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WHY HEART RATE MONITORS FOR CYCLING
If you follow professional cycling, you have been exposed to
the advanced training of these incredible athletes. Winners of the Tour are using tools like heart rate monitors
and power meters to prepare them for the rigors of competitive racing.
To understand how an HRM can help you, we established the
Polar 3 Point Message:
- In order to reach your competitive goals, you need to train
at the right intensity.
- Heart rate is the only accurate measurement of your intensity
or your exertion level.
- A Polar HRM is the easiest and most accurate way to continuously measure
your heart rate.
The cycling community was the first to integrate heart rate
monitors into their training in the United States. Olympic cyclists and tour riders have led the way through the
eighties and nineties and into the 21st century.
If you're not using one, you probably train with someone who
does. You may have resisted until now, and hopefully that will end here. There are many different thoughts on how
to prepare yourself for competition. But the fact remains, to be prepared, you need to do different workouts. Endurance
workouts, tempo rides and AT intervals are at the heart of an effective training plan. A heart rate monitor is
the one thing that can lead you through each one of those workouts, and give you the valuable feedback that can
help you turn your weaknesses into strengths.
For endurance workouts, it paces you so you don't overdo it.
For tempo rides, it keeps you on track. And for interval workouts, it makes sure you go hard enough and you recover
when it's time. Nothing else can guide you that way. It can show you when you're dehydrating, or running out of
nutrition, or not recovered from a previous day's workout. It allows you to analyze workouts and races. Your titanium
frame is great, but if you're not training the right way, it may as well be made out of lead.
With the advent of the Power meter, the trend is to integrate
wattage and heart rate into training. These two critical factors together give the competitive cyclist an absolute
way to gauge performance and track progress on a ride by ride basis.
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