Zone 2 Training

ConsciousPilot

What exactly are the benefits? I've been following a Polar training program, however it never explains the why's. e.g. todays training:-

Ride on hilly terrain. Ride uphill intervals in zone 2: ride 10 minutes at cadence 50-60 rpm and 5 minutes at cadence 80 rpm. Repeat this interval 4 times

Maintaining the cadence was the easy bit, but keeping the HR in zone 2 at same time wasn't always possible. Managed to keep ave HR down though.

vorsprung

A quick google seems to say that polar zone 2 is "60 to 80% of HRM"
This is broadly in the fulliy aerobic zone. Not much panting or puffing.
Pedalling at such a low cadence is probably to give you legs a strength building session, like lifting weights. Keeping the effort in an easier zone is because the focus is not on your heart/lung but muscular strength in the legs

ConsciousPilot

Cheers for that. Kind of thought that was the case from reading other posts. Just wasn't sure if the HR mattered too much. Managed to keep the overall ave in zone 2.

Alex_Simmons/RST

1. 60% - 80% of HRmax is such a broad zone as to run from being of none to limited training benefit through to solid endurance riding eliciting many positive physiological changes.

2. the low RPM bit is a red herring. Per se, it is of very little to no benefit over riding the hill at the same power in a more normal gear, unless you expect the need to ride/race at low rpms and therefore should train that way specifically. Having said that, if that was the case, you might want to consider more appropriate gearing. But some fixie MTBrs often don't have a choice. It is nothing like doing weights or strength training, the forces are way too low for that.

bahzob

The why of this zone is to build endurance.

Given this dont think there is a lot of point doing intervals. Nor is there much training benefit in riding at this zone for less than 3 hours (and key thing then is to keep intensity steady from start to end, which is tough).

If time is a limiter probably get better bangs for bucks by doing higher intensity work, when you may need intervals.