Running Training With a Heart Monitor

After you have purchased your running clothing & shoes the next essential item to purchase is heart rate monitor.

This device will help to obtain the maximum benefit from your training schedule. It will enable you to gauge your training effects and critical will stop you overtrainig.

Far too many athlete train at too high level due recovery runs. The motto is Stress followed by regular recovery will make you the perfect athlete.

MAXIMUM HEART RATE

Before we discuss training zones we need to find your maximum heart rate.
Make sure you are fully rested before taking this test as it is very stressful!!
You need to find a short running course. I personally use my local school field.
Run for 10 minutes at 120 BPM
Then every 1 minutes increase heart rate by 5 beats until you are unable to increase it further.
Run for further 10 to cool down.
Repeat this test the following week to find a constant value for your body

RESTING HEART RATE

Take this reading shortly after you wake up. Average the reading over 1 minute. Repeat this over several days. The resting pulse is useful in informing you at what state of recovery your body is in.

Training Zones

I recommend use the adjusted system as we do not all have the same training histories. The training zones will be effected by your resting pulse.

The formula to use is the following:

Maximum heart - Resting pulse( X Effort %) + Resting pulse

I will now use myself as a example

Tempo Run 185 - 35 X 85 + 35 = 162 BPM

50-60 Recovery Runs - To enable you to recover from your hard sessions
60-70 Slow Runs - Will improve your fat burning abilities
70-80 Medium Runs - Improves your aerobic take up.
85 Tempo Runs - Anaerobic threshold training teaches to run at a hard pace
90 Intervals - Pure racing speed adaption - will develop your top end speed

I will be going into further details on the specific training sessions in future articles.

Running for over 20 years
My Blog is at http://runnerssphere.wordpress.com/

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