whats the deal with heart rate monitors

Felix-da-house-mouse

hi,

i was consideringgetting a heart rate monitor but then i thought what use are they? does it tell you your getting fitter or what? what do you use them to assist you in? whats the deal?

anyone suggest a good fairly cheap one to get? if i really need one?

wolvesandy

I use mine as a training tool, loads on here about them:-
www.cptips.com/hrmntr.htm

I dont know if the cheap ones are any good but i got a polar cs200 cad off ebay for £75 and i haven't had any problems with it although i read on here the other day on a thread that some had problems with them.

knedlicky

Felix-da-house-mouse wrote:

hi,

i was consideringgetting a heart rate monitor but then i thought what use are they? does it tell you your getting fitter or what? what do you use them to assist you in? whats the deal?

anyone suggest a good fairly cheap one to get? if i really need one?

Rather than right away buying a heart rate monitor, consider first seeing if a shop will loan you one to try out.

I once loaned one (50p per day, Sundays not included) to try it out, and then decided I didn’t really need a heart rate monitor. Maybe one is valuable if you are overweight and/or unfit and just starting exercising, or are at top class racing level, into hill TTs especially, so in all cases need to know your limits, but for the normal fit cyclist, I’m not so sure how valuable one is. None of my acquaintances with a monitor have noticeably improved, one has even deteriorated, so concious is he of exceeding a certain heart rate.

Part of the problem with how valuable they are is that unless you are prepared to go to the expense to have yourself properly tested for heart rate, ECG, lactate production, etc during exercise, any calibration setting is only empirical, based primarily on age. If you know your body well, I’m not sure it tells you anything newer than checking how to get to your local pub using an internet route planner does – okay now you know the exact distance to the pub and how much time theoretically you need to get there, but you had a gut feeling about all that anyway.

A few years ago, when they first became popular, one did serve me well in a late summer club training run..
There was a certain amount of prestige in getting to the top of a difficult local climb first, and I was neck and neck with one guy, only about 200 yards from the top, when his new heart rate monitor started peeping. I’m sure he could have continued without worry (he'd done so many tiimes before) and then have beaten me. But he totally eased off, under the influence and control of modern technology, and so for once I sailed over the summit first and alone.

Steve928

Felix-da-house-mouse wrote:

hi,

anyone suggest a good fairly cheap one to get?

The Sigma PC3 is a good, cheap and very basic. I'm on my second - the chest unit broke after about 5 years on the first.

£25ish online, or currently £11 posted on eBay..

blorg

I do find it useful to pace myself on longer cycles. Heck, it's another gadget spewing numbers, what's not to like.

nolf

For any half serious training a heart rate monitor can provide enormous benefits.

E.g in winter on long rides it helps you to keep your heart rate at a lower level of 70-85% of max hr.
Helping to build up how efficiently your body uses fat reserves and endurance muscles.

During the faster rides you should bring in early spring, it helps limit you on fast days.
For example- I've started doing 2 minute intervals as part of my speed work, and find I aim for 95% of max without exceeding it, the beeps help me do this. Then for fast sustained pace it helps limit me to a sustainable speed.

It will help you pace yourself on longer rides and helps limit you on rest days to pure recovery zone of 50-65% of max hr.

When you are starting to overtrain or get ill, your heart rate will be raised, which your monitor will tell you before you notice properly, allowing you to ease off for a few days as recovery.

It takes much of the guesswork out of training, and although i don't always wear it, I find it the best limiter to going too fast (a common mistake for newer riders and more experienced ones).

To find your max is quite simple- just keep your cadence at 90 rpm and gradually increase the gear you are in, do this until you feel you can't keep it at that cadence much longer, then go out of the saddle to push as hard as you can for 30 seconds.
If you can't see a bright light and a hear voice from heaven, go faster!!

This will fairly accurately tell you your heart rate.


Then you can get into Lactate threshold training and increasing your V02 max, etc which do require further tests but also utilise a hrm.

Felix-da-house-mouse

nolf wrote:

For any half serious training a heart rate monitor can provide enormous benefits.

E.g in winter on long rides it helps you to keep your heart rate at a lower level of 70-85% of max hr.
Helping to build up how efficiently your body uses fat reserves and endurance muscles.

During the faster rides you should bring in early spring, it helps limit you on fast days.
For example- I've started doing 2 minute intervals as part of my speed work, and find I aim for 95% of max without exceeding it, the beeps help me do this. Then for fast sustained pace it helps limit me to a sustainable speed.

It will help you pace yourself on longer rides and helps limit you on rest days to pure recovery zone of 50-65% of max hr.

When you are starting to overtrain or get ill, your heart rate will be raised, which your monitor will tell you before you notice properly, allowing you to ease off for a few days as recovery.

It takes much of the guesswork out of training, and although i don't always wear it, I find it the best limiter to going too fast (a common mistake for newer riders and more experienced ones).

To find your max is quite simple- just keep your cadence at 90 rpm and gradually increase the gear you are in, do this until you feel you can't keep it at that cadence much longer, then go out of the saddle to push as hard as you can for 30 seconds.
If you can't see a bright light and a hear voice from heaven, go faster!!

This will fairly accurately tell you your heart rate.


Then you can get into Lactate threshold training and increasing your V02 max, etc which do require further tests but also utilise a hrm.

pardon? whats that in english? lol