Why Add Heart Rate to Your Training Regimen

This is an introduction and will be the first of many heart entries based on a lifetime of observation, measurement, research, personal experience and still-ongoing study. Anyone training with me knows I hang my hat on heart rate interpretation and use even though I'm a strong believer in other measurement-based training techniques using more direct information, in particular power training on bikes.

One of my favorite stories about heart rate use in endurance athletics, this one from an Ironman competitor, highlights the need to pay attention to heart rate even if power training or pacing is your focus. This athlete was racing in an IM race during a very hot and windy day and frankly struggled to finish despite starting with Kona aspirations. Several days after the race he was recounting his experience to me and others and said "I just don't understand what happened; my power numbers were right on where I had been training and yet I almost didn't finish the bike, much less the run!" My question was 'where was your heart rate' and the answer was simply "It was all over the place, but...". Of course the heat and the wind were unexpected and turns out not really a part of the athlete's early morning training rides and runs. His heart rate reflected the stress and the load in conditions that were way over those anticipated. But he pressed on with a metric based on a cool morning training ride on a familiar route. His heart was "yelling" how out of that boundary he really was. And he paid for ignoring it.

Certain aspects of heart rate confuse many of us, in fact your heart rate is regulated by such a complex set(s) of conditions and history that some of us chose to dismiss it in our training rather than trying to understand and follow it. Your heart rate at any and all times is a surprisingly complete reading of where your body and your mind is. It reflects genetics, health, fitness, nutrition, chemistry, external factors, state of mind, state of spirit and so much more.  In the end all of these things also affect your athletic performance, on race day or on a training day. That is why we need to listen, and listen closely to what our heart is telling us.

So let's explore what I know, believe, feel and wonder about when it comes to BPM!

This video clip, from one of the few American movies out there about cycling, 1985's "American Flyers", has a fun scene which is actually a treadmill test using (in a Hollywood sense) the "Bruce Protocol". This test protocol gives you a lot of cardiac information (actually a very structured cardiac stress test) and can be used to predict or calculate the subject's VO2max. Testing similar to this with gas analyzing equipment is part of the data foundation of heart rate training. Many of you have done a treadmill or bicycle VO2 test so this will seem very familiar ALTHOUGH this protocol is rarely followed to it's conclusion because ultimately you'll hit maximum heart rate running... as you can see from this clip!