HRM (Heart Rate Monitors)

As soon as you start getting serious with any cardiovascular activity (be it running, elliptical, cycling etc.), the first thing you need to do is stop and take a stock of your activity level.

Are you doing the cardio too slow?  A cardio activity that does not push your heart rate will not yield any positive results.

Are you doing it too fast? You will burn out and run the risk of injury and other complications.

In order to ensure that you are getting the benefit of your cardio exercise, you must make sure you are doing it in the target heart rate zone.

That begs the question. What is my target heart rate zone? The target heart rate zone for each person is dependent on age and fitness level. Use this calculator to determine the target heart rate zone for you. When I plugged in my age and my fitness level, I got my target heart rate results. When I am doing any cardio activity, my heart rate should be between 105bpm and 140bpm. That's my target heart rate zone. (Note: bpm=beats per minute).

The next question is how do I monitor my heart rate?. Most modern treadmills and other cardio-equipment comes with built in heart rate monitors. You place your palms on the HRM sensors and the machine takes a reading of your heart rate. I find 2 problems with this approach:
1. The sensors do not give a very accurate reading because your heart rate is measured using the readings from your palms. And as we all know, palms are a long distance away from our heart.
2. You need wrap your palms around the sensors at regular intervals to get updated readings. This is not very practical - especially if you are running vigorously.

The best way of determining your heart rate is to use a heart rate monitor. These devices come with a strap (containing the sensor) and a watch that receives the signal and displays the results. Advanced models can keep track of your history, calories burned, and even have a GPS chip (such as the Polar RS800CX) to keep accurate history of your exercise data.

Personally, I use the entry-level Polar RS100. But don't let the low price fool you. It is actually quiet a nifty device. Before using the device you need to setup the following data.
1. Weight
2. Height
3. Birth-date (Notice that you don't input the age. Inputting the birth-date allows the computer to compute your age accurately).
4. Max Heart rate (The default is the standard based on the simple formula of 220 minus your age. In my case, that's 175)
5. Resting Heart rate (You need to calculate this immediately after waking up. Use this guide to compute your resting heart rate).

The computer calculates your ideal heart rate ranges, but also allows you to override these values, if you so choose.

Once everything is setup, you wet the strap (to get good conductivity) and strap it around your chest with the sensor right on top of your heart. You then click on the start button on your watch and start your activity. When you reach your target heart rate zone, a small heart will start blinking telling you that your heart is ticking along nicely. If you increase your intensity and go beyond your limits, a beep will go off alerting you to slow down. The beeping will continue as long as you stay above the limits.

Another advantage of the Polar brand of heart rate monitors is that most professional cardio equipment that you find in the gym are compatible with the Polar heart rate straps. That means that these machines can detect the strap and show the heart rate readings directly on the big display. That can be very useful when you are concentrating on your exercise and don't have the time to look at the watch.

Somehow, this article reminded me of Celine Dion's "My heart will go on". If you are feeling nostalgic, click this link to relive the Titanic theme song on YouTube.

UPDATE:
After writing the above article, I had a perfect opportunity to give my Polar RS100 a workout. I have not used it for quiet some time since I know the zone in which I normally run hence I don't use it on a daily basis.

The event was my weekly Saturday morning half-marathon run. I went to the gym with the goal of completing the half-marathon in under 2 hours as I had missed this goal by just 2 minutes last week.

I strapped on the HR monitor and started my run. At the end of the run, the data from the RS100 is as follows:
Duration of Activity: 1 hour 56 minutes and 16 seconds
Average heart rate: 144bpm (82% of max)
Limits: 114 - 149
In Zone: 1 hour 35 minutes and 15 seconds
Above Zone: 19 minutes 56 seconds
Below Zone: 1 minute 5 seconds
Calories burned: 1462 (Fat % 35)

Based on the actual data, It took me just 1 minute to enter the HR zone and since the average is 144, I was essentially in the upper end of the zone the entire duration of nearly 2 hours. I was checking the HR on the watch and it was switching between the range of 140 bpm to 145 bpm. A strange thing that I noticed is that every time I took a sip of Gatorade, the HR would drop to 140 and then steadily climb to 145. Guess it has something to do with the shock of cold drink hitting the body. During the last 30 minutes, I pushed myself and essentially was above my desired zone (known as the Red Zone). That is okay for me as I am experienced in running and used to pushing myself. Beginners should not do this, of course.

I also had my Nike+ sensor tracking my run and the details from the Nike+ sensor shows the actual run in graphical form.

The interesting thing to note here is the calories burned as computed by the Nike+ sensor. 1565 calories. There is a difference of about 100 calories compared to the calculations by the HR monitor. In this case, I would give more preference to the values from the HR monitor as they are based on the actual heart beat rate while the Nike+ sensor computes based on the distance run.

Running a 5K in under-20 minutes.

Just as a good movie plot will have sub-plots to keep one occupied, I find that my main objective of attaining a six-pack has resulted in many sub-objectives. For example, I am now determined to do a muscle-up,  single-legged squats and other tough exercises which I had previously considered beyond my capabilities. While I am not so sure whether I will ever be able to achieve those objectives, there is one objective that I feel I can aim for - and achieve; with proper training and diet.

This new objective is to complete a 5 kilometer run in under 20 minutes. You may wonder what is special about running a 5K in less than 20 minutes. Let's just say it's pretty darn hard. World class runners run the 5K in around 13 minutes, professional runners will need 14-15 minutes while college-level runners will need 16-17 minutes. For amateurs, a sub-20 minute run is indeed an achievement. This interesting thread on coolrunning.com discusses the challenges and achievements of those who could do the sub-20 minute run, and those who wish to achieve this objective.

When I first started running, I was very happy when I could do a 5K run in 30 minutes (meaning I was running at 10kph for the entire duration of the run). I slowly managed to reduce the time till I was comfortable doing the 5K in 25 minutes (running at 12kph). Once I started the HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), I found that I could decrease the time required to complete the 5K - especially after I started with the Asafa Powell training. Just 4 days back, I finished the 5K in a personal best time of 22:39. And yesterday, I bettered that by running it in 22:14. Cutting another 2 minutes and 14 seconds is not going to be easy. It will require specific training (think more HIIT), and mental preparation because you need to run at a constant 15kph for 20 minutes to complete the 5K in exactly 20 minutes. Currently, I am lucky if I can hold the 15kph pace for more than 1 minute.

What makes the 5K run special for me is the nature of this distance. It is not too long that you will get bored by it - and it is not too short that it gets over too quickly. It requires a perfect balance between speed and endurance to complete a 5K run. Start too slow, and you will have difficulty in doing the run in a decent amount of time. Start too fast, and you will burn out after 1 or 2 kilometers. You need to mentally prepare yourself to run at a specific pace and stay on that pace no matter what.

My new sub-objective is to run the 5k in under 20 minutes before the end of this year. Hopefully, I would have completed the main objective of a six-pack around the same time.

Importance of Weight-Bearing Exercises

Few days back at the gym, I was relaxing in the Jacuzzi after an intense run on the treadmill. A friend walks in  and starts chatting with me. He must have seen me - running my heart out, because he started giving me fitness advice. His concern was that running is dangerous for me due to my age. He recommended that the best form of exercise for me would be swimming (which is what he does regularly).

I looked at his pot-belly and liberal love-handles, while deciding how seriously I should consider his advice.

Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against swimming. It is a good and fun way of working out. But I believe that whatever exercises we do should be relevant to what we do in real life. We are not fish and we don't live in water so I don't see much point in swimming. Of course, there is that oft chance that I will be caught in the middle of the ocean in a boat that has just capsized and no life-jacket and my swimming skills will save my life. But if I have no plans on travelling in unsafe boats without life-jackets, I don't see how swimming can be a useful skill to acquire. My Dad literally lived in the sea his entire life - mostly fishing - and he still does not know swimming.

So what are the skills that we need to acquire? Here are some examples that I encounter on a regular basis.

1. My wife calls out "Honey, can you bring down that carton?". The said carton weighs somewhere around 20-30 kilos and I say a small prayer hoping that the weight of the carton does not cause some horrible back injury.

2. We visit a friends place who happens to live on the 8th floor. The lift is out of order and we have to make a difficult choice whether to climb all the way up or just drive back home. When we decide to climb up, the small one finds it difficult to climb the stairs, and I have to carry her the rest of the way.

3. I am at the airport carousel waiting for the luggage to arrive on the conveyor belt. I wait in apprehension to pull the heavy suitcase off the conveyor wondering all the time if my spine will break while lifting the suitcase.

4. We stop the car at the signal and suddenly the engine goes kaput. I am forced to put the car into neutral and push it to the side of the road so it does not block any traffic.

5. I go to the government office for some work and spend the better part of the day walking  from one building to another trying to get 100 signatures from 100 different people.

Can you see the common theme here? Basically, our daily activities consist of walking, climbing, pushing and pulling stuff. All of these activities force us to push our body or some object against the gravity.

These, in essence, are weight-bearing activities - and if we are to do these activities in comfort, we need to do weight-bearing exercises. The definition of weight-bearing exercises is

"Weightbearing exercise is any activity you do while on your feet and legs that works your muscles and bones against gravity." Source: about.com

Swimming, Cycling, Elliptical etc. are NOT weight-bearing exercises, because they don't stress the bones and you are not fighting gravity when performing these exercises.

Now coming back to my friends concern of me getting injured with running. Of course, there is always a risk of injury in any exercise, if not done properly. Scientific data proves that weight-bearing exercises place stress on the bones but instead of damaging the bones, our body sends its troops to fix the stressed area by increasing the bone density, making them stronger.

This is something I learned the hard way. When I first came to Kuwait, I decided to stay fit and started running. After a few weeks, my knees started paining like hell and I thought I will damage them if I continued running so I stopped - and eventually turned into an overweight person. The information that is available today  through the internet was not available at that time.

When I re-started my running program 2 years back, I did it the right way. i.e. start slow and easy. If I felt any pain, I would immediately stop and take a few days rest. But the difference this time was that I would get right back on the treadmill once I felt better. The pain disappeared and eventually, I found I could increase my running speed and time. Now I can run a half-marathon in 2 hours. That may not win me any marathon races, but to do something like that at my age is something amazing.

To conclude:
  - Swimming. It's meh. Do it if you find it fun, otherwise, give it a pass.
  - Walk/Jog/Run/Sprint/Climb or anything that forces you to push and pull (such as weight-training): It's a go!

Keeping track of your body fat percentage.

Body fat should drop below 15% to reveal six-packs

Since the main objective of my current fitness routine is to get a "six-pack", it is very important to actually understand what a six-pack is. To get a six-pack, 2 things need to happen:

1. You need to gain muscle (resistance workouts).
2. You need to lose fat (cardiovascular workouts and/or dieting).

Both play an important role in getting a six-pack, but losing fat is (in my opinion) the more important criteria. That is the reason I have decided to give a higher priority to running plus nutrition and a slightly lower priority to resistance training. That does not mean that I ignore resistance training. It just means I focus on running a bit more. Of course, the fact that I enjoy running more than resistance training may have something to do with this choice of mine.

Whatever the case may be, it is necessary that we have a fair idea about how much fat we actually have in our body. According to Wikipedia, a living persons body fat percentage cannot be determine. That means whatever methods we use to know our fat percentages are only rough estimates.

Accurate estimates for determining body fat percentage rely on using x-rays or infra-reds. However, a more simpler option is to use a bio-electrical impedance machine. You find these machines in all pharmacies (at least in all the pharmacies here in Kuwait). You stand in front of the machine and firmly hold 2 electrodes in both your hands. A low-voltage electrical current is sent from one hand to the other (it doesn't hurt one bit and you don't even know that a current is being sent through your body). Some machines send a current through the legs.

The machine uses an algorithm to determine how long it took the current to pass through your body and uses that to determine your body fat percentage. In addition to giving out your fat percentage, it also gives various other indicators like height, weight, blood pressure (always a good thing to know), heart rate, etc. Here's my results from todays test.

The problem with this method of determining the body fat percentage is that it is not very accurate. Different manufactures may use different algorithms - so if you do the test on one machine, and repeat the same test on another machine (by a different manufacturer), you may get different results. The water contents in your body also affect the results from these machines.

But since this is easiest (and cheapest) method of getting a fair idea about our body fat percentage, we can use this method and monitor our fat percentage on a regular basis. I plan to do this every month in order to make sure that I am on the right track and that the body fat percentage is going down.

To keep the results consistent, I will do the test on the same machine, at the same time and ensure that the water in my body is similar every time I repeat this test.

My current index for the fat is decent and within normal range but it is nowhere near the desired level as far as a six-pack target is concerned. The fat percentage needs to drop somewhere in the range of 10% to 15%.

It's not going to be easy, but I always knew this when I took on the challenge.

Review: Calorie Counter for iPhone

Last month, I wrote about calorie counting and maintaining a food journal. I use My-Calorie-Counter database to maintain my food journal. It's easy and intuitive. So I was suitably impressed when I saw that they have released a free iPhone app. I quickly downloaded the application on the iPhone hoping that I can now keep track of my calorie progress on-the-go.

Sadly, the app is just a reference database of common foods and their nutritional data. According to their ad, the database contains data of over 34,000 food items - which is very impressive, and it is something nice to have in your pocket when you are perusing a restaurant menu deciding what to order.

But it would have been so much better if they could have integrated the app with the main database to sync my food journal. Currently, I still have to log into the website everyday to update my calorie consumption. Having the ability to update this information on the iPhone would have been ideal. In fact, I would not hesitate to pay a fair amount for such convenience.

 Hopefully, they will update the app soon to provide the ability to sync the food journal and record calorie data on-the-go.

Till then, if you just want a reference of nutritional data, and you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download the application using iTunes from here.

This is how the data pops up when you select any item.

The CrossFit Influence

CrossFit is a strength and conditioning fitness methodology that promotes broad and general overall physical fitness. It was created by former gymnast Greg Glassman. The basic idea behind CrossFit is to promote fitness for the whole body - rather than focusing on specific training. 

Why is CrossFit training relevant to me? First of all, I am too old to do the CrossFit exercises. They are just too intense. Secondly, CrossFit requires specific equipment that is not available in the general gyms (such as kettle bells, rings etc.)


But I am a big fan of their basic philosophy for body conditioning and nutrition. Here are some of their key values that I adhere to.


1. Keep the body guessing: The basic principle of CrossFit training is that you never let your body know what you are about to do to it. You get up each morning, log on to the CrossFit Website and find out what is the prescribed exercise for that day. The exercises are listed in cryptic codes such as Fran, Nasty Girls, etc. You need to do your homework to figure out what you actually need to do to complete these exercises. 


How does this benefit our body? Well, when you do random exercises, you never let your body get adjusted and the body needs to keep adjusting (i.e. get fitter) to keep up with these exercises. Imagine if you ran 5 kilometers every day. Initially, you will find excellent results as your body tries to cope with you running such a long distance. But after a while, your body will get conditioned to this run and you will see no further progress in your fitness. So you need to keep changing your routine and keep the body guessing to gain maximum results.


2. Focus on the whole body: CrossFit requires that you get proficient in ten different domains (cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination and accuracy). This means you don't focus on weight-lifting or running or sprinting or gymnastics. You focus on ALL of them. 


How does this benefit our body? Since we are not focusing on specific type of exercises, we become generally fit in all areas. You will not get the body of Arnold nor will you look like those anemic Olympic runners but you will have a fit & trim body. You will not win any weight-lifting competition but you should be able to do quiet well. Similarly, you will not win any long-distance races, but you will surely be there in the top finishers. You see where this is going? If you objective is not to compete in events, then CrossFit is the best form of exercise for overall fitness.


3. Short Duration but Intense: Some of the CrossFit workouts can be completed in less than 5 minutes while some may require 20-30 minutes. That's all it takes and you are done for the day. While this may seem like a very easy thing to do, it is anything but. Spend 2 minutes watching this amazing clip (The guy is performing the "Fran" workout) to get an idea of how intense these exercises can get. Make sure you turn the volume all the way up!!

How does this benefit our body? The intensity of the exercises raises our metabolic rate through the roof and keeps it there long after our workout is completed. This is similar in principle to the HIIT workout that I wrote about earlier.

4. Nutrition: CrossFit diet recommends a 40:30:30 break-up of the 3 main macro-nutrients (40% Carbohydrates, 30% Proteins, and 30% Fat). These should come from garden vegetables (especially greens), lean meats, nuts and seeds, little starch and no sugar. That's about as simple as it gets. You can read more about CrossFit diet plan here.

How does this benefit our body? The recommended diet provides our body with the right balance of each macro-nutrient and ensures that our body has sufficient energy to complete the workouts and sufficient proteins to build back the damaged muscles.

Will I ever become a CrossFitter? Maybe.

The Chocolate Milk Diet

Can there really be something like a chocolate milk diet?

When I first read David Zinczenkos' article that popped in my inbox, I was a bit skeptical. After all, chocolate milk is something we associate with our kids lunch box. However, after reading the article, it made a lot of sense.

David proposes that the combination of Proteins, Calcium, Carbohydrates, fats and Vitamin D found in chocolate milk is just the ticket for good health, and a catalyst for weight loss. His proposal is to drink 3 packets of chocolate milk each day.

Three packets of 250ml (or 8 fluid ounces for those still living in the dark ages of the imperial system).

One packet in the morning, One packet just before workout and the last packet just after workout is the recommendation. Oh..and in case you thought you could just drink chocolate milk and lose weight, you were wrong. It needs to be combined with a workout session and a sensible diet.

As is usual for me, I trotted off to calorie counter database to check the nutritional data of chocolate milk to make my own judgement on the beneficial values of chocolate milk.

Nutritional Facts of Chocolate Milk.

Item	Per 250ml	Per 3x250ml
Calories	158	474
Proteins	8.1g	24.3g
Carbs	26.1g	78.3g
Fat	2.5g	7.5g

In addition to the main macro-nutrients listed above, chocolate milk is also rich in Calcium, and Vitamin D - both of which are good for our bones.

The 3 packets of chocolate milk taken as prescribed constitute a full meal (474 calories) with a good break-up between Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fat. The Carbohydrates in the milk is mostly sugar, but when you have just finished your workout, your body needs quick absorbing carbs to re-energize your body and the chocolate milk provides exactly that. In addition, the proteins in the milk start working on your damaged muscles repairing and rebuilding them.

I tried chocolate milk immediately after a hard workout. As the milk flows through your body, you can feel yourself getting re-energized. It has now become my staple drink after a workout. I still haven't started the 3-packets a day diet but I may soon start it.

It makes perfect sense and taste great too!.