I'm trying to debate whether I should be shooting for the fat burning <150 BPM heart rate the whole time or run with increased intensity to increase my fitness. If I do the latter, my heart rate will eventually come down as I become more fit, right? I saw that Shawn posted something similar on the spreadsheet. Does anyone have an opinion on this? I just feel like if I shoot for the <150 rate while running, I'll have to be going really slow. Plus I can hang out around 160-170 for a half hour or so during my runs. It this a bad idea? It's probably time for me to do a little reading on exercise physiology.
On an unrelated note, does anyone know if it's a bad idea to eat a carb intense meal before working out? My typical schedule is to eat a breakfast consisting of a bowl of oatmeal with a generous scoop of brown sugar on it then go workout. Am I only burning this glucose during my workout and never touching those fat stores that I'm gunning for? Would I be better off waiting till after my workout to eat breakfast?
Good luck to Craig and Matt this weekend.
4 comments:
Here is a link to a Mark Allen article. It gives you an idea of what he did.
http://www.duathlon.com/articles/1460
Here is a link to my thoughts on this subject from this blog.
http://mooseman08.blogspot.com/2007/06/heart-rate-training.html
I actually feel I need to start some more intense interval stuff. My speed is not increasing while staying in the lower zones. So it is time to speed up.
Carb thing. My understanding is carbs before, Protien after. I try not to eat a ton before a workout to avoid seeing it again, but I stay with fruit and complex carbs (oatmeal sounds good). After the workout I try to have protien, usually cheese or yougurt, sometimes nuts. A cheeseburger always sounds good after a workout. The protien is to help the rebuilding of the muscles process.
The morning workout is good. Gets your metablolism up for the whole day. This is a good fat burner. So, if you workout in the morning, whether interval or lower HR, than you should burn more fat.
Thank you for the words of encouragement. I will do my best.
I just thought of something else. Eric Harr's book reccomends only one interval run and one interval bike per week. You can have at it in the pool since it is a lower impact activity.
I think this concept is mostly for injury avoidance.
I'll dig back into the book I bought. He covers this somewhat well. The zone you need to be training depended on the event.
Longer events would have you stay in the lower zones.
I know there were zones which he marked off limits depending on your race. He explains why they give you no benefit.
I'll see if I can summarize then maybe Jim will look it over and tell me if I'm close.
As you get in better shape, you should be able to do the same workout at a lower heart rate.
Interestingly, this is always a debate as to where you should be in each workout. If you workout at <150bpm, you may burn 700 calories per hour (just using that number as an example) and if you go for a long enough time you may burn 70-80% of those calories from fat.
If you workout harder, you may burn 1000 calories per hour and maybe only burning 50% of the calories from fat. But yet if you can work out for the same amount of time, you've burnt about the same amount of fat and yet more total calories. But, as with other posts, the risk of injury increases. So, as Matt said, it depends on your goals, being fast at a 5k? losing weight? running a maraathon?
In the unrelated note, if you eat anything with sugars within an hour of a workout or competition, you will get a "sugar spike" followed by a drop ( due to insulin response) and your blood sugar will NEVER rebound during the workout or race as it would have been if you waited 15 minutes into the exercise. The last big meal should be no closer than 3 hours to the competition.
For post-exercise recovery, Craig is right that studies show a combination of carbs with protein within a half-hour to one hour after exercise are found to be best.
As to the morning oatmeal, you are still burning fat, maybe not at the same rate, but probably pretty close. Certainly, you are still touching the fat stores.
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