Friday, January 16, 2009

Heart Rate Zone Training - Bike and Run

Heart rate is a good measure of the level of exertion to complete a workout and/or specific parts of a workout. Note: There are other external factors that may influence your heart rate that could cause your heart rate to be elevated on any given day. Such things like lack of sleep, life stress, illness, injury, hot and cold weather, and lack of recovery from last hard workout to mention but a few external factors. For those of you that do Heart Rate Zone Training pay attention to these factors.

In Heart Rate Zone Training, at least the approach I am discussing, requires some preliminary information from the athlete. Basically, you will need to know your lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR), this is sometimes called anaerobic threshold heart rate (ATHR). The LTHR is needed to calculate your Heart Rate Training Zones.

In this post I will discuss:
  1. A method for determining your LTHR;
  2. How to calculate your Heart Rate Training Zones; and
  3. A description of the types of workouts that should be done in the various Heart Rate Training Zones.
Before we get to far along lets first put out an easy to understand dia-tribe of what we mean by LTHR. Put on your biochemistry hat for a minute.

Know this:
  • Our circulatory system, driven by the heart and its ability to pump by beating, moves blood enriched with oxygen to our muscles;
  • This oxygen is used in our bodies energy production process that supplies energy to our working muscles;
  • The more intense we exercise the more oxygen is needed, therefore our heart beats faster;
  • A by product of our bodies energy production process is an acid known as lactic acid;
  • The lactic acid is released in the blood stream as a salt known as lactate;
  • Lactate is bad....it occupies space in the blood stream that otherwise would be for much needed oxygen;
  • Rest easy, all of us have a buffering capacity in our blood to deal with the lactate and keep it at resting levels so the oxygen transport is not interrupted. There is a but.....
  • This buffering capacity is limited, it has a threshold i.e. known as the lactate threshold;
  • So the more intense you exercise the more lactate you produce and the closer to the buffering threshold you get;
  • Once you surpass the buffering threshold lactate starts to accumulate in your blood and you can no longer transport as much oxygen so the energy production process looks for a replacement for the oxygen to keep you going, you now start the anaerobic engine and produce energy without oxygen; and
  • This threshold is usually around the same time you start to hear your breathing becoming really labored. Your heart rate at this time is determined to be your lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR).

Hope that wasn't to painful, if it is any consolation, it was painful to write ;-).

A Method Of Calculating Your Lactate Threshold Heart Rate

For me, my LTHR is lower on the bike (150 bpm) than it is running (165 bpm), this is pretty normal. Having said that, they can be the same. So my advice is to follow the same method on the Bike and Run for determining the LTHR, do it in both sports. Note: bpm means beats per minute.

The method:

Feeling strong and rested, hop on your bike and do a 30 minutes all out ride, outdoors or on your trainor, doesn't matter just blast for 30 minutes. During the last 20 minutes of this all out workout click on your heart rate monitor to get the average heart rate for the last 20 minutes. This average heart rate in the last 20 minutes is said to be a good representation of your LTHR. Seems simple enough, the workout is tough! As mentioned, the same method should be followed for running.

Calculating Your Heart Rate Training Zones

The following equations should be used to calculate your Heart Rate Training Zones:

  1. Zone 1 is 65% of LTHR to 84% of LTHR. For me running would be 107 bpm to 139 bpm.
  2. Zone 2 is 85% of LTHR to 89% of LTHR. For me running would be 140 bpm to 148 bpm.
  3. Zone 3 is 90% of LTHR to 94% of LTHR. For me running would be 149 bpm to 155 bpm.
  4. Zone 4 is 95% of LTHR to 99% of LTHR. For me running would be 156 bpm to 164 bpm.
  5. Zone 5 is 100% of LTHR or higher. For me running would be 165 bpm or greater.

Workouts for Heart Rate Training Zones

The following is a description of the types of workouts you may do in the various Heart Rate Training Zones:

  1. Zone 1 - recovery workouts, long workouts;
  2. Zone 2 - moderate aerobic effort workouts, long workouts;
  3. Zone 3 - high aerobic effort workouts, light tempos, some parts of long workouts may be in this zone;
  4. Zone 4 - threshold effort, full tempos and beginning of intervals;
  5. Zone 5 - lactate effort, hard tempos and later stages of intervals.

You are now in possession of the knowledge of how to go about Heart Rate Zone Training. It should be duly noted that their are many approaches to Heart Rate Zone Training. This is my chosen way of doing it and it seems to work well for me.

Later

Mikey

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