Welcome to the June 2004 edition
of The Heart Zones e-Newsletter
copyright: Heart Zones, your source of heart rate training information
- Every Athlete Needs a Cheering Squad
- Become a Fitness-Care Consumer At Your Workplace
- Emotional Eating Exercise
- Web Special of the Month: Sports Instruments Heart Rate Cycle Computer
and...
- Workout: The Easy-Moderate-Hard Test
- Question from the eBAG: Am I doing the Sub-Max Tests Correctly?
- Join Two of our Faculty Members at the IDEA conference!
- Ten New Events at the 2004 Heart Zones Conference
1. Every Athlete Needs a Cheering Squad
No matter what your fitness level or goals, having teammates, friends, family, coaches and trainers to provide you the strength and encouragement is more important than having fitted running shoes. Research suggests that support gives more confidence and allows athletes to experience the “flow” state more often, making them feel more invigorated. In a study done at Arizona State University in Tempe, experienced male and female weightlifters were able to lift, on average, five more pounds in front of an audience than at competition without spectators or when they were alone. The results were especially impressive since the audience support was minimal: spectators were asked to remain silent.
Sometimes your determination, independence and strength can be a double edged sword – people may assume that you don’t need any support. Don’t assume that the people close to you should know that you need support. Often a spouse or close friend doesn’t really know how important training is for you. Share with them your feelings about what you are doing.
This is one of the tools of Heart Zones Emotional Fitness Training which is the focus of our annual Conference (held this year in the Chicago area). Be assertive in looking for ways to meet your support halfway, too! Split cooking times or swap out chores so that you have time to do your activities without the other person feeling dumped on. Joining a club and finding training partners is another way to hold your motivation. And don’t forget to invite your cheering squad to your event – even if it is out of town. While they may not wish to join in on all the festivities of the event, it gives them a chance to get out of town and perhaps be rewarded with a dinner from you. And who knows, after seeing your happiness and being around the culture of fitness, they may just ask YOU to be their workout partner!
We all feel time-starved, and being time-starved means that the time we set aside for exercise often gets eaten up. We all know that we can cut corners in our day to set aside time for activity, but what about becoming a fitness care consumer at work? Human beings have a natural desire to gather around common interests, needs and experiences and since we spend the majority of our time at work – why not have the support of co-workers?
Let’s start challenging ourselves and those we work with to learn more about how to be more physically active. Heart Zones can help you “host” a Heart Zones event – a seminar, certification, workshop, or brown-bag lunch for you and your co-workers. Hosting an event at your workplace may also be of interest with your Human Resources department, as most departments have some type of health promotion or incentive program. We will customize a Heart Zones event to meet the interests and facilities of your workplace. So, whether it is holding a seminar on the basics of heart zone training, or helping you company train for a 5K, we can help you become a fitness-care consumer at your workplace.
For more information, contact: Jessica.Menendez@heartzones.com
It seems as if a new diet is released every day that challenges the previous fad diet. All diets promise happiness when you restrict and focus on what you are eating. You have heard it before from us: we want you to focus on your FITNESS, rather on focusing so much on FAT. We can all identify with eating to satisfy emotional needs. Whether celebratory or associated with feelings of loneliness, emotional eating is not about fueling our body with positive energy.
So here is an exercise – it requires a heart monitor and there are three parts to this exercise.
1. Spend a day keeping track of your heart rates WHILE eating.
Note changes in your heart rate related to the pace of your eating. Eating too fast doesn’t give your brain enough time to get the message that your stomach is full – hence overeating happens. Also note what happens to your heart rate with different foods – like sugar vs. protein and fats.
Do this for two days. Don’t change your eating – just eat normally and on the schedule that you usually have.
2. For the next two days, continue to wear your heart monitor and make note of all the impulse eating you wish to do. Avoid impulse eating but simply make note of your heart rate and what you’re feeling (rushed, disappointed, caffeine-ed out, etc). This exercise helps you to identify how you feel.
3. Finally, make an emotional first-aid kit. It’s a list of things you can do that you know will make you feel better, rather than munching on something that will leave you being self-critical and disappointed about being successful.
To learn more about emotional fitness training or why it is important to focus on FITNESS rather than FAT – go to our website (www.heartzones.com).
Feel free to email your results and discoveries about your eating and heart rate!
Buy a Sports Instruments Heart Rate Monitor (any model) and we’ll give you a free Heart Zones Gear Bag. Not only do we have the lowest prices of ANYONE ON THE WEB for Sports Instruments monitors – we’ll toss in a free Heart Zones gear bag with every order for the next 30 days. Now that’s a deal!
**Sub means below and max means “maximum” so together sub-max means below your maximum heart rate.**
**RPE means "Rating of Perceived Exertion"
Your “feeling” of how hard your effort is at the present
moment
| RPE | Description of Feeling of Effort |
| 0 | Complete Rest |
| 1 | Very, very Easy |
| 2 | Easy |
| 3 | Moderate |
| 4 | Somewhat Hard |
| 5 | Hard |
| 6 | Harder! |
| 7 | Very Hard! |
| 8 | Very, very, very Hard! |
| 9 | Hardest! Really Tough! |
| 10 | Maximum |
Workout Course: Find a park or track where all runner-walkers can move in a circle so that you can maintain contact with them and they can hear the sound of the whistle/noise maker. Measure the distance of the loop that the runner-walkers will be using.
Workout Description:
Step 1. Warm up adequately for 5-10 minutes.
Step 2.
Easy: Select any cardiovascular activity that you enjoy such as walk-jog-run. Do that activity for 2 minutes or one lap around a track at a very easy to easy effort (or RPE of 1-3 using the RPE scale above).Record your peak heart rate at the end of 2 minutes.
Step 3.
Moderate: Do the same activity for the next 2 minutes or one lap and increase your effort to a level that feels “somewhat hard to hard” (RPE of 4-6)Record your peak heart rate at the end of 2 minutes.
Step 4.
Hard: Do the same activity for 2 minutes or one lap and increase your effort to an intensity level that feels “Hard! to Very, Very Hard!" (or with RPE of 6-8)
Record your peak heart rate at the end of 2 minutes.Step 5.
Estimate your maximum heart by adding to your final 1 minute heart rate the following numbers:
Easy Moderate Hard Add to last 1-minute heart rate: +60 +40 +20 Step 6.
My estimated sport-specific maximum heart rate is ___________bpm.
Download a helpful training card from our website : submaxhearttestcard.pdf
I just purchased one of Sally Edwards Heart Zones books and after doing the sub-max tests, I still don’t think that my maximum heart rate is correct. For instance, based on the average of all the tests, my maximum is 175 bpm, but when I really push myself, I have seen 191 on my monitor while running. Should I just keep doing the tests to see if I get a more realistic number or have I done the tests wrong?
Great question! We often get asked this at our seminars.
More than likely you are doing the tests correctly. It sounds like your maximum heart rate may be higher than 191 if you see that number on your monitor. One of the tests you can do to see if that number is higher is to simply do your favorite workout and get the biggest number that you can and use that as your “true” not your “estimated” maximum heart rate. There’s a big difference between these two numbers. After noticing the highest sustainable heart rate, AND if you feel up to it – push yourself to an all-out effort. Remember that you don’t have to SUSTAIN that effort for long; you just basically want to see how high your heart rate will go. This is recommended for people who have been exercising for a minimum of 6 months and do not meet any criteria that suggests that they have to get a physician's approval.
To help you, Heart Zones offers a set of 8 cards that walk you through the testing and measurement activities. These are GREAT to have as a means of testing yourself periodically. You can order them from the website: www.heartzones.com
Join Two of our Faculty Members at the IDEA World Fitness and Personal Trainer Convention!
Jessica Menendez and Alinda Perrine will be presenting three different seminars/workshops atthe IDEA Conference in July. Please attend their presentations if you are going to be attending:
A. Software Technologies
B. Testing and Measurements on the bike
C. implementing heart rate monitors in your health club
This is
an opportunity to learn more about heart rate training using the
Zones from the
experts. Pass the information on to others who may be attending. Perhaps
your personal
trainer or fitness leader could benefit from learning why YOU are
a ZONER! For more
information, visit http://www.ideafit.com/world/index.htm
October 1-3 in Naperville
1. Heart Zones Emotional Fitness Training rolls out the first certification for individuals looking to apply Emotional Fitness to themselves.
Emotional Fitness affects our relationships and our physical fitness. Time to get in touch with the emotional heart in this event led by Dr. Dan Rudd.
2. Advanced Heart Zones Training Seminar - for third-timers and Yellow level Trainers. Meet Dr. Carl Foster, President of the American College of Sports Medicine.
3. Roundtable with Debbie Webster of New Mexico Sports and Wellness Centers: How to Implement Heart Zones into your club and Increase your revenues. Debbie has successfully sub-max tested more than 650 individuals!
4. Heart Zones Swimming Certification - for individuals and swim coaches looking to combine the cardiovascular training aspect of swimming with good technique.
5. Heart Zones Health and Weight Management Certification - for individuals and Trainers who want to guide their clients in obtaining balanced metabolic fitness. Led by co-creator and nurse, Mary Clayton Enderlein.
6. Intermediate Heart Zones Training Seminar - for individuals who have previously attended a Heart Zones Training Seminar, or for Blue level Trainers seeking the Green level Trainer Certification.
7. Timex is back... with a twist! New and improved speed and distance products and a “Download Center” with printouts of all of your workouts.
8. Learn new ways to test clients with our newest Sub Max Testing Workshop
9. Shop at the expanded store with the newest products on fitness, training, and testing including brand new DVD's from Heart Zones Cycling, new Trainer Testing and Measuring Cards, and three new books!
10. As always, meet Sally Edwards and the incredible experts who created and developed the original heart rate training.
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If you would like to contribute to the newsletter content, or have ideas, questions, or concerns for us to address, please contact the editor by email at: jessica.menendez@heartzones.com
copyright: Heart Zones
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http://www.heartzones.com
Phone: (916) 481-7283
Fax: (916) 481-2213
Mailing address:
Heart Zones
2636 Fulton Avenue Suite #100
Sacramento, CA 95821
The Heart Zones e-Newsletter is a Heart Zones publication
Publisher: Sally Edwards
Editor in Chief: Jessica Menendez
PLEASE forward this e-mail to friends and colleagues who are also interested in fitness and sports training using the heart. THANK YOU!