Max heart rate training can help you increase your fitness ability and reach your goals quicker. So how do you use it?
Heart rate training uses—surprise—your heart rate, measured in beats per minute (bpm) or as a percentage of your maximum heart rate, as a guide for intensity. “Using that individual heart rate, you create specific training zones that help determine your intensity for a given workout,” explains Becca Capell, a NASM-certified personal trainer and head of product at iFit. So knowing your personal heart rate zones and using a heart rate monitor, you can ensure your cardiorespiratory system is working at a specific effort for a certain amount time. Orangetheory uses this technique, getting you in to 84%+ of your max heart rate for at least 12 minutes to increase the after-burn of calories.
This kind of training can be a smart way to guide your workout intensity during training to help you reach your goals faster. It also helps you regulate your workouts, keeping the hard days hard, and the easy days more relaxed. There are a few ways to figure out your max heart rate, and a few gadgets and apps that help you stay in the zone you desire. I personally use the Orange Zones Workout Companion app on the Apple App Store, coupled with my Apple watch, and it works like a charm.
Read more at Runner’s World.
