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Heart Rate Monitor Training for Weight Loss
Precision Training For Fat Loss
Heart rate monitor trainingA personal trainer isn't always necessary these days if you want to lose weight and get in shape. This is a scary thought for me, a woman relying on income from my personal training business, but I'm just so excited about heart rate monitor training, I want everyone who's ever failed at weight loss to hear about it. Heart monitor training has changed the way I approach my personal exercise habits as well as my clients' sessions…and you can do it on your own!
What amazed me the most about HRM training is that I didn't have to work out as hard as I did. I've always put 110% into my workouts. I made progress then, but now I've gone way past my expectations. I went from beating myself up daily to following a more precise method of exercise.
First thing I had to do was let go of my preconceived ideas about what gets results. High-intensity training for someone who just wants to be a healthy weight and generally fit is completely unnecessary. In fact, training hard beyond a certain point defeats your purpose in fat loss and wastes valuable time, often causing you to give up on something which should have been much easier for you to accomplish in the first place. Let me explain…
The most important thing to figure out when you're starting a Precision Training regimen is your marked point – the point at which your body switches from burning mostly fat to burning mostly carbohydrates. If weight loss is your goal, determining this number will help you to burn as much fat as you possibly can, without deviation.
The value of knowing your marked point: When you exercise, lactic acid builds up in your bloodstream and is metabolized (burned up) by the oxygen you breathe in. At high intensities, lactic acid accumulates and you eventually reach a point (called lactate threshold) when there's not enough oxygen in your blood to metabolize the lactate, causing a burning feeling in your muscles. When this happens, your body switches from burning primarily fat as its energy source to burning carbohydrates (and very little fat). The time you can spend working out at that rate is limited – cutting short your cardio session.
So, with a heart rate monitor, you can determine your heart rate at that point. What that means is that you'll know, by looking down at the watch on your wrist, if you're burning fat. You'll be surprised at how easy that will feel and how long you can stay in the fat burning zone. Some monitors will even beep at you if your heart rate goes above or below that perfect fat-burning range.
Monitors are great motivators as well as omniscient personal trainers. I wouldn't work out with out one because it's almost impossible to accurately guess if you're in the correct range for burning fat based on perceived exertion. There are too many factors that come into play: temperature, emotional state, caffeine, mood, the amount of sleep you had, whether or not you're overtrained, and the list goes on. With a monitor, you don't need to take these things into account.
When my husband and I started working out with a monitor, I still hadn't really planned to change how I exercised. I still hadn't been convinced (even with all my studies) that I ought to – after all, I was strong, fast and relatively fit. I was using him as a test subject, planning on using this experimental information for my clients. I figured if I go slower, I'll be regressing and decreasing my fitness level.
The only reason I finally slowed down was because he had just started running for the first time, and I wanted to run with him. So I slowed waaaaaaaay down. Then I got a few surprises:
I felt more energetic after every run.
Post-run stiffness vanished from my legs, hips, back, neck and shoulders.
I could talk, laugh and enjoy the time I spent with him.
Overuse injuries disappeared.
My weight dropped by 4 pounds (my jaw dropped by about 4 inches too!)
And I didn't change anything except for my workout intensity based on what my monitor told me. It was a piece of cake.
With the technology of the heart rate monitor, you can find out your personal maximum fat-burning range and plan out an exercise program perfectly suited to you. It's simple to do – if you can figure out how to use the internet, you'll have no problem getting to know your monitor.
Heart rate monitor training disproves the myth that the harder you work, the faster the results. In actuality, the more precise you exercise, the more successful you will be. Heart rate monitors are your ticket to a lifetime of fat-burning precision. To not use one makes about as much sense as mowing grass with your weed-eater while your lawn mower sits in the garage.
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