Any effective exercise training program consists of three components; frequency, duration, and intensity. The heart rate index allows you to estimate the intensity of exercise based on your own heart rate. The heart rate index is based on the strong positive relationship between heart rate and intensity. Since the development of wireless heart rate monitoring devices in the 1980s, the use of heart rate index as a realistic training tool as grown dramatically.
Heart Rate Reserve
The heart rate reserve, or HRR, is the difference between your maximal heart rate and your resting heart rate. Using HRR allows for individual differences in resting heart rate to give more specific intensity ranges. The more specific you are able to tailor your own training program, the more likely you will be able to see positive results. There are three intensity ranges. In the low intensity range, you are at 60 percent to 70 percent of HRR. This range is ideal for early in a training program and for recovery days. The moderate intensity range, at 70 percent to 80 percent of HRR, is where most of your training occurs, including long runs and runs designed to increase your maximal oxygen consumption. Finally, the high intensity range is at 80 percen to 90 percent of HRR. This range is used during shorter, more intense runs designed to increase your anabolic energy production capabilities.
Karvonen Formula
The Karvonen formula is the most widely used formula to determine HRR and has been shown to be accurate in it's estimation of exercise intensity. First, determine your age-predicted maximal heart rate, MHR, by subtracting your age in years from 220. Next, determine your HRR: HHR = MHR - resting heart rate. Finally, determine heart rate at a given intensity by multiplying your HRR by a percentage figure. Heart rate = [HHR x intensity (as a decimal)] + resting heart rate.
Potential Benefits of Using Heart Rate Index
Good training programs consist of a frequency component, or how often you exercise, a duration component, or how long you exercise, and a intensity component, or how hard do you exercise. Both frequency and duration are very easy to track, but intensity can be difficult to track. By using the heart rate index you can quantify intensity and better follow your training programs, making it more likely to achieve your overall goals.
Problems with Heart Rate Index
The major problem with the heart rate index is your heart rate at a given intensity can be different day-to-day. Emotional state can cause your heart rate to be elevated or reduced. Dehydration, high environmental temperature and high altitude, such as more than 5,000 ft above sea level, can cause elevated heart rates during exercise. The best way to minimize these effects is to use a range, instead of a specific heart rate value. Since the heart rate index uses low, moderate, and high ranges, slight variations in day-to-day heart rate are not usually a problem. Secondly, heart rate index tends to overestimate heart rate intensity among those of low and average fitness, but knowing this allows you to adjust your ranges accordingly.
Summary
While using heart rate index to predict exercise intensity is not a perfect analysis, it can help you track intensity of a workout and in a long term training program. This will ensure you are correctly balancing all three key aspects of an effective training program; frequency, duration, and intensity.
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