When Fitness is a Lifestyle!
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When Fitness is a Lifestyle! |
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A great friend, and client, calls me “Gadget Boy”. I am not sure if that is a compliment, or not. I am a fan of putting in the right amount of work in order to get the highest payout. A good example would be if you had to dig post holes for a fence. You could use a shovel, or you could use a post hole digger. Using a digger have the same result as the shovel, just with better technology. Some of you may say, “digging with a shovel would burn more calories”. Yes, but digging holes with a shovel is not how I want to spend my workout time. Plus, using a post hole digger is no picnic either. What does digging holes in the ground and cardiovascular training have in common? The same principle applies to both in having the right tools to get the job done efficiently. Using a heart rate monitor makes a big difference in how effective and efficient your workouts can be. When talking about using a heart rate monitor, I want to talk about using it for cardiovascular exercise only. You could use a heart rate monitor while lifting weights, but unless you were doing a circuit workout, it is not that useful.
The cardiovascular system's main job is to take blood that does not have oxygen, and place oxygen back into the blood stream. A resting heart rate is the number of beats per minute the heart takes to pump oxygen throughout the body at rest. Typically, the lower the resting heart rate, the more efficient the heart is. People that have a higher resting heart rate, generally, are not as fit as those with a lower number. For example, Lance Armstrong’s resting heart rate is between 32 and 34 beats per minute. Most people have a resting heart rate at 60 beats per minute or higher. The good news is you can lower your resting heart rate by making the heart muscle stronger. This is accomplished by cardiovascular training in your optimum heart rate zone. Measuring resting heart rate should be done first thing in the morning, while laying in bed in a relaxed state. Count your pulse for one minute, and jot the number down. Do this for at least three mornings, and use the average of all three days. **If you are on beta blocker medication, you will not be able to participate in heart rate training, because the medication controls how fast the heart can beat.** Now that you have your resting heart rate (RHR), you will want to figure out what your cardiovascular training zone should be. We will use my information for the formula examples below. My RHR is 48 beats per minute (BPM), and I am 36 years old. Formula for Calculating Maximal Heart Rate
Formula for Calculating Working Heart Rate
Formula for Calculating Threshold of Training
Heart Rate Formula for Calculating the Upper Limit of the
Target Heart Rate Zone If this all seems too confusing for you, just email (bcbarkley@yahoo.com) me your resting heart rate and age, and I will do the calculation for you. Now you know what range your heart rate should be while exercising, but where should it be depending on intensity? I mean 116 to 164 is a large spread! Determine your own exercise targets and choose an exercise prescription:
You may have heard that exercising at a lower intensity will burn more calories from fat. Remember, the bottom line is weight loss equals calories burned per workout. The best way for me to describe this concept is to use an automobile as an example. Gasoline is fuel for your car, just as food is fuel for our bodies. If you want to get the best possible gas mileage, hop on the highway and set the cruise control to 55 mph. Hopefully, you will not run into any traffic jams. Now, to get the worst gas mileage in an automobile, find a traffic jam with stop and go driving for a good while. Our body fuel works with the same idea. If you want to burn the most calories, in the shortest time, you must increase your heart rate. The best way to do that is to exercise with intervals. Let’s use the treadmill as an example. You could do a one to one ratio of one minute walking, then one minute at a faster pace, or increase the incline. Keep going back and forth each minute. As you get stronger, and increase your endurance, your work to rest ratio would change to perhaps one minute, 30-seconds at a greater intensity level and then 30-seconds at a slower pace. If your exercise equipment offers a random or hill program, this will accomplish interval training without much thought on your part. I love to ride my bicycle, because that is interval training at its best! All the hills keep your heart rate in the training zone, which increases cardiovascular performance. If you only train in the 50 to 60% of your maximum heart rate, it is not going to be enough see cardiovascular improvement. Do not get me wrong! If that’s all you can do, that is great, but always try to work a little harder. If you can do 15 lb shoulder presses and it is tough, but you only use 5 lbs while working out then you are still getting some benefit. But, not as much benefit if you were using the 15 lb weights. Hopefully, this newsletter will shed new light on training with a heart rate monitor and working out smarter, not harder. Client of the Month
Gery has been with Functional Conditioning since October, 2006. Despite commuting from Boulder to the Denver Tech Center, Gery comes in every week to work with Bob. Gery has done an amazing job! He has lost over 22 pounds of body fat, and now is in the best shape of his life. I admire Gery! He always has a great attitude about his workouts and life in general. Bob and I look forward to many more years with Gery!!! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
