simple log of your distance won’t always reflect the effort you’ve put in. A simple HRM, a pencil, a diary and a calculator will give your training a great boost. A computer link-up just gives you added convenience, depth and flexibility, and if you share

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

this with some speed, you need to turn to interval training.In an ideal world, you'd be able to use your HRM for every kind of training, but it's less than perfect for short intervals. Imagine running 8 x 1-minute reps with three-minute recoveries. Unfortunately

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

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

train harder than is beneficial, and when you're recovering from a break, it's even more important to stay within your limits. Here, an HRM comes into its own, and though there are differences between injury and illness, the same principles apply.If you

that you can't just transfer what you've learnt from ordinary training onto the race course. If you've worn your HRM in races before, one of the first things you'll have noticed is that, unlike in training, your heart rate rises extremely quickly once

GETTY IMAGESCross-training can be quite an education for an HRM user. You've probably spent time fine-tuning ideal heart rate bands for your various running sessions, to the point where keeping to them is almost second nature. But when you climb

point, press the store button on your HRM (or tell your partner your rate)Speed increase should be about 2-3 seconds per 200m (or 0.5km/h on a treadmill)Keep going until you can’t increase your paceJog gently afterwards to cool down graduallyPlot your

, injury, overtraining or fatigue hit. You’ll find that as well as your recovery time increasing, your speed for a given heart rate will drop – but your HRM should help to stop you running too fast during recovery.