[00:00:00] James Breese: Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts.
[00:00:06] Josh Kennedy: Today's topic is do you even have a zone 2? Over the past year or so in the health and fitness industry, it's become hugely popular. Something James and I have been talking about for a long, long time. But it's made its way into the mainstream. Obviously really important for health and longevity.
[00:00:22] Josh Kennedy: James, do you want to just explain... What is Zone 2, briefly, in case people don't know? Well, I
[00:00:29] James Breese: think the best way to think about it is, it's just like the training zone, the lowest type of training zone you can do. I. e., it's meant to be quite easy. It's like, in terms of the science bit, it's training below your aerobic threshold, where your sub aerobic threshold primarily uses fat as the main source of fuel for training.
[00:00:50] James Breese: So it's meant to be an easy recovery zone. where it's really good for endurance athletes to help them build their aerobic base to help them go faster for longer [00:01:00] and more efficiently. I think that's a very simple way to put it. So you're working about 67 percent of your maximum heart rate, sometimes even lower, but it's a very easy level of training where you can hold a conversation and keep on going for as long as you want to.
[00:01:14] James Breese: It's, it's that easy basically.
[00:01:17] Josh Kennedy: Yeah. As you say. Conversational pace is probably a really, really, the simplest way, um, to, to, to put it. I think if you want to go even more technical, because this, this, uh, this topic came from a video I watched on YouTube called Shervin shares, uh, which we're going to share in this show notes as well.
[00:01:37] Josh Kennedy: Um. And the sort of, the father of Zone 2 training, as he defines it, is a guy called Inigo Sammilan. I hope that's how you pronounce it. And technically, he defines it as between having 1. 7 to 1. 9 millimoles of lactate in your blood. That is incredibly complicated. So, conversational! That's a much easier way to put it.
[00:01:58] Josh Kennedy: To put it, [00:02:00] isn't it? Um, in terms of, sort of, the way we do it, the Maffetone method is what we use. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
[00:02:08] James Breese: Yeah, so like, I'd go back Maffetone is the godfather of Zone 2, before even zones were a thing. Right back in the day. And this is where we got the Maff method from then.
[00:02:17] James Breese: Where he uses a way of trading sub aerobic threshold, which is using your heart rate. So it's 180 minus your age plus or minus five depending on your training age ability and If you are, you are sick basically. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got all those levels that's, they started from there. So I think the two of them together are, are really fascinating.
[00:02:37] James Breese: But I can't pronounce his name properly, but I it is, he's the, for, at the forefront of zone two training at the moment in terms of health and research and science. That's why he was on, uh, Peter Attis podcast. He has been quite a lot and he works with some of the highest level.[00:03:00]
[00:03:05] James Breese: So, yeah, these guys are actually experts, but these guys have access to labs most of the time, and we don't. So how do you make it practical? And then when he shared this video and like showing how this guy wanted to learn all about zone two and wanted to train zone two, and then like, I thought, you know, I'll let you, I'll let you say the punchline, but what was his conclusion at the end of that video, Josh?
[00:03:26] Josh Kennedy: Well, it was really interesting. So this is why it sparked my interest is because he said, you know, that the title is, I tried zone two training for two, for three months, um, He had a lot of testing to do. He went to a lab to, you know, define his zone 2 very specifically. So they were looking at lactate.
[00:03:44] Josh Kennedy: It's very technical. He had blood work done and he had a DEXA scan to get his fat mass and lean body mass and stuff all. So he had, you know, so he could compare how it changed over those 3 months. And what I found absolutely fascinating, and it's not [00:04:00] something I had ever considered before, is that he didn't have a zone 2.
[00:04:05] Josh Kennedy: So, not just like he wasn't physically able to, to train there, metabolically, he didn't have a zone 2, in the simplest sense, um, he was burning carbohydrates all the way through and there wasn't really any point where he was really utilizing all of it. a lot more fat than carbohydrate and essentially that metabolically that's how you define your zone two you should be majority burning fat and not burning carbs and he really didn't have a zone where this was the case and it really made me think of our clients over the years who've you know perhaps been struggling with math Training, they've struggled to, they've found it difficult, they've struggled to keep their heart rate down, and it's not something that I ever considered to think, well, metabolically, do they have a zone 2, because I just thought, okay, well, if you're, if you're walking, if you're slow, doing a bit of walk, jog, or [00:05:00] whatever, then, yeah, your body's just gonna, you know, it knows what to do, it's gonna burn more fat, but, That seems to be that that is not necessarily the case.
[00:05:09] Josh Kennedy: I know
[00:05:09] James Breese: it. I, I, that's the thing I found fascinating as well, is it explains why people struggle so much and they hate it so much or they get really frustrated with it. 'cause they do, they get really frustrated with it. 'cause it's not what they're used to. And the guy in the video, Sherman share, he looks fit on the, on the front of it.
[00:05:25] James Breese: He looks really fit and healthy. He looks buff. He looks like he works out.
[00:05:29] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, he works out. He trained, he did. Obviously he did more strength and more high intensity training. He hadn't really done zone two at all which then when you look at it from that point of view is that well that makes perfect sense Why he doesn't have a zone two, but I just never thought That that would be possible from a metabolic standpoint We always think of it in terms of strength Like if you don't train for muscular endurance, you won't have it If you don't train for hypertrophy, you won't have it.
[00:05:54] Josh Kennedy: If you don't train high intensity, you'll struggle with it I never thought about it from an aerobic point of view
[00:05:59] James Breese: Mmm, [00:06:00] I think it's because it shows that you took it for three months, so it's a long period of training to change your whole dynamic to training as well. It's, you've got to think about this, so we've always known it's been a long process to get people ready to even get to, but now you throw this into the equation where they probably haven't got any, because they've just literally, they've never trained it before.
[00:06:18] James Breese: And a lot of people have never trained it before, and they struggle with it. And they try and do it, they get frustrated, they give up. So. Yeah, I just think, I think this is a great video to share an insight into the mindset and now to show some data Behind it too from the lab to show that yeah, this doesn't exist.
[00:06:34] James Breese: I think it's great So we're all for zone 2, the whole world is for zone 2 right now in terms of training. Everyone's for zone 2 now Everyone's for zone 2 now. We've been saying it for years banging your head against a brick wall half the time But now everyone's saying it which is great, you know, maybe Maybe our banging against the wall and sharing this with the world has helped in some respects, but I think it's not because we haven't covered enough, but It's great that people are talking about it.
[00:06:58] James Breese: It's great that we're now seeing this [00:07:00] but obviously the more more research that comes out and more anecdotal stories like this the better I think Because I think that's what we need to get the message out that zone 2 or your Subaerobic threshold training is vitally important for your health longevity, and more importantly, your performance to allow you to recover faster.
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[00:07:50] James Breese: Don't wonder.
[00:07:56] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, exactly.[00:08:00]
[00:08:01] Josh Kennedy: Obviously, you're not going to go and get, and get tests and laboratories, so it's like, okay, well, how do they work out their zone two then? And math is probably still the best, best method after watching this video. Although his didn't correlate exactly, his math calculation wasn't too far off. So it put him.
[00:08:21] Josh Kennedy: Um, taking the test into account, it put him in about 100 between 136 and 142. And I believe his math would have been around just under 1 50. So not too far off at the top end of where it was calculated for him. He did. He had to do a lot of walk, jog, a heck of a lot of walk, jog to keep in the right zone, um, which obviously is what we recommend for people.
[00:08:45] Josh Kennedy: So what I would say is if you are doing zone two training, you struggling. Try not to get frustrated because it's not your fault. It does take time, um, to develop an actual aerobic threshold to develop a zone 2. [00:09:00]
[00:09:00] James Breese: Yep, exactly. So a fascinating story. I will leave a video in the show notes down below. And we'll also leave it on the website too.
[00:09:07] James Breese: So you can have a watch on it to just watch the video and yeah, just take it in from what we saw it. So I think it's a great video. To learn from and just talk about it to share this awareness about zone two
[00:09:17] Josh Kennedy: in them. Absolutely. Yeah, we highly recommend Everyone do some zone two training and let us know your feedback to us.
[00:09:24] Josh Kennedy: Let us know how it goes That is it for today Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe and if you want to find out more about our system of training Go to strengthmatters. com forward slash system