As a personal trainer I often have new clients ask me what the correct heart rate training zone should be for fat loss. I have recently read message boards and forums with claims that to lose fat you should stay in the 120-135 bpm zone. The rational comes from the fact that under low level activity our physiology uses much higher percentages of fat as a fuel source. While maintaining this pace for 20-30 minutes will render benefits in weight loss and conditioning and is a good course for older participants or those with restrictions, the fact is the caloric expenditure is too small.
Not losing like you used to, strength and size gains hard in coming, there could be a good reason why. Lets talk about getting past plateaus.
Maximizing your exercise results can be accomplished by understanding and utilizing a process known as adaptive response. Simply put, whether you are toning, building-up, or losing your physiology will respond to the demands placed upon it. This can be a double edged sword however,
once your body becomes capable of completing an exercise or series of exercises it no longer needs to maintain the same level of adaptation. What once gave you great results no longer seems to do more than maintenance.
