Using Heart Rate Zones for Improving your Cardiovascular Endurance

If you’ve ever wondered how to to easily inc erase your cardiovascular endurance?

Paying attention to your heart rate zones, if the best way to tailor your approach to get maximum benefits.

Let’s break it down.

What Are Heart Rate Zones?
Your heart rate zones are different intensity levels based on a percentage of your maximum heart rate (MHR). Each zone offers slightly different benefits, so understanding them can really help your progress fast.  

Here’s a quick overview:  

• Zone 1 (Recovery): 50-60% MHR → Light movement / active recovery.  

• Zone 2 (Fat Burn): 60-70% MHR → Comfortable pace, ideal for steady cardio and endurance.  

• Zone 3 (Aerobic): 70-80% MHR → Moderate effort, improves stamina.  

• Zone 4 (Anaerobic): 80-90% MHR → Challenging, boosts speed and performance.  

• Zone 5 (Max Effort): 90-100% MHR → All-out effort, for short bursts of intensity.  

How to Find Your Zones
1. Estimate Your Max Heart Rate:
- A simple way is to subtract your age from 220 (e.g., if you’re 35, your MHR is around 185 bpm).  
- For a more precise reading, fitness trackers or gym heart rate monitors can help. As you’ve seen around the gym we use MyZone an advanced fitness tracker.

2. Calculate Your Zones:  
- Multiply your MHR by the zone percentages.  
- Example (for MHR of 185):  
- Zone 2 (Fat Burn): 60-70% → 111-130 bpm

How to Use Heart Rate Zones in Your Workouts

1. Zone 2 – Steady & Sustainable
- Best for: Building endurance
- Try: Brisk walking, light jogging, or cycling at a pace where you can hold a conversation.  
- 2-3 times a week for 30-60 minutes.  

2. Zone 3 – Comfortably Challenging
- Best for: Improving cardiovascular fitness.  
- Try: A steady run, cycling, or rowing where you feel slightly breathless but not exhausted. Hard to hold solid conversation. 

3. Zone 4 – Push Yourself 
- Best for: Increasing speed and performance.  
- Try: High-intensity intervals

4. Zone 5 – Short & Intense  
- Best for: Boosting power (think sprints or burpees).  
- Used less frequent than all of the others

5. Zone 1 – Easy Does It  
- Recovery days - gentle movement like walking or stretching.  

✨ Wear a Heart Rate Monitor: Many fitness watches track HR, but invest in a decent wearable.
✨ Listen to Your Body: If you’re feeling fatigued, slow down. Your recovery is just as important as putting the work in.
✨ Progress Gradually: Don’t jump into high-intensity zones too quickly—build up over time.  

Heart rate training isn’t about pushing to your max every time—it’s about working smarter. Whether you want to build endurance, improve body composition or improve performance, matching your effort to the right zone can make a big difference.  

Ben 

Stanza Fitness Head Coach

We Are Where We Are: Embracing Our Current State

Allow me to set the scene. As a young footballer I suffered injury after injury and seemed to be stuck in this injury doom loop - a cycle of pain, recovery and re-injury. Yet another morning back in the gym for rehab. Coach sensed my frustration and calmly said “We are where we are”. 

The gravity of that simple sentence has forever stuck with me.

As gym-goers, we often find ourselves caught up in the idea of where we “should” be. We reminisce about the past—when we were in better shape, felt stronger, or could push ourselves harder. Sometimes, we even compare ourselves to others, feeling that we should be more advanced than we are now. But the truth is, we are where we are, and that’s perfectly okay.

Acceptance is the first step in any fitness journey. Our physical, emotional, and psychological states are constantly shifting. The body isn’t a machine that remains unchanged over time. Life events, stress, diet, and recovery all affect our ability to perform, and sometimes, we forget to acknowledge where we are in the present.

Instead of looking back at how we used to be or dreaming about some future version of ourselves, it’s important to meet ourselves where we are today. Whether that’s pushing for new personal bests, accepting the need for a slower pace, or simply showing up consistently, it all counts.

In the gym, just like in life, progress isn’t linear. Some days we feel on top of the world, while others may bring setbacks. Rather than fixating on the gap between where we are and where we think we should be, focus on what you can control now.

Embrace the journey as it unfolds, one step at a time. It may certainly feel like one step forward and two steps back at times. Nonetheless, by accepting where we are today, we allow ourselves to grow without the unnecessary pressure of comparison or perfection. So, don’t worry about what you could have done or where you "should" be. Celebrate the progress you’ve made (however little), and be proud of where you are, because that’s the starting point for everything that lies ahead.

Tim Low

Stanza Fitness Coach

Making adjustments for fat loss

I’ll start this firstly by saying, no diets work forever (and absolutely shouldn’t either), but adjusting and assessing protocols to a diet is fairly integral if fat loss is the goal. 

Ultimately dietary adherence is pretty important. If fat loss has stalled, is it because adherence has diminished? If so, why? It could be stress, your environment, a shift in focus, food choices and these all could lead to subconscious overeating. 

So first of all, be honest, and ask yourself, have you ticked every box consistently? If the answer is yes, move to the next level…

If adherence has been spot on and markers of change (photos, measurements, how clothes fit etc) still aren’t budging, then changes and adjustments may need to be made.

I’ll caveat that by saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to alter things when it’s not needed e.g. program hopping, excessive cardio, unnecessarily restricting calories, or, more commonly, when results feel like they're not happening fast enough (poor Susan who was sold the dream of losing a stone in a week and now thinks that's a realistic expectation). 

Ultimately, measure and monitor, be reactive if/when necessary and if you struggle to make decisions yourself, get a good coach who can help you with that. 

If you can’t, a good place to start would be to monitor your intake for 7-10 days. Monitoring can be done in several ways; tracking via an app e.g MyFitnessPal, taking photos of your food or writing what you eat down on paper. This will give you an idea of what your average intake is. Once you’ve done this, you can then reduce this average from 10-20% and monitor progress from there. 

 There is no magic number when it comes to fat loss or improving body composition. Starting somewhere, collecting data and adjusting accordingly is going to be one of the most appropriate and accurate approaches when it comes to achieving your body composition goal. 

Abi Taylor,

Stanza Fitness Director & Coach

Are you willing to work for it?

Working with a personal trainer will seriously increase the likelihood of you achieving your goals.

Everything can be perfectly mapped out for you by a fitness professional: the appropriate exercise selection, volume, intensity, and frequency for your training. Pair this with the correct nutritional approach, and you’re well on your way to achieving your goals.

There’s something you may have overlooked: the challenge.

No, I’m not referring to some quirky training ethos from the early 90s. I mean the challenges you will face whilst working on yourself.

Some will be glaringly obvious, and some you’re possibly yet to encounter. The fact of the matter is, you will be challenged, and you will want to stop.

This can manifest in many ways: a rude early morning alarm, taunting you with the reminder of an early AM session. Your entire body telling you; “Yeah, just ease off a bit,” during the last 10 seconds on the bike-erg. The sweet, blissful temptation of that food item that you know you should avoid.

Those nagging voices in your mind, tempting you to stop. 

Do you relish a challenge, or is it something that makes you feel uneasy?
Truth is, the more we shy away, the harder it becomes.
We can leave valuable results on the table.

You must be willing to accept that aspects of this will be hard, and in turn, you’re willing to work hard to achieve your goals.

Lackluster effort = lackluster results.

Learning to welcome challenges with open arms is an extremely valuable tool.
In addition to missing out on results, avoiding challenges can lead us to a very defeatist and negative mindset around certain aspects of our health and fitness. “I don't like the bike-erg.” “I can’t do this one.”

As soon as these thoughts enter our heads, the likelihood of us struggling increases.
Simply reframing  this can work wonders for your mindset.
Instead of viewing a challenge with negativity, welcome the opportunity to test yourself. Something that may be tough for a five-or-so-minute period once or twice a week is an opportunity to grow and progress.

No one else is going to do the work for you; remember that.

Take ownership of your efforts and take pride in it.

Aaron Fitzgerald

Stanza Fitness Coach