New Article: Determining your Heart Rate Range and Training Zone: Jon Bula
Exercise intensity is extremely important when you are working on your conditioning drills, and is possibly the most important variable in determining the quality of an exercise session. When performing interval training, training for endurance sports, measuring recovery time, or comparing the same run from a previous week a heart rate monitor is a very useful tool. The correct use of a heart rate monitor can allow you to accurately regulate your exercise session and maximize your training efficiency.
To effectively use your heart rate monitor you need to determine your RHR (resting heart rate) and your MHR (maximum heart rate).
RHR
- Take a 60 second radial or carotid pulse count first thing in the morning
- It is important that you do this before getting out of bed and moving around
- For best results do this for 3 days and take the average of the 3
MHR
- You can use the formula 220 – Age = MHR, but just so you know this is only accurate to around +/- 12 so there is a lot of potential for error
- I suggest the following:
- Treadmill test – this does not require sophisticated equipment merely a progressive protocol that will exhaust you in 12-15 minutes and your heart rate monitor. An example of a progressive protocol on a treadmill is as follows:
- Begin running at 5 miles per hour,
- increase the speed by 0.5 mph every minute until 10 mph
- if you can still keep going increase the grade by 2% every minute until you can no longer keep up (when you reach exhaustion)
- The highest heart rate value that you obtain is your MHR. This value should occur near the end of the test, it is normal to see the HR plateau during that final few minutes.
Please note that determining MHR requires maximal effort and therefore, for selected individuals, presents a potentially dangerous situation. Maximal exercise is potentially dangerous for various people: elderly, people with heart conditions, diabetes, there is a big list. It is a good idea to consult your physician before performing maximal exercise.
Now that you have your homework to do – determining both your resting and maximal heart rates, next week I’ll tell how to use those numbers and determine your training zones.
Once you have your resting and maximal heart rate values you can use the following formula to determine your training zones.
Heart Rate Reserve Method
- HRR = MHR – RHR
- (HRR x training%) + RHR
Recovery Zone: 60% - 70%
- Active recovery at the lower end of this zone
- Aerobic base training middle to upper end of this zone
Aerobic Zone: 70% - 80%
- If you are an aerobic athlete or are training to improve your aerobic system this is where the bulk of your training will occur.
Anaerobic Zone: 80% - 90%
- Improvement in your anaerobic threshold and your body’s ability to deal with lactic acid will improve by training in this zone.
Example:
Endurance athlete with RHR of 50 and MHR of 190
HRR = 190 – 50 = 140
Recovery Zone
(140 x 60%) + 50 = 134
(140 x 70%) + 50 = 148
Recover Zone = 134 – 148 beats per minute.
December 13th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Hey Jon,
Thanks for the article! I wanted to ask your opinion on the importance of training at sub-lactate threshold levels to improve cardiovascular endurance. When for example, running a marathon, its in the athletes best interest to keep the intensity at just below the lactate threshold, so as to keep the rate of production of lactic acid in balance with the rate of removal.
That being said, would it not be most beneficial for an endurance athlete to train equally at 80-90% as well as at 70-80% intensity? Because training at a higher intensity will produce more lactic acids, this would inevitable promote a lactic acid removal adaptation. Although at such high intensity’s, the main energy system in gear is anaerobic, the goal is to increase the intensity at which you can sustain work.
In addition, consider the rate of removal of lactic acids being dependent on the vascular system, which shuttles the acids to the liver for gluconeogenesis. Because of this, heart adaptations are necessary to ensure rapid removal of lactic acid, and replacement of carbohydrate.
Training zones are always such a hot topic for debate, and I’d like to know what you think about my ideas!
December 15th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Zachary
I purposefully tried to keep the article simple as to not confuse too many people lol…You are right this is a fairly hot topic.
I like to take a balanced approach with most runners. It’s important to have the lower intensity (below threshold) training to promote aerobic metabolism improvements. Many athletes don’t spend enough time in the lower zone and can suffer during long events (let’s say ironman) because of that. At the same time if you always train slow, you’ll likely remain slow.
If you are an elite marathon runner your focus will be different as your event is only 2 to 2.5 hours in duration.
Truly the best approach is a periodized and individualized one coupled with an understanding of the physiology invovled.