How do we find YOUR heart rate training zones?
You must have probably heard of heart rate training zones and how elite endurance athletes, and more recently, a growing number of recreational athletes, use them to guide their training.
Training zones can significantly enhance the results one gets from cardio and interval training regardless of whether they are looking to break and triathlon record, get healthier or lose weight. As a result, they should be top of mind for everyone with a fitness routine.
Check out my blog and podcast to learn more about the benefits of each training zones, how they are determined, the effects each one has on human physiology, and how they can be used to inform training and nutrition better.
Exercise intensity zones and metabolic response
The human body has a different metabolic response depending on the exercise intensity it’s exposed to. Its metabolic response is defined based on the amount of energy (i.e. calories) and type of fuel (i.e. proportion of fats and carbohydrates) it uses at each particular intensity.
For example in zone 2 one may be burning 4.5 kcal/min with a fuel mixture consisting of 75% fats and 25% carbohydrates. These attributes will gradually change as one moves to a higher level of exercise intensity zones because the energy demand increases, and the fuel mixture required to sustain the growing levels of energy release needs to change.To better understand this phenomenon we should first examine the process of energy generation in the human body.
- During exercise, your body typically burns a mixture of fats and carbohydrates to release the energy required (i.e., calories) to move. This process typically uses oxygen and is thus also referred to as the oxidation of fats and carbohydrates.
- Fat releases more energy than carbs when burnt (i.e., 9 kcal per gram of fat vs. 4 kcal per gram of carbs) but has a slower burning process making it suitable for low exercise intensities where the rate of energy demand is low.
- Carbohydrates, on the contrary, require less time to burn and can therefore support higher exercise intensities where the rate of energy demand is larger.
- As a result, the fuel mixture changes from predominantly fats when exercise intensities and energy requirements are low to carbohydrates dominant as exercise intensity increases and the rate with which the body needs to release energy increases.
- In short, as the demand for energy increases, cells need to rely more on carbohydrates since they release energy faster.
- On the other hand, cells rely on fat as a fuel source despite its slow energy release process for as long as energy demand remains low.
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Zone One
- Recovery period (S = structural effect)
- Find where we stimulates O2 delivery beyond utilization requirements – increasing O2 delivery to the limbs (excessive amount) – more ATP to be build using free fatty acid reserves
- Stimulating the breathing during recovery- increases oxygen
- Promote the elimination of metabolic waste by stimulates elevated breathing pattern to promote metabolic waste and CO2 clearance – resulting in normalizing acid/base balance (pH) and recovery
- Breathing – help clear CO2 metabolic waste = helps stimulate recovery
- Interval training must be a recovery portion work to rest ratio in ZONE ONE
- Summary: to increase O2 delivery and CO2 clearance
Zone Two
- Continuous cardio or known as – long slow distance (LSD)
- increased mitochondrial density (Structural training)
- Increased capillarization (S)
- Tissue adaptation (S) – as running for first marathon, load needs to be applied as muscles and tendons need to respond to required demands to complete a marathon – periodization and adaptation
- Endurance (Functional) – your ability to burn free fatty acids and using carbs with oxygen to create energy at a rate to do long continious benefit
- increase energy
Zone Three
- used for TEMPO and long intervals
- Improves lactate shuttle at structural level (S) – use lactate to create ATP at the muscle or around the muscle
- How well you can create ATP using lactate – decrease shift to zone four if you can use the lactate well
- Lactate using aerobic system -then the longer in Zone 3 you can do the work before shifting to Zone 4
- Protein Stimulation (S)
- Vo2 cardio pulmonary development (S)
- Speed endurance (F) = Race pace over Zone 2 – be able to hold base over period of time = functional (F) goal
Zone Four
- Apply medium intervals (2-4 minutes)
- Metabolic buffering (Structural- S) – ability to deal with deal with increased acidosis – secondary to the use of that fuel system (PC) buffer some of the by products using
- Secondary to dealing with use of fuel system – help buffer by-products from using the energy system and allow to stay in zone four longer before shifting to Zone five or to exhaustion
- Coordination (F)
- Speed (F)
- Strength (F)
- Increase running speed or cyclists or increase strength for hills
Zone Five
- Short intervals (SIT)
- Increase mitochondrial density at structural level at structural level (S)
- Capillarization (S)
- Need to have BASE at Zone – short benefits of Zone 5 will help mitochondrial function
- Coordination & Strength
- Runner wants to run faster but when get into the zone- running form deteriorates and lose style of running = zone 5 intervals will help coordination as with cyclists (same benefits)
- Strength- hills on the bike (watts) or run
Choose different methods based on the PNOE test:
- Zone 1: finding the adjusted FAT MAX (burn the most fat)
PNOE Zones Key points
- Training zones are your heart’s response to the energy generation process as the workout intensity increases
- Metabolic particularities differentiate the training zones per person
- Training zones change over time depending on the type of training and nutrition programming one’s follows, so they need period reevaluation to remain relatable
- The metabolic analysis is the gold standard in personalizing training zones and the plan to overcome limitations.
You must have probably heard of heart rate training zones and how elite endurance athletes, and more recently, a growing number of recreational athletes, use them to guide their training. Training zones can significantly enhance the results one gets from cardio and interval training regardless of whether they are looking to break and triathlon record, get healthier or lose weight. As a result, they should be top of mind for everyone with a fitness routine.
This blog explains what training zones are, how they are determined, the effects each one has on human physiology, and how they can be used to inform training and nutrition better.
Exercise intensity zones and metabolic response
- The human body has a different metabolic response depending on the exercise intensity it’s exposed to. Its metabolic response is defined based on the amount of energy (i.e. calories) and type of fuel (i.e. proportion of fats and carbohydrates) it uses at each particular intensity.
- For example in zone 2 one may be burning 4.5 kcal/min with a fuel mixture consisting of 75% fats and 25% carbohydrates.
- These attributes will gradually change as one moves to a higher level of exercise intensity zones because the energy demand increases, and the fuel mixture required to sustain the growing levels of energy release needs to change.
- To better understand this phenomenon we should first examine the process of energy generation in the human body.
During exercise, your body typically burns a mixture of fats and carbohydrates to release the energy required (i.e., calories) to move.
This process typically uses oxygen and is thus also referred to as the oxidation of fats and carbohydrates.
- Fat releases more energy than carbs when burnt (i.e., 9 kcal per gram of fat vs. 4 kcal per gram of carbs) but has a slower burning process making it suitable for low exercise intensities where the rate of energy demand is low.
- Carbohydrates, on the contrary, require less time to burn and can therefore support higher exercise intensities where the rate of energy demand is larger.
As a result, the fuel mixture changes from predominantly fats when exercise intensities and energy requirements are low to carbohydrates dominant as exercise intensity increases and the rate with which the body needs to release energy increases. In short, as the demand for energy increases, cells need to rely more on carbohydrates since they release energy faster.
On the other hand, cells rely on fat as a fuel source despite its slow energy release process for as long as energy demand remains low.
Figure 1 shows the difference between fat and carbohydrate burn as exercise intensity increases during a treadmill test.
Figure 1 Dark green: fats, Turquoise: carbohydrates, Light green: heart rate
Going from intensity zones to heart rate zones
As described above, exercise intensity zones are defined based on the body’s metabolic response when exercising at a specific intensity.
- The metabolic response is broadly defined by the calories expended and the contribution of fats and carbohydrates in the calorie-burning process at that particular intensity.
- To measure calorie expenditure along with fat and carbohydrate consumption, one needs to analyze an individual’s expired oxygen and carbon dioxide using a metabolic analyzer.
- Since metabolic testing can only be done in a test or evaluation setup and not on every training session or athletic event, one needs to use a proxy metric that can be easily tracked daily to map a person’s metabolic response against it.
- The most commonly used proxy metric to achieve this is heart rate.
- By measuring heart rate during a metabolic test, we can establish a correlation between the different metabolic states the test subject undergoes and heart rate.
- Since this correlation remains fairly constant, once established, it can be used to infer the subject’s metabolic response just by tracking heart rate during training or athletic events. We refer to this as “getting your personalized training zones.”
How different are my heart rate zones from the person sitting next to me?
The answer is Very! There are many ways to estimate heart rate zones, including predictive equations and wearable devices. However, the metabolic particularities of an individual render these methods highly inaccurate, with some cases reaching up to 50% deviation from one’s training zones. Simply put, unless one uses metabolic analysis to evaluate metabolic response in conjunction with heart rate, it’s impossible to identify their true heart rate zones accurately.
Do training zones change over time?
Yes!
Training and nutrition will impact the way your cells work and consequently will affect your metabolism. In broad terms, this means that you will burn a different number of calories and use a different mixture of fat and carbohydrates at specific exercise intensities. For example, after three months of endurance training, you have likely become more economical in your running. You now burn fewer calories at a given pace and perhaps more fat adapted, meaning that the proportion of fat metabolism in your energy generation process has grown.
Since heart rate zones correlate between heart rate and metabolic response, if your metabolism changes, so will its correlation with your heart rate profile. As a result, depending on how rapidly you progress through your fitness journey or training, you should re-assess your training zones.
The recommended testing frequencies are the following:
- Every six months for individuals in a static or maintenance routine
- Every three months, individuals progress through their fitness program at an average pace
- Every 4-8 weeks, athletes undergo rigorous training
Moreover, it’s also very important to highlight that training zones also change based on the type of exercise.
This is due to the fact that the amount of calories, fats, and carbohydrates you burn are heavily affected by the movement your body conducts. This inevitably means that the correlation between your metabolic response and heart rate profile will change depending on the exercise.
For example, you may be burning 30% fats and 70% carbs at 140 beats per minute when running but only 15% fats and 85% carbs at 140 beats per minute when cycling. This may also explain why you feel a burning sensation in your legs when biking at a relatively low heart rate range while feeling much more relaxed when running at the same heart rate.
Training zones and physiological adaptations
- Each training zone elicits different physiological adaptations on the human body.
- These physiological adaptations include improved cellular fitness, heart fitness, lung capacity, VO2max, and more.
- Each zone has specific effects meaning that spending time in it will improve only a specific set of these systems and not everyone.
- As a result, when one is looking to get the most out of their cardio training by targeting specific weaknesses their body faces, following a training program with accurate training zones is essential.
For example, spending a specific period in zone 2 is the essential part of a training program if one is looking to improve their fat burning efficiency.
If this person hasn’t measured their personalized training zones and instead of training in Zone 2 they’re actually training in Zone 3; they may be getting as much as 40% less positive adaptation in enhancing their fat burning capacity.
The five zones system is the most frequently used one, accurately capturing the difference in metabolic states while remaining practical enough for everyday usage.
Each zone is used for a different purpose as it inflicts different metabolic adaptations on your body.
Here are the adaptations each zone will affect:
Zone 1
- Training intensity is typically used for warmup or active recovery (i.e. recovering from intense exercise while moving).
Zone 2
- Zone 2 training will develop your mitochondrial function and improve your fat-burning efficiency.
- It’s highly recommended for long-range endurance sports and individuals suffering from metabolic syndrome (e.g. Type II Diabetes).
- The improved mitochondrial function will also significantly support recovery capacity helping you to recover faster after intense bouts of exercise.
Zone 3
- Zone 3 training can help strengthen your pulmonary muscles and improve cardiovascular function.
- It’s an ideal intensity when suffering from a lung or heart problem since its moderate- intensity offers a solid stimulus to the heart and lungs without being exhausting or overly strenuous.
Zone 4
- Zone 4 training will help improve your VO2max and ability to sustain high-intensity exercise for prolonged durations by improving lactate shuttling.
- Lactate is a byproduct of anaerobic metabolism, which can also be used as fuel by your muscles.
- For as long as your body can clear fatigue byproducts faster than their being produced, the exercise intensity remains sustainable.
- As a result, the greater your lactate shuttling capability the greater your ability to sustain high exercise intensities for long periods.
Zone 5
- Zone 5 training will improve your VO2max and peak power output capability (e.g. maximum speed or cycling wattage).
- This exercise intensity is sustainable for 60 to 120 seconds and requires one to train at full potential.
Fat Burning Efficiency
•What it means: It’s the gauge of your cells’ ability to use fat as a fuel source during exercise.•Your cells primarily “burn” fats and carbohydrates to release the energy they contain and power your body’s movement.•The higher your Fat-burning Efficiency, the more your cells will rely on fats as a fuel source.•Fat-burning Efficiency is also one of the most vital indicators of cellular health.How it’s measured:
•Fat-burning Efficiency is calculated based on your Crossover Point, the exercise intensity where your body transitions from burning primarily fats to burning mainly carbs.•The higher the exercise intensity this transition occurs, the higher your Fat-burning Efficiency.Crossover Point:
•It’s the exercise intensity where your body transitions from burning primarily fats to burning mainly carbs.•It’s expressed in heart rate (e.g., 132 bpm) or power (e.g., 130 watts), depending on the metric used to benchmark exercise intensity.
PNOE key takeaways
- Regardless of age, gender, and fitness level, every person has one or more systems that limit fitness or health.
- Targeting these limitations effectively requires the precision that stems from focusing your cardio and interval training in the zone(s) that will bring about the adaptations needed to overcome them.
- The metabolic analysis provides gold-standard accuracy in determining your training zones and the plan that puts them to effective use.
- Understanding how your body responds metabolically and building your program around your metabolism is a foundational step toward maximizing your workout’s efficiency and achieving your health or performance goals faster and with less effort.
https://pnoe.com/blog/performance/common-training-mistakes-and-how-breath-analysis-can-help-you-avoid-them/