Heart rate bands training, is this for real?

[at1839]

Or, I know will be rude, are maybe all that bands just a disappointing smarter clone of 220-age formula? Because (as an example) I found more than often a large split from the predicted band and a real workout. Looks like to me that, at least at my venerable age, the *upper* bands are a lot *compressed* and there is not such a large split from AT to AN. Looks like I'm not able to correlate HR to perceived intensity.

Anyone experiencing the same behaviour? Paolo.

Predicted ...

Your minimum (resting in bed) heart rate: 42
Your maximum heart rate: 176

Your UT2 band is a heart rate of 116 bpm to 136 bpm with a mean of 126 bpm.
Your UT1 band is a heart rate of 137 bpm to 149 bpm with a mean of 143 bpm.
Your AT band is a heart rate of 150 bpm to 156 bpm with a mean of 153 bpm.
Your TR band is a heart rate of 157 bpm to 169 bpm with a mean of 163 bpm.
Your AN band is a heart rate of 170 bpm to 176 bpm with a mean of 173 bpm.
Your 70% heart rate is 136 bpm.
Your 85% heart rate is 156 bpm.

And a real workout, apparently well into the *impossible to sustain* TR band.

Split Watt Cal SpM HR
1:28:27.1 21,097m 2:05.7 176 905 28 160
18:06.6 4,300m 2:06.3 174 898 27 157
18:04.7 8,600m 2:06.1 174 898 27 162
18:04.8 12,900m 2:06.1 174 898 28 164
18:01.6 17,200m 2:05.7 176 905 29 167
16:09.4 21,097m 2:04.3 182 925 30 175

[jackarabit]

Above from my 60' PB. 23.5' in TR HR zone, 155-166bpm in my case. I'm getting to the age at which doing anything for 20 minutes is an experiment in sustainability. I'd say TR effort is sustainable on special occasions but not great fun.

[Carl Watts]

How long you can stay in the band depends on your fitness.

Really fit people also experience much lower rates of HR drift, they can pretty much slam straight into TR from the start and drift towards AN at a much more controlled rate.

Take a look at Eric Murray's recent 5Km WR of just under 15 minutes, his HR hit the high 180's by the first split and went low 190's to the finish. Very low drift and would have been at near maximum the whole row.

[jamesg]

HR as control serves to get us fit. But it falls down when we are very fit; if Lactate is lower than 2 mMol, why slow down or even stop just because of some HR rule? Only Lactate is cause of stoppage, volente nolente.

So long as HR reflects Lactate, HR is a good guide. Not beyond.

[lindsayh]

So long as HR reflects Lactate, HR is a good guide. Not beyond.

I agree with James - HR bands are a useful and simple proxy for lactate but not perfect especially if we are already fit.

[teddyDK]

HR as control serves to get us fit. But it falls down when we are very fit; if Lactate is lower than 2 mMol, why slow down or even stop just because of some HR rule? Only Lactate is cause of stoppage, volente nolente.

So long as HR reflects Lactate, HR is a good guide. Not beyond.

But how could i know this? I follow the pace from interactive training guide. But in my ut1 training im not really know how to know if my speed is right.

[hjs]

HR as control serves to get us fit. But it falls down when we are very fit; if Lactate is lower than 2 mMol, why slow down or even stop just because of some HR rule? Only Lactate is cause of stoppage, volente nolente.

So long as HR reflects Lactate, HR is a good guide. Not beyond.

But how could i know this? I follow the pace from interactive training guide. But in my ut1 training im not really know how to know if my speed is right.

Watch your breathing, as long thats calm you are still working aerobicly, once its starts getting more rushed anaerobic energy is getting used and lactate is not fully being cleared. For average trainees hf is still pretty usefull. Very fit people reach much higher hf while still staying aerobic.

[G-dub]

Breathing and Henry says and also the "Talk Test" - can you talk reAsonabky without gasping too much. There are also some proxies that are designed to find pace (watts) and/ or HR at LT. I will need to circle back with links. The free spirits web site has one. Friel also describes one in his books - he says to subtract 5% from a 20' time trial power to determine HR at LT. And there is also the con let of "Functional Threshold Power", which is 5% of the average power (watts) of that 20' TT.

[jamesg]

Without Lactate testing you can only know it by the fact of not being forced to stop.

You could try switching to Watt bands rather than HR Range bands. In this case the training basis is what you have actually done: your 2k Power (7:32 = 240W).

The three middle bands UT1 AT TR are up to 70, 80 and 105% of 2k TTW: For 240W, UT1 up to 170W, AT up to 190, TR 190 to 250W. In this light, your ½M was just over UT1 and some going anyway at 62kg.

http://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/interactive shows both HR and Watt bands.

Are you training for some major long distance event?

[teddyDK]

Without Lactate testing you can only know it by the fact of not being forced to stop.

You could try switching to Watt bands rather than HR Range bands. In this case the training basis is what you have actually done: your 2k Power (7:32 = 240W).

The three middle bands UT1 AT TR are up to 70, 80 and 105% of 2k TTW: For 240W, UT1 up to 170W, AT up to 190, TR 190 to 250W. In this light, your ½M was just over UT1 and some going anyway at 62kg.

http://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/interactive shows both HR and Watt bands.

Are you training for some major long distance event?

Me or?

[jackarabit]

Teddy, James' comment addressed to the OP, the notorious "Pocket Rocket." Or maybe you, Paolo, flies on the wall?

[at1839]

Sry for late follow up, I was away from home, actually in Roma for a workshop.

You could try switching to Watt bands rather than HR Range bands.

Interesting approach. I'll look at. Ty.

Are you training for some major long distance event?

No ...

PaoloC

[gregsmith01748]

This is an interesting topic to me, Addressing the OP original question:
- Are HR bands just another oversimplification like the 220-age?

I think so yes. But the really interesting thing to me is what you use HR feedback to accomplish. So, let's say you have had cardiac issues and your doctor recommends that you avoid high intensity exercise and recommends that you avoid going higher than 2x your resting HR during exercise. That's a specific use that has nothing to do with bands or HR max or any of that stuff.

Let's say that you are using HR feedback to help maximize the efficacy of training. The first thing here is what is what is your training objective. Possibilities here are:
- Improve time on a all out 2K
- Improve time of a full marathon
- Improve time for a OTW head race (~6K)
- Improve general fitness
- Improve time of a 100m sprint
- Cross train for Rugby

All of these are valid objectives, and all of them will probably drive different training plans. These plans will have different numbers of sessions, session lengths and session intensities. In some cases, especially if you are training for 2Ks or head races, you will want to pay lots of attention to intensity to maximize effectiveness and avoid overtraining.

Session intensity is where HR feedback comes in. It is also where Lactate testing and VO2Max testing come in. It is also the basis of the idea of training to a certain wattage, usually a fraction of your current best 2k wattage. The band definitions from the ISS website are a bit over complicated for my use in training. I'm a big believer in polarized training. So, my main use for HR feedback is to make sure that my easy sessions are easy enough and my hard sessions are hard enough. That really turns into the following rules...
- For steady state sessions (easy): I want to stay below the top of the UT1 band (156 for me)
- For High Intensity sessions (hard): I want to maximize the amount of time spent above my lactate threshold (around 172 for me). This is the LT/TR transition in the ISS system.
- In general, I only want to be exercising in the range between 156 and 172 if I am on my way up to the TR and AN band.
- The only other complication is that I will try to monitor how much time I spend above the TR/AN threshold. A little bit is good, but too much and I need a lot more recovery time.

Now some people, people with a lot more precision and patience than I have, will do workouts with very narrow HR bands that they aim for. I bet it is a pretty effective way to plan and execute training, but it doesn't match my plan. I have also gone through seasons where I have used lactate testing for feedback and I still do to provide a baseline for where to start my steady state work during a season transition. But I have found that the day to day variation in performance and heart rate is enough that it can be like trying to measure a soft turd with a micrometer. If you are doing polarized training, it's enough to just remember to go easy on easy days and hard on hard days. The key thing that effects how fast I am is the duration and consistency of training. All the fine tuning in the world doesn't make nearly as much difference as an extra 20 minutes of steady state 3 times a week.

Sorry for the long winded answer, but I've been stewing on this for a while.

[TomR]

has Stephen Seiler's article been posted previously?

http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm

This is as good a summary as I have seen.

[EFMAX]

I really got into the whole Heart Rate Training stuff when I was at college doing my sports course. I found at first (when I knew almost nothing about this stuff) my actual heart rates were nothing like the chart stuff.. then I took a leap of faith and did a real max heart rate test on a rower (and almost died) and realised that I was so far off the mark with everything plus my high blood pressure medication made a bit of a difference to things as well. What I discovered was my resting HR (in bed during the night readings) were crazy low (38 - 42bpm) and that my max was 205bpm.. what all that info did was to allow me to tailor my workouts to what I now knew.. in my case, I saw a few inches drop off my waist but equally as important was my strange ability to sustain hreart rates between 165bpm - 185bpm for what seem like boringly long periods of time..

I think the key to any use of heart rate bands is to first of all do a max or near max test and then work backwards from there because very few of the charts and guidelines are worked out just for you.