher shear forces within a joint.

These stressors are typically well below your prosthesis’ tolerable thresholds.

However, to be sure, my team would only prescribe the relevant exercises for your case as you increase your force production.

This is because there are also other considerations applicable, e.g. surgical precautions, your tolerance levels, etc.

List of possible open and close chained assessment at this phase of rehab. (Source: VALD)

The above table outlines a range of open and closed-chain assessments available through VALD systems, designed to test and train key physical attributes relevant to return-to-activity planning.

Note that this is not an exhaustive list, as tests are often customised to the targeted activity level you wish to return to.

Conclusion

On the whole, strength assessments provide previously inaccessible insights into the knee OA and TKA recovery journey.

These insights can be leveraged to:

ensure safe recovery process
improve recovery motivation
quicken recovery through better training
delay/prevent need for surgery
provide clear return-to-function milestones

Etc.

If you have further questions on the topic, please feel free to get in touch.

References

Capin, J. J., Bade, M. J., Jennings, J. M., Snyder-Mackler, L., & Stevens-Lapsley, J. E. (2022). Total knee arthroplasty assessments should include Strength and Performance-Based functional tests to complement Range-of-Motion and Patient-Reported outcome measures. Physical Therapy, 102(6). https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/pzac033

Culvenor, A. G., Felson, D. T., Niu, J., Wirth, W., Sattler, M., Dannhauer, T., & Eckstein, F. (2017). Thigh Muscle Specific‐Strength and the Risk of Incident Knee Osteoarthritis: the influence of sex and greater body mass index. Arthritis Care & Research, 69(8), 1266–1270. https://doi.org/10.1002/acr.23182

VALD | Practitioner’s guide to osteoarthritis and joint replacements. (n.d.). https://resources.valdperformance.com/practitioners-guide-to-osteoarthritis-and-joint-replacements

Wang, X., Ma, Z., & Teng, X. (2020). Isokinetic Strength Test of muscle strength and motor function in total knee arthroplasty. Orthopaedic Surgery, 12(3), 878–889. https://doi.org/10.1111/os.12699

Zeng, C., Zhang, Z., Tang, Z., & Hua, F. (2021). Benefits and mechanisms of exercise training for knee osteoarthritis. Frontiers in Physiology, 12, 794062. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.794062

ALLSET Gazette #46: 2025 Wrapped

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 04:00:43 GMT

Hi there!

This is Jing, founder of ALLSET.

Top Three Healthy Ageing Insights

👋🏻 A quick introduction if you’re new here.

Each week, I highlight three key insights on time-efficient healthy ageing.

I.e. Improving your health in the fastest time.

This is a special edition because it’s the last one for the year; I’m taking a writing break in December.

Hence, I thought it’d be helpful to recap my writing highlights.

ALLSET’s Most Useful Content in 2025

I keep going back to the following topics when explaining strength training to clients.

As a result, they are among the most viewed newsletter content:

Finally, I just published another guide, “3 Ways I Approach Workouts When Travelling”, since the topic kept coming up in my conversations this period.

It aptly rounds off my writing year.

In conclusion, I hope my 2025 content has been helpful for you.

With that, I’d like to sign off 2025 with a big announcement…

From The Team

🥳 [Live] We just finished the first week at our newest location, 26 Evans Road! Stay tuned to learn how it’s becoming the best gym in Singapore for seniors; also, contact us for early-bird rates valid only this month.

💪🏻 [Popular] More than 90% of our personal training clients are seniors. They come to us because our training is safer, more effective, and health-oriented. Learn more here.

💪 [Launched] We successfully conducted the first Danny Lum Isometric Workshop earlier this year. The next run has been pushed to 2026; contact us to find out more.

Have a Chat

Have a recommendation for our weekly healthy ageing highlights?

Want to work with us?

Reply to this newsletter or email us at hello@allset.sg.

If not, till next time, take care! 💪🏻

Kindest,

Jing

#healthyageing 🤍

3 Ways I Approach Workouts When Travelling

ALLSET — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:11:08 GMT

It’s December.

Many of my personal training clients are on holiday.

As usual, most have asked, “What exercises should I do when I’m away?”

I usually give one of the following three replies:

1. Enforced Rest

If you have exercised for most of the year, your body (and mind) will likely benefit from more rest than workouts.

Especially if you think long-term.

To add to that, it takes skill to rest and restart your engine optimally.

As you age,

It gets harder to get back to where you left off
Your risk of injury is higher when you restart training
Your training priorities change

Etc.

You might also have more instances, like health checks and illnesses, that disrupt your training.

As such, it is essential to:

Learn to rest optimally
Learn how to tweak training to such disruptions
Get used to start-stop situations

You can treat your time away as an opportunity for such learning.

2. Do the Travel Version of Your Exercises

Most of the exercises I prescribe can be executed with a yoga band.

To give you a better idea, here’s an old video I shared with my clients.

On a side note, I have also moved into my new location and have more free play in video production.

You can hence look forward to a more complete version of the above video.

Coming back, this option of working out while you are away is relevant if you only had a few months of proper workout during the year, or you are aiming to hit a training goal early next year, etc.

3. Try out a Different Sport

My last suggestion is an in-between of the two options above.

It gives you the best of both worlds:

Keep your mind fresh
Learn how to handle training start-stops
Continue getting stronger

My common suggestions would be to relearn a skill you had, like swimming, again, or pick up a new sport, like pickleball, if it’s something you have been delaying, or do a yoga class in another language, etc.

Just note a few things:

Your body might not be used to new movement patterns and you might need to start slow
Take note of the sport-specific risks; you don’t want to get injured
If you are revisiting a sport after a hiatus, set realistic expectations

Aim for a Successful Transition

How you handle your time away affects how you start your next phase of workouts.

E.g. Leverage the unique opportunities that comes with the end of the year, and you’ll start the next year better.

The opposite holds true.

Let me know if you need any guidance.

Otherwise, wishing you a successful break!

ALLSET Gazette #45

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 04:00:53 GMT

Hi there!

This is Jing, founder of ALLSET.

Top Three Healthy Ageing Insights

👋🏻 A quick introduction if you’re new here.

Each week, I highlight three key insights on time-efficient healthy ageing.

I.e. Improving your health in the fastest time.

On that note, if you are aware of any related news that I should include, please email me. 🙏🏻

Otherwise, here goes:

1. Tendon Healing 101

I have been treating many tendon injury cases, usually recommending isometrics because it is a missing rehab element.

That said, other exercise modalities are essential too.

Hence, I thought it would be helpful to share the penultimate slide of the following Instagram post. It summarises how each exercise type improves tendon health.

2. Why Blood Flow Restriction Works

I have started a mini-series of articles on blood flow restriction training because many of my personal training clients have asked why we are doing it.

In my previous article, I covered eight advantages of BFR training.

In my latest piece, I discuss three of the many mechanisms that lead to these advantages.

3. See Strength Gains in Just 20 Min Per Week

I came across a paper that highlighted strength gains in the study participants over 7 years, with only 20 minutes per week.

Jackson Fyfe, PhD, who created the illustration above, wrote a succinct summary of the research in his LinkedIn post; check it out here.

My experience mirrors the research findings, and it’s partly why I’ve been recommending once-per-week personal training to my clients.

From The Team

🥳 [New Location Next Week] My team is starting operations at our fourth location, 26 Evans Road, next week. Contact us to learn more.

💪🏻 [Popular] More than 90% of our personal training clients are seniors. They come to us because our training is safer, more effective, and health-oriented. Learn more here.

💪 [Launched] We successfully conducted the first Danny Lum Isometric Workshop earlier this year. The next run has been pushed to 2026; contact us to find out more.

Have a Chat

Have a recommendation for our weekly healthy ageing highlights?

Want to work with us?

Reply to this newsletter or email us at hello@allset.sg.

If not, till next time, take care! 💪🏻

Kindest,

Jing

#healthyageing 🤍