Zone 2 + High Intensity = success (he's not just a "zone 2" guy).
Being well-fed with carbohydrate is important for performance, adaptation, and avoiding over-training.
Keep an eye on blood values for signs of over-training.

He's not a guy that will ever recommend one specific workout.
For what it's worth, I worked directly under him as a physiologist a CU Sports Med and have interviewed him multiple times on the podcast.

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VERY cool!

What sort of blood values?

Mostly Hemoglobin, Creatine Kinase (CK), Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH), Testosterone, Cortisol, and the ratio of T:Cort.
Not saying those are the only important values - e.g. Ferritin,etc. but they give insight into an over-training status of an athlete.

We did an episode on it here: https://www.fasttalklabs.com/...dr-inigo-san-millan/

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The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
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this was a terrific episode - thank you for this. a lot of stuff that no one really talks about and you can extrapolate a lot of sport science stuff. eating enough carbs to maintain and grow red blood cells is something that durianrider has spoken about for years which is what inigo covers here.

the part that i also recall is he said you can over train on 6 hours per week if your nutrition and sleep is shit house - been there done that....

b12, hematrocrit, vitamin d, cholestrols and blood sugar also good. takes a few years to figure out what works for individuals and what their ranges are, but worth people getting 3-4 blood tests a year and mapping the results. monitoring different blood results at different body weights too.

the interview inigo had with peter attia is pretty funny - peter attia basically talking about how he absolutely shreds it when he could do 100 wats on a tablespoon of butter.

While I strongly agree with what San Milan advises (along with Stephen Siler, Attia, Friel..), his association with top level professional cyclist leaves me with a little skepticism. I’ve been burnt before believing a top level cyclist’s training methods were the key to his success.

This is true, but the caveat is that his Zone 2 training is really just a rebrand of what pro cyclists have been doing for 100 years. Do a lot of riding that's not super easy but also not overly hard. You can only go so hard when training 30h/w and trying to do big efforts as well. Even with Inigo's training theory the trick is to figure out just how hard you can go for big hours without overly sacrificing the quality of higher intensity workouts.

From the same starting point two cyclists on identical training programs except "easy" ride power, you'd expect the one with higher "easy" ride power to be faster at the end of the training, to a limit. 175w is probably better than 150w for almost everyone. 200w is probably better for some. 225w is probably better for a few. IMO the value of new-age Zone 2 training is the plethora of data that allows you to get closer to that limit.

Since someone can over train in a week, certainly within multiple weeks, any suggestions, knowledge of, or recommendations on realistic methods of blood testing the values of what you listed, other than the more than typical once a quarter at the local medical center?

If you consider the three relatively agreed upon stages of "over-training":

1. Overreaching - A temporary reduction in performance due to training load with a quick recovery (days) that likely needs to a super-compensation / improvement in performance
2. Non-functional Overreaching - a deeper stage of over-reaching that increases recovery time (weeks to months) and typically results in no-performance improvement over the initial state
3. Over-training - The deepest form, often with hormonal disturbances that requires a significant amount of time (months to year?) to recovery / normalize from and which results in decreased performance.

It is difficult to achieve a true "over-training" status with 1 week of intense exercise, but possible if the workload is sufficiently high, calorie intake sufficiently low, etc.

Long term monitoring of blood values above (as well as other parameters like mood-state, etc.) can help identify non-functional over-reaching and over-training.

In my opinion one of the best ways to monitor acute over-reaching as it transitions to non-functional over-reaching is to monitor maximal lactate. A sudden decrease in maximal lactate, along with a decrease in HR, and an increased RPE is one the first signs that things may be heading too deep in the wrong direction.

Asker Juekdendrup has a case study here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC1332083/ and Bosquet has a paper on it here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11394238/

Some other good reading:
Meeusen et al - Prevention, Diagnosis, and treatment of over-training syndrome...
Brooks - Overtraining, Exercise, and Adrenal Insufficiency
Stellingwerff- Overtraining syndrome, Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport- Shared pathways, symptoms, Complexities.

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I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
http://www.AGNCYINNOVATION.com

Certainly understand your skepticism but I'll offer a couple of considerations
1. Inigo really isn't responsible for zone 2 training - he's just one of the influential figures beating the drum the loudest and has seen improvement in metabolic profiles from working with thousands of elite and non-elite athletes.
2. This is a relatively common recommendation across multiple individuals - they aren't coordinated in a conspiracy.
3. Personally knowing Inigo - he either is a great actor who is constructing a deep narrative or he is actually truly, fundamentally, emotionally, so against doping that the "Basque" flairs up in him a little bit.

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I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
http://www.AGNCYINNOVATION.com

I will preface my post with stating that I saw his youtube video but have not listened to it yet (I plan to). It is my understanding that most elite triathletes and cyclist do the majority of their endurance training in "zone 1" with respect to heart rates and power, because the sheer volume of work they are doing is so high. Zone 2 training for elite endurance athletes can be quite taxing on the muscles and metabolic systems relative to your typical weekend warrior, because the power outputs are so high due to their well developed cardiovascular systems. Lets say an athlete has an FTP of 400 watts. Their upper end zone 2 will be somewhere between 310-330 watts. Riding 2-4 hours at that pace is not easy even if you are a world tour cyclist. Thus, zone 2 training for elite endurance athletes should be considered a workout, rather than a "filler" between workouts.

Now, if you are a recreational cyclist or triathlete riding 4-6 hours per week, then I would agree that most of your "base" training should be done in zone 2.

Zone talk is always a minefield We're talking about a 6-7 zone model with San Milan, with the upper end stopping before LT1. That'd put the Z2 for your 400W weekend warrior well below your 310-330W. And the methodology allows for dropping significantly below LT1 if there are consistency issues with surfing the LT1 threshold for tons of hours.

In response to the other comments: yes, if I was Pogacar's training plan designer, I'd advertise it. But the constant Pogacar reminders get tiring after a while. How about Marc Hirshi who's struggled to reach the level he had with DSM?

I'm willing to put the doping connections in a box when considering San Millan stuff. But what I struggle to put in a box is his self-righteous defenses that claim anyone who questions his history "doesn't understand" cycling performance while cherry-picking a few #'s from the most extreme doping known to make his point. Yes, doping allegations also frequently cherry pick, and that's a problem with the allegations. But counter-cherry-picking isn't any better. I'd much prefer he just shrug his shoulder and say he can't do anything about the rumors, and he regrets that a bunch of the teams and cyclists he used to be involved with were involved in doping.

Thanks for the information.

Assuming you're talking about the Peter Attia youtube video with Inigo, I haven't seen it.
I will say that he does look at absolute lactate levels between amateur and professional cyclists differently. His take is that because professionals have such an ability to clear lactate, it looks as though they are producing less than they actually are and therefore he defines zones with lower absolute values for pro's. Previously he has declined to publicly state exactly the difference, so I will refrain from sharing out of respect.

With that said, it is not as low as zone 1 in a 5+ zone system. Although, I think that you can expect that when riding for many hours it is inevitable that a significant amount of time will be at zone 1 when you later inspect the graphs.

Also - as another Inigo-ism. He is a big proponent of HR training and less enthusiastic about power.

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I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
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The lactate values of pro cyclists (and triathletes, and probably runners) tend to have a lower inflection point on the curve. They are more effective at clearing lactate, but a huge difference is their aerobic base power. These guys have an LT1 around 300w. That means they can sit at 250w burn huge amounts of fat and minimal amounts of glycogen.

That said, things don't change in a 1:1 ratio as your LT1 goes up that high. Compared too a 150w LT1, the 250w pro riding at LT1 is producing more heat, having more tension in the muscles and pressure on the joints, burning more glycogen in an absolute measure (although possibly less as a percentage), and needing more fuel to sustain the effort.

There's also a variance between athletes within the same sport. VlaMax attempts to quantify this and does an okay job. The long and short is that same athletes have more developed anaerobic systems, and those athletes will tend to read higher lactate at all effort levels. Whether that's good or bad depends on the target event

From what I understand, Hirschi's problems have all been biomechanical. Apparently he has a significant leg length discrepancy that has long caused him problems, and these were exacerbated by a change in equipment when he went from DSM (or Sunweb as they were when he was there) to UAE - going from Shimano to Look pedals.

Do you think it is possible to logically construct an argument to be reasonably suspicious of cycling and not triathlon? I doubt it: cycling has 7 w/kg 20 min efforts, 56 kph avg speed road TTs but we are getting 1:50 70.3 bike splits, 400 W FTP athletes that also swim and run, sub 29 min 10 k run splits, etc.

Point being, you are throwing dirt on the guy using a very weak argument. And no evidence. And yeah, if you believed Armstrong was clean, not sure what to tell you.

I don’t think it’s what he meant. It’s not necessarily about doping, but about pro level cycling success formula vs amateur triathlete success formula.

Your podcast is phenomenal. Thanks for all the work you put into that.

Regarding Inigo, most interviews seem to try to steer to the "zone 2" discussion, while it is clear from his responses he is much broader than that. The one thing I have always hoped to get from the interviews, and haven't seen yet, is how he defines the transitions between his zones. Without that it is impossible to understand exactly what he means and how to put that in the context of other training zone distribution programs.

Depending on the interview I get a different impression of where he defines the border between zones 1, 2 and 3. I'd love to see an annotation on the lactate / fat ox charts he has in his famous 2018 paper with Brooks: "Assessment of Metabolic Flexibility by Means of Measuring Blood Lactate, Fat, and Carbohydrate Oxidation Responses..."

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"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind and body can achieve; and those who stay will be champions."

Hmm I am pretty certain he was referencing Armstrong breaking his heart when it was (non-shockingly) discovered that he was cheating.

This may be a stupid question (no stupid question only stupid people as my teacher once said), what does he recommend as a proper cool down? Is there a proper power step down, or high cadence to flush legs, or?