A heart rate monitor is one of the most used tools for pacing strategy during intervals or competitions, analyzing of performance and detection of overtraining. A heart rate monitor makes a very precise measurement of the current heart rate. This information can be very useful for an experienced user who understands the exercise physiology behind heart rate regulation. In this series I will try to introduce you to some of the basic parts of heart rate monitor training.

One of the best ways to learn to use a heart rate monitor is to use one during training. Don't buy one of the top models from Polar (s625, s710, s720 etc.) - these watches are not made for beginners. Instead try one of the basic Polar monitors for a beginning. These watches are cheaper and easier to deal with. There are also several other manufacturers of monitors and some of them are probably cheaper. My point is that for a beginner who has never tried heart rate monitors before, it might be a clever idea to buy one of the cheaper models for a beginning and then buy a more advanced heart rate monitor when you know which kind of data you are interested in. A Polar s625 is a great tool for experienced riders, but is very likely to be overkill for a beginner.

When you have bought a heart rate monitor: Get out on the roads! Spend a month with your regular training program, just wearing the monitor, but notifying how the heart rate reacts to the efforts. It is very interesting to study the heart rate and very quickly you will discover that you start to use the monitor for pacing. At this point you are already getting paid back for your investment, since you train harder and are more motivated during the ride.

It is not necessary to use a special heart rate focused training program when you start to use it. As I said, just wearing the monitor for the first month is a very good education. I remember when I started to use a heart rate monitor for the first time back in the mid 90's. At that time I had read some literature about general exercise physiology and heart monitors, but I lacked practical experience with the monitor. The result was that I made some target intervals for my heart rate which triggered the alarm system to beep most of the time. After a few of these rides I started to ride without target zones until I knew more about how my heart rate reacted during cycling. The lesson I learned was that you have to be patient and wait a while before you start doing intervals based on heart rate target zones.

Buying a heart rate monitor doesn't have to be expensive. In fact a cheap heart rate monitor might very likely be one of your best investments in your cycling career. If there was a performance-improving per money index, I guess a heart rate monitor would rank in the top. It is possible to buy quality heart rate monitors like the ones from Polar or Cardiosport for reasonable prices. There are also several copy products, which also have a high performance and might save you a few bucks.

All companies producing heart rate monitors have some basic models made for beginners. These watches have a very limited amount of details, but are delivered at a very fair price. Measuring of heart rate is very accurate at basic heart rate monitors because they use the same techniques for measuring as more expensive models do. Basically these watches measure the current heart rate and that is it. If all you want to know is the current amount of beats, a Polar Basic heart rate monitor could be a good choice for you. There are also some other basic models which offer a few options like target zones or average heart rate. Especially the avg. heart rate can be useful, exciting and motivating to use during training. I think that these options are an absolute minimum for a serious cyclist.

If you want to get more details and options about how your heart performs during the training session, you will have to invest in an advanced heart rate monitor. Here you will get more details about your performance and the monitor will store more data for you. E.g. how much time you have spent above you target zones. Some of the monitors in this category can be connected to a computer so you can make graphs of your training sessions. This can be very enjoyable for some people and very useful for others. The amount of data stored on these monitors is often limited, especially when you compare with how much data you can store on an iPod or MP3 player. For some reasons heart rate monitors have not taken part in this development. In many ways heart rate monitors are old fashioned, probably because of very few competing manufacturers. For many years Polar was the only reliable heart rate monitor on the market. Nowadays the competition is intensified, which makes the heart rate monitors both better and cheaper.

If you have a scientific approach to your cycling or just want to get all details registered, you have to buy one of the professional heart rate monitors. These watches store huge amounts of data. Actually they can store every single beat from your heart. This makes it possible for you or your coach to make some very comprehensive analysis of your training on your personal computer. To get the full value out of a professional heart rate monitor like Polar s810, you need to have some interest in exercise physiology.