Decoding Training Zones: What They Are and Why They Matter

Tom Wigginton • May 23, 2025

How you can train smarter to live longer, live better, and stay active and independent — maybe into your 90s or 100s.

In our previous article, Why Cardio Matters, we talked about the benefits of doing cardio (like living longer) and introduced you to a few terms that might have been new: Zone 2, VO₂ Max, and lactate clearance. We also offered a general recommendation for how much cardio to do weekly.

This article takes the next step: breaking down how the intensity you work at affects the benefits you get from each training session.

The science of exercising is rich, complex, exciting, and overwhelming. Besides the fact that it is indeed complicated, it’s made worse by having acronyms for everything, buzzy catchphrases, and intimidating fitness personalities.

This is where I’m going to try to make this easier to understand, convey why you should care, and encourage you to add cardio to your daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal lifestyles.

What Are Training Zones?

The simplest way to define a training zone is to ask: "How long could I maintain this effort before I have to stop?"

If you only had to run for 20 seconds, what’s the fastest you could go?
What if it were 10 minutes?
60 minutes?
90 minutes?
Two hours or more?
Or just a meandering stroll with no particular place to go?

Your answers to each tell you roughly what your training zones are.

And don’t worry that I said “running.” This applies whether you're walking, cycling, rowing, swimming, or any other form of cardio.

Why Training Zones Matter?

Sure, we all want to live longer. But most of us would also prefer to do it without diapers, canes, or grumpy mood swings.

Cardio helps with that.

It keeps your heart, lungs, brain, and muscles working smoothly. It gives you energy. It keeps you mobile. It helps prevent or manage things like:

Heart disease
Cancer
Diabetes
Neurodegenerative diseases
Chronic inflammation

Plus, if you love doing active sporty things—whether it’s skiing, biking, hiking, or chasing grandkids—cardio helps you do it longer and better.

Ultimately, training zones matter because doing cardio at specific intensities and durations makes the outcomes more predictable and efficient. If we were to boil it all down to this, that's the answer: to make the time we spend most productive for what we hope to get from it.

Why Zones 2, 5, and 5+ Are Our Focus at Vitruvian Fitness

We use a 6-zone model while really focusing on just 3 of the 6:

Zone 1 is like walking with your friend with no particular place to go.
Zone 2 has a purpose to its pace and extraordinary health benefits.
Zone 3 is quick, moderately intense, and frankly overrated.
Zone 4 is interesting and good to know as it’s often the benchmark for defining the other zones.
Zone 5 and Zone 5+ are magical. Their efforts yield exponential returns on investment.

Most general fitness goals (strength, endurance, longevity, metabolic health) are best served by focusing on Zones 2, 5, and 5+.

Zones 3 and 4 aren’t useless, but they’re more valuable for performance athletes or sport-specific goals.

Zone 2: The Foundation

Zone 2 builds and fine-tunes your engine.

It creates more mitochondria (those are the power plants of your cells), which help your body produce energy efficiently using oxygen. That energy (ATP) supports not just muscle contraction but:

Brain function
Heart performance
Immune resilience
Hormonal balanceTTT
Detoxification and waste removal
Tissue repair and cell regeneration
Thermoregulation
Autophagy and apoptosis (cellular cleanup and renewal)

Zone 2 also improves:

Capillary density
Fat oxidation
Lactate clearance
Heart rate variability (HRV) and recovery capacity

In short: You burn more fat, recover faster, and get less tired doing the same work. It raises your aerobic floor.

Zones 5 and 5+: The Turbocharger

If Zone 2 training was akin to upgrading from a 4 cylinder engine to a 6 cylinder, VO₂ max training is like adding a turbo charger. Same engine with way higher performance.

Here are the benefits of VO₂ max training:

Increase cardiac output at max effort
Recruit fast-twitch muscle fibers for speed, strength, and power
Raise anaerobic threshold so you can go harder, longer
Maximize oxygen use under stress
Upregulate performance enzymes (better carb use under load)
Improve neuromuscular drive and coordination at high speeds
Stimulate stress-adaptive repair systems (resilience!)
Create performance buffer zones
Serve as the best single predictor of longevity

Want to know your exact zones?

Book a test with us and start training with confidence, not guesswork.

👉Let's Talk! Click here to schedule a call!

Determining Your Training Zones

The best way to determine your zones depends on what your goals are.

If it’s just to live long and prosper, it’s very simple. You can DIY this yourself using the Rough Estimate below.

If you’re a data-driven recreational enthusiast, it’s a little more complicated. We can do a guided assessment with us at the gym with a heart rate monitor and a stop watch.

If you’re a serious podium-seeking athlete or you’ve got some health problems that need correction, that warrants full lab tests with gas exchange and blood lactate

But in any case, you need to do some sort of testing and observation to know your zones.

And no, 220 minus your age doesn’t cut it. Don’t even get me started on that nonsense.

Rough Estimates:

Zone 2 = You can talk, but not sing. Maybe 3 sentences between breaths.
Zone 5 = Hard. You could hold it for 8–10 minutes and it’s really really hard.
Zone 5+ = Very hard. 10 to 60 seconds of full-send effort. Maximum intensity. You will hate every second of this and you’ll feel wildly exhilarated at the end of each effort.

Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) or Heart Rate Monitors

Depending on how much you like using tech while you workout, you may choose the no-tech RPE scale or use a heart rate monitor. RPE is simply using a number scale to rate your intensity level.

There are multiple scales that describe RPE but really you can use the Zones with Heart Rate or RPE.

Zone 1 = go all day
Zone 2 = talk but not sing
Zone 3 = a brisk 90 minute pace
Zone 4 = a hard 60 minute pace
Zone 5 = a brutally hard 8 minutes
Zone 5+ = an impossible hard 10 second effort

Conclusion

In short, training zones help you train smarter, not just harder because if the work is too easy, you won’t get much out of it. If the work is too hard, you’ll just tire yourself out.

Zone 2 builds the base: endurance, fat-burning, recovery, and long-term health.

Zone 5/5+ builds the booster: power, speed, peak output, and long-term resilience.

You need both. Any questions?

Next Up: From Couch to Competition

How to use your zones to create smarter, more effective programs whether you’re training for health, enjoyment, or competition.

Want to know your exact zones?

Book a test with us and start training with confidence, not guesswork.

👉Let's Talk! Click here to schedule a call!

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