Low Intensity Training for High Performance

In this episode of Tribe Triathlon, Coach John Mayfield explains the what, how, and why of low intensity training.  Low intensity training, often characterized by zones 1 & 2, is a critical component of any long-course athlete's training, but is often misunderstood and none done properly.  This episode will provide all the information needed understand low intensity and get the most from it!
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Welcome to TRIbe Triathlon. Where long course triathletes come to train smarter, race stronger, and live better. Hosted by John Mayfield, a passionate coach with more than a decade of experience racing and guiding athletes from first-timers to professionals and everyone in between, TRIbe Triathlon is your weekly resource for practical wisdom, grounded strategies, and honest conversations about the sport we love. We dive deep into the science and art of triathlon—from training and recovery to nutrition, mindset, and gear—while keeping sight of what matters most: staying physically and mentally healthy, balancing family and faith, and thriving beyond the finish line. Whether you're chasing a PR or your first IRONMAN finish, join the TRIbe and elevate your long course journey—one episode at a time.
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Produced by: Bella Mayfield

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Are you a lawn forced traffic juggling career, family, and social life, but still facing performance, still showing up early, grinding out sessions, and facing PRs? Then this is your podcast. I'm John Basil, a traffic coach and athlete, and I've coached hundreds of athletes just like you. Busy professionals with big goals and limited time and no interest in wasting either. Welcome to try to track long. Your go-to show for everything you need to train smarter, to race faster, and fall even more in love with the sport of traffic log. Whether you're self-coached and looking for trusted information, or you've got a coach and just looking for an edge, this goes training. Every Tuesday, I'll bring you clear, actable items to help you train more efficiently and race better. To get more out of every training block, every recovery session, and every race. From swimming cycling and running to recovery acts, mental prep to race the next future. You'll need every episode with something you can use immediately in your next training session or race. There are a lot of travel on podcasts out there. This one is built on real coaching experience, real results, and a real passion for helping athletes like you reach your potential. So if you're ready to train smarter, reach faster, and love the process, hit subscribe and I'll see you every Tuesday. Hey guys, so whenever you're young, you know exactly how old you are. Somebody asks uh a young kid what how old they are, boom, they're gonna know the answer immediately. You reach a certain point where you kind of forget, you kind of lose track. Uh I'm now in my mid-40s, and usually if someone asks how old I am, it takes me a minute or two to think back, and it's like, what was my last birthday? Oh yeah, I'm I'm 46, so even doing that now. Uh that's kind of where we're at on podcast episodes. So uh first one, two, three, four, five episodes, I knew exactly what number we're on. Now we're up into the double digits and I've kind of lost count. So welcome to whatever uh number episode this is. Um I am super excited to be announcing uh our first camp of 2026. It is May 7th through 10th in St. George, Utah. It is known as the land of endurance. Uh, it's a beautiful uh location and a beautiful time of year to be there in St. George. Um, it should be good timing as race season is is really coming into full swing there uh in early May. And our focus is going to be a couple things. One is going to be swim technique. So I look forward to spending some one-on-one time with each of the campers to work on technique. Uh, also going to be working on bike handling skills. There are some really great routes all around that St. George area. There's the uh famous Snow Canyon. Uh, so we'll definitely be checking out uh that. We'll also be talking about the four horsemen and helping each uh each athlete that attends to dial in each one of those metrics so that they can perform their absolute best on race day and everything that I do, all the camps I host, uh one of the top priorities is having lots of fun and making new friends. So we'll absolutely be doing that as well. So check out tribetrathlon.net slash camp for more information and to register for our camp. So for our diving in today, we're going to be discussing the 2025 professional triathlete earnings. So uh there was recently released the top five men and women. They were both competing for uh total prize purse of$16.9 million. So that's all of the T100 races, all of the Iron Man races combined for a total purse, both men and women, of$16.9 million. There were 17 men that earned$100,000 or more uh from race events. So that doesn't include any of the sponsorship side gigs, any of that. This is simply uh winnings from events. So our top five, uh no surprise, Christian Blumenfeld right there at the top. Uh total earnings of$369,000, the vast majority of that coming from racing Iron Man events. Uh number two, Hayden Wilde,$356,000. So uh kind of right up there close with uh number one, but earned it in a very different way. Nothing from Iron Man, all$356,000 coming from PTO T100 events. Uh number three, Helgen's uh$328,000, again, a little bit from Iron Man, vast majority coming from PTO and T100 events. And then uh Casper Storns, number four, 320,000. Uh again, vast majority coming from Iron Man, the little bit coming from PTO, and then Meek and Newt, 262,000, nothing from Iron Man, all of it coming from PTO and T100 events. So we can kind of see here where uh there are some athletes that focus on the Iron Man events, some of the athletes focus on the PTO events, or maybe they just race better uh in an Iron Man event or a PTO um event. Moving on to the women. Uh they again they were part of that same$16.9 million purse. There were also 17 women that earned$100,000 or more. Uh so exactly even between the men and the women. Top five. Number one, Kate Waugh, uh total$338,000. So comparable to the men. Uh, and similar story. Nothing from Iron Man, all of that income coming from PTO and T100 events. Next, Kat Matthews,$325,000. All from Iron Man, nothing from PTO. And Soloveg, our Iron Man World Champion,$323,000. Obviously, a good chunk of that uh from Iron Man. She won obviously the world championship, but also Lake Placid. Just a little side note, I will say we did a sweat test on Solareg right before Iron Man Lake Placid. She went on to win that event and then went on to win Kona. I'm not sure if it's correlation or causation. I'll let you decide, but uh it was pretty cool to uh have that uh right before she uh really blew up uh by winning the uh world championship. Next, Lucy Charles Barclay, 323,000. Uh kind of surprising here on this one. Only 90,000 from Iron Man and 232,000 from PTO T100 events. And then Julie Darren, 285,000, 21 from Iron Man and 264 from PTO. So this kind of mirrors what the men are doing. It's uh they tend to focus either on the Iron Man events or the PTO events and uh are able to, I think, kind of spread the wealth in that way. Uh if it was more concentrated, I think we would see shorter, uh, less numbers on this. Uh, it would probably be some higher totals for those individuals. But I think having the two different uh opportunities here between Iron Man and PTO is allowing more income for more of these professionals. Now, uh, these are professional athletes. A lot of these guys work full-time uh in the sport. It's what they do, it uh is their source of income. Um, but uh it's it's a hard life. Um so just throwing out an example, uh, the 2025 Masters golf tournament, uh, the total prize purse for just this one event, it's a four-day uh golf tournament, it's$21 million. So in four days, uh these golfers are uh competing for a prize purse that is uh about four million dollars more than the entire year's worth of professional traffic. And the top prize for that$4.2 million. So uh that's about a million dollars a day uh for the winner. And um they're still for the top, I'm not sure how many, probably I'm guessing maybe top five to top seven are still making a million dollars or more uh over the weekend. So uh obviously quite lucrative uh to be a really good golfer. Now, uh obviously I would say the the biggest difference is your TV audience. So um golf has a huge presence, so they have a whole lot of sponsors, tons of revenue uh that they are then able to pass on to the athletes, whereas uh triathlon has a very small uh television audience, uh, so not near the opportunities for revenue and that sort of thing. Most of this revenue is coming from uh trathlon companies, uh those companies that are uh related to Trahlon, uh, whereas golf and other sports are getting the big brokerage houses and all sorts of things like that. So what do you think? Should professional trathletes earn more? Uh they're probably putting in the same amount of hours as your professional golfers, football, basketball, baseball guys that are making uh millions of dollars per year. Uh so what do you think? Should professional triathletes earn more? All right, so today we are going to be discussing low intensity training and the benefits of training at low intensity. So, in our discussion of low intensity training, we're going to discuss what is it? What is low intensity training? How do we determine what low intensity training is? How do we do it? Why do we do it? And what are the benefits of doing low intensity training? So uh first up, we want to define what is low intensity training. There's uh I would say a lot of confusion around it. Uh how do we define it? And again, why are we doing this? What is the point? Um, why do we do the low intensity training when we could be doing high intensity training? Why uh run slow when we could run faster? Why cycle easy when we could cycle harder? So basically, it is a difference between our two primary energy systems that we have within our body. So uh those are known as the aerobic energy system and the anaerobic energy system. The primary difference between these two is your aerobic is with oxygen, anaerobic is without oxygen. So basically, what this means is your aerobic energy system is primarily being used at an intensity where your body can supply enough oxygen to where uh it is not exceeding the need. So basically, there's enough oxygen to meet the needs of the uh intensity that's being exerted. On the other side, uh, at some point we will exceed that effort level, that intensity, to where our our body can no longer supply adequate oxygen uh to support that intensity. So we go into that anaerobic state. So um these two different energy systems need to be trained, and they are trained in different ways, they are used in different ways and have different benefits between them. Uh additionally, we talk about lactate threshold. Uh so this is another means of defining what is low intensity. Uh so lactate threshold is the intensity at which lactic acid can no longer be cleared. So a byproduct of uh our our muscles working is metabolic waste, lactic acid, and that is one of the functions that um the blood that is flowing through our muscles is achieving. So there is this byproduct being produced. There is a certain point, kind of like where the body can no longer supply adequate oxygen, the body can no longer remove all of that lactic acid. So because not all of that lactic acid is being removed, it will build up. Um, and there are side effects of that lactic acid building up. Um, so that is where we uh draw the line there on high intensity, low intensity. So low intensity, you are able to clear all of the lactic acid uh that your body is producing. So there is no buildup. Uh, once we cross over that lactate threshold, we will actually begin to see a certain amount of lactic acid build up um in the blood supply. And uh so we'll see that as defining that as our threshold of low intensity, high intensity. These two are very correlated. Uh, they tend to be statistically around the same, maybe not exactly the same, but uh very similar, and they are interchangeable, so you could uh look at one versus the other in determining what is your low intensity. So at that low intensity, uh we utilize fat and oxygen as our primary energy source. So that's basically ATP. ATP is the uh energy uh system of the body, it's created in the mitochondria. Um, so you have that fat supply um and it is slow to convert. So uh basically we have unlimited amounts of fat stores so far as energy goes. So even our leanest uh have have basically uh almost unlimited supply of energy. And those like me that carry a few extra pounds around, um, yeah, if we could actually convert all of that fat to energy, we'd be able to uh do some really long events. Um, again, largely an endless supply of energy stored in our fat. Uh, however, it is slow to convert. So uh we are able to utilize fat and oxygen primarily in that aerobic state or below that lactate threshold for our energy. But then once we begin to cross over into that anaerobic state uh above the lactate threshold, we are now relying primarily on carbohydrates for our energy. So um carbohydrates convert much faster. Uh, so that is why we primarily use carbohydrates in our sports nutrition, because uh our body is able to process and convert those carbohydrates very quickly, um, but we have a much smaller supply. So we store um carbohydrate in the form of glycogen uh that is stored in our muscles and in our liver. Uh, there is a much smaller supply of that. Uh, so even though it processes very quickly, uh, we can actually run out of that energy quite quickly as well. So, again, that is why we continue to consume carbohydrate throughout our uh training and racing. And that is how we bonk. Uh, so if you don't take in adequate amount of carbohydrate, adequate amount of energy stores, you will eventually run out of energy. And then at that point, uh maintaining pace, power, whatever is gonna become much more difficult, uh, even though you have the fitness and and your muscles are good, your body's good. If it's basically you're running out of gas. So just like there's there's your car is in great shape, it's running uh in top form. If it runs out of gas, it's not gonna go any longer. So uh zone one and zone two are generally defined as being below that aerobic or lactate threshold. So there are a lot of different systems in in uh establishing zones. Uh some have four, five, six different zones, and they're all going to define these a little bit differently. They're going to use different methods of determining uh that that crossover point, but largely um most times we have a conversation with an athlete, a coach, anyone uh in the sport, generally zone one, zone two are understood to be that aerobic uh energy system where we are at a low intensity. So, how do you determine your your zone two, your low intensity? There's a couple different ways. Uh the the first and probably the most common is taking a percentage of heart rate. So uh a general formula is 60 to 70 percent of your max heart rate. Uh so a field to test can be done here to determine your your max heart rate. Uh, this is as simple as going out and um there there's lots of different protocols for, especially for for recycling and running. Basically, you go out and do a very hard effort uh sustained for a certain period of time, and that will either uh determine your max heart rate, or there will be a formula uh that you can apply that will then help you determine your your max heart rate. Then you take 60, 70% of that, and that is going to be pretty close to your zone two. Uh kind of spoiler, your max heart rate is not 220 minus your age, or if it is, uh it's kind of lucky. Um that is an outdated, antiquated formula uh from decades ago, and this was actually used for establishing a max heart rate of sedentary adults. So this was not uh used in sports. This was not developed by uh physiologists or coaches or anything like that. This was actually uh developed by um someone who was working with overweight sedentary uh adults trying to get them into this because they could not go and do these field tests. So if your max heart rate happens to be 220 minus your age, it's kind of like a broken clock being right once a day. Um so uh don't rely on that, but uh actually go out and do your field test. Uh a great thing about these field tests, they're cheap uh to free and uh easily regularly repeated. So um your crossover, your zones aren't gonna change significantly, uh, especially if you are in shape. Um they're not going to vary widely, but it is a good idea to check up on these on a on a regular basis. Uh, I would say at a maximum uh every month, at a minimum, I would say probably every six months. So kind of depending on your experience level, fitness level. Um, I would say somewhere between every month to every six months, you'll want to repeat those field tests just to ensure that uh your numbers have not uh changed. Now, um this is different than your um threshold wattage, your threshold pace. Those can change much more uh frequently. So um you may want to or need to do uh those um power or pace tests. Um, but generally what we're gonna see is even as those um threshold power, threshold pace increase, generally we're not going to see much change in the threshold heart rate. So not as necessary to test as often for for those. But if you are doing one of the uh power or pace tests, go ahead and throw your heart rate monitor on and use it there and just uh take that information into account as well. The other alternative is lab testing. So um this is going to be either a VO2 max test or lactate testing. So they're they're gonna test a little bit different things, but they should produce uh very similar results. They are more accurate than the field test, um, but they are more expensive and difficult to update. So these actually involve uh in most cases going into a lab. So like your VO2 max test uh is almost always going to be performed in a lab uh that's where you're either running on a treadmill or utilizing a stationary bike. Uh they put this apparatus uh over your over your face and they they plug your nose, this thing goes in your mouth, and basically what it's doing is monitoring uh the uh breath that you exhale to see uh where that conversion from fat to carbohydrate uh comes in, what heart rate, what intensity. Um so that is how that is actually going to be determining uh your uh crossover rate as well as your zones. Lactate testing uh is a little easier. Um, it can often be done in a lab, uh, but there are also opportunities to do this in the field. Um less equipment, less expensive, uh, but it is still a bit more laborious. So basically what we're doing here is can be done on the treadmill, can be done uh on the stationary bike, probably best done on one of those, but it can be done uh probably like if you're running like at a track, you want to keep it on a small area uh with a distance that is repeatable. And so what you're doing here is doing a certain amount of exercise and then taking a small blood sample to test the amount of lactate that is in that blood, and then we'll see uh once the blood begins to accrue, um, lactate will know that we have crossed over. So uh if those initial um heart rates intensities are not showing the buildup of lactate in the blood, we know we are below uh that lactate threshold. But again, once we are at a certain pace, certain intensity, certain heart rate where that lactate is building up in the bloodstream, we'll know that we've crossed over. So that is going to determine uh the threshold, and again, going to determine those zones. So much more accurate, very precise. Um and I would even argue that it doesn't necessarily need to be as precise as what the uh lab tests are going to produce. There is a range, so it's not necessarily a strictly binary thing where you're either aerobic or anaerobic. It's not like uh if you hit one uh watt, one second on your pace or uh one heartbeat that you're gonna go from being fully aerobic to fully anaerobic. Um that's largely what our zone three is. Uh and again, different definitions of zone three, different ways of determining zone three. But uh again, vast majority are going to understand zone three as kind of that middle ground where we are in the process of converting from aerobic energy system to the anaerobic energy system. And that's one of the reasons that we we call zone three the black hole of training, because it's not really low intensity training, it's not really high-intensity intensity training, you're not specifically training the um the aerobic system or the anaerobic system. So it's it's not as much value. So we're not going truly easy, we're not going truly hard. Um, so the training effects, training benefits in zone three are not as uh as valuable as spending the time in zone two or spending the time in zone four or or above. So um so that zone three is kind of that middle ground crossover, and so we want to make sure is that that zone two is is definitely at the beginning of that uh crossover, or even um zone three has a little bit of that aerobic left in it because we want to stay as aerobic as possible. So um is it's kind of being conservative here, but um again, you don't necessarily need to know that exact point. If you have the opportunity to do it, if it's in the budget, if it's uh convenient for you to go to a lab or or have uh one of these tests perform, great, go for it. It's really good information. And then again, so far as updating and repeating those, I would probably put that more like on the six month time frame simply because it is not as simple as going out and doing uh those field tests. All right. So what does low intensity training look like? It's easy. Um, and oftentimes there's there's some misunderstanding here. What we we want to make sure is that we're not exceeding that zone two heart rate. So um it's not necessarily bumping up all the way. If uh your say the the top end of your zone two is 130 beats, uh we don't want to be training at 128, 129, and flirting with 30, 31. Uh, what we really want to do in that case is keep it more like 120, 125. That's gonna ensure that we are staying um in that aerobic state. That is going to account for any of that drift or uh that margin of crossover, that uh that zone three. And you're gonna maximize the benefits of the aerobic training when you are staying fully aerobic. So uh making sure not to exceed the zone two heart rate, but again, it's not necessarily bumping up right up there to the max. It's it's really good in this case if you can kind of hold the middle of your your zone two, and that's again going to ensure you maximize the benefits of your zone two training. Anecdotally, uh, it's maintaining a conversational pace. So if you are running or cycling along with a partner, you should be able to carry on a normal conversation. Uh, you should be able to complete normal sentences without having to catch your breath in between. So uh that's obviously not a real scientific thing, but it's a good thing to check. Or uh maybe you're going out for a run and you don't have your heart rate monitor, don't have your uh device. You want to maintain an intensity, again, where you can carry on a conversation. Uh so I saw a thing that I found kind of interesting. Uh zone two is uh you're able to carry on a conversation, but you can't sing a song. So um singing obviously requires uh more uh breathing, different breathing. Um, and so if uh you you can sing, uh then maybe you're not going hard enough. Uh, but uh if you can't carry on that conversation, uh likewise, maybe not going hard enough, but um, yeah, so just a little anecdotal thing there. Um, so you should be able to talk with your training partners, but maybe not uh have a sing along. When we are talking exclusively about low-intensity training, ignore the power and the pace. So we are looking to produce specific adaptations around the body and how the body functions. And a lot of this comes back to that cardiovascular system. We define this by the heart rate and we are monitoring and measuring according to that. So um there are there are definitely correlations between our power pace and the heart rate that we are doing, but um they're not exclusively, strictly uh the same. So when we are looking to achieve these adaptations from low intensity training, it's all about maintaining the body in a in a easy state, maintaining that aerobic energy system. So there may be times where um, depending on the state of our body, the environment, all these things where um the power or pace no longer correlates with our heart rate. So what we don't want to do is go to um you may have your zone two power, zone two pace defined as a number that you are holding. So technically, according to your power or your pace, you are still in zone two. But for whatever reason, your heart rate may be up into zone three, potentially even zone four. So even though you're maintaining that um zone two power or pace, you're not actually training at zone two. Because in order to train at zone two, in order to maximize the adaptations, you have to be able to maintain that zone two heart rate. So um your power and your pace really are not relevant. Um, and and actually they just get in the way. Um, and that's why I say ditch the ego. The only reason we have uh to not uh run slow, ride easy, uh generally is our ego. Um, there's not really a reason uh to to push that pace, um, especially for those that are looking to maximize their performance, to maximize their fitness, their adaptations. Um generally what we see here are the folks that uh uh just like to go ride or run. I will say that zone three is probably the most fun, uh most um fun pace or power simply because uh you feel like you're going hard, you feel like uh, you know, you you've got a good uh mile per hour on your device, but you're not having to go out so hard that uh you're not you're not at a like a zone four, zone five effort where it begins to hurt, you're breathing heavy, all that. So zone three can be a great pace if you're just out looking to have fun. But again, we want to specifically train these energy systems. So we want to, when we're doing our low intensity training, we want to make sure that we are maintaining that aerobic state. And when we are training the high intensity, we want to be make sure being banging sure we are in that uh anaerobic state. So uh just ditch the the ego. Uh generally, what I've seen and what I identify with is uh this is much more common uh in the men uh than the women. The women have a much easier uh time, uh not always, but uh certainly seen some of that. Um but again, no place for ego. So let the other people uh go ahead and you maintain it. So one of the things for me that uh was was really striking and was was kind of a game changer for me is uh years ago I was hosting a training camp with uh one of my good buddies. This guy was a D1 track star. Um, and I think he was at the time about 30 to 35 years old, uh, and he could still run like a 17-minute 5K, so an extremely uh talented runner, something like, I don't know, 240 marathoner, uh, really fast. And uh we were out there um doing our our run at the camp and and we were just out there kind of running alongside uh some of the athletes that were attending in the camp. And I came across him and uh I caught him that I was running with uh with one of the athletes, and he was going super slow. Um, and he didn't have anybody with him. So I was kind of like, well, what are you doing? He's like, Well, I'm just doing my my easy zone two run. And uh, you know, I was like, I thought I was going easy and I caught him, and he's a much faster runner than than I am, and uh, you know, it's like it kind of struck. It's like if if he is doing that, I don't know what it was, 10 minute, 11 minute pace uh for him, then I should certainly uh be able to swallow my pride and and run at that slower pace um as well. And again, that's relative to to everyone. But uh yeah, when you have a guy that's running a 17-minute 5K and he's running 10 to 11, um, obviously that shows what a lot of us uh should be running at because most of us aren't running those 17-minute 5Ks. Sessions need to be at least 30 to 60 minutes uh to really reap the benefits of of this low intensity training. Um, and really even beyond that uh is is best. So uh that is why a lot of times we'll see your long rides, long runs uh are exclusively uh at a zone two or or low intensity. And that is because we we reap more benefit uh the more we do. That's not necessarily uh the case with our anaerobic training. And the biggest thing with that anaerobic training is it is self-limiting. We can only do so much of that. Um again, we are in a state where we are utilizing more oxygen than we can supply. We are crossed over that point where that lactate and other metabolic waste is beginning to build up in the bloodstream. So that that high intensity training is self-limiting. Um, so we need to determine for each athlete how much of that anaerobic high-intensity training is appropriate, uh, prescribe that training, do that training, and then um allow our body to do the rest. But uh kind of as mentioned before, we we have almost uh unlimited ability to do this low-intensity zone two training. We have largely unlimited fat stores. So uh kind of like time is our biggest limiter so far as this goes. If you go out and do a three-hour zone two bike ride every day, that'd be great. You'd be in fantastic aerobic shape. Um, but not very many of us can can actually uh afford the time to do that. So uh it does take some time to return uh to aerobic once anaerobic. So that's one of the reasons we want to make sure that we're not bumping up to the top of that zone, we're not crossing over because once we cross over, uh there is somewhat of a of a switch. And it's not like uh if you elevate your heart rate uh to zone four, and then a couple minutes later you're back in zone two. You're not necessarily back in truly that anaerobic state. Um it's it's it's a process where once you switch over to that anaerobic system, you're largely going to be there for a while. So um if you go out and you do a high intensity part of a session early on, then basically that whole session is is going to be utilizing that anaerobic system. But if you're not still at that high intensity, you're not really reaping the benefit of that anaerobic training. So if you are doing a session that is a mix of high and low intensity, uh, as you should be, uh, it's going to be better to push that intensity towards the end of that session. So um say you've got a one-hour session with 20 minutes of high intensity to it, push that to the back. Um, maybe wait 30 minutes. So at least you're getting 30 minutes of aerobic training. Then you get in your 20 minutes of anaerobic and then cool it down for 10 minutes. That would be my suggestion on how to execute that. That way you're getting uh some aerobic training benefit uh and you're getting in all of your anaerobic. So um, yeah, it takes time. And I will say too, uh, the benefits of training at low intensity do take a while uh to um be realized. This is something that is, it can be frustrating, uh, it can be challenging, and it's one of the reasons that a lot of athletes don't stick with it uh simply because uh after two weeks of doing the slower paces, they're not necessarily seeing the benefits of the aerobic training. It it can take several weeks to even several months uh to truly reap the benefits of this low intensity training, but uh it is very valuable. So I would say dedicate yourself to it, uh commit to it, and be patient, just knowing that uh this is not something that we're gonna see huge gains in overnight or even over a series of a couple weeks. This does take time. This is retraining uh the way the body works. Um, and so it's not an overnight thing, but uh the benefits will be there uh for you long term. So, why train at low intensity? Um, we are basically trying to train the cardiovascular system to be really good at its job. So the cardiovascular and respiratory system uh again are supplying oxygen. They're moving the blood through to clear the metabolic waste. And this low intensity training is really um training the cardiovascular and um respiratory system to be really good at what they do. Unfortunately, um the efficiency of the of those systems really is tied to our activity uh level. So we don't all just have a really great performing cardiovascular system. It is going to match the need. So for a sedentary person um that never does anything to elevate their heart rate, that's all their cardiovascular system is going to be equipped to do. So if you were to have a sedentary person uh try to run a mile, uh they couldn't do it simply because their cardiovascular system isn't going to support that. So um as that same person begins to be more active, the cardiovascular system is going to develop along with it. So uh our cardiovascular system is going to match uh basically the needs of the person. So we have to train it in order for it to uh hold up to the demands of this crazy long course racing that we do. So the heart is a muscle and it can be trained like any other. So just like going to the gym, uh we are applying stress to the muscles. There is uh a certain amount of damage done to that muscle that the body is then going to repair. And once that repair is complete, that muscle is going to be stronger. And so the cardiovascular system and specifically the heart works in a very similar way. So we are applying stress to the heart so that it can come back stronger. So a strong heart has a greater stroke volume, so it circulates more blood, meaning more oxygen to the muscle and better removal of that metabolic waste. So again, basically we're taking what the heart does uh in delivering oxygen to the working muscles and removing that metabolic waste and allowing it simply to do it better. So as the heart is able to um have a larger stroke volume, so it's pushing out more blood with each beat, that means it is more efficient. So uh getting more um from each beat of the heart is the objective here. We're looking to build aerobic efficiency. So uh getting the aerobic system, the cardiovascular system as efficient as possible. And so, what this is going to do is maximize the output while minimizing the input. So, this is actually what we're looking to do. This is that uh kind of exchange. And so an example of this would be uh the same output at a lower heart rate. So uh say you're holding 200 watts at a 150 heart rate. Uh, what we may see now is the same output of 150, or whatever it was, I started sorry, um, but maybe five beats per minute lower, maybe 10 beats uh lower over time. So the same output with a lower heart rate. So we're basically balancing those two and making the improvements there. Or on the flip side, it is a higher output at the same heart rate. So maybe you're at that 200 watts at 150 beats per minute. You're uh now able to do, say, 220 at that same 150 heart rate. So um basically it is maximizing the output while minimizing the input. So uh this is basically what we're looking to do in our training, is is it is not just all about maximizing the output. A lot of times that's a focus. We want to get as strong as possible, as fast as possible, build our um FTP as high as possible. Um, but the other consideration of that is what is the cost? Um, so if you are increasing that pace or power but it is coming at a very high metabolic cost, if you have a very high heart rate, um, if you're expending a lot of energy, burning a lot of fuel, um that's not going to be as advantageous as increasing the power, the pace, FTP in the same way while still establishing and building this aerobic efficiency. While we want, again, maximize the output, minimize the input. So, what are the benefits of this low intensity zone two training? I will say there's a lot. Um, and I've just put together uh a few here. I would say these are probably the top five or six of the most beneficial, biggest impact, and the really probably the strongest case for really focusing on, concentrating on, and dedicating yourself to this low intensity zone two training. Uh number one, uh say number one, but but definitely a top, is mitochondria proliferation. So this increases the number and the size of the mitochondria that are there in your muscles. So basically, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of uh of our body. It is what converts uh our energy, creates the ATP. Um, so obviously very important to what we are doing. So the more uh that we have of it and the larger those mitochondria are, the more effective it's going to be. Basically, it's going to increase our uh ability to convert those energy sources uh from either fat or carbohydrate actually into that usable energy. So, again, something very important for us to do. Um, this is help gonna help ensure that we don't uh run low on energy. But the more and larger mitochondria we have, the better our body is going to be at self-producing that energy. Next would be increased capillarization. Uh, so this increases in density of capillaries in the muscles, providing better blood flow and distribution, thus reducing the amount of blood required. So again, this goes back to the ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles and remove that metabolic waste. So basically, what we're seeing here is um zone two is an opportunity to uh develop this capillarization. So basically, what we'll see here is um an increase in the density of the capillaries. So we have more pathways of delivering that blood. So uh a lot of times what we see in in these fit uh people is a lot of veins. Um, and basically that is um partially a result of this increased capillarization. Um so again, more opportunities to deliver that blood to the muscles and remove the metabolic waste. Uh, there's the increased ability to use fat uh for energy. So um again, we're training the body to do what it does in a better way. Uh so when we increase the ability of the body to utilize fat for energy, this is increased efficiency in lipid metabolism, meaning more calories can be utilized from the available fat. So, what we've said before is we have basically an unlimited supply of fat, but our uh issue is the ability to convert that fat um over to energy. So the more time that we spend uh in this zone two training, one, we're gonna be utilizing a lot of that fat uh for energy. So this is gonna help with body composition, getting down to race weight, all those things. But as we do this, not only is it going to utilize that fat, it's gonna become more efficient at uh converting that fat over to energy. So uh it is going to be better uh at doing that. So in the future, it will uh be able to burn more of that fat for energy and then not rely on that limited supply on glycogen as much. So uh that glycogen supply is limited, the fat is largely unlimited. So we don't want to tap into um the carbohydrate that is limited uh until we have to. So the longer we can sustain that, the better off we're going to be. Increase glycogen store. So this is kind of the other side of that same coin. Uh this increases the amount of carbohydrate stored in the muscle uh and in the liver. So I mentioned this before. We we store uh carbohydrate in the form of glycogen in the muscles in the liver. Uh this is that very quick um converted energy source, but it's very limited. So um there's there's a uh finite amount of this, um, but in doing this zone two training, we can actually increase the amount of of um of the glycogen that the the body is storing both in the muscles and uh in the liver. So what we're doing here between these last two is we are delaying the utilization of that glycogen and we're increasing the amount of that glycogen. So basically what we're doing here is creating um basically more energy and uh more efficient energy to support this uh training and racing that we're doing. And I would say uh a very important benefit of this is it supports the anaerobic training and racing. So uh these benefits are not exclusive to zone two. Uh these are going to be utilized across the board, especially things like the mitochondrial proliferation. Uh, the more mitochondria you have, um the faster you're you're going to be able to run. You're gonna have a higher FTP. Uh the increased capillarization, that's not only beneficial at uh your low intensities, it's beneficial at the high intensities as as well. So um it goes back to that cardiac efficiency as well. So we're maximizing that output while minimizing the input. This is going to work well in that anaerobic state uh when we're going fast, that high intensity as well. So one of the things we're looking at is um that slow pace. We want to see that slow pace at a lower and lower heart rate over time, or we want to see a faster pace for that same heart rate. Um, but we also are going to reap those benefits when we are, say, running a 5K. We are now going to be able to run that same 5K pace at a lower heart rate or run faster in that 5K at the same heart rate. So those benefits are across the board. And obviously, as we go out longer uh into the 70.3 races, into those Iron Man races, where we're really um dipping into both the anaerobic and uh aerobic systems, where there are times where we're able to go easy, and then there's times where we're gonna push harder. Uh, it really is going to be beneficial across the board. All right, so that is a little bit about low intensity training. Um again, I really want to challenge you to dedicate yourself to this, be patient with it, uh, ditch the ego and really commit to it so that you can reap those benefits. And uh this is a great time of year to really delve into that, uh, to commit to it. And by the time uh race season in earnest rolls around, uh, you're really gonna be reaping the benefits of that zone too. So wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you next time.