Is Zone 3 Training A Waste Of Time?

A lot has been made of the importance of the heart rate zone you train in. Mostly that zone 2 is good & that zone 3 is bad! A grey zone, which should be avoided. But why? What’s the reason for this? And should you avoid the grey zone when trying to improve your fitness levels? Mark is here to investigate!

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[gtn]

If you do track your zones when exercising, which do you spend the most in? 🤔

[kerrynball]

Any zone is going to be better than the sitting on the lounge watching YouTube zone ;-)

[andydt]

As well as being useful to run at race pace, I also find that an hour’s run at zone 3 is best for clearing the mind

[souldreamer]

I’ve just started running and only have two zones. The Run zone and the Walk zone. One make my heart go fast, the other slow. Coincidentally, these are also my two paces.

[zacbaleshenry]

As a lifelong runner who was coming into collegiate track/ cross right as "heart rate" training was becoming more prevalent-- I often think it's more important to get an understanding of where your body feels best. Most long-distance training is base miles. So building a strong foundation is key. This means some days; you're going to float in and out of zone 2 and 3. I think that after enough miles, you'll be able to get a decent understanding of what pace feels best (and where your heart rate falls). After years of running, I find that I hang out more in zone 3 (even on my longer runs), and it feels fine. Zone 2 is nice, but I often feel like I'm crawling along and basically walking.

[benkeyte]

So well explained, thankyou! I personally really enjoy zone 3 training and most of the media is raving about zone 2 and 80/20 so its nice to hear that zone 3 has its place

[NyxLevel]

Zone 2 running does not exist for me. Zone 2 is walking! Screw it I'm just gonna run in z3

[chrisstrider]

Zone 3 is sustainable and long distance race pace for many

[thejeffinvade]

People run easy run way too fast. My 5K is around 20 min, and just run a half marathon with a light fever for 1:34 two weeks ago. I run my easy miles at 6:00-6:40 per K, that’s 10 min mile pace. I see people passing me all the time, but I know I will pass them in a race.
Running in zone 3 isn’t a waste of time, but that’s not the most efficient and effective way of training. Easy day easy, hard day hard.

[mnswede]

An explainer that is very welcome 😊 It’s like it has become a battle between 80/20-training vs. high-intensive, when in reality it’s more about creating a good training setup with a mix of both zone 2 and zone 3 training, and some sessions in zone 4 (as Mark underscored in the video). Many thanks 🙏

[MrJohnno]

I personally have gotten alot more from Z3 and tend to recovery very well from it. My long runs are usually high Z2 to low Z3

[dann]

As an Olympic marathoner, zone 3 is not useless. Its very beneficial.

[eileencheng]

Thank you so much for this video, GTN! I naturally train in zone 3, either when I just pop out for a run without looking at the data, or when I am doing boxing and kickboxing sessions. I race in zone 3 mostly, so I found that familiar effort comforting and helps me to calm my nerves. Saying all that, I do try to stick to 80/20 when I am on a running training program.

[towhee]

There was a time in my life, when I had no idea of the concept of zones and I was constantly in zone 3 :D

[mrspoon]

As demoralising as this might sound for the beginner brisk walking is a better way of starting than running: it'll keep you in zone 2 although you'll need to put the hours in.

[michaelchu]

Thanks for clearing that up. It never made sense to me to train for race pace without actually training at race pace.

[davidbaker]

One thing I have found is when I don’t have as much time to exercise, meaning longer breaks between sessions, I can use zone 3 a bit to get a little more out of each workout since I’ll have a longer recovery time anyway until I find time to do the next workout. It’s not ideal but it seems to build fitness a little more with workouts spaced out by 3-4 days.

[jackdebokx]

As a coach I suggest all my athletes to do some workouts at race pace. Most should be Z2 and some intervals but if you never do race pace or Z3 you forget what it is to race. You need that mental strength as well. As long as you recover well.

[PeterReefman]

As an old-ish bugger (54) who's been-there-done-enough with racing (including Kona), my priority these days is just... getting out there and having fun. And for me, Z3 is the most fun. So that's my go-to most days.

This is a far cry from my competitive race training of 20 or 30 years ago, where every session had a strict purpose, and the bulk was either something like long Z1/2 sets, or Z3/4/5 muscular endurance build interval sets. Those days were also fun, but in a very different way.

BTW, Happy with tonight's 15k run in 1.08. Almost all in that sweet (upper) Z3.

[driya]

In Garmin Connect, zone 2 is "Easy" and 3 is "Aerobic", and it's built in training plans include quite a bit of zone 3 runs