What are zone 2, zone 4 etc?
Training zones correspond to a percentage of your maximum heart rate (and/ or power in cycling but that’s another subject).
At different levels of exercise intensity your body uses different energy sources and different muscle fibres and can continue for varying lengths of time before failure, also depending on your level of training adaptation.
So, training to a heart rate (zone) is a good way of training the body to be more efficient in any activity that involves some kind of endurance (ie, anything more than a very short sprint). It targets what we know the body needs to get better at to be fitter.
What do the zones mean in terms of effort?
- Zone 1 – easy, ‘conversational pace’ – up to 75% of maximum heart rate
- Zone 2 – harder, talking less easy – 75% to 80% of max HR
- Zone 3 – getting harder – longer more sustained ‘tempo’ efforts – 81% to 88% of max HR
- Zone 4 – hard but sustainable for about 60min for a fit person – 88% to 92% of max HR
- Zone 5 – all out – not sustainable for very long – 93% to max HR
What do the zones mean in terms of how the body works?
- In the lower zones – up through z2 and into z3 – you are more reliant on slow-twitch muscle fibres and use of fat stores in the muscles as an energy source. These are the aerobic zones.
- As your heart rate increases and you go up through z2, z3 and into z4 you start to use more fast-twitch muscle fibres. These rely on glycogen (sugars, basically) as a fuel, and produce lactate. Lactate is also an energy source, but your body needs to be trained to use it. So, as you cross into z4, that’s called the lactate threshold.
If you’ve ever had that feeling, when running fast or cycling hard and everything is starting to hurt, and/or your limbs are heavy and you can’t get going, you’ve probably maxed out on the lactate your body can process.
So how do I get fitter?
To get fitter, to be able to keep running, run faster, climb hills on your bike, climb more hills to get home etc, you need two things:
- A good ‘aerobic base’.
- That means lots of z2 exercise. Most – about 80% – of your week’s exercise should be in z2. That’s because you want to train your body to work well aerobically. There’s also a spin-off benefit for harder work, as we’ll see.
- To increase your lactate threshold.
- That means a smaller amount – up to 20% per week – of exercise in z4. Start with intervals of a few minutes with lower intensity breaks between them. This trains your body to deal with lactate. The side benefit of z2 training is that your slow-twitch muscles help that process so a good aerobic base helps all the way up through the zones.
What are my zones?
First you need you maximum heart rate. A ball park figure is 220 – your age.
So, if you’re 60 it is 220 – 60 = 160.
That means your zones are:
- Zone 1 – 68% – 75% of maxHR = 109-117bpm
- Zone 2 – 75% – 80% of maxHR = 118-129bpm
- Zone 1 – 81% – 88% of maxHR = 130-140bpm
- Zone 1 – 88% – 92% of maxHR = 141-149bpm
- Zone 1 – 92% – maxHR = 150-160bpm
And then you need a smart watch like a Garmin (or bike computer on the bike) where you can see your heart rate as you exercise.
What is a sample weekly training plan?
- Low intensity (z1 and z2) for most sessions (easy jogs / runs or cycling for 30-60min per session).
- So, if you exercise 4x a week, base 3x of them around this.
- How to target that zone? Try not to go above zone 2 on your smart watch.
- Higher intensity exercise in the other 20% of the week.
- EG, cycling up hills that push your heart rate to z4. Or, interval runs of eg 400m intervals at 10k pace with 3 min jogging or walking rest between.
- How to target that zone? Zone 4 on your smart watch.
What went wrong? I tried to run / cycle in zone 2 and I just couldn’t keep my heart rate down.
It takes a little while to build aerobic (ie, z2) fitness. Regular exercise in z2 will pay off after a few weeks as your body adapts to working at that intensity.
Don’t do any high intensity work until a month or so in. Focus on z2 training and you’ll be amazed at how your body adapted after a few weeks.
Finally, here’s some proper science backup for the whole thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcYyHXHTeuk
S2Stats 