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

to recover after each session. Typically, you would record the time it takes your heart rate to drop to 120, or 100 if your training heart rates are usually much below 150. As you get fitter, your recovery time will drop, though naturally it depends

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

, because it's hard to raise your heart rate early on in a session using reps of just a minute, your readings would be quite low to start with. As a result, aiming to reach, say, 170 for each rep, you would probably start working too hard too early

the activity regularly. If you're only cross-training occasionally, use heart rates 10-15bpm below your usual levels as a starting guide and adapt them as necessary. If, however, it's going to be a more regular feature on your schedule, you should start to use

minutes and 2 x 10 minutes.All these sessions are at threshold intensity, governed by your heart rate. Start with a thorough warm-up and allow your heart rate to rise gradually in the first few minutes by adopting a sensible pace, so that you don’t have

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