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Heart Rate Training
by Mike Nichols, MD
Dr. Mike Nichols has been a friend and advisor since the late 1980s. We trust him with our lives… literally. I’ve done heart-rate training since the mid-’90s, but had not heard of some of his markers, and asked for permission to reprint this article from his site, WhenYouAreSerious.com. When you finish reading, click on over to his site to read the next four segments, and be sure to listen to the video lectures. Then subscribe to the updates (right sidebar subscription box) so you’ll get an email notice of his new articles. Each one leaves me pondering, considering changes I need to make, and they’ll do that to you, too. ~Laree
Warning: Be sure your heart is ready for serious training!
I’ve had the good fortune to train some very fine athletes—national and international class across several different sports. You will also know that my doctor’s heart is given to those who are ill, sick with diabetes, coronary artery disease and the like.
Those who were at Tempus Clinic will remember the fuss we made of getting your heart rate data downloaded and studied. As I’ve lately been working directly as a trainer with patients and not just the jocks, I’ve realized afresh how much information I derive from heart rate-based training as a guide to healthy training. I knew it. but had not lately, so directly, so intimately, seen how important the information can be.
Let me initiate you into the Polar Priesthood! Of course, the monitor need not be Polar; any will do, however you should have a way to download and examine each workout.
When examining your heart rate profile download, look for these basics:
• How tightly does the heart rate profile map onto the actual work done?
• Is there an overshoot at cessation of exercise; does the heart rate come down immediately or seconds later?
• Is there a shoulder just off-peak where the heart rate ‘hangs’ for some period of time? Peaked at 170, and then stuck at 145 for 15 seconds for example?
• How long is the tail of elevated heart rate after you have completed the workout? For example, you started with a resting heart rate of 60, had a good shark-tooth workout with ascending mean heart rate throughout, and then your heart rate stayed at 110 for 12 minutes after the workout.
To understand what each of these means, let me tell you that a rested, well-trained heart in a healthy young athlete has no overshoot, shoulders or tails, and his heart rate maps very tightly onto the actual work load.
Each of these very visible shapes to the heart rate profile as a graph has specific information about your heart, your sympathetic and parasympathetic tone, your underlying metabolism, how well you slept the night before the workout and how well and what you have been eating. Maybe of more immediate concern, this kind of information can point directly at various kinds of heart disease. Notice that last part; important clues to heart disease can be found here as well.
To unpack each issue revealed in your heart rate profile would take a book. Short of that, begin to familiarize yourself more with your heart rate response to exercise. Know that this is one of the more important feedback loops to help track your health and your training.
Click on over to Mike’s site for part two, part three, part four & part five.