Low HR Training

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Hmmmmmmmm (Read 453 times)

    Well today I decided to dig out my polar heart rate moniter (couldn't get dh's to fit me for some reason) to use for this mornings run. It was really weird wearing my garmin on one hand and my HR watch on the other but I managed. I did 5 miles with an average HR of 144 with a high of 156. I live in a really hilly area so it's going to be tough for me to get lower but I'm going to keep trying. I looked at some of my old runs that I did using my Polar and OMG. I had a 5 miler (in freezing wind I might add) done on 2-9-2007. Now it must of been because I was freezing my a$$ off and was in a hurry to get home. Anyways my Average hr was 172 with a max of 205 (the same route). Another 5.5 miler (same route just a little further)done 1-23-2007 with an average hr of 158 with a max of 176. Now todays run was about 17 seconds slower a mile but MUCH MUCH easier than any run I've done lately (since I really focused on staying low). Anyway I feel I've made some decent progress. Now if I can get my average hr down to 135 or so.

    Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head." - Joe Henderson


    Wasatch Speedgoat

      Why do you want your HR down to 135? That is quite low for you and might not even give you a good training effect. Even if you used Maffetone's formula of 180-age, which i think is low....you get 142. If you've been running for awhile, add 5 to that for 147. That would be your top number, so your range would be 137-147. Now looking at what you think might be your max HR and you don't say what your resting is, so let's say 55 as an example. 205 (max) -55 (resting) = 151. That's your base number... 151 x .7 = 105.7 + 55 (add back the resting) = 160.7! Training at 70% MHR is considered a good HR for building your aerobic base. 60% would be 145.6....that's considered a very low training pace and used for recovery from races and hard workouts. You could run most of your workouts at 146, but i wouldn't go much lower than that. Most coaches would tell you to train at 70-75%, which for you would be 161-168!! So don't go TOO low or you won't be training hard enough...if you do really want to train low just use Maffetone's zone of 137-147. A typical workout would be starting easily, slowly ramping up to 137 and somewhere in the middle of the run you would be at 147, hold that for a bit and in the last 15 min's of your workout, start ramping it back down to 137, walking the past 5 minutes. Good luck! Steve

      Life is short, play hard!

        Why do you want your HR down to 135? That is quite low for you and might not even give you a good training effect. Even if you used Maffetone's formula of 180-age, which i think is low....you get 142. If you've been running for awhile, add 5 to that for 147. That would be your top number, so your range would be 137-147. Now looking at what you think might be your max HR and you don't say what your resting is, so let's say 55 as an example. 205 (max) -55 (resting) = 151. That's your base number... 151 x .7 = 105.7 + 55 (add back the resting) = 160.7! Training at 70% MHR is considered a good HR for building your aerobic base. 60% would be 145.6....that's considered a very low training pace and used for recovery from races and hard workouts. You could run most of your workouts at 146, but i wouldn't go much lower than that. Most coaches would tell you to train at 70-75%, which for you would be 161-168!! So don't go TOO low or you won't be training hard enough...if you do really want to train low just use Maffetone's zone of 137-147. A typical workout would be starting easily, slowly ramping up to 137 and somewhere in the middle of the run you would be at 147, hold that for a bit and in the last 15 min's of your workout, start ramping it back down to 137, walking the past 5 minutes. Good luck! Steve
        Thanks for the input Steve!!! I've never bothered caclulating the whole 60% 70% etc. I just figured that being as old I am that I would need to be running a bit lower than 144 . I always second guess myself and feel that I should be doing it differently , but after your post I won't be trying to get down to 135. I think I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

        Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head." - Joe Henderson


        Wasatch Speedgoat

          Old???? Ha! You're a kid!! Smile I'm 55 year's old, have been running between 60-80 mpw the past 6 months. Listen to your heart, but don't let it rule you....eventually you should be able to leave the HRM at home and know by feel how hard or easy you should be running on any particular day. Get Stu Mittleman's book, Slow Burn...in there he tells you how you should feel at different heart rates, then you'll be on your way to breaking free of the gadgets. Another thing you could do is check out the post on finding your MaxHR and on a day you are well rested, do that test and then wear your HRM to bed every night for a week, look at what your HR is when you wake up and before you move at all, then take the average over the week. With those two numbers you can really pinpoint your zones....and if you don't care that much about racing, then just stay in the aerobic zone of 70%. Good luck!

          Life is short, play hard!

            Guess having 5 kids makes ya feel old, especially when one is almost 18. As for not letting the HR rule me. No chance of that. I got it in December. Used it in Jan and Feb then dropped it once I got my Garmin 205. I plan on using it for my recovery runs the next few months. Since I'm trying to keep my milage high and getting much higher in another month or two, want to make sure I'm not running my recovery runs too hard. One of these days I'm going to do that test to find out what my "max" hr is. Guess for me it hasn't been all that important due to just running by how I'm feeling. But now that I'm looking at my fall marathons and wanting to finish with a certain average pace, I'm trying to be more efficient. Oh and thanks again!

            Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head." - Joe Henderson