What is Zone 2 Training? 

There are 7 zones of training. Heart Zone 1 is the easiest or lowest level of training – considered to be an active recovery type session. Heart Zone 7 is maximal effort for approximately 30 seconds, focusing on increasing neuromuscular power. 

Heart Zone 2 is a training zone where your heart rate stays between 60-70% of your max heart rate. This lower heart rate level allows you to move for longer periods of time, exceeding 2 hours. Not only is this zone great for training purposes, it’s also great for your health. 

Training in Heart Zone 2 increases your mitochondrial density, flexibility, and function. This means your mitochondria becomes more efficient and effective at using glucose or fat to produce energy. This increase in mitochondrial function will also improve your metabolic health, decreasing chances of metabolic disorders occurring. At lower heart rates our main source of energy/fuel should be coming from fats, but this is not the case for the majority of us. Most of the time at low heart rate training, our body resorts to using glucose as the main source of fuel. This is called metabolic inflexibility and can lead to many metabolic disorders later on in life. Training in heart zone 2 will increase your amount of mitochondria and its ability to use fat as energy for a longer period of time before it uses glucose. 

Training above zone 2 will not increase your ability to function in zone 2. But, training in zone 2 will increase your ability to perform in all zones above it. Once you cross over from training in heart zone 2 into other heart zones, you begin to burn more glucose and cause lactate to rise. High level athletes that are well trained can be good at using that lactate back into the mitochondria for fuel, but a lot of people are not. This means that a build up occurs and clearance of lactate becomes harder. What’s the best way to train this utilization of lactate ? Yes, training in Heart Zone 2.

Running is Heart Zone 2:

At first, running in Heart Zone 2 can seem painfully slow and very hard to maintain due to this low level of speed. Some people might need to walk in order to maintain your heart rate between 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. Fitter, more adept people might have to push a harder, more intense pace to even stay in heart zone 2. Some key indicators to tell if you are running in heart zone 2 are;

• Heart rate between 60-70% of maximum heart rate
• Can maintain a conversation whilst running
• Can breathe through nose if asked too

Over time, after spending a decent amount of time, days, weeks, months, training in this heart zone 2, you will see your performance increase. Your ability to move fast for the same time frame or even longer, at the same heart rate will increase. Your body will become more efficient at pumping oxygenated blood to the muscles, and you will become more efficient at burning fat as a fuel source.