Here's my problem...I would like to be able to do heart rate zone training, however I always find that my heart rate is going through the roof and I can't train in any particular "zone".
I use a TomTom watch with chest strap, and the watch says I can train in 5 different zones called "Easy", "Fat Burn", "Endure", "Speed" and "Sprint". These have arbitrarily chosen heart rate ranges with an even distribution from 95bpm to 190bpm, and the "Sprint" zone is 171-190bpm.
When resting, I have a very low heart rate of ~45bpm, however whenever I run, my heart rate always skyrockets to 175-180bpm regardless of the intensity of the running that I do. My "jogging" pace (aka a perceived comfort level of around 5 out of 10) is around 5m15s/km (8.5min/mi for the imperialists out there) and I will reach this heart rate in 2 or 3 minutes. Obviously this means that I am always training in the "Sprint" zone according to the watch, meaning that this whole mode of training is seemingly inaccessible to me.
I see a lot of advice out there about heart-rate zone training, but unless I'm fundamentally training wrong or over-exerting my heart, I can't see how I am able to achieve this. Any advice for me?
Comments
The first thing to do is to find out what your max HR actually is - google MHR test. Once you know that you can set meaningful, personalised zones to train in.
Here's a picture of a run I did the other day with the data taken from Strava and I've overlaid some info boxes onto it. I'm fairly certain there's no problem with the HRM or the contacts with the skin, as the graph increases steadily (albeit quickly) and decreases steadily once the run has completed (not shown here, but the watch does tell you after you've finished the run how much your HR has dropped in the following 1 minute, and gives you an indication of recovery "performance", whether it be "poor", "fair", "good" or "excellent". On this particular run, it scored me as "good" as my HR had dropped 32 bpm in the minute after finishing the activity.
@Little M.iss Happy - I'm 28 and by most counts of MHR, it would be either 220-age=192 or 214-(0.8xage)=191.6 (two methods advertised on the RW site). I shall endeavour to do a real world test today, but I doubt it'll get over 195. This would indicate that, from the run I have shown you here where Strava says my average HR was 177bpm, I was working at (177/195)*100=90.77% effort for that run. Seems awfully high to me. Even if my MHR was 220 I'd be at 80% effort for a jog.
That looks a valid trace Alistair. I'm leaning towards the formula not applying to you then. I know people with max hr of 210 so it could be the case for you.
What's the maximum you've seen when for example putting in an effort up a hill ?
The highest I've seen it spike to is 209, but the trace before that is all over the place, so looks to be a bad connection. It reached 202 once as well but seems to have hit a plateau for 25 seconds, so maybe the HRM is bugging out? I find it hard to believe that my heart rate would be EXACTLY 202 for 25 seconds.
Having had a flick through my Strava it's only gone over 190 a handful of times, and always at the crest of a hill. I'll try and get that MHR test done today to check.
Alastair - the formula doesn't work for me at all. I'm nearly 50 and work off a MHR of 186. It will be interesting to see what you can do in a test. If your MHR isn't that high (and you can probably quite safely add 2-5bpm to whatever you can get it to on your own unless you're throwing up at the end) then it's probably just a case of slowing your runs down and working on your aerobic fitness.
Don't stress too much over your HR zooming up so quick to start. I have the same thing and was tested at a lab and the doc reassured me that it was just the way my body perceived the need to get up to a fast HR then settle down if needed.
However he did say to stick to the correct zones that they worked out as I did hit MHR but the end of the test. Money well spent but a very hard workout to do whilst wired up and stuff to machines.
I have a similar issue, I use a Garmin 235, I've estimated my MHR by several formulas at around 183 bpm. On a 70 minute 'slow run' where I felt relatively comfortable and could hold a conversation I averaged around 161 bpm. When I did some 2.30 minute intervals with 2 min rest where my effort was pretty much max and couldn't speak, my average was around 168bpm. Reading online the Garmin is a little slow on the uptake for catching up with changes of speed, I saw this using the hand held heart rate monitor on the tread mill, the garmin would still be 160+ shortly into the rest period whereas the treadmill was under 150, after a minute or longer it started to catch up.
Anyhow, I feel like my heart rate on my slower easier runs is high like the OP, is there a rudimentary test one can do to estimate HR rather than using formulas?
The really important thing for zone based approaches is an accurate max hr. The formula is for a population average and is only useful as a very rough sanity check. The rudimentary test involves running briskly down a hill and working really hard up back up the hill x 3 and then see what max hr pops out. There is also a treadmill test to exhaustion which requires a helper to crank up speed and incline until you can take no more.
Also some heart rate monitors pick up cadence in the first mile or so, which is often why it shows 170-180 ish
I've seen a couple of workouts that sound interesting. One is 400M hard and
then 400M all out consecutive, the other is 3 mins hard and 2 minute walk and then same again (both have ten mins warm up). Again I'm assuming both want you to look for the highest rating your heart spikes to?
Cheers, sorry to the OP for hijacking your thread but thought it was the right place to post as my HR doesn't vary much between an easy run and a hard one.
But like the OP, I too find my HR rockets up when I run, to the 180 mark (I am 39 in June) . When I attempt to lower it to say the 140 mark, i am practically walking!
Ive now used my polar chest strap together with my TomTom watch, and they both had the same readings! Annoyingly i was trying to train in the steady pace zone on my polar, and it kept telling me to slow down.. repeating in my ear, and unless i walked I would never have got it down.
When i am cross training in the gym my HR on the cross trainer and bike usually peaks at say 140/150.. just when running it shoots up.
I am going for a VO2 max test at some point, as it concerns me.
Although when running I don't feel like I am about to keel over! I just have a red face afterwards for a while?
im running the Berlin marathon and don't want to burn out or need a truck load of carbs following me
ive decided to try the slower approach and see if I can build the hr foundations to lower it? I'm going for a vo2 max test next month too. But trailing through my strava history I saw last year I got to over 200BPM On a 10k race!!