One of the biggest challenges a coach faces is helping athletes understand how to “train hard” on “key workout” days and how to “train easy” on the other days. Many athletes spend too much time in “no man’s land,” going too hard to call it an easy day, and not hard enough to boost performance fitness. They train at one pace everyday, a semi-hard intensity that fatigues them over the course of several months. Training without paying attention to cardiovascular stress or heart rate is a bit like playing “Russian Roulette” with your racing season. You might be fitter and faster by the end of the year, but you could just as well be injured or burned out. Plus, it’s a pretty good bet that you won’t reach full potential.

Depending on your experience level, most athletes should not have more than one to three higher intensity workouts per week. That’s a real juggling act for triathletes attempting to do intervals in three different sports plus add a long ride and/or run during a seven or ten day training cycle. It’s imperative that athletes assess cardiovascular stress and understand training zones in order to optimize these workouts and remain healthy throughout the season. There are several options for measurement.

Perceived exertion charts rely on “how you feel” and have a fair degree of correlation with high tech assessment tools. Heart rate monitors generally give you a better idea of cardio stress. Cycling power meters measure muscular effort in the form of watts and offer information on your horsepower, or how hard you are pushing on the pedals. Comparing power output and heart rate response can give you a better understanding of performance on the bike.

In order to use heart rate monitors and power meters effectively, it’s necessary to determine your personal training zones. You can do this in a lab test on a treadmill, or on a bike and computrainer, or with a field test. I generally use both, i.e. I like to have my athletes tested once to twice a year in a lab situation, and I use time trials, 5 & 10K races or specific protocols at a track or on a bicycling hill climb. I am looking for heart rate, run pace and/or power at lactate threshold, the cross over point between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. From that information, I can formulate training zones for each individual by calculating percentages of lactate threshold numbers (or in the case of run pace, by using various charts created by Jack Daniels, one of the foremost experts in run training in the country).

I generally use five heart rate and power zones. Zone 1 is for recovery. Workouts require no concentration to maintain pace and continuous conversation is easy. Zone 2 is long endurance and often referred to as all-day pace on a bicycle or classic long slow distance running. Zone 3 is intensive endurance, or aerobic tempo. Conversation is somewhat halting. Group rides and runs with long sustained efforts usually fall into this category. Zone 4 is threshold endurance. Heart rate and power efforts are just below to just above LT or lactate threshold. Continuous conversation is difficult and it’s mentally taxing to maintain the pace. Typically, multiple repeats are prescribed and range from 5 or 6 minutes to 20 minutes. This zone is key for time trial improvement and speed endurance. Zone 5 is anaerobic endurance or just plain ugly. Conversation is impossible with intervals lasting 3 to 8 minutes, and primarily used for increasing VO2 max. Short course athletes can benefit from small amounts of work here. The amount of time spent in each zone is dependent on many factors including general guidelines, athlete experience, weekly training hours, and periodization blocks.

If you are serious about training and reaching new heights, it’s imperative that you understand your intensity zones. Places like TOSH Sports Medicine in Murray will test you for a modest fee on your choice of apparatus. A good coach can help you make sense of all the data.

Have a great season!