Get ready to unravel the intricacies of Zone 2, LT1, LT2, lactate threshold, lab testing, and carb/fat oxidation with our head physiologist and CTS Premier Coach, Renee Eastman. This episode promises to change your understanding of how your body functions during rigorous training. You'll learn why lactate isn’t the villain it’s often made out to be, and how it functions as a fuel source.
We’ll also uncover the world of Zone 2 training, highlighting the vital differences between lactate threshold (LT2) and functional threshold power (FTP). Unearth how to maximize fat oxidation during training and learn why it’s crucial to get your training intensity right for an effective aerobic response.
Topics Covered In This Episode:
Guest:
Renee Eastman is a CTS Premier Level Coach and has been coaching with the company for more than 20 years. She has a master's degree in exercise science, has worked for USA Cycling, and is a 6-time Masters National Champion.
Show Links:
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Get ready to unravel the intricacies of Zone 2, LT1, LT2, lactate threshold, lab testing, and carb/fat oxidation with our head physiologist and CTS Premier Coach, Renee Eastman. This episode promises to change your understanding of how your body functions during rigorous training. You'll learn why lactate isn’t the villain it’s often made out to be, and how it functions as a fuel source.
We’ll also uncover the world of Zone 2 training, highlighting the vital differences between lactate threshold (LT2) and functional threshold power (FTP). Unearth how to maximize fat oxidation during training and learn why it’s crucial to get your training intensity right for an effective aerobic response.
Topics Covered In This Episode:
Guest:
Renee Eastman is a CTS Premier Level Coach and has been coaching with the company for more than 20 years. She has a master's degree in exercise science, has worked for USA Cycling, and is a 6-time Masters National Champion.
Show Links:
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform
GET FREE TRAINING CONTENT
Join our weekly newsletter
CONNECT WITH CTS
Website: trainright.com
Instagram: @cts_trainright
Twitter: @trainright
Facebook: @CTSAthlete
From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now onto our show. Welcome back, time Crunch fans. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford.
Speaker 1:Love season is approaching. If not here for many of us, likely many of you are thinking about your big events for next year and how to take your fitness to the next level in 2024. If that's the case, today's episode and actually the next three episodes are just for you. I've been working alongside CTS Premier Coach and our resident FISLAB expert in all things FISLAB testing, renee Eastman, on how we can take a batch of episodes and help educate all of our listeners on the importance of lab testing compared to the nuance of field testing, and then also to get a basic understanding of the underlying mechanisms that are actually working for you or against you when you do the training with the data you have. We thought that going back to the basics would be the best way to do this for the first episode, as many of us still get lost in the weeds when we're talking about aerobic versus anaerobic, ftp versus LT and all those fun fancy terms and abbreviations. Without further ado, I bring you Renee Eastman. Renee, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2:Renee Eastman. Thanks for having me back, Adam Adam.
Speaker 1:Pulford yeah, for sure. Renee is not a rookie on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast and she's also no stranger to exercise physiology. For those listeners who didn't catch you on episode 98, where we were talking about all things climbing on the bike, could you tell our listeners a bit more about yourself?
Speaker 2:Adam Pulford. Sure, I have been a coach with Carmichael Training Systems for over 20 years. It might be 22, 23, I don't know. I've held just about every job that you can have at CTS. My primary job is as a coach. As you mentioned, I've got quite a bit of experience in the FIDS lab. I've tried to add it up how many LT VO2MAC tests I've done and we're in the 500s Easy, because I started in the mid-90s at the Olympic Training Center. I was very cut by teeth in the FIDS lab. I've got my undergraduate, my master's degree in exercise physiology. I played bike racer for a long time. Now, like I said, primarily a coach, and I do run the FIDS lab. It seems like a little bit more buzz around the lab the last couple of years. I'm excited because people are getting interested in finding out a little bit more specifics about their training, about their training zone. That's what I'm hoping that we can share today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, truly, kudos to Renee for reaching out to me and saying hey, I got this idea. We've taken and run with it. We've spun it into these what I think will be three episodes. My last thing before we really jump into it is I want to give a shout out to Corey and Ruddy, the editors and producers of the podcast. They're always pushing me to refine and keep the process to around 30 minutes per episode. But, not going to lie to you, me and Renee are pretty stoked about this. If we keep it under 30 minutes, I'll be real surprised For our listeners. If we do go a touch long and it's getting long for you, just hit pause and come back when you can, because I promise it'll be worth it. Let's dive in. Renee, I'm going to ask you two of the most basic but perhaps the most tricky and misunderstood questions in exercise physiology. Are you ready for it?
Speaker 2:I hope so.
Speaker 1:All right what is lactate.
Speaker 2:Lactate is a byproduct of metabolism. Specifically, it's a byproduct of the breakdown of carbohydrates. Just a little bit about it. And why we would even measure it is that, as exercise intensity goes up, we need energy a little faster. Carbohydrates break down faster than fats. Generally speaking, as exercise intensity goes up, lactate is going to go up. Jumping on your next question why do we measure? It is because it relates to exercise intensity.
Speaker 1:The performance aspect, and so to clarify, lactate deals with our metabolism. As long as I'm alive, I have some lactate in my body all the time. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Right. I think that's a misconception about lactate, that it only happens or you only have it in your blood when you're doing something very hard. No, we have some right now because we're always using a mixture of fats and carbohydrates. We have a little bit more predominantly one or the other, but we're always making it. Do you think the other misconception that actually people are starting to get the messages that lactate is not the bad guy?
Speaker 2:It's not bad at all, it's actually a fuel source. When we break down the carbohydrates and lactate is part of that byproduct we recycle it and use it for energy. The problem comes is we can only use it so fast. At some point it starts to back up. It's actually not the lactate backing up, that's the problem. It's more the hydrogen ions associated and other things about metabolism that are going on when the lactate levels are high. Yeah, lactate is not the bad guy, but when lactate is high, fatigue is coming down the bend.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've given a nod to it and we're speaking about it, about that fatigue point and whatnot, but in general terms, here's the second tricky question what is threshold or a threshold?
Speaker 2:which threshold?
Speaker 1:so.
Speaker 2:Most of the time when us endurance athletes, a cycling endurance athletes, are drawn around the term threshold just kind of blankly, we mean Laptate threshold or it's. It's a very close association to functional threshold power and when we're talking about that terminology, that means your maximal sustainable effort. For that sustainable being what 35 to 60, 70 minutes in in that so long sustainable effort. That's what we mostly mean when we say threshold. However, there's a lot of different terms that you might hear LT 1, lt 2, obla, mlss, arobic threshold, anaerobic threshold, got any other terms in there. We get. We got a lot of terms that, yeah, that have the word threshold in there. Some of them are pretty close relation. Like I said, ftp and lactate threshold or Another term that somebody might use for lactate threshold might be anaerobic threshold, yeah, or LT 2, like those are some you know, close associations and they all fall around the term that most of us are familiar with Functional threshold power. There they're, they're real close.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I guess, like just in general physiology, if you could, if you could say a Threshold in general, like what's going on at that point To make us decide that it's an important point. Like what is going on with a threshold.
Speaker 2:When we're talking about it in these terms we're talking about, it's telling us something about our Metabolic pathways. What pathways am I using to produce energy? Maybe what, like muscle fiber types are are helping to produce those, those energy, and they're important because if we train Below, at above them, we can affect the change.
Speaker 1:Yeah on, yeah on the different ways we produce energy and so that that point of threshold is just a stuff where things are significantly changing right. And so to that end I'm gonna Throw a big whopper out there and let everybody know that there are two lactate thresholds, technically speaking, in Exercise physiology.
Speaker 2:Yes, commonly accepted, and I would Define the first LT one as your a rubik threshold, and the second LT two. Some people say anaerobic or I like the term lactate threshold, and that's the one that's mostly close with FTP, I think. Well, I've been around the Physiology testing business near 30 years now. The, the one we used to always identify, the one you know, was the LT two, anaerobic lactate threshold. It's only really been a little more Popular lives in the last several years to talk about the aerobic threshold or LT one.
Speaker 1:So if the listeners here and they're like wait what? There's two lactate thresholds, where did I miss that? Why is it more commonly talked about now, or commonly accepted, like what what's happened recently, or in your opinion, and this is just kind of off the cuff, like why are we talking about now and why is it important for the sake of this conversation?
Speaker 2:we have a much greater understanding about Physiology, about the, the pathways for producing energy, and how those Training at the different intensities affect different changes in our physiology. I can think, think our good pal in a go San Milan for you know a lot of his research in the zone to, in the mitochondrial efficiency and mitochondrial density of the slow twitch muscle fibers, that when, when I started in this business, we were just like what's your threshold, what's your like max, your maximum sustainable output? We're gonna base all the training around that. And you know I've evolved over the last you know 10 years certainly, of seeing the importance of zone 2 training, training below that first threshold of your, of your lactate, and what's really going on there. You know it's just education, more studies. You know we're not doing things that we did in 90s or 80s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you know I've talked about in the podcast that actually this physiology as a science is actually a very new thing. I mean, 100 years, ish, right, that's that's when we're really starting to test things and and exercise right with athletes and things like this. And so, keeping that lens on the frame of things here we have to, I would say, as coaches, as scientists, as physiologists Um, lean into the fact that as stuff changes, we got to change with it and we got to educate the users of exercise physiology and the users of our exercise modalities and methods and things like that, to help them and embrace their training, make them better. So that is why it's important to talk about these two lactate turn points as it frames up Exercise physiology and the training that we do. So back to you, renee. What is the difference between LT 1 and LT 2?
Speaker 2:that is a great question and, as we talked about, we always have some last eight going around and the normal numbers are like Zero to four and that's millimoles of lactate per unit of blood and really, really high would be up in the teams. So just to give you a little scale of that, so you and I sit here at rest, we, hopefully, are below 1 point 8.5 and as we Start to exercise we might go up to 1, 1.5, you know, kind of just like that zone one easy, you know, for me that might be 70 watts, for you that might be a hundred watts, you know easy chill chill and let's just say we're, you know, we're exercising.
Speaker 2:In exercise intensity gets a little harder, a little harder, a little harder. And In the lab we do this on a progressive test where we have certain wattages and we go slowly up an intensity of, you know, 55% of L, ftp or 60% of LTP, etc. So as we are exercising, what, once we're kind of going easy, let's call it zone one, two, our lactates aren't hopefully going to change very much. You might see 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, from a hundred watts for you to maybe 170 watts. You know kind of a broad range in there. Where you're lack, you're exercising harder but you're able to keep up with those extra by the demands, by metabolizing fat.
Speaker 2:Remember lactate to buy product of carbohydrate was have a listen. So you haven't needed to get the energy so fast that you're really Tapping in in the carbohydrates at a high level yet. So same same, same, same same baseline lactate and then at some point, you know, and for a lot of people it's around 70, 75% of FTP somewhere in there. But there's an intensity that kicks up and then all of a sudden your lactate increases a little bit, but it's not out of control yet and, put in context on numbers that's like two to three millimoles for most people, like One and a half or lower is easy arrest Over two. So maybe three, three and a half. It's kind of medium.
Speaker 2:And that's how you determine where LT one or aerobic threshold would be located during an exercise physiology test yeah, yeah yeah, to put it more simply, the first tick up above your baseline and Just you know, establishing that you, for most people, when they're going easy, there's a Breath of intensity that they can kind of go a little faster, a little faster, a little harder, a little harder, and their lactate levels don't climb Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And so is that a. Is it a hard and fast number when you're Measuring it there in the lab, or is it a little bit of art that's associated with identifying an LT one?
Speaker 2:The more tests I do, the more art I realized. You know I'm gonna be off. When we Started our lab testing, way back in the early odds, we were basing all the stuff that we did off of what they did at the Olympic training center, because why not? They're the best, right. Well, elite athletes test a little different. They present a little different than maybe your active, avid Amateur weekend workers working warrior.
Speaker 2:They present differently. And then I get some people who are, you know, I would say more beginner athletes, you know, just kind of almost starting from zero, and in their profiles look different. You know to say that it has to be a Half a millimole jump above baseline or 2.0, or I have to use some Education and a little art to interpret. Like what is that jump? I talked about these. Like there's some people who Come into the lab and they're you know, lactate levels from go or over to you, like in in, they just go up every single stage. That's usually somebody who doesn't have very much aerobic base, to be honest.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm consuming that. That fat as a fuel source, primarily with easier intensities. Is that correct? Just like yeah, simply Simplistically stating it right. Yeah, okay, so we're into LT one. You we've started super easy, super chill. You've got them on a bike. They're breathing into some in apparatus sometimes, but you're definitely taking a lactate sample. Well, the athlete is riding and doing this progressive Test that you have doing, scale of one to ten how hard would you say this? Their rate of perceived effort is at LT one.
Speaker 2:Maybe five, five ish. Yeah, okay, okay, I would say it's the first intensity when you notice it Like, oh, I'm doing something, now no, and you know this is gonna tie back to you know what the have? We mentioned that LT one is also what is, you know, determined in the lab to be the top of your zone to and Below LT one. We talked about the baseline. The lactates are same, only stable. It kind of feels the same.
Speaker 2:I'm a lot, 120 watts, 130 watts for a lot of folks feels the same. And then all of a sudden Maybe it's 150 watts for you, or 170 watts, or you know, it depends on your fitness level Also and you're like, oh, yeah, I feel like I'm doing something now. Yeah, that's that's what I say and that's usually that's when you cross Over LT one. Your lactate levels are a little elevated, so you're starting to use carbohydrates a little bit faster rate. And the other thing that's usually happening you're talking about breathing is your Respiration ticks up a little bit, you're not, you're not like Pantene and breathing heavy yet, but all of a sudden like, oh, now I have to take a breath every couple words.
Speaker 1:You know, do we do we used to call this ventilatory threshold? Do I remember that?
Speaker 2:Different things, yeah it is, and they are very close. The billet ventilator threshold in LT one. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly, we won't go there. But that's my point, renee, and you kind of got there before. Before I did in the way of this LT one phenomenon. It's a very measurable way of locking in your endurance zone or where you should train for that zone to training and if people have any questions about where is my zone to, if you do Field testing, you can set that. If you do lab testing, you can set that and, in particular, I think when you were doing lab testing, you can set it and verify it with probably greater confidence Based on some of these other exercise metabolism stuff that we're talking about and we'll talk about in part two. So it's almost like you can, you can have more assurance that you, your zone two is definitely there if you have a measurable LT one in a lab test.
Speaker 2:Right, Right, because you know you. You do your standard 20 minute or eight minute field test. You take a percentage of that, you estimate your FTP based off of that field test and then you take a just raw percentage of you know these, locked in 75% I think it's 74 or 75% would be the top of zone two by by the, at least the ways CTS calculates the zones, and that's just law of averages. Just like 220 minus your age is not your max heart rate for most people that you know, 74% of FTP May not be top of your or your LT one or top of zone two, however you want to phrase it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I would say CTS zones are far more accurate than 220 minus your age.
Speaker 2:Oh, but they for the listeners out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just wanted to put that out there. So, anyway, what we're doing and what we're trying to showcase to our listeners here is that a lab test not only shows the performance of the engine but how the engine is actually performing. And keep in mind, in this little scenario that we're talking about, where Renee is performing a test on this weekend warrior, we're only at LT one and what we wanted is to know the LT one and two, so, as they continue on their exercise, their progressive intensity here, what are you noticing when we're getting close to LT to Renee, and what are you noticing in the blood? What are you noticing in the rider themselves?
Speaker 2:So back to the LT, to what we're calling our classic lactate threshold, or Very close to the functional threshold power. So this exercise test, going up at a little higher intensity. Now you know another 20 watts, 30 watts, 40 watts, you know, obviously all dependent the absolute power, dependent on the individual. They're between LT one and LT two. Their lactate levels are up. But you can clear it out as fast as you're, you're making it. It's like you know I.
Speaker 2:My analogy is you've got a boat in the water, lt one. You got a couple holes in your boat so you're taking on water. But you've got your bucket and you're like I'm getting the water out as fast as it's coming in, no problem. And for the like millimole levels, two to three, maybe three and a half for a lot of people. So it's like, yeah, I'm working harder. Now it's a it's not zone three tempo or maybe up to sweet spot range. People are familiar with those terms. You know 85% of of FTP Working hard. I'm noticing it. I can stay here a long time, I can. I can do this for an hour. I can do this for what I had to for two hours Maybe yeah so harder.
Speaker 2:Elevated breathing rate, moderate intensity is what I would call it. Moderately hard tempo, yeah, and Then we get to the point Our buckets not big enough anymore. We got too many holes in our bones.
Speaker 2:Yeah and we're sinking the the Lactate threshold, as we're saying. Lt two is the point above which Lactate is just out of control and that's a. That's a signal that we it's not a flip of the switch we haven't gone anaerobic, it's a dial, it's not a flip that we have. We cannot keep up with the energy demands with Predominantly aerobic pathways. We need to tap into those anaerobic glycolytic pathways to provide the energy fast enough and the Lactate levels usually jump quite a bit. Now they're like five, six, seven, eight millimoles high lactates which are just like I need the energy so fast. I can't. I can't do fat anymore, I have to do just carbohydrate. So Essentially, above lactate threshold is virtually All carbohydrate Metabolism because we need it so fast. And what the problem is with that for, or how? That it relates to our exercise intensity. We can only do that so long.
Speaker 1:We have limited Clikage in stores from carbohydrate on our body and those will be gone if we consume them quickly, right, Right right, yeah, exactly as opposed to fat. If we're burning fat, we have enough, and even the skinniest and skinny minis of the endurance athletes out there in the world, we have enough fat on their body to go for days really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, multiple stages of Tour de France yeah yes, and this.
Speaker 1:This is why it is important to understand how the engine is running, not just the fact that it is running for performance standpoint, right? So if we run this test, we have our LT 1, we have our LT 2, we set our training zones. We know exactly where zone 2 is. We know exactly where zone 4 is. What about FTP? Like, where does that lie? Do you just do you use it anymore? Do you throw it out? Or how do you manage that with your athletes?
Speaker 2:I use FTP quite a bit with my athletes because most of my athletes don't live here in town.
Speaker 1:They might not be able to come to the lab and they don't do lab testing yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So FTP functional threshold power, it is a, you know, based on your power duration curve and there's some we have some evidence to back it up based on your performance. It's a little bit more performance based, yeah. And there's lap tape threshold. You know it can be a defined number that, oh, your lap tape's spiked at this number, but what that means to your performance can be a little bit individualized. So FTP functional, I'm actually doing it applies. But what the, the lap tape numbers are telling us and the lab data is telling us is a little bit more about your physiology. And I'd say are you training what you think you're training? Yeah, yeah, in particular with the, with the LT1, are you training what you think you're training? Cause I think that's probably one of the biggest I don't know if I would say misconceptions, but misunderstanding about why is zone two so important and why isn't doing? You know, depending on your numbers, why isn't 220 better than 180 watts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I'm doing zone two, when I think I'm doing zone two yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's get into that. But first I'll say this, cause I'm a big proponent of FTP work because, again, like it is the best marker in the way of performance as it pertains to working with an athlete, remotely working with any athlete with a power meter that's out On the road doing racing, doing training, and can't get to a lab. And I'll remind everybody, it's very highly trainable, both LT and FTP. Ftp has some anaerobic as well as aerobic components to it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's one of the differences there and it's it has a duration component to it as well, tte, or time to exhaustion, and that's, I would say, the functional aspect of it, because we're dealing with a time and some listeners, perhaps some former listeners, were in a kerfuffle when I talked about TTE as it pertains to FTP, saying that it's not always around an hour or 60 minutes of power. So I bring it up again here in the light of the differences between lab testing and like lactate threshold and FTP. So you can get mad at the truth, but the truth will still be the truth. You're just mad. So I just want to say that, I just want to say that before we go, and all that to say, you know when you're dealing with these two differences, make sure that you are working with a coach that understands the difference between LT and an FTP, or at least get that information from the practitioner.
Speaker 2:I want to piggyback on that a little bit because LT and what you know, lactate threshold, lt2, that is a laboratory term. Yeah, and if we say my lactate threshold is X, but we haven't done a lab test, we are just estimating it and, like I said, that LT2 does not necessarily signify how long can I hold it, we can make some educated guesses about how long can I hold this LT2. And you know different labs will call LT2 at a different marker. And even that term LT2 or lactate threshold, or anaerobic threshold or OBLA maximal lactate study state if you dig into the literature you're going to find some different terminology, values, criteria to call these. You know longer unit scales or 4.0 millimoles, or you know a one millimole jump, all by another one millimole jump, like there's different criteria labs will use. So I think you know this might be our next conversation about when you do go to a lab, what to look for and how to interpret what their test told you.
Speaker 2:Because even CTS, we redefined what we determined as lab criteria LT2, lactate threshold. With more information, more knowledge, we basically have it a higher number now. It used to be probably closer to FTP in the sense of 45 minutes to 60 minute power, but now it's probably more in that 35, 45 minute power, depending on the individual. Everything depends on the individual. Yeah, I just want to add it's where CTS lab calls LT2. Now is a little bit closer to 95% of a 20 minute test.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good way of describing it Because, again, like whether your FTP is 35 or 60, that's highly dependent on what you've been training and how your exercise metabolism is working. So let's talk about that, renee. So I've done a lab test with you. I have all this new data and this new information. The million dollar question how do I improve my threshold, or thresholds, now, knowing what I know with the data?
Speaker 2:Well, now that you know where your data is, you can more precisely train your energy pathways, your thresholds, if you will, and I think, in particular, this timely talk we're having now in the fall, as many people are embarking on their base training, is what really is your zone two? Because the calculations based off the T. It's a start, but it's not precise. So when you're training below your aerobic threshold, you're producing energy predominantly via the mitochondria powerhouse of the cells, mitochondria of the slow twitch, most fibers, and it is where you're utilizing your greatest amount of fat as fuel. So zone two and break.
Speaker 1:So zone two and burning far more fat, or should be burning far more fat than Carbohydrate.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily. You're burning the most fat you can.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, so fat max.
Speaker 2:Right, okay, and I think that's a common misconception. That's a really that that, oh, I'm all burning fat below in zone two. No, a lot of folks are 50-50, but it's where you're going, where your peak fat or fat oxidation is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Targeting, targeting that intensity where I am burning the most fat possible for myself.
Speaker 2:For yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's a very individual mechanism and it, you know, there's a lot of things that go into it, but it it's all. The control is the mitochondrial density of the slow twitch fibers. Yeah, and the only way to get more of those is to do more volume of that intensity. Yeah, and you do have to go hard enough to an illicit of aerobic response. You know, for most people that's, you know, 55, 60% of of the FTP. But if you're going harder than that, you are not more effectively training your body's ability to use fats fuel. You're actually not doing that. You're doing the opposite of that, because once you cross over that first threshold, now, all of a sudden the extra energy I'm expending is coming from carbohydrates and your fat percentage starts going down. So that's why training in zone two is better than zone three for that mitochondrial efficiency of your, of your slow twitch fibers, and that's the control mechanism of your, of your lack of better term your aerobic base.
Speaker 1:Yeah, base training. Base training, which I've talked about quite a bit on this podcast and again like zone two, is pretty hypey right now. I think for the better, because it's we've talked about intensity for years and years, and intensity definitely has its role, definitely has its place to move the needle forward on fitness. I'm a big proponent of intensity, but not until that base is built properly. And so I think, to all of this end, like you said, renee, like you know going hard enough to illicit a response, it's not just like the coffee ride right, you're probably not hitting fat max on a coffee ride but what polarized, I would say, training has brought to us is it's not super, super easy, but it's probably easier than you're going. How do I know? Do a lab test?
Speaker 2:The LT two in the FTP we started out how close they are. That it's. I think it is really good information to get the full lactate profile, because what you're not getting from your you know, five minute, 20 minute, eight minute power tests is where is that LT one for me? And and, like you know, we'll get into it even more in our next conversation when is my peak fat oxidation rate? Well, top of zone two is theoretically close to where your peak fat oxidation rate is. I actually signed us not the case for a lot of individual athletes, a lot of those, those you know. The literature you might read is based off of studies and those studies are based off of, probably like high level athletes that were usually tested.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see. I see some people's fat oxidation being 55 or 60% of their FTP. I call those guys sugar burners.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that person needs.
Speaker 2:That person needs to be tested, they need to do more base training or they have a bigger deficit there. So probably if I had one takeaway I hope people got from this is that if you go easier on your zone two rides, it's probably going to be better for you, because too hard you're not doing what you think you're doing. You're too hard You're starting to burn more carbohydrates than fat. You're not getting that adaptation on the mitochondria of your slow twitch fibers. At some point in time people do need to progress from from their, from their zone two. But if you're just starting your base training now and you haven't done a bunch of zone two training, you would benefit from it and a little easier is a lot better than a little harder when we're talking about those adaptations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think I think as well. What's also challenging to do is talk about some of this, the metabolism of it, which we'll do in part two, and so I would encourage everyone to definitely tune into part two, as we just keep on bringing home these take home messages of the basics of physiology why we test what we test, why we set up training zone as we are and understand the value of zone two training and how it can be different from one person to the next. Because if anything that you do take away is just fully understanding that you know you have two thresholds One is aerobic and the other one is anaerobic it's actually at that floor of that anaerobic threshold, right, and so you can think about organizing your, your physiology in those two ways. But each one can have a lot of variance depending on your own individual metabolism, and that's when lab testing differs from field testing.
Speaker 1:Also, just to kind of summarize the points is, once you know your LT1, lt2, you have more confidence. You have training zones to now go out and deploy the training. But now you need the plan, and what Renee and I are talking about is, as we're turning the corner of 2023 here and thinking about that, base training and is, renee, you're working with your athletes. I'm sure everybody is starting to think about how to do base training better or how to be more targeted. So anything else you want to add to that summary list?
Speaker 2:A couple more selling points on the zone two. Zone two in improving that mitochondrial function at the slow twitch fibers and moving that. The goal is to move it up so that it's a higher workload, a higher percent. So that's the point of your LT2. I think I told you about this guy I tested yesterday, elite athlete, like one of the best ultra runners in the country. His LT1 in peak fat oxidation was within 90% of his LT2. That's awesome. That would be ideal you want to push it.
Speaker 2:The other thing about like training that in training the lower is it affects everything aerobically. Like it will help you improve your LT2 and improves your VO2 max, because the major controller of your aerobic performance is that mitochondrial function of your slow twitch fibers. We need the other intensities, we need the LT2 work, the VO2 max work. But if you're trying to improve your base you've got to be training ideally at kind of a steady effort below your LT1 and I'm sorry guys, you can't do that on your group ride.
Speaker 1:Putting the kambosh on the group ride, just like a good coach always does.
Speaker 2:Unless you can get all your buddies to agree to ride at like a nice, steady, easy tempo. I've been that conversation with a few people this week. That's why it came out. It's like you're not doing what you think you're doing when you're growing out in these three hour hammer fest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're fun. They're fun and you'll be able to hammer more if you do your zone 2 better or if you actually do your zone 2. So yeah, for everyone, I think you're getting the message of zone 2. I mean, it's super popular right now. A lot of people are talking about it, but I'm not always hearing why it's important and what is the underlying physiology behind it. So by doing these next few podcasts, I hope that we can really tell you the why of what we're trying to achieve, and that's going to help set you up really good for a successful base training season.
Speaker 2:So Right, and zone 2 is fun. It's nice and easy. You don't feel wrecked after it. It's awesome, absolutely. You have so much more energy in the day.
Speaker 1:So much more energy in the day, which I love, because if you do go out and you just like super mix of zone 3 and 4 on hills and you come back and you just like gorge or just like pull everything out of the fridge, go for it and then try to go back to work, and then you start falling asleep and you're not happy at all. So, Renee, thank you very much for being on the podcast once again. You know we'll save all the contacts and socials until our next episode, but I'm going to post them in the show notes. So if anyone's like wait this Renee, like I need a, I need a lab test, I'm going to reach out. Check out the show notes and you'll you'll find everything about Renee that you need to.
Speaker 2:Thanks.
Speaker 1:Adam. Thanks, renee. Thanks for joining us on the time crunch cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actual training advice, head over to train rightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.