Zone Inflation™ is a trademarked term coined by Ho’Omau founder Andy Funk, and generally refers to a state where a person’s heart rate zones are utterly inflated regardless of the zone or intensity level. This condition is the opposite of Zone Compression™, which is observed mostly in extremely fit athletes and professionals.
Zone Inflation usually occurs in sedentary individuals who also often suffer from obesity and other health ailments. For example, a 32-year old sedentary person weighing 245 lbs has an elevated resting heart rate of 75 and a maximum heart rate of 175, creating a total range of 100 beats per minute. While a typical age group athlete would have Zones 1-5 spaced out fairly evenly across this 100 bpm range, our sedentary non-athlete suffers from Zone Inflation. While climbing a a flight of stairs, which should be an active recovery, or Zone 1 effort at best, this person’s heart rate is immediately elevated to 155, the equivalent of a Zone 3 or possibly Zone 4 effort for our standard age grouper. When going on a very slow run, this individual’s heart rate is elevated to 170, almost reaching maximum anaerobic capacity. In other words, all effort levels, from active recovery to all out, occur at extremely inflated heart rates. If this person ultimately decided to get into shape, this Zone Inflation will be problematic at first, as it will be impossible to distinguish between heart rate zones for some period of time, therefore, making a proper training plan very difficult to create.
