Running Newbie - heartrate and running

Melissa_2305

Hi guys!

So I bought a threadmill last week and started running. I am doing a C25K kind-of workout and am tracking my heartrate with a heartrate monitor. See below the results.

I think it's quite obvious that I am not that fit (yet, hopefully). My intention is to get fitter and then focus a bit more on which heartrate zone to train in.

My question for you guys, how do you use the results of your heart rate monitor in your trainings? Is this the right approach? I am currently at 250ish lbs (120 kg) so there's quite some work to do!

I must say that I was positively surprised how easy the first two trainings went though, so looking forward to the next few.

Thanks in advance

spiriteagle99

As a beginner, knowing your heart rate isn't very helpful. 1) lack of fitness will make your heart rate soar, 2) unless you test it, you don't know what your actual maximum HR is, so can't know what HR zones you should target. The traditional formula of "220 minus your age = maximum HR", doesn't work for a lot of people. Paying attention to how you feel is really all you need. If you're panting, then slow down. If it feels hard, slow down. If you run out of energy, slow down. Most of your running should feel easy. You should be able to speak whole sentences as you run. If you can't, then SLOW DOWN.

dewd2

Don't. If you later plan to seriously train for a race AND want to use HR as part of it, then track it. Otherwise it is just noise. Ignore it. Basic rule for beginners. All runs should be slow enough that you can sing while running. If you can't sing, your pushing too hard.

FWIW - I'm running a 100k race next weekend and I almost never look at HR. I train all the time and don't care at all. Some do use it but it's a whole other level of understanding to do it right.

Melissa_2305

Thanks guys! I heard about the "being able to speak" trick before, will definitely use that on today's session

Cateyj

I have been running for 4 years, started with c25k like you (best app ever!) and I have never taken any notice of my HR. I have always thought it would turn it into a 'chore' Running itself is an accomplishment, especially if like me you had no aptitude for sports growing up. Celebrate your achievements in completing each run😊

NorthCascades

Melissa_2305 wrote: »

Thanks guys! I heard about the "being able to speak" trick before, will definitely use that on today's session

Most people use 5 heart rate zones, others think that's not enough and make some more. There are 3 breathing zones, if you want to get scientific they're called ventilatory thresholds. Below VT1 you can talk and sing, below VT2 you can get a few words out, and above VT2 talking isn't really happening. Those map pretty well to exertion level that you'd use a HRM for.

The reason this works is because your heart's job is to pump the oxygen your lungs are bringing in, your breathing and heart beating are working together to accomplish the same thing and so they make good proxies for each other.

I'm a cyclist and Nordic skier. I don't find HR very useful for training, but it's useful to me to get an idea what the "cost" of a workout is, how much it took out of me and when I'll probably be ready to go have difficult fun again.

yirara

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

As a beginner, knowing your heart rate isn't very helpful. 1) lack of fitness will make your heart rate soar, 2) unless you test it, you don't know what your actual maximum HR is, so can't know what HR zones you should target. The traditional formula of "220 minus your age = maximum HR", doesn't work for a lot of people. Paying attention to how you feel is really all you need. If you're panting, then slow down. If it feels hard, slow down. If you run out of energy, slow down. Most of your running should feel easy. You should be able to speak whole sentences as you run. If you can't, then SLOW DOWN.

All of this!
If you want to use training zones and don't know your maximum heartrate then just go by:
long slow run: no problem to talk, or to sing along to music if you use any. If you can't do that then you're too fast
fast run: speaking? Uttering words? You got to be kidding!
inbetween: indeed inbetween.

bcalvanese

I think heart rate is very important. If it wasn't then why are all of the metrics that have to do with cardio built around heart rate. It is the only metric that can be measured directly, and even if you don't know your true max heart rate at first, there is certainly nothing wrong with starting with the 220 - age formula until you can measure a higher heart rate than that.

If you keep your heart rate elevated for x number of minutes and x number of times per week, you will improve your fitness and your heart will get stronger. You will know it's working because over time your resting heart rate will get lower. A stronger heart will pump more blood per beat so it will not have to pump as many times per minute to pump the same amount of blood.

You can not depend on perceived exertion alone, because you can be in the same HR zone on 2 different days and feel different each time. I do agree with perceived exertion but only when used in conjunction with heart rate.

I would recommend starting with the 220 - age formula to set your zone, and once you can run a 5k, run it as hard as you can (especially towards the end), get your highest heart rate from that and set that as your new max heart rate.

Also, intervals are great for your heart. Getting your HR way up and letting it recover, and repeating several times, as well as doing longer steady state workouts in the lower HR zones.

Be careful though. Your heart and lungs develop a lot faster than your joints/muscle/tendons/etc... do, so you may feel like you wanna push it too hard because your heart and lungs feel good. This could result in an injury if you don't listen to your body.

Good luck.

dewd2

bcalvanese wrote: »

I think heart rate is very important. If it wasn't then why are all of the metrics that have to do with cardio built around heart rate. It is the only metric that can be measured directly, and even if you don't know your true max heart rate at first, there is certainly nothing wrong with starting with the 220 - age formula until you can measure a higher heart rate than that.

If you keep your heart rate elevated for x number of minutes and x number of times per week, you will improve your fitness and your heart will get stronger. You will know it's working because over time your resting heart rate will get lower. A stronger heart will pump more blood per beat so it will not have to pump as many times per minute to pump the same amount of blood.

You can not depend on perceived exertion alone, because you can be in the same HR zone on 2 different days and feel different each time. I do agree with perceived exertion but only when used in conjunction with heart rate.

I would recommend starting with the 220 - age formula to set your zone, and once you can run a 5k, run it as hard as you can (especially towards the end), get your highest heart rate from that and set that as your new max heart rate.

Also, intervals are great for your heart. Getting your HR way up and letting it recover, and repeating several times, as well as doing longer steady state workouts in the lower HR zones.

Be careful though. Your heart and lungs develop a lot faster than your joints/muscle/tendons/etc... do, so you may feel like you wanna push it too hard because your heart and lungs feel good. This could result in an injury if you don't listen to your body.

Good luck.

Marketing Department.

DD265

As somebody who used to run regularly and is now starting from scratch, heart rate serves 2 purposes for me.

1) A 30 minute work out which averages at/over 70% + of my (220-age) max heart rate gains me 8 'points' on my health insurance, and that 5x a week gets me free Amazon Prime

2) If I'm struggling mentally I might check my heart rate. It's usually not as high as I think it is will be in my head and that gives me a mental boost to keep going. You have to know your mind/body for this one though.

bcalvanese

dewd2 wrote: »

bcalvanese wrote: »

I think heart rate is very important. If it wasn't then why are all of the metrics that have to do with cardio built around heart rate. It is the only metric that can be measured directly, and even if you don't know your true max heart rate at first, there is certainly nothing wrong with starting with the 220 - age formula until you can measure a higher heart rate than that.

If you keep your heart rate elevated for x number of minutes and x number of times per week, you will improve your fitness and your heart will get stronger. You will know it's working because over time your resting heart rate will get lower. A stronger heart will pump more blood per beat so it will not have to pump as many times per minute to pump the same amount of blood.

You can not depend on perceived exertion alone, because you can be in the same HR zone on 2 different days and feel different each time. I do agree with perceived exertion but only when used in conjunction with heart rate.

I would recommend starting with the 220 - age formula to set your zone, and once you can run a 5k, run it as hard as you can (especially towards the end), get your highest heart rate from that and set that as your new max heart rate.

Also, intervals are great for your heart. Getting your HR way up and letting it recover, and repeating several times, as well as doing longer steady state workouts in the lower HR zones.

Be careful though. Your heart and lungs develop a lot faster than your joints/muscle/tendons/etc... do, so you may feel like you wanna push it too hard because your heart and lungs feel good. This could result in an injury if you don't listen to your body.

Good luck.

Marketing Department.

not just for fitness devices, but even lab tests. Like stress tests, VO2 max tests, threshold tests, etc...

just sayin

westrich20940

There are a lot of runners who are VERY attached to heart rate. I only use my heartrate monitor to know when I should slow down a bit or walk for a minute (I don't like to have my heart rate be consistently at 180....if it is I'll slow/walk to get it down). As you get more fit...your heart rate with level out. I used to spike up to 180 if I ran for like 1 minute...now through a 6 mile run my heart rate is usually in the 160s.

My HRM does give me an 'estimate' of how many calories I burned while running. I know that there's lots of confusion about whether it's accurate or not. I can only speak to my experience. My Runkeeper app also gives a calorie burn estimate and they tend to be ~100+ different from each other (with my HRM being higher). They seem to be even when I'm walking...but if I'm running my HRM is always higher. When I was actively losing weight I would just manually put in a calorie burn that was in-between (if I was cheating towards one...I'd be closer to my app estimate).

So....my HRM is probably over estimating a bit but it's not off by much bc I didn't lose weight any faster than I had aniticipated based on my calorie intake/net deficit, etc.

There are some runners who say you should stay within like...the 'fat burning' area of heart rate...but if I'm running (and I'm not running fast) it's 160-165 usually. Do what feels right to you ... there's not really any consistent evidence for doing it a certain way. The only evidence is if you're doing high intensity activity you will burn more calories.

dewd2

bcalvanese wrote: »

dewd2 wrote: »

bcalvanese wrote: »

I think heart rate is very important. If it wasn't then why are all of the metrics that have to do with cardio built around heart rate. It is the only metric that can be measured directly, and even if you don't know your true max heart rate at first, there is certainly nothing wrong with starting with the 220 - age formula until you can measure a higher heart rate than that.

If you keep your heart rate elevated for x number of minutes and x number of times per week, you will improve your fitness and your heart will get stronger. You will know it's working because over time your resting heart rate will get lower. A stronger heart will pump more blood per beat so it will not have to pump as many times per minute to pump the same amount of blood.

You can not depend on perceived exertion alone, because you can be in the same HR zone on 2 different days and feel different each time. I do agree with perceived exertion but only when used in conjunction with heart rate.

I would recommend starting with the 220 - age formula to set your zone, and once you can run a 5k, run it as hard as you can (especially towards the end), get your highest heart rate from that and set that as your new max heart rate.

Also, intervals are great for your heart. Getting your HR way up and letting it recover, and repeating several times, as well as doing longer steady state workouts in the lower HR zones.

Be careful though. Your heart and lungs develop a lot faster than your joints/muscle/tendons/etc... do, so you may feel like you wanna push it too hard because your heart and lungs feel good. This could result in an injury if you don't listen to your body.

Good luck.

Marketing Department.

not just for fitness devices, but even lab tests. Like stress tests, VO2 max tests, threshold tests, etc...

just sayin

Now you're getting into very specific training using HR. If your plan is to do this, then yeah, it matters. If you're doing C25K it is just noise. As you know I've done HR training before I found it to be a PITA. And with my watches skewed HR numbers (which you also know ) it make it doubly hard to get anything useful from it. The only reason I personally care about the HR is it impacts other calculations but that's more to do with HR variability.

bcalvanese

dewd2 wrote: »

bcalvanese wrote: »

dewd2 wrote: »

bcalvanese wrote: »

I think heart rate is very important. If it wasn't then why are all of the metrics that have to do with cardio built around heart rate. It is the only metric that can be measured directly, and even if you don't know your true max heart rate at first, there is certainly nothing wrong with starting with the 220 - age formula until you can measure a higher heart rate than that.

If you keep your heart rate elevated for x number of minutes and x number of times per week, you will improve your fitness and your heart will get stronger. You will know it's working because over time your resting heart rate will get lower. A stronger heart will pump more blood per beat so it will not have to pump as many times per minute to pump the same amount of blood.

You can not depend on perceived exertion alone, because you can be in the same HR zone on 2 different days and feel different each time. I do agree with perceived exertion but only when used in conjunction with heart rate.

I would recommend starting with the 220 - age formula to set your zone, and once you can run a 5k, run it as hard as you can (especially towards the end), get your highest heart rate from that and set that as your new max heart rate.

Also, intervals are great for your heart. Getting your HR way up and letting it recover, and repeating several times, as well as doing longer steady state workouts in the lower HR zones.

Be careful though. Your heart and lungs develop a lot faster than your joints/muscle/tendons/etc... do, so you may feel like you wanna push it too hard because your heart and lungs feel good. This could result in an injury if you don't listen to your body.

Good luck.

Marketing Department.

not just for fitness devices, but even lab tests. Like stress tests, VO2 max tests, threshold tests, etc...

just sayin

Now you're getting into very specific training using HR. If your plan is to do this, then yeah, it matters. If you're doing C25K it is just noise. As you know I've done HR training before I found it to be a PITA. And with my watches skewed HR numbers (which you also know ) it make it doubly hard to get anything useful from it. The only reason I personally care about the HR is it impacts other calculations but that's more to do with HR variability.

All I'm trying to say is that if you get your heart rate up and keep it up, you will improve your fitness. Nothing more, nothing less.

yirara

bcalvanese wrote: »

I think heart rate is very important. If it wasn't then why are all of the metrics that have to do with cardio built around heart rate. It is the only metric that can be measured directly, and even if you don't know your true max heart rate at first, there is certainly nothing wrong with starting with the 220 - age formula until you can measure a higher heart rate than that.

If you keep your heart rate elevated for x number of minutes and x number of times per week, you will improve your fitness and your heart will get stronger. You will know it's working because over time your resting heart rate will get lower. A stronger heart will pump more blood per beat so it will not have to pump as many times per minute to pump the same amount of blood.

You can not depend on perceived exertion alone, because you can be in the same HR zone on 2 different days and feel different each time. I do agree with perceived exertion but only when used in conjunction with heart rate.

I would recommend starting with the 220 - age formula to set your zone, and once you can run a 5k, run it as hard as you can (especially towards the end), get your highest heart rate from that and set that as your new max heart rate.

Also, intervals are great for your heart. Getting your HR way up and letting it recover, and repeating several times, as well as doing longer steady state workouts in the lower HR zones.

Be careful though. Your heart and lungs develop a lot faster than your joints/muscle/tendons/etc... do, so you may feel like you wanna push it too hard because your heart and lungs feel good. This could result in an injury if you don't listen to your body.

Good luck.

Why do city bikes come with front and saddle suspension as if they were crazy downhill bikes? Marketing!

220-age by Fox et al (1971) has proven to be wrong in a large number of cases. Actually, this equation seems to have a standard deviation of 12 beats per minute following a normal distribution. That means that 32% of all people have a heartrate that is more than 12bpm higher or lower than that equation. That's a huge number! Some studies show a bigger deviation than this of up to 45%, depending on gender, ethnicity, and a few other factors.

Sure, it's great to get your heartrate up. But be very careful using some equations like these to figure out what your training zones should be.

MarttaHP

I found heart rate very useful in improving me as a runner. It helped me vary the intensity and types of runs I did, and I saw my speed and endurance start increasing rather rapidly, in a matter of a few months. I had maybe about two years of running as a base at that point; I'd been doing all my workouts at around zone 2 or 3 up until then. It was also helpful in monitoring my progress, since I could see how I was able to go at a faster pace at lower HR levels, and also keep up the higher levels for longer periods of time.

But yes, HR monitoring is of limited usefulness if you don't know your max HR. According to the 220-age formula mine is that of someone over a decade older than me. If I went by the formula, I'd be constantly pushing myself too hard and that might lead into some trouble.

yirara

MarttaHP wrote: »

But yes, HR monitoring is of limited usefulness if you don't know your max HR. According to the 220-age formula mine is that of someone over a decade older than me. If I went by the formula, I'd be constantly pushing myself too hard and that might lead into some trouble.

Hey, I'm the opposite! My relaxed run HR is higher than my maxHR according to 220-age I'm probably just within the 3 standard deviation range. Or might just open up a fourth

AnnPT77

yirara wrote: »

bcalvanese wrote: »

I think heart rate is very important. If it wasn't then why are all of the metrics that have to do with cardio built around heart rate. It is the only metric that can be measured directly, and even if you don't know your true max heart rate at first, there is certainly nothing wrong with starting with the 220 - age formula until you can measure a higher heart rate than that.

If you keep your heart rate elevated for x number of minutes and x number of times per week, you will improve your fitness and your heart will get stronger. You will know it's working because over time your resting heart rate will get lower. A stronger heart will pump more blood per beat so it will not have to pump as many times per minute to pump the same amount of blood.

You can not depend on perceived exertion alone, because you can be in the same HR zone on 2 different days and feel different each time. I do agree with perceived exertion but only when used in conjunction with heart rate.

I would recommend starting with the 220 - age formula to set your zone, and once you can run a 5k, run it as hard as you can (especially towards the end), get your highest heart rate from that and set that as your new max heart rate.

Also, intervals are great for your heart. Getting your HR way up and letting it recover, and repeating several times, as well as doing longer steady state workouts in the lower HR zones.

Be careful though. Your heart and lungs develop a lot faster than your joints/muscle/tendons/etc... do, so you may feel like you wanna push it too hard because your heart and lungs feel good. This could result in an injury if you don't listen to your body.

Good luck.

Why do city bikes come with front and saddle suspension as if they were crazy downhill bikes? Marketing!

220-age by Fox et al (1971) has proven to be wrong in a large number of cases. Actually, this equation seems to have a standard deviation of 12 beats per minute following a normal distribution. That means that 32% of all people have a heartrate that is more than 12bpm higher or lower than that equation. That's a huge number! Some studies show a bigger deviation than this of up to 45%, depending on gender, ethnicity, and a few other factors.

Sure, it's great to get your heartrate up. But be very careful using some equations like these to figure out what your training zones should be.

So much this! My age estimated max by 220-age would be 155 (I'm 65). A few years back, I max tested (in a rowing ergometer step test by my coach) at around 181. Based on RPE (since I only rarely visit actual max), it's likely still around 180 . . . which would be just outside 2 standard deviations high now, I guess? Me and about 4% of other people, that low or high? 😉 (BTW: It's more about genetics than fitness, so not a point of pride, just a number.)

If I had believed 220-age ever, I'd have *significantly* undertrained. For me, 155BPM (that theoretical max) is in reality barely at the lower edge of anaerobic threshold, and I am *not* a lifelong athlete. I hit 155BPM fairly frequently when working out.

My 220-age estimated "aerobic zone" (heart rate reserve method) is stupid low; the 220-age ranges would claim I'm redlining (>90%) when I'm actually in lower UT1 (around 73%).

RPE works fine, generically. I don't see why that PP deprecates it. The error from max HR differing from 220-age is potentially a bigger deal for many people than the ways RPE can mislead IMO, as your (@yiyara's) numbers illustrate.

I think OP is fine running C25K, and keeping the RPE low (whole sentence talking range). Without some handle on true max, trying to use HR ranges at this point isn't improving outcomes. Later, after base aerobic fitness is in place, a research-supported self-test (some of which are submaximal effort) would be a rational way to estimate max, if desired. These days, some trackers even have such a fitness test defined for them, IMU. Until that's rational to do, RPE should work just fine.

bcalvanese

I think the 220-age is a good place to start for a beginner until they are able to get their true MHR. And use that in conjunction with RPE.