It’s very well documented, actually, so I’m not sure where you’re looking. A heart monitor just provides a quick check and means that you don’t have to take your eyes off the path you’re walking. The important thing in all that is to check the pulse rate.
I imagine if you looked into every long distance track, swimming, bicyclist record etc, you would not find one endurance athlete who didn’t target the specific higher heart-beat rate targets. They wouldn’t have accomplished what they have done by concentrating on lower heart rate targets during their training.
This is a concern for me too. I think George W. Bush had to give up his regular jogging for that very reason too, if I’m not mistaken.
I am in PR and I live 5 minutes from the beach. There are 4 more in a 15 minutes circle and the sky is the limit if I want to drive 30 minutes.
So we come back full circle to my original GQ. Since I will be walking on soft sand, does the shoe really matter? I would definitely love to go barefoot, which is what I do every time I go to the beach for recreation. I always walk the beach back and forth barefoot, at least once. Is this advisable?
There’s walking and there’s walking. One can walk all day to no avail, provided the walking is sufficiently slow and easy. For instance, I have security guard friends who basically walk through their eight-hour shifts, yet are obese wrecks in immediate risk of type II diabetes and a heart attack (according to their doctors).
When I walk, I plow on as fast as I can (4.7 mph the last time I checked an actual hour of walking), not stopping or even slowing down for a second once I get going. A mere 45 minutes of this gets me all kinds of hot and bothered, and my heart rate steeply elevated - how much, can’t tell. (I can talk with some extra effort). Even my upper-body muscles warm up and loosen appreciably.
For the average sedentary guy, power-walking will suffice for quite a while, greatly increasing aerobic ability and general well-being. Adding uphill, heavy backpack etc. walking to the arsenal will keep heart rates elevated for years. One can also start running. I happen to hate running as much as I love walking. I feel sustained walking is what the human animal is made to do. Running is for life-threatening situations, best served in very small doses. YMMV.
I seriously doubt the shoes are important in your case. That sand will be the best shock absorber for your joints than the best pair of any shoes you could buy.
Then you should have no difficulty directing me to the scientific studies establishing that exercising at specific heart rates convey specific benefits.
I’m not questioning that the practice of exercising to target heart rates has been widely accepted. What I attempted to suggest was that this wide acceptance is not supported in the scientific literature.
My initial thinking along these lines was spurred by an article in Discover a couple of years ago, describing some researchers’ unsuccessful attempts to identify the basis for the commonly accepted training heart rates. According to this article, the formula for calculating one’s maximum rate and the desireability of exercising to a certain percentage of that pretty much appeared at an early stage in the literature after which it was not questioned, instead of resulting from thorough testing of the alternatives. After reading that article I tried considerable surfing, and believe I even may have posted a thread here, with no success.
I’m not questioning that it does the body good to elevate your heart rate. I do believe, however, that many normal folk foolishly become slaves to their heart rate monitors, thinking it makes any significant difference whether they are exercising at 65-or 75% of their maximum - however they calculate their maximum.
Like I said - unless you are training for the Olympics or have a pre-existing heart condition, forget the fricking heart rate monitor, and just get your carcass moving.
I don’t know of any specific exact magical number, but monitoring the heart rate gives one many clues as to how they are doing. It’s a guide for me to see how hard my heart is working. Same true for resting heart rate. I’ve monitored this the best I could with an exercise bike over the last six months, and my wattage being burned over one hour has went up considerably just in this short time, while still maintaining the same heart rate. This is why I like to use one, and why I’ve decided to go with a heart monitor for my jogs too, so I can monitor my pace, and also my heart rate, and over a period of a few months, I want to see if there are any changes here as well.
I’m not concerned with any 80% rule or other number myself, I like to push myself, but also like to have some idea of what I can maintain with a certain pace, a certain distance and time, and how hard my heart is working to maintain it. Not having any known pre-existing heart condition, and being the thoroughbred I am, I’m going to ignore all such limits. 
Hey, whatever works for you is great.
In addition to exercising and resting HR, I feel that recovery time from the first to the second is important.
Some people really like to keep detailed records related to their workouts, and get a kick out of gadgets including heart rate monitors, GPS, pedometers, whatever.
But I’m not sure any of that is necessary, or even all that much more effective than a simple wrist watch.
And I tend to suggest that with exercise - as with most activities - it is generally a good idea to try it out for a while before purchasing activity specific equipment - such as a heart rate monitor.
But whatever gets you going and keeps you going is great.
I’ve always said I’d never run, even if someone was chasing me with a knife. I hate it, and my chest always makes me feel very uncomfortable and self-conscious (even with the good bras.) I’ve been walking for years and still get great benefits. I find I just go much farther to get my rate up and my speed is like a movie on fast-forward (says a friend.) I find I’m rarely walking any longer to go these much greater distances than I was when I started. You don’t always have to upgrade to jogging, as long as you can still get your heart moving.
Bonus: Even though I’m 5 feet and 100 lbs, I used to have cholesterol of 240. Walking and light weight training alone brought me down to 185!
First to the second what?
Research papers cited at the end of this article:
This page also mentions several papers:
http://physiotherapy.curtin.edu.au/resources/educational-resources/exphys/98/exhr.cfm
Regarding the article you saw previously - just because some researchers failed to find a link does not disprove other evidence that exists - be it scientific or anecdotal.
What I do agree with you on is people becoming a slave to a HR monitor and then using it incorrectly. I use one every time I exercise, but I work out sometimes at 50%, others at 70%, and other times at 80%. Changing things up is where the benefits can be seen. Always going at 65% does you very little. Perhaps that article you read was based on always going at 65 ot 70%?
Exercising to resting
Thanks. I’ll look at those articles. But a brief initial glance does not reveal the specific purposes for which the listed papers are cited, nor the contents of the cited papers. So from these links alone we would basically have to guess from the papers’ titles what they said.
And at least the first article you link appears to acknowledge that the various suggestions of how to calculate max HR are “best guesses.”
Like I said, I’ll read these articles more closely, but I’m not sure they will provide sufficient scentific evidence for the heart rate gurus.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert. I sell recreational outdoor gear and footwear. I am also in the process of learning as much as I can about sports footwear. If I say something egregiously wrong, please feel free to correct me.
I think the shoe really does matter since different shoes are designed for your body’s response to different activities. Additionally, if you want to get the most out of your exercise, you want to reduce fatigue and the potential for repetitive motion injury. The right equipment for the right task will do that.
Running shoes are not an ideal shoe for walking on the beach in that they are designed for high impact with a hard, flat surface which is quite the opposite of what you’re doing. Keep in mind that a running foot contacts the ground much differently than a walking foot does. The flared outsole on the heels of a running shoe give a greater surface for stability and better cushioning for slamming into the ground, but prevent your foot from rolling naturally the way they do when you’re walking. This causes greater strain in your shins and could eventually cause pain there. Additionally, a walker needs a flexible shoe to accommodate the heel to toe rolling motion of your step. You want to choose a shoe that’s breathable and if you’re walking on wet sand or potentially getting your feet wet, a water-type shoe or quick-drying, meshy shoe is a good choice. A semi-firm outsole will prevent any rocks or sharp objects from injuring the bottom of your feet, especially if you decide to do any rock scrambling (which is also a great balance enhancing exercise).
Lastly, whatever the condition your arches are in, I’d recommend a shoe with good arch support or at least a decent after-market footbed. The key here is reducing fatigue and long-term injury, such as plantar facsiitis, for instance, which can be a real downer and interfere with your exercise. Although, a soft surface is not as brutal on your feet and body as hard surfaces are, sand has a shifting quality that doesn’t give you a firm implant and consistent stride, creating a situation where your body can tend to overcompensate and you end up pronating and/or suppinating which can lead to several other injuries. The right shoe will reduce the tendency to pronate/suppinate.
I think walking barefoot once in awhile is great, but I wouldn’t think it would a good idea as a norm. I don’t think it’d be worth it to risk injury and turning something you enjoy into something that’s painful and not as much fun, but that’s a personal decision.
I’m so jealous that you have a beach nearby. Sand workouts are incredibly good for you because they give you resistance. If you’re going barefoot, resist walking where the sand is compacted as it’s almost like walking on concrete. Instead walk where the sand if fluffier and you’ll really feel it in your calves and thighs.
I’m not a big believer in heart monitors. Everything you need to know you can feel. If you can carry on a conversation easily, you need to work harder. If you’re breathing so hard you’re getting light headed, you need to slow down. Instead I’d invest in an iPod and download some exercise playlists.
Good luck!
I wholeheartedly agree that getting moving is the critical goal. It’s all good, but a person can reap more benefit by paying attention to what happens at the molecular level in muscle tissue.
As to scientific analyses, I would suggest doing a search that includes the words “cytokines” and “exercise” together, which should result in a lot of information related to the benefits of monitoring heartrate.
Maybe I better just stick to exercise.
FWIW, I had a talk with my younger brother today. He reminded me that when he took the omega 3 fish capsules, it made his bad cholesterol go up instead of down which was unlike the good results my friend had, but he also took tumeric with it, and don’t know if that made any difference. Only when my brother got off of it, is when it went back down. So it seems to affect people differently.
After giving blood today, I just started taking the omega 3 fish oil capsules, along with tumeric. I’ll try it for two months, and go in for another blood test. Don’t know if using tumeric with the fish oil will have any affect or not.
Anybody else have any experience with this on how it affects your cholesterol? And did you take tumeric or anything else with it?
Ok, now I am scared with the plantar fasciitis thing. Time to buy new shoes, then. I do have some pain since I started using sandals only.
Don’t be scared; be smart. Just take care of your body holistically and don’t forget your feet. 
If you like sandals, you don’t necessarily have to give them up. Check out Keen sandals; they have a very supportive footbed and are comfortable and protective. If you like something a bit more open, try Chaco sandals. They are recognized by the American Podiatric Medical Association and feature footbeds that are so supportive, I can stand/walk on concrete for hours with no pain or fatigue whatsoever. I love my Chacos with the intensity of a thousand suns.
I read BEG recommendation of shoes, but can anyone direct me to anything showing harm from walking barefoot on sand?
It would surprise me to learn that walking “naturally” on soft surfaces would be less healthy than in shoes. Am I to believe that all of our early ancestors had plantar fasciitis?