What To Do Instead of Zone 2

If you’re a serious recreational athlete but you have a job and a life, and only five hours a week to train — what should you be doing? Our cardio episodes have to date discussed Zone 2 and explained VO₂max. Armed with that context, now our audience wants to know: If not Zone 2, then what? This week, Stu and Marty provide the answer with the help of one of the world’s foremost experts on aerobic conditioning and the limits of human performance, Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Joyner is a legend of the exercise science field and an elite runner himself, who back in 1991 conducted the first analysis establishing the physiologic possibility of a sub-two-hour marathon. Since our conversation with Joyner happened to fall just days after Sabastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha achieved the first official sub-2:00 marathon times earlier this spring, the conversation begins with a discussion of Joyner’s 1991 analysis.

Then Marty and Stu challenge Joyner to get specific about what amateur athletes should be doing, if they want to achieve the best possible aerobic fitness for health with about five hours a week of training. In other words, what does one of the world’s most renowned scientists at the intersection of human physiology and athletic performance suggest for the optimal training regimen? How much vigorous training should we all be doing, relative to moderate- and low-intensity training? How much HIIT should we be doing? What does Joyner think about Zone 2? What does Joyner do for his own fitness as a 68-year-old man? Plus a listener question asking how to know when you’re training too much.

Have a listener question or an idea for a future episode? Email us at realexercisescience@gmail.com

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SHOW LINKS

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EPISODE LINKS

Two runners break fabled two hour marathon barrier. Friend of Exercise Science Alex Hutchinson wrote about it for The Atlantic.

Joyner’s famous 2011 article: The Two Hour Marathon: Who and When?