No they are not at all over rated - the only people however who wear them are people who like to train right and know what they are doing with their training.



Get one.

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

Jack, you ask a number of intelligent and insightful questions, questions everyone contemplating the purchase of a heart rate monitor should ask. Here's why:

What does that number mean?
What will you DO with that information?
How does knowing your heart rate at a given time benefit you?

A heart rate monitor is of very little value (other than novelty) if you don't have an understanding of the physiological significance of the numbers it provides. For those numbers to be significant you must know your Anaerobic threshhold, maximum heart rate and be able to calculate your "workout zones" as defined in any number of training texts such as Rob Sleamaker's excellent book, "Serious training for serious athletes". Formulas to compute these heart rate values are largely inaccurate. Physiological testing is the only way to make this information accurate and valuable. Before a heart rate monitor can be extremely useful it is important to first conduct these tests to obtain the appropriate training parameters. Without this information FIRST the heart rate monitor is of dubious value.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Jack, as usual, Tom hit the nail on the head. For an experienced runner, PE is probably fairly accurate for you in determining your LT, as least on the run, as you suggested. The problem is, this may not be true on the bike or swim.

If you don't FIRST know your lactate threshold, you're just stuck making a guess as to what training zone you are in. And lactate thresholds change from one activity to the other. You could be at LT in the swim at 145, on the bike at 155, and on the run at 165. Or, any other combination. It depends on your efficiency at each event, the mass of muscle being used, how much muscular support your body is having to exert to do the activity, etc.

To go to an extreme to show you what I mean, consider doing seated reverse wrist curls at LT for the wrist extensors...exercising them at their LT threshold will only raise your HR to maybe 90! Conversely, while running, since it is using many more muscles , your HR will be much higher at LT, maybe as high as 170! It just depends.

Also, even a measured LT is a moving target as you get in more efficient condition, become more or less hydrated, overworked, stressed, well tapered, etc. HR monitoring is wonderful when used right, a stab in the dark when used wrong.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)