1. What is Endurance Training in Cycling?
This guide is created to help you understand the endurance training in cycling, what ranges you should use, and gives you precise workouts for beginners and advanced cyclists.
Endurance is the second zone right over the recovery zone. It is a relatively easy zone which can be kept for hours. The theory is saying you can keep working out in the endurance zone as long as you deliver the right amount of calories to your body. Of course, it’s more complicated than this but it is an easy workout which can be continued for a long time. The ranges are from 56% to 75% of your Functional Threshold Power. For a well-trained athlete, a short workout in zone 2 can be count as a recovery ride.
Some people call the endurance zone “empty miles” and it can be true if we are getting ready for short events and very intensive racing. But zone 2 can be very beneficial for athletes who want to lose some weight and it is a great zone to “teach” your body how to use fats instead of carbohydrates, to save them when you need them.
For example, if you are getting ready for a 2-3 hours road race, you don’t need a huge aerobic engine but by doing 2-3 hours efforts in the endurance zone you can learn body how to use fats and save more carbohydrates for a more important part of the race like last few kilometers, to be able to accelerate and use your top zones.
“One of the things that I’ve been focusing on these years is what I call the mitochondria function. This is key because this is where we oxidize fuels, where we burn the different fuels. We use our carbohydrates, fats and some protein as well, but the key is to utilize more fatty acids for energy purposes.” – Iñigo San Millán, coach of Tadej Pogačar, 2020 Tour de France winner.