I’m sorry if this has been asked but when I search for 80/20 in the forum there are a lot of results. Does the percentage apply to the total time a workout takes or the specific breakdown of a workout? For example, if I do a speed work interval run do I count the entire workout as part of the 20 percent or just the sections of thebworkout where my HR was elevated?
There are a lot of different views on this. The one I prefer is 80/20 for the week, not day/workout.
I’m sorry if this has been asked but when I search for 80/20 in the forum there are a lot of results. Does the percentage apply to the total time a workout takes or the specific breakdown of a workout? For example, if I do a speed work interval run do I count the entire workout as part of the 20 percent or just the sections of thebworkout where my HR was elevated?
The “classic” approach is 80% counts the whole time of the workout including the warmup, rest intervals, etc. This brings you to more of 90/10 if you just count the hard effort
But this is more of a guideline, people react differently to types of stress and you need to optimize it to what works for you
If you go by the workouts in the 80/20 book by Matt Fitzgerald, the 20% refers to just the specific part of the workout that was elevated.
So if you run 10 miles total, with 2 miles were run at zone3 or higher, that whole workout is broken down 80% easy (8 miles) / 20% harder (2 miles). He doesn’t count the whole 10 mile workout as an entire hard workout.
Not saying this is gospel though, as with many things in life, there are often multiple legitimately good approaches, and many atypical approaches that are actually best for specific individuals.
There are a lot of different views on this. The one I prefer is 80/20 for the week, not day/workout.
Yeah I agree
There are a lot of different views on this. The one I prefer is 80/20 for the week, not day/workout.
Seiler would not agree. He said it’s by workout. In other words, if you do 10 workouts a week, 2 would be your higher intensity.
There are a lot of different views on this. The one I prefer is 80/20 for the week, not day/workout.
Seiler would not agree. He said it’s by workout. In other words, if you do 10 workouts a week, 2 would be your higher intensity.
What you just said is by the week not the workout.
There are a lot of different views on this. The one I prefer is 80/20 for the week, not day/workout.
Seiler would not agree. He said it’s by workout. In other words, if you do 10 workouts a week, 2 would be your higher intensity.
As I said, “a lot of different views…”
However, the example you give is not the way I’m talking about it. What I’m talking about is that if you workout a total of 10 hours a week (not the number of workouts), then 2 hours would be +z2. This could be 3 run workouts of 60 minutes with 12 minutes +z2 in each one, or 3 run workouts of 60 minutes with 36 minutes +z2 in one workout. It could also be mixed/matched between disciplines. One week you could do all of the 20% in the swim, if that’s what you wanted to do. Or you could do 20% of your swim time in +z2, 20% of your bike time +z2 and 20% of your run time +z2.
As someone mentioned, it’s very personal. For me, breaking up and changing when/where I do the +z2 helps me not be so bored.
As I understand it, the whole reason 80/20 came about was to reduce injuries. Once it was found that the aerobic gains in z3 were only slightly better than in z2 but the number injuries were greatly increased in z3, the 80/20 rule came about. (I may be TOTALLY wrong here.)
I’ve read some in recent years that even 80/20 is not necessary - 100/0 is fine - meaning no speed work or +z2 is necessary for endurance events. I’m not a FOP guy, but since I hate training in z2 because I know I can go harder and faster, I’m sure you FOP guys hate it worse than I do. And doing 0% +z2 would be even worse (but maybe better for me).
There are a lot of different views on this. The one I prefer is 80/20 for the week, not day/workout.
Seiler would not agree. He said it’s by workout. In other words, if you do 10 workouts a week, 2 would be your higher intensity.
As I said, “a lot of different views…”
However, the example you give is not the way I’m talking about it. What I’m talking about is that if you workout a total of 10 hours a week (not the number of workouts), then 2 hours would be +z2. This could be 3 run workouts of 60 minutes with 12 minutes +z2 in each one, or 3 run workouts of 60 minutes with 36 minutes +z2 in one workout. It could also be mixed/matched between disciplines. One week you could do all of the 20% in the swim, if that’s what you wanted to do. Or you could do 20% of your swim time in +z2, 20% of your bike time +z2 and 20% of your run time +z2.
As someone mentioned, it’s very personal. For me, breaking up and changing when/where I do the +z2 helps me not be so bored.
As I understand it, the whole reason 80/20 came about was to reduce injuries. Once it was found that the aerobic gains in z3 were only slightly better than in z2 but the number injuries were greatly increased in z3, the 80/20 rule came about. (I may be TOTALLY wrong here.)
I’ve read some in recent years that even 80/20 is not necessary - 100/0 is fine - meaning no speed work or +z2 is necessary for endurance events. I’m not a FOP guy, but since I hate training in z2 because I know I can go harder and faster, I’m sure you FOP guys hate it worse than I do. And doing 0% +z2 would be even worse (but maybe better for me).
Yeah agreed it’s an aggregate 80/20 over a time span such as a week.
The issue with not doing speedwork is that you’re unlikely to hit speeds in a race that you haven’t hit in training. But, if the goal is just to complete an endurance race, then speedwork may not be necessary.
There are a lot of different views on this. The one I prefer is 80/20 for the week, not day/workout.
Seiler would not agree. He said it’s by workout. In other words, if you do 10 workouts a week, 2 would be your higher intensity.
As I said, "a lot of different views…
As I understand it, the whole reason 80/20 came about was to reduce injuries.
No it wasn’t. It was based on Seilers retrospective review of elite athletes training habits. It’s now developed into a fad and has a life of its own for (scientifically speaking), all the wrong reasons. As you can probably tell, I’m not a fan.
The problem is people have confused a training distribution with a training modality.
I’m not a FOP guy, but since I hate training in z2 because I know I can go harder and faster, I’m sure you FOP guys hate it worse than I do. And doing 0% +z2 would be even worse (but maybe better for me).
I do the 80/20 Fitzgerald book plans, and have accurate zones based multiple races and numerous training and testing sessions.
Zone 2 for me is annoyingly hard. I can definitely hold it for 90+ minutes, but it not easy by any means. Annoying enough that on Zwift I’m not looking at the screen for long stretches at the time since I need to focus on the effort. On the run, it’s low 7-minute miles, which feels quite fast for z2 for me. (Borderline z1/z2 pace for me is around 8min/mile)
If anything, for me, Z2 feels ‘really annoyingly hard’. I’d literally never say it was too easy. I think most folks who say it’s too easy don’t actually have correct zone data and thus are going by some rough guideline of ‘easy conversational pace’, which is probably closer to z1 (or very low z2) for the faster folks.
I’m not a FOP guy, but since I hate training in z2 because I know I can go harder and faster, I’m sure you FOP guys hate it worse than I do. And doing 0% +z2 would be even worse (but maybe better for me).
I do the 80/20 Fitzgerald book plans, and have accurate zones based multiple races and numerous training and testing sessions.
Zone 2 for me is annoyingly hard. I can definitely hold it for 90+ minutes, but it not easy by any means. Annoying enough that on Zwift I’m not looking at the screen for long stretches at the time since I need to focus on the effort. On the run, it’s low 7-minute miles, which feels quite fast for z2 for me. (Borderline z1/z2 pace for me is around 8min/mile)
If anything, for me, Z2 feels ‘really annoyingly hard’. I’d literally never say it was too easy. I think most folks who say it’s too easy don’t actually have correct zone data and thus are going by some rough guideline of ‘easy conversational pace’, which is probably closer to z1 (or very low z2) for the faster folks.
It’s always interesting to me how each individual is different. Each human body is amazingly unique. That’s why the pros and FOP folks look for great coaches that can understand their body’s limitations and sweet zones.
Reminds me of an old proverb: “We’re all unique, which makes us the same.”
I’m trying to relate this thread to my own experience so I looked at my own Training Peaks settings:
Default HR: 5 zones
Bike HR: 5 zones
Default Power: 6 zones
Default Speed / Pace: 10 zones
Swim Speed / Pace: 10 zones
Bike Speed / Pace: 10 zones
Mind you, I didn’t really know what I was doing and I had to make some educated guesses when I set up my account but if there are so many different, acceptable ways of numbering and defining zones how is this thread making sense to anyone?
Maybe no one ever showed me the secret handshake and everyone but me is in the know…
I have personally found that using my LTHR to create my heart rate zones gave me more accurate zones based on how I feel and the numbers I see during training. Using LTHR shifted all my zones downwards, where my Z2 used to be 122-133 and now it is 102-122. Doing my Z2 training around 115HR instead of around 125 has proven itself to be quite valuable
I’m coming to the conclusion, as many sports scientists have, that a significant amount of lower intensity training is absolutely the way to go for improving fitness, and that lower is better. Most people push themselves too hard, too often, and don’t go nearly easy enough on their easy days
In my recent ride on strava, I averaged about 113bpm 150w for 9 hours
From Alan Couzen,
“To support our objectives of developing basic aerobic fitness, training volume was quite high (20-25hrs/wk) but initially of a very low intensity (with most sessions capped at the aerobic threshold, in this case, ~50 beats below max!!). Incidentally, this is the sort of training that a very successful German pro triathlete advocated when I was fortunate enough to chat with him about how he reached the pinnacle of the sport. It is what Dan Empfield called in an article about how the Germans trained “ridiculously slowâ€.”
RIDICULOUSLY SLOW.
Yeah, if you are training 20-25 hours per week regularly, sure, you’ll be closer to z1 than z3.
If you’re around 10-12, probably more intense.
Yeah, if you are training 20-25 hours per week regularly, sure, you’ll be closer to z1 than z3.
If you’re around 10-12, probably more intense.
The zone training is really interesting to me, as I was out of all training for roughly 30 years. When I got back to doing anything I was always getting into z5 and never making progress. Then I started researching how to train and found all this wonderful information on zones and periodization.
I think a lot of coaches/writers would say it doesn’t matter whether you’re training 10-12 hours a week or 20-25. Something around 80/20 always seems “best”.
I’m sorry if this has been asked but when I search for 80/20 in the forum there are a lot of results. Does the percentage apply to the total time a workout takes or the specific breakdown of a workout? For example, if I do a speed work interval run do I count the entire workout as part of the 20 percent or just the sections of thebworkout where my HR was elevated?
As has been stated, if you are going off of time in zones, then it would count the rest interval because that is still time when our body is/should be in that state.
I’d recommend checking out the 80/20 website for articles (they have a forum there, too).
The 80/20 principle can be interpreted in many different ways. The Fitzgerald/Warden approach is that 80% of total sessions are easy/aerobic and 20% of sessions include high intensity intervals. If you go by total time per week this may be even less than 20% of total time.
However one thing I noticed is the 80/20 zone calculator by Fitzgerald/Warden has power on the bike (% of FTP) as zone 1: 50-70%, zone 2: 70-83%. Compare that to Hunter Allen and Andy Coggan: zone 1: under 55%, zone 2: 56-75%. So a “zone 2” ride by 80/20 calculator could be at 80% (half ironman power!) or Allen/Coggan at 60% which is a huge difference.
I think athletes need to learn on their own what it means to truly go easy. You should be able to go all day and not feel strained one bit. Athletes are too caught up in maintaining the top of zone 2 power because they think it will provide the most benefit when in reality the goal is to just build endurance without adding too much stress to your weekly training.
I just came across a quote from Joe Friel’s book. Something like: your sessions should either be boring or you should be dreading them.
However one thing I noticed is the 80/20 zone calculator by Fitzgerald/Warden has power on the bike (% of FTP) as zone 1: 50-70%, zone 2: 70-83%. Compare that to Hunter Allen and Andy Coggan: zone 1: under 55%, zone 2: 56-75%. So a “zone 2” ride by 80/20 calculator could be at 80% (half ironman power!) or Allen/Coggan at 60% which is a huge difference.
Yes, and it’s highly annoying when people refer to “zones” without explaining what zone system they’re talking about. There could be from 3 to 7 zones. Zone 2 is most commonly used when referring to an effort below the (first) aerobic threshold, i.e. <75% of FTP on the bike or well below marathon pace on the run, but in the polarized world, there are just three zones and Zone 2 is (as far as I’m aware) a sort of a subthreshold effort.
I’m sorry if this has been asked but when I search for 80/20 in the forum there are a lot of results. Does the percentage apply to the total time a workout takes or the specific breakdown of a workout? For example, if I do a speed work interval run do I count the entire workout as part of the 20 percent or just the sections of thebworkout where my HR was elevated?
It’s the # of sessions that should have intensity in them during the week/training cycle.
20% of your sessions should have some intensity. That will often/most likely mean that < 10% of your total training time is spent in a interval and >90% of the time you are out training you are not actively engaged in an interval.