Originally Posted by
The Weak Link
I think the HRM would be useful for competitive work. I don't know if I really want to do that, as I'm slow and would always finish dead last in any contest I got myself into.
HR is a nice scientific measurement to assist in achieving your goals. Once one gets the feel for level of effort, one can get close to heart rate zones without HR. I like data. So HR, power, time and other such stuff are interesting and I attempt to use them to my advantage. I like to record data so that I can review it afterword and compare it to other results. I use the Garmin and hook it up to my computer.
IMHO, the key HR metric is the time to recovery and it is even more interesting when used in conjunction with power measurement. Let's assume you climb a hill for 5 minutes at constant power and achieve a 160 HR. How long does it take to return to 120 when you stop? If you do a series of 5 minute hill climbs at constant power with a 2 minute recovery between each one on the last one, how long does your HR take to return to 120. The bogey I use is 2 minutes. If I am not recovering to 120 within 2 minutes, I am working too hard. I reduce the intensity. If I continue to work at efforts from which I do not hit the 2 minute recovery bogey, I feel like road kill the next day and it takes more days to recover. One does not need a HR monitor to do the test just a watch and the ability to take your pulse fast as it drops. YMMV
