Heart Rate Training Insights from a Newbie

alienrite

This is from my blog (myfitnesspal.com/blogs/alienrite) and I wanted to get some feed back from the MFP community in general. I am new to the heart-rate centered training and have found very mixed information.

"I continue to read about training with heart rate monitors and try to understand how best to apply it to me. I am also fascinated by how it is both new and old. I am also a newbie at understanding and applying this information. I write this mostly to help galvanize my own thoughts and to document the germination of my understanding.

I think I am beginning to understand the source of my failures in the past to try and "get in shape". The best fitness level I was ever in was when I was climbing and pruning trees for a living. Nothing better than a steady, hard day of physical labor with a variety of motions capped by some of the best core work I can imagine. I was lean, ripped and strong. The job only lasted for about a year but the development gave me a good basis for the next ten or fifteen years of my life. Sadly, this year of physical work was in 1988. Every time I decided to get back in shape, I would join a gym, learn yoga and Pilates, played racquet ball, buy home equipment … ad nauseam. I would have a variety level of success and sometimes pretty spectacular success. The problem is that I would throw myself into it at 85 to 95% effort and had very little patience for slow results. I would get sore and tired and thought until just recently that this was the goal of working out and if I didn't cringe a little the next day that I wasn't trying hard enough. I also wondered how athletes live at such an edge and wondered if they just suffered through the aches of training or reached some level of nirvana where the pain stopped and the work continued. For me, at some point, I would stop and give up. For weeks, I would say to myself "tomorrow" and again the next day "tomorrow". My new studying and understanding of my metabolism now makes me believe that I was just classically over-training, and burned out. The years of guilt and self-loathing born from simple naivety.

What I have learned is that it is essential to build an aerobic capacity just as a foundation of training. It is a slow, gentle process which allows the body to develop the ability to burn fat instead of carbohydrates as a primary source of energy. It starts by growing and developing a capillary capacity necessary to transport O2 in to the muscles and CO2 out. To do this, you need to train at 60% to 75% MHR (maximum heart rate) which is pretty low and slow. In reading between the lines a little in the literature I have read, 65% to 70% is probably a better slot but they extend it because anyone that is excited to train and move will find 70% a pretty low intensity. At this level, the muscles are burning fat almost entirely for energy and it takes 8 to 10 weeks working at this low intensity to make the metabolic changes. You hear athletes doing this as a pre-camp training or preparation. Without this base, the body simply converts to carbohydrate energy which is anaerobic which produces lactic acid. It is essentially like running a car on gasoline (fat) but immediately using the nitrous boost and wondering why you hit the wall so quickly (nitrous tank is gone). Instead, you need to build the ability to run on gasoline (fat) and groove your metabolism to use this as the primary source and save the carbohydrates for the race or push. The plus side is that your muscles develop an ability and need to run on fat which "raises your metabolism". Not really, it just means that your body will source your fat supply ahead of your carbohydrate supply which lessens the pressure or impulse for carbohydrate binges. This is like putting money in the bank; at some point the gains from the interest exceed the gain for the daily deposit. Fitness wealth!!
Coincidentally, I stumbled upon this in my current workout regime without even knowing it. I knew that I had to work out before work because it was the only consistent time I had. I was entirely focused on creating a habit (10 to 12 week process) where I got up every single morning without fail and did some time on my elliptical. Even a slow 10 minutes was good enough. What started as a 15 minute workout, organically grew by about 5 minutes a week and the pace and intensity grew naturally and without me pushing it too fast. For the last two weeks, I have been focused on my cardio base development and purposely kept my workouts slow and long. I am just starting to feel in my body the difference between the aerobic and anaerobic systems. I have added 10 minute resistance training in the midst of my elliptical. I push to exhaustion and failure through regressive weight sets but that definitely puts me an anaerobic condition. I then get back on the elliptical for another 20 minutes. What I find is that even if I go back to an effort that kept me at a steady 75% MHR before the resistance set, I am running at a 80%-85% MHR and I go at the earlier pace until my heart rate reduces to 75% MHR. The really cool thing is that I think that continuing cardio workout at an aerobic rate after lifting helps flush my muscles of lactic acid and despite my added training, I have no aches, tightness or soreness that I would naturally expect. Also, the aerobic base I have been developing over the last 10 weeks (more if you count the golf I started 24 weeks ago) is showing in my endurance. 70 minute workout this morning was just a workout. Pushed a little but I could have gone longer but time constraints and work called.
It seems the next step, which is about where I am, is that you need to raise your HR training zone to 80%-85% MRH and start developing the capillary support needed to effectively transport the lactic acid. This is where your workouts start to build and intensify. It is also where your body starts using a more significant portion of carbohydrate energy along with the fat source. Endurance racing is born in this phase and strength starts to ramp up. Also, this is where the body starts pretty seriously with the endorphin boost so the buzz afterwards is cool. This is new territory for me since in the past, I would have been working out too intensely up to this point and be at the edge of burn out. What I find this time is that I am amped up and eagerly looking forward to pushing myself and really growing the little athlete inside my teddy bear exterior. Life is good. It is also just an intermediate step to build the capacity to work towards the 90% to 95% workout which is almost entirely carbohydrate driven with a fat pilot-lit furnace. Still learning about this transition and learning but I am excited about the future. Food and sleep quality becomes increasingly more important.

None of this is new technology for training. Most classic training techniques rely upon this metabolic development with the C25K which comes to mind. Training camps for professional sports also follows this regime. It is, however, entirely new information for me. In the past and in both my dieting and exercise, I was so focused on quick and intense changes. I was looking for fixes to what I perceived as distinct and separate issues. (Lose 20 lbs and all will be okay. Or workout for eight weeks and I will be suddenly fit.) The truth is I was an exact product of my lifestyle. Now I am eating better for life and much more focused about building healthy habits for the next 25 to 50 years and less about losing weight. I trust that if I eat well, I will look well and the weight loss is just the by-product. My workouts are developing the same way. I want to build that solid, long and slowly earned cardio capacity which allows me to burn fat efficiently. I trust that I will develop the physique that reflects the commitment and dedication and it will be excellent. Oddly, I don't really have a goal for a certain weight or pant size, my goal is developing capacity, endurance, strength and abilities. Seems like just different sides to the same coin but I am beginning to believe it is a different currency all together. The future is exciting and every day a new chance to take another step forward."

Corrections or insight into this world of HR training are very welcomed. If you like it, vote for it on my blog page.