Get the competitive edge with a HR monitor.
Your heart rate is an ideal indicator of your body's exertion levels, or the intensity at which you are running. Your heart rate provides an objective gauge of exertion, one that's usually more exact than your own perception of how hard you're working. A heart rate monitor can help you outsmart your tired legs on a long run. Heart monitors range in price between $35 to $450 and can be an ideal tool to help you train to a peak level of performance.
Calculating Your Max Heart Rate
To gauge your body's exertion, you have to know what your body's maximum heart rate (MHR) is. This has been traditionally calculated by subtracting your age from 220. If you are 25 years old, your MHR is 195. Recently, some new formulas have been tested. Try the formula of 205 - (0.5 x age). If you are 24 years old, your MHR is 193. Getting an accurate calculation of your MHR is crucial because it is used to measure your exertion levels in heart rate training. If you don't trust the calculations, run as hard and fast as you can for a few 3 minute spurts and see what the highest heart rate reading is on your monitor. That will put you in the ballpark, and you'll be able to see how the MHR equations stack up to the numbers.
Once your MHR is calculated, you can begin to train using a heart rate monitor and gauging your runs based on how close you are to your MHR.
Pushing Yourself
For an easy workout, your heart rate should stay at 60 to 75 percent of your MHR. Anytime your heart rate is consistently at or above 85 percent, you know you're really pushing yourself. On the days when your head is just not in the run, look at your heart rate monitor to see what your body thinks. When you see that it is only at 65 percent, pick up the pace and adjust your frame of mind.
Heart rate monitors also help you with pacing, which is a crucial part of running, especially if you're in a competition. When you can monitor your exertion levels throughout your run, you can determine what points of the course you can afford to run a bit harder than others, and plan when to reach that 85 to 90 percent exertion level toward the end to finish strong.
Tracking Your Progress
Most heart rate monitors have built-in tracking devices, and a can store a history of runs. Several even have online support and programs that map your trail, graph your heart rate, calculate the changes in elevation and tell you how many calories you burned. When you log it on a website or in a notebook, you can keep track of your heart rate, distance, time and progress. You can also make notes about any physical changes you may have noticed or how you felt in general. Having this information to look back on is a great motivational tool on those hard days. You can look back at how far you've come and prepare to go even further.
Tags: heart rate, heart rate, your body, your heart, exertion levels