Highway to the Training Zone

Contemplating the number 2.

I’ve started to incorporate Zone 2 training into my workout schedule. This article is a pretty good explanation of what it is (and isn’t).

In a nutshell, it is long-duration, low-intensity training designed to increase cardiovascular endurance. Think of it as the foundation of a pyramid. High-intensity training would be the tip of the pyramid, and various other modalities would fill in the rest (weight training, mobility training, stretching, etc). 

Endurance athletes tend to spend at least 80% of their training in Zone 2, with just 20% being spent on high-intensity Zone 5 training.

Let’s take a step back and explain training Zones. These are different intensities of training marked by heart rate. Walking would be Zone 1. Speed walking or jogging (or anything that’s easy to do) gets you to Zone 2. Once you get past that, Zones 3-5 are just more intense, with Zone 5 being 90-100% of your max heart rate. That is hard to sustain, which is why there is not a lot of training done at that level. 

These Zones vary from person to person. Zone 2 for an elite marathon runner would feel like Zone 4 (or 5) to most people, for example. Oh, and as you train it, it will get higher.

The simplest way to know what Zone you are in is the “talk test”. If you can easily carry on a conversation, you are in Zone 1. If you can talk, but would prefer not to, that’s Zone 2. In Zone 3 you can get some words or phrases out. Zone 4 and 5 you can’t talk at all. 

The precise way to find your Zones is to get a VO2 Max test. I talk about that in this post.

The current consensus of thought says to spend around one hour in Zone 2 at least three times per week. That’s a pretty simple idea. The problem comes in when you try to execute it.

Zone 2 is boooring.

It’s also difficult to do outside because hills can quickly take you out of Zone 2 into Zone 3 or 4. Once you leave Zone 2 for more than a few moments, all the benefit of the training goes out the window. 

The magic of Zone 2 is that it maximizes the conditions in which our body burns fat for fuel. Fat cannot be burned at high intensity because it is too inefficient. When we kick into Zone 3, our metabolism switches over to burning glucose stores and ignores fat. Getting back to Zone 2 at that point takes a cool down and slow ramp-up again. Which takes time.

I get around all that by bringing an iPad to the gym and watching shows while on the elliptical. I have a chest-mounted heart monitor that links to my Watch so I get more precise heart rate data than the Watch alone. I take a few minutes to warm up, then “get in the Zone”, fire up a show and just plug away.  I’ve taken phone calls while training this, too. I probably sounded weird to the person at the other end, but I could get through the conversation.

The efficiency of this training is quantifiable: I burn far more calories in one hour doing this than any of the rucks I’ve done over the same amount of time. 

Since it is not particularly difficult, I can do this on days I also do other workouts without worrying about over training. The bigger issue is time management, and fitting those hour-long sessions in my schedule. 

In the long run this should increase my overall cardio level, but I probably won’t notice for a few more months.

So far, I’m liking how it is going. Maybe you can think about joining the Zone 2 train.