A Better Week

Touring in the "dead zone"

Not so long ago, I wrote a piece back-handedly dismissing heart rate-based training for all but the most novice athletes. I admitted the utility of the heart rate monitor (HRM) in this group of individuals, particularly those who are being coached remotely. But for the rest of us "experienced" competitors (ahem!) HRMs were unnecessary. I reasoned that we had enough "feel" and understood our bodies adequately to gauge our training appropriately. Hell, I certainly fall into this category. I've been doing this forever. To be honest, although I have worn an HRM on numerous occasions while participating in several sports, I never really dissected a HRM-based training program. I couldn't be bothered with all that obsessing about zones and such.

Jumping into the fray

For a number of reasons I have alluded to recently in other posts and with a Suunto T6 in hand, I have descended (ascended???) into the HRM training world for a good, honest look. For my fellow naysayers out there, you can simply stand by and watch from a respectful distance. I'll take this one for the team! But frankly, I may not come out to rejoin you over there. I may be saying that a bit prematurely but my initial impressions have been both eye-opening and interesting. Eye-opening in that I have been exposed in the same way that I admitted that HRMs were beneficial to the lowly novice. What…me?? Yessir! Turns out I have been going too hard on my "easy" days, an accusation, it turns out, that can frequently be leveled to all but the most disciplined athlete. I would not have believed it unless it was right in front of me. But it was and I have since slowed down. Hopefully, I will be better off for it.

And this is the rub. Before embarking on a journey like this, you have to drink the "slow is the new fast" Kool-Aid and be willing to ride the wave long enough to see its impact on your form. You don't have to look far to find lots of folks who have done so and have come out the other side better and faster for it. My own journey is being prodded by Matthew Weatherley-White from Restwise who has been coaching renowned off-road cyclist, Rebecca Rusch through a similar path with impressive results. The two of them continue in this vain seeing no reason to alter course. Although I'm applying the theories to my skimo training right now, the real test will be when I engage a similar approach to my cycling training, a realm with which I have much more familiarity. For the time being, I'm well under way.

Now, I talk about "easy" as if that's the only thing that HRM training is about. Of course that's not true. We can't get fast going slow ALL the time but it turns out that the low intensity end of the scale is where athletes need the most feedback. We are all good at flogging ourselves (at least, you should be if you are worth half a shit!). But it turns out, it's the other end of the scale that matters…dare I say….more. Can't believe I just said that. But I did.

Medium sucks!

Equally important is learning how to stay out of the "middle" or L3/Zone 3 in the 5-zone scale commonly used to denote training intensity. This is where most athletes live. It's that sort-of-hard pace that has you breathing steadily but you can do forever. You feel strong, fast and fit. Hell, who wouldn't want to go like that all the time? And that's exactly why most guys go there. But, if you believe the dispensers of the Kool-Aid, unless used judiciously, this pace simply makes you tired and slow.

As I was thinking about this post and getting it written, I came upon this little tidbit on the Gym Jones web site that reinforces what I'm talking about here. Mark Twight has been another guiding voice in my journey toward more intelligent training choices. I listen to what he has to say because it is usually insightful and well-researched. Mark likes to call zone 3 a "dead end". Matthew prefers to call it the "dead zone". I like that!

One thing is for sure… it's hard to go easy! I did an experiment this past weekend where I went out on a long ski tour with a friend who happens to be one of the best skimo racers in the country. We both agreed we wanted to get some volume in but didn't need to kill each other. I decided that I would not let HR dictate my pace but rather I wanted to see what my "normal" pace was in the new scheme of things. After downloading the data following the 5 hour effort, more eye-opening ensued.

As you can see, I spent the day in the "dead zone". We got a lot done. Covered a bunch of ground and skied some awesome powder. But I did it at a pace that, if done on a regular basis, is not going to help my competitive ski racing. And that's what we are talking about here. You regular ski touring fans out there can just tune out now. It's just not that relevant for you. But you racers, stay with me. You have to be willing to go slow and this takes checking your ego at the door. 

I did just that on Sunday over nearly the same course with a different group of friends. These were guys who really didn't care how fast they went. At first, I crept into L3, willing to toss yet another workout onto the flames in the name of powder whoring. But then I decided to get on with the experiment. I stepped aside, let the other three pass, backed off and came up to the top just a little bit off the back. On the next climb, I ended up at the front and imposed my HRM-dictated pace on them. They didn't seem to mind. I still skied great powder in near perfect conditions but I hardly felt any fatigue after 5 hours. That was the cool thing about it. I felt like with enough Tram Bars going down the hatch, I could ski that way all day.

Now, you may ask what's the point of going so slow? I certainly don't race at that L2 pace. What is it preparing me for? This pace does a couple of things. First, it develops a metabolic efficiency that creates a more favorable substrate oxidation profile. In other words, I burn more fat. This is good. If I can teach my body to do this and do so at ever increasing levels of intensity, I will hold on to my precious glycogen stores longer. It also allows us to get the volume we need to compete at these distances without developing a prohibitive level of fatigue that will impact the rest of our training. 

The thing is, as we get more and more fit, it becomes harder to create the stress needed to stimulate further adaptation without going into a hole. We have to lift more weight, go longer and/or harder to continue to develop. Too much L3 work simply makes us flat. It's just not novel enough to do much good. I logged nearly 10 hours this weekend, the second 5 of which were mostly where I needed to be once I decided to go there. The result is that I'm Jonesing for Tuesday's workout. The L4/L5 stuff, the other stimulus I need to race well, is more productive on fresher legs. The "machine" also responds more favorably when it has less cumulative fatigue going into an effort.

What a good week looks like

The training week represented above is the block I did after the recovery week following the Jackson race. The two days from this past weekend mentioned earlier are not part of this week. This marks the moment I decided to take a more in-depth look at HRM-based training. The beautiful thing about the Movescount software is that I can instantly see the breakdown of the week's efforts. I tried very hard to go easy and was mostly successful. It wasn't easy going up the Glory boot pack keeping my HR under 126 bpm. Thank god it was late in the day and there was no one coming up behind me. Talk about checking your ego at the door!

The first thing you notice in the bottom graph is the length of the blue bar. That is time spent in L2. Combine that with L1 (easy) and you see that I did 78% of my training going pretty damn easy. This is good. There is also a nice, short green line showing that I only went into the "dead zone" 9% of the time. Also good. The other 13% of the time I was givin' 'er! Again, that's about right.

Depending on the cycle, some might suggest more supramaximal work (L5). I would use these workouts as a "sharpener" 2-3 weeks before a key event. These need to be inserted into the program with a concomitant reduction in threshold work. It's easy to disregard the impact of this kind of work on our recovery. Careful dosing is essential.

Arguably, this was a pretty big week. I was rested going in and it was light at work so I had some room to play. It was nearly 18 hours of training and almost 30,000 vertical. But with that much L1/2, I wasn't gutted at the end. Nice!

The devil is in the details

The next step in my "progression" with this kind of careful training planning is to work backwards from a desired training week volume and work out the percentages of each intensity. Individual workouts can then be inserted into appropriate days with these zone volumes in mind. Not sure if I love this kind of attention to detail but it is engaging and gives me something to write about.

In the next few days, I will share my initial foray into this. Not entirely successful due to some new snowfall and the inevitable powder skiing that I couldn't pass up. Yes, fun does get in the way of being a "serious" athlete sometimes. Imagine that. - Brian 

Comments

[Ray]

In a way, this goes back to the issue of what is better to keep track of.....amount of time spend training....or amount of vert in training. Hard to get any significant vert at those slow, easy paces.

[brian]

For the most part, I would say that the body really doesn't know terrain, just quality and quantity of effort. Sure, there are some neurological adaptations unique to ascending compared to cruising the flat but this is secondary, I think. Elevation change matters during the hard efforts but not so much when accumulating volume. I would also disagree that you cannot gather meaningful vert in L2. If you avoid screwing around too much you can still average nearly 2,000 feet/hour up and down in the right venue. Works for me.

A similar discussion happens in cycling. Riding solo into a head wind is not the same as flying along in the peloton. Again, time out there is what (mostly) matters, not distance covered. IMO

[another ray]

Hi brian,

The description of training in the dead zone sounds like it was written by someone who knows me quite well!!

Although HR training has been around for ages there has always been a fundamental that I've never seen clearly explained.

When you calculate your HR zones do you simply calculate percentages of your max HR or do you subtract your resting HR from your max HR, calculate the percentages on the difference, then add those values to the resting HR?

For me the results of these calculations would be 112 BPM or 124 BPM for the top of zone 2. 124 would feel pretty easy but 112 would be deadly dull.

[Brian P. Harder]

Another Ray,

This is a great question and quite timely. I will answer it fully in a post in a few days. I just returned today from spending a few hours in a lab with Dr. Max Testa. If that name does not sound familiar, Google it. He has a crap load of experience with elite athletes and spent a lot of time with pro cyclists. It was fun going through the ringer with him at the helm.

The short answer about training zones is that the max HR formulas are pretty worthless. You can find yours simply by ramping up on a treadmill until you blow. But even this way of finding it has gone out of favor. There is simply too much variation in MHR to use it reliably. What Max does is run you through a graded lactate test and the HR zones can then be determined from there. It's much more accurate and, I have to say, less painful because you don't have to go to failure.

I will present the data soon along with the explanations. In the mean time, find a lab and do the simple test. It's worth it, I think.

BTW, I also did a max VO2 test and the numbers based on ventilatory threshold were within one beat of the lactate data. You can go that route as well but it's more involved and requires gas analysis. The lactate analyzer is the size of a deck of cards.