HRM's

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:05:06 GMT, Simon Brooke <[email hidden]>
wrote (more or less):

Quoted message said:

in message <[email hidden]>, Velvet

(') said:

In my case it's VERY useful to see the graph over time (or distance,
if I prefer) of what my heart rate is doing, and compare with
speed/cadence/altitudes (and thus rate of climb etc).  Plus, having
had a few instances where I've nearly feinted with suddenly very low
heart rates (considering I'd just climbed up a long hill) there was a
bit of concern as to what it was actually doing (the heart, not the
monitor) sometimes, and it meant I could look back and see, rather
than fail to remember to look *at the time*.

OK, this is what I don't get. Forgive me if I'm an old fogey. Who the
hell cares what their heart is doing, provided it keeps on doing it?
What you want to know is how much distance you're covering, and how
fast you're covering it (and for how much longer you'll be able to
maintain that speed, and at what rate your speed will decrease as
tiredness builds).

I use it to try and help force myself to have gentle exercise, and to
help myself force myself to pace myself on longer rides.

Quoted message said:

I mean, persuade me. I would dearly love not to have to take large
quantities of rat-poison every day, and not to have to go into the
doctors' once a fortnight to have my blood viscosity measured. But I
just don't see what difference knowing how hard my heart was beating
would make. Cadence, yes, I see that. Altimeter and in particular
rate-of-climb meter, yes, excellent. Heart rate? WTF? It's a pump. It
pumps. If it doesn't pump enough oxygen in and enough lactic acid out,
my legs don't go round so well and my cadence and speed drop. And you
can usually observe that without any instrumentation at all.

--
Cheers,
Euan
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On 23/8/04 11:51 am, in article [email hidden],

Gawnsoft said:

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:05:06 GMT, Simon Brooke <[email hidden]>
wrote (more or less):

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

OK, this is what I don't get. Forgive me if I'm an old fogey. Who the
hell cares what their heart is doing, provided it keeps on doing it?
What you want to know is how much distance you're covering, and how
fast you're covering it (and for how much longer you'll be able to
maintain that speed, and at what rate your speed will decrease as
tiredness builds).

Quoted message said:

I use it to try and help force myself to have gentle exercise, and to
help myself force myself to pace myself on longer rides.

I found exactly the same. I was pushing far too hard for my own good and
essentially trying to sprint everywhere. The HRM forced me to relax and I
began to enjoy it more and survive longer rides in a better state.

That is, once I'd got past the shiny toy syndrome of seeing how big a number
I could get on the screen.

I find it useful in TT to ensure I am putting in an appropriate amount of
effort without overcooking it and useful for ensuring I am putting the
effort in on shorter training rides. It helps me to track recovery for
sprint intervals (sprint flat out for 200m then coast gently till the pulse
drops below a threshold then off you go again..)

I know that if I keep spinning at around 130bpm without too many forays into
the 160 zone and none over 170 that I can keep going pretty much
indefinitely given sufficient food and drink.

...d

Simon Brooke said:

OK, this is what I don't get. Forgive me if I'm an old fogey. Who the
hell cares what their heart is doing, provided it keeps on doing it?
What you want to know is how much distance you're covering, and how
fast you're covering it (and for how much longer you'll be able to
maintain that speed, and at what rate your speed will decrease as
tiredness builds).

And when you're going up or down hill? A speedo isn't a proxy for effort
then, is it? An HRM tells you your effort regardless of what you're doing.

Quoted message said:

I mean, persuade me. I would dearly love not to have to take large
quantities of rat-poison every day, and not to have to go into the
doctors' once a fortnight to have my blood viscosity measured. But I
just don't see what difference knowing how hard my heart was beating
would make. Cadence, yes, I see that. Altimeter and in particular
rate-of-climb meter, yes, excellent. Heart rate? WTF? It's a pump. It
pumps. If it doesn't pump enough oxygen in and enough lactic acid out,
my legs don't go round so well and my cadence and speed drop. And you
can usually observe that without any instrumentation at all.

But if you were training sensibly there would be occasions when you
wouldn't want to reach this condition. An HRM can stop you doing so. It
can also stop you slacking.

I've seen the instrumentation thread. You should get something with an
HRM. Lance uses one, you know.

--
Michael MacClancy
Random putdown - "A modest little person, with much to be modest about."-
Winston Churchill
www.macclancy.demon.co.uk
www.macclancy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

OK, this is what I don't get. Forgive me if I'm an old fogey. Who the
hell cares what their heart is doing, provided it keeps on doing it?
What you want to know is how much distance you're covering, and how
fast you're covering it (and for how much longer you'll be able to
maintain that speed, and at what rate your speed will decrease as
tiredness builds).

I mean, persuade me. I would dearly love not to have to take large
quantities of rat-poison every day, and not to have to go into the
doctors' once a fortnight to have my blood viscosity measured. But I
just don't see what difference knowing how hard my heart was beating
would make. Cadence, yes, I see that. Altimeter and in particular
rate-of-climb meter, yes, excellent. Heart rate? WTF? It's a pump. It
pumps. If it doesn't pump enough oxygen in and enough lactic acid out,
my legs don't go round so well and my cadence and speed drop. And you
can usually observe that without any instrumentation at all.

HRMs are an excellent aid for training, even if only used occasionally.
(Mine has not been in use while cycling for the best part of a year, but
I wear it if I ever run because I'm not as good at monitoring my effort
when running). With a HRM you can push your lactate tolerance by working
out your personal training levels and then trying to ride to a range
(This can be quite difficult unless you live in the flatlands!).

Altimeter and rate-of-climb meters on the other hand are great GPS
functions but make little difference to your performance. Knowing that
you can go that little bit harder up a hill without going seriously
anaerobic may help, knowing that you're climbing at X m/s probably wont.

If you want to play with a HRM, I now have two (Cheap ALDI cycle
computer, unfitted & Polar HRM). You're more than welcome to have a play
with either at the meet.

Jon

in message <[email hidden]>, Michael

MacClancy (') said:

Simon Brooke said:

Persuade me... Heart rate? WTF? It's a pump. It
pumps. If it doesn't pump enough oxygen in and enough lactic acid
out, my legs don't go round so well and my cadence and speed drop.
And you can usually observe that without any instrumentation at all.

But if you were training sensibly there would be occasions when you
wouldn't want to reach this condition. An HRM can stop you doing so.
It can also stop you slacking.

Yes, but you can feel when you're doing too much, and likewise when
you're slacking.

Quoted message said:

I've seen the instrumentation thread. You should get something with
an HRM. Lance uses one, you know.

I'm sure he does. He's an extremely driven individual, desperate to
prove himself better than anyone else. He's trying to squeeze the very
last ounce of performance out of his body. That seems to me a very
different thing from any of those of us who aren't trying to compete at
world level. All I want to do is enjoy myself, and preserve a
reasonable level of fitness and mobility into old age.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

[ This .sig subject to change without notice ]

Simon Brooke said:

in message <[email hidden]>, Michael

MacClancy (') said:

Simon Brooke said:

Persuade me... Heart rate? WTF? It's a pump. It
pumps. If it doesn't pump enough oxygen in and enough lactic acid
out, my legs don't go round so well and my cadence and speed drop.
And you can usually observe that without any instrumentation at all.

But if you were training sensibly there would be occasions when you
wouldn't want to reach this condition. An HRM can stop you doing so.
It can also stop you slacking.

Yes, but you can feel when you're doing too much, and likewise when
you're slacking.

Quoted message said:

I've seen the instrumentation thread. You should get something with
an HRM. Lance uses one, you know.

I'm sure he does. He's an extremely driven individual, desperate to
prove himself better than anyone else. He's trying to squeeze the very
last ounce of performance out of his body. That seems to me a very
different thing from any of those of us who aren't trying to compete at
world level. All I want to do is enjoy myself, and preserve a
reasonable level of fitness and mobility into old age.

Why bother with a speedometer then? Or a rate of climb meter? Why do you
want to know your cadence? Is there much of a difference between knowing
any of these figures and your heart rate?

--
Michael MacClancy
Random putdown - "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his
friends." -Oscar Wilde
www.macclancy.demon.co.uk
www.macclancy.co.uk

in message <[email hidden]>, Michael

MacClancy (') said:

Simon Brooke said:

in message <[email hidden]>, Michael

MacClancy (') said:

I've seen the instrumentation thread. You should get something with
an HRM. Lance uses one, you know.

I'm sure he does. He's an extremely driven individual, desperate to
prove himself better than anyone else. He's trying to squeeze the
very last ounce of performance out of his body. That seems to me a
very different thing from any of those of us who aren't trying to
compete at world level. All I want to do is enjoy myself, and
preserve a reasonable level of fitness and mobility into old age.

Why bother with a speedometer then? Or a rate of climb meter? Why do
you
want to know your cadence? Is there much of a difference between
knowing any of these figures and your heart rate?

Yes. If I know my current rate of progress and the distance to my
destination, then I can make an informed guess as to ETA. If I'm trying
to complete a run by a given time, I have advance notice of the fact
that I'm not going to make it and should short-cut or turn back early
(or phone home). I want to know my cadence because I'm trying to raise
it, and it's hard to know whether you're rising it if you can't measure
it. And in an area of the country (such as this one) where the hills
are relatively big and the gradients are relatively steep, it's useful
to know how steep the gradients are because then you can plan your
routes to avoid the worst of them. But heart rate? So what? It's going.
It hasn't stopped. When it does stop I won't know much about it. So why
not just let it get on with it?

However, in the end it's what people want. I can't see any use I could
possibly have for heart rate data. If you can, by all means use one.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

[ This .sig intentionally left blank ]

Simon Brooke said:

I mean, persuade me.

I think men just love competing, and this offers - amongst other things,
as people with medical conditions have pointed out - another way in
which to compete, which is to say, against oneself with the added bonus
of an objective arbitrator.

My ride to work is short, and doesn't offer much in the way of a
contest, but there is a stretch where I go for a new top speed each
time. The only thing I really get out of it is being able to come home
and say, hey, guess what, I did 43km/h (or whatever) today. But that's
more fun than not being able to do it.

And with a complicated cycle computer/heart rate monitor there are many
variables to play with and enjoy. I took up swimming once, in an effort
to get fit. The first time I swam about 30 lengths, the next 50, then
80, then 130. And then I gave up, because the thought of having to swim
more than 130 lengths just to get started was unappealing. If I'd been
equipped with a waterproof watch I could perhaps have worked on doing
the lengths faster or something, but I didn't manage to think of that at
the time.

Swimming's not fun unless you're fooling around, or trying to outdo
someone (including yourself) in some pointless feat of effort while
doing it.

Daniele
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