sweet FA

Well lets be honest Sweet FA! has happend on the fitness front for just over 1 week push ups are failing big time and sit ups havent seen the time of day for 2 weeks.

tried the push ups for the day but they were not happening so i have decided to start the apps again and then i took the test for the Sit-ups app and made 31.

that I am happy with i did take some more phots a few daya ago and these are them.

The belly has reduced a little but progress is far from over!

I have had some relaxed days (of which I am not proud) but I am getting back on it again.

Push-ups Failed

Today I have tried for the 3rd time to do week 3 day of the 100 push-ups app and failed.
So I have decided to go back and do the easier version that way I should be able to finish each day and move on with the program.

My weight has started to drop and at the end of the month I will report back as to my weight and take some more body shots.

Zone BPMs

As I have said earlier I will use the Karvonen method for determining heart rate zones.
Using my current stats of HR_rest of 70 bpm and HR_max of 187 bpm.

I have calculated my heart rate intensities at 10% intervals from 0% (HR_rest) to 100% (HR_max)as below.

Intensity

0% - 70.0 bpm (HR_rest)
10% - 81.7 bpm
20% - 93.4 bpm
30% - 105.1 bpm
40% - 116.8 bpm
50% - 128.5 bpm
60% - 140.2 bpm
70% - 151.9 bpm
80% - 163.6 bpm
90% - 175.3 bpm
100% -187.0 bpm

from the previous post we can see that aerobic development and therefore the best zones in which to improve aerobic fitness are the 60 - 80% of HR_max zones. For weight loss any excersise is good as it all adds up to calories burnt - although aerobic excersise is better for reasons I shall discuss later.

For my own purposes I should be excersising in the 140 - 167 bpm range, as my fitness is not particularly good at the moment I will probably try to do most of my excersise between 140 and 152 bpm (but to monitor this I will need a heart rate monitor first).

On a side note I attempted week 3 day of the 100 Push-ups today and failed at set 3 I also failed a set 2 of the 100 Sit-ups. I will therefore have another rest day and try again on Tuesday but go back to the start of the previous week for both apps.

Heart Rate Zones

The below target heart rates are a generally accepted rule for different benefits to health and fitness.

Intensity

50% - 60% General Warm-up (easy)
60% - 70% Aerobic Development (medium)
70% - 80% Aerobic Development (Hard)
80% - 90% Anaerobic Endurance (Very Hard)
90% - 100% Speed/Power (Extremely Hard)

when looking to lose weight working out in the zones below 80% are essential, as the body require oxygen to metabolise fat.

There is no fat burning zone as high lighted below!

The implication from all this research (Anderson 2002) is that if you wish to burn maximum amounts of fat then you should train in the 68 to 79% MHR window. The reality is that if you train at higher intensities you can burn just as much fat.

If you cycled along at 50% VO2max, fat would provide about 50% of the energy you needed to keep going. If you cycle along at 75% VO2max, fat would provide 33% of the required calories. Thus, the slower workout sounds better from the fat breakdown perspective - or does it?

A moderately fit athlete exercising at 50% VO2max generally consumes about 220 Calories during a 30 minute workout. If the same athlete works out at 75% VO2max, 330 Calories are burned during the same period. Of course, 50% of 220 Calories and 33% of 330 Calories yield an identical number of calories coming from fat - 110 Calories.

The above is shamelessly ctrl-c / ctrl-v from www.brianmac.co.uk but it does say exactly what I want to without the typing!

VO2 is something I have not covered yet and I do not fully understand but when I do there will be a post.

Tomorrow I shall do the calculations for the heart rate zones for myself and lok at they can help me, whether I post or not is dependant on stuff!

Push-Up Test 2

Just done the 2nd 100 Push-ups test and managed to do 30 push-ups in one hit I thought that I might do about 23-24 but the extra few and I am pretty chuffed with myself. I will do my sit-ups a little later and when it comes to the next test on these I will add an update.

Heart Rate Zones

Target heart rate zones I have found vary from source to source, but all of them seem to have a 10% spread above 50% HR_max there are also two different methods that I found for determining your target heart rate.

The Zoldaz Method
THR = HR_max - Adjuster +/- 5 bpm

where the adjuster determines the heart rate target zone as below.

Zone 1 = 50 bpm
Zone 2 = 40 bpm
Zone 3 = 30 bpm
Zone 4 = 20 bpm
Zone 5 = 10 bpm

this obviously is not a very good method of determining target zones, as it does not count for general fitness or age etc.

The Karvonen Method

this method takes into account a persons resting heart rate and has a % intensity multiplier (a much better method of calculating zone)

THR = ((HR_max - HR_rest) x % intensity) + HR_rest

This is the method that I shall use and later I will calculate my heart rates based on this method.

Heart Rate Continued

From all the equations that I posted yesterday I have HR_max in the range of 184.6 to 199.

199
184.6
186.1
191.5
184.8
187

Obviously discounting 199 from the Fox Haskell formula as it is obviously too high and taking an average of the other scores I get a HR_max of 186.8 bpm, as this is close to the Lund equation which supposably the best estimate it is good enough for me.

I know that heart rates vary from person to person and the best why to actually know your HR_max is to do a clinical trial this is slightly out of my range and having an average HR_rest of approx 70 bpm myself I think that I will be pretty safe using this data.

For easier values I will use HR_max 187 bpm and HR_rest 70 bpm.

Heart Rate Reserve: HRR = HR_max - HR_rest.


Using these two values above this gives me a heart rate reserve of 117 bpm.

Next update will be for target zone and there benefits.