As longtime listeners of Peter Attia’s Podcast, The Drive, we’ve heard him repeatedly talk about Zone 2 training and high intensity interval training. He’s often spoken of these in the context of professional cycling, something we have zero ability to relate to. However, he’s recently spoken of Zone 2 and HIIT in relation to VO₂ max and its importance vis-à-vis the risk of cardiac events.
We’ve made great strides in improving our own health. While we both weigh less now than we did during any other time in our adult lives, this has long ago become a non-issue. Instead, we’ve made huge strides in body composition (the amount of body fat, visceral fat, and muscle) as well as blood markers. We’ve done this by making dramatic changes over the past 5+ years in diet — going very low carb and even carnivore at times. Cutting way back on alcohol has helped too. We’ve also increased activity and mobility with walking, hiking, indoor rock climbing, and strength training. However… We’ve done nothing for VO₂ max.
VO₂ max is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption attainable during physical exertion. The name is derived from three abbreviations: "V̇" for volume, "O₂" for oxygen, and "max" for maximum.
Then along comes Attia’s new book, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. First, if you have ever read anything from him, don’t worry, he had a co-author on this project so it’s quite readable if you don’t have a PhD. Second, and more relevant to this post, is his comment that those in the highest 25% of VO₂ max for their age have a 400% less risk of a cardio event. Basically zero.
And that comment led us to recognize a bit of a blind spot. While body composition, strength, and mobility were all accounted for in our plan to live to 100, VO₂ max and cardio really wasn’t. So we took action. We got two Polar Verity Sense heart rate monitors. Why these? They are simple and no frills. We didn’t need or want a watch. We just wanted something simple to connect to our phones.
Monitoring Heart Rate for Zone 2 Training and HIIT
Initial Zone 2 and HIIT Observations
Having the heart rate monitor and app setup I’ve been working to integrate Zone 2 and HIIT into an already busy training and movement schedule. Some observations now that I’m a week in…
- Hiking or walking fast does NOT get me anywhere close to Zone 2.
- Zone 5 while running on a treadmill is lots of work. Just too much really. It’s hard for me to get up to this zone without exhausting my legs and feeling like I’m going to fall off the treadmill.
- Zone 5 on a stair climber is totally doable. I’ve yet to try a rower or elliptical but I plan to try at some point.
- Zone 2 for 45 minutes x 3 sessions per week is hard to fit in and I likely need to consolidate some of my strength training to both shorten them and make them more efficient.
- Zone 2 + a Zone 5 at the end of a stair climbing session seems to work well for me. The only major caveat is Sport Rock and Anytime Fitness only have one machine so I have to find a time when they are not likely to be in use by others.