Training effect on resting heart rate

[frankencrank]

Personally I would not put everything into resting HR to determine your level of fitness.

Your better off at looking at HR recovery rates AFTER intensive exercise.

...

The Apple Watch does that automatically now. I suppose others do that also or will soon if they don't.

My guess is that says more about being overtrained (or lack of sleep) than level of fitness but I am not sure.

[btlifter]

Personally I would not put everything into resting HR to determine your level of fitness.

Your better off at looking at HR recovery rates AFTER intensive exercise.

Its something I have pushed to be incorporated into the Concept 2 PM for years. The second you stop rowing the clock starts and the PM continues to log your rate of HR decay while you just sit on the rower. This is far more telling than just a low resting HR, which in itself tells you vey little unless you recorded it while you were very unfit as a comparison because you cannot do a direct comparison from yours to anyone else's.

The clock runs for 2 or 3 minutes and you look at the time for say a drop from 180 to 120bpm. This is a better test of your whole cardio system as the faster the recovery the fitter you are.

It used to take mine 3 minutes to go from 180 to 120 but it would plateau from that point and take another 2 or 3 minutes to get to below 100 because its an exponential type decay.

"100" was the magical figure but obviously it wants to be a set point between your MAX HR and your RESTING HR so the actual number will be different for everyone and only then can you start making some comparisons.

I used to do it all the time with just a stopwatch but it would be far better done on the monitor, it could even graph the decay and stop the clock at a preset HR and it could be stored in your LogBook as a "Recovery Time".

Get yourself a stopwatch and try it.

The only thing you need to be aware of its that short sprint peaks recover faster than say a session that stayed at you Max HR for a sustained period. You would have to compare apples with apples i.e. 30 minute rows with other 30 minute rows of similar intensity. Comparing say a 30min with a 2K that all you did is a short sprint finish at the end to spike your HR is not the same.

This seems like it would be a really great inclusion!

[aussie nick]

I can only offer my own experience with rowing this year, which may be a little helpful to the original question.

I hadn't done any conditioning work for years prior to Jan when I started rowing 3x per week....an interval , a 5-10k and a time trial. my RHR averaged about 68 when I started and within a few months it dropped to an average of 63/64 where it stayed til about July.

at that point, I added more steady distance to my training and an extra day/two days of training per week. So I was doing 1-2 intervals/AT type sessions and then 2-3 longer steady rows of 50-80 mins. Almost immediately, my RHR dropped to where it is now which is 57/58 ish. So my experience would be that the longer steady stuff and just more time in general training was what contributed.

I would also caution a little against using RHR as the be all and end all. When I was playing rugby, I used to win every beep test and other conditioning tests that my clubs held and never had a RHR below 55, whereas people with far lower RHR couldn't compete. I'm sure it's an excellent guide, but my guess would be that it's an indicator and not 'proof'. But again...I'm not an expert and haven't done any research on the subject

[aussie nick]

and yes....Carl, that would be a great inclusion...I'd love to use that

[frankencrank]

I can only offer my own experience with rowing this year, which may be a little helpful to the original question.

I hadn't done any conditioning work for years prior to Jan when I started rowing 3x per week....an interval , a 5-10k and a time trial. my RHR averaged about 68 when I started and within a few months it dropped to an average of 63/64 where it stayed til about July.

at that point, I added more steady distance to my training and an extra day/two days of training per week. So I was doing 1-2 intervals/AT type sessions and then 2-3 longer steady rows of 50-80 mins. Almost immediately, my RHR dropped to where it is now which is 57/58 ish. So my experience would be that the longer steady stuff and just more time in general training was what contributed.

I would also caution a little against using RHR as the be all and end all. When I was playing rugby, I used to win every beep test and other conditioning tests that my clubs held and never had a RHR below 55, whereas people with far lower RHR couldn't compete. I'm sure it's an excellent guide, but my guess would be that it's an indicator and not 'proof'. But again...I'm not an expert and haven't done any research on the subject

Let me make a comment about your rugby experience and aerobic fitness in general. The body tries to adapt to the stimulus it regularly sees. If the body sees the need for.a lot of strength it develops muscle fibers to facilitate that effort. If there is a lot of constant low intensity efforts (chasing down animals for instance) then it develops capillaries to deliver more oxygen to those muscles improving that ability. The muscles do not have enough room to have more muscle fibers and more capillaries so it is not possible to optimize both.

It is generally considered that the minimum effort to see any aerobic benefit is 20-30 minutes constant effort 3 X per week. The fitness tests for rugby players I suspect focused more on strength and speed and not traditional endurance (10k or longer run). I consider Rugby a burst sport, not much aerobic effort involved.

So, we are all a bit different. But, as you reported, as you have increased your aerobic training your RHR has come down. Continue what you are doing for another year it should come down some more a ibt. If you were to increase those long efforts to 5 days a week with 1 long row (2-2.5 hrs) with one rest day you would see it come down more.

The problem, of course, is few of us train to simply see how low we can get our RHR. We train to feel better, look better, or our races last 10 minutes. RHR has some usefulness to everyone to monitor overtraining or sleep for instance but it isn't an endpoint per say.

[Nomath]

Personally I would not put everything into resting HR to determine your level of fitness.

Your better off at looking at HR recovery rates AFTER intensive exercise.

Its something I have pushed to be incorporated into the Concept 2 PM for years. The second you stop rowing the clock starts and the PM continues to log your rate of HR decay while you just sit on the rower. This is far more telling than just a low resting HR, which in itself tells you vey little unless you recorded it while you were very unfit as a comparison because you cannot do a direct comparison from yours to anyone else's.

Roughly one year ago I made an effort to measure the heart rate recovery systematically after my daily 5K workout. I reported them in a previous topic : see viewtopic.php?f=4&t=190998&start=15#p506108
From these data I concluded that the HR-recovery in 1 minute after stopping exercise is more a measure of the intensity of the exercise rather than my fitness.


I happen to have a fairly high 1-minute recovery: a drop of 50-60 beats, except after a high-intensity workout. A scientific study of elite athletes showed that the average 1-min recovery is 30 ± 16 beats. I don't count myself amongst the elite

[frankencrank]

Personally I would not put everything into resting HR to determine your level of fitness.

Your better off at looking at HR recovery rates AFTER intensive exercise.

Its something I have pushed to be incorporated into the Concept 2 PM for years. The second you stop rowing the clock starts and the PM continues to log your rate of HR decay while you just sit on the rower. This is far more telling than just a low resting HR, which in itself tells you vey little unless you recorded it while you were very unfit as a comparison because you cannot do a direct comparison from yours to anyone else's.

Roughly one year ago I made an effort to measure the heart rate recovery systematically after my daily 5K workout. I reported them in a previous topic : see viewtopic.php?f=4&t=190998&start=15#p506108
From these data I concluded that the HR-recovery in 1 minute after stopping exercise is more a measure of the intensity of the exercise rather than my fitness.


I happen to have a fairly high 1-minute recovery: a drop of 50-60 beats, except after a high-intensity workout. A scientific study of elite athletes showed that the average 1-min recovery is 30 ± 16 beats. I don't count myself amongst the elite

Your data suggests the drop depends upon your oxygen debt when you stop. No oxygen debt the drop is pretty constant (maybe varying depending upon your training state or how much sleep you got, or other things) but when there is is substantial oxygen debt then it takes time to get things back in order.

[Carl Watts]

Your HR recovery rate depends on many factors and is a characteristic of your particular heart as well as your fitness. People with lower resting HR and lower Max can also have a larger heart so it moves more blood per beat. I guess like everything else about an Elite athlete there would be an ideal size of heart to start with.

Yes C2 should make 2 versions of the monitor firmware really.

The current version with the "Games" is ideal for the Gyms and every PM should leave the factory with this version installed. Gyms pretty much never maintain the rower let alone know about updating the Firmware.

Those people that get seriously into the indoor rowing become aware that the monitor needs other features in the "Games" other than the "Racing".

Serious people could jump on the C2 Website and update their monitor with the second optional firmware version. This could include things like the HR Recovery and maybe some other smart stuff that top level rowers could find useful that I don't know about because I'm not at that level of the sport.

[aussie nick]

The fitness tests for rugby players I suspect focused more on strength and speed and not traditional endurance (10k or longer run). I consider Rugby a burst sport, not much aerobic effort involved.

I was referring to the beep test. rugby does of course have many anaerobic demands but your ability to recover quickly enough to perform well for 80 minutes demands a really solid aerobic base. There's no point being strong, quick and powerful for 10 minutes.

[frankencrank]

The fitness tests for rugby players I suspect focused more on strength and speed and not traditional endurance (10k or longer run). I consider Rugby a burst sport, not much aerobic effort involved.

I was referring to the beep test. rugby does of course have many anaerobic demands but your ability to recover quickly enough to perform well for 80 minutes demands a really solid aerobic base. There's no point being strong, quick and powerful for 10 minutes.

I am not familiar with the beep test.

Sports like Rugby, and football (American), require a balance of strength, speed, and aerobic fitness. However, I would not call participants as having a "solid aerobic base" compared to a marathoner. It is a good aerobic base compared to chess players though.

The real problem, IMHO, in running sports is muscle balance. We are always limited by our weakest muscles aerobically. In running, that weakest muscle group, in most people, are the hip flexors, the muscles that bring the leg forward after ground contact. I figured this out as I was talking to running coaches trying to explain why my PowerCranks were so effective in helping runners. It was because they trained the hip flexors to become aerobic muscles and the equal of the other major leg muscles, especially the anti-gravity muscles that are easy to train. Muscle recovery requires blood flow. The muscle that gives out first will have the weakest blood flow which also means it will recover the slowest. A conundrum for sure.

[Tony Cook]

The fitness tests for rugby players I suspect focused more on strength and speed and not traditional endurance (10k or longer run). I consider Rugby a burst sport, not much aerobic effort involved.

So you know very little about the fitness requirements of a rugby player then.

[dabatey]

The fitness tests for rugby players I suspect focused more on strength and speed and not traditional endurance (10k or longer run). I consider Rugby a burst sport, not much aerobic effort involved.

I was referring to the beep test. rugby does of course have many anaerobic demands but your ability to recover quickly enough to perform well for 80 minutes demands a really solid aerobic base. There's no point being strong, quick and powerful for 10 minutes.

I am not familiar with the beep test.

Sports like Rugby, and football (American), require a balance of strength, speed, and aerobic fitness. However, I would not call participants as having a "solid aerobic base" compared to a marathoner. It is a good aerobic base compared to chess players though.

The real problem, IMHO, in running sports is muscle balance. We are always limited by our weakest muscles aerobically. In running, that weakest muscle group, in most people, are the hip flexors, the muscles that bring the leg forward after ground contact. I figured this out as I was talking to running coaches trying to explain why my PowerCranks were so effective in helping runners. It was because they trained the hip flexors to become aerobic muscles and the equal of the other major leg muscles, especially the anti-gravity muscles that are easy to train. Muscle recovery requires blood flow. The muscle that gives out first will have the weakest blood flow which also means it will recover the slowest. A conundrum for sure.

'The Beep Test' is a nickname for the 'Multi-Stage-Fitness-Test' used for assessing VO2 max. A quick google will tell you all about it.

[frankencrank]

The fitness tests for rugby players I suspect focused more on strength and speed and not traditional endurance (10k or longer run). I consider Rugby a burst sport, not much aerobic effort involved.

So you know very little about the fitness requirements of a rugby player then.

I have watched the game. I have played similar sports and I have rowed at the collegiate level and run marathons and ultra-marathons and finished Ironman triathlons. And, I am a physician. I feel I have a pretty good sense of the aerobic fitness requirements of different sports. One doesn't have to have done a sport to understand the aerobic requirements are different for weight lifters and marathoners.

[frankencrank]

'The Beep Test' is a nickname for the 'Multi-Stage-Fitness-Test' used for assessing VO2 max. A quick google will tell you all about it.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the estimate of VO2max from the beep test

Do note that such estimations are fraught with difficulty as test scores, while substantially dependent on VO2 max, also depend on running efficiency, test familiarity, anaerobic capacity, personal drive, ambient temperature, running equipment (floor, shoes) and other factors.

A rugby player who does well on the beep test can probably finish a marathon, just not very fast. That is because his training doesn't emphasize aerobic fitness but looks to attain a well rounded fitness that includes anaerobic and strength efforts.

In my best shape I would probably test not very well because I have zero speed. I could run forever but my sprint or mile was atrocious. Now an elite marathoner who can run 26 miles at a 4 minute pace, that is something. Not many rugby players can do that.

[Tony Cook]

The fitness tests for rugby players I suspect focused more on strength and speed and not traditional endurance (10k or longer run). I consider Rugby a burst sport, not much aerobic effort involved.

So you know very little about the fitness requirements of a rugby player then.

I have watched the game. I have played similar sports and I have rowed at the collegiate level and run marathons and ultra-marathons and finished Ironman triathlons. And, I am a physician. I feel I have a pretty good sense of the aerobic fitness requirements of different sports. One doesn't have to have done a sport to understand the aerobic requirements are different for weight lifters and marathoners.

You have shown your ignorance of the fitness requirements of rugby players by your comments.
As with all sports there are the casual, social players who won’t be very fit, and the professional/elite players who are very fit across the whole range of aerobic, anaerobic, strength, power, agility fitness required to perform at that level.
You are, of course correct, in that different sports require different balances of fitness.
I can say with certainty that Mo Farah couldn’t survive in the front row of a rugby scrum, or tackle a 120Kg prop running at him but that doesn’t make him unfit. No more than that 120kg prop being unable to run a 3 hour marathon makes him unfit, aerobically or otherwise.