Heart zone training with a heart rate monitor is an individualized training program based on the heart muscle--the most important muscle in our body. It's time to take everything you have learned in the first 7 weeks of our class, combine it with what you already know about planning and about yourself, and put it together into a written plan that you can follow. Later this week, you will be directed to read a "how to do it" article but just start by making some initial ideas of what that might look like.
Designing a training program can be a very creative process. It can include more than just workouts because training includes all the different forms of exercise that you participate in. For example, if you like to clean house or garden or mow your lawn, don your heart rate monitor and collect heart zone training points for this activity.
One heart zone training point is one minute of exercise in Zone 1. Two heart zone training points are one minute of exercise in Zone 2. That's because heart zone training points are a way of rewarding you by measuring how much exercise you completed. Each time you move up one zone you multiply the effect of your exercise. Working out in Zone 3, for example, equals three times the points of working in Zone 1.
Start by determining how many heart zone training points your workouts last week earned you. As the weeks go by, add points by training longer or working out in progressively higher zones. The more points you earn the more total calories you expend.
Establish a modest initial goal, such as 150 points a week (that is 50 minutes a week in Zone 3 as an example). Then, gradually increase to 200 then to 350 and finally to 500 points a week. Try to add twenty-five to fifty points each week. Once you become fit, you might even reward yourself with 1,000 points as I do.
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