Let's talk about Heart Rate Monitors

As some of you know,  I started teaching at a great new place a few weeks ago and most folks that take my class do not wear heart rate monitors.  At my old place, I was able to educate the members about HRM's and eventually, about 90% of my class had them.  I am going to start talking to my new people weekly about how great they are and how they can really maximize their workouts.  I thought I would also share it with all of you!

I got this great information from Spinning.com and my Spinning manual.

http://www.spinning.com/images/Heart_Rate_Monitor.pdf

http://www.spinning.com/images/Target_Heart.pdf

From an instructor's point of view, HRM's really outline exactly where each individual rider needs to be in terms of resistance, cadence, work effort, etc.  It kind of takes some of the guess work out of where every individual needs to be to reach their goals - which can be different for every rider.  I will shout out things like, "if you are wearing a HRM, you should be around 80-85% of your maximum HR".   That way, if they see their rates are too high or too low, they can adjust to maximize their workouts.

I usually wear my Polar F6 (can be found on spinning.com) with the chest strap.  Without the chest strap, its hard to get an accurate HR.

I hope this helped to clear up any confusion!  Happy Pedaling!