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What are you working out for?????
Are you working out to lose weight?
Are you working out to get fit?
Are you working out to compete?
Are you working out to tone up?
Oh, I get it! You might be working out to accomplish all four, right?
Most people believe the harder they workout the more fat they burn and the faster their fitness will improve. Most people are wrong.
The truth is, fat burning occurs at a much lower intensity than many of us realize. Which means, even though you’re sweating it out in the gym or out on the road, you might actually be missing an opportunity to lose fat.
Remember this HR zone chart from last week’s blog?
YEAH, THIS ONE!
These heart rate zones are critically important to how your body responds to a workout.
The easiest way for me to explain how HR zones work is by comparing our bodies to machines. Various levels of physical stress will result in different responses from your body and as the stress level increases your body changes the way it burns fuel to handle the stress.
It's important to note that the human machine can; however, do something other machines cannot. We can adapt and improve. The human machine can over time become fitter, more efficient in the way we burn fuel and process stress and, amazingly, the human machine can change its appearance.
The “fuel” your body burns is a combination of carbohydrates and fats. There's some other stuff that goes into it too but I'm trying not to sound like a mad scientist.
Depending on the HR zone the fuel mix changes and the results in your body and performance change, as well.
I am going to review each HR zone and also give you some guidance re: "what the heck to do with the information".
Zone 1 - Warm up/warm down zone. A warm up will help ease your body into the idea of working out and helps avoid injury.
Warm downs are often shortchanged or flat out ignored. Big mistake! Warm downs should be viewed as the start of your recovery. A warm down helps flush lactic acid from our muscles and allows our systems to stretch and relax a bit before we toss ourselves on the couch. Skipping a warm down not only slows down recovery, it also increases the chances of muscle fatigue and ache. About 5-10 mins should be spent warming up and warming down.
Zone 2 - This, Sports Fans, is the fat burning weight loss zone. Your body is busy burning carbs and fat to fuel your efforts and that is what needs to happen if losing weight is the goal. This is cardio workouts...long slow trail running, cycling, speed walking, and treadmill. Sorry, power lifting, boot camp type workouts, yoga, etc. do not qualify as cardio workouts (when discussing HR training zones). Cardio efforts are defined as a sustained effort that elevates your HR for a minimum of 30 minutes; however, my personal rule of thumb is 45 mins to an hour.
A good gauge of effort in this zone is being able to talk a bit while you are working out.
Zone 3 - Improve Fitness zone. This is where the pain begins and your human machine starts to make the shift in how it burns fuel. Although you are still burning the carb/fat blend...your body is also working harder to pump oxygen to the muscles, so the carb/fat blend now has an additive that slows the fat burning process down and shifts to focusing on improving the efficiency and strength of heart, lungs and muscles. If improved fitness is your goal then the amount of time in this zone should steadily increase. This zone will become the my “go to” HR zone during the riding season.
Zone 4 - Become a Super Hero (WELCOME TO THE PAIN CAVE). No fat burning here, you are simply trying to find a way to increase your time in this zone without allowing the wheels to come off the plane. Initially, you may only be able to handle 5 mins in this zone, over time your body will adapt and you will spend 20+ minutes in this zone. This zone is where you feel the onset of lactic acid pouring into your system and recognize your body doesn't like it. Trust me, with a little time and patience (and repeat visits to the pain cave), your body will learn to flush the lactic acid from your muscles and the efforts become much more tolerable and even satisfying. This is the zone I move into when doing hard interval or lactic threshold training.
Zone 5 - "I gotta outrun the bear or die zone". It's the 10-20 second maximum effort that shoots your heart through the roof and makes you want to throw up. Why the hell do you want to even know about this zone? Well, in that situation where you have to sprint to catch up with your friends because you stopped to take a pee break and they just kept going. You will need to go into this zone a few times to catch them :). This HR zone is never fun to go into but it is necessary at times, so introduce yourself to it, or your other option is, try to pet the bear and see where that gets you. 😖
Now... there are a million HR zone charts out there, some with 3 zones and some with 7+ zones. It really doesn't matter how many zones you want to fixate on, it's just important to know what your zones are and which zone translates to:
Warm up zone
Fat burning zone
Improve fitness zone
Become a Super Hero zone
Outrun the bear zone
A final note on determining your HR for the above zones. There is a rule of thumb, absent a sport HR stress test, you simply take the number 220 subtract your resting HR (or your age) and that's your max HR. You then apply the various percentages of you max HR (as shown in the chart above) and that's where the zones come from.
It's a starting point...particularly for new athletes or folks who don't have a solid cardio base (translation...you haven't been running, riding, rowing, etc.). The "stick a wet finger in the air" method of determining max HR can be as much as 20 beats per minute off and that's an entire training zone! Obviously, I am not a huge fan in determining your max HR this way.
If you get really stuck figuring out your max HR, shoot me an email. I will help you narrow it down, at least until you conduct a formal test.
If you are interested in learning more about HR monitors, check out Garmin and Polar. I have used, like and trust both companies and their products. Please note Polar is a sponsored post.
Next week I plan on talking about cross training.
Remember, there’s an athlete inside all of us.
Be safe, have fun. 'Til later
Sarvary