How A Heart Rate Watch Monitors Fitness

A heart rate watch is a key piece of fitness equipment for those serious about improving their fitness

. This is because a heart rate watch monitors and reports your intensity and working out at the correct intensity is a key ingredient to success.

A heart rate watch will also monitor things like calories burned and in many cases can be used to obtain pacing data through GPS, accelerometers or wheel magnets depending upon the sport. Since pacing is the key to any endurance sport a good heart rate watch can provide you key data to guide your performance.

For cycling it is helpful to put your heart rate watch on the handlebars where you can see it and this also keeps you safer by allowing you to keep your hands on the bars. Several manufacturers like Garmin and Polar make such bike attachments.

The key to using a heart rate watch is understanding what phase of your training you are in. For most people starting out it is necessary to build a base, or a significant foundation. This requires you to consistently exercise between 65% and 80% of your maximum heart rate for several months to build a proper aerobic foundation and this is where using the alerts on your heart rate watch is valuable.

Walking is an option and for some people who have not exercised in a long time it is quite possible that the heart rate watch will show their heart rate near 80% of maximum even during a brisk walk. As a foundation is built you will later find that you can jog or even run at this heart rate level.

High intensity exercise, like intervals, need to wait until you build your foundation and staying compliant to the zones on your heart rate watch is the key to proper foundation building.

Maximum heart rate is often a theoretical number and without imperial observations of it we have to estimate what it might be. One of the more accepted methods of calculating this is called the Karvonen method. If you Google it you'll find a wide variety of calculators to help you establish this.

Once you know your maximum heart rate you just need a calculator to establish 65% to 80% as a zone range that you put into your heart rate watch. Then go workout and pay attention to your zones.

A heart rate watch is a valuable training partner which is why nearly every world-class endurance athlete uses them.--Rusty Squire is President of the Heart Rate Watch Company, a three-time All-American athlete and the first skier in history to ski more than 300,000 vertical feet in one day.

by: John Orton

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