How to train smarter.

Effort level is a great way of measuring the intensity of your runs and rides, however sometimes we need more guidance.

Let’s use this bike analogy:

• When we first start training we have 1 gear. We’re riding a single fixed gear, it’s either ‘easy’ or ‘hard’.

• As we begin to train more, we now have 5 gears. We can differentiate between ‘easy’, steady, uncomfortable, intense and all-out efforts.

• Roll on a consistent period of training and we now have 21 gears. We can break each of those 5 gears into sub-gears.

  For example, ‘steady and comfortable’, ‘steady and maintainable’, ‘steady but challenging’ etc.

This is where using effort level as a measure of intensity can be tricky as it doesn’t allow for much flexibility. It also does not come with a baseline: your 5/10 effort one day could be different to the next, depending on a whole host of factors, eg. stress/nutrition/sleep etc.

A solution to smarter training: Heart rate training

Your running and cycling performance will improve with consistency, experience, time and exposure to different training zones. Heart rate training, in particular, lactate threshold heart rate training, is a fantastic tool to give yourself ‘more gears’ and help you progress your training quicker.

Why is it smarter?

You’re cutting out the guesswork of intensity. You will progress quicker as you can work to different zones and intensities within those zones. In each prescribed heart rate zone, you have a margin to work between and it is in these margins that you can differentiate intensity. For example, the difference between an all-out effort that you can hold for 60 seconds, to an all-out effort that you can only sustain for 10 seconds.

It also gives you that consistency with your intensity; you’re not relying on feeling but have a consistent baseline to use.

Working out your lactate threshold heart rate is the first step to training smarter.

Lactate threshold heart rate training can sound a little over-whelming, but it really need not.

It is important that you are working to your individual heart rate training zones. If you’re not, then you are opening yourself up to the risk of overtraining and injury. On the flipside, if you’re training at an intensity which is too low, then you will lack progression in your training.

Please reply to this email and I’ll send you across a flipbook on how to work out your lactate threshold heart rate for running and cycling, and of course, I can answer any questions that you may have.