WHAT HR ZONE SHOULD I EXERISE IN?

mumof5

JUST WONDERING IF THERE ARE ANY EXPERTS OUT THERE ON HEART RATES? MY HUBBY GAVE ME A HRM FOR CHRISTMAS AND I HAVE BEEN USING IT - ITS GREAT. I STILL HAVE A COUPLE OF KILOS TO LOSE SO I THOUGHT I SHOULD BE IN THE WEIGHT LOSS ZONE - 50-60% BUT I FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE TRAINING BETWEEN 70-90% DEPENDING ON WHAT I'M DOING. DO I SLOW DOWN ON SOME DAYS AND THEN DO FITTNESS TRAINING ON OTHERS? OR DO I JUST DO FITTNESS AND MAKE SURE MY CALS ARE LOWER THAN BY BURN?
ANY HELP WOULD BE GREAT

dreambodin2011

interested in seeing the replies also.

newbeetler

Bump for the replies

schmorla

Would also like to know this.

lexgem

First make sure you're calculating your zones right.
If you're just getting started your max HR will have to be calculated theoretically, but when you get more fit you can know it for sure (you find out by pushing yourself to max effort, there are some tests explaining it online). The formula is 220-age for men, 226-age for women, but it can be "off" by up to 20 BPM in either direction!
Take your resting heart rate first thing in the morning before getting out of bed or doing any physical activity, several days in a row to make sure it wasn't just a fluke measurement.
Then your heart rate reserve is maxHR - restHR.
To know your target heart rate, calculate the percentage of the reserve and add back the rest.
Assuming your max is 190, your min is 70, your reserve is 120. 50% of 120 is 60. So your 50% target would be 60+70 = 130.
These are the zones I have found to be pretty accurate for me (for running)
50-60% warm up
60-70% easy endurance/fat burning
70-80% endurance
80-90% performance (pushing yourself in intervals or fast running)

Calculate these zones, and be attentive to how you feel in the zones. I always felt like the 70-80% zone was too "easy" still, and even when I was at 90% I felt fine, just tired. Turns out that after a few weeks I found out my max HR was a full 10 BPM faster than I thought! So I was under-doing it! Now if you have the opposite experience your max might be lower than you originally thought. Feel free to adjust!

judgejava

Depends what you want to achieve.

There is the aerobic zone, fat burning zone etc.

However people often misunderstand it and train the fat burning zone thinking that is the best way to burn fat, thing is when you exercise you are likely using the glycogen stores in your body for the first 30 to 45 minutes and often people work in the fat burn zone for that time and dont actually burn any fat.

If you train in the aerobic zone you will burn more calories, which when after weight loss it is the key and not at a lower zone where your body wont be burning fat until after about 30 to 45 minutes anyways.

Fat burn (recovery zone, efficiency) is 60-70% of your maximum heart rate (gentle able to hold conversation jog)

Aerobic zone is 70-80% of your Maximum heart rate (running zone, still talk but a bit harder)

Anearobic is 80-90% of your Maximum heart rate (fast pace run not quite a sprint)

Red line zone 90%+ of your Maximum heart rate (sprint or interval type training, short periods only)

These are rough guides,. you can go + or - 5 % on each to be in the zone.

Your Maximum heart rate or MHR is the max at which your heart can work, there is formulas for it which are very generic such as

220- age

so an example is i am 39 so 220-39 = 181 so my MHR should be 181

and so to be in Fat burn zone for example i would train with my heart rate at 60 - 70% of this which is a heart rate zone of about 109 -126

however the 220- age formula is a guide, you really need to find out your true MHR, mine for example is about 208 which is way above the formula result so changes my zones dramatically.

You could do a V02 max test, or similar, BUPA do a £149 fitness test which tells you all this along with your calories burned (often very different again from the formulas we use) as all our metabolisms are different.

You could also do some hill sprints say 8 times and really work as hard as you can to see what your heart rate goes upto, this would be closer to your MHR.

Hope this helps

Edit: oh i see someone beat me to it above whilst i was typing ;-)

here is a good site which explains things better than me http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm1.htm

Kaathmandu

Simply, 'they' recommend lower Target Heart Rate ( ~ 65% of MHR) to burn fat

(because body needs oxygen to burn fat as fuel = aerobic exercise. once heart rate gets higher, body switches to anaerobic mode, burning available glycogen, which is why high workloads are not sustainable for a long times, especially when dieting)

but higher THR burns more calories.

The jury is still out on which is more effective.

I recommend 65-85%. As long as you are working, you are getting benefit.

erickirb

Please ignore the fat burning zone, it is a crock of S^#t. You may burn a higher % of cals from fat, but you burn far fewer calories that you actually burn less fat and total calories.

My advice is to push yourself as hard as you can sustain for the duration of your workout. It will not matter what "zone" you are in. The harder you push yourself the more cals you burn, the more fat you lose, the better shape you will get in.

erickirb

Simply, 'they' recommend lower Target Heart Rate ( ~ 65% of MHR) to burn fat

(because body needs oxygen to burn fat as fuel = aerobic exercise. once heart rate gets higher, body switches to anaerobic mode, burning available glycogen, which is why high workloads are not sustainable for a long times, especially when dieting)

but higher THR burns more calories.

The jury is still out on which is more effective.

I recommend 65-85%. As long as you are working, you are getting benefit.

I typically train in 80-95% of Max HR, I would not recommend going below 70-75% as the benefits will not be nearly as much as 75%+.

mumof5

thanks for the replys:). I already take my pulse mostornings - usually around 50bpm. I was just using the 226 -age to work out my max heart rate but after reading yr answers I guess I will take myself out for a run and work out my acturally limit! will as always work as hard as possible and hopefully those last 2 kg's will leave soon