Know Your Beat
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For many athletes, an electronic device that monitors the vagaries of one’s heartbeat may seem like a frivolous addition to the gizmo shelf of the gear closet. When you’re dealing with live ammo, however, every last one of those beats per minute can be critical. “For the shooting, you have to come in at the same heart rate each time,” explains Jay Hakkinen,
the United States’s top-ranked biathlete. During competition, Hakkinen, 22, must cross-country ski at a breakneck aerobic pace, pause, recover just enough to take steady aim, and then nail a target with a .22-caliber rifle. “There’s an optimal rhythm and balance that goes with a certain heart rate,” he says, “and you don’t know when you’ve hit it without a
monitor.”
Hitting鈥攁nd staying within鈥攐ne’s target training zone (typically 60 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate) is essential for any serious athlete. By nudging you to slow down when you’re going too fast and urging you to speed up when you’re going too slow, an HRM enables you to build speed, strength, and endurance far more efficiently than
the unexamined athlete. Quite simply, there’s no fooling yourself about the quality of your workout. Each of the five monitors below comes with an .adjustable chest-belt transmitter that wirelessly beams data to a display on your wrist. 鈥擲ARAH FRIEDMAN
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