It’s the start of another Autumn and you’ll all be heading indoors to compete again on Zwift or to do your interval sessions on Wahoo. But stop! What’s that sound? Zone 2 needs to be around!
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SO WHAT IS ZONE 2?
It’s at an intensity just below that mythical ‘lactate threshold’ and is associated with fat burning. It feels slightly uncomfortable – you can talk but in short bursts, you get warm, but your breathing is not laboured.
Remember that to increase the efficiency of your body you must train at the intensity where you burn the most fat! Most people train above their threshold and think that they need to feel exhausted at the end of a ride, but this is not true. It takes an incredible amount of discipline to resist training above your threshold and train at your zone 2.
Zone 2 training can have a dramatic effect on our overall heath. It does so by improving metabolic fitness and flexibility and is associated with the engines of your cells: the mitochondria and they need to be trained to process fat as a fuel and not glucose gained from carbohydrates and sugar.
But training zone 2 takes time effort and let’s face it in winter it can be miserable sitting on the bike for 2+ hrs often in the rain and in deep winter often in the cold. This is where the discipline comes in.
Forget that endorphin high, forget sitting in a limited dynamic position on the turbo trainer. If you want the serious health benefits of an endurance sport such as cycling just get out and ride.
With the festive cheer upon us, when we socialise, eat, drink and be merry, now’s the time to get out for a couple of hours a week. Sure, let your hair down, it’s good for the soul. But remember it’s better to keep building that base rather than be the new year resolver ‘this year I’m going to get fit’!