is actually necessary to improve your performance. And unfortunately, elite and amateur competitors alike often believe that to get better, they have to train more and harder.The answer? The correct use of a heart rate monitor (or HRM for short) in your

It would seem natural that your heart rate monitor should be your greatest ally when it comes to race day – but as ever, the reasoning is not that simple. While you can use your experience from previous competitions to your advantage, you'll find

Whenever you get a new piece of electrical equipment, the temptation is to rip off the packaging and get stuck in straight away, so the following advice may sound boring. Nevertheless, when you unpack your heart rate monitor (or HRM for short

session. The problem with this is that you end up racing against yourself and running too hard to get consistent results.You might not be surprised to find that your heart rate monitor is the answer. If you use it to control the work you do, you can assess

and on the run. As long as you expect this, you shouldn't have a problem. Armed with your heart rate monitor and a little know-how, you'll be able to avoid overstressing your body in the heat or at altitude. It will help you stay within your limits, and you

session made up of short reps, you still have to bear in mind that it takes a minute at the very least for your heart rate to reach a steady state and reflect the intensity at which you're working. This means that your heart rate monitor starts to give

the watch to the handlebars of a bike or rowing machine, and you can even use your own chest strap to transmit your heart rate to a piece of gym equipment with a built-in monitor, as all the models use the same frequency.It's when you start getting active

supply, which leads to an accumulation of lactate and rapid fatigue: go too easy and you may not be training hard enough to gain the maximum benefit to your aerobic capacity. In short, there must be an element of control, which is where your heart rate

on your first few runs back, to give them a chance to strengthen up. Your resting heart rate may have risen, and your pace for each of your training heart rate zones will almost certainly have dropped. You should pay attention to what your HRM tells you

GETTY IMAGESMonitoring your heart rate during training sessions has two main uses: observation and control. Observation is the more straightforward of the two, and you can do it whether your heart rate monitor (HRM) is an entry-level unit