Conditioning: Aerobic Base Part 4 — How to Progress

Once you’ve built a solid Zone 2 foundation — meaning you can move for 30+ minutes at a conversational pace without falling apart — it’s time to start advancing your aerobic system to unlock even more endurance, recovery ability, and performance.

✅ Simple and Effective Progression Methods:

• Extend Duration:
  Start stretching your Zone 2 sessions from 30 minutes up to 40–60 minutes over time.
  ➔ Add 5–10 minutes every 1–2 weeks.
  ➔ Longer low-intensity sessions further develop mitochondrial density and fat oxidation, meaning you get more work done on less energy.

• Increase Frequency:
  Moving from 2 sessions to 3–4 per week is a major catalyst.
  ➔ Even if two are 45–60 minutes, a third can be a shorter 20–30 minute session.
  ➔ More frequent exposure means faster and deeper adaptations.

• Introduce Threshold Blends:
  Once your aerobic base is solid, you can sprinkle in short, controlled bursts of Zone 3 effort inside your Zone 2 sessions.
  Example:
  ➔ 10 min Z2 → 3 min Z3 → 10 min Z2 → 3 min Z3 → finish in Z2
  ➔ These small "threshold touches" push your lactate threshold higher while staying mostly aerobic.

✅ Critical Mindset Reminder:

• Stay patient.
  Aerobic adaptations are slow but incredibly powerful.
  You won't feel it every day, but over weeks and months, everything in your training — from lifting to sprinting to high-intensity work — will start feeling easier.

When your engine is strong, you can outlast everyone — not just in the gym, but in life.
It’s not sexy, but it’s unstoppable.

🚫 Common Mistakes:

• Jumping into fast interval work too soon (without a base)

• Always trying to “go harder” instead of “building longer”

• Giving up because progress feels invisible at first

🔗 HTC 365 conditioning maps out the full aerobic development process for you — from building your base to introducing intensity the right way.
7-day free trial inside. Let’s build your engine.