Got a HR monitor... Now what?

[Carl Watts]

Bear in mind you've got 20kg and a few inches on me ...without going down that rabbit hole again

True plus almost 15 years older than you obviously gives me a big advantage, call it "Experience" !

[aussieluke]

Bear in mind you've got 20kg and a few inches on me ...without going down that rabbit hole again

True plus almost 15 years older than you obviously gives me a big advantage, call it "Experience" !

Well as i only have 4 months' experience on the erg I'd say that probably helps.

[aussieluke]

Anyway tonight's training was interesting... Dropped the df to 115 on my home machine and did 10k at 2:07.3 - which would have been significantly faster too had I not had to get off and plug in and adjust the fan part way through - probably a 30 second stoppage in the end. Most of the piece was at 2:05/2:06, yet I had trouble getting my HR to 140 for the first 5k, and after that it pretty much stayed there apart from a few times when I pulled a few strokes at around 2:00 and it crept up to 143.

Differences? I was using lower df (from 125 > 115)
I was wearing a different HR strap (a newer Garmin soft strap that I got today with a barely used GPS watch)

Did I get a lot fitter overnight? Or can the df make that much difference?

Also noted that my stroke felt a lot better and snappier again at that df. Could have pulled a lot faster if I'd wanted.

[G-dub]

I find at the same rate but different drags my HR is different. Higher drag higher HR generally for me. But Luke, you seem to be wanting to race this type of training at the moment. Either that or the vagaries of HR training are blowing your mind. It's all good. Use HR, pace, breathing and feel to triangulate it a bit. If you get hung up on HR too much, you will go nuts, I think.

[left coaster]

Eventually I just stopped using my HR monitor. My heart continues to beat, slow at rest, fast when doing stuff, in the middle when doing stuff with moderate effort....

I found myself getting really fixated on my HR during rows and came to conclude that it was slowing me down. I also went down a strange rabbit hole of anxiety about perhaps being a low-max HR person, or perhaps I had a thyroid condition, or? all because my heart rate wouldn't scream up into the 180's like I see others do. In the end I decided that I was so fixated on my HR during rows that it was acting like a damper for my effort level -- I'd start to creep past 145 and begin the internal self talk. It would go something like "I wonder if I'm a low-max person, is my HR going to high? If I have a thyroid condition is spiking my HR beyond this risky? What if my heart is just royally f'd - will have a heart attack if I break 160" bla bla bla... just silly -- and definitely a distraction that was counter productive.

The final straw was when my HR strap began to malfunction. Of course it malfunctioned in a way that compounded my HR anxieties i.e. it started just reading double what my HR actually was. This got me thinking that perhaps my two heart chambers beating too far apart, more bla bla bla illogical nonsense that happens in the middle of hard endurance exercise.

Set that thing on a shelf a few months ago and haven't touched it since. I've been told I have a tendency to over think things -- this situation provided me with some hard evidence of others observations

[aussieluke]

I do always have one eye on the pace, though I am trying not to worry about it now.

The main concern tonight was how could my HR be so much lower and how hard did I need to pull to get my HR to where I wanted it to be.

[aussieluke]

Coaster, I'm not freaking out about it, in fact in the last couple of weeks since adding the monitor and keeping the bulk of my training in a definitely aerobic level, I've found I can train longer more regularly, my appetite has stopped being insane and I can train while hunger and don't want to eat everything in sight after like I did before.

I am really enjoying training this way - I just want to make sure I'm not training TOO easy, too

[left coaster]

I'm just sharing my personal experience, not implying it is yours.

[hjs]

Bear in mind you've got 20kg and a few inches on me ...without going down that rabbit hole again

True plus almost 15 years older than you obviously gives me a big advantage, call it "Experience" !

Well as i only have 4 months' experience on the erg I'd say that probably helps.

Its not about weight, its about lean weight!

[Carl Watts]

Very true but you not going to get that information from many people are you ? cannot even get most peoples weight and height or even their name round here so good luck getting body fat percentages !!

[hjs]

Very true but you not going to get that information from many people are you ? cannot even get most peoples weight and height or even their name round here so good luck getting body fat percentages !!

No, most people don,t know there % of fat, but just looking at weight is pretty stupid. You may be 100kg, but thats ofcourse not the 100kg a olympic rower has. Very different bodytype.

Same goes for me, not a natural aerobic type, and relative to height heavy.

[jackarabit]

Luke, you began by recognizing and using the organizing principle of low aerobic and high areobic training but the great slushpile of HR info led you to misinterpret zone boundaries. Carl sorted you out with a good HR zone generator. You got your max and resting, did your calc, and you're on your way. Monitor pace or power or HR or all three. Cap one or the other to stay in chosen zone. Stay with 115df for several months. Decide for yourself if the faster drive translates as higher pace.

[aussieluke]

Cheers Jackarabit

Good summary. I think the confusing thing is in rowing there are a lot of variables.

...In contrast to something like running, where when it comes to HR based training, you work out your HR zone, then just run - and either speed up or slow down!

[Carl Watts]

I thought some others guys like Greg would have chipped in here, he had a breakdown of the time spent in each training zone and the majority of work is done in the UT1 and UT2 area.

Personally I'm only looking at the AVERAGE heartrate for the row and am not breaking it down into the HR bands so obviously some time is spent in the AT or even the TR towards the end of the row if there is the feeling to sprint the finish.

Pretty much not into screeds and spreadsheets of data, try to keep it simple here not training for Rio. When you first start out exercising the gains are huge in the first 3 to 6 months and its easy to see the drop in HR. After that its just "Maintenance" from the age of 45 onward, you happy to stay the same in terms of fitness rather than going backwards.

The rower for me is much easier than running in the control of your HR, for starters its easier to see second by second on the screen in front of you and the pace and rating gives you great control. A given rating, pace and distance/time produces very constant results.

[bisqeet]

I would recommend a retest of rest hr and max hr, every few months. Both can be trained to an extent.
It's only a year ago that a 2:00/500 @r26 was my 10k pace and that was a sweaty slogfest.hr was about 155 for those rates.
A lot of meters in the saddle, a lot of advice, a 3 month stint of the Pete plan helped.
Admittedly my hashimoto effects my heart rates a lot (rest =42, max ? I saw 176, but who knows), but my present workload 5+ hm a week are nearly all at ut2 pace; r20 ,2:05, hr < 132
You are doing great. I think the key is loss of meters at a very low pace. Don't be tempted to go faster cos its easy. Too easy to build up lactate that effects the next days training....
Slow and steady produces the best results... in my h. Opinion