Heart rate and Fitness question...

jamLCFC

Being a 19st :shock: 44 year old bloke exercise is pretty much a requirement.I thoroughly enjoy my cycling and to be fair despite weight and age find it pretty easy to do at my current fitness levels.

I do road work for my fitness and weight loss. The other objective is that it makes the off road trail centre stuff far more fun as i can ride more than i walk.

I have a Heart Rate monitor and i have the the following data on this weeks 3 rides

Distance 22.3 miles
time 1hr 49 mins
140 ave heart rate
166 peak rate

Distance 18 miles
time 1hr 28 mins
139 ave heart rate
159 peak rate

Distance 19.7 miles
time 1hr 33mins
148 ave heart rate
171 peak rate

I have around 2 hours max on the evenings in order to train so i need to maximise what i acheive in that period of time.The question i have is

what figures do i need to improve in order to get my fitness levels better and how would you suggest i do that?

What should the HR figures be in order to show signs of improvement?

Any and all advice and comments is greatly appreciated


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Wooliferkins

As a fellow middle aged spreader. You need to work out your heart rate zones, there are a number of ways to do this. There is probably as good a method as any in your HRM handbook. Weight loss with a consequential fitness increase will help you out. Working in the 70 -80% of your max heartrate will do both these things. There is a lot of info out there, I focused mine by going to the gym and getting a fitness programme. The joy of doing it on the bike is the whole riding/outdoors joy affair. On cruddy days when you decide to use the gym out of need/comfort you can trade off the indoor machine gubbins by smiling quietly at all the gym rats who blink at the sunlight. Whether you go to gym or not a planned programme based around the rides you enjoy linked in with the exertion required pays off. Good luck

jamLCFC

thanks for that ...

My calculations make my maximum heart rate 176 making 123 to 141 the 70-80% figures.

It makes sense then that if i am averaging 140ish then i am spending an amount of time in this range and an amount out of it and thats information that i dont have.

I suppose the other thing is that as i loose weight and get fitter my heart will not work has hard and my average should lower.

So i guess that my target should be to have a lower average heart rate over comparable rides. Would that be right?


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asdfhjkl

jamLCFC wrote:

So i guess that my target should be to have a lower average heart rate over comparable rides. Would that be right?

It can be a good indication, but there are so many variables that can affect HR while you ride. You're going to have to work much harder riding into a headwind than to do that same ride in calm conditions, for example.

Look to your resting heart rate as a good indication of if you are improving fitness. Ideal conditions for measuring this are immediately after you wake up.

Wooliferkins

As above, your resting heart rate will drop and your recovery from max exertions will become quicker as you get fitter. Your stamina will improve so you will be able to stay in your zone for longer.

weeksy59

TBH mate they're excellent considering your levels of fitness etc. I'd be happy if i were you with that. You should over time be able to maintain slightly higher rates but you're deffo on the right lines if working at 140+ for that length of time.

rhyko7

this is a 4 part post, may take you a while to read but probably worth it if your unsure on heart rate zones etc, read the comments and replies too
scroll down and click newer post to read the next part.

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2010/01 ... -loss.html

jamLCFC

rhyko7 wrote:

http://www.sportsscientists.com/2010/01/exercise-and-weight-loss.html

crikey thats a read and a half...

cheers to all for the comments.

I will keep things going and drop some more figures in towards the end of February to see what progress has been made.