KO Triathlon Coaching Corner

Heart Rate Triathlon Training

Before I get into the heart rate training. I wanted to take a moment to address the fact that the world is being turned upside down with the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of you have been training for the upcoming triathlon season, and everyone's races are either being postponed or cancelled. My heart goes out to everyone that's been training so hard for their race and not knowing if or when you'll compete. It goes without saying that it's the right thing to do and we'll all get through this.

While we're in this racing holding pattern, I would suggest getting your pain cave up and running. Low impact bike trainer workouts are great along with the occasional light treadmill session. Now is also a good time to get the strength sessions going too. I would recommend staying away from the pool venues until things get back to normal.

Here are a few links that I'm using to keep informed about the races and the virus.
Ironman - https://www.ironman.com/updates
Joe Rogan - https://apple.co/33eCbuA
Peter Attia - https://www.instagram.com/peterattiamd/

Triathlon Zones

You’ve probably heard someone say, "run slow if you want to run faster". Heart rate training for triathletes can very polarizing. This means that for the vast majority of your training you either do really light intensities (not very difficult) or really hard intensities (quite difficult). The light one is to build your aerobic engine, strengthening your heart and lungs and your cardiovascular system. While also burning fat doing the workouts. The hard intensities make you stronger, faster and better, so you are building a big base of fitness and making yourself faster. In the polarized training approach, there is no middle ground.

Zone 2 training shell-shocks a lot of people. Because once we calculate our heart rate zones (future blog post), people are astounded at what light intensity is, how easy they need to go with the easy workouts. This is a indication of how much potential you’ve got because if you can do all the workouts that you been doing up to this point and your bottom end, your low zones one and two aren’t really trained that well. Think about how much better you could be once you are trained doing this light intensity.

Now people who embrace this training philosophy reluctantly do the work and don’t see the results right away but are trusting that its going to end up working out. This training method is not easy to do and adaptation could takes a minimum of 6 weeks to 3 months. Sure some people could see results right away, but for those just starting out in their fitness program it could take up to a half a year. The other thing that doesn't get people to excited about zone 2 training is that it’s so boring and mundane to go so slow, sometimes even to the point of walking. If you cant keep your heart rate down then you need to slow down or maybe even walk. The competitor in you will feel like you’re not putting forth the proper effort to gain fitness or speed and it feels like your taking a step backwards. But you have to be patient and know that your building your cardiovascular system to compete during a race. 

So what's really happening when you train in zones 1 and 2?

Zone 1 and Zone 2 training helps you build endurance, durability and strength. These easy training sessions help build capillary pathways that transport oxygen to your muscles and take lactate acid away from your muscles. Also, when you train at low intensities like zones 1&2 over the course of the off season and during the base building period of your training block. You’re training your heart to stay at a lower heart rate. Then when your race season begins, your speed improves while your heart rate stays at that lower rate. You'll be going faster and it’s taking a lot less out of you. Your perceived exertion is lower and it doesn’t feel difficult. 

Just think, when everyone else around you is huffing and puffing, you’re staying nice and calm. Imagine your in a race and those around you are pushing themselves at 160 beats per minute and you’re at 140 bpm at the same pace! It’s most likely that their going to get fatigued and slow before you do. They’re practically red-lined and you’ve still got room to push yourself to your top-end heart rate. 

The gray zone trap

There are a lot of athletes that tend to make the big mistake and feel that they have to push themselves in every workout. They train not to hard, and not to easy, but somewhere in the middle. It's called the gray zone. These are the athletes that know only one speed. If their workout calls for an easy bike, they'll take it up a notch and push the intensity. Thinking that their going to get better because they did a big effort. But in fact they've depleted their energy levels which in turn effects their recovery for the next workout. Usually, a typical training plan has a harder workout following an easy day. But if you've pushed that easy day workout now you're fatigued and can't put forth the high quality effort needed to make you stronger and faster. 

Stay out of the gray zone trap and you'll be able to reach your goals! Besides keeping you in performance hell, the gray zone can lead to fatigue if you’re doing all your workouts at the same level. I promise you if you do the easy workouts as prescribed your hard workouts will improve and your fitness won't plateau.      

How zone percentages should be used in a training plan

So what should be the amount of time be spent in each zones during training? 

Zone 1 and 2: target 80 - 85%

Zone 3: (this zone is really used for the 70.3 and up distances.) target 15 - 20%

Zone 4: 10 - 15%

Zone 5: 2 - 5%

Zone 1 - very easy effort. 3-4/10 on the RPE scale (rate of perceived exertion, "how hard does it feel to you"). 

Zone 2 - still easy, 5-6/10 on the RPE scale.

Zone 3 - starting to get uncomfortable, 7/10 on the RPE scale.

Zone 4 - threshold, sprint and Olympic pace 8-9/10 on the RPE scale.

Zone 5 - short burst efforts 9 to 10 on the RPE scale.

Hope this zone training post was helpful! The main thing to remember is to slow down and stay in your prescribe workout heart rate zone . Go easy when it says easy and when it's time to push it hard, go hard! Stay safe out there!