My question has a bit to do with recovery. I know my resting HR is 49. I actually had it lower recently but not sure if that was an anamoly. Every morning I train, I check my resting HR. I will count to 55 beats and check my watch. If I am 1:00 or above I will train. If I my HR is below 1:00, I will tend to go easy. I figure 55 because that is the 10% window. There are days after a few hard training days, that I notice my HR very high. I was trying to beef up run mileage and had worked on consistency before hitting a harder run week. The first two days were fine at 10 miles each day. The third day I ran eight miles and the next morning my HR was 65 in the morning. So being 30% too high, I did not train.
Now, I don’t only check once and be done. I check two to three times to make sure it is consistent.
Does everyone subscribe to this practice or should I stop being a wuss?
The resting HR things is for wimps. Have never used it to dictate training. I don’t even monitor my HR while exercising. It’s all about pace and power. HR is irrelevant.
RHR is a key indicator of your bodies “status”. Your RHR will elevate when you are sick, overtrained, etc, before you even feel it. Keeping an eye on mine has been the key indicator of my fitness level and its progression over the last 3 years. The more you monitor it, the more you will understand what your body is up to. You will be able to notice that you should take the day easy or keep pushing the intensity.
David
Now, don’t get me wrong. Even when it is slightly over my “cap,” I will still excercise. But when it is way high and I had a tough week or weekend I try to tone it down.
I will say this. I have not had an overtraining or burnout stage.
RHR is a key indicator of your bodies “status”. Your RHR will elevate when you are sick, overtrained, etc, before you even feel it. Keeping an eye on mine has been the key indicator of my fitness level and its progression over the last 3 years. The more you monitor it, the more you will understand what your body is up to. You will be able to notice that you should take the day easy or keep pushing the intensity.
David
All fine and dandy but over the last 6 years I’ve gone from looking at HR to realizing it means squat. I can tell when I’m sick - I don’t need HR to tell me that. I guess I’m just blessed with good health as I usually am sick no more than 2 days a year.
HR can go up after you eat or when you wake up. Are you not going to train because of false markers?
In the last year I’ve realized that for amateurs it’s nearly impossible to be overtrained. You can have fatigue, but overtrained? Nope. You can push a LOT more than you think you can.
I’m chuckling at those that are still slaves to heart rate.
I don’t think you are being a wuss. I think you are being smart about your training. HR is one of the few ways we have to get biofeedback. If you are overtraining, your performance will go down & you will get sick &/or injured. Training smart is the way to go. More is just more.
RHR is cool, but a better way, I think, is a RHR/stand/recover test. Basically you get a RHR prone & then stand up. You will notice a HR spike. Time how long it takes for the HR to come back down to a HR somewhat above your RHR. So… if your RHR is 55, you stand up & HR is now 75. If it takes longer to come down than normal (For you), maybe that day should be easy or rest. I used HR for many years, but not so much now I learned to listen to my body better.
I take my RHR daily when I’m IM training. if it is more than 10 beats above normal, that’s a day off. if it is 5-10 beats above normal, that’s an EZ day. I’m also very prone to over-reaching and getting burnt out so try to be a bit more careful.
What objective measure does one use to see the effects a training stimulus has on the body?
That is the question I would pose to the non RHR takers. How do you judge how your body is reacting to the training? Race times? 40K time? 5K time? A coach/person, IMO, needs daily feedback on the state of his/her body and how it is adapting/not adapting to the training. RHR is the simplest method to get real feedback from the body without an athlete’s opinion/feelings getting in the way. It may just be me, but my “feelings” and “emotions” can be quite different than my physical state. I can wake up tired, but after a few cups of coffee, I’m “feeling” fine. If I check my RHR, then I know that I’m not fine.
Check daily. I don’t do it religiously anymore, but I’ve learned by doing it regularly in the past that I can feel when I’m a little off (physically at least). If you graph it, it shows some interesting trends, especially if you graph it along side of your total training hours and time in zones. I find that it gives me a little advance notice before I’m about to push myself over the edge.
It’s perfectly OK to bag or downgrade a hard workout because your RHR is too high. If you don’t, you could end up bagging several days or a week later on.
“Do you feel that is the best method or just an indicator?”
–it is an indicator of your bodies “status” and I personally don’t know of another method to use and I would be open to learning another. I tried to reflect my comment in an inquisitive tone. Maybe I should have said: Is there another method and/or indicator outside of RHR of how your body is responding to a training stimulus?
“Is this just your opinion or are you basing it on one or more studies? Is this just your experience?”
–disclaimer: I’ve been in this field since college (17 years) both as an athlete and coach/trainer/teacher and the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. I’m also learning that despite numerous studies, a huge amount of this field is personal opinion or guided by various professional organizations or for profit companies that hold to certain beliefs. The V02/anaerobic model is one that may be seriously flawed and needs to be looked at and not taken as a given. I have serious concerns about what is propogated there…I’m rambling and I’m really not a huge conspiracy theorist either:) Anyway, to answer your question, it is definitely my opinion and my experience. No, I can’t quote particular studies and don’t feel I want to spend time researching literature. But from the cobwebs of my memory, I read lots of stuff on this topic with the advent of the HR monitor being introduced to the public in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Also, my personal coach totally prescribes to this and get’s really PO’d if I don’t track it and is a requirement to become a client. I also track HR recovery time after intervals/workouts.
Do you subscribe to HR training zones as a percentage of max HR or LT? Why?
–Not necessarily and I’m not convinced that LT even exists. Why is it that my “LT” pace (subjectively) is sometimes 175 and at other times it’s 190? Did it (my LT) change? My intervals are normally based on a percentage of my current benchmark time for a particular event and distance. For example: 10 x 1 mile bike intervals at 2:30 pace. or, 15 x 50 swim at :42 pace, etc.
What objective measure does one use to see the effects a training stimulus has on the body?
That is the question I would pose to the non RHR takers. How do you judge how your body is reacting to the training? Race times? 40K time? 5K time? A coach/person, IMO, needs daily feedback on the state of his/her body and how it is adapting/not adapting to the training. RHR is the simplest method to get real feedback from the body without an athlete’s opinion/feelings getting in the way. It may just be me, but my “feelings” and “emotions” can be quite different than my physical state. I can wake up tired, but after a few cups of coffee, I’m “feeling” fine. If I check my RHR, then I know that I’m not fine.
As I said in my original reply, RHR is not only affected by exercise, but also by merely waking up (my lowest HR is traditionally a few hours after I get to work while sitting at my desk), food intake, etc. As a marker I find it worthless.
So what do I measure to see if I’m improving? I don’t swim but I do bike and run. On the bike it’s improvement in my power numbers. I monitor power-duration from 5 seconds to 5 hours and am always looking for improvements. How do I know if I’m rested or not? Just this morning I went out and did a 4x20 L4 workout and yesterday was 10x4 VO2 plus 10 minutes of 30/30s. Later yesterday it was a 40 minute easy run. I knew I was tired going into this morning’s workout, but since my emphasis was on building up TSS I knew what I was getting myself into. FYI, power was down a few percent compared to last week for a similar workout.
For running, I go by feel and times. Fortunately running isn’t nearly as dependent on the weather as cycling (except temperature - I suck in warm conditions). During the workout how is my perceived effort? Is my breathing where I expect? Are the legs alive? Am I keeping my desired pace during my intervals?
You are right about emotions affecting things, and that’s one reason I wait until I’m in the full swing of things before assessing whether I’m ready to go or not. There have been many days I’ve felt lousy warming up but have had some of my best workouts. It goes both ways.
Most importantly, the more you train, the more you know your body and what it’s capable of.
I like your answer but I’m still not convinced that RHR is more just an indicator. I also don’t know of another “one way” that one could guage a persons status or even if we should.
Figuring out the appropriate training load by starting with contant low stress, building up, looking for improved performance and a point of diminishing returns might be another way. I suppose an experienced coach would have a feel for that. If changes in RHR coincides with increased training stress that would be a convenient coincidence.
I have seen days that my RHR is normal and I’ve felt terrible and others where it was elevated and I’ve felt and performed great. I suppose a trend might be more usefull but I stopped tracking RHR over a year ago.
I don’t take mine everyday. But if I feel really sore or tired and am deciding if I should do today’s workout or not, I will take my RHR. If it is more than 10 beats high I will either take a rest day or an easy day depending on how I feel. I wouldn’t do much with a 5 beat difference unless I was showing symptoms of sickness.
I think another method is simply speed/power and HR and RPE and ventilatory work. Monitor how many watts vs. running speed + heart rate response + resp. work + RPE = add it up and you should know how you feel. Sometimes I’ll be a little sluggish in warm-up and come around and have a good work-out but usually I know pretty quick if I’m tired/fatigued and can’t get in a quality work-out. Then I just cut it short…and try again the next day.
I used to check resting HR with some regularity and found it lacking. I’d have a good resting HR and be sluggish. I’d have a higher HR and be fine. I never found it too useful.
