During your first few workouts, it’s interesting to monitor your cadence and heart rate, as I’m doing here. You may discover that when you run in the water, it’s difficult to get your heart rate up to the same level as when you run on land.  There are several reasons for this.  The main reason is buoyancy – the power of water to exert an upward force on whatever is placed in it.  Water exerts enough upward force on your body to support approximately 90% of your weight.  That’s a big load to take off your feet – and off your heart. 

Another reason that your heart rate might be lower in the water is the cooling effect of water.  You sweat when you swim or water run, but the water carries the sweat away and cools your skin.  This helps to keep your heart rate lower.   The important thing to remember is that when you run in the water, your heart rate will be lower than when you run at the same effort on land.   It may be 10 to 20 beats per minute lower.   If you use a heart-rate monitor and heart-rate zones to guide your training, you will need to take this difference into account.   When you water run, focus less on heart rate and more on your perceived level of exertion.  If you feel as if you’re working as hard in the water as you would be on land, chances are good that you are getting an equivalent workout. 
 
One way to monitor your level of effort when water running, and to compare it to land running, is cadence.   Try counting your strides while running on land at various intensities.  Do this by counting the number of times your right foot strikes the ground in one minute.   Then try to match this rate when water running.   Here I’m running at about 85 cycles per minute.  No problem.  Here, I’m water running at 85 to 90 cycles per minute.  Big problem!  If you could see my face…well…you wouldn’t want to see my face.  This was exhausting, and I could barely keep it going for 30 seconds.  When I cut back by 30 to 40 cycles – here I’m running at about 55 cycles per minute -- the level of effort is more like what it was on land.   Try this experiment for yourself.  When you do, you’ll find a way to monitor your level of effort in the water.  Simply check your stride rate every 5 or 10 minutes when water running, to see if you are maintaining a cadence that is 30 to 40 cycles lower than your cadence on land. 

Once you’ve mastered Standard Stride – and this may take several sessions -- you’re ready to learn new strides that will add variety to your workouts and will help exercise different muscle groups.  We’ll learn the strides here, then later combine them into different workouts.







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Heart Rate and Cadence