Peak Centre Training Zones Seminar Notes by Mike McIvor Peak Centre for Human Performance Burnaby • West Vancouver
The Purpose of An Assessment
The purpose of assessments is to determine the areas of fitness that an individual need to train to meet their goals and to define those areas in terms of heart rate and/or speed/pace and watts. Greater focus and precision in your training leads to better results. Often small changes in how you approach your training will lead to big changes in your performance.
Since you’re already putting in the training, why not ensure you’re doing it right?
To Book Your Assessment
Give us a call at the Peak Centre at
604-299-7959 to book your assessment at either our Burnaby location or new West Vancouver location.
Threshold & Zones
Assessment Options (15% off with 5 or more from the clinic!)
Lactate, VO2 Max + Energy Usage Analysis:
Identifies your precise aerobic training zones
Speed/power zones defined
Heart rate zones defined
Carbohydrate & fat utilization at each training zone
VO2max
Metabolic efficiency
Speed/Power at VO2 Max
Zone 5=== 2-5 min (1500m)
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Zone 4
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Lactate Threshold
Zone 3 ===20-60min (~ 10K, 40K TT)
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Zone 2 ===½ Marathon & most Mtn Bike racing
Aerobic
--------2hrs + (~Marathon/IM/Mtb Stage Races)
Threshold
Zone 1
Consultation with one of our exercise physiologists to explain the science of training, what the results mean and how you can use them to improve your training
COST: $195.00 + HST
This is the evaluation that we recommend to clients being tested for the first time with PEAK Centre. It provides a complete analysis of your current trained state.
Lactate Analysis to Max:
Identifies your precise aerobic
training zones
Speed/power zones defined
Heart rate zones defined
Consultation with one of our exercise
physiologists to explain the science of
training, what the results mean and
how you can use them to improve your
training
COST: $145.00 + HST
This is the basic assessment that will identify your training zones. We typically use this type of assessment as a follow-up to determine how your training zones have improved. The assessment is conducted in two 1-hr sessions: the assessment and the consultation.
How to Train Each Zone
Zone 1 Sessions
The purpose of training Zone 1 is to raise your aerobic threshold and build your aerobic base. This is the type of training required to train your slow twitch muscle fibres and teach the intermediary fibres the characteristics of slow twitch fibres. The aerobic threshold determines how we perform in events that are 2 hours and beyond.
This zone is best trained by heart rate because most of us do our zone 1 work outside. Remember that, although we provided speeds or paces for Zone 1 for runners, as soon as the grade changes then speed/pace is no longer and accurate way of determining intensity.
For a Zone 1 session, try and move
between the middle and top of your Zone 1 heart rate range. Avoid keeping your heart rate right at the top of the zone for long periods of time. By moving up and down through the top half of the zone (which you do naturally as you run on rolling terrain) you change the recruitment pattern of fibre and speed the rate of adaptation.
For cyclists, you can use power for your zone 1 work if you have a power meter. Keep in mind that each power meter measures wattage slightly differently so make sure that your heart rates correlate over the first few weeks of training.
Summary:
- focus on HR as your guide for these sessions (the only exception is power for cyclists)
- move up and down in the middle to top half of the zone. Avoid holding at the top of your zone for extended periods.
- 40 minutes or longer if time permits
Zone 2 Sessions
For the most part, Zone 2 is a junk miles zone. Spending significant amounts of your training time in Zone 2 teaches the intermediary muscle fibres to behave like fast twitch fibres and that has a detraining effect.
However, events less than 2 hours like half marathons are likely raced in Zone 2. If you are planning to race in Zone 2 then a portion of your training time should be spent in this zone as you get 6-8 weeks out from your event. The purpose of this Zone 2 time is to train you to tolerate Zone 2 type intensities.
Summary:
- avoid this zone for the most part
– it is counter productive.
- if it applies as an event specific zone then spend up to 15% of your training time here is the last 6-8 weeks before race day.
Zone 3 Sessions
The purpose of Zone 3 sessions is to raise your lactate threshold. The lactate threshold determines how we perform in events 20-60 minutes in length and in some cases can act as a limit on our ability to raise our aerobic threshold.
Whenever possible for Zone 3 work, we prefer to use something other than heart rate to monitor the session. As our bodies heat up or dehydrate, our heart rate will naturally start to drift up even if the work load or speed hasn’t changed so with intensity work it is difficult to use heart rate as a rigid guide for training.
There are a couple of options for training Zone 3. The most effective session for raising your lactate threshold is a set of intervals around it. This is why we give you a top and a bottom of Zone 3 – they are the top and bottom of the interval (with no recovery in between). A typical session would be 5 minutes at the top of Zone 3 followed by 5 minutes and the bottom of Zone 3 and then back to the top of Zone 3, etc. The goal is to make these session last anywhere between 20-40 minutes.
Everybody’s tolerance to lactate is different so if your first session only lasts 6 minutes, don’t sweat it. Just try and make the next session 8 minutes and keep building it up from there. Zone 3 sessions are hard and designed to make you fail – the idea is to give it everything you have and success is measured by getting a little further than you did last time. At the end of a Zone 3 session you should feel like that was the hardest thing you’ve ever done!
For runners we recommend using tracks or treadmills to guide the session – that way you can easily monitor the session by speed or pace.
For cyclists, if you have a power meter you can do the session just like you would on a treadmill – move between the top and bottom of Zone 3 by wattage. If you don’t have a power meter, you can do these sessions by heart rate – it’s just a little trickier. Heart rate will drift during intensity sessions or during intervals and heart rate takes a couple of minutes to stabilize after a change in intensity, so instead of doing intervals, we suggest more of a steady-state or tempo session. The idea is to go as hard as you can for 20-30 minutes. If your heart rate starts to drift out of Zone 3 into Zone 4 or even Zone 5 – that’s OK. Err on the aggressive side. Because you are able to hold the intensity for 20-40 minutes, it means you’re in Zone 3. If it was a true Zone 5 intensity, you’d only be able to hold it for 2-5 minutes.
Summary
- use speed, pace, power, dist, time, etc. to gauge intensity in this zone
- err of the aggressive side for zone
3. Never hold back to keep your heart rate in the specific zone if you can go harder for the 25-40 minute duration.
Zone 4 Sessions
Zone 4 is an event specific zone – you train it if it is relevant to your event. Events that require repeated medium length, high intensity bursts use this zone. Examples are short distance mountain bike racing (max intensity climbing) or road racing where you’re climbing or responding to breaks in the pack. If your focus is on long distance racing like triathlon or running races, this is a zone of little importance for you, especially at this time of year.
Zone 4 is trained through intervals of 5-10 minutes as hard as you can go with 5 minutes of recovery in Zone 1.
Zone 5 Sessions
The purpose of Zone 5 sessions is to improve your max aerobic speed or max aerobic power (otherwise known as your speed or power at VO2max). Your max aerobic speed determines how we perform at events that are 2-5 minutes long and can potentially act as a limiting factor to the improvement of your aerobic threshold and lactate threshold.
Improving your max aerobic speed or power is accomplished through longer traditional interval sessions. The interval should be between 2-3 minutes long followed by a 4-6 min recovery in Zone 1 or below – whatever is required to maximize recovery between intervals.
For runners, these sessions can be done on the track or on the treadmill. The idea is to go as fast as you can at a consistent speed for the interval. The goal is to go as fast as you can for the 2-3 minutes and keep increasing the speed week over week.
If doing these sessions on the track, we suggest you introduce some kind of performance marker. Run the first 2 minute interval and at the end drop a baseball cap or a water bottle to indicate how far you were able to make it in the 2 minutes.
Start the next interval at the same spot and try to get further than the baseball cap in the next 2 minute interval. If you miss the baseball cap significantly twice in a row, your session is over. If you can successfully complete more than 10 intervals, then you’re not going fast enough.
The goal is between 10-20 minutes of time in Zone 5.
For cyclists, these sessions can be done on a hill or on a flat section – the key is to go as hard as you can for a 2-3 minute interval. It is best to do this kind of session seated and at a regular cadence (80-100 rpm)
If you haven’t done much speed work lately, work at adding the new intensity slowly – try 2 intervals the first week and build up gradually. Typically Zone 5 sessions involve just 3-4 repeats.
Training Program Development
Training athletes is what we specialize in at the Peak Centre. If you’re interested in some further help in combining your clinic runs with cross training or adding some strength work into your training then feel free to give us a call or send us an email and we can give you some details on our customized training program options.
Reassessment
The great thing about our fitness is that it changes over time. Assessments serve 2 main purposes:
1) Determine optimal training intensities
2) Evaluate the effectiveness of last training block.
Your training zones will change as your fitness changes. Not only will the speed and paces change but the heart rate ranges will change as well as your thresholds move up down relative to each other. Regular assessment allows us to ensure that you are training in the right zones. Small changes in how you do your training can make dramatic changes in how effective that training is.
Reassessments allow you to objectively determine how your fitness has changed through the training phase and allows us to ensure that we are seeing the improvements we need to see. If you have been putting in the training time and we’re not seeing the improvements we expect to see then your approach needs to change.
Good luck with your training and racing!
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help!