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training zones articles
15 articles on training zones, newest first. Every one is sourced and links to the calculator it applies to.
How Strava Calculates Your Heart Rate Zones
Strava uses 220 − age, falls back to 190 bpm with no age on file, and silently rewrites your zones on your birthday. Here is how to take control.
How to Set Your Training Zones (and Actually Use Them)
How to find your heart-rate, power and pace zones: pick the right anchor, test it with a field test, then train by it with a polarized week.
Finding Your Maximum Heart Rate
What max heart rate is, why the 220 minus age rule is shaky, and how to estimate or field-test yours. Includes a six-formula calculator.
How to Find Your Lactate Threshold
What lactate threshold is (LT1 vs LT2), why it anchors your zones, and how to find it: a 30-minute LTHR field test, race or power methods, or a lab test.
Friel's Heart-Rate Zones: 5, 7, and Why Every Platform Numbers Them Differently
Joe Friel's LTHR zones explained: the 5-zone model, the 5a/5b/5c split that makes it 7, how intervals.icu renumbers them, and how to test your LTHR.
Zone 2 Heart Rate, Explained
What Zone 2 training is, why it builds your aerobic base, how to find your own Zone 2 heart rate with the talk test, LT1 or MAF, and how much of it to do.
What Heart Rate Zone Should You Train In?
Which heart-rate zone to train in and when: most time easy in Zone 2, a controlled dose at threshold, a little in Zone 5. Plus how to find your zones.
VDOT Explained: How Jack Daniels Turns One Race Into Every Training Pace
What VDOT is, how Jack Daniels' Running Formula turns one race into easy, marathon, threshold, interval and repetition paces, and where it misleads.
What a Training Zone Calculator Actually Does (and How to Use Yours)
A training zone calculator turns your max heart rate, threshold, FTP or race time into personal easy, tempo and hard ranges. Which input to use and how to act on it.
The Coggan Power Zones: All 7 Levels Explained (% of FTP)
Andrew Coggan's 7 power zones, each as a percentage of FTP: the watts range, what it trains, how it feels, and how to set yours from an FTP test.
The Best Free Power Zone Calculator (and How to Use It)
Enter your FTP and get all seven cycling power zones in watts, free, no email or account. How the calculator works and how to estimate FTP inside it.
LT1, LT2, and LTHR: The Lactate Thresholds Explained
What LT1, LT2 and LTHR mean, where they sit on the lactate curve, and how aerobic threshold, anaerobic threshold, OBLA, MLSS and VT1/VT2 map onto them.
Heart Rate Reserve: Better Zones with the Karvonen Method
What heart rate reserve (HRR) is, the Karvonen formula that turns it into training zones, why it beats plain %HRmax, and how to measure the two inputs.
Beyond the Numbers: Special Training Intensities, Part 2 (Threshold to Sprint)
Threshold, sub-threshold, Critical Power, VO2max and the anaerobic top end: the named training intensities at the hard end and what each one trains.
Beyond the Numbers: Special Training Intensities, Part 1 (Fatmax to Sweet Spot)
Fatmax, MAF, Zone 2, Tempo and Sweet Spot are named training intensities between the numbered zones. What each one is, where it sits, and when to use it.