FRA
How many minutes did you spend working in your “Red Zone” – that is, time spent working above 80% of your Maximum Heart Rate? That’s what the dial below shows!
We calculate this metric from your Maximum Heart Rate (Max HR – the highest number of beats per minute your heart can pump under maximum stress). So, if you Max HR is 200 beats per minute (bpm) then every time your heart is beating above 160bpm, this is counted as time spent in the Red Zone!
We offer very broad guidelines as to what equals Low, Moderate and High amounts of time working in the Red Zone.
Low = 0-15 minutes
Moderate = 15-30 minutes
High = More than 30 minutes
The general assumption is the more minutes in the Red Zone, the harder you worked. This is simply due to the heart needing to pump more blood around the body at a faster rate to supply the working muscles.
The greater these physical demands, the more minutes you can expect to see in the dial!
You will usually find increased minutes during games as well as hard practices and less minutes during lighter workouts and practices.
While the above scenarios are the norm in understanding how the heart responds during exercise, it is important to consider that high Red Zone minutes could also be a result of being injured, unfit, fatigued, stressed or dehydrated. Similarly, your heart rate is also subject to external factors such as heat and altitude.
Additionally, for players younger than 16 years whose bodies are still maturing, there can be a lot of variance in Heart Rate response to exercise. Genetics can also play a vital role in the differences we see in heart rate response amongst youth.
In conclusion, we feel it is still important for young athletes to familiarize themselves with how their heart works, and help educate them as to how heart rate training can be an important factor to monitor their exercise and health improvements as they move beyond their adolescent years! That’s why at younger ages, we prefer to place a bigger emphasis on the external load metrics e.g. Active Participation in the session, Distance and High Speed Running.
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