Fitness trackers a valuable tool in heart-rate training.
KEEPING YOUR TICKER’S BEATS WITHIN A SET RANGE CAN HELP YOU MEET CARDIOVASCULAR FITNESS GOALS
With wearable fitness trackers becoming the norm among recreational athletes, more of us know at any instant what our heart rate is during workouts. What we might not know is what that data means. That’s a shame, because basing your workout intensity on your heart rate can be a great way to meet your exercise goals.
“Heart-rate training gives you objective guidance on whether you’re on the right track, pushing too hard or taking it too easy,” says running coach Janet Hamilton.
Here’s what you need to know about training by heart rate:
WHAT IS HEART-RATE TRAINING?
Heart-rate training entails keeping your heart rate — the number of times your heart beats in a minute — within a set range during a workout. The range is expressed as a percentage of your maximum heart rate, which is the greatest number of times your heart can beat in a minute. For example, for a 30-minute elliptical workout, you might aim to keep your heart rate between 70 and 80 per cent of your maximum heart rate.
Heart-rate training reflects the fact that the harder you run, cycle, Nordic ski or do other forms of exercise, the higher your heart rate is.
This form of training is useful for aerobic exercise such as cycling and running, in which you sustain your effort for 20 or more minutes.
On the other hand, heartrate training isn’t a good way to gauge the effectiveness of your workout in high-intensity interval training because you should be focusing on doing the exercise as hard as possible for that short time rather than looking at your monitor. (Plus, the readings can be misleading.)
Similarly, because of the stop-and-start nature of strength training, monitoring heart rate isn’t an effective way to track workouts in which your main goal is to build muscle rather than improve cardiovascular fitness.
WHY TRAIN BY HEART RATE?
Here’s the gist: Your effort level — how close to your max you’re working — is what really determines the gains you get from a workout, such as your heart being able to pump more blood with each beat and your muscles becoming more efficient at using the oxygen in that blood.
There’s a range of heart rates that correspond to the key effort levels you hit in cardio workouts. Match effort level and heart rate, and you know you’re working at the right intensity for that type of workout.
From a physiological standpoint, heart-rate training is a more nuanced way to guide your workouts than, say, aiming to hit a certain pace.
It also can accommodate variables such as weather, hills and day-to-day fluctuations in your energy level.
HOW TO TRAIN BY HEART RATE
The first step in heartrate training is gauging your maximum heart rate.
The commonly recommended formula of 220 minus your age is based on averages of large numbers of people, but it’s not particularly useful on an individual basis. For any one person, 220 minus age might be inaccurate by 10 to 12 beats per minute in either direction of the formulaic answer, says certified strength and conditioning coach Debra Atkinson.
If you’re one of the people for whom the formula is inaccurate, that could mean you’re usually working out too hard or too easy.
If you’re a runner, Hamilton recommends doing a 5-kilometre race while wearing a heart-rate monitor. “If you finish thinking you gave it your everything, the highest reading you reached will be close to your max,” she says.
Atkinson has clients do a test on a treadmill or exercise bike while wearing a monitor. They progressively increase their intensity until their breathing and perceived exertion tells them they can’t continue. The heart rate at that point is close to their max.