Welcome to the 16th October
2001 edition of The Heart Zones e-Newsletter
copyright: Heart Zones, your
source of heart rate training information
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In this issue:
1. What recovery heart rate can tell you about your health
2. Keep well and keep heart rate training this Winter
3. Book Review: Eat Smart,
Play Hard
4. Biofeedback Recovery Heart Rate Workout
Also...
5. Get and Stay Motivated
6. How to deal with a stitch
7. Buy a book: The Heart
Rate Monitor Book for Indoor and Outdoor Cyclists $17.95
by Sally Edwards and Sally Reed
8. New dates for Heart Zone Training Seminars
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1. What recovery heart rate
can tell you about your health
Recovery Heart Rate (RHR) is
the number of beats per minute your heart drops after exercise, usually
measured 2 minutes after the exercise.
A fit heart recovers quickly
after exercise and measuring just how fast it recovers has been found to be an
excellent indicator of health. Recent studies
have found a high correlation between
low recovery heart rates and mortality.
That's because the recovery heart rate gives us an insight into something
called the autonomic nervous system, that part of the nervous system that
regulates heart rate and blood pressure and breathing. It's been known for a
long time that abnormalities of the autonomic nervous system are
correlated with death risk,
but the problem is that the way in which these abnormalities are measured are
very difficult and require sophisticated equipment. By contrast, a simple recovery heart rate test accurately reflects
the health of the autonomic nervous system and provides us with just as
powerful indicator of heart health.
To find your recovery heart
rate:
· Warm up for 10-15 of
gentle exercise
· Spend 5 minutes stretching
large muscle groups
· Spend 5 minutes gradually
raising your heart rate as high as you can get it. Use any activity you want - stepping up and down on a chair,
running, skipping, whatever is your favorite. Don't go to the point of
exhaustion, just get to a heart rate which is quite high for you - one which
you would
only see in a sprint finish.
· Now stop and while
standing still measure your heart rate at the point when you stopped, after one
minute and then after two minutes.
Subtract each number from your peak exercise heart rate and this is your
recovery heart rate. For health
guidelines you need to see a drop of at least 12 beats over the first minute
and a total of 42 beats over the whole 2 minutes. The greater the drop - the healthier you are. If you don't meet the minimum guidelines,
consult a cardiologist soon.
To find out more about
recovery heart rate, click on these 2 links.
url:
http://www.docguide.com/dg.nsf/PrintPrint/FD50E34979EC2EAE8525681800479F4C
http://www.findarticles.com/m3225/12_61/62829317/p1/article.jhtml
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2. Keep well and keep heart
rate training this Winter
This time of year always
brings around the annual Winter dilemma - is it safe to exercise when you are
ill? Should you push through it and do
it anyway or stay in bed?
Well, common sense, as
usual, should prevail. The danger is
that you could aggravate an ordinary cold infection into something more nasty
like a virus that can cause pneumonia, or a 'Coxsackie' virus that can infect
your heart and even cause sudden death whilst training. So how do you decide? Your training partner may be waiting for
you, or it might be a workout you really don't want to miss.
Well, first off, check your
neck. If your symptoms are all above
the neck (i.e. stuff nose, sneezing, watery eyes) it is probably OK to start
your workout using your heart rate monitor as a constant guide. Start by warming up very slowly. If you feel OK after 10 minutes, you
probably are OK to continue as long as you look at your heart rate monitor and
reduce the intensity of your workout by one zone and definitely don't go for
Zone 4 and 5 workouts today. Low
intensity workouts (Zones 1 and 2) may benefit your immune system and
increasing the blood flow may help you get rid of your cold faster. However, if
your heart rate is very erratic, increasing wildly as you increase the
intensity, or you see very high numbers compared to how you feel, stop and go
back to bed.
Training is about listening
to your body to go faster, but also to keep well. If you have a fever or symptoms below the neck such as aching muscles,
a chest cough, nausea or vomiting, don't workout. You'll recover much faster from your illness if you rest.
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3. Eat Smart, Play Hard :
Customized Food Plans for All Your Sports and
Fitness Pursuits
by Elizabeth Ann
Applegate, July 2001
Although the body is not a
machine it is true that the performance you get is related to what you put
in. We all need to think about how to
fuel our active heart zone training lifestyle and now expert nutritionist Liz Applegate,
Ph.D., tells you exactly what to eat before, during, and after your hard play
to achieve the most powerful fitness results possible, whatever your sport.
Eat Smart, Play Hard will
show you how much to eat and when, whether you are playing golf, doing yoga,
running your first 5k or competing in an Ironman endurance race, because you
need the right fuel at the right time. Exciting advances in sports nutrition
have made fueling for exercise easier and more
fun. Research now shows that
many delicious foods--chocolate and steak, to name just two--can boost
performance as well as fight disease. You'll also discover:
· The most effective ways to
trim fat and build muscle
· 41 natural superfoods that
pack the biggest health advantage
· The latest on sports
drinks, energy bars, and gels, along with a comparison of brands
· Which popular nutritional
supplements work, and which ones don't
· Detailed diet plans
tailored to your sport of choice--cycling, golf, or running
url
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3. Biofeedback Recovery
Heart Rate Workout
You can improve your
recovery heart rate just by thinking about it - amazing!
Yes, it is true! By using your heart rate monitor as a
biofeedback tool you can really improve your recovery heart rate.
First of all, you need: skipping rope, heart rate monitor, stop
watch, pen and paper.
Then:
1. Warm up through Zones 1
and 2 for 5-10 minutes
2. Stretch your large quads,
hamstrings, calves, gluteals and shoulders
3. Now get going again
aiming to be comfortably in Zone 3 after 5 minutes
4. Skip harder, higher and
faster so that you raise your heart rate quickly to at least 90% of your
maximum or as high as you can maintain for one minute
5. Now stop and write down
the your heart rate
6. March gently for one
minute really concentrating on your heart rate and how it falls and willing it
to fall faster. Focus on slow steady breathing from the 'belly'.
7. Write down your heart
rate after one minute
8. Repeat steps 4-7 (the
number of times depending on your level of fitness) each time making sure you
reach for a similarly high heart rate and during the recovery stage try to
achieve a faster recovery rate each time.
9. Cool down for 10 minutes
and stretch
Now look at your results and
calculate your recovery heart rates.
You should notice that as the exercise progressed, you managed to
achieve a higher recovery heart rate.
That's because you've increased your control over your heart rate - simply by thinking about it!
url http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0105.htm
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5. Get and stay motivated
A great way to get and stay
motivated is to read success stories.
Here are
some you can read on the
internet.
http://www.asimba.com/lifestyle/success/index.html
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6. How to deal with a stitch
Nobody knows exactly what
causes stitches - the nagging and sometimes crippling pain in the side we've
all experienced. However, it is thought
that this one-sided pain comes from the bouncing of the organs on the
internal ligaments that hold
everything in place inside our abdomens. Stitches are most common in running,
cyclists nearly never get them. The
most common side is the right side - thought to be partly because the liver,
which is the heaviest of the organs in the abdomen is on the right, and most
people breath out when the right foot hits the ground - putting extra shock on
the ligaments just as the heaviest organs bounce down too. With all the extra pushing and pulling the
ligaments can start to cramp - which is when
you feel pain in your side
(or even sometimes the shoulder).
To combat the stitch, try
these strategies:
· Be careful about when you
eat and drink before exercise. Too much
weight in your stomach can increase the possibility of a stitch
· Learn to breathe. To cast off a stitch (no pun intended!)
breathe out forcefully and pushing your belly in at the same time. This will stretch our your diaphragm and
hopefully release the cramp in the ligaments.
· Switch your
breathing. If you are running and have
a stitch on one side you will probably find you are breathing out as the foot
on that side hits the ground. Try
switching your breathing to the other foot for a while and the stitch will probably be relived.
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7. Buy a book: The Heart
Rate Monitor Book for Indoor and Outdoor Cyclists $17.95
by Sally Edwards and Sally
Reed, September 2000
If you need something to
give you ideas of how to exercise indoors this Winter - you need this
book. The Heart Rate Monitor Book for
Indoor and Outdoor Cyclists applies the already proven method of five-zone heart rate training to training for
indoor/outdoor cyclists of all abilities. Included is a free software program
that helps you get stronger by allowing you to track and analyze your training
and performance.
http://www.heartzones.com/books/index.shtml
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8. HEART ZONES SEMINARS
Sally Edwards and HeartZones
present the Heart Zone Training Seminar, Certification and Workshops series,
designed for everyone -- whether new to fitness or experienced in sports
participation. If you would like to
learn how to become more fit, manage your weight, reduce stress, increase
energy, get more motivation, have fun and use a heart rate monitor, these
seminars and workshops are for you!
11/10/2001 in Cleveland, OH
11/17/2001 in Sun Valley, ID
12/08/2001 in Minneapolis,
MN
01/19/2002 in San Francisco,
CA
01/26/2002 in New York City
02/03/2002 in Ottawa, Canada
02/19/2002 in Sacramento, CA
03/02/2002 in Chicago, IL
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copyright: Heart Zones
staff@heartzone.com
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Phone: (916)-481-7283
Fax: (916) 481-2213
Heart Zones
2636 Fulton Avenue Suite
#100
Sacramento, CA 95821
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