GETTY IMAGESIf you're the proud owner of a new heart rate monitor, you’ll doubtless be wondering just how high you can make it go. And it wouldnt be a bad idea. Coaches and athletes often like to establish a maximal heart rate (or MHR) in order

When you go on holiday, you'll no doubt want to take your training with you. After all, you are off to enjoy yourself. However, this will often mean running in conditions that can affect your heart rate quite dramatically, both at rest

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

, or to analyse set interval tests in terms of your average recovery values, maximum, minimum and average heart rates.The more you play with the data, the more you’ll be able to find ways in which it can help you in your training. You can use the weekly log

the same muscles. Your maximum heart rate here will probably be about 12 beats per minute lower than your treadmill max, and so your training heart rates will be out by a similar amount. The main reason for this is the cooling effect of the water

We've already highlighted the difficulties of trying to establish your maximal heart rate. Now you’ve mastered that, here’s another problem: once you’ve found your true maximum, how do you know exactly what heart rates you should be training at? We