Heart rate - Cardio zone versus Fat loss zone

mrpink6789

lads & ladies sorry if this has been covered before, I vaguely remember someone asking something similar a while back but I did a search and couldn't find anything.

Anyways I bought a HRM and tested it out tonight. It's a Polar FT7 so it tells you what your fat burning zone was in comparison to your fitness zone.

So I did kettlebells tonight for 53 minutes. Fat burning was 4 mins, fitness was 49 minutes. Calories burned were 947, maximum heart rate 188, average 164.

My goal is to lose the belly fat as well as tone up, on my days I dont do kettlebells I am doing 5X5 + HIIT.

So the question is should I mainly concentrate on exercises that stay in the fat burning zone for longer then the cardio zone to achieve this or is it fine to stay in the cardio burning zone as ultimately i will lose the fat with time.

I'm in no rush, already lost 6.5 stone so sort of happy where I am at the moment. Just the belly is annoying, diet is sound. I mean it's arthurs day and I haven't touched a pint!

cheers

TommyKnocker

Honestly IMHO and I am no expert, but what I would recommend is

• Make sure that your diet is 95% clean
• Make sure that you are eating a slight daily calorie deficit
• Limit carbs (especially starch based carbs) to around workout times
• Give 110% to each and every workout
• Do the above 4 points consistently
• Leave your Polar FT7 on a shelf or in your gym bag so it doesn't get cracked and broken by a KB

There is absolutely no reason to go complicating things by trying to workout at certain heart rates tbh.


M

mrpink6789

Cheers, I by no means want to be constantly looking at my heart rate during sessions but before I used to do a fat burning exercise on the cross trainer and it would beep for me to slow down if my heart rate went above a certain threshold. I was just interested if people believed in the fat burning zone against the cardio zone.

I do apply your 4 points above but i'll also wear the watch just out of curiosity, not as gospel!

cheers,

sharky86

I think its something like " in the Fat Burning zone" you burn a higher percentage of cal's from Fat (example you might burn a total of 100 cal, 40 could be from fat) however if you just work at a higher heart rate you will burn more cal over all (example you burn a total of 500 cal maybe only 100 will be from fat)

I think its more beneficial just to push yourself and burn more cal overall

Figures completely random of course*

TommyKnocker

mrpink6789 wrote: »

Cheers, I by no means want to be constantly looking at my heart rate during sessions but before I used to do a fat burning exercise on the cross trainer and it would beep for me to slow down if my heart rate went above a certain threshold. I was just interested if people believed in the fat burning zone against the cardio zone.

I do apply your 4 points above but i'll also wear the watch just out of curiosity, not as gospel!

cheers,

I would not be concerned with how many times you look at your HRM, it would be that you become a slave to it. i.e. every time it beeps to alert you that you have gone over your "Fat Burning" threshold, you drop the intensity to return to the "Fat burning" range. IMHO this would decrease the effectiveness of your workout.

I don't really give much credence to the different HR zones for specific workout types, but for it to have any chance of working you need to know what your Max HR is. Guessing or using 220 - age is not accurate, so you could actually be way under or way over your target zone if you don't know your current Max HR.

Personally the only HR readings I concern myself with is my Resting HR (RHR) which is currently around 42 bpm and how quickly my HR returns to normalish levels after periods of exertion. What my HR is during workouts I don't worry about.


M

Mellor

B-Builder wrote: »

I don't really give much credence to the different HR zones for specific workout types, but for it to have any chance of working you need to know what your Max HR is.

not really.
It's based on a fallacy, the "fat burn zone" is a range where you burn a higher proportion of energy from fat stores.
But working at a harder rate, you burn more energy total and well fat total.
Where the energy comes from during the work is irrellevant, even its it was 0% from fat stores, the body would have to hit this later to keep going 9assuming a successful deficit.)