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The TrainingZones Blog
Guides and science breakdowns on training zones, heart rate, power, and pace, to help you train smarter.
How Demi Vollering Trains (and Why She Halved Her Race Days)
Vollering cut her racing almost in half, added training blocks, and had the best season of her career. Here's the method, her health-first stance on weight, and what it means for your own training.
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How Elite Rowers Train (20 Hours a Week for a 6-Minute Race)
Rowing's race lasts about six minutes, yet elite crews train 15 to 30 hours a week and spend around 80% of it easy. Here's why that isn't a contradiction, and what it means for your erg.
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How Kilian Jornet Trains (and Why He Counts Metres, Not Kilometres)
Jornet measures training in vertical gain, builds a three to four month easy base every year, and coaches himself by feel. Here's the method, and the 2026 season that went wrong.
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How Kristian Blummenfelt Trains (and What He Eats While Doing It)
The Norwegian method applied to three sports at once: lactate-guided thresholds, obsessive measurement, and a carbohydrate intake that rewrote what athletes think a gut can absorb.
triathlonNorwegian methodlactatefuellingtraining
How Marianne Vos Trains (and What Overtraining Cost Her)
Vos has won at the top of cycling for two decades. The most useful part of her career is the year she lost to overtraining, and what she changed afterwards.
cyclingovertrainingrecoveryaerobic basetraining
How Eliud Kipchoge Trains (and Why He's Still Out There at 41)
Kipchoge never runs a training session flat out. Here's the 80/50 week behind the greatest marathon career ever, and why the same philosophy has him racing seven continents at 41.
marathoneasy runningaerobic baserunningtraining
How Jakob Ingebrigtsen Trains (and What the Achilles Injury Exposed)
Ingebrigtsen's training is the most controlled system in distance running: two double-threshold days a week, every rep capped by a lactate meter. Here's the week, and the blind spot it didn't cover.
Norwegian methoddouble thresholdlactateIngebrigtsenrunningtraining
How Jonas Vingegaard Trains (and Why He Rode the Giro First in 2026)
Vingegaard's training is built on measured thresholds, very few race days, and years of patience. Here's the method, the 2026 Giro-Tour change, and what an amateur can steal from it.
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How Tadej Pogačar Trains (and Why He Got Heavier in 2026)
Pogačar's training is built on a mountain of easy Zone 2 work and a small dose of very hard intensity. Here's the method behind it, his coach's Zone 2 philosophy, the deliberate 2026 weight gain, and what an amateur can actually steal from it.
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How Garmin Calculates Your Max Heart Rate (HRmax)
Garmin doesn't measure your HRmax. It estimates it from your age, then quietly raises it from new peaks. Here's the formula Garmin uses, how its auto-detection works, why HRmax and HRmax% drive your zones and VO2 max, and how to set it accurately.
HRmaxmax heart rateGarminheart rate zonesVO2max
Rowing UT2: What It Is and Why It Builds Your Engine
UT2 is the easy aerobic base band that makes up most of a rower's training. Here's what UT2 means, the heart rate and stroke rate to hold, how it fits the UT2–AN five-band system, and how to row it well on the erg or the water.
rowingUT2aerobic baseheart rate zonesconcept2
Beyond the Numbers: Special Training Intensities, Part 1 (Fatmax to Sweet Spot)
Fatmax, MAF, Zone 2, Tempo and Sweet Spot are named training intensities that sit between the numbered zones, each chasing a specific adaptation. Here's what each one is, where it lives on the band, and when to use it.
training zonesfatmaxsweet spotzone 2tempo
Beyond the Numbers: Special Training Intensities, Part 2 (Threshold to Sprint)
Threshold, sub-threshold, Critical Power, VO2max and the anaerobic top end are named training intensities at the hard end of the band. Here's what each one is, where it sits, and the specific adaptation it drives, explained plainly.
training zonesthresholdVO2maxcritical powernorwegian method
Heart Rate Reserve: Better Zones with the Karvonen Method
What heart rate reserve (HRR) is, the Karvonen formula for turning it into training zones, why it personalizes your zones better than plain %HRmax, and how to find your resting and max heart rate to use it.
heart rate reserveKarvonenheart rateresting heart ratetraining zones
How to Actually Train Zone 2 (and Not Waste It)
A practical guide to Zone 2 training: how long sessions should be, how much per week, how to keep your effort in the zone on the road and indoors, the gray-zone trap to avoid, and how to tell it's working.
zone 2zone 2 trainingaerobic basepolarized trainingendurance
Why Your LTHR Zone 2 Is Higher Than Your %HRmax Zone 2
If your heart-rate Zone 2 jumped when you switched your watch to LTHR zones, nothing is broken. Here's why %HRmax and LTHR zones give different numbers, why 'Zone 2' means three different things, and how to stop the confusion for good.
heart rate zonesLTHRzone 2HRmaxGarmin
LT1, LT2, and LTHR: The Lactate Thresholds Explained
What LT1, LT2, and LTHR actually mean, how they sit on the lactate curve, and how the confusing synonyms (aerobic threshold, anaerobic threshold, OBLA, MLSS, VT1/VT2) all map onto two physiological landmarks.
lactate thresholdLT1LT2LTHRtraining zones
The Best Free Power Zone Calculator (and How to Use It)
Enter your FTP and get all seven cycling power zones in watts, instantly and free, with no email and no account. Here's how our power zone calculator works, how to estimate your FTP inside it, and how to keep a record of your zones.
power zone calculatorFTPpower zonescyclingtraining zones
The Coggan Power Zones: All 7 Levels Explained (% of FTP)
Dr. Andrew Coggan's 7 power zones are the standard for training with a power meter, each defined as a percentage of your FTP. Here's every level, the watts range it covers, what it trains, and how to use them.
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What a Training Zone Calculator Actually Does (and How to Use Yours)
A training zone calculator turns one or two numbers (your max heart rate, threshold, FTP or recent race time) into the personalized easy, tempo and hard ranges you should train in. Here's what that means, which inputs to use, and how to act on the result.
training zonesheart ratepowerpacezone calculator
Managing Training Load: TSS, CTL, ATL and the Numbers That Actually Matter
A practical guide to monitoring and managing endurance training load: normalised power, TSS, the acute and chronic load model (ATL/CTL/TSB), the acute:chronic workload ratio, and why the load number is feedback, not a target. Heavily drawn from Science to Sport's monitoring framework.
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The Norwegian Method: Double Threshold Training, Explained
What the Norwegian method really is, the science behind lactate-guided double-threshold training, what it does well and where it falls short, and the athletes who made it famous, from Jakob Ingebrigtsen to the Olympic triathletes.
Norwegian methoddouble thresholdlactateIngebrigtsentraining philosophiesthreshold
VDOT Explained: How Jack Daniels Turns One Race Into Every Training Pace
What VDOT is, how Jack Daniels' Running Formula converts a single race result into your easy, marathon, threshold, interval and repetition paces, why it works so well, and the three places it can mislead you.
VDOTJack Danielsrunningpacetraining zonesVO2max
What Heart Rate Zone Should You Train In?
A clear answer to which heart-rate zone to train in and when: most of your time easy in Zone 2, a controlled dose at threshold, and a little hard work, with how to find your own zones.
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Zone 2 Heart Rate, Explained
What Zone 2 training really is, why it builds your aerobic engine, how to find your own Zone 2 heart rate (and why the talk test and lactate beat a generic percentage), and how much of it to do.
zone 2heart rateaerobic baseMAFtraining zones
The 30/15 Interval: The Cult Session That Actually Delivers
Rønnestad's 30/15 intervals have a devoted following, and the science backs it up. Here is how they work, how to run one, and why the last set flirts with your max heart rate.
intervalsVO2 maxcyclingRønnestad
What's a Good FTP (and Watts per Kilogram)?
What counts as a good FTP and a good watts-per-kilogram, with honest ranges from beginner to pro, why W/kg matters more than raw watts on climbs, and how to find your own numbers.
FTPwatts per kgpowercyclingpower-to-weight
Friel's Heart-Rate Zones: 5, 7, and Why Every Platform Numbers Them Differently
Joe Friel's LTHR-based zones explained: the 5-zone model, the 5a/5b/5c split that makes it 7, how intervals.icu and others renumber them, what the model gets right, where it falls short, and how to test your LTHR.
heart rateLTHRFrieltraining zonesintervals.icu
How to Find Your Lactate Threshold
What lactate threshold is (LT1 vs LT2), why it anchors your training zones, and the practical ways to find it: a 30-minute field test for threshold heart rate, race-result and power methods, and a lab test.
lactate thresholdLTHRthresholdtestingtraining zones
Finding Your Maximum Heart Rate
What max heart rate actually is, why the 220 − age rule is shaky, and how to estimate or test yours, with a calculator you can use right here.
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How to Set Your Training Zones (and Actually Use Them)
A practical guide to finding your heart-rate, power, and pace zones: which anchor to use, how to test it, and how to train by it.
training zonesheart rateFTPpace