<p>Looks like this year’s Boston date is April 21 - wow, Easter?!! Hope they have some chocolate Cadbury eggs at the finish line!!!</p>
<p>MKAT:</p>
<p>I suspect that the whole construct of “training zones” could be jettisoned with the simple advice to vary your training/exercise to include different intensities. None of it is particularly applicable to anything beyond endurance events, which have little crossover to any other form of sport, athletics, or recreational physical activity. </p>
<p>It is funny though. I remember back to the very first iPod nazi workout I did where he explained (on my iPod) that he wanted me to do the exercise bike warmup (and the slow intervals during the intervals at the end of the workout) at what he called “talk test pace” – i.e. easy enough that you could still carry on a conversation. Of course, that wasn’t terribly useful for me since I could barely walk to the mailbox at “talk test pace”. X_X </p>
<p>What a special year to do Boston. Should be really special </p>
<p>Great job abasket. I was on the treadmill yesterday also. Didn’t quite do the 8k though 
Even though I know not running the race was the right thing to do and there is no way is would have been at all fun. It was 10 degrees at the time of the race! I’m still sad. And surprised how sad I am. The person I was to run with sent me a text to tell me how much fun they had. They also wanted to know if I wanted to go to her D’s HS play while I’m in town for my H’s operation. Umm, no, this isn’t a pleasure trip. </p>
<p>IDad, I think it really depends on how you are structuring your target training zones. My cycling workouts are based on differentiating between active recovery, endurance, tempo, lactate threshold, VO2 max, anaerobic threshold and neuro-muscular target zones, each tied into a specific wattage and hr range. Of the 2 markers, the wattage is the more significant since it measures actual work (power) being produced. HR is used more as a way to determine what is going on with me physiologically (i.e. if I have a spiking of my heart rate at a given wattage zone, is there something going on with my diet, exercise nutrition and hydration, sleep, over-training etc. Am I seeing a lowering of my heart rate attributable to greater stroke volume and increased mitochondrial growth and efficiency) that I ought to be aware of. In reality, the better my training and fitness level, the lower my heart rate should be at a given wattage range which is a goal for those who are involved in performance training. I would never, ever suggest that those doing cardio work for general health and fitness use similarly structured training ranges. Intervals at neuro-muscular target zones are designed specifically to train creatine-phosphogen metabolic processes which is wholly unnecessary for fitness and health but critical for performance goal training. Anaerobic threshold training is similarly unnecessary for fitness and health as is probably VO2 max training intensities. These are training zones for those with specific performance goals in mind.</p>
<p>That being said, I think there is much benefit to be derived from using a much simplified zone system for those pursuing health and fitness. The ACE system of Zone 1, 2 and 3 not only provides that but also, by relying on ventilary thresholds with associated measured heart rates, provides cardio exercisers with a convenient and easy to use, readily available system. Under this system, those looking for health and fitness benefits would structure their training around Zone 1 and then add in Zone 2 training once general fitness levels make it appropriate. Zone 1 provides general health benefits associated with cardio exercise. Zone 2 training needs to be mixed in, with its greater intensities, in order to better achieve and maintain weight loss, reduced resting heart rate, increased cardiac stroke volume and other cardio-respiratory/metabolic adaptations. Zone 3 training would be appropriate only for those with performance goals. And, of course, there is a range of intensity within each zone as you go from its beginning threshold up to the threshold to the next zone.</p>
<p>I think the importance of giving this consideration is that health and fitness cardio exercisers that rely on calculated max heart rates and % may not be working at the individual levels they think they might be and therefore not getting the benfits they think they are. This is not to say that what they are doing is bad; it simply is very likely misleading. In our busy lives and schedules, the time we have for exercise is precious. The ventilary threshold Zone sytem is is easy to use and effective to maximize the benfits you get from your cardio workout time.</p>
<p>Please do not feel bad about bailing out of a race! IT happens. FWIW, I scrapped Boston 2 years ago because I got sick and could not train properly. Sure, I could have walked it, but I know I would not have been happy with that! </p>
<p>I plan on running it this year, and that’s why my runs are getting longer. 
I do not expect to better my PR, but I want to be able to do OK. The race is on the 21st, and yes, I will have to exercise my willpower to keep my hands off Easter chocolates. :D</p>
<p>But Easter candy is half off the day after! Even better lol! </p>
<p>Have hit my 20th five pound party! I think the Lasix had something to do with it…I find I am dropping a couple on the days I take it, then a small bounce up the next day, and then down again. Am also being really good about food of late, which has helped break through the plateau. </p>
<p>WOW, CountingDown!!! CONGRATS!!!</p>
<p>Didn’t get to the hotel gym this weekend as intended, but did do a 3-mile walk with my daughter. We went to a great restaurant for dinner. I ordered a pasta dish–wild boar bolognese–first time in two years that I’ve eaten pasta. It was great, but I’ll be OK without it for another two years. Signed up for spinning tonight.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure I agree with exercising in ZONE 1 – at a low enough level of exertion that you can talk in complete sentences. While that is certainly better than doing nothing, it’s horrible bang for the exercise buck. If someone only has 60 minutes a week to exercise, staying in ZONE 1 isn’t going to be that effective.</p>
<p>And, in the real world, I don’t know how practical it is. I know that when I started out, it was impossible to do any exercise and stay in ZONE 1. Just going for a walk got my heart rate and breathing above that level.</p>
<p>I think the bigger problem with most “exercise” programs is not too much intensity, but not enough.</p>
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<p>Awesome, Counting Down! That is a really breathtaking milestone. That calls for major PARTY time!</p>
<p>Back in action. Last week spent traveling and eating. No real structured exercise, but lots of walking. Incredibly I am down a few pounds. </p>
<p>Trainer and spin. It felt good.</p>
<p>Pulling out the DISCO BALL for that party Counting! Be proud of your progress!!!</p>
<p>BB, after a marathon you earn rights to ALL chocolate you can eat the rest of the day!!</p>
<p>IDad, starting out only in Zone 1 would be appropriate for very deconditioned persons who have not been engaged at all in regular cardio exercise. The whole idea is to create a base, both physiologically and behavioirally, to enable and facilitate adherance to a more intense regimen. Surprisingly, from a pure health benefits perspective, Zone 1 training is benefical. The recommendation is to build to 150 minutes per week spread out over 5-6 days. Of course, even for those who are deconditioned, there is going to be a range of capabilities but the concept is to progressively increase duration and intensity (i.e. volume) over time, even if starting at 15 minutes per day 3 days per week until a person is able to do a 150 minutes per week in Zone 1. At that point, the person can safely start mixing in Zone 2 work until there is a good mix of both. Even highly trained endurance athletes spend more of their time in Zone 1 than Zone 2 but there is a difference between a slow walk for 15 minutes for a deconditioned, overweight person and a trained endurance athelete cycling for 2 hours at 16 mph on a flat road. Both could be low Zone 1 based on different levels of fitness. As you describe it, the lower end of Zone 1 is where a person like you describe would start out under this model, building duration and frequency and then intensity until ready to start mixing in low Zone 2 intervals and then continuing to build duration and intensity in Zone 2. Once a person is capable of moderate intensity Zone 1 exercise for 150 minutes a week, they have the base to engage in moderate to high intensity Zone 2 exercise. Once capable of Zone 2 exercising, the recommendation is to do a minimum of 75 minutes of moderate to high intensity exercise per week spread out between Zone 1 and Zone 2 over 3-4 days which is obviously more time efficient than 150 over 5-6 days. </p>
<p>And yes, while very often the problem is not enough intensity in a cardio program the key question is how do you measure intensity. The Ventilatory Threshold Zones provide a realistic and pretty accurate method for each person to determine intensity, with more individual accuracy than simply using % calculated max hr. The flip side of the intensity coin, though, is the misconception that an appropriate level of intensity requires high intensity, all the time. To the contrary, using Zone target ranges, even performance athletes would only spend 20-30% of their time in high Zone 2 - Zone 3 intensity ranges. Sometimes less is more and more is less when it comes to cardio training. Just as an example, last night I did a 60 minute wattage workout. It consisted of 5 10 minute intervals at just below my Functional Threshold Power (which would be high Zone 1) with 7-9 15 second intervals at 125 - 150% FTP (high Zone 2 into Zone 3) built into each 10 minute block (total of 39 15 second intervals). Between each 10 minute block I had a 2-4 minute recovery (depending on the block) which was at active recovery FTP levels (low Zone 1). Not an atypical allocation of 60 minutes of workout time.</p>
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<p>This is a perfect example of how the fitness industry is driven, inappropriately IMO, by endurance training studies. The reality is that 150 minutes per week of exercise is the MAX that most adults are going to achieve. I think at 150 minutes a week or less, it would not be the best bang for the buck to do it all trundling along at such low intensity that they can carry on a conversation. That is exactly the “reading a magazine on the elliptical” approach that is so widespread in commercial gyms and so ineffective.</p>
<p>I think the first minutes per week should be best invested in resistance strength training.</p>
<p>The next minutes should be invested in some high intensity conditioning (realistically some kind of appropriately scaled intervals).</p>
<p>Then, if there are more minutes available for exercise, add in some kind of relaxing ZONE 1 stuff – walking, hiking, easy bike riding, swimming, reading magazines on the elliptical, etc.</p>
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<p>I’m admittedly looking at this from a fat loss/general fitness standpoint. Trundlng along, not even getting the breathing or heart rate elevated is not going to be very effective for fat loss. Not going to build lean muscle mass. Not going to reverse insulin resistance. Not going to positively change metabolism.</p>
<p>You are taking it out of context. This is only one piece. It is part of a comprehensive program that includes resistence training. The 150 minute per week Zone 1 recommendation is for totally deconditioned persons who have not been involved in any exercise. It is intended to serve as a transition to shorter duration, lower frequency, higher intensity cardio exercise as part of a complete fitness program that incorporates mobility, flexibility and core training, resistence training and cardio, all of which can be done in recommended time allotments over a 5 day workout week of 45 - 60 minutes a day. Those other areas of fitness are also modelled on a progressive program basis. Where any 1 person starts out with the cardio and resistence training is based on their current level of fitness, goals and whether they have postural, stability, and mobility compensations that also need to be addressed. The goal is to have a minimum of 75 minutes of moderate to high intensity cardio spread over 3-4 days a week with the rest of the exercise time spent on other training spread throughout the week to build a balanced fitness regimen.Obviously, if after 2 months you are lounging at the lower end of Zone 1, absent some medical causality, then you need to up the intensity. That is consistent with the ACE recommendations which also rely on a broad spectrum of strength training studies. </p>
<p>And Zone 1 is not necessarily “trundling along reading a magazine on the eliptical”. My high Zone 1 heart rate is in the high 140’s. I can carry on a full conversation with my heart rate at that level. It isn’t until I hit the low-mid 150’s that I hit Zone 2 and start to have some difficulty speaking in full paragrapghs. I hit Zone 3 in the mid 160’s and start being limited to 1 word responses as I approach 170. So if I spend 70% of my cardio time in Zone 1 and 30% in Zones 2 and 3, I’m hardly dogging it in my workouts. Again, my cardio work is very sport and measured work (power) based specific and is not necessarily an appropriate structure for anyone else. But the point is, if you want to use heart rate to guide your cardio workouts, I have yet to see anything to undermine the soundness of the conclusion that calculated max hr and % of that is not a good way to do it and that hr at VT1 and VT2 is much more effective and time efficient for those who don’t want to go through exotic sports lab testing, be bothered with protracted field testing or be bound to gadgetry like power meters. </p>
<p>I don’t know. I think the exercise physiology guys want us to believe that there is a lot more precision to all of this than is really warranted. I think the age-based HR estimates are plenty accurate to use for heart rate based exercise program for a beginning fat loss couch potato. So what if it’s off by 10%. Is it really doing to make any difference if that person is doing intervals to 85% of their true max or 90% of their true max? I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone on earth can honestly state which one would even be “better”. It’s like the guidelines that claim to know that 12 rep sets are “best” for this or 8 rep sets are “best” for that. </p>
<p>I do have to say that I am definitely not worthy! I’m not much of a conversationalist at 150 bpm! ^:)^ That’s 87% of my max heart rate. I’m not bent over panting like a dog, but I’m definitely breathing too hard to do much talking!</p>
<p>Michael- you and I have similar zones. My aerobic range is 136-148 and I’m certainly moving along at that heart rate. Well, not as fast as I used to move along, but I certainly am not walking. I can talk in sentences, but at 148 it’s getting harder. The fact is, for endurance sports, you have to build endurance and if you push too hard, you can’t build that endurance and your risk of injury increases.</p>
<p>The issue isn’t whether the difference between 85% or 90% matters. The inaccuracy of the calculated max hr formulas is profound because they were derived using a very skewed population and also don’t take into account individual variances. If I use 220-age, my 90% hr would be 144 but it is actually 167. And 144 is really just 78% of my max. 85% of calculated max would be 136 but my actual 85% is 157 and 136 is really 74%. 80% calculated would be 128 but is actually 148 and 128 is just really 69%. 70% calculates as 112 but is actually 130 with 112 really being only 60%. These are huge variances. Why use max hr formulas which are so wildly off when hr at ventilary thresholds is such an easy, convenient and accurate way to use hr to guide cardio exercise intensities based on each individual’s actual physiological and metabolic responses to exercise intensity. </p>
<p>(And the above numbers don’t take into account that heart rate reserve % calculations based on my actual measured max would yield even higher numbers at each target zone! causing the difference between calculated max results and actual %'s to be even greater…)</p>