Heart Rate Zones

[Dangerscouse]

I am currently doing some sessions of 45 min or 60 min at around 80%, with some short peaks at 90-91% of my max HR.
Do you think it is useful to improve my stamina or should I aim for lower figures?

There's a split between people who say circa 70% and circa 80%, so I'm not sure as Eric Murray advocates 80%.

I'd probably mix it up and do both to see how you recover from each session as that is arguably the most important thing. After all, HR is quite a fickle measurement as it's affected by stress, heat, thirst and even momentary thoughts. Try and get something that measures your true average, rather than the C2's result as I find it can be as much as 5bpm higher on the monitor

[Maldini3]

@Dangerscouse
Thanks a lot, I will do as yousuggest. But do you think that training as I do is useful and not harmful?

[Dangerscouse]

@Dangerscouse
Thanks a lot, I will do as yousuggest. But do you think that training as I do is useful and not harmful?

It's useful, but you ideally need to find what's most useful for you, as there's no way of telling what will be most effective for you. This needs to be a slow process of trial and error, and seeing how you recover: you can only train as hard as you can rest.

I quite often throw in 85% HR sessions as I like the effort required, but it's not something that is ever advised, at least on a medium to long term basis, as it's neither hard enough or easy enough.

As we are all just amateurs, enjoyment is a big consideration too, so I do like to change things depending on mood and energy.

[Tsnor]

There's a split between people who say circa 70% and circa 80%, so I'm not sure as Eric Murray advocates 80%.

FWIW the first lactate threshold is roughly 78% of max heart rate. On AVERAGE. But the goal here is for YOU to stay under it, and not that mythical average person. So coaches advice 70-75% a lot of the time to try to get everyone under. Eric Murray may well be under it at 80%.

For someone training without access to lactate testing the safe route is to target 70-75%, especially if you are the sort of person who will push 75% up to 77% or 80% before dropping load back down a bit.

If you monitor resting heart rate and your choice of effort level pushes the zone 1 work into zone 2, and you do a LOT of zone 1 work you will see your resting heart rate go up not down. If resting heart rate is falling then what you are doing is working, and you maybe have even a bit more room. If resting HR is rising then back off your zone1/zone2 boundary wherever you set it, even down below 70%.

[btlifter]

There's a split between people who say circa 70% and circa 80%, so I'm not sure as Eric Murray advocates 80%.

FWIW the first lactate threshold is roughly 78% of max heart rate. On AVERAGE. But the goal here is for YOU to stay under it, and not that mythical average person. So coaches advice 70-75% a lot of the time to try to get everyone under. Eric Murray may well be under it at 80%.

For someone training without access to lactate testing the safe route is to target 70-75%, especially if you are the sort of person who will push 75% up to 77% or 80% before dropping load back down a bit.

If you monitor resting heart rate and your choice of effort level pushes the zone 1 work into zone 2, and you do a LOT of zone 1 work you will see your resting heart rate go up not down. If resting heart rate is falling then what you are doing is working, and you maybe have even a bit more room. If resting HR is rising then back off your zone1/zone2 boundary wherever you set it, even down below 70%.

Sorry for being off topic, but are you able to point to where 78% is shown as the average for the first LT? I thought I remember reading that the average was about 70%.

[Tsnor]

Sorry for being off topic, but are you able to point to where 78% is shown as the average for the first LT? I thought I remember reading that the average was about 70%.

I thought I heard it in one of the Fast Talk Labs podcasts (https://www.fasttalklabs.com/) where the discussion was "but isn't 78% the actual average? Yes, but people make the upper bound into the target then get into trouble, so I tell people to use 70 or 75%" but could not find the reference.

At 14:26 in this video of Seiler teaching rowing coaches you can see his slide of the 3 tier model has 78% of max HR as the divide between zone1 and zone 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l1qUftZurw (zone 1 was 55-78%, zone 2 was 78% to 86% and zone 3 was 86 to 100%)

I tried googling and was unable to find anything definitive pointing to 78% or any other number. A quick check of a medical study to see how it defined zone 1 found they were using per athlete lactate testing rather than an estimation formula which makes sense.

Net: I can't point you to where this is the average in any study. So I wish I hadn't said it was. But there is some supporting data that 78% is a reasonable number.

[btlifter]

Sorry for being off topic, but are you able to point to where 78% is shown as the average for the first LT? I thought I remember reading that the average was about 70%.

I thought I heard it in one of the Fast Talk Labs podcasts (https://www.fasttalklabs.com/) where the discussion was "but isn't 78% the actual average? Yes, but people make the upper bound into the target then get into trouble, so I tell people to use 70 or 75%" but could not find the reference.

At 14:26 in this video of Seiler teaching rowing coaches you can see his slide of the 3 tier model has 78% of max HR as the divide between zone1 and zone 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l1qUftZurw (zone 1 was 55-78%, zone 2 was 78% to 86% and zone 3 was 86 to 100%)

I tried googling and was unable to find anything definitive pointing to 78% or any other number. A quick check of a medical study to see how it defined zone 1 found they were using per athlete lactate testing rather than an estimation formula which makes sense.

Net: I can't point you to where this is the average in any study. So I wish I hadn't said it was. But there is some supporting data that 78% is a reasonable number.

You've consistently provided well-supported ideas and critical thought to this forum.

As far as I'm concerned, that more than affords you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sharing information - even if unable to definitely support it with research!

[Tsnor]

You've consistently provided well-supported ideas and critical thought to this forum.

As far as I'm concerned, that more than affords you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sharing information - even if unable to definitely support it with research!

The impact of support/encouragement is amazing. TY.

[Dangerscouse]

You've consistently provided well-supported ideas and critical thought to this forum.

As far as I'm concerned, that more than affords you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sharing information - even if unable to definitely support it with research!

The impact of support/encouragement is amazing. TY.

I wholeheartedly agree with Cam's comment. Your veracity is not in doubt.

[bobsacamano]

I tried googling and was unable to find anything definitive pointing to 78% or any other number. A quick check of a medical study to see how it defined zone 1 found they were using per athlete lactate testing rather than an estimation formula which makes sense.

Net: I can't point you to where this is the average in any study. So I wish I hadn't said it was. But there is some supporting data that 78% is a reasonable number.

Yep, I think 'reasonable' is the key here. I think Seiler and others would argue that we should all stop stressing about the exact number because that number is a mirage; it is entirely dependent on the sport, on the athlete, on the duration of the workout, etc. When we all get into this literature (particularly the secondary literature which is a little loosey-goosey with their use of terminology), it seems super inconsistent and frustrating ("AAARGH! How can the same zones have different HR in different systems! What am I supposed to use?!"). But the more we all read, the more we realize that these are all just guidelines. In the same presentation you link to, Seiler actually has back-to-back graphs that show VT1/LT1 at 80% MaxHR and then 78% MaxHR in the very next slide. And then later in the same presentation he shows yet another graph where "Below VT1=68%+/-7 HRMax & Threshold = 88%+/-2 HRMax. So, clearly he isn't particularly tied to one strict definition over another (probably because different research protocols used different cutoffs). And if Stephen Seiler isn't stressed about it, then I guess I probably should be either, right? And even if we could identify a single cutoff (say, 78%), which we can't really because it is so individual, he then reminds us that even this number wouldn't be static because it will drop the longer the workout goes (i.e., even an easy green workout can become stressful yellow if you do it long enough). It is good enough to say that the VT1/LT1 is roughly somewhere between 70-82% as a neighbourhood to go hunting for it, and then if you don't have lactate testing to help refine that range (which itself is individual and doesn't have a set # either), just fool around with different paces/watts until you can figure out what you can sustain for an hour or more without much HR drift and or you can still talk easily. That might be 78%, it might be 73%, it might be 80%. But once you've got it figured out, the good news is that it appears to be really stable even as fitness improves. So, for those of us who stress about the numbers, the best strategy is probably to just do a few weeks of easy 1 hour steady-state rows at at various paces that get us into that 70-80% range after 15-20 mins and then see if we can sustain it for another 45+ mins without much drift. Rinse-repeat. (but use a fan and open your windows!).

[Jerome]

I tried googling and was unable to find anything definitive pointing to 78% or any other number. A quick check of a medical study to see how it defined zone 1 found they were using per athlete lactate testing rather than an estimation formula which makes sense.

Net: I can't point you to where this is the average in any study. So I wish I hadn't said it was. But there is some supporting data that 78% is a reasonable number.

Yep, I think 'reasonable' is the key here. I think Seiler and others would argue that we should all stop stressing about the exact number because that number is a mirage; it is entirely dependent on the sport, on the athlete, on the duration of the workout, etc. When we all get into this literature (particularly the secondary literature which is a little loosey-goosey with their use of terminology), it seems super inconsistent and frustrating ("AAARGH! How can the same zones have different HR in different systems! What am I supposed to use?!"). But the more we all read, the more we realize that these are all just guidelines. In the same presentation you link to, Seiler actually has back-to-back graphs that show VT1/LT1 at 80% MaxHR and then 78% MaxHR in the very next slide. And then later in the same presentation he shows yet another graph where "Below VT1=68%+/-7 HRMax & Threshold = 88%+/-2 HRMax. So, clearly he isn't particularly tied to one strict definition over another (probably because different research protocols used different cutoffs). And if Stephen Seiler isn't stressed about it, then I guess I probably should be either, right? And even if we could identify a single cutoff (say, 78%), which we can't really because it is so individual, he then reminds us that even this number wouldn't be static because it will drop the longer the workout goes (i.e., even an easy green workout can become stressful yellow if you do it long enough). It is good enough to say that the VT1/LT1 is roughly somewhere between 70-82% as a neighbourhood to go hunting for it, and then if you don't have lactate testing to help refine that range (which itself is individual and doesn't have a set # either), just fool around with different paces/watts until you can figure out what you can sustain for an hour or more without much HR drift and or you can still talk easily. That might be 78%, it might be 73%, it might be 80%. But once you've got it figured out, the good news is that it appears to be really stable even as fitness improves. So, for those of us who stress about the numbers, the best strategy is probably to just do a few weeks of easy 1 hour steady-state rows at at various paces that get us into that 70-80% range after 15-20 mins and then see if we can sustain it for another 45+ mins without much drift. Rinse-repeat. (but use a fan and open your windows!).

This is a very sensible post, thanks!

[Jerome]

You've consistently provided well-supported ideas and critical thought to this forum.

As far as I'm concerned, that more than affords you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sharing information - even if unable to definitely support it with research!

The impact of support/encouragement is amazing. TY.

I wholeheartedly agree with Cam's comment. Your veracity is not in doubt.

And I would also like to subscribe this! It’s excellent to see information backed by sources, instead op hearsay etc. Transparency on the (un)availability of the origin always enhances the value of what is being said.