“Listen to Your Heart… Rate!”
Data. Who doesn’t like knowing about their body and what makes it more efficient? One of the main data points used in fitness is heart rate. Whether you monitor it or not, it can be a good indicator of fitness or possible sickness. Many factors cause heart rate to fluctuate such as stress, lack of sleep, alcohol, heat, dehydration and overtraining.
Periodization training is imperative to keeping the body happy, healthy and injury free. The year is broken into seasons so an athlete is not in full training mode all the time. Down time allows the body and mind to recover for adaptation from a hard training block. During this time, heart rate easily increases during activity and recovery heart rate is also increased.
As you start to ramp up a new season, you may find your heart rate is higher than normal. The heart becomes less efficient at pumping blood but as you get the rust off from the off-season, the heart becomes better at pumping blood and adapts to the harder efforts.
In order to use heart rate in your training, you could figure out your max heart rate. The simplest method to determine max heart rate is to use the formula 220 – (your age). For most athletes, the result will be fairly close to their actual max heart rate, and can be used to calculate training zones, which we’ll discuss later. This is not the end all, be all, and does not work for everyone.
You can also perform one of several field tests, such as a sprint test, to determine your actual max heart rate. Measuring your max heart rate through exercise will give you a much more accurate result compared to the formula method, and will give you a much more accurate idea of how your body is responding during exercise.
Once you’ve figured out your max heart rate, the next step is to determine your heart rate training zones, although most wearable fitness tracking devices can calculate these zones for you. Most devices breakdown your HR Zones for you starting from low/easy to high/hard:
Zone 1 50-60% of max heart rate; 2-4 rate of perceived exertion; active recovery; easy to hold a conversation
Zone 2 60-70% of max heart rate; 4-5 RPE, warmup pace, aerobic exercise, some effort to hold a conversation, but doable
Zone 3 70-80% of max heart rate; 5-7 RPE; tempo training; can’t say more than a sentence or two at a time
Zone 4 80-90% of max heart rate; 7-8 RPE; threshold training; unable to say more than a few words
Zone 5 90%+ max heart rate; 8+ RPE; Maximum-effort sprinting; can’t speak, gasping for air
Zone 1 and 2 are easy, conversational zones, the higher you go, the harder the efforts. In order to improve efficiency, you must not always train in a higher zone. To optimize performance, it's important to vary the daily effort. Going 100% all the time will cause burnout, over training and injury. If you do the hard workouts hard, you will feel that you need the recovery. An experienced coach will use all of these zones in a comprehensive training plan made specifically for you and tailored to your goals, and when structured correctly, all zones will be equally important to your overall athletic health and training.
Heart rate is also a good indicator of infection. When your body is fighting an infection or illness your temperature increases, in turn causes your heart rate to go up. Illness also causes dehydration, which also causes an increase in heart rate. It is important to drink an abundance of electrolytes as your body uses its immune system to fight off sickness. Being in tune with your body and knowing your usual heart rate can help catch sickness before you experience other symptoms and can adjust training accordingly so it doesn’t get worse.
It is important to remember that everyone's heart rate is unique. Don’t fall into the trap of comparing your heart rate to anyone else’s. During a training block everyone has their own change in heart rate and goes through stages. Starting with the initial stage, moving towards base building then peak fitness. Stay hydrated to keep your heart rate happy, don’t over obsess this data point and be mindful when you notice a change.