Stop Crushing Yourself: The Restorative Power of Low-Intensity (Zone 2) Training

Are you constantly pushing your intensity and still not seeing the results you want?

On this episode of Strong Principles, Rob, Larry, and Zach dive into the crucial benefits of low-intensity training, specifically using the Cardiac Output Method and Zone 2 work. Many gym-goers avoid lower effort because they feel it's a "waste of time," but the hosts explain why this type of training is essential for building a massive aerobic base, boosting fat-burning, and speeding up recovery.

Find out how to identify your proper Zone 2 effort (hint: you should be able to talk!), how low-intensity work acts as a restorative force for your nervous system, and why confusing this effort with an "active rest day" is a major programming mistake. Plus, they share tips on making these longer, sustained efforts less boring!

If you want to get more from your high-intensity days, tune in to learn the power of slowing down.

Rob (00:00)
All right, guys. Welcome to Strong Principles. I am Rob Dela Cruz.

Larry (00:03)
I'm Larry Medina,

Larry (00:04)
and I'm Zach Bragg.

Rob (00:06)
All right. So on today, we're going to talk about low-intensity training and some of the benefits of it, and then why you want to incorporate it in there. Because all often we see in our classes and just deal with individuals is that they always gravitate to the higher intensity. And the issue is they feel like the low intensity is not doing much for them. It's almost like It's a waste of time.

Larry (00:31)
So low intensity meaning not boot camp style, obviously, but does it mean like, lower reps, but higher weight type of work? Or what does that mean?

Rob (00:43)
No, I would say more like we're going to gear it more towards the conditioning part.

Zach (00:46)
It's more aerobic, aerobic base-building, not as much strength.

Rob (00:50)
Yeah. Okay. We're going to gear this one a little more towards that. All right. What we're talking about. And I'm talking about more like you hear, like a zone two, but there's a method. It's called the cardiac output method, which is moving through. It could be strength exercise, but you're moving through it at a certain pace, at a lower RPE, a lower rate of effort, at a certain heart rate. But you're doing it for a continuous amount of time. It could be in an interval, but there would be a bigger longer 10-minute interval, 7-minute, 15-minute interval, something like that.

Larry (01:23)
Give me an example.

Rob (01:24)
Let's say we have 1,000 meters on a rower, 200-foot form is carried, lightweight, really light sled push, 1,000-meter ski.

Larry (01:41)
So let's say a rower, right?

Rob (01:44)
Easy effort. So not very high effort.

Larry (01:47)
You're not trying to kill yourself. No.

Rob (01:48)
So basically-It could be anything. It's just at a lower effort. Got it. It could be anything. It's just at a lower effort, and it's you just continuously moving around. Now, I like to be using conditioning machines because they're concentric only. But sometimes we will throw in kettlebell swings, carries, some push presses. But you got to remember, once you start throwing in exercises that the body starts moving around and there's external loads on it, Then heart rate jumps up and down. But you're moving through things for a period of time. What ends up happening is when we program it a lot of times, people tend to do it really intensely for 45 minutes, and that is not the intent.

Larry (02:28)
So how do you control that?

Rob (02:29)
It's tough because we're not like the police and people don't listen. If you're not listening, you're not listening. But this is the thing. When you're doing low intensities, it's a base-building. So it's building a bigger aerobic base. So it's teaching your body how to operate for an amount of time. It totally does something different to the heart, comparative to what intensity does once a heart rate is at a certain... You also want to think is like, what did I do during the week? Hey, we did something intense here. We've been lifting heavy. We're doing this. It's much more restorative. So what's happening is you go and you change that and you make it real intense. Now you are taking away from the day before and the day after, and you possibly can set yourself back in a hole. So it could be setting yourself back further and not getting the benefits of increasing what you're working towards.

Larry (03:18)
Is it good to think of it as a active rest?

Rob (03:21)
It's not actually an active rest. Not an active rest. It's a base-building. Active rest would be even moving slow.

Zach (03:27)
Doing some mobility. Movement more like a zone one. So this is more So zone 2. So zone 2 increases your body's ability to use oxygen. And actually what you see oftentimes is bodybuilders oftentimes do zone 2 because it actually has a better fat burning effect, a good mitochondria effect, too. Powerhouse the cell helps you use energy better and then use oxygen better. So when you're moving at those really high zones, your body's not learning to get better at using oxygen. Your body's not learning to get better at using energy. Again, it goes back to that. You're more so testing what you already have. You're expressing what you already have. So zone two, if we're correlating it to strength work, it's more along that accumulation phase than it is intensification phase, like we talked about in two episodes ago. And so zone two is really good aerobic base-building. So it's not an active rest.

Larry (04:24)
Okay. Active rest should be like a walk.

Zach (04:25)
Correct. Active rest would fall into your program On a day off, zone 2 needs to be a part of the actual program itself. So active rest should just be a rest day. We don't want zone 2 to be your rest day. We don't want to think of it like that. It needs to be a part of the program.

Rob (04:39)
Yeah, and it's going to be like... Because the cardio output method, it's going to be the cardio output It's going to be the zone 2, zone 3. You're going to move around there. So you're putting in some effort, but it's not high effort. And so what it does is it allows you to move for a long period of time. And once you start going past certain periods of time, you're really starting to build up a good aerobic base.

Larry (05:01)
So when you do zone 2, are you looking to go just longer rather than a short intense? Correct.

Rob (05:08)
You're looking at, I would say minimum for some people, 20, but more like 30 to 40 minutes continuously or accumulated. And what I mean, 10 minutes straight, 2 minutes off, 10 minutes straight, 2 minutes off. But you accumulated 30 minutes of that pace effort.

Larry (05:29)
Okay. Yeah, I can see that.

Rob (05:31)
I can see that being-We run into it. It's tough trying to get people. We put down the specific of like, hey, and they just go crazy.

Zach (05:40)
So good example. I remember when I first started training here when I was really young, I played football growing up. So everything I did was high intensity. I had a really high outburst, and then my conditioning was horrible. So you put me in these long workouts and I would just suck. And then Rob was like, We're going to hop on a bike for 20 minutes, and then you're going to keep this wadage. And it's like, This is hard. It's hard for me to stay within this zone. But what happened over time, my conditioning got better from just following zone 2 than it would from just doing the high intensity stuff It gets way better.

Larry (06:16)
I can tell you, I got the rogue bike a couple of years ago, and I got it immediately. I'm just like, I'm just going to tabata every day. And so I was doing the tabata.

Rob (06:27)
That's a 20-second on, 10-second off.

Larry (06:30)
Yeah, eight rounds, roughly. It's just one of the buttons. And so that was the workout I was using. And with that workout, I would be dying at the end of every workout. But then one day, I'm like, You know what? Let me just go ahead and stick it about 200 watts. Just jump on and just like, Man, five minutes later, I was as beat as doing the Tabata. But it's because I wasn't stopping. I was just Going, going, going. It wasn't like I was dying yet, but I could see at 10, 15 minutes. I did about 20 minutes that day. I remember that, specifically because I remember thinking, at 10 minutes, I wanted to quit. I just wanted to quit because a couple of reasons. It was boring. But then also my lungs weren't there either. It was weird. But I could feel my heart wasn't going crazy But I was just like, Oh, man. I was dying.

Rob (07:33)
It can be really boring, but this is why a good programmer, you can make it not boring. How about I go ahead and I have three different machines and we move this at that pace continuously for a minute on each machine. Before you know it, you're at 30 minutes. You never sat on one for very long. You had different stimulus from each machine. It didn't get boring. There's so So many ways to go ahead and deal with that if they're boring. If I stayed on one machine for frigging 30 minutes, my back would get tired.

Zach (08:06)
I prefer the one machine now. As you get further along, you're just like, Plot twist. I'm just trying to stay in zone 2. I'm just going to hop on a machine and stay in zone 2.

Rob (08:18)
The conditioning machines, like rowing, biking, running not so much unless you're a really good runner, skier, that type of deal, those are easier to stay within that realm of effort because you can see those and you understand the efforts that you're going and then they're concentric movement only. So they're only going one way. But you can mix other stuff in not to make it so boring, too. You just got to be careful. But The thing is it's very restorative. So like your nervous system, let's say you had, you already did an intense workout, conditioning workout earlier. You're lifting some heavy weights, and now this is supposed to be a restorative day, and you go and you crush yourself. So now we got another day coming You've taken away. There's only so much ability to recover you have. So you start pulling more from it, you're going to get less from every workout. And I see that constantly with people. They'd be so much better off listening and doing what they're supposed to, that restorative work, than they would be going and putting a higher effort. So now when it's time to go higher effort, there's not much there.

Zach (09:26)
Yeah. And making it more fun or making it more involved, we should say, one or throwing in different movements like a farmer's carry or a cattle swing or light slide push. It can make your movement patterns a little bit better, too, because then you're slowing it way down. You're really focused on your technique with everything. It's not going to get you stronger, but you can get better movement patterns. That's also a benefit of mixing it up like that.

Rob (09:49)
There's ways you can do that I've done so much in programming and exploring is that there can be a part that is a little intense, then there's a part that's much more like zone 2 oriented, like cardiac method, more of a certain percentage of pace. You could like move things around a lot, too.

Zach (10:08)
So what would you say, Rob, is the best way? So say you have somebody who Wants to get do some zone 2 work, what would be the best way for them to know that they're in zone 2?

Rob (10:20)
To know that you're in zone 2 would be heart rate. Zone 2 or... Because it's going to be zone 2, zone 3, and it's going to be called the cardiac output method. It's a specific method for you to move through things for a building amount of time. That is going to look a certain way. A heart rate monitor is the best, but the other one is being able to talk. You should be able to have a conversation the whole time. And if you're doing some exercises in there that are going to get you out of breath, knowing that you're doing them, and then you're calming yourself down right away after that.

Zach (10:55)
Those are some good indicators.

Larry (10:57)
Awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that. Now, one last question. Do you ever throw weights into the zone, too?

Rob (11:03)
You can. But you got to remember, once you start moving around, even body weight, blood pressure starts moving around a lot. So once blood pressure starts moving around a lot, it's going to send a different signal for the way that heart is adapted.

Zach (11:16)
You got to be really careful with your movement selection. A clean and jerk is going to do much different than a farmer's carry will or a light sled push will, and how that's going to affect the heart rate.

Rob (11:26)
I'm trying to think of the best way to explain So like zone 2 in certain efforts, your heart's pumping over and over, so it's only going so much. Higher efforts caused the heart to really fill up heavily. Those are two different things. It's like the difference between lifting weights and then during condition. So one of them is really thickening the walls and getting it real strong and then pumping down. And the other one is continuously working it and having beats per minute go at a certain rate, and it's adapting to that.

Zach (11:58)
Using oxygen better, too. Correct.

Larry (12:01)
I mean, just thinking this through, even in a zone 2 versus zone 4.

Rob (12:06)
Totally different.

Larry (12:07)
Yes. So if you're a new... I honestly feel like if you're brand new into this game of fitness, you might be put off just Starting off with zone 2 to get yourself ready. It's almost like doing the squat, right? You may want to start with a box squat rather than doing a.

Rob (12:22)
It's all dependent how many days a week you're working out. Let's say you're doing four days a week. You got two strength days, two condition One day we'll have a little more interval, maybe a little more intensity. And the other day, I would suggest going a little more continuously zone 2/output method.

Zach (12:42)
It needs to be in that program. You don't have to leave out the higher zones. You don't have to be like, all right, so you're new. We're just going to do zone two, and that's it. You don't have to leave it out, but it definitely needs to be in there. And there's an argument to make that maybe, okay, so maybe you can work out more times a day, or maybe you can go for a walk or a light jog and be in zone two, then maybe that would be two to one. There's an argument for that, but you don't have to leave out the higher intensity stuff.

Rob (13:05)
And one thing you want to remember, with those zones and going from aerobic to anaerobic, there's not like a switch. It's like one down goes boom. It doesn't. They're It's like they all work within the range together. Yeah. Okay.

Zach (13:20)
So we use RPs a lot too. Yeah. Rated perceived exertion, rate of perceived efforts. And so zone 2 would be RPs like three, four, Yeah. And then your higher rate of perceived exertions. Obviously, you're getting in a higher zone.

Rob (13:34)
So if you don't have a heart rate monitor. Two to three would be like two. And then you start getting higher. But the thing is, low intensity work will help with the high intensity because it's building a bigger base. And high intensity will work with the lower intensity, but it's still not the same as training them individually. Yeah. Interesting.

Larry (13:54)
Okay.

Zach (13:56)
So key takeaways, basically, you know what your indicators are for if you're in zone 2, zone 2 should basically be in every single program. You should have some work in it.

Rob (14:06)
Yeah. And listen to the low intensity work because it's much more restorative. And there's usually reasons why it's programmed in. If we thought that it was better to do in higher intensity, then it would be there, sitting there.

Larry (14:19)
All right, so real quick. There was an app way back in the day that was cool, and I feel like this would be a zone 2-ish. It was an app where basically you were listening to it, and it was for running, specifically. But it was zombie Apocalypse. It would be talking to you as you're walking, and it would be like, zombies are coming, and then you got to run for whatever. Then it'd be like, All right, you're in a safe spot now and you can walk. It was interesting to have that narrative and talking to you.

Rob (14:55)
Because there's some tech out, not to go too much longer, but there's some tech, heart rate variability, and that is telling you, Hey, you're doing too much effort. Your body's not able to calm down. You're pushing it too hard. But there's more tech that's coming out that we're seeing, and I'm reading about, that is going to tell you right away when you go and you do a workout, Oh, that was beneficial. Oh, man, you just put yourself down further. So we're seeing that a lot.

Larry (15:22)
Yeah. All right.

Zach (15:23)
All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks, everybody. It's been strong principles.