Best Heart Rate Monitors Training

An Introduction...

Running without one of the best heart rate monitors (HRM) is like driving a car without an instrument panel. No gas gage, no speedometer, no odometer - nothing. Who would drive a car like that?

Without an HRM you really don't know where you're at in terms of workout intensity or heart performance. You can't tell exactly what your heart is doing without a heart rate monitor, and there are at least two good reasons you want to know what your heart is doing:

An HRM may save your life. Sounds overly dramatic, but heart conditions can strike without warning, and depending on the "condition" you may just feel uncomfortable or you might drop dead.

I still have The Complete Book of Running by Jim Fixx. Jim popularized running as a sport for the people, and Jim died from heart failure shortly after a run. He was 54. Jim's three main heart arteries were blocked between 50% and 95%. You would think he would have noticed something, but he passed up a chance to receive stress test shortly before his death. He didn't see the warnings.

The heart measures exercise intensity and energy like a rowing machine ergometer. Like an ergometer, the heart tracks exercise effort. Some of us just naturally lope around at too low an effort for the workout we're trying to accomplish, and some of us always have the type-a "pedal to the metal" attitude when we're working out - even when we "think" we're taking it easy! The best heart rate monitors cut through the guesswork. This is important because when we over train we risk injury and when we under train we're wasting our time - unless, of course (and this is perfectly valid) we're just out for a "run in the park"!

Save my life? You must be kidding!

Whether we're a surgeon or a sushi chef we can be pretty oblivious to our own heart conditions. I ran 30 miles a week most of the year I was developing atrial fibrillation. I was tired, not really making any progress in terms of fitness, continually injuring my feet and legs, and in the winter I was just freezing when I ran - even when it wasn't particularly cold. After a weekend of Rocky Mountain cross country skiing I finally ended up in emergency with classic fibrillation. I can guarantee you I never saw that coming!

Fit people can be especially blindsided by heart problems. I know I was.

Common sense says if you can run a 10 mile race at close to your maximum hear rate and feel great afterwards you must be OK, right? It's not that simple. We may think we need more rest, have a touch of the flu or are just having a bad day when what we are really experiencing are signs of heart failure.

For those of us who love to run exercise is fun, but we need feedback about how hard our heart is working - and that's why runners who want to keep having fun wear one of the best heart rate monitors.

Maximum Heart Rate & the perfect workout

The best heart rate monitors will do an estimation of your "maximum heart rate". This is your highest attainable heart rate for a given exercise. The maximum heart rate is not the same regardless of exercise. Maximum heart rate is typically higher for cross country skiing and running and and a little lower for rowing and cycling.

The most accurate way to determine your maximum heart rate is to arrange a "stress test" at a clinic. A stress test pushes your heart to maximum effort. I've had three stress tests, one administered by a cycling coach and two at a cardiology clinic. In my experience the clinical tests were by far the best choice. There's a certain comfort (and safety) factor - which leads to the confidence to produce a maximum effort - when your test is being supervised by an M.D.

There are other ways to determine a pretty good estimate maximum heart rate. The old formula of 220 - Age = Maximum Heart Rate usually results in too low a maximum, at least in the case of people who are already fairly fit.

There's a new maximum heart rate formula reported in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise in May 2007: Maximum Heart Rate = 206.9 - (0.67 x age). This is more accurate than the 220-age formula. It pegs my maximum heart rate with a 2% accuracy, so that's good enough for me.

Once you know your maximum heart rate you can take advantage of exercise "zones" which are expressed as a percentage of maximum heart rate.