If you have ever trained with me, you know that one of my initial requests when you started an exercise program was that you get a heart rate monitor. You are perhaps also familiar with my constant twisting and turning of myself around you in an attempt to read the watch from your wrist while you exercise.

The heart rate monitor can report to you a lot regarding how hard you are really working out, when to take time-out (not to over train) and how much you have been progressing. Some heart rate monitors can also inform you of the ballpark calories you have been burning.

While the scale and other measurements can take a while to alter its numbers, your heart will prove results within weeks. The cardiovascular system will indicate the first physiological changes associated with exercise.

I have seen repeatedly my clients resting heart rates and exercising heart rats plummet as the sessions move on. Blood pressure might also drop due to those adjustments.

As you begin an exercise program, your heart, as with every other muscle in your body, will get stronger and slightly larger, which will allow it to squeeze out (stroke) more blood volume. In consequence, this will make the heart empty out more blood from the ventricles, and therefore beat slower and more efficiently.

At the blood vessels level, the cardiovascular system will generate more capillaries (tiny blood channels), which in turn will bring more oxygen into the cells. The cells, for their part, will produce more mitochondria, our little cell engines, which will produce more energy by processing more oxygen. This intricate progression (which I will explain in more details in future blogs) leads to a higher oxygen uptake in the lungs.

Basically, your body will not have to work as hard, you will have more energy and will burn more fat (the mitochondria needs fat to manufacture energy, so the more it works, the more fat you will burn).

(For more details on the physiological changes brought on by exercise, read, "What’s Going On)

Now, enough about biology. Lets talk about what heart rate training can do for you.

First, here are some facts about heart rate:

1. It is not entirely related to age

Most cardiovascular machines (treadmill, elliptical) will ask for your age in the settings for the exercise. What the machine does is subtract your age from 220 and then set your program to between 65% to 85% of that number.

The number 220 used to be linked to the maximum possible heart rate of a newborn. The theory is that we lose a heart beat each year, therefore 220-age. That formula, however, is obsolete and is now merely used to get an estimation, which can be far from your ideal heart rate training.

Studies have shown that not only newborns can have much higher maximum heart rates, but most people will stop losing a heart beat by the age of 22, which means that maximum heart rate is more associated to genetics and continuity of physical activity through life, and not age per se.

So, if you are training according to the parameters defined by your age and the exercise seems too easy, it probably is. Do not be concerned about bringing your heart rate up a notch. I will teach you how to find your approximate maximum heart rate by the end of this blog.

2. Your resting heart rate is a sign of how well you are doing

When you wake up in the morning, your heart should be relaxed. An optimal resting heart rate will be on the 60s. I have seen athletes with resting heart rates as low as 30.

The older you get, the lower your resting heart rate will be too.

A high and unhealthy resting heart rate will be above 75.

The number of your resting heart rate will be the first indication that exercise is being beneficial to you and this number can also decline very fast with a training routine.

Another way to know how well you are doing is to compute how fast your heart rate drops after an exercise. A fast drop means you are rested and your heart is responding well to working out.

3. How to tell when you need a break (lack of sleep, alcohol intake, or over training)

Your heart will tell you if you are stressed or have been exercising excessively.

As I watch my clients heart rate monitors, I can always tell when someone hasn’t slept well or has drank the night before. Their heart rates will stay higher than usual and not descend as quickly. If you keep training at this rate, you can end up sick. Your immune system will suffer.

Here is a test to see if you need a break. Stand for three minutes and take note of your heart rate. Immediately lay down and record your heart rate after three minutes. Subtract the first to the last numbers you have notated. If the resulting number is over 15, you need to rest.

4. How fat and sugar are used at different heart rate zones

At higher heart rate, your body will burn a higher percentage of sugar than that of fat.

This does not mean that you need to work out at a lower heart rate to burn more fat.

By the contrary, even though at higher heart rates you will burn a higher percentage of sugar, you still burn more fat than at a lower rate, because the overall calories burned are higher.

For instance, lets supposed that at 110 heart rate you burn 250 calories an hour, and 175 of those calories are from fat (70% from fat). If you increase your heart rate to 160, you might burn 500 calories an hour and 200 calories from fat (40% from fat). As you can see, even though the percentage is lower, the overall quantity of calories from fat or other sources is higher at higher exercising intensities.

The only catch with training at higher intensities is that because of the higher calorie burn coming from sugar, you might feel tired and hungrier sooner, so make sure that you eat carbohydrates before training and bring a Gatorade for long exercise practices (longer than 60 minutes).

5. You can raise your anaerobic threshold to get faster and lose more weight OR how Lance Armstrong and I are different

Here is something that Lance Armstrong and I have in common: we both have the same maximum heart rate of approximately 195, but that’s where our athletic similarities come to an end.

Just because you have a matching heart rate as someone else, it does not mean you have the same athletic capabilities. Also, having a lower maximum heart rate does not mean you are in bad shape. What can set you apart is how high your anaerobic threshold is set.

Let me try to explain what anaerobic threshold is by using a client as an example. Let me call her Janet, for her own privacy sake.

When Janet started training with me, I figured out through a sub maximal test that her maximum heart rate was about 180. Based on her heart rate, she should have been able to train at 150 heart rate with no problems. However, Janet had not exercised for many years and her heart rate proved it.

Janet had a "magic number" of 126. Every time she got up to 126 beats per minute, her lips would lose color and she will feel very lightheaded and sick. This is something that always upset her for as long as she could remember and is the basis to why she quit exercising countless times before. Janet, by the way, had a normal blood pressure and blood sugar and never had a history of heart disease.

Janet’s body was working aerobically, by bringing oxygen into the cells, where the mitochondria could utilize it along with sugar and fat, into energy, but only up until a certain exertion, and a very low one. Her body needed to generate more mitochondria and go through further physiological adjustments. For whatever reason, in her case and with many of you, this would take time.

My solution for training Janet was to watch her monitor up close and stop everything every time she reached the number 124. Slowly, she got up to higher numbers. One day Janet and I went for an arduous hike and I asked her what her heart rate was since she seemed out of breath. We were both stunned to see that her heart rate was 165 and that besides feeling a little winded, she was fine. She had broken her anaerobic threshold ceiling.

By the way, Janet eventually lowered her depression medication and lost a lot of weight. She now has a tiny, little waist.

Everyone has a "magic number," which is the number where your body switches to using oxygen, sugar and fat, to employing mostly sugar, as oxygen cannot get to the cells. I can often tell when a client is reaching that number when they start tripping and losing their form. If the brain is not getting enough oxygen, we lose coordination and control of our muscles. This is called training anaerobically.

To raise your threshold, you need to find out your magic number and work in intervals by almost reaching that number and then lowering it by 30%.

My magic number, for example, is 175 beats per minute. In order to become a faster runner, I need to run at 170 for a minute and then about 155 heart rate for three minutes. I can help you find your magic number. You should not attempt to do this on your own.

By the way, Lance Armstrong’s magic number, as far as I know, is about 190, which makes him a fat burning machine and very efficient in using oxygen for fuel. Athletes that are fast usually have high anaerobic thresholds.

6. The importance of warming up and cooling down

Your heart has a very intrinsic relationship with your brain. When you do not warm up and cool down appropriately (by not leaving the gym or the machine you are working on until your heart rate drops to at least 110), that relationship could become disgruntled.

I don’t want to bore you with other biological details, but essentially you could start having arrthmias or something worse as a result from not cooling down after exercising.

When I was into figure skating, my heart rate would get as high as 185, and sometimes I would leave the rink right afterwards, without allowing my heart rate to drop down smoothly. I got sick this way a number of times (I didn’t know better) and even passed out one time. The biggest scare came one night, while sleeping, when my heart felt as if it "leaped" out of the blue.

This episode happened many other times but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me.. My EKG and echocardiogram were normal and even the Holter could not detect anything abnormal. My cardiologist eventually explained that my parasympathetic system was sending signals that were out of sync with my heart’s rhythm.

This was due to over training and also lack of cooling down from a high intensity exercise.

You need to give your body a chance to go back to its original heat and heart rate state. It does not matter how boring it feels, you have to do it.

7. How it can help you lose weight

Attempting to lose weight by simply using cardio machines without the aid from a heart rate monitor could be tricky because you do not really know how vigorously you are training. Some days you might just be a little fatigued and may feel like you are training intensely, but once you use a heart rate monitor, you will find that you still have a lot of room to push.

Using a heart rate monitor that has a calorie counter can also help you set goals for the week.

I advise most clients to burn at least 1,750 calories a week (250 calories a day). With a heart rate monitor, you will realize you were possibly not training nearly as much or as intensely as you should.

8. Blood pressure medications can affect your heart rate

Ace inhibitors, beta blockers and many other medications can affect your heart rate by either raising it or lowering it, so consult with your doctor before starting an exercise program and have your trainer guide you through your training numbers.

9. Swimming and other sports affect heart rate training

Underwater, mammals heart rates will drop, and we are no exception. Your maximum heart rate under water will be lower.

Other sports affect heart rate too. When you bike ride, it might be more difficult and will take you longer to raise your heart rate. Train at lower heart rates when starting a bike ride routine.

Running will have the opposite effect, by increasing the heart rate above your ideal aerobic zone. Make sure you begin slowly when starting a running program.

10. The better shape you get, the harder you will have to train

Another client of mine (lets name her Amanda) wished to start a running program. We figured out that in order for her to keep her heart rate at 155 beats per minute (which was an ideal number for her), she needed to run at a 4.0 pace (4 miles/hour), which for most people is awfully dawdling. I told Amanda what I tell every client practicing for a race, "Do not be afraid of looking pathetic for being too slow."

An additional client took this mantra to heart. While training for a triathlon and running at a slower pace, she kept repeating to herself, "I am not afraid of looking pathetic!" :oP

Back to Amanda, after two weeks training at the 4.0 pace, her heart adapted to the running and dropped to 135 beats per minute. In order for Amanda to keep her 155 heart rate, she needed to increase her pace to 5.2 (5.2 miles/hour). Amanda got this much faster in less than a month!

(Amanda eventually hit a plateau in her speed and started doing interval training)

Amanda’s account illustrates that the more you exercise, the harder it is to reach the same heart rate. Fit people also have trouble raising the heart rate in the beginning of a work out.

TRAINING WITH A HEART RATE MONITOR

1. finding out your maximum heart rate and resting heart rate

To obtain your resting heart rate, have your heart rate monitor belt by your bedside and place it on your chest while still in bed in the morning to determine your resting heart rate. This number should drop as you get in better shape, but could climb back up if you are stressed, sick or overtraining.

To attain your maximum heart rate, do a sub maximum test by stepping up and down the first step of a stair for three minutes at a cadence of 96 bpm (a musician’s metronome works fine for this - I have one if you need to borrow it).

Add to the heart rate you find 50 points if you train 1 time a week to none, 65 if you train 3 times a week and 70 if you train more than three times a week.

This is one of numerous sub maximal tests to find an rough maximum heart rate and it can have several disparities depending on the day you take it. To truly find your maximum heart rate, a stress test supervised by a doctor is your best bet.

If you are used to training hard, the maximum heart rate ever recorded by you will probably be your maximum heart rate.

2. alternate training zones

Just as every other muscle in your body, when you train your heart to its anaerobic threshold, you need to give it a 48 hour rest, just as you would with weight training. The heart muscle needs to recuperate too.

When you train at a high intensity one day, such as interval training or a longer work out, you need to train at a lower zone the next day, such as simply walking or biking at a lower intensity.

3. when to interval train

Interval training is great for people who want to become faster, break the anaerobic threshold ceiling or get out of a weight loss plateau. Interval training has been known to raise metabolic rate.

4. if you have had surgery and/or have heart problems

If you have had a heart surgery and/or have a heart disease, I advise you to consult a doctor before starting an exercise program and look for a trainer who believes in heart rate training. You should start slowly with a low heart rate and brief work out sessions. Keep examining your monitor and become familiar with how your heart performs. Any discrepancy, such as a sudden drop or raise in heart rate can indicate something serious, so stop all forms of exercise, have someone call 911, and lay down with your legs supported and elevated.

Facts about heart rate monitors:

• The cheaper ones will not be as accurate and can read two to three delayed beats.

• Most heart rate monitors will undergo interference from phone lines, so if you heart rate has had a rapid increase, move from the location and observe if it drops.

• Cheaper heart rate monitors also suffer obstructions from other monitors, so try and keep a distance from buddies with heart rate monitors.

• If your monitor is not reading your heart rate, moisten the part of the belt that goes in contact with your skin. If this does not work and you have a concave-type chest, you can move the belt to your back. It can get your heart rate there.

• Most cardio machines will read your heart rate from your chest belt, so you do not need a watch all the time. You can order just the belt from the heart rate monitors web sites.