Incredible results from 3 months of Zone 2 Heart Rate Triathlon Training 

In that speedo, there is a fine line between cold exposure and plain exposure...

To date for 2020, I have 94 run workouts according to my activity tracker. I went from running 1.3 miles at 12:57 to yesterday’s 8-3-2020 one mile time of 8:01. I also quit smoking five years ago after smoking for 28 and lost 30 pounds this year. Keep the heart rate loooooow for fat burning and endurance. The lowest I can keep my HR is 144 while jogging. You can’t have lasting speed without endurance. Good luck everyone.

You can’t really judge the efficacy of the protocol by comparing two wildly different workouts. Find a workout from before, do the same workout, then compare.

THANK YOU so much for the excel download! I’ve never been able to easily/correctly figure out zones. Now I know and am looking forward to going HR Training a real go!! Thank you again for all your insights!!

80% of my training are in Zone 2 for the last 10 weeks... Recently, I noticed improvements because my heart rate is getting lower (5 to 7 b/min) for the same power on the bike and also, I speed up on the run to stay in my Z2... It works!!!

You are really great content-creator! Been watching now many of your videos, and it is clear you are brilliant, you express your thinking/concepts really well, you have really great attitude, you got interesting leadership-approach into your videos, you clearly want to provide a lot to your followers etc. I am really thankful I found this channel of yours! Thanks!

Great to see how you’re going well by using aerobic training. One BIG detail you didn’t compare was the elevation. The first ride 45m, the second one 615. So, it was really hilly

Good stuff Taren. I’m Z2 training for years now.

you've been looking strong lately, you're next workouts are gonna be lit.

Great results, Taren. Hope my progress will be quite similar.... Btw - great shirt!!!

Congratulations!! "this might look ridiculous" has been nominated for understatement of the year, 2019.

Great video 😁 who doesn't love taking it easy every now and again!!

1:45 Polarised training 3:28 Incredible results

Thanks for the video. I hardly notice improvement running 9 km/h while still having average HR of around 175 and reaching a max of 190. I guess I need to start running 7 km/h until I notice improvement in endurance and lower HR.

Thanks for the video, great improvement

Just stumbled on your clip. I agree with your findings, even though you're comparing two different sets of data. I threw out the structured training approach in January this year after reading on benefits of zone 2 training. I constantly train on zwift on the Tempus Fugit circuit four times a week for 50 km in Z2. Since January I have moved my upper limit of zone 2 from 195 to 238 watts. FTP went from 261 to 313. Last weekend, I smashed 300 watts up AdZ for 50 mins. Something that I never thought of being attainable. I'm just a regular joe riding grand fondos 3-4 times a year, no racing. Twice a week I do max efforts runs for 60-90 mins, that fills in for HITs. I do either a zwift race or climb up AdZ all out. Also, I keep track of all my rides in Golden Cheetah. I keep a close eye on my aerobic decoupling value, as soon as it gets to 2% I restest for FTP to move training zones. I do a rest/active recovery every 4th week. So far I'm impressed. Great intro by the way, and it's frigging cold in Winnipeg too lol :)

I can't stand low hr workouts haha, but I know that the lower heart rate training is so important, so I push through and get them done!

Hey bud, I really enjoyed your detailed approach. Nice job

Whilst the clip is super useful, thank you, I cannot stop thinking of you being stopped in a road block and convincing the cop you’re just a normal guy in a fancy speedo and how that would have ended up😂😂 classic Triathlon T stuff. Keep it up champ.

Hi there! First of all great videos! I'd like to ask since I can only do 3 rides a week, if I should go with one intervals and two zone 2 rides or two intervals and one zone 2 ride? Thanks and more success

Cold exposure in a Speedo does not shed fat, it sheds viewers.

Taren, I have been sticking with your zone 2 training since the January TT launch. It’s too soon to ascribe any improvements just yet, but I am going to give it a year. Not sure if comparing these two rides is the most convincing way to underline the point, given that your first ride was outdoors in late July. It might have been 25 degrees when you did your first ride, a lot warmer than your pain cave?

Hi Taren, great video! I was wondering how many hours a week you train, and how you see this fit in with time-crunched training of doing a bunch of sweet-spot work rather than highly polarized work. I.e. do you see this kind of training working when you have about 8hrs a week to spend?

Just imagine Taren being pulled over for a routine traffic stop, in speedos and a hat.

I would love to see this type of analysis on compatible rides. This times and distances were close enough with these two rides but they were completely different styles of ride so difficult to make conclusions.

Great stuff. May I please see the heart rate zone worksheet please

Hi Taren! thanks for your videos and for sharing your experience and tip&tricks. Since a couple of weeks (3 times per week) I started using the low HR training (in my zone 2). Since then my VO2Max is falling... I have lost 2 points in two weeks. Is that normal? Will it keep falling or it will return back? Thanks for your advice and kudos for your channel !!!

Hey Taren, what are your thoughts on cadence? Do you prefer lower or higher? I've really been working on improving mine to greater than 90 rpm.

I add a lot of volume in my training(from 12 hours to 20-25 weekly)and that lowered my heart rate by 10 bpm and improve my fitness a lot. Every second day i do a recovery ride in zone 1 for 3-4 hours.

I competed in olympic weightlifting for 6 years and quit due to covid (and I'm honestly just tired of it). Started doing triathlon training just for fun since June. I've been doing a 20k bike + 5k run at Zone 2 periodically over the past 3 months (while doing lots of other Z2 training). My first attempt took 97 minutes, but today I finished in 83 minutes. Average HR is almost always 132, or just under 70% for me. I can feel I still have lots and lots of room for progress! I can't wait to do this same route next year and see how much it goes down by. But for now I think I'm going to have to increase the distance since this is meant to be ''90 min zone 2'' for me.

Hi Taren, I done a 4 hour ride today and my HR was in zone 2 for most of the time but my power was all over the place with riding a little harder uphill and free wheeling downhill. Is this still good for training?

I just wanted to share that I started Zone 2 training about three weeks ago. It's painstakingly boring but it's working. At first I was walking more then I was running. I have shaved 1:58 off my avg pace while keeping my HR low! Running has always been a weakness and I think maybe it's because I was training wrong.

I came across this Maffetone method (a few years ago), while reading about Mark Allen advocating this style of training. If followed carefully it does work, however there is a caveat on a person's physiology as a responder or non responder to this type of exercise and percentage of achievement. Personally, I did had some success with this in base training, which flowed on to help in the build stage. On looking at your progress, well done, great improvement in aerobic capacity. However, i'm unsure you can just attribute the success to Zone 2 training only. I may be missing the point, but you would need to consider a number of differing factors; two very different rides, the environments, fuel/equipment and when the first ride was. I appreciate the difference in seasons and difficulty in replicating a similar ride, although would it be possible to find a suitable Zwift ride from a six months ago? Moreover, the first ride was over 23 weeks ago, so there would be a large offset of fitness improvement to consider from you structured training plan Aug 2018-Feb 2019 which may have had a percentage of zone in the bike part.

Great video.Should I include intensity on base training?I am a cyclist(dont run or swim).Is polarized training a substitute for base training?

Hey great video! Did you do only polarized training (a la Fitzgerald method) or did you have a long run of PURELY zone 1-2 training for several months (a la Mafffetone)? I have previous tried Fitzgerald's 80/20 method with good results, but I want to develop my aerobic base even more and am considering a multimonth journey on only low HR training (65% of max HR - - - measured, not calculated BTW).

I did this type of training without knowing all the benefits Halfway into my rowing season with a friend, and by the end we were both the fastest for our weight on the team! Stuff is real

Used your MAF calculator. My Z2 level is calculated VERY narrowly 122-125). Is this typical for athletes coming off a significant period (6 months) of injury/recovery? Should I use a different level for my max HR (or retest it so it's representative of my current fitness)?

I usually train in low heart rate on easy days, in summer I am afraid I can't keep up with zones 1-2 on easy days, and always end up pushing my beats at a comfortable pace, what to do when temperatures go up? 🥵

Taren your points are well taken and lots of info to state that Zone 2 MAF training is better in long run. BUT to really see the benefits I agree that you need to do both indoors on trainer. Either way it does not take a rocket science to see that to go faster you must do majority of training slower in bike and run. Cheers from Miami, FL.

Question: are the hr zones the same for running and cycling? Will cycling at my zone 2 also improve my aerobic for running? I am guessing yes

What was the temp for the rides

Cycled 3300km in five weeks, mainly Z2. My FTP decreased.

I'm a cyclist trying to incorporate the principals of Zone 2 training, but I find it difficult to keep my HR out of Zone 3 (for me 130-155 bpm, using your spreadsheet). Right now, I'm in the middle of Zwift's 4 -week Fondo Training routine, and even the warm-up itself puts me at the top of Zone 2. What steps can I take to help bring my HR down? If I'm doing dedicated, low effort Zone 2 workouts, is that something I should be doing exclusively?

Because its lower intensity, is there an opportunity to increase the distance or would that counter the easy workout?

I'm seeing results. This morning I ran 4 miles a little under 10min/mile pace with an avg HR of 138. Last fall I was averaging around 155HR at the same pace.

Zone 1 and 2 works fo swimming too??

So hard to stay in zone 2. Once I tip over to zone 3 I find that my heart rate will go lower quite quickly when I stop jogging and start walking. However as soon as I start running again it goes back into zone 3. After I’ve gone into Zone 3 should I wait until My HR goes to Zone 1 and then start jogging again or start jogging when I’m in zone 2?! So frustrating

I want to put some of that shirt into practice myself.

Check your variability..(difference between Normalised and avg power). The variability is larger I think on the second which brings down HR too.

Thanks.

I am noticing HUGE improvements by just training Z2 for running; along with some Tempo racepace stuff... mind-blowing stuff

I can hold a higher Z1/Z2 power indoors at a lower HR than I can riding outside, particularly once the temp gets above 80 degrees (I did a 2 1/2 hour ride last week in 105 degree temps and overheated pretty bad....my HR wouldn't come down even riding super easy)......so you might want to do a comparison outdoors when the conditions are similar.

This is very useful and hopeful stats. Thanks. I've been doing this for one month. Previous i was still recovering from the a few operations. Do you keep doing it, but with less frequency, when getting ready for races? Thank you.

This method is about steadily doing more distance and faster tempo on low heart rate, so you do harder things with the same effort. It seems to be very obvious concept. However it demands a lot of patience, and consistency.

Taren have you had a look at don Finks training books etc very good and focuses on zone training.

It seems to be straightforward that you need to make your training easier and easier - my goal as amateur runner is always to run some distance or some tempo in Zone2. So I never hard run to get some result, as I always have a goal of what i am able to do in 110 bpm.

Bro!!!!! SO-MANY-QUESTIONS!!!!!! #1. Can I do some of my zone 2 on the bike and it still apply to my run? #2. What is the minimum time required to get an effective Z2 workout? I heard this works in runners @ volumes as low as 35 miles/week? (I have 3 young kids. Time is PRECIOUS!) #3. I roll with a fenix 3hr. should I get a chest strap to make sure my measures are accurate? I'll power walk at an 8 min/K then slow it down to a 9 and try jogging and my heart rate will shoot up! Seriously, so many more questions, but I'll limit it to these. This has been the longest 3 weeks of my life, doing this Z2!

How do we access that AWESOME excel spreadsheet you posted a while back that we filled in our data & it calculated HR Training zones. I'm coming back from a few years off due to 2 massive concussions & looking to properly regain fitness & train in Zone 2 Thank you :)

Anyone knows how to set Custom heart rate Zones in Polar Beat/Flow?

Did you do 3 months of Only zone 1 and 2 or did you mix in other zones also?

whats your regular heart rate

thanks this answers my question so i do 76 percent of my max HR 185 x75= 138 hr for zone 2........got into cycling so your sayin if i keep doing "aerobic base zone 2" this would make me faster and fitter cyclist in the long term right? today i did an indor workout 90 min avr cadence was 95 and HR 133..........is this the way to get faster? if i do it for months and momths? also i spinner meaning if i do lower than 90 my HR goes up

I can attest to this as well. Forced myself to run and bike at MAF for the large majority of my workouts last spring. Running and cycling inside allows you to easily see the progress. Average run speeds improve at same heart rate, as does Power:HR ratio. Doesn’t happen overnight, but definitely comes with consistency. 👍 Not sure if you addressed your body weight last year vs this year? Could that have played into it as well?

what % of max heart rate is your zone 2? In Norway the zone 2 is a greyzone. medium hard longrun etc. most off the top athletes train 70% in zone ONE, maybe 10% zone 2, the rest in the interval zones 3,4 and 5. Zone 2 is described as a zone that costs more than it gives. you dont get the benefits off zone 3 (where most off the intervals are done for some off Norways best athletes) and it is not easy enough to do for 3-4 hours without beeing totaly killing yourself. especially at high alltitude. but your zones are maybe someway diffrent? Norwegian top athletic zones (off max heart rate) Zone 1: 60-72% zone 2: 72-82 zone 3: 82-87 zone 4: 87-92 zone 5: 92% and up

Did you use the same power meter? Or kicker indoors and power meter outdoors...? That could be the 10 W difference.

Hard to differentiate whether its z2 training or simply consistency throughout the year

is zone1 good for running or mostly for cycling?

1) BPM went from 130 to 118 2) Power went from 174 to 182 WOW!

There’s a quite a high variance in the cadence there too.

You will see these results training at any given intensity long enough. 3 months of dedicated work in any zone (done properly) will yield adaptations, like a lower heart rate at whatever power you have been targeting. Oddly, the science says high intensity/low volume and low intensity/high volume give the same physiological adaptations (in a lab). But real world data from elite endurance athletes has historically demonstrated high volume is the best. I find it interesting you'd be doing so much zone 2 work 5 weeks out from a race.

I have the same question as Nathan regarding minimum time for effective Z2 workout? Again, young kids and no time (only about 1-1.5 hrs)

Would love to know the temperature. Was hotter outside than inside? Im heart rate is ALWAYS lower inside. Sound, wind, cars, all raise heart rate.

Zone 2 works because it is so repeatable and unlike higher intensity work it actually HELPS you sleep which is THE biggest performance enhancer! Your heart is not pumping any harder at higher intensities, just more often. 10 hours a week at 70% max HR beats the hell out of 5 hours a week at 80-90% max HR! High intensity has it's place but no more than once a week.

Were you in the air conditioning.? Fan on.? What was the temp.? All have a huge impact on HR. My HR is always 10-15bpm higher on hot days then cooler days. Still too many variables not explained

I've been reading the theory behind this on trainingpeaks. Im confused ? From their description as intensity increases into zone 2 our muscles make ATP from fat and glycogen in type i muscle but as we move to zone 3 and beyond the type I muscle can't keep up with the demand and so type ii start to come into play which can only use glycogen for ATP synthesis. From this it sounds like at the top of zone 2 they type I muscles are going full belt but as we move into zone 3 the type I muscle still going full belt is supplemented by type ii muscle. If things are that simple why not just train in zone 3 or 4 where we get maximum training to our type I muscles and some benefit to our type ii thrown in for free. The alternative is that the type ii muscle actually takes over so type I isn't contributing as much in zone 3 as it did in zone ii but I can't find any literature on this. I know my basic assumption must be wrong based on what you exoert coach types see in practice but I'd like to understand the science. Do you know where I could see this? Thanks for great articles by the way. I love them:)

We are a huge fan of Z2 training. But athletes doesn't always understand how to do it properly. Hope this video helps

Can you judge this on the basis of two workouts? Maybe the first day was much warmer and therefore more stressful than the second workout?

I just tried the Zone 2 running... slowed down my pace by 2 minutes and I could only get to Zone 3 according to my Garmin 935... is the Garmin Zone 3 actually Zone 2 bc i dont even think i can run at a Zone 2... Anyone know please respond! thanks!

Taren; shouldn't you also consider the wind resistance when comparing an indoor to an outdoor ride?

VI was drastically different between workouts as well. Let's see some true comparisons.

It would be interesting to compare the exact same workout in 2 months.

Sir i am frome indian I want to professional tranning

Did you really Just compare your outside speed to watopia speed 🤣. I agree with base zone 1-2 training but trying to compare two workouts over two years in very different conditions is not a good measure of improvement.

Nice car, what model of kia?

Want that T-Shirt!

I have done IM 70.3 Puerto Rico twice actually that's were I lived... Beautiful but very hot and high humidity.

I wish I could do more fasted workouts. But after fasting for 8 - 10 hours, if I do anything that raises my heart rate, I end up feeling really dizzy, lethargic, somewhat confused and sweaty. I've been to the doctors about it, and they basically said there's nothing wrong with me and that I need to eat more.

Nice doggy! 😍

You improved because of training, not that zone 2 bs. Had you trained any zone else you could never tell the difference

What do you when zone 2 is you walking briskly? Is that my training?

How does that apply to shorter distance (sprint/ olympic) atheletes?

Vid starts at 1:50 folks

Well you just gave away the “secret”/“holy grail” of training! Coming from a pro.

One question: where can we get that shirt?

Did you also change your weight? Because I think you looked leaner than the first exercise you did?

Peeps just don't get it when you talk about the lower intensity training stuff. What they don't get, with the proper attention paid to the speed, or high intensity efforts, the lower intensity "base training" will continue to raise. Just as your result s show, last years lower intensity ride was not this years low intensity ride. The low will always continue to be higher with the proper high intensity work. Its the magic of this system. It a sneaky system with great results but just like your LI workouts are rising over time, the HI workouts need to rise as well. All multiples must increase or the sum will only stay the same or even falter. Yes, the LI/HI workouts are great, but they are not "no brainer" workouts, they do require, as in all things performance based, a strict adherence to progressive intensity work. Thanks for showing the numbers, the proof in the pudding!!!

Interesting, but it will probably work for pros. Am I worng?

zone 2 out of 6?

you're not supposed to do cold therapy within 2 hours of any kind of workout/weightlift, its been shown retract from your progress being made. I think its something about the constriciting of vessels that need to carry nutrients to the muscles and also detoxy the bloodstream, etc. And actually the latest research on the subject suggests that any cold exposure should be done FAR away from exercise, maybe more than 2 hours. Its kinda like the vitamin c taking away from the high oxidative stress that exercise gives you, blunts the stress, body doesn't adapt as much from it

Might have made more sense to do the exact same route to compare results