Getting older sucks. After 35, pretty much every system of your body starts to decline. Your body doesn’t recover from workouts and injury as easily, sleep quality decreases and your body feels sore more often. Fortunately there is a very powerful thing you can do to minimize the impact of these and live better and healthier. Here’s how you can improve your health with Zone 2 training.
What is Zone 2 training?
It’s well established that cardiovascular exercise is important for health. However cardiovascular exercise performed at different intensities has different effects on your body and your health.
Your body mainly burns 2 things for fuel: fat and glucose (carbohydrate). Zone 2 represents the intensity where the highest amount of fat is used as fuel. Once you exercise above Zone 2, fat use as a fuel decreases while glucose continues to increase.
Why Zone 2 Important?
When you exercise in Zone 2, especially the higher end of it, you train your muscles to use fat for fuel and be less reliant on glucose at lower levels of intensity.
People who are less metabolically healthy, particularly pre-diabetic or diabetic, can’t use fat for fuel well. They rely on glucose for fuel even at low levels of physical activity.
Decreased metabolic health is a factor implicated in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Exercising in Zone 2 can improve your ability to use fat for fuel instead of glucose, leading to major improvements in your metabolic health.
Exercising in Zone 2 has also been correlated with additional benefits:
- Improved sleep, particularly deep sleep
- Improved physical recovery
- Improved mood and decrease stress
- Decreased pain sensitivity
- Endurance athletes spend a lot of time training in Zone 2 because it makes them more efficient at processing fuel during their sport, improving their performance.
How do you exercise in Zone 2?
The absolute most accurate way to do this involves sticking your finger for a drop of blood and measuring your blood lactate using a lactate meter. Not something most people want to do on a regular basis. A close second is by using the talk test and % of max HR. Check out the video below for a good example of what exercising in Zone 2 looks like:
Doing this on a rower or a bike is good because you can see your power output in watts. Ideally as you improve over time, you want to see that you can work at a higher number of watts while staying in Zone 2. Treadmills can work too, generally by looking at the speed or incline increasing over time.
Are there obstacles preventing you from getting active again? Are joint pain or muscle weakness making you apprehensive about getting started? We can help you!
At Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine in Alexandria, Arlington, and Springfield, VA, our physical therapists are experts at helping people get back to an active life.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to request an appointment.
A member of our team will schedule you an appointment with one of our expert physical therapists.
What are the risks of not doing Zone 2 training?
- Increased risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
- Difficulty sleeping at night.
- Decreased sports performance
Zone 2 training can help you you can live the confident and active life you want.
If you want an expert to listen to your unique problems and guide you to success, a Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine physical therapist in Alexandria, Arlington, or Springfield, VA will create a plan specifically for you.
You’ll feel confident that you have the knowledge and ability to stay active and do all the things you want.
Call us at 703-299-3111, or click here to schedule your appointment and get started.
Working to keep you living your best life,
The Solutions Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine Team
