Heart Rate Monitoring

I am a proponent of heart rate monitoring. Rather than giving a long lecture about why it's good, I'm going to share with you two stories. They illustrate the power of heart rate monitoring, when done properly.

The first story involve none other than me. I was disappointed when after consistent efforts, my race times in the 5K races had stagnated at about the 23 minute level (7:40 miles). After talking to a number of people I respected, I reluctantly decided to try some slower, longer running. I began running with my goal to stay between 70% and 80% of my maximum heart rate. It didn't take too long for me to extend some of my runs to an hour, then an hour and a quarter. Around that time, I ran another 5K race, I don't need to tell you that I was thrilled when my time was down to around 20:30 (6:40 miles). The monitor had worked for me.

Around the same time, I and my weight loss was helping a friend who wanted to lose some weight. He was seriously overweight and while he'd try running, it beat him up pretty badly, so we put him on a power walking program and guided him with his diet. I distinctly remeber his first day with the monitor, he started walking with it and after a few minutes said quizzically, "You mean going this slowly is helping me lose weight?" He could not believe that the low intensity exercise benefitted him. Over a period of about 3 months, he lost about 25 lbs.

Unfortunately, the expression "No pain, no gain" has become well known, but it couldn't be much further from the truth. Trainers often use the expression, "Train, don't strain." This is the right way to exercise. I suspect that if pleasant activity were our memory of exercise, rather than the the gym teacher saying, "Drop and give me 20!," a lot more of use would exercise. A heart rate monitor can be a valuable tool in relearning that exercise can be fun.