Training with a Heart Rate Monitor
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A very quick guide for anyone with a heart monitor to take you through the basics of how to use it.
Introduction
If you are training to improve performance and/or are training more then 3 times a week, then it is well worth buying a heart rate monitor. They come in at about £30 for a basic model which is all that you will really need. Training with a monitor will allow you to get the most out of your training time, help avoid over-training and illness and will also allow you to see fitness improvements more easily.
Buying a monitor
Like watches or any other gadget, you can spend any amount of money on a Heart Rate Monitor. But, a bit like the waterproof to 100m feature on a digital watch, you won't ever need 95% of them. A basic heart rate monitor has two advantages, cost and readability, because the heart rate display takes up most of the screen. Other useful features if you have the money are a stopwatch and clock/alarm-so you can use it as a watch as well.
Alarms for being out of zone, Max heart rate display and computer links are useful from time to time and/or for test pieces, but really aren't worth it unless you have loads of spare cash.
One essential feature is a chest best transmitter. Very cheap models seldom have this and use fingertip sensors instead. These are not very accurate and worse than useless for rowing.
Using your monitor-training in zones
It's not worth having a monitor if you don't use it. You can't use it if you don't know three pieces of information.
- Your Max HR You can use the formula 220-age, but this is mostly little better than using judgement alone. This can easily be out by 20 beats or more which is a waste of time, frankly. In fact even with modified formulas, it is hard to find many people for whom this formula would be useful. The problem is that to find your maximum heart rate involves pushing pretty hard-to the max, so to speak! This is hard and perhaps too hard for some people, especially when medically contraindicated. If you want to do this though, then there are two paths open to you. One is to use a monitor during a flat out ergo test over say 2000m or during a similar length race (here, having a monitor that stores Max values is an advantage), or do a step test. Ask me (Al W) if you are interested in the latter. NB. Your max heart rate when rowing will be different when running or swimming, mainly due to gravity. It will be higher in running and lower in swimming.
- Your Resting Pulse This one is easy. Take it when you wake up in the morning (not just after the shock of the alarm though!). This is also useful as an indication of overtraining and/or illness. If it is up by more that 5-10 beats on normal then either you have not recovered fully from the last session or may be about to get ill (see notice in club).
- How to calculate the training zones I realised that I did not make clear how the calculation is done. It's not quite as simple as a % of Max Heart Rate. Sorry, my fault. See below for more details.
Calculations
The point of using a heart rate monitor is to regulate intensity of training. There are 3 zones that you really need to think about from the point of view of basic heart rate training. Anything else will be self-regulating. i.e. normally ends up being flat out given the time frame. They are all expressed as % HR. If it says that UT2 should be done at X% HR, then this is how you go about the calculation.
(MaximumHR - RestingHR) = Heart rate range
Heart rate range *X/100 + Resting HR= TARGET HR
Eg. Say my Max HR=180 and my Resting HR=37. My heart rate range would be 143.
If I wanted to do UT2 at 70% HR, then 70% of 143=100.............and then adding 37 (my resting HR) = 137
So, 137 would be my limit.
Zones
UT2, UT1 and AT. There are others, but as was said above, you probably won't use a heart rate monitor to see how hard you are going outwith these three.
UT2: many different definitions, but broadly speaking if you are reasonably fit and don't intend regularly doing more than 60 minutes continuous training, you will be alright using 60-70% (calculated as above). If you are starting out, try 65% at first.
UT1: 70-80%
AT: 80-85%
It should be stressed that if you are untrained or unfit, these figures could be inaccurate. Other factors such as heat and humidity can affect heart rate. Dehydration at the end of a longer ergo will cause heart rate to drift a bit-this is OK to a point as long as you are near the end of the session.
