Your heart rate is an effective indicator of how hard you are working during your exercise session. Although the volume of air you breathe is the ultimate indication of calories burned, heart rate is an important measurement and also much easier to track during your workout. By training within a certain heart rate "zone," you can be more certain that you are exercising at the right difficulty for your fitness goals.
Heart Rate Training
Although each person's personal goals will be unique, exercising at 50 to 75 percent of your maximum heart rate in the "aerobic training zone," promotes improvements in endurance and stamina while exercising at 75 to 95 percent of your maximum heart rate in the "anaerobic zone" promotes improvements in speed and economy.
To successfully train to your heart rate goal, you can use any combination of increased speed, incline or distance that you prefer. This will be accomplished most easily if you are able to wear a heart rate monitor during your workout so that you can monitor for heart rate changes throughout your session. If you fall below the range you've set as your heart rate goal, simply increase speed or incline. Conversely, if your heart rate goes higher than your goal range, you may simply reduce incline or speed until it comes back down.
Speed
Increasing speed will amp up the workload on your heart as well as increase the distance that you can cover in the same amount of time. So if you only have 20 minutes to spare, increasing your pace from a 3 mile-per-hour walk to a 4.5-mile-per-hour jog will mean that you cover 1.5 miles instead of just a single mile. That may not sound like much to you, but it's a 50 percent increase, and over time it will really add up.
Incline
Some people struggle to increase the speed of their workout because of joint problems or other discomforts that limit their ability to jog or run. Others may simply have already met their speed goals and would like another option for increasing their workout results. In either case, you may prefer to ramp up your workout with a steeper incline grade. Raising the incline is a great way to increase the load on your heart without increasing the impact to your joints. While you won't be covering greater distances in the same amount of workout time, you will be working harder over the distance you do cover.
Increase Gradually
To implement changes in either speed or distance with minimal risk of injury, it is important to make change to your routine gradually. Avoid increasing either speed or distance by more than 10 percent per week. Another simple way to increase gradually is with short intervals of a higher workload: Begin the workout at your normal pace and incline, and after a few minutes of warm up, increase speed or incline for a short 10- to 30-second burst of effort before returning to your normal pace for recovery. Repeat these bursts several times during your workout, then on the next workout make them a few seconds longer. Continue to lengthen your bursts of increased effort and shorten your recovery time until you are able to do the full workout at the increased effort level.
References
- "Precision Heart Rate Training"; Ed Burke; 1998
- "Basic Training for Running"; Randy Accetta, Ph.D. and Greg Wenneborg, M.A.; 2002
- "The Complete Book of Personal Training"; Douglas Brooks; 2004
- "Heart Rate Training"; Roy Benson and Declan Connolly; 2011
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