Can you get too much Zone 2 Aerobic exercise?

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rimcdave
rimcdave Posts: 21 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I lift weights 5 times a week but I also started doing two hours of Zone 2 Aerobic exercise daily; one hour in the morning and one in the evening.

At my age getting into Zone 2 consists of walking on the treadmill 3 mph at 10% rise. I do this to increase my metabolic threshold and overall aerobic health. Is this too much for a 62yo male?

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,212 Member
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    If it were me (F, 67) 2 hours daily (plus the strength training) would be too much time to maintain good overall life balance alongside, i.e., I wouldn't have enough time in the day for other things that are important to me, so it wouldn't be sustainable or sensible.

    Physically, if you aren't feeling overly fatigued from it, there's nothing wrong with it that I know of. Going from zero aerobic exercise to 2 hours a day (even if only zone 2) wouldn't be the best way to build fitness, but if you're fit enough to do it without accumulating too much fatigue, it's fine.

    If you want to improve your aerobic health, a mix of intensities would probably be better, at least after you have base aerobic fitness and some endurance in place. Different intensities have different physical benefits. If you do higher intensity exercise (for its different benefits), you would want to do shorter sessions of that. If you're talking zone 2 in a 5-zone scheme, that's a pretty mild intensity.

    I'm not sure what you mean by "increase metabolic threshold". It does burn calories, sure.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,523 Member
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    Don't you need higher cardio intensity to improve the areas you want to?

    Do you need the calorie burn? If not, it sounds like a lot to me. If you enjoy it though, carry on.
  • ricky9676h
    ricky9676h Posts: 3 Member
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    If increasing your metabolic rate (burn calories) is your goal, doing a higher intensity routine with resting in between each set would be better. If increasing your Vo2 is your goal (more performance focused usually but I recommend everyone have some ploys into their program) then same. If your goal is to increased your cardio-respiratory capabilities then your current program is perfect. Overall, if you are hitting your goals then congratulations! Keep up the great work
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,212 Member
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    High intensity cardio may also have benefits for things like the number of mitochondria in muscle cells, up to a point. That may be particularly useful for aging folks like me. (For example, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31145037/ .)

    High intensity intervals can help with that, but it can be overdone and possibly have some detrimental effects on the same systems. (For example, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413121001741#bib5 .)

    Finding the right balance is still IMU an active point of research, and my guess is that the answer will turn out to be individual. It seems fairly certain that the "do HIIT everyday" advocates aren't making the best choice for either fitness or health (or total calorie burn, but that's a whole other discussion).

    I tend to look to the training plans of elite athletes for rough guidance, since they have the best professional advice, even though my "high intensity" is their low intensity. :D In my sport, high intensity work is short and infrequent, in that context. How often it's done depends on the stage they're at in a periodized plan.
  • williamsonmj1
    williamsonmj1 Posts: 85 Member
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    You could potentially get over-use injuries by just doing the same movement for so long every day. But if you aren't getting these injuries, it's probably fine.

    The bigger issue is that that amount of low intensity/steady state training, without variation, isn't optimal for most athletic development. After a while it stops working and also most goals benefit from some other forms of training. AFAIK even Marathon runners mix it up and do some shorter/more intense work. Pretty much everyone else does a significant amount of high intensity- low intensity/stead state is usually the base, but not the whole building.

  • Djproulx
    Djproulx Posts: 3,084 Member
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    In response to your question "Is it too much?" my answer is it depends. While many folks in their 60's do lots of zone 2 work, (I'm thinking of marathon runners, cyclists, etc) I'd echo what others have said. It isn't optimal as the only form of cardio work.

    The other observation I'll make is that you mention that you've started the 2hrs/day routine as an addition to your 5 days per week of strength training. If you're going from zero cardio hours to 10 hours per week, you might reach a point of significant cumulative fatigue. That can lead to degraded performance and even injury. Without another data source (such as a software tracking app like Training Peaks) you'd have to be the judge of whether your fitness improvements are being hampered by your cumulative training load.

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