Shownotes
In this episode of The Athlete’s Compass, the hosts explore the often-underestimated power of Zone 2 training—effort levels that allow for relaxed, conversational pacing. They break down the physiology behind this aerobic zone, why elite endurance athletes rely on it, and how it promotes mitochondrial growth, fat metabolism, and long-term durability. With personal anecdotes and references to key research studies from 2023 and 2025, the conversation highlights the importance of consistent, low-intensity training for all athletes—from Olympians to time-crunched weekend warriors. The team also discusses how to apply Zone 2 strategically, avoid ego-driven pitfalls, and track progress through heart rate, efficiency, and perceived effort.
Key Takeaways
- Zone 2 training sits just below the first ventilatory threshold and supports aerobic efficiency.
- It promotes mitochondrial density, enhances fat oxidation, and builds durability over time.
- Even world-class athletes make performance gains primarily through increased low-intensity volume.
- Conversational pace and relaxed breathing are useful real-world indicators of being in Zone 2.
- Avoid the "ego zone" (Zone 3) during base training to maximize aerobic adaptation.
- Zone 2 is especially critical for masters athletes with limited time—focus on consistency, not volume.
- Tracking metrics like heart rate, pace/power, and efficiency factor (EF) helps measure progress.
- Use Zone 2 as a foundation and add high-intensity (HIIT) strategically for optimal results.
Transcripts
And instead of maybe knocking out another run, if you're a marathon runner, you can work on zone two on the bike or rower or whatever. go for a bike ride with kids.
Just get some, zone 2 work in there when you can. Even if it's not three hours,
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
it about two studies one from: second study in general from:So we're gonna include links to the studies in the show notes, but let's start with the basics. What exactly is zone two training and how does it relate to that first ventilatory threshold or easy endurance efforts? There's a few terms to define as well.
Paul Laursen (:Nice. Yeah, so what is zone two training? Keeping it super simple, it's training within your zone two. So if you have your zone two, if you know what that is in Athletica, and this is typically, it's above your zone one, but it's below your first ventilatory threshold. And yeah, what is the first ventilatory threshold? Well, if you're doing a step test,
progressive exercise test, you will find this. if we geek out a bit, it's where ventilation all of a sudden just starts to rise a little bit. And it's also associated with the first what's called a one millimole rise in your lactate threshold. So lactate all of a sudden goes up one millimole above baseline. And of course, you have a ventilatory buffering system. So your respiration
increases, you start breathing a little higher to accommodate for that heightened lactate. But that's in the laboratory and that's geeking out. But keeping it super simple for when, like what this feels like when you're exercising, it feels like steady, it feels like steady, challenging work, but you can still maintain a conversational kind of pace. you're out there working, you're grinding it out. It feels steady.
And time at that steady pace, like you're saying, with all these studies, Paul, across Norway and all the various different successful endurance athletes, you know, campaigns, it's, yeah, more time progressed over a lifetime or a career tends to be associated with enhanced performance.
And a lot of it comes down to just like fat oxidation at the end of the day. Just you're able to burn that unlimited resource that you have stored in you. But you just have easy access to it in any given moment and a real high like floor ultimately that you can build everything else on top of. you're basically these athletes, they can just do.
such high workloads and they do it easy. And again, training athletes like I have, it's just amazing what they can do aerobically. Like they just, all day. It's fun to go for rides with these guys because you're on the bit and you're just really working and they're just like, they're just laughing, right? Like they're just like, there's nothing for them because they've built this level. So it's just so high and they're just so aerobically efficient.
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Marjaana (:It's like when we went mountain biking a few years ago. I was dying,
Paul Warloski (:Yeah.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, but not anymore. But it is exactly that. Exactly. Yeah,
that was it. So yeah, tell the story, MJ.
Marjaana (:So we had just moved from Dubai, we were in BC and Prof and I, we went for a mountain bike ride. He was chatting and I was just struggling to get out a couple of words and he was asking questions and I'm like climbing up that mountain trying to talk.
Paul Laursen (:Thanks
So one of us
was maintaining conversational pace, but the other one wasn't.
Marjaana (:The other one was not and every couple of minutes I had to stop.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, but not anymore.
Marjaana (:I had no aerobic base. Yeah, it was really... I was so impressed. Like, my God, he's so fit and like I am dying here. And I thought I was like, I was relatively, you know, I had done Iron Man's and Half Iron Man's but I was struggling to climb up that mountain.
Paul Laursen (:But now you do.
Yeah, but it's the same for me too, right? I go train with some of my world champions and ⁓ yeah, they make me feel the same. all, it's everything's relative, right?
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's the beauty of Velocity when I did those rides with, ⁓ know, Ironman champion on Velocity. we're both pushing it, but his, his Watts are considerably higher than mine.
⁓ so, so let's, let's unpack a lot of what
said, Paul, you know, the many athletes describe zone two is the pace where they can talk comfortably, but breathe a little more deeply. Does that line up with the physiology? Is that a good way of validating our workouts in zone one?
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, can, yeah, for sure. Well, it's, again, remember what we're looking at here and all these phenomenons that MJ and I were kind of describing and Paul was describing, is related to the ability to burn fat. And when we burn that fat, it's, the byproduct is simply carbon dioxide and water. So it's really, it's,
There's nothing that is ultimately a nauseous byproduct. it's carbon dioxide at the end of the day, we just breathe this out. So to get that energy, that furnace firing in our muscles, it's just, this is why we're having the observations that we're making it, where the person that's fitter than us is just, it's amazing. But at the end of the day,
They're just better fat burners than us. they're breathing, they're just, when they're breathing, and you said breathing deeply, yeah, I guess they're just, they are just breathing deeply. And then they're ridding that carbon dioxide and it's just, it's as easy as breathing, right? And they don't have to necessarily hyperventilate to, to buffer that out. Whereas in the situation where we're the, we're the less fit of the two people.
you do have to hyperventilate a lot more, right? You're going over what's called the ventilatory threshold because your buffering system, the bicarbonate buffering system has to come into play to buffer the lactic acid, to get rid of the ultimately a lot more of carbohydrate oxidation and lactate byproduct to get rid of that. So we're not as efficient and you see that in the breath. Again, back to the mountain bike ride that MJ and I
We're on I was in my talk talk test pace easy burning fat MJ was breathing out of breath couldn't maintain the conversation Every time she had to kind of make a pedal stroke or contraction to keep up with me She had to burn a lot more carbohydrate a lot more lactate being produced and and her her system to keep her under homeostasis has to breathe and work harder a lot harder
So obviously, yeah, we want to be in that higher fat burning ability. And you get that through long time in zone two.
Marjaana (:I would actually say breathing relaxed and almost like you're not even thinking about breathing at that stage instead of breathing deeply or deeper. Like it's almost like you and me, we're sitting here now, we're not really thinking about our breathing at all. When we then move into a little bit higher intensity, let's say a slow run,
Paul Laursen (:Hmm.
Marjaana (:or easy bike ride, you're still breathing. You're not like really paying attention to your breathing and like, I'm starting to like breathe more with the more effort, right? But once you go over that VT1, you're starting to notice that, well, yeah, I have to breathe a little bit more often, like more frequently. And you're noticing that you cannot, for example,
sing a song or say full sentences to your buddy. That's an indicator that you have now reached the middle zone, gray zone, zone three, where a lot of us feel like we're working really hard and you're starting to feel good. You're pushing it. And then you can't, talk full sentences. And once you go,
past the VT2, like at your Lactate threshold or FTP, then you can just like say a couple of words, right? And you're starting to breathe and you can hear like on the Velocity Sessions, when we start going above that threshold, FTP or critical power threshold, you can hear it, right? ⁓ People
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Marjaana (:breathing really deep.
Paul Laursen (:Well, there's all of sudden a lot less
conversation going on. Heads are down
Paul Warloski (:Hahaha.
Marjaana (:yeah, the only one
Paul Laursen (:here.
Marjaana (:is usually
me. And you can hear people breathing and as they should, like they should be putting out a good effort and the breathing is a sign of it. But at that zone 2, like it's relaxed, know. Nose breathing,
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, nose breathe as well. can usually mostly nose breathe.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
ter. So the review study from: Paul Laursen (:Yeah ⁓
Paul Warloski (:Let's get into the weeds a little bit. Why do those changes matter for endurance athletes, even those who aren't elites, especially for those who aren't elite athletes?
Paul Laursen (:Yep, so your mitochondria, what are those first and foremost? Mitochondria, we've spoken about them before on the podcast. We can't take for granted that everyone knows what these are, but mitochondria are the organelles in your cells, the components of your cells. Remember, we're all made of cells that produce energy and they can burn the substrates, the fuels that we eat. So when you eat your food,
protein fat or carbohydrate, eventually it all gets down and broken down so that it comes in and gets burned in that furnace, which is the mitochondria. And the one that burns the best is the fat, ultimately, at end of the day. And that's what that review article is saying. And as I let off with, when it's burnt, the byproducts are just at the very end of the chemical reaction, it's carbon dioxide and water.
And the more you can do that by burning your stored fat, then the better you, the more efficient they ultimately are. So yeah, so it's the study or the, yeah, the study's absolutely correctable. Mitochondria, fat burning, and they go hand in hand with high volume, low intensity training. As the base, now.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Paul Laursen (:Of we shouldn't just do that, I don't believe. You get the best signal or best overall cascade of improving your performance, I believe, when you have both that 80 % of your training in that zone two. But I believe you can get a little bit more bang for buck when you a small number of key sessions on top of that.
such as what we're talking about, like the HIIT sessions on velocity, such as what you would see within Athletica. We're just this one or two key sets that are sprinkled into your week, and then you get this beautiful cascade of all the signals going into to develop your profile.
Paul Warloski (:And is the mitochondrial growth, is that more mitochondrial or they get bigger?
Paul Laursen (:the density of them increases, I'm not actually sure about the actual size per, I think it's more the numbers, the numbers of the mitochondria that you get.
Paul Warloski (:Okay.
In the in the:They found that the elite senior athletes didn't gain more by doing extra intervals. They gained more by doing more easy training. What does that say about how fitness is built over time?
Paul Laursen (:Well, I guess that is suggesting that fitness is built by progressively increasing exercise duration at low intensity. That's it's suggesting. And I would ask that back to Marjaana observations when she was in the Norwegian sports school system at Olympitoben and others, what did you see in ⁓ terms of the success of the Norwegian method, MJ?
Marjaana (:Well, when Paul, you asked this question, that first thing I was thinking, and I would like to see their, you know, talk to the researchers was, so if we're looking at junior versus adult skiers, what happens during the transition, right? Junior athletes, they still have, you know, school, they have all these other things that they have to do. And part of the Norwegian system is,
the sports high schools, right? So they are doing their training during school hours, but they still need to do schoolwork. So when you compare from juniors to adults, it naturally kind of progresses. You have more time when you're a pro athlete, an adult athlete, you don't have that overall load of
of studying as well. And you have to take that into consideration when you're coming from a junior years to an adult. So like that's the context that is in my mind when I see this study, right? But ⁓ I don't know. I know I didn't answer your question.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:No, think you answered it perfectly. think like it's the context of the observation may be related to the setup of the time management of what's actually needed, right? So yeah, the time management of, yeah, what is actually required by those individuals.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Marjaana (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I'm actually taking a course, like a CEO course with the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences and it goes into exactly this topic. It's about smart training for youth athletes and preventing injuries. And they talk about the overall load that youth athletes face. Like they have the family, social interactions, training, competitions, different sports that they're doing.
In Norway, they really emphasis that it's important to become an overall healthy, good athlete by doing several sports, right? But it's all going into this backpack of total load. So it's really interesting when you're looking at the study suggesting that more training is better, right? But when you look at the youth athletes as a group, there's lot more than goes into that backpack.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Marjaana (:of total load. And that I think it's important. Because if you look at, if you just put in competitions and high intensity interval training without that overall, you know, consideration of the total load, which is also, you know, family, nutrition, sleep, social media, social interactions, it is a completely different picture than what the
adults face, like when you're a pro athlete, you can take a nap, right? You can focus on all those recovery systems and all that, but the youth don't have that. They still need to go to school and navigate their own lives. So if you're a youth athlete, think you have, or coach to a youth athlete, you have to look at their...
overall picture a little bit more carefully.
Paul Warloski (:Mm.
Paul Laursen (:Mm-hmm.
I'd like to make a comment on, like, again, I just completely agree, but in terms of, like, so if we should mention that there's currently a new initiative at Athletica, we've mentioned, I think, before, but it's called Athletica U. We really teach about, so if you're an Athletica member, you get access to Athletica U.
And basically, we just believe that you should learn, we learn best by doing. And we like to kind of compliment the learning process for you, give you that information to be able to equip you so you know what it is that you're doing. makes your training actually more valuable. And again, I'm reflecting on, I'm looking back to the round the world trip that I just had. So both Olympic centers, Belgium and Japan where I was just lecturing.
was talking a lot about all of this stuff. And in the presentations, I was talking about the development of the aerobic base and I was using some case studies. One was Niels van der Poel, who's the Olympic speed skater, world record holder. And this guy was so bold in how he went about his process of training because he and his coach decided that they would do two years of zone two training, like huge, massive volumes.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:My friend, Svein Tuft he's a multi-world tour cyclist, pink jersey wearer in Giro, et cetera. So it's like this guy is, he's done massive, massive volumes, gone in cross-country type things, right? We're talking like two or 300 kilometer ⁓ days sort of thing. It's just sort of standard. And that's what...
Neils was doing too, right? I even larger. When I'm talking zone two, this guy did big zone two, right? Like 10 hour a day zone two started to develop and developed it on the bike. And then the other example that I gave was Mahe Drysdale, who's a two time winner for both London and Rio cycles for the single skull in rowing. Now, so Neils won it in speed skating.
Running, he quotes Osler from:there was this adaptation energy that is formed. So by the time you put your build training on the bottom of that aerobic base and you have this robust health that has been built into the system, fat oxidation like we were talking about, it allows for the build training to really take hold and you really get a robust system that's ready to perform.
So there multiple examples that are out there, but even for the everyday athlete, it still holds true. So if you have the time, and we all have the time constraints, Marjaana was talking about the sports school system that had those time constraints, and we've all got them, but if you can try to find ways of adding on aerobic zone two training, it just facilitates everything to allow you to build on top of it. And at least the...
Paul Warloski (:Thank
Paul Laursen (:these studies that we're talking about and anecdotally as well.
Marjaana (:And I think also the same principle applies to older athletes and adults who have work life, family and all that. Like you have to look at the total backpack of load, right? And instead of maybe knocking out another run, if you're a marathon runner, you can work on zone two on the bike or rower or whatever. You know, go for a bike ride with kids.
Just get some, some, you know, zone 2 work in there when you can. Even if it's not three hours, you know.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:Totally, totally. We talk about Cindy Maloney, I talk about her program a lot, I'm sure she won't mind me saying, but when she's training for a marathon and whatnot, I see on her schedule, she's talking about, she's just walk to work or jog to work. She's just trying to be efficient by adding on zone two training when she can. And that is the art of what we're all sort of navigating. There's a lot of people that do commutes, commute to work.
Bike to Work, it's great idea. How can you just think about your own context? How can I potentially add that zone 2 training on, it's not junk miles, it's been given that name, but it's just, I don't believe in that at all. I think it's very useful. And you're creating the adaptation energy so that when you do your key sets, you will adapt. Remember the Ingvill Odden study from Norway that we've talked about before in her two groups.
This was, I remember that the athletes that adapted and they could compete at a higher percentage of Vo2max and adapt to the HIIT training, they were the ones that had significantly more training volume based training than the others that didn't. it's a, the science is pretty clear to me.
Marjaana (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Marjaana (:And this is what they
found on this study.
from junior to senior level.
The HIIT sessions didn't increase, but the low intensity did.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:Alan Couzens has said this before too, right? Like if you've, again, if you're developing that robust health that Osler was talking about, it's probably related to basically the autonomic system, right? The parasympathetic balance is in place and you've got all the recovery mechanisms working really well. And then if that is the situation,
then you will adapt to your HIIT training. And this is probably why all the HRV training studies actually work, is because HRV is stable, and then you can, if HRV is stable, then you will get a big bang for buck when you do a HIIT session. But if it's not, you're, that's all absent in your life, and then you do your HIIT session,
Again, as Alan Couzens says, just you can actually go backwards. You can actually get worse. you'd never think that, right? But you could do a HIIT session and actually go the other way. That makes no sense at all. But according to that, according to this model, it actually could happen. So you can't put the cart before the horse, as they sometimes say.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
I mean, I think this is the crux of the issue is for a busy Masters athlete who has time constraints, maybe let's say six hours a week, how much time should be spent in zone two?
Marjaana (:A lot.
Okay. Well, if, if I had somebody who has six hours, I would definitely, depending on what the sport they're doing and what their strength level at the beginning is, but I would do a strength session followed by HIIT session. Like I would do like a super hard one session a week that hits two nails, that's strength and the HIIT session at the end. So do start with the four times 30 30s.
just knock it out. You'll be exhausted after that. But then the day after, you can have a day off or you can go for easy 30 minute zone two and then rest zone two.
Super simplified. That's what I would start as a base.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, I would take a balanced approach as well. was like, wouldn't do all one or the other, but I would try to have probably a balanced amount in there. yeah, whether it's an hour in the red zone kind of thing total for looking at six hours, but ⁓ possibly five hours in the zone two. But then it would be, it's like not five hours in one hour. It's like, it's all.
It's all blended and mixed up there. So you're getting a balance of signals throughout the week. And again, remember that frequency really plays a big part too, right? So how can we, is there a potential for us to break up the work periods so that, or, and I like the, when I'm saying work periods, like sitting at your desk, right? Like, can you break up those sedentary periods and have exercise snacks in this sort of a balanced format? That's probably a better.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:better method as well. Right, so yeah, that's, well, I'll say that there.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
How can we tell if our Zone 2 training is working? What signs of progress can we look for?
Paul Laursen (:classic one is, you we spoke about this on the last podcast, we talked about the MAF stuff, but like maximally aerobic fitness, Phil Maffetone tone stuff, if you all of sudden start moving at your external load, pace or power at a better rate relative to your heart rate, you're making progress because that suggests that, you know, your heart, your heart's not having to beat as hard for your whole metabolic system to work.
again, you've probably enhanced the fat oxidation. So because you're doing things easier, that's what we want to see. That's why the whole math method works, because fat burning is taking up more of the proportion of the job of moving you physically. And there's less overall stress in your system to do that. That's what we want life to be easy, right? And if you do your training right and develop that,
hmm aerobic foundation, then it makes all of our lives a little bit easier. That's the goal.
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Marjaana (:If you start knocking out your regular 3030s with a lot higher power, I'd say that's probably thanks to your Zone 2 improvements.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:Can you, is that, you know that from personal effect there, MJ?
Marjaana (:You know it. So end of one, end of one.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, it's remarkable.
Yeah. I mean, and we're talking big, we're talking like almost a hundred Watts. Like it's massive what you've, what you've done. again, back to the, where we started the mountain bike ride, where we didn't have that aerobic foundation and you weren't passing the talk test very well. And likewise, your, yeah, your, your overall output, your, your big power output wasn't, wasn't that high. And then, you know, two years later, aerobic foundation, and now you're, you're putting in huge power.
Marjaana (:Mm-hmm.
Paul Laursen (:and giving Prof a run for his money.
Marjaana (:We gotta go back to that mountain one day. Yeah. What do you see, Paul?
Paul Warloski (:Now that you're fit and ready to go.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah, we do. will. Yeah, Mount Ariel, April.
Paul Warloski (:⁓
yeah, I was just going to ask about the efficiency factor on Athletica, the EF. you know, that's a sign as well that, you know, you're becoming more efficient because you're able to put out more power or pace at a certain heart rate. And that seems to make a big difference.
Paul Laursen (:Absolutely. Yeah, you got the data right there in front of you.
Paul Warloski (:can see the number increase as we go.
Marjaana (:For, can I add something? Last week we talked about the ego and the zone 2 and how some people, like myself, find it hard to be honest with themselves, know, zone 2 when their effort starts to increase. I find that when I've...
Paul Warloski (:Yeah, of course.
Marjaana (:been really good restricting myself and staying lower at the zone two, it starts to feel easier and eventually the pace starts to improve. But it takes a lot of self-control.
Paul Warloski (:Mm.
So what happens if we drift into zone three, that gray zone, or we drift in down into zone one? I mean, what happens when we get out of zone two? Does that matter much?
Paul Laursen (:⁓ for a little bit, no, no problem. Don't, don't stress about it. but if you're spending too much time in there, that's, that's an issue. That's, that's when, ⁓ you know, remember if you, if you're spending and there's always the ego danger of, of landing in there, if you were not going to actually monitor, that's the problem with not, not monitoring your heart rate is that it just, will drift back up. You can easily drift into there because you can still make some conversation.
and potentially spend too much time in there. And then it's ultimately equivalent to doing a HIIT session if you're spending all your time in zone three. That's what a study by Stephen Seiler showed a long time ago. And that's the whole issue with spending too much time above your VT1, above your zone two. So this is why it's better to just kind of ease back a little bit.
Don't drift into the ego zone, zone three. And be steady and be disciplined and keep things easy in there. So a little bit of time, no stress. Don't worry about it. But too much, yeah. And then reset, observe. AI coach will be watching as well, and they'll make little bit of a mention. But yeah, it's worth kind of dropping back down again.
Marjaana (:have a question for Prof. How would you schedule a zone two, not like super long, but like let's say two hours zone two within your week, like say if you have a easy day or rest day, ⁓
Paul Laursen (:Okay.
Marjaana (:Would you like, I find it's hard to stay within zone two if I feel really good, because I get excited and it feels good. you know, and then if I have some music on, then it's like easy to go to zone three. Like, okay, let's go. So would you rather have a tempo or heat session on those days and then focus on adding up the zone twos in the evenings or after a few days of.
Paul Laursen (:Totally.
Marjaana (:hard sessions, because then you're less likely to push it too hard.
Paul Laursen (:Lots of ways to skin the cat. There's no right or wrong way. I'm big believer in definitely going by feel. But if you find yourself drifting out there too much and then stress is kind of adding up, it's time to potentially make a more concerted effort of keeping things easy and scheduling something in zone two and sticking to it. Especially if there's a number of HIIT sessions that are in the days before that.
We want this, you know, this cyclic kind of pattern of stress and recovery, but still optimizing the signal, right? So the signal is the messages that you're telling your body to adapt to that aerobic phenotype, the fat burning phenotype, mitochondria, fat oxidation, but at the same time, maintaining that autonomic balance, the stress of your overall body. So you can't always be stressed.
And because we just know that that's not the right path to roam. We want to take a better route. And we know that that is just kind of going through that sort of pattern. So lots of ways to skin it, MJ. But if you're too stressed for too long, no pain, no gain, that's just not going to work for long term.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah, we just build up too much fatigue in that zone three. It's too easy to build up the fatigue levels.
Paul Laursen (:Yeah.
And consistency is the most important factor, right? And this this balance pattern is the pathway to consistency. So ⁓ most important session, next session, right? And frequency of training, frequency of those signals, really important too. It's like, I all, you know, do I need to move? Do I need to move my body? What's the, always ask yourself, what is the, what's the stimulus my body's asking for right now?
Paul Warloski (:Hmm.
Paul Laursen (:Does it, is it a recovery? Then that's, that's great. Then, then you should focus on stretching and mobility and recovery and sleep, you know, heat, cold, whatever, whatever it might be. But then it might also be like moving too, right? Like, do I need to lift, lift something heavy? Do I need a, do I need a zone to stimulus? Do I need a HIIT stimulus? Do I need something that's, you know, a high, mid zone?
And it's like, what's my body not had in the last little bit? So continue to develop that feel, use all the tools like we have with Athletica to guide you.
Paul Warloski (:Mm-hmm. Are there any downsides to doing too much zone two volume? mean especially for masters athletes with limited training time?
Paul Laursen (:I haven't heard of too much, Paul. I've mostly heard of all the things that these articles mention, that it's, you know, I think that you can, we can do too much of anything, right? certainly as we age, we're not gonna be quite as good at doing this, but in general, you wanna be physically active for as long as you can.
You know, I think that it's remarkable when you look at individuals that have kept a consistent zone two background in their life. They look quite young and there's, I know there's also this, you know, there's almost like an epigenetic or there's like your genes, your telomeres of your cells, they're kept at a very youthful,
age or profile. yeah, you look at like, it's not across the board, but in general, athletes that maintaining that can to kind of keep, they keep their youth. So you want to continue to be an athlete as long as you can maintain, keep that VO2 max up there as high as you can, keep your dues, as long as you can keep that VO2 max above your age.
Yes, I failed this year. That's the news. Yeah, 54 and it went down to 52 this year. So that's the result, everyone.
Marjaana (:I... aww... well...
Paul Warloski (:Yeah.
Marjaana (:Well, you need the metabolic cart to confirm that. I would add that no, you can't do too much zone two unless that's all you do. Right? So you want to hit strength work, you want to hit those high intensities. And you might want to hit that zone one every once in a while in the nature too. Right?
Paul Laursen (:It's just the Garmin
Paul Warloski (:True.
Hmm.
Paul Laursen (:yeah,
Marjaana (:But if you
Paul Laursen (:always.
Marjaana (:only hit the zone two, well, depending on your goals, but if you want to be healthy functioning athlete, I think, or just a regular person, you need that strength and you need a little bit of a HIIT there.
Paul Warloski (:if we are going to summarize for everyday endurance athletes, why does consistent, easy aerobic work remain the foundation really of long-term endurance performance and how can we do it smarter? how would we summarize what we've talked about?
Marjaana (:Leave the ego at home.
Paul Warloski (:That's a lot.
Leave the ego at home. Stick with your zone too, Paul.
Paul Laursen (:Well, like base, like your base is your foundation. That's why we lead off with that in, in Athletica U and like fat burning, you know, oxidative and energy. This is the foundation of, of everything. It's, it's why we're called, you know, aerobic endurance athletes. So yeah, it's, it's why the zone two training is fundamental to
your overall health, longevity and performance. It's everything. So to summarize, it's what's the most important stuff. And that's why we prioritize that. So, yeah.
Paul Warloski (:And I think again, to add on to that, think that, you know, zone, if the majority of our training is zone two work. can use that to build upon and do our 30 thirties and our intensity work to become a more high functioning, high performance athlete.
Paul Laursen (:100%. Yeah, it forms the adaptation energy, like we said. So yeah, doesn't dismiss the high-intensity stuff, but it will make you adapt to the high-intensity work.
Paul Warloski (:Thank you for listening today to the Athletes Compass podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science-based training platform, Athletica.ai and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum. For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen, I'm Paul Warlowski, and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thank you so much for listening.
