Maximum Heart Rate Testing
Tony Foster
Posts: 3
in General Chat
Hi,
I have read different opinions on heart rate testing to determine zones to be used whilst training.
What is the best one to go for:-
a) Maximum Heart Rate Test
b) Lactate Threshold Test
Are the results accurate for a) above?
Thanks
I have read different opinions on heart rate testing to determine zones to be used whilst training.
What is the best one to go for:-
a) Maximum Heart Rate Test
b) Lactate Threshold Test
Are the results accurate for a) above?
Thanks
0
Comments
Regarding Max HR testing, I used to use a local fairly steep hill climb, warm up, do the hill once in high / easy cadence / gearing, back to bottom and go all out, and about 50M from finish, stand up push big gears as hard as possible - this usually resulted in my highest HR's.
The hill was about 2 miles in total, getting steeper on the last 3 mins or so, usually takes about 13 minutes in total.
Recently after joining the gym, a quicker, more severe test was the 2K row, building up slowly, high resistance and hammered the last 100M out, I managed to get it higher than I have had in years! 220-my age would be 185 but it hit 191.
A local cycle loop (approx 60-65 minutes) all out ridden as a time trial gives me an average HR of 160.
This for me is pretty much my Lactate Threshold approx 86% of MHR.
A booklet I have states the following:
L1, Fat burning / easy 50-60% of your max
L2, Lower aerobic / steady state 60-70%
L3, upper aerobic / medium 70-80%
L4, Anaerobic Threshold / Hard 80-90%
L5, Anaerobic / Very hard 90-95%
L6, Lactic or Max 95-100%
(www.keneli.co.nz)
Obviously, there can be specific factors according to your own experience / ability etc. The 220-age is roughly correct. Here is some more stuff you may find interesting:
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/eval.htm
Hope this helps a little
To work out your HR zones, I reckon you should always go off your maximum HR and use those % figures as your zones.
Most decent HR monitors allow you to input your age anyway and it will calculate these for you.
Maximum HR is something which is hard to simulate as it has a high psychological influence at that intensity. You also need to ask the question is your body capable in other areas, neuro muscular, to take you there. My own experience was of believing when I first started training that my HR was around the 180 mark, which was in the 220 - age ball park as a 45 year old.
I have since then got considerably fitter and stronger and have gone above that figure when really putting the hammer down climbing over the top of some pretty steep climbs in the Pennines on my bike. In these situations there was a pretty clear psychological elment going on "get your f*****g arse over this thing and don't you dare drop change up a gear you lazt b*****d" type of thing. It also helped that I had gone past a string of other cyclists and was still in full view and ego can be a motivating factor ever when hyper ventilating. My data indicated I was at 184 for a good part of the last hill section, is this my maximum doubt it, if I had to race to a hospital carrying my badly injured son to save his life I am confident it would be a lot higher still. My point is I do not think I can stimulate this effort in a test scenario on my trainer. I have come close to this point when running and pushing it on 181, I suspect I would have to be in a race situation something like a 5k or 10k and be going for the line against a best mate to stand a chance of hiting 'near' a top figure.
I feel we like the idea of a definitive mark and so 'maximum' draws an acord rather than something which is somewhere in the middle as is LT. The point is why want to know in the first place and the answer is to set training zones. LT is better for this as it is a measure of fitness for the purpose of measuring fitness.
to be continued...
My final point is that the science is very good and data usefull but there also needs to be an 'art' to efective training so don't get too hooked on the numbers and miss the point elsewhere.
My original posting was lacking information so I have added some further notes below.
After completing IMUK this year in 10:10 and missing a Kona slot by 4 minutes I now want to see if I can optimise my training to go sub 10 and hopefully gain a slot.
I know I have a tendency to overtrain so I want to maximise my training but not dip into the red too often. So I am planning to do a HR test for cycling and swimming and then set the training zones accordingly. After doing some further research and reading your comments I have also reached a similar conclusion that MAX HR testing to set the upper limit is difficult to do and the results are not always consistent. I found an article in Going Long by Joe Friel that uses a time trial method over thirty minutes that can be used for cycling and running. When the test is started the lap counter is set at 10 minutes and an average of the heart rate is then taken for the next 20 minutes. This should give the threshold levels as mentioned in your posts. Using this average value in the threshold column you can then read off HR ranges for each zone. There are seperate tables for running and cycling.
cont....
When it come to running I tend to use a broad overview of the data I get on a daily basis to find my zones. The tests I have done running (outdoor) have always ended up with me possibly going too hard at the end and dealing with a lot of stress for five minutes or so. In this area I think i could do with investing in a treadmill test with an experienced coach alongside. As my running level is not as mature as my cycling I can afford to put this off for another season.
My experience is that the lower zones come out pretty low especially for running and high volumes of easy training is the key area to get right more so than the harder work as personally I can slightly over cook it day after day over an extended period of time at this time of year in trying to get a solid foundation in. Trainning at tempo or specific interval pace is a lot easier. Given you are a better athelete than me and have more experience you might have already cracked this key area.
cont....
When i then went back through my training diaries and honestly calculated my training using these factors I could clearly see that when I end up overtraining and have to back off I have personally been pushing things too hard, expecting too much improvement on what has gone before. Normally adding volume and then throw in a couple of harder sessions which push my limits too much. A typical pattern is being comfortable with 22 to 25 hrs a week over winter all at easy pace and then struggling in the Spring/Summer with 18 to 20hrs work when in reality factored in it would be more like 30hrs and I end up overtraining and have to rebuild again. I know last year when the weather got good I trained on my bike a lot in the Pennines and simply carried on thinking these were long easy rides when in reality there was within them an hour or so of pretty hard work going up the major climbs. My reaction was to think small additions to my running volume was the issue rather than understanding i had in effect thrown in two or three hard interval sessions into something labled in my diary as '5hr easy ride'. Just a thought as I have a bit of time on my hand today... The improvements will be there to push for a Kona slot, take time out to analyse last seasons training it might well be a case of less is more. Good luck.