Heart Rate Zones, Effective Communication with your Coach, Just Putting in the Time collins

HomeGeneral TipsHeart Rate Zones, Effective Communication with your Coach, Just Putting in the Time collins

The last few weeks have been interesting in the terms of the amount of communication back and forth with a number of our athletes. Kathy, Coach Steve and I have all talked and we all agree that the winter months yield more questions than any other time of the year. I won’t complicate the reasoning behind the questions with anything other than athletes have more time to think and spend far too much time reading triathlon magazines/books and then “wonder” if the plan they just read about is the one they should be doing. Let me simplify a few things for everyone with regards to heart rate zones, feedback and the bottom line to success.

Zones:

There are different training zones and or paces designed to have certain physiologic adaptations. Many coaches use a lot of different terminology to the point where the zones have just become plain confusing for all. Let’s simplify everything:

Zone 1: Recovery/ <69%>

Zone 2: Endurance/69%-83% of your LTHR/Slow twitch development/delays onset of fatigue

Zone 3: Tempo/84-94% of your LTHR/Long Race pacing (up to half IM)

Zone 4: Lactate Threshold/95% -105%/Maximal improvement of your LT

Zone 5/>V02Max/Maximize Cardiac Fitness/Improves V02 Max

There are many ways to come up with your LTHR numbers and many debates over whose methods are accurate. If you want accurate numbers then pay the money to go to a local exercise physiology laboratory and get tested in each discipline as you will have different ranges for swimming, biking and running (test are done for biking and running). The other method is field testing to determine your LTHR and you calculate your numbers based on the field test. Remember, the best predictor of performance is the performance itself. A 5k run and a 40k Time Trial in race conditions will typically yield the best numbers to work with.

Feedback:

Communication with your coach is critical to developing your current and future training plans. Having said that, the information you give your coach has to be useful. Writing “completed” or Done” or nothing at all doesn’t tell your coach anything. Telling your coach, “hey the workout said 3200 yards but it was only 3050 doesn’t tell the coach anything other than they can’t add. Use your comments section to let your coach know how your body responded to the training. Were you able to hold the desired zone, was it easy hard, just right? Could you have completed more intervals? Was your perceived exertion in line with your Heart Rate? How was your nutrition? What interval were you holding in the pool? How was your feel for the water? Where you lacking motivation or on top of your game? There is a lot of information to provide your coach which is used to build your next block of training. Remember, it takes 6-8 weeks to see if adaptations to your training yield the desired results.

Just Putting in the Time:

I know there are a lot of coaches out there who would argue with this next statement but I would argue with them that nothing beats putting in the time. Coach Kathy says it best when she says “go hard on your hard days and easy on your easy days, there is no in between”. I don’t believe I have ever seen her wear a Heart Rate Monitor or talk about what zone she is in. What she does year after year is put in the time to get the desired results. A poorly written plan followed consistently yields better results than a well written plan not followed at all.

Don’t make this sport more complicated than it needs to be. If you need tools to quantify where you are then slap on a Heart Rate Monitor ( I use one) or get a power tap, garmin or the what ever the latest gadget is and believe in the process. As coach Truesdale says “put your ass to the leather and just ride”…..

Written by

Peter Alfino is a level II USAT certified coach and the owner of Mile High Multisport. An accomplished triathlete who has completed 4 Ironman races, he has successfully coached Triathletes, Open Water Swimmers, Trail Runners and Mountain Bikers of all ages and abilities from sprint to Ironman races. If you are looking for a triathlon coaching plan you may contact Pete at peter.alfino@gmail.com to learn more about the triathlon coaching services he provides via Mile High Multisport.

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