Heather: Have you maybe just gone and invested in a new heart rate monitor? Or maybe you've
started to look at the heart rate data on your sports watch. Or measuring your heart
rate whilst you run can be an incredibly useful tool. If used correctly, it can add another
dimension to your training. Today, I'm going to be explaining how to use heart rate to
improve your running. [music]
Athletes have been using heart rate to measure their training for decades. It's a simple
measure of your physical effort. For example, there could be times when you feel like you're
working really hard, but actually, you're not and your heart rate will tell you and,
of course, it can be vice versa. There are two ways of measuring your heart rate. One
is through the optical heart rate which seems to be growing in popularity. That's when you
have a watch based heart rate monitor which will fit underneath your wrist. You can also
have an independent optical heart rate monitor which you might wear on your arm or your leg.
These need to be sitting securely against your skin as they get your heart rate by measuring
the change in blood pressure of every beat. It needs to be sitting nice and firmly but
not too tight, obviously, so that blood can still get through. The other option is a chest
strap, which is more old school and can be a bit more accurate as it's taking an ECG
from your heart. I want to point out that we are all different
and therefore, we're going to have different resting heart rates, different training zones
and also a different maximum heart rate. You might have heard people boasting about having
an exceptionally low resting heart rate and yes, it can be a sign of fitness but there
are other things that play into that such as genetics, your age, your size, et cetera.
It's important that you work out what is your norm and you compare yourself to that. Low
isn't always better. Having a high maximum heart rate is a sign of fitness as well as
it means your heart is able to pump blood around your body faster and this can be affected
by various things. Also, I'm afraid does start to do decrease with age and you might have
heard of the simple calculation to very roughly estimate your maximum heart rate of 220 minus
your age, but that is purely a guideline. [music]
How do you find out what is normal for you? Let's start with resting heart rate, that
is a nice simple one. You just need to lie or sit down for a little while until your
heart rate drops without thinking about it too much, which I know is sometimes easier
said than done. However, finding your maximum heart rate is a little different, unless you
want to use that basic formula that I've already talked about, it's going to involve a serious
amount of hard work. You can just work by doing some running intervals, it needs to
be specifically running as it's obviously a running maximum heart rate that you want.
You're going to need to increase those intervals until you're eventually doing your final one
at absolute maximum pace that you can hold for around a minute and that should give you
your maximum heart rate. You can, of course, head to a lab if you want
some really detailed results, but it still will require some hard running. Then once
you've got your minimum and your maximum heart rate, you can work out your training zones
in between. If you do want to get something more accurate yourself in a field testing,
you can simply go and do a 30 minute even all-outpaced effort. Take the average of your
heart rate for the last 20 minutes and that will give you your lactate threshold heart
rate, which is basically your threshold heart rate, but you can take this number or your
minimum and maximum heart rate number and put them into an online calculator which will
automatically give you your training zones. Alternatively, you'll find that some fitness
apps or maybe even your watch will automatically do it for you as well. If you still want more
detail on how to calculate your training zones, we've made a video specifically for that on
our YouTube channel so go and check that out. [music]
It's now time to address zones in more detail and why we use them. Your heart rate zone
gives you an indication of how hard your heart is working and what intensity you're running
at, which will indicate what area of your fitness you're going to be improving. If you
are trying to improve your running, you need to make sure you have a mixture of training
in different zones. You'll find quite a few sports watches will automatically tell you
what zone you're in, quite often using a color-coded system, red usually indicating the hardest
of those zones. You can also actually set your watch to beep if you go above a certain
zone or below a certain zone. As a rule of thumb, there are five training zones. Some
coaches will use a slightly different number and the fifth training zone can be broken
down into more subsections but we're going to keep it simple today with the five.
This is where I need to refer to my phone just to quickly go through the numbers for
each one. Zone 1 is a very light effort, 50% to 60% of your maximum heart rate or 65% to
75% of your lactate threshold heart rate, which we've already mentioned. Then zone 2
is a light effort, 60% to 70% of your maximum heart rate or 75% to 85% of your lactate threshold
heart rate and we've got zone 3, that's a moderate effort, 70% to 80% of your maximum
heart rate, 85% to 98% of your lactate threshold heart rate, just beneath it. Zone 4, this
is where it becomes hard, 80% to 90% of your maximum, 98% to 105% of that lactate threshold
heart rate. Finally, we've got zone 5, into the red, it's very hard, 90% to 100% of that
maximum heart rate, 105%+ of your lactate threshold heart rate. That might just sound
like a load of numbers for the moment. Don't worry too much about that, just thought I'd
give you the guide depending on how you want to measure your zones. These numbers are unlikely
to mean anything to you unless you start to incorporate them into your training and it's
about training smarter, not harder that's going to see the greatest improvement to your
running. [music]
This is a super easy effort that you should feel you can maintain for a long period of
time. If jogging is too intense and you find your heart rate going out of zone 1, then
simply add in some phases of walking. It's perfect tool for recovery. You could use a
training session in this zone as purely a recovery 30-minute easy jog to help your body
get over your previous session. [music]
Zone 2, this should be comfortable and you should be able to actually talk quite easily.
It's an important zone for building that aerobic foundation, which you can then add any speed
work on top of. If you're training for anything like 5K, 10K or further, becomes an essential
part of your training and it's also a great way to start teaching your body to utilize
its fat stores as energy. You can incorporate this into your training as part of your long
run. Try to make sure you do your whole long run staying in zone 2. It can be really tempting
to edge higher but be disciplined, you'll see more benefit.
[music] Things are starting to get a little bit harder
here, but it's still a very much an aerobic effort, something that you should be able
to maintain for around 30 to 45 minutes. It's sometimes referred to as a tempo effort, just
beneath threshold and it's great for building that stamina. A nice simple session to incorporate
zone 3 training would be a 10 to 15 minute warm-up, 30 minutes running in that zone,
followed by a 10 minute warm down. [music]
This is known as comfortably uncomfortable. You should only be able to speak a few words
maximum at one time and your body is going to be working in a mixture of aerobically
and anaerobically. As a result, it's going to be utilizing mainly carbohydrates as its
fuel. This zone is perfect for boosting your performance and upping that lactate threshold
level. If you did a 5K or a 10K race, you'd find that the majority of that, you'd be spending
in zone 4. With that in mind, a perfect session would be a broken 5K. Let's take a nice and
simple example, five times one kilometer at your 5K PB pace with 90 seconds rest after
each one and just make sure you top and tail it with a good warm-up and warm down.
[music] Are you still with me? We're on zone 5. Yes,
the final zone, the highest zone, the highest heart rate, it is hard. This is great for
working on your speed and see it as the icing on the cake when it comes to your training,
short, sharp, fast intervals or efforts. Let's take an example session. Once you've done
your warm-up, try doing eight times 30 seconds as hard as you can run followed by a 60 second
nice easy recovery and a warm down. When it comes to working in this zone, don't worry
so much about your heart rate, focus more on effort, especially if you're doing short
intervals such as something as short as 30 seconds because there is a lag in your heart
rate and you might find it doesn't actually reach zone 5 heart rate until the last few
seconds of your effort. [music]
On that note, I just want to cover a couple of the limitations of using heart rate tracking.
One of which is that delay in your heart rate to actually reflect the change in pace or
effort. If you do start running faster or harder, it's going to take a little while
for your heart rate to actually catch up and reflect that. The same happens the other way.
When you ease up, your heart rate will have a delay until it actually returns to normal
and that delay can be an indicator of your fitness. The quicker your heart rate drops,
then that's showing that your fitness is improving. There's a few other things which can affect
your heart rate such as caffeine, dehydration, temperature, even an underlying illness. Although,
that's probably more obviously reflective when you look at your resting heart rate.
As long as you're aware of those factors, then you can use your heart rate tracking
to make sure that you're working at the correct intensity and also to measure your progress.
Let's say for example, you have a set loop that you run every week. If you're still running
it at the same pace but your average heart rate is actually dropping, that's a clear
indicator that your fitness is- -improving, and using heart rate tracking is also invaluable
for doing your long runs. Especially when they're over undulating terrain, because you
don't want to focus on pace for these, it's very much your heart rate that will reflect
that you're working at the same intensity. Obviously, when you're running uphill, you'll
need to run at a slower pace to make sure you stay in the same zone as if you were running
on the flat or downhill. [music]
I have to admin, I don't religiously use heart rate in my training, but I find it fascinating
to actually look at my heart rate analysis after a run, and you could call me a bit geeky
but I reckon if you start to do it, you'll find it quite interesting as well. And hopefully
from this, if you weren't using heart rate before, I've known convinced you of the benefits.
If you are new to it, then you at least will now have some idea of how to use heart rate
zones when it comes to making your training more specific and more productive. If you
do want to learn a little bit more about heart rate zones, or how to use them, we have an
array of videos on the topic, so if you just go to Global Triathlon Network's YouTube channel,
hit subscribe, and if you just search for any heart rate videos, you'll find a huge
array to help you with some guidance there. If you still got any questions, just leave
them in the comments section below and I'll do my best to get back to you. If you've enjoyed
it, just give us a thumbs up like. [00:11:14] [END OF AUDIO]