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Kettlebell My S&S Swing and heartrate

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Abdul-Rasheed

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Hello All,

Something about me:
Training history: Swinging since Jan 2015. S&S since March/April 2015. No weight training before that. But, I used to run a bit. Play tennis a bit.
Injury history: 'Frozen shoulder' (adhesive capsulitis) on my right shoulder that is cured on its own by Mid-2014). Slight niggle on my left shoulder (that is cured within a month after started doing my KB Military Presses :))
Sports history: I used to be play amatuer volleyball a lot when I was younger.
General health: Pretty good
Demographics: 43 years, Male, 6'1'', 187lbs, generally lean with a bit of fat around the waist, but not too much.
Goal: Achieve simple goal within a year.

My 1H Swing:
I am using 16kg for my 1H swings since last four weeks or so. I was doing 24kg before but brought down the weight to make my swings much more crisper. Also after reading that lengthy awesome thread (http://www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/using-a-heart-rate-monitor-for-the-data-averse.5464/) I have purchased a heartrate monitor and started applying the Maffetone's formula to stay within the aerobic zone. I noticed two things 1) my heart is really shooting up high 2) and that it is taking a long time for it to come down.

1. After my warmup round (halos & goblet squals using 16 kg), heart rate shoots up to 145-150
2. After first 10 reps (right hand only) heart rate shoots to 160
3. If I do 20 reps (right hand and then left, immediately after) heart rate reaches 170.

Questions:
1. How low should the heartrate be before I start my next rep? For me it is taking forever for it go down below 100. This will make my training really longer. That is a concern for me.
2. My target rate is 180-43 = 137. Should it never ever go beyond this? It look impossible perhaps unless I lower the weight to 12kg which is too low for me. Also I feel like I can go for another set but my heart rate is still hovering around 120-130 after 2-3 minutes of wait. Wait longer? This will make my training session longer.
Edit: I have to add that I am ready to do the next set of 10, not breathing heavy etc. but my heart rate is still up.

Your thoughts, suggestions.

Thanks.
 
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Arasheed, it could be an option to do slightly fewer reps, 7,8 or 9. With the monitor you have a good gauge, what a difference that would make. When your spike is lower your hr will go down faster and deeper, I presume.

Never, ever is not written in stone. As far as I am informed Maffetone has his expertise in endurance sports (running).
I incorporated his formula in my S&S and see it as a valuable tool to learn to calm myself down better.
 
I'm also doing 16kg one hand swings as part of S&S right now 1) recovering from an injury and 2) I want to own the aerobic benefits that Al has been talking about with the 180 formula.
How long is the swing portion of your practice taking? For the first few weeks, it may take over 20 minutes. One of the big keys is the active rest with focus on breathing. This means that after the set, you focus on breathing through your nose, really focused on slowing down your breath. Stay active by pacing the room at a moderate pace or any of the other activities recommended in S&S. I'm not positive, but I think this is because the contraction of your muscles helps pump blood so your heart isn't left trying to move all that blood by itself after exerting yourself. When you do this, you'll find that the recommended frequency of 5 sessions a week becomes doable because you're never gassed, and when you start doing that frequency, you might see some pretty good improvement in recovery time. I went from 20 minutes to 15 minutes in just over a week with 5 or 6 sessions. I've been hovering around there for a while, and I know I've heard aerobic adaptation can take months, so I just need to stick with it.
The only issue is that now S&S takes more time, but I think carving more time out of the week for mindful practice that benefits your aerobic system, strength, power, mobility, stability, etc can only be a good thing in the big picture.
 
Arasheed,
be careful with your goal, especially the timeline. Achieving the simple-standard under the guidelines of an aerobic-based approach may take much longer than one year. I started S+S in Januar 2014, made an epic crash in my training in march 2015 - overtraining. I *meant* to be close to the simple Standard, was pushing it too hard and had to take like 6 week off.
I then started using a heart-rate-monitor. The first 6-8 weeks felt bad. I went back to the 24kg Bell and started with 5 swings per set. At 43 years, my max also is 137. I am still training with the 24, still not 10 swings per set, but it feels better than ever. Right now I am doing one of the Strongfirst research protocols (aerobic conditioning with 1-hand swings), lots of swings under exactly these guidelines. It works.

Two additional points:
- Simple and Sinister is not an aerobic protocoll per se. But the addition of a capped heartrate might make sense to the individual. Most don't use one though. If I remember correctly, Al Ciampa made the Simple Goal this way, Harald as well, am I right?
- The Maffetone Formula (180-age) is one way to calculate your max Heartrate for aerobic conditioning. One other way is to test your "real" max, and then reduce this to 80%. Those 5 or 6 beats more can make a big difference in your training. You might want to look into the Karvonen-Formula, he is describing heart-rate-zones based on a tested max.

Be patient, it is totally worth it. The beginning is not easy, mostly for the ego, but in the long term you will see results. Look into the chapter on breathing as well, start a "soft" practice (I practice zazen - the breathing is different, but it adds up nicely), learn to relax. Simple and Sinister is much more than it looks like.

c-g - (Christian Gelderblom in the old forum - why did the screen-names change?)
 
Christian, I can totally agree with your statements. Maffetone (as I am informed) made his observations with steady state cardio (running). To classify S&S I would define it as Interval training. Looking at my hr graph after a session I have 20 spikes and 19 valleys. Trying to beat the clock makes it a HIIT, in my opinion. And yes, Maffetone is one method to stay aerobically, and I think it fits nicely because with it everyone has a valuable cue here to use the right weight, reps, sets and rest times with it, regarding S&S. I may be wrong here: another (maybe scientifically and individually correct) method would be Spiroergometrie in a lab while doing swings and get ups, or lactate testing. But the Maffetone seems to be a very usable hint for a lot, maybe for all people.

S&S is not written in stone either. It contains many hints and cues to train properly, and it is not the end of all means. Heck, even the exercises can be changed, when Pavel Macek makes his fighter use sometimes push presses instead of get ups. But I think, and here is the key: S&S is about principles, and these are written in stone. But they are no dogma. The thing is detect the principles and act/practice accordingly. The principles come out of experience from many human beings, thus out of live itself. These principles are valid for a human being, past, present and future. Androids and ego have other "principles". Another statement about S&S could be: practice mindfully with patience often and regularly in your zone and grow like grass almost all by itself.

To make this practice permanent everyone is (and should be) free to making his or her own adjustments as I said the weight, the sets, the reps, the hr for those with a hr-monitor, the talk test and then some more resting for those without, the trainingfrequency. Make your practice repeatable to stay with it.

Currently I am using the beast. I am elaborating my starting hr. For my first sessions starting last Saturday (204th session) my starting hr was 100, and my highest hr was almost 150 (142 Maffetone, + - 5bpm). The sessions felt very good, but after three days some fatigue built up . Yesterday I let my hr down to almost 90, my max was 139. It felt exceptionally well, my sleep was well, although my training was somewhat late in the evening and woke up this morning rested. As I said somewhere earlier, a lot of tinkering here, and I want to see which impact it has on my traininfrequency. So, I am just tinkering...

And by the way, the practice of zazen and practice of S&S with it's focus on attitude, posture, "egolessnes" and permanence have many things in common. This would make up a nice other thread.
 
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Everyone's start point is different, probably everyone's journey is too but there is some commonality with S&S experiences, as Christian said, there is a lot more to it. At a certain point there is a shift from an exercise programme to something else, a blend of strength, breathing, movement thing, don't know what it is, just bigger, deeper and more nuanced than anything else I have done or experienced. As Al Ciampa has said on other threads and others too have commented, it is a goal oriented programme and it can be taken as exactly that but really it is a red herring, a diversion. I know I rushed the transitions from 16 to 24 to 32, thinking that I would get that 32 wrapped up. I've been on the 32 for a year. 3 months ago I thought I was beginning to get to the end game. Wrong, again. The intro of heart rate training illustrated how far off my perceived level of effort, talk test was to my heart rate. So just saying you may want to consider not setting a time goal to reach simple. But, it is different, you may well come into it with a bigger strength base than I did, or less, and improve quicker, for a myriad of reasons than I. Either way, you just perhaps rephrase: my goal to reach simple is how long it takes me to get there. It may seem defeatist in a way, negative perhaps but it is more reflective of a process.
 
My 1H Swing:
I am using 16kg for my 1H swings since last four weeks or so. I was doing 24kg before but brought down the weight to make my swings much more crisper. Also after reading that lengthy awesome thread (http://www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/using-a-heart-rate-monitor-for-the-data-averse.5464/) I have purchased a heartrate monitor and started applying the Maffetone's formula to stay within the aerobic zone. I noticed two things 1) my heart is really shooting up high 2) and that it is taking a long time for it to come down.

1. After my warmup round (halos & goblet squals using 16 kg), heart rate shoots up to 145-150
2. After first 10 reps (right hand only) heart rate shoots to 160
3. If I do 20 reps (right hand and then left, immediately after) heart rate reaches 170.

Questions:
1. How low should the heartrate be before I start my next rep? For me it is taking forever for it go down below 100. This will make my training really longer. That is a concern for me.
2. My target rate is 180-43 = 137. Should it never ever go beyond this? It look impossible perhaps unless I lower the weight to 12kg which is too low for me. Also I feel like I can go for another set but my heart rate is still hovering around 120-130 after 2-3 minutes of wait. Wait longer? This will make my training session longer.
Edit: I have to add that I am ready to do the next set of 10, not breathing heavy etc. but my heart rate is still up.

Your thoughts, suggestions.

Thanks.

Arasheed,

Unless you are an outlier (which you very well could be), this is indicative of poor aerobic function.

1) Your HR will be as low as it needs to be so that the next set does not spike it above your target HR. This is learned as you go by doing and observing. Your starting HR will change as you get fitter, and even change in the same session as you progress through it... this is normal.

Do, and learn.

2) I am leaning towards allowing + or - 5-10BPM to one's unadjusted MAF HR: 5BPM earlier in the session, 10BPM later (beyond 20min). As you long as you let your system recover after each effort, it should work just as well.

If you swings are solid with the 24, stay with this load and reduce the reps per set to keep your HR spike down. As you get fitter, increase the reps. Also note, managing tension during your swings is important to help control HR: if you do not semi-relax in the plank, your HR will soar... if you are too relaxed, you are no longer doing hardstyle swings (nothing wrong with this). Play with different levels of tension and use what works for you.

Lastly, use HR as one tool: learn your body's sensations at different HRs and manage your intensity using all of this afferent information.
 
We saw a lot of questions like this in the late eighties into the early nineties when I was a cyclist and heart rate monitors started to become available at affordable prices.

The sport scientists I was training under at the time had to take things back to basics and get some data they could work with without taking things out of context and making false assumptions.

The first thing they always did was establish a true resting heart rate. They would have the athlete take 3 full days off training and on the morning of the fourth day they would take a resting heart rate before the the athlete even got out of bed. Then they would have the athlete go out with the heart rate monitor and establish a true maximum heart rate. A series of hill sprints on a pushbike was the preferred method but a few all out efforts with a kettlebell will do the same thing.

The reason they needed the true resting heart rate and the true max was so they could be 100% certain the data wasn't skewed by measuring those heartrates in an overtrained state or the max heart rate calculations were wrong. If they are measured when someone is overtrained they are almost always inaccurate and symptoms like you described (prolonged heart rate after training and between intervals) were very common. Most times the athlete would have blood pressure tests and sometimes an ECG. After the rest period when training had resumed the V02 max was tested as well.

It could be several different things causing what you are observing Arasheed, but without some accurate baseline data it would be difficult to hazard a guess.
 
Thank you all (Harold, jca17, Christian, ali, Al, Tarzan) for your insightful answers and lessons from experiences! After reading and taking in all your inputs, I have decide to 'up' the patience/time and 'down' the ego. Here is how it went.

Last night I tried 1-H swings with 24kg, reduced the reps and increased the rest time to as long as what is needed (I think 4-5 minutes, I didn't look at the clock) to waited to bring down the HR 95-100 (only was looking at HR).

5L,5R 6L,6R, 7L,7R, 8L,8R, 8L,8R , total time taken ~45 minutes, HR was well below 135 all the time. So this is good news.

The TGU that followed was solid with a 16kg. Today morning, I am not feeling sore after all. So there you go folks, that is the beginning of my 'easy' S&S so to speak!

And so:
  • I think I can increase the intensity or reps a bit to let the HR rise a bit.
  • I think things will only get better as I move forward, and total time taken for the 100 reps will decrease over time
  • One variable why my HR was shooting up with 16kg is perhaps the highly intense hard-style plank at the top I was doing
  • I have to re-read the chapter on breathing, learn to calm down to control HR
  • Goal reset to reach the simple goal however long it it takes to get there
Al: playing at different levels, I am assuming this is the same Pavel referred to as using your abs as the volume control for the amplifier. Also I will let it go +5 (+10 later) in the days ahead as you suggested. I do feel I can do it as I am not panting or breathing heavily. It is just the HR is up. You mentioned poor aerobic function, does it have any thing to do with poor heart health, weak heart muscles, working hard to pump the blood?
 
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arasheed, you're a very smart and lucky man! Keep up the "heart smart" training and I'll bet it will turn out to be a pivotal change for you. Everyone wants better muscles, and the heart is the most important muscle, but many are too set in their ways to change as you did. Your body needs x amount of oxygen, etc. for current metabolic needs, and your heart has to pump the blood to supply that. Stroke volume x HR is how much it can pump, and your stroke volume takes a longer time to increase, so the HR has to increase quickly to make up the difference. Besides the heart, as you do this type of training your whole circulatory system will adapt, and over several months you'll get more capillaries feeding the cells, and this will makes it more efficient yet. This is a slower adaptation than just increasing your max rep in a power lift, but it gives a great basis to build on for everything else.
 
Great news Abdul. It took a lot of time for myself as well to really get into my zone. But this is the way to go. A session then is really recharging. Recovery is easier, and the progress comes almost by itself. Let it happen.
 
Great thread, Arasheed. Looking at your numbers, you are in a very similar boat as me. I need a new heart monitor, my old one broke, but I remember my HR going up to the 160's after doing sets of 20 swings with a 16kg bell and I'm getting the same feeling now after a few sets of 10 with a 24kg bell on the S&S program. I don't think it goes as high as yours during warmups but after a few sets of 10 I'm pretty sure it's up in the 160 range which at my age, 46, is higher than I would like. I haven't mastered the breathing techniques spelled out in the book yet and I've only been doing this program for about a month. I have noticed an improvement in the first few sets that it takes longer to get up to 160, so I think my body is adapting to the load. I like Harald's idea of reducing the number of reps per set and will start doing that today. Seems like it worked for you, Arasheed. I'd moved up to 7 sets of 10 but with all this talk about heart rates and not letting them above 140 or so, and the fact that I'm 46 years old and not a kid anymore, I think I'm going to dial it back and let my cardiovascular system catch up. I'm going to take what Al Ciampa said about your HR numbers indicating poor aerobic function and apply that comment to myself, since my numbers are similar to Arasheed's. Better safe than sorry!
 
Arasheed,

2) I am leaning towards allowing + or - 5-10BPM to one's unadjusted MAF HR: 5BPM earlier in the session, 10BPM later (beyond 20min). As you long as you let your system recover after each effort, it should work just as well.

Al,
I really like this idea. I think it's worth recognising that Maffetone's primary focus was training endurance athletes where people were literally training for hours each week over their aerobic zones. Drifting slightly over for a few seconds at the end of a set of swings is a very different situation.

Arasheed,
It sounds like the shorter sets are a great way to go. I think Pavel wrote in one of his books that there is no correlation between getting sore and getting stronger. Daily or near daily training that doesn't leave you feeling beat up must be a better approach for long term health and strength gains. On the planking at the top of the swing - definitely has a huge effect on HR, I've seen the same effect on tensing my abs during a press.
 
Just a random two cents here, but there IS value in high-intensity interval training. It actually produces hormones that help with muscle synthesis and fat loss, increased insulin sensitivity, etc.

The problem is that most folks 'aerob-i-cise' to borrow a term from Mark Sisson. They do chronic cardio in a heart rate range that is too high, yet not high enough to be beneficial. aka "No Man's Land" (roughly, Zone 3). The highest volume of work should be in the zone 1-2 range, with a small volume of work in the Zone 4/5 range.

What seems to work really well for folks for health/body comp goals is a combo of high volume, low intensity work and punctuated with little bouts of high intensity work. If you think about our evolutionary history of our species, this makes sense. We walked/jogged for most of the day, but then still had gas left in the tank for a quick sprint to the safety of a tree or cave if we encountered a predator.

So arasheed, what may make more sense for you is to use your KB swings as your high-intensity interval training (your sprint from the predator as it were) and then find a way to incorporate more walking, hiking or easy jogging at an easy pace (using the MAF formula) throughout the day to increase your cardio fitness/conditioning. If time is an issue, maybe walk or jog to work, or consider getting a tread desk- you can easily get 2-3 miles of walking in during your work day that way! As you increase your aerobic fitness this way, you may find that eventually you can use the Maffetone formula and do your swings aerobically.
 
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They do chronic cardio in a heart rate range that is too high, yet not high enough to be beneficial.
I agree with this sentiment.

An interesting book, IMHO for even those who do not run, is Jack Daniel's "Running Formula." There is a lot to learn from his approach, and the part that's relevant to this conversation is that he has clearly defined zones in which to train, all based on specific performances in the recent past. You will find, e.g., that if one picks up the pace only slightly, he will have you triple the rest period because you're in a new zone that requires the additional rest.

One thing I highly recommend is relaxed walking - walk but do not "power" walk, simply go out for a decent length of time and try to stay as relaxed as possible to get the job done. It's wonderful.

-S-
 
@Christa Thank you so much for your inputs. But can one do S&S HIIT-way every day (6 days a week) without getting injured? I don't know. I aim to do it at least 6 days a week of S&S as per the original plan laid out i the book. Also, what are these 'zones', and how do one know which zone one is in? is there a book or article explaining it? Is it based on HR? I noticed that my resting HR is high (hovering around 80), and one of my goal is to bring it under 60. I am hoping S&S done the HR-way will deliver it.
@Steve Freides @Christa I do mild jogging now for about 30 mins..but only once a week. I do plan to do more of walking (to average 10,000 steps a day).
 
Steve,

Relaxed walks are a staple for me these days, along with relaxed bike rides to give my knees a break. Not a "workout" per se, I only wear the HRM to keep my heart rate well below 65% of max. These have a real restful effect if kept below an hour.

Jim
 
Thank you so much for your inputs. But can one do S&S HIIT-way every day (6 days a week) without getting injured? I don't know. I aim to do it at least 6 days a week of S&S as per the original plan laid out i the book. Also, what are these 'zones', and how do one know which zone one is in? is there a book or article explaining it? Is it based on HR? I noticed that my resting HR is high (hovering around 80), and one of my goal is to bring it under 60. I am hoping S&S done the HR-way will deliver it.
@arasheed - I can relate to your confusion :) I've been through the whole HR monitor thread, then further research online and then some more and when you think you got the answer three new questions come out of it... I too want to use S&S 5-6x/week and with the help of a hr monitor to stay aerobic. But because of the benefits of higher intensities (Christa named a few) you still want to do it from time to time. But how many times are enough or too much? Sure it's different for everyone, but there needs to be some guideline.
Maybe HRV can provide that guideline, but i have still too much reading to do about it. Maybe someone more experienced has some input.

I think Christa is talking about the "heart rate zones". You can easily google them, but i found two different ones. One about % of MaxHR and one about % of Lactate Treshold (LT). Staying mostly in zone 1+2 in the LT chart would make sense, but avoiding zone 3 on the MaxHR chart would make absolutely no sense to me because it would go against everything i've read about the topic from Joel Jamieson, Maffetone, Al Ciampa and many more on this forum.
Zone 3 on the MaxHR chart would be 70-80% of MaxHR, which would be exactly where everyone of the named above would put you for optimal aerobic conditioning. For example my MaxHR is 196 and i'm 27. MAF would put me @153, 70% @137 & 80% @157 and Jamieson generalizes 130-150 which is also very close.
So it would be nice if Christa could elaborate on which zones she was referring to.
 
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Al,
I really like this idea. I think it's worth recognising that Maffetone's primary focus was training endurance athletes where people were literally training for hours each week over their aerobic zones. Drifting slightly over for a few seconds at the end of a set of swings is a very different situation.

krg... I have been trying to frame his ideas in our context for some time now. The research is helping... I began La testing not too long ago, but there is just not enough information to draw any "soft" conclusions yet.

Just a random two cents here, but there IS value in high-intensity interval training. It actually produces hormones that help with muscle synthesis and fat loss, increased insulin sensitivity, etc.

The problem is that most folks 'aerob-i-cise' to borrow a term from Mark Sisson. They do chronic cardio in a heart rate range that is too high, yet not high enough to be beneficial. aka "No Man's Land" (roughly, Zone 3). The highest volume of work should be in the zone 1-2 range, with a small volume of work in the Zone 4/5 range.

What seems to work really well for folks for health/body comp goals is a combo of high volume, low intensity work and punctuated with little bouts of high intensity work. If you think about our evolutionary history of our species, this makes sense. We walked/jogged for most of the day, but then still had gas left in the tank for a quick sprint to the safety of a tree or cave if we encountered a predator.

So arasheed, what may make more sense for you is to use your KB swings as your high-intensity interval training (your sprint from the predator as it were) and then find a way to incorporate more walking, hiking or easy jogging at an easy pace (using the MAF formula) throughout the day to increase your cardio fitness/conditioning. If time is an issue, maybe walk or jog to work, or consider getting a tread desk- you can easily get 2-3 miles of walking in during your work day that way! As you increase your aerobic fitness this way, you may find that eventually you can use the Maffetone formula and do your swings aerobically.

Christa... yes, and no. Who does high-intensity interval training properly? I've yet to see someone, of their own accord, do so. I'm sure there are many out there, but the truth is that in the same way those studies published in the 90's first indicating the benefits of HIIT led to folks "doing it wrong", so too even mentioning it today leads to too much work, too frequently. The human animal is simply not equipped with patience or discipline; you have to acquire these. "If a small dose of HIIT is good, then all HITT, all the time is the best way to go."

HIIT can be a once per week dose, or part of a short peaking cycle toward an event. Even so, you have to take the history of the individual into account... many can avoid any HIIT for months or years, as they are already overdosed on it. I have solved more than one individual's weight loss "problem" simply by removing high-intensity movement, and replacing it with more aerobic movement. Stress is stress, and the body seems to enjoy maintaining energy levels in to deal with it... re: increased adipose tissue.

And I agree with your sentiment about what seems to work for most people, but referring to a romantic depiction of one possible historical scenario is nothing but, well, romantic.

@Christa Thank you so much for your inputs. But can one do S&S HIIT-way every day (6 days a week) without getting injured? I don't know. I aim to do it at least 6 days a week of S&S as per the original plan laid out i the book. Also, what are these 'zones', and how do one know which zone one is in? is there a book or article explaining it? Is it based on HR? I noticed that my resting HR is high (hovering around 80), and one of my goal is to bring it under 60. I am hoping S&S done the HR-way will deliver it.
@Steve Freides @Christa I do mild jogging now for about 30 mins..but only once a week. I do plan to do more of walking (to average 10,000 steps a day).

arasheed... you will hit a wall, and hard, if you do S&S 6 days per week in a HIIT style. My meaning: you are constantly trying to hit the short time goals. However, you can easily do (depending upon your health, history, and current physical workload) S&S 6 days per week if you work to a comfortable feel, or a moderate HR value... whichever metric works for you. These sessions will likely take 10-20min, that is, "for the swings alone".

The zones were created to label energy system usage. When thinking about this, consider your body at rest, and then your body during an all out, 150m sprint. If you're healthy, you're using mostly aerobic function as a means of providing fuel at rest. As the intensity of movement increases, you use more and more anaerobic function to SUPPLEMENT aerobic function. At some point, you are using "a lot" of anaerobic function to fuel your activity. I say a lot, because in fact, this is very general... lots of variables there. I am disregarding the fact that aerobic function has a certain "dwell time": that it is not instantly able to keep up with momentary accelerated increases in intensity (which is why warming up is so important in aerobic training).

One point on this spectrum that we discuss in exercise science is the lactate threshold. Whatever you think of this term, it is thought to be that point where YOU are shifting to too much sugar use (anaerobic function). One result of this is accumulated acids, cellular and systemic, that the body is trying to buffer by using, among other systems, lactate. The HR zones were created around this idea. Some countries and scientists only use 3, some 5, but essentially, lower zones indicate more aerobic function, less anaerobic function; the middle zones are just below, at, or just above, the lactate threshold; and the higher zones all exceed the lactate threshold: much more anaerobic function as compared to aerobic function. Nice and simple, right?

We here (I don't mean to speak for everyone) advocate lots of low zone, low HR, low intensity, aerobic function training (take your pick of titles), peppered by very high intensity bouts, as Christa discussed. How much pepper you need each week (or month), and how intense the heat of each peppering is, is very freaking important...
and, is the topic of a lot discussions;
and, is the source of much confusion;
and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, is the tool that marketers employ to sell you s*** training programs backed by research, blah, blah, blah, which led not only to many folks' ill-health in the long-term, but has created a fitness industry that is more difficult to navigate than advanced astrophysics.

Good luck! (Haha)

Back on point, make it simple for yourself: 5-7 days per week, walk. Do your S&S as many days as you like, but stay in the low zones: each swing is max power, but the longer rest and recovery intervals results in the overall session, systemically, to lie in lower zone training. Finally, once in a while, get after it: sprints, heavy circuits, or simply try to make your S&S time goal. This is general fitness... for function, health, and long-term wellness. As I say, "making sinister is a valid goal; wiping your own a#@ on your last day is the ultimate goal". (I don't really say that word for word ;])
 
I'm not sure why I am, now, not getting email notifications on this thread, but I do like the new user-friendly forum!
 
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