USAT Women's
Commission: Info, May #2
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USAT Women's
Commission: Info, May #2
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Your
New Training Partner - A Heart Rate Monitor |
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News/Info
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Reprinted by permission of Inside Texas Running.www.InsideTexasRunning.com
Copyright c2001 by Esther Ellis Are you looking for a training partner who can help you obtain maximum benefit from the workout you are doing together? Is your ideal training partner someone who is always available when you want to train? Do you want a training partner who can more accurately measure your heart rate rather than listen to your “talk test”? How about a training partner who can actually tell you when you are going too easy or too hard? What if a training partner could know how hard you should go during your speed work? Wouldn't it be great if a training partner could measure how long you have been training aerobically during your workouts together? A heartrate monitor can do all those things you have been seeking. When you strap on your heart monitor, it can tell you when you are in your aerobic zone where you get the maximum benefit out of the workout. The benefits of “staying aerobic” are a stronger heart muscle with more blood pumped with each beat, more capillaries and mitochondria to carry oxygen to your working muscles, an increased ability to use fat as fuel and an increased ability to move lactic acid out of your muscles. Your heart rate monitor is always ready to go out the door with you to do a workout, any kind of workout you have decided to do. No discussions about where, when, how long – just go. If the weather is cold or stormy, then take your heart rate monitor to the gym. New machines show up in gyms when you least expect them. You can try the new one and find out if it gives you an aerobic workout. If the weather is great outside, then you and your heart rate monitor can be ready in a few seconds to take advantage of the opportunity. If you are traveling for business or pleasure, your heart rate monitor and a pair of running shoes is all the equipment you'll need to change a new environment into a good workout. You area unique individual with your own maximum heart rate and aerobic zone. Your heart rate monitor can find both of those for you so your “recovery” runs will really be easy enough to help you heal instead of hurt you more. Your hard workouts will be hard enough to train your anaerobic systems to sustain bursts of energy during an event without producing an excess of lactic acid. Overtraining is often caused by not knowing how easy to go the day after a hard workout or over estimating how hard the interval should be to gain the benefit you want or how many intervals to do. A heart rate monitor takes the guesswork out of how long should you recover in between intervals. When your heart rate returns to “normal”, your heart has recovered. Using a heart rate monitor is easier and more accurate then counting your pulse for 6 seconds and multiplying by 10 or counting for 10 seconds and multiplying by 6. Usually you have to stop or slow down considerably to take your pulse, which makes it harder to get an accurate measure of your heart rate when you are going hard. Since most heart rate monitors can keep track of how long you are in your aerobic zone, at the end of your training session you can punch a button and get an accurate time for the length of your aerobic workout. So if you had planned to increase your endurance by going long and slow, you can see if you actually did long, slow distance training. A heart rate monitor works when the monitor is strapped on the chest where it picks up the electrical impulses from the heart and sends the information to the watch-like receiver for display. Monitors average the beats of the heart so you can read a steady rate. All this is done without interruption in your exercising. The digital read out of your heart rate can be read at any time. Sometimes it is not handy to look at your wrist for the numbers, so some receivers can be set to give you an audible tone when you are above or below your aerobic zone. To locate your aerobic zone with your heart rate monitor, go to a track, warm up, run 3 miles at pace that is easy enough to keep up for 3 miles and hard enough to be breathing hard. Another way to get an accurate 3-mile course is in the middle of a 5-mile sanctioned race. Then you have a mile to warm up and cool down, plus hopefully accurate mile markers. At the end of each mile, note time and heart rate. Your times for each mile need to be very close to the same time. If your times are very different, the test will not be accurate and you'll have to do it again. Average the three heart rates together to estimate your anaerobic threshold (AT). To determine the bottom of your Gray Zone, subtract 15 from AT. The upper limit of your Blue Zone (aerobic) is the same number (AT -15). For the lower limit of your Blue Zone, subtract 20 from the upper limit of your Blue Zone or (AT -15) -20. For your Blue Zone while cycling, subtract 10 from the upper and lower limits of your running Blue Zone. Avoid the Gray Zone. It is the zone of thoughtless training. The unthinking athlete may choose a goal event, and fail to plan how to train smart by figuring out when to train easy, when to train hard and when to recover. As a result, neither the benefits of aerobic training or anaerobic training will be realized. Here's the ironic part of it. People usually train in the Gray Zone and they are not aware of it. Some people still believe in “no pain, no gain.” Some go at a pace that “seems” right. Some training partners are not well matched physically. Some have gone out with a group to train. Though the group may have been together for years, it does not know what each individual athlete has planned for that workout. The group actually decides how hard and how long the workout will be. Or friendly competition takes over the group's decision and the workout ends up very hard. Perhaps the athlete is rushed for time and eager to get a certain amount of mileage in before work, or during lunch, or after work, or on the weekend, etc. Since it is impossible to determine your Gray Zone without a heart rate monitor, you'll have to rely on being aware of your “rate of perceived effort” or taking your pulse after you have interrupted your workout. The risks of not staying out of your Gray Zone are getting injured by going too hard, too much of the time and overtraining. Many athletes arrive at the startline of their goal event when they not at their peak. Training in the Blue (aerobic) Zone can produce the progress you've been wanting to see by giving you the benefits of increased cardiac efficiency, increased blood flow to the muscles, and increased ability of the muscles to perform the way you want them to in your event. If your event is an endurance event, training in the Blue Zone with well-planned intervals in the Red Zone is the smart way to train. This is one aspect of specificity. That is, have your training match your performance in the goal event. The purpose of training is to get the maximum benefit out of the time and effort it takes to workout. Planning your training is important, so you'll be at the start line in great condition, not injured or over trained. Knowing how easy and how hard to go is essential for making progress. Actually, real progress happens while you are resting and the body is rebuilding after the stress of training. Sometimes we forget how important it is let the body have the time it needs to repair and recover. Listening to your body is good advice. A heart rate monitor makes a great training partner who can help you know what your body is doing, when it needs rest, and how to make progress so your performances are better and better. |
| For more information on USA Triathlon's Women's Commission, please contact: Sherri Wattenbarger, co- chair 2003, at Sherri.Wattenbarger@usdoj.gov or Ashley Rosilier, co-chair 2003, at ashley@rungearrun.com. If you are interested in a position within the Women's Commission for 2003 or would like to organize a specific women's-oriented program, please email one of us with details as soon as possible. |