Activate Blog: find the latest trends and evidence - Activate Personal Training

Why do so many people become obese? Some believe that obesity is genetically predetermined. Others insist it is a direct result of lifestyle choices (i.e. obese people are simply sloths and gluttons). As it turns out, both of these common assumptions are over-simplifications; and rather useless in terms of doing anything for people who are overweight. Knowledge is power, they say and in order to change something, one must first understand it.

So the theory goes: train for 80% of your time in zone 2, and you become more efficient at utilising fat for energy (fatOX or fat oxidation), at higher intensities. Plus you will also be able to clear lactate faster, raise your power output and even live longer. The reason for this, is that zone 2 training improves your mitochondrial function and stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis.

For every athlete, proper training is a fine line between too little and too much, and finding where that line is at each moment in the season can be difficult. In this post we will delve into the science of different types of overtraining, how overtraining negatively affects your performance, how to tell when you are overtrained and how to set up and periodize your training in order to avoid it.