Please explain Heart rate Zones!

danbs13
danbs13 Posts: 2 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi, I have recently been using my bluetooth heart rate chest strap along with my iphone and have been recording my workouts using irunner app. I am so far quite happy with the data the app gives me but I would like a little clarity on the heart rate zones.
Once I have finished a workout the app shows me a graph with all the different heart rate zones and how long I was in each of the zones during excercise.
The zones are as follows (I would of posted a screenshot but don't know how!)
Heart rate 95-114 warm up
114-133 fitness (fat burn)
133-152 aerobic (endurance)
152-171 anaerobic (hardcore)
171-190 v02 max (max effort)
(I assume this is based on my 65bpm resting HR and 190 max HR)

Now according to my graph I spent roughly 45% in aerobic zone, 45% in anaerobic zone! about 5% in fitness zone and the rest in warm up zone.
So if I am focused purely on burning fat then are you saying that I need to spend most of my time in the fitness zone (HR 114-133)?
If so then what is happening when I am in the aerobic and anaerobic zones? Am I not burning fat in those zones?
Am I wasting my time by pushing myself hard during exercise and having a high heart rate, or would I be better served lowering the intensity and getting my heart rate within 114-133. This is of course purely focused on burning fat!

Please someone shed a little light for me.
Also sorry about the long winded question!
Thanks

Replies

  • CynthiaT60
    CynthiaT60 Posts: 1,280 Member
    in
  • Corsetopia
    Corsetopia Posts: 307 Member
    Bumping to read later.
  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
    I think the different heart rate zones thing has been largely debunked.

    Work out at a rate that allows you to complete your workout.
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
    I think the different heart rate zones thing has been largely debunked.

    Work out at a rate that allows you to complete your workout.

    This.

    Aside from specific HR training for fitness, which I assume we aren't talking about here, HR zones are pretty much useless for weight loss.
    First of all, they are very generic and not very accurate.
    Second, even assuming you are in the correct zone and there was an actual fat burning zone, the "fat burning zone" where you burn a larger percentage of calories from fat sources is very low intensity. Overall, you burn fewer calories. So even at a larger percent, your overall "fat calories" burned are low.
    If you workout in a higher zone, the percentage may be lower, but overall your calorie burn is much higher so it works out to be more.

    TL;DR - as above OP said, workout at a rate that allows you to complete your workout.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    The zones relate to caloric burns as a percentage of the total. The so-called fat burning zone on many machines does kinda sorta exist ... for the conditioned athletes used in laboratory testing to derive the zones. What it is is a corresponding heart rate range that links to an effort level where the highest percentage of calories burned comes from fat rather than glucose stores. For the majority of people a higher exertion level, and corresponding higher range on the chart, results in more total calories burned and more fat used for fuel although at a lower percentage of the total.

    If you're a beginner and worrying about staying in certain heart rate zones, you're probably focusing your workouts on the wrong goal.

    The simplistic 220-age= max HR formula is also very generic and far from a one size fits all answer. Do some homework and you'll see more accurate ways of determining a maximum target training heart rate than that system.

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