It’s Track Tuesday, and you’re up with the sun to meet your crew for an intense 12x400m workout. After a proper warm-up, you take off, crushing the first interval. Then the second. Then the third. Show By your fifth 400, you’re struggling to make it through the 200m recovery jog. By the sixth 400, your pace has slowed, but your heart rate has skyrocketed. And by the time you – somehow – get to your final loop of the track, your heart rate officially feels too high, your heart is beating out of your chest, and you decide to walk in the cool-down. Going out too eager, too hard, and too fast is common. But sometimes, the problem isn’t just the pace, and it’s definitely not your legs – it’s your heart rate. While what goes up must eventually come down, there are warning signs that you’re working too hard – and that’s not always a good thing. KNOW WHAT DIFFERENT HEART RATE ZONES FEEL LIKE, STAY OUT OF THE DANGER ZONEJust because your heart is pumping and you’re feeling fatigued doesn’t mean you’re working out in the danger zone. The key is understanding your running heart rate and those zones – the aerobic system, the lactic threshold system, and the anaerobic system – and what they feel like so you know when you’ve moved past them.
Generally during a run, you’re in one of those three zones. If you’re working with a heart rate monitor, it’s easy to see what heart rate zone you’re working within. But if you don’t have a monitor (yet!), there are other physical markers to estimate which system you’re training, such as “the talking test”. If you can speak in full sentences, you’re likely in the aerobic zone. If you can say a few words at a time, you’re probably in the lactic threshold zone. And if you can barely get out one or two words, you’ve probably found yourself in the anaerobic zone. “If you start to hyperventilate or get dizzy, your heart rate is probably too high, and you should stop and rest,” says Jason Lakritz, PT, DPT, physical therapist at Finish Line Physical Therapy in New York City and founder of Profunctional Running. what happens when your RUNNING heart rate gets too high for too long?Take a marathon training schedule, for example. “A marathon training plan has a lot of easy, aerobic runs, because the act of running a marathon is primarily aerobic,” Lakritz says. “Your body has to become really efficient at burning fat for energy so it can last a long time.” Over time, the pace at which you can do this will improve – you can run faster at the same heart rate as you get in shape. But, if you consistently run your easy runs at 75% of your max heart rate, you won’t train this system of your body. “You’ll probably get better at shorter distance races because you’re training the lactic threshold system, which helps you run faster for a shorter period of time,” Lakritz explains. “But by always running at this pace, your body won’t be able to recover enough to properly train the lactic threshold system, either.”
Your body will already be tired, so your heart rate will actually be higher at slower running paces. According to your heart rate, you might be within your lactic threshold range at a 6-minute mile pace if you’re tired from running too fast the previous day. But if you were fully recovered from the previous day, you might be able to run a 5:45 pace at the same heart rate range. While heart rate training is a great tool to ensure you’re training in the appropriate zones, the numbers don’t lie. “As you become more experienced, it’s also good to use internal cues to learn what system you’re using,” Lakritz says. “Consider the talking test. This is just a way to measure how hard you’re breathing. I like going by the data at the beginning of a training cycle to make sure I feel the right pace, but during a race, you really want to feel the right pace and not be too attached to those numbers.” What to do when your RUNNING heart rate gets too highYou’re out for a run and it’s going great. You’re on mile four of a five-mile tempo run, and you’re in that sweet spot where your perfect pace feels comfortably hard. But soon, your heart rate begins to climb. Within a few minutes, comfortably hard feels uncomfortable. If you’re not paying attention, the feeling of dizziness, or feeling close to hyperventilating, may creep up on you. That means your heart rate has been too high for too long and you need to get it down to be able to continue running. Here’s how to lower your heart rate while running, and what to do when you find yourself in a scary situation on the run. If you’re out for a training run…Sure, you may get competitive with your training buddies or internet friends on Strava, but ultimately, workouts aren’t made to be won or lost. That’s what race day is for. So, if you find yourself running with an elevated heart rate for too long, you should absolutely slow down, ease up, walk for a bit, or take a few moments to regain your composure and your breath.
“From a health perspective, in the short term, I’m not too concerned that an athlete will work so hard that there are any dangers to an overly elevated heart rate,” says exercise physiologist and City Coach Multisport owner Jonathan Cane. “But long, high-intensity work may increase that risk.” “I’m a big believer in working hard on hard days, but also that the counterpoint of really easy days is important,” says Cane. “Ideally, each workout should have a purpose. If it’s a recovery day, by all means, take it easy. If it’s a day where your goal is to increase your threshold, then push your heart rate to that area. If it’s a VO2 max kind of day, by all means work really hard and don’t be deterred by a high heart rate.” If you’re in the middle of a race…One of the keys to performing well is getting the most out of your physical ability. “Far too often I’ve had a runner tell me he or she was racing along just fine and then boom, out of nowhere they needed to slow way down,” Cane says. “It might have felt like it came out of nowhere, but in reality, it didn’t.” More often than not, the difference between a successful race and a disappointing one comes down to having the awareness to make minor adjustments sooner rather than major adjustments later.
“Oftentimes, by the time your brain has caught on, your body has been writing checks it can’t cash for quite a while already,” Cane says. Determining an appropriate heart rate for the event at hand is a great way to help determine the appropriate intensity. “If you see your heart rate drifting past where it should be, you can – and should – adjust,” Cane says. “Ideally,” Cane adds, “that adjustment is a subtle one, and the combination of tuning into the body’s cues and the data from your heart rate monitor can help you know when to back off a little. That scenario is preferable to having to slow to a walk.” “Of course, in a race setting, at a certain point you should just race and react and not worry about going too fast, but in the earlier stages, it’s important not to let your ambition get the best of you.”
If you liked this post, don’t forget to share so that others can find it, too. Or give it a thumbs up! Please note that the information provided in the Polar Blog articles cannot replace individual advice from health professionals. Please consult your physician before starting a new fitness program. Max heart rate has long been a key stat for cyclists to have at the ready, helping to inform your training and intensity efforts. And that max heart rate number often comes from the commonly used equation of 220 minus your age. This simply formula is meant to estimate max heart rate and from that number, you could, in theory, calculate light, moderate, and hard efforts or zones like recovery, endurance, and lactate threshold. Over the years, researchers have found other, slightly more accurate max heart rate calculations, like the Tanaka equation: 208 minus (0.7 x age). However, it’s still a rudimentary system—like, “might as well use an abacus as a bike computer” rudimentary, says Cherie Miner, M.D., a sports medicine specialist in Birmingham, Alabama. “It’s been the standard for years, but there are a lot of variables that can throw off your max heart rate.” She adds that how fit you are, how hot it is, and how much stress you’re under can all affect your max heart rate at any given time. Like the 220-minus-age rule, there are a lot of other myths surrounding max heart rate. Here, we debunk some of the most common so you can get to know your heart, so you train efficiently. More From Bicycling
You’ve got to admit: This is equally horrifying and comical. But you can rest easy because it won’t actually happen. “Your heart gets to the point where it can’t eject blood effectively enough, where it’s not productive anymore,” says Dean Golich, sports physiologist who has worked with competitive cyclists. When this happens, self-preservation kicks in, and you slow down. If you’re in a race, that means you’ll either just get dropped or toss your cookies. “Most people have one to two minutes at their max heart rate—highly-trained athletes may have more,” Miner says. Expect to see your performance suffer very quickly if you try and maintain your max heart rate for more than just a short burst. Fortunately, years of evolving to survive prevents us from actually killing ourselves.
The old-school formulas assume that it is the same, but Golich says it’s much more nuanced than that. Max heart rate is largely untrainable and determined by genetics—some of us have hearts tuned like humming birds’ while others have the slow-and-steady type. Although not perfectly accurate, age-based formulas give athletes an easy and accessible way to find a rough baseline of their max without undergoing rigorous (or sometimes dangerous, in the case of a sedentary person) testing. That said, The American College of Sports Medicine suggests age-based formulas with a lower standard deviation, for example, the Gelish equation: 207 minus (0.7 x age) or Tanaka: 208 minus (0.7 x age). No matter which way you calculate it, your max heart rate is not an indication of performance, Golich says. “If your max is 200, and someone else’s is 190, it doesn’t mean one of you is the better athlete.” In fact, Golich has worked with numerous talented athletes at both ends of the spectrum. It’s good to remember that everyone’s max heart rate does drop as they age—but again, that doesn’t mean you’re losing fitness. Regular training and good nutrition will affect performance more than the fact that your max heart rate is now slightly lower than it was three years ago. In reality, it’s not your max heart rate that determines your fitness level. Being able to hold your max heart rate for longer and longer sessions is what’s key.
Heart rate is a reaction to work being done, not a measurement of actual work. For example, Golich says that if you ratchet yourself up to 200 watts for three minutes for the first minute, your heart may tick along at 170 beats per minute (bpm). By minute two it may be at 180, and by minute three you could be pushing 189. But you’re doing the same amount of work the whole time: 200 watts. If you were to ride for three minutes with the intention of maintaining the same heart rate, things would look different. Say you ramped up to 180 bpm to start—you might ride at 200 watts for the first minute, but you’d likely have to drop your watts to sustain that heart rate for minutes two and three. If you only have two speeds—hard and harder—you’re doing yourself a disservice.” Golich says he prefers to have his clients train with power meters or using rate of perceived exertion (RPE)—a personal appraisal of how hard you feel you’re working—rather than heart rate. “There are a lot of grey areas with heart rate,” he says, adding that being overheated, under-fueled, or even just hopped up on caffeine will throw your heart rate numbers off for the day. Furthermore, the number displayed by your heart rate monitor or the screen on a gym treadmill may not be accurate. Sure, using a computer is certainly more accurate than the 220-minus-age formula, but Golich adds that because these devices take measurements every few seconds, they’re probably not dead-on. If you really want to know your true max heart rate, an EKG is the best way to go, though Golich believes it’s not an expense worth taking on. And if you think that unless you’re hitting your max heart rate on every ride, you’re not working hard enough, here’s your license to chill. Max heart rate workouts should be done sparingly, Miner says, since the ultra-high intensity can lead to injuries, extreme fatigue, and other symptoms of overtraining. Plus, there’s merit to working in many different heart rate zones—from increasing your base fitness with low-intensity sessions to pushing the boundaries at your lactate threshold, and even tipping into some anaerobic work. If you only have two speeds—hard and harder—you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Heart attacks, while rare, happen to athletes at all different workloads. Even so, cardiologist James Beckerman, M.D., says you’re slightly more at risk when working at very high intensities. “This is likely related to a combination of high heart rate, higher blood pressure with exercise (which is normal), and higher levels of catecholamines (hormones produced by the adrenal glands),” he says. “For people without heart disease, exercising at higher intensity is generally safe.” If you’re someone with heart disease or who has exhibited risk factors, however, it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor about safe heart rate ranges for exercise and even get a stress test, he says.
You’re not mistaken—your max for cycling really may be different than your max for another sport. Again, this is indicative of how variable heart rate is, Golich says. Activities that are load bearing—like running—will generally push your heart rate higher, because you have to do more work to overcome gravity. Cycling, because it has the mechanical assistance of the bike, will generally produce a lower max heart rate. And swimming, which happens in a pool with zero-impact, may be lower still—since the water is keeping you cool, Golich says, heat will be less of a factor in raising your heart rate.
What exactly is heart rate reserve? According to Miner, heart rate reserve is the difference between maximum heart rate and resting heart rate. Your heart rate reserve can actually be a good measurement of how fit you are overall. “A higher heart rate reserve indicates better physical fitness,” she says. That’s because, unlike maximum heart rate, a lower resting heart rate is associated with better fitness. “If your resting heart rate is lower, then your heart rate reserve will be higher,” Miner says.
|