TEST YOUR INTENSITY
Try saying a nursery rhyme to see if you need to back off
With high- intensity interval training (HIIT) all the rage, it’s more important than ever to gauge how hard you’re working.
HITT’s demand for repeated bursts of all-out effort followed by short bouts of easy recovery make getting an instant and accurate read on intensity levels crucial.
The old-school method of monitoring intensity by manually checking your heart rate is both cumbersome and inaccurate.
Anyone who has tried counting his or her pulse while on the move understands how easy it is to miss a beat or two.
As for using an app on your smartphone to keep an eye on your heart rate, the process is only slightly easier than the do-it-yourself method.
Most seasoned exercisers shun manual methods and rely on the intimate knowledge of their bodies to gauge their effort.
They’re so tuned into what it feels like to work hard, they’ve become pretty good at gauging their intensity through their perceived level of effort, strain and discomfort.
The problem is, they’re not always as good at gauging recovery, often pushing themselves too hard when they should be dialing down their effort.
Add to that challenge the difficulty in accurately monitoring and maintaining the multiple changes in intensity that occur during an HIIT workout and the shortcomings of perceived exertion are obvious.
An alternative measure of intensity is the talk test, which suggests the harder the workout, the harder it is to talk. It’s been repeatedly validated as a legitimate measure of exercise intensity.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse decided to test the practicality and accuracy of using the talk test. They assembled a small group of exercisers to tackle a series of 30-minute treadmill workouts performed at three separate intensities.
The study subjects, who worked out regularly and were accustomed to running 30 minutes, completed a trial run on a treadmill at a speed that was increased every two minutes after being prompted on their ability to talk comfortably, then talk but not comfortably, and then not talk at all.
All of them were able to complete the 30-minute run while maintaining a pace where they were able to talk comfortably. Using the talk test every two minutes, they were able to sustain a fairly even steady-state effort from the beginning to the end of the workout. Heart-rate responses were matched to that of a moderate-intensity workout.
When asked to run 30 minutes at an effort where talking was difficult, three of the 16 study subjects weren’t able to complete the task.
And for those who were able to finish, it was challenging to keep on pace, which led the researchers to suggest that the window for maintaining a hard effort is much smaller than it is for maintaining a moderate effort.
Heart rates suggested that subjects were exercising at an intensity close to their maximum sustainable pace.
Only two of the exercisers completed the 30-minute run at a pace when talking was impossible.
This result matches the predicted physiological response of exercising at or above maximum effort — similar to the intensity expected during short high-intensity intervals.
Overall, the researchers were happy with the talk test’s accuracy and usability.
“The current data demonstrate the practical utility of using an exquisitely simple monitoring tool, the ability to speak comfortably, to regulate and control exercise training intensity,” said the researchers in their paper.
How does their finding translate into practice? For extended steadystate aerobic workouts of 30 minutes or more, you should be able to talk comfortably throughout.
Try saying a nursery rhyme every few minutes to keep yourself on pace.
For workouts where you want to maintain a hard effort, often referred to as threshold workouts, you should be able to talk but not easily.
Short sentences are all that’s tolerable and keeping up an extended conversation is difficult if not impossible.
As for workouts performed at a max effort, like those done during the highintensity portion of an HIIT workout, even short sentences are impossible.
At best, one-word expressions are the only form of verbal communication possible.
If you like the idea of a simple easyto-use tool to gauge exercise intensity, try out the talk test the next time you work out. Predictable and accurate, consider it your new go-to method for measuring how hard you’re working.