ARE YOU WORKING HARD ENOUGH - THE FACTS

 

  

 

ARE YOU WORKING HARD ENOUGH – OR ARE YOU WORKING TOO HARD? 

 

Science offers high tech options to measure exercise intensity and cardiovascular output.  Or you could do that for yourself by investing around £50 in a HRM (Heart Rate Monitor) but if you don’t have one, there’s a far simpler way to measure where you are within your training zone. 

 

The Talk Test

 

Sounds too simple, right, but no, this has actually been researched** to gauge the respondents’ ventilatory threshold.  The ventilatory threshold is reached when carrying on a conversation whilst working aerobically is no longer possible.  Subjects were monitored whilst on a treadmill or bike and from this research it is now believed that this is an accurate and valid measurement of intensity. 

 

So at what level should we be working in relation to the ventilory threshold? 

 

If during training you can easily carry on a conversation without being out of breath then you are probably not working hard enough to build your fitness to a higher level.  When working to achieve fitness gains and increase overall cardiovascular capacity you should be working in steady state cardio capacity somewhere around the point where you are able to talk, but sufficiently breathless not to be able to carry on a normal conversation.  By working at this level you are almost certainly improving your cardiovascular endurance. 

 

At this point you will be working aerobically.  If you progress beyond that point to the stage where you are so breathless you’re almost gasping and barely able to speak then you’ve tipped over into an anaerobic state.  At this point lactic acid begins to build up and this results in panting as the system, at overload, struggles to stabilise and resume a normal acid balance.  It’s not bad to reach an anaerobic state for short periods, in fact High Intensity Interval Training (HiiT) and Tabatta does aim for this level of intensity, in short bursts, as it’s believed that short 30 second intervals followed by short rests, repeated for between a 10-20 minute workout, can achieve extreme results as it increases the metabolic rate to the point where the body continues to burn large amounts of energy for long after exercising, in fact for most of the remainder of the day. 

 

So are you working too hard or not hard enough?  Next time you’re out for a run, at the gym or in a Zumba class, test yourself and see if it’s easy, moderately difficult or impossible to say a sentence. 

 

**REFERENCE:  Reseach Study by The University of Wisconsin - 2004 

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