I recently purchased a Concept 2 rower and it came with a freePolar OH1+ heart rate monitor.
I am a 40 year old male lifter at 90kg following the Beginner template.
In terms of using the rower for conditioning (and remembering the Tao of Baraki - ‘you are an adult, you can do whatever, and this is all arbitary anyway’), is there any use for the heart rate monitor for helping determine RPE or is it just a heart icon and a number on a screen?
Yes, using heart rate as a metric of internal load is an excellent way to program conditioning.
You could do a low-intensity steady-state session where you row at a pace to maintain your heart rate in whatever particular “zone” you want. Or you could use it to monitor/observe recovery in between intervals.
Thanks.
Could you recommend a method/formula for determining one’s maximum heart rate? The Haskell & Fox ‘220 - age’ approach seems to be deprecated.
The origin of the HR Max equation, 220-age, is attributed to a large review on physical activity and heart disease from Fox et al. in the 70’s. Interestingly, the data from the original manuscript’s data did not actually support the “220-age” formula, with the authors saying:
no single line will adequately represent the data on the apparent decline of maximal heart rate with age. The formula maximum heart rate=220–age in years defines a line not far from many of the data points.
Later, a research team reviewed the data from Fox et al. and found that is supported the formula HRmax=215.4 – 0.9147. When combined with additional data sets looking at maximum HR during exercise suggests the formula HRmax= 208- 0.7 (age) is the best fit, though there may be a ~6 beats per minute error here as well.
On a related question. I often use my polar to see if I am lying to myself about my RPE when I lift. If I think it is say a 8 and my monitor says my HR hit say 154, I call BS on myself and call it a 9. It seems to be working but is it accurate enough to keep yourself honest about your RPE?
Not with lifting, unfortunately. Additionally, heart rate recovery is not strongly correlated (nor predictive) of recovery between sets or workouts either.