The whole thing is relatively simple. At any given speed you have a certain carb/fat burn mix. The faster the more carb. Then you have some stored carb and some you can digest during the race. This gives you a certain max speed for a given duration. You can only go faster if you can fill up from the bottom with fat. The longer the race the more important your fat metabolism.
That's a really interesting way to put it and adds to the increased carb intake for high level endurance athletes over the last several years. Hitting the problem from both ends essentially
The way I picture it, we evolved as persistence hunters: we would run at a relaxed pace, but keep our prey running away from us at a gallop. The prey can only keep that pace for so long before overheating. But we can sweat, and we can modulate our breathing according to our needs, so we can last longer than the prey. A slow run tells our brain that we are not stressed, and we are not in danger. We're not getting chased or attacked. We're hunting, so the body can tap into fast stores for fuel. However, running at a much faster pace tells our brain that we're in danger. While the fat stores are an emergency energy source for famine, blood glucose is an emergency energy source for more acute threats. You won't need fat stores if a bear eats you in the next 10 minutes. Blood sugar helps us with fight or flight. So, running faster tells our reptile brain that we're about to die, while running slow tells us that we're about to eat. Thoughts?
Largely sensory feedback tells the brain if we are relaxed or under stress, not physical output. So the eyes ears etc. We use glucose for fuel at high intensities for sex, climbing trees, lifting weight etc as well as fight/flight/hunting.
Joe Friel I just checked and yes I have his triathlete training Bible on my go-to book shelf. Great guest and thanks for bringing up the Q about using gels on zone1/2 long runs. I run before breakfast and it's a lot harder and slower without the gels, and I will be using gels in the race. But good to know that gels should be minimized on the long run. Normally i keep a spare if I'm flagging and form is falling apart, and otherwise 1 per hour. I normally start after a gel ( no breakfast) . Might stop that now... But I expect pace to suffer
I’m a runner and bought The Triathlete’s Training Bible 4th Edition when it came out in late 2016 by mistake. That was the best mistake ever. I think that perhaps because of the title, many runners skip this book. It has made the biggest difference for my running. I bought the 5th edition when it came out last January. Absolutely great book. And best of all, if you run into trouble, Joe answers you on X. As usual, great podcast.
I'm 5 weeks out from a marathon. This hits me right where I live, too much running in zone 3 & 4! It make a ton of sense. I have just enough time to pivot. I'm down with 5 days easy, two days hard, but the easy days have been too fast, leading to a minor feeling of burnout. Thanks for a great post.
I have over 40 marthons done with half on trails and mountains and so much nonense is spoken about heart rate running and zones is amazing. You dont need to know your heart rate to successsfully run a marathon. Ideally join a running club but you can also jsut follow the general decades old rule that only 20% of your training sessions in a week need to be hard intense sessions with the rest at an easoer pace,. Also bear in mind that research done on elite runners and the conclusions draw for elite runners may not apply so easily to amateur and novice runners.
Nothing wrong with zone 3 or 4 running. Your body adapts to stress. Heart rate training serves a purpose, but people miss the forest for the trees. Zone 2 works by running for a really long time. Your body adapts to having to go for a long time so it becomes easier to run for that time. So heart rate drops. Now you can run slightly faster for that given period of time or run at the same pace you were at for slightly longer. And the process is described in this video. Zone 3 works the same way. You still build mitochondria. You still burn fat just less than zone 2. You build lactate threshold, you get slightly quicker, slightly more endurance, and you strengthen type 1 and 2 fibers. Zone 4 and 5 builds speed. The run faster but run less method. The idea is you run way faster than race pace and you keep building up speed. Eventually when you drop your speed it feels so slow that you can maintain that speed for a long time. Maf takes forever to really get results. And it gets hard to find the time to crank out enough running to make noticeable changes quickly. That's why everyone now is going to the 80/20 method.
@@insertrandomnamehere764 The 80/20 method is pretty standard and has been for a long time. Some many slow runners talk at length about their rates and heart rate zones, it is difficult to see why any of then believe they are getting any benefit from heart rates at all.
After mths & mths of running easy in zone2 you can shift longrun ability to around 2 1/2 to 2 3/4hrs. This really helps teach the body to oxidise fatty acids well past the 1hr 45 to 2hr mark then theres no bonk at all. When i used to run in zone3 thats usually the typical bonk around the 2hr/26-28k mark for alot of 3hr marathon racers in their longruns. If a 3hr racer can have the patience to cruise 28k in 2 1/2hrs without gels... the adaptations are so worth it 😊.
I wish people would talk more about how important the heart and vascular system are for improving aerobic fitness. You can be highly fat adapted and have horrendous aerobic fitness if you don't have the heart to pump enough oxygen to the muscles.
I think it takes enough time so that people have grown up with it and know that it works. So after a few years, once this is true, the new approach takes off. There has been long enough now that people have been training zone 2 to know it works.
I love using sportsscience for health. Friel says: "what we can measure improves" and to a big extend that rings true. Fitness is vague, runtimes on known tracks much less. Hence for health: times matter You can use the science discussed hear for healthfocused sports right now, no need to hope or wait for a different future. See: Rehabilitation sports for obeese heartill people is done with powermeters. These people go to their personal limits, often they need to just to climb stairs, relatively speaking they do "high performance" and in a reha phase/ clinic they do have goals as specific as races are. Measurements help if you work to be the best you can, no matter how slow that is (me now) . They don't help the guy in a cotton shirt who does 40kp/h averages on 20k on bis treckingbike by mindlessly pushing himself everytime possibble (me with 17). Then keep your priorities straight You can do friel for health now: clear goals still help, just choose wisely and consider health when choosing. 0.1: never forget mental health 1. maintain a low injury risk, 2. have and keep a healthy bodycomposition 3. Have a decent cardiovasculatsystem (vowmax) Multiple goals mean sacrificing some performance in one for betrer peeformance in the other. Triathlom has 3 sports and all of them need strength training so basically it's 4: he talks about balancing these in detail in his book. Now for health reasons I want to keep some heth related musclemass. Does that make me slower on the bike and when running? Yes, significantly but I chose it as a priority as any runner chooses family or carrer or whatever is more important for yoi in your live. Friels book talks about this right now as is. Finding your personal compromise is on you, always maybe a personal coach can help but no book ever can do that for you.
So accurate at 9min mark. Running in zone3 on a 1hr say 12km easy run then over excited fun runners think oh know i want marathon pace so they push 14km in that hour thinking its helping. Physiology 😊. 100%.
I would say mist definitely not, in a race you fuel as best you can at all times. The training side ensures you won't fully deplete glycogen during an event should you forget to fuel or need to go harder than expected.
I like to use Locomotor Respiratory Coupling. For me Zone 2 is a 7 step breathing cycle: 4 steps breathing in - 3 steps breathing in. Considering that I always run at +/- 180bpm, I know more accurately what zone I am in. If I increase to zone 4, my breathing cycle changes to 3 steps (2 im - 1 out) - I do absolutely disagree by waiting to eat carbs till 90min before eating carbs, especially during races. Only if you want to do fasting cardio, this is advised to train your fat burning capacity, but not during racing.
The one thing around the fat burning debate I wish was discussed is that in a race situation we will be using our glycogen stores predominantly. Whilst I agree the more we can train to be better fat burners the better, surely some training needs to be done to train the gut to consume carbohydrate when at high intensity? Otherwise your going to end up with all sorts of stomach issues?
Well yeah, Joe isn't suggesting you can just ride around counting to 1006 and win races. He says during the video you can't work on speed until you've built metabolic fitness - and he seems to think you have to ride at a low zone or level to do that. He may be right, but people like Coggan are suggesting that there's no physiological basis for that - you can find him talking on podcasts about zone 2 and other things to get the contrast. Personally I feel, unless your zone 2 power is high enough to make riding around everywhere at z2 practical you'd be better riding into z3 if need be. There seems to be too many interpreting this as meaning they can't ride up a hill and they're deciding they have to zone 2 work on a trainer - which is great if you're happy doing that, but for a cyclist who wants to cycle and train outdoors, but whose power isn't an elite cyclist, it's a bit ridiculous deciding 80% of your riding now can't take place because there are a few hills where you live. Coggan seemed to be saying that the idea metabolic improvements wouldn't happen if you went out of z2 into a higher zone wasn't supported by studies. Bottom line I guess, if you're the kind of person inclined to go maximum attack all the time then this advice would probably lead you to a better training plan because you drop the risk of overtraining and your hard days end up better because you're not trying to do 7 hard days. But if you're the kind of person who is inclined to be lazy and avoid hard efforts then you're likely to cling to ideas like 'Rides don't need to be long in z2 to benefit" "riding in z2 will make you fast" "rest days are important" to end up in a place where you're really not doing enough frequency, volume or intensity to improve your fitness. It's like when I started cycling I had no power meters or anything, I just bought a cheap hybrid and rode up and down a canal towpath for an hour every day. After a while I started going twice some days, once in the morning and again after I'd eaten. In terms of effort level I kind of went as fast as my fitness and conditions would allow. And I was fine. I got fitter. Eventually I started venturing off the flat canal and onto roads where the terrain was more varied with hills. Rides got longer. Now, if I'd read the typical lore on cycling websites and so on I would never have ridden 7 days a week. I would have decided you need rest days - but most amateur cyclists are nowhere near close to overtraining. It makes perfect sense for Pogcar to ride z2 mostly because (a) His zone 2 is fast - he can ride pretty much anywhere in z2, up mountains et al and (b) He does a huge volume of cycling - if he did z3 rides he'd fatigue. But that's really not the case for the majority of amateur cyclists. What Friel's advice would be good for is avoiding the zwift thing where you get a trainer and you connect to their software and it tells you straight away to do a ramp test and then starts suggesting you should do workouts - well it makes little sense for someone who is new to cycling to start doing ramp tests and big efforts and interval workouts - they should be doing easier, longer rides to build that metabolic fitness - but, you know, if they only have an hour a day to spare, riding at z2 is very quickly not going to be enough stress to trigger adaptations and if they are unfit and slow where they can't keep their heart rate low on a hill near their house - they should just ride up it anyway - they don't have to go maximum attack, but if their slowest pace uphill is still pushing their HR up, just ride up it.
I have a question that I've never seen anybody address. The ratio of fat to carbohydrate oxidation maxes out somewhere around 60-70% fat, which 60 being a more typical value for trained athletes. To keep the math simple, let's say I do a 1000 kcal effort. That means about 400 kcal will come from carbohydrate. If I don't fuel my effort, that will come from my glycogen stores. I need to replace that at some point. Since there are about 4 kcal per gram of carbohydrate, that's about 100 grams of carbohydrate that I have to take in (again, at some point). The advantage to taking in that carbohydrate during the effort is *not* just to avoid bonking. Your muscles can take in an order of magnitude more carbohydrate when active compared to being at rest. If I need to take in 100 grams of carbs and do it during my effort, I'm guaranteed not to spike my blood sugar. The muscles will just absorb it. If it do it while at rest, I've got to be careful to space that intake over a long period of time. Even with only a 1000 kcal effort, 100 grams of carbs is a lot. If I'm taking in pure sugar, that's probably going to take at up to 2 hours to absorb. If I mix proteins, fat and fiber to the mix, then it will take a lot longer. Is the training effect of avoiding carbohydrate intake during the effort (to maximise fat oxidation response) worth the complication of replacing the lost glycogen? I've never actually found any studies that talk about this. Perhaps it's not a problem, but I'm surprised that I've never heard anybody talk about it at all. Anecdotally, I went from being a die hard "I don't need to fuel anything less than 2 hours" to religiously fueling *every* effort. I just feel a *lot* better. It may be placebo, of course :-) I occasionally test that assumption and at least for now it seems to hold true for me. Any thoughts?
@@urouroniwa You bring up a great point, and I cannot point you to any scientific studies. Anecdotally, I do a 33 hour fast one time per week and do a workout on the day of the fast and another before breaking the fast. Every other workout is fueled. I started doing this to get my body to be able to quickly use whatever fuel is available--metabolic flexibility as some say. It has been incredibly successful. I went as far as 22 miles on a single path trail as my last workout to end the fast.
This is a VERY good question, and I think your logic is good. Some useful reading on the SFUELS website.......and their philosophy is to only on-board carbs after half an hour to an hour, depending on intensity, in order to ensure that the fat burning metabolic pathways are fully activated. My experience so far with this method is good. My runs in the region of 3 hour duration that include marathon pace intervals are certainly easier to complete with a little bit of carbs taken in during the second half of the run. And I feel better directly after the run.
Your body is always replenishing glycogen stores, but focusing on max fat oxidation efforts and zone 2 workouts is that it gives your body time to convert your fats into glycogen in your liver using the cori cycle. It is about the balancing act of not using glycogen faster than you can replace it that zone 2 is such an endurance zone.
Could be helpful to think about this as training you fat metabolism, rather than doing a fast/challenging training session. You train your fat m so that during a 5hr event you will use fewer carb thus reducing the possibility of glycogen exhaustion from either forgetting to eat, not eating enough or missing a fuel stop. If you never do any events longer than 3hrs then training your fat m may not be necessary at all?
Joe talks about the EF number where Average speed/average heart rate is easily doable when riding outside but if doing structured workouts on an indoor trainer speed will not be reflective of your effort (this applies to the Rouvy App which displays speed based on the terrain of the video being used) Would it be ok to substitute Average Power for Average speed? Power does reflect the amount of work being done ....what do you/Joe think?
Pogi has changed his coach to a more intensity based coach but I think it made him faster is because of the big z2 engine he had so now his body is able to absorb way more intensity and improve
There are teams, such as DSM, which train alot in high Z1. Their training wattages are around 180 or so for plenty of their training rides. For riders of that level it is hardly pedaling! Or at least they used to do so. Overall UAE trains hard, but that doesn't mean they neglect Z2. In training logs i've seen from McNulty there is lots of high Z2, around 130-140 HR range. Overall training style is still following pyramid or polarized model.
Before I read about MAF, I used to run as hard as I could at every session, always chasing a pb. The first run at MAF felt so easy, but more importantly, after I finished, I felt so light, almost euphoric. I had more energy after the run than I did before. PM had said that a good aerobic run is one where you feel like you could do it all over again, if you had to, and that's a great feeling. Goddamn...I feel like going for a little run right now. Peace ✌️
@@beerandchips2545 Frenakly it is very hard to beleive that any runner in 2024 would fun as hard as they could at every session - that simply makes no sense....so I dont believe that
@@chucky1golf So, 41 years as a SEAL, 1000's of parachute jumps, some accidents, 1000's of fast rope iterations and other high impact stuff. Knee pain? Yeah, but with zone 2 and carnivore diet, it is minimized.
@Nyelands I am looking at similar efficiency numbers and efficiency plots at various speeds, all on a track. You are spot on as to externalities. I am going to try to control other factors, including sleep quality, temperature, wind, time of day, diet, hydration, shoes, etc.
I do this and have been for about 2 years. It’s done on a treadmill--the same treadmill every time, same fan, and climate controlled. There’s still other factors, but same treadmill in a climate controlled environment goes a long way to comparing apples to apples.
I find that with a few days moving average that the efficiency factor is very consistent. When building up mileage I personally find that after 4 weeks at 110km/wk the efficiency factor starts to improve nicely. Another really cool thing is that you'd imagine that as you move into summer the hot temperatures would reduce the efficiency factor, but instead counter-intuitively I've found that mine improves quite nicely. Apparently the increase in blood plasma volume and red blood cell count from higher temperatures is the reason for this.
Does any non-semi pro or extreme recreational athlete here use lactate measurement, e.g. stay below 2.0, provided they do not have metabolic syndrome, for any given Z 2 training rather than chasing after an upper HR limit? If you experiment around you may find that your Z2 is a little too slow/fast.
Simply question that I cannot find the answer to. As a cyclist to be in zone? Is it by heart rate zone 2 or power zone 2. And then where in that range?
Funny that you mention Pogacar. San Milan is no longer his trainer; and his new trainer has lifted his performance to this new level with a training program that isn't quite as Z2 focused as the one San Milan prescribed. What are in general behind some of the biggest gains in cycling these days? Upping your ability to tolerate higher amounts of carbs. 120 grams is the new normal now, as 90 grams were some years ago.
…..and copious amounts of PEDs in the proper doses. The top 10 in the Tour toasted Lance’s times on climbs. Not 1. Nor 2. 10. When Lance defeated Jan Ullrich while Ulrich was doping (he got caught), I knew for sure Lance was doping. Now supposed clean athletes/--10 of them, are beating the doper Lance. Yeah right!
I feel bad suggesting that that the legend that is Joe Friel could be wrong. There is no way Mark Allen or Tadej P are “only using fat” when working in Zone 2. Nobody is. Yes, a well developed aerobic system will use more fat and proportionally less glycogen at the same intensity, but particularly as as athletes get stronger, fat cannot account for all of the considerable energy demands at their very high Z2 power. I think that what Joe describes as “fat burning” he meant to call “energy produced aerobically”, which is the burning of fat and carbs through aerobic metabolism, as opposed to “glycolysis”, which is the burning of glycogen outside of mitochondria in Type II fibers.
Did you watch or listen to what he is saying? There’s a crossover point mate. There’s also a zone where you are burning more fat than carbs. Pay attention next time or even do your research.
No he does mean fat burning. I do question the relevance of this approach too when Pogacar is saying the opposite, he trains his carb absorption and takes in 120g per hour during very hard efforts. But he may still do fat training outside races. If you are served by domestiques and can take on 120g then glycogen replenishment is not an issue, not as much for an ammateur solo eventer in a 5hr race who doesn't want to stop at food stos.
" Science" used also tell us that ice should be quickly applied to running injuries to aid faster recovery..." sceince' got that wrong - the swelling associated with many running injuries is the forst step in recovery.
No you have it wrong, the ice is applied periodically allowing blood flow to return in between for healing. Swelling is to prevent further use and impact injury, it's not related to repairing tissue. Link if you have evidence otherwise.
All good information except on fat burning. See research and reviews by Professor Tim Knoakes. And some athletes do half and full ironmans without any fuel. This fat and carbohydrate burning discussion is very outdated. Bonk is a carbohydrate depletion signal from the brain, not your muscles. The brain needs some carbs. Fat loss will not happen so long as insulin is high. See Professor Bikman's research and others. Again, dated information.
Hi, are you on social media? I’m working towards doing a full Ironman with little to no carbs. It would be great to interact. Big fan of Tim N particularly and Dan Plews for example.
Name ONE pro peleton rider who is on a Keto diet…. Oh that’s right there are exactly ZERO. Why ? Because for OPTIMUM performance carbs are the best fuel. It’s been proven for about 50 years or more now. Anyone has ever bonked will tell you it is most definitely not only related to the brain. The brain of course sends a signal- that’s what it does- to say holy shit my muscles and my liver have zero glycogen and turning the pedals is now impossible It is perfectly possíble to lose fat with high insulin because fat loss is related to calories. If you are in a calorie deficit you will lose fat as proven by hundreds of RHCTs
Fat loss will not happen once heart rate goes above zone 2. For higher heart rate the body needs carbs as a source for fuel because carb break down faster for usage then breaking down stored fat. Muscles & the liver store glycogen (carbs). So if u push heart rate higher than zone 2, then yes incorporate adding carbs in foods for running. Elite athletes can stay in zone 2 for 85% of the race and then towards the end they put the hammer down towards zone 5 heart rate. That’s when the body needs carbs for fuel. Low carb is best for zone 2 training and staying away from all refined carbs to keep the body fat adapted using ketones for fuel
@jsf8145 No, no, and no. Look, all that you are parroting is from Professor Tim Knoakes, who wrote the book on carbohydrates and athletes. You really need to read his more up to date work and reviews of the scientific literature on carbohydrates, fat burning, and athletes, including elite athletes. And don't forget Professor Bikman's research.
zero talk about the real physiology a pity just mention what an important change there is supposed to be. Was into this kind of training for 2 years and i am looking for sth a little different. Not all specialists agree on that topic. I am low carb keto already so mostly fat burner which makes it maybe less a fat burning question, not touched of course at all. Why do i get much more tired after a slow run compared to a faster run. So many interesting aspect to this question but all i hear is what i have heard from maffetone interviews already!
It's like index investing for retirement.Mist people know about it but everyday new people learn about it. And just like index investing It's soo simple that people don't think it could be as powerful as it is. And just like index investing it takes time to see the compounding benefits start to work.
Zone running has now just become an excuse to keep churning out junk videos that appeal to those who just cant be othered put in the conssistent trainign thaty brings real improvement
He's talking about a simple consumer device, anyone is qualified to talk about that. Previously he was commenting on someone going into specifics of biology or physiology while not being a biologist etc. Chill out.
The whole thing is relatively simple. At any given speed you have a certain carb/fat burn mix. The faster the more carb. Then you have some stored carb and some you can digest during the race. This gives you a certain max speed for a given duration. You can only go faster if you can fill up from the bottom with fat. The longer the race the more important your fat metabolism.
That's a really interesting way to put it and adds to the increased carb intake for high level endurance athletes over the last several years. Hitting the problem from both ends essentially
Subbed. Because you have interviewed the greats Such as Phil Maf and Mark Allen . True Legends when I was growing up .
The way I picture it, we evolved as persistence hunters: we would run at a relaxed pace, but keep our prey running away from us at a gallop. The prey can only keep that pace for so long before overheating. But we can sweat, and we can modulate our breathing according to our needs, so we can last longer than the prey.
A slow run tells our brain that we are not stressed, and we are not in danger. We're not getting chased or attacked. We're hunting, so the body can tap into fast stores for fuel.
However, running at a much faster pace tells our brain that we're in danger. While the fat stores are an emergency energy source for famine, blood glucose is an emergency energy source for more acute threats. You won't need fat stores if a bear eats you in the next 10 minutes. Blood sugar helps us with fight or flight.
So, running faster tells our reptile brain that we're about to die, while running slow tells us that we're about to eat.
Thoughts?
Largely sensory feedback tells the brain if we are relaxed or under stress, not physical output. So the eyes ears etc. We use glucose for fuel at high intensities for sex, climbing trees, lifting weight etc as well as fight/flight/hunting.
What about when we are running away from danger at a nice relaxed pace...
Joe Friel I just checked and yes I have his triathlete training Bible on my go-to book shelf. Great guest and thanks for bringing up the Q about using gels on zone1/2 long runs. I run before breakfast and it's a lot harder and slower without the gels, and I will be using gels in the race. But good to know that gels should be minimized on the long run. Normally i keep a spare if I'm flagging and form is falling apart, and otherwise 1 per hour. I normally start after a gel ( no breakfast) . Might stop that now... But I expect pace to suffer
I’m a runner and bought The Triathlete’s Training Bible 4th Edition when it came out in late 2016 by mistake. That was the best mistake ever. I think that perhaps because of the title, many runners skip this book. It has made the biggest difference for my running. I bought the 5th edition when it came out last January. Absolutely great book. And best of all, if you run into trouble, Joe answers you on X. As usual, great podcast.
I'm 5 weeks out from a marathon. This hits me right where I live, too much running in zone 3 & 4! It make a ton of sense. I have just enough time to pivot. I'm down with 5 days easy, two days hard, but the easy days have been too fast, leading to a minor feeling of burnout. Thanks for a great post.
I have over 40 marthons done with half on trails and mountains and so much nonense is spoken about heart rate running and zones is amazing. You dont need to know your heart rate to successsfully run a marathon. Ideally join a running club but you can also jsut follow the general decades old rule that only 20% of your training sessions in a week need to be hard intense sessions with the rest at an easoer pace,. Also bear in mind that research done on elite runners and the conclusions draw for elite runners may not apply so easily to amateur and novice runners.
Nothing wrong with zone 3 or 4 running. Your body adapts to stress. Heart rate training serves a purpose, but people miss the forest for the trees.
Zone 2 works by running for a really long time. Your body adapts to having to go for a long time so it becomes easier to run for that time. So heart rate drops. Now you can run slightly faster for that given period of time or run at the same pace you were at for slightly longer. And the process is described in this video.
Zone 3 works the same way. You still build mitochondria. You still burn fat just less than zone 2. You build lactate threshold, you get slightly quicker, slightly more endurance, and you strengthen type 1 and 2 fibers.
Zone 4 and 5 builds speed. The run faster but run less method. The idea is you run way faster than race pace and you keep building up speed. Eventually when you drop your speed it feels so slow that you can maintain that speed for a long time.
Maf takes forever to really get results. And it gets hard to find the time to crank out enough running to make noticeable changes quickly. That's why everyone now is going to the 80/20 method.
@@insertrandomnamehere764 The 80/20 method is pretty standard and has been for a long time. Some many slow runners talk at length about their rates and heart rate zones, it is difficult to see why any of then believe they are getting any benefit from heart rates at all.
After mths & mths of running easy in zone2 you can shift longrun ability to around 2 1/2 to 2 3/4hrs. This really helps teach the body to oxidise fatty acids well past the 1hr 45 to 2hr mark then theres no bonk at all. When i used to run in zone3 thats usually the typical bonk around the 2hr/26-28k mark for alot of 3hr marathon racers in their longruns. If a 3hr racer can have the patience to cruise 28k in 2 1/2hrs without gels... the adaptations are so worth it 😊.
I wish people would talk more about how important the heart and vascular system are for improving aerobic fitness. You can be highly fat adapted and have horrendous aerobic fitness if you don't have the heart to pump enough oxygen to the muscles.
I think it takes enough time so that people have grown up with it and know that it works. So after a few years, once this is true, the new approach takes off. There has been long enough now that people have been training zone 2 to know it works.
Hoping the next change is too people like me - who care about fitness not times.
I love using sportsscience for health.
Friel says: "what we can measure improves" and to a big extend that rings true. Fitness is vague, runtimes on known tracks much less.
Hence for health: times matter
You can use the science discussed hear for healthfocused sports right now, no need to hope or wait for a different future.
See:
Rehabilitation sports for obeese heartill people is done with powermeters. These people go to their personal limits, often they need to just to climb stairs, relatively speaking they do "high performance" and in a reha phase/ clinic they do have goals as specific as races are.
Measurements help if you work to be the best you can, no matter how slow that is (me now) . They don't help the guy in a cotton shirt who does 40kp/h averages on 20k on bis treckingbike by mindlessly pushing himself everytime possibble (me with 17). Then keep your priorities straight
You can do friel for health now: clear goals still help, just choose wisely and consider health when choosing.
0.1: never forget mental health
1. maintain a low injury risk,
2. have and keep a healthy bodycomposition
3. Have a decent cardiovasculatsystem (vowmax)
Multiple goals mean sacrificing some performance in one for betrer peeformance in the other.
Triathlom has 3 sports and all of them need strength training so basically it's 4: he talks about balancing these in detail in his book.
Now for health reasons I want to keep some heth related musclemass. Does that make me slower on the bike and when running? Yes, significantly but I chose it as a priority as any runner chooses family or carrer or whatever is more important for yoi in your live. Friels book talks about this right now as is.
Finding your personal compromise is on you, always maybe a personal coach can help but no book ever can do that for you.
So accurate at 9min mark. Running in zone3 on a 1hr say 12km easy run then over excited fun runners think oh know i want marathon pace so they push 14km in that hour thinking its helping. Physiology 😊. 100%.
Also Pogicar has changed to a Spanish coach, he’s now doing zone 2 until he’s burnt x KJ and then he does efforts.
Great podcast - question. What about when you start a race (ironman) does he suggest nothing for 1.5-2 hours??? Whats his racing nutrition?
I would say mist definitely not, in a race you fuel as best you can at all times. The training side ensures you won't fully deplete glycogen during an event should you forget to fuel or need to go harder than expected.
EXCELLENT video. You asked all the questions I was thinking at the same time.
I like to use Locomotor Respiratory Coupling. For me Zone 2 is a 7 step breathing cycle: 4 steps breathing in - 3 steps breathing in. Considering that I always run at +/- 180bpm, I know more accurately what zone I am in. If I increase to zone 4, my breathing cycle changes to 3 steps (2 im - 1 out) - I do absolutely disagree by waiting to eat carbs till 90min before eating carbs, especially during races. Only if you want to do fasting cardio, this is advised to train your fat burning capacity, but not during racing.
*My hat is off to Mr. Friel.*
The one thing around the fat burning debate I wish was discussed is that in a race situation we will be using our glycogen stores predominantly. Whilst I agree the more we can train to be better fat burners the better, surely some training needs to be done to train the gut to consume carbohydrate when at high intensity? Otherwise your going to end up with all sorts of stomach issues?
Well yeah, Joe isn't suggesting you can just ride around counting to 1006 and win races. He says during the video you can't work on speed until you've built metabolic fitness - and he seems to think you have to ride at a low zone or level to do that. He may be right, but people like Coggan are suggesting that there's no physiological basis for that - you can find him talking on podcasts about zone 2 and other things to get the contrast.
Personally I feel, unless your zone 2 power is high enough to make riding around everywhere at z2 practical you'd be better riding into z3 if need be. There seems to be too many interpreting this as meaning they can't ride up a hill and they're deciding they have to zone 2 work on a trainer - which is great if you're happy doing that, but for a cyclist who wants to cycle and train outdoors, but whose power isn't an elite cyclist, it's a bit ridiculous deciding 80% of your riding now can't take place because there are a few hills where you live. Coggan seemed to be saying that the idea metabolic improvements wouldn't happen if you went out of z2 into a higher zone wasn't supported by studies.
Bottom line I guess, if you're the kind of person inclined to go maximum attack all the time then this advice would probably lead you to a better training plan because you drop the risk of overtraining and your hard days end up better because you're not trying to do 7 hard days. But if you're the kind of person who is inclined to be lazy and avoid hard efforts then you're likely to cling to ideas like 'Rides don't need to be long in z2 to benefit" "riding in z2 will make you fast" "rest days are important" to end up in a place where you're really not doing enough frequency, volume or intensity to improve your fitness.
It's like when I started cycling I had no power meters or anything, I just bought a cheap hybrid and rode up and down a canal towpath for an hour every day. After a while I started going twice some days, once in the morning and again after I'd eaten. In terms of effort level I kind of went as fast as my fitness and conditions would allow. And I was fine. I got fitter. Eventually I started venturing off the flat canal and onto roads where the terrain was more varied with hills. Rides got longer. Now, if I'd read the typical lore on cycling websites and so on I would never have ridden 7 days a week. I would have decided you need rest days - but most amateur cyclists are nowhere near close to overtraining. It makes perfect sense for Pogcar to ride z2 mostly because (a) His zone 2 is fast - he can ride pretty much anywhere in z2, up mountains et al and (b) He does a huge volume of cycling - if he did z3 rides he'd fatigue. But that's really not the case for the majority of amateur cyclists.
What Friel's advice would be good for is avoiding the zwift thing where you get a trainer and you connect to their software and it tells you straight away to do a ramp test and then starts suggesting you should do workouts - well it makes little sense for someone who is new to cycling to start doing ramp tests and big efforts and interval workouts - they should be doing easier, longer rides to build that metabolic fitness - but, you know, if they only have an hour a day to spare, riding at z2 is very quickly not going to be enough stress to trigger adaptations and if they are unfit and slow where they can't keep their heart rate low on a hill near their house - they should just ride up it anyway - they don't have to go maximum attack, but if their slowest pace uphill is still pushing their HR up, just ride up it.
is there any way to adopt this method to rowing???? also is this the same sort of training as famous distance running coach ARTHUR LYDIARD
I have a question that I've never seen anybody address. The ratio of fat to carbohydrate oxidation maxes out somewhere around 60-70% fat, which 60 being a more typical value for trained athletes. To keep the math simple, let's say I do a 1000 kcal effort. That means about 400 kcal will come from carbohydrate. If I don't fuel my effort, that will come from my glycogen stores. I need to replace that at some point. Since there are about 4 kcal per gram of carbohydrate, that's about 100 grams of carbohydrate that I have to take in (again, at some point).
The advantage to taking in that carbohydrate during the effort is *not* just to avoid bonking. Your muscles can take in an order of magnitude more carbohydrate when active compared to being at rest. If I need to take in 100 grams of carbs and do it during my effort, I'm guaranteed not to spike my blood sugar. The muscles will just absorb it. If it do it while at rest, I've got to be careful to space that intake over a long period of time. Even with only a 1000 kcal effort, 100 grams of carbs is a lot. If I'm taking in pure sugar, that's probably going to take at up to 2 hours to absorb. If I mix proteins, fat and fiber to the mix, then it will take a lot longer.
Is the training effect of avoiding carbohydrate intake during the effort (to maximise fat oxidation response) worth the complication of replacing the lost glycogen? I've never actually found any studies that talk about this. Perhaps it's not a problem, but I'm surprised that I've never heard anybody talk about it at all. Anecdotally, I went from being a die hard "I don't need to fuel anything less than 2 hours" to religiously fueling *every* effort. I just feel a *lot* better. It may be placebo, of course :-) I occasionally test that assumption and at least for now it seems to hold true for me. Any thoughts?
@@urouroniwa You bring up a great point, and I cannot point you to any scientific studies. Anecdotally, I do a 33 hour fast one time per week and do a workout on the day of the fast and another before breaking the fast. Every other workout is fueled. I started doing this to get my body to be able to quickly use whatever fuel is available--metabolic flexibility as some say. It has been incredibly successful. I went as far as 22 miles on a single path trail as my last workout to end the fast.
This is a VERY good question, and I think your logic is good.
Some useful reading on the SFUELS website.......and their philosophy is to only on-board carbs after half an hour to an hour, depending on intensity, in order to ensure that the fat burning metabolic pathways are fully activated. My experience so far with this method is good. My runs in the region of 3 hour duration that include marathon pace intervals are certainly easier to complete with a little bit of carbs taken in during the second half of the run. And I feel better directly after the run.
Your body is always replenishing glycogen stores, but focusing on max fat oxidation efforts and zone 2 workouts is that it gives your body time to convert your fats into glycogen in your liver using the cori cycle. It is about the balancing act of not using glycogen faster than you can replace it that zone 2 is such an endurance zone.
Could be helpful to think about this as training you fat metabolism, rather than doing a fast/challenging training session. You train your fat m so that during a 5hr event you will use fewer carb thus reducing the possibility of glycogen exhaustion from either forgetting to eat, not eating enough or missing a fuel stop. If you never do any events longer than 3hrs then training your fat m may not be necessary at all?
Everyone in this comments section is an expert it seems
Joe talks about the EF number where Average speed/average heart rate is easily doable when riding outside but if doing structured workouts on an indoor trainer speed will not be reflective of your effort (this applies to the Rouvy App which displays speed based on the terrain of the video being used) Would it be ok to substitute Average Power for Average speed? Power does reflect the amount of work being done ....what do you/Joe think?
Pogi has changed his coach to a more intensity based coach but I think it made him faster is because of the big z2 engine he had so now his body is able to absorb way more intensity and improve
There are teams, such as DSM, which train alot in high Z1. Their training wattages are around 180 or so for plenty of their training rides. For riders of that level it is hardly pedaling! Or at least they used to do so.
Overall UAE trains hard, but that doesn't mean they neglect Z2. In training logs i've seen from McNulty there is lots of high Z2, around 130-140 HR range. Overall training style is still following pyramid or polarized model.
One of the best Joe Friel interviews I've seen. Great work!
Thanks Paul! :)
Zone 2 is the sh!t. Low injury, great aerobic capacity, gives you a great foundation when and if you integrate intervals.
Before I read about MAF, I used to run as hard as I could at every session, always chasing a pb. The first run at MAF felt so easy, but more importantly, after I finished, I felt so light, almost euphoric. I had more energy after the run than I did before. PM had said that a good aerobic run is one where you feel like you could do it all over again, if you had to, and that's a great feeling.
Goddamn...I feel like going for a little run right now. Peace ✌️
@@beerandchips2545 Frenakly it is very hard to beleive that any runner in 2024 would fun as hard as they could at every session - that simply makes no sense....so I dont believe that
Sore knees?
@@chucky1golf So, 41 years as a SEAL, 1000's of parachute jumps, some accidents, 1000's of fast rope iterations and other high impact stuff. Knee pain? Yeah, but with zone 2 and carnivore diet, it is minimized.
Problem with the Efficency Factor (speed/avg. HR) is that HR is effected by factors like temperature, sleep etc. So how do you trust that number?
@Nyelands I am looking at similar efficiency numbers and efficiency plots at various speeds, all on a track. You are spot on as to externalities. I am going to try to control other factors, including sleep quality, temperature, wind, time of day, diet, hydration, shoes, etc.
I do this and have been for about 2 years. It’s done on a treadmill--the same treadmill every time, same fan, and climate controlled. There’s still other factors, but same treadmill in a climate controlled environment goes a long way to comparing apples to apples.
I find that with a few days moving average that the efficiency factor is very consistent. When building up mileage I personally find that after 4 weeks at 110km/wk the efficiency factor starts to improve nicely. Another really cool thing is that you'd imagine that as you move into summer the hot temperatures would reduce the efficiency factor, but instead counter-intuitively I've found that mine improves quite nicely. Apparently the increase in blood plasma volume and red blood cell count from higher temperatures is the reason for this.
You follow the average and not single runs.
Ah, I like the count to one thousand 6 test. Thanks...
Quick question if doing this in the morning should I be having breakfast or run or cycle for an hour and then eat while out?
Does any non-semi pro or extreme recreational athlete here use lactate measurement, e.g. stay below 2.0, provided they do not have metabolic syndrome, for any given Z 2 training rather than chasing after an upper HR limit? If you experiment around you may find that your Z2 is a little too slow/fast.
Simply question that I cannot find the answer to.
As a cyclist to be in zone?
Is it by heart rate zone 2 or power zone 2.
And then where in that range?
Usually HR, find an online calculator and put in your max hr it will show your zones.
Question , do you have to eat during a Z2 ride, any distance?
Yes if you get hungry/energy knock ofc but as have as little as you can.
Tim Noakes says 10gs of CARBS per HR is all the body needs during longer workouts ..
Ha, I thought he meant count to 1,006 without taking a breath!
😊
If he was 30 and using the MAF method that would be 150 not 125.
MAFF allows to adjust +5/-5 under certain circumstances
@@jonathan9506 but not 25. Regardless, Mark was training at 155 as Joe has stated many times. He just had a brain fart :)
Funny that you mention Pogacar. San Milan is no longer his trainer; and his new trainer has lifted his performance to this new level with a training program that isn't quite as Z2 focused as the one San Milan prescribed.
What are in general behind some of the biggest gains in cycling these days? Upping your ability to tolerate higher amounts of carbs. 120 grams is the new normal now, as 90 grams were some years ago.
@@61651092is that 120g per hour?
…..and copious amounts of PEDs in the proper doses. The top 10 in the Tour toasted Lance’s times on climbs. Not 1. Nor 2. 10. When Lance defeated Jan Ullrich while Ulrich was doping (he got caught), I knew for sure Lance was doping. Now supposed clean athletes/--10 of them, are beating the doper Lance. Yeah right!
Eating vegetables and fruit n starches , my wife dropped 50 lbs. for us eating fat packed on the pounds over the years
I feel bad suggesting that that the legend that is Joe Friel could be wrong. There is no way Mark Allen or Tadej P are “only using fat” when working in Zone 2. Nobody is. Yes, a well developed aerobic system will use more fat and proportionally less glycogen at the same intensity, but particularly as as athletes get stronger, fat cannot account for all of the considerable energy demands at their very high Z2 power.
I think that what Joe describes as “fat burning” he meant to call “energy produced aerobically”, which is the burning of fat and carbs through aerobic metabolism, as opposed to “glycolysis”, which is the burning of glycogen outside of mitochondria in Type II fibers.
Did you watch or listen to what he is saying? There’s a crossover point mate. There’s also a zone where you are burning more fat than carbs. Pay attention next time or even do your research.
Spot on!!!
Cylists clearly use nutrition dirubng races so they cant be relyin just in fat
No he does mean fat burning. I do question the relevance of this approach too when Pogacar is saying the opposite, he trains his carb absorption and takes in 120g per hour during very hard efforts. But he may still do fat training outside races. If you are served by domestiques and can take on 120g then glycogen replenishment is not an issue, not as much for an ammateur solo eventer in a 5hr race who doesn't want to stop at food stos.
Didn’t catch the trick counting thousands, From thousand 1 to 6 in one breath?
Yes. Must be counting to 6 while running.
No one sits down and eats a bowl of sugar for a meal….alas, put fat with it or salt and it’s a whole new world
Why are the 2 hard days never discussed? 😂
He wasn’t running at a pulse of 125 but ok lol
" Science" used also tell us that ice should be quickly applied to running injuries to aid faster recovery..." sceince' got that wrong - the swelling associated with many running injuries is the forst step in recovery.
No you have it wrong, the ice is applied periodically allowing blood flow to return in between for healing. Swelling is to prevent further use and impact injury, it's not related to repairing tissue. Link if you have evidence otherwise.
All good information except on fat burning. See research and reviews by Professor Tim Knoakes. And some athletes do half and full ironmans without any fuel. This fat and carbohydrate burning discussion is very outdated. Bonk is a carbohydrate depletion signal from the brain, not your muscles. The brain needs some carbs. Fat loss will not happen so long as insulin is high. See Professor Bikman's research and others. Again, dated information.
Hi, are you on social media? I’m working towards doing a full Ironman with little to no carbs. It would be great to interact. Big fan of Tim N particularly and Dan Plews for example.
Name ONE pro peleton rider who is on a Keto diet…. Oh that’s right there are exactly ZERO. Why ? Because for OPTIMUM performance carbs are the best fuel. It’s been proven for about 50 years or more now. Anyone has ever bonked will tell you it is most definitely not only related to the brain. The brain of course sends a signal- that’s what it does- to say holy shit my muscles and my liver have zero glycogen and turning the pedals is now impossible
It is perfectly possíble to lose fat with high insulin because fat loss is related to calories. If you are in a calorie deficit you will lose fat as proven by hundreds of RHCTs
Fat loss will not happen once heart rate goes above zone 2. For higher heart rate the body needs carbs as a source for fuel because carb break down faster for usage then breaking down stored fat.
Muscles & the liver store glycogen (carbs). So if u push heart rate higher than zone 2, then yes incorporate adding carbs in foods for running.
Elite athletes can stay in zone 2 for 85% of the race and then towards the end they put the hammer down towards zone 5 heart rate. That’s when the body needs carbs for fuel.
Low carb is best for zone 2 training and staying away from all refined carbs to keep the body fat adapted using ketones for fuel
@jsf8145 No, no, and no. Look, all that you are parroting is from Professor Tim Knoakes, who wrote the book on carbohydrates and athletes. You really need to read his more up to date work and reviews of the scientific literature on carbohydrates, fat burning, and athletes, including elite athletes. And don't forget Professor Bikman's research.
@@SandyWhiskerYes. Search my name. I replied previously, but some a$%hat flagged my reply.
haha 125 is my zone 1, waste of time.
The target is maximum running time at/near LT1 (aerobic threshold), not the BS 180-age like MAF.
zero talk about the real physiology a pity just mention what an important change there is supposed to be. Was into this kind of training for 2 years and i am looking for sth a little different. Not all specialists agree on that topic. I am low carb keto already so mostly fat burner which makes it maybe less a fat burning question, not touched of course at all. Why do i get much more tired after a slow run compared to a faster run. So many interesting aspect to this question but all i hear is what i have heard from maffetone interviews already!
Because you are low carb keto of course. Z2 needs carbs
Z2 works … shocker. 20 year old news
It's like index investing for retirement.Mist people know about it but everyday new people learn about it. And just like index investing It's soo simple that people don't think it could be as powerful as it is. And just like index investing it takes time to see the compounding benefits start to work.
Pogacar stopped this zone 2 silliness and became 20% better 😂
Zone running has now just become an excuse to keep churning out junk videos that appeal to those who just cant be othered put in the conssistent trainign thaty brings real improvement
According to his latest interview that's BS.
180-30= 125? lol c’mon now I’m questioning how credible you’re now…but I’ll listen to the end
I was pretty surprised he continued on with that huge error. 125 is a massive difference from 150.
Elite athletes max heart rates are much lower, could be 180x0.7=126 for zone 2
@@LubaWanghe was specifically speaking on the MAF 180 formula…
@@LubaWang Max HR is not something you train it is something you are born with. Has nothing to do with being pro or not.
23:40 What is your degree in? Is is technology? How do you know we will soon have a wearable device to measure lactate? Likewise, stay in your lane.
He's talking about a simple consumer device, anyone is qualified to talk about that. Previously he was commenting on someone going into specifics of biology or physiology while not being a biologist etc. Chill out.