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RE: [RC] HRM's and Increasing Intensity - heidiNothing absolute at all. We're talking about pushing a horse into a new zone of physical output. How many of you would attempt to run a marathon without reasonable prep and monitoring of your own vital signs during training and the event? Will you die if you don't wear your HRM during a workout? Probably not. Will you achieve the training goals you set for yourself that day? How on earth will you know? I actually find monitoring my own vitals to be more stressful than it is worth. The most important thing I did in helping to control my hypertension was to quit taking my blood pressure all the time! Now that I just spot-check it once every month or two, it is doing much better. Too many riders get so wrapped up in the numbers that they adversely affect the horse, IMO. I am keenly tuned in to my horse, and, there is no way I can tell when she drops below a HR of 110 (recovery HR) after a long hill climb. I can GUESS, nothing more. Are you saying you can do this, or are you saying it doesn't matter? I'm not the one who posted that, but first, how do you know that 110 is the "magic" number for your horse, and second, although I don't mentally think in terms of what the running HR is at a given point, I DO usually know within a couple of beats of what his HR is when I dismount, if I've ridden a particular horse very much. As to the first point--it "matters" but not as much as the overall picture of the horse. The HR only gives you one piece of that picture. I'm not dissing HRMs here--they are great tools. But I think your posts illustrate some of the mindset that has concerned me for several years--which is that we too often look at the HR at the expense of all else. It IS important if it is too high. If it is NOT too high, that doesn't automatically mean that things are ok. I know when my horse is tired, I want to know HOW tired. A HRM gives me that info unambiguously (at least mine does). No, it gives you the HR unambiguously. It doesn't tell you if you've pushed the soft tissues past the limit (but they haven't started to hurt yet), and it doesn't tell you how the horse FEELS, unless one of his feelings is pain. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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