Heart rate based fitness

Conventional fitness training sees us pounding out the miles in order to achieve fitness anchored in achieving a distance at a target speed where we feel little motivation and even less when we are slower. An alternative is to use heart rate monitors to control your training and discipline yourself with this and a timeframe rather than distance. So for example on heading out for a run you will do an hours running at an aerobic rate (110 - 150 beats per minute) and build on this. It takes your training to a different level and you stop thinking so much about miles and speed and more about maintaining a controlled heart rate over a set timeframe. This ensures you are delivering the right aerobic or anaerobic training rather than pounding out the miles and probably sitting somewhere in between these and not really delivering much benefit. So how to monitor your heart rate?  I would recommend polar watches with a heart rate strap for accuracy (www.polar.com). They give you continuous heart rate reading that is wirelessly synchronised to your watch from the heart rate strap. Interesting samsung are keen on such thinking and announced the S5 with heart rate monitoring capabilities. Shift your fitness training to epic.