Heart rate training receives a lot of attention in the endurance world, and there is good reason for it. Speak to any professional athlete and they will no doubt mention something about training zones and heart rate. Injury is often caused by over training and going too hard in each session. Using heart rate is a great way to structure your training and will help develop you as an athlete. My previous article on heart rate training explains the benefits of using heart rate to manage your training, the following article will give you some basic guidelines on how to set your own personal training zone.
SETTING YOUR TRAINING ZONES
If you have access to a laboratory then this would be considered the gold standard in determining your aerobic and anaerobic thresholds. Using blood samples we can measure exact metabolic points and then record heart rate values at these specific points. However, this method is expensive and not always available. There are, however, other ways to determine these values. Joel Fiel, Matt Dixon and Phil Maffetone have all been influential in this field of research, and have developed specific ways of setting your own personal heart rate zones. Over the past few years I have applied a combination of these different methodologies to fine tune my training. However, each method has certain pros and cons associated with them, so I will highlight why and when to use each of the following methods.
PHIL MAFFETONE
Phil Maffetone was the first method I used to set my zones. It is simple and easy to understand. I really like his emphasis on low intensity training to build your aerobic fitness, the foundation to endurance training. To workout your aerobic threshold he uses a simple formula: 180 – your age. From here he advises you to add 5 to this number if you haven’t been recently injured, or subtract 5 if you have. The end value is your aerobic threshold heart rate. For example. my calculation would be 180-40(my age)= 140. I haven’t been injured recently so I add 5 onto this. 140 + 5 = 145. So my aerobic threshold heart rate is 145bpm. I would then base all my Zone 2 aerobic session at or below this heart rate. Furthermore, I could add 25-30bpm onto this heart rate value to get a rough idea of your anaerobic threshold, which would sit me at 170-175bpm. And then apply the 80/20 rule to structure your easy and hard sessions.
This method is one I started with and allowed me to build up my endurance slowly and safely. It requires patience and discipline. It is also the main method I use in the off season and the initial build stage 6-8 months out from a target event. Phil Maffetone doesn’t suggest adding 25-30bpm on to your aerobic threshold to gain your anaerobic threshold heart rate value, however, I found this a good starting point and will certainly create a clear division between heart rate zones. He also explains some other conditions to fine tuning your aerobic threshold heart rate, so its worth checking our his website for further information.
JOEL FIEL METHOD
Joel Fiel has authored a number of excellent books that has helped me personally understand how to structure my own training. He advocate using a 30 minute time trial to calculate your anaerobic threshold heart rate. From here you can use Garmin or Training Peaks to calculate your training zones automatically. Use these value to then structure your training intensities using the 80/20 rule previously discuss in my heart rate training article.
I like this method for calculating training zones because it is very accurate when done correctly. I would recommend this to a more accomplished athlete who has had experience in running time trials and is able to hold a solid consistent pace throughout the test. Exposing new athlete to this method, however, will often give a false reading as it requires some experience to execute correctly. Furthermore, if you have had a recent injury or haven’t been consistent in your training then I often advise an athlete against this method as it can end up putting too much stress on the body.
MATT DIXON
Matt Dixon is the founder of Purple Patch Fitness, and his philosophy around training is fantastic. He is not only an ex professional athlete but holds a Masters degree in exercise physiology. He was named the recovery coach by many, and for years he was dismissed as an accomplished trainer. However, you only need to look at his athletes profiles to realise that he has achieved some great results and is now getting recognition for this. His method is less about using objective measures to calculate training zones, and more about using subjective measurements, like how you feel whilst training. To understand how you feel at a certain pace, being in tune with your body and using this intuition to structure your training is a nice approach. He has devised some simple terminology to describe these training zones, which are really useful to use during your training.
I really like this method because it allows you, the athlete, to feel what you are feeling and to adjust the intensity based on this feeling, instead of simply using your heart rate to dictate how fast, or slow you should run. However, it does have some draw backs. Endurance athletes are often guilty in thinking a certain pace is easy when in actual fact it’s not. It requires discipline and a truthful understanding of intensity for this to really work.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Being mindful of your heart rate during training will ultimately help you structure your program and maximise your performance in target events. Furthermore, applying Matt Fitzgerald 80/20 rule, mentioned in my previous article on heart rate training, will facilitate more consistent training and reduce your risk of injury. So which method should you use? My journey began with the Maffetone method, and as I built more fitness I used Joel Friel’s time trial method to fine tune my training. In saying that, I match every training session now with Matt Dixon’s objective measures, because I am a true believer that we shouldn’t be driven by the metrics alone, whether that’s heart rate, pace, distance or power output. Using both subjective and objective measurements has really helped me understand training intensity. I love the numbers, but I place huge emphasis on how I feel each training session and during target events. Don’t be overwhelmed by these different methodologies. By adding some structure to your program you will enhance your training, even if you don’t get it spot on first time. It takes time to develop these concepts, so be patient. Take your training to the next level and start today with the basics, and then fine tune the process from there on.