3. Valentini, Why Should I Train with a Heart Rate Monitor
Why should I train with a heart rate monitor?
I believe that participating in any form of training or exercise
without the benefit of a heart rate monitor (HRM) is similar
to driving your car without using the speedometer/odometer,
investing your assets with someone who tells you they won’t
be providing you with a statement of the changes in the value of your account or how much it
is earning. My guess is that you wouldn’t do either of those because you want to know where
you are starting, the direction you are headed in and the results you are achieving.
Using a scale or a tape measure is great but it only tells you where you are in numbers (weight,
girth, etc.); one can purchase a tape measure for $5 and a scale for less than $50. Many
cyclists use power meters – you see one on the bike I use to teach RPM – but that bike now
costs approximately $3,000 and power meters for road bikes can cost upward of $4,000 – not
something worth buying for most people. A heart rate monitor provides the best value; one
can purchase a decent Polar HRM like the FT4 for about $100. The difference between using
a scale and tape measure or HRM is as follows: the HRM allows you to correlate how you feel
while you participate in class, run, cycle, etc. with your body’s physiological response – i.e.
your heart rate. You can actually feel the difference between training at 70%, 80%, 90% and
tie that to a real number on your wrist. The other great benefit of course is that the information
provided by your HRM is automatically collected and stored so that we can review and analyze
it and plan your training by creating training zones that are specific to your starting point
and goals – we refer to it as training with a purpose – TRAIN SMART rather than train to
exhaustion!
Let me preface the next part with a NERD ALERT! I am an admitted NERD when it comes
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4. Valentini, Why Should I Train with a Heart Rate Monitor
to helping people improve their lives through the fitness lifestyle – I believe people ought to
know the WHY so that the HOW makes sense to them – so here goes – a short discussion about
physiology and why you should TRAIN SMART. First we will discuss the basics of heart rate
and then we will discuss how to improve the efficiency of our cardiovascular system through
exercise. The basic physiology of our cardiovascular system is comprised of the heart (pump),
arteries (distribution system), capillaries (exchange system that provides nutrients, among other
things, to the surrounding tissue) and veins (return circuit to the heart). Every time our heart
beats (contracts) it pushes a certain amount of blood through our system (stroke volume) – this
contraction is known as our heart rate. The amount of blood that moves through our system in
one minute is equal to our heart rate (beats per minute, or bpm) x stroke volume (the amount
of blood pushed through by each beat). During exercise our muscles require more oxygen
therefore our heart beats faster. You know this because if you exercise too far beyond your
comfort zone you become breathless; your heart cannot beat fast enough to supply the oxygen
your muscles require and you become fatigued. The good news is that your body is really
smart and it will adapt, so when you exercise on a regular basis and ask your cardiovascular
system to work harder it responds by becoming stronger and more efficient - it is what we look
for when we coach our students/athletes – a positive adaptation! (This is the opposite of a
negative adaptation – as in train yourself to sit in front of the tv every day with a bag of potato
chips and soda). The great news is that your body, in order to provide energy, burns different
fuels based on the effort required, and we know that an effort below 70% of maximum heart
rate burns fat for fuel; the even greater news of course is that with a simple test using a HRM
we can determine your individual maximum heart rate and therefore teach you how to train at
a level of effort that burns fat for fuel. The best possible news is that this is not voodoo, gym
science or nonsense, it really works – FOR ANYONE! Some of the benefits of TRAINING
SMART are a lower resting heart rate, an increased capacity for exercise at maximum heart
rate, all the health benefits associated with a lower percentage of bodyfat, an increase in blood
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5. Valentini, Why Should I Train with a Heart Rate Monitor
flow through the muscles and skeleton, an increase in heart size and a decrease in the tendency
to tiredness.
So, what is the practical application?
We believe our group fitness program is fun, the music is great and the teachers keep the
classes fresh and interesting; just as significant is the science that underlies what and how we
teach. You will hear me talk about “getting your heart rate up” and “for the next 30 seconds,
on a scale of 1 to 10 your effort should be a level _______” while I teach RPM; I am certain
that our teachers use the same language when they teach BODYPUMP, BODYCOMBAT, etc.
There is a method to our madness!
Measuring your level of effort as well as the results you are achieving by using heart rate in
real time and then tracking the changes over time will help you determine the level of effort
you should be making in each segment of a class as well as the results you might expect from
your efforts. By way of simple example, let’s assume that your hard efforts in the interval
track in RPM were producing a heart rate of 160 BPM (beats per minute) and now, four weeks
later, those same efforts are producing a heart rate of 144 BPM, you know you are improving
because your cardiovascular system is now working at a level of effort that is only 90% of that
required 4 weeks ago; congratulations, you are improving your cardiovascular fitness!
There is a direct correlation between your heart rate (level of effort) and the amount of calories
(energy) you expend, therefore not only will you be tracking the improvements in your fitness
level you will also be tracking the calories utilized while exercising, allowing you to understand
more about the effectiveness of each of your classes and the effort you are making. It doesn’t
mean you ought to choose your classes based only on the number of calories you burn, so for
example if you find that you burn more calories in RPM than in your other classes it doesn’t
mean you should focus only on RPM (did I just say that?). What it does mean is that you
can plan your schedule based on the right mix of classes for you and the time you can invest
in improving your life. You will also be able to measure your metabolic rate by seeing the
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6. Valentini, Why Should I Train with a Heart Rate Monitor
number of calories you burn on any given day, and then see that what we tell you is true –
participating in a weight training program will help increase your metabolic rate and therefore
help you burn more calories even at rest.
One of the most significant measurements is resting heart rate; I won’t say that having a lower
resting heart rate will in and of itself keep you healthier longer; I will say that if your resting
heart rate is 50 beats per minute rather than 70 it means that your heart only has to pump 50
times rather than 70 to move blood and oxygen through your system – the simplest and most
important function, moving blood and oxygen through your body, is being done much more
efficiently and effectively. (My resting heart rate is approximately 48, 5 beats less than my
age – I like that statistic!)
B.C. Forbes, founder of Forbes magazine said “Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck
to their jobs.” One of the most significant benefits of a heart rate monitor is that it takes the
guesswork out of your training – based on a simple initial test we can help determine your
starting point, help create some simple goals (using the S.M.A.R.T. system) and a plan that
will help you get there effectively, and then monitor your progress as you go. One can buy a
simple Polar heart rate monitor today for $100, and it has more computing capacity than the
first IBM desktop I bought when I started my accounting business – plus it doesn’t break down
and changing the battery once a year costs a whopping 5 bucks! (Of course you don’t need to
buy one if you like our membership offer, and you get all the benefits of our knowledge and
experience in coaching and training the members of our community as well as the students and
athletes we have helped achieve positive results).
Setting the HRM for the zones that are specific to you is really straight forward as is uploading
and tracking your information, manually or onto a computer. It is amazing to be able to be able
to plan your classes and exercise and then watch your progress - it will save you time and you
will train with a purpose.
If you are interested in learning more about training SMART and with a purpose please feel
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free to email me at vito.valentini@auroracycling.com, and by all means, do your best to be a
diamond and not a lump of coal!
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