Training Tuesday: A Short Rant About Training Zones

0:09Welcome to the Running Public with Bracken Crocker and Kirk DeWint. It's Tuesday, folks, and you know what that means. Training Tuesday.

0:16Brian Rosetti: We are going to take every rabbit hole, follow tangents, use useless metaphors, get lost in the weeds. This is Training Tuesday.

0:33When you're ready to take your training or racing to the next level, go to the running public.com. We have both monthly subscription training plans,$19.99 a month. And Bracken and I both offer one-on-one customized coaching. Again, go to the running public.com and check out our offerings.

0:51Brian Rosetti: Hello. Hello. As promised or threatened the last week, no Kirk to win today. Just me. solo episode. And I know what you're thinking is just going to do shoes. False. I'm not just going to do shoes. Although if I'm being totally transparent, this is the second solo episode I have recorded this week. The first one was all about shoes and gear and kit and fueling. And I hated it. I deleted it. I spent 46 minutes talking and I got done and I thought, well, that kind of sucked. It wasn't fun without Kirk. It was, I thought it was boring and there's going to be too small of a audience that would even care about it.

1:33Brian Rosetti: So we will do a shoe episode at some point, but I wasn't having any fun doing it solo. And I think that came through in the recording. So it is deleted. No one will ever see it. But what I am going to do today is get on a little bit of a soapbox. This is something that just popped across my desk in the last week. I have had three athletes now that I work with one-on-one who have got lactate threshold testing or VO2 max testing done in the last probably 10 days. Three athletes in 10 days and seven total since probably July. None of which did I push into it. I want to be clear on that. I'm not forcing people to go get this test done.

2:16Brian Rosetti: They all did it on their own curiosity or because they wanted to add another tool to their training quiver. But reading through the tests afterwards with them and independently by myself, it just brought a few things to mind that I want to talk about. And the overarching theory here is that we're getting too cute with training and we're continuing to muddy the waters with how we talk about the physiology of running. Exercise physiologists have known about the correct terms to use for a long time and we're still muddying the waters and confusing people. and we've known what heart rate zones are for a long time and we're still muddying the water, confusing people.

3:07Brian Rosetti: And two of the three tests that I've read through, the test results, are using very confusing wording. So I just want to talk about my theory for how we should fix this. And I don't care if anyone adopts this outside of this podcast. This is not going to be my my retirement plan here is to start a cult on a theory of training and everyone adheres to it. And I become this guru. That's not the goal. The goal is that the people that this makes sense to just use it. And that's it. There's not going to be a book about this. It's not that serious, but it is important to me. So here's what I'm going to just say.

3:48Brian Rosetti: We have far too many zone-based systems and they're too complicated and they are at odds with each other. We have far too many terms with heart rates and thresholds and we just need to get rid of them. We need to just all use the same ones. But I'm just going to distill this down to what I think are the two ways that everyone should think about training. And you should either just pick one and go with it or use both as you see fit, but bullet point number one, this is going to be a quick episode. So we're just getting right into it. Take notes if you want to. You do you, but bullet point number one, we need to do away with the five zone model of training zones.

4:32Brian Rosetti: I don't think there's any need for it. We have zone one, which is like excessively easy. No one's ever going to use it outside of pure, pure recovery. Then we have zone two, which takes us up to below our aerobic threshold. And then we have zone three, which is partially aerobic threshold, but takes us up past aerobic threshold, but under lactate threshold. And then zone four, which at the beginning of it crosses over lactate threshold and then takes us up to, for most people under their VO2 max. And then zone five is above it, but where that lies, none of the zones in the traditional model end at a threshold.

5:15Brian Rosetti: Now, I understand that people can say a threshold is a range. It's not an exact point, but there is an exact point. There's an inflection point where you see a decisive uptick in oxygen consumption or in lactate accumulation, and that is the point. And so even if you're not sure is this a one or two or three beat range, like extend it up a beat and make that the upper limit of the zone. But who uses zone one? In reality, who is using zone one as a training zone? Personally, the only time I ever see zone one heart rate, which for me would stop at like 118 or something absurd like that is when I'm on, if I'm like walking on a elliptical or doing excessively easy spin bike work, pure recovery.

6:14Brian Rosetti: I have just no use for zone one. It's not useful as training and zone five above VO2 max. What are we even worrying about that for? Why are we even targeting a zone there? If you're working above VO2 max, so we're talking true scientific VO2 max, six to nine minute maximum effort. So for any regular person, it's anywhere between one mile and two and a half mile, not even maybe two and a quarter mile race pace. If you're running, let's just say one to two mile race pace or, um, one to two, one to 3k race pace for the metric-based listeners. Do you have time to look at your watch? Are you getting anything from seeing your heart rate?

7:04Brian Rosetti: No, because you're going to approach it relatively quickly, but you're not going to be there right away. And that's okay because you're going out at pace and effort. And then the interval's done. If the maximum any scientist will ever say you can hold VO2 max for is nine minutes, you're not doing reps at long minutes. VO2 max work is not long work. So there's no sense like, oh, I got to get to a heart rate and then I got to stay there. No, by the time you're at the heart rate, your rep's almost done anyway. To me, it's foolish. So you're not looking at, so zone one's useless, zone five's useless.

7:37Brian Rosetti: Now we're left with three middle zones, but the middle zones don't correlate with a specific ceiling. Zone two doesn't stop when aerobic, easy aerobic work stops. The lower end of zone three has that as well. And zone three doesn't stop when it stops being entirely aerobic or having the predominant energy system be aerobic. It doesn't stop at your lactate threshold. It extends a little bit to zone four. So what are we even doing with these zones? So let's get rid of the five zone model. What I propose is we have three zones. And the third is honestly, I could do away with. I'm fine with a two zone model.

8:19Brian Rosetti: But just because I don't want the world to explode, let's say let's do a three zone model. Zone one, aerobic running. All of scientists, all exercise physiologists can agree that if you are under your aerobic threshold, your running is predominantly aerobic. And so that's zone one. Zone one caps at your aerobic threshold. So for me, let's just call it for me 150 to use a nice easy number. It's been 148 to 151 in my life. Anytime that I've had testing down or when I do self-tests and spoiler alert, we're going to talk about this later, but self-tests are like above 95 % confidence rate compared to lab tests on aerobic threshold and lactate threshold.

9:14Brian Rosetti: intuitive athletes are usually within three beats of where their thresholds are so you don't even need to go to lab to this but you absolutely can it's not even that expensive anymore but zone one so take your aerobic threshold subtract 20 beats boom zone one so for me it's 130 to 150 now i'd be even okay saying subtract 30 beats put it down to 120 to 150 because on some recovery efforts i I might be working down there. But the reality is on those days, if I'm so tired or beat up that I'm running at 120 beats per minute, I'm not targeting a heart rate. I'm targeting a movement that I can comfortably sustain without taking any damage or just the only movement I can even muster up that day.

10:03Brian Rosetti: So I'm fine with 130 to 150. I'd be equally fine with 135 to 150. But the reality is I think that some good aerobic work can be done at 130 with my 150 aerobic threshold. So just aerobic threshold minus 20 beats. I won't fight you if you want to say minus 25. I won't fight you if you want to say minus 30. But that is your zone. Basically, the lowest level you would consider yourself being productive aerobically all the way up to the highest level that is physiologically aerobic, which is your aerobic threshold. People also call that ventilatory threshold one or lactate threshold one. It's the first uptick in lactate production above just regular easy exercising exertion.

10:48Brian Rosetti: So zone one, easy, easy work, but you can't exceed your aerobic threshold. And the reality is that the main chunk of your training should be within five beats from the bottom and five beats from the top. So if I'm saying it's 130 to 150, you should be 135 to 145 in the vast majority of your aerobic work. And if it starts low and drifts high, you're fine if you're in that zone. Zone two then, because this is logically talking, we're not following any other zones models out there. This is just logic. If zone one ended at aerobic threshold, zone two has to end at lactate threshold. This would be ventilatory threshold two.

11:31Brian Rosetti: Your anaerobic threshold, your lactate threshold. We have three terms that are basically indistinguishable in a lab. You have to be splitting it down to the cellular level to find anything different here. That's zone two. You're above aerobic threshold. You are below lactate threshold. Really cut and dry. And so for me, 165, we're going to say. I've been between 161 and 166, depending on testing protocol. But 165 is just what we're going to say. So for me, it's 151 to 165. That is a 14 beat range. And just like before, we're going to lop a few off the top and a few off the bottom. And this time I'm going to say two to three.

12:17Brian Rosetti: So the vast majority of my training should take place between 155 and 163. lop two off the bottom and then move it down eight beats. An eight beat range is a really good range, I think, for threshold work. And what this does is it gives you the ability to safely stay within the confines of threshold because we know that, let's just say, once you're well within 10%, 7 % to 9 % of threshold, you're getting the vast majority, 90 plus percent of the benefits of being right at lactate threshold, but with a significant reduction in recovery demands, an eight beat range is really solid for most people.

13:02Brian Rosetti: So if I am running between 155 and 162 on a 165 lactate threshold, I'm getting good benefit. And if I'm doing long intervals or I want to stack up 40, 50, 60, 70 minutes of work at this, I run closer to 155. And if I want to run 30, 20, 25, 30 minutes, 35 even minutes of really good quality threshold work, I work at like 160 to 163. It's that simple. You have a range to go in there. The more work you want to get done, the more you move down towards 160 or below. And the less work you want to accumulate at in this zone, the more you move above 160. But there's no need to go above 165. You don't need to do it because now you have diminishing returns.

13:52Brian Rosetti: Sure, you're still getting some benefit of it, but now the recovery demands skyrocket. Whereas in theory, if you wanted to work at 155 and do intervals four times a week, you could probably do that as long as you're not going hard in your other days. If you did at 165, now you're going to be cutting down to three times a week. If you move up to 168, you're probably only going to get two a week. So it's not that you stop getting good above that. It's not that you're not getting good work. It's just that you can't do it as often. that's the whole science of threshold training you can just do it a lot so to recap zone one easy work aerobic work cuts off at aerobic threshold zone two threshold work above aerobic threshold at or below lactate threshold in zone three you guessed it this is an open-ended zone and it starts at one beat above lactate threshold so let's call it 166 and above there is some benefit of working just above lactate threshold or doing some over under work, some in and out work, some float works.

14:55Brian Rosetti: Well, maybe I'm running 168, 170, coming back down to 150, 170, 150, 170, 150. So I still am targeting a heart rate in that zone. So I'm not just saying we don't need that zone. Everything above that should only be pace-based. I'm not saying that, but you also could just do that. You could run a two zone system. But since you're saying anything above is I'm doing something else, well, that's still zone three for you. So zone three is everything above lactate threshold. Now, the answer to this in the negative would be, well, what about VO2 max? And I'm going to say to you, I don't care about VO2 max.

15:31Brian Rosetti: There's no compelling science that says that working at VO2 max is any different than working just above or just below VO2 max. And there's no pace associated with it. That's a magic pace. Call it working at one mile to two mile pace. That's not a magic pace. There's no magic pace anywhere, but there's not like a huge shift in recovery demands, whether you are just under, just at, or just above VO2 max. If it's six to nine minute race pace, whether you're running 10 or 11 minute race pace or four or five minute race pace or seven minute race pace, your recovery demands don't change drastically.

16:10Brian Rosetti: There could be a difference between four minute race pace and 10 minute race pace recovery demands of that. Yes, but if you stack up the appropriate duration at 10 minute race pace and the appropriate duration at four minute race pace, you're really not going to have different recovery demands because you don't put a lot of work in a four minute race pace time quantity wise. and you put in a medium amount at 10 minute race pace, but still not. Anyway, point is there's not like this changeover where once you exceed VO2 max or stay just below it, the risk reward changes drastically. It doesn't. It really doesn't.

16:46Brian Rosetti: Whereas with threshold, it does change relatively quickly, whether you're working under or above it from a recovery standpoint and from how much time you can spend working at those intensities, which is why I don't have any use for specific VO2 max zones. There are times to work at that, but again, I don't believe you should target heart rate for that. At that point, you should target RPE. We're going to target effort or we're going to target pace. We know what nine out of 10 feels like. We know what six minute race pace feels like, or two mile race pace, what that is, or what one mile race pace is.

17:23Brian Rosetti: And whether you're in shape or out of shape, one mile race pace doesn't change that much. You can be in the ballpark and be fine. And like I said, for VO2 max, there's not some magic line you have to be aware of. You're in the ballpark. So I don't care about a specific heart rate for that. So I would say, once you get above a few beats above lactate threshold, at that point, everything should be RPE or pace-based. I don't really have use for heart rate because I'm rarely doing intervals long enough where I can rely upon my heart rate to tell me anything. Sure, it's a good marker, but it's not something I would build a training plan around.

18:00So that is my proposal.

18:02Brian Rosetti: Zone one aerobic, zone two threshold work, subthreshold to threshold, and zone three and above is highly anaerobic work. When you want to be highly anaerobic, you do so. But most of the time when we're trying to be highly anaerobic, which is when people are sharpening for races or preparing for races that are highly anaerobic in nature, or 5k and below, you're going to be targeting race pace anyway, or you're going to be working off of effort. Go run 12 by 400 with one minute rest at the best average pace you can keep. That's not heart rate based. Heart rate would be useless in that workout. Even like a classic VO2 max workout, which would be something like six by 800.

18:47Brian Rosetti: Heart rate is relatively useless. you're trying to run like nine out of 10 effort average for the workout or you're trying to run 5k pace or just slightly faster heart rate's not in the equation there so i think we should simplify it down now a few things i've seen in these vo2 max and lactate threshold reports that are confounding is one is these zones that don't end right at a threshold what is the point of a zone if it doesn't stop at a logical point that just adds to confusion i'm in zone three what is zone three? Well, it's aerobic. That's my aerobic work. That's my aerobic zone. It's even labeled as aerobic on some of these lab reports.

19:26Brian Rosetti: But you can go anaerobic in zone three because zone three doesn't cut off at your aerobic threshold. Zone four, I see them using in one of these lab reports, tempo zone. The other said threshold zone. Well, great. I love calling it threshold zone, except you can breach your threshold, your lactate threshold while being in zone four. So what's the point of zone four? It's not guiding you. It's like drunk driving. You're just trying to keep it between the lines, but you keep smashing into the guardrail. The zone is the guardrail. The real limit are the yellow lines. That's where you need to be between.

20:05Brian Rosetti: But if you're just bouncing off guardrail, the guardrail, is it scientific training? And if it's not, why did we get the science report from you in the first place? So that's a huge pet peeve of mine. Second, one of the reports I received said run 80 % of your work in easy and aerobic and 20 % in zone five, zone four and five, it said later in the report. And then it said 20 % of these work should be aerobic intervals. What are we even doing calling something an aerobic interval. Why would a lab who has an endurance athlete coming to them call something an aerobic interval? Why are you using the term anaerobic in your report and then calling something aerobic interval?

20:55Brian Rosetti: I don't care if there's a paper somewhere that has clarified what an aerobic interval is. Nobody uses that term. And it's highly confusing, especially for the type of athlete that's coming to you, which is usually an athlete who is a self-starter and who's trying to figure it out themselves and wants your help with it. Telling them, do your work in zone four and five, and you can spend most of that time running aerobic intervals. They're going to look at you and say, what? Aerobic? You have a zone called the aerobic zone on this lab report you gave me, which is zone three. And you just told me to go run 20 % of my time in zone four and five.

21:35Brian Rosetti: and 80 % of my time in zone two and three and keep it easy and aerobic. And then you said my zone four and five work should be compromised or should be composed of aerobic intervals. But my lab report says the aerobic zone is zone three. So I'm supposed to spend my time, 20 % of my time in zone four and five doing zone three work. Is that what this lab report is telling me? And the reality is, yes, that's what the lab report told you. Because they, at this point, are confused at which terms they're supposed to be using. And the computer's just spitting out words, and they're typing it up, and they're making mistakes, and they're not entirely sure what they should be telling you anyway.

22:19Brian Rosetti: And then the classic, work on VO2 max, improved VO2 max is shown to correlate with race performance. No, VO2 max is, just Google that. VO2 max is a poor predictor. It's a good predictor of race performance. Working on your VO2 max is a poor predictor of race performance. Focusing on that, it's a byproduct of race performance. It's not the reason you're good at racing. If it were, everyone with a good VO2 max would be a great racer. And that's not true. It says how good your system is at utilizing oxygen, but it doesn't have any clue how it does with the actual function of running. So this rant is coming to a close.

23:00Brian Rosetti: So what I would say to everyone is that you should do a couple things. First is really simplify and narrow down what are the intensities you want to be working at. Find out what your aerobic threshold is. Find out what your anaerobic threshold is. Now, this episode is not going to be about how do we find that out. There are some really good at-home tests and workouts you can do. you can always just go run a 30 to 60 minute race and you're going to be able to predict both off that you can go out and get a lab test now the good news is that lab tests are like 150 to 350 most places that you go to get tested if you do it at a university it's closer to 100 bucks if you do it in a private lab it's closer to 350 or so but for someone who's looking at a 260 $60 pair of super shoes for a race, a pair of shoes will get you two sets of numbers that are going to be indispensable for the rest of your training.

24:04Brian Rosetti: Like I said, I've had a three beat swing in my aerobic and anaerobic threshold in 20 years of being a serious runner. I've had three different numbers that have ever been presented to me. Three beats. And if you're ascribing to I'm always going to stay a beat or two under when I'm working threshold work, then you're safe. You don't even need to know the precise number. I know there's some scientists really, really cringing at that thought, but if you're one of those people that's cringing at it, then just go get an actual lab test done. But know that there's variance in lab tests as well. Second, give no credence to whatever pace they are telling you if you get a lab test done.

24:44Brian Rosetti: The pace at which this occurs is solely dependent upon the protocol they're using to test, which includes their treadmill. Treadmills are not all created equal. Their speed sensors, their algorithm is not all the same. Treadmill belts stretch and deform over time. There's just no correlation from what you're running there to what your pace is during a 5k or a high rocks or on your treadmill or on an assault runner or on the track, energy return differs from treadmill to treadmill, from treadmill to road to road to track. That all changes pace. So when they say something like, hey, your lactate threshold pace is 634 per mile, you're running too slow on your interval days, or you're running your zone two runs too slow because we have calculated your zone two pace to be 832 per mile.

25:41Brian Rosetti: Take that with a grain of salt. Your zones are what matter. Your pace is not what matters at an aerobic zone. Tracking your pace over time. Sure, that's great. But even the same treadmill over time can get out of calibration. So don't worry about what paces they tell you if you go to a lab. So dial in your heart rate zones and decide exactly what you want to be working on. Even like that blanket statement, which is we looked at your information you gave us and you're running your zone two runs too slow. Well, maybe. But what if you're a high intensity interval based athlete? What if you're running three high intensity interval sessions per week?

26:20Brian Rosetti: That makes sense to run at the low end of zone two on your easy and recovery days. But if you're more of a sweet spot or threshold based athlete or you're a marathon training athlete, yeah, it would make sense to run your zone two a little faster. So decide what the purpose of your aerobic work versus your anaerobic is and then develop a range of heart rate that you want to stay in for those. Then it's bespoke to you. It's dialed into what you want to be doing and what you should be doing so that you progress your training appropriately. If you're an ultra runner, There are times that going out and running high-end aerobic is super beneficial, especially if you're not doing super spicy work.

27:02Brian Rosetti: There's also times where you are super beat up and you're just spamming mileage and zone two, low zone two is still faster than your goal 100 mile race pace. And so, yeah, it's super beneficial to be working at that, especially with super fatigued legs and you're just trying to run clean at a really slow pace. So the scientists don't always know why you're doing what you're doing, and you need to build that out for yourself. In the final piece that these kind of reports and this soapbox speech of mine kind of brings to light is that everyone should be a little bit more well acquainted with their race paces, especially if you are going to prescribe to my three zone system.

27:44Brian Rosetti: You should know what your race paces are above zone two. So when you get to zone three, which is above lactate threshold, since we've established that I don't believe heart rate is super useful to use for that, RPE is super useful if you are a well-trained athlete who's well acquainted with your body and how it feels at different efforts. But if you're not, even if you are, but especially if you're not, you should be well acquainted with what is your 5K race pace? What is your one mile race pace? For me, that's enough. If you want to find out your 3k race pace, your 10k race pace or whatever, great, do it.

28:21Brian Rosetti: But I think one mile and 5k are enough, but you should always know within a few percent what your actual race pace is. Like right now, I can confidently guess that if I were to go out and run a mile pace, a one mile race, I'd be within six seconds of what I would predict, which from a training standpoint, what is that? second and a half per lap? Am I really going to be so precise with my intervals when I'm running 400s that if I'm 1.2 off or 1.6 off rather than 1.5 seconds per 400, what I'm doing, it's like if I'm trying to run 71s and I run 70.8 or 71.4, is it really going to matter? No, no, it's not because I'm not a finely trained miler right now.

29:14Brian Rosetti: Once you get down to being a finely trained miler, sure. But if you're trying to do that, you're already intimately acquainted with what your current one mile fitness is. So being in the ballpark range, you should always know within 10 seconds per mile, what your mile pace is. And you should always know within, I would say, I mean, five to 10 seconds per mile, same thing for 5k. You should never be more than, I don't think you should be more, probably not even that much. I don't think you should be more than 20 seconds total off what you could run in a 5k right now. So if I said I could run a 17 minute 5k right now, I shouldn't be able to run slower than 1720 or faster than 1640.

29:52Brian Rosetti: Like that is a huge range, 20 seconds either way. I think you should be 10 seconds either way. You should be within 20 seconds of being able to predict exactly what that thing is. And how do you do that? Well, yeah, you could run more workouts at this, but just time trial here and there. I think it's super useful tool. If you're running a 5K time trial every other month and a one mile time trial every other month, you're only running six of each per year. That's spaced out far enough that you're not going to have mental fatigue or physical burnout off those kinds of things, but you're never going to not know what your fitness is and what your local recent training has done for your race fitness.

30:34Brian Rosetti: So I think everyone could do to time trial a little bit more and worry about tiny little zones a little bit less. Simplify your zones and get more acquainted with race pace. So this is one of those episodes that one of two things is going to happen. You're going to hear this and think, heck yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I like this. So next step is I need to dial in my aerobic threshold and my anaerobic threshold. Great. Use the interwebs. It'll tell you how to do it. Kirk and I will probably get a billion questions about this. And so one of our next Q and A's will answer this with our recommendations for how to test these things at home.

31:12Brian Rosetti: But I think if you're serious, go to find a local university, go get $150 test done, and then just rest easy for the next 10 years. You know, you're set. Or you're going to hear this and think you're just really missing the mark. Here's what you oversimplified or here's what you've given up. And I want to hear that. My lifelong quest for running knowledge is not down here at 39 years. So if you have something that you think I'm missing, tell me about it. If anything resonated with you on today's episode and you're curious about taking your training to the next level, check out therunningpublic.com where we have a training plan to fit your needs.

31:55Thank you.