Heart Rate Zones Explained | Do They Even Matter?

heart rate zones have been used by athletes and coaches for as long as we've had portable heart rate monitors but are we at risk of becoming too obsessed with those numbers yeah well it's time to take a fresh look at heart rate training those what are they when to use them and when they could actually be limiting our training progression [Music] [Applause] [Music] I think we're being controversial questioning whether heart rate zones even matter well let me introduce olav Alexander boo coach of the two recent Iron Man world champions Christian Blumenfeld and Gustaf Eden when a recent Coach's Corner he had this response to Mark's questions on training zones zones should we stick to them religiously so for example you're out on an easy run you start seeing your heart rate drifting to zone three should you bring that heart rate down should you start walking up the hills to make sure it stays in zone two and things less what would you suggest I would always look at it in the context of what you are what's the purpose with the workout so if it's like a very important workout which has the goal of preparing you for a race or whether it's close to race or far away from a race I would rather allow for somebody to stick more to the Target in and and not care so much about heart rate and these kind of things for that kind of workout while if it's another workout that is more like a support workout for a workout that is going to prepare you then I would maybe think that okay what is a consequence if I really push through on this workout now leading into the next worker which I know is important for you and if you then think it okay if I push through an hour I'm uncertain this might actually become a little bit so that I'm too too fatigued into the important workout I'll release off and just say don't care about this one so zones I would say I'm not I don't care too much about I would rather stick more with what's the purpose of the workout and evaluate it in the context of whether it's in in worker way it's important to push through or actually is ease off instead yeah so it's like again a healthy balance yeah okay nice well now we drop that curveball let's rewind for a moment and revisit exactly what we mean by zones and how they came about in the first place before we go on to address some of Olaf's points [Music] now for the sake of this video we're actually going to focus on heart rate zones today of course there are power and pesos because heart rate zones are used across all three Sports in Triathlon we're going to use those for ease slightly now on that note your heart rate zones are not the same for all three Sports and that's because our max heart rate for each sport is different yeah well talking of the different zones they're usually broken into five one being super easy five being the top end really hard I'm in order to calculate them you're going to need to do a threshold test which is going to be hard but it will be worth it in the long run because it'll mean you can make your training far more effective and efficient yeah now you've probably heard of a good old FTP test the functional threshold power test used within cycling of course this refers to power but you can use heart rate and take your heart rate zones from this now this is simply just a 20 minute all out effort and then you'll take your average heart rate from that and then 95 off that in the Running World we'd recommend doing a solo 30 minute all out effort and then take your average pace and heart rate from that or you can do a 5 or 10k race should you like it then in swimming there's the critical swim speed test CSS this is a 400 meter and a 200 meter all-out effort you can take your heart rate from that although it's a little more tricky in swimming [Music] once you have these stats there are lots of online tools like Mark mentioned or an online training platform such as training Peaks which will actually simply do the math for you and it will give you your threshold heart rate and go one step further and even tell you your zones and as a guide your zones in percentage of your lactic threshold heart rate look like this and why not take a screenshot so you've got the reference there's no prizes for having a higher or lower lactate threshold heart rate the whole reason we're using these percentages is to make it specific to you it's not like VO2 max where we're striving to have the highest number possible that said your lactate threshold heart rate and your zones will change as your Fitness does so do make sure that you're testing on a regular basis to make sure it's accurate for you and and if you want a bit of guidance away from the scientific element to maybe you work off of more of a perceived effort to give you an idea of that scale Zone one would be very light zone two would be light and then when you get to zone three that's kind of moderate effort zone four is where the hard work happens and finally zone five well you're right up into the red working super hard then [Music] we'll soon realize if and when you do a threshold test just how hard they are and essentially anything above that is zone five now you'll find a lot of coaches out there maybe even using more zones some using less and they might focus on things like threshold sessions steady state efforts so maybe just easy recovery sessions yeah well that brings us on to when to use zones and why they can actually be really helpful if you're a coach and you're maybe coaching an athlete remotely or you're coaching a group who are at different levels of ability well when you can prescribe intensity and effort using zones it makes everything much more simple and more unified and a tip here if you use a Smart Watch then you should be able to actually or a sports watch you should be able to actually see your zones if you set it up so it recognizes your heart rate zones and you can then at a glance actually see what zone you're working in it's often color coordinated and you can't take that one step further if you've got a session where you need to stay say in zone two you can set parameters and it can actually your watch can beep at you if you go above or below it great well let's now take take a look at when you use what zones and the reasoning behind them one this is super light and easy to save pure blood flowing your muscles moving and prepping you for the next bit of quality work our zone two should feel light and should feel like you can keep going at that intensity for a long period of time in fact it's the sort of intensity that you will do probably a lot of your easier sessions and it's often referred to as the fat burning Zone because your body is more easily able to utilize fat for fuel and the requirement for carbohydrate is less zone three working in this zone is a specially efficient at getting the heart pumping and the blood flowing from your heart to your skeletal muscles and you can actually get a lot of bang for your buck in zone three but it's had a bad reputation in the past and it's even been labeled as the gray Zone with athletes in theory spending too much time doing all of their training in one zone but it can be overlooked is how useful this zone is as it's not actually going to be putting as much stress on your body as a zone four workout however you're still getting a lot of physiological benefits The Horizon 4 is where the going gets tough you're gonna be breathing hard and yet still working mostly aerobically this is the kind of intensity it's going to start helping to improve your speed endurance and also start to improve your ability to use carbohydrates for fuel and also start to withstand working at that height of intensity and then zone five this is where you're working at maximal effort thing you're not going to be spending very much time in this Zone but when you do want to train here you've got to turn up mentally and physically ready to push really hard and be prepared to experience lactic because it's going to build up pretty quickly and you're not going to be able to work in the zone for more than a couple of minutes at a time and if you're training for a half hour or an Iron Man you're not really going to need to do very much in zone five however if you're targeting a Sprint or Olympic and you want to really nail that Sprint finish then it could be useful now you'd like to think that with everything being based on heart rate that we can rely on this heart rate and zones irrespective of external factors unfortunately this is not the case with heart rate for example climate diet adrenaline fatigue even dehydration levels can all affect our heart rate so you want to bear this in mind when you are using heart rate and zones and actually maybe factor in a little bit of leeway in certain circumstances yeah and then it becomes a bit limited when you're working at that top end so if you're doing shorter or really sharp effort so anything in zone five and even if you're doing zone four work but for a short period of time you'll find that your heart doesn't really start to actually show the signs of this harder work until you're halfway through the effort or you've even finished the effort whereas it's these lower zones particularly zone two that is probably more effective making sure that you're staying in that aerobic Zone and training the correct systems which brings us back to olap's point the hard work should be really hard and the rest should support that yeah well coaching really is an art and I'll have is a master of that art but that isn't to say the heart rate can't help guide you when you're starting out and you're building up your training it's a really good reference point but it's a guide not gospel but I would love to know whether you train to heart rate or if you use zones or whether you just simply look at your heart rate as an extra reference do let us know in the comments section below yeah and if you enjoyed today's video please do get a thumbs up give it a like and please support the channel give us a subscribe

Channel: Global Triathlon Network

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Keywords: Olav Bu, zones, heart rate zones, threshold tests, calculate zones, how to, using zones, triathlon training, training, Olav Aleksander Bu, heart rate training, heart rate, fat burning, GTN, Global Triathlon Network, triathlon, Triathlon (Sport), tri, ironman, Sports, swimbikerun, triathlon skills, iron man, tri bike, triathlete, swimming, cycling, running, skills, coaching, ӱ, 4945, Վ, ኟ, Ᏸ, Ᏼ, ψ, Մ, Շ, Չ, Ջ, Ꮲ, ꖧ, ꔨ, Ꮥ, ᠫ, К, ꘖ, ೊ, ཙ, की, ፕ15, チ, zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, zone 4, zone 5

Id: yMTW4YU9Kfs

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 19 2023