Today was my test day. To find out what my Lactate Threshold Heart Rate.
"...the lactate threshold heart rate is a measurement of exercise intensity in which the body can no longer clear any one of the by-products of exercise, and consequently this by-product begins to accumulate in the blood. This results in the burn that is felt in the muscles during extreme weight lifting, races, and other such intensities. The reason that you need to determine your own lactate threshold heart rate and even be concerned about it is because in order to train your heart and lungs to be strong in the first place, you need to be working on developing a good aerobic base."
To find out your lactate threshold heart rate is, Ben told me to do the following:
Do a 30-minute time trail all by yourself (no training partners and not in a race). Again, it should be done as if it was a race for the entire 30 minutes. But at 10 minutes into the test click the lap button on your heart rate monitor. When done look to see what your average heart rate was the last 20 minutes. The number is an approximation of your LTHR.
Over the 30 minutes I averaged 171 bpm and the last 20 minutes 167 bpm. From the article link above:
"Of course this won't be 100% scientifically accurate but it will be close enough to understand your own lactate threshold heart rate and from there be able to determine your own aerobic base. If your lactate threshold heart rate is 120, then you want to be working at 65%-75% of that, or 78-90 beats, for as long as possible. This develops your aerobic base and strenthens your heart and lungs. Once you've established a good aerobic base then you can work on strengthening your muscles and improving the time of your competitions for each part of your triathlons."
From that, I guess my I should be working out between 110 bpm and 125 bpm.
*UPDATE (7/16/2010)*
Just talked to Ben and we set up my zones:
Zone 1: Recovery 125 - 141 bpm
Zone 2: Aerobic 142 - 151 bpm
Zone 3: Tempo 152 - 159 bpm
Zone 4: SubThreshold 160 - 166 bpm
Zone 5A: SuperThreshold 167 - 169 bpm
Zone 5B: Aerobic Capacity 170 - 176 bpm
Zone 5C: Anaerobic Capacity 177 - 250 bpm
that's too low to be working out at. and reading it again, it sounds like it's for people that have no aerobic base. i'm not sure what 'as long as possible' means, but it sounds like it's something you would not be able to maintain - i.e. mongo would not like to kick it in the HR zone for very long
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing. I don't know how in the hell I would be able to build up to a sub 1:40 half marathon by running 10:00 paces.
ReplyDeleteBut when I think about it, I'm sure Daniel Larusso was thinking the same thing when he was painting fences and shiet.
"How am I gonna learn karate doing all these f*ckin chores?"
We all know how that ended.