Waiting for my heart rate to subside

Yesterday I shared about a recent workout using what I call “dueling ladders” to provide a varying yet predictable prescribed number of exercise repetitions for a circuit workout.  

Today I’ll share with you the workout I did two days earlier. This one also used ladders but it was different in that the recovery period between rounds was not based on time. 

Most circuit workouts I do having a prescribed number of rounds have me generally playing to beat my performance clock.  In other words, complete the prescribed workout as fast as possible.  Sometimes that can be overwhelming and some recent workouts have been.  So I decided to do something different.  It’s not anything I invented.  Serious endurance athletes use this method all the time.

So the workout I decided was a count-down and count-up of repetitions performed of two exercises making one round.  Using a 20 kilogram kettlebell, I did the following workout that I describe as a single KB snatch/swing/snatch up and down the ladder complex.

Snatch right	Alternating swing	Snatch left
# of reps	# of reps	# of reps
10	2	10
9	4	9
8	6	8
7	8	7
6	10	6
5	12	5
4	14	4
3	16	3
2	18	2
1	20	1
2	18	2
3	16	3
4	14	4
5	12	5
6	10	6
7	8	7
8	6	8
9	4	9
10	2	10
109	200	109

So the entire workout consisted of 218 snatches (109 with each arm) and 200 swings.

What was different about this workout was that rather than starting a new round at a fixed interval such as every two minutes, I waited until my heart rate (HR) dropped to 130 beats per minute (bpm) which is roughly 70 percent of my maximum heart rate (MHR).

This took patience for me because of my proclivity of wanting to beat my performance clock.  It also meant that the workout took longer to complete but I wasn’t beaten up in the cardiovascular department after the long workout ended.

Here are some stats to drive home my point.

It took me 58:48 to complete this workout that consisted of 19 rounds.  That’s an average pace per round of a little over three minutes. 

My starting HR was 90 bpm or 50% of my MHR.  My average HR was 149 bpm or 81% of my MHR.  And my highest HR was 169 bpm or 91% of my MHR.

According to my HR monitor, this nearly one hour workout burned 1,040 calories. 

My shortest round time was the first round at 2:06 and the longest was the 17^th round at 3:55.

As you can see, I still worked pretty darn hard but it felt more like an enduring gentleman’s pace compared to the workout I shared with you yesterday.  That one felt like I was working like a “pit bull on crank”.

It’s good to mix up grueling cardiovascular and conditioning workouts and work at various levels of intensity.  This workout I liked but, again, it did require patience waiting for my heart rate to subside.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum