Heart rate zone recommendations are not consistent. Which do I use?

wow, i can't believe you looked up all of these. good luck.

Yes, well you have to agree that the function of a heart rate monitor is to aid you in the process of training in a range of training intensities which would somehow enable you to enhance performance (speaking for runners). The logical step seems to find those ranges of intensities.

It was a hell of a job though and it didn't help at all.

You're not going to find anything online that is your EXACT fit. Here's what I've personally had success with, my recommendation is that your try it out and adjust according to how you feel.

Subtract your RHR from your MHR, that gives you a range of about 160 (0 effort is 50 beats, max effort is 210 beats).

Run your easy/long day @ about 60% (=146) (160 * .6 = 96, 96 + 50 = 146).

Run your normal training run days from about 60% - about 75% (=146 - 170).

Run your tempo workout from about 80% - about 88% (=178 - 191).

Try to get close to your max (95%, 202) in interval workouts.

perplexed wrote:

...

Perhaps I should just continue to run by feel, or is there someone who can help me on this one?

Thanks.

Don't use any of those recommendations. You need to learn what "hard", "easy", "tempo", etc. feel like. Then you can interpret the HRM output in terms of what you're doing.

Personally, I find a HRM most useful for recovery days, and of course as something to do while running.

learn to run by feel

read what Kevin Beck said about HR recommendations:

taken from

http://www.kemibe.com/training.htm

One of the most common questions thrown around the running community is "How fast should I run on my easy days?" Evidently there are limitless correct answers, because for every method that's been tried, I can name at least one person who swears by it. "10K pace plus 60 (or 90, or 45.987) seconds a mile." "75% (or 65%, or 80%, or 77.895%) of maximum heart rate." "As fast (or slow) as you can manage (or not manage)."

I think answering this question in a satisfactory manner requires defining an "easy day" in running. Typically, the term is used to refer to any spate of running that is not a race or a programmed hill, track or tempo session; in short, any workout without a specific time (or effort) goal. Common sense point: A day without a pace or effort goal should remain as such. If you're in a period of training with no immediate racing goals (and thus presumably not doing a lot of track or interval work), you can run as fast as you want to every day. If you're a little tired the next day, good. You should be. If you're really whipped, consciously back off and you'll probably feel fresher soon enough. There are no magical programs or formulas when it comes to building strength in the off-season. Run as much as you can as often as possible and run like hell when moved to do so. That seemingly oversimplified piece of advice is not a cop-out or a spitting in the face of science or specifics; it's a real prescription for long-term success. I have benefitted tremendously from this approach, as have many runners far better than me.

During a period of serious racing, the variables change. Here, you should almost certainly be running slower on non-workout, non-race days than you think you should. "Recovery days" are so named for a reason; they're not called "slow, but no slower than seven-minutes-a-mile-'cause-that's-too-slow" days, for the same reason. You're better off running too slowly than running too fast during an in-season training run, and, though it may not feel like it, better of pitter-pattering along at a relative jog than not running at all.

I don't even time my easy days anymore. In the fall, I've done a lot of running with the high-school kids I've coached, which has meant anything from 7:30 pace to even 9:30 pace. Hence, when I'm in my racing season (which correlates well with a scholastic team's, since I usually aim for some October event), my easy days are LAUGHIN,' SCRATCHIN' easy.

Some would say I run too easy on my easy days. Of course, many of the same people say I run too hard on my hard days, run too much in general, run excessively long marathon-pace runs, and don't drink enough gecko urine or eat enough encapsulated hippo snot. All I have to back up my methods, of course, are half-marathon and marathon times that continue to drop sharply even after seventeen years of competitive running.

Amazing research, but they are not all that inconsistent (why not just average them?). Hadd does say that for HR's over 200, round down to 200, so he might come in a little lower than Daniels, for example. They all might have some small variations for different reasons.

Training by HR, like running, is not supposed to be complicated.

One minor correction - credit where credit is due: 'Lydiard Interpreted' is neither by Lydiard, nor by Hodge, but a thesis by John Molvar on how he interprets Lydiard. Hodgie-san just posted the thesis on his website.

You won't find a one-size fits all, because athletes are different, as well as coaches. Hadd, for example, emphasizes starting a bit on the "easy" side, and working up. If your goal is general fitness, versus competitive racing, you may want different zone definitions. Also, as you get fitter, your zones will tend to move up.

A lot of people suggest Karvonen (or HRR) is better than straight HRmax, but I find it unnecessarily complicates calculations, and because your zones move up while your resting heartrate goes down, as you get fitter, seems to me like it's wrong for either beginners or for fit athletes (or both).

I interpret HR zones somewhat like this:

60-70%: Recovery

70-75%: Endurance

80-85%: Threshold

90%-> : Doesn't matter -- train by pace, time and distance

Easy running is Recovery and Endurance.

As you get fitter, your zones may actually move up, e.g. active endurance up to 80%, and your threshold can be as high as 88%.

The reps with faster interval training is often to short for the HR monitor to be a guide, as it may take up to a minute for you HR to get up to speed.

You should cross check and fine tune your zones, with the corresponding paces (e.g. from Daniel's tables, or McMillan's calculator) based on recent race performances.

I think the main value of a HR monitor is for beginners, so they don't do easy runs, or tempo runs too fast. Once you are no longer a beginner, another value then is to monitor hr versus speed to give feedback on your relative fitness (e.g. are you undertrained, fit, or overtrained).

Why don't you just assign some number to each one based on its perceived value, multiply each one by that number, and divide by the sum of all the numbers?