Whenever new clients sign-up for remote online coaching with TSTM our coaches ask them to complete a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PARQ) and to clearly define their individual S.M.A.R.T goals. “I would like to improve my fitness” or “I would like to get fit” is a common goal, but it's a very poorly designed because it's not Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, or Timely (S.M.A.R.T). What dose “fit” look like to you? Are you aiming to run a marathon, play a sport, go hiking, or simply feel ready for anything?
How do you know your fitness has improved? What criteria do your use to evaluate your results? How, specifically, do you know when to continue with your current method of training versus trying something different?
There are many different measures that can be used to test fitness. Resting Heart Eate (RHR) or a physical test are just two possible options that can transform a vague goal into something much more specific and measurable:
“I would like to lower my RHR by 5bpm”
Aerobic: “I would like to increase my 10min running distance by 400m"
Aerobic Endurance: “I would like to improve my 2000m row time by 30seconds”. World record 2K times to aim for ;-)
Anaerobic Power: “I would like to improve my :10second MAX power Assault Bike output by 10watts"
Attainable, Realistic and Timely are key parameters to goal setting, and in this instance they are very dependent on each individuals current levels of fitness, training frequency, training age, and the 5-Pillars of Sustainable Health. An example of a S.M.A.R.T fitness goal could be:
“I would like to lower my RHR by 5bpm in the next 10 weeks"
“Vague goals with vague training programmes lead to vague results”
Your RHR is the number of times your heart beats per minute (bpm) while at complete rest. Paying attention to your resting heart rate is an excellent way to gauge how your fitness capacity is changing. RHR is an indicator of your physical fitness as RHR will decrease as your heart muscle becomes stronger with the correct training practices. This is a good thing as who wants to train day-in-and-day-out and not see any real improvements from their effort? Increasing training volume is not the most efficient or effective way to improve fitness. Just turning up to the gym each day and doing a constantly varied workout dose not guarantee you are getting fitter.
Although a low RHR can indicates better fitness in people who are training, it may have other significance for people who are not physically fit. Regularly measure RHR can help us see the long-term trends and daily fluctuations that can tell you when you’re fit for training, overtrained or stressed.
A healthy resting heart rate for adults is between 60 to 80bpm. Adults with a high level of fitness may have a RHR below 60, and some elite aerobic based athletes (such as marathon runners or professional cyclists) can have a RHR below 40. Recent studies suggest a heart rate higher than 76 beats per minute when we're resting may be linked to a higher risk of heart attack [1,2].
RHR is lowered as the heart muscle becomes stronger and is able to pump out more blood per heartbeat. The body needs fewer heartbeats to pump the same amount of blood. If your heart muscle is weak, it needs to beat more times to pump the same amount of blood.
Many things can cause palpitations or irregular heart rate, like alcohol, caffeine, physical activity, stress, dehydration, medication, fever, thyroid disorder, smoking, dietary supplements, etc.. Your resting heart rate may be affected by medications for asthma, depression, and attention deficit disorder to name a few.
There are a number of factors that can dictate RHR.
GENDER:
RHR varies by gender as women tend to have smaller hearts and lower blood volume and hemoglobin, so the heart needs to beat more frequently.
AGE:
Average RHR also changes throughout life, being much faster in infants and slowing into adulthood. RHR often increases in later years mainly due to the decline of physical fitness.
DEHYDRATION:
When you’re dehydrated, the amount of plasma in the blood decreases. Because there’s less blood in your body, your heart has to pump faster than normally to maintain an adequate body temperature and to provide enough oxygen and nutrients to muscles in peripheral parts of the body.
This is why your resting heart rate tends to go up when you’re dehydrated and another good reason to stay well hydrated.
TEMPERATURE:
In higher temperatures, blood flow is directed closer to the surface of the skin so that blood can be cooled down. Your heart beats faster to accelerate your blood circulation and so regulate your body temperature.
Conversely, when you’re in a cooler environment, the blood circulation in peripheral parts of the body decreases. Your heart has less work to do and your resting heart rate will decrease. Ice bath anyone?
How to train the heart muscle?
Athletes often monitor their RHR to determine when they are fully recovered from a hard training session. Over time we can determine our base RHR and monitor it to see when it returns to normal after a day or more. Our sympathetic nervous system is more active during recovery than when you’re well recovered. Also the hormonal state (adrenaline) and the recovery processes of your body keep your heart rate up for several hours after training.
If your resting heart rate is elevated, your body could be in a state of overtraining [3] and too little recovery or due to other lifestyle stress factors. When feeling stressed training can have negative impacts on our health and performance.
“It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol”
A resting heart rate that is 5 bpm above your usual RHR indicates that you may need more recovery time. Your resting heart rate may be elevated for one or more days after a vigorous exercise
AEROBIC TRAINING
When you do aerobic training long enough, your heart will become more efficient. The capacity of your left ventricle will increase and your ventricular muscles will become stronger which leads to an increased stroke volume. That is, your heart will pump more blood per beat than before.
Aerobic training can place a huge stress on the heart and lunges and therefore it is critical that gradual increases in aerobic training are introduced and the cardiovascular system is given sufficient time to recover between workouts. Left ventricle hypertrophy can lead to “athletes heart” and some researches believe that an enlarged left ventricle can cause heart issues, although there is also research that “athletes heart” can be a good thing.
Training Zones
You will oftener hear endurance athlete talking about training zones. The aerobic exercise zone is the intensity at which your body is using its aerobic metabolism system to produce energy from fat and glycogen [4]. It spans the divide between moderate-intensity and vigorous-intensity exercise. In general, you must use your major muscle groups continuously, especially your legs, to bring your heart rate up into this zone.
There is a narrower and a broader range of heart rates given for the aerobic exercise zone:
In systems that use five heart rate zones, the aerobic zone is zone 3, from 70% to 80% of maximum heart rate. It is a heart rate where you can sustain exercise effort for a long period of time and get the benefit of improving your cardiovascular endurance. If an athlete can not sustain the workout intensity they are most likly in an anaerobic zone (85%+ of maximum heart rate) which is counter productive to aerobic training.
A wider definition of the aerobic zone is from 40% to 80% of maximum heart rate. Within this wide range, you are using aerobic metabolism during exercise and the body doesn't have to switch to anaerobic metabolism. For cardio exercise, you want to be within this wide zone.
Many coaches fail to correctly train the aerobic energy systems as they tell their clients to move faster, keep going, work harder…. or they have clients lifting heavy loads or performing complex movements in a fatigues state. This often pushes the heart rate up beyond the aerobic zone into the aerobic zone where are client can not sustain the exercise. Client find themselves pushing too hard and then needed to rest before they can continue with the workout. Once we cross the line into anaerobic it is extremely hard to being the heart rate back down to the aerobic zone and hence coaches must learn to write workouts that allow clients to keep moving at an aerobic pace if the goal is to train aerobic fitness.
STRENGTH AND ANAEROBIC TRAINING
If you have strength training goals you may will need to set you priorities. What is more important, the aerobic fitness or strength? They are at the opposite end of the continuum and training both at the same time is not recommended.
One of the biggest mistakes most often made when it comes to training is trying to turn everything into some form of conditioning WOD. Instead of taking the time to rest enough between sets to fully regain strength and power. If you’ve ever watched a Powerlifter or Olympic lifter train, you’ve no doubt seen the incredibly long rest periods they utilise between each and every set.
The primary reason for such long rest periods is to ensure the strongest, most powerful muscle fibers and nervous system have fully recovered from the previous set and are ready to go to work again. When the rest period is insufficient, these fibers aren’t able to contribute as much and the result is that they don’t improve their ability to produce force and power to nearly the same extent. In other words, you don’t get as strong, or as explosive, as possible when you rush the rest between sets.
STRESS:
Mental or physical stress increases the activity of the autonomic nervous system. When under stress, the central nervous system orders the heart, as well as your brain and large muscles, to prepare for a fight-or-flight situation. This leads to an increase in your RHR.
Your heart rate may also speed up when you exercise 9physical streess0, get excited, or feel anxious or sad.
STATE OF MIND:
Different emotions affect the autonomic nervous systems through hormonal activity. When you’re very calm, the activity of the autonomic nervous system lowers your heart rate. When you’re very excited, your heart rate goes up. So by controlling your emotions you can also control your RHR indirectly.
How to Measure Your Resting Heart Rate
You shouldn’t compare your resting heart rate with someone else’s. You’re unique and beautiful and that’s how it should be. While your neighbor’s resting heart rate might be lower than yours, it might be for a dozen different reasons as listed above.
Instead of comparing yourself to others, you’re better off monitoring how your resting heart rate is changing over time. When your resting heart rate decreases as a result of training, it’s a sign that your aerobic fitness has improved.
Your resting heart rate should be taken first thing in the morning, before getting out of bed. Your pulse rate will rise if you do any activity, get up, or eat, drink, or smoke.
To get a true resting heart rate you must be completely still and calm. If something like an alarm startled you awake, lie quietly for a few minutes before taking your pulse. If you can't take your pulse immediately after awakening, wait for one to two hours after having any caffeine, exercising, or an emotionally stressful event. Lie down or sit quietly for at least 10 minutes before taking your pulse.
You need a device that counts seconds—use your mobile phone's stopwatch or clock app, or a clock or watch that has a second hand or displays seconds.
You can count for a full 60 seconds to get your resting heart rate without doing any math. But you can also do it for these intervals and make the calculations:
Count your heartbeats for 6 seconds and multiply by 10.
Count your heartbeats for 15 seconds and multiply by 4.
Count your heartbeats for 30 seconds and multiply by 2.
Generally, a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness. For example, a well-trained athlete might have a normal resting heart rate closer to 40 beats per minute.
Digital Devices
There are many different digital devices that can be used to record our RHR. Personally, I choose to use the Oura ring as it tracks your resting heart rate throughout the night and shows you a night-time heart rate curve.
A lower resting heart rate is a sign of good recovery and health. By looking at your heart rate curve you can also see the effects of circadian misalignment, late meals, late workouts, alcohol or sickness (your heart rate often rises if you have a fever).
Even though there is a lot of variability between individuals, night-time heart rates are very similar for one person – at least when you stick to regular habits. This is why nocturnal heart rate is one of the factors that you may trust when interpreting how your lifestyle choices affect your recovery.
References:
BMJ-British Medical Journal. "Resting Heart Rate Can Predict Heart Attacks In Women." 2009
When heart goes “BOOM” to fast. Heart rate greater than 80 as mortality predictor in acute myocardial infarction, Goran Davidovic, Et al. 2013
Diagnosis and prevention of overtraining syndrome: an opinion on education strategies. Kreher JB. 2016
The training intensity distribution among well-trained and elite endurance athletes. Stöggl TL, Sperlich B. 2015