Unlocking Vitality: The Power of Zone 2 Cardio for Optimal Health and Fitness

Zone 2 cardio is back in fashion. You may have heard about it through an article or some friends at the gym about Zone 2 and all the great benefits you can get. It's great. Zone 2 is a great place to be. But it's not just about getting to Zone two. There's a lot of other complementary information, you know, to maximize yourself while you get into Zone two cardio. So stay tuned, we're going to talk about all that. Greetings. I'm Akimbisso. I'm the owner of Soul Core Fitness and I've been in this field for about 30 years. So I've been in the field long enough to see things come in full cycle. I've probably seen them come cycle two times around and all these popular things. HIIT training, you know, Olympic lifting, functional movement patterns. And now Zone two have an aspect of being true. But the problem here, mainly in America is that we take these one aspect and we expounded to that's what I need to do now. That's, that's what my body needs because they make it seem like that's what you knew. In essence, if you want to take all these popular activities and combine them through a good program, then that's when you would have a good program, not just with one of these different areas. So that's why I talk about on this channel is holistic fitness. Your body is interconnected, interdependent and a bunch of different ways it likes to move. So I want to talk about that stuff. So you want to hear more, subscribe to the channel. If you like the video, give it a thumbs up and don't forget to share with your friends. Zone 2 is the second in five basic stages of your cardiovascular system. It goes from aerobic to anaerobic, from a nice gentle walk to high intensity sprints. These zones correlate with different energy systems in your body. How your body produces energy to do whatever activity you want. Again from more aerobic to anaerobic. The different energy systems in basic are lipids and the Krebs cycle, glycogen, creatine and then ATP. So that's how your body uses it. Getting to zone two you can say enhances the potential of the others. So once you have your base down in zone one, you want to get in zone two because now it increases the potential of my heart and lungs. I make the potential energy output, blood and oxygen more potent. I increase the capillaries in my body. So the ability to bring nutrients and remove waste from body, I increase and make More efficient my mitochondria, the little energy systems inside the body. So if I increase all those, I can now take my increased potential and take it to whatever I want. But it's not just good for cardio, right? It's good for anaerobic, more lifting type activity. So if you're, if you lift weights in any way, not just gym, even body weight, it's going to help increase that by increase healing and waste removal. This is the big step that people who just jumped into HIIT training or CrossFit type training missed, among other things, they missed a lot of steps, but this is one of the steps they missed to prepare their body to go do hiit training in CrossFit. Nothing wrong with that as long as you know what you're getting into. So when you just jump into a high intensity training type that you've not increased the potential. So you're working hard, but you're working hard with, let's say, 20% of your potential. So if you took the time to prepare your cardiovascular system and the structure of your body, now maybe you're working with 80, 90, 100% of your potential now your output's much greater, which means your results become more. So if you don't receive results in these high intensity trainings, one of the reasons is you haven't increased the potential of what you can do to work harder. You'll see a lot of different charts out there for the different zones for cardio, and they're all pretty much correct. I just put this one up right here so you can, you can see, but zone two is about 60 to 70% of your, of your max heart rate. Your max heart rate is found out by, at a base level, do the equation of 220 minus your age. That's not the most precise way to do it, but if you're just beginning, who cares? Just do that. If you're a little more advanced into the cardio realm and you want to be more precise, this equation is better because when you, when your heart pumps blood out, it doesn't pump all the blood out. There's some stays inside the ventricles. So a little more precise equation. But it doesn't matter where you start. You want to make sure you get into this zone two and you want to hold this zone two for a minimum 45 minutes. But it's much nicer if you can go an hour, hour and a half, maybe two. Because the more you can stay in zone two, the more you keep reaping those benefits. So once you Find your max heart rate. The only other thing you need is a heart rate monitor. Apple watch, Garmin. There's other forms of them, I don't know, to make sure you stay in, in that zone, too. But actually, it's not just about that. There's an element of being aware of your body and what's going on so you don't just blindly go, okay, I have this number. It's in my watch. I'm gonna keep myself at that. Level one is a factor of perceived exertion. You can find it out with a talk tip test. The talk test is that when you're doing cardio, if you can talk, have a conversation, you can take enough air in so you're not going too hard. If you get to a point where, like, you're gasping and you can't talk, well, then you're going too hard for, for zone two. And the one thing I want to bring up too is I know there's a difference between nose and mouth breathing. Just a quick side thing. If you're in zone. If you're in zone two, you probably can stay more nasal breathing, but if you're going heavier, you're going to be usually more of a mouth breather. Neither one is bad in essence, because the body can breathe both ways. But you want to try and keep it a little more in that nasal breathing when you're in zone two. Are you using zone two as a cardio foundational base in your holistic program? Let me know in the comments and then stay tuned for the complementary factors you need with the rest of your program as you get into zone two. Okay, so now the complimentary factors you need for zone two, because just going out and doing cardio, you may get into zone two, but you're not maximizing your time while you're there. If you have the posture of most people today, which is shoulders forward, chest a little collapse, head low forward, your heart and lungs are right there. Pretty sure your heart and lungs are very important for your cardiovascular routine. So first thing you want to do concurrently as you do your cardio is to make sure that your body is balanced as possible. You have to specifically go through your body and make sure that it's back in place, everything's doing its job. You have good flow of your liquids, your muscles are activated and coordinated together. Because when you go out and do the activities, you need your body to be effective with good posture. You also don't want to just jump into zone two. As I said, zone two, it's a second of five, which means there's a step before. So if you've been doing cardio for a, for a little bit like a decent cardio and you know you're zone one and you're effective, sure, start working on zone two. But if you're just casually doing cardio without much knowing where you are, go zone one first. Go zone one and start to maximize zone one. Understand what zone one means to you in terms of the numbers, perceived exertion, and then get into zone two. The second part of this complementary information you need to be effective in zone two kind of goes along with the first. So if you've increased the structure of your body while you're working on zone one and then you got yourself to a good place structurally and in zone one and then went to zone two, you can't stop there. But because all the different activities you're going to be doing for cardio for zone two, lifting, cycling, swimming, walking, running, it doesn't matter what you do to get in zone two, but all those are going to have a quote unquote damaging effect on your body. Damaging effect on your body is not bad by itself. It's just bad if you don't do anything because it constantly gets damaged. That's why during life and during activities, you always want to have a complimentary corrective exercise program. Not just foam rolling, not just massage. You want to really get in there and work the different areas of your body that are difficult for you. Because as you stay in this zone too, you're going to need to keep up with your body more than just what you would for regular life, because there's more load. An example of how your different cardio activities can damage your body can be found in this example. So let's say you're an average sized person with a really good balanced body and you're going to go out and do your 10,000 steps. Each time you step one foot down, you're going to get those forces through one leg and then of course when you step the other side, forces through the other leg. If you're doing 10,000 steps with average size, you're getting several tons of force through your body. T O N S tons. Those forces are going through your body nicely because you're a balanced person, no problem. But you still need to do some corrective exercise because you've used in this example a bunch of muscles with your lower leg, the back of your lower leg, calf and soleus, the front of your lower leg, anterior tibialis, your front of your thigh, the back of your thigh, outside hips, inside hips, and in your spine. So you want to alleviate the, the wear and tear in your body by doing a corrective exercise program right after you do your cardiovascular program so you can stay balanced. But let's be honest, most people aren't exercise, and most people are definitely not balanced. Those 10,000 steps that I was talking about that go through your body are now not going through your body. Nice. And they're going through more. So you really make sure you, you're always keeping up with your body so that your body can keep doing what you want to do. In this case, workout in zone two cardio. So to work yourself into zone two in a thought out, scientific way, first start with two things. Start with one, getting your max heart rate, just general 220, minus age. And do zone one, 45 minutes minimum. But work up to hour, hour and a half, maybe two. It's basically a light walk. So just start tracking your walks or whatever you do for cardio. But at the exact same time, start to work on the structure of your body. There's not been one person I knew that didn't have some area of their body that they needed love and attention. So you get into a program like we use here, a holistic program that specifically targets your body to make it stronger, more mobile, so the foundation of your body works better. So as you're doing zone one, and we're going to structure your body, at a certain point, you get to a level. Okay, now I can do zone two. Now you start at a level, whatever your number is at zone two. But you want to be flexible, right? So you go into zone two and you do the talk test. Oh, no, I can't talk. Okay, minus whatever that number is by 10%. And I use that number as your level for zone two. Now, once you find your number, now go for it. Now you do zone two like you do zone one right now. You want to increase it to 45 minutes, hour, hour and a half. But you also want to give your body time to adapt. And it's a big thing. I see people see a workout they want to do or some benefits they want, and they go do it for like a week, two weeks, maybe a month. It takes your body time to adapt to different information. You give it, in this case, the different energy system you want to use. You want to use zone two, you have to let it adapt. You have to allow your body to increase the capillaries, the mitochondria to get more effective and more of them you have to allow the waste removal system to become more effective. It doesn't just happen a couple sessions. So when you start this system of zone one and structural balance and then zone two and then corrective exercise, now maybe you go back to zone one and you increase both zone one and structure. Now you go back to zone two, but you increase zone two. Now you go back up to normal zone two or add 10% and then maybe after a while, then maybe try zone three. You want to move your body like this, not just one static way and try and push through. Called periodization. I do different things at different times, at different intensities, but they all complement and work together. If you want more help on this, I'd be glad to help. We have three ways right now we can help you. One. We have a private Facebook group. The link is in the description. All you got to do, click on the link, answer free questions, agree to the rules, and you're in. It's a very interactive way of finding information. I'll do mini trainings, masterclasses, interaction on a Facebook page. I'll do challenges where we actually go through a topic and I talk about it, but we also do exercises. So it's a great way to do that. If you're not in Facebook or interaction and you want to just read and digest more, then we've got an ebook. It's how to move better, get out of pain, live your life. Something like that. It's four steps. Again in the description there's a link for that. You click the link, put your information information in. Excuse me, instant access or if you want to really get into this program now, but you want to find out more about what it is and how it works for you, then schedule a free consultation with the link in the description as well. Hope this is helpful. Any questions you have, please put it in the in the comments. I'm more than willing to answer them. Have a great day and I'll see you next week.