18 December 2007

Section Three - Now to FINALLY answer Tea's question!

All of the above zones are based on RUNNING/AEROBIC heart rate. Different activities require different muscles groups and therefore different amounts of energy to perform the task. Your heart’s response to exercise is directly proportional to the amount of muscle mass being used for the activity. In other words, a sport that involves more muscle to propel your body, will demand higher heart rates. Therefore you will breakdown THR zones for different sports as follows:

There are two things to consider when looking at your cycling THR zones. First, it is fair to say that you should be riding at an intensity that allows you to reach and maintain your target for 30 mins. Secondly, because you have added additional energy (i.e. bike), you should deduct 8-10 bpm for your THR zones for cycling.

As far as swimming goes you can safely deduct 10-12 bpm from your THR zones for the entire time you are swimming.

EXAMPLE:
If I want to maintain 75-85% for RUNNING my zone would be 161-174. (Usually I’m on the higher side of 170, but my avg is usually about 168.)
If I want to maintain 75-85% for CYCLING my zone would be 153-166 (I try hard to maintain 162-165 while riding.)
If I want to maintain 75-85% for SWIMMING my zone would be 151-164 (I usually avg 160 while swimming.)

I hope that this info helps all you!!! There are tons of tools out there to help make us better, faster, stronger, but we need to understand them and the best ways to implement them for a difference to be seen. Good luck!!!

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