Views on Heart Rate?

The Polar fat zone and fitness zones are pretty useless.
There is benefit for people training in HR zones if they have more advanced goals than "just" fitness and getting exercise. Here's something you may find of interest - the categories aren't as clear cut as the descriptions though and terminology changes from source to source so just an idea (cycling focussed).....

Zone 1 (60-65% of maximum heart rate): For long, easy rides, to improve the combustion and storage of fats.
Zone 2 (65-75% of MHR): The basic base training zone. Longish rides of medium stress.
Zone 3 (75-82% of MHR): For development of aerobic capacity and endurance with moderate volume at very controlled intensity.
Zone 4 (82-89% of MHR): For simulating pace when tapering for a race.
Zone 5 (89-94% of MHR): For raising anaerobic threshold. Good sessions for 10- and 25-mile time-trials.
Zone 6 (94-100% of MHR): For high-intensity interval training to increase maximum power and speed


All movement/exercise has benefit irrespective of HR. "Fat burning zone" is a typical bit of bro-science really - take a bit of fact (that you burn a higher proportion of fat at lower intensity) and twist into needing to be in a certain zone to burn fat - which is nonsense.
Simply a calorie deficit burns fat and the fuel used during exercise has virtually no impact on your fat gain/loss over time.

As you have similar HR range to me (mine is min 48, tested max 176) you may find it interesting (but of no real significance!) that when I was hooked up in a sports science lab I found that 130bpm was where I was burning 50% fat, 50% glycogen.

Your fatigue could be all sorts of reasons from under recovery to lack of calories to lack of sleep but there's certainly no need to always do high intensity work - that may be contributing to your problem. Mix it up would be my suggestion.

Really high intensity exercise does need more recovery time. A twenty minute VO2 max test to absolute failure took me three days to get over - then again so did a nine hour mostly medium intensity ride.

Don't overthink the process. Maintain a calorie deficit and exercise. A lot of people lose weight simply by watching calories and walking every day.

ArchangelMJ wrote: »

I use a Polar FT7 heartrate monitor (used to have a FT4 but it spontaneously combusted or something *shrugs*).

So, I often like to keep track of my exercise calories and workout intensity with that.
I suppose that, after all this time of using it, I still don't exactly understand it. For instance, when my heart rate is in the 130s, I feel like that is too low to do any good and yet that's supposedly a "fat burning zone" or whatever.

My resting heart rate is in the 50s, the lowest I've seen it is 47. My heart rate will often climb to the 180s, lately it usually goes up to between 184-189 when I do HIIT on my building's staircase. I've been wondering if perhaps I do high intensity exercise too often, and that this is why I sometimes feel sluggish and tired the next time I exercise and why I don't appear to be making noteworthy gains in endurance.

I used to think that maintaining a heart rate between 150 - 170 was necessary during cardio, but maybe that's silly. I'm horribly insecure about my body (and everything, really) and I think I trained myself into thinking that if I don't have a high heart rate during an exercise then what I'm doing is worthless. But perhaps I've been working against myself.

What are your thoughts/experiences with heart rate, and how would you say your heart rate correlates with how good you feel during and after a workout? Would you say that reaching the upper threshold too often can actually hinder rather than help, is it necessary?

I feel like there's a lot going on here. Let's see...

1. IMO, most people don't understand HR, what it means/indicates, or how to use it. Which is fine, because IMO, most MFPers shouldn't be using HR as a factor in their training. It's an interesting data point to look at, but most people are better served by keeping things simple. IMO.
2. HIIT doesn't directly translate to long-duration endurance. If that is your goal, then you should be doing longer, steady-state training.
3. Training at specific HRs can have certain benefits, but going back to my first point, most people probably don't need to get bogged down by HR zones.
4. Speaking very generally, the harder you work, the longer it will take to recover. There are other variables here that probably shouldn't be ignored, but I'm going to ignore them to keep this conversation simple. If you are working near max effort, it will take longer for your body to recover to the point where it can go max effort again. You're stressing your body, and it will take time to recover. So going all-out isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you have to respect the toll it takes on your body.
5. If I were you, I'd ignore HR for the next bunch of workouts. Decide before the workout what your goal is, and work at an intensity appropriate for that goal. If you want to gain endurance, aim for a longer duration and a lower/slower intensity. If you want HIIT, then do HIIT. After the workout, then look at the data if you want, but I wouldn't let the data dictate the workout (at least not at this point, not based on your post).

Just to build on what @jacksonpt was talking about above (point #4), most endurance athletes will do one or two HIIT type workouts per week, sandwiched between workouts of longer duration and lower intensity, which allows your body to properly recovery.

I use a HR monitor while biking and rowing to maintain a specific rate of exertion.

It's not that I don't already know that I'm working hard enough -- sweat is a good indicator -- it just puts a number on it and helps me maintain the same level of effort -- which is generally in my "target zone" through out throughout the workout.

So, for me, use of a HR monitor prevents slacking and it also gives me a number that I can put into MFP for the calorie burn for the workout that day.

mochachichi wrote: »

While using heart rate zones can be a good general guide, there are other more useful methods of tracking intensity. There are many formulas used to calculate HR training zones (most people are familiar with the 220-age formula) but they can be inaccurate by as much as 10-12 beats per minute. More useful is using the Rate of Perceived Exertion or even the Talk Test. Both of these methods correlate very well to actual training thresholds.

As an example, during a walk around the block you might perceive on a scale of 1-10 that your exertion level is a 2 or 3 and that you can talk in complete sentences with no problem. This correlates to a "recovery" zone or a zone equal to 60-70% of your max heart rate. A jog might be perceived as a little harder and you might rate it a 6...you are starting to sweat and talking becomes more difficult. You can complete a sentence but you wouldn't be able to sing for instance. This level of exertion equates to a training zone (Zone 2) equivalent to about 75-85% of your heart rate max. A sprint would be very difficult and you might rate it a 9. Talking is impossible...this equate to a training zone of 86-95% of your heart rate max. (Zone 3)

As a general rule for fitness goals you would want start in zone 1 (the 60-75% or a 1through 4 on the rate of perceived exertion scale) if you were a beginner until you could comfortably workout in that zone for 30-45 minutes without difficulty. You can then progress to Zone 2 intensities and then Zone 3. Once you've attained that level of fitness it is a good idea to rotate the 3 training zones in a given week...like the example below

I recognize this from my NASM textbook.

Anyways, OP. You don't need to worry about them if you are not zone training or training to increase your VO2 Max.