personal training 4 all

what's a heart rate trace?

A heart rate trace is simply a graph of your heart rate.

We connect an elastic belt (containing a transmitter) around your chest which emits a heart rate signal, picked up and recorded by a receiver (a watch worn on your wrist).

By logging the activities you do in a session, it's easy to identify on the graph what you were doing at each phase of your session.

From this recording I can see how hard an aerobic exercise is for you, and therefore begin to tailor the exercise to your current capacities.

Here's a copy of a heart rate trace. Click on the image to see the image in more detail.

body fat

Body fat refers to the amount of fat your body contains. Your body needs some fat to be healthy.

It can be accurately assessed by highly scientific methods in laboratories, but these are cumbersome and expensive.

An easy approximation of body fat can be done by measuring the thickness of folds of skin (and the associated fat beneath) at various places around your body.

These measures can be used in a variety of formula to give an indication of the total level of fat in your body. This level of fat is usually expressed as percentage, that is, the percentage of your body mass that is composed of fat. This is often referred to as % body fat or body fat %.

Calculating % body fat is useful in many ways.

• it gives us an indication of change i.e. has this increased or decreased?

• do we have to adjust the program because of these results?

• if it has changed, it can be a very motivating experience

• it can show if changes in body weight are due to fat loss or loss of muscle tissue

• many common approaches to weight loss don't reduce body fat. They just make you weigh less by depriving you of food, reducing your muscle mass or ridding the body of water (all will make you weigh less!)

• we can use the result to calculate other factors

• Your lean body mass, LBM, the amount of bone, tissue and organ mass. This can indicate if there has been changes in the amount of muscle you have, and can account for variations in scale weight.

• LBM can be used to assess the amount of enegy you need each day

• Your optimal body mass, OBM. This is your body mass given your current LBM and a change in your % body fat to an optimal level. This is very useful for assessing if your objectives can be achieved.

***For more posts relating to fat loss see fat loss articles)***

***To see an index of all other articles click here)***

If you'd like to ask a question please e-mail me at questions@personaltraining4all.com

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    Regards Kym

energy expenditure and fat use

Your body obeys the laws of thermodynamics. You can't create or destroy energy, it's just transferred from one form into another.

The harder you work the more energy you use.

Through the use of technology, it's possible to approximate the amount of energy you expend during a period of time.It's also possible to calculate the amount of fat utilized during a session.

The most accurate method is by direct air analysis, performed in a laboratory. This analyzes the air you inhale and exhale and looks at the difference in composition to determine both the amount of energy and the energy source you are using. However this is cumbersome, expensive and impractical on an ongoing basis.

In the gym we can use a heart rate monitor to get much the same result.

By using special monitors, it's possible to determine both the amount of energy you've used in a session and the percentage of that energy that has been derived from fat sources.

Many people mistakenly believe that the harder they work the more fat they use. This is not neccessaily the case. The harder you work the more energy you will use. (Another Law of thermodynamics!)

Primarily the body uses a mixture of carbohydrate and fat through which to derive energy. This mixture changes according to the demands placed on it, and is influenced by your fitness, the difficulty and duration of the exercise and many other direct and indirect factors.

Your body will always use a mix of both carbohydrate and fat sources. Different demands effect the amount of energy being derived from these sources.

At higher exercise intensities your body tends to use a greater proportion of carbohydrate.

At lower exercise intensities your body tends to use a higher proportion of fat.

The amount of fat you use is calculated by multiplying the energy used by the percentage of that energy derived from fat.

Let's look at an example

From our example. there was a 41% difference in the amount of fat used.

But from the example, the session that used less energy used the most fat!

Remember, in calculating fat use, it's not the total amount of energy used, but the product (multiplication) of energy used and the amount derived from fat sources.

Unfortunately, the total fat used in a particular session is not usually great (Laws of thermodynamics again!) so we need to accumulate fat loss over a significant period to lose amounts of fat that are noticable.

***For more posts relating to fat loss see fat loss articles)***

***To see an index of all other articles click here)***

If you'd like to ask a question please e-mail me at questions@personaltraining4all.com

To receive all further posts automatically as I publish them, subscribe by e-mail

    Regards Kym

calculating fat use

Through the use of technology, it's now possible to calculate the amount of fat utilized during a session.

The most accurate method is by direct air analysis, performed in a laboratory. This analyzes the air you inhale and exhale and looks at the difference in composition to determine the energy source you are using. However its cumbersome, expensive and impractical on an ongoing basis.

In the gym we can use a heart rate monitor to get much the same result.

By using special monitors, it's possible to determine both the amount of energy you've used in a session and the percentage of that energy that has been derived from fat sources.

Many people mistakenly believe that the harder they work the more fat they use. This is not neccessaily the case.

The harder you work the more energy you will use. However it's the amount of fat you use that is of concern here, and that is calculated by multiplying the energy used by the percentage of that energy derived from fat.

Let's look at an example

From our example. there was a 41% difference in the amount of fat used.

But from the example, the session that used less energy used the most fat!

Remember, in calculating fat use, it's not the total amount of energy used, but the product (multiplication) of energy used and the amount derived from fat sources.

***For more posts relating to fat loss see fat loss articles)***

***To see an index of all other articles click here)***

If you'd like to ask a question please e-mail me at questions@personaltraining4all.com

To receive all further posts automatically as I publish them, subscribe by e-mail

    Regards Kym

an example of fat use in exercise

Example 1

Let's say that during a session you utilize 500 Kcal of energy.

Of that 500 Kcal, 30% was derived from fat sources.

Thats 500 Kcal X 30% = 150 Kcal of fat.

That amount is equivalent to approximately 17 grams of fat used.

Example 2

Now, Let's say that during a session you utilize 400 Kcal of energy.

However, of that 400 Kcal, 55% was derived from fat sources.

Thats 400 Kcal X 55% = 220 Kcal of fat.

That amount is equivalent to approximately 24 grams of fat used.

Example 1, 17 grams of fat used
Example 2, 24 grams of fat used, thats a relative improvement of 41%

***For more posts relating to fat loss see fat loss articles)***

***To see an index of all other articles click here)***

If you'd like to ask a question please e-mail me at questions@personaltraining4all.com

To receive all further posts automatically as I publish them, subscribe by e-mail

    Regards Kym