I rode by a local high school cross country team the other day and I was amazed that over 80% of the boys were wearing heart monitors. It is a pretty wealthy area so perhaps one kid showed up with one and then the rest had to follow along but come on. I’m not a big fan of gadgits for running to begin with but why does a 15 year old running 6:30-7:00 minute miles need a heart rate monitor? Has anyone else seen the “nerdy” side of sports creeping its way into high school sports?
This is common, heart rate monitors are found in PE classes as well. Maybe they are donated? Anyway, teachers use the HRM as a grading tool to see if Johnny or Susy are working hard enough. If their heart rate is elevated to 75% max or so for the given period of time, they get an A for the day. Voila!
At least it’s nice to see that high school kids are running these days. What is it - 40% obesity among HS kids in some areas?
I’ve seen 9 year old kids wearing them at kids tris too.
I trained with HR for years, but then freed myself of the BOA constrictor both phyically and psyschologically (I always needed to know my HR). Now I just go and train with no ‘PLAN’ and no HRM. If I feel good, I hammer, if I feel crappy I hold back. In racing, I go as hard as my body will let me. All this training and racing in zones is highly overrated. I say just put one foot in front of the other as quick as you can and go with perceived exertion. For the most part, it works and while it does not deliver optimal results all the time, it is way more fun than being slave to a gadget. This is why I like doing fartlek type training.
Anyway, HRMs have their place in elite sports even at the high school level, but any athlete needs to learn what their body can do be able to intuitively ‘feel’ what level he/she is working at. This is why doing quarter mile or mile repeats teaches you so much about perceived exertion. Once you know your body, you can predict your quarter mile time at a given exertion to the second or your mile split within a couple of seconds.
Dev,
I agree. I came up through the highschool running ranks and back then HRM, where not even around. We learned how hard or how easy a run was, by, running, well, . . hard or easy. Training revolved around pace. What pace for this long run or that? Or what pace for this set of intervals or fartlek session, and so on? Reason - we were getting ready for races at certain paces. If you ran a workout at pace X there was a pretty good chance you would be able to complete a race in time Y. It was pretty straight forward.
People always want to attach some higher form of science or mystery to training. However, even for the top people in, enbdurance sports it’s pretty straight forward - Train hard. Train often. Revover well and then repeat.
Fleck
I agree…who cares if they have an HRM. I am always impressed when I see some of the local cross country teams hammering a local 9 mile loop in 95 degrees while their peers are at home playing video games and eating potato chips.
…and for the reasons you have pointed out it seems that the old guys keep whippinig the young guys in all our local races :-).
I was one of the first high-schoolers in our area to train with an HRM back in the early 90’s. The school bought it and I wore it. I learned a lot about training while wearing it and we were very successful. My HS coach still uses them with almost all of his athletes. He can monitor their effort so they don’t race on easy aerobic days, and aren’t doggin’ it on the hard days. I think it’s great if a school can do this for the kids.
I ran HS XC and track without a HR monitor. I also heavily resisted the idea of one until I decided to try one this year. For someone like me it is a very useful tool. For some reason I always end up racing myself everytime I go out and train. I am always hammering on the bike or running. The HR monitor just gives me that extra check that says, hey stupid, you are doing it again, slow down a little. It has been very useful on the bike, but after almost a year of using it, I can go out and train at the different intensities without even looking at it. For running, I have been plagued with injuries, and I use it all the time to make sure I am going slow - so I can hopefully build up my mileage without getting hurt.
So, I agree that they aren’t the end all, and for some people, aren’t even useful. But it has been extremely helpful for me to learn what the different training intensities should look like.
Hopefully someday I will be able to run much more than 6 miles a week without getting hurt. Then I can start with repeats and pace to train with. Until then, the HR monitor keeps me in check.
Jackattack, I used one for years and now I know my ‘pace’ so I can work pretty effectively without one. To keep things easy, I know that it i run 8-9 min per mile, 22-25 kph (both on flats) then there is no possible way that I cannot be going easy. Once you throw in hills it becomes a bit more trick, but then again, having hills on easy day is not a good plan to start with.
I trained for just about all of my best years of running and triathlon without a HRM. I won one in a race a back in the late 90’s and started using it for work-outs. What I found was that the paces that I had been training at over the years for long steady work, for Tempo type efforts, for Vo2 max efforts matched up almost exactly with what the right HR would be for that type of work out or zone!
This guy sounds like my hero. I try (and that’s the key word) to live life as simply as possible. This year, I have managed to convince my 8 year old, that the only way to get to school is on foot or by bike. It was a bit of battle, but he seems to be on the ‘right path’…Now if I can just get my son to eat oatmeal for breakfast…
Ride the bike everywhere and eat “close to the ground” and do sports for fun, not for performance. This guy has the right priorities !