What Endurance Athletes Can Teach Lifters: The 5-Zone Model APPLIED to WEIGHT Training
KEY POINTS:
Endurance athletes often organize their training by intensity zones to manage fatigue and drive adaptation.
Lifters often neglect this concept, favoring max effort every session—which can stall progress and increase injury risk.
Lighter, low-stress sessions serve a purpose: they support recovery, movement quality, and drive different but still beneficial adaptations.
Moderate, repeatable effort builds the foundation for strength, much like Zone 2 builds aerobic capacity.
Smarter lifters can apply zone-based thinking to lifting—rotating intensity to train hard without burning out.
INTRODUCTION: Why Am I Talking About Cardio?
It’s not a secret, I don’t like doing cardio. I have clients do it sometimes, but I get my cardio in carrying around 45lbs plates all day. But lately, I’ve noticed a big uptick in fitness content around the merits of Zone 2 training. It's become the new fitness obsession—the idea that there’s a "right zone" to improve endurance, longevity, fat loss, or mitochondrial health.
The funny part is that while the endurance crowd is debating heart rate percentages and lactate thresholds, what they're actually doing is managing effort, fatigue, and adaptation—a game lifters could benefit from playing themselves. So, while I don’t care much about how fast I can run a mile, I became curious: can these cardio bunnies actually teach us something about how to add plates to the bar?
The 5-zone model isn’t just about logging miles. It’s a masterclass in intelligent, long-term training strategy. And if you look closely, there are some lessons hidden in there that strength athletes would be wise to steal.
So, let’s unpack the 5-zone endurance training model and, more importantly, what each zone can teach us about how to lift smarter, not harder.
OVERVIEW: The 5 Endurance Zones
Before we get too far in the weeds here is what the 5 Zone Model is:
Zone 1: Recovery Zone (50-60% max HR)
Zone 2: Easy Aerobic Zone (60-70% max HR)
Zone 3: Tempo Zone (70-80% max HR)
Zone 4: Lactate Threshold Zone (80-90% max HR)
Zone 5: VO2max Zone (90-100% max HR)
Each zone corresponds to a specific physiological adaptation in endurance athletes, but the principles behind them apply just as well to resistance training when you look under the hood.
ZONE 1: The Recovery Zone
What it is: Zone 1 is light, recovery-focused training. Your heart rate is 50-60% of your max. For most people, this is walking pace, and for runners, it’s intentionally slow jogging that feels almost embarrassingly easy.
Why it’s useful for runners: Zone 1 allows runners to accumulate more overall training volume without digging themselves into a fatigue hole. Elite runners often log massive mileage each week, sometimes upwards of 100 miles, but much of it is intentionally kept in Zone 1 to avoid the cumulative fatigue that would inevitably derail their training if every session were hard (Tjelta, 2016). It’s not just "junk miles"—these slow efforts serve as the bedrock of aerobic development.
Zone 1 keeps the aerobic engine humming without adding unnecessary mechanical or metabolic stress. Running at this intensity stimulates blood flow, maintains movement patterns, and encourages recovery without increasing cortisol or systemic fatigue (Goodwin et al., 2007). This is especially crucial when sandwiched between hard interval sessions or long runs that stress the body.
Additionally, Zone 1 training helps runners improve efficiency. Even though the pace is slow, it reinforces economy of movement and technique without excessive strain. Studies have shown that lower-intensity volume can enhance mitochondrial biogenesis and capillary density over time (Popov, 2020), making athletes more efficient at higher speeds. It also allows runners to practice the skill of running itself, improving neuromuscular coordination with minimal fatigue cost.
Beyond physiology, there’s a mental benefit too. Easy Zone 1 sessions can serve as a mental "reset"—a low-stress, low-stakes opportunity to stay in motion and build positive habits of consistency, which is strongly correlated with long-term endurance performance (Seiler, 2010).
In short, Zone 1 is the scaffolding that supports everything else. Without it, higher-intensity work becomes unsustainable, injuries become more likely, and long-term progress flatlines.
What Lifters Can Learn: Lifters (me) love to think that every session needs to be a PR attempt. There’s an unspoken rule in many gyms that if you're not crawling out of the squat rack or setting a new deadlift record, you're somehow wasting your time. But Zone 1 teaches us that not every session needs to be an assault on your central nervous system. In fact, deliberately light sessions serve a strategic purpose.
Endurance athletes use Zone 1 to stack mileage without overwhelming their recovery capacity, and research supports this approach: low-intensity activity improves circulation, facilitates metabolic waste removal, and supports active recovery without adding excessive stress (Goodwin et al., 2007). It’s the "grease the groove" principle applied to aerobic fitness (Popov, 2020)—keeping the engine running without overheating. For lifters, the equivalent is moving light weights with precision, focusing on mobility, technique, or even just circulation. These low-intensity sessions stimulate blood flow, improve tissue health, and may even reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) (Dupuy et al., 2018).
Zone 1 reminds us that recovery is an active process. A lifter who knows how to program light, low-intensity work—whether that's warm-ups, rehab exercises, or technique drills—will last longer and lift heavier over time. Research in strength and hypertrophy training has shown that incorporating lower-load sessions can reduce fatigue, improve adherence, and facilitate long-term progress (Schoenfeld et al., 2017).
Additionally, Zone 1 offers psychological benefits. The gym doesn't always have to feel like a battlefield. Some days, showing up, moving well, and leaving with energy to spare is the smartest move you can make. Research in exercise adherence suggests that reducing perceived exertion and psychological stress can improve long-term training consistency (Ekkekakis et al., 2011). So next time you're tempted to load up the bar when you’re still sore and sleep-deprived, remember that recovery work isn't wasted time—it’s part of the long game.
ZONE 2: The Aerobic Base
What it is: Zone 2 is where the endurance magic happens. HR is 60-70% of max. You should be able to talk while training in this zone without sounding like you’re dying. It’s the sweet spot between not trying and trying too hard.
Why it’s useful for runners: Zone 2 has become the golden child of endurance training in recent years, and it’s not hard to see why. If you’ve spent even 10 minutes on fitness social media, you've probably been told to "do more Zone 2 cardio". But the hype is actually grounded in solid science and smart training practice.
For runners, Zone 2 is the foundation upon which everything else is built. It’s sustainable, repeatable, and recoverable. Running at Zone 2 intensity increases mitochondrial density (Popov, 2020), improves fat oxidation (Ramos-Jiménez et al., 2008), and increases capillary density, meaning more oxygen gets delivered to muscles over time. It’s also highly efficient: runners can pile on weekly mileage without frying their nervous system or ending up with shin splints.
The reason it’s so popular lately is because it’s almost "anti-HIIT." Instead of grinding yourself into the floor with intervals every day, Zone 2 rewards patience and long-term consistency. You can do a ton of it without breaking down, and the cumulative effect is better endurance, better cardiovascular health, and a massive aerobic engine that supports performance in higher zones. Plus, it’s linked to improved longevity and metabolic health, which is why even strength athletes, biohackers, and Silicon Valley executives are now romanticizing it.
What Lifters Can Learn: Zone 2 has a lot more in common with good strength training than most lifters realize. The endurance community calls it "easy running," but in reality, it’s strategic, consistent, and accumulative—the exact things lifters claim to value but often forget in practice.
Zone 2 reminds us that training doesn’t have to feel like death to be productive. It’s the grind you can sustain: day in, day out, for weeks, months, and years. In the lifting world, this looks like the moderate-load hypertrophy work you should be doing but probably aren't prioritizing because it's not Instagram-worthy. You won’t set PRs on these days, but you’ll build the base required to ever hit those PRs.
It’s also a lesson in what real "training volume" looks like. Endurance athletes rack up hours of Zone 2 work per week, because they know that building capacity happens at submaximal intensity. For lifters, this means showing up and doing quality reps well below failure, focusing on tempo, range of motion, and technical precision. It’s the unsexy, repeatable work that creates long-term structural adaptations—bigger muscles, stronger tendons, and better movement patterns.
Zone 2 teaches restraint. The lifter who never leaves RPE 9 or higher will eventually hit a wall—whether that’s injury, fatigue, or lack of progress. But the lifter who learns to spend most of their time in "easy but meaningful" territory will outlast everyone else. That’s what Zone 2 is: the long game. A quiet discipline.
Finally, Zone 2 is about energy system development and recovery. For lifters, this means improving work capacity and aerobic fitness so that heavy sets feel less taxing and recovery between sets improves. Your ability to tolerate volume in a hard strength block is directly tied to your base level of fitness. More Zone 2-like lifting means you'll breathe easier between sets, experience less local muscular fatigue, and handle more total training stress over time.
So, while Zone 2 cardio won’t add plates to the bar directly, the principles behind it absolutely will. Learn to live in the boring middle. That’s where progress is built.
ZONE 3: The Tempo Zone
What it is: HR is 70-80% of max. It feels "comfortably hard," like you could hold the pace but wouldn’t want to for very long (Costill & Winrow, 1970).
Why it’s useful for runners: Zone 3 is where runners start to sharpen their ability to hold a sustained, moderately hard pace—what’s often called "tempo pace." It’s uncomfortable but not brutal. Runners use Zone 3 training to improve what’s known as their lactate clearance capacity, essentially raising the speed they can sustain before lactate begins to accumulate rapidly (Goodwin et al., 2007).
While Zone 3 work is physiologically demanding, it’s not all-out misery like higher zones. It sits in that in-between space where the body learns to shuttle lactate more efficiently, improving endurance and delaying fatigue. This zone can also improve running economy by reinforcing mechanics under moderately high fatigue (Shaw et al., 2015). For distance runners, particularly those racing 10Ks or half marathons, tempo training is essential because it bridges the gap between easy mileage and hard intervals.
However, Zone 3 isn’t without controversy. Some coaches and athletes refer to it as "the grey zone" or "no-man’s land" because it’s too hard to fully recover from quickly but not hard enough to stimulate maximal adaptations like VO2max improvements (Seiler, 2010). This is why the amount of Zone 3 work needs to be dosed carefully.
What Lifters Can Learn: Zone 3 teaches us to endure discomfort without going to failure. It’s about learning to live in that unpleasant but sustainable zone where effort accumulates. In resistance training, this mirrors the classic high-volume hypertrophy block—lots of sets, moderate-to-heavy loads, shorter rest periods, and cumulative fatigue.
Research in both endurance and resistance training shows that this "middle zone" can yield solid improvements in work capacity, muscle endurance, and technical proficiency (Schoenfeld et al., 2017). However, the caveat is that too much of this type of training without adequate recovery leads to overreaching and, eventually, overtraining (Fry et al., 1997).
For lifters, Zone 3 is the lesson in sustainable discomfort. It’s the grind of repeated effort, where the goal isn’t a flashy PR but rather increasing your ceiling for total work performed. It’s also a cautionary tale: if every session is a grind, you’re missing the point. Tempo work—whether running or lifting—is a valuable but finite tool. Dose it wisely, stack volume intelligently, and don’t forget to back off occasionally so the adaptations can take hold.
ZONE 4: The Lactate Threshold
What it is: HR is 80-90% of max. You’re straddling the line between sustainable and catastrophic.
Why it’s useful for runners: Zone 4 is often called "threshold training" because it hovers right around the lactate threshold—the point where lactate starts accumulating faster than your body can clear it. Training here increases your ability to tolerate and recycle lactate, allowing you to run faster for longer without blowing up (Goodwin et al., 2007).
For runners, this is the pace where it starts to suck but is still sustainable in chunks. It sharpens the ability to suffer and teaches pacing discipline. Zone 4 is especially useful for mid-distance and long-distance racers because it extends the ceiling of sustainable hard effort (Hall et al., 2016).
Additionally, this zone has been associated with improvements in VO2 kinetics and running economy (Shaw et al., 2015), meaning the athlete becomes more efficient at utilizing oxygen and maintaining pace at higher intensities.
However, too much threshold work increases fatigue risk and interferes with recovery. That’s why endurance athletes carefully program it—typically no more than once per week, and often sandwiched between lower-intensity days (Seiler, 2010).
What Lifters Can Learn: Threshold training reminds us that training at the edge of failure has its place—but it’s a sharp tool. This is your RPE 9.5–10 effort, that all-out AMRAP set you throw in at the end of a block to test capacity.
For lifters, this is a reminder that sometimes you need to flirt with fatigue and see what you’re capable of when things get uncomfortable. In strength training, this might look like testing rep maxes, completing grueling drop sets, or finishing a session with metabolic finishers—all strategies that can acutely push thresholds of strength and muscular endurance (Davies et al., 2016).
However, Zone 4’s lesson is that these efforts are expensive. They increase neuromuscular fatigue, require longer recovery periods, and should not be programmed haphazardly. Research in resistance training mirrors this: training close to failure can yield strength and hypertrophy gains, but doing so too frequently can impede recovery and increase injury risk (Schoenfeld et al., 2019).
The takeaway is to use Zone 4-style efforts strategically. Sprinkle in those brutal sets when you need to test capacity, spark adaptation, or assess progress—but not every week. When applied intelligently, they can help drive breakthroughs. When overused, they become a dead end.
ZONE 5: VO2max Training
What it is: HR is 90-100% of max. It’s an all-out effort, usually intervals of 30 seconds to 1 minute (Costill, 1972).
Why it’s useful for runners: Zone 5 training is short, brutal, and unsustainable—which is exactly why it’s so effective. VO2max intervals push runners to their physiological limits, improving maximal oxygen uptake (Costill, 1972) and enhancing the body’s ability to deliver and utilize oxygen at peak demand. This zone is also one of the best ways to improve running economy by reinforcing efficient biomechanics at high speed (Shaw et al., 2015).
For competitive runners, Zone 5 is essential because races—whether a mile or marathon—often come down to who can tolerate these maximal efforts when it matters most. Improving VO2max gives runners a bigger "ceiling" to work under at all other zones (Barnes & Kilding, 2015).
However, Zone 5 efforts are acutely fatiguing, raise blood lactate concentrations dramatically (Gupta et al., 2021), and can’t be sustained or repeated often without consequences. These sessions require substantial recovery time and should be used sparingly, typically once per week or even less for most recreational runners (Seiler, 2010).
What Lifters Can Learn: Zone 5’s lesson is simple but often ignored: max effort work is valuable for testing limits, but not for building them. You can’t PR every day without burning out. In resistance training, this is your true 1RM attempts, peak singles, or max-effort sessions that tax your nervous system to the max.
Research in strength and conditioning clearly shows that frequent maximal efforts lead to excessive fatigue, impair technical execution, and elevate injury risk (Zourdos et al., 2016). Moreover, the majority of strength and hypertrophy gains are achieved at submaximal intensities with proper volume and technique—not at daily maxes (Schoenfeld et al., 2017).
Zone 5 reminds us to use maximal effort sparingly and strategically. Testing limits is important—it shows you what you’re capable of and gives you clear feedback on progress. But too much time at the top end of the intensity spectrum quickly leads to diminishing returns. The lifter who maxes out every week won’t last long.
So if you want to lift heavier over time, do what smart endurance athletes do: spend most of your time building capacity at lower intensities, and reserve the all-out efforts for when it actually matters.
FINAL THOUGHTS: The Art of Zone Management in Lifting
Endurance athletes structure their training around balancing effort, fatigue, and adaptation. Lifters often fall into the trap of assuming they need to "go hard or go home" every session. But if you steal a page from the endurance playbook, you’ll realize that most of your training should be manageable and repeatable, with just enough discomfort to drive progress without tipping into burnout.
You don’t need to track your heart rate in the weight room, but you can think about your training in "zones": recovery work, sustainable effort, uncomfortable volume, near-failure efforts, and max testing. Understanding when to dial it up—and when to back off—might be the key to unlocking your next PR without wrecking your body.
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DISCLAIMER
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider or certified fitness professional before starting any new training program, especially if you have any pre-existing health conditions or injuries. Individual results may vary, and adjustments to training volume, exercise selection, and intensity should be made based on your personal recovery capacity, experience level, and goals.