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Is Zone 2 Training Overrated? What the Science Says · The Endurance Athlete Journey

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Coach Justin.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here with Coach Katie.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: And today is episode 126.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going to come in with what we effectively are calling zone two, part three.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're going to be taking a look at in detail the article that we've been kind of picking apart that form the foundation of this discussion and talk about the three main takeaways from this article.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think if we had to boil it down to a single summary statement, it's really the distinguishing, I'll say this, distinguishing between effectiveness and optimality.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that's like one way to kind of like boil this conversation down.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: But there's three takeaways that we're going to discuss from this article and take a look at how how effective is Zone 2 in delivering what it promised.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: And really is the is it just effective, but not necessarily optimal?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or is there some level of optimality in that particular method of training?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where this episode is taking us.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: And but let's kind of we're let's step in a little bit and we're going to talk about a little recap on you know how our training is going.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Both of us are are, you know, have active training plans that are going on right now.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: So uh Katie, tell me how how your training has been or how life has been in general.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's been good.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did, I mean, and I'll talk probably dive in a little bit more with my high rocks episode coming out next week, but I did a 5K yesterday.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I had to like at first when I started my training plan when I was doing kind of deciding I wanted to do the high rocks and then sort of building the training plan, I thought maybe optimistically that I would be able to do some sort of combination of high 5K training and still be able to maintain the training for high rocks and have both races go well.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I've came to this realization somewhat early into my journey into the high rocks training that it wasn't going to work because the intensities were so much to do 5K training, some of the intensities of the higher intensity workouts, the 5K workouts were just so intense and needed a little more recovery.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was trying to bounce, jump right into these higher intensity high rocks workouts.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just getting a lot of intensity and sometimes needing a little more time to recover or realizing it was a little too much.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to make this surveillitless decision to like focus more on high the high rocks workouts and a little bit less on the 5K.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I was disappointed with my race.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, it wasn't as fast as the same race as the same light race last year that I did, but I was also focusing very exclusively on a 5K.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always frustrating when you are slower, but I knew that was gonna happen.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I get so like disappointed.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can't expect to be training like a lot the high rocks is a lot of intensity, but it's also not specific to 5K training.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Doing all these other things, like all these other stations and erg work and things like that, that doesn't really it translates to fitness.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't translate very well to like specif specificity.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm you know, I'm like having to talk, tell myself that it's okay.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I did actually pretty good considering I haven't been able to focus on the training for five a 5k.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So and then, you know, on top of that, my son had his birthday yesterday.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just kind of in a different, I wasn't really a hundred percent there at the race.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was worrying, okay, I gotta get home, we gotta get, you know, I don't, we're gonna we gotta get everything ready for the birthday party.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like the day before I was making a cake.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't a lot of focus on the 5K.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't as though I could really, really dial that in anyway because I had a lot of other life stuff going on.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that's over with.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And now I can kind of get back into another block here, kind of my last focused block of high rocks training.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've got, I think, five weeks or so five or six weeks until the race.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I still I've still got some good training to go, but it's very different.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So very different than I'm used to because the intensity is high, but it's not all running.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just trying to wrap my head around it and and then training for it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what I'm gonna talk about in my next high rocks episode is sort of how I'm adapting to the training for that.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit different, but that's where I'm at.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just just life stuff and disappointing disappointment with the 5k that I'm trying to get over.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But how about you?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Any updates?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anything?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, this is this was a really hectic week.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was kind of easing back into training after my last bout of of races uh that we did over at uh Giant Acorn uh Trathlon Festival for the weekend and came home and just tried to play catch-up.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you're when you're gone the whole weekend and you know you're a coach, but you're also you also have a full-time job that you have to try and maintain and manage along with family obligations and parenting responsibilities.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's challenging when you're gone for the whole week because you get behind the eight ball a lot.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so then it's you just spend the whole week just trying to play catch up, you know, and you know, trying to get podcast episodes edited and published and and and released, and you know, trying to just manage everything is it was really stressful.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I got some good recovery workouts in, and this week I actually start officially started my off-season training block.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: I think that started on I think it was like Thursday or Fri Friday, I can't remember which one it was, but uh I had four days of pretty like easy training.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: But uh we just got hit with a bunch of rain this weekend, so I've been stuck inside, couldn't get outside on my bike, and so now it's at the time where like the rain is hitting and my joints are really hurting because there's just been a drop in temperature, so it's been been a tile a Tylenol kind of weekend, you know, just trying to like an inside, you know, being inside is hard all weekend.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't I don't particularly like it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like an hour and a half yesterday on the trainer was just it just wasn't what I wanted.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be outside.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to just get outside and on my bike.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I actually wanted to get on the gravel bike because it was a nice change of pace rather than just all the training that I've done on the road bike.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: But no, I was stuck indoors and had a pretty solid swim this morning.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: But uh but yeah, that's that's where I'm at.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm testing out this new this new training method that that uh we're actually going to be talking about later on.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is well, we're in October now, so probably like around November or so, we'll we'll kind of get into this this new method that I'm testing out personally just to see if it might help me and some of the athletes that I work with, because I can see some some applicable applicability for some of the athletes that I work with.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to see how effective it is, but I don't want to spoil that content because that'll that'll come out later.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: So um otherwise, I mean I'm back in the weight room, so that that's that's nice.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: I put I went on a little hiatus from the weight room as I was getting closer and closer to to my races, and my body was just having a hard time adapting and absorbing that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I just went for it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm pretty sore right now, uh just because you know, it's just that's my that's my personality, I guess.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: I went a little hard, probably a little sort of.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I do that all the time when I haven't done weight.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I always think I'm taking it easy.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll go a little bit lighter and then it always ends up being too much.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, after I've taken a little break from weight training, it happens to me every time.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thought I was going a little bit easier, but when I guess when I got into it and I was like, well, this isn't as easy as I was kind of hoping that it would be.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but it's fine.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's good to be back in the weight room um and try and work on some building some more strength uh as I prepare for for next season.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, all right, so let's let's jump on into this to the to the meat of this episode.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So So just to just to mention the article again that we were kind of wanting to dissect, so we spent the first episode the first z part of this three-part series was all about defining zone two and kind of the benefits of zone two.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked all about that, and then the second part was the other zones, really focusing on what those zones are, how to tell you're in those zones, like what the benefits are.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this one's gonna be focusing then on this article and the claims that it makes, or the or the the conclusions that the article comes to and talk about that.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's much ado about zone two, a narrative review assessing the efficacy of zone two training for improving mitochondrial capacity and cardiorespiratory fitness in the general population.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give these people credit, but there's the last names or like just look up that article if you want to find it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think I had to find it on PubMed.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, look that up.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just go over the three claims or the three out the three um conclusions, and then we'll kind of go into each one specifically and sort of our interpretation of it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I I do want to mention before we dive in that it is they're really just generally assessing this for the general population.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of like your uh maybe people who are generally meaning physical activity guidelines, but not necessarily like super competitive athletes and or like elite athletes.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think when we talk about the claims, we'll sort of try to bring in our own interpretation or our own thoughts as it as it is for people who are maybe athletes, like endurance athletes, because I think that is one stipulation, is that the the article wasn't necessarily focusing on that population.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I do want to say that I I think that it's still relevant because I see a lot of conversation that takes place on social media where I have where there are really new athletes that are coming in to the sport and they're reading about zone two and how important it is that the bulk of their training should be in zone two.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: But I I would argue they just that this article really does pertain to them because I would still consider them part of like the general population.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't consider them to be competitive or elite athletes, in which case some of these uh some of the claims and findings may have uh a little bit of of a caveat to it.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: But the general conversation that I'm in and that I see taking place, uh these these findings are absolutely relevant.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I I don't I don't want people to think, oh, well, it doesn't the article doesn't talk about endurance athletes.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: This is an endurance athlete kind of podcast.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: So why are we talking about it?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're talking about it because we have a lot of interactions with new athletes, and we want to make sure that they have they can make an informed decision on whether zone two is appropriate for where they are currently in their journey, and maybe their approach can change once they get a little bit more experience under their belt.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, go ahead.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the to the three claims here are um or that are frequently made about zone two, and then the the we'll go through each of the author's um conclusions.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So one is that zone two is optimal intensity for increasing mitochondrial capacity.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: The second is zone two is the optimal intensity for increasing fat oxidation capacity, and then the third is that prior prioritizing zone two um produces the greatest improvement in like metabolic health and longevity, so that this is like the optimal zone for being metabolically healthy and just living longer, essentially.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the three claims.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do like the the way the article defines zone two is generally exactly as we were defining it in that first part of our series.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that blood lactate around 1.7 to 2 millimoles per liter.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just below that first ventillary threshold, which would be like threshold one, and uh comfortable talk test intensity, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we talked about that being able to be comfortable enough to maybe have a conversation.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you might be taking breaths in between, but you can you can have a conversation and you're kind of in control.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they they say fat maximal fat oxidation.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's I think just a good overview of it.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they kind of dive in a little bit more into what that might be for like cycling and if you want to go back and and take a listen to uh the episode that we did on the kind of the introduction to zone two, uh you can go back into the library.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's episode 122 uh of the podcast.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you'll be able to go back and see how it is that we define zone two, what it what it's like, what's the implementation of it, how to know when you're in zone two and when not.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you can go back and and review that discussion if you want.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: First, let's let's do like a very, very quick, like we're talking like 60 seconds kind of what is mitochondria?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're the part of the cell that is like the powerhouse where the energy is produced.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the kind of think of them as the little powerhouses of our cell.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're what's helping us when we eat food, create that energy and into ATP, which we use or your or convert that into energy that we use to actually be able to move.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: The simplistic term, I guess.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to get too scientific, but I think it's thinking of it like the more mitochondria we have and the more efficient those mitochondria are, the better able to utilize fuel and also fat, you know, fat oxidation and kind of being able to convert that into ATP that we can kind of makes us go, makes us be able to run further and run faster.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is a really important adaptation and a very helpful thing.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's one thing that many people, when they're untrained, like especially if you're just starting out, this is a really good adaptation to work on.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is an important thing because the more mitochondria that you have, and yes, the more they're efficient at what they do, the the better you're going to get and the more benefits you're going to see.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really important thing for athletes and just in general for health.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking from a longevity perspective, this is very helpful, very important.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it is something that we want to maximize.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a could probably a certain point at which you get to with this adaptation before.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can just continuously create more and more and more mitochondria.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's one of those things where you adapt and you and you you have more mitochondria and they're maybe working more efficiently.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think you can just continuously maximize this forever.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's something you sort of build that adaptation and then you maintain it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, but for a new athlete, this is important because you're you have a lot of capacity here to improve this, this particular adaptation.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's something worth mentioning versus like if we're taking like we're talking about new athletes versus somebody like myself or you, Justin, or somebody who's been training for quite a while.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: This may be we can still improve it a little bit, but we have a lot less capacity to improve this the more well trained we are.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can still get an improvement, it's just not going to be at the same amount because we already have a pretty good amount of, you know, generally, if we've been training for a while, this is something we're maybe already have this adaptation or we've kind of maximized it pretty well, and there's not a lot more we can do to maximize it.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well we we also talked about mitochondria during uh our episode where we talked about heat adaptation and training at altitude.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I I don't want people to think that oh zone two is only way to do it.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: The primary way to build that particular adaptation and to either increase mitochondria or uh make it more efficient and effective because there are other methods that you can employ to generate similar a similar result.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think you can pull at different things, and it's not yet, this isn't the only way to do it, but there are some pathways.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go through each.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's pathways that you know maybe enhance genes that that improve or increase mitochondria.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So there's like different things that are happening in zone two training that are stimulating maybe a genetic piece, or there's certain signaling pathways that are signaling the body to create more mitochondria or to become more efficient at, you know, being able to convert energy into like the usable form by our body.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there's different pathways, there's different things that are happening here, and it's you know, but through genetics, through other more like biochemical pathways, but there's just still a few things going on.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just one specific way.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a benefit here.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think the one thing I wanted to mention before we talk about how maybe some of the other um zones may have a similar benefit is that one of the things that they found, or that we they when they were looking through some of the studies and just in general on question of like, well, how much do you need to do?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's in a single session to get these benefits?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: What they really found was that it's somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes to get the most benefit here.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's important to mention because it's a long time.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of time to be, you know, in, I mean, not necessarily, but it can be for someone that's brand new, quite a bit of time to be in this zone to get the benefit.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so perhaps doing four 30-minute sessions in zone two, like if it's only 30 minutes, you may get a little bit of benefit, but you're not getting the the most benefit from this.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to really think about the duration.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And for somebody who's brand new, maybe 60 minutes is a long time, you know, as they're sort of building up to that.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: But just something to we can bring back or we can talk a little bit more about, because I think that's an important thing to bring up.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it can take a lot of time in zone two to kind of get those benefits.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not, you know, if you're doing some shorter bouts in zone two, you may actually really not be getting as many of these benefits that, you know, are kind of the claims.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, yeah, you you have to look at it from a volume perspective.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: So if if you say, if you make the claim that, okay, I want the bulk of my training to be in zone two in order to optimize these particular adaptations, then almost every single workout that you're doing is going to be a long training session.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: At least 60 minutes, yeah.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: A, I don't know very many people that have that kind of bandwidth, nor do I know very many people that would have the ability to recover from that kind of duration, even if it's low, even if it's low intensity, there's still a recovery aspect to it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, just pure on a pure duration standpoint.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: So having every single session that you would that you would need to be doing to be that long, and then you're foregoing the rest of your training plan where you're trying to find some intensity.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're if your goal is to actually become faster, that's that's why they implement this meth this method.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we want the bulk of our training to be in zone two so that when it's time to go hard, we can go hard.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's completely reasonable.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: But if your sessions have to be 90 minutes in order to get that that adaptation, and the the majority of your workouts need to be that long, how much time do you have available to you to actually do the hard stuff?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we're all constrained by time.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's only 20 everybody's face with 24 hours in the day.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's just everybody's quality of 24 hours is vastly different.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So think about myself.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I only have like an hour, I'm not gonna be able to get 60 minutes.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So all of that time it can't be spent running or in that zone.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have to like kind of do some warm-ups, or it's just gonna maybe end up being 50 minutes.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe that still has some benefit, but it really is kind of showing that the longer you can be in this zone, the the more of the benefits you're gonna see.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I agree, it's I think this is why in a training plan, I don't think it's beneficial to have all zone two, because sometimes we're limited by only having 45 minutes to work out.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe there are some law you can do a long run, and that is, or you have two days during the week, you can really focus on a little bit of a longer session.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But in some of those shorter sessions, maybe you would be, it would be actually more beneficial for you to be in some higher zones and you would get some of these similar benefits and you're gonna be able to get faster versus like choosing to do, oh, I have a 40 I have 45 minutes to work out today.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do that in zone two.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you could do that in a higher zone and get more benefit, you know, like you because you're not getting much benefit from that workout in zone two in that time frame.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really giving you much.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Thinking of it that way, like kind of okay, what time do I have?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think it is beneficial to implement some zone two, but this is where you can get even better if you implement other high intensity work, because um, if we're looking at sort of the the higher intensities of like when we talked about this, when we talked about the benefits of like especially lactate threshold training, and the benefits there, they're similar benefits.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: There might be slightly different pathways, but all kind of leading to the same result, like this.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like it doesn't have to be the same pathway in which it happens, as long as the result is the same, I suppose, where you have some benefits for mitochondrial um, you know, capacity or mitochondria mitochondrial biogenesis, which just means like new mitochondria, you know, being formed and and having more of them.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you have some of those similar benefits with a lactate threshold session, which is LT2, if someone's thinking about it that way.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So zone four, um, thinking of spending some time there, you're going to get similar benefits in that, you know, in that zone.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the nice thing about that is you're not going to be able to generally spend 60 minutes there.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: You got you actually get that benefit in less time.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you could fit a lactate threshold or a zone four session in 60 minutes or less and get the same benefits or different, uh, maybe even better different benefits that are even um more that are you that benefit you in different ways than you would get from zone two.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any thoughts about it?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Then it bit yeah.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: Then it becomes a sequencing thing.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean we can't we can't reasonably think that, oh, on on Monday I can do some zone four intervals, on Tuesday I can do some more zone four stuff.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and it's like that the time-crunched athlete is not going to be doing like 80% of their training plan in zone four because the body just doesn't, it's not able to absorb that kind of stuff.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: So you're just gonna dig a deeper, deeper hole.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's when sequencing matters.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, on on Monday you may do those zone four intervals and then make Tuesday um not necessarily another hard effort, but a different kind of like go into the weight room and you and you know, use that approach.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then on Wednesday, maybe you have the ability to go in and do some more zone four.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: So structuring your plan in such a way that yeah, that that different different muscles are being stressed at different times in different sequences does allow you to maintain high volume, uh high intensity in your training plan, and the body has the ability to absorb it as long as we're also doing the little things well.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: We're doing uh our self-care, we're doing the rolling, we're doing stretching, we're eating well, uh, we're sleeping well, uh, we're getting not just the the the quality of the sleep, but the duration of the sleep is is also sufficient in order to to build uh that recovery process.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so you know, if if you're gonna look back and say, oh, okay, I I can't have that much intensity in my training plan, I I don't know if that's always the case.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, because I think having in that case, like maybe you implement like a rest day in there or you do um you can do like a couple days where you do some higher intensity and you do maybe a medium distance, like medium longer, and if you can fit it in, you know, during the week, which is hard.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is hard to get 60 to 90 minutes of zone two in the week.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can maybe fit it in one day, have a couple days a week where you're then doing a longer duration of zone two, and then a c maybe an easy day where it's strictly the goal is just recovery.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know you're doing 30 minutes in zone two.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know there's not a huge benefit there in terms of adaptation, but you're doing it to be able to help your body recover a little bit as kind of that more active, not necessarily active recovery, but you're just moving a little bit that day.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe you do a strength training the same day, or you're just planning it that way.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes we don't always have to, it's not like every day has to have the purpose of adaptation, it also.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know what I mean?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're not gonna be able to, because the body does need recovery too, in order to be able to make these adaptations.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like this is necessarily happening overnight.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it takes a couple days, a couple like 48 hours to actually have these.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you do the training session and all of a sudden the mitochondria are just doing their thing.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a couple days for these signals and pathways to occur and the genetic change, you know, it's not a over one night period sometimes.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: It can take a couple of days to sometimes have these adaptations occur.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So just thinking about the recovery days in terms of there doesn't have to be an adaptation goal.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: It can just be strictly I'm allowing myself to recover.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm telling you right now, I have a lot of days like that where it's just 30 to 45 minutes of just easy zone two running.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: But my goal with that session isn't to get the benefits of zone two.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's strictly to allow my body to recover from the session I had the previous day, you know.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I do have running in there, you know, I do have sessions that are generally maybe 60 to 90 minutes, like maybe my long run, or I'll do a specific day where I'm doing that just to maintain those benefits of zone two.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I just think people, we're all we're in this like maxine era, you know what I mean?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: People want to maximize everything, looks maxine, or I don't even know.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I try not to pay too much attention to that because it's kind of weird.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it's um like we're people are in this era of like, I've got every day has to be maximized, like every I have to constantly be getting better.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think then people tend to think every day has to have a specific purpose for improving something, you know, and um it the body doesn't work like that, it needs time to adapt.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes there may be days that are either completely off or you know, you are doing some training, but it the the goal isn't to improve that day, it's to recover so that you can improve.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I want I want to make that emphasis too.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So keep that in mind.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I just think people are always more and more and more maximize everything.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I just I want to really reiterate like what the finding is for this particular claim, and that the authors found that there was insufficient evidence that zone two uh is an optimal attent intensity in order to generate uh this particular adaptation, which is that mitochondrial uh capacity.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um they found that you can generate similar stimulus through higher intensity under shorter duration.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: So the the claim that zone two is somehow an optimal place to be uh for for this particular adaptation that you're looking for for mitochondria, the evidence just does not suggest that it's a true optimal place to be, that there are other ways to achieve similar results.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: But as you think about the general population that they're looking at and kind of going back to that of like somebody just starting out in maybe a training plan or they're just their goals are, you know, I just want to be healthier.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we're telling that person, you have to do 60 to 90 minutes in this zone, which is kind of maybe even hard for them because if they start running, they they're not gonna be in zone two anymore anyway.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're they're just wanting health, so they're even just walking.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm ta I'm thinking about the individuals I work with who are really wanting to start an exercise program, or maybe they're interested in doing a 5k or something, and they're just if I were to say, um, you have to sp at least do 60 minutes, you can't do less than that, and you know, or some some sort of situation like that, they're um that's just a lot to ask.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: People like they're gonna burn out, they're gonna be overwhelmed and and it just isn't realistic.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so to be able to get some.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: They'll be hurt in 30 minutes.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they'll be they'll be burned out, they'll be injured because they can't they just don't have they haven't built it up yet to be able to get to that point where they can do enough of those longer sessions to get this adaptation.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if they can, and maybe they don't have the time, like frankly, people have busy lives.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: So to say that to someone and they're like, well, I have three kids and I'm trying to do all this other stuff, and now you're asking me to work out for two hours a day or something, it's like unrealistic for many people.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: So to be able to get a similar benefit with some higher intensity stuff, I'm not saying that maybe they don't get to a point where they can do some zone two, or maybe they can do a longer zone two on the weekend if they have more time as they build into that, but to be able to get a similar adaptation in a shorter amount of time is important because most of us are a little bit time crunched.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we can have some of those, especially for the health benefits of, you know, improving mitochondrial density and efficiency, the benefits for our health with that is so important.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just feel like I get frustrated when I hear that message with zone two being so do you have to do because a lot of people just don't have the time.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So do some higher intensity stuff you'll find, especially if you can kind of get to that zone four.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, for the person, they don't have to spend for new someone new, they probably don't have to spend a ton of time in there at first to get the benefit.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: They they'll have to work their way up.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe they do sort of like I don't know, is it you hear like the four by four method or something?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, we won't talk exactly about like what methods to use right now, but it's just knowing you can do a shorter session a little in more intensity and get the same or similar benefits, I think is real a really important message here.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what the authors are trying to put out.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: I would argue if you're new, then your body really doesn't have the ability to be in what would typically be like a zone two.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like almost any kind of level of activity that you're going to be doing, if you're new coming off the couch, chances are by the time you get past your warm-up, you're already in zone three.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: So it it doesn't it doesn't take a whole lot of of time and effort to really do that kind of intensity.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to make sure that we we we set we say this specifically and clearly that we're not advocating for new athletes to just go out and do threshold intervals uh in all of their workouts because they don't have the time and ability to do zone two training.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's not at all what what we're saying.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: I would make the case that if you're a new athlete, I almost would recommend you just simply focus on building durability and forget the whole zone two methodology because of the things that we've already said.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have the capacity, you don't have the the time in order to reap those true benefits.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: You are going to get so much more out of your training and see greater progress if you just focus on building durability.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: That means that we're going to be throwing in some strength training into your plan.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: And if that means that you just do four to five just 20-minute runs every single week with you know a couple strength training sessions.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: To me, that is better off.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's better for you than trying to determine, oh, am I in zone two?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: Am I not in zone two?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: Grow that ability to go from four runs to five runs a week and then start building duration on top of that.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Start at 20 minutes and then go to 25 minutes and then 23 minutes and then maybe uh, you know, you know, just grow it from there.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: Once you build that capacity, then you can start looking at particular optimal training methods of you know, zone two or or what have you.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: You just I I just argue that you're just not there yet.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it's okay to not be there.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: So don't be so consumed about optimality, just be consumed, be concerned about what's effective.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's that's my suggestion and my advice.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just do it.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's really I'm thinking like it it's consistency, you know.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, like one zone two workout isn't really gonna do it's yeah, there's a little bit of adaptation, but it's like it's which is the more like the more you go out and you run or you yeah, you build in a smart way slowly over time so you don't get injured, but it's like the the m it's those workouts or those times you go out and run like day after day, you build up the durability, you build up the time you can spend, and then you get to a point where you can do maybe a little more time, like a whole hour in zone two, and then you have the durability to maybe do some intensity, um, actually like specific intensity workouts in there, and you you get to that point.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I think sometimes the problem is people get so consumed in, am I doing this right?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or I need to be doing zone two, and and then they're they're trying to go out and run and they're looking at their heart rate and they're just do doing their general run is throwing their heart rate a little out of that zone, and then they they're so f consumed by that and um worrying about if they're doing it right.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of think go out and do just run.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't I feel like probably one of the bigger problems with this era we have now of like these smart watches and all of this information is that it's too much.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like people aren't just doing there's a lot of benefits to being able to see our heart rates and um see where we are, I guess.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: But also like I think it kind of is making it too complicated in a lot of ways.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't you know, when I started running and you know, this was years ago in middle school, but I didn't I didn't know what my heart rate was.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have no idea if I was in what zone.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I just ran, you know, and then I gradually ran a little bit more and more and kind of built consistency.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then over time I got slightly better.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know what I mean?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like I ever spent any time, you know, probably for the first several years I was a runner and even arguably until my mid to late 20s when I actually first got a Garmin that I actually ever paid attention to any of this.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe I would have been better if I'd known some of this potentially, but I don't know.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just sort of making the point of like sometimes you just gotta go do the the thing and be and be able to be consistent with it, especially if you're brand new, you're gonna get benefits just by getting out there and do doing it, doing some sort of activity.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: So try not to be so worried about what zone you're in when you're first starting out.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just get get out there and and do something because it's better you're gonna get benefits no matter what.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's probably this conversation a little bit about the zone two.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's when you kind of progress to a point where you are able to do an hour fairly easily, you know, and you f and you build to that point.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, oh, okay, let's bring in this conversation a little bit about zones and doing threshold workouts and all that.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my thought.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: But be like too consumed, too, we're too consumed about technology.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't I think it's like taken away from things, taken away from the joy.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just I think people get kind of um paralyzed almost.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And am I doing this right?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know people who spend weeks and like they want to start a running program and they're a month in and they're still trying to figure out how to even get started.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like just go, just do it, you know?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get so paralyzed, just go out, get your shoes on.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Don't even worry about any of this because it it doesn't matter, you know?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that makes sense.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's look at the the fat the finding two.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's the fat oxidation.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about that because I th I think there's a little bit of uh I don't want to like for me, there's a little bit of confusion or uncertainty because we've talked about this before uh in previous episodes where you look at uh if you're looking at a graph and time is on your your horizontal axis, so on the x-axis there's time, and then as as time progresses and as intensity increases, the body makes a change in the source that it uses for energy.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: So at short short time uh short time frame and low intensity, so I guess we could just say just lower intensity, regardless of time.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: Low intensity, the bottle, the body is more efficient at burning fat for fuel rather than tapping into glycogen stores.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: But there comes a point in time where the intensity is too great and the the energy demands on the body is too high for the body to use fat as energy because it requires more time and more effort for the body to convert that into usable energy.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just gonna go to the path of least resistance, which is going to be your glycogen stores.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: So it's this inflection point where the body makes this switch.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to get too bogged down into okay, can we push that point out further and further?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we've had that conversation before.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I do want to talk about this because the the zone two argument kind of corresponds to this this methodology.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: So is is the article finding something that's that's contradictory to this?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it isn't necessarily like con contradictory.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's more that it's I think the people who really advocate for zone two are sort of making this claim that oh, you need to be in zone two to maximize fat oxidation and be able to um improve that, you know, the ability to oxidize or burn or essentially use fat for fuel.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the zone, that's the only zone that you can really have these improvements.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why you want to spend time in zone two and you've gotta push your body to burn more fat, you know, for fuel in order to to do that.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there is, I mean, there is some benefit here.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, if you're running it in this zone, I mean, if you're looking at that um kind of that crossover point at zone two, yeah, you're burning a percentage more f fat than carb.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then yeah, as the density increases, that crossover starts to happen.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: But is it uniquely like kind of this this thought I think people have is that as soon as they cross over from zone two to zone three, they're all of a sudden not burning fat anymore.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not true, like you'll the poor proportion of fat you're using, the percentage of fat you're using goes down, but you're actually probably still using the same amount of fat.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're just burning more energy, and the additional energy burn is coming from carb.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you're and then even in zone four, you're still using some, although right at that point it's definitely a lot or larger proportion, glycogen and carb.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a lot more, I call it kind of glycolytic, where we're really using more um glucose or burning more glycogen to fuel that, but there is still some fat, you know, being burnt.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so there actually is some benefit to spending more time in higher zones because you're sort of pushing your body also to be able to pull a little bit more from that.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: At that, there's just diff there's similar to the um mitochondrial adaptations, there's just different um adaptations that are occurring, you know, different signaling pathways that are kind of occurring to help our body be more efficient at burning fat.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: And both of those zones potentially can be um beneficial for this.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not as though, um, in fact, the high intensity exercise can also improve the fat, you know, proteins that transport fat into the cell to be used for energy, um, enzymes that you know birth break down fat, um, and even the ability to just like oxidize it and just to be able to use it for energy, those higher intensities have similar those similar benefits.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's not as though I think this is making this claim that zone two is not this magical space where you know you're burning all this fat and it's helping you.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, like I I would almost argue we need to go into some of these higher zones to teach our body to help our body be more efficient at burning fat, maybe even in those higher zones.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you spend all your time in zone two and you don't sort of spend a little time at higher zones, especially if those higher zones are going to be what you run in for your race, then you probably aren't going to be that efficient at those higher zones in burning fat, you know, because you're just good and efficient in zone two, but you're not maybe efficient as efficient in zone four because you haven't had those signals or you haven't pushed your body to be able to make those adaptations to maybe be slightly more efficient at burning fat in higher zones.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's no way to push that crossover, you know, you can't be in zone four and be burning.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Burning 100% fat.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's just no possible way physiologically to do that.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're just kind of increasing a little bit more of the ability for your body to utilize fat, but there's no way to be in those higher zones and be like burning 100% fat.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how much time you spend in zone two or trying to do fasted runs or eat keto or something like that, there's no way to really do, you know, your body physiologically, fat is just really hard to break down and it's a slow burning energy source.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way to speed that up, you know, entirely so that we're just able to be fat-burning machines at high intensities.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I think a lot of our endurance athletes, like elite endurance athletes, have kind of moved to this high carb approach because they're realizing actually it serves us much better if we just eat, take in enough carb carb to fuel our exercise instead of try to burn more fat.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Although I think um there's still benefit from being be able to um utilize fat.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not as though that's not important.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think that's kind of the the claim it's start it's making here is this isn't some sort of magical zone for this.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and also people trying to lose body fat.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: It it's like if you're in zone two all the time, you know, I don't know, there there is no, yeah, you burn more fat, but you also like it's not as though you're just gonna be burning all of this fat and it's gonna magically cause you to like be really, really lean either.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot going on in terms of what we eat, and you're still burning fat at higher intensities.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know, it's just it's not so uh simple as that.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what your thoughts are on the fat piece here.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: But we talked about this a little bit in uh that second episode.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: So if if you want to go back and listen to that one as well, that's episode 124, um, where we talked about you know the different other zones outside of zone two.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: And there was an arc there was a case that we made in that episode that I think is is really important, and that so let's say that in your zone two, you're birth you're you're doing you know seven seventy-thirty.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: So 70% of your caloric expenditure is coming from carbohydrate, and 30% of it is coming from fat.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then you do it zone four intervals, more like the opposite.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: It might be more like 60 to 70 for from fat, and then 30 from carbohydrate.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'll make the case.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like let's just say it's 70-30 for zone two for that level.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: For zone two, and then you you do some some zone four training, and rather than it be seventy-thirty, it's you know, ninety ten or eighty-twenty.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's more proportion, a higher proportion is coming now from the caloric expenditure rather than or for from carbohydrate expenditure rather than fat.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: But at the lower intensity, you have to work out longer in order to burn a total number of calories, right?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because fat loss is going to be a function of the caloric deficit.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: So you'd have to work out longer in order to burn the same amount of calories that you would burn under a shorter, higher intensity effort, to where you could make the case then that we burn in absolute terms the same amount of fat just in a shorter time frame under the higher intensity effort versus the zone two effort.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: For the most part, yeah.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: You could make the that's the case that we're making.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you could be burning, yeah, you could do a say 90-minute zone two and you burn a thousand calories, and maybe in that effort like 600 is from I don't know, just as an example is from fat, you know, because maybe 60% is um fat and the rest is carb, and then maybe in your 60 to 70 minute higher intensity workout, or you know, maybe 60 minute, you're burning um that same amount of calories.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but well, you'd be burning more calories.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you'd be burning more, yeah.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking, or if it's like the same, I guess it makes sense.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to compare it like calorie to calorie because or like intensity, but I'm thinking, okay, let's just keep it simple, like 60 minutes of zone two versus 60 minutes of higher intensity.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: Zone two, maybe you would do 600 calories and you know, 400 is coming from fat.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: But then maybe in that 60 minutes of higher intensity, you're now burning 800 well or or 900 calories and more calories.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: That same amount, maybe 400 calories are still from fat, but the rest is from carb.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, the carb kept burn is is now a proportion higher, but you're still you're burning the same amount of calories or similar or close to uh in in fat.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if that makes sense.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're uh burning more calories.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: In absolute terms and levels, you're you're burning the same amount of fat, but it's just a higher proportion of more carbs are being burnt because you're doing it in a shorter time frame at at higher intensity.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to lose weight.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and we're making that claim of energy in versus, you know, energy expenditure versus energy intake, and we're trying to be in a deficit and you're trying to maximize time, you know, also because, you know, if we have to spend all this time in zone two to be burning cal fat, it's a lot of time to be spending.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you can burn a little the same amount of calories in a shorter amount of time and the same amount of fat, then the argument would be, yeah, let's work out for a shorter amount of time and be in a higher intensity.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: And based off of the what they found, there is still some adaptation for improving fat oxidation even at higher intensity.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like you're forgoing this ability to improve fat oxidation by not zooing zone two.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's still benefit that there's still the benefit for zone two, but there's also a benefit for higher intensity.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like you're choosing to do a higher intensity and you're forgoing that benefit.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're still getting some of that benefit.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: So and again, we're not claiming you don't you just do intensity all the time.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just making the claim of like having a couple days of higher intensity or kind of thinking about some intensity is important because especially for our beginners, especially or for our people who are trying to lose weight or trying to improve fitness, like you know, these are these are uh important things to keep in mind.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: It boils down to the thing is the point is what's the difference between effectiveness and optimality?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: So they're making the claim that yes, zone two training is effective at fat oxidation.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is it optimal?
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily, because it doesn't seem to have uh a unique characteristic about it that makes it better or worse than than training at at higher intensity.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we're not saying that it's not effective.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're just saying, well, question is optimality.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is it optimal?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily, but it is effective.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's it's only effective and optimal if you're you're using it right, if you're using it correctly, in which case now you have to you have to train longer.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: And all the things that we've talked about up till now, those are the caveats that that go along with this particular method of training.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: So just and I think a lot of times people compare some of the research on zone two is coming from elite athletes.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we have to remember they're doing such high volume, they're spending a they're able to spend a lot of time in zone two and get these adaptations, and they are doing intensity, but they can't do all of this volume at that high intensity, so they have the time and they have the volume of training to be able to spend 80% of their time in zone two, and they're able to, you know, be out there for 60 to 90 minutes because they have the durability to do it, and they so I also want people to really try to stop comparing their training to or what they need to do potentially to this like 80-20 m model or this like this is what the elites are doing, or you know, these this is what this endurance athlete I follow on Strava is doing, and they're you know running 80 plus miles a week because um they're in this sort of different situation and this is where it kind of applies to them a little bit more because they're able to spend more time and they're getting adaptations from all of these, you know, places, um, and they're kind of having to maximize every single second because they're you know, if you watch some of these elite marathons, I mean these guys are real close, you know, they're sometimes winning by seconds and it's and it's their pay payout, you know, that's how they're making their money.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I would just make yeah, that's another point I just want to really emphasize as well in this is that um it's kind of the bigger point too we're trying to make is kind of how this where this can kind of zone two stuff comes from, and then how it is it really and how everybody should be training.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's do the third one, the third finding here the cardiorespiratory fitness piece.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is where the authors of this article make the their strongest argument because they're really talking when we talk about cardiorespiratory fitness, we're commonly talking about VO2 max.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to VO2 max, this is a really strong predictor of like our cardiometabolic health.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of research out there that the higher our VO2 max is as we age, the better off we are in terms of like longevity and maybe health span.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a like, you know, there's like this correlation between keeping our VO2 max a little bit higher and that that health long term, especially for cardiometabolic, which is really just like the heart health, you know, aspect and um how how efficient our heart is at beating and getting the the blood to our muscles.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just kind of think of it that way.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to zone two, for I'm thinking, yeah, for somebody who's just starting out and they're doing anything at all, like walking or they're doing and if it's in zone two, like they're gonna get some improvement in VO2 max because they're just doing something and their their heart now is having to beat a little bit faster.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's going to be a point at which there's no more improvement with zone two, really.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like they've kind of maximize maximized that improvement.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: And now the only way to really get a higher VO2 max is higher intensities.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really where that their zone two, um, in fact, I think if you were only spending time, I was thinking, I was making this argument or talking about this with Justin before was if we spend all of our time, like for me, like if I just stopped doing all intensity and started doing all of my training in zone two, even if I spent more time in zone two and was higher volume, my VO2 max would most definitely go down.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: It would decrease because it's not, I'm not getting any more benefit from zone two in terms of this cardiomassiratory fitness piece.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have to do higher intensity to improve this.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I see it, you know, I I mean, I don't know.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: Garmin doesn't really, who knows whether their VO2 max calculator is like correct, but it does show like throughout the season, kind of whether it's going down or up.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think relatively maybe it's it's kind of correlating with whether my VO2 max is actually calculated correctly.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not, but it probably does kind of correlate with when it's going down or up a little bit and based off my training, the direction in which it's going.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I definitely see when I'm not doing as much intensity.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when I have a lot of intensity, when I was training for the 5K, it went pretty high.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I got that VO2, I mean it wasn't like a lot higher than it is now, but it was three or four points higher, you know.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it definitely goes up with that.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then as I just kind of do some intensity or I'm um doing different kinds of training that's not specific to running or it's more base training, it definitely goes down.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not like it's going down so much that it's a problem, but I see that on there, and I think it's probably truly representing that whether it's going up or down is probably correlating somewhat with the truth.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: So something to think about is that yes, untrained populations will see improvement here, but you aren't going to continue to just do more and more and more zone two and continue to see any improvement in this particular metric.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_02: I I think if I had to describe it, it's there there was there's a term in in economics that's called the law of diminishing marginal returns.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the way that I think about this.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the the way that the curve would look, it's almost kind of like it's it increases at an increasing rate as you're closer to the uh to the origin.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, early on in your in your journey, so if you're if you're looking at a time graph, and let's just say you start look at it in years, years one through five, and you're starting at year zero, you know, any kind of activity that you're going to be doing, you're going to see vast improvements in your VO2 max.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, and just your overall respiratory health.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that curve is going to have an increasing slope.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's increasing at an increasing rate.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it's getting steeper and steeper.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually you get to the point where it starts to flatten out.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, as you let's say get from year five to 10, the rate in which that curve is increasing is now starting to slow.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: So if you think about it in terms of uh your race times, so it's it's very common for new runners to go ahead and and run their first race.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just say we're running our first 10K.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to use 5K because there's an intensity factor that's there.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think 10K is a is a good barometer to use.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's short enough to be manageable, but it's long enough to where you can't just just go balls out, you know, for for a new athlete.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say that you run your first 10K and there, you know, you get a particular time.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then the very next 10K that and you continue training, and you you may not do very much that's different.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: You may not you know start throwing in intensity, you just continue to be consistent and building that durability.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's common then to see a really big improvement in your next 10K time.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we're talking like a difference of let's say five minutes is is probably common and not surprising.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: But there comes a point where you start to exhaust those marginal benefits, those marginal improvements of your 10K.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say the third and fourth one, you may improve, but you only improve by four minutes or three minutes.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the those benefits are starting to slow, you know, the accumulation of those benefits are starting to slow until you then change your training method and say, okay, now if I I've I've already exhausted it, I'm not improving anymore.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_02: So what do I need to do that's different in order to stimulate more change?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, now I'm gonna throw in a little bit of intensity intervals in in one of my runs.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to throw in, rather than doing all kind of zone two stuff, I may do some zone two, but I'm gonna put in a tempo run in there where I'm running a little bit more with intensity and focus.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then you may actually see another improvement.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: But then again, it that improvement as you continue is going to gradually get smaller and smaller and smaller.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is the this is the method that that we're talking about.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is how I would illustrate this concept of of cardiovascular cardiorespiratory health, and that yeah, early on, that zone two training is really effective, but there's going to become a time where you're going to have to do things differently because now you've exhausted those early benefits, and now you have to generate a different kind of stimulus in order to spur additional growth.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like we've kind of made the the point there with the cardiorespiratory fitness piece.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you're first starting out, yeah, sure.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: But after a while, you know, you just have to add some other sort of stimulus, and if you really want to get that maximize that VO2 max benefit there.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think we want to just really quickly want to talk about kind of what the article does not really establish.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not making in the article and we ourselves are not making the point that zone two is ineffective.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have obviously said it can be effective for many things.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think people just need to think about the duration that they need to be doing it and and where they are in their training plan in terms of whether or not on how much zone two they're going to be doing.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_00: And just remembering that in terms of the research, it's really around that 60 minute to 90 minute mark that it's the most effective.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, doesn't mean doing 30 minutes of zone two on an easy day is somehow a waste of your time.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's still benefit to that in terms of maybe recovery, but we're not maybe getting the zone two benefit in terms of the benefit mitochondrial and fat oxidation benefit.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that like the other one is that easy endurance training is unnecessary.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like it obviously is important.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like we can't just do high-intensity stuff all the time.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: We do have to have that endurance training as part of our program, especially we're we're talking a lot about newer athletes, but as you go from the 10K to the half marathon to the marathon, or you decide to do the sprint triathlon to the Olympic, and now you want to take on a half iron man or something like that.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: The the more endurance training you're doing, the more, you know, maybe you need to do some zone two to be able to, because there's, you know, the benefit there for improving type one muscle fibers versus type two.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we want to make sure there there are maybe some other benefits as we're wanting to improve endurance that there is for training in this easy zone.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think we're kind of making the argument we don't want to do necessarily all of our training in this zone two zone.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then everyone should replace easy training with HIT.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the other thing, or high intensity training.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, I mean, there's definitely benefit to doing some of the high intensity, but not everyone needs to be, especially brand new athletes, they just need to get out there, right?
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's they just need to train.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: They need to just do it.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, and then that somehow elite athletes are wrong in what they're doing.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're saying.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Elite athletes, like we've established, are sort of in a league of their own.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing everything they need to to optimize, but we just don't want to be copying what they're doing and thinking, no, this is what they're doing.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, this is I need to be in this sort of 80, 20 or some sort of model like that, because this is what an elite athlete is doing.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think we just need to stop comparing ourselves to elite athletes or comparing our training.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that moderate or high intensity is appropriate for every season.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: We always we just need to be doing high intensity all the time, all year long.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I would argue there probably are seasons, parts of our season where we're doing more easy use zone two, and parts that we're bringing in more high intensity.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it really does depend on where you are in your training plan too, what how much you're doing.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: So those are just things the article does not really establish in, and these are things that we just want to make sure we say, because I think we've said that all throughout, but just want to kind of cap the the end of our discussion with that, that we're not making any claim here that we don't think zone two is necessary, but we're just sort of making the argument that we don't want to only do that necessarily all the time.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um anything else?
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are some.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I would I would make the case that uh this particular method of training for a new athlete may be beneficial in terms of uh building resistance to to to break down.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like in and like you're just you're trying to introduce load to tendons and and muscles, and so not necessarily always trying to throw intensity, which is going to increase the impact to those areas which may not be resistant yet enough to to hold up to the intensity.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: So zone two, I I don't want to say like, oh, we have to have a metric that tells us we're in zone two.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just go by our the rate of perceived exertion.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: If if you can do the simple tests that that we outlined in in that previous episode, where it's like the talk test, or you know, I I feel like I'm what I called like running on a rope, you know, where you're you're just in control of your body and movement and you feel like it's a fairly easy effort, regardless of what your heart rate is telling you, then chances are you are in that zone too.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then spending a substantial amount of your time in that zone that allows you to be consistent and then consistency builds the durability because what you want is you want to build the strength in those attachment places, like those tendons and those ligaments, so that when it comes time to introduce intensity in order to become faster and stronger, those parts of your body will hold up.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I I see it so much when when runners come and they say, you know, oh, I'm kind of new, but now I'm experiencing knee pain or or my ankles hurt, and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is because they they were so consumed about, you know, oh, I want to go I want to go faster or I want to run longer, and they want to rush.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: The process rather than allowing it to kind of play itself out and build towards it.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: So spend the time that's necessary in order to build that durability, and you do that through consistency and stop worrying about okay, what zone what zone am I in?
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, is it optimal?
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever you're doing is optimal for where you are.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: Optimality is going to be a relative state.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_02: Zone two is effective.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: It may not be optimal for certain athletes at certain phases of their training, but then again, zone two may be optimal given where you are in your journey.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're fairly new, maybe that that is optimality.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't want you to be stuck there the whole time and think that, oh, I've got to stay in this zone for us use this method consistently for the rest of my endurance at my you know, my athlete journey, you know, this is this is the model that I have to do because we're we're making the case that that no, that's absolutely not true.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if your goal is to become more efficient, more effective, more durable, more consistent by by any means of of measure of improvement.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think too, and just one more last one last thing is when you do add intensity, it a little bit for somebody who's just starting to add intensity can go a long way.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you just be from that standpoint of ligaments and tendons, there is more of a stress on the body.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you you may find that you can do a short little bit at intensity and at first, and you're getting a lot of benefit.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then the more well-trained you are, the more intensity you can kind of add into a single session.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to make sure you're not copy pasting from um somebody else's training plan where they're doing these high amounts of time and intensity.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of realizing that when you start to add it in, you don't need a whole lot to get some of these benefits and you don't want to overdo it.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all it's all kind of that progressive overload principle, right?
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: So just kind of slow, slow, slowly adding building the fountain the zone two, kind of getting consistent.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you're sort of consistent with that, then adding in a little bit of intensity and then slowly, you know, building that up.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's um there's no magic way generally to get somewhere very quickly either.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: Things to keep in mind.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think we made our points.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're good.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think this is good.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_02: Just wrap this thing up.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um so we want to thank you guys for for joining us uh in this episode.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_02: This has been, like I said, this is episode 126 of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast, where we took a look at the efficacy of zone two training, whether it's lived up to the hype, and the three uh findings that this particular article made, which look which basically formed the foundation of why people thought uh were making the case that zone two was somehow a superior method of training.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we we took a look at each of those findings to find out and to see, you know, really did it hold up and has it produced the results uh that it promised.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think the results are mixed, uh, to say it to say the least.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we want to thank you guys for joining us.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you again.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I I I'm not even gonna worry about housekeeping because the the outro takes care of a lot of that stuff.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so I again I've been your host, Coach Justin, along with Coach Katie.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_02: And this has been episode 126 of the of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, we'll talk to you again later.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: Bye-bye, everyone.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_02: That wraps up today's episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_02: Endurance sports have a way of teaching us patience, humility, and resilience.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_02: Lessons that carry far beyond the workout.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Progress in endurance sports doesn't come from shortcuts.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_02: It comes from consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it's not glamorous.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Wherever you are on your endurance journey, keep trusting the process and honoring the work you put in each day.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: If today's episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone to help on their endurance journey.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget to join the conversation on our social sites to help build and foster a community where we all learn and support one another.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be back with more stories and insights from Coach Justin and Katie.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Until then, visit the podcast website at the endurance athlete journey.buzzsprout.com for more episodes from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Have questions or comments about the podcast?
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Feel free to send us an email at the endurance athlete journey at gmail.com.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_02: For all things coaching, visit Coach Katie at fuel the number two run dot com and coach Justin at taboo rasseracing.com.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast, and remember to find joy in the journey.