Get Stronger, Better, Faster – Know Your Heart Rate When Exercising
I’ve talked to my wife occasionally about the science between your heart rate when exercising and different levels of fitness. But this has always been an abstract discussion. No more.
This past Christmas, my wife got me a Garmin Forerunner. Mine came with a heart rate monitor, but you can also get them with a shoe fob and bike accessory to measure distance (by GPS) and cadence. Over the last month, I’ve started putting this to work.
Why Worry About Your Heart Rate When Exercising?
I suspect most of the readers know the basic idea behind heart rate and exercise intensity level. The theory goes that as exercise intensity increases, your body will respond with an increased heart rate. This happens in due to increasing oxygen demand. By knowing your maximum heart rate, you can vary your exercise intensity based on your workout goals.
I’ll start by admitting that I’ve always been lukewarm on the subject of monitoring my heart rate when exercising. After all, why bother? My attitude has always been that if I’m not exercising hard enough, I’ll know it and push the intensity up. If I’m exercising too hard, I’ll know it and back off. Simple, right?
Typical Run
But now that I’ve put this new toy to use, I’ve become a convert. I’ve been using it for about a month now, and I’ve learned a few things about my workouts. In particular, I’ve gotten an idea of how different activities can impact my heart rate, and how I can make more efficient use of my time during the limited workouts I have available.
The following is an example of a typical 30-minute run for me. You can see how my heart rate ramps up rather quickly and holds steady at around 173 beats per minute (bpm) for the duration of the run. At the end of the run, there’s a rapid taper back to130 bpm during the recovery period. My average heart rate for the workout was 163 bpm.
Typical Strength Training Workout
By contrast, take a look at a typical graph for a strength training session. My max heart rate for the workout was 158 bpm, with an average of 122 bpm. One interesting thing is how my heart rate varied more over the course of the activity. But, I definitely never achieved the same overall intensity that the run provided.
I suspect that most of us would say that’s not a surprise. Myself included. It’s rather intuitive that a sustained run would provide a harder aerobic workout than that same amount of time in the gym.
Since one of my mantras is to be as efficient as possible with my workouts, I’m hoping to use this to improve in that area. Over the next several weeks, I’m going to put together a series to show how I’ve started using this new tool to improve my workout sessions.
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21 Responses to “Get Stronger, Better, Faster – Know Your Heart Rate When Exercising”
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I use low heart rate training where I don’t let my hr go above (180-age). This is supposed to massively improve aerobic fitness which I need if I want to achieve my marathon goals. I know it works as when I started I’d often have to walk up hills to keep my heart rate under my limit whereas now I can run up them. So I’m using less energy for more effort which is great. It’s not really an optimal weightloss strategy but it is a great fitness strategy which is what I’m more interested in.
I’ve read a lot about low heart rate training. This may be just the thing to jump-start my entry into the whole process.
That’s pretty nifty how you can monitor your heart rate like that.
It shows that strength training if done correctly can be just as good as running on the treadmill; well somewhat.
An interesting post, thanks!
You’re exactly right. I’m learning a lot about how to make better use of my short workout times by using the hrm. Thanks for stopping by.
Looking forward to hearing more about you use yours, I have been using mine for over a year now. Mine has estimated caloires burned also. Polar F11.
Yeah, mine isn’t as sophisticated as some I’ve seen, but I think I can get a lot more from my workouts with just this tool to keep me honest.
Very good information. Thanks for sharing!
supersets and circuit training will help your heart rate stay elevated, if that’s what you’re looking for. core and lower body (read: bigger muscles, more oxygen) will raise your heart rate more than comparable upper body exercises. mixing them together (i.e. isometric squat with dumbbell bicep curls superset with a tricep exercise) will give you a mix of everything. i also find that incorporating more stability raises my heart rate more. (for example, i do tri pushdowns on a cable apparatus, but instead of standing at it, i kneel on a stability ball.)
Spot on. You pegged my workout.
I would love a heart rate monitor. As of now I just kind of guestimate but I know it could be so much more effective if I knew my heart rate.
Hi Mary! Thanks for stopping by.
Prior to having this one, I’ve always been lukewarm on the subject of heart rate monitors. Now that I’ve got one though, I’m going to see what exactly I can learn about my fitness levels.
north of 170 for 20 minutes is extremely impressive. nice work.
everybody who trains seriously should have an HRM… it’s like the tachometer in a manual transmission sports car.
I’m currently trying to test for my max heart rate. We’ll see how that stacks up…
Hey Greg
That graph looks awesome! Need to get one of those!
It surprises me that your heart rate maxed at 158bpm on the strength workout, I would’ve expected higher peaks. Definitely agree that tracking heart rate is a must for anyone who does a lot of cardio.
I am 29 and 207lbs…new to running as of April 2009. I just finnished my first half marathon Feb 7th in 1hr 54 min 27 seconds with an average hr of 172 and a max of 198 while sprinting the last 100m to the finnish. I use heart rate training exclusivly.
I have a Garmen 305 with hr monitor and I will not train without it(I even sleep with it sometimes to keep an update on my Resting hr) There are lots of theroies on how to train but I figure every speed/pace oriented training plan will ultimatly be governed by your heart rate. You can learn a lot of interesting things about you fittness from analyzing how your heart responds to different stimulus. Like where your Anaerobic Threshold is(the heart rate/exersion level at which your blood can not clear the lactic acid from your muscles fast enough and your heart rate starts to climb quickly and you feel the burn in your legs and lungs). This exersion level is hard to maintain but the benifits for your fittness/endurance are very high when training in this zone. Also doing interval training up to 90-100% of your max hr increases your Vo2Max(The maximum amount of oxygen your muscles can receive from your blood via your lungs) The higher your Vo2Max, the more oxygen can be dilevered to your muscles, the more energy can be exerted and therfore more work can be accomplished in a shorter amount of time.
I know all of that is a mouthful and maybe confusing….it’s still a litte confusing to me but I am in a process of learning.
Greg, good luck on your quest for effeciency, From what I have learned so far, Heart rate training is the way to go. I look foreward to reading about your future successes.
Great summary Darrell.
Right now I’m trying to get a feel for what that 170 translates to for my “real” max heart rate. Hope to post that soon.
Thanks for stopping by, and congrats on your first half marathon. Been there, and I know how it feels when you make that first milestone. To be honest though, you managed better than me.
I was happy to stumble upon this site. Fitness and nutrition interest me a lot.
I am assuming that you are unsure of your true max heart rate?
If this is so you could always do the Old 220bpm-age but I didn’t find that to be accurate for me. According to that method, my max heart rate would be 220-29(years old)=191bpm
I took the matter into my own hands(The only way to really know) and Found out for my self what my specific Max Heart Rate was.
I did this by running 660m repeats at the local 220m track with 220m rest intervals of light jogging for recovery.
Supposedly you can not find your max Heart rate by going from zero to all out. It is something that you have to work into.(I could only reach 192 by this method).
I started by warming up with 660m of jogging to get my heart rate up to 160-170 or so. The stopped to stretch. Then the fun began
I did 660m(3 laps) at an average hr of 170 followed by a 1 lap jog
next 660m at 175 bpm…1 lap jog
180 bpm 1 lap jog
185 bpm 1 lap jog
and finally 440m at 190bpm and the last 220m were full out sprint reaching my true max of 199.
Now that’s a lot of work but it felt great and I actually use that type of interval training frequently. It works wonders for your Vo2Max and Anerobic Threshold.
@Darrell-I’m in the process of trying a few different methods to test my max heart rate. Hadn’t tried that one, but I’ll add it to the list. Sounds brutal. Some of what I’ve read would suggest you fan never achieve your true max heart rate. I certainly know that 220-age doesn’t cut it for me.