Heart Rate Training 101
The human body has an in-built system to measure your exercise/running intensity – which is your heart. Your heart rate will increase in proportion to the intensity of your run, so as the effort of a run starts to increase, your heart rate increases in response.
Training by heart rate is a way of checking how much effort and intensity you’re putting into your training session, and it also helps keep you in check on easy days when your heart rate should be low (just me?!).
Maximum heart rate is the fastest that your heart will beat during maximum effort running. There are many formulas for estimating maximum heart rate, this formula is the most accurate (Robergs and Landweher 2002) 206 minus .7 times your age. So as an example, using this formula, as a 54-year-old female my predicted Maximum Heart Rate is 168.2 [206 – (.7 x 54)].
The intensity ranges in the table above are approximate and caution should definetely be advised as a multitude of factors can impact the reliability of your heart rate and your heart rate monitor. Because each day is different and other variables can influence your heart rate when running, it’s important to remember that sometimes your heart rate can be high even though you feel fine.
Variables that can impact your heart rate include heat and humidity, hydration level, alcohol or nicotine, altitude, energy levels, rest, stress and anxiety, medication and medical conditions, hormones, time of day terrain and caffeine.
Running on feel emphasises tuning into the body's signals and adjusting your pace accordingly rather than relying solely on external metrics. By understanding your internal physical markers of what your heart is doing, you can gauge your effort and develop the skill of knowing the intensity of the effort you are running in.
A simple test to measure intensity is the “talk test”. If you can talk in full sentences, you’re probably in the Aerobic zone 2, if you can say 4/5 words at a time, you’re probably in the Lactic Threshold zone 4, and if you can only say one or two words, you’re probably in the Anaerobic zone which is 5.
Training and running by heart rate and by feel share the common objective of understanding and managing our energy output; the ability to develop and gauge effort levels by heart rate, coupled with finely-tuning our perception of effort through running by feel. And it’s by balancing this objective science of heart rate with the subjective intuition of body awareness, that we can unlock our full potential and achieve our goals.
Useful information thank you. My new watch has the heart rate on the first screen, unlike my old one which I had to move through 3 screens to get to, so I should be able to check my heart rate more easily.
So useful, wish I had known this a few years ago.