For those of you who know a thing or two about heart rate training, which is a better number to use?
For those of you who know a thing or two about heart rate training, which is a better number to use?
8's the best number to use, always. Plus or minus one.
Bump
Use the HRR. The % of HR max is inaccurate and does not take into account all fitness levels. All the HRR does is use your resting HR along with your max HR, which makes it more accurate for each individual.
Of the two, HRR is better. Neither is very good because the zones are too wide.
A better approach is to use the Joe Friel Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR). Just do a search for it.
As a quick overview, you warm up and then start a 30 minute run at a pace you would race for one hour. You take your average HR over the last 20 minutes of the 30 minute run and that is your LTHR... give or take a couple beats.
LTHR is the HR you shouldn't go over in your tempo runs. Your recovery runs should be 45 to 30 BPS slower.
Example: Test determines LTHR is 162
Tempo pace = or < 162 (going over a beat or two is okay going uphill and toward the end of runs on a hot day).
Recovery pace is 162-45=117 low
and 162-30= 132 high.
Again, going over 132 is okay on hills, but you want to average around the middle of this range... i.e., low 120's.
With training, LTHR will increase a little, but only a few beats. To find your new LTHR, retest every couple of months.