Being wintertime, with snow, cyclists can’t or don’t feel like riding outside. This is the time many of us ride an indoor trainer, and use a popular app like Zwift. Wintertime is also a good time to build up the upper body again, which when we ride a lot during the summer, either training or bicycle touring, suffers. Thus, during winter, we return to the gym to pump iron. Aside from riding a trainer and working out in a gym, this is also time to focus on your diet. With the end of the year holidays fast approaching, as most we end up eating too many carbohydrates and often gain weight. Focusing on eating some low carb meals is a must help tune our body and maintain an optimal weight for training. Nutrition is often one cause, if not usually the key reason, when we notice a slump in performance. Our performance depends on the intensity, duration, and frequency of our training.
While during summer, the main cycling season, we may do all kinds of cycling. If we pursue bicycle touring, our performance may vary, and although we may cover long distances, our cycling lacks systematic training. When I am cycle touring, I must carry gear hence need to drape my bike with bags. Even if I may ride at a pretty decent pace at a time, often I stop to admire something and to take pictures. This kind of riding is not building up endurance or speed, although it helps maintain a decent stamina. Hence, in winter is best to train systematically to become stronger cyclists and to prepare for the next season of cycle touring and bike travel.
As you have become more of an avid cyclist, you have certainly come across what’s called Maximum Sustainable Power – Functional Threshold Power, or FTP, one of the key training terms in cycling that refers to the maximum power you can sustain cycling for an hour. FTP is also an integral figure in setting your training zones, which you then can use to guide you in your training program.
How do you establish your FTP?
If you don’t know your FTP, you could ride “like mad” for an hour. Of course, that’s really painful. A lesser taxing option is to find out through a 20-minute test. However, for most, even 20 minutes may be too painful to endure. Luckily, there are other ways to figure out your aerobic exercise zones. Forget the most simplistic of them all, subtracting your age from 220. Instead, use Heart Rate Training Zone Calculator.
If you may struggle with what’s your Maximum Heart Rate and Resting Heart Rate, just consult your Garmin Connect to find what they were over the last 6 to 8 weeks; you should use at least your Resting HR / Waking HR from Connect, and look up your maximum HR in your Strava account – simply page through data of your last few rides and pick the highest heart rate you recorded, and plug the two numbers into the calculator. You’ll get:
Zone 1 – Active Recovery; Zone 2 – Endurance Building; Zone 3 – Tempo & Race Effort; Zone 4 – Vo2 Max; Zone 5 – Top End Power & Speed.
What will you want to do with these zones’ data? According to Exercise Physiology, the study of the acute responses and chronic adaptations to exercise, there is more than one way to improving your performance. While this post is not about pulling 50 to 80 years of research studies, ultimately one or two approaches or combination of both can achieve the desired goal – to become a stronger cyclist. As I noted above, the outcome not only depends on the intensity of your training but also the duration of the sessions and their frequency. But frankly, not only that. Much depends also on your focus and motivation, not to mention your personal situation, conditions and circumstance and support under which you train.
But never mind all of that. Your choices are: Interval training or riding in zones. While some avow you must do both, let’s make it simple. If you’re young, in your 20s and 30s, yes, your improvement will come quickly from doing a variety of painful intervals. If you’re a middle age to an older rider, suffering is unlikely your preference, hence best focus on the recently becoming the most popular topic among cyclists (although it’s not a new topic), revealing benefits of doing systematic training in Zone 2.
Let’s forget “critical power”, the power output that can be sustained during high-intensity exercise performance, namely riding in Zone 5. Instead, focus on the much-longer sustainable power output achieved in Zone 2. Forget Zone 1, that’s recovery zone, so use it for that, “to recover”.
The premise much hailed these days are the benefits of training in Zone 2, the Endurance Building zone. While you want to focus on riding in Zone 2, with any changes in topography at all, you will be slipping into Zone 3, the Tempo zone, and thus consequently to a higher heart rate and that’s OK. Fact is eventually riding even in Zone 2 will become non-sustainable, but it will take much longer than in Zone 5 or 4, of course.
Now, having established the desired intensity of training, the next questions is how far or how long, and how often. Per the recommendations of Iñigo San-Millán, a doctor focusing on cellular metabolism, cardio-metabolic disease, and also the head coach of the UAE Team Emirates, training the likes of elite riders as Tadej Pogačar, he emphasis training in Zone 2. Although he notes riders like Pogačar to win the premier races as Tour de France must train more than enough in Zone 5, he confirms they too must spend extensive hours in Zone 2. While Pogačar trains at least 30 hours per week, for most amateur cyclists including myself, San-Millán claims must ride a minimum of 300 minutes per week in Zone 2, and gradually increase the workouts to 400 minutes per week. That translates to approximately 60 minutes + per ride. Thus if you will stick to this 300 to 400 minutes per week minimum, you will ride 5 to 7 hours per week in Zone 2.
So much for intensity, duration, and frequency. But what does that really mean for a cyclist to train in a Zone 2? How do you really know you ride in Zone 2 other than the numbers you got from the Heart Rate calculator? Sure, you can track your heart rate in your cycling computer. But is there another way to tell that you actually ride in Zone 2?
Let’s break it all down further:
Zone 2, also known as the Endurance Zone, is a specific range of intensity used in training to improve your aerobic fitness and endurance. Put another way, this zone falls between 55-75% of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP).
Zone 2 is an intensity level where your body can primarily use fat as fuel and efficiently remove lactate, a byproduct of exercise. This allows you to train for longer durations without accumulating fatigue.
So how do you establish your Zone 2? Other than calculating your maximum power output over a set time, allowing you to calculate your Zone 2 based on that percentage, or measuring your blood lactate levels at different intensities, directly identifying your Zone 2, or using heart rate monitors and estimate your Zone 2 based on your maximum and resting heart rate mentioned above, you can use RPE, Relative Perceived Exertion. RPE is a subjective measure of how hard you feel you’re working, with Zone 2 typically feeling like a comfortable conversation pace with another cyclist riding next to you. When I ride alone outside I may talk loud to myself, or on an indoor trainer I read aloud from a tablet or a mobile phone mounted on my handlebars. Then what? Maintain a steady pace! Your effort should feel sustainable, conversational, and you shouldn’t feel out of breath or need to recover frequently.
I repeat, Zone 2 workouts typically should last at least 60 minutes for the first month of riding ideally your indoor trainer and then increase your rides to say 90 minutes per ride and ride 4 to 5 times a week. As you build your aerobic base, pay attention to any fatigue or discomfort you may feel and adjust your intensity accordingly. Monitor your heart rate and perceived exertion over time to see if your Zone 2 is changing.
What are the Benefits of Zone 2 training? In short, you will feel tangible improvement after a month or two:
Improved endurance: You’ll be able to sustain higher power output for longer durations.
Increased fat burning: Your body will become more efficient at using fat for fuel, especially during longer rides.
Reduced risk of injury: By training at a sustainable intensity, you’ll minimize stress on your body and reduce the risk of overuse injuries.
Improved recovery: Zone 2 training aids in faster recovery between harder workouts.
Keep in mind to “stay in Zone 2” for the duration of the ride. To stay in the zone means not to sprint and jack up your output to Zone 4 and 5 and then stop pedaling, coast and let your heart rate go down do Zone 1. This kind of riding, bouncing up and down between Zone 1 and 5, is counterproductive to a systematic training in Zone 2. You can sprint the last 300 meters of your one-hour+ / 30-minutes ride and perhaps reach your Zone 5 for a few seconds in the end of your ride, that’s OK, go for it if you feel like it, but for the duration of your Zone 2 ride you should stay diligently in Zone 2. That means, it’s better you pick rides that do not have too many or any steep climbs so you don’t have to step on it and climb up to Zone 5 and then rest coasting downhill to recover. Of course, as you get stronger, mix in sprints or intervals on separate rides, but for the first two months, just stay in Zone 2!