THANKS to all the volunteers for your dedication! THANKS to Klaus, head of programming at WOD-Science and overall an awesome dude :) --> What should we study next? 👇👇
Two comments: 1. As several people have commented, the test duration would need to be 6 months to a year to reveal the Zone 2 effect due to the nature of the ZONE 2 physiological adaptations. 2. The study would benefit from changing the exercise sequence. The Metcon and the Zone 2 workouts should be done before the strength training to insure that the subjects are not still biased to carbohydrates prior to starting their Zone 2 period. Thank you for the interesting info.
Could it be the case, that all the zone 2 benefits (mitochondrial adaptations) take months or years? I think one thing is a take away from the study: the TRIMP works. 😂
:) If you provided your results (PRE and POST) via the google survey, your results are included here. Not sure how you can see based on the graph whether you are in or not?
@ All my results were on the Strivee app, I didn’t see a Google survey :( my Cindy result was my only outlier that would have been easy to find on the results graph.
If you are doing a 2.0 version of this, I think two things would be interesting. 1. What about longer duration tests, i.e. the longform version of the FTP Test like 60 Minutes. I think one of the holes of "classical" CrossFit training is, that intermediate athletes crash if a training of steady state work is longer then 30-40 Minutes, no matter if its RPE 4-5 or 6-7 (my expierience). So to see if one version is more effectiv for sport like hyrox events then the other. 2. I would be interested in seeing the effects in body composistion, i.e. fatloss. Would be interesting to see, if other then performance indicators, one kind of trainng it more effectiv then the other for people trying to loose fat and get ripped, since that is a reason for a lot of people to start exercising.
Really surprised that there is no clear difference in FTP which makes me wonder how the results would look like if the zone 2 volume would be higher or the timeframe would have been longer. Are you planning a zone 2 project 2.0 with a dialed setup? You could argue that this zone 2 approach was not effective in building their FTP, as long as there is no clear difference between the groups? Furthermore I would be curious to see if the zone 2 group is able to recover more quickly (longer term) e.g. rated on perceived soreness/days to recover after the testing. For a clear FTP post testing picture the rest period after the crossfit total might also need to be lengthened - heavy legs imho interfere quite a lot with a 20min all out test.
Yes, 2.0 project is in the workings. I do think we cannot make the training period MUCH longer due to drop outs. A group that does basically no metcons and only conditioning (zone 2 and 4x4 intervals) would be interesting. For the rest, I fully agree to all your points. We might have to do the FTP on a single day without interference of other tests.
To what extent do you think the results of your study are driven by better recovery between high intensity sessions for the Zone 2 group? Lesser volume of high intensity training during the week should lead to a better ability to execute those sessions well, but potentially a worsened ability to perform in multiple high intensity sessions in a row as per the testing data. I wonder this because there seemed to be no real impact on the FTP test, suggesting that the Zone 2 work had no specific benefit to crossfit performance. Very interesting work, and I think it's awesome that you're sharing the data so freely! It's nice to see science conducted in this way
I think you make a lot of good points. It is all speculation of course, but the ZONE2 participants did tell us that they felt VERY sore in the post the post testing. Unfortunately I did not objectify this (will do in our next project). To answer some of those question I think we will need to survey the participants weekly on RPE and Fatigue levels to get a better idea. We launch similar projects next year, keep you posted.
Great study! Could it be that the study was not long enough to detect a signal? I’ve heard mitochondrial improvements happen at a longer time scale. I hope you can redo this for a 6-month period.
Great point. Yes, that is always a possibility. As ZONE 2 is obviously low-intensity, adaptations happen slowly but consistently. So I still do think, as mentioned in the discussion, that ZONE 2 could be a great approach to implement in certain parts of the season for medium to well trained athletes. But patience is key.
Certainly there as they did both strength and metcons in the same session. Nevertheless, if you structure this well, overall progress seems to be happening anyways.
I think we can learn to use these different styles through out a year. Do 12 weeks commercial and then deload with less stressful zone 2 type for 4 weeks.
Hard to compare specific training with non specific training. Why was no specific zone 2 training incorporated? And also what is your definition of zone 2, as it varies a lot between philosophy and sport?
Good point, but is very difficult to keep the intensity in check when you incorporate mixed modals functional movements as zone 2. People would simply go too hard all the time.
Could this be explained by the fact that in both groups, participants did more then enough exercise to lead to improvement and therefore any extra leads to no extra results?
Yes, and as we structured the Commercial group well, they performance gains are probably maxed-out as you pointed-out. Next time we take a random affiliate programming and use that as a control :)
According to the CF doctrine, the "traditional CF group" should have improved more than the group that had only two high intensity sessions and 3 moderate intensity sessions. The Glassman groupies won't be happy
Same thoughts. And as mentioned in the video, it seemed like the participants felt better (less burnt out) by implementing zone 2. Backed by a recent study in Frontiers: ua-cam.com/video/WL8tpiUZEi0/v-deo.html
@wod-science very nice study. Zone 2 is certainly beneficial but I wonder if the Zone 2 group was able to push a bit more in the two metcon days and in the strength parts compared to the group who did MetCons all the time. Is the training program published? I am curious to see what you did for the strength parts
THANKS to all the volunteers for your dedication!
THANKS to Klaus, head of programming at WOD-Science and overall an awesome dude :)
--> What should we study next? 👇👇
@@wod-science next: muscle endurance. How to and interferences with pure max strenght-and cardiotraining.
Two comments:
1. As several people have commented, the test duration would need to be 6 months to a year to reveal the Zone 2 effect due to the nature of the ZONE 2 physiological adaptations.
2. The study would benefit from changing the exercise sequence. The Metcon and the Zone 2 workouts should be done before the strength training to insure that the subjects are not still biased to carbohydrates prior to starting their Zone 2 period.
Thank you for the interesting info.
Could it be the case, that all the zone 2 benefits (mitochondrial adaptations) take months or years?
I think one thing is a take away from the study: the TRIMP works. 😂
Thanks for your work and research 🔬
Appreciate you watching!
I didn’t see my Cindy results on there :( I sold my soul for it both times
:) If you provided your results (PRE and POST) via the google survey, your results are included here. Not sure how you can see based on the graph whether you are in or not?
@ All my results were on the Strivee app, I didn’t see a Google survey :( my Cindy result was my only outlier that would have been easy to find on the results graph.
Very well designed study and great effort, thank you!
Appreciated! We put a LOT of work in this :)
Nicely done! 👏
If you are doing a 2.0 version of this, I think two things would be interesting.
1. What about longer duration tests, i.e. the longform version of the FTP Test like 60 Minutes. I think one of the holes of "classical" CrossFit training is, that intermediate athletes crash if a training of steady state work is longer then 30-40 Minutes, no matter if its RPE 4-5 or 6-7 (my expierience). So to see if one version is more effectiv for sport like hyrox events then the other.
2. I would be interested in seeing the effects in body composistion, i.e. fatloss. Would be interesting to see, if other then performance indicators, one kind of trainng it more effectiv then the other for people trying to loose fat and get ripped, since that is a reason for a lot of people to start exercising.
1. Yeah not sure about this - already very hard to pace a FTP for a regular CF-er.
2. Yep good point, we try to incorporate next time.
Really surprised that there is no clear difference in FTP which makes me wonder how the results would look like if the zone 2 volume would be higher or the timeframe would have been longer. Are you planning a zone 2 project 2.0 with a dialed setup? You could argue that this zone 2 approach was not effective in building their FTP, as long as there is no clear difference between the groups? Furthermore I would be curious to see if the zone 2 group is able to recover more quickly (longer term) e.g. rated on perceived soreness/days to recover after the testing. For a clear FTP post testing picture the rest period after the crossfit total might also need to be lengthened - heavy legs imho interfere quite a lot with a 20min all out test.
Yes, 2.0 project is in the workings. I do think we cannot make the training period MUCH longer due to drop outs.
A group that does basically no metcons and only conditioning (zone 2 and 4x4 intervals) would be interesting.
For the rest, I fully agree to all your points. We might have to do the FTP on a single day without interference of other tests.
Interesting, thanks for sharing the results.
Thanks for watching!
To what extent do you think the results of your study are driven by better recovery between high intensity sessions for the Zone 2 group? Lesser volume of high intensity training during the week should lead to a better ability to execute those sessions well, but potentially a worsened ability to perform in multiple high intensity sessions in a row as per the testing data.
I wonder this because there seemed to be no real impact on the FTP test, suggesting that the Zone 2 work had no specific benefit to crossfit performance.
Very interesting work, and I think it's awesome that you're sharing the data so freely! It's nice to see science conducted in this way
I think you make a lot of good points. It is all speculation of course, but the ZONE2 participants did tell us that they felt VERY sore in the post the post testing. Unfortunately I did not objectify this (will do in our next project).
To answer some of those question I think we will need to survey the participants weekly on RPE and Fatigue levels to get a better idea.
We launch similar projects next year, keep you posted.
Great study! Could it be that the study was not long enough to detect a signal? I’ve heard mitochondrial improvements happen at a longer time scale. I hope you can redo this for a 6-month period.
Great point. Yes, that is always a possibility. As ZONE 2 is obviously low-intensity, adaptations happen slowly but consistently. So I still do think, as mentioned in the discussion, that ZONE 2 could be a great approach to implement in certain parts of the season for medium to well trained athletes.
But patience is key.
For the beginners at 22:18 how do you build a better aerobic base?
This is a good start :) strivee.app/marketplace/plan/Je3VVT661kboXaDJVWYu
Super Nice study!!
What about the interference effect?
Certainly there as they did both strength and metcons in the same session. Nevertheless, if you structure this well, overall progress seems to be happening anyways.
I think we can learn to use these different styles through out a year. Do 12 weeks commercial and then deload with less stressful zone 2 type for 4 weeks.
Yes, that is a good approach. Vary intensity thoughout the year.
Would be interesting to see results if you matched training time instead of TRIMP
Yes, I agree.
That is what this study did: ua-cam.com/video/WL8tpiUZEi0/v-deo.html
Basically very similar results as ours.
Hard to compare specific training with non specific training. Why was no specific zone 2 training incorporated? And also what is your definition of zone 2, as it varies a lot between philosophy and sport?
Good point, but is very difficult to keep the intensity in check when you incorporate mixed modals functional movements as zone 2. People would simply go too hard all the time.
The zone 2 looks like they got 1%+ more than the commercial group. That's not statistically big but looks good to me.
Same thoughts, but obviously we cannot rule-out that this happened pure by chance.
Could this be explained by the fact that in both groups, participants did more then enough exercise to lead to improvement and therefore any extra leads to no extra results?
Yes, and as we structured the Commercial group well, they performance gains are probably maxed-out as you pointed-out.
Next time we take a random affiliate programming and use that as a control :)
According to the CF doctrine, the "traditional CF group" should have improved more than the group that had only two high intensity sessions and 3 moderate intensity sessions. The Glassman groupies won't be happy
Same thoughts.
And as mentioned in the video, it seemed like the participants felt better (less burnt out) by implementing zone 2. Backed by a recent study in Frontiers: ua-cam.com/video/WL8tpiUZEi0/v-deo.html
@wod-science very nice study. Zone 2 is certainly beneficial but I wonder if the Zone 2 group was able to push a bit more in the two metcon days and in the strength parts compared to the group who did MetCons all the time. Is the training program published? I am curious to see what you did for the strength parts