7 Steps to Using a Heart Rate Monitor
Heart Zones Training with your mind-body link – the heart rate monitor – may seem confusing at first. You’ll be learning and discovering new ways of looking at the effort you put out, new ways of understanding fitness that you were never taught in your physical education classes at school. A lot has happened in the world of fitness in just the last ten years, and with your heart rate monitor and heart zones training, you are ready to reap the benefits.
STEP 6. START YOUR HEART ZONES TRAINING SYSTEM
You are ready. You have everything you need to start your program: a heart rate watch, a maximum heart rate, and your three to five heart zones. You can go out today and start exercising. But there are a few final tidbits of information which will help. First, it helps to know your time in zone. Keep track of how many minutes you train in which zones. If you are just beginning, start with 100% of your workout time in zone one, Healthy Heart. Stay in that zone for at least 2 to 4 weeks before you spend one single minute in zone two. Then, when zone one becomes easy and you are ready for the challenge, start with 10%-25% of your total training time in zone two. For example, if you are training four days a week for 20 minutes, then once a week put your zone two upper and lower limits in your monitor and train there. That would be three days in zone one and one day (that’s 25%) in zone two. It’s simple.
Next, all workout sessions should have the same general layout. You need to warm up by doing the specific activity slowly and gently until you have started to raise your heart rate level above your ambient numbers. For example, before I start a run, I always spend 10% of my total training time walking, as my warm up, and another 10% for my cool down, by walking again. I don’t start by running during my first few minutes.
A typical workout of any length of time looks like the following:
More to come ..
Keep your eyes peeled as we continue to release excerpts throughout upcoming weeks. If you want to learn more about zoning, make sure to swing by our online store and grab a copy of ZONING, Fitness in a Blink.