Hi folks, it’s Kelvin here. We Run coach for Leeds and the surrounding areas, as well as online coaching.
In this little video, I’m going to talk about training zones and why people get them wildly wrong most of the time.
That’s quite a big statement. I’m not usually calling people out for getting things wrong, but at the moment I’m seeing, over and over again, people training to zones and missing two fundamental points of training in zones.
Or maybe even three. I’ve just thought of another one.
Training Zones Are Not Just About Heart Rate
I think the first one is that people often default to thinking about heart rate when someone says “Zone 2 training”. They think about heart rate zones and assume zone training is all about heart rate, and it’s not.
It is a little bit about heart rate, but we also have pace zones, and we also have zones based on rate of perceived exertion. There are different ways to measure effort, and this is where the challenge comes with heart rate zones.
The Two Biggest Mistakes Runners Make
Most people get two things wrong.
The first is that they use the default heart rate zones that are set on Strava, Garmin, TrainingPeaks, or whatever platform they’re using. They just use the default heart rate zones, which are almost always a million miles away from where they should be.
The other thing is that they’re just using the optical sensor on the watch. They’re not using an optical armband or a chest strap, and the optical sensor on the watch isn’t accurate enough to train by.
How to Use Heart Rate Zones Properly
Only use heart rate zones if they’re set correctly, so you know how to set heart rate zones yourself, usually based on lactate threshold two rather than maximum heart rate, or you’ve had a coach who knows how to set heart rate zones do it for you.
Even then, when we go out and train, we’re actually training to rate of perceived exertion and then checking in on heart rate periodically throughout a run. Mostly, we’re using heart rate in retrospect. After the run, we’re checking to see where the zones sat in terms of time spent in each heart rate zone.
Why Perceived Effort Matters More
The reason for that is the difference between somebody’s top end of Zone 2, so LT1, when they’re fresh compared with when they’re fatigued, can be as much as 10 BPM.
So heart rate is something that we use as a guide to support rate of perceived exertion, but rate of perceived exertion is the main metric that we use when we’re training.
I hope this makes some sort of sense. If you’ve got any comments or questions, please pop them down below.
For now, happy running.
