A CrossFitter's Guide to Zone 2: What it is, what it does, how you do it, and if YOU should - E.386

Zone 2 training is back, and this time, we’re cutting through the noise.

In this episode of the The Misfit Podcast, Drew and Paige break down what Zone 2 actually is (and what it isn’t), why it’s so misunderstood in the CrossFit space, and how Misfit Athletics practically applies it with everyday athletes all the way up to elite competitors.

You’ll learn:

• Why Zone 2 is defined by blood lactate, not heart rate, and what that really means
• Simple ways to tell if you’re accidentally living in Zone 1 or drifting into Zone 3
• How Zone 2 builds aerobic capacity, mitochondrial density, fat oxidation, and long-term work capacity
• Who truly needs Zone 2 (and how much), based on training volume and aerobic background
• How Misfit uses Zone 2 to increase volume without crushing athletes during high-stress phases
• Real-world execution tips: pacing, warm-ups, warning signs, and how to track progress

The episode also includes a camp recap from a weekend at CrossFit Roots, highlighting high-level coaching, athlete breakthroughs, and why staying a student of the game matters, no matter how long you’ve been in fitness.

If you’re a CrossFit enthusiast who “knows enough to be dangerous,” this one’s for you. Expect practical takeaways, honest nuance, and zero dogma, just how to use Zone 2 as a tool instead of a trend.

Train smarter. Build the base. And stop guessing.

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Transcript

Welcome, Housekeeping, Shoutouts

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Good morning, Misfits. You are tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast. On today's show, everyone's favorite or least favorite topic is back. It's been enough dogmatic chatter as usual on the interwebs, people hoping that they can get some sound bites or piss somebody off or, you know, create an echo chamber for those that feel the exact same way that they do about zone two training. So we're going to do what we do here at Ms. Fit Athletics, and we're going to talk about the fact that there's a spectrum and maybe you do need it and maybe you don't need it. And how much do you need and why would we use it and when would we use it and how to do it and all that good stuff. Also do a little bit of a camp recap. Paige and I are just back literally yesterday, today, from uh training camp at CrossFit Roots and Boulder. And I think it's it's worthy to spend a few minutes talking about those experiences and you know, kind of shout out the people that were there and convince the people that weren't able to make it or were on the fence that they should get their ass to the next one. Before we get into that, a little bit of housekeeping and read, list, and watch. We got shout out of the week. And I don't I probably just should have put this in camp recap, but it'll be a teaser. Same. The CrossFit Roots coaching staff is very high level. Um most CrossFitters know Nicole Christensen from videos and content and taking their L1. Um, and to have a group with knowledge and expertise and experience be that open to new perspectives and maybe solidifying current beliefs and taking a different vantage point on a topic that they already believe in is just really refreshing. And it's uh it's funny, Nicole is literally calling me right now. That's what I just canceled on my watch. And I just having a separate shout out there, I think is important. These are there's just there's something about the way that we attract a certain kind of group and community that has been so fun for me over the years. They just they they they definitely fit into to the way that we do things really well. And it was just a cool experience to see that because unfortunately, over the years, we've seen the opposite. We've seen a well-established gym potentially have some coaches that are like, I already know what I'm doing, trust me.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

So that brings us back to the midwit meme that we talk about all the time. And unfortunately, those people are living in the middle. We've got to get them over to the over to the right side. So that's my shout out. You can add to that page or wait for the wait for the recap.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah, I mean, it's it's really fun and inspiring, really, to go to a gym like that that's been around for nearly 20 years, and she's still a student of the game. She still wants to learn. And you can just see that like be immersed into her coaching staff and her her members there. Um, and I'll say that about everybody that was at camp. Like everybody was just so open to learning and open to any kind of feedback. And I thought that the questions that they brought to us were awesome. Like just a ton of conversation was going on in between people that maybe never met before within the Misfit community. So big shout out to everybody that was at camp.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

Very true. We've got a few ways that you can support Misfit Athletics in the podcast. If you're into that kind of thing, easiest one is to follow our programming. If you go to the link in bio on our Instagram, you're gonna be able to hear here. You're gonna be able to sign up for individual programming, whether that's our GPP program for absolutely everybody, all the way up to our pro programs, affiliate programming, all that stuff is is right in there and it's the best way to support what we do. MisfitAffiliate is the program of choice at CrossFit Roots. A gym that is filled with red shirts. Following our programming is definitely an honor and maybe a little bit of a testimonial for anybody out there that's that's looking for programming and on the fence. Also, if you're looking for Misfit gear, um, you can head to sharpentheaxco.com. Maybe you use the code word page during your checkout. You save a little bit of money, and page um gets some support for her competitive season. I thought long and hard about this, and I think it's fair to let at least the listeners of the show know what the pre-sale shirt means that's about to be available. So there's gonna be a shirt um coming out very soon, maybe even as soon as this drops, that says FY, M. And that stands for fuck you, me. And I said it in relation to a very specific story with Caroline, and then it felt like it's funny because everyone laughed and they're like, well, that's like a really weird, that's a weird way to say that. And then as we said it more, it was like, damn. So we have these narratives in our head and these stories that we tell ourselves and believe them, and eventually we are presented with that fork in the road again, and we take the other direction and we say, Fuck you, me, like you're wrong. I can overcome this thing. And I think it resonates a lot of people because obviously we have those mental blocks that hold us back until they don't. So I will I will probably explain it here in Telegram, and then obviously the people that know already know, and you can decide whether uh you resonate with the old FYM shirt.

unknown 5:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

I definitely do personally. So I'm excited for that. And I love a little, little inside joke acronym.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

It is good. It was good. It and to give it a little more context, one of the member, one of the athletes at camp, Tony, he asked, he asked Caroline and I what were like defining moments within our career that like allowed us to really believe in ourselves to be capable of of like making the CrossFit games. So it was just, you know, a great question. And it led to again making a t-shirt that really kind of resonates with everybody at camp. So just a cool moment for sure.

Sponsor, Read Listen Watch Picks

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Yep, definitely. You know what? I will also create a camp specific discount code. So if you really know, if you're really there, shoot me a message and we'll give you a little bit of extra off the top there. Uh last but not least, we have our show sponsor, GorillaMind. You can head to GorillaMind.com forward slash Misfit or just use the code word misfit at checkout. You save and we get a kickback on that to support the show. Product of the week is their Omega 3 Elixir. We are topping out at over two grams of DHA and EPA. And as someone, so so for me personally, this is something where I get back into the research on post-concussion syndrome and dementia and mental health and things that are really important to me with you know some of my genetics and my family history. And having that that dosage with that level of quality that's actually tested in an affordable package is pretty incredible. And I am a double dose guy most of the time when it comes to that, but you can save even more money by going in and using the code word misfit. So that's that's one of my top products from them. One of the first things that I bought from them, and I uh definitely recommend it. All right. We are now on to read, listen, watch. A little bit of a preview for the show here. My read is the mafetone method. This kind, this book kind of started it all for me in in zone two training. I read the book, oh boy, over 10 years ago, 12 to 13 years ago, something to that effect. And when you read it as a uh you know, traditional sports athlete, power athlete that's training people that are, you know, have a lot of anaerobic function, um, it does a really good j job of driving home why it works, how to execute on it, all that good stuff. So um the mafetone method is my read, my listen is I wanted to go, uh I kind of like to go nerd, artsy fartsy, and fun. Those are kind of typically my categories that I try to rotate through. For those of you that know or don't know who Rick Rubin is, he's a famous music producer, and like the range is so crazy. So we're talking like heavy metal, Adele. He was the founding producer for the Beastie Boys. Like he's he just has, he's like one of the coolest guys to ever exist. So you can go down that rabbit hole on YouTube if you want, but he has a podcast called Tetragrammaton. I think if you just type in Rick Rubin, that will be an easier way to end up there. Um, but he did an episode with Trent Reznor, who is the guy, the the Nine Inch Nails guy, and also has become one of the best like movie score people. Like a lot of the a lot of the cool music that you hear like in the background of movies that really like fits tonally with what they're trying to do in the movie is him and hit his producing partner. Um and it's just one of those episodes, doesn't matter if you like nine inch nails or or any of that stuff. Um, it's kind of a perspective widening type episode, as are most of his. Last but not least, my movie of choice while traveling was Molly's game on Netflix. It's Molly Bloom, former Olympic hopeful skier, turned poker game runner to celebrities. Really fascinating movie. I don't know if you've seen one. One that I go back to, I've probably watched it four or five times. So that's what I got.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Better than the Double O seven that was on the TV? Or what were we what was on? Casino Royale.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

I love Casino Royale. I'll I'll add that.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

I'll start with my watch. And again, it's gonna kind of be camp recap. Got a lot of um analyzing. We did some Friday night lights, did some snatching. Um, so just some video on watching the athletes move. Um again, I'll give another shout out when we talk about camp in relation to that. My read and listen, um, I'm gonna go with some motivational interviewing stuff. So I've kind of been getting a little bit more into that. I like to think about how like, you know, you and Hunter can really kind of bring like the super nerdy side to CrossFit. And I'm the athlete. So, like to really kind of bring another type of perspective. I've been like really looking into like motivational interviewing in terms of sports. So Jonathan Fader has a book. It's called Coaching Athletes to Be Their Best. I'm was reading up a little bit on it. I haven't bought it yet, but I think that might be like my first book of choice in checking it out. Um really it talks about, you know, building trust with your athletes and things like that. And that just really resonates with me because I feel like I am more of like, I need more of the psychology side to it. Like I have all the ability to do the thing and perform, but you know, the headspace is just so important. Sure. And there was a quote. Yeah, there was a quote. It was if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. And I think, you know, we've we've mentioned that kind of stuff before.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

CrossFitters know all about that.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Yeah. But I even think of it in terms of us as coaches, right? Like what do we all bring to the table and how can we kind of widen our own perspective on that? So I think with having camp, that really kind of sparked my interest even more than going into the weeds on it. Nice. Yeah. Cool.

Camp Recap At CrossFit Roots

SPEAKER_03 11:45

All right. Uh so a little bit of a camp recap here. So again, we were at CrossFit Roots and Boulder over the weekend, and we've we've teased it a little bit, but we just had the kind of weekend that just I I've said it before, it reminds me of watching Mighty Ducks and then wanting to go play street hockey afterwards. Those moments where the thing that you do is just like so all-encompassing and it's like equal parts, motivating, and it kind of revitalizes you and it sets you up for the next thing, making sure that you have moments like that. And it could be going to the CrossFit games to spectate and be like, I could do this, or a training camp, or you know, a competition. There's all kinds of different things that can do this for you. But from the coaching perspective, being around other people that are passionate about the thing that you're passionate about, especially for me running an online business where, you know, no offense to anybody but program hoppers and like, will you what is what is so great about what you do that other people don't do? And if I have that conversation or I'm trying to resonate with someone that speaks my language a little bit more, is interested in the things that I'm interested in, um it's second nature for me to to talk through that. The thing that comes to mind is talking to affiliate owners about whether they should follow Misfit affiliate. And I know within the first five minutes whether this is someone who is going to be a longtime customer, is gonna ask me for help and communicate and all that stuff. And just knowing that those other passionate people are out there and there are people that have a ton of knowledge already or a ton of experience already that are still open-minded is something that I need a lot and will need even more now that I work remotely and I'm not in that kind of affiliate environment. So that was super helpful for me. And then I always want to make sure that if you're really putting people up on a pedestal, that you knock them down a peg. The disparity between the skill level, fitness level, and strength level, and the camper's ability to be in a couch stretch was the most staggering that I had ever witnessed in my life. Typically, I can't get into a couch stretch. I also can't climb a rope, I can't do muscle ups, I can't snatch, you know, 150 to 250, whatever. No, it is possible to check off a lot of boxes and not be get getting into a damn couch stretch. And it's like, listen, if K Star is gonna branch out and do his thing and all these other places, I got to bring it back. You are begging for major injury or overdoing it in certain muscle groups that shouldn't be overdone in a particular workout, and you kind of fry out and burn out if you cannot spend three minutes per side in a couch stretch and not be like in excruciating pain or in the ugliest position that I've ever seen. So we're like, that's like 50% joke, 50% dead serious. Um campers, for the love of God, start doing your couch stretch again. You should not need a beat world-class athletes, should not need a PVC pipe to get up into that position. And then if you want to come to our next camp, start practicing now. We we can see if we can regress that back to the mean a little bit. Yeah, it's a fucking requirement for sure. Anything to add for camp recap?

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Yeah, I mean, gosh, it was just it was fun. So this was my first time on the coach's side of it. Like normally I go to camp. I'm I'm part of the athletes, I'm hanging out and working out. So I've learned that there's a ton of standing around. It's very hard to do.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

You better wear the right shoes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

No kidding. But it was really cool to see the amount of detail that goes into the movements when we do movement breakdown, how well we, you know, it's we go over it, explain it, have them moving through it. Um, so that was really, really awesome. You know, part of the the videos that we've done, or you know, just looking through videos, like I if I recall his name is Austin, Austin Moss. Dude took a couple cues and put 20 pounds on his snatch on Friday night. And that was just really awesome to see and kind of be a part of. Um, so just really, really good energy there, you know.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Low rep learners are so fun for coaches, especially in a camp setting.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, you could tell he was a strong guy too. Um, you know, McKenna PRing her snatch at 205. Like it just, you know, you really, really see the best in people at a place like this, especially when they all come open-minded and ready to learn. And again, like, you know, again, the coaching staff there, they they took up a majority of our our members part of camp. So just really, really awesome group.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

I agree. All right. Um let's we're gonna start off our we're gonna start off our zone two conversation with the history related to misfit athletics with zone two. So I would say there was a very small subsection of the CrossFit population in the, I don't know, 2012 to 2014 range that talked about long slow distance. So long slow distance was kind of the first iteration of the name related to it that that kind of piqued my interest. And then revisionist history a little bit, but also within the moment, we would do things like the weakness warm-ups. We would have people do longer sessions on machines, and a lot of that was related to if you're if you've been in CrossFit long enough, them following Miko Salo around after he won the CrossFit games because he was a bit of an outlier coming coming in. And he was training more like a competitor than anybody else. And part of that was like a warm-up with, you know, 10, 15, 20 minutes on a rower. And that's just like mind-blowing to a CrossFitter. It's like, I'll die if I'm on a rower for 20 minutes, you crazy. And just seeing what that kind of capacity, like sort of that bottom end that aerobic that we'll talk a lot about today, does for an athlete. That's where, as a coach, you start to see these things happening, you start to reverse engineer it. And like I said for my kind of book of the week, the Maffetone method, which funny enough, that was the first time I heard the name Chris Hinshaw because he's an athlete in the book.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

And I remember that, like at like years later, as he was being introduced to the community, I was like, why do I know that name? And when I reread the Mafitone method, there he was. And that book really, it just was so obvious to me that this was missing, dare I say, from the CrossFit methodology. Like, I don't know if now I have to like take out life insurance, the life insurance policy, if I say that out loud. But definitely in the competitor realm, and not just not because it's so magical and efficacious, but it's because like we're doing fran. We're doing these workouts where like most people were crashing and burning, and we're just not working that aerobic system. You'd have to write a really, really great CrossFit workout that I don't think people back then would have known how to execute to really work on the low end there. So I bought it's like Cody Mooney, Sam Quant, China Cho. Like I bought all of them, all of my athletes, the polar watch and strap combo and mailed it to them and enlisted a lot of people at Misfit HQ to get going on this. And it was really fascinating. The the, especially with running, the ego hit and people not wanting to do it because they were slow. And how counterintuitive that is is crazy. But if you don't understand what it's doing for you, I can see how that would happen. Like, how could I possibly improve by running 11 minute miles? But you need to run 11 minute miles if that's your heart rate when you're running that, right? That's how we lower that, that's how we build that um aerobic capacity. So honestly, it wasn't until the adherence was I would say 30 to 40% of my athletes just we just had that trust level where it's like, okay, coach, I'm gonna do it. I don't know that the full buy-in was there mentally. When Fraser started leaking his secrets, it was the easiest thing to get people to do. Of course, it got overprogrammed at that point, but like part of me was like, Well, thanks, I guess. Like I had just wanted people to buy in potentially a little bit sooner. Do you remember when you started doing it on a regular basis?

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Oh gosh. So I remember I would cherry pick it when it would be like 40 minutes. Every five minutes you'd get off and do like a smooth set of X. Ah, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

So inmates running the asylum.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Yeah. Okay. So that was like the the sneaky zone too. And then I remember pretty much when I missed out on the games in 2021, I was like, I'm buying in, I'm doing everything the way that I'm supposed to. And I, especially the running one, like just immerse myself.

Zone Two: Definitions And Myths

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Yeah. Yeah. And what Paige is referencing is something that we've dealt with over the years that we're almost fully over. But it's just this idea of do we need to sugarcoat these things in programming? And I said the inmates running the asylum because it's like, okay, you guys won't do this. We'll make it look like something else. And we would say 40-minute row every five minutes, do 10 handstand push-ups. While that is fine, it's not the same. Mixed modality is not the same. We'll get into, you know, maybe what's happening within these things. But unfortunately or fortunately, if if you just want to buy in and get it done, spending pretty long periods of time doing the exact same thing as what we're looking for. And we'll talk about that here in a little bit. So we are now gonna get we're we're we're about to dive into the deep end, but we have a few things that are helping us. Paige is the representative of the people today. So if I start running In my mouth about God knows what. She's supposed to keep me on track and be like, could you say that in a different way, explain it a different way, that sort of thing. I have a lot of notes related to this. And I don't want the podcast to ever sound like I'm reading, but you guys don't have the four hours that it would take for me to rant about this. So I'm still going to do it. And especially if you're watching on YouTube, you're going to be able to tell that I'm staring at something. It's the opposite if you think that I need these notes, it's the opposite of that. I just I struggled for the longest time with providing you guys with information that was on my interest level versus like, why don't we just explain this in a digestible way so that we can use it and move forward? And when you listen to those episodes, a la Huberman, and it's four hours, and he's talking about mitochondrial biogenesis, et cetera, I like I don't know what test you're about to take, but it's not entirely necessary. So if that's not interesting to you, like if you're looking for something like that, you should probably go elsewhere. So I'm trying to keep these things simple and digestible while still, you know, providing enough propaganda to convince you where you land on the spectrum of whether you should do it, whether you shouldn't do it, and how often you should do it. All right, so let's begin with definitions. The very simple definition of what we are doing here is aerobic work that lives below your first lactate threshold. Okay. Lactate is a normal byproduct of making energy that increases as intensity increases. It is the leftover, it is leftover fuel that can be used either reused at lower intensities or build up at higher intensities. So if we're in zone two and we got this stuff cycling through our blood, we can actually use it and recycle it over and over. As we jump into zone three and zone four and zone five, it is being produced at a level that is too high for you to clear. And that's where the whole idea of like lactate is bad, lactate burns comes from. So we are staying below that. We're staying at a place where you can continue to reuse that leftover fuel. In zone two, you are stressing the aerobic system. So you're creating adaptation, you're improving without tapping into a glycolytic state. And that part is important because of like if we go to the other side of the spectrum, that's when you would bonk in a workout. You are in a glycolytic state, you are burning glucose, glycogen that's in your body that is stored, and you are reaching a point where you can no longer do so. And the cool thing is you actually improve on your ability to stay out of a glycolytic state, which is one of the ways we'll get to later. We can use this to increase training volume when we've kind of reached a peak that's going to send us maybe into a place that's a little bit too aggressive for overall volume. The original definition is based on blood lactate levels and not heart rate. So that name zone two originally had nothing to do with your heart rate. And that's important because you go on Google and you type it in and you look for the charts, and the percentage ranges are different everywhere. The calculations based on your zone related to your age is different everywhere you go. And that's because these things are an approximation. So basically, they were mapped out the original zones, zone one, zone two, zone three, zone four, was mapped out based on taking small blood samples during training. They would like prick the earlobe or the finger, and they would do a reading on a monitor. It looks a lot like a glucose monitor to find out where people were at. And the scientists noticed that during those efforts, lactate, zone two efforts, lactate stays flat and slow. And as the intensity rose, there was this first inflection point where there was a jump. And that's where it started to creep up. Staying below that inflection point that they found is what zone two actually is. So, unless you're going to be like Jack Farlow and you are going to prick yourself every single time you're doing one of these things to find out what wattage or what pace you should be at, then we need to find simpler ways to define what execution of zone two is. And we'll talk through all of those things. It was only later that that heart rate became a proxy because pricking your finger after every workout sounds terrible, right? Like, I have been in that world both with blood glucose and with lactate, and it sucks. Like, I don't know, I'm not like a needle guy. They kind of bother me. I've gotten a little bit better at it as I've been older, but like not my jam. Um and like being honestly, it felt it's kind of like before you go into a cold tub, but worse. You're just like, I don't want to press the button, I don't want to press the button, I don't want to press the button, and then you like pull away and you got to do it again, and it's a whole thing. Um, also CrossFitters, super calloused fingers. So like you have to get the like heavy duty one. It's a it's a mess. So the percentage ranges and the age-related stuff started to come up based on that. And there are a host of reasons why heart rate is imperfect, because two athletes at the same heart rate, at the same age, will have very different zone two outputs. So the actual blood lactate levels based on their aerobic capacity, like what is their actual output? And that can be related to specific machines as well. That's why you would get the instances where an athlete can't get their heart rate up on a C2 bike, and it's very clear that they are not flushing the waste as as quickly as they're making it. Heat, so heat in the room, so ambient temperature, core temperature, and hydration is huge. If you're hydrated versus dehydrated, your ability to maintain these paces is going to change quite a bit. What how much you slept, how well you slept, how well you went through, you know, and light sleep and deep sleep, stress in your life. So are you, you know, dealing with more of the fight or flight versus rest and digest? Um, that's going to make a big difference. And then I thought I'd throw this one in here after camp. Altitude. Altitude has a as a big difference there because we are not getting the level of oxygen, especially when we're not acclimated that we that we normally would be. How are we doing so far, Paige?

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Good. Can you give an example of that? Can you give an example of two different athletes that like show it that heart rate is imperfect?

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

So, what exactly do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 28:40

So I think the easiest way to put it is there's there's there's two things that are coming to mind. One, how fit are you, and how fit are you related to that modality. That's a huge one. Zone one training is like a staple of the fittest people on earth because of their level of output. Because that's still gonna have create issues with the body. That's still gonna be like potentially a little bit too much that's going on there. So your actual fitness level is a like a very large part of it. The other thing is just gonna be based on um how you're doing within your actual training at that given moment. I think that's the one that probably resonates with most athletes.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

There are gonna be times at the exact same heart rate on something that you've been doing a ton of where you can tell that you are truly overreaching within your training because you just can't hold that anymore. Right. Those warning signals that we'll talk about in a second for zone three are flat, those lights are flashing the whole time. And you know that you either need to actually drop into zone one or you just need to take a bunch off the top and realize that your zone two for that day, because of the benefits you're creating, is totally fine to be in that place. And that's when you should be talking to your coach about your recovery and kind of where you're at with that. Got it. Okay. I also think it can be really helpful to know what zone two isn't. So we're gonna talk about the warning signs for zone one, and we're gonna talk about the warning signs for zone three. Zone three is one of the least efficacious places to be because it is highly glycolytic. It is going to start to really dig into your ability to handle volume without the adaptations that you're getting in your traditional zone four, zone five sessions that you would be used to if you follow our programming. So zone one always feels like you're just warming up. It's just not really, you don't feel like you're really doing anything. Um, heart rate never rises to those goal ranges. Um, so we're trying to live um in potentially that 160 beats per minute minus your age to 180 beats per minute minus your age. And again, if you're really fit, a lot of times you're gonna be, or you're crushing a machine or it's like localized muscle fatigue like a C2 bike, you will be on the lower end of that. Whereas running is typically gonna push you a lot of athletes to the higher end of that. Um, you could go absolutely forever at that pace. When you're doing zone two, eventually there would be that cardiac drift where you haven't trained yourself enough that if you stayed at whatever 200 watts on a machine, that your heart rate would get into zone three. Um, and the fitter you are, the more aerobic capacity you are, the longer that you can go within that. But that would typically mean that you're an endurance athlete and you're used to longer sessions, creeping into that two, three hour range, you would, you should get to a point where it's a little bit too much. I think one of them is it allows you to be distracted without your pace dropping at all. There's a level of focus needed to maintain zone two, especially on machines, where like if you were on your phone or doing other things or potentially watching something and you never looked down and saw like a lower output, that probably means that you're not quite there. Yeah. It is kind of just this sweet spot between trying and not trying. Uh, body doesn't get warm, you never get sweaty. That's one of them. Like when your body knows it's about to get into something that's mean meaningful and creates adaptation, your core temperature rises, you start to sweat a little bit. The funny thing with me saying that is I move to a drier climate and I don't sweat anymore, and it's really weird. I'm definitely in zone two. I can promise you that. Paige just just dealt with a little bit of the dry air, and it's it's something that you got to get used to. The other thing would be zero nervous system demand, like at all. So if we're starting to creep up into higher zone two volume and you don't feel like you did anything, you don't feel like you trained, you know, your legs aren't a little toasty after you know a zone two session on the on the C2 bike, that sort of thing. Now, the other side of it is by far the most common for CrossFitters. Most CrossFitters are doing zone three training, and I already talked to you guys about why that's basically the it's it's the it's the you know the black zone, the death zone, whatever. It's just not a great place to spend a ton of time, a ton of time in your training. Effort changes from calm and focused to labored. And you, if you've done enough zone two, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It ticks over just a little bit. The heart rate starts to go up. You know, you wouldn't want to have a conversation anymore. You can't nasal breathe if you try to. You're just not in control anymore. It feels like you're doing a workout and not developing aerobic capacity. Lactate accumulation becomes apparent. This is kind of a precursor. This is one where I think this warning signal happens and you're trying to figure out what it is and what it means. And then if it is truly zone three, then the warning signs are obvious with either pace dropping, heart rate increasing, all that stuff. One thing I will say is that is not related to soreness. There is a phenomenon that is real fun as a CrossFitter where you do the kind of workout where you get delayed onset muscle soreness, and then you do a zone two bike, and there is a mental hurdle of I can hold this pace, I feel fine, I'm not, none of the other warning signs are there. I'm fucking sore. Like that is a thing, and that's not what we're talking about. I don't know if you've experienced that page, but like a zone, like, and it feels better as you go, but like a sore leg zone two C2 bike kind of sucks at the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

It doesn't feel good.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Definitely doesn't feel like especially if you're seasoned and you have increased your wattage over time.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Yeah. Well.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

So that would be one where I would keep an eye on that. And then it just feels hard. Like if the session feels hard, you're probably over training or in zone three in both of those instances to me mean let's lower the intensity of what we're doing here.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Yeah. I think as far as like, you know, between zone one and zone three, like what it isn't, the biggest ones that really stick out to me is it allows you to be distracted when you're in zone one. So like you're you can be wandering all over the place, you could have a deep conversation. Zone two, like you really need you do need to be locked in, like you're on it for a long time, and that kind of sucks that you have to stare at a monitor pretty frequently. But you know, you really do need to actually pay attention. And when it's in zone three, you start to get more of like when you have that labored breathing, you start to kind of panic a little bit too, which also is the reason that you jack that heart rate up. Um, and you know, those like between the being distracted and labored breathing, like you gotta find that that's somewhere in between. Those are kind of the two that really stick out to me.

What Zone Two Isn’t

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Yeah, same. All right. We are now gonna transition into why we do zone two training. And I thought it would be helpful to tell you guys why Misfit Athletics does zone two training before we get into the nerd talk. We are in trying to increase your output below threshold through variables such as pace, cadence, heart rate, and/or time. I need to see progress for this to be worth it. I want to make that very clear. Anytime you can go faster or longer at the same heart rate, the rest of those speeds and heart rates are also changing. So very important to know that like turning your old zone three or even with some athletes zone four pace into your zone two pace is a massive physiological change. And it doesn't require you to do that deep dive. It is so obvious, it is so apparent that you can tell that those speeds change and increase at a similar effort to which you used to go slower at. So, like, if we're gonna log the hours and none of those markers are improving, we are going to reevaluate whether it's even worth it for you to be doing this or most likely execution, right? What's going on here? Are we not warming up? Are we using the wrong damper setting? Are we not fueling? Are we not sleeping? There's all kinds of different reasons why this would happen, but we are moving the needle here. I cannot program something that does not move the needle. I will perish. I will disintegrate, I will die if I ask you guys to do something like that. And if you are in that camp and every session feels the same and you never feel like you're improving, then get into Telegram and talk to us about it. Because that is not what we're doing here. And that's why we don't need to be dogmatic about this, because we have objective data on whether we are moving the needle or not. And if we're not, then stop doing it or change the way that you do it. Um, and I really just think that's incredibly important to put out there. So to go back through the variables, pace super obvious. I go run at 140 beats per minute, and I hope that I trend from 11 minutes to 1045 to 1030 to 1015, etc. The first time my cupcake ass lung motherfucker, like I the first time I ran in the nines on a zone two mile, holy shit. I mean, we're talking about taking four minutes off of my zone two pace. That's crazy. And if it just if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have kept doing it. So I just think that's really important. Cadence can be one. If we're working on getting an athlete into a RPM range that we're looking for on an Echo bike or a C2 bike or a strokes per minute range, I would love to teach their muscles, those slow twitch fibers, the ones that are really good at clearing waste, to love that movement pattern. Um, so we can start, you know, so many people love the C2 bike at like a 75 to 80 RPM, and you're just not efficient there. Um and we need to get them to that point. So one of the things that I'll do with linear progression is ask them to increase their RPMs only at the same damper setting. So that's one thing that can really help there. Also, your variable could just be your heart rate. You're on the machine and you're at 150 watts on an Echo bike, and your average heart rate is 140, and then it's 138, and then it's 136, and then it's 134. We are increasing output at a lower heart rate. We're getting better. Um, and then time's kind of the easy one, one that I do a ton that you've you've become accustomed to, page, where it's like, let's find out your zone two pace at the beginning of a phase. We'll go halfway through the phase increasing duration, just really kind of building that muscle memory, um, getting ourselves to a good point. Typically, with your numbers, you're gonna see that heart rate come down a little bit. And then as we go back down the mountain, we go back down in duration and we just kind of find out can we add five watts to this score? Can we eventually add 10 or 15, that sort of thing? So those are the the markers that we are looking at. And it's a way once again to bring that meat head mentality of linear progression to this. I think it makes it easier to digest when I can see I'm truly improving on this thing.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Yeah. I have one question and then I'll kind of relate it back to how I kind of see progress in my zone too. Do you expect an athlete to see it within a phase? So we do nine-week phases or six week, even in this one, but mostly nine week. I wouldn't, I don't know if we've actually ever done a full phase of like increasing time and then decreasing time while increasing speed. I don't know if we've actually, at least I haven't paid attention to it close enough.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

We do it in we do it in super high level competitive and competition prep. So you'll see the duration increase, and we're typically going to give someone the instruction to maintain the wattage as the time increases. But a lot of what you're asking is related to whether we're looking at beginner gains or if we've logged a ton of hours. So if you are just starting on something and you're not seeing progress over the course of nine weeks, there's definitely a problem there. Yeah. Okay. If if you are really good at the machine or you've logged a ton of hours, you're going to see less progress, but no progress is a red flag. I find that no progress in a seasoned athlete that's performing it well pushed too hard in week one and was right on that 180 minus the age line the whole time. They got there, they stayed there, and unfortunately, probably got a little slower over the course of the session, which we do not want. We do not want to train our aerobic system to get slower over time. I would rather an athlete be down near 160 or 170 minus their age and slowly get up to that point at the same output, the same pace. Um so that would usually be it. And I can usually tell based on the stats that I'm given, especially like it's really helpful for me as a coach to have the screenshot of, you know, whatever app you're using to track those things. Because then you can really see whether there's big fluctuations or not.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Yeah, I guess I'll I'll take it back to when you said beginner gains. Like I don't typically see it's hard to see the progress like at this point within a phase, but when I go back and do that same machine for another phase later. Yeah, exactly. Then I really see the difference. So, you know, you guys are trying to find adaptation throughout a phase, you might not see it in your zone two right away, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

Yeah. And one of the phenomenons that could be at play there is like Paige will typically be on something where the two largest programmed CrossFit games movements in monostructural are Echo Bike and running. So we're gonna start with zone two, then we're gonna go aerobic, then we're gonna go anaerobic. And that is the kind of thing where the magic and the alchemy of CrossFit as combining all those energy systems, there's power output sessions as well, where all of that's gonna come back together and you're really gonna round out your energy systems, and then you're gonna see the change by the time we get into competition prep, you're really gonna see those changes. And that's why. Well, we'll get to it. I don't wanna, I don't wanna I'll bury the lead a little bit here, but we'll we'll get to to what would be potentially outplayed there. All right. Time for a little nerd talk here. I kept it short. I tried to consolidate. What are we doing? Why are we doing This. We are increasing mitochondrial development. Mitochondria are the engines that turn oxygen and fuel into actual usable fuel in your body. Okay. If we increase those things, we increase the fuel, we keep going, we keep going faster, we can go longer, etc. What's awesome about this is it increases work capacity across all intensities. Okay. So if we need the long and the slow to be able to create that density, it's going to translate up. And if somebody already has that density, they don't need it as much to be able to do that. So a lot of people are missing out here and they want to know why they burn out in longer workouts. They want to know why training volume ends up kicking their ass. That seems reasonable on paper. It's because you have not taken the time to develop this system. Someone had it via genetics. Someone arrived in CrossFit with this being part of their training before. And one of the reasons why this is such an easy conversation for me is because I came from a traditional sports background and I was either sprinting 90 feet or I was taking a five-step drop and throwing a ball. Like there's no endurance going down on the type of thing that I was doing. And anytime I had one of those crazy coaches that made us like run-run, I was in fucking trouble. I was in a lot of trouble. So the way that this works and how much of an effect it can have on certain people is not lost on me because I've experienced it in a pretty big way. Next thing is capillary density. So you are essentially essentially increasing the tiny blood vessels that feed your muscles. The more you have of those, the more oxygen is delivered and the more waste is removed. So the more we train this, the more density we are adding, the more tiny blood vessels we have that deliver oxygen to your tissues and remove the waste from what's in there. Nerdy.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

I'm just nerdy. I'm just trying to like figure out a way that I can relate this for the average person. Yep. But I'll let you finish kind of the nerdy talk and then I'll do that.

Why We Use Zone Two

SPEAKER_03 46:24

Yeah. Fat oxidation. This is one that people probably understand the most or at least have heard the most. You know, metabolic flexibility was a hot topic, you know, a handful of years ago when more and more people were introducing things like fasting or, you know, changing when they had fat versus carbohydrate, et cetera. We talked earlier, we set this up earlier by saying that the we are essentially staying away from a glycolytic demand in zone two. And what that means is you are using fat, you are oxidizing fat. You're either using what's in your bloodstream or an adipose tissue to fuel what you're doing. You're really bad at that when you start zone two, when you just get into this world and you become more and more efficient at it. And if you think about this from the perspective of anyone who's competed at a competition that's had enough volume where it's made it challenging to fuel, and your window of relying on glucose, which you're going to have to ingest at very high quantities, is basically every second that you are competing, regardless of the duration of the style of workout. You get better at this and you create a window that is related to your warm-ups, your cooldowns, the first few minutes potentially of a workout, the first maybe half of like a like a crazy CrossFit games type workout, that sort of thing. You doing that puts you at an advantage. And again, some of this is just at rest. It's not in the moment of like you can be so metabolically deranged that you stay in a very catabolic, heightened state for longer than other people post-workout. And that is still pulling that glycogen. And it can have a stress response that's maybe a bit more mental than physical. It's like, why do I feel this way? You start to panic, you don't want to eat because you're not really getting into rest and digest in a very good way. So creating a system that spares glycogen for a period of time, whether you're active or not, and delays fatigue sounds pretty great to me.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Yes. And that is with zone two.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

That is with zone two. Yeah. We become more and more and more efficient at using fat as fuel, which again, like this isn't this isn't like uh this isn't ketosis propaganda. This is I don't want to rip through my glycogen stores and my warmup. Like that's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

Yeah. I mean, I I guess for the average person not getting nerded out. Think of it like you're chopping wood for winter. It's not flashy, it's not exciting. But in the hard workouts and competition, you're burning that fire. And your zone two is how you stock the wood pile. So like that to me, like that to me is an easy way to compare of like, or at least to like see like I'm increasing work capacity across all intensities because I'm stocking my wood pile. And the more I stock it, the more wood I'm gonna have to burn in the long run.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

So if we went really high level here, what we're looking at is you get more fuel to do the same task as other people. You get more oxygen than other people. We all know the role that oxygen plays. You know, you're gasping for air, your body's begging for you to get more of it in. You are more efficient at delivering that. And your legs or arms or grip burns a lot less than the person next to you, and you're doing the same thing. And then we can potentially keep our fuel stores for longer than other people, which creates demand in a bunch of different ways, whether it's stress or it's just you better unlock that jaw, unhinge that jaw, and start, you know, dumping candy down into it, because otherwise you're just gonna be at a huge disadvantage to other athletes. Okay. This is the whole, like this is what I wrote first. This was what we're about to talk about, is what I call the, I should probably have a like easier digestible name. Maybe we can work on it, Paige, the zone two efficacy spectrum. It's not too bad. Not terrible. What we're looking for is where do you live on this related to you need it or you don't need it, and then how much and what factors are at play here. We are gonna go from basically you don't need it, but it wouldn't hurt to try all the way to you need it. And we'll have some stops along the way. So, level one, low total training volume. So this athlete isn't training a ton. They're not necessarily overreaching, and they have a high aerobic capacity. They already have that. We have plenty of people, the people that walk into your CrossFit gym and you cannot fathom how low their one rep max is and how they wax you in particular workouts. Everybody knows that person. Um, they have that endurance background and they don't train a ton. It's not necessary for those people to do zone two work. It won't hurt as a supplemental addition, especially if there's a training modality that um is like a major weakness that they just need some exposure to. Easy way to add some exposure, zone one, zone two. It should never, under any circumstances, impede effective volume. So if you're a CrossFitter, your effective volume is going short, medium, and long, lifting heavyweights, etc. couplets, triplets, chippers, monostructural conditioning, dedicated lifting sessions, all that stuff. This is where we get into, I think, the dogma related to this, because there are people who don't understand what we're saying and they do one or two zone two days a week, and they leave the like really effective training off the like docket. And that is a huge problem. We don't want that in any situation. So the problem is people who make videos related to level one open with here's why you shouldn't be doing zone two training. And it's like, that is so disingenuous. Um because you're talking to a very specific subsection of the population. Right. Um, so they're convincing you to do something that may or may not have anything to do with you specifically. Um level two, low to moderate training volume with moderate to high aerobic capacity. So we're still living in that bottom half of volume, and we are transitioning over to like, I'm pretty good aerobically to I'm like an aerobic monster. This is the level at which we should start talking about a single session per week, especially if there's that outlier modality. I can't, I mean, C2 bike is one that I think is effective for so many people because it's just like that thing where you get on it and your legs burn, you don't know what the hell's going on, you don't know where to put your damper, you don't know what RPMs to be at, et cetera. That would be one of them. And then there definitely are people who have pretty incredible aerobic capacity because they're large and they can put that body weight onto a seat or stand still, then you ask them to go jog, and we're we're looking at a real problem here. Should never, in capital letters, impede effective volume. That is still the case at level two. So we are transitioning from probably don't need it, like do it once a week if you want to, you know, if you're like a lot of the people that do it are obsessed with burning calories, it's not gonna hurt them, it's not gonna be a big deal, it should be done on an active rest day, that kind of thing, to I think this could help you. I think this could be effective if we do the execution stuff that we're gonna talk about soon, but it's not, you know, it's not gonna like blow your mind or anything like that. And it never should be in place of stuff that's truly gonna help you.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

Yeah, I think with level one and level two, it's like you can really focus on movement efficiency with said machine or even your running. I think that's really what kind of stands out to me at that point. And that's not to say level three, four, and five are gonna have those as you know, those are those are still gonna be important points, but you know, especially if there is something like, man, I just my skiing technique is really bad, you know. Okay, spend time on that thing.

Physiology: Engines, Vessels, Fuel

SPEAKER_03 54:40

Yeah, absolutely. All right, level three, we are in the grayest of gray areas here. So I'm gonna give a definition and then I'll probably play devil's advocate a little bit here. But we have moderate training volume and low to moderate aerobic capacity. This is where we are going to establish the weekly single session minimum for every athlete, aside from, again, those aerobic monster outliers. The second weekly session recommended on an actual training day becomes mandatory for the aerobically challenged and potentially viable for the average aerobic athlete, especially again, if there is a modality or outlier or secondary benefit, which I'll cover the secondary benefits here in a second. If you have low to moderate training volume and you are just a mess aerobically, you also fit into this category. We gotta find some time for you. And we're in, you know, we're we're we're getting murky, it's level 2.5, but I hope that you understand the spectrum and what could help. If you have the time to add to an active rest day, even if you're low volume to do this, I think it is incredibly beneficial, right? So maybe I should have made six levels, but I hope you guys understand kind of where this lives. Secondary benefits here. I know some, like Hunter would be an example. Hunter is pretty damn good aerobically. So he trends towards the lower end of a zone two, higher end of a zone one. He does quite a bit, even though he hates the C2 bike for coaching reasons. If you're warming up on one at Misfidge in Portland, uh, he does not think you're warming up, just so you know. And he sees this massive benefit of when his legs burn out in CrossFit workouts. He's one of the people that has to rely a little bit more, like he doesn't have crazy long femurs, but he's got to rely a little bit more on like sitting back into his squat than being like super upright. So there's just a little bit more mechanical demand on the lower half of people. Like we all know that long femur person, like you could set a clock to their back squat reps, even if it's just the empty bar. It just looks painful to watch. I feel bad for them. So the secondary benefits would potentially be affecting local musculature. So the legs on the C2 bike, we've seen a ton of people who have already made the progress they need to related to zone two, but do zone two rowing or skiing to drastically improve their pressing and pulling endurance. Um, and we've seen this with people who are already good at those things, but man, you reach close to your potential and then you see what's out there for competitors against you, and you're like, I'll take those extra two muscle up reps, right? Like it comes down to those things. And then running is a huge one. So so many people who haven't taken the time to do that and they haven't figured out how to run. So like when they do, you know, their feet hurt, their Achilles hurts, their knees hurt, etc. So that would be a situation where there's almost this kind of secondary benefit, and I find it to be like like a like capitalized version of the modality thing. It's very unique in and of itself. Yeah. That if you want to be good at running, you need to be able to log miles. And maybe you've already done that in your life, but most CrossFitters haven't.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

Yeah. I'm kind of going back like because I am on the Echo Bike quite a bit for mine. And now that I'm now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, okay, I I do see like I don't know, it just clicked in my head that I'm like, oh I know I need to get better at the Echo Bike in all of my gears. Now it really, really makes sense that I'm sitting on an Echo bike for many hours a month.

SPEAKER_03 58:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 58:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:22

And and it's it's the Echo Bike could be its own episode because exposure is so important because there is no damper setting. We moderating intensity on that thing is very challenging. And those weird middle speeds that most CrossFit workouts ask for don't really move the needle if you do them in training, right? So, like, like the bigger athletes are are out there and they're, you know, on the women's side and longer workouts are in the like mid-60s of RPMs. Like, if anybody wants to know what that's like, go try to hold it for a couple minutes. Sucks. It's pretty crazy. But when we operate within that weird middle ground of intensity in our training, it just doesn't move the needle as much. So logging the time makes a massive difference. Definitely when it comes to the Echo Bike. All right, level four, moderate to high training volume and the full spectrum low to high of aerobic capacity. We've arrived at a mandatory twice per week for just about all athletes here. This tool for adding volume to a program designed for overreaching is too valuable to be dogmatic about. When we are overreaching, but everything that we do is the hammer in the nail, then we're gonna have some problems. We're not gonna be able to add volume. And adding low intensity volume, so the duration multiplied by the intensity is what is at play here. An efficacious workout on the fast end is incredibly high intensity. So you have the higher intensity score and the lower duration score. The inverse of that is low intensity, but we need the duration to be very long, and that is going to sort of tell us how effective the training can be. So when I'm writing competition prep, it is so obvious on the days, if there's a third conditioning piece, what could be happening to this athlete? And it ain't good. So we are using that as a tool. High volume programs with athletes who are hyper responders can start talking through a third session or increased durations as well as lower to moderate aerobic capacity athletes. What is a hyper responder? Hyper responder is someone who gets a ton out of a little volume, very genetics based. For me personally, if I go really high intensity beyond three or four days a week, like really bury myself, it has negative effects. But at the same time, like I can stay fairly fit with burying myself like twice a week. Um, and that's typically going to be someone who's more of a power athlete, more of more, you know, I don't have much on the anaerobic side either. It's mostly just power. Um, but some more anaerobic than than aerobic. Um and there are plenty of people like that in the space because a lot of people that are drawn to competitive CrossFit were competitive in a realm that was, again, shorter duration. Most sports, you know, sort of live in that place. So allowing them to push into the higher volume through lower intensity once they've kind of tapped out is a tool that that works really well. Last but not least is level five, and that is high training volumes, period. If we are doing high training volumes at Misfit Athletics, every single person is doing a lot of zone two because we can add volume, we can move the needle, and we cannot beat the absolute crap out of people. So basically, what I wrote here, 17 years of data tells us that athletes in our world are not exempt from relying on zone two or if if they are in a phase of peak volume, and that is typically competition prep when they're in peak volume. An example would be in a games prep generic volume during Hell Week is over four hours of zone two work. Paige shook her head. She knows. And I wrote mixed modality, but that's over the course of the week, not the session. So you would have uh the running would be on a training day, another one, you know, a row, a ski would be on a training day, and then the active arrest day would probably be um, it can be any machine, but I like a I like a C2 bike or an Echo bike. And yeah, that's the full spectrum there. So we are looking at how much volume are you doing and how much aerobic capacity do you already have. And those are the sliders that we move around to explain whether you need it, how often you need it, et cetera.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

I would say what most of our athletes right now live in that level four. And it's kind of what we have as far as like quarters prep.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:02

I think that's pretty accurate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:04

Yeah. So, but I mean, and you know, if you are more of that open style athlete, like lower volume, just really kind of do like a leave your ego at the door. Like it doesn't zone two doesn't have to be done. Like I think that's one thing to like kind of remember here is like we don't need to add volume for the sake of volume. And we always emphasize that within our training, within our programming. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of fun because I don't know, did we do I I didn't really follow with quarters? I didn't follow with a lot of the prep last year because I was prepping for every competition on the planet.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:38

And it's pretty normal for me to do two zone twos a week on my like on a weekly basis throughout the year. But have have we always done like with quarter, like if quarters prep was a thing, have we always done two zone twos for or is that kind of new this year?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:57

No, I mean it's been in the the two has been in the programming for a long time. And what's interesting is you would think that you need crazy high volume for it to be like mandatory, mandatory, but the volume is relative to the athlete themselves.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:13

Right.

The Zone Two Efficacy Spectrum

SPEAKER_03 1:04:13

So when we get into quote unquote hell week of quarterfinals prep, so next week uh next week's episode is is about quarterfinals peaking, as we're we're gonna get started the the second week of February. But like it's your high volume and their high volume is not the same thing. Right. So they will need it sooner by definition. So that third day being in the middle there allows them to continue to work and to continue to move the needle and overreach, you know, dare I say, too much a little bit one week, just to try it on, just to see what it's like. Then they need they need more. Probably the duration is not gonna, like the amount of sessions will probably where we add volume, yeah. Versus like, goodness, four, like four hours, and people are like, dude, I got kids, I got a family, like what are you doing? Um, and that's why we do the if you're a Misfit Athletics athlete, you see that it says 60 to 90 minute session. Um that's why that's in there, right? Like there's reasons why one would work and one wouldn't work, and they're not all related to performance. A lot of them are just related to how much time you have. So we have now arrived at the part that hopefully we can kind of blast through. Um, and this is execution. So, how do you actually do zone two work? Warming up is is really important. Might seem kind of silly, but you are listening to this podcast right now, you're in front of your computer, you are, you know, warming up for something, you're sitting in a chair. The most of the blood in your body is circulating around your organs at rest. And we need to slowly let the body know that we're about to exercise. And this applies to basically every form of exercise, but we'll keep it just a zone two. Takes about 12 to 15 minutes of slowly increasing your heart rate to. To send blood to muscle tissue throughout your entire body. That in a lot of ways is an evolutionary thing. Where if we are encountered with a life or death scenario, your blood vessels are essentially told to contract aggressively and send the mu send the blood down to your legs. Oh, bear. Like I'm gonna run. You are intentionally jacking up your heart rate. You are intentionally, you know, trying to get your legs going. And that's why some people are just like, why every once in a while is the beginning of the workout so bad? Um, and it's because your body is panicking and hasn't done that. So here's what we do four to five minutes of building up to a heart rate of 160 beats per minute minus your age. If you are 20 years old, you subtract 20 from 160, that is 140. 45, 45, whoa, 4 to 5 minutes building up to 170 minus your age, and 45 minutes building up to 180 minus your age. The fitter you are, the less aggressive you need to be with those heart rates during this warm-up. It's not very hard for someone who it has dysfunction aerobically to be able to do that. But honestly, it's nice and easy on a machine, slowly just increasing as you go. Then you grab some water, go to the bathroom, do whatever CrossFitters do when they're allowed a break after their warm-up. You know, you know, you set up your machine or whatever you're gonna do to sort of keep you happy over a period of time, and then you go. Um, it should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever feel hard. Like if we're saying that about the workout, that should definitely be true about the warm-up. And I'm thinking C2 bike, the amount of messages that I get where I cannot get my heart rate up there, that's when we need to go based on feel, right? You know what your zone two pace is if you've been doing it for a little while. You know that it's 175 watts. So ride at 140, 150, 160, whatever, something in that range. You'll know when that's happening, but it should never be hard. And then the other end of the spectrum is running, you're gonna be jogging and you're gonna look down at your watch and be like, shit, I gotta walk. I gotta jog, I gotta walk, I gotta jog, I gotta walk, that sort of thing. Okay, next. We've had really good results. You can do the lactate monitor, you can prescribe to whatever bogus formula you find on the internet. Most of the percentage ranges are low. They're pretty low. Like anytime I look at those, I'm like, eh, that ain't especially if you listen to endurance athletes talk about it. So 180 minus your age. I am, dare I say, almost 40 years old, womp womp. But I get to lower my zone two heart rate by all the way down to 140 here pretty soon.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:38

It's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:39

That's the only good reason.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:42

That is the high end of the range. We never want to cross that threshold. And the low end is 160 beats per minute minus your age. So my range would be essentially 120 to 140. And uh when I get up, I get in the like mid 140s, I know that I'm trending to zone three, right? And again, we want to be below the threshold. We want to be flirting with it the entire time that we're doing it. So the one thing that I will say that's that's really interesting with the endurance community is when they're feeling really good, their heart rate is higher, not lower. But like when they're having a great session when they're rested and recovered, they can do a zone two all the way up at 145 beats per minute. On the days that they're beat up, they can't push the RPMs, yeah, the cadence that it takes to get them there. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So so if you're feeling really great and you're just a few beats below, that's totally fine. But if you're just a few beats below and you feel like shit, then we need to rely more on what we've already talked about quite a bit. And remember just what we talked about in terms of what zone two is and what the warning signs are that you're below it or you're above it. Once pacing is established, once you have a session, once you have data, we rely more on your output than we do on heart rate. This allows us to stay at the same duration and increase output over time and slash or allows us to increase duration at the same pace over time. For me personally, I know this is true, it can often produce better results as holding a pace can be less distracting and less demoralizing than staring at a heart rate constantly. So, like you can really get on a groove on a machine and hold within an RPM or two and just be right at that wattage without being distracted and staring at that thing. And I'll actually set intervals. I'll be like, I'll peek at my watch. I'll peek at my watch every 10 minutes or something like that. I know how I feel. I feel pretty good. And the cool thing is I typically have higher outputs at lower heart rates when I don't stare at my heart rate the entire time. So just a maybe a kind of little side tangent there. In this instance, I already said that. In this instance, we check on our heart rate sparingly and just get after it. Personal anecdote uh I per I don't have time in my life to increase duration. So I rely mostly on increasing wattage over time. Like right now, I suck so bad at the Echo Bike that I'm adding like an RPM per session. That's not that realistic, but beginner gains are fun. Cool down. You have two circulatory systems that could use a little love after a long session. The most obvious one is your heart and your veins, your blood vessels, you know, your blood pumping throughout your body. There are waste particles in there. If my heart pumps less, so lower beats per minute, I clear waste at a lower rate because that is what it takes. It's going to pass through the system. So that's why we keep our heart rate up to cool down. Also have the lymphatic system, which works under negative pressure by contracting muscles. So negative pressure means if my heart's here in the middle of my body and the waste is all the way down in the bottom of my leg, I need to pump it up through my calves and my quads and all these different places to get it to move. And we need it up into the heart and the lungs. Don't even worry about that. We need muscle contraction. If we have muscle contraction in an elevated heart rate, we clear waste. That's what's going to do it for us there. So we are going to reverse our warm-up, but just adjusting pace slightly. Four to five minutes at about 10 beats lower than what your working heart rate was. So if you got done, you get done your workout and you've been riding at a 140, drop it down to a 130 and coast for four to five minutes. The next four to five minutes, stay, you know, drop another 10, about 20 beats below where you were working at, starting to, you know, probably be into the mid to low end range of zone one. And then we just want to keep moving for the next four to five minutes. You could drop it 10 beats again if you're, you know, type A and need specific instructions, but just keep moving, keep your heart rate, you know. I personally try to keep it above 100, that kind of thing, but fit people would probably be a little bit lower. So that's our cooldown. So we have the 12 to 15 minute warm-up. We have the who knows how long with the actual session itself, and then the 12 to 15 minute cooldown. We advise people to start at one hour and 15 minute sessions once per week on an active rest day, avoiding running for most athletes. If you're like crazy low volume, then it might be okay to go jog. Uh, but I don't love the wear and tear on the body on a rest day. 15 minutes of warm-up, 45 minutes of working time at that 160 minus your age to 180 minus your age, 15 minute cooldown. Add a second, add your second session. So the next step would be that second session, and we want that on a training day, not your other rest day. And same parameters, hour and 15 minutes total, but account for the volume. This needs to fit somewhere in your programming. It's not always added to your program. We're not always peaking. This should sit in a level of volume that helps you move the needle and doesn't beat the crap out of you, especially in the off season. Once we've done that, that's when I typically start to increase the duration of sessions. So you can increase one because of your personal schedule. So only on my active rest day am I able to really add time. Or this modality that I'm doing on this given day is the one that I need more eggs in that basket. So you only increase that one. I like to increase slower by adding to both sessions. I think it's easier to digest to say, okay, it's 50 minutes on this machine now and 50 minutes on this machine for working time than it is to add to the 60. But like we have ideal and we have realistic, and that's where this next note comes in. If that second session isn't in the cards, but you fit into level two or level level three on the spectrum we talked about, just keep adding to that single session. Just keep adding time to it, right? We can get all the way up to that 90-minute session. Or well, it's two hours. It's 15-minute warm-up, 90 minutes on the on the modality and then a 15-minute cooldown. So just something to kind of keep in mind there. We can increase the volume related to that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

Would you so like say somebody fairly new comes into our program, they see it says 45 or 60 to 90 minutes, and they're like, I'm just gonna go for it. Like they're they're really motivated, they're they're hyped up to be in there. Would you recommend that they try one of their first zone twos to go that long? You think it matters?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:15

I need to know. I think it I would need to know the person, right? No, I think I think the hour and 15 minutes is is a really great place to start.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:23

So many people listening to this are already gonna have something set in place with the way that they do. I think 45 minutes is really digestible. We know from data that cardiac drift should not be super high during that duration. So we shouldn't have an issue with holding a pace and staying within a zone. So I would definitely start there and then trend towards, you know, kind of kind of what we're talking about here. Um add the third session as volume increases. So only add volume to that particular session as a form of progression. Paige might be all the way up to 60, 70, 80 minutes on a given modality. And then we are in peak volume and we are adding a third modality. I don't automatically send her to 60, 70, 80, 90 minutes on that. I'll be somewhere reasonable. I'll go back and look at her programming and be like, okay, we can start at 50 minutes, we can start at 60 minutes, et cetera. But don't when you do that, think that they're all it should increase linearly versus like, okay, I'm just gonna jump in and do this.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:29

Yeah. Typically the time that that happens is peak volume of like a peaking block. So I'll see three sessions in the week and they're all high, but again, the volume has been appropriately increasing throughout the weeks before that.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:44

Yep. All right. So last note here replace zone two sessions with zone one sessions if overreaching has you beat up on an active rest day. So you arrive at that session and the warning signs are going off. You check engine lights on, you got no oil, you're overheating, the whole nine. That's when zone one is really important. Just drop the window, 20 beats, 140 minus your age, 160 minus your age. Oftentimes, people who need a zone one session will get more from it because they're already pretty damn fit. Um, so we talked about uh, I don't know if I mentioned by name, but Kip Chogi, greatest marathon runner ever. Some ungodly percentage of his training is zone one. And it's like a six-minute mile. Stupid. It's not cool. I remember one of our videos got a ton of views because I said I could snatch more than him. And and somehow the internet liked like that algorithm. Oh, Paige, you'll find this funny. So the uh the AI for what records our podcast, you brought up uh Daniel Brandon's handstand walking and it got a 99 score on like viral AI within a podcasting software knows that if you mention Daniel Brandon, uh, that you should post about it. I was like, my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

That's wild.

How To Execute Zone Two

SPEAKER_03 1:18:07

You're right. So, all right. We're we're at an hour and 25 minutes. Once I remove the pauses and the ums and uhs, we might be all the way down to like an hour and 15 minutes. My coughing. Modality nuance, I'll touch on so quickly. If you ignore this part of the podcast, it's totally fine if you paid attention to the warning signs of what zone one is and what zone three are. If you didn't pay attention to that and you are on, you know, we'll just use the same examples again. You're on a C2 bike. Why can't I get to this heart rate? It's because it's more localized muscle fatigue. You are building lactate, and that is not able to be flushed within the lower body at a rate that's higher, just go slower. That's almost always someone who's pretty damn fit. And like it's also what turns away some of the best CrossFitters in the world to zone two training. Like, I'll do a consultation, look at someone's program, talk through stuff with them, and they'll be like, I get clobbered by this. I can't, I can't do this. And it's like, well, it's not zone two, right? So we have to know that there is nuance related to this. The other end of the spectrum is running. So many CrossFitters go out and log miles at zone three. I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's not the same as let's dedicate sessions to zone four and zone five, staying at thresholds that really move the needle, and then let's stay below threshold to do the things, you know, that we've talked about, to manipulate local musculature related to running, to log the miles to get your feet ready, to get your calves ready, to get your knees ready, to get your hips ready while also doing all of the nerdy shit that we talked about before. So we typically see like people trying to push way too hard on something like a C2 bike. And we find that people think they're going slow, but they're actually going too hard on the running. So there's a lot more nuance than that related to the other machines. And, you know, our telegram group is free regardless of whether you follow the program or not. Just shoot us a DM and we'll let you go in there and we can talk through it. But I just think it was important to specifically call out these things look and smell and feel different depending on what machine or modality you're choosing.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:26

How do we do?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:27

Pretty good, I think. We got nerdy, but I think people will be okay. Not too bad though, right? Like people will be okay with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:35

How many words is my nerdy section's like a page, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:40

It just not that much of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:42

Watch some, go get on YouTube and watch Miss Frizzle, and she'll tell you all about it. You'll be totally fine. Little magic school bus. There's all those channels that like they're pretend they're for kids, but you can actually use them to remember the like not so useful things that you wish you remembered from like middle school. Go do that. That will help you. Read the mafetone book. Or just put your head down and get on a machine and go slow. And then it'll probably help you. So I don't know if you have final thoughts, if you want me to go first.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:16

I mean, I'll I'll just relate my final thoughts back to my experience. Like again, back in 2021 was when I really bought into doing everything the way that Misfit Athletics does it and asks of us. And I just saw tremendous progress from that. And I really started the 15-minute sweat checks with my zone two sessions first before it started to unfold into all of my training. Like I can't go to the gym now and not do 12 to 15 minutes before I do class. Like it just I get to the gym if I'm not feeling excited. I get on a machine, I start moving, and it gets me going. But just the zone two training itself, like my running. Now, now the way that you worded it made so much sense to me as far as like we do this to build all of our other systems, our energy systems. And I'm just like, that was actually really mind-blowing. I'm like, this is that base level that is literally going to improve the rest of the pyramid. So to look back and really think of like, wow, my running, my zone two went from 11 minute miles and now I'm just below nine minute miles is pretty, pretty cool.

unknown 1:22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:30

So and then, you know, it translates to having a top 10 one mile run score at the CrossFit games. So if you need data on that, it's right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:41

Well, and that gives us, you just explained the pyramid. You widened the base. Right. And it made you better at all the way at the top, which is awesome. And honestly, that's actually isn't the top because you smoke people in sprints. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like your your sprinting was very different. I know that that's something that was potentially in your toolbox before, but probably not if they were like, hey, go run a mile and then, you know, do this afterwards. Right. That would be the big place where that would show up.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:08

Right. The recovery also that came between running that one mile and doing that sprint. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:15

Little just like, do you believe or do you not? Second at the CrossFit Games, 30th at the CrossFit Games, we buy in after not qualifying, 29th. And let me fucking tell you the difference between athletes in 2018 and 2024 is crazy. So it wasn't just rising just above the level that she was at. She rose with the level that she was at all the way up to the way the sport progressed and then jumped a bunch. And um, you know, from from being involved with her programming, honestly, probably right around from that time forward, like a lot of it had to do with her buying in to just log in the hours and getting it done.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:02

Yeah. I'm kind of witnessing that with, you know, a couple of my athletes right now that I'm working with, which is fun to watch, fun to see. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:10

Yeah, that's one of the things where you like teach them something fun to get the trust. Yeah. And then you're like, all right, now we're getting to work. Now we are getting to work. Uh, I would say my final thoughts probably just reiterate what I talked about at the beginning, and they're very broad. In today's day and age, it should be a red flag if if anyone's so entirely dogmatic about any methodology. They demonize a specific macronutrient. Everyone should be taking X supplement at X dose, whether they're big, small, male, you know what I mean? Like we get we get passionate about a topic, and the immature coach or athlete thinks that like more is better and that this is the only way. And then the more you do this, the more nuance you realize there is to it. And you really just should be very weary of anything that's out there that feels like a gimmick or a one size fits all approach, or someone who uses that same mentality on the other side of the spectrum and says, like, this is dumb, no one should do it, this isn't the way that it is. And like, there are coaches that I know personally that hate zone two training because of how they do with zone two training, and that just blows my mind. That's funny. It's like, hey, Bob, guess what? You're not a fucking CrossFit Games athlete, you're not even close. And your ego is so huge that you won't log the hours to lower your heart rate. Good runner, bad runner, indifferent, that shit just blows my mind. So if you got anything out of this episode, be weary of who you take advice from. And if we ever feel like there's a change in the way we want to do this or how often, or who should be doing it, you'll be the first to know. And we'll always update our opinions based on what we actually see through research and objective data and all that good stuff. Labs. Did we do it? Did it. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Misfit Podcast. Head to gorillamind.com forward slash misfit. Get you some Omega 3 Elixir. Keep your brain healthy, keep your heart healthy, all that good stuff. Really reasonable price, really high dose, really high quality. One of my favorite products by them for sure. Uh sharpenhexco.com. Keep your eye out for the FY, shirt that will be coming out. Who doesn't love a little misfit inside joke? They always have curses in them. Just is what it is, right? This one, though, probably less problematic than one of our last ones. And all of our programming is at the link in bio on our Instagram. You want to follow our programming, you want to get a little dose of that zone two. There is no program that we offer that does not offer some amount of zone two, even if it's supplemental for you specifically, based on the conversation that we just had. Next week, we're doing the deep dive on quarter finals prep. Really excited to welcome a bunch of new misfits and get everybody ready for quarterfinals. We'll see you then.