The Slow and Low Exercise Elite Athletes Swear By

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If you think every workout has to be a sweat-fest that leaves you gasping for air, think again. You should perform most of your cardiovascular exercise at a level that lets you carry on a slightly strained conversation. It broadly means exercising at a relatively low effort for a long time.

This type of training helps us produce energy more efficiently by stimulating our cells’ powerhouses, the mitochondria. Over time, this translates to better health and athletic performance. Elite athletes spend much of their time training at this intensity.

It is the secret to helping them go faster for longer, says Dr. Benjamin Levine, a sports cardiologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. In fitness speak, that mellow intensity level is called Zone 2.

Its benefits have recently been touted in books like the bestseller “Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity," by Peter Attia and on the eponymousperformance-focused podcast hosted by Stanford University neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. One of the easiest ways to determine the zone you are exercising in is to use what is known as a talk test: Zone 1: A brisk walk where you can effortlessly carry a conversation.Zone 2: A relaxed jog or easy bike ride where you can still talk, but every few words are interrupted by an audible breath.Zone 3: A run where you can’t maintain more than three sentences.Zone 4: An effort where you can respond with only a yes or no answer.Zone 5: An all-out sprint where you can’t speak. “The idea that the human body was designed to maintain a not-easy-but-not-hard intensity for a long duration goes back to the hunter-gatherer days," says Mathias Sorensen, an exercise physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco.