I absolutely despise training zone 2.
Here’s the thing:
I despise training zone 2. Let’s back up a second for context…when exercising, our heart rate is within one of five “zones.”
Zone 1: 50-60% of max HR (heart rate), should feel comfortable and light. Great for warm-ups and cooldowns.
Zone 2: 60-70% of max HR, light and sustainable. You should be able to maintain conversation throughout.
Zone 3: 70-80% of max HR, noticeably exerting, but still sustainable. It’s challenging to maintain conversation.
Zone 4: 80-90% of max HR, generally used for shorter efforts. Unable to converse more than a few words.
Zone 5: 90-100% of max HR, all-out effort. Training at your absolute limit.
The traditional advice when training for any endurance event (over 30 minutes) would be to have 80% of your training in zone 2, with the research showing that even though your race may be in zones 3, 4, or 5, the zone 2 training is gentle enough on your aerobic system while still increasing your capacity in the upper zones.
Training zone 2 prepares us to perform. The research shows, we need to let zone 2 do its work and bolster those upper zones.
My mistake:
Every time I see a workout in my Pridefit App or on the whiteboard, I attack it like there’s money on the line. Like this is my one chance to win the Olympics. Like my life depends on it. So when I look back at my heart rate (HR) graph from my Apple Watch after a 40 minute workout, I see a lot of zone 4, some zone 5, and very little zone 2. I just can’t help myself.
Like every good New Yorker, I try and maximize everything. Walk faster to waste less time. Rush to the train so I don’t have to wait five minutes for the next one. Drive like a banshee even though everyone would get where we needed to go faster if we just followed road rules. This, of course, also includes my workouts. If I’m spending valuable time exercising, my brain says that I should be working as hard as I can during that time to be as efficient as possible.
However, our bodies are living things, and that’s not how we get sustainable results.
If you use a car every day without maintenance or changing the tires, it will break. I know I just said we were living things and now I’m talking about an inanimate object, but our bodies need time for maintenance as well. Pushing to our limit every single time means the lifespan will be shorter and the repair will be longer.
P.S. don’t drive on a flat tire. It ends up being very expensive…not that I know from experience…
“The research is clear. When we spend too many workouts overloading our aerobic system with zones 3 and 4, I like to think of it as adding too big a log to the fire. The fire will burn out. ”
This isn’t just a metaphor that should remind us to recover properly from workouts by eating lots of protein and stretching. The research is clear. When we spend too many workouts overloading our aerobic system with zones 3 and 4, I like to think of it as adding too big a log to the fire.
For those of you who weren’t a scout—when you’re making a fire, you have to start slow with the small logs and kindling or the fire won’t get started. Add a big a log too early, and the fire will burn out.
Our aerobic system is like the fire. The zone 2 work that we do establishes the base for us to be able to add the big logs later on and keep the fire going. The common misconception, however, is that if the race is going to be zones 3, 4, and 5, don’t you need to train in those zones?
Absolutely. But way less than you think.
Working in zones 4 and 5 is going to be necessary to improve VO2 max and race performance. But the research shows from studying some of the best endurance athletes in the world, we need to let zone 2 do its work and bolster those upper zones.
When we do low-intensity training (LIT) or zone 2, there are a couple of incredibly important benefits that better our aerobic system. It’s robust enough to improve endurance and mitochondrial efficiency (remember the powerhouse of the cell???), while being gentle enough to avoid injury and over-fatigue.
My biggest problem with zone 2 isn’t that I don’t trust the research. I do. My problem is that it’s boring. It’s incredibly challenging for me to not give my all in a workout when I have the energy to do it, but I try to remind myself that more is not always better, and efficiency in aerobic capacity comes from doing long, easy workouts 80% of the time.
And I can still destroy myself the other 20% 💪
My favorite ways to make training zone 2 fun.
—
Citations:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6537749/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://elementssystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Hydren.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://vo2master.com/blog/training-zones/?srsltid=AfmBOorH0QGId4O1JDMRqluliE6aPMEHI_pFQP9sYMBvg694aG8HuDjP
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7305243/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3912323/
