Are you engaging in high-intensity workouts to burn fat, lose that mid-section jiggle, or perhaps boost your metabolism? If so, that’s great—but how do you know you’re raising your heart rate to where it should be for an effective workout? This article will cover the importance of a heart rate monitor during your workout, and how to get the most out of every run, lunge and push-up you do.
The Happy Outcome of Heart Rate Monitors
If you’ve ever put in hours at the gym on a consistent basis, but failed to see the results from your effort, a heart monitor could be your golden ticket to fitness success. Here are some of the many advantages to wearing a monitor each time you exercise:
• Knowledge is power. When you know the condition of your cardiovascular system during a workout, you can discover—and remain—on top of your fitness (and thereby, improve it to no end.)
• It’s like a technological motivator at your fingertips. Do you ever feel like you could use a ‘push’ from someone to elevate your progress to the next level? Who couldn’t? A heart rate monitor is a fantastic fitness tool that can alert you to a ‘perceived exertion rate’….meaning, you can determine when it’s physically safe to push yourself harder in order to build muscle, and reach your goals.
• You’ll know when you need to pull back to reduce risk of injury. The risk of injury should be on your mind during a workout—because the fact is, no one is immune from hurting themselves during an intense workout. The right heart rate monitor can actually alert you to overexertion, as well as provide feedback to a higher than usual heart rate (which will help you rest when you need it.)
Use It, Depend on It, and Don’t Exercise Without It!
Now that you know the many benefits this helpful fitness tool can offer, it’s time to depend on it for each and every workout!
• Know your easy zone for recovery. A heart rate monitor is just as important for recovery as it is for pushing yourself to the limit. In order to build endurance and fight fatigue, you want to make sure your heart rate isn’t well over what it should be—which can be almost impossible to determine without a monitor.
• Improve your high intensity workouts. Once you know your maximum heart rate, you can improve upon your speed interval training by referring to your heart monitor. You can also improve your endurance training by monitoring it to ensure you’re within 60-75 percent of your max. With a heart rate monitor, you’ll always be right where you need to be!
When you depend on a heart rate monitor for each and every workout, you’ll begin to transform your body, rev up your metabolism and build muscle in a more efficient way than ever before.
