80/20 Zone Calculator
If you have one of our 80/20 Endurance training plans, your custom training zones are auto-calculated directly within each workout. Otherwise, use this calculator to find your individual intensity zones. For details on determining LTHR, TP, CV and FTP, and for the definition of each zone, see the intensity guidelines. You don’t need an 80/20 training plan or a TrainingPeaks account to use the calculator. Consider using the 80/20 Zones Garmin app to increase your workout efficiency.
Running and cycling
Test and calculate your bike and run zones separately. They are not the same.
Enter your test result above and your zones appear here.
What the 80/20 zones are
80/20 training uses a seven-zone intensity scale. Zones 1 and 2 are low intensity, Zone X and Zone 3 are moderate, and Zones Y, 4 and 5 are high. In an 80/20 plan roughly 80 percent of your training time is spent in Zones 1 and 2 and the rest in Zones 3 to 5. Zone X and Zone Y are real zones, not gaps. They exist so you can see when you have drifted out of the intensity a workout calls for, which is what most self-coached athletes do most of the time.
Every zone is a percentage of your personal threshold, so the calculator needs one number from you. That number is your lactate threshold heart rate, your threshold pace, your functional threshold power, or a recent race time the calculator can work back from.
Which intensity metric should you use
There are three ways to measure intensity. Pace is an outcome, power is an output and heart rate is an indicator of how your body is responding.
- Pace is simple and race-relevant, but it stops being reliable on hills.
- Heart rate reflects how hard your body is working, but it lags behind sudden changes in effort and moves with heat, hydration, sleep and stress.
- Power is the same in every condition and needs the fewest adjustments, but it takes some getting used to and needs a power meter.
Our recommendation is to use power or pace as your primary measure and heart rate as a secondary check. Cyclists usually train by power. Swimmers train by pace. Runners can use any of the three, and many use two. For triathletes, test each sport on its own.
How to find your lactate threshold heart rate, threshold pace and FTP
Pick the test that matches the metric you chose. The 20-minute test protocol is the same for pace, heart rate and power, so one test can give you all three.
Recent race. Enter a 5K, 10K, half marathon or marathon time. It does not have to be an official race, but it should reflect what you could run today.
20-minute test. Warm up with 15 minutes of easy jogging and a few 15-second surges. Then cover as much ground as you can in 20 minutes without starting too fast. Your threshold pace is your average pace for the test. Your threshold power is 95 percent of your average power. Your lactate threshold heart rate is your average heart rate over the final 15 minutes, so press the lap button five minutes in.
Talk test. Start at a very slow jog. Every 90 seconds, recite a sentence of about 50 syllables while still running, then judge whether you could speak comfortably. If yes, speed up by about 15 seconds per mile and repeat. The test ends the first time the answer is no or not sure. Your result is the heart rate, pace or power from the last step where you could still speak comfortably. Enter it in the Talk Test field and the calculator converts it to a threshold for you.
Already know your LTHR. Warm up, then adjust your pace or power until your heart rate settles at your LTHR for ten minutes. The pace or power you are holding is close to your threshold.
Test bike and run separately. Threshold is different in each sport, and it is usually 5 to 10 beats lower indoors than outdoors, so test where you do most of your training.
Heart rate zones, pace zones and power zones by sport
All bands are percentages of your threshold. Pace bands are percentages of threshold speed, so a higher number is faster.
| Zone | Heart rate, % of LTHR | Run pace, % of threshold speed | Cycling power, % of FTP | Running power, % of rFTP | Swim pace, % of threshold speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 72 to 81 | 60 to 76 | 50 to 70 | 50 to 76 | 75 to 84 |
| 2 | 81 to 90 | 76 to 87 | 70 to 83 | 76 to 88 | 84 to 91 |
| X | 90 to 95 | 87 to 93 | 83 to 91 | 88 to 94 | 91 to 96 |
| 3 | 95 to 100 | 93 to 100 | 91 to 100 | 94 to 100 | 96 to 100 |
| Y | 100 to 102 | 100 to 102 | 100 to 102 | 100 to 103 | 100 to 102 |
| 4 | 102 to 105 | 102 to 115 | 102 to 110 | 103 to 120 | 102 to 106 |
| 5 | over 105 | over 115 | over 110 | over 120 | over 106 |
Why the 80/20 zone 2 is not your watch’s zone 2
Most devices ship with five zones built from a percentage of maximum heart rate. Maximum heart rate is hard to measure and says little about where your threshold sits, and five equal bands put the boundary between easy and moderate in the wrong place for most athletes. The 80/20 scale is anchored on threshold, which you can test, and it splits the moderate range into Zone X and Zone 3 so that the intensity most athletes drift into by accident has a name and a boundary. If you use a Garmin device you can load the 80/20 zones directly with our Garmin apps.
What to do with your zones
If you train with an 80/20 plan on TrainingPeaks, enter your thresholds in your account settings and every workout shows your personal targets. If you use our Garmin apps, your zones show on your wrist during the workout. If you are self-coached, write the seven bands down and keep Zone 2 honest. The single most common mistake we see is easy days that sit in Zone X.
Retest every 6 to 8 weeks, after a race that shows your fitness has changed, or whenever a talk test on a normal foundation run tells you the old numbers are stale.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I find my lactate threshold heart rate without a lab?
- Run a 20-minute time trial after a proper warm-up and take your average heart rate from the final 15 minutes. That is your LTHR for running. Repeat the test on the bike for cycling, because the two are not the same.
- Can I use my 5K time to set my zones?
- Yes. Choose Recent race in the run pace calculator and enter the time. The calculator derives your threshold pace from the distance and time and builds the seven zones from it.
- Which zone is Zone 2 in 80/20 training?
- Zone 2 is 81 to 90 percent of LTHR, 76 to 87 percent of threshold running speed, or 70 to 83 percent of FTP on the bike. It is the upper half of the low-intensity range where most 80/20 training happens.
- What is Zone X?
- Zone X sits between Zone 2 and Zone 3, at 90 to 95 percent of LTHR. It is the moderate intensity that feels productive but is too hard to recover from easily and too easy to build much fitness. 80/20 plans keep you out of it on purpose.
- Are heart rate zones the same for running and cycling?
- No. Threshold heart rate is typically lower on the bike, so test each sport separately and keep separate zones.
- How often should I retest?
- Every 6 to 8 weeks during a training block, or sooner if a race or a talk test shows your fitness has moved.
- Do I need a TrainingPeaks account to use the calculator?
- No. The calculator is free and works on its own. A TrainingPeaks account is only needed if you want your 80/20 plan workouts to display your zones automatically.
Want the zones applied for you, every workout, with a coach in your corner? Team 80/20 members get every 80/20 plan, zones built into each session, and Mind of Matt to answer the questions this page cannot. Join Team 80/20
Copyright © 2018 Matt Fitzgerald and David Warden. All rights reserved. The formulas and zones provided on this site, in electronic or written form, are subject to copyright and are provided for personal use only. Distribution, modification, replication or adaptation for commercial use without explicit consent is prohibited.