using a hr monitor properly....

davecara

Ive got a basic hr monitor, and im attempting to calculate where abouts I should be riding to maximise fat burn.
ive subtracted my age from 220 to get my max, and I should.be riding at 60-70% max to burn off the lard is that correct?
If thats right, I should be riding at around 135bpm give or take and that seems too low when Im riding.

Any help or suggestions welcomed.
Im 15st8lb at the mo, aiming for 13st ish
5'10" and 33 years old on monday if that helps

amaferanga

Your max won't be given by a generic formula. If you want to know your max HR then do a test for it.

And you burn fat regardless of the intensity. At lower intensities you may burn a higher percentage of fat, but you'll burn fewer calories overall.

cyco2

If you google 'fat burning exercise' you'll find out all about it.
You will 'burn' far more fat by not eating rubbish food.

rubyrider

That used to be the basic guideline years ago when I used a HR monitor for running. There's lots of info on the Internet, but to find out properly what your maximum is, means doing a test -and I think there are dangers associated with this if you're not fit to start with.

The 'fat burning zone' idea has now been superseded I think, and certainly I used to run above it, and got very thin! I'd have found it impossible to stay within that zone and still run.

One of my main reasons for using a HR monitor for running was that it was like running with a partner that would tell me it's okay to slow down or walk now. I ended up enjoying running and not dreading pushing myself too hard. I always ended up with a higher upper limit than was recommended anyway.

I would suggest you listen to your body and use the monitor for a bit of fun and to gauge how your fitness is improving. Anything is better than nothing and you can 'perceive' when you're working hard enough. (I am a begginer at road cycling and have only worn my monitor once out of interest - my levels were much lower than running)

jim453

rubyrider wrote:

That used to be the basic guideline years ago when I used a HR monitor for running. There's lots of info on the Internet, but to find out properly what your maximum is, means doing a test -and I think there are dangers associated with this if you're not fit to start with.

The 'fat burning zone' idea has now been superseded I think, and certainly I used to run above it, and got very thin! I'd have found it impossible to stay within that zone and still run.

One of my main reasons for using a HR monitor for running was that it was like running with a partner that would tell me it's okay to slow down or walk now. I ended up enjoying running and not dreading pushing myself too hard. I always ended up with a higher upper limit than was recommended anyway.

I would suggest you listen to your body and use the monitor for a bit of fun and to gauge how your fitness is improving. Anything is better than nothing and you can 'perceive' when you're working hard enough. (I am a begginer at road cycling and have only worn my monitor once out of interest - my levels were much lower than running)

Disregard all of this.

Too much garbage to know where to begin.

rubyrider

jim453 wrote:

Disregard all of this.

Too much garbage to know where to begin.

Ouch! Sorry you think it's rubbish, but...

1. I was confirming his calculation was correct using the well known method - Although as amaferanga had pointed out, it's not the best way to find your max.

2. There are various resources that now show that targeting a fat burning zone is maybe not the right approach for e.g. see http://weighttraining.about.com/od/fatlossweighttraining/qt/fatlossfacts.htm

3. Perceived effort is a well known way of monitoring your exercise intensity. E.g. See http://www.acefitness.org/fitfacts/fitfacts_display.aspx?itemid=48

4. I was trying to make the point that if I'd been running in my supposed fat burning zone, I'd have been walking!

Alex_Simmons/RST

Davecara wrote:

Ive got a basic hr monitor, and im attempting to calculate where abouts I should be riding to maximise fat burn.
ive subtracted my age from 220 to get my max, and I should.be riding at 60-70% max to burn off the lard is that correct?
If thats right, I should be riding at around 135bpm give or take and that seems too low when Im riding.

Any help or suggestions welcomed.
Im 15st8lb at the mo, aiming for 13st ish
5'10" and 33 years old on monday if that helps

Need to understand what your goals are. Given the comment on fat burning, I presume you are primarily seeking to lose some weight. In that case, just exercise more, and sort out your diet. There is no "fat burn zone".

What is important with such objectives is to metabolise more calories than you consume. There are some caveats, such as doing so at a sensible and sustainable rate.

The correct use of a HRM is simply as a guide to intensity of sub-maximal, relatively steady state effort.

A HRM is not:
- a measure of performance,
- a measure of fitness,
- a reliable indicator of calories used during exercise, or
- an indicator of effort when such effort gets very hard, or is highly variable in nature

To take advantage of its one sensible use, then you'll need to determine how your own heart responds to an exercise stimulus, which will need to be a maximal effort of some kind. That might be something that induces a maximal heart rate response in you (such as a ergometer test with ever increasing work rate) or a maximal time trial effort for 20-40 minutes where your HR is relative high and fairly stable (within a small range). Keep in mind it usually takes several minutes for HR to get up to this level.

You can then use either your known measured maximal HR value, or the average HR from a time trial an effort to set some levels relative to those known measured values to guide future training efforts.

Do not use a generic age-based formula to determine your maximal HR or training levels. There is a wide variance between individuals (e.g a standard deviation of something like 10-15 bpm) and such formula are just population averages, not intended for individual application.

e.g., if you know your actual HR max, then you can use the following as a guide:
Based on HRmax:
< 70% - Recovery rides
70-78% - long ride pace to quality endurance
78-85% - quality endurance work through to solid tempo
85-93% - threshold development, racing (HR response not immediate)
> 93% - maximal aerobic (although HR response at this level of effort and above is too slow to be of any use in guiding effort)

similar levels can be used if instead you know your average HR from riding a longer time trial:
Based on average HR from a longer TT:
<68% - recovery
69-83% - long ride pace to quality endurance
84-94% - high quality endurance to solid tempo
95-105% - threshold development/racing (HR response not immediate)
>106% - maximal aerobic (although HR response at this level of effort and above is too slow to be of any use in guiding effort)

davecara

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Need to understand what your goals are. Given the comment on fat burning, I presume you are primarily seeking to lose some weight. In that case, just exercise more, and sort out your diet.

The main goal at the moment is to shed weight to be honest. I've lost near 2 st since feb through just cutting out the crap from my diet, want to try and get another stone off before Christmas if not sooner!
Riding wise, I've only been doing 2 12-15 mile rides a week while my backside gets used to the bike, then I'll be doing a little more distance and concentrating on doing it quicker. Possibly with a view to doing something competitive in a year or so.
I want to do it right though, Ive seen people drop weight only to pile it straight back on again. If I gain a better understanding of how everything works, I know I'll keep it off

dw300

Surely your backside must be used to riding after 6 months? Is that the only reason you're not doing more mileage?

Alex_Simmons/RST

Davecara wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Need to understand what your goals are. Given the comment on fat burning, I presume you are primarily seeking to lose some weight. In that case, just exercise more, and sort out your diet.

The main goal at the moment is to shed weight to be honest. I've lost near 2 st since feb through just cutting out the crap from my diet, want to try and get another stone off before Christmas if not sooner!
Riding wise, I've only been doing 2 12-15 mile rides a week while my backside gets used to the bike, then I'll be doing a little more distance and concentrating on doing it quicker. Possibly with a view to doing something competitive in a year or so.
I want to do it right though, Ive seen people drop weight only to pile it straight back on again. If I gain a better understanding of how everything works, I know I'll keep it off

Ok, well the main thing is to implement changes in such a way that they are sustainable and become habitual.

With diet, trying to make wholesales changes in one go usually doesn't work, but making small positive changes over time is far easier psychologically. Use a food diary. Easier to impact things we measure.

With training it will be a matter of working towards doing some exercise 5 times a week.

So if you are doing 2 x 1-hours rides (or thereabouts), then add in a 30-min ride on a 3rd day for next two weeks, then another 30-min ride on a 4th day for the 2 weeks after that. Then work on building those shorter rides up to an hour by adding 15-min per week. Then make one of your rides longer.

and so on until you are doing 5-7 hours / week on a regular basis. Then perhaps it will be time to reassess goals.