MAXIMISE YOUR WORKOUTS WITH HEART RATE MONITORING
28.09.2023
Written by Molly Roper
Are you using a device to track your heart rate during your workouts? If not, you could be missing out on an incredibly valuable tool. Remove the guesswork and track your body’s response to exercise to help you dial into your training, and get better results! Here’s how…
Control your intensity
Working at a super low intensity might not produce the fitness gains you are aiming for. Using a heart rate tracker can help you monitor this, and give you feedback on when you might need to make something harder. For example, if you’ve just finished a set of an exercise and your heart rate hasn’t changed much from your resting level, it’s a good sign that you can go ahead and increase your weight or reps for that exercise!
Control your recovery
On the flip side, sometimes you’ll be intentionally aiming for a lower intensity, for example in recovery between high intensity sets. Set a target to push for in the high intensity bouts, and a target to drop to for recovery, and use your heart rate tracker to keep you in your target zone. Varying the intensity of your exercises and workouts is really important, you can’t get the highs without the lows! How long you spend in zones will depend on your goals.
Track your progress and stay motivated
Using heart rate data to know how hard you’re working allows you to see your progress over time. For example, you could complete a high-intensity workout of your choice at the start of each month. It can be any workout you choose, just keep the exercises, timing and weights the same. Each month, aim to complete the exact same workout, and see if you can complete it with your heart rate lower - this means your fitness is improving! Seeing improvements is the biggest motivator to keep up your training.
Simple fitness assessment
Another really easy way to assess your fitness is to see how quickly your heart rate can get back to normal after a bout of high intensity exercise. This gives you a good estimate of your overall cardiovascular health, and helps you to track your fitness progress over time.
MYZONE
At Phase 1 we use MYZONE for our heart rate tracking system. The advantage of this is you get real time feedback via the screen up in the gym, or on your personal phone screen. You’ll be able to keep tabs on your intensity, your effort expenditure over the whole session, and your recovery.
Myzone is great for holding you accountable… Just ask anyone that has done one of our Spin classes. Having your name up there on the screen really shows how hard you’re working and pushes you that extra mile!
Myzone is based on your own data, so it will calibrate to give you an accurate maximum heart rate, and will adjust as your fitness levels increase.
As a community, we love the connection that Myzone brings through the social feed on the Myzone app, where we can see each other’s workouts. We also LOVE to get competitive with our friendly team and individual challenges!
Contact us to find out how you can get a Myzone and start optimising your workouts!
