So, given that there is no reason why you cannot wear the monitor, let’s consider the pro’s and con’s of wearing it during a race.

Advantages

• Monitoring your heart rate can ensure that you do not start off at an excessively fast pace. Running just ten percent too fast can destroy a marathon attempt. How would you know that you are working a little too hard without some form of monitoring?

• During the race it can help you to maintain an even effort. You could adjust your pace on uphills and downhills to maintain a consistent heart rate.

• You can improve your chances of finishing a long race by controlling your effort, rather than trusting your instincts on the day.

• You can review what went right/wrong in the race afterwards, which can help improve future training plans. Did you finish strongly? Did you really maintain an even effort throughout the race?

• Your pace will be adjusted to compensate for environmental factors and the topography of an unknown course. The weather and temperature can have a profound effect on your heart rate.

Disadvantages

• While the monitor strap may be comfortable enough for a short race, it could lead to chafing and soreness during longer runs. It would be wise to wear the chest strap during your training runs to ensure that you will not have any surprises in your target race.

• You could become a slave to the monitor. You could spend more time looking at your watch than enjoying the experience of racing.

• Your heart rate during competition will be affected by race-day nerves and excitement. This should settle more in a longer race.

Assuming you decide to wear your heart rate monitor in a race, then what heart rate should you be aiming for? If you have been following my other articles on heart rate monitor training, then you will run your recovery runs under 70% MHR. This is so that you can run daily and maintain your glycogen levels for harder training, and of course to be prepared for a target race. Now that you are about to run the race, then you will run at a faster pace. The maximum target heart rate would depend on the race distance and your running experience.

A very short race of up to a mile could be run at 98% MHR. However, a more realistic marathon target would be 75% MHR – just a little faster than your typical recovery run. In fact, for a first time marathon it would probably be wise to keep to your recovery rate (70% MHR) until you have covered around 20 miles, then consider increasing pace for the end of the marathon. This way you would be more likely to finish the race with a smile! For races of other distances, the heart rate should unsurprisingly fall between these extremes. Say 80% MHR for a half-marathon, 85% MHR for a 10K and 90% MHR for a 5K.

In spite of wearing a monitor, it is easy to make the mistake of believing that you can run at a higher heart rate than you have planned. You may feel great during the early miles and convince yourself that a “few beats” faster heart rate will not matter. Unfortunately, I know from experience that payback is likely in the latter stages of the race. I have struggled during the last miles of a number of races where I have simply set out too fast because I felt good. Believe me, it is more enjoyable to finish strongly than to finish slowly! It is no coincidence that I subsequently run a course faster overall when I consciously slow down in the early miles. It is fun to sprint past people who are crawling to the finish line, it is not so much fun to end a race like a zombie.

Having finished the race, you can use the experience to adjust what you do in a future race. For example, if you finished a marathon feeling great having maintained a 70% MHR, then perhaps you could consider running closer to 75%MHR in your next effort.

Technorati Tags: women's heart rate monitor monitoring race racing running

I have suffered from headaches of varying severity throughout my life. The worst ones were the real blinding migraines accompanied by tunnel vision, bright auras and nausea. I’ve put these down to a number of different factors.

I noticed, for example, that changes in environment (such as moving office workspace location at work) seemed to trigger some of the worst attacks over a period of a few weeks. I mitigated this by trying to be as near as possible to natural light wherever I was moved.

Not surprisingly, I have always considered alcohol to be the major contributor to many of my headaches. However, they continued for a period after I quit drinking alcohol, albeit to a lesser extent. After researching why this could be, I tried eliminating drinks that contained the chemical Aspartame. It was at this point that my headaches stopped almost entirely! Needless to say, I was convinced that Aspartame was a large contributory factor.

Since then, and for the last few years I have suffered very few headaches, and no blinding migraines at all. So it appeared to me that all of my conclusions were correct – until recently.

Around three months ago I started getting headaches again – two or three days each week. The migraines were starting to reappear too. On the scale of things, the migraines were relatively mild, but they were increasing in severity and still incapacitated me for a couple of hours. I visited my family doctor for blood tests, but he could subsequently offer little help beyond what I had heard in the past.

Then the penny dropped.

The recent spell of headaches had commenced at roughly the same time that I had stopped running and was no longer taking part in any form of physical activity. Could it be that a lack of exercise was the cause of the headaches? Even my partner commented that it may not be pure coincidence. Thinking back to the time when I began avoiding drinks containing Aspartame, it was also the same time that I began exercising! For sure, I have subsequently consumed drinks containing the chemical from time to time with no noticeable adverse effect relating to headaches (notwithstanding the possibility of other health detriment – I do still try to avoid artificial sweeteners).

Just under three weeks ago I resumed running and have continued with the activity for four days each week. Since then I haven’t suffered a single headache – not even a mild one! Needless to say, I am utterly convinced now that there is a link between an inactive lifestyle and headaches. Previously, I had never heard of the possibility that such an association existed. Surely there must be some sort of research into this phenomenon? Well, yes there is.

A study was published as recently as November/December 2008 in “Headache” entitled “Socio-Economic Factors, Lifestyle, and Headache Disorders – A Population-Based Study in Sweden”. The study was based on 43,770 respondents to a postal survey questionnaire to look for factors associated with recurrent headaches and migraines. In the results and conclusion they state

“Physically inactive subjects were more likely to suffer from headache disorders than physically active subjects.”

“Of lifestyle factors, physical inactivity was strongly associated with headache disorders independent of economic and psychosocial factors.”

This is a complete revelation to me, and I find it one of the most exciting pieces of news that I have found. There is nothing more frustrating than to suffer severe recurrent headaches that are beyond your control. However, I firmly believe that I now have some control and have it within my power to prevent my life being blighted by migraine.

If ever there was a reason to take up some form of physical activity and make it part of your lifestyle, then this has to be up there with the best. I hope you will join me in taking control of your life. I have tips, advice and a training diary to show you how I implement heart rate monitor training into a structured running program, so that you can try it for yourself. You can find my articles on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog. And before you ask….. yes it’s okay for men to follow the methods too!

Technorati Tags: cure, headache, Heart Rate Monitor, migraine, natural, prevent, remedy, Running, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

If you have been following my recent diary entries for Women’s Heart Rate Monitor, you will have seen that I recently caught a cold and continued with my training program. You may have wondered if this was a wise thing to do. So let’s take a look at some of the advice that I follow (most of the time – I’m not perfect).

The good news for people that take moderate exercise each day is that studies have found that this appears to minimize illness. Moderate exercise is generally taken to be around thirty minutes per day, and seems to be the most often quoted figure. Anecdotally, many people who exercise regularly feel that they get less illness in general, and recover quicker when they do get ill.

However, it should be borne in mind that harder and longer exercise can make it more likely that you may contract a cold, particularly if you make a sudden increase in your mileage or intensity to a level that your body is not used to. You should use your heart rate monitor to ensure that you do not over-train and that you balance hard training with rest and recovery. Following a long, hard run (e.g. in the latter stages of marathon training) it is best to avoid people that have colds, because the immune system may be suppressed for up to eight hours following the run.

Given that exercise may minimize the likelihood of contracting a cold – it still doesn’t eliminate the risk. The fact is that most of us will suffer some form of cold or respiratory illness in a given year, no matter what precautions we may take. People who run regularly are least likely to want to stop when illness strikes. If a race is looming, many may be tempted to continue training when really they should be resting and allowing their immune system to work at its most efficient.

Now, when the inevitable does happen and you contract a cold or flu, what should you do? Well, for a genuine flu, the simple answer is that you should rest – and frankly you will be unable to do anything else. However, a common cold may not necessarily mean that you need to skip training. The generally accepted rule is that it is okay to run if your cold symptoms are confined above the neck. So, if you have a runny nose, sore throat, mild headache and sneezing, you may run if you want to. Use your heart rate monitor to gauge how fast you should be running. I have found that my heart rate is persistently higher when I have a cold (by as much as ten beats per minute!), which means that I must run slower than usual to achieve my goal for the run.

Regardless of your planned running intensity for the session, you should start out easy to assess how you feel. Don’t ignore signals such as increasing pain in the head, as it would be better to abort the run and get some rest. Personally, I will generally avoid high-intensity training for a day or two if I believe that I can shake-off the cold quicker. Nonetheless, I have made the mistake of continuing on a long run when a cold was waning, only to have it come back with a vengeance.

If the symptoms of your cold are below the neck – such as a deep hacking cough, vomiting, aching muscles, diarrhoea – then you really should not run. It is far better to rest and recover from the illness, rather than run and prolong the illness or even make it worse. There is no rule that says you have to play Russian-Roulette with your life in order to stick to a training schedule. Remind yourself why it is that you are doing this activity in the first place. On your list of reasons, I’ll venture that “so that I can suffer longer and more frequent illness” is not in the top ten.

Unfortunately, it’s true that you will lose endurance very quickly during illness, and the comeback can be quite slow to start with. The danger is that you may throw yourself into hard training too soon, possibly causing a relapse. My advice is to start back with a recovery run, rather than trying to catch-up by recommencing with a hard run. During the run you will almost certainly find yourself running slower at your recovery ceiling. Depending on how severe and prolonged your illness was, you may need to have extra rest days and steer-clear of hard runs for a while. Build up gradually until you are back to full strength. You should find yourself naturally running faster again during each run at the same level of effort. If improvements do not occur, then consider having extra rest. If you missed a week of training due to illness, then you should expect to spend a week or two to build-up to the pre-illness level. I personally find that I need twice as long as the length of training absence in order to fully recover (i.e. two weeks build-up for one week missed training).

Another good use of your heart rate monitor is to take your resting heart rate regularly. When you know your normal resting rate, you will be able to see whether your current resting heart rate is significantly above this level. This can be a useful indicator of illness or over-training.

In summary, if your cold symptoms are above the neck it is okay for your training to proceed with caution. Use your heart rate monitor to check how you are responding to training and adjust your intensity level accordingly. Following an illness, give yourself time to get-back to your pre-illness level. You have a lifetime of running ahead of you – a few days or weeks of rest is a good thing and not something that should be avoided at any cost.

Technorati Tags: Cold, Flu, Heart Rate Monitor, Illness, Recovery, Run, Running, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

I’ve been harbouring a little secret since starting the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog – I have not been actively training for the last couple of months. After initially suffering a recurrence of a lower back injury, I had to stop because the running appeared to be aggravating the problem. To be honest, though, this only really prevented me from being able to run for a couple of weeks. The rest of the time has been procrastination!

I think, part of my reason for starting this blog was to get back my enthusiasm that frankly did wane. I ran my first marathon this year and my training has just not quite felt the same since. Post-marathon blues? Maybe. Lack of a new challenge following the marathon? Probably. Other priorities that had been put on ice while training for the marathon? Check.

Anyway, thanks to starting this blog I’m all fired up and ready to go again. Which is a perfect opportunity to discuss how to use the Heart Rate Monitor to re-start training after an extended lay-off (say, more than a month or two without training).

The point of training at this point in time is to get ready for training. The brain may be ready for hard training, but the body is not! Rather than dive-in to a twelve week schedule to run a race, for example, it makes sense to add on several more weeks to build-up to a reasonable base mileage. Temper the enthusiasm a bit to avoid unnecessary illness or injury through over-training.

Anybody that has returned to training with a heart rate monitor after a lay-off will know that it can be quite shocking how much cardio fitness is lost over a relatively short period of times. According to Bob Glover in The Runner’s Handbook:

“In general, your body builds fitness slowly and loses it rapidly: It takes three times as long to gain aerobic endurance as it does to lose it. With complete inactivity, aerobic fitness may decline almost 10 percent per week.”

Thus, I would suggest that it’s prudent to restart with no more than half the amount of mileage that was regularly performed before the lay-off, and possibly even less.

My weekly mileage was 35 to 45 miles in the run-up to the marathon, but then fell back to a more manageable 25 to 28 miles in the next couple of months. So my plan will be to run around 12 to 14 miles in the first week, then build-up from there.

My typical week consisted of six days of running: one or two “hard” sessions, with four recovery sessions and one complete day of rest. I’ll work up to this level again, but will start my first week with three complete rest days.

So, for this week, my plan is to run on four days for two to four miles, with three rest days. All of the runs will be at recovery rate Needless to say I will be using my Heart Rate Monitor to ensure that I stay below my seventy per-cent recovery ceiling.

I’ll post more details in the blog as I progress. So, if you are considering returning to running – why not join me (in the virtual sense)? Perhaps we can inspire each other to reach new heights!

In this new series of articles and updates for Women’s Heart Rate Monitor, I’ll show you how I apply the principles of Heart Monitor Training to plan and implement a structured training schedule. You will see first-hand how I progress over time.

Technorati Tags: Heart Rate Monitor, Running Plan, Running Program, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

You’ve probably realised by now that there are new lines of heart rate monitors purporting to be specialised women’s heart rate monitors. So there must be a lot of differences, right?

Well, the answer’s “Yes”, err… and “No”. Let’s look a bit deeper.

Are there physiological differences between the heart of a man and the heart of a woman?

Yes. 

A woman’s heart is about twenty-five percent smaller than a man’s, but the structure and power of a woman’s heart is otherwise the same as a man’s. A man’s larger heart size means that he will have greater heart volume than a woman, which allows the man to more easily pump blood. A man’s blood also carries more (somewhere around 10% more) oxygen than a woman. So, men more easily pump oxygen to their muscles than women, which gives them an advantage and makes them faster runners.

In general the heart of a woman beats faster than that of a man (about 6 to 8 beats per minute faster) due to relative size of women compared to men (i.e the smaller the size – the faster the heartbeat). Studies have also shown that there may be some differences in the heart rate increases of men and women in response to stress. But, the maximum heart rate between individuals (both male and female) will vary, as will their resting heart rate. This is what heart rate monitors are designed to measure. There is no difference in the way it is measured according to size, height or weight of the individual. The heart rate at any given time is the heart rate. Period.

A heart rate monitor, at its most basic, reads your pulse – albeit in a more high-tech way than using your fingers and some mathematics. At this level, are there any differences between measuring the beat of a man’s heart compared to that of a woman? No.

From the functional point of view for simply measuring the heart rate, it makes no difference whether you are male or female.

If that’s the case, then why are you running a site called Women’s Heart Rate Monitor?

Because not all heart rate monitors are created equal.

A decent model will allow you to input factors such as your sex, height, weight, and age which can help to determine calories consumed in a workout. In addition, models made specifically with women in mind may be smaller and lighter than the men’s version, in a more slimline form that is more comfortable on feminine wrist sizes.

Then there is the transmitter, which is most commonly a chest strap. Some are more comfortable to wear than others. Some bra’s have been designed to make the wearing of a heart monitor strap more comfortable. There are also strapless heart rate monitor models which have more recently come onto the market. Doubtless there will be more innovations.

For some women, the style and colour may also be important considerations. If you’re going to appear on TV during the New York Marathon or the London Marathon, then you want to be looking good even if you feel like death on legs!

There is more choice than ever before about which make and model you can choose. Some are not cheap, so it makes sense to ensure that the model you choose will meet your needs – now and in the future.

I aim to cut-through the hype and give you reasoned facts and experiences about women’s heart rate monitor training. I will use my own experiences and those of friends and acquaintances to help you in your purchasing decision, and guide you in your training progress.

If you have any personal experiences using women’s heart rate monitors, or just heart rate monitors in general then I will be happy to hear from you. Also, please let me know if you have any questions or subjects that you would like covered in future articles.

Technorati Tags: Heart Rate Monitor, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

Having adjusted the strap as best as possible for a more comfortable fit, and having remembered to wet the electrode areas, the women’s heart rate monitor was now transmitting the beats of my heart for anybody with an appropriate receiver. I was going to have to stop telling lies, probably.

“All set?” my mentor asked. I nodded and motioned that the strap was in place.

He beckoned me to an area of gym mats and asked me to lie down.

Resting Heart Rate

“Ideally, you should take a note of you resting heart rate as soon as you wake up. This number should represent the lowest rate that your heart beats. We will get close to that number now, but I’d like you to take an early morning measurement when possible, so that we have an accurate measurement.”

He got me to close my eyes and relax while he looked at his watch. Not through boredom, he assured me. He was checking my heart rate. “Keep still and relax” he reminded me.

After a short while he decided that we had gotten close enough. The lowest reading was noted as my resting heart rate (RHR). He also did a couple of calculations and jotted them down too.

The recovery ceiling was calculated as follows:

Recovery Ceiling

Start with your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR)

Subtract your Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

Multiply the result by 0.7 (i.e. 70%)

Finally, add back your Resting Heart Rate.

((MHR – RHR) x 0.70) + RHR

If you have a MHR of 200 and an RHR of 60, the calculation is

( (200 – 60) x 0.70 ) + 60

(140 x 0.70) + 60

98 + 60

158

In this case your Recovery Ceiling is 158.

The last number he worked out was the Threshold Floor calculated as follows:

Threshold Floor

Start with your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR)

Subtract your Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

Multiply the result by 0.85 (i.e. 85%)

Finally, add back the Resting Heart Rate

((MHR – RHR) x 0.85) + RHR

So, continuing with the above example the calculation is

( (200 – 60) x 0.85 ) + 60

(140 x 0.85) + 60

119 + 60

179

So the Threshold Floor is 179.

“Now we have the numbers we need” my mentor announced “we can make a plan”.

Technorati Tags: heart rate, recovery ceiling, resting heart rate, threshold floor, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

At this point I probably should explain some basics about what a heart rate monitor actually is, plus a little about how it works.

A heart rate monitor is really two devices. One is the transmitter, which is generally (though not always – as we shall later discuss) worn around the chest. Commonly, the actual transmitter area is made of flexible plastic, to which is attached an elasticated strap that passes around your back to hold the device in place just below the bust. When putting on the chest strap, it is often a good idea to wet the electrode areas that are in contact with the chest. This ensures that the best signal is picked-up from the outset. As you workout, the sweat will do the job nicely for you  The chest strap feels a little uncomfortable to start with, though it becomes less noticeable in time. There are a couple of accessories that can help women in this respect.

The second device is the receiver which is built into specialist wrist watches, or into some gym cardio machines – such as treadmills, cross-trainers and stationary cycles.

The advantage on the cardio machines is that it is easy to keep an eye on the current heart rate reading on the machines LED display. Some cardio machines cycle the displayed information with other data such as calorie count, unless you “lock” the display.

My experience is that people who have a magazine sitting on their display panel are

a) not measuring their heart rate, and

b) probably not working hard enough!

Though I do have a sneaking admiration for anybody who’s eyesight is good enough to be able to focus on a magazine article while running, it’s probably no coincidence that they are nowhere to be seen in the gym within a few months of starting their program.

There are a good number of heart rate monitor watches to choose from. I was not aware of any at the time I began training, but I am certainly now aware that there are an increasing number of women’s heart rate monitor watches available.

One thing to be aware of is that heart rate monitor’s are subject to interference, which can lead to occasionally inaccurate readings. If you see your heart rate jump fifty beats a minute while running through a field of microwave towers, this is probably not cause for concern (though I would question your choice of running route). On a cardio machine, a more likely source of interference may be the person on the machine next to yours. They may also be wearing a transmitter and may be within range of your equipments receiver.

Some watches may be “paired” with your transmitter, which prevents interference from others using transmitters near to you. The “pairing” is only usually necessary when you use the watch and monitor strap combination for the first time, and it is a trivial task.

The more expensive watches are mini-computers that can keep a whole raft of data during and after your workout. More on this in a future article.

In my next articles I’ll describe how my mentor found my “resting heart rate” and how he used this information to calculate my initial workout plan.

Technorati Tags: exercise heart rate monitor, fitness heart rate monitor, heart monitor watches, heart rate monitor running, heart rate training, heartrate monitor, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

The next time I reluctantly met my new mentor he sat down with me to explain some things before we started the training.

“You may have seen some information about heart rate monitor training printed in leaflets, or on the treadmill itself. Perhaps you’ve looked at the pretty graph of heart rate training zones. For example, they say you can check your heart rate to ensure that you are training in the fat burning zone, or the aerobic zone. Well, I want you to forget all that nonsense!”

“The heart rate monitor training method I’m going to show you is simple and effective.”

He had my attention. Simple and effective is good.

“The first thing we need to do is establish some numbers to work to. I’m afraid I’m going to have to be indelicate and ask your age, because I can then estimate your maximum heart rate. Unless you would prefer to start with a stress-test to get a more accurate number and keep your age secret?”.

Stress Test? Two of the worst words in the English language!  I gave him my age.

“Right. Now I’m going to apply a quick and dirty formula to estimate some very important figures. Namely your Maximum Heart Rate, your Recovery Ceiling and your Threshold Floor.”

He wrote the calculations down for me. This was how he did the first one:

Estimated Maximum Heart Rate

Start with 205

Subtract half your age

Add 5 for women (0 for men)

If you are following along with this, 40 year old men would have an estimated maximum heart rate of

205 – (40 / 2) + 0 = 185

Whereas 40 year old women’s heart rate monitor maximum would be estimated as

205 – (40 / 2) + 5 = 190

[Note: This is the first number that will be entered into your personal heart rate chart when calculating your own heart rate training program.]

Clearly, not all 40 year old men or 40 year old women will actually have maximum heart rates to match those numbers. In fact, I’ll warrant that statistically, the majority will not match those numbers. They are nonetheless a useful starting point, and far better than anything that I had used up to that point – which was zilch.

“I’d now like you to put this Heart Rate Monitor strap on, so that I can reasonably calculate the next number.”

He could see that I was looking a little worried about what was coming up next.

“Don’t worry.” he said “In fact, it’s very important that you are very chilled-out and relaxed for the next step. Now, before you go to put this on I should point something out…..”

“The heart rate monitor strap has some electrodes at the front and we want to make sure that we get a good reading – even though you haven’t started exercising yet. So please remember to wet the sensor’s that are in contact with your chest.”

Technorati Tags: exercise heart rate, exercise heart rate monitor, heart moniter, Heart Rate Chart, heart rate monitor running, heart rate monitor women, heart rate training, heart rate zones, heartrate monitor, normal heart rate, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

In the days before I had even heard of a Heart Rate Monitor (never mind women’s heart rate monitor), I used to hate running. I would have rather stuck pins in my eyes than don a pair of running shoes and hit the streets, or worse, the treadmill. Nonetheless, I was bombarded with messages telling me that I needed to lose weight and get fit (all true, sadly). So I forced myself to include ten minutes of running that had been prescribed in a gym program. My least favourite ten minutes of the whole program, it has to be said, and I used the word “prescribed” because it certainly felt like some horrible medicine that I was required to take for my sin of over-indulgence.

I still remember the dizzy feeling that I felt when I first stepped down from that treadmill. I also remember thinking how little benefit there seemed to be in this activity. In ten minutes I had apparently “burned” about 100 calories. Whoop-de-doo. Later, I consoled myself with a glass of wine, which instantly added back my 100 calories – but at least the wine was enjoyable!

I persevered and even began to run a little faster, but I never enjoyed the experience. Ten minutes seemed to drag. It was purgatory. You get the picture? I just could not see where I was going with this activity, so it was soon dropped from my routine.

Some time later, I got talking to a guy at the gym who told me that he was a keen runner and a personal trainer. I frowned and told him what I thought of his precious activity! He found my attitude amusing and not in the least surprising. “I’m afraid that the chances are high that you were training too hard, and training without a plan. Running should be a very enjoyable and motivational activity.”

I protested that I did have a plan – which was to run for ten minutes at the start of my routine.

“That’s not a plan”, he smiled. “How do you measure your current fitness? How do you set your goals for improvement? How do you ensure that you are not over-training? Conversely, how do you ensure that you are training hard enough?”

I sheepishly replied that I didn’t know. All I had ever been shown was to run ten minutes to warm-up for my gym program!

“Well, if you want to transform the way you train. To enjoy your training and be motivated to improve – I can show you how. All you need is a simple and inexpensive piece of equipment to start with. That is a heart rate monitor.”

I really didn’t want to get involved with this. I hated running and couldn’t see how this heart rate monitor gizmo could help me – other than confirm that I was not a natural-born runner, perhaps. So I respectfully declined.

“I’ll tell you what” he said, “I’ll loan you one of my own heart rate monitor straps for a month – just to prove to you that it will totally transform the way you train for the better”.

Although at that time there were no stylish women’s heart rate monitor models available to feel good wearing, I felt backed into a corner, but eventually agreed after another couple of hundred calories of wine.

I’m so glad I did, and I’ll tell you why in upcoming blog posts!

Technorati Tags: Womens Heart Rate Monitor