Why should you use a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) for Cycling?

If you follow professional cycling, you have been exposed to the advanced training of these incredible athletes. Winners of the Tour are using tools like heart rate monitors and power meters to prepare them for the rigors of competitive racing.

To understand how an HRM can help you, we established the

Polar 3 Point Message:

1.  In order to reach your competitive goals, you need to train at the right intensity.

2.  Heart rate is the only accurate measurement of your intensity or your exertion level.

3.  A Polar HRM is the easiest and most accurate way to continuously measure your heart rate.

 

The cycling community was the first to integrate heart rate monitors into their training in the United States. Olympic cyclists and tour riders have led the way through the eighties and nineties and into the 21st century.

 

If you're not using one, you probably train with someone who does. You may have resisted until now, and hopefully that will end here. There are many different thoughts on how to prepare yourself for competition. But the fact remains, to be prepared, you need to do different workouts. Endurance workouts, tempo rides and AT intervals are at the heart of an effective training plan. A heart rate monitor is the one thing that can lead you through each one of those workouts, and give you the valuable feedback that can help you turn your weaknesses into strengths.

 

For endurance workouts, it paces you so you don't overdo it. For tempo rides, it keeps you on track. And for interval workouts, it makes sure you go hard enough and you recover when it's time. Nothing else can guide you that way. It can show you when you're dehydrating, or running out of nutrition, or not recovered from a previous day's workout. It allows you to analyze workouts and races. Your titanium frame is great, but if you're not training the right way, it may as well be made out of lead.

 

With the advent of the Power meter, the trend is to integrate wattage and heart rate into training. These two critical factors together give the competitive cyclist an absolute way to gauge performance and track progress on a ride by ride basis.

Heart Rate and Fatigue

Question:

For the most part, my workouts go pretty well, but I occasionally have trouble reaching my desired exercise heart rates. I feel like I am working as hard as I should be, but my heart rate wont come up like it normally does. Why does this happen and what should I do about it?
Answer:

Fatigue is the most common cause I see contributing to depressed exercise heart rates. When you are overly tired, your heart rate will not rise as it normally does. Sometimes my athletes tell me they are having difficulty keeping their heart rates elevated during their intervals, or that the effort required to raise their heart rates is way out of proportion with the target heart rate itself. Their brains are asking for more power and their bodies are not able to fill the order. Fatigue can contribute to getting sick and is sometimes a symptom of being sick, but you can be fatigued and still be healthy. I usually lighten the training load and integrate more rest to keep them from overtraining or becoming ill.

Carefully planning your recovery activities between hard workouts is the best way to prevent depressed exercise heart rates. As workouts increase in intensity, you have to increase the amount of recovery time you allow between them. As a general rule, I recommend at least 48 hours between workouts that are done at or above lactate threshold, including sprint workouts. Short, high-intensity or maximal intervals cause big recovery problems because people underestimate the amount of stress they put on their systems. When you allow for more complete recovery between workouts, each workout is much more effective.

In addition to allowing adequate time between hard efforts, you need to pay careful attention to your nutrition. If you give yourself time to recover, but fail to provide the tools your body needs for recovery, you will continue to exhibit symptoms of fatigue. In the course of a long endurance ride or a short, high-intensity workout, you deplete your bodys stores of muscle glycogen, the most accessible form of usable energy for exercise. You have to replenish your glycogen stores after hard workouts in order to complete the next one. You should also make sure to consume protein to facilitate muscle development and repair, as well as improved immune system function. Studies by Edmund Burke, Ph.D., indicate that consuming carbohydrates and protein together in a 4:1 ratio provides the most effective means of replenishing glycogen and supplying your body with the materials for muscle recovery.

What to do about it?

There are two typical reactions to a depressed exercise heart rate: Ignore it and push on, or call it a day and go home to rest. Endurance cyclists have a penchant for suffering, and many see it as a disgrace to bail out of workout, regardless of the weather, broken equipment, illness, or fractured bones. The inability to raise your heart rate the way you normally can is a warning from your body that something is not right. Heed the warning, call it a day, cruise home and eat a nice meal while you relax on the couch. Your fitness will not suffer because of a missed workout here and there, but pushing through fatigue in training means you will be worn out when you can least afford it, during competition.