- Two time Masters National time trial metalist
- Two time California masters time trial champion
- Two time California masters road champion
- Team Race Across America 1st 1998, 2nd 1996, 4th 1994
- Personal best 40KM TT 50:16
Article Archive "Active Recovery"
We are well into the new year, and it is time to shed that excess weight and put in the base mileage!
Remember, there are several levels of training intensities or zones. Fat burning is optimized at the lower intensity zones, so for the most part, our focus for January and February should be the lower intensity zones.
There are several ways to determine training zones. Herman Falsetti at Health Corp. offers stress testing, as does Arnie Baker of the San Diego Cycle Vets. Most of the books out on bicycling have information on training intensities or zones. Greg Lemond's book, Greg Lemond's Complete Book of Bicycling, has some information on training zones. But, most recently I've picked up Peter Janssen's book, Training Lactate Pulse-Rate, which specifically covers heart rate monitoring at lactate levels. I would encourage anyone serious about training and performance to pick up a copy of this book.
It is important to determine where your anaerobic threshold (AT) is as the zones will be calculated from your AT. If you don't know where it is, to start, you can use 92 percent of your heart rate maximum (HRM).
Somehow you need to determine your HRM. You can have it measured by having a stress test, or you can calculate it based on your age. The calulation is an estimate of where you HRM might be, and is calculated by subtracting your age from 220.
Keep in mind that if you estimate your HRM and then calulate an estimated AT based on that heart rate these are just numbers to work with to get your initial training zones. After a couple months of riding you should be able to determine (measure) your HRM and have a good idea (within 3 beats) what your AT is. So, as you become more familiar with heart rate monitoring, you will have to calculate your training zones again. Also, as you get into better shape, your AT will get higher and you will need to re-calculate the zones as necessary.
| Training Zone | Effort Level | Zone Description | % of AT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone One | Easy | Active recovery fat burning | 65-80% |
| Zone Two | Moderate | Aerobic Endurance | 80-90% |
| Zone Three | Hard | High intensity aerobic, metatbolic | 90-98% |
| Zone Four | AT Training | Interval, speed work lactic acid | 98-102% |
Work with these zones for a month, spending most of your time in zones one and two. If you ride five times a week, do no more than three zone three or four training sessions every two weeks. Remember, you will need to recover from the higher zone workouts so make sure to do at least two zone one or two workouts before doing another higher zone workout.
Good luck...See you soon!
Tim
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