‘What’s the best way to measure progress while I’m training?’

When you’re running or cycling, it’s not enough just to know whether you are working your glutes or your calves. The muscle you should be keeping tabs on is actually, your heart.

The only way to tell how intensely you are training is by knowing your heartbeats per minute.  And for that, you need an accurate heart rate monitor.  Here are our top tips for training with one…

1. Smart Training
It’s easy to take off at full power and over train, over exert ourselves and end up with an injury. Training with your heart rate gives you valuable insight to keep focused, train the right zone and recover more efficiently.

2. Efficient Recovery
Maximize your training by determining your heart rate zones and having your heart rate monitor signal when you are outside of the zones. This type of training is great for intervals, or in between weight lifting sets to help speed up recovery.

3. Vary Your Intensities
Heart beats per minute represents the amount of work you are exerting. This is how we determine training zones. To improve speed and endurance, the best practices include varied intensities and training in different zones to build the muscles, with the best metric being your heart.

4. Avoid Over-Training
Using a heart rate monitor on a daily basis gives you data to track your resting heart rate and relative heart rate zones while training. If then you see your heart rate is higher than usual during training, it’s a good indication to lower the intensity or take a break.

5. Stay Hydrated
Work hard, play hard! The harder you work, the more you are going to sweat, your heart rate will climb, your blood gets tacky due to loss of blood plasma & means you need to hydrate more. Monitor your heart during training and make sure to drink often during harder efforts.

6. Monitor Your Calories
Positive weight management can easily be obtained by tracking calories expended during training and even during everyday tasks! This allows you to determine how many calories you need or can afford to consumer to reach your weight goals before, during and after training.

7. Race Day Confidence
By training with your heart rate , come race day, you will avoid surprises and know how to pace yourself more effectively based on your training experience!

Article by LifeBEAM. All LifeBEAM Gear measure heart rate, calories and performance with amazing accuracy. And the best part is that you don’t need to wear a chest trap to get great results.
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