The benefits to low heart rate training.
Despite the widespread promotion of HIIT training and hard intervals along with the perception that quality sessions mean pushing yourself to the limit on each effort, there are many benefits to lower heart rate training at the correct times in your training.
If your goal is to build an injury proof body and have a long and successful racing career then its time to ditch the “Go hard or go home” mentality. Our bodies can only recover from so much stress and the higher the training intensity the less time we can handle the stress for before we become either sick or injured. Therefore it is critical to do lower heart rate longer sustained efforts to build our structure up and gain efficiency of movement. This will lead to a high fitness level and a better moving body. As you improve your movement patterns you can sustain more quality for less effort meaning that your sub maximal performances will have improved. A formula I use for athletes during their lower intensity session is borrowed from Dr Phil Maffetone who developed the concept of Maximal Aerobic Function (MAF). This is the maximum heart rate you train at for extended periods of time. The formula is simple 180 – your age in years. So for me it is 180-48 = 132bpm. When training at this level initially I am relatively slow compared to my race pace over the same duration or distance. However as my body adjusts and my movement patterns improve then my speed at this heart rate number increases and within a certain amount of time I will be performing at a higher level for the same output effort. The advantage with this is that you are not left wiped out or sore from your training as you are staying within your body’s limits. This means that you recover sooner and can in time maintain a higher total training load.
Next month I will give you some further insights into this, but in the meantime why not go out there and see what your current performance numbers look like at your MAF heart rate?
Coach Sweeney
