Monitor your training

August 26th, 2008 at 03:39pm Mike DeDoncker

Several of my friends have recently gotten into the habit of doing all their training while wearing heart-rate monitors.

This allows them to make sure they are training at a safe level and to push themselves to a great workout at the same time. Generally, effective training takes place between 55 percent and 90 percent of one’s maximum heart rate, depending on your objective. But training at the high end, say in the 75 to 90 percent range, all the time would break down even the toughest exercisers fairly quickly.

The easiest way to figure your maximum heart rate (there are more complicated and more precise ones) is to subtract your age from 220. For a 50-year-old, that’s a maximum heart rate of 170.

Knowing their maximum heart rate, then, allows them to find a percentage of that number and train at a level that allows them to train for long periods of time while still making fitness gains. They use the monitor to keep themselves at that level.

As their body adapts over time and their fitness improves, they will be faster and stronger but that heart rate will stay just about the same and they will have less chance of injury.

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