My perceived efforts during workouts were that I was over-training. Within a week of first using the monitor I knew 80-90% of my workouts were anaerobic! I changed to a slower lane, using the heart rate monitor to determine my speed and rest interval, so that no more than 10% of a normal workout was anaerobic. In two weeks my resting heart rate (taken first thing in the morning) decreased from 61 to 48. Elevated resting heart rate can indicate overtraining, fatigue, injuries, and sickness. Because I had no other problem except swimming too hard, this decrease indicated I was overtraining. Few masters know that a hard anaerobic workout (Lactic Acid set) actually damages the muscle cell walls so that aerobic capacity is decreased for 24 to 96 hours. I still have one anaerobic workout per week, but I now follow it up with a recovery workout the next day, keeping my heart rate near the bottom of the aerobic zone. Your heart has a maximal rate that it cannot exceed even during the most exhaustive exercise. The maximal heart rate is sport specific, being very different for running, cycling or swimming. There is only one way to find your maximal heart rate during swimming accurately, and that is to use an EKG accurate heart monitor during testing in a prescribed method. You can use your wrist or neck pulse for your morning resting heart rate, but the errors introduced testing yourself at maximal heart rate by the palpation method are just too great. THE HEART RATE MONITOR BOOK by Sally Edwards describes ways to obtain your maximum heart rate. Once you know your max heart rate accurately you can figure your own values for each of the five training heart rate zones described in the book. |