training

Cycling is a fun activity and can lead to a lot of health benefits when combined with a good training plan. Training is essential if you are looking to build good aerobic fitness, maintaining steady pace for a long ride or even to burn fat in a simple way. A few essential accessories are needed to do training and measure the effort of riding. A Heart rate monitor and a power meter.

Heart rate monitor will help you understand what is the current heart rate and how much of it is being exerted.

Power meter will help you understand the power that has been transferred from the feet to the spin the crank.

Heart rate and power both have zones. What do zones mean in this case. Let’s go with heart rate for this case — zones are basically a split of heart rate ranges from 50% of max HR(max heart rate) to 100-105%

Zone 1 – 50-60%

Zone2 – 60-70%

Zone3 – 70-80%

Zone4 – 80-90%

Zone5 – 90-100%

Zone6 – 100%+

What is Zone 2 training?

As the name suggests the training done in zone 2 for a maximum period of time during the workout is a zone 2 training.

Typically let’s assume an average cycling ride is anywhere around 1hr – 3 hrs. During this session your heart rate should be in the zone 2 range for 90% of the ride. The other 10% can be endurance level (zone 3 or zone 4). The longer you can stay in zone 2 then the slow twitch muscles will be exercised and also help burn fat instead of generating lactate.

Try an hour of zone 2 training at least 3 times a week and target a long ride on weekends (any zone).

Ride safe!