Fitness: Using a Heart Rate Monitor
Heart rate monitors provide a measurement of a rider's cardiovascular training intensity. This is important because too little provides no benefit and too much can lead to exhaustion and costly mistakes on the track.
Knowledge of your heart rate as you ride also provides an objective measure of training intensity and tells you how long you were at that level. In other words you'll know if you pushed yourself or not.
Heart rate data can also be used to determine what you should do in the gym. Trying to decide what to do for a workout without knowing what you've done on the track is just a shot in the dark at best.
At MTF we use heart rate information as the foundation of our gym training program. For instance if a rider has spent a long time at high heart rates while riding we will reduce or eliminate altogether that day's cardio conditioning. On the other hand if the rider has not elevated their heart rate then they might spend 30-40 mins on the stationary bike.
We use either Garmin or Polar heart rate monitors but there are many good choices. After your ride download the information to a computer to see what you've done. Record the info and take note of how you feel the next day. Over time you will begin to see how much you can handle daily and weekly.
With this information you'll be able to design your own training program. That's important since every rider is different and your training program should be too.
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