The Six Steps for heart rate training
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A lot of runners try to use heart rate training, but find it confusing because they are getting poor data and don’t understand why they are even doing it well enough to make the right changes to their running plan accordingly. In this complete guide to heart rate training for runners you’ll learn if heart rate training is right for you (it might not be!), how it benefits you, how to get accurate heart rate data, and how to transform the heart rate information into useful actions to provide improvements to your running fitness. After the benefits, I’ve broken down the information down into six easy steps.
- What are the benefits of heart rate training for runners?
- 1) Understand if heart rate training is relevant to you
- 2) Ensure heart rate data accuracy
- 3) Determine your maximum heart rate and resting heart rate values
- 4) Determine your heart rate zones
- 5) Use Heart Rate in your running training
- 6) Mentally link heart rate to perceived effort
- What factors impact heart rate training for runners?
What are the benefits of heart rate training for runners?
Optimal training: When you run, your body uses a variety of energy systems and fuel sources. The proportion of each energy system and fuel source varies according to effort level in the run. To make your body better at using each energy system and fuel type, you can target a specific effort level in each run for optimal improvement. Heart rate is directly related to effort level, so you can optimise your training by using heart rate as a guide.
Avoid injury: If you always run at a high effort level, your risk of injury increases. If you keep your effort low in some of your runs by keeping heart rate low, you can do more running with less risk, so you’ll get fitter.
Illness or overtraining warning: If your heart rate seems higher in training than normal, or even when you wake up in the morning, it is an indicator that your body is struggling. This could be because you are about to get ill with a cold, or because you have been doing some hard training for a while (or a race) and need a bit of extra recovery.
Learn about yourself: This is super important! Heart rate training for runners is just one tool in the box. Over time, you can learn what your body feels like at a various heart rates, so that when you are more experienced you can apply the right effort levels without needing to rely on heart rate data, instead relying on your perceived effort.
Now, I’ll explain the six steps in heart rate training for runners.
1) Understand if heart rate training is relevant to you
Who should use heart rate training?
Pure beginner runners do not need to use heart rate to train, because even slow running is going to be high effort and they aren’t doing enough running to be worried about different heart rate zones. They may find that running in a low heart rate zone makes them almost walk, leading to slow improvements and poor running form (shuffling). However, they may find looking at the data interesting while they get fitter. If this is you, please don’t focus on your heart rate too much. If you have a device that monitors your heart rate, maybe save looking at the data until you get back. Once you have been running for a few months and can run for 40 minutes, you might be considering running longer, at which point, heart rate training might become beneficial.
Heart rate training is most relevant to inexperienced runners that have built up a bit of running fitness but are not yet at the point where they understand what effort levels they should be using in each run for optimal improvement and long term fun. If you have been running for a while, but are struggling to progress, this is probably you! Many runners are too fast on their slow runs and too slow on their fast runs. Or sometimes they just run ALL their runs at exactly the same effort level / pace. This often happens even with runners that have been running for a couple of years – I’d still class these as inexperienced.
More experienced runners that have already learned the feel of the effort levels required to improve each energy system do not need to use heart rate training very often, although they might geek out on the data after a run. If average heart rate during a certain speed run is lower than a couple of months previous, it’s a strong indicator that their running fitness is improving. Besides, looking at your watch all the time during a run sucks all the fun out of it!
2) Ensure heart rate data accuracy
After you have decided to do heart rate training, the next step is to ensure that the data you are getting about your heart rate is accurate.
The most common way for runners to measure heart rate is via wrist watch devices that use optical sensors. These measure change in light reflected as blood pulses past in the veins near the surface of the skin.
If worn too loosely, light can seep in the sides as the runner moves their arms back and forth. This leads to measurement of cadence instead of HR (arm movement matches leg cadence), which is often much higher than real heart rates for most runs.
If worn too tightly, blood flow is restricted and changes in light reflected are less easy to detect, which leads to the watch missing beats and presenting a heart rate that is too low.
If your heart rate data suddenly spikes, or drops, and your pace / effort didn’t change much, you know the data is not recording well. If you want to be more confident of the data, buy or borrow a chest strap monitor, make sure it is properly wet and then compare the data to a previous similar run that just used the wrist monitor. If they match, you know your wrist monitor is giving good data. I get a great match on constant pace runs (easy / tempo (link)), but find that a chest strap is better for recording runs with quick changes in pace like intervals or fartlek (link), so make sure you try both types.
There’s more related info here on why your heart rate is so high when running.
3) Determine your maximum heart rate and resting heart rate values
Once you know your data is being recorded accurately, you then need to understand how to use that heart rate data to improve your running training. The starting point is to find the range of your heart rate, specifically for running.
The important values for heart rate training for runners are:
Resting heart rate – This is the heart rate your body requires to keep you alive while just standing around. Some wearable devices keep track of an average resting heart rate, so you can use that, or if you don’t wear it all the time, you can measure your heart rate in the morning while standing still.
Maximum heart rate – This is the maximum heart rate you can achieve in your specific sport, so in the focus of this article, it’s running. Athletes in sports that recruit more muscles like running see a higher maximum. For example cyclists of a similar experience level to runners see a lower maximum in testing than the runners. Maximum heart rate is also related to genetics – having a higher maximum than someone else doesn’t mean you are fitter. To find it, do a maximum heart rate stress test.
If you are really serious about HR training, don’t use age formulas (for example 220-age) to find the maximum. They aren’t very accurate for most people.
4) Determine your heart rate zones
Take the resting and maximum heart rate values from above and enter them into the Runningversity Heart Rate Zone calculator.
Heart Rate zones give you a great way to know roughly where your heart rates should be in different types of runs, without having to stick too much to a specific value. However, there are a couple of effort levels that are really worth focusing in on, and finding related heart rates.
Aerobic Threshold Heart Rate – Aerobic threshold is an effort at which you could keep going during a run all day without your pace dropping off much (if your legs were capable of running all day!). Making some of your easy and long runs at this effort will improve your endurance as well as your ability to process lactate energy system by-products. The easiest way to find the heart rate associated with this effort is using the Heart Rate Drift Test. If you can’t yet run nonstop for 75 minutes, instead look at the top of Zone 2 that you calculated above and use that.
Lactate Threshold Heart Rate – Lactate threshold is the effort at which hydrogen ions (lactate energy system by-products) are processed away from the muscles at the same speed they are created. Anything above this will lead to a tingling in the legs, and eventually a buuurning sensation, and eventually complete shutdown of the legs. You might have experienced part of this in a fast 5K race. Running your Tempo runs at this effort will get your body used to creating and using Lactate. Running your Fartlek runs a little above this effort and then dropping below (repeat) will get your body used to being in Hydrogen Ion build up. It normally occurs at a pace you could keep up for about an hour in a race. You’ve already calculated your Zone 4 and lactate threshold should be somewhere in Zone 4. To focus in on a closer lactate threshold heart rate value, run a 5K race (or Time Trial) and use the Runningversity training pace calculator. You’ll see one of the outputs is “Lactate Threshold / Tempo pace”. Then in similar conditions, run at that predicted threshold pace for 30 minutes and check your heart rate. If you feel tingling in the legs, it’s too fast, so slow down a bit.
5) Use Heart Rate in your running training
Set up your training plan with a mix of effort levels relevant to your goals and current fitness. If you don’t have a plan, make one! If you aren’t sure how to make one, consider a running coach. At a basic level, some of your runs should be at or below Aerobic Threshold, so make them easy. Some of them should be around Lactate Threshold, so make them comfortably hard. Some of theme should be even faster, so pretty fast and short, like intervals. The proportion of each will depend on how often you run each week, how much time you are running, your age, and what your running goals are.
If you aren’t running more than 90 minutes a week yet (say 3X per week), you could make 2 runs easy and 1 tempo run at lactate threshold. Or 1 run easy, 1 at lactate threshold and 1 fast intervals.
If you are running more often each week and longer, you could use 1 tempo / fartlek and an intervals session, with the rest all easy and a long run.
Remember that running is supposed to be fun in most of your runs, so again, don’t obsess too much. You should not be looking at your heart rate constantly in a run.
6) Mentally link heart rate to perceived effort
To level up your running long term, you need to be able to understand how fast to run in any particular session without needing to look at your watch. This is achieved by linking the heart rates and zones you’ve been focusing on to your perceived effort / exertion levels during the runs. So every now and then during a run, think to yourself “What does this effort feel like?” Then try to reproduce that effort level in another run and THEN check your heart rate to see if it was about right.
As you can imagine, once you have practiced this enough, you’ll just KNOW you are at the right effort level.
The two main datapoints discussed in step 4 above are the Aerobic Base and Lactate Threshold. Aerobic base is a perceived effort where you feel like you can keep going all day. Beginner runners probably won’t be running in this zone for long except at the very start of their run. More experienced runners can actually run in it all day long, say in ultra runs. “Can I say a sentence of about this length out loud while running without gasping for breath in the middle?” <<< Try saying that 10 minutes into your run. If you can, then you are probably in aerobic base / Zone 1 or Zone 2. More info about Aerobic Base. Lactate threshold is the perceived effort that is comfortably hard, an effort you could sustain for an hour in a race and where you aren’t experiencing lactate system related buuurning in the legs, but would if you ran any faster. More info about Lactate threshold.
What factors impact heart rate training for runners?
Sleep: One a day to day basis, this is probably the biggest factor in how running heart rate can vary. If you suffer from poor quality sleep every now and then, you’ll notice that a run the next day will have a higher than normal heart rate for any given pace. This is a good indicator to decide if you should go ahead with the planned session (distance, time, speed / effort) or whether you should take it a bit easier.
Drugs: Beta blockers, caffeine, and many other drugs, legal or otherwise, can have a big impact on your heart rate.
Heat: Throughout the year, your runs might take in different heats. Running in the heat puts extra demands on the body to keep cool, which require the heart to beat faster. It can actually be beneficial if done in a safe way, so don’t always avoid hotter runs. However, you may find that sticking to your normal Zone 2 during an easy run might mean you are plodding slowly. You might get a better workout by running at a normal pace for a while and then inserting some walks to get the heart rate down again, so your legs and neurons remember what it’s like to run normally.
Elevation: Higher altitudes make the heart respond differently. Resting heart rate is higher and maximum heart rate is lower. Go by perceived effort.
Life stress: Your body reacts to mental stress. Imagine for example you are dealing with a bereavement in the family – your running heart rate will be higher than normal.
Dehydration: If you are dehydrated before you even start running, again, your heart will struggle.
Illness: A higher resting heart rate than normal could be a sign you are getting ill with a virus or something.
Overtraining / Under-recovery: Similarly, a higher resting heart rate than normal can be a sign you’ve been overdoing the training and need more rest.
Drift in longer runs: During endurance exercise, even at low efforts, your heart rate will gradually drift upwards. You can either choose to keep heart rate the same and drop your pace, or keep pace the same and allow the heart rate to rise. A mix of both of these options is likely appropriate for your long runs.
Changes over time: As running fitness improves, it’s easier to recruit more muscles – your maximum running heart rate will increase. As you get older, your maximum heart rate gradually decreases.
