My Heart Rate Monitor

If you read my blog, you will see earlier this month we talked about the target heart rate.   In that discussion we talked about how important it is to workout in your correct heart rate zone.  If you are working to hard, your heart is working to hard.  If you are working in a heart rate zone to low, you are not getting enough out of your workout.  But, if you stay in your correct zone, you can just blast the fat away!  

I use my heart rate monitor whenever I do cardio work.  It helps me stay in the right zone.  There are so many brands available on the market, and each has different features.  Mine comes with a chest strap and a watch.  In my opinion, this is just simple.  The strap reads my pulse and send the signal to my watch.  The watch then beeps (or I can turn that function off) if my heart rate gets out of my zone.  I honestly can't even feel the strap, so it has no impact on my workouts.  Even when I am laying on the floor doing ab work!

My heart rate monitor offers other features.  It tracks my total workout time, how long I was working out in my "zone".   And one of my favorite features, it tells me how many calories I burned.  I know in the grand scheme of things, its not that important.  But knowing that today's Plyometric routine burned over 400 calories helps keep me motivated.

So, if you are doing a lot of cardio and seem to be pushing the limits (hard to breathe), maybe it's time to consider getting a heart rate monitor.  Learn to take the slow route to the end of the workout, faster is not always better.