I spent 2 weeks tracking my workouts with a heartrate monitor. Here is what I learned…
I have been working out for a long time. Years of working out for sports in high school, physical training for the military, competitive CrossFit, competitive jiu jitsu, marathons, swimming, you name it… I have never paid much attention to heart rate. It’s not that I didn't believe in the science behind it, I just never paid too much attention into it.
I have worn a Garmin watch for years without paying too much attention to the data it gives you. Sure, I’d track running and swimming distance, maybe take a glimpse at my steps here and there, but mostly its a text reading machine.
Some people are all about science based training, being super dialed in, monitoring every variable at the alter of their gym. Me, not so much. But I wanted to see how my training affected my heart rate and how I can use that data to improve as an athlete.
The Gear: my watch is a Garmin Fenix 5… I know… its kind of old now. I am not someone who buys the newest tech the second it comes out. I am cheap. I buy the older models of things once they are on sale… sue me…
Chest Strap: I quickly found that the watch isn't great at tracking heart rate through vigorous movement, so I added a basic Garmin chest strap heartrate monitor that connects to the watch and the phone app. I tracked a few workouts on the watch, and normally it was cutting in and out. So that data isn't great.
Also to establish some ground rules, I didn’t use the strap during jiu jitsu. I’m sure there is valuable data to get from having done that, but I don't like getting poked by hard stuff when rolling, and I’m sure my training partners don't like that either. So there is some missing data. In 2 weeks, I probably train about 2 hours per day, 6-7 days per week. For the sake of not poking people, I only tracked my CrossFit style training.
This gives me about 1-2 CrossFit workouts per day, 4-5 days per week. Seems like a lot… I know… I'm a little crazy and i work at a gym… So between metcons and long form cardio, we have about 2 weeks worth of heart rate data.
Here’s how we did:
In conclusion, I think heart rate tracking is generally a useful tool. Some new information was uncovered. Normally, I’d do some “zone 2” style training a few times a week. On these bike rides, I’d keep the C2 bike on a level 3 and try to hold around 85 RPM. Nice and easy. Turns out that’s only at about a zone 1 heart rate at most. Being able to pay attention to the monitor helped me dial in training with heart rate zones.
I also got to see how higher effort CrossFit style workouts impact my heart rate. For the most part, I was maxing out quite a bit from a HR perspective. Not sure if that data will change anything or even means anything. But it’s cool to see. I am now very curious to see how my heart rate changes throughout jiu jitsu training. I think it would be lower than expected, but there’s only one way to find out...
Overall, I think it’s a useful tool and provides a bit of data if you are a nerd about that sort of thing. But it is certainly not necessary for general health.