When it comes to fitness, heart rate is the ultimate indicator. I see way to many guys hold onto the high school football "push it till you puke" mentality. Paying attention to your HR will give you far more insight into your cardio and recovery ability. The HR monitor is a mainstay in my gym. And I make my guy purchase their own so they can have one for any additional training outside the gym. The key to cardio is HR. Push it too hard and you hurt yourself. Go to soft and you don't improve. Heart rate and heart rate recovery is the most effective measure of your endurance. And it's an evolving method. You go only as hard as you need to you need to improve.

Excellent points, Tabwyo. Any way you can give us some more insight as to what the average heart rate should be, how to check HR, how to push it/recover, etc?

My standard "recovered" rate is 120bpm and my curve 80%hr is about 155bpm. This changes from person to person to person depending on age, weight and average activity level. There are a number of tables available online. Bt I jst used a generic table to base mine. The only rate I really pay attention to is the 120bpm recovered rate. What I do take into account is the time it takes from the time I stop my physical exerssion to recover back to 120bpm. Recovery time decreases as your endurance capacity increases. This is for cicuits, sprints and high output/short interval workouts. As for recovery tricks deep slow in nose/out mouth breathing with the head up an back straight. You nasal cavity has a fairly efficient heat exchange capability. Brething through te nose helps cool blood in he head. Good posture enables you to take in full deep breaths. Long deep breaths recover O2sat levels faster than rapid shorth breaths. Your circulatory and pulmonary systems are lnked at the heart and lungs. ust think of your cars engine as your heart and the fuel system as your lungs. You need more gas the faster you go. The best way to get up to speed efficiently is a steady increase of the throttle. Not floor it, let off, floor it, let off.... For long duration exerssion I use the monitor to keep my pace at the right level to maintain the 80%. HR monitors can be purchased at most any mid-high end fitness stores or online.

PS: One shold also take note of their maximum HR during heavy physical effort. Chiefly those evolutions that put you in that panic/can't catch yo bref/Ima havina heart attack state. That will be your ceiling. The idea of going there is to know just how far you can push. And I don't mean the huff, puff and wheez that you can't do it anymore part. If you can speak you are OK. I mean the snot bubles, chest cramp sand borderline blackout phase. Once you have a feel as to where your body begins to tell you "hell no". You now have a ceiling. You scale back just enough to bring yorself just shy of it. IME, as my recovery times go up so does my ceiling.

Karma bump. Very informative. Thank you for this post.