What nudged me this morning to get out there for a walk?? It was my heart …. Rate Monitor!
Well! Some of you may know I’m a bit of a tech-nerd! And 2-weeks ago, I awarded myself the permission of buying a heart rate monitor! (That was the reward for getting back to 3 runs, 2 intentional walks per week. “Intentional “ here meant for me as a way of not including any casual or regular walks to works or shops, but rather those when dressing up as if going for a run, but going for a physically intentionally focused fitness walk)
So the monitor arrived, and I’m now having fun with all new colours in my stats!!!
I’m also realising, I have to get under the hood and understand heart rate zones and HRZ training a bit more than I do at present.
But I took my HR monitor out for a walking spin today, and also tested a heart rate zone app, which was recommended to me: Zone2, an app dedicated to allowing you to maximise your time spent in Zone2 of full benefits of aerobic workouts. The app did cost a one-off £2.99, but at least it’s not subscription based.
But the results are interesting. Following thoughts I had:
- In all these apps, your one star you have to put in is your max heart rate. My maxHR I arrived at through rowing, but as far as I read, this might be less appropriate for walking and running. As these are more body-vertical activities, rather than swimming and rowing being more horizontal, they differ as the heart is differently burdened of moving blood around the body depending on its horizontal or vertical positioning.
- when rowing (indoor), I really have to work pretty hard to get to zone 4 and almost impossible to get to zone 5 during short workouts. However, as you can see in my colour charts, walking and running is completely different, and I struggled to keep in zone 2, or even Zone 3! And this was not a strenuous walk. No hills. No speed walk.
- so I might have to do a specific walking/running max heart rate zone testing to get my zones right!
And yes, this might be too much faffing for many, but I just get excited about the idea of trying to figure this out!
It certainly will be an effective nudger to get me out there!
Happy walking! With or without heart rate monitors!
