Christoph Linden
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Total Running 1'487 km
Member since over 5 years
Post #28 of 29

Everything Ruediger said.

I started as well with a Fitbit but found out pretty soon, that it is not good at measuring heartrate at higher intensities (esp. for me). It was even dropping down to 58 in a high intensity run, which obviously was not correct, as I could tell from not beeing able to speak.

Also the Max HR topic is very important. You need a trustworthy HR monitor (e.g. brestbelt) and that is were you can stop talking about Fitbit. They do not support any (to my knowledge). So go the next step to a Garmin - like the VivoActive or ForeRunner. It is not that expensive and can be combined with a good breast HR monitor an is then pretty much accurate.

After you have the trustworthy souce, just run like Ruediger explained to identify you max heartrate. You would be suprised how much it can deviate from "standard". My Max HR for instance is really high at 202 @ 48. It was allways high, but that is quite high to any "standards". If you do not have the correct values, all HR related traininplan is off and in your case most likely to low in intensity. That would mean that you do not have the training effect as planned, as you are constantly underperforming the training goals.

Hope that add some explanations to what Ruediger said.

If you want to optimize your running with any HR monitor - use a brestbelt, or the measurment in itself is not of any quality to indicate whatever.

Cheers

Christoph

Hansruedi Nyffenegger
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Total Running 20'058 km
Member since over 8 years
Post #260 of 399

Hey Antonio

The answer is quite simple. RunningCoach supplies you with your individual plan. If your average run is 3 km in 21 Minutes or pace 7:23 then you choose a beginners plan. That is also the reason why your heart rate "goes up very quickly". But as you don't give any clear numbers it's difficult to read a lot out of your data here. And as you consider yourself an active person, 7:23 is below average for a 33 yr old male after 2 month of training, so something is not correct yet.

So, get your RunningCoach plan. Then you'll have to make sure that your settings are correct.  It is not easy to find your HRmax, 187bpm seems to me for your age rather low, I'm 50 and still reached 187 last year. Esp. if practise sports with sprint like tennis or football, it should be possible to push you a bit higher. Might also be a problem of you watch. We recently checked a cheap fitbit with a higher class runnig-watch. The difference of the Fitbit was at times 20 bpm over or under the other watch. The only way to measure HR +/- correctly is with a breast belt.

If you just calculated you HR: forget it. It's like taking the horsepower of a motor and calculating it's fuel consumption. Doesn't work. To find your HRmax you have to run up 10x a hill, 8th and 9th time max. power, 10th time until you can't go on anymore.

When you settings are correct, RunningCoach will make a plan, depending on what your goals are. That might be your first public 10k race, loosing weight or what ever. As a beginner, try 3 trainings per week and it will bring you forward.

Your training will be mostly below 80% of you HRmax. Plus one training with higher level.

Keep on running

Hansruedi

 

 

António Ferreira
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Total Running 0 km
Member since almost 4 years
Post #1 of 1

Hey guys! I recently (2 months ago) started running. I believe I can be considered an active  person with football and tennis sessions at least twice a week.

I got a fitbit and I'm trying to understand the best way to improve my running fitness. I'm 33 years old so I think that my max HR should be around 187, however when I'm running, even not being very tired I see that my HR goes up very quickly.  What is the best way of improving my levels?

So far my average is 3km, 21 minutes pace of 7'23 and average HR of 150-160.

What kind of training plan do you recommend? Is it better to train on my the lowest level of my HR ?

Cheers

AF