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From poor sleep to hot and humid environments – a lot can affect your heart, so let’s take a look at low heart rate training
Working out puts strain on everything, I think we all know that. But putting too much strain on your big toe is a little different to putting it on your heart. You need to make sure your heart is healthy and safe, so you can carry on working out worry-free. So, what can you look out for in order to monitor this potential life-changing pump?
The metric, of course, is heart rate. Livestrong states, ”Knowing how to calculate a safe range for your heart rate and learning how to manage your heart rate when it gets too high can help protect you from these potentially dangerous health issues.” but maintaining your heart relative to your age and workout style is important too.
So, there are clearly a few potential complexities to consider here – it’s a good job I’ve done most of that considering for you.
Let’s run through it, (whilst, at the same time, keeping an eye on that high heart rate 😉
Heart rate signs
Whether you’ve been running at the same pace for years or think you’re an aerobic fitness pro you should be looking out for certain signs. Naturally, working out benefits your heart and health – stronger muscles, endurance, reduced cardio-based disease – it’s obviously good. But too much of anything is bad so if you’re putting too much strain on your heart, then watch out for the following –
- Light-headedness or dizziness
- Nausea
- Chest pain
- Shortness of breath
So, while it’s great to push yourself, benefitting from oxygen-rich blood, a well-optimised cardiovascular system, and a good maximum heart rate overall, it can all go wrong in a single beat.
Monitor yourself.
Training to lower your pace
According to Run and Become, you need a lot of patience for the process. Maffetone’s formula for figuring out your heart rate reduction is as follows –
180 minus your age
The final figure, of course, refers to the heart rate that you need to train at. But if you catch colds throughout the year then there’s something else for you. You need to take off 5 per cold. This is why it takes a lot of patience as that could be a massive reduction.
Hear it from Balavan Thomas himself –
”I was only able to run for a short distance before my heart rate would jump up to around 180. I needed to be really self-disciplined at this point and I decided not to give up and to plough on regardless.”
Conclusion
In conclusion, you need discipline, good running form and many focussed training sessions. If you want to get your heart rate down, then you need to slow your style too. Your usual pace won’t cut it, so invest in telemetry technology, monitor your heart rate and run at the pace the formula suggests.
FAQs
Taking walking breaks, is that good for heart rate?
Of course. While the training is important to maintain the new heart rate target, taking walk breaks, in general, is going to help reduce heart rate and problems mid-run.
