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Newsletters>
August Newsletter
August 15, 2006
Newbury Park Athletic Club
Current Events
Fitness Wave Body Fat Testing
August 26th from 9:30 am-12:30pm
Cost $40
½ Price VO2 Max and REE Testing
During Fitness Wave Testing
VO2 Max- $35, REE- $15
VO2 Max tells you where you stop burning fat and start
burning sugar. This is a cardio based test.
REE Is a resting energy expenditure test that tells you how
many calories that your body burns at rest.
Rape Prevention Seminar/ Child Abduction Education
August 26th
Rape Prevention 12pm-1:30pm
Child Abduction Prevention 2pm-3pm
Parents Night Out
September 8th 5:30pm-9:30pm
Members: 1 Child-$25/2 or more $15
Non-Members: 1 Child-$35/2 or more-$20
Transformation Challenge
Starts September 15th
Orientations September 6th and 13th at 7pm
HEART RATE TRAINING
By John Platero
Many people think of cardiovascular training as an
afterthought to their weightlifting or tend to repeat the
same 20-30 minutes of cardio at the same intensity. What
they forget is, the heart is a muscle and like any other
muscle, it adapts. What kind of results would you expect if
you always performed a 20 pound curl at the same amount of
sets and reps? Eventually your biceps would adapt and no
change would occur. The heart is no different. No matter
what your fitness goal is, you must change the time and
intensity in your heart rate training in order to continue
to progress.
In resistance training, the intensity is determined by
the amount of weight lifted. In heart rate training the
intensity is determined by percentage of a person’s maximum
heart rate and time spent at that heart rate. There are
four components to heart rate training: resting heart rate,
recovery heart rate, anaerobic threshold and your max heart
rate. All of this information is expressed in beats per
minute or bpm.
Resting heart rate
Make sure you have a watch or clock with a second hand
that you can see in the dark when you awake. If not, wear a
heart rate monitor. You must take your pulse before you sit
up. The longer you take your pulse the more accurate it is.
60 seconds is more accurate than 30 seconds. A heart rate
monitor will tell you right away.
Recovery heart rate
This is how long it takes your heart to return to its
resting heart rate or pre-exercise heart rate. An average
person’s heart rate drops about 20 beats in a minute and an
athletes’ drops much more, to about 50 beats a minute. Dr.
Michael Lauer, a cardiologist and the director of clinical
research in cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation
and his colleagues, found that people after exercise whose
heart rates fell less than 12 beats within a minute had a
fourfold increased risk of dying in the next six years
compared with those whose heart rates dropped by 13 or
more.
Max heart rate
How can you determine your max heart rate? There is
only one true way. You must run, swim, bike, climb, etc.,
until you can’t perform that activity any longer and then
check your pulse. I recommend using a heart rate monitor.
You’ll to need to be pretty motivated to reach a max heart
rate. Dr. Kirkendall, an exercise physiologist at the
University of North Carolina, finds it is hard to gauge
maximum heart rates for people who are not used to
exercising, because they will prematurely stop the test.
“As the treadmill gets steeper and the exercise gets
harder, their calves will ache. They will say they can’t go
any further.”
There is an equation you can use to determine your max
heart rate, but it isn’t alwaysaccurate as you will learn
later in this article.
Anaerobic Threshold (AT)
This is the heart rate at which your muscles aren’t
getting enough oxygen. In sedentary people this threshold
will occur at abut 50-60% of a person’s max heart rate.
After training these levels could raise to approximately
75% of a person’s max heart rate and in elite athletes
their AT can occur at 90% or greater. There are equations
to determine this heart rate or threshold, which are based
on a person’s max heart rate. However, if the method to
determine the maximum heart rate is incorrect, then any
number or amount of heart beats per minute based on that
max heart rate will be also incorrect. The only true way to
determine a person’s AT is to do a VO2 test using
respiratory exchange. In this assessment a person wears a
mask with two tubes that measure the ratio of oxygen and
carbon dioxide through a flow meter as the person breathes
during exercise. Based on the gas exchange the tester can
scientifically determine when the subject has reached their
anaerobic threshold. At this threshold (which is expressed
in ml/kg/min) a person must now primarily rely on
carbohydrates to provide energy as opposed to fat.
Maximum Heart Rate Challenged
The formula for calculating maximum heart rate is
220-age. This equation has become a standard in cardiology,
fitness programs and in the process, an entire industry has
grown up around it. But is it accurate?
The formula was devised in 1970 by Dr, William Haskell
and his mentor Dr. Samuel Fox who were then working for the
Federal Public Health Service. At the time, they were
trying to determine how strenuously heart disease patients
could exercise. In preparation for a medical meeting, Dr.
Haskell collected data from about 10 different published
studies in which people of different ages had been tested
to find their maximum heart rates. “The subjects were never
meant to be a representative sample of the population,”
said Dr. Haskell, who is now the professor of medicine at
Stanford. “Most were under 55 and some were smokers.” On an
airplane traveling to the meeting, Dr. Haskell and Dr. Fox
were reviewing the data. “We drew a line through the points
and I said, ‘Gee, if you extrapolate that out it looks like
at age 20, the heart rate maximum is 200 and at age 40 it’s
180 and at age 60 it’s 160,”’ Dr. Haskell said. At that
point Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate
equals 220 minus age. “I’ve kind of laughed about it over
the years,” Dr. Haskell said. “The formula was never
supposed to be an absolute guide to rule people’s training.
It’s typical of Americans to take an idea and extend it
beyond what it was originally intended for.”
It wasn’t our fault entirely. Doctors urging heart
patients to exercise wanted a way to gauge exercise
intensity. Polar Electro Inc. of Oulu, Finland was selling
750,000 heart monitors a year in the United States citing
the “220-age” formula as a guide for training. The formula
entered into the medical literature and voila, we all just
followed along.
I personally have a testimonial with a fellow trainer
who wore my heart monitor while he raced his motocross
bike. In two separate events, his max heart rate was above
230bpm with an average heart rate of 190+ bpm for over 30
minutes! He’s 37 years old, so I don’t think the equation
would work out for this person.
Cardiac Output
When comparing athletes, heart rate isn’t as important
as cardiac output. Some people get blood delivered to
their muscles by pushing out large volumes of blood. This
is called stroke volume or the amount of blood pushed per
heart beat. Others can accomplish the same thing by
contracting their hearts at faster rates. Cardiac Output is
the result of both the stroke volume and the amount of
beats per minute.
Power
Most important of all, in athletic ability is power.
Regardless of how much blood is pumped or oxygen and carbon
dioxide is released in expiration; efficiency is what
counts in winning a race or a sport. There are many factors
that contribute to power: genetics, muscle physiology and
cardiovascular efficiency. If two athletes’ hearts are
beating at 165 bpm but one is putting out 400 watts of
power while the other is putting out 350 watts, guess who
wins?
What to do?
Find a place to do a VO2 max test and do it. If you
can’t reach your max heart rate, at least you’ll learn your
anaerobic threshold. This heart rate is an indicator of
when your muscles start to run out of oxygen. Depending on
your goal, you’ll now have a number expressed in beats per
minutes. At this number or heart rate your body becomes
anaerobic which now depends more on carbohydrates for fuel
rather than fat.
Now you can construct a plan.
Here’s a sample plan for a healthy 30-year-old male with
a max heart rate of 196 bpm with an AT of 155 bpm. The goal
is to strengthen his cardiovascular system:
We’ll start low – moderate intensity for four weeks. The
focus is longer time and more days a week. The second four
weeks we add intensity but lower the amount of time per
exercise bout. The goal here is to increase the interval
time so your body gets used to the higher intensity. The
last four weeks you can go for it. Increase the intensity
which makes the intervals shorter.
Week 1-4
Perform cardio three – five days a week, 20-60 minutes
at a heart rate under 155 bpm. Start at 20 minutes and by
week four you should be at 60 minutes
Week 5-8
Perform cardio three – five a days a week for 20 – 30
minutes. Every other workout, perform three – five
intervals of one or two minutes above 155 bpm. Each
interval should be at a higher heart rate then the previous
interval, so start conservatively. Always warm-up for 5
minutes, then start your intervals. Rest the same amount of
time between each interval for 1-1 ratio. For example, if
you perform an interval for two minutes then rest or back
off the intensity for two minutes before you start the next
interval.
Week 9-12
Perform cardio three – five days a week for 30-45
minutes. Every other workout, perform five intervals of 30
seconds – three minutes each, above 170 bpm or 10% higher
than the original AT of 155bpm. Each interval should be at
a higher heart rate or intensity then the previous
interval. Rest the same 1-1 ratio between each interval.
At the end of 12 weeks re-take a V02 test. I think
you’ll find your AT has now improved and you’ll be able to
burn fat at a higher heart rate which keeps you leaner.
Now, repeat the 12 weeks with the new anaerobic threshold
as the number to train your heart. This is Heart Rate
Training.
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