Training w/ a Heart Rate Monitor

I have done a fair amount of work with a heart rate monitor. As far as workouts, everything from easy running to tempo runs. I think that if used properly, they can keep someone from over training. An experienced runner though, can pretty much tell by their breathing and effort applied what percentage of their max heart rate they are at without using a monitor. I did a fair amount of experimentation with mine. They say that a AT (anaerobic threshold) is about 85% of ones max heart rate. I did not go into anaerobic until 95%. But that is from years of training. I wore one during a 5 mile race once. My max HR is 173. I was racing at 168. Another time, I did a 5 mile tempo run on the track. I wanted to keep my HR at a certain percentage. I started out running 5:35. I had to slow down about 4 seconds each preceding mile to keep my HR at the same rate. They can be effective but it takes discipline to use it properly. And of course the percentages mean nothing unless you know what your max HR is. Don't following that 220 minus your age thing. It is not reliable enough. It is painful to find your max HR because it means an all out effort. But once you have it, its useful.

I'm finding it helps. Keeps me honest and recovering quicker. Started using it a month ago off an injury so can't share race experience or whether any improvement is happening.

Get ready for some bashing by the people who really know their body and training paces to a science. My feeling is they don't need the monitor because of years of experience. I hope to grow out of the monitor when I can equally gauge my effort.[quote]noitall wrote:

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Heart monitors are garbage. If you love the sport, don't use it (unless you have a heart abnormality). I used one for awhile back when they were dubbed "the next big thing". I felt that it stole some of my fire. Too much science is bad.

Bump,

I used a HRM for Ironman training for the last 4 years. This year (running only), I've decided to ditch it for most workouts. Here are some random thoughts about what I think are the positives and negatives of HTM use:

Positives:

* A HRM is useful when you are doing an unfamiliar route, particularly trail running. If you know the approximate HR range of the pace you want to run, you don't really need to know how far you've run to do time at your given pace.

* HRMs are interesting to monitor your HR on intervals and the recovery between intervals. I would NEVER run intervals to a certain HR, but to watch the HR trend as your progress through your intervals is interesting.

* A HRM may give you some indication of over-training/tiredness (when you cant raise your HR sufficiently for a given pace) and impending sickness (HR too high for given pace).

Negatives:

* You don't race by HR (for the most part), why train by it?

* Lack of sleep, sickness, caffeine, nervousness, drugs, etc. can all affect your heartrate. Thus, it is not an accurate reflection of pace. Pace is a true indication of pace :).

* Sometimes, I think people take the numbers from their HRM too seriously and treat is almost as a religion instead of using it along with all other inputs (perceived exertion, pace, etc.) to gauge effort.

That's all I can think of. Hope that helps.

Regards,

-Clive