In general what % of maxiumum heart rate should one reach during the actual intervals(sprints) and during the jogging between intervals? I assume it is something like 90% and 70% respectively but I really can't justify those numbers.
For the love of god I could not find this info in any of my bookmarked hiit articles. I must be blind as it *must* be covered someplace.
Well, find your training heart rate zone (just google that, you will find an online calculator). On the intense parts, you are going to hang around your max bpm, on the filler inbetween, you will hang close to the bottom of your range, plain and simple.
Example, I average 185bpm when sprinting, then I average 145bpm when I'm jogging. Where a watch you can check it yourself, right after you sprint and start jogging check it, right before you go to sprint check it, etc.
After a while you will just know without checking if you are intense enough because you can gauge it by feel. Good luck, have fun.
...what? why not just just feel your pulse using your finger placed over your jugular vein and count how many times it beats within six seconds? Add a zero to the end of that number, boom, your curren bpm.
Example, I'm jogging, I check pulse and look at watch. I watch the second hand move 6 times while keeping track how many times I felt my pulse beat. It pumped 14 times within 6 seconds, add a zero to 14, 140bpm.
As to what kind of watch, It doesn't matter. Just as long as it measures seconds. Any old watch would work. Just wear one that is comfortable and clearly visable while you are jogging. If you had a tredmill that was supper nice and accelerated really fast with nice top speed of like 12mph you could just use it's clock and pulse checker. Or you can do HIIT on a stationary bike as well, etc.
Can, your calculations sound reasonably accurate. So you have a ballpark figure of how hard/fast your circulatory system should be working. You're set, time to hit the gym, try not to throw up.
p.s. ~ 50bmp resting heart rate isn't abnormal, mine was measured at 45bpm once, and that wasn't in the morning. That was when I was a very active runner though which tends to be true for runners. Plus always second check your results with a physical count like I described one post up.
Took my resting heart rate upon waking this morning and I got an average (over 2 mins) of 45 bpm.
Simon, I am not sure. That is just the output given to me by the website I found. Maybe because your maximum heart rate is more theoreticle and not actually obtainable under normal circumstances?
Simon, one is how many bpm your heart can handle. The other is the maximum bpm you should reach while exercising. Going too close, and especially above that number can be very dangerous to your heart.
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Originally posted by BjsAust: Why bother? Its effort not heart rate that makes it work.
People new to cardio have no idea how hard they should be working. It is very helpful and a safe precausion to take, pretty smart of him to care about it really. Why should you care about it? Because if you don't and exceed your limit you are facing EXTREME health risks which I think are pretty obvious.
BjsAust, it is because I have to do my HIIT indoors on a treadmill, bike or eliptical in the winter(I refuse to run in -50F below weather). When doing it on machines it is a little more difficult to gauge if your effort is all out or if the machine is taking up some slack.
How can you exceed your limit? Thats what it is, the limit. Your maximum heart rate is as fast as it can go, if you go faster than that then your maximum heart rate is higher than a generic formula tells you. What obvious risks are there to going over some figure?
How about Cardiac Arrest. Cause of death being overexertion. Also I'm not talking about a figure. Every person cannot be thrown into one figure based on body weight and height, I am talking about training above one's stress capacity. Going hard as possible all the time isn't always a smart thing to do. Although going smarter is usually a hard thing to do.
We are talking about HIIT here anyway, intervals...you aren't training at a constant. But outside the realms of HIIT and talking about circulatory systems in general it is possible to overexert your body and risk your health. That is why there certain target zones created. It's a guide.
I guess if you wanted to keep constant vigilance on your heart rate that could help...
I tend to think people get way too technical with this stuff. Sprint hard for 30 seconds means that. At the end of 30 seconds you should feel like you cant continue at that pace any more. Recovery means go as slow as you need to in order to recover by the time you sprint again.
BjsAust, I guess it comes down to how anal of a person you are. I have always been a person who looks at details by nature. Keeping track of my heart rate takes very little extra effort on my part yet makes me feel much more comfortable that I am doing everything correctly.
Sprint hard for 30 seconds means that. At the end of 30 seconds you should feel like you cant continue at that pace any more. Recovery means go as slow as you need to in order to recover by the time you sprint again.
I never pay any attention to heart rate..I do have a comment/question about HIIT though.
(sorry to get off topic of this thread)
Does it really matter how long your intervals are?
For instance, this morning I did 2 minutes of running then a minute sprint...I repeated this like 4 times. I was pretty much cooked after that. I actually finished with enough running to do 15 minutes total.
Does it matter how you do HIIT? How long the sprints are? Anybody got an idea?
Originally posted by BjsAust: If you can go harder, its not all out .
How can you exceed your limit? Thats what it is, the limit. Your maximum heart rate is as fast as it can go, if you go faster than that then your maximum heart rate is higher than a generic formula tells you. What obvious risks are there to going over some figure?
Not true. Max, here, is like redline on a car engine. It can go faster, but it shouldn't.
However, I think max heart rate is designed for more endurance style cardio. When I do HIIT, my heartrate often goes over recommended max.
Also, heart rate isn't a good judge in HIIT, since it lags behind effort. If you do a 20 second sprint, your heart will continue to go faster, even after the 20 seconds. Then, it will probably take longer than your down period to level off.
Most HIIT programs use some sort of personal judgement of perceived effort to set the speeds.
Rev, I don't think what those calculators give you is your MAXIMAL POSSIBLE heart rate, but more the maximal safe heart rate.
Back when I was training at Taekwondo seriously I often reached higher than my "max heart rate" in intense fights. True, I felt like I was gonna fuc*ng die afterwards but that never caused me any heart problems and I was doing this kind of fights on a daily basis.
When I think about it, the only logical reason for this heart-rate 'limitation' is because HIIT is designed to make you lose fat, not gain endurance, and you shouldn't burn yourself out too early, while going to the max 'safe' heart rate will probably do exactly that...
Am I even partially right?
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Originally posted by Simon Glumcher: Rev, I don't think what those calculators give you is your MAXIMAL POSSIBLE heart rate, but more the maximal safe heart rate.
Back when I was training at Taekwondo seriously I often reached higher than my "max heart rate" in intense fights. True, I felt like I was gonna fuc*ng die afterwards but that never caused me any heart problems and I was doing this kind of fights on a daily basis.
When I think about it, the only logical reason for this heart-rate 'limitation' is because HIIT is designed to make you lose fat, not gain endurance, and you shouldn't burn yourself out too early, while going to the max 'safe' heart rate will probably do exactly that...
Am I even partially right?
Ok lets clear some stuff up. Worrying about your heart rate constantly is over analytical especially in case of HIIT sessions which are designed with low intensity intervals anyway. Sprinting = going as fast as you possibly can for a brief amount of time. Not going as fast as you can without raising your heart rate over a certain equation.
Brings us back to the equation, its just that, an equation. A calculator on the internet or equation isn't going to tell you how fast your heart can pump before it virtually shuts down, that's ridiculous. It's the same way with caloric expenditure and intake calculators, it's nothing but a guide.
The only issue I was trying to address was the whole "disregaurd your heart rate" idea and/or that it's useless to measure it, ever. I disagree with that completely, but good god you don't have to measure it every workout after every sprint etc etc. Like someone stated above it's set and titled as a "limit" because most likely the american heart association or whom ever advertises this system is just trying to keep people safe.
I think the topic is getting taken out of hand in terms of being taking extremely literally and technically. What did people do before caloric, heart rate, etc calculations were ever formed? They listened to their body. A calculator can't tell you if you are coming down with the flu and shouldn't go train that night because you will over dehyrdate an already dehydrated body and land yourself in the hospital bed, only your body can tell you that. Don't under estimate the body, calculations are a good tool, but I agree we're getting pretty technical here. That's my two cents worth.
Jimbo, the short answer is its High Intensity interval training. You need to be hitting high intensity for you. Most people would struggle to maintain a "sprint" for a full minute. So if you feel like you're sprinting, then go for it, but if you feel like you're just running fast then perhaps look at shorter intervals. A lot of the articles on it use different times. I've seen everything from 15 seconds to a minute and rest periods ranging from 1:1 to 1:3 or 4 perhaps. Once again, I dont think its worth getting technical about. For the sprint period, think sprint. Do whatever time you feel is right for you in that circumstance. Recovery is the shortest time possible to actually recover enough to sprint again for that period.
Rev, I think we're in agreement. I wasnt asking why bother measuring heart rate, I was asking why bother measuring it while doing HIIT. Its just something else you're concentrating on instead of focusing on the task at hand.
Thanks BJ. I do my "sprints" on a tread mill and it just seems a little difficult to make shorter sprints. My sprint periods are definitely running fast. Takes a full 2 minutes for me to recover for another one. I dunno...I could probably go a little faster...but not much. It's just about all out.
I run at 6mph and increase it to 9mph for my sprint. A lot of folks can run faster than that...but I don't see how. I find it amazing that people run much faster than that. Kicks my butt.
Its amazing how much difference being in shape and used to it makes. Back in high school I could run any distance at 4 minutes per k, now I struggle to maintain 6 minutes per k for long at all. I do 30 second intervals. The way I think of it is, go as fast as I would for a 200 metre race, and just like a race I should have given it all by the time I'm done, if theres extra in the tank then I didnt go as fast as I would if I was racing other people.
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