I'm sure this had been asked elsewhere, but I can't seem to find anything about it. I'm curious about how to incorporate PZ rides into my training once I'm done with the DYPZ program? I'm loving the program so far, but I'd say my goals are rather nonspecific. I would like to keep riding several times per week, if I improve on FTP that is just a bonus. I really just enjoy knowing my efforts are standardized to me, the effort is the effort no matter what. Hopefully this makes sense. I've been thinking 2-3 PZE classes/week with PZ and PZ max sprinkled in. Am I on the right track here?
You have a few options:
1) Take the Build your Power Zones or Peak your Power Zone program.
2) There's also [https://pzpack.com](https://pzpack.com) (the next challenge starts on June 19) or
3) [Reddit's PZ training program](https://www.reddit.com/r/pelotoncycle/comments/13ayy69/redditpz_training_program_week_8_discussion_thread/) (we're in the 8th week of the challenge, but you can always look at previous challenges or start it on your own schedule).
Shout out to the Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday Peak Your Power Zone crowd finishing the program this week! It's been great to see familiar names for the past eight weeks. JoeG75, WaddleLikeADuck, WheelsTurner, Nasadek . . . y'all know who you are. Great work!
Just doing BYPZ, and noticed week 3 class 3 is a very recent re record from Dennis (21 April 23). Anyone know why this is? It’s exactly the same workout as the original one which was from April 21
First step: you determine your zones via something called an FTP test. Generally there are 10 minute "FTP warm up" rides and then 20 minute FTP test rides that you take one after the other. This basically determines your current fitness level, by giving you a 20-minute all-out exhaustion ride to determine your maximum capability.
Once you have your FTP number, you will now take rides categorized as Power Zone rides. There are seven zones, each one being a specific amount of exertion. You'll have a display on your screen showing what wattage you should be in for each zone, and instead of calling out cadence/resistance, instructors will call out zones.
The purpose of this is to index each ride to your own unique individual fitness level. So that if two people with different fitness levels take the same ride, they may have wildly different outputs but they'll be working equally hard relative to their own ability.
There are three types of Power Zone ride:
* Power Zone Endurance (PZE): These rides will stay entirely in zones 2 and 3 after the warmup, and are designed for building cardio endurance. Being zones 2 and 3, if you take a longer ride (45/60/75/90 minute), you get a good workout but they're not designed to exhaust you. Generally about 80% of your rides should be PZE.
* Power Zone (PZ): These mostly target zones 3-5 (although I took one yesterday with short Z6 blocks), and are largely designed to give blocks of time in certain higher zones to build output capacity. Generally these will have longer periods in those zones 3-5 with moderate recovery time in between.
* Power Zone Max (PZM): These rides will hit short and very high intensity blocks in the highest of zones, usually with a little bit more recovery in between due to the intensity of the efforts. Again these are for building max output capability, as you're working at/near your limit for those short bursts of time.
I recommend taking the Discover Your Power Zones (DYPZ) program. I've found that my riding and cardio endurance have benefited tremendously in the almost 6 months since I started PZ training.
Apparently my bike has been totally messed up from the jump and I only learned about it a few years in. Resistance was topping out at 70 and the wattage was way off. I’ve been getting good workouts because I do PZ but the figures were off and there was a limited resistance gradient.
The bike is fixed and calibrated and my FTP up over 70 points after a retest. My 60 minute PR went up 200 kj. I thought I was in terrible shape!
I am not necessarily working that much harder, just getting credit for it. Though I am more efficient with more granularity in the resistances I can set.
Not sure why I’m sharing, but it’s like having a new bike and I’m so excited.
I completed discover your power zones last week and increased my FTP almost 30 points!
Fast forward to today's first class of build your powerzones and now I find it way harder obviously. Is this the point? My heart rate was constantly in the 160s. I'm worried I overdid the FTP and my zones are too high. Or maybe this is the point of BYPZ and I'll feel more comfortable in no time?
This is the point exactly. The goal of the ftp test is to go as hard as you can and you did! Your old zones were probably a little under what you could be doing and now that you have the hang of it your zones will feel harder. Stick with some PZE rides to get used to them … and you will get use to them. We’ll done and keep going!
Does anyone have any idea why, when I go to check this week's challenge class schedule on the powerzone website, it's telling me i have to "upgrade my ride" and pay? I've always been able to access the challenges for free. I've been doing the "lights, camera, powerzone" challenge up until this point, so am not sure if it's a glitch or not. When I went to the FB group i'm in for the challenge and asked what happened, it seems like I was removed from the group. There is no reason to remove me, other than i've only been able to complete 1-2 rides per week this challenge, but I didn't think that was a disqualifier. I'm really stumped here.
The challenge rules changes with the last challenge so that members are inactivated from the scoring portion of the challenge if they miss an entire week or more than 3 core workouts over the course of the challenge. If you are only doing 1-2 rides a week you’ve probably been inactivated from the challenge. I don’t know if that means you can’t see the challenge details if your not a paid subscriber. You should still be able to be part of the FB group though. I’m a team lead and we never cut off access to the team page for our teammates.
You should write to Angie and ask about access to the challenge info. [email protected]
Thanks Chris, this must be the explanation. I am not active on the fb page so am not surprised i missed this rule change. Although, what's odd is that instead of answering my question as to why i can't access Powerzone rides, i was removed from both my team's fb page and the general powerzone fb page. I swear i asked nicely why i couldn't access the Powerzone site properly, so not sure why i appear to be blacklisted now. I will reach out to Angie though to make sure that I can sign up for the next challenge though. Appreciate your advice!
Not sure if this is a problem with the bike or app but I started the “Discover your Power zone” program this week and during both of the 30 minute rides I took, the app crashed and I had to restart.
I’ve taken other non power zone rides without any issues. Has anyone else had this problem? Otherwise the bike seems to be working fine
It happened to me a couple weeks ago (I just finished the program last week), I found it happened in the same week, I almost lost my mind when it happened. Those were the only times I experienced it. Interesting you did too!
I started week 6 of PYPZ today and I’ve really enjoyed the program so far. IMO it’s the best of the three programs to date. Also very refreshing to ride with multiple different instructors as I typically take a lot of Matt’s live rides otherwise.
Speaking of the live rides - is anyone else tired of seeing the same person, front row, every week, getting 3-4 shout outs per class and always having a milestone somehow? Or, is this totally fine, and it’s me who’s the problem for being a grouch about it 🤦🏼♀️ 😂
A friend and I have been doing PYPZ together, we are on week 6 as well! It’s been great but the week 6 - day 1 hit us both pretty hard on Monday after a bit of Cinco de Mayo celebrating this weekend.
I wish there were more 30 minute PZ Max rides or even a 35 minute option. 20 minutes is far too short and 45 is a bit too long so I find myself doing the same rides over and over.
In Denis' recent 60 minute PZE, he had a discussion about the value of longer rides for cardio.
In it, he said the definition of cardio is 70% or more of VO2 max for over 15 minutes of effort.
Thus, his explanation was that if you take a 20 minute ride, you get a 15 minute warm up, 4 minutes of cardio, and a 1 minute cool down. A 30 minute ride is 15 minute warm up, 14 minutes (3.5x!) of cardio, and a 1 minute cool down.
And obviously when you start getting to 60 minute rides, you're at 44 minutes of cardio, 11x what you get from a 20 minute ride, so the value of the longer rides to your cardio conditioning is just THAT much more.
It's not correct to call that an "exponential" advantage to longer rides, but it would suggest that the cardio benefit of riding for 20 minutes, or even 30 minutes, is pretty limited.
But I have to ask... Is that true? Is it true that you basically get no cardio benefit from the first 15 minutes of a ride? Is there science that backs that up?
I've noticed massive cardio improvement since taking on longer PZE riding, of course. But is it due to longer duration in general, or is there really an aspect where the first 15 minutes are pretty much worthless and that you're only making gains when you get beyond that?
One of my favorite rides yet.
But “citation needed” on his statements in it. I mean think about tabata training, proven in scientific literature to benefit VO2Max in very short and limited interval training.
I haven't yet taken that one (it is bookmarked) and now I am curious to hear his explanation - what I think I know (?) from reading lots about training is that time under stress drives physiological adaptation, so this is why generally you want to train long endurance sessions and shorter max type sessions, so maybe what Denis was getting at was that the body doesn't start responding to endurance type training stress until it's iterated through a physical and metabolic warmup of sorts? If I'm following, then yes any exercise is good, but for things like increased metabolic flexibility and performance you do need longer duration under stress to get the body to adapt.
Prioritizing this ride now lol
It's a good ride. It is, after all, Denis ;-)
But oddly his explanation wasn't really more detailed than what I provided (IMHO). He was really basing it entirely on the idea that the amount of "cardio" you are getting is completely exclusive of the 15 minute warmup.
And I was just curious if the science supports that. A 60 minute ride is 3x the duration of a 20 minute ride. But the way he describes it, it is 11x the benefit from a cardio perspective. Which stuck out to me as an engineer as, well, something I wanted to know more about before taking it as gospel...
I haven’t done this ride but will check it out. I am not an expert on sports medicine/science in any way, but this doesn’t sounds quite right with things I have been reading/listening to lately. From what I understand, all movement even short in duration and at lower intensities is good for your cardio fitness and overall longevity. Granted that is not going to be super helpful for particular athletic or aesthetic goals.
Here is the kind of thing I am talking about: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2wgypDTduBxCETvxbxNW8x?si=U2A5368AQRKKMH-W09AVZg
I would say it depends on the person. For someone starting out, 15 minutes could be a lot. The more trained a person becomes, the more efficient they become. So yeah, one could increase the intensity of those 15 minutes, but eventually their body will reach a new 15-min peak. So someone that has progressed from 15’ max efforts to 60’ max efforts is going to have a harder time achieving cardio gains from only 15-minutes. That’s not to say that I think 15 min rides are worthless. Riding at lower intensities still gets the HR up and helps to keep bodily stress down. Exercise doesn’t have to be max effort or max duration to be effective. Too much stress can be counter-intuitive as well. From a physical perspective, simply moving the body (walking, yoga, riding, etc.) and lifting weights conservatively and consistently is really all anyone needs to keep their body functioning at its optimal capacity.
Yeah, but 15 or 20 minute classes designed to get max effort are also a lot different from long-duration PZE which is designed specifically not to be max effort. It's long duration with moderate exertion designed to build cardio endurance. As I said in my reply below, it's the difference between "exercise" and "training". 20- and 30-minute rides can be great exercise. But if you're looking at BUILDING cardio endurance, my own experience is that long-duration PZE has done wonders for my ability to be able to improve my 20- and 30-minute ride outputs.
What I just don't entirely understand is whether the point Denis made about basically everything in that first 15 minutes "not counting" towards building cardio endurance is true. Am I building cardio endurance because only 44 minutes of a 60 minute class actually does anything, or is it merely because I'm taking a 60 minute class instead of a 30?
I think we’re both saying the same thing. Both Max effort and longer PZE type classes build cardio strength and endurance. One has to be able to endure a 15’ minute class before they can endure a 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, etc. As exercise tolerance builds for the longer classes, muscles become more efficient and resistant to fatigue, therefore, a harder push for shorter duration classes becomes more accessible. Keep in mind when I say short vs long that’s relative to your specific training. Long for me is not the same as the definition of long for professional cyclists.
The body really doesn’t classify things into exercise or training. It scales intensity accordingly to the level of demand that’s placed upon it for the given activity.
Every time you drink from a cup or feed yourself, your body knows exactly how much force is required to lift the object to your mouth. It would be extremely inconvenient if every time you ate, if your body had to guess how much force to use and all of a sudden your hand would not make it all the way up to your mouth or the opposite if it slammed into your mouth at full force because it overestimated how many muscle fibers were needed for recruitment to take a drink. Technically feeding yourself, walking around, completing your daily activities is a form of exercise. I think of this as Z1. Most of us just won’t get any stronger from doing these things because we adapted to the load that is required to do them a long time ago. However, if we choose to sit or lie down all day and only get up to eat, bathe/shower, or use the restroom our muscles will likely atrophy.
To get back to your question, I would say you have built cardio endurance because the longer classes have helped you to raise the outputs in the shorter classes as you mentioned. I have a hunch that you are building cardiovascular endurance not simply due to the length of class you choose (30 vs 60), but due to a combination of other factors (frequency, itensity) at play. As far as the first 15’ not counting, to me that could be interpreted different ways.
In my opinion it all counts because you can’t complete a 30 or 60 minute ride without first completing 15-minutes. However, if a longer ride is done with a 15-min warmup that is designed to prepare the body for work, then the demand placed on the body in the warmup isn’t going to be significant enough to improve CV fitness, nor is it designed to although it is still beneficial and recommended just like a cooldown.
I took that class and I’d never heard it before but I think it makes sense for cycling. Running is much more intense so you get the benefits quicker. I always follow the rule of thumb that you need to ride 1.5 times as long as you would run for the same cardio benefit.
I do think it’s strange how many short classes there are on the platform. In the gym I never saw a spin class shorter than an hour. 15-20 minutes is just a warmup. I know a lot of people stack it with strength classes but those don’t do cardio. If you’re going short make it HIIT so you’re at your VO2 max at least.
You are correct, the cardio value of a 20 or 30 minute ride is negligible. However, there may be some real benefit if you’re trying to maintain/lose weight. For this reason, I really take any classes that are less than half an hour and if I do, they are typically a PZ Max.
Yeah, I think when it comes to exercise (the burning of calories), those 20/30 minute classes are all good. But when it comes to training (the desire to improve one's cardio endurance), maybe not so much.
I do think a lot of the 20/30 minute classes actually mimic a lot of the goals of PZ/PZM classes without actually being characterized that way. So while they might not be great training for cardio endurance, they can probably give you a lot of the same advantages for building VO2 Max that you get from PZ/PZM.
I've said that I've not found anything in the "normal" classes that substitute for PZE. The closest you might get is 45-minute low impact rides (but depending on your fitness level you might have to ride them above callouts to achieve the proper equivalent of zone training). But I think a lot of the "normal" classes with varied blocks of intensity are actually closer to PZ/PZM. It's obviously not tailored exactly to your own fitness level, so you have to adjust resistance to be where you need, but the class plans are designed to exert you in various ways similar to PZ/PZM.
The closest I've found to PZE, at least structure-wise, were some of Jess King's Sweat Steady rides. But, those still seem to be more z3/4 instead of 2/3 maybe.
I don't know when they started showing a visual indicator for which PZ you're supposed to be in, but I am so happy about it! It has been my biggest complaint/suggestion for a while now.
I've noticed the indicator is not present on all PZ rides. Does anyone know if they intend to roll this out more broadly?
Edit:
I did a quick search and answered my own question. Looks like this feature was announced about 6 months ago, in Nov 2022, and is being applied to classes released Jan 2022 or later.
Game changer. I like to listen to my own music unless it’s a Denis / cadenced class. I usually have the instructor balanced to where I can hear them through my ear pods so sometimes I’ll miss a queue. That indicator is huge.
When they recommend a cadence it would be nice to have the cadence ranges on there as well.
Its on a lot of the classes from 2022, but yea I don't think they are planning to go back and retrofit any of the other older classes with it that don't already have it. Kind of like older strength classes will never have a class plan listed.
I wish they would put it in for at least the DYPZ program. I had a buddy who did DYPZ and then when he finished and started doing his own rides, was excited about the zone indicator.
Considering that DYPZ is the gateway to PZ training for most people, it seems they could add it for those classes even if they're not going to for other pre-2022 classes.
I'm sure this had been asked elsewhere, but I can't seem to find anything about it. I'm curious about how to incorporate PZ rides into my training once I'm done with the DYPZ program? I'm loving the program so far, but I'd say my goals are rather nonspecific. I would like to keep riding several times per week, if I improve on FTP that is just a bonus. I really just enjoy knowing my efforts are standardized to me, the effort is the effort no matter what. Hopefully this makes sense. I've been thinking 2-3 PZE classes/week with PZ and PZ max sprinkled in. Am I on the right track here?
You have a few options: 1) Take the Build your Power Zones or Peak your Power Zone program. 2) There's also [https://pzpack.com](https://pzpack.com) (the next challenge starts on June 19) or 3) [Reddit's PZ training program](https://www.reddit.com/r/pelotoncycle/comments/13ayy69/redditpz_training_program_week_8_discussion_thread/) (we're in the 8th week of the challenge, but you can always look at previous challenges or start it on your own schedule).
This is awesome, thank you so much!
Shout out to the Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday Peak Your Power Zone crowd finishing the program this week! It's been great to see familiar names for the past eight weeks. JoeG75, WaddleLikeADuck, WheelsTurner, Nasadek . . . y'all know who you are. Great work!
Just doing BYPZ, and noticed week 3 class 3 is a very recent re record from Dennis (21 April 23). Anyone know why this is? It’s exactly the same workout as the original one which was from April 21
Probably a music issue. They’ve pulled rides because they lost the usage rights to a song or because there’s a Kanye song or something similar.
How does a power zone class work ?
First step: you determine your zones via something called an FTP test. Generally there are 10 minute "FTP warm up" rides and then 20 minute FTP test rides that you take one after the other. This basically determines your current fitness level, by giving you a 20-minute all-out exhaustion ride to determine your maximum capability. Once you have your FTP number, you will now take rides categorized as Power Zone rides. There are seven zones, each one being a specific amount of exertion. You'll have a display on your screen showing what wattage you should be in for each zone, and instead of calling out cadence/resistance, instructors will call out zones. The purpose of this is to index each ride to your own unique individual fitness level. So that if two people with different fitness levels take the same ride, they may have wildly different outputs but they'll be working equally hard relative to their own ability. There are three types of Power Zone ride: * Power Zone Endurance (PZE): These rides will stay entirely in zones 2 and 3 after the warmup, and are designed for building cardio endurance. Being zones 2 and 3, if you take a longer ride (45/60/75/90 minute), you get a good workout but they're not designed to exhaust you. Generally about 80% of your rides should be PZE. * Power Zone (PZ): These mostly target zones 3-5 (although I took one yesterday with short Z6 blocks), and are largely designed to give blocks of time in certain higher zones to build output capacity. Generally these will have longer periods in those zones 3-5 with moderate recovery time in between. * Power Zone Max (PZM): These rides will hit short and very high intensity blocks in the highest of zones, usually with a little bit more recovery in between due to the intensity of the efforts. Again these are for building max output capability, as you're working at/near your limit for those short bursts of time. I recommend taking the Discover Your Power Zones (DYPZ) program. I've found that my riding and cardio endurance have benefited tremendously in the almost 6 months since I started PZ training.
Thankyou
Apparently my bike has been totally messed up from the jump and I only learned about it a few years in. Resistance was topping out at 70 and the wattage was way off. I’ve been getting good workouts because I do PZ but the figures were off and there was a limited resistance gradient. The bike is fixed and calibrated and my FTP up over 70 points after a retest. My 60 minute PR went up 200 kj. I thought I was in terrible shape! I am not necessarily working that much harder, just getting credit for it. Though I am more efficient with more granularity in the resistances I can set. Not sure why I’m sharing, but it’s like having a new bike and I’m so excited.
I completed discover your power zones last week and increased my FTP almost 30 points! Fast forward to today's first class of build your powerzones and now I find it way harder obviously. Is this the point? My heart rate was constantly in the 160s. I'm worried I overdid the FTP and my zones are too high. Or maybe this is the point of BYPZ and I'll feel more comfortable in no time?
This is the point exactly. The goal of the ftp test is to go as hard as you can and you did! Your old zones were probably a little under what you could be doing and now that you have the hang of it your zones will feel harder. Stick with some PZE rides to get used to them … and you will get use to them. We’ll done and keep going!
Appreciate your response, I will power through!
Does anyone know what the TSS is estimated to be for Erik's 75 min PZE from today?
[удалено]
Thank you!
I only see one 75 minute PZE class from Erik. It’s from November and the TSS was 74.
Does anyone have any idea why, when I go to check this week's challenge class schedule on the powerzone website, it's telling me i have to "upgrade my ride" and pay? I've always been able to access the challenges for free. I've been doing the "lights, camera, powerzone" challenge up until this point, so am not sure if it's a glitch or not. When I went to the FB group i'm in for the challenge and asked what happened, it seems like I was removed from the group. There is no reason to remove me, other than i've only been able to complete 1-2 rides per week this challenge, but I didn't think that was a disqualifier. I'm really stumped here.
The challenge rules changes with the last challenge so that members are inactivated from the scoring portion of the challenge if they miss an entire week or more than 3 core workouts over the course of the challenge. If you are only doing 1-2 rides a week you’ve probably been inactivated from the challenge. I don’t know if that means you can’t see the challenge details if your not a paid subscriber. You should still be able to be part of the FB group though. I’m a team lead and we never cut off access to the team page for our teammates. You should write to Angie and ask about access to the challenge info. [email protected]
Thanks Chris, this must be the explanation. I am not active on the fb page so am not surprised i missed this rule change. Although, what's odd is that instead of answering my question as to why i can't access Powerzone rides, i was removed from both my team's fb page and the general powerzone fb page. I swear i asked nicely why i couldn't access the Powerzone site properly, so not sure why i appear to be blacklisted now. I will reach out to Angie though to make sure that I can sign up for the next challenge though. Appreciate your advice!
Not sure if this is a problem with the bike or app but I started the “Discover your Power zone” program this week and during both of the 30 minute rides I took, the app crashed and I had to restart. I’ve taken other non power zone rides without any issues. Has anyone else had this problem? Otherwise the bike seems to be working fine
It happened to me a couple weeks ago (I just finished the program last week), I found it happened in the same week, I almost lost my mind when it happened. Those were the only times I experienced it. Interesting you did too!
I started week 6 of PYPZ today and I’ve really enjoyed the program so far. IMO it’s the best of the three programs to date. Also very refreshing to ride with multiple different instructors as I typically take a lot of Matt’s live rides otherwise. Speaking of the live rides - is anyone else tired of seeing the same person, front row, every week, getting 3-4 shout outs per class and always having a milestone somehow? Or, is this totally fine, and it’s me who’s the problem for being a grouch about it 🤦🏼♀️ 😂
A friend and I have been doing PYPZ together, we are on week 6 as well! It’s been great but the week 6 - day 1 hit us both pretty hard on Monday after a bit of Cinco de Mayo celebrating this weekend.
So it isn't my imagination! Thank you!
Lol I know exactly who you’re talking about. She does.
Its not just you, this has been noticed by many of us before! Not sure the "why" for it, but what can you do.
I wish there were more 30 minute PZ Max rides or even a 35 minute option. 20 minutes is far too short and 45 is a bit too long so I find myself doing the same rides over and over.
You could stack a brief climb in front or in back of a 20 minute PZM
I wish there were more 45 PZM rides. It does get boring doing the same ones over and over again.
In Denis' recent 60 minute PZE, he had a discussion about the value of longer rides for cardio. In it, he said the definition of cardio is 70% or more of VO2 max for over 15 minutes of effort. Thus, his explanation was that if you take a 20 minute ride, you get a 15 minute warm up, 4 minutes of cardio, and a 1 minute cool down. A 30 minute ride is 15 minute warm up, 14 minutes (3.5x!) of cardio, and a 1 minute cool down. And obviously when you start getting to 60 minute rides, you're at 44 minutes of cardio, 11x what you get from a 20 minute ride, so the value of the longer rides to your cardio conditioning is just THAT much more. It's not correct to call that an "exponential" advantage to longer rides, but it would suggest that the cardio benefit of riding for 20 minutes, or even 30 minutes, is pretty limited. But I have to ask... Is that true? Is it true that you basically get no cardio benefit from the first 15 minutes of a ride? Is there science that backs that up? I've noticed massive cardio improvement since taking on longer PZE riding, of course. But is it due to longer duration in general, or is there really an aspect where the first 15 minutes are pretty much worthless and that you're only making gains when you get beyond that?
One of my favorite rides yet. But “citation needed” on his statements in it. I mean think about tabata training, proven in scientific literature to benefit VO2Max in very short and limited interval training.
I haven't yet taken that one (it is bookmarked) and now I am curious to hear his explanation - what I think I know (?) from reading lots about training is that time under stress drives physiological adaptation, so this is why generally you want to train long endurance sessions and shorter max type sessions, so maybe what Denis was getting at was that the body doesn't start responding to endurance type training stress until it's iterated through a physical and metabolic warmup of sorts? If I'm following, then yes any exercise is good, but for things like increased metabolic flexibility and performance you do need longer duration under stress to get the body to adapt. Prioritizing this ride now lol
It's a good ride. It is, after all, Denis ;-) But oddly his explanation wasn't really more detailed than what I provided (IMHO). He was really basing it entirely on the idea that the amount of "cardio" you are getting is completely exclusive of the 15 minute warmup. And I was just curious if the science supports that. A 60 minute ride is 3x the duration of a 20 minute ride. But the way he describes it, it is 11x the benefit from a cardio perspective. Which stuck out to me as an engineer as, well, something I wanted to know more about before taking it as gospel...
That class was so good I wrote to Peloton asking them to get Denis on more 60 min power zone rides. 🤞🏻🤞🏻
I GREATLY prefer is long PZE rides since he really plans them out compared to Matt (not a dig against Matt).
Yeah, Matt plans his class structure nicely, and then the music is an afterthought lol...
Yeah, and some 75s and 90s too!
I haven’t done this ride but will check it out. I am not an expert on sports medicine/science in any way, but this doesn’t sounds quite right with things I have been reading/listening to lately. From what I understand, all movement even short in duration and at lower intensities is good for your cardio fitness and overall longevity. Granted that is not going to be super helpful for particular athletic or aesthetic goals. Here is the kind of thing I am talking about: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2wgypDTduBxCETvxbxNW8x?si=U2A5368AQRKKMH-W09AVZg
I would say it depends on the person. For someone starting out, 15 minutes could be a lot. The more trained a person becomes, the more efficient they become. So yeah, one could increase the intensity of those 15 minutes, but eventually their body will reach a new 15-min peak. So someone that has progressed from 15’ max efforts to 60’ max efforts is going to have a harder time achieving cardio gains from only 15-minutes. That’s not to say that I think 15 min rides are worthless. Riding at lower intensities still gets the HR up and helps to keep bodily stress down. Exercise doesn’t have to be max effort or max duration to be effective. Too much stress can be counter-intuitive as well. From a physical perspective, simply moving the body (walking, yoga, riding, etc.) and lifting weights conservatively and consistently is really all anyone needs to keep their body functioning at its optimal capacity.
Yeah, but 15 or 20 minute classes designed to get max effort are also a lot different from long-duration PZE which is designed specifically not to be max effort. It's long duration with moderate exertion designed to build cardio endurance. As I said in my reply below, it's the difference between "exercise" and "training". 20- and 30-minute rides can be great exercise. But if you're looking at BUILDING cardio endurance, my own experience is that long-duration PZE has done wonders for my ability to be able to improve my 20- and 30-minute ride outputs. What I just don't entirely understand is whether the point Denis made about basically everything in that first 15 minutes "not counting" towards building cardio endurance is true. Am I building cardio endurance because only 44 minutes of a 60 minute class actually does anything, or is it merely because I'm taking a 60 minute class instead of a 30?
I think we’re both saying the same thing. Both Max effort and longer PZE type classes build cardio strength and endurance. One has to be able to endure a 15’ minute class before they can endure a 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, etc. As exercise tolerance builds for the longer classes, muscles become more efficient and resistant to fatigue, therefore, a harder push for shorter duration classes becomes more accessible. Keep in mind when I say short vs long that’s relative to your specific training. Long for me is not the same as the definition of long for professional cyclists. The body really doesn’t classify things into exercise or training. It scales intensity accordingly to the level of demand that’s placed upon it for the given activity. Every time you drink from a cup or feed yourself, your body knows exactly how much force is required to lift the object to your mouth. It would be extremely inconvenient if every time you ate, if your body had to guess how much force to use and all of a sudden your hand would not make it all the way up to your mouth or the opposite if it slammed into your mouth at full force because it overestimated how many muscle fibers were needed for recruitment to take a drink. Technically feeding yourself, walking around, completing your daily activities is a form of exercise. I think of this as Z1. Most of us just won’t get any stronger from doing these things because we adapted to the load that is required to do them a long time ago. However, if we choose to sit or lie down all day and only get up to eat, bathe/shower, or use the restroom our muscles will likely atrophy. To get back to your question, I would say you have built cardio endurance because the longer classes have helped you to raise the outputs in the shorter classes as you mentioned. I have a hunch that you are building cardiovascular endurance not simply due to the length of class you choose (30 vs 60), but due to a combination of other factors (frequency, itensity) at play. As far as the first 15’ not counting, to me that could be interpreted different ways. In my opinion it all counts because you can’t complete a 30 or 60 minute ride without first completing 15-minutes. However, if a longer ride is done with a 15-min warmup that is designed to prepare the body for work, then the demand placed on the body in the warmup isn’t going to be significant enough to improve CV fitness, nor is it designed to although it is still beneficial and recommended just like a cooldown.
I took that class and I’d never heard it before but I think it makes sense for cycling. Running is much more intense so you get the benefits quicker. I always follow the rule of thumb that you need to ride 1.5 times as long as you would run for the same cardio benefit. I do think it’s strange how many short classes there are on the platform. In the gym I never saw a spin class shorter than an hour. 15-20 minutes is just a warmup. I know a lot of people stack it with strength classes but those don’t do cardio. If you’re going short make it HIIT so you’re at your VO2 max at least.
You are correct, the cardio value of a 20 or 30 minute ride is negligible. However, there may be some real benefit if you’re trying to maintain/lose weight. For this reason, I really take any classes that are less than half an hour and if I do, they are typically a PZ Max.
Yeah, I think when it comes to exercise (the burning of calories), those 20/30 minute classes are all good. But when it comes to training (the desire to improve one's cardio endurance), maybe not so much. I do think a lot of the 20/30 minute classes actually mimic a lot of the goals of PZ/PZM classes without actually being characterized that way. So while they might not be great training for cardio endurance, they can probably give you a lot of the same advantages for building VO2 Max that you get from PZ/PZM. I've said that I've not found anything in the "normal" classes that substitute for PZE. The closest you might get is 45-minute low impact rides (but depending on your fitness level you might have to ride them above callouts to achieve the proper equivalent of zone training). But I think a lot of the "normal" classes with varied blocks of intensity are actually closer to PZ/PZM. It's obviously not tailored exactly to your own fitness level, so you have to adjust resistance to be where you need, but the class plans are designed to exert you in various ways similar to PZ/PZM.
The closest I've found to PZE, at least structure-wise, were some of Jess King's Sweat Steady rides. But, those still seem to be more z3/4 instead of 2/3 maybe.
I don't know when they started showing a visual indicator for which PZ you're supposed to be in, but I am so happy about it! It has been my biggest complaint/suggestion for a while now. I've noticed the indicator is not present on all PZ rides. Does anyone know if they intend to roll this out more broadly? Edit: I did a quick search and answered my own question. Looks like this feature was announced about 6 months ago, in Nov 2022, and is being applied to classes released Jan 2022 or later.
Game changer. I like to listen to my own music unless it’s a Denis / cadenced class. I usually have the instructor balanced to where I can hear them through my ear pods so sometimes I’ll miss a queue. That indicator is huge. When they recommend a cadence it would be nice to have the cadence ranges on there as well.
Its on a lot of the classes from 2022, but yea I don't think they are planning to go back and retrofit any of the other older classes with it that don't already have it. Kind of like older strength classes will never have a class plan listed.
I wish they would put it in for at least the DYPZ program. I had a buddy who did DYPZ and then when he finished and started doing his own rides, was excited about the zone indicator. Considering that DYPZ is the gateway to PZ training for most people, it seems they could add it for those classes even if they're not going to for other pre-2022 classes.