Getting in the Zone

Let’s start with Power, here I’m using the Andy Coggan method, recommended by Joe Friel and the default option on Training Peaks.

Power Zone	Zone Description	FTP %
1. Recovery	Active recovery	less than 55
2. Aerobic	Aerobic or extensive endurance	55-75
3. Tempo	Intensive endurance	75-90
4. Threshold	Lactate Threshold	90-105
5. VO2 Max	Muscular endurance or aerobic capacity	105-120
6. Anaerobic	Anaerobic Capacity	120-150
7. Power	Neuromuscular Power	greater than 150

So this would be great if it was used everywhere, but with power meters being still rather pricey we need to be able to translate these to Heart Rate zones. So this is how I think these relate to power based on Joe Friel’s cycling zones.

Power Zone	Heart Rate Zone	FTHR %
1. Recovery	1	less than 68
2. Aerobic	2	68-83
3. Tempo	3	83-94
4. Threshold	4	94-105
5. VO2 Max	5a	greater than 105
6. Anaerobic	5b	n/a
7. Power	5c	n/a

So in the version of the Mountain Biker’s Training Bible I have Joe uses Critical Power as a guide to which zone to be in. These are pretty hard to relate back to the Coggan zones but here is my best guess. I’ve included some details on a typical ride which I found in another of his books.

Power Zone	Critical Power	Typical Ride
1. Recovery	CP180	n/a
2. Aerobic	CP180	5h ride
3. Tempo	CP180	3h ride
4. Threshold	CP30-60	8-30 min intervals
5. VO2 Max	CP12-60	3-8 min intervals
6. Anaerobic	CP1-6	30 sec – 3 min intervals
7. Power	CP.2	less than 30 sec intervals

And finally I’ll try to relate these to the Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) Scale which is 6 to 20. There is also a 1 to 10 version of this used in the old Friel books. But it’s quite hard to relate the 1-10 scale as it is very vague around the 6 value.

Power Zone	RPE (6-20)	RPE (1-10)	RPE Description
1	6-8	0	No exertion at all to extremely light
2	9-11	1-4	Very light to light
3	12-14	4-5.5	Somewhat hard to hard
4	15	6	Hard (heavy)
5	16	6.5	Harder
6	17-18	7-8	Very hard
7	19-20	9-10	Extremely hard to maximal exertion