Starting from scratch in an elite fitness-blog-world full of expensive gear, and Personal Records she couldn't beat with a car.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Something is not adding up here

Apropos of the time of year I've been poking around at heart rate training info. I've poked at it a bit before, but not enough to really get any sort of handle on what it was I was reading.

This is an array of different heart rate range calculations based on my stats, including Karvonen which seems to be the gold standard. It also tends to have the highest ranges. I've highlighted the Karvonen calculations and the Max heart rate zone.
Calculated via http://www.racedaynutrition.com/HeartRate.aspx

Also per http://www.racedaynutrition.com:
90%-100% = VO2 Max Zone
VO2 Max is your body’s maximum oxygen consumption level. It is measured in volume/time units. You may reach this zone only for very short bursts of time. When you go into oxygen debt by racing your buddy to the finish line you have reached your VO2 max. Your lungs can’t keep up your body’s demand for oxygen and lactic acid floods into your muscles. Training in this zone increases enzymes in your muscles responsible for anaerobic metabolism.

We've already established that I'm a bit shall we say, overclocked... but what actually does that mean?

This is the average of all of the stats from just about all of my workouts since I got my Garmin

Via my Garmin Connect profile (this should be just about everything since October)

185 is the AVERAGE heart rate which I have been operating at for all of my runs for about six months. I have gone as high as 207.



Just throwing that out there.

2 comments:

  1. I"d recommend finding someone who can do some lactate threshold testing. That will give you a better idea of *your* actual training zones. Some people have naturally higher HR's and I find that some of these calculations can be a way off. I tested mine and it listed my max HR as 179 but it's actually closer to 190.

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    1. I've been poking around with my Garmin data after recalibrating my zones based on currently known resting and max and the picture is considerably more functional but still clearly not complete.

      Formal threshold testing is going to be a bit spendy for me at this point but I do think it's worth keeping in mind for the future.

      I think a homebrew max HR test is on the slate for the next few weeks though as I do feel that I'm pushing my training a bit too hard on average.

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