Listen to your heart? The answer might be yes.

In my last post, I ranted about how common misconceptions regarding heart rate are still in use in the triathlon community. Does that mean that you should throw away your heart rate monitor? The short answer to that is no. The longer answer follows.

Even if heart rate is not an accurate means of defining exercise intensity, that does not mean that it is a useless control parameter. As long as heart rate is assessed at its true value (through the use of a heart rate monitor), with all its possibilities and limitations, it is still a valuable parameter.

Heart rate is of great importance to teach athletes about the benefits of varying training intensities. Coupling training tasks to different heart rate zones encourages the athlete not to train at the same intensity all the time. It also serves as a guide to learn how to accurately determine perceived exertion. Perceived exertion is the best racing tool there is because it allows you to bring out your best effort on race day. It accounts for weather conditions but more importantly it accounts for athlete conditions. It is based on the “now” that makes racing, not on the effort you put in during your testing sessions. Perceived exertion is the only way to race up to your full potential at any race, and heart rate can help, within its limitations, to zero-in your sense of perceived exertion.

The fact that heart rate reflects more than the metabolic reaction to exertion means that it can be used as a means to evaluate, with a degree of subjectivity, the general condition of the whole organism. Heart rate can tell us a bit about how well the body handles training in combination with other factors as health, level of fatigue, acclimatization to altitude, etc. A higher than usual morning heart rate is a sign that there is something is up, which might or might not be related to training. If it persists for three or more days, a thorough analysis of the training process and the athlete’s environment should be made. Also higher than normal heart rate during low-intensity exercise, combined with lower than normal heart rates as exercise intensity increases clearly indicate fatigue or health problems. These symptoms are not important when isolated, but they might indicate that something is wrong when they persist.

Now that we went through some of the situations where heart rate can be valuable, some of you that do not use a heart rate monitor are probably wondering if they should get one. My opinion is that they are better off by staying away from a heart rate monitor. For the experienced, successful athlete, starting to use a heart rate monitor will only bring unnecessary complexity to the training process, with the possibility of overthinking that comes from it. And if you allow me to quote myself, overthinking is synonymous with underachieving.