Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Heart Rate Training Optimizes Your 5k Training Program

Are you looking for a 5k training program? When you start
looking you see many program offering beginner programs and
advanced programs. What is interesting is that most
beginner programs are too many miles for the average
beginner. The key to effective 5k cardio plans is for
every person to have their own heart rate profile. With
optimal heart rate training every workout will be optimized
for the greatest impact for your results. Heart rate
training is for advanced and beginners; the difference is
the heart rate profile not using a heart rate monitor.

The most effective cardio workout for running faster races
and burning fat is interval training. Interval training is
short durations of high intensity followed by short
durations of low intensity and then repeated. Most
programs only offer interval training for advanced programs
though effective programming is good for all levels. The
key is a person's heart rate profile. The most advanced
you are the higher heart rate you want to train at for your
interval.

Each person has a different level of fitness associated by
their heart rate. As you run the energy required needs a
certain consistent heart rate produce the energy. The more
fit you are the lower your heart rate is for a given speed.
This is why heart rate training is so effective. By
finding a person's targeted heart rate profile you can make
sure each workout is training in the right zone to
optimally improve your performance. Often, people's lack
of results comes from not training hard enough, or very
common with cardio runners is overtraining by running with
too high of a heart rate on every workout.

What is important for your metabolism and race speed is the
rate at which you burn calories not how many calories you
burn. This is why walkers and people who run mile after
mile seem to never achieve their results. The more
calories you burn the more calories you need to eat to
restore energy back to your muscles cells. It is
challenging your muscles to burn more energy by going
harder relative to your fitness level forces your
metabolism to improve and than makes you fun faster and
burn more fat. People after completing an interval workout
burn more fat 24 hours after their workout than any other
form of cardio or strength exercise.

Though the interval workout is important it isn't the only
workout that makes an effective 5k running program. Two
other key workouts is a threshold workout and a long day.
The threshold workout is a medium intensity workout that
almost no person does. The reason why is people can always
go harder and there is this myth that you have to push
yourself in every work to your max. The other reason is
people go on their slow steady pace never picking up the
pace for a shorter run. An optimal threshold workout is
between 15-30 min. If you can last longer than 30 min. you
should run faster. When you run at your threshold level
you are at the max at what your aerobic metabolism can burn
for energy. When you go harder your anaerobic metabolism
is kicked in to produce the needed extra energy. A
threshold workout trains your body to burn energy the most
effectively utilizing oxygen. It is the best workout for
creating a good race pace.

The long day is the last workout you need every week in
your 5k training program. Having running session that go
for slower speeds and longer durations trains your body to
burn fat and increases effectiveness of burning energy
while running. You only need to do one long day a week and
spending hours doing cardio during every workout may be a
key reason why you are no longer seeing results.

To truly see your results you want a program that creates a
personal heart rate profile. The charts on most treadmills
are not accurate and the doctors who came up with the
charts admit they made them up as a best guess for
insurance companies and were never supposed to use as
training heart rates. The other major key as you continue
to run is a 5k program that uses specific and multiple
threshold and interval workouts. The workout that worked
for the first month won't work for the second as your body
needs a new stimulus. With proper heart rate profiles you
will be running your first or fastest 5k in no time.


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About The Author: Charles Carter, BS in Exercise Science is
President of LIVE, llc of
http://www.liveleantoday.com/article.cfm?id=869 - visit the
website for more information on 5k training programs,
weight loss, optimal diets, and online personal trainer and
dietician services. For more information on health and
fitness go to http://www.liveleanblog.com/ .

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