Why Do We Need Cycling Endurance Training? Does it really help FTP and VO2Max?

[@joe1071]

More specifically you are training your type 1 muscle fibers to use lactate as fuel, and the better you train them the more efficient they get and the more efficient you are at clearing lactate. A great example of this is Dean Karnazes. Has completed some incredible endurance feats. They tested him in a lab and found he burns lactate as fuel at an incredible rate and just doesn’t build up lactic acid, and his threshold for feeling fatigued, sore, etc is off the charts, aiding him in seemingly running forever

[@EVOQBIKE]

great point! that guy needs a bike though ;-)

[@craigg9742]

Brendan - Great summary and video. I am always amused by conversations on forums and IRL about the importance of 'base' without understanding what the actual goals and expected adaptations are from long endurance rides. I, personally, dislike the LSD moniker as a #nocoast endurance ride is not slow and is definitely challenging. In addition to the expected adaptions I have found that by pushing my long ride out to 4hrs 3x/month, I haven't had a huge FTP increase, but my ability to do hard (above FTP) efforts late into rides has improved, my ability to repeat hard efforts has improved and just in general fatigue resistance is much better.

[@EVOQBIKE]

Nice work on the longer rides!!! Repeated efforts later in the ride is a big gain, solid work Craig !

[@AdrianVaju]

Thank you, that make a lot of sense. You just convince me to change a 1.5h hard session with a 6h endurance ride.

[@EVOQBIKE]

6h ride 🤤🤤🤤. I need one of those soon. Crush it Adrian!

[@TrkJustin]

Responding to every comment, what a beast. I liked the video

[@EVOQBIKE]

haha!! I see you! Let's goooo! Thanks for checking it out!

[@jordywilliams]

‘Training for the new alpinism’ and ‘Training for the uphill athlete’ By Scott Johnston and Steve House are 2 books that go into the details of exactly what endurance training does and why basing most of your endurance training on steady, easy hours is essential to all endurance athletes.

[@EVOQBIKE]

hey Jordy, thanks for the heads up on these books; going to look into them. Thanks so much!

[@jonnyallen9288]

Really great summary and approach. Sums up what I'd been trying to understand for a long time. More of these please!

[@EVOQBIKE]

Awesome! Glad it helped. What other topics would be helpful? Let me know here or shoot me an email. Thanks! [e-mail]

[@LyfeisByke]

Great content! The longer and more frequent z2 rides have changed the game for me. Z2 also made my intensity days easier to complete with much higher quality. Listen to Peter Attia (the drive podcast) episode 201 with Iñigo San Milan on a great breakdown of the importance of zone 2 for endurance athletes.

[@EVOQBIKE]

awesome! glad they are working for you!

[@asablack1407]

Such a great video, no shortcuts to build endurance!

[@EVOQBIKE]

thanks Asa!! No shortcuts for sure!! Hope the training is going well!

[@flavforpar]

Great information! Thankful for your videos

[@EVOQBIKE]

thanks Flavio! glad they are helpful! good luck with your training

[@TracKnGravelDeWd]

Oh man this is really good. When I started racing again I was being coached and would often use one of my endurance days as an extra "rest day". The coach was like no u need to do that and if your tired drop an intensity day. My primary is track racing so I was like that makes no sense. He didn't have a great explanation and It's too bad this video didn't exist when we had these conversations as I would have progressed much faster if it was made clear to me.

[@EVOQBIKE]

thanks for your honest and candid reply! endurance is so often skipped, by many others so don't feel too badly about it. it's counterintuitive, but hey, no better time than the present to make some changes!!

[@dhldt1021]

Great explanations Brendan

[@EVOQBIKE]

thanks for checking it out!

[@joerenner8334]

Great explanation. Thank you!

[@EVOQBIKE]

you're welcome! thanks for swinging thru!

[@veathlete]

The best explanation I've seen yet, thank you Brendan! Here's a question for another day...what's the best way to ride with HR only on the road to ensure the correct endurance vs hard efforts mix? A power meter is on my to buy list, but only when the price comes down. Also, would you go with a single sided vs waiting for dual sided power meter to lower in price? I guess in general, what the best way to gauge endurance efforts on the road sans power data? John

[@jonnyallen9288]

I'd like to know this too, rough idea of HR zone vs 65-75% FTP?

[@crazylagggs]

@@jonnyallen9288 I've been using HR and power for couple of years now. Single sided is all you need, dual is overkill unless you're like pro level and focused on efficiency. When I ride 65/75% FTP I'm in zone 2 heartrate ( 120-140 bpm - max 183 heartrate so also 65-75% of max HR; I'm at 3.9 W/kg - FTP 283)

[@EVOQBIKE]

hey guys! sorry I missed this question earlier. Chaka nailed it...I usually see about the same range, 120-140... good luck to all in their training!

[@stevenolechny1049]

Great content, as always Brendan.

[@EVOQBIKE]

Thank you for the kudos Steven! Appreciate the note and thanks for giving it a watch. Good luck out there!

[@angelsaulovelazquez3232]

can the same benefits of a long ride happen for example if you do a group ride and it has 30-45 min of hard hard efforts and then you extend the regular 2:30 ride into a 4:30-5 hour ride by riding the rest in zone 2? or does the entire ride need to be zone 2 thanks

[@EVOQBIKE]

The more specific you can get with a workout session the better. If you can add time BEFORE the group session, even better. If not, after won’t hurt!

[@tripswithgriff]

Another great video - thanks. Do you have any info on when/if those benefits of endurance rides might stop or slow as we age? I know all the Friel stuff about losing vo2 as you age and the need to regularly 'use it or lose it', but can we still get these benefits to the same extent as we ride into our 50's and 60's? Do I need MORE endurance work to reap the same adaptions as a youngster or is age just a number when it comes to mitochondrial biogenesis?

[@EVOQBIKE]

Man that’s a great question that I don’t know the answer to. I’d trust a google search over what I’d say. Great question Damon!

[@tripswithgriff]

@@EVOQBIKE found a couple of studies incl this one www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/238463/#conclusion that is worth a look. Also stumbled on one that talks about the reduction in training benefits when antioxidants (vit C & E particularly) are taken during training.

[@rileywoodruff7955]

Best cycling chan on KZbin. Can't believe you don't have more subs! Will do what I can to help you grow!

[@EVOQBIKE]

Haha! Thanks for the kind words and for sharing it! Much appreciated. We are still new so hopefully the subs do grow!

[@billszymanski4844]

Nicely done. Should I monitor z2 with hr or power?

[@EVOQBIKE]

a mixture of both, and some RPE! You don't want to be gritting your teeth to hit z2 on the days you are tired. That said, if it's hot and HR is higher, I would STILL follow power in that case if the RPE matches up evenly. But when in doubt, dial it down a touch and save the energy for the HARD days. You can also search "endurance" on our channel and we have more in depth video. Good luck with the training Bill!

[@michaelwtapp]

At around the 8:25 mark you talk about the fatigue of a 5 hour ride vs. a six hour ride. Are you talking about 5 hours as the moving time or 5 hours as the total duration of the ride. On Sunday I did a ride that was 5.5 hours of moving time and the total duration was 8 hours. Yesterday I was pretty fatigued. In hingsight I was thinking if I consumed more calories on the ride day I would have been less fatigued on the recovery day. It sounds like what you are implying that if you do a ride for around 6 hours you are going to be fatigued the following day no matter what.

[@EVOQBIKE]

more total ride time. man, 2.5h of no riding on that ride!? what are you doing? that sounds brutal. Definitely have some fatigue from a 6h day, but doesn't mean you can't go do another 6h day (so many variables to this of course in terms of what rider we are talking about). but same rider, same RIDE--> i find 5h to be much more palatable than 6h. But maybe that's because I don't do a lot of 8h rides or longer! Perspective matters a lot too!

[@EVOQBIKE]

sidenote: your NYC video from 8y ago is awesome!

[@michaelwtapp]

@@EVOQBIKE Thanks for the thoughtful reply! The total duration of the ride also impacts your fatigue; that makes sense to me. And to answer your question of what the hell I was doing for the 2.5 hours of downtime. I crossed paths with a bunch of other cyclists I knew on my ride and I ended up talking to them for a while when they were taking a break. Stopped to eat lunch for 45 minutes(for some meals I need some time to digest). And also I stop to snack(honey, gummies) every 30 minutes. It's still a little bit cold in the try state area so I stop to snack. I find that it's hard to eat while riding when I am wearing full gloves.

[@michaelwtapp]

@@EVOQBIKE Thanks for the compliment! Thanks for watching too

[@EVOQBIKE]

ah that makes sense. as long as you enjoyed it!

[@richardmiddleton7770]

60% of the protein you eat gets converted to glucose so you can still have glycogen in the muscles without consuming carbs although the process is slower so you will be limited in how often you train at threshold or above.

[@EVOQBIKE]

i thought it was that it could turn to glucose but not all does. hmm interesting. consuming carbs is better though. recover faster

[@cyclingfreak56]

Have to BS on your pseudoscience! www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3636601/

[@CaioDoll]

thanks, well explained

[@EVOQBIKE]

Thanks for checking it out Caio!

[@milosgrujic9118]

How much of endurance ride in h is recommended if you are beginer to intermediate cyclist?

[@EVOQBIKE]

60-120 minutes to start

[@xtra9996]

Convinced.

[@JFomo]

I suck at endurance rides because I always want to ride fast. I need to be told it's ok to ride slow and to have people over take me.

[@EVOQBIKE]

it's ok, RIDE SLOWER!

[@Fordworldrallyfan]

@@EVOQBIKE PLEASE define "slow" in speed/cadence/gearing terms, not zone/watts terms.

[@jusuflazami9580]

SUPERIOR EXPLANATION, there are more stuff to this by the way, enhanced Efficiency, Increased Heart Volume , Stronger Hear Muscle Tonus, Preservation of Mitochondras as opposed to Destroying mitochondrias after Intervals due to acute acidosis, Improoved net body Alcalisation etc 😁

[@EVOQBIKE]

Awesome!!! Thanks for adding this info Jusuf!!

[@delkim3691]

So you are prefering Z2 endurance rides over Z1? Should I still be doing Z1 rides then?

[@EVOQBIKE]

Very different ride. Z1 is for total recovery for 30-60min, like a day off. Endurance is a bit more, like 2-5 hours

[@delkim3691]

@@EVOQBIKE Thanks! And if you do "easy" 3h ride in Zone 1 for example at 55% of your FTP does it count as Endurance ride or is it just something like easy Base miles ride?

[@EVOQBIKE]

@@delkim3691 no sir, don’t do 3h at 55%. Recovery should be 60 min max. 3h is 65-75%

[@EVOQBIKE]

@@delkim3691 also endurance and base miles means the same thing

[@annukun7318]

so in a nutshell of i train aerobic zone (endurance) 90 percent the time....eventually i should be riding faster and get fitter according to what you say right? also my max heart rate is 185 so ill ride more than 146 HR during enduarnce right please explain thanks! example my aeribic is 17.5 mph one ay i should be riding at 20 mph all day right!!! if i kep training at enduarnce..also last byt not least sometimes i ride on the trainer for almost 2 hours i heard 2 hours on trainer is like 3 hours on the road right?

[@EVOQBIKE]

well that is just ONE piece of the puzzle. You also need FTP and VO2Max work. Check out our blog for more details. no 2h on the trainer is 2h ;-)

[@annukun7318]

@@EVOQBIKE for vo2 max and ftp i would do hard sprints or hill repeats at full gas....no i meant on trainer no stopping for lights no coasting no decents of tailwinds that all of these variables ouside make you peddal less and do less work thats what i meant

[@EVOQBIKE]

i wouldn't do hard sprints, but rather 3-8m vo2 intervals, maybe some tabatas, but true sprints are different. yes agree, no coasting is awesome, but can be done on the road as well unless you are around huge mountains. good luck!

[@rueljutba3796]

​@@EVOQBIKE what does vo2 interval means? sorry I'm new to cycling😄

[@EVOQBIKE]

@@rueljutba3796 no problem; check out our articles here: www.evoq.bike/blog/category/VO2Max

[@philadams9254]

You missed a *huge* benefit of them - the increased calorie burn makes fat loss a lot easier. They are also the only way to increase power while losing weight because any other tactic compromises glycogen storage too much, so high intensity suffers.

[@EVOQBIKE]

thanks for your thoughts. This video was more to focus on the wattage aspect of endurance training, not weight loss. good luck with the training!

[@Jj88Im]

Is good Mon Z2 2h Thu Z4 reps Wed Z2 Tru Z5 rep Fri Z2 Weekend freeride/groups?

[@EVOQBIKE]

probably one too many hard sessions, esp for base season (if you're in base), but hard to exactly say without knowing more specifics about you. z4 + z5 + group is a lot

[@epicuserxd]

Do you do Z2endurance training with HR limit?

[@EVOQBIKE]

I do not, I follow power simply because hR monitors can be off day to day. Now If Youre doing z2 and bpm is super high, need to work on that for sure

[@Fordworldrallyfan]

The irony is that I DO fully understand all of the (even cellular level) physiology, and the physiological adaptations of this discussion (and then some!). Where I am lost IS on all of the (relatively) new school, acronym 'metrics'. Everyone keeps stressing the existential REQUIREMENT to have a power meter in order to accomplish even this 'base' training because EVERYTHING is ONLY EVER spoken of in terms of watts for a given 'zone', and NEVER in gear ratios at cadence over how many miles. I will not be able to get one anytime soon, so I need to have 'base' training (especially for an almost 70 year old just riding now for 2 months after a 20 year layoff from serious/competitive racing. Everyone just assumes that you already have many continuous years of base already under your belt, SOME DO NOT!) explained to me in old school/ancient terms like we used to do back in the 'caveman days', i.e.; gear ratio at a given cadence/speed, and NOT 'zone 2' with it's wattage inferences. I understand it will never ever be as precise, or exact as the whole wattage for a given weight, etc. since yes, everybody is producing different power levels even at the same gearing and cadence, but PLEASE give me a rough starting point in these parameters as to WHAT TF is actually considered a 'base' nowadays!!

[@EVOQBIKE]

there is no requirement for power! and i think you might self impose "cave man days" term; I've surely never used that. I've actually said the opposite; "people were getting FAST without power". athletes overthink power. But, i'd encourage you to continue learning, as the old and new explanations both add value. base is conversational chatting pace. good luck!

[@Fordworldrallyfan]

@@EVOQBIKE So, riding a 34x17 gear @ roughly 100 RPM, mostly on the flats for 2-3 hours a day for ~2K miles could suffice for a 'base'?? (To put it in about the most un-scientific, non-power meter terms as possible.) When out on rides I see so many just going slower than I am traveling, while 'windmilling'/grinding away on the big ring at a MUCH lower cadence. They almost had me thinking that I am doing something 'wrong' according to the new thinking about training. I just want to avoid injuries (at my age, and starting from basically a NOTHING status fitness state due to that LONG layoff) from going directly into HIIT/intervals on big ring huge gears due to not having a base. Or does that not really matter anymore, according to new school rules/mindsets??? BTW; That 'cave man days' comment was most definitely NOT a snarky implied diss of YOU personally, but of the whole general attitude of those who got into this sport relatively recently, and therefore ONLY know from all of the current complicated acronyms and lexicon of the technical side of this sport, and almost NOTHING of it's past history. There seems to be this 'taken for granted' attitude that one knows all of this, as well as owns the best power meter(s) on the market, and rides a modern carbon bike (or 3!) with; disc brakes, fully integrated hidden cables, and clearance for mile wide rims and 40C tires. NOT 'everyone' is there. 😉

[@EVOQBIKE]

you're good man. don't watch everyone else, you have no idea their whole program or why they are doing low cadence

[@cyclingfreak56]

But that doesn’t sell quick trainer road programs! Which zero top notch endurance cyclists use!

[@EVOQBIKE]

hahaha, you said it, not me!! 😆

[@paperjourni8964]

why is there a gun in the background?

[@EVOQBIKE]

I was living on a farm (not mine) and there was no other place to set up.

[@paperjourni8964]

thanks!

[@henninghghjensen3771]

I can follow you on the physiology - but the rifle behind your head made my mind wander away from the scinece

[@EVOQBIKE]

haha stay focused! recorded in the space that was available at the time; a farm in the middle of nowhere. Not my decor 😆😆

[@Biketeez]

👍👍

[@EVOQBIKE]

🚀🚀🚀

[@bdk2116]

Bro do you even listen to kolie moore

[@EVOQBIKE]

I do not, for personal reasons from a few years ago. Not sure if you ask this with snark, but hopefully not!

[@bdk2116]

@@EVOQBIKE not really any snark implied, yall just disagree on the physiology

[@marcus_velo_9970]

zone 2 & lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) raise that and you push up your other zones, that's the key to z2 training and the benefit to ftp. Also the gun is problematic in light of mass shootings in your country. Please put a bike up, gun was distracting. cheers.

[@EVOQBIKE]

hey Marcus, this is a country farm that I was staying at; I don't do the decorating. Cheers.