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Bodyweight Low HR During Rucking in Flat Terrain

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Bauer

Bauer

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Hi folks,

yesterday I decided to try rucking with 10 kg (22 lbs) and just walked "purposefully" for about half an hour. I covered 2.7 km (1.7 miles), thus with a pace of about 5kmh (19 minute/mile or so). The weight felt good, but nonetheless my shoulders got a bit tight.

What surprised me was my low average HR: 85 BPM.
Rucking HR 10kg 20-11-20.PNG
The "spikes" were some bridges I crossed.

For some periods I increased my pace (probably 17:00 pace), but my HR only increased 3-5 beats. Interestingly, I am known as a rather fast walker.

Al Ciampa recommends about 130 BPM Average HR
If you decide to add rucking to your training, please, start out light and short, depending upon your experience. However strong or conditioned you currently are, if you’ve never endured under a load, you will run the risk of joint pain or injury. Start out with a distance between 2-4 miles, carrying 15-25lbs of weight. Walk once per week, and increase only one of these variables each week: either 5-10lbs or 1-2 miles.


Use nasal breathing to guide your pace – you literally should be able to keep a conversation going. For basic fitness conditioning, working up to 60 minute ruck once per week, with a load that gets your heart rate to an average of 125-135bpm (age dependent) is sufficient. You can use a heart rate monitor or the “180 minus your age” formula to calculate your target, but there’s no need to get particular about it.
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Source: Rucking: What It Is and How to Do It | StrongFirst

I don't know what to make of this. Obviously, a hilly terrain would be better. I should add that I have a low resting HR (~40 BPM in the morning) and that I am used to carrying my daughter (13 kgs) for some time in a a carrier. When I do sets of 10 KB Swings my HR goes up to roughly 130 or 140.

I guess it is still a healthy endeavour, but maybe not stretching my heart that much. What is your take? What is your experience with rucking an HR?

As for goals, I would like to add it for (a) relaxation and recovery, and (b) general aerobic fitness. My original plan was to spend 60-90 minutes per week within 110-130 BPM HR.
 
I’ve found this too with rucking- without hills or moving towards a jog (which I don’t want to do with a ruck), my HR stays low. I ruck with around 18 kg in a GR1. I’ve added weight up to 32 kg but it just made it uncomfortable and more of an exercise in resisting falling over backwards, and made surprisingly little difference to my HR (a couple of bpm on the average).

I still think there’s a lot of value to rucking - it’s difficult to overdo the intensity for one - and I rate it very highly, but I think there are better Z2 activities.
 
@Bauer
For your stated goals....

Pretty much exactly what @Don Fairbanks said....
I use a slightly different Zone scale than you are but the results are the same.
You are in what I call ZR or Recovery Zone; and it is just for that recovery.

You are also using a weight I commonly use as well. (For practical reasons I have outlined elsewhere).

The best way to get you up in your AeT range (or higher for some purposes) is to find some additional stressor; which I would recommend inclines (hills) as my first choice by far. It doesn’t take much as evidenced by your graph going over the bridges.

Rucking speed would be my (distant) second choice.
 
An easy, effective, but kinda funny looking way to grab those extra beats is adding either heavy hands or nordic sticks. I also like that these options make the activity more full body. I use the sticks, as the ruck straps get in the way of pumping the heavy hands and I put enough wear and tear on my elbows with the kettlebells.
 
rwleonard said:
An easy, effective, but kinda funny looking way to grab those extra beats is adding either heavy hands or nordic sticks. I also like that these options make the activity more full body. I use the sticks, as the ruck straps get in the way of pumping the heavy hands and I put enough wear and tear on my elbows with the kettlebells.
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Thanks. I have two 1.5 kg wrist weights, I might try that someday soon.
 
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I don't know how much pace actually impacts heart rate. But unless you are short your 5km/hours is pretty casual. For more than a decade my only form of "exercise" was a brisk 40-60 minute walk after work in a hilly park and I usually covered 4,5-6,5km. I am taller than most but at my heaviest I weighed 118kg and before I started exercising with KBs my BW was still at around 105kg. A pretty decent loaded march in itself :D

Maybe try again without weight and see how a 6, 7, 8km/h pace affects your heart rate. From what I remember from my time as a conscript this is much closer to what you would do as a recruit. If I remember correctly us light infantry soldiers had to cover 20km with 20kg in 3 hours after 2 months of basic before we went to infantry school. We started out like pretty much like Al Ciampa described above. Light weight, short duration. One march per week. And your NCOs of course.
 
@Bauer - I haven’t rucked much lately, but there’s 3 variables you can manipulate;
1. Weight
2. Speed
3. Terrain

As already mentioned, hills are an easy way to increase HR. They’re also not always available, or convenient based on time allowed .

Weight is next. 10kg is very light. I’d suggest increasing weight by 10% or so each week until you hit the HR you’re looking for.

Next is obviously speed. The main risk - in my opinion - here is some folks tend to over stride when they try to go faster and this can add up to injury. This also depends on weight.

All this also depends on goals. For relaxation and recovery I would do whatever felt easyish - enough to push it a little but not much more. For aerobic improvements, increasing any of the above variables gradually will find you where you want to be. Personally, I found pushing the pace faster than 3.5 mph (~17 min /mi) to cause me to lose my hips-forward form and to result in overstriding, shin pain, and knee pain. So instead I liked increasing load and changing terrain. I spent two years “rucking to work” and found 3 mph to be the most sustainable pace, considering it was a 2x/day x5/wk thing.
 
Coyotl said:
Weight is next. 10kg is very light. I’d suggest increasing weight by 10% or so each week until you hit the HR you’re looking for.
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I agree. I'll also chime in that about 10 kg is the most I like to carry for any length of time without a hip belt on my pack - more weight and I feel like the shoulder straps get uncomfortable and my hands start to get a numb.

-S-
 
SteveR said:
For me, it's hills to get the HR up, otherwise it's seems like structure strength and work capacity workout. Maybe warmer temps boost the HR, too.
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Well... that’s a good point... heat.
Where I live it’s not uncommon to reach mid 40’sC during the summer. My HR will go through the roof if I ruck mid-day, whereas if i do the same training at 0330 (or in colder seasons) it’s more in line.
 
Hi everyone, I just want to report back my first experiments.

Yesterday I used my wrist weights (3kg total). I did not like having them around my wrists and they also did not increase my HR. So after 10 minutes I stuffed them into my backpack -- and that felt much better. I walked a bit up and down a bridge (spikes in the middle of the session), but it's just not the same as a nice hill.

Anyway, during the last third of my walk I then tried to walk was as fast as I could with good form with 13 kg in my Rucksack. This actually increased my HR. And I had to remind myself to sustain the effort. Overall my average HR was 7 beats higher than last time.

Rucking HR 13kg 20-11-26 Full.PNG

Rucking HR 13kg 20-11-26 Zoom.PNG
This way I spend about 11 minutes in Zone 1 compared to 2 minutes last time (Zone definitions by Polar Beat). I felt refreshed afterwards although it was a long and tiring day and I rucked at about 10 pm.

So, in the next weeks I might try to walk with 13 kg (probably my upper limit for rucking without a hip strap) and ease into a fast pace for some periods. Thanks everyone for the suggestions!
 
rwleonard said:
You can't just carry the hand weghts, you have to move them vertically. I do alternating curl and presses.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. Quite interesting point.

Well, I did not let my arms hang, but I did some "pumping" within a shorter range. With my backpack and my winter jacket I think I could not have done that large movements. And then... well, I was not comfortable looking too odd as I was walking in my neighbourhood :D
 
I’m curious if anyone has any thoughts on using “fun run” style rucking Where you stop every few minutes and do a set of pushups or squats or something.
 
Very interesting. Would be cool to see how you respond to a hill. And how/if you can get into the 125-135bpm range recommended by Al Ciampa.
 
Remember... that 125-135bpm is based loosely on age. For some it could be lower (or higher).
The 180-age formula is trying to approximate ones AeT
 
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