What's the best way to find your max heart rate (by runnning) rather than using the 220 minus age?
What's the best way to find your max heart rate (by runnning) rather than using the 220 minus age?
Ah, you have a lovely voice, a bit like Celine Dion
220 -age is very unreliable almost to the point of being useless
Ignore max heart rate - it is unpredictable and to hard to find.
What is more use is finding your lactic threshold. The heart rate for your lactic threshold is the pretty much the average heart rate over a 10k road race. Do 2 or 3 of these and you'll have a very practical and useful heart rate figure.
To increase fitness you should train 2-3 times per week where for 20-30 mins you are training at on or around your lactic threshold heart rate. Over time you should find that as your fitness increases your lactic threshold heart rate increases. Normally the sessions will to achieve this will be hill reps or normal reps with a very short recovery, e.g. 7 x 4 mins at LTHR, 30 seconds recovery. Hence the need to find a long hill! Or do a session on a treadmill avoiding the need to jog back down.
Basically as fitness improves are training your body to operate at higher intensities without going into lactic deficit.
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I bargained 4 salvation & she gave me a lethal dose
If you want to find your max look at the tests on the following link
http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/hrm2.htm
Sums up some quite good tests and ones that runners should be able to do
My book has arrived today
Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot by John L. Parker! (thought complete wa spelt without an A or is that to prove that i am indeed an Idiot
Anyway no doubt will have countless hours of pushing my heart to places it's never been before - if I survive I'll keep you posted!
Not if you run like f*ck uphill a couple of times it isn't.Originally Posted by Aspidistra
If it's purely threshold training you'll be doing then yes, but there are quite a few other paces which may be handy to train at, for which heart rate reserve (Karvonen etc, requiring a maximum HR figure) will be useful to calculate.Originally Posted by Aspidistra
Lots of sources would suggest that this is pitching it a bit high - 10 mile race effort is quoted more often (or 10k pace minus 10 secs per mile).Originally Posted by Aspidistra
That's going it a bit in frequency and intensity for anyone who is training less than 6 times a week?Originally Posted by Aspidistra
Your mileage may vary, as they say. Not that I do any mileage anyway. I don't train with an HRM either. What am I doing here?
The beauty of heart rate training is that it naturally tailors itself to your heart. The advice I gave was the system that worked for me, but it wasn't the exact system I used when I started HRM training; i.e. it evolved. So, a caveat, maybe use my advice as a good starting point and feedback from your HRM will help you evolve the system suitable for you.
I never found my max heart rate, no matter how hard I tried. One day it'll be one thing, another day another depending on how I'm feeling. Hence I felt the average heart rate was more reliable and scientific.
Frequency? A suggestion 3 runs includes 1 LT session, 4 runs 1 or 2, 5 runs 2, 6 runs 2 or 3 LT. A key factor is make sure the session after the LT session is a recovery session - use your HRM to MAKE YOU RUN VERY SLOW.
Now get back down the pub and annoy JJ.
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I bargained 4 salvation & she gave me a lethal dose
Not being funny (I rarely am, after all) but how do you know you never found it? Wouldn't it be safe to assume that the highest you achieved was your maximum?Originally Posted by Aspidistra
In the distant days of proper training (improper is so much more fun), I did a max test of 2 x 800 flat out, with about 30 secs in between. I then added a couple of beats, on the scientific basis that if someone with an axe (or JJ since you mention her) had been chasing me then I could probably have squeezed out that extra bit of effort.
I have found my greatest all-round improvement comes from a more mixed approach of 1 LT session, 1 track session at 3k pace, 1 long run, and steady/recovery runs to make up the numbers.Originally Posted by Aspidistra
I find that a few 40 mile weeks of 4-5 days of that does the world of good but that more than this knackers me out.
I am, however, a big girl's blouse.
Run till your eyeballs pop then accelerate. Continue uphill then commence banging your b**** in the door!
Your heartrate should be near max then.
If thats too tough (as I know you are averse to hard work!)then use Muds suggestion of multiple 800's almost flat out.
Can always rely on sensible answer on here! Thanks Mud. FastEddie, think you're on the wrong forum? This is a 'Fell Running' forum. Roadies not allowed!
Ah, you have a lovely voice, a bit like Celine Dion