SHAPE UP
Heart monitor helps in workout, but try 'talk test'

By Charles Stuart Platkin

A woman recently asked me, in a supermarket, about heart-rate monitors.

She wasn't a professional athlete — in fact, she was out of shape. My first question for her was, "Well, what type of exercise do you do?"

Her response, "None." She hadn't even started exercising.

What is a heart-rate monitor?

Most consist of a watch worn on your wrist and a wireless plastic transmitter that is strapped against the bare skin of your chest. The transmitter picks up electronic signals from your heart and sends them to the watch, which provides a continuous display of your heart rate.

There also are heart monitors that don't use an uncomfortable chest strap, but they don't provide continuous readings. Those monitors are just as accurate but require you to place two fingers on the watch and wait a few seconds for the watch to calculate your heart rate.

The primary purpose of a heart rate monitor is to have a better understanding of your exercise intensity.

"Knowing your heart rate and exercise intensity can determine where your anaerobic threshold exists (when your muscles start to get tired). From that point, with proper training, you can increase that threshold and sustain peak performance for longer periods," says Walter Thompson, professor of exercise science at Georgia State University.

If you exercise too hard, you may quit before you get real benefits (and it could be dangerous). But if you know when to stop pushing it, you can exercise longer and get in better shape.

It is recommended that you exercise within 60 percent (even lower for beginners) to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate.

Most experts recommend getting a stress test at an exercise lab or your physician's office to determine your maximum heart rate.

But do you really need a heart rate monitor to determine if you are exercising too much? It can help, but you can also do the "talk test."

"Try reciting something you know really well while exercising, such as the Pledge of Allegiance. If you can speak comfortably without any problems, you're doing just fine and are probably in the 50-percent to 80-percent range. If you waffle a bit, you are probably working at 80 percent to 90 percent of your maximum heart rate. If you can't talk at all, you're above 90," says Carl Foster, professor of exercise science at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.

Charles Stuart Platkin is a syndicated health, nutrition and fitness writer.