What are heart rate zones, and how will you incorporate them into your exercise routine?

If you spend loads of time exploring fitness content online, you would possibly have come across the concept of heart rate zones. Heart rate zone training has turn into more popular lately partly due to the boom in wearable technology which, amongst other functions, allows people to simply track their heart rates.

Heart rate zones reflect different levels of intensity during aerobic exercise. They’re most frequently based on a percentage of your maximum heart rate, which is the best variety of beats your heart can achieve per minute.

But what are the various heart rate zones, and how will you use these zones to optimise your workout?

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The three-zone model

While there are several models used to explain heart rate zones, essentially the most common model within the scientific literature is the three-zone modelwhere the zones could also be categorised as follows:

• zone 1: 55%–82% of maximum heart rate

• zone 2: 82%–87% of maximum heart rate

• zone 3: 87%–97% of maximum heart rate.

If you’re undecided what your maximum heart rate is, it could actually be calculated using this equation: 208 – (0.7 × age in years). For example, I’m 32 years old. 208 – (0.7 x 32) = 185.6, so my predicted maximum heart rate is around 186 beats per minute.

There are also other models used to explain heart rate zones, similar to the five-zone model (as its name implies, this one has five distinct zones). These models largely describe the identical thing and might mostly be used interchangeably.

What do the various zones involve?

The three zones are based around an individual’s lactate thresholdwhich describes the purpose at which exercise intensity moves from being predominantly aerobic, to predominantly anaerobic.

Aerobic exercise uses oxygen to assist our muscles keep going, ensuring we are able to proceed for a very long time without fatiguing. Anaerobic exercise, nonetheless, uses stored energy to fuel exercise. Anaerobic exercise also accrues metabolic byproducts (similar to lactate) that increase fatigue, meaning we are able to only produce energy anaerobically for a short while.

On average your lactate threshold tends to take a seat around 85% of your maximum heart ratealthough this varies from individual to individual, and will be higher in athletes.

In the three-zone model, each zone loosely describes considered one of three varieties of training.

Zone 1 represents high-volume, low-intensity exercise, often performed for long periods and at a simple pace, well below lactate threshold. Examples include jogging or cycling at a delicate pace.

Zone 2 is threshold training, also often called tempo training, a moderate intensity training method performed for moderate durations, at (or around) lactate threshold. This could possibly be running, rowing or cycling at a speed where it’s difficult to talk full sentences.

Zone 3 mostly describes methods of high-intensity interval training, that are performed for shorter durations and at intensities above lactate threshold. For example, any circuit style workout that has you exercising hard for 30 seconds then resting for 30 seconds could be zone 3.

Striking a balance

To maximise endurance performance, you have to strike a balance between doing enough training to elicit positive changes, while avoiding over-training, injury and burnout.

While zone 3 is assumed to provide the most important improvements in maximal oxygen uptake – among the finest predictors of endurance performance and overall health – it’s also essentially the most tiring. This means you may only perform a lot of it before it becomes an excessive amount of.

Training in several heart rate zones improves barely different physiological qualitiesand so by spending time in each zone, you ensure a variety of advantages for performance and health.

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So how much time do you have to spend in each zone?

Most elite endurance athletesincluding runners, rowers, and even cross-country skiers, are inclined to spend most of their training (around 80%) in zone 1, with the remaining split between zones 2 and three.

Because elite endurance athletes train quite a bit, most of it must be in zone 1, otherwise they risk injury and burnout. For example, some runners accumulate greater than 250 kilometres per weekwhich could be inconceivable to get better from if it was all performed in zone 2 or 3.

Of course, most individuals are usually not skilled athletes. The World Health Organization recommends adults aim for 150–300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week, or 75–150 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.

If you take a look at this within the context of heart rate zones, you would consider zone 1 training as moderate intensity, and zones 2 and three as vigorous. Then, you should utilize heart rate zones to be certain that you’re exercising to satisfy these guidelines.

What if I don’t have a heart rate monitor?

If you don’t have access to a heart rate tracker, that doesn’t mean you may’t use heart rate zones to guide your training.

The three heart rate zones discussed in this text will also be prescribed based on feel using a straightforward 10-point scalewhere 0 indicates no effort, and 10 indicates the utmost amount of effort you may produce.

With this technique, zone 1 aligns with a 4 or less out of 10, zone 2 with 4.5 to six.5 out of 10, and zone 3 as a 7 or higher out of 10.

Heart rate zones are usually not an ideal measure of exercise intensity, but generally is a useful gizmo. And for those who don’t need to worry about heart rate zones in any respect, that’s also high quality. The most significant thing is to easily get moving.