[Mark Sears]

Hi Scott, all,

A follow up question from Scott’s Tuesday training tips.

If you are in the situation where Hr is elevating easily relative to perceived exertion, i.e. you appear pretty well rested, but you have a Z1 or Z2 workout, would you advise sticking to the Hr zone and just enjoy the feeling that things are easy/you might have to slow down further, or is that a situation where it’s beneficial to go at it a little more, maybe let a Z1 drift to Z2? I suspect the answer is ‘it depends’ but thoughts welcome.

Thanks

Mark

[Scott Johnston]

Hey Mark!

Great to hear from you. I hope Dave’s keeping you busy. Great question. And like all great questions, the answer is: It depends. That’s really helpful, right?

Seriously, these “A”/Superman days don’t come along very often, so when they do it can be a nice little reward for all the capacity-building work you’ve been doing to get to toss in a bit of utilization work. See this article for more on those two terms https://evokeendurance.com/capacity-vs-utilization-training/.

The way I handle these days when I am planning an aerobic base training run is that after a good warm-up wherein I assess that I have a bit more spring in my legs I will push into Z3. I do this in several ways.
1) Least stressful and metabolically demanding: toss in a few 10-15sec strides. Not sprints. Accelerate up to a fun fast; “damn I feel good” pace and then jog and relax for 3 or so minutes before the next. Usually,2) 4-6 of these will be good leg power stimuli.
2) Next would be to include a block of 30-30s (more on these in an upcoming article). 30sec at a fun fast pace, 30sec jog allowing HR to drop no more than 5-7 beats. Repeat 5-10 times.
3) A 15 min tempo run. Let HR settle into mid-Z3 and relax into running.

In #2 and #3. Stop before you notice any fatigue. It can be tempting to push yourself these days. The point of these days is to let the horse out of the barn but not to get him all lathered up. These runs are a celebration of your fitness. Don’t overdo them and wake up with a hangover the next day.

I hope this helps.
Scott

[Mark Sears]

Thanks Scott – that’s very useful. (Dave currently navigating a very slow return to some training after a covid wipe out – it’ll come…I’ll be saving these stride outs for when things are a lot more back on track!)

[Dr Andy Reed]

Something I have found very useful for some athletes is monitoring HRV – the app HRV4training is the best. A few good studies have looked at HRV guided training, and anecdotally I have used this myself. I use HRV as ‘one last final check’ – a green light if you like, before going hard. Once a good baseline HRV reading has been achieved (several months is ideal) you can then use HRV with decision making. If you’re feeling good, and the effort is easy, as in the above scenario, AND the HRV is good, then I believe that is an IDEAL time to add in some intensity, whereas if the HRV is a bit off, I would tend to hold back. I would certainly not let HRV guide all of my training, but it’s a good confirmation that all systems are go!

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31490431/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26909534/

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