If you’re part of our CrossFit program here at Viking Athletics, you may have noticed that 2-3 times per month, we have workouts in which we instruct athletes to move at a “conversational pace.” In fact, Conversational Pace was one of our team names a couple of years ago during the Intramural Open. We’ve previously discussed heart rate training and the benefits of Zone 2, but during these workouts, we still often get the question of “what should my heart rate be?” Why do we focus on conversational pace instead of heart rate?
Limitations of Heart Rate Monitors
The simple answer is that not everyone has a heart rate monitor, so it’s an impractical metric to use in the gym. Smart watches work well if you wear them tightly enough to get an accurate measurement. However, depending on the movements we’re performing, you may need to move the watch face, it may slide, etc., resulting in a less accurate measurement. We could mitigate this by providing chest straps for members, but frankly, the idea of sharing that type of monitor is unsanitary.
More importantly, there is a physiological reason: the benefits of zone 2 cardio occur when you spend 30+ minutes at 60-70% of your max heart rate. As a quick refresher, the biggest benefit is that the left ventricle, which pumps oxygenated blood to your body, becomes bigger and more elastic, allowing it to hold and pump more blood. High intensity exercise, by contrast, builds ventricular wall thickness, allowing it to squeeze harder. Doing both types of exercise gives you the best benefits for heart health, which in turn allows you as an athlete to perform better in high intensity settings, and to recover faster from them.
Max Heart Rate and Modalities
Back to max heart rate – how many of us actually KNOW what ours is? Sure, there are a couple of equations out there to estimate them, which 220-[YOUR AGE] being the most popular one. This equation, however, was based on a statistical analysis of a specific population and has no backing by exercise science in any way whatsoever. The only way to know your max heart rate is to test it. Most of the time, this looks like a stress test. You get on a treadmill, and run repeated, increasingly difficult intervals, until your heart rate can’t go any higher.
Most of us aren’t going to do that. Furthermore, that would only measure our max heart rates for running. Max heart rate is modality specific – you’ll have a different max for running, rowing, biking, jumping, lifting, etc. In CrossFit, we mix all of these modalities, and perform them for various reps, loads, durations, etc. Correspondingly, your max heart rate, and 60-70% of it, will constantly change. Sure, for many of us, depending on body type, we may have comparable maxes, and we may find beats per minute number that fits with all of our maxes, if we’ve measured all of them, but that requires too much unnecessary work.
Conversational Pace ≈ Effort
There’s a simpler way to gauge what we’re going for, and that is by regulating effort to ensure you’re maintaining a conversational pace. We’ve talked about the heart benefits you get from zone 2 cardio. What this looks like in practice, is that we’re heavily utilizing our aerobic energy system. This system uses oxygen as fuel, which means that our heart rate and our breathing are coupled; they increase and decrease together.
When we push hard, heart rate and breathing decouple, and we use one of our two anaerobic systems to fuel our movement. This means our breathing cannot fuel our movement fast enough. Do this long enough, your heart rate spikes, and you lose your breath trying to catch up to your heart.
In conclusion, what we’re trying to regulate is our effort, to ensure that we’re fueling ourselves with the energy system we are targeting. Since this system relies on oxygen, and we get oxygen through breathing, THAT is what we should focus on, rather than heart rate. And THAT is why we tell our athletes to work at a conversational pace. Working at a conversational pace means that you can answer questions, tell a story, or tell a joke, and not have to gasp for air while doing it. In other words, you’re in control of your breathing, which ensures we’re putting in the right amount of effort. End of conversation(al pace). See you in the gym.