[FK Pimp]

Not sure where to put this.
Anyone got any experience of this? Just invested in an HR monitor and wanted to get everyones views on it. I'm primarily going to use it to guage effort on longer endurance events (>3hrs) so I can plan nutrition/pace etc but wondered about using it to train with.

[marcus clarke]

tried it once. not really for me. I like to train to the point of bleeding from the eyes

With a HR monitor, to keep in 'my zone' i would have to walk and pretty much do nothing else.

As CF is my thing I dont really know how a HR monitor can benefit me, unless someone prooves otherwise.

[Gubernatrix]

No personal experience but many of my rowing and running friends swear by it and use it in their training. In rowing, for example, you might have a target heart rate for a particular session like a 5k. I think you can get whole training plans based on heart rate.

Also if you are circuit training/military style training it is useful to know what your maximum heart rate was and how well you recover from it. E.g. if you do a hill sprint session. Some of my BMF friends used to wear them in class and when we'd run up Parliament Hill you'd hear all the monitors beeping loudly at the top! Monitoring your recovery tells you how well you are extending lactic threshold.

My understanding is that it can be very useful tool and you can get into quite a lot of detail if you wish. I'm sure some people become a bit obsessive about it
though.

Edit: just to respond to Marcus, it's different if you are training for an event like a rowing and running event. You can't train by going balls-to-the-wall every session, you'd end up injured and overtrained. Heart rate training is only one way of managing your programme of course but it's a good way and used by top amateurs and professionals.

[greg]

i've been playing with it to see what my HR does during wods

i set my heart rate zone to be between 50 and 181 to keep the annoying beeping to a minimum

[FK Pimp]

have switched off the training zones malarky as would have to reset it every different wod. going to have a play with it for a few weeks then might just use it on my longer training runs/cycles. Not sure it would actually aid any of the CF stuff, but will prob be useful for CFE stuff, especially as those get longer. Was interesting how it felt to go from 50 - 150 when skipping during my warm up yesterday but then going from 150 - 180 was a huge difference.

[Red]

I have a garmin Forerunner 405...wouldnt be without it!! Tells me everything, use it mostly for reps and distance. Only used the monitor once as I dont think it transfers to actual perceived effort.

Its Fab...but very expensive £300, so you had better be serious!!

[FK Pimp]

Cheers Red,
Have gone for the polar rs300x which I can upgrade later with a gps unit for speed, distance etc.
Not sure it will be much use for anything short duration except to see how far over the theoretical maximu
you can get