Zone 2 testing is a more sensitive indicator of mitochondrial function than VO2 max.

“I think that one training that system which makes more sense to me than training vo2 max”

“I wonder if looking at zone 2 would be an even more sensitive indicator than vo2 because vo2 you can train that when I used to ride a bike a lot and I knew I had a vo2 max test coming up I could game the system which is for about a month before the test there are certain types of intervals you can train really allow you to blow up Plus you drop a little bit of weight because it's very dependent on your weight and so you could go from 60 to 70 on a vo2 max in a week and maybe out a week but probably in about 3 weeks you could literally have that much of a jump in vo2 max just by managing your weight and a couple of types of workouts but the zone to test takes longer it's a little more robust and also I think it's not diluted by the anaerobic piece that comes in yellow to max”

“well we do we do kind of both ends right so on the one end of the spectrum what what we want to do is increase our mitochondrial capacity to maximize aerobic metabolism and there are two ways to do that meaning you have to do two things so the way I describe this to people is the way one of my coaches described it to me when I was a you know uh fledgling cyclist your aerobic capacity is a pyramid and the area of that pyramid is your total aerobic capacity and to have the largest area of a pyramid you need the widest base and the highest peak right a pyramid with a narrow base and a high peak yeah not as good a pyramid with a very wide base and a shallow Peak also not great you want wide base high peak”