Efficient Zone Training – Zones 3 to 5

Practical guide to Zone training. Any activity is better than none, but efficient exercise using Zones is can make the most of our efforts. Part of the Older Athlete Series.

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over the age of 60 there comes a moment when every active person realizes they’re not going to be able to pursue their chosen sport forever it is the mortality moment and in this series we’re looking at ways to push that moment back as far as possible to exercise efficiently and in this video we’re on to the hard [Music] stuff the previous video was all about activity in heart rate zones 1 and two here you use your slow twitch muscle fibers and they in turn mainly use fat as fuel exercise in these zones improves the number and health of your mitochondria the powerhouses of your cells essential for healthy lifespan graphically zones 1 and two looked like this as effort increased we used more fat up to a maximum point where it started to dip carbohydrate use also increased and lactate levels in the blood also increased right up to this point where they kinked upwards this physiological change is called LT1 or first metabolic threshold and it defined the top of Zone 2 what happens after that depends on your goals and I’ll argue your age confusingly different experts use different zones and even number of zones so I’m going with five as your effort increases your fast twitch muscle fibers come into play these cannot use use fat as fuel so we enter the next [Music] Zone because fast twitch fibers can’t use fat as fuel fat use Drops away eventually to zero carbohydrate use continues to increase and at this point you burn more carbs than fat and this is another physiological markers we can train to push this to the right which means we can ride longer the body holds more energy as fat than carbohydrate and we benefit our mitochondria for longer lactate levels in your blood also increase at a certain point they Kink again this time sharply upwards usually around 4 millimes per liter after this lactate builds faster this is the second metabolic threshold also called lactate threshold to it’s also close to a cyclist’s functional threshold power top endurance athletes specifically train in Zone 3 to enable their bodies to use lactate as fuel and again push this boundary further to the right however if you’re that good an athlete then you probably already know this for most of us Zone 3 training is physically costly it is doing muscular damage to provoke a training response but it will require longer recovery it’s a tradeoff let’s be honest we all know that when you’re out for a ride and you come to a hill it is so easy to stray into Zone 3 but this is exactly what the coaches mean when they say US amateur Riders do our easy sessions too hard and conversely our hard sessions too easy the time taken to recover from this might not be worth the training response that it provokes and for me well I’ve decided that it’s not the trade-off is not worth it so I try to avoid Zone 3 the next Zone though well that’s different this is the hard work we should do Zone 4 effort maintains and improves our V2 Max that’s the maximum amount of oxygen a body can use it is closely correlated with longevity and health as I explained in this video it declines with age and if it drops too low you won’t be able to carry out the daily chores of everyday life in zones four and five this happens fat use has dropped to zero the fast twitch muscles can’t use it carbohydrate is the fuel being used in these zones after the second metabolic threshold blood lactate kinked again and is now climbing to the point of unsustainability trained athletes can continue to work in these zones for longer their Zone models go up to 6 or seven most of us can’t do that but we can use Zone 4 to help train our V2 Max I couldn’t find a simple practical test to tell you whether or not you’re in zone 4 you could use a percentage of maximum heart rate but you don’t need to know the boundaries to use it for training intervals are the usual way indoor doors or out the classic is 4X 4×4 that’s 4 minutes hard not an allout Sprint but you should only just be able to finish each 4minute block at that intensity followed by 4 minutes easy this is recovery where your heart rate should drop back down so extend the duration to make sure it does and repeat it all four times with a warm up and cool down this is a hard session so we should only do this once or twice a week even that sounds like a lot so I try to include a zone for Hill climb on my weekly long ride well done come on Simon let’s go good job keep it going keep it going out of curiosity I had my cycling V2 Max measured at Edinburgh apia University’s Department of sport exercise and Health Sciences well done keep it going keep it going keep it going keep it going it’s a ramp test with progressively harder stages until the point of exhaustion okay okay okay good job mate done together with a lactate threshold test it costs £162 you can only measure V two Max in a laboratory anything else is an estimate but I’ve done that too for comparison in this video I tried two well-known self- test methods one walking one running I also used my gin devices and my Apple watch that collected data over time this is how their estimates compared to the lab measurement the lab found I can use 45 mL of oxygen per kilogram of my body weight per minute the Rockport walk test estimated 36.8 the cooper run test was about the same Garmin and apple came up with around 44 so they were closest to the lab but just because my estimates were all fairly close to the lab measurement it does not mean the same pattern will be repeated in other people I’ve said this in several videos now but an absolute V2 Max measurement I don’t think is important for most of us it is the change week by week month by month that matters and as long as you’re using the same method to estimate it then you’re keeping an eye on your V2 Max you will know whether you are improving maintaining or declining and all of us should at least strive to improve I’ve not mentioned zone 5 physiologists argue about this some say the cardiovascular response is the same as Zone 4 high level athletes use it to develop a different type of fast twitch fiber along with neurological responses and I feel regular zone 5 training can be too punishing for me so setting the numbers aside here’s the plan I’ve worked out for myself at least 3 hours a week I should be getting my heart rate up a little breathless ideally to a level where I can only just hold a conversation this improves my fat metabolism and increases the number and health of my all important mitochondria I listen to my body and dial it back if I feel tired I switch to brisk quing it is still bringing benefits once or twice a week I do something that really gets me gasping and my legs aching either outdoor or on the turbo zift has several V2 Max sessions and again I listen to my body and don’t force any of these if I’m fatigued remember this type of Fitness is not everything balance nutrition strength mental health and more are very important for us older athletes which is why this is part of a series and it doesn’t all fit in a couple of videos you can find some of the other ones here and these videos might offer some inspiration for Adventures on your bike please give me a thumbs up I’ll see you again next time goodbye [Applause]