This is a weekly post for the runners of LoseIt. I aim for this to be out each week on Monday or more often Tuesday.
All levels of runner are welcome here, from first timers to experienced marathoners. We welcome someone who just ran for the first time or is just starting couch to 5K (r/c25k) as eagerly as someone who has thousands of miles of experience.
This post is for sharing your weekly progress or excitement with running. From training you got in this last week, your first run, a virtual race, or a real race, we'd love to hear what you did. Got a running related NSV (non-scale victory), we'd love to hear. Have a question or need advice, we are here to help.
In addition to sharing your progress each week, I ramble on about some topic related to running. This week's topic -- introduction to heart rate training.
Heart Rate Training
I'm going to start with some basic concepts and terminology. Hopefully, this helps you with reading all manner of heart rate training information. I'm not a doctor or some health professional. I'm sharing lay knowledge I've developed over the last 5 years.
BPM - beats per minute
Heart rates are shown in beats per minute or bpm. When you see a heart rate of 120bpm, that your heart doing a full pump in and out 120 times in a minute.
Max Heart Rate
This is how fast in bpm that your heart rate will go. This is not a dangerous thing, reaching your max heart rate. Although, it may feel like you are going to die when you get to it and try to keep going for any length of time.
There's a basic formula that calculates a median max heart rate based on your age. 220 - your age. For me at 52, this means my maximum by formula should be 168 (or so).
It is common for maximum heart rates to vary by +20 bpm or -20 bpm from this formula and still be perfectly normal. My maximum heart rate could be 148 or 188 and I'd still have a normal max heart rate.
My current max is (and has remained) at 175bpm for the last few years. I attribute this to my running and exercising.
Resting Heart Rate
This is a reading of your heart rate when you aren't exerting yourself. I recommend taking a reading shortly after you wake up but before you get out of bed or at night before falling asleep. Don't do it when you've worked out in the last couple of hours, or after caffeine.
This is likely not your lowest heart rate of the day. Often your lowest heart rate happens overnight.
Here's a sample heart rate graph of mine showing the lows and highs of an average day. This is from my Polar watch, it shows activity level overlapped with heart rate. I ran to and from the gym this morning. https://imgur.com/qmZHPUV
Heart Rate Zones
There's five heart rate zones. Basic percentages of maximum heart rate are shown.
- Zone 1- 50-60% - Easy/Recovery. This is likely where you get when you go for a walk (not a stroll).
- Zone 2 - 60-70% - Easy Aerobic or Fat Burning. This is where you get briskly walking, hiking uphill, or slow/easy running.
- Zone 3 - 70-80% - Aerobic or Moderate. Running. Marathon/Half marathon racing.
- Zone 4 - 80-90% - Threshold, Interval, hard. Hard intervals, but not all out. 10K racing.
- Zone 5 - 90-100% - Anaerobic, all-out, metabolic conditioning. Sprints, Uphill running. Track/5K.
Much like the formula for max heart rate these some variables here. Each person has different zones, and the zones.
Those percentages are percentages of your max heart rate. Based on these very basic ranges and my max 175, my Aerobic zone is 122bpm - 140bpm.
When to look at your heart rate?
As a beginner -- don't worry about your heart rate. Worry about getting through your run or workout at any level you can.
If you are a runner, don't think about heart rate training until a 30+ minute run is something you can easily accomplish.
Why --
Heart Rate zones are based on trained levels of fitness
If you are just starting out, all effort will be Zone 3-5. When you run and can't make it 2-3 minutes, your heart rate is going to be 80% or more of your max quickly. Do it 2-3 more times, and likely you'll see 90%+.
As you train, you'll find your heart rate will be lower and lower for the same level of activity. When you first start C25K you may spike right up to Zone 4 - 80% or more within a couple of minutes. When you finish, you may start running at high Zone 2 say 65% and barely top 85%.
Heart Rate training will have you trying to keep in zone 2 for instance, and as a new runner that might mean walking most of the time. The best way to go from learning to run to running is to run. Run at any speed. Until you can run 30 minutes or longer.
What can a beginner learn from heart rate?
Well, look at your heart rate when you hit these levels and see what the numbers look like.
- Working - "this is easy" - when you start to breathe heavy, begin to sweat, aren't taking it easy. Say, what your bpm is at the end of your warm-up.
- Aerobic - "whew, starting to work" - you are exercising and you can sustain this for a while. You have to fear you can do this intensity for well beyond the time you've set aside. If you are starting out running, this might not be at a running speed but instead a brisk walking pace you do for 30+ minutes.
- Aerobic Threshold - "wow, I'm rocking it!" - when you feel like you are a level you can sustain for a period of 5-10 or more minutes. Your are running and feel like you are working reasonably hard, it isn't a warm up. But you think you can make it at this effort to the end of your session but not more. For instance, you are out for a 20 minute run. At about 10 minutes in you realize that you are going to be able to finish but it is going to be a challenging.
- Threshold/Bottom of the Tank - "just a few minutes more!" - You know you are running out steam. You've gone 4 minutes out of a 5. You can keep going but you feel like this is very hard and you got just minutes left in you.
- Max Out - "stop, stop, stop, now, now, now" - when you just have to stop, or stop very soon. This could be because you've gone very hard for a short period or harder for medium period. This is likely not your max heart rate but something like 93-95%.
Why are these levels important?
You tend to work harder, go faster, go longer as you get more fit. As a result, these levels really don't change numerically instead your scale of effort changes. What was hard for a new runner, isn't hard once you've logged a few months running regularly.
Aerobic. My working level has always been about 120bpm. This is where I start to feel like I'm starting to sweat a little and applying some effort. It's easy, but it's work. My Easy has gotten much tougher over time. It used to be when I had warmed up for 10 minutes on the treadmill. Now it's about 20 minutes into a run. For me this is sweat threshold -- but not everyone sweats the rivers I do.
Threshold. When I started out, I often would think to myself I'm really pushing myself and look down and see 151-152bpm. But this was at 15 minutes into a 25 minute run. To this day, when I feel like I'm on the downside of my endurance and I look down, I see these numbers. 151bpm very often. I know I can keep this up for a while. They are an aerobic threshold point for me. I hit this point at mile 9 in a half-marathon, or 4 miles into a 10K, 2K into a 5K.
Max out. For a long time I felt my max out while running at about 165bpm. If I muststopnow it is always 165+bpm. As I've improved, I can push through this and hold out to 170-172 bpm before I can't continue for long. My PR runs have always had me at 170-175 (my max) at the end. My 10K PR had me at 173-175 bpm for last half mile.
Next Week - Starting training by heart rate.
Next week, I will talk about figuring out your zones and getting into the zone for two types of runs -- the easy run and the interval workout.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/l1s6m1/running_with_loseit_1202020_getting_started_with/
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