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!

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.

Getting Better!

Today I got home from work and with the absence of a girlfriend in the house I took the opportunity to go back out for a run. Today was day 1 of week 2 and as such was a little harder, as it has been a while since I last went for I run I thought that I would struggle more than I did, must back back into the habit doing this more recently.

I have been looking into heart rate and the effect that it has on excersice and weight loss. I was of the belief that any exercise would help weight loss and increase cardiovascular capacity. It would appear that this is not quite true, there are different rates at which the body uses fat, carbohydrates and proteins, also there are diffent rates and which anerobic and aerobic exercise take place.

I am about to shamelessly quote wikipedia here as after much research I have found that most of the info you need on heart rate is on the wikipedia page for heart rate, as such I have snagged the Fox Haskell formula HR_max = 220 - age and the below chart from there.

This is definately not hard and fast and is not recognised by fitness professionals but gives an Idea of the effect of the heart rate.

Using the Fox Haskell formula my maximum heart rate is 199, lets use this later for comparison.
From the 2002 study the least objectionable formula was HR_max = 205.8 - (0.685 x age) having a standard deviation of 6.4 bpm, using this formula my HR_max is 184.6, as we can see thus far there is a difference of 14.4 bpm.


Going on the 2007 study the linear equation is HR_max = 206.9 − (0.67 × age) having a standard deviation 5-8 bpm, giving me a HR_max of 186.1 bpm this is closer to the previous equation, lets look at the non-linear equation HR_max = 191.5 − (0.007 × age²) having a tighter deviation of 2 - 5 bpm. Using the non-linear equation my HR_max is 184.8 bpm.

The final equation for men is the equation devised in Lund, Sweden. HR_max = 203.7 / (1 + e(0.033 x (age - 104.3))) using this equation I have a HR_max of 187 bpm.

I will now look into the different target heart rates and their respective benifits, in particular where my best weight lost is going to come from.