Recently, I had a prospective client e-mail me and ask my opinion on Zone training. You know; H/R, watts, RPE. No? You don’t know what I mean? Well, then this article if for you. As I seldom have an opinion on anything, it was very difficult for me to express myself to a near stranger, but I did muster enough social agility to offer the following.
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It was a pleasure meeting you.
In a nutshell, I do believe in ZONES. I just think that HR and Watts zones are just not “all that and a bag of chips”. Far too many factors for which the average age-grouper must account. For one, if you are training and getting more fit, your zones ranges will change every 4-6 weeks up to a certain degree of uber-fitness. Secondly, to account for the factors that acutely and temporarily change your zones each time, like humidity, altitude, temperature, rest, stress and caffeine………………….well,…………………I just thinks this gives the person a range of HR zones that are off-base more than they are on. That said, having HR monitor to confirm or debunk what you are perceiving, is a nice insurance policy.
As for Watts zones, they are very accurate and more stable. The problem is, Power Taps are cost prohibitive for most people and only apply to the bike.
So, what do I believe and how do I train myself and my clients? Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and Pace Training (Run and ride at or near your goal race paces on a frequent basis).
There are 2 main scales for RPE. A 1-10 and a 1-20 scale. I think that is micromanagement and it confuses those who still want to use their HR as a co-guide for training. So, I use 5 zones for my HR clients and my RPE clients and those who use both.
Simply-
Zone 1- Negligible effort. A slow recovery after a hard effort. A brisk walk, an easy spin. Recovery laps in the pool.
Zone2- Where we live” as endurance athletes. Conversational pace running and riding. 80% of our training time.
Zone3- The gray zone. Great for IM or marathon training. Useless for almost all else. Not easy enough (like Zone 2) to allow you to prepare for tomorrows hard efforts, yet not hard enough to make you faster/fitter.
Zone 4- This is where the elite and serious amateur races and trains when doing interval or time trial sessions. Within this zone there is a low Z4 (time trial or efforts exceeding 3 minutes) and high Z4 (gut-busting intervals on the track, the trainer or on short steep hills).
Zone 5- All out, one time, for 90 seconds. There is no real need to go there for us.
As for pace based training. It’s a very simple and effective way to train. Simply put, spend a lot of time training at the pace you intend to race. Clearly, on race day, the idea is to go as fast as your genetics and preparation will allow coming off a taper week or two. Soooooo, obviously, you can’t train at that difficult a level 6 days a week or even an hour at a time. But, you can train at that pace or slightly harder for short and frequent intervals. So, rather than use RPE or HR as your guide you set up your interval and time trial workouts around pace.
Example- You wish to do a sprint race in 1 hour flat and that requires swimming at 6 minutes per 400 yards, 20 mph for 10 miles and run 3 miles in 21 minutes, plus 2 minutes in transition time. That means your 100s in the pool need to be swum at 1:30, you need to ride bike intervals at 20-22 mph and run mile repeats or track workouts at a 7 min per mile pace. The goal of course to vary the number of intervals (reps), vary the distance or time and vary the amount of recovery between these intervals. Obviously, as you become more fit you can do more reps, longer reps and less recovery in between reps as the race draws near. Then, come race day when you have been tapered and rested and have your mental game “on”, you can string all of these disciplines together for 1 hour straight.
If you are dead set on using HR zones and want a simple, no laboratory, no oxygen mask, no blood draw, no 200 dollar fee, self-administered test, let me know.
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Mind you, the science and technology resources are out there for those with the time money and desire to more precisely manage and train in HR and watts zones. I am not disputing that, at all. You CAN be very precise and accurate with these tools. Unfortunately, many of us own these tools, but dont have the time, inclination or knowledge to use them correctly. We know just enough to be dangerous and use state of the art tools with limited and informal knowledge in kinesiology and physiology. So, we have these great gadgets to train wrong and go slower. The fastest IM times were recorded before HR and/or watts training were mainstream. Incorrect use of technology and/or misinterpretation of data can derail your training far worse than intuitive training combined with the basic tools (running watch, wireless cyclometer) . I question the return on investment for the age grouper who is already time crunched and doesn’t have time to ANAL-yze and obsess over what their Garmin! and Power Tap just uploaded to their Mac. It just seems more practical to embrace the simplicity of the RPE scale and the pragmatics of Zone 2 and Zone 4 training. If its time to go hard, by gawd, go hard and when it’s time to go easy, put away your ego and leave the Ironman watch, cyclometer, Power Tap or Garmin turned off and go easy. You dont need anything fancy to know when something is hard or easy.
Triswami
Triathlon Coach
triswami@gmail.com
www.triswami.com
http://blog.triswami.com/
615-429-9921
Brentwood, TN
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