Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Getting into a groove

I awoke this morning to a much lower HR. Thank goodness. In what I hope becomes a once or twice a week routine I went through a 3 stage workout. The first stage is a series of resistance exercises, pull ups (currently assisted), push ups and a series of ab and core work. As I improve physically I will begin to incorporate a variety of strength and functional work.

Then I went for a 1.5 mile run. My HR is still much to high for these runs to be effective for anything more than getting outside and practicing patience. I know that heart rate training works however the initial weeks are tough to get through. For those people that have thought about HR training or have given up on it in frustration, take strength in knowing that it absolutely pays off down the road. I will testify that through HR zone training, I kept my HR the same but dropped my average run mile pace by 20% on a 10k course. That is significant.

As my run leaves my HR all over the place from too high to not a run, I use the bike for a steady state cardio workout. I ride at a prescribed number and fluctuate by only +/- 2 bpm.

As I begin to include more swims and bike rides, I am hoping that the runs will become more steady and the resistance training stays consistent.


3 comments:

Glen said...

yeah, heart rate training sucks but we both will be fitter soon and the HR's will be low. Keep up the hard work.

Wendy said...

It's definitely a process -- but a process well worth doing! (There's treasure everywhere.)

Chris said...

Hey, congrats on getting the green light to get back out there. You're excitement really comes through in your posts! ALthough I know that it's killing you to have to take it slow.


Ditto on the HR training. I have seen significant gains over the past year with my pace and avg HR for my efforts. It's tough at time to post 10min miles in a workout but I have taken 4 minutes off of my sprint 5k run and my Oly 10k.
Take Care