Why you need to do more “easy” work
Many people assume that because intensity yields more noticeable results in the short-term, they need to “push the pace” continually if they want to keep progressing.
The truth is that most high calibre endurance spend 80-95% of their time training at those intensities.
Easy training also enables athletes competing in higher-intensity sports, such as short(er) distance running (5-10 km) or CrossFit, to perform at a higher pace during events. This can be visualized as a pyramid, with a wide base leading to a higher peak. This is why you see many athletes prioritize higher volumes at lower intensities earlier in a training season. You can find many examples online of Elite CrossFit athletes spending an obscene amount of time on their Rower, Bike Erg and Ski Erg.
Recovery is also important. If you don’t have a wide base of capacity, you will have a harder time recovering during and between training session. Which makes it harder to perform enough training at the tougher intensities without burning out.
Let’s define “easy work
You are probably familiar with the 5 Zone Model of Endurance Training. In this model, training in zone 2 would describe the type of easy work we are talking about.
Another model I really like to describe endurance training is the Exercise Intensity Domains model, some people also call it the 3 zone model. In this model, we are talking about the moderate intensity domain, or the first zone.
What is the upper limit of “easy work”?
From a physiological standpoint, easy training is done below the first lactate threshold (LT1). This is the point where lactate begins to accumulate in the bloodstream at a faster rate than it can be removed. When the intensity of exercise increases above LT1, fast-twitch (Type II) muscle fibres are recruited to help meet energy demand. While Type I fibres are more enduring and rely on aerobic metabolism to produce energy, Type II fibres are generally better suited for high-power, short-duration activities and rely on more of anaerobic metabolism to do work by shifting towards using more carbohydrates to fuel exercise. This results in an increased production of lactate, amongst other things (even though lactate is not the cause of fatigue…we can talk about this some other time).
This means that you are tapping into more unsustainable sources of energy to get the job done. You burn more glycogen, heart rate and breathing also start to increase. Fatigue and fatigue byproducts will eventually creep up also. Based on the intensity and duration of the task, motivation may also progressively start to dwindle. If you keep pushing far enough, you may reach a point of “task failure”. If you keep pushing the pace, you find yourself at the crossroad of other important thresholds like MLSS, Critical Power and VO2max.
I took this chart from: “Intervals, Thresholds, and Long Slow Distance: the Role of Intensity and Duration in Endurance Training”
Here is a picture I found on Connect2perform to show you how the 5 and 3 Zone model correlate:
But if I don’t train above this intensity? I will never increase my ability to “push hard”…YES…and NO.
Both the lower and higher intensity work are useful, and they are also complementary. Let’s look at some of the adaptations that you will get from training at lower intensities.
🧬 Increased Cardiac Output
🧬 Increase Capillary Density
🧬 Increase Mitochondrial Density
🧬 Increased ability to recycle lactate
🧬 and more
It’s important to note that you will definitely get still get many of the above adaptations from higher intensity training. But training at specific intensities will preferentially improve certain muscle fibres and their qualities. The more you can train your body to do work sustainably, the more you delay your need to do unsustainable work.
Not only that, but your muscle's ability to burn fat for fuel is specifically targeted during easy training and much less during higher intensity bouts. Being good a burning fat for fuel is important for many types of athletes.
Also, an important factor for many of these adaptations is the time spent training them. The benefit of lower intensity is that you can improve while being able to recover and do enough volume to keep progressing. There is a limit to the amount of higher intensity work we can safely recover from at a given level of fitness.
One last consideration is the interference effect. Crossfitters or other athletes that train a combination of endurance training and resistance training need to manage volume intelligently if they are to progress in both aspects. Higher intensity effort will impact your ability to do heavy resistance training more so than easier intensity. Knowing this, we can combine both endurance training and resistance training more effectively and figure out how to organize blocks of training where we push certain qualities, while focusing less on others. As an example, you could stack training blocks, where the earlier blocks prioritize strength training with higher volume of lower intensity since they will interfere less with each other. Then, you could move into blocks where strength may be more on maintenance while you push the higher intensity endurance training to a higher degree. This is just an example, there are many ways to do this based on the person, their fitness level, the sport they compete in and their goals.
Practically speaking, here are some of the outcomes of you get from training “easy”:
📈 More capacity
📈 Higher performance ceiling
📈 Faster recovery
📈 Higher tolerance to volume
📈 Fatigue resistance
All of this sounds great, but how can I know I’m training at the right intensity?
Hopefully at this point I’ve convinced you that easy training is beneficial, we need to figure out how to “get in that zone”. The best way to do it would be to get physiological testing done, but there are a few ways we could approximate the intensity you should be running at, actually measuring your lactate levels gas exchange ratios. Here they are:
1️⃣ Talk Test: You should be able to hold a conversation in full sentences without sounding particularly out of breath. If you are doing easy work while talking to me in your AirPods, I would know that you are not sitting on the couch, but it wouldn’t impact our conversation that much.
2️⃣ Heart Rate: This can vary greatly between individuals, but your HR shouldn’t increase much during this type of training. Generally speaking, most people will fall into the range of 60-75% of Max Heart Rate for this. But using heart rate is tricky as you can end up spilling over into a different metabolic state if you don’t know exactly
3️⃣ RPE Scale: You should confidently rate the effort below 5/10 on an RPE scale.
Based on this, you can see that easy work is exactly that..EASY. At first glance, you may question the utility of this type of training. Trust me it will be worth your while.
How much should I do?
1–2 sessions of 30 mins is a good place to start. From there you can increase progressively as needed. As for the upper limit, most of us don’t train for a living, so we will probably be limited by their schedule here. So based on your schedule you may not be able to build up to more than 60 minutes, 2 sessions per week as an example. Another way you could do it, while I’m not sure would be as productive, would be to add 10 mins to your warm-ups and cooldowns. If you train 4x/week, this would mean 80 minutes per week of easy training.
Elite endurance athletes may spend dozens of hours per week at this intensity. Remember, the recovery demands are quite low if you are really going at the right intensity, which allows you to do a lot of it if necessary. Sedentary people may get the right stimulus from simply walking. From there, I recommend using low impact exercises like biking, unless you are pretty fit and used to the pounding of running.
I hope that this convinced you to incorporate more easy training into your routine. When you start, give yourself a good 2–3 weeks to see some progress. At that point, you’ll probably start to notice some of the benefits. But the real progress is probably going to happen in 2–3 years from now, after you’ve put in some serious hours into the process.
Easy training is not the sexiest thing…it’s surely not the session you are going to post on Instagram, but it will make you a lot fitter (and healthier) if you take it seriously.
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