Heart Rate Monitors & Intervals

I bought a heart rate monitor as part of an exercise system now called "No Excuses Workout" or NEWO for short. Until my work's recent step challenge, I was lucky if I could average about 1 or 2 workouts a week. However, when my work decided to do a step challenge, and I discovered that the "you get what you pay for" free pedometer was seriously undercounting my steps, I decided to buy a pedometer with a USB interface. I also thought, hmm that Blood Pressure Monitor with USB download also looks pretty nifty. Being the geek that I am I bought both. And really being the geek that I am, I created a spreadsheet on google docs to track all my health stats. Someday I will do something with all that data (blood pressure, glucose, steps, weight, %Body Fat, etc).

Anyway back to the subject at hand. I read a fellow twitterer of mine had recently acquired a Heart Rate Monitor and had gone to training. Since I couldn't convey my own experiences in 140 characters or less, I thought, I guess I could post something to my long neglected blog. Let's see if I can stay on topic.

First off, I wear my heart rate monitor (HRM) when I am doing exercise at home or I go to the Y. I used to turn the thing on for both my strength training part (cybex machines) and cardio part (treadmill or elliptical), however, I was shortchanging myself on the NEWO challenges. So I now just use my HRM for the cardio part of my workouts at the Y. I sometimes also use it when I am doing the NEWO workout at home, but that is rare.

Now for those of you who don't know what intervals, here is my very unscientific/un-trainer explanation. Basically you determine your target heart rate, and then exercise for set time periods at recovery heart rate followed by periods where you exercise so your heart reaches your target heart rate or 5,10,15 beats per minute below your target heart rate. Typically your recovery heart rate is 30 to 40 beats per minute below your target heart rate. I think you can google for target heart rate to find sites to compute yours. If you notice some sites list several depending on the intensity, the one I am talking about is your aerobic target heart rate. The NEWO site (paid site) calculates the correct one for you based on a few questions. That is the one I use in my workouts.

Now the way I have it listed is backwards. You start off at your recovery rate to warm up. Then you do an interval at the lowest level below your target - say 15 below your target heart rate, for a set time period of a few minutes. Then you do an interval where you keep your heart rate at your recovery rate for a couple of minutes. The next interval is one step up, say try to keep your heart rate near or at 10 below your target heart rate for a few minutes. Then do Recovery, then do an interval (5 below Target Heart Rate), then do Recovery, then do an interval at Target Heart Rate, finally exercise so that your heart rate is at or near your recovery heart rate for few minutes as your cool down. You can add or subtract intervals/recovery periods to get up to a certain number of minutes for a workout. You can also add an interval near the end where you go 5 above your Target Heart rate for a few minutes.

Here's the trick I found that helps with all this: iPod playlists. I have a rather large music library (all purchased! or free downloads direct from iTunes/artist). I sort my music library by the time of the song. Then what I do is create playlists for my various total interval workouts. My playlist starts with a moderate beat song that lasts about 5 minutes. Then I have an uptempo song that lasts anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes. I follow that by a moderate song that is about 2 minutes (or 1 minute for 3 minute series interval workout). I repeat uptempo songs followed by recovery songs until I fill out my playlist. Now on the last interval, I replace the recovery song with a cool down song of about 5 minutes in length.

So you say that is nice, but how do you know what heart rate to use and for how long. The length is easy, I try to limit the songs I choose to be around 3 minutes, 4 minutes or 5 minutes. Then when the song ends, my interval is over. I also try to keep the music I choose for recovery to 2 minutes in length if I am doing 4 or 5 minutes intervals, or to 1 minute in length if I am doing 3 minute intervals. Although truth be told, I use 2 minute recovery periods regardless of the song length. Then for the warm up and cool songs, I choose songs that are moderately to slow paced and which last around 5 minutes.

For the heart rates to hit, I recorded my voice in Windows as a WAV file saying 'Interval, 15 below, 131'. That is for my 15 below Target Heart Rate. I repeated the recordings for 10 below, 5 below, at AT (aerobic Target Heart Rate), and 5 above. I then take those into iTunes and tell iTunes to convert it to MP3 format (select it, right click, select convert to MP3). I think on the mac you don't have to convert it since I believe the Mac's audio recording utility is in MP3 format. I then sprinkle the converted MP3s in to my interval playlist. For the recovery MP3s, I just copy and paste it in again, and answer OK to the prompt about using it more than once in the same playlist. So Voila, there is my ipod interval playlist.

Actually I got fancier than that by using the audio part and adding it to a tv like video prompt that I created in Corel Video, so when I am on the treadmills at the Y with iPod connections, I can see the prompt in addition to hearing it.

Here's a screenshot of one of my Interval playlists:


Finally, why did I talk about the other gadgets I have (blood pressure monitor, pedometer) in the first part of this post? Simple, because I wish my Heart Rate Monitor also had a USB port so I could download my workouts instead of having to write them down on paper and then transfer them to my google spreadsheet. All medical/exercise gadgets sold today should have a USB interface and an OPEN spec to allow various programs to download the information off them. This is the 21st century, like duh! exercise/medical gadget makers, are you all living in caves???? That also applies to any exercise facility that buys those uber expensive treadmills, cybex machines: Demand a feature where patrons can download their workout stats to a USB key - CSV with header format will do. After all you're already paying an arm and a leg for them, the equipment you buy should at least do that.