Heart rate zone training

What are heart rate zones?

Heart rate zones are a series of predetermined ranges of an athletes heart rate relating to a set intensity of exercise. The actual BPM of each zone will vary quite a lot from athlete to athlete, however the actual effort that each athlete is working at will be roughly the same. 

Depending on what literature you read, there can be anything from 5 to 8 hr zones, and other coaches even split the upper zones into "sub zones". When I'm producing zones for the athletes that I coach, I tend to group the 3 sub zones together that are sometimes used in zone 5, although this is mainly for simplicity and ease of use for the athlete.The zones that I use range from Zone 1, which is the easiest level of exercise, up to zone 5 which is Threshold and above. 

I've heard people say things like using zone 1 or 2 for fat burning, but in my opinion, this is the wrong way to look at it for endurance athletes. In it's very crudest form, we'll burn fat at all intensities of exercise and some studies suggest that we'll burn more fat at higher intensities. That said, it also depends on whether you've eaten and what it was, before exercising as this will relate to what fuel source your body will use first. In order to change the way that we think about zones, instead of thinking about their fat burning efficiency, think about what energy system being used in each zone is intended to work on. 

In zone 1 and zone 2 you're working at the bottom end of the aerobic zone and this is the area or intensity that approx 75% of your training should be done in, if you're an endurance athlete. No matter what distance of triathlon you're doing, it's an aerobic sport and so that's the energy system that you need to pay most attention to. When people talk about using zone 2 for fat burning, what's really meant is that if you're doing a long aerobic session on the bike, or a long zone 2 run, in order to maximise the way that your body will utilise fat as a fuel source is to start off in a fasted state, then you're "forcing" your body to utilise fat as a fuel source which is a highly efficient way to fuel yourself during a long race, even though you'll still need to maintain an intake of roughly 60g of carbohydrate per hour in order to keep glycogen stores topped up. On a sprint or standard distance triathlon you can get away with using gels, or similar, as a fuel source, but on a 70.3 or 140.6 distance race you need to pay extremely close attention to how you fuel for it. 

But I digress, back to zones. 

So, now we know that zones 1 and 2 are aerobic zones, this means that when you're training in these zones you're actively developing the efficiency at which your body synthesizes something called ATP. ATP or Adenosine Triphosphate stores and transports chemical energy and is what converts chemical energy into physical energy at a cellular level. Within the ATP are organelles called mitochondria and these are often referred to as the power house of the cells all of which can be developed and increased in number during zone 2 training. Therefore, when you're working in zone 2 you're developing your aerobic fitness at a cellular level, which will yield massive results the more you do and the longer you do it for. It's because of these factors and the way that we develop our aerobic fitness that triathletes and distance runners / cyclists and swimmers do as much as 80% of their training at zone 2. It takes months and months, but with correct structure, progression and recovery, the results speak for themselves.

Zone 3 is also an aerobic zone but it's what we often refer to as tempo and depending on which coaches you speak to, or what literature you read, this can be a bit of a grey zone because it's working at the very upper limits of the aerobic system, but it's not hard enough to push into the threshold and anaerobic systems. So it's not developing your aerobic fitness as well as the zone 1 or 2 stuff and it's not making you faster and stronger as the sessions done at threshold and above are. 

So then we start getting up to zones 4 and 5. Depending on the formula that you use to determine your heart rate zones, your threshold will be somewhere between mid zone 4 and the bottom of zone 5. In these zones you're working hard and although you're not developing your aerobic fitness as much, your speed will improve and your body will get more efficient at processing the lactic acid that you're producing. You'll also become efficient at utilising carbohydrates as a fuel source. As you push above your threshold your heart and lungs are working pretty much to their max and the lactic acid will build up in your blood to a level that you won't be able to continue exercising at. When you reach the point where you can't breathe any faster, you will have reached what's called your VO2 max - your maximum capacity of oxygen use, the higher your VO2 max, the fitter you are. These high intensity interval sessions are good for building up the body's resistance to lactic and will help promote fast twitch muscle fibres to fire and work. However, because the benefits for endurance athletes lie within zone 2 aerobic training, we try to limit the amount of high intensity sessions that we do to a max of 25% of our training. 

Calculating HR Zones

There are quite a few different formulae that can be used to determine your HR zones. The most basic of these is the 220 minus age formula, which will give you your theoretical max heart rate, which you can then use to set your zones as percentages of that. The main issue with this is that it doesn't take into account any underlying issues that you may have. Some people have a slower heart rate, sometimes because of medical reasons and others because of medication. Similarly, others may have a higher heart rate. 

The method I prefer to use is to do a test to determine your max hr and then work it out off that. To do this a running track is ideal because it's so flat, so there are no fluctuations caused by gradients etc. Start off by doing a good warm up for around 20 mins, to include some drills and strides etc. then carry out a 20 minute test. To do the test, the easiest way to do it is to have a run specific watch like a Garmin etc. Start off at a pace that you can just about manage to hold for 20 minutes, after the first 5 minutes, press lap on your watch and continue to run for the next 15 mins. By the time you finish your test you should be at a max effort and should struggle to go much further. Ideally, there should only be a few BPM between your average and max hr, as you'll learn that you can hold a high intensity for the duration of the whole 20 minutes. When you've finished the test take the data from the 15 mins of the test, looking at the average and max hr. These can then be used to set your zones. If you're using the max heart rate, zones can be set as:

Zone 1 - 50-60% max

Zone 2 - 60-70% max

Zone 3 - 70-80% max

Zone 4 - 80-90% max

Zone 5 - 90-100% max

Your average heart rate for the 15 mins of the test is what we refer to as threshold. This isn't the most scientific way of determining your threshold though. To do that you need to do testing in a laboratory environment where blood samples are taken at various intervals to determine lactate levels within the blood. The reason why we don't use the data from the first 5 mins of the test is because for this period you'll be settling into the test and your heart rate will still be rising to near max. 

What you'll notice as you do more and more of the tests is that your max heart rate will gradually become more consistent across the tests as you develop as an athlete and learn how hard you can push yourself

Using the RPE method

RPE refers to Rate of Perceived Exertion and is usually on a scale of 1 - 10 or 1 - 20. This scale is called the Borg scale and can be used to measure how hard your training sessions are. If you think of Zone 1 being the very easiest of exercise, probably a very fast walk and zone 5 being the hardest effort you can imagine and then look at that on a scale of 1 to 10, it'll give you a good indicator of how to grade your effort

Summary

So to summarise very briefly, try and complete at least 75% of your training at zone 2 to increase your aerobic efficiency during a race or training session and complete the other 25% at a very high intensity to promote lactate tolerance and to develop speed. I can't stress enough just how important zone 2 training is though and without it or with not enough of it you'll not reach your potential within endurance sports. 

If you'd like to speak more about your goals and ambitions and how I can help you on your triathlon journey, click on the link below which will take you to my coaching Facebook page, where I can be contacted through

Certa Cito Tri Coaching

The importance of recovery

We've all done it, finished a big session, swam, ran or cycled our blood to water and what do we do when we've finished? Just jump in the car, go home, have a shower and chill out, often neglecting to refuel and / or rehydrate properly.

There are many different ways that we can and should recover after a training session, whether it's just doing some stretches, foam rolling or eating and drinking the correct food. Some even go so far as to have an ice bath (bbrrrrrr).

Before we can start thinking about how and what we should be doing to help our bodies recover, it's a good idea to know what happens to your body during and immediately after training or racing

During exercise

The first thing you'll notice as you start a training session or race is your breathing increases and your heart rate rises. This is to supply your muscles with more oxygen and to provide your brain with more blood, which can help you to feel more focused and there will also be a number of "feel good" neurotransmitters are also triggered, such as the endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, glutamate, and GABA. Some of these are well-known for their role in mood control, which is why we can feel elated or content after a hard training session or race.

If it's a hard intervals session, as you continue through the session your body will be using carbohydrate as its primary fuel source because the body wont be able to metabolize fat for fuel efficiently at this intensity and your muscles will be using the glycogen stored within them for fuel. At a cellular level the skeletal muscle will be synthesizing something called Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) in order to produce the muscle contractions that we need to move. In order to produce more and more ATP we need to increase our oxygen intake, so your breathing rate and heart rate will continue to increase. We can actually develop how well our body synthesizes and produces ATP by doing a lot of zone 2 or lower aerobic training, which will mean that we're far more efficient as athletes, more info on zone 2 training and how it works can be found on the links below:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/zone-2-training-for-endurance-athletes/

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-power-and-importance-of-mitochondria/

When you reach the point where you can't breathe any faster, you will have reached what's called your VO2 max - your maximum capacity of oxygen use, the higher your VO2 max, the fitter you are. As you progress through the session and your muscles start to fatigue and you can't take in enough oxygen to fuel the muscles, your muscles will start to fill with lactic acid, which is when you'll start to "feel the burn" or are heavy legged etc. At the same time, while you're exercising hard, your muscles are being pushed literally to breaking point. This doesn't mean that they're going to snap or fail, but all the time you're exercising your muscles will be suffering from trauma and will start to develop micro tears in them as they struggle to cope with the intensity and workload. It's this trauma and these micro tears that gives you the feeling of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) for a few days after a really tough session or race. As we progress as athletes, it's this constant trauma, recovery and adaptation that makes us faster and stronger.

Post Exercise

Immediately after you've finished the session, your body will be trying to normalise lactate levels and you're likely to still be breathing pretty hard and with a high body temperature but as we continue to recover our heart rate and breathing will start to slow down and will return to normal and as a general rule, a good indicator of fitness is how quickly you recover after an interval or a session.

30 minutes or so after you've finished your session you'll probably start to develop a raging hunger. Often a hunger so great that you'll feel like you could eat a horse. This is your body's way of telling you that you need to replace the glycogen stores that were used during the session. Carbohydrates are stored within muscles in the form of glycogen, so if you treat yourself to a slice of cake or something else that's high in carbohydrates after training is perfectly fine, within reason. 

The ideal time to start refueling after a hard session is to consume a meal within an hour or so of the session / race completion. This can be either whole food or liquid form, and should contain both fast-digesting carbs and protein. This will prevent your body from using its own muscle tissue for energy and help encourage muscle synthesis. Regarding the muscle synthesis, it's important to help the body to start the process of repairing and strengthening the muscles that have suffered from the trauma and impact of a hard session and one of the best ways to do this is to provide them with protein and carbs. Whey protein is an ideal protein supplement for this. When refueling after a training session, bear in mind the type of session that you've done. If it's been a really tough intervals session, or a session where the muscles are likely to have suffered trauma, then you're going to want to help their recovery and repair by taking on board proteins, as well as carbs. However, if you've just done a long swim and the muscles, although tired, won't have suffered the same level of trauma, then a more carbohydrate based refueling may be beneficial. 

As well as refueling the muscles with protein and carbs, it's also important to rehydrate the body and to try and regain the electrolyte balance within. There are many different supplements available on the market, often in a tablet form and a popular one is the electrolyte tablets that you can dissolve in a normal drink. It's important to replace the electrolytes as well as lost fluids because if you just drink a lot of water after a hard session, there's a risk that you can suffer from an electrolyte imbalance, which is when the amount of a certain electrolyte that you've lost via urine or sweat isn't properly replaced, or it can become more diluted by drinking too much water, which doesn't contain electrolytes. In extreme cases you could have a blood-sodium level that falls too low, or even develop something called hyponatremia. This can occur if you drink too much water during an event, such as a triathlon, because you lose sodium in your sweat. This dilutes the sodium content of your blood, so when your sodium levels are too low, your body’s water levels can rise too high which causes the cells to swell and in extreme cases can be fatal.

I've sometimes heard people say that no matter how much they eat after a hard swim, that they're still hungry. Hunger can actually be another sign of dehydration, so it's important not to confuse the two, especially if you're on a controlled diet. It's no good taking on board 2000 calories to refuel, if all you need is to rebalance your hydration levels.

Recovery methods

In the following section I'll talk briefly about some recovery methods that can be very beneficial. However, these don't relate to DOMS, that feeling that you get a day or two after a killer session when you really start to contemplate getting a Stannah Stairlift installed. When you're suffering from DOMS, as mentioned previously, this is actually trauma and damage to the muscle, which is totally different from just being a bit stiff, tired and aching. If you're suffering from DOMS there's little that you can do apart from just waiting for the pain to subside, although you may want to do a very gentle spin on the turbo or an easy swim or some pool jogging, but until the muscles heal, you should refrain from doing any strenuous training or racing, which will delay the healing process and will probably just exacerbate it.

Stretching

Often the most familiar and widely used form of recovery after a training session is to do some stretching. Each stretch that you do doesn't really have to last long and their main purpose is that it helps to keep the muscles flexible, strong and healthy, We need that element of flexibility in order to maintain a good range of motion in the joints. Without it, the muscles shorten and become tight, Which can lead to poor form, which will ultimately and inevitably lead to injury. Stretches are best performed straight after a training session because the muscles are warm and supple, so will be responsive to the stretch. Never stretch a cold muscle though. If you think of muscles as if they're like plasticine, if it's cold and you pull it, it just snaps, but if you roll it in your hands for a while you can really stretch it, muscles can be thought of in a similar way. 

When doing the stretches, work on the muscles that have been used during the session and perform them in a controlled manner. Don't overstretch, push just to the point that you can "feel" it in the muscle and hold it there for 15 seconds or so. I find working through the stretches in a logical manner helps. ie, lower calf / achilles, then upper calf, then hamstrings, quads, glutes and into the upper body and so on. 

Foam Roller

The foam roller is a great bit of (torture) equipment and can really help to ease out the aches and pains that we suffer from. As triathletes, we put our bodies through a hell of a lot. often far more than a single discipline athlete, as we work all the major muscle groups from shoulders to ankles and feet. 


The process of foam rolling is called self-myofacial release and can be done using a traditional foam roller, as seen above, or a hard rubber ball or even a rolling pin or golf or cricket ball. Foam rolling works by identifying trigger points or "knots" in the muscles and as we roll over them we can feel them as painful areas. Nearly every single athlete or triathlete etc will have muscle soreness and knots, so it's important to identify these and treat them regularly. By foam rolling regularly you will help to "iron out" the knots and help to keep all the muscle fibres running nice and parallel to each other. If you think of your muscles as fibrous tissue, sometimes these fibres become more rigid and can "stick" together. It's this that we can feel as knots. Deep muscle compression helps to break up or relax tight muscles and adhesions formed between muscle layers and their surroundings. Imagine you are tenderizing your own muscles. They should be soft and supple like a baby’s muscles.

The most effective way to foam roll is to apply pressure to a specific muscle or muscle group, often your body weight is sufficient for this. Then roll slowly at a rate of about 5cm every couple of seconds. As you pass over an area that feels tight or painful, stop and pause for several seconds and try to relax the muscle. This can sometimes take up to 30 seconds or more. As you relax you should start to feel the pain ease. 
If you come across an area that's too painful to apply direct pressure, you can adjust the roller so that instead of applying direct pressure, you can work on the surrounding area and loosen the whole area. 

You should roll as many muscle groups as possible and do it as regularly as every 48 hours or so. The more you roll, the more supple and loose your muscles will be, which I can guarantee will have a direct positive effect on your running. There are countless videos on YouTube that will demonstrate good foam rolling exercises.

Ice Baths

Possibly even more dreaded than the foam roller is the ice bath. This is really one of the most counter intuitive things to do for recovery and I'm not going to lie, is absolutely horrible for the first 5 minutes or so, until you go numb. 

The theory behind ice baths is that they help the micro trauma that the muscles suffer during a tough session or race, in much the same way as applying ice to an injury works. Another way that they're thought to work is the cold causes your blood vessels to tighten, which in turn helps drain the lactic acid out of your tired muscles. If it's something that you're going to try, you don't actually need to use ice, I often just filled the bath with cold water only and sat in it for around 15 mins. That was perfectly cold enough, trust me. 

There's much conflicting information as to whether ice baths actually work or their effectiveness, so if it's something that you feel is benefiting you, keep doing it. If you simply hate them and can't imagine anything worse, it's fine to steer clear. 

Compression clothing

There's a plethora of compression clothing that's available to us. Big brands like 2XU, Compressport, Skins etc. etc all claiming to offer the best recovery products out there. 

Many people talk about the effectiveness of compression clothing, but personally, I've found that if my calves are a bit sore or tight, when I put my calf guards on it almost feels like instant relief, so it must do something. 

The theory behind compression is that when the muscles are "held" or compressed by a specific garment they are stabilized, which in turn helps to reduce the amount of muscle vibration and oscillation, which is thought to help reduce fatigue. 

As a post exercise garment it's said that through this stabilization that an increase in blood flow is promoted to the muscles and this will help to heal the micro trauma in the muscle and to aid recovery

Sleep

Lastly and possibly the most important fundamental of recovery is sleep. Most people take it for granted, but if you're not getting a decent night's sleep, especially after training, it'll eventually have an impact on your body, which in turn will impact your health, recovery and subsequent fitness. Ideally, you should be aiming for 8 hours sleep per night. When training for long distance races and feeling the pressure to fit as much training sessions in as possible, one of the first things that people will sacrifice is often sleep. You might think to yourself that you'll get up at 0500 and get out to do your long run or ride before you start your daily commitments, but you need to be aware that if you're going to do that, you need to go to bed earlier and make sure you still get a good nights sleep. I know children, work, stress etc can all impact your sleep, but if you employ certain things into your routine, it should help you to get a better nights sleep. 

1. Stick to a consistent sleep schedule and routine. Go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning. A set sleep routine will "train" you to fall asleep and wake up more easily.
2. Cut down on caffeine. For some people, a single cup of coffee in the morning means a sleepless night. Caffeine can also increase the need to urinate during the night.
3. Be physically active. Regular aerobic exercise like walking, running, or swimming provides three important sleep benefits: you'll fall asleep faster, attain a higher percentage of restorative deep sleep, and awaken less often during the night.
4. Limit daytime naps. Prolonged napping can disrupt your natural sleep cycle and prevent you from feeling tired enough to fall asleep.
5. If you use tobacco in any form, quit. Nicotine makes it harder to fall asleep.
6. Use alcohol cautiously. Alcohol depresses the nervous system, so a nightcap may help some people fall asleep. But this effect disappears after a few hours and may even lead to waking up throughout the night. Alcohol can also worsen snoring and other sleep breathing problems.
7. Improve your sleep surroundings. Remove the television, telephone, and any other devices from the bedroom. This reinforces the idea that this room is meant for sleeping. An ideal environment is quiet, dark, and relatively cool, with a comfortable bed and minimal clutter.

In summary

Never neglect your recovery, it's equally as important as your training and if you want to keep progressing and keep the chances of injury to a minimum it's probably even more important than the training. It doesn't have to take hours and hours, but if you build it into your routine and make it something that you just do 3 or 4 times a week, it will pay dividends. I've lost count of the amount of people who regularly tell me they've got tightness in muscles or a niggle that wont go away, yet prevention is often much better than cure.

If you'd like to speak more about your goals and ambitions and how I can help you on your triathlon journey, click on the link below which will take you to my coaching Facebook page, where I can be contacted through

Certa Cito Tri Coaching