Making the most of your expensive gadgets.
 
Do you have a wearable technology? By that, I mean an Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy watch, Garmin etc.
 
If you don’t, this is not an advertisement for another expensive screen that you can smash. However, like me, there’s a good chance that you will give in and buy one at some point.
 
If you do have a piece of wearable technology, you would likely be aware of the data that they produce to support your fitness and training journey.
 
Over the coming weeks and months, we will dive into a few of the health and fitness functions that exist across most of the major brands and players, and how you can leverage these functions to support your training.
 
Cardiovascular Focused Training and Heart Rate.
In my recent purchase of an Apple Watch Ultra 2 (I assure you, I’m not sponsored. I paid every cent…), I now pull up the ‘workout’ app during every run/bike/swim/elliptical session, and take note of my ‘Heart Rate Zones’.
 
Previously, I measured my zones subjectively through my breathing rate. For instance, if I was able to successfully breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth during a run, I was likely sitting in Zone 2-3. As soon as I transitioned to mouth breathing, there’s a good chance that I’m above Zone 3. Neither one of those zones are good or bad, however I’d usually go into a run with a plan of focussing on a specific zone range.
 
Each Zone range has a shift in the resultant adaptation. Let’s break them down in real simple terms.
 
Zone 2 & 3:
  • Training in this region is low intensity. That means, you can do more of it than you could something like HIIT. It also means that recovery won’t be as gruelling on the system.
  • Resultantly, Zone 2 & 3 becomes your ‘aerobic base’. If you haven’t had much of a focus on aerobic training (‘cardio’), then this zone is a good place to spend a good chunk of your focus time. That way, you start to build out your cardiovascular foundations, which support your work at higher intensities.
  • Looking more scientifically, the main adaptational outcome is that of mitochondrial density. Reflecting on Biology classes mantra of ‘the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell’, the increase in mitochondrial density essentially means that you have more space to produce more aerobic energy. That’s a good thing, if you want to improve your cardio.
Zone 4 & 5:
  • There is a difference between these zones, but for many of us at RevoPT, it’s fairly negligible.
  • I generalise these zones as ‘the harder stuff’’. At RevoPT, you will have come across this during your HIIT classes. It’s the intensity where you can taste your breakfast again.
  • The higher intensity stipulates that we can’t do as much work at these zones compared to that of Zone 2 & 3. Therefore, our focus should be ‘quality’ rather than ‘quantity’.
  • The main adaptations are lactate threshold and VO2 max improvements. To read more into these training factors check out Josh’s contribution to our blog and click here.
Now that I have my Apple Ultra watch (the ultra stands for ultra-expensive…), I can take out some of the guess work using the HR monitoring functionality. I can get a more objective measure of which zone I am at during any point in my training.
 
My recommendation to you would be to take notice of your HR during your sessions at RevoPT. Classes at RevoPT will typically have an intensity that will translate to a particular heart rate zone range.
  • HIIT: Zone 4-5
  • MetCon: Zone 2-4
  • Hybrid Strength/Send It Saturday: Zone 2-4
You might find when tracking your HR during these classes that your intensity is sitting a little bit higher than where the session focus asks it to be. This is where the tracking is most valuable.
 
If you are someone who often says ‘I can’t do cardio – I hate it!’, then there’s a good chance that you spend far too much of your cardio time at a very high heart rate (I’m generalising, I’m sorry). Taking note of your heart rate and slowing things down will likely do some good things for your relationship with cardio.
 
All brands will allow you to pull this data and view the trends in your HR over time. Therefore, if you have a goal to do more cardiovascular training, trends over time will show your HR improving at particular intensities.
 
It is incredibly important to recognise that HR zones are not always going to be accurate. If you are new to cardiovascular training, or training in general, a ‘slow jog’ or warm up on the Concept 2 Bikes could shoot your HR through the roof.
 
Rather than taking the zones for gospel at face value, the theory behind each zone should be the greater focus. For instance, more high intensity training will result in a greater heart rate, and we won’t be able to do it for as long as lower intensity training. Therefore, if we want/need to accumulate greater volumes of training, a lower intensity will be our friend.
 
HR monitoring opens the door for a higher level analysis of our training. It is certainly not essential, and if you prefer to get in, get your training done and then focus on the next thing, by no means make a change. However, if you’ve already got the tech sitting on your wrist and you want in-session feedback on your cardiovascular training intensity, HR monitoring will be a very helpful measure.
 
There’s no better time to start tracking your HR during a RevoPT class than right now. 
 
Click here download the App to get yourself booked in for your next class today!