Training with the Heart Rate Monitor
by Kuno Hottenrott
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kuno HottenrottEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04
ISBN: 1841262137
Number of pages: 152
Publisher: Meyer & Meyer Fachverlag und Buchhandel GmbH
Book Reviews of Training with the Heart Rate Monitor
Book Review: A Well-Produced Infomercial for Polar
Summary: 4 Stars
This is definitely one of the BEST LOOKING books I have seen on the subject of heart rate monitors. The pages are heavy and stiff (easy to turn) and very colorful. There are lots of color photographs of people doing "sporty" things (which add nothing to subject matter, by the way) and numerous charts and tables in vivid shades, which truly enhance the subject matter.
If one were to pick up this book for a quick browse at the bookstore, it would appear that the ultimate heart rate monitoring book has been discovered. Many of the other books on this subject drone on and on to explain certain concepts. This book rarely goes more than a page or two without inserting a colorful chart or table to illustrate its succinct text. The only obvious clue of its real intent is the Polar Electro logo in the lower left corner of the cover. Polar is the Finnish company that first developed personal heart rate monitors. They are still one of the premier sources for these devices.
As you read through the book, you begin to discover that every workout situation is covered by a particular Polar heart rate monitor. The models have various combinations of Polar's proprietary feature set: OwnCal, OwnIndex, OwnCode, OwnOptimizer, etc. The book will focus on a particular feature, mention a model having that feature, and explain how to use that feature on that particular model. If you do not own that exact model, do not own a Polar unit at all, or really just want to learn how to make the best use of the heart rate monitor built into your new elliptical trainer (my personal situation), then this book is not quite as useful as it initially appears.
This is not to say that there is nothing you can glean from the wonderful color charts and tables, just not as much as you would think after a quick leafing through the brightly colored pages.
Many of the charts are quite serviceable, but unfortunately many are also made somewhat less-than-versatile by careless editing. Let me try to explain what I mean.
Everything about Heart Rate Training is based on a Percentage of Maximum Heart Rate. Your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) is based on your gender, fitness level, and age, with age being one of the most important factors. All MHR formulas include age in their calculation. For someone of a given gender and fitness level, the calculated Maximum Heart Rate will decrease as that person ages. Most books and articles use the following formula to compute a rough estimate of your MHR:
MHR = 220 - (your age in years)
So, for a 40-year-old male of average fitness, his MHR would be 180. His training would be tuned to various percentages of 180 depending on his goal for that training session. Example: The zone from 60-to-70% of MHR (108-to-126 beats per minute) is excellent for metabolizing fat and, if maintained for long periods of time, increasing endurance.
What I found troubling is that many of the book's graphs use beats-per-minute (BPM) to label the vertical axis instead of Percentage of Maximum Heart Rate. The BPM values were quite high on these charts. Since the maximum heart rate value is based on age, these high BPM values were obviously for someone in his twenties - much younger than me or many of the other potential readers. To see exactly how that particular chart or table would relate to your own situation, you will have to hazard a guess where your numbers would be on the chart. But the maximum heart rate of the person whose data was used for this chart is not given; therefore you have no reference point to make the calculation.
Many of the charts are still useful in a general sort of way. They graphically show the amount of time one would spend at various levels in a particular training scenario. But they are a little disconcerting when you try to figure out what zone you should be in during a certain interval and read a BPM figure on the chart that is WAY above your MAXIMUM Heart Rate. Maximum means maximum. You have no business training at that level. This could easily be fixed if the author would take the time to do the math based on the MHR of the person for whom the chart was made and use Percentages of MHR instead of BPM.
Not all of the graphs dealing with heart rate are subject to this criticism and many of the other charts and graphs do not reference heart rate directly. They are useful as they stand. While this book concentrates on Heart Rate Training, it also touches on other related aspects of exercise and health, hence the other graphs.
One last important point: This book is intended for beginning and intermediate users, not for advanced athletes. If you are an experienced runner, cyclist, etc. working to push yourself to the next level of fitness, there are other books by authors such as Edmund Burke and Sally Edwards that may be more appropriate. But if you are just getting into using a heart rate monitor or want to learn more about this subject than you can get out of a fitness magazine article, you will find this to be one of the most comprehensive books available on the subject.
You may have noticed that I am trying to point out the few flaws in this book without totally trashing it. I don't think it is a bad book; it just doesn't live up to its potential. Maybe, if the author reads this critique, he'll produce a future edition that will come closer to being the ultimate heart rate monitor book. It's really not that far off the mark.
Finally, in all fairness, Polar has every right to push their products in their own book. Like I said earlier, they invented the technology. They have the most complete, comprehensive line of heart rate monitors and theirs are most likely the best on the market. I would just like to see them make this book more universal in its application.
Summary of Training with the Heart Rate Monitor
Ever since the first portable heart rate monitors were made available in the 1980s, athletes and fitness enthusiasts have been using them to monitor and control training intensity to achieve maximum results. "Training with the Heart Rate Monitor" is a practical guide to the effective use of monitors in individual training. It provides expert information on training for endurance, therapeutic or cardiac rehabilitation, general fitness and wellbeing. It also examines the latest advances in the technology, products, and trends in heart rate monitors. This will become an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to build an individual training program for health and fitness using a heart rate monitor.Training Books
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