Equipment 411: Part One: Your Heart Rate Monitor
So, I am going to do my best to help you all out by outlining the gear that I have and the rationale behind why I have it. Your feedback is super welcome, so please email me directly here with your thoughts so I can incorporate them (note: I do have a spam-blocker thingy, so you may have to confirm that you are a real person before your email gets through to me).
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Most Important Item: Your Heart Rate Monitor
Everyone is always asking me why I harp on the heart rate monitor thing. New clients ask, "Why do I have to buy this too?" while experienced clients ask, "Do I still need to use my HRM?" To all, I answer yes. I think that the advent of putting heart rate data - live - into a training routine was one of the biggest technological advances in the sports realm in the 20th century. Of course now we are getting into power, etc., but the reality is that most folks have absolutely no idea how to use their heart rate monitor to facilitate their training. They look at it, they nearly kill themselves trying to program it, and they compare numbers with training partners at the top of the biggest hill on a weekly training ride. Bad news folks, all of this means absolutely nothing.
Which HRM Should You Buy?
There are a lot of different brands out on the market today: Polar and Timex are the big boys.
Of The Many Differences between these two, the biggest is that Polar uses an analog signal to communicate between the chest strap and the watch, whereas Timex uses a digital signal. What does this mean for the end-user? Well, for Polar folks, it means that you might pick up other signals that will interfere with your HRM readings (electrical impulses, radar, other HRMs, etc). Polar does offer a "coded" line of HRMs that have their own particular analog frequency, eliminating most of this chatter. As I am not a timex user, I don't know if similar chatter exists on their units.
A Second Difference is Timex's GPS-enabled line, where they have partnered with Garmin to bring geographical data to the average athlete, enabling folks to calculate pace in real time, view elevation of runs and get a map of every run. This stuff can also be used while bike riding as well (an expensive alternative to a bike computer, but some folks like that stuff). You can either use the software included or some folks like to go to online services to get the numbers crunched (i.e., Endless Pursuit). The big upside to this stuff is the mapping; the downside is theat if you are under tree cover or in an area w/ tall buildings, the GPS sampling can mess up the calculations.
Polar has a "Speed + Distance" unit (the 625X) that matches a pedometer (strapped to your shoe) to your HRM. This enables calculations for distance (based off of your stride length) and pace (distance of footstrike times # of footstrikes per second, etc.). While this overcomes some of the GPS issues like connectivity to a satellite while still giving you elevation data, it doesn't give you the mapping option. I should also note that Polar has a watch or two for cycling (the Power System) that allows users to measure power output. I have rarely heard a good review of this system (measures power by chain tension; think of how often your chain moves (shifting) and how easily your chain degrades over time (should replace 1x a year)), and would recommend going with a true power unit like a PowerTap or SRM (more on these later).
Of The Many Differences between these two, the biggest is that Polar uses an analog signal to communicate between the chest strap and the watch, whereas Timex uses a digital signal. What does this mean for the end-user? Well, for Polar folks, it means that you might pick up other signals that will interfere with your HRM readings (electrical impulses, radar, other HRMs, etc). Polar does offer a "coded" line of HRMs that have their own particular analog frequency, eliminating most of this chatter. As I am not a timex user, I don't know if similar chatter exists on their units.
A Second Difference is Timex's GPS-enabled line, where they have partnered with Garmin to bring geographical data to the average athlete, enabling folks to calculate pace in real time, view elevation of runs and get a map of every run. This stuff can also be used while bike riding as well (an expensive alternative to a bike computer, but some folks like that stuff). You can either use the software included or some folks like to go to online services to get the numbers crunched (i.e., Endless Pursuit). The big upside to this stuff is the mapping; the downside is theat if you are under tree cover or in an area w/ tall buildings, the GPS sampling can mess up the calculations.
Polar has a "Speed + Distance" unit (the 625X) that matches a pedometer (strapped to your shoe) to your HRM. This enables calculations for distance (based off of your stride length) and pace (distance of footstrike times # of footstrikes per second, etc.). While this overcomes some of the GPS issues like connectivity to a satellite while still giving you elevation data, it doesn't give you the mapping option. I should also note that Polar has a watch or two for cycling (the Power System) that allows users to measure power output. I have rarely heard a good review of this system (measures power by chain tension; think of how often your chain moves (shifting) and how easily your chain degrades over time (should replace 1x a year)), and would recommend going with a true power unit like a PowerTap or SRM (more on these later).
So Which One To Get?
I recommend that my athletes get a Polar watch (sorry Timex folks!). They have a great return policy (discount for trade-in of old model) and pretty good tech support / product turnaround. The products are easy to instruct athletes on (once I can get them to put down the booklet which is useless) and whether they upload data to my coaching software or send me the relevant info on Average Heart Rate, I can get a great sense of what they (and their body) were doing during the workout. If folks have the money, I recommend they go for a model that has:
- The ability to keep multiple workouts;
- The ability to give you Average HR data for your workout and specific work intervals (laps); and
- An uplink feature where you can download the data from the watch to your computer (and post it online) just to save time (like the 610).
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