Adding ‘Feel’ to your Training Zones
Training at different effort levels helps you get the most out of your workouts. Using gadgets can give you helpful feedback on your effort. For example, power and heart rate (HR) on the bike, pace and HR while running, and a lap timer in the pool.
By setting effort levels—called Training Zones—you can use these gadgets to check if you’re training at the right intensity.
Gadgets give you real-time data, but they don’t know everything about your body on a given day. Things like how much training you’ve done, how tired you are, your sleep, and your nutrition all affect your performance.
At PB+J, we believe your perceived effort is the most important way to gauge your intensity—no matter what your gadgets say. You know your power zones, you know your pace zones, but do you know how those zones should feel?
Keep in mind that there isn’t just one way to define training zones. Different systems exist, and no single layout is universally agreed upon. Some keep it simple—like Dr. Stephen Seiler’s polarized model, which follows the idea that “three zones are enough for most athletes.” This is what we use at PB+J. Others break effort into more detailed levels, getting highly specific about physiology.
That said, all zone systems follow the same basic principle: at lower effort levels, your body handles exercise well, but at higher intensities, it struggles—leading to fatigue more quickly. Training zones help guide you through different effort levels to get the most out of your workouts.
GREEN ZONE
LOWER GREEN ZONE
Descriptions: Easy / Recovery Pace / Zone 1
Variety: Recovery pace refers to warm-ups, cool-downs , recovery intervals or simply a recovery training sessions. It’s very little effort and very low stress. Some pro athletes might say that there is no such thing as too slow on these.
Intensity: In general, Easy sessions are working at a very, very comfortable, conversational pace.
Purpose: Working at your Easy Pace has physiological and recovery benefits. Increasing blood flow, and loosening tight muscles. This zone may also be used as recovery in between more intense intervals.
UPPER GREEN ZONE
Descriptions: Endurance Pace / Aerobic Pace / Zone 2
Variety: Steady Endurance or Long sessions
Intensity: An Upper GREEN Zone effort should still feel relatively easy. Conversation should be possible and your breathing should be easy and controllable without effort. The difference between upper and lower Green Zone might simply be a slight amount of focus on the task at hand. You’ve gone from ‘not thinking about it’ to ‘ok, I am actually doing something intentional now’ but it should still be low effort. Of course, a long GREEN Zone session may start to feel a bit tougher at the end as you start to fatigue.
Purpose: A whole hot of benefits are available in this zone and, combined with the lower GREEN Zone, should form the bulk of your training volume. It encourages slow twitch muscle fibre growth as well as the bodies ability to utilize fat as fuel and builds a solid base from which higher-intensity training can be performed. The heart muscle is strengthened, muscles receive increased blood supplies and increase their ability to process oxygen delivered through the cardiovascular system. It also builds strength and durability in your structure.
YELLOW ZONE
Description: Threshold Zone / Tempo Pace / Zone 3 (also includes Zone 4 in some zone descriptions.)
Variety: Medium effort intervals usually longer than higher effort intervals.
Important: Athletes tend to gravitate towards the YELLOW Zone far too often. We spend a significant time trying to get athletes to drop below YELLOW Zone when they should be in GREEN Zone and lift them above YELLOW when they should be in the RED Zone.
Intensity: These sessions will be done above the Ventilatory Threshold (VT1) Green Zone but below your Ventilatory Threshold 2 (VT2) Red Zone. Often described as ‘Comfortably Hard’. You know you are working but the feeling of work or difficulty does not consistently increase like a Red Zone session.
Breathing should still be controllable but in YELLOW Zone conversation would definitely be awkward and towards the top end. You will require a reasonable amount of focus to maintain great form and breathing, although both should easily be in control.
Although edging towards harder work, YELLOW ZONE efforts can still deal with any lactate being produced so they can be manageable over longer intervals.
It should be noted that there is evidence to suggest both Polarized Training and Pyramidal Training have their benefits. With both proving valid prescriptions for effort.
Polarized – Mostly GREEN and RED Zone (Around 80/20)
Pyramidal Training – Mostly GREEN, quite a bit of YELLOW and a little RED Zone (Around 60/35/5).
What we give an athlete is both athlete dependant and/or dependant on where they are in the training schedule.
Purpose: Threshold pace is often described as comfortably hard. It builds endurance, mental toughness and increases your ability to go fast for longer periods, such as you would during a race. Great for muscle memory if you are racing at a YELLOW Zone pace. Also good for strength work like hill tuns, low cadence on the bike and paddles in the swim.
RED ZONE
LOWER RED ZONE
Description: VO2 Max / Fast / Hard / Zone 4 or Zone 5 in some zone descriptions.
Variety Short Intervals.
Intensity: This is an intense workout zone usually reserved for shorter intervals of up to 5 minutes or so. This fast 50’s or 100’s in the swim or 800m type workouts on the run for example. Breathing will be harder and faster but still in control. You will only be able to maintain these efforts for fairly short periods of time Unlike Yellow Zone, you may experience a consistent increase in difficulty as lactate builds in your system.
Purpose: Build strength and power and speed. Improve run and swim dynamics. Move your lactate threshold / Ventilatory Threshold performance capability and increase mental toughness.
UPPER RED ZONE
Description: Maximum Pace / All out effort / Zone 5 or Zone 5a/b/c in some training plans
Variety: Very short, high intensity efforts.
Intensity: Reps are fast, but not necessarily too “mentally hard” because intervals are relatively short and are followed by relatively long recovery bouts. Recoveries are to be long enough that each interval feels no more difficult than the previous interval, because the purpose of Reps is to improve speed and economy and you can not get faster (nor more economical) if you are not doing it with good form. If it takes longer to recover between fast intervals, then that is what is needed.
Purpose: To improve your speed, power and economy.
Biggest Bang For Your Buck
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Check out our IRONMAN Coaching and Run Coaching packages for more information about the programs themselves and also what to expect when you join PB+J.
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